Within the enormous caverns of the Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan is a nugget for US companies to spend a few billions to construct roads and bridges, mass transit rails and national parks. The US president is right in expecting a massive spin off for his economy from the measure that will improve the top lines of construction companies, if not their profits and lead to a surge in job creation. In more or less the same period the European governments too plan a similar push to their infrastructure investments.
This is one part of the plan that should be of most concern to India, probably even more than the proposal to cut tax breaks for firms which ship jobs overseas. Because, in the same time frame ie within the next two years or 2012, we also plan to spend about $500 billion to develop our infrastructure in a massive way. The dampener on outsourcing will be moderated as Indian and US companies will be on the same wave length on this—cut costs. But that benefit will not work in the race to capture the global infra funds.
Put simply, after a nice lull of several years, companies planning to invest in Indian infra sectors will now face steep competition in attracting the attention of global infra fund managers. They will have to sound convincing that India offers a better deal than the US or Europe in the infrastructure business, in the next few years. This will include the rules for doing business and the rules for raising finance. All this has to be done, in the midst of the ripples that have already begun in the global financial markets about the Obama plan. At least one global fund house has already begun mobilising finance at Libor plus 500 bps to invest in US infrastructure.
We also have to remember that even for domestic infra funds, the rules for investment abroad have been simplified. Few fund managers at this stage will be able to say that given a chance they will prefer to invest in a special purpose vehicle to develop a road project in India than one in the US. These are not academic exercises but real bread and butter choices that companies in very harsh financial markets will be making very soon.
If that sounds challenging there is no doubt it is and talking to the Indian companies has made me sure that they too think the Obama plan will impact them big. So it is very urgent that we get our act right on the stuff that crimp infra investment in India.
And here, instead of moaning about the problems, I feel there is cause for cheer if one looks at some things we have recently got right. Of these, the one that needs a big round of applause is a government proposal to allow single bidders for projects, especially for roads and highways. This might seem like playing with government money but it is not. Of the 34 projects that the NHAI had advertised, only 16 have received any bids. Of these, six stretches have got only one bid.
Before readers begin to draw pictures of cartels playing cahoots with rules, it is worth recounting that the railways face the same problem. Its flagship project to construct a locomotive factory at Madhepura in Bihar has received only one financial bid out of the three companies that had put in technical bids. The phase II of the Mumbai metro project has done worse. It has got no bidders from among the seven companies that put in technical bids.
The central government is plainly waking up to the sudden drying of funds in infrastructure sector. But what is most needed at this juncture is similar realisation among state governments too. Indian infra projects with the glorious exception of the Delhi Metro have consistently been delayed in completion, largely due to state level bottlenecks. The latest flash report of the ministry of programme implementation shows that 47% of the 523 biggest projects involving the government are running delayed. The more important piece of statistic is that this has raised the cumulative cost of these projects by over 11%. The implications are obvious. Since infra project developers rarely get funding at less than 14-16% rate of interest in normal circumstances, an 11% cost over run means adding one more per cent to the project cost.
So, it is quite pleasing that governments, both at the centre and states, have revised their take on land acquisition. On February 23, for the first time in nearly two years states and the Centre publicly acknowledged that they need to go for the jugular to get land for projects. Infra projects were almost paralysed as a fall out of the problems in acquiring land from 2007 onwards. But at a meeting of the state chief secretaries with the cabinet secretary to work out ways to make the government stimulus package work, ministry officials, to quote the government release, told states to give "special attention to land acquisition wherever projects are stalled on account of this reason". In Indian government speak that could mean a big step forward.
Would these be enough? I doubt it. In the next few months, several Indian entities will approach the international markets to raise debt to finance their projects. To ensure they have any reasonable chance to compete, the entire infra project approval and delivery mechanism needs to be redrawn very fast
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 27, 2009
A tale of two cities
Two films in recent times have sought to capture the imagination of the city; Slumdog Millionaire and Delhi-6. The first in its English version is a stunning hit and the other has been met by a quiet silence. Danny Boyle's Slumdog is a western attempt to read Bollywood. It is a mythical reading of Bollywood. Myth seeks to reconcile fundamental tensions using any set of symbols. What Slumdog does is to weave Bollywood and Hollywood and it is this that makes it fascinating. What it says about poverty, violence in itself is banal.
The semiotic task it performs can be seen as a set of tables. Firstly, there is the Bollywood myth of the slum where goodness by itself is self-defeating. As a turf subject to temporariness, the slum is always prone to the tyranny of gangs, cops and politicians. It takes the machismo, the physical violence of the hero to break through. There is however a second myth of the city emerging. It derives from the intellectual and inventive power of the Diaspora which brings with it the same idealism but a better set of skills from the world of management and engineering.
The second myth was actually captured by the TV show 'Kaun Banega Crorpati'. It centres on a quiz as the rule game of an information society. The skills of the slum don't always work in the intellectual akhada of the quiz. Danny Boyle takes the myth of the slum and the quiz and blends them into one story of a slum boy who makes it big in a quiz game. To make it realistic and more competitive he makes the quiz master played by Anil Kapoor a tougher, seedier and hostile creature. This is a character contemptuous of any chai wala who can even dream of entering a quiz.
Now comes the sleight of hand because Bollywood has never merged the two. What is Boyle's procedure for merging the two myths of mobility into one story?
Firstly, he speeds up and compresses time. The movie which is a triptych of parts - the child boy in the slum, the adolescent boy, and the young man- speeds up time. What was a scrap book reads internally like flip-book. Space is now read as time. The second move is a more complex one. Boyle argues that the knowledge of the slum, the little things that happen to you, the visualness of urban life, the primers that you read, are "information". It also creates a subplot where the police are suspicious of the hero's skills. It is under interrogation - which is the only quiz slum kids undergo with the police - that Dev Patel explains how he could answer the questions. The pairing of the two forms of questioning is powerful. It reminds one that interrogation in a police station is also a quiz, and secondly that a quiz intellectually can be as tough as a police interrogation. Both make you sweat it out and in both the stake is survival. Where Boyle is shaky is when he regards the slum as a repository of information. Maybe his message is that we should hybridise knowledge and information. The body as physicality no longer provides the skills because globally the body is the locus of desire, not of labour or physical power.
It is only on seeing Delhi-6 that one realised that Slumdog creates the myth of Bollywood in a hall of mirrors by inverting, inflating and reversing it. Delhi-6 is about an Indian boy from a Diasporic family who escorts his grandmother to her home in Chandini Chowk. If Slumdog is about desire and information, Delhi-6 is about love and stupidity. Stupidity is what happens to knowledge when it is caught in the dark alleyways of superstition. America haunts the movie and it is caught in the visuality of exhibits and spectacles where suddenly the Statue of Liberty is ensconced next to Jama Masjid. The exhibits outside are but dreams within, where Chandini Chowk searches for the America of success and desire in all of us. In Slumdog it is the quiz, in Delhi-6 it is Indian Idol. Both demand a high spectatorship, yet both are dreams of individual mobility. One seeks information to escape the slum, one combines knowledge and the mobile-nubile body to escape the slum, the middle class slum of conservatism and intolerance.
In Boyle's film, the slums of Bombay enact the myth of individual mobility. The tension is the tension of competition. The streets of Chandini Chowk recognise that individual success or freedom cannot come with mobility alone, it needs a collective change of mentalities. Two communities which have synergetically come together fall apart in a fight over a 'black monkey' which threatens all of them. The message is clear; one can't be free till a community is also free. It is here that Delhi-6 brilliantly adds something that Danny Boyle does not understand. Despite the myth of information and the ersatz attempts to see the city as a knowledge society, Bollywood provides a theory of culture. Chandini Chowk with all its rituals reminds the worlds of Bombay and Bangalore. It is a warning that when you priviledge information over knowledge and disembed the two, a culture is emasculated. When a culture is threatened violence becomes the answer, the quick answer to difficult questions. Delhi-6 reminds you that culture is a slow thing, even stupid but it has possibilities. Culture is a whole, a commons in the way a pub culture or quiz culture are not. In a quiet way, a small film on Chandini Chowk tells Slumdog Millionaire it has not quite grasped Bollywood or India. Information can never substitute for the complexity of culture. Every stupid Indian knows that
The semiotic task it performs can be seen as a set of tables. Firstly, there is the Bollywood myth of the slum where goodness by itself is self-defeating. As a turf subject to temporariness, the slum is always prone to the tyranny of gangs, cops and politicians. It takes the machismo, the physical violence of the hero to break through. There is however a second myth of the city emerging. It derives from the intellectual and inventive power of the Diaspora which brings with it the same idealism but a better set of skills from the world of management and engineering.
The second myth was actually captured by the TV show 'Kaun Banega Crorpati'. It centres on a quiz as the rule game of an information society. The skills of the slum don't always work in the intellectual akhada of the quiz. Danny Boyle takes the myth of the slum and the quiz and blends them into one story of a slum boy who makes it big in a quiz game. To make it realistic and more competitive he makes the quiz master played by Anil Kapoor a tougher, seedier and hostile creature. This is a character contemptuous of any chai wala who can even dream of entering a quiz.
Now comes the sleight of hand because Bollywood has never merged the two. What is Boyle's procedure for merging the two myths of mobility into one story?
Firstly, he speeds up and compresses time. The movie which is a triptych of parts - the child boy in the slum, the adolescent boy, and the young man- speeds up time. What was a scrap book reads internally like flip-book. Space is now read as time. The second move is a more complex one. Boyle argues that the knowledge of the slum, the little things that happen to you, the visualness of urban life, the primers that you read, are "information". It also creates a subplot where the police are suspicious of the hero's skills. It is under interrogation - which is the only quiz slum kids undergo with the police - that Dev Patel explains how he could answer the questions. The pairing of the two forms of questioning is powerful. It reminds one that interrogation in a police station is also a quiz, and secondly that a quiz intellectually can be as tough as a police interrogation. Both make you sweat it out and in both the stake is survival. Where Boyle is shaky is when he regards the slum as a repository of information. Maybe his message is that we should hybridise knowledge and information. The body as physicality no longer provides the skills because globally the body is the locus of desire, not of labour or physical power.
It is only on seeing Delhi-6 that one realised that Slumdog creates the myth of Bollywood in a hall of mirrors by inverting, inflating and reversing it. Delhi-6 is about an Indian boy from a Diasporic family who escorts his grandmother to her home in Chandini Chowk. If Slumdog is about desire and information, Delhi-6 is about love and stupidity. Stupidity is what happens to knowledge when it is caught in the dark alleyways of superstition. America haunts the movie and it is caught in the visuality of exhibits and spectacles where suddenly the Statue of Liberty is ensconced next to Jama Masjid. The exhibits outside are but dreams within, where Chandini Chowk searches for the America of success and desire in all of us. In Slumdog it is the quiz, in Delhi-6 it is Indian Idol. Both demand a high spectatorship, yet both are dreams of individual mobility. One seeks information to escape the slum, one combines knowledge and the mobile-nubile body to escape the slum, the middle class slum of conservatism and intolerance.
In Boyle's film, the slums of Bombay enact the myth of individual mobility. The tension is the tension of competition. The streets of Chandini Chowk recognise that individual success or freedom cannot come with mobility alone, it needs a collective change of mentalities. Two communities which have synergetically come together fall apart in a fight over a 'black monkey' which threatens all of them. The message is clear; one can't be free till a community is also free. It is here that Delhi-6 brilliantly adds something that Danny Boyle does not understand. Despite the myth of information and the ersatz attempts to see the city as a knowledge society, Bollywood provides a theory of culture. Chandini Chowk with all its rituals reminds the worlds of Bombay and Bangalore. It is a warning that when you priviledge information over knowledge and disembed the two, a culture is emasculated. When a culture is threatened violence becomes the answer, the quick answer to difficult questions. Delhi-6 reminds you that culture is a slow thing, even stupid but it has possibilities. Culture is a whole, a commons in the way a pub culture or quiz culture are not. In a quiet way, a small film on Chandini Chowk tells Slumdog Millionaire it has not quite grasped Bollywood or India. Information can never substitute for the complexity of culture. Every stupid Indian knows that
Monday, February 23, 2009
MALAYSIAN POLICE BRUTALLITY AGAINST MALAYSIAN INDIANS
Today, I tagged along with our Human Rights Activists who have been
fighting Police Abuses for a long time – S. Jayathas, S. Surendran,
Manickavasagam (MP for Kapar) and M. Manohar (MP for Teluk Intan),
to find out what actually transpired when the 6 were killed by the
Police in Kulim.
fEver since their killing the other day, I have been very bothered
by the event. The media shouted out "criminals" – as if that was
the foregone truth. The Police had executed all 6 of them as if they
were the Prosecutor, Judge and Executioner all in one and utterly
above the law. It was not one, not two; it was six -and it seems
with impunity. Every one had their own view of the episode. But I
needed some answers.
At the outset, let me say that I am not condoning crimes or
criminals; but there are so many questions that this incident raises
that we need some good answers, and fast, as this situation seems to
be spinning out of control – before the ink dries on one, another
seems to happen. Kugan's case before Prabakaran's settled, and now
the six before Kugan's case is settled.
We visited the shootout site, the families of 3 of the deceaseds and
spent some time with the neighbour at the shootout site. The picture
that emerges is different than what the mainstream media has been
putting out. The MSM paints a picture that the Police only returned
fire after being shot at and that this turn of events was totally
unavoidable and that they were dealing with a bunch of unscrupulous
criminals.
Let me detail some of the facts we gathered before commenting on
them. The scene of the shooting was in a small town of Karangan some
15km from Kulim. It was in a small house which was being renovated
in one of the backroads of Karangan, a little off the main road of
the town. The fence around the house was a tall wall made up of
corrugated sheet – something you would do to cut off from view what
was going on inside.
A very forthcoming neighbour told us that when he returned home from
work that rainy night at around 10 or so, he was met with a large
group of policemen in front of his house, who had already packed his
family into the prayer room of his house in the event of stray
bullets during the impending ambush. He was asked to get in with
them. He only heard the frightening shootout that dreadful night
from within his prayer room.
The shootout took place at around 10.30, a very noisy and
frightening episode, narrated that neighbour. There did not seem to
be any attempt by the Police to try to get the people they were
seeking out from the premises, by summoning them out first using
hailers or some such device, before the shoot out. The shooting just
happened. The neighbour knew nothing more till the bodies of the
killed men were removed at somewhere between 4 and 5 am the next
morning.
The first of the killed men, the one that the Police probably had a
reason to get, the owner of the house where the shootout happened,
was shot in the middle of the top of his head, top down it appeared.
The family of this victim mentioned he had several more shots on the
front side of his body – as if someone shot at him from the front.
This individual, we were told by the family had no prior police
record.
The second victim that we visited was someone who was actually
working in Singapore for a company called SBS (maybe the Singapore
Bus Company) who had come back to Kulim for a holiday. He was due
to go back shortly and had a return ticket for that. His death
certificate also indicated death due to shots in the chest.
Apparently he had several shot wounds on the front side of his body
also, as if shot from the front. He appeared to be a friend of the
first victim.
It is not clear from the little information we got that this person
was at all a close accomplice or even a participant in any crime
that may have been in the works. Of course, I am concluding this
with very little information, but these are the facts as we got them
from the family. The family was distraught, because this had damaged
the standing of the family in the community, having their dead son
branded a criminal. This victim also has no past criminal record, we
were told by the family.
The third family we visited was that of a young chap of about 20.
His family lives in a dilapidated little estate house in Padang
Serai. He had seven siblings and it was obvious the family was just
existing. This young chap, it appears, was working for the first
victim assisting in the renovation of the house where the shootout
happened. The parents did not seem to know much more about what he
did. He was obviously not being paid very much, as he had just 2
days before the incident asked one of his family members for 20
ringgit.
He had shot wounds on the forehead and it looked like the back of
his head was all bloodied as if from an exiting bullet. He was
dressed only in a towel at the time of his death. His parents even
had difficulty putting together some money to buy him a shirt and a
dhoty for his burial. 36 ringgit was all they had. They could not
even afford the coffin in which he was ultimately buried. The Police
disallowed the victims' kin to examine the body when they tried to.
The body was all bloodied in the front. This victim also had no past
record, we were told.
To say the least, this was a carnage. It appears like we are in Gaza
or in Iraq or in Afghanistan or even in Sri Lanka – the scale and
method of killing suggests nothing short of this. Let me ask, are we
in one of these countries or is Malaysia descending there?
It looks like Indian lives have become very cheap, very cheap in
this country – the lives of anjing keling, yes that's what it is,
the cheap lives of the anjings - that they can be wasted in this
manner. Uthayakumar was so right!
By all of this, I am in no way saying crime is alright. What I am
saying is the way the problems of crime are being dealt with. Let me
lay out some perspectives for you all to consider:
1) What was the need to kill these people? They were not terrorists.
They had no previous records. They were not murderers, surely not
the mafia. They could have been easily arrested. In fact, where the
first victim regularly stays is just a stone's throw from the Police
Station. Why were they not apprehended? Or why were they not given a
chance to come out with their hands up to surrender themselves for
arrest – even in war this is done. Why were they not given this
chance?
2) We understand there were a number of sharp shooters from around
the country on hand for the job for the Police. This seem to
indicate that this was a planned kill event.
3) Why was it that the shot wounds were all in the front side of the
victims – not any location on the body, but systematically on the
front side?
4) One victim was shot on the top of the head. How could that happen
in a normal exchange of fire? That seems to suggest some crouching
position and a shot into the head, from the top.
5) Why were the victims not shot at on their legs or where they will
not be killed but disabled on being shot?
6) Why were the kin of one of the victims denied their right to
inspect the body?
7) If it was a shootout between the Police and the victims, only two
could have had the guns, as the police produced two guns; why were
the shot wounds so systematic in the chest and the heads on all
three of the victims? We do not know about the other two victims –
but I suspect they will show similarities.
In summary, this ugly incident in the series of incidents of police
killing and atrocities seem to emphasise the following issues.
a) The Police in Malaysia continue killing Indian crime suspects
with impunity – taking upon themselves the role of Prosecutor, Judge
and Executioner all in one. I am sure that the powers be know
exactly what they are doing. So, we have to take it that they are
trying to provoke a response from us so they can slam emergency rule
or something like that and set us all back?
b) The Police very urgently need to be Policed. That looks like
a very remote possibility, as long as UMNO rules this country of
ours. See what's happening to the reform-driven MACC, it has become
just another tool of UMNO. Any IPCMC will probably end up in that
same rubbish bin. In any case, this UMNO regime seems to be
promoting Police brutality as a means of maintaining their hold on
the levers of power.
c) So many crime suspects in Malaysia are from among the Indian
community. I think the answer to this has been already abundantly
answered by Uthayakumar – this underclass of Indians are a direct
result of the UMNO policies over the last 50 years of marginalizing
Indians – neglecting the development of the Indian community. There
does not yet seem to be any serious effort to get to the bottom of
this problem.
d) The way the Police are shooting Indian crime suspects seem to
give additional credence to the racist line of UMNO – the anjing
keling line. They seem to be wittingly or unwittingly creating a
stereotype of the Indians in the country – despicable,
troublecausing and uncouth Indian. What do you think the jibes of
children in school reflect – when little Indian children are
called "anjing keling" by their Malay classmates.
e) Poverty seems to be intertwined with all of this. Take the case
of the third victim that we visited - what kind of money was he
making for him to be lumped up and shot. Does this make sense, 20
years old, barely making a living and then shot in the middle. These
are the youth of the country who should be nurtured and built up
into the the human potential we so much need.
This is all very infuriating.
There comes a time when all of this has to stop. This cannot
continue. UMNO , stop playing games and get on with doing something
positive about the problem. If you do not know how, then get expert
help. I am sure there are agencies around the world that can help.
Or are we to take it that you just do not want to, and then the only
way we can find some resolution to the problem is by replacing you,
UMNO.
UNITED WE MUST STAND
UNITED WE MUST ACT!!!!!
fighting Police Abuses for a long time – S. Jayathas, S. Surendran,
Manickavasagam (MP for Kapar) and M. Manohar (MP for Teluk Intan),
to find out what actually transpired when the 6 were killed by the
Police in Kulim.
fEver since their killing the other day, I have been very bothered
by the event. The media shouted out "criminals" – as if that was
the foregone truth. The Police had executed all 6 of them as if they
were the Prosecutor, Judge and Executioner all in one and utterly
above the law. It was not one, not two; it was six -and it seems
with impunity. Every one had their own view of the episode. But I
needed some answers.
At the outset, let me say that I am not condoning crimes or
criminals; but there are so many questions that this incident raises
that we need some good answers, and fast, as this situation seems to
be spinning out of control – before the ink dries on one, another
seems to happen. Kugan's case before Prabakaran's settled, and now
the six before Kugan's case is settled.
We visited the shootout site, the families of 3 of the deceaseds and
spent some time with the neighbour at the shootout site. The picture
that emerges is different than what the mainstream media has been
putting out. The MSM paints a picture that the Police only returned
fire after being shot at and that this turn of events was totally
unavoidable and that they were dealing with a bunch of unscrupulous
criminals.
Let me detail some of the facts we gathered before commenting on
them. The scene of the shooting was in a small town of Karangan some
15km from Kulim. It was in a small house which was being renovated
in one of the backroads of Karangan, a little off the main road of
the town. The fence around the house was a tall wall made up of
corrugated sheet – something you would do to cut off from view what
was going on inside.
A very forthcoming neighbour told us that when he returned home from
work that rainy night at around 10 or so, he was met with a large
group of policemen in front of his house, who had already packed his
family into the prayer room of his house in the event of stray
bullets during the impending ambush. He was asked to get in with
them. He only heard the frightening shootout that dreadful night
from within his prayer room.
The shootout took place at around 10.30, a very noisy and
frightening episode, narrated that neighbour. There did not seem to
be any attempt by the Police to try to get the people they were
seeking out from the premises, by summoning them out first using
hailers or some such device, before the shoot out. The shooting just
happened. The neighbour knew nothing more till the bodies of the
killed men were removed at somewhere between 4 and 5 am the next
morning.
The first of the killed men, the one that the Police probably had a
reason to get, the owner of the house where the shootout happened,
was shot in the middle of the top of his head, top down it appeared.
The family of this victim mentioned he had several more shots on the
front side of his body – as if someone shot at him from the front.
This individual, we were told by the family had no prior police
record.
The second victim that we visited was someone who was actually
working in Singapore for a company called SBS (maybe the Singapore
Bus Company) who had come back to Kulim for a holiday. He was due
to go back shortly and had a return ticket for that. His death
certificate also indicated death due to shots in the chest.
Apparently he had several shot wounds on the front side of his body
also, as if shot from the front. He appeared to be a friend of the
first victim.
It is not clear from the little information we got that this person
was at all a close accomplice or even a participant in any crime
that may have been in the works. Of course, I am concluding this
with very little information, but these are the facts as we got them
from the family. The family was distraught, because this had damaged
the standing of the family in the community, having their dead son
branded a criminal. This victim also has no past criminal record, we
were told by the family.
The third family we visited was that of a young chap of about 20.
His family lives in a dilapidated little estate house in Padang
Serai. He had seven siblings and it was obvious the family was just
existing. This young chap, it appears, was working for the first
victim assisting in the renovation of the house where the shootout
happened. The parents did not seem to know much more about what he
did. He was obviously not being paid very much, as he had just 2
days before the incident asked one of his family members for 20
ringgit.
He had shot wounds on the forehead and it looked like the back of
his head was all bloodied as if from an exiting bullet. He was
dressed only in a towel at the time of his death. His parents even
had difficulty putting together some money to buy him a shirt and a
dhoty for his burial. 36 ringgit was all they had. They could not
even afford the coffin in which he was ultimately buried. The Police
disallowed the victims' kin to examine the body when they tried to.
The body was all bloodied in the front. This victim also had no past
record, we were told.
To say the least, this was a carnage. It appears like we are in Gaza
or in Iraq or in Afghanistan or even in Sri Lanka – the scale and
method of killing suggests nothing short of this. Let me ask, are we
in one of these countries or is Malaysia descending there?
It looks like Indian lives have become very cheap, very cheap in
this country – the lives of anjing keling, yes that's what it is,
the cheap lives of the anjings - that they can be wasted in this
manner. Uthayakumar was so right!
By all of this, I am in no way saying crime is alright. What I am
saying is the way the problems of crime are being dealt with. Let me
lay out some perspectives for you all to consider:
1) What was the need to kill these people? They were not terrorists.
They had no previous records. They were not murderers, surely not
the mafia. They could have been easily arrested. In fact, where the
first victim regularly stays is just a stone's throw from the Police
Station. Why were they not apprehended? Or why were they not given a
chance to come out with their hands up to surrender themselves for
arrest – even in war this is done. Why were they not given this
chance?
2) We understand there were a number of sharp shooters from around
the country on hand for the job for the Police. This seem to
indicate that this was a planned kill event.
3) Why was it that the shot wounds were all in the front side of the
victims – not any location on the body, but systematically on the
front side?
4) One victim was shot on the top of the head. How could that happen
in a normal exchange of fire? That seems to suggest some crouching
position and a shot into the head, from the top.
5) Why were the victims not shot at on their legs or where they will
not be killed but disabled on being shot?
6) Why were the kin of one of the victims denied their right to
inspect the body?
7) If it was a shootout between the Police and the victims, only two
could have had the guns, as the police produced two guns; why were
the shot wounds so systematic in the chest and the heads on all
three of the victims? We do not know about the other two victims –
but I suspect they will show similarities.
In summary, this ugly incident in the series of incidents of police
killing and atrocities seem to emphasise the following issues.
a) The Police in Malaysia continue killing Indian crime suspects
with impunity – taking upon themselves the role of Prosecutor, Judge
and Executioner all in one. I am sure that the powers be know
exactly what they are doing. So, we have to take it that they are
trying to provoke a response from us so they can slam emergency rule
or something like that and set us all back?
b) The Police very urgently need to be Policed. That looks like
a very remote possibility, as long as UMNO rules this country of
ours. See what's happening to the reform-driven MACC, it has become
just another tool of UMNO. Any IPCMC will probably end up in that
same rubbish bin. In any case, this UMNO regime seems to be
promoting Police brutality as a means of maintaining their hold on
the levers of power.
c) So many crime suspects in Malaysia are from among the Indian
community. I think the answer to this has been already abundantly
answered by Uthayakumar – this underclass of Indians are a direct
result of the UMNO policies over the last 50 years of marginalizing
Indians – neglecting the development of the Indian community. There
does not yet seem to be any serious effort to get to the bottom of
this problem.
d) The way the Police are shooting Indian crime suspects seem to
give additional credence to the racist line of UMNO – the anjing
keling line. They seem to be wittingly or unwittingly creating a
stereotype of the Indians in the country – despicable,
troublecausing and uncouth Indian. What do you think the jibes of
children in school reflect – when little Indian children are
called "anjing keling" by their Malay classmates.
e) Poverty seems to be intertwined with all of this. Take the case
of the third victim that we visited - what kind of money was he
making for him to be lumped up and shot. Does this make sense, 20
years old, barely making a living and then shot in the middle. These
are the youth of the country who should be nurtured and built up
into the the human potential we so much need.
This is all very infuriating.
There comes a time when all of this has to stop. This cannot
continue. UMNO , stop playing games and get on with doing something
positive about the problem. If you do not know how, then get expert
help. I am sure there are agencies around the world that can help.
Or are we to take it that you just do not want to, and then the only
way we can find some resolution to the problem is by replacing you,
UMNO.
UNITED WE MUST STAND
UNITED WE MUST ACT!!!!!
Swat valley: transition from Buddha to Radio Mullah
Celebrated in the Hindu scriptures as 'udyan' (garden), it's a stunningly picturesque place where the Buddha once walked, cultures intersected, poets sang and mystics came in search of peace. But, sadly, Swat valley in northwest Pakistan has now become synonymous with unrest, bloodshed and Talibanisation.
Not many know that the Swat valley, which is in the news now for the local government's much-criticised peace deal that allows the Taliban to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in return for surrendering arms, has an unbroken history of over 2,000 years that has seen many religions and civilisations come and go.
'The Swat river is mentioned in the Rig Veda as Suvashtu which literally means the river on which settlements can be made,' Kumkum Roy, professor of ancient Indian history at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the author of 'Historical Dictionary of Ancient India', told IANS.
'Kushan rulers also had connections with the Swat valley,' she said.
Centuries later, the scenic river, which flows from the majestic Hindukush mountains into the Kabul river in the Peshawar valley, is a magnet for Pakistani tourists who love to flaunt the Swat valley as the Switzerland of Pakistan.
Some historical accounts also mention that in 327 BC Alexander the Great crossed the Swat river with part of his army and before going south to conquer the locals at what are now Barikoot and Odegram.
The region has also played host to a succession of dynasties like the Mauryans, the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Syphians, the Kushans, the Turk-Shahis and the Hindu-Shahis down the ages before the invasion by Mahmud of Ghazni who brought Islam to the valley in the 11th century.
Buddhism thrived in the region that was once the centre of the Gandhara civilisation. The Swat museum has the footprints of the Buddha, who, as legend has it, came to Swat during his last reincarnation as the Gautama Buddha.
Statues of the Buddha, stupas, monasteries, rock carvings, art, coins, pottery and other artefacts can be found everywhere in the valley. Emperor Ashoka is also said to have ordered the erection of a stupa in the region.
In 403 AD, the famous Chinese pilgrim, Fa-Hien, counted 6,000 monasteries in the valley. Two centuries later, Hsuan Tsang, another itinerant monk, saw around 1,400 monasteries.
This splendid multi-layered heritage now stands imperilled with a resurgent Taliban determined to impose its austere version of the ideal Islamic society based on Sharia that has no place for music or other niceties of life and scorns sending girls to school.
Although the restive Swat valley has been known for anarchy and lawlessness for some time, the process of Talibanisation started acquiring a sinister ring in July 2006 when Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand cleric-turned Taliban ideologue and commander, started broadcasting his Wahhabi interpretation of the Quran and preaching extremist messages to people in the valley.
'Radio Mullah', as he came to be known, soon became a local legend and acquired an army of volunteers who pillaged and burnt girls' schools, CD shops, the famous ski resort and Buddha statues to turn his dream of installing an Islamic emirate into reality.
Not surprisingly, much after their ideological fellow travellers across the border in Afghanistan who brutally destroyed the famous Buddha statues in Bamiyan, they have also turned their ire on what they consider remnants of an infidel culture.
Nearly one and a half years ago, Fazlullah's informal army defaced a 23-foot-high, 7th century Meditating Buddha, carved in a rock in the lap of a mountain in Jehandabad village, in Swat, triggering protests among conservationists and Buddhists all over the world.
Things can only get worse with the Islamabad-backed provincial government striking a deal with the local Taliban represented by Sufi Muhammad, the father-in-law of 'FM Mullah.'
Not many know that the Swat valley, which is in the news now for the local government's much-criticised peace deal that allows the Taliban to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in return for surrendering arms, has an unbroken history of over 2,000 years that has seen many religions and civilisations come and go.
'The Swat river is mentioned in the Rig Veda as Suvashtu which literally means the river on which settlements can be made,' Kumkum Roy, professor of ancient Indian history at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the author of 'Historical Dictionary of Ancient India', told IANS.
'Kushan rulers also had connections with the Swat valley,' she said.
Centuries later, the scenic river, which flows from the majestic Hindukush mountains into the Kabul river in the Peshawar valley, is a magnet for Pakistani tourists who love to flaunt the Swat valley as the Switzerland of Pakistan.
Some historical accounts also mention that in 327 BC Alexander the Great crossed the Swat river with part of his army and before going south to conquer the locals at what are now Barikoot and Odegram.
The region has also played host to a succession of dynasties like the Mauryans, the Indo-Greeks, the Indo-Syphians, the Kushans, the Turk-Shahis and the Hindu-Shahis down the ages before the invasion by Mahmud of Ghazni who brought Islam to the valley in the 11th century.
Buddhism thrived in the region that was once the centre of the Gandhara civilisation. The Swat museum has the footprints of the Buddha, who, as legend has it, came to Swat during his last reincarnation as the Gautama Buddha.
Statues of the Buddha, stupas, monasteries, rock carvings, art, coins, pottery and other artefacts can be found everywhere in the valley. Emperor Ashoka is also said to have ordered the erection of a stupa in the region.
In 403 AD, the famous Chinese pilgrim, Fa-Hien, counted 6,000 monasteries in the valley. Two centuries later, Hsuan Tsang, another itinerant monk, saw around 1,400 monasteries.
This splendid multi-layered heritage now stands imperilled with a resurgent Taliban determined to impose its austere version of the ideal Islamic society based on Sharia that has no place for music or other niceties of life and scorns sending girls to school.
Although the restive Swat valley has been known for anarchy and lawlessness for some time, the process of Talibanisation started acquiring a sinister ring in July 2006 when Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand cleric-turned Taliban ideologue and commander, started broadcasting his Wahhabi interpretation of the Quran and preaching extremist messages to people in the valley.
'Radio Mullah', as he came to be known, soon became a local legend and acquired an army of volunteers who pillaged and burnt girls' schools, CD shops, the famous ski resort and Buddha statues to turn his dream of installing an Islamic emirate into reality.
Not surprisingly, much after their ideological fellow travellers across the border in Afghanistan who brutally destroyed the famous Buddha statues in Bamiyan, they have also turned their ire on what they consider remnants of an infidel culture.
Nearly one and a half years ago, Fazlullah's informal army defaced a 23-foot-high, 7th century Meditating Buddha, carved in a rock in the lap of a mountain in Jehandabad village, in Swat, triggering protests among conservationists and Buddhists all over the world.
Things can only get worse with the Islamabad-backed provincial government striking a deal with the local Taliban represented by Sufi Muhammad, the father-in-law of 'FM Mullah.'
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Reclaiming India and Pakistan. Just imagine, pre-islamism, Sanatana Dharma territory.
The attacks on Mumbai are reminiscent of the first Arab incursions, by sea between 634 and 637 AD through Thana, Broach and Debal. These were repulsed and led to incursions through land routes in the Northwest between 650-711 AD. Muhammad Bin Qasim finally succeeded in occupying parts of Sindh in 712 AD. In contrast to the 70 years it took to occupy Sindh in face of Hindu resistance, the Islamic armies had conquered Persia, Syria, Egypt within eight years of the Prophet"s death. North Africa was taken between 640 AD and 709 AD with Spain falling in 711 AD. Thus the entry of Islam into Hindu India which now has broken into a Muslim Pakistan, a Muslim Bangladesh and a Muslim Afghanistan faced more resistance than its triumphant march elsewhere. When Christian Europe finally won against Islam, they did not leave growing colonies within, to repopulate and create new Islamic nations. Arabs, no longer need attack India. The Muslim descendents of the Hindus, at least in Pakistan and Bangladesh, having severed themselves from their roots and heritage, find greater commonality with Arabic language, customs and religion. The idea of roots, state, civilization or cultural heritage are super ceded by the common ground of Islam.
Islam, does not recognize the idea of sovereignty of state or the concept of individual free will guiding individual choice –whether towards lifestyle or to one"s spiritual path. All Semitic faiths speak of a single God, but clearly not the same one, as each claims an exclusive covenant and an exclusive revelation through an exclusive prophet and salvation through the individual agency representing the religion. Thus if all were true then there must be three equal Gods or if only one were true then there is one true God and two other false Gods with two false creeds and two false institutions. If all were false, the idea of God must be difficult to sustain for the majority of the world and these religions must find a separate mission than offer salvation -invited or uninvited. Of the three great faiths one must admit that the modern Jewish faith does not directly negate
others and does not indulge in the task of conversions overtly and covertly and therefore intrinsically seeks no conflict -only the right of self existence. The Hindus seek peaceful self existence but differ from all, in laying no claim to a unique covenant or a unique
relationship with their own particular God. They further believe in self inquiry, the right to- differ, question, criticize, adopt or reject any particular aspect or tenet of spiritual life. Faith is welcome but not necessary and lack of faith or criticism does not call for execution. No conversions are needed as spiritual life does not mandate membership in an exclusive creed. State has no spiritual responsibility. The spiritual path at the beginning calls for personal purity and righteousness, with non violence and harmlessness to all- and evolves finally towards individual spiritual inquiry leading to
enlightenment or realization -of the nature of God. Venerable Prophets are many, within and outside India, who can be guides but are not necessarily needed. Being reflections of the Divine through the human form they are exalted beings but may have human limitations or imperfection at times. There is no Hindu Umma, Dar al Hind and Dar al
Harb and there are no Momins and Kafirs. No Ghazis are required to wield swords to decapitate heads of Kafirs to reap rewards in an indulgent Zannat to please the one God. For Hindus- property, life and women of Non Hindus, are not subject to enjoyment, destruction, enslavement and confiscation as per scriptural guidelines. Places of worship where others worship are not special targets of wrathful destruction. Hindus have largely chosen to accept, ignore, negate and justify their suffering, believing that tolerance and patience would certainly be rewarded in the long run by dawning of reason among those
who have brutalized India for about ten centuries. Large scale negation has been supplemented by outright falsification of the scale of atrocities on part of Islamic invaders. Indians have also submitted to more subtle but equally pernicious civilizational and spiritual subversion along with economic destruction by the Christian West. Purposeful erosion of the Hindu culture (Kul-achar) and ethos, was ensured, post Independence by the Congress-Communist nexus, under the cloak of secularism. This destruction continues unabated today.
Political empowerment of minorities is yet to occur in Europe and North America while in Islamic countries systematic cleansing has reduced minorities to near extinction almost everywhere. Indian congress, communists, secularists and Human right activists have not
bothered themselves with the Hindu victims of Islam or Christianity. They have built their credibility among foreigners and anti- Hindu faiths by sabotaging the ideal of India"s Nationhood based on Sanatan Dharma.
The idea of a tolerant Islamic State (for Non Muslims) is a contradiction in terms. For Christianity, state and religion, have historically been symbiotic entities -one thriving on the expansion of the other, each empowering the other. State was certainly the vehicle
for Christianity" s spread and eventual conquest of Europe rendering extinct all indigenous forms of spirituality and culture, from Greece to Lithuania beginning from Italy. For Islam, conquest of Arabia wiped out millennia of pre-Islamic Arabic history and culture. Persia and Egypt did not fare better. State as an entity, is subservient to Islam
and is merely its tool for expansion. In Western Europe and more prominently in America, while the pursuit of an individual religion is not interfered with but political empowerment of minority faiths other than Judaism is not even entertained as an idea in political or social discourse .The idea of Hindutva, Hindu fundamentalism are not merely
illogical concepts but are carefully crafted themes to empower the exclusivist faiths who battle today for the soul and soil of India.
There is no state other than India, that has seen political empowerment of minority faiths to an extent that persecution of majority is no longer looked upon with surprise. The ethnic cleansing of 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus in Hindu majority India is ignored, while
communal riots in response the burning of Hindu pilgrims in Godhra is termed pogrom with international condemnation, humiliation, and enquiry commissions whose findings contradict the charge of genocide due to state complicity or permissiveness. This of course cannot satiate the Indian media"s Hindu bloodlust. India"s English media,
human rights activists, television and it"s ruling Cabal reflect a coalition of Christians, Communists, Moslems, Western educated McCaulayites and foreign agents who live on the crumbs from middle east or the West. The zenith of one"s recognition in politics,
academia, art , media, or intellectual circles is related to the degree of virulence one is able to muster against the Hindu and the culture of his forefathers. Regrettably, the defense of majority Hindus in their own land is at the hands of parties like BJP, whose
apologetic conviction of their own heritage offers little hope. Their need for eulogies from the nation"s enemies is only matched by their gutlessness, lack of vision for their nation, colossal lack of cohesive planning and the spinelessness of political opportunism.
How about the spiritual foundation? the very reason why the Hindu has not given up his identity through millennia of occupation. India"s conquest to a large extent was due to loss of Dharma. Dharma as it relates to individual action guides the individual towards his larger sphere of responsibility towards family, community, nation, environment, and world at large. It is not merely individual salvation that religion should contract to, but it must exhort the individual to righteous and courageous action to uphold eternal values enjoined in Sanatan Dharma. Hindu spiritual leaders have miserably failed to exhort Hindus to the highest ideals of civic or community life and have forgotten the entire notion of Rashtra Dharma. Creating competing cults and creeds for self promotion, ritualistic worship or individual salvation without fulfilling all aspects of one"s Dharma is the foundational deficit that is once again propelling India into subjugation by Asuric forces. India"s multitude of temple goers and professional priests can no longer understand the ethos that had decreed motherland to be more exalted than the heavens. Therefore, the ritualistic, cult based, habit reinforced and temple oriented Hindu today is oblivious of the environment he lives in. The insularity of ritualistic behavior has degraded a deep worship tradition to "customary practice" severing philosophic continuity with our children - while outsiders have hardly been subtle in their contempt. For almost a thousand years jeering Islamic armies destroyed temples telling the Hindus that their Gods were mere idols who could not protect themselves, while the Hindu kept rebuilding his temples. The mosque built by the genocidal Babur was no mosque but merely a usurped temple that the weak Hindu finally used his bare hands to bring down
-but to what dramatic disbelief, condemnation and outrage -that a servile Hindu could do this! None bothered that a place of worship was named after a genocidal monarch - for it is but natural for Islam to honor its Ghazis. To protect Babur"s monument (though no Islamic scholar claimed it to be a true mosque) seemed to be a national obsession for the liberal Indian, for it to be brought down a national shame? Can such a country survive its citizenry? Is there a Church in Poland named after Hitler (a faithful) or for that matter, one in Rome after Constantine or Theodosius?
Finally one must come to the intellectual elite of India. The intellectual leaders of India are no longer creative, natural thinkers in indigenous languages but are brilliant products and protagonists of Western Education. One would be hard put to find an Indian thought
leader today who reads or writes in a language other than English. The Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Greeks, Germans, Spaniards, Mexicans or Egyptians do not have "English" intellectual Elite. These countries do no obsess themselves with intellectuals adorned with Booker prizes or Oscars for denigrating their countries. Their leading newspapers, media, or academic institutions do not have to use English to be well
regarded. It is perfectly cute to have the Chinese Premier shake his head at the US President and exchange pleasantries through an interpreter while it is not for the Indian savage to do the same. Indian parents regard education in English and higher studies in the English speaking West to be the highest form of academic achievement. It is a natural consequence to imbibe the English based knowledge systems and discard the vast indigenous intellectual wealth, available in Sanskrit and other indigenous literature. Thus the first rung of our civilization -the intellectual Indian has been simply de-indigenized. Validated by economic success and access to leadership positions this Indian intellectual leadership is Indian only in appearance -in character it represents colonial continuity. It is
virulently anti -Hindu and seeks not to be identified with Hindutva . Why else is "Hindu Tattva" or the essence of being a Hindu a dirty word while "being a good Christian" - a claim to value. Is it not the Hindu seer who gave the world Numbers and Counting, Astronomy, Music, Grammar, Yoga and Ayurveda besides Philosophy and the first glimpse of God ? What knowledge streams did the Prophets from the Monotheistic
faiths bequeath to the world ? India"s English media and its English Children have turned the Hindu into a despicable, backward and intolerable heathen, who is now violent as well. To unleash violence outside one"s borders on alien lands is natural as long as the
perpetrators are Christians or Moslems but to defend oneself and one"s faith within one"s own borders is fundamentalism in case of the Hindu. When the Christians or Moslems disallow proselytization or conversion it is the natural inclination to preserve one"s identity but for the Hindu to take such a view would be unacceptable bigotry. Barring
exceptions, India"s intellectual elite today is India"s most pernicious enemy - an elite reared on the subsidized state sponsored education funded by the toiling Hindu.
One must end with a discussion on solutions. As a first measure the Hindu majority of India must find its voice and aspiration reflected in the media. It must not support an anti India media through viewership, audience, subscription or advertisement revenue in any
form. India must demand a media free of foreign ownership or revenue based influence. Indians must control their media. Equally important for Indians is to elect a leadership that to start with is not anti-India. Needless to say, any leadership that is anti- Hindu is
anti-majority and by definition, anti-India. They cannot be at the helm of the country. Therefore, the UPA, its adherents and its supporting parties must be defeated and discarded into political oblivion. Marxism is welcome as part of academic discourse but its anti-national and anti-majority views do not permit it to be a legitimate political body . Marxist organizations and political parties need to be outlawed. The nexus of criminals and politicians has to be broken by a strengthened judiciary and ruthless imposition of law. A criminalized democracy manipulated by feudal families, foreigners, anti India and anti Hindu agencies is worse than an undemocratic, but ethical administration. India of the past has done far better under Vikramaditya or Chandragupta. The academic institutions of India starting from at its schools need to be entirely revamped. Study of its indigenous languages, knowledge streams, and its classical history from indigenous sources must be mandatory for all, but most of all for its political leadership and administration, as a prerequisite for electoral contest or administration. Anti India
academicians cannot have any public funding sources towards salary, research and publications and media presentations offending Hindu sentiments should not be tolerated. India"s 1.2 billion people and 1 billion Hindus must be what they want to be, not what others manipulate them to be -in this respect they must learn from China. Minorityism in the form of appeasement, selective economic aid, reservation, media propagation and political empowerment for votes, must be eliminated without any compunction -Hindu"s who have chosen to adopt foreign religions have no basis for special consideration,
though they remain free to practice their faith in private. Political action or activism that promotes sedition or violence must be met with violence and eliminated ruthlessly. Hindus should not be supportive of any Hindu religious institution, cult, temple or spiritual leaders who remain disconnected from the concept of a nationalism based on Sanatan Dharma .There cannot be any spiritual path divorced from Dharma in its
broadest sense .To support such self serving Hindu institutions and spiritual leaders is a folly as well. The intellectual leadership of India must be reconstructed and realigned to be steeped in its historical traditions that have always reflected a combination of value systems - a search for discriminatory wisdom, simple living, cultivation of Dharma combined with a sense of honor and valor. Meekness, avoidance of responsibility, search for self gratification and success should not be lauded but are worthy of rejection and
derision. India cannot honor those who dishonor it. Leaders in politics, academia, media, corporate world, arts, sciences or spiritual domain must not be honored anymore for being Anti-Hindu. If Tasleema Nasreen cannot be given asylum in India for offending
sensibilities of Muslims, on what grounds does one have to tolerate the likes of Arundhati Roy, M F Hussain, Jayalalitha , Brinda Karat, Karan Thapar, Shabana Azmi, Agnivesh or AR Antulay?
Hindu majority India managed to lose power and suffer enslavement, decapitation, conversion, jiziya, dhimmitude, and famines apart from annihilation of its identity for over a thousand years. Its current course shows no memory of this experience. All Hindus must act now, through forging a common Hindu identity and must express this identity
through a Hindu vote for a Hindu India - a Muslim India or a Christian India cannot be a pluralistic tolerant India. Let Islam and Christianity demonstrate this first in the lands they control. Let the US elect a non Christian Governor or President and let Indonesia or
Pakistan have a Hindu President first. Let rest of the world demonstrate its equality to the Hindu .The Hindu must protect himself first, to deliver humanity. While India as a nation state should stand for equality for all its citizens and proclaim all life to be sacred as decreed by Sanatan Dharma - it must let its external enemies know, that the future theatres of war would be on their soil and the rites of war would be one that they inflict on others.
Islam, does not recognize the idea of sovereignty of state or the concept of individual free will guiding individual choice –whether towards lifestyle or to one"s spiritual path. All Semitic faiths speak of a single God, but clearly not the same one, as each claims an exclusive covenant and an exclusive revelation through an exclusive prophet and salvation through the individual agency representing the religion. Thus if all were true then there must be three equal Gods or if only one were true then there is one true God and two other false Gods with two false creeds and two false institutions. If all were false, the idea of God must be difficult to sustain for the majority of the world and these religions must find a separate mission than offer salvation -invited or uninvited. Of the three great faiths one must admit that the modern Jewish faith does not directly negate
others and does not indulge in the task of conversions overtly and covertly and therefore intrinsically seeks no conflict -only the right of self existence. The Hindus seek peaceful self existence but differ from all, in laying no claim to a unique covenant or a unique
relationship with their own particular God. They further believe in self inquiry, the right to- differ, question, criticize, adopt or reject any particular aspect or tenet of spiritual life. Faith is welcome but not necessary and lack of faith or criticism does not call for execution. No conversions are needed as spiritual life does not mandate membership in an exclusive creed. State has no spiritual responsibility. The spiritual path at the beginning calls for personal purity and righteousness, with non violence and harmlessness to all- and evolves finally towards individual spiritual inquiry leading to
enlightenment or realization -of the nature of God. Venerable Prophets are many, within and outside India, who can be guides but are not necessarily needed. Being reflections of the Divine through the human form they are exalted beings but may have human limitations or imperfection at times. There is no Hindu Umma, Dar al Hind and Dar al
Harb and there are no Momins and Kafirs. No Ghazis are required to wield swords to decapitate heads of Kafirs to reap rewards in an indulgent Zannat to please the one God. For Hindus- property, life and women of Non Hindus, are not subject to enjoyment, destruction, enslavement and confiscation as per scriptural guidelines. Places of worship where others worship are not special targets of wrathful destruction. Hindus have largely chosen to accept, ignore, negate and justify their suffering, believing that tolerance and patience would certainly be rewarded in the long run by dawning of reason among those
who have brutalized India for about ten centuries. Large scale negation has been supplemented by outright falsification of the scale of atrocities on part of Islamic invaders. Indians have also submitted to more subtle but equally pernicious civilizational and spiritual subversion along with economic destruction by the Christian West. Purposeful erosion of the Hindu culture (Kul-achar) and ethos, was ensured, post Independence by the Congress-Communist nexus, under the cloak of secularism. This destruction continues unabated today.
Political empowerment of minorities is yet to occur in Europe and North America while in Islamic countries systematic cleansing has reduced minorities to near extinction almost everywhere. Indian congress, communists, secularists and Human right activists have not
bothered themselves with the Hindu victims of Islam or Christianity. They have built their credibility among foreigners and anti- Hindu faiths by sabotaging the ideal of India"s Nationhood based on Sanatan Dharma.
The idea of a tolerant Islamic State (for Non Muslims) is a contradiction in terms. For Christianity, state and religion, have historically been symbiotic entities -one thriving on the expansion of the other, each empowering the other. State was certainly the vehicle
for Christianity" s spread and eventual conquest of Europe rendering extinct all indigenous forms of spirituality and culture, from Greece to Lithuania beginning from Italy. For Islam, conquest of Arabia wiped out millennia of pre-Islamic Arabic history and culture. Persia and Egypt did not fare better. State as an entity, is subservient to Islam
and is merely its tool for expansion. In Western Europe and more prominently in America, while the pursuit of an individual religion is not interfered with but political empowerment of minority faiths other than Judaism is not even entertained as an idea in political or social discourse .The idea of Hindutva, Hindu fundamentalism are not merely
illogical concepts but are carefully crafted themes to empower the exclusivist faiths who battle today for the soul and soil of India.
There is no state other than India, that has seen political empowerment of minority faiths to an extent that persecution of majority is no longer looked upon with surprise. The ethnic cleansing of 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus in Hindu majority India is ignored, while
communal riots in response the burning of Hindu pilgrims in Godhra is termed pogrom with international condemnation, humiliation, and enquiry commissions whose findings contradict the charge of genocide due to state complicity or permissiveness. This of course cannot satiate the Indian media"s Hindu bloodlust. India"s English media,
human rights activists, television and it"s ruling Cabal reflect a coalition of Christians, Communists, Moslems, Western educated McCaulayites and foreign agents who live on the crumbs from middle east or the West. The zenith of one"s recognition in politics,
academia, art , media, or intellectual circles is related to the degree of virulence one is able to muster against the Hindu and the culture of his forefathers. Regrettably, the defense of majority Hindus in their own land is at the hands of parties like BJP, whose
apologetic conviction of their own heritage offers little hope. Their need for eulogies from the nation"s enemies is only matched by their gutlessness, lack of vision for their nation, colossal lack of cohesive planning and the spinelessness of political opportunism.
How about the spiritual foundation? the very reason why the Hindu has not given up his identity through millennia of occupation. India"s conquest to a large extent was due to loss of Dharma. Dharma as it relates to individual action guides the individual towards his larger sphere of responsibility towards family, community, nation, environment, and world at large. It is not merely individual salvation that religion should contract to, but it must exhort the individual to righteous and courageous action to uphold eternal values enjoined in Sanatan Dharma. Hindu spiritual leaders have miserably failed to exhort Hindus to the highest ideals of civic or community life and have forgotten the entire notion of Rashtra Dharma. Creating competing cults and creeds for self promotion, ritualistic worship or individual salvation without fulfilling all aspects of one"s Dharma is the foundational deficit that is once again propelling India into subjugation by Asuric forces. India"s multitude of temple goers and professional priests can no longer understand the ethos that had decreed motherland to be more exalted than the heavens. Therefore, the ritualistic, cult based, habit reinforced and temple oriented Hindu today is oblivious of the environment he lives in. The insularity of ritualistic behavior has degraded a deep worship tradition to "customary practice" severing philosophic continuity with our children - while outsiders have hardly been subtle in their contempt. For almost a thousand years jeering Islamic armies destroyed temples telling the Hindus that their Gods were mere idols who could not protect themselves, while the Hindu kept rebuilding his temples. The mosque built by the genocidal Babur was no mosque but merely a usurped temple that the weak Hindu finally used his bare hands to bring down
-but to what dramatic disbelief, condemnation and outrage -that a servile Hindu could do this! None bothered that a place of worship was named after a genocidal monarch - for it is but natural for Islam to honor its Ghazis. To protect Babur"s monument (though no Islamic scholar claimed it to be a true mosque) seemed to be a national obsession for the liberal Indian, for it to be brought down a national shame? Can such a country survive its citizenry? Is there a Church in Poland named after Hitler (a faithful) or for that matter, one in Rome after Constantine or Theodosius?
Finally one must come to the intellectual elite of India. The intellectual leaders of India are no longer creative, natural thinkers in indigenous languages but are brilliant products and protagonists of Western Education. One would be hard put to find an Indian thought
leader today who reads or writes in a language other than English. The Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Greeks, Germans, Spaniards, Mexicans or Egyptians do not have "English" intellectual Elite. These countries do no obsess themselves with intellectuals adorned with Booker prizes or Oscars for denigrating their countries. Their leading newspapers, media, or academic institutions do not have to use English to be well
regarded. It is perfectly cute to have the Chinese Premier shake his head at the US President and exchange pleasantries through an interpreter while it is not for the Indian savage to do the same. Indian parents regard education in English and higher studies in the English speaking West to be the highest form of academic achievement. It is a natural consequence to imbibe the English based knowledge systems and discard the vast indigenous intellectual wealth, available in Sanskrit and other indigenous literature. Thus the first rung of our civilization -the intellectual Indian has been simply de-indigenized. Validated by economic success and access to leadership positions this Indian intellectual leadership is Indian only in appearance -in character it represents colonial continuity. It is
virulently anti -Hindu and seeks not to be identified with Hindutva . Why else is "Hindu Tattva" or the essence of being a Hindu a dirty word while "being a good Christian" - a claim to value. Is it not the Hindu seer who gave the world Numbers and Counting, Astronomy, Music, Grammar, Yoga and Ayurveda besides Philosophy and the first glimpse of God ? What knowledge streams did the Prophets from the Monotheistic
faiths bequeath to the world ? India"s English media and its English Children have turned the Hindu into a despicable, backward and intolerable heathen, who is now violent as well. To unleash violence outside one"s borders on alien lands is natural as long as the
perpetrators are Christians or Moslems but to defend oneself and one"s faith within one"s own borders is fundamentalism in case of the Hindu. When the Christians or Moslems disallow proselytization or conversion it is the natural inclination to preserve one"s identity but for the Hindu to take such a view would be unacceptable bigotry. Barring
exceptions, India"s intellectual elite today is India"s most pernicious enemy - an elite reared on the subsidized state sponsored education funded by the toiling Hindu.
One must end with a discussion on solutions. As a first measure the Hindu majority of India must find its voice and aspiration reflected in the media. It must not support an anti India media through viewership, audience, subscription or advertisement revenue in any
form. India must demand a media free of foreign ownership or revenue based influence. Indians must control their media. Equally important for Indians is to elect a leadership that to start with is not anti-India. Needless to say, any leadership that is anti- Hindu is
anti-majority and by definition, anti-India. They cannot be at the helm of the country. Therefore, the UPA, its adherents and its supporting parties must be defeated and discarded into political oblivion. Marxism is welcome as part of academic discourse but its anti-national and anti-majority views do not permit it to be a legitimate political body . Marxist organizations and political parties need to be outlawed. The nexus of criminals and politicians has to be broken by a strengthened judiciary and ruthless imposition of law. A criminalized democracy manipulated by feudal families, foreigners, anti India and anti Hindu agencies is worse than an undemocratic, but ethical administration. India of the past has done far better under Vikramaditya or Chandragupta. The academic institutions of India starting from at its schools need to be entirely revamped. Study of its indigenous languages, knowledge streams, and its classical history from indigenous sources must be mandatory for all, but most of all for its political leadership and administration, as a prerequisite for electoral contest or administration. Anti India
academicians cannot have any public funding sources towards salary, research and publications and media presentations offending Hindu sentiments should not be tolerated. India"s 1.2 billion people and 1 billion Hindus must be what they want to be, not what others manipulate them to be -in this respect they must learn from China. Minorityism in the form of appeasement, selective economic aid, reservation, media propagation and political empowerment for votes, must be eliminated without any compunction -Hindu"s who have chosen to adopt foreign religions have no basis for special consideration,
though they remain free to practice their faith in private. Political action or activism that promotes sedition or violence must be met with violence and eliminated ruthlessly. Hindus should not be supportive of any Hindu religious institution, cult, temple or spiritual leaders who remain disconnected from the concept of a nationalism based on Sanatan Dharma .There cannot be any spiritual path divorced from Dharma in its
broadest sense .To support such self serving Hindu institutions and spiritual leaders is a folly as well. The intellectual leadership of India must be reconstructed and realigned to be steeped in its historical traditions that have always reflected a combination of value systems - a search for discriminatory wisdom, simple living, cultivation of Dharma combined with a sense of honor and valor. Meekness, avoidance of responsibility, search for self gratification and success should not be lauded but are worthy of rejection and
derision. India cannot honor those who dishonor it. Leaders in politics, academia, media, corporate world, arts, sciences or spiritual domain must not be honored anymore for being Anti-Hindu. If Tasleema Nasreen cannot be given asylum in India for offending
sensibilities of Muslims, on what grounds does one have to tolerate the likes of Arundhati Roy, M F Hussain, Jayalalitha , Brinda Karat, Karan Thapar, Shabana Azmi, Agnivesh or AR Antulay?
Hindu majority India managed to lose power and suffer enslavement, decapitation, conversion, jiziya, dhimmitude, and famines apart from annihilation of its identity for over a thousand years. Its current course shows no memory of this experience. All Hindus must act now, through forging a common Hindu identity and must express this identity
through a Hindu vote for a Hindu India - a Muslim India or a Christian India cannot be a pluralistic tolerant India. Let Islam and Christianity demonstrate this first in the lands they control. Let the US elect a non Christian Governor or President and let Indonesia or
Pakistan have a Hindu President first. Let rest of the world demonstrate its equality to the Hindu .The Hindu must protect himself first, to deliver humanity. While India as a nation state should stand for equality for all its citizens and proclaim all life to be sacred as decreed by Sanatan Dharma - it must let its external enemies know, that the future theatres of war would be on their soil and the rites of war would be one that they inflict on others.
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