Irfan Husain on how the intelligentsia in Pakistan is blissfully unaware (or indifferent) to the threat from Taliban
Saurav Basu on Amir Khusro and the myth of composite culture
and Kapil Sibal on how the ‘NDA ditched UPA after vowing to support the N-deal’
From the original post by Dr Andrew Bostom, “End the Moral Idiocy on Kashmir”
*** EXCERPTS BEGIN ***
I participated in a forum on Kashmir last night at MIT in Boston, as this Muslim supremacist, jihad-inspired conflict—really a tragic ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Hindus by Muslim jihadists which began in earnest during the 14th century—re-emerged in the news recently when the Indian government had the “temerity” to want to transfer 99 acres of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board…
…Please watch the video linked below, which chronicles in gory detail the brutal ethnic cleansing of some 350,000 indigenous Hindus from Kashmir during early 1990, orchestrated by Pakistan and it’s “moderate” Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.
I was privileged last night to meet the astute, courageous, and passionate filmmaker, Ashok Pandit, who produced this documentary, “And the World Remained Silent”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCRFWStxV_4 (Part 1)
Focus on the time period 2:15 to 4:00 minutes, from part 1 above, and witness the jihadist speech of the late, much ballyhooed “modernist reformer” Benazir Bhutto. She was a jihadist, plain and simple; the head of what remains a jihadist state, our “ally” Pakistan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2vsztUdkpU&feature=related (Part 2)
Here is the text of the comments I delivered last night for historical background:
Islamic Separatism & Kashmir: A Panel Discussion Exploring the Relationship Between Religion and Kashmiri Tangle, July 9, 2008,
During mid-November, 2007, a grim milestone was recorded in the macabre tally being kept assiduously in cyberspace by blogger Glen Reinsford: the 10,000th attack by jihad terrorists resulting in some 60,000 dead and 90,000 injured since the cataclysmic acts of jihad terrorism on September 11, 2001.
Reinsford does not include combat-related statistics…His tally also excludes the genocide in Darfur committed by the Islamic government in Sudan…whose murderous ravages the UN estimated last year had resulted in some 400,000 dead, and 2 million displaced.
Reinsford identified three episodes of such continuous, mind numbing jihadist carnage which had perhaps unsettled him most: Nadimarg, Kashmir India (3/23/03), dozens of Hindu villagers roused out of their beds and machine-gunned by Lashkar-e-Toiba; Beslan, Russia (9/3/04), some 350 people slaughtered by jihadists—half of them children; Malatya, Turkey (4/18/07), three Christian Bible distributors bound, tortured for hours, then gruesomely murdered by men who acted explicitly in the name of Islam.
These data should remind us that there is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad despite contemporary apologetics. Jahada, the root of the word Jihad, appears 40 times in the Koran—under a variety of grammatical forms. With 4 exceptions, all the other 36 usages (in specific Koranic verses) are variations of the third form of the verb, i.e. Jahida. Jahida in the Koran and in subsequent Islamic understanding to both Muslim luminaries—from the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam (including Abu Yusuf, Averroes, Ibn Khaldun, and Al Ghazzali), to ordinary people—meant and means “he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like”, as described by the seminal Arabic lexicographer E.W Lane. Indeed, Lane’s, An Arabic English Lexicon (6 volumes, London, 1865) is still used to this day by Muslim and non-Muslim scholars for definitive Arabic to English translation. Thus Lane, who studied both the etymology and usage of the term jihad, observed, “Jihad came to be used by the Muslims to signify wag[ing] war, against unbelievers.”
Thanks to Suneel who alerted me to this interview with prolific author, broadcaster and columnist Tarek Fateh (also author of “Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State”)…
Two short excerpts:
How do you distinguish between an Islamist and a Muslim?
An Islamist is someone who believes in invoking Islam for a political agenda. A Muslim, on the other hand, uses Islam as a moral compass for his betterment and the betterment of his family. An Islamist is also a Muslim but a Muslim is not an Islamist.
India’s first education minister, Abul Kalam Azad, a most respected statesman in the country, was not an Islamist. He was against Islamists. Similarly, there are many ayatollahs in Iran who are in jails — as they are not Islamists. [ link ]
***
…The movement for Pakistan was never by the people that comprise Pakistan today. The movement for Pakistan was essentially by upper class Muslims of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.
Right up to 1946, Balochistan and Sindh were not voting for the Muslim League. They were voting for the (Indian National) Congress party. Balochistan was an independent state and they declared their independence three days before India’s Independence.
The coalition government headed by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy in Bengal was the result of Direct Action Day of August 16, 1945, which led to the massacre — actually genocide — of Hindus in Noakhali (now in Bangladesh). [ link ]
Related Post: Will the Darul Uloom now declare war on “Islamism”?
Also recommended: Distinguishing between Islam and Islamism (from 10 years ago!).
I recently came across The Whitewashing of History, by Nithin Sridhar. Nitin has kindly agreed to let me reproduce the article on this blog. Those of you who are interested in history will find here a devastating critique of current studies and interpretation of Indian History - which has largely been driven by leftist-leaning scholars steeped in their prejudices and with varying agendas.
The article looks at the now thoroughly discredited “Aryan Invasion Theory” (AIT), the impact of Islamic invasions on India and the red-herring of “Hindu vandalism”.
I have also included a selection of comments at the end.
*** ARTICLE BEGINS / LONG POST ***
The history of India has been whitewashed and distorted, first by European rulers, and after independence by eminent historians of India and their supporters the Leftists, Seculars and self-claimed Progressives of India to meet their own ends. They have painted the pre-Islamic invasion period as a Dark Age and have glorified the Islamic period to be very peaceful and prosperous.
Ram Swarup says, “Marxists have taken to rewriting Indian history on a large scale and it has meant its systematic falsification. They have a dogmatic view of history and for them the use of any history is to prove their dogma. Their very approach is hurtful to truth…. The Marxists’ contempt for India, particularly the India of religion, culture and philosophy, is deep and theoretically fortified. It exceeds the contempt ever shown by the most die-hard imperialists.”1 Some of the common claims of these eminent historians are:
1] The Aryan Invasion Theory is true2
2] Large scale destruction of Buddhists and Jain temples was done by Hindus in pre-Islamic India.3
3] The Muslim rulers were religiously tolerant and Islamic rule was prosperous. The eminent historians deny the destruction of Hindu temples or the killing of Hindus at the hands of Muslim rulers. They also deny the religious motive behind the killing of Hindus at the hands of Muslim rulers.4
Let us examine the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT).
A well-wisher alerted me to this statement made by senior advocate Shri K Parasaran in the Supreme Court last week:
“Government should avoid causing any damage to the “Ram Setu” as it might leave a permanent scar in the minds of people like the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya….“
I am amazed…
Notice the multiple levels of mixing up, confusion and juxtapositioning that is going on here…
The matter of of Rama Sethu has somehow been clubbed with Babri Masjid, juxtaposing the demolition of Babri Masjid that happended WITHOUT any government or official sanction with the destruction of Ram Sethu which is being forced with the full blessings of powers that be…
In the process, we have the extraordinary spectacle of Lord Shri Ram, a revered figure to millions being “bracketed” with Babar, a foreign invader.
What worries me most about this statement though is its implication(s) for the Janmabhoomi movement…
Any thoughts? I am keen to hear responses.
Finally, a question to get you thinking: regardless of whether the Rama Sethu is man-made or is a natural formation, can it really be equated with Babri Masjid which was a structure deliberately constructed to humiliate a population that had been subjugated?
As someone wrote to me in an email, “…with “friends” like Sh. Parasaran, who needs enemies?” !
P.S. In case any of you is tempted to ask: my position on the demolition of Babri Masjid is that it was wrong, unfortunate and should not have happened.
Related Posts:
Voices of caution on SethuSamudram
The search for a historical “Rama”
Summary of the Historical Question - Ram Janmabhoomi
A suggested stance on Kashi & Mathura
A few days ago, I came across this statement by TMMK leader M.H. Jawahirulla. He said:
“One of the greatest charges against Aurangzeb is of the demolition of Vishwanath Temple in Banaras (Varanasi). That was a fact…But late historian Bishma Narain Pande’s research efforts exploded many myths about Aurangzeb’s rule. He explained why Aurangzeb razed the temple at Varanasi,” TMMK leader M.H. Jawahirulla, who is a university professor himelf, told IANS.
He razed the temple because the Maharani of Kutch, the wife of one of the Hindu Rajput kings loyal to Aurangzeb, was dishonoured and robbed inside the temple.”
Now, the history freak that I am, the immediate thought that came to mind was: Where did the late Shri B N Pande find the evidence for this story?
For this I had to delve deeper.
That is when I came across, “Why did Aurangzeb Demolish the Kashi Vishwanath” by Koenraad Elst. And that is where I found the answer to my question…
This is a sad story of what happened to a meeting arranged with a sense of purpose and responsibility by Vigil in Chennai to discuss Gautier’s exhibition and the administration’s response to it.
Against the backdrop of the cancelled exhibition, Vigil had invited Dr Subramaniam Swamy and Shri C P Radhakrishnan (National Executive Member of the BJP) to speak on the “Politics of History and Minorityism“.
They both agreed to come and Vigil spent a significant amount of money and effort in spreading word of the event (see ad below).
At 1230 on the day of the meeting, Radha-ji of Vigil got a call from Dr Swamy who conveyed his inability to come as he had to go for some *urgent* work to Delhi.
Shri Radhakrishnan excused himself saying he was not feeling well.
Some of you may have already read this.
Francois Gautier’s exhibition on Aurangzeb, based on historical documents and paintings, has been forcibly shut down by authorities in Chennai (after successfully exhibiting in Delhi, Pune and Bengaluru).
“…An art show at the prestigious Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA) here curated by journalist Francois Gautier was at the receiving end of moral policing when an exhibition on Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was shut down.Stating that it had received three complaints that the show would disturb communal harmony, police Thursday night burst into the exhibition, shut it down forcibly, took into custody three women associated with the hosting of the exhibition and seized some of the works on display.The exhibition of 40 paintings, including exceptional miniatures by noted Indian artists, gathered together by Gautier’s Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism (FACT) were on show at the LKA from March 3.
The show included farhans (edicts issued by Aurangzeb) from the Bikaner museum and other material on Aurangzeb. It also contained two pictures depicting Aurangzeb’s army destroying the Somnath temple in Gujarat and the Kesava Rai temple in Mathura.” [news-report]
Another report mentions that the show was cancelled following some objections but does not mention that three ladies were arrested (It cryptically refers to four people).
Overall the Indian media and intellegentsia has been conspicuous by their silence on the matter.
Will Ms Arundhati Roy, esteemed Shabana Azmi and all other champions of free speech please stand up and defend the right of Francois Gautier to continue with this exhibition?
This report claims that the exhibition was cancelled
“…in the wake of some Muslim outfits and Hindu organisations failing to see eye to eye on some of the portraits on display.
Trouble started when some Muslim organisations and Prince of Arcot Nawab Mohammed Abdul Ali took up cudgels against some portraits, claiming it would disturb peace in the state and demanded the expo ‘Aurangzeb as he was according to Mughal records’ be cancelled.”
For those of you who may not be familiar with FACT, here is some more information and here is Francois Gautier himself, explaining what it is all about: “The truth about Aurangzeb“. Excerpts:
“….Why an exhibition on Aurangzeb, some may ask.
Firstly, I have been a close student of Indian history, and one of its most controversial figures has been Aurangzeb (1658-1707). It is true that under him the Mughal empire reached its zenith, but Aurangzeb was also a very cruel ruler ? some might even say monstrous.
What are the facts? Aurangzeb did not just build an isolated mosque on a destroyed temple, he ordered all temples destroyed, among them the Kashi Vishwanath temple, one of the most sacred places of Hinduism, and had mosques built on a number of cleared temple sites.
Other Hindu sacred places within his reach equally suffered destruction, with mosques built on them. A few examples: Krishna’s birth temple in Mathura; the rebuilt Somnath temple on the coast of Gujarat; the Vishnu temple replaced with the Alamgir mosque now overlooking Benares; and the Treta-ka-Thakur temple in Ayodhya.
The number of temples destroyed by Aurangzeb is counted in four, if not five figures.
Amidst all the recent brouhaha around Bharat Ratna nominations, someone conveniently forgot the “truth” about some of our nominees. I am thinking of Bahadur Shah Zafar who was proposed for the award as a champion of India’s freedom and someone who actively opposed the British.
The demand was made by Delhi Assembly Deputy Speaker Shoaib Iqbal…(who reportedly said that)… it was unfortunate that Emperor Bahadur Shah II, also known as Zafar, whose martyrdom and national stature rank among the highest in India’s freedom struggle, had not so far been conferred with the Bharat Ratna.
”Bahadur Shah Zafar was the leader of the freedom fighters of the entire sub-continent. He could have compromised with the British and lived a life like the royal family of England but chose to sacrifice his sons, pomp and grandeur - all for for the sake of the honour and independence of India and its people,”
The facts are somewhat different (and inconvenient).
The reality was that the Emperor did not think much of the Sepoys who had marched to Delhi to ask him to be their leader. He viewed them as “rustic, uncouth and ill-mannered”.
His support (for the revolt), when it came…was far from being decisive…”He vacillated, but overcome by the desire to reclaim his inheritance, he assented” (from “Requiem for Mughal Delhi” by By Muneeza Shamsie, a review of William Dalrymple’s book “The Last Mughal”).
And yet, “
…he was never quite in control. His page, Zahir Dehlavi, who later wrote an invaluable memoir, Dastan-e-Ghadr, described Bahadur Shah’s horror when he learnt the sepoys wanted to slaughter the British families held prisoner in the fort. He pleaded with them.
He asked the sepoys, Hindus and Muslims, to consult their religious leaders if they had the authority to massacre helpless women and children. “Their murder can never be allowed,” he added. But in the end, he failed to prevent it.” (from Muneeza Shamsie’s review)
So much for leading the freedom fighters.
The end of his leadership was also far from heroic: “When the victory of the British became certain, Zafar took refuge at Humayun’s Tomb, in an area that was then at the outskirts of Delhi, and hid there. British forces led by Major Hodson surrounded the tomb and compelled his surrender.”
Will the Honorary Dy Speaker admit that he may have been mistaken?
For some extra “fun”, read this leftist interpretation of Zafar’s life from an article written for CPI(M)’s newspaper last June. I thought this bit was the funniest:
“One should not take too literally Zafar’s statement at his so-called ‘trial’ in which he projected himself as a mere prisoner of the sipahis.”
Classic!
Related Post: Lies and half-truths in the name of national integration
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Tarik Jan, “a gentle-mannered scholar at Islamabad’s Institute of Policy Studies” quoted in TIME Magazine, ”Pakistan: Divided by Faith” by Aryn Baker:
“We [Muslims] were the legal rulers of India, and in 1857 the British took that away from us…In 1947 they should have given that (India) back to the Muslims.”
Further, “Jan is no militant, but he pines for the golden era of the Mughal period in the 1700s, and has a fervent desire to see India, Pakistan and Bangladesh reunited under Islamic rule.”
Dream on!
Happy Independence Day to all of you…
Let us not forget the struggle and the sacrifices…
Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
P.S. For a slightly unusual way to celebrate today, get a special Independence Day Heroes T-Shirt here (ChandraShekhar Azaad) or here (Shahid Bhagat Singh).
A few days ago, while looking for something else, I chanced upon this site which has all the chapters of “The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India” by Sita Ram Goel.
I have not finished reading the chapters yet but two excerpts which hinted at an officially sanctioned policy of revising history caught my eye.
Here is the first one which has a quote from Mrs. Coomi Kapoor, summarising the guidelines prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in 1982. Mrs Kapoor is quoted as saying:
“History and Language textbooks for schools all over India will soon be revised radically. In collaboration with various state governments the Ministry of Education has begun a phased programme to weed out undesirable textbooks and remove matter which is prejudicial to national integration and unity and which does not promote social cohesion.“
I could not believe my eyes. So here was the official sanction to change history books so that social cohesion can be maintained - truth be damned.
The second excerpt hinted at another “NCERT guideline which proclaims that the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in medieval India shall be regarded as political rather than religious.”
In the words of Sita Ram Goel,
“There is no justification for such a characterisation of the conflict. The Muslims at least were convinced that they were waging a religious war against the Hindu infidels. The conflict can be regarded as political only if the NCERT accepts the very valid proposition that Islam has never been a religion, and that it started and has remained a political ideology of terrorism with unmistakable totalitarian trends and imperialist ambitions.”
So was it a religious or a political conflict? Perhaps it was both…
What is more unsettling though is the “guideline” by NCERT which appears only too willing to endorse lies and half-truths in the name of social cohesion and national integration.
Related Post:
Taj Mahal: The Biggest Whitewash in Indian History?
***** CAUTION: Long Post *****
By now, most of you must have heard or read about the controversy caused by Smt Pratibha Patil’s recent remarks on the purdah system.
To recap briefly, Smt Patil, the Congress nominee for the post of President, while speaking at a function to commemorate the 467th birth anniversary of Maharana Pratap in Udaipur said, “We have been practising purdah in Rajasthan, which was brought about since we had to fight the Mughals…We had to protect our women and children and that is why the women were kept behind closed doors.” (TOI front page, June 19 ‘07 and other sources).
The statement sparked a storm of criticism and provided the perfect fodder for our headline hungry and sound-bite starved news media.
No sooner had the remarks appeared in press, the “counter-attack” started.
Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind general secretary Maualana Mehmood Madani said,”She has twisted history, she must apologise and withdraw her observations” (TOI, Front page, June 19 ‘07)
Irfan Habib said “It is silly to talk of the Mughal invasion being the reason for the seclusion of women and introduction of the veil. “The seclusion of women was seen even in Mauryan times. It is, in fact, mentioned in Kautilya’s Arthshastra” (unfortunately he did not give any references nor did he mention whether the veil was worn by women in Mauryan times)
…and then gratuitously added, “To say it was because of the Mughals is like saying that they brought Sati to India, which is absolutely untrue” (The Asian Age, 19 June ‘07).
B P Sahu, a Historian at Delhi University was quoted as saying: “…the idea that the purdah system started as a s result of the invasion by the Mughals is one of the stereotypical ideas that have been taken from the works of British historians.”
Academic Kamala Mitra Chenoy of JNU said: “Though it is widely believed that the purdah system began after the Mughal invasion, in fact, it was prevalent earlier” (Hindustan Times, Pg 13. June 19 ‘07)
As I read these comments, I noticed that there seemed to be no academic/expert who was quoted from anywhere else in the country other than Delhi; there was no one from abroad either - perhaps the experts at Oxford and Harvard were too busy to be bothered with such trivialities?
The sole exception appeared to be the Economic Times which had a quote by Varsha Joshi (historian at the Institute of Rajasthan studies, although - for all I know - the institute may well be located in Delhi)
The Economic Times (pg 3, June 19 ‘07) was also the only one (Pg 3) to print a quasi “counter-view”: Sarabindu Mukherji (Reader at Hansraj College and ex fellow ICSSR) was quoted as saying that Smt Patil’s remarks are apt and timely (and) “She has shown a great sense of history”. He added that “Historians and social scientists should get into the habit of telling the truth”.
I did a double take when I read that last bit. Did Shri Mukherji mean that historians and socials scientists were NOT in the habit of telling the truth?
But back to Mughals and the purdah…
Most experts/academics who commented on the controversy noted that the purdah was prevalent even before the Mughals and mentioned that seclusion of women existed in India in earlier times too (see e.g. Prof Habib’s comment).
Most of my keen readers must have immediately spotted the deliberate obfuscation in that sentence.
Since when did seclusion of women became synonymous with the purdah system?
And please note that while segregation of sexes in Islam is an established and well known fact (and Islam actively discourages social interaction between men and women), this has never been the case in the Hindu social system – neither do any Hindu religious texts ask women to cover themselves.
Even if we were to accept that the practice of “purdah” did exist before the Mughals, surely there is no doubt that it must have become even more widespread as a result of Islamic influence in the North, reflecting the status of women in Islam and the treatment of women by Islamic rulers and victorious troops?
.
But did covering one’s face (not head – this is an important distinction) i.e. “purdah” really pre-date the Mughals?
.
Let us look at some historical evidence regarding the treatment and position that was accorded to women in India before the Mughals – or to be more precise, before the Muslim (incl. Turkic and Afghan) invasions of India.
In a well argued article on Lokmanch.com (in Hindi), Vijay Kumar, Associate Editor of “RashtraDharm” provided the historical backdrop to the controversy.
He wrote (excerpts; loosely translated and paraphrased),
“Muslim attackers would often carry women and girls as spoils of war to destroy the morale of the fighting forces…and such women were frequently sexually exploited by soldiers on the battlefield…
The decades between the 10th and 12th centuries bore the brunt of these attacks (including the bloody expeditions of Mahmud of Ghazni and Muhammad of Ghur) and consequently the practice of getting girls married at a very young age took roots.
This was also the time when the practice of conducting weddings at night time and ensuring the bride and the groom were sent off before sunrise began (to protect them from marauders and warring soldiers).
The practice of the groom wearing a sword and keeping the route of arrival and return of the “Baraat” (wedding party) as separate also began at around the same time.
While before the first born girl child was “shown” the rising sun and prayers were said for her lasting good fortune, around this time, the practice of taking the first born girl out at night time and praying for her good fortune by “showing” the North Star began to take hold.
This was the same society where history and tradition has mention of several skilled and highly educated women such as Apala, Lopamudra, Gargi, Maitreyi, Bharati etc.
There are also historical records of women skilled in the Vedas and sacred hymns. In fact, even the wives of teachers and saints in “gurukuls” used to teach students staying in the ashram. Would this have been possible if these women were kept under wraps and denied education and skills?
In fact, the beginning of formal education was one of the sixteen “sanskars” in a person’s life.
Women were not only active in the field of education, they even went to war with their husbands.
The story of Kaikeyi helping King Dashrath by holding his chariot wheel using her finger is well known as is the tale of Subhadra when she helped Arjun fight with the army of Dwarka.
All of us have seen Ramayan and Mahabharat on TV. Did you ever see anyone in a veil in these serials?
I know that at least a few historians will question these statements citing lack of conclusive evidence for Ramayan or Mahabharat – but what is relevant here is not whether the great wars took place or whether Bhagwan Shri Rama actually existed or not – the point is that these tales reflect the prevalent situation in society at that time and it is hard to dismiss them as pure fiction.
It was only following the Islamic invasions that women began to get behind the purdah and veil. Not surprisingly, the purdah system first started becoming prevalent in Rajasthan which bore the brunt of these attacks.
In “Lifting the veil” post on his blog, Varnam narrated an incident about priests in Guruvayur who actually reprimanded a North Indian woman from covering her head when she entered the temple.
He also noted how “there is enough and obvious historical evidence to suggest that women never had to cover their heads” (a point that was also made by Vijay Kumar in his post on Lokmanch).
Varnam also remarked on the depiction of women in art and paintings around this period: “as time passes — and you enter the galleries showing Rajput miniatures from later periods — the veil makes its appearance, until even Adishakti Parvati has her face partly covered.”
As he wrote, while it may be true that the practice pre-dated the Mughals (considering that the Mughal period began only from the 16th century), if “the word Mughal rule is used incorrectly in a broader sense to include the Turkish and Afghan rulers as well”, then the practice may not have – strictly speaking – directly attributed to Mughals but it certainly had something to do with the invasions of India starting from 9th c. AD.
The Times of India published an extract from noted Historian Satish Chandra’s book (“Medieval India”) in its report (TOI, Pg 13, June 19 ‘07) that appeared to support this view: “During the Delhi Sultanate period, the practice of keeping women in seclusion and asking them to veil their faces in the presence our outsiders became widespread among the upper class women…..Arabs and the Turks brought the custom to India, and consequently it became widespread in India”
Although Shri Chandra did note that the practice might have become widespread due to social reasons: “…perhaps the most important factor for the growth was social - it became a symbol of the higher classes in society. And all those who wanted to be considered respectable tried to copy it.”
There is – as far as I know – no known cultural, artistic or historical evidence to show that women covered their faces before the 10th century AD – i.e before the Muslim invasions began.
As Varnam says, “Face covering was completely absent in India till the 11 -12th century and they are not present in the Ajanta paintings. Slowly the head covering starts appearing with the arrival of Muslims with a 1250-1275 book in Jaisalmer showing a woman covering the back of the head using the sari.”
As I read through all of this, the picture began to get clearer. In particular, these points stood out:
In the end, I found it hard to disagree with Varnam’s conclusion:
Pratibha Patil did nothing wrong, but stated a historical truth. Her only mistake was that she picked the wrong community to blame. Instead, if she had blamed the caste system or denounced Brahmins, it would have been accepted without debate that she was the person with the perfect secular credentials to be the President of India.
Unfortunately, this is what might be the truth behind the veil.
******************
Special Mention:
Best Comment on the controversy:
Nandita Prasad Sahai (quoted in TOI, Pg 13, June 19 ‘07):
“Most historians consider the Muslim invasion as a watershed when purdah is said to have become more widespread as a defensive reaction in troubled times among the Rajput royalty trying to protect their women. In fact, the case is unproven in the absence of statistical material that could establish a change in the extent of the practice of purdah“
Unbelievable. Shall we now go searching for statistics to prove/disprove historical theories? I am looking forward to some statistics to prove that the Indus Valley people actually lived in houses and not caves
Close Runner-up for Best Comment:
Yahya Bukhari, Member of the Jama Masjid’s consultative committee:
“(It is) an “anti-Muslim” statement…It is a purely religious matter and she has no right to interfere in matters of any religion.”
Nothing left to say.
A recent article by Shachi Rairikar commenting on Lalu Yadav’s demand for renaming Patna as Azimabad reminded me of one of my earlier posts about name changes and the question of identity: “Of Bangalore, Bengaluru and Fractured Identities“.
Shachi lambasts the demand and instead suggests “renaming Allahabad as Prayag, Ahmedabad as Karnavati and Muzaffarnagar as Laxminagar.”
She writes, “The names Allahabad, Ahmedabad, Muzaffarnagar as well as Azimabad are the grim reminders of the dark oppressive periods of Indian history when the most inhuman atrocities were committed on Hindus. Indians are under no obligation to carry the burden of the remnants of the periods of slavery.
They would welcome reverting to the original nomenclature that is representative of the days of freedom. The reinstating of the ancient names of these cities indicates liberation from servitude.”
I am very keen to hear readers views on this - in particular, readers who may disagree with the idea of changing place names.
P.S. This is a well-balanced comment on what Muslims living in Bihar actually think about Lalu’s move.
P.P.S. What %age of youngsters working in call centres and BPOs today would be able to tell the historical name of Patna? Guesses welcome.
A very well researched piece on “India’s Islamist Groups” by Husain Haqqani (Published on Thursday, February 16, 2006)
Source: http://www.futureofmuslimworld.com/research/pubID.38/pub_detail.asp
Extracts:
“Contemporary India is a Hindu-majority country, governed under a secular democratic constitution since 1947, when it achieved independence from British rule. At first glance India’s pluralism appears to protect it from falling under the spell of extremist ideologies, including Islamism…
.…But India has been home to some significant thinkers of political Islam, and militant Islamist groups continue to operate in, and even target, India today.…Decolonization resulted in the partition of India along religious lines, but the birth of Pakistan in 1947 did not sever India’s linkages with Islam. At least one-third of pre-partition India’s Muslims stayed in India.
Today almost 12 percent of modern India’s population is Muslim, and with an estimated Muslim population of 170 million, India has one of the largest concentrations of Islamic believers.
Islam in India has historically been represented by both its esoteric form of Sufism as well as its various exoteric, traditional forms. Even after ruling large parts of India for eight centuries, Muslims overall remained a minority on the subcontinent.
…the decline in Muslim political power in India from the late eighteenth century onward changed Muslim attitudes significantly. After the demise of the Mughal Empire, Islamic fundamentalism increased. Muslim elites, seeing a decline in their power, prestige and influence, focused on ways to revive their ascendancy.
This generated in India’s Muslim elites a preoccupation with the “revival of Islam’s lost glory,” which has been an important factor in the rise and spread of Islamist ideology the world over. Keep Reading…
In response to a question on the genocide of Hindus on Yahoo! groups, Kalavai Venkat wrote the following:
Please see Koenraad Elst (http://koenraadelst.voiceofdharma.com/books/negaind/ch2.htm):
“As a contribution to research on the quantity of the Islamic crimes against humanity, we may mention that the Indian (subcontinent) population decreased by 80 million between 1000 (conquest of Afghanistan) and 1525 (end of Delhi Sultanate).”
Please also read the free ebooks of Prof. K. S. Lal at http://voiceofdharma.com/books.html on the debilitating effects of Islamic rule in India. Elst’s books are also available for free at the same site.
The above figure does not include the number of Hindus killed between 700s, when Muslims first invaded India, and 1000 CE, nor the numbers that perished under the brutal zamindari-ryotwari systems that first the Muslims and later the British implemented.
Even at 80 million deaths, this constitutes the largest genocide in history - one that has been hushed up largely because of the tacit understanding between Christians and Muslims (as well as the pseudo-secularists that are on the payroll of the church or the Saudis.) in India as both seek to convert the Hindus.
Most western academics are either religious or cultural Christians that tacitly align with the church. As a result, they too not only hush up Hindu genocide but also justify Islamic rule.
