Another Gautier Gem

Found another brilliant article written by Gautier while searching for more information on the new Indian school of journalism. It is crazy that foreigners are trying so hard to revitalize India while majority of our stupid brain dead educated natives dont seem to care!

Be Aware of your roots

By Francois Gautier

As a Frenchman, I was coached right from childhood that logic, what we in France call Cartesianism, is the greatest gift given to man. Thus, I taught my students in a Bangalore school of journalism that the first tool of a good reporter is to go by his or her own judgment on the ground, with the help of one’s first-hand experience — and not by second hand information: what your parents thought, what you have read in the newspapers, what your caste, religion, culture pushes you into.

Yet in India, logic does not seem to apply to most of the media, especially when it touches anything Hindu.

One cannot, for instance, equate Muslim terrorists who blow up innocent civilians in market places all over India, with angry ordinary Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody.

We know that most of these communal incidents often involve persons of the same caste, Dalits and tribals, some converted to Christianity and some not.

Then, however reprehensible the destruction of the Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process.

Compare this with the ‘vengeance’ bombings of 1993 in Mumbai, which killed hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet Indian and western journalists keep matching up the two, or even showing the Babri Masjid destruction as the more horrible act of the two.

How can you compare the RSS, a bunch of harmless daddies, with the Indian Mujahideen, a terrorist organisation? How can you make of Narendra Modi a mass killer, when it was ordinary middle-class, or even Dalit Hindus, who went out on the streets in fury when 56 innocent people, many of them women and children, were burnt in a train? How can you lobby for the lifting of the ban on SIMI, an organisation which is suspected of having planted bombs in many Indian cities, killing hundreds of innocents, while advocating the ban of the Bajrang Dal, which burns churches when an 84-year-old Hindu swami and his Mataji are brutally murdered? There is no logic in the perspective of journalists in this country when it comes to minorities. Christians are supposed to make up two per cent of the population in India, but last Sunday many major television channels showed live the canonisation ceremonies of sister Alphonsa, an obscure nun from Kerala.

Union minister Oscar Fernandes led an entire Indian delegation to the Vatican ceremony along with the Indian ambassador. It would be impossible in England, for instance, which may have a 2 per cent Hindu minority, to have live coverage of a major Hindu ceremony, like the anointment of a new Shankaracharya.What was NDTV, which seems to have deliberately chosen to highlight this nonevent, trying to prove? That it is secular? But it is absolutely disproportionate.

Some might even call it antinational.

The headline, ‘India gets its first woman saint’, in many newspapers, Indian and western, is misleading.

India has never been short of saints. The woman sage from over 3,000 years ago — Maithreyi, Andal, the Tamil saint from early in the first Millennium CE and Akkamahadevi, the 15th century saint from modernday Karnataka, are but a few examples.

What many publications fail to mention in this story is that this is the first woman Christian saint, not the first Indian woman saint.

Such a statement is OK when it comes, for instance, from the BBC, which always looks at India through the Christian prism, but when it comes to the Indian media, it only shows their grave lack of grounding in Indian culture and history.

The same thing is true of Sonia Gandhi, who seemed, even though the Congress should by all means have already collapsed with 12 per cent inflation, scandal after scandal, a nuclear deal with the US that leaves India vulnerable to the Chinese and Pakistani nuclear threat, and bomb blast after bomb blast, still ruling India with an iron hand. Yet newspapers and TV channels keep praising Sonia Gandhi.

And the question must be asked: how is it possible that a nation of a billion people, with some of the best minds on this planet, allows itself to be governed by a non-Indian lady, who, however sincere she may be, is actively overseeing the dismantling of whatever is good and true in India? It would be impossible in France for a Hindu woman, or for that matter a non-Christian person, who is just an elected MP, to govern our country from behind the scenes like an empress. Why is it allowed in India and why is the Indian press so selfrighteous about it ? Finally, when will Indians start being proud of themselves and their own culture and stop looking down on their own society ? This inferiority complex, as expressed by NDTV’s live coverage of the canonisation of sister Alphonsa, is a legacy of the British, who strove to show themselves as superior and Indian culture as inferior (and inheritor of the ‘White Aryans’, a totally false theory). Is it not time to institute schools of journalism, both private and public, where not only a little bit of logic is taught, but where students are made aware of Indian history and the greatness of Indian culture, so that when they go out reporting, they use their own judgment and become Indian journalists, with a little bit of feeling, pride and love for their own country?

fgautier@rediffmail.com

Indian School of Journalism

I found an old article in the express while browsing where I learnt that there is a school of Journalism, started under the aegis of Francois Gautier, in Bangalore. I had never heard of it before but it seems very promising.

Monday, November 8, 1999

Journalism as the art of living

By Francois Gautier

In a year or so, a unique and revolutionary new Indian school of journalism is going to be inaugurated in Bangalore. In this school, students will not only be taught the complete art of journalism. They will also learn to look at India through an Indian perspective, to cast an eye on the world which will carry some of the knowledge and wisdom of a civilisation -- their own -- which is five thousand years old.

They will, for instance, be taught pranayama, the ancient technique of breathing devised thousand of years ago by Indian sages, so that they know how to regulate their breath in time of stress and thus control their emotions. They will be taught the art of meditation, so that they can get their inspiration from a quiet, strong and silent mind. They will be taught asanas, so that their body is strong and resilient and can endure any physical situation. They will be taught a unique cleansing technique called Sudarshan Kriya, which eliminates toxins and stress from the mind and body.

They will study the Vedas, which contain the ultimate truth, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and India's great philosophers like Sri Aurobindo. They will even be taught to sing and dance, so that there is joy and spontaneity in their life and not the dry, intellectual pompousness of the pipe-smoking, Oxford English-speaking journalist, or the chain-smoking pseudo-Marxist... In short, they will be taught the Art of Living.

Sounds preposterous? But these methods should be applied to all aspects of education in India, from the kindergarten onwards, so that schools and universities do not churn out western clones, who have no idea about the greatness and the immense wealth of their own country. And the first thing which should be taught to all students, whether they are toddlers or aspiring journalists, is that there exists a Knowledge - spiritual, occult, yogic - still alive in India, which has died all over the world, where only churches and dogmas survive, although this knowledge was once prevalent in ancient civilisations -in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece etc. They should also understand that if this knowledge, which is not Hinduism, which is not religious, is left to die in India, it will be gone forever from this world which might slowly drift towards pralaya.

At the moment, India is still living under Nehru's legacy, who had chosen to turn its back on anything which had a spiritual connection and had espoused the Marxist way of life, which produced an immense bureaucracy, corruption and the kind of politicians we see today. It also bred many generations of Indian intellectuals and journalists, who kept running down the greatness of their own country and aped anything that came from the West -- the good and the bad. Today many of Indian newspapers and magazines do not reflect a true Indian point of view, but constantly look at India through a western prism which contains none of the wisdom and knowledge of ancient India.

Take the Pope's visit for instance. Instead of defending India's point of view - as it would have beennormal practice in any other country - by doing some background research on the atrocities committed by the Portuguese in Goa, or about the economic incentives wh-ich missionaries have used -- and are still using - to convert entire chunks of the Northeast and Central India, most of the Indian press went on its usual VHP-RSS-Bhajrang Dal bashing. It is too easy to repeat ad infinitum that Christians in India are only two percent (a nearly ten years old census), because the influence which Christians exert in India is tremendous. Not only do they control the best schools (and hospitals), thus shaping the minds of India's future elite, their sometimes alliance with Marxists make them redoubtable adversaries.

Furthermore, very few newspapers and magazines chose to publish extracts of the Southern Baptist Church's prayer books (the second largest Christian organisation in the US, of which President Clinton is a member) which call Hinduism "satanic" and say that "Hindus live in the darkness of their hearts,which no lamp can dispel". Some of the Christian leaders (the majority of Indian Christians are nice and peace-loving people) have thus been able to take full advantage of this hatred of the Indian press -- which is mostly composed of Hindus -- against any organisation or individual who dares to defend Hindus, and their softness for anybody who attacks Hindus.

It is in this way that the Vatican was able to lecture India on the "atrocities" committed against Indian Christians, without mentioning the much greater atrocities committed against the Hindus who had welcomed so wholeheartedly Christians centuries ago. It is also sad that the BJP, which not so long ago was the target of attacks by these very same journalists, chose to arrest a few of the leaders of those groups who had the courage to stand up for their own ideas. Do you remember, Mr Advani, when you were arrested and branded a "Nazi" by the Indian press, who stood by you then?

So what is needed is a new generation of Indian journalists who will be proud of their country without being chauvinists, who will be brilliant without being superficial, who will take the best of the west, without being western clones, who will draw inspiration from the knowledge alive in this country, without being bigots. They will be Indian journalists.

Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

Alternative news media in India

I found a very interesting article on the internet on the dis-satisfaction many journalists feel when they work for the main stream media (MSM). It is heartening to know that there are some of them who speak out. We really need an alternative news channel/paper which is big enough so that they attract quality journalists.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/05/indian_conservatives_struggle.html

(I disagree with the axis of evil part - I believe the real axis of evil is China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia)

Indian Conservatives Struggle to Build Alternative Media

by Richard L. Benkin

Amitabh Tripathi is convinced his nation of India is under attack; so he did something few people are willing to do. He abandoned a promising freelance career with India's mainstream media (MSM), so he could he could write openly as a conservative about Indian leftists, Islamists, and government policies that play into their hands.

"You cannot write about the leftists," he told me, "because the Congress [Party] government is dependent on them"; and if you identify the terrorist threat as Islamist, "you are called anti-Muslim and a racist." But, Tripathi said, that is not what worries him the most. "The major threat to Indian sovereignty is government policies that are based on pseudo-secularism and Muslim appeasement." For journalists, that translates into a rigid political correctness that forces them to adhere to the MSM's left-wing bias or look for employment elsewhere.

"After meeting Dr. Daniel Pipes and Dr. Richard Benkin," Tripathi said, "I came to know the gravity of the Islamic threat, what the whole world is facing, and the ignorance people have about the Israel-Palestine struggle. India is entering the most critical period in its history and that the current government and other elites are handing our enemies a victory." Since most of what we hear about the world's largest democracy centers on its new role as an economic giant, its nuclear status, and perhaps its ties with Israel, we might think Tripathi is exaggerating; but there is a great deal that our own MSM does not report.

I was in India for the better part of February this year, when almost every day saw radical action: "road strikes" where separatists and other protesting radicals closed major thoroughfares; a thwarted cyber-terrorist attack by Islamists; communist agitation and demonstrations against India's proposed nuclear deal with the United States; and a military operation by Maoist terrorists against a police station that killed dozens.

Islamic radicals are flexing their muscles, too, building radical madrassas (or Islamic schools) throughout the country, especially in Muslim-dominated villages. Darul Uloom Deoband, the seminary that produced the Taliban's Mullah Omar, is located less than 100 miles from the capital and continues to issue regular fatwas. Muslims are demanding autonomy in several areas; and three Indian states have communist governments. The most entrenched of them, West Bengal, sits less than 15 miles from a barely-patrolled border with China.

So Tripathi started Lokmanch, a Hindi-language web site that features frank criticism of what he and others call the government's "ostrich-like behavior." He also has translated articles on Israel, the US war against Islamist terror and extremism, Barack Obama, and other topics. They provide Indians with information that their media simply does not report. Quietly, Tripathi is attracting more and more Indian journalists, including bona fide members of the MSM. Several of them offered me their candid opinions about the media's leftist bias, the center-left government, and the severity of the Islamist threat facing their country. They work for major newspapers and broadcast channels; English and Hindi-language outlets, purely Indian companies, and some with an international reach. Their concern was genuine; their passion intense.

But because, they told me, they "would surely be sacked" if their editors or colleagues heard those candid opinions, we met in out of the way hotels, coffee shops, and other inconspicuous places. So concerned were they that only some agreed to let me tape our conversations. And all of them-with the exception of Amitabh Tripathi-agreed to speak openly only so long as they remained anonymous. They hoped our interviews would garner support for their cause, especially in the United States. "At the very least," one told me, "perhaps it will help people know just how dangerous things here are."

"India is regarded as a very soft state."

Every journalist echoed the sentiments expressed by this one. "The US and India are two great democracies. We [India] must support the US War on Terror. It is the only thing we should do!" They are frustrated and concerned, however, at India's reticence to do so whole heartedly. The ruling parties "fear a negative response from Muslims [and a loss of votes even though] more people believe India should openly ally itself with the US in the war on terror...the politicians are afraid to be seen as anti-Muslim."

Muslims make up about 20 percent of the Indian population, and their interest groups and organizations are united and vocal. In the media, reports must adhere to a certain formula "because they feel that these kinds of [anti-terror] reports will build up feelings against Muslims." Thus, they attribute things to generic "terrorists, but they are not terrorists. They are Indian Muslim institutions getting money from the Saudis...to create mosques that look like five-star hotels."

In the lead up to this year's Indian budget, Muslim groups rolled out statistics showing their constituents lagging behind in education and income and demanded subsidies and government commitments. No one challenged their assumption that the lag was due to prejudice or that the Indian taxpayers had to shoulder the burden. They simply caved and acceded to most of the demands. Hence, the budget contains large sums for Muslim pilgrimages to Jerusalem's Al Aqsa, but not a penny for stateless Hindu refugees from Islamist terror in Bangladesh. "If you are pro-Hindu, you are called a racist."

India's parliamentary system also complicates things. The ruling Congress Party had to ally itself with Indian Communists (CPIM) to oust the right wing Bhatariya Janata Party (BJP). The CPIM is part of the ruling coalition and holds the balance of power. "If they believe their demands are not being met, they can bring down the government. This is why India still has not ratified the nuclear deal with the US." Many Congress leaders recognize its critical security role and want to sign it, but their communist partners have made the deal's rejection key to their remaining in the coalition. This also helps explain India's puzzling reaction to the recent Maoist takeover in neighboring Nepal. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukharjee hailed the communist victory as a new era in South Asian politics even after the new Nepalese commissars vowed to end "Indian dominance" in Nepal. "He comes from West Bengal...and cannot represent his state without support of communists," which drives Indian foreign policy.

"Israel is our role model; America is our ally."

The wedge issue separating the Old Left elites from today's Indian conservatives is Israel. The MSM reports Israel as the villain in the Middle East and the Palestinians as victims. For the first half century of their existence, India and Israel did not even have diplomatic relations. It was not until the 1990s that common security concerns prompted a thaw; and relations did not really take off until 2003 with a visit by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Previous Indian politics built on the late Jawaharlal Nehru's union with Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito and Egypt's Gamal Nasser to form the non-aligned bloc of nations. The anti-US and anti-Israel course they charted set the basis for the UN's endemic hatred of both nations and dominated Indian policy for decades. That is why, one journalist told me, "there is something of a generation gap between the [established and generally older] editors and publishers" and people today.

Media coverage remains biased, which is why, according to Tripathi, it came as a tremendous surprise to many Indians when they saw evidence that Israelis were the victims of Arab terror. They began wondering at MSM condemnation of actions that were no less self-defense than their own. "We must give people the real picture of Israel-Palestine struggle" as parallel to our own struggle for existence. "The network of madrassas and imams in India, holds that the entire subcontinent was once under Muslim rule and still would be were it not for the British. That is how they look at Israel, as darul Islam"; that is, as a land once under Muslim hegemony and so by rights always under it. They opposed Indian partition in 1947 and the partition of Palestine in 1948, because it would recognize the legitimacy of the non-Muslim state on land they consider their own.

Many Indians "are enraged" by their nation's "soft policy" and have begun holding up Israel as a role model publicly. They also point to Israel's development in areas like agriculture and defense. "Despite adversities, Israel progressed a lot but we Indians were far lagging behind." "Without a doubt," another said, "if Israel did not say to hell with those who wanted it to be soft, it would be gone. And if India does not do the same thing, it will be gone because the official philosophy of the [Muslims] is the same."

A couple days after Tripathi and I parted, I found myself addressing a journalism class at the University of Lucknow in Upper Pradesh province. I spoke about the role of journalists, the war against Islamist terror, and about Bangladeshi Hindus living in India-victims of ethnic cleansing. The students were lively and engaged on a variety of topics, but their eyes really lit up when I mentioned that I am a Zionist and had been to Israel. Their thirst for knowledge and analysis seemed unquenchable; their questions non- stop. "How has such a small country like Israel been able to defeat all of the Arabs and their terrorists?" "How can we [India] be more like Israel?" Even the one student who took a vocal, anti-Israel position addressed admitted to the class that "I have to do more work to check my information."

"Axis of evil and axis of terror in this world are Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran"

"There is not a single democracy between Tel Aviv and New Delhi, and if we keep taking the road of weakness, our enemies could easily defeat us...Our foreign policy is to have friendly relations with our neighbors. But our neighbors are all radical Islamists and dictators." These journalists freely admit that they are not "completely objective, but at least we say so" in contrast to the MSM. They believe that the vast majority of India's 1.1 billion people see things the way they do but that their nation has been hi-jacked by "leftists, weaklings, and corrupt people." For instance, one said, "it's a crime that the communists are still in power. They use intimidation and voter fraud, but Congress lets them because they want to stay in power. If BJP and Congress would come together and force a fair election, the Communists will lose."

Providing Indians with good information, uncensored by a fearful and rigid MSM is what Amitabh Tripathi hopes to accomplish with Lokmanch. "The web site is only the first step," he said. "Small, local papers publish in huge numbers and they are not part of the mainstream media. They are just as frustrated with things as we are. We want to channelize (sic) them to become an alternative media." He estimates it will take "two to three years perhaps" to build a news network and mobilize opinion makers in India. Several small papers already have joined Tripathi's network. We can help by providing them with access to news and opinion and original articles (much as I did with Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury in Bangladesh). And like all such endeavors, this one is struggling to find funds, as well.

Mandhol Kalan is a small village about 50 miles from Delhi where Deoband imams banned television, radio, photography, even singing. One Hindi TV network did a story exposing it, which forced the government to react. But instead of addressing the issue it raised, the Ministry responded by distributing new television sets. Not surprisingly, the Deobandis returned, confiscated the TVs, and re-instituted the ban. But now, the government does not return calls, and networks have not returned to Mandhol Kalan. Thus, just outside the Indian capital is a village that makes Afghanistan look like Las Vegas. Worse, said one of the journalists involved in the original report, the media's silence "allows [the Islamists] to impose their views exclusively and produce more terrorists."

RSS smartening up!

It was so good to see the RSS finally waking up and doing something sensible. Hopefully they will follow this through instead of just stopping with a warning. It should send a good message to the rest so they will avoid maligning the RSS without any basis!

http://www.indopia.in/India-usa-uk-news/latest-news/536514/National/1/20/1

"The RSS may take legal action against NCP chief Sharad Pawar for levelling "false" allegations against it in connection with various terror strikes, VHP spokesman Surendra Jain today said. Accusing the RSS of being involved in the Nanded explosions, Pawar had yesterday hit out saffron outfits, alleging that they might have links with other terror attacks, including Malegaon blast.
"False allegation have been levelled against Sangh (by Sharad Pawar). Sangh will give its reply. It will take the required legal action," Jain told reporters here adding that Pawar's provocative statement was a "fit case" to invoke provisions of NSA against him.
He alleged that Pawar made such statement only to gain Muslim vote.
"By saying that there has not been a single blast in the country after the Maharashtra Government arrested those behind the Malegaon blast, he tried to provoke them," Jain charged.
Addressing a joint campaign rally of Congress, NCP and RPI in suburban Bandra yesterday, Pawar had alleged that RSS was involved in Nanded blast three years ago and"these forces were also involved in Purna, Parbhani and Ajmer blasts".

Political Vocabulary in India

I am fascinated by the blatant hypocrisy in the use of words within political circles in India. I believe it is done on purpose to mislead the public. It will be nice if we have a law like the British "Trade Descriptions Act" of 1968 so that these political and religious parties do not misrepresent themselves.

Firstly, you have the famous "Secular" Vs "Communal" tags. An analysis of what these words mean in the Indian context clearly shows that the meanings and the words have been interchanged!! The "secular" congress and communists are the least secular of all the parties!

Then you have the word "democracy" or "democratic" which again is misused. Anytime one comes across a party or organization that has the word "democratic" in it, it should be shunned immediately. Here are some examples of "democratic" organizations,

P.D.P. - Peoples democratic party - A rabidly islamic and seccessionist organization

D.Y.F.I. - Democratic youth federation of India - A fanatical communist student organization

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/07/stories/2008110760971600.htm

S.A.R. Geelani is a kashmir separatist and a terrorist. Imagine inviting him to talk to Indians about demoracy?!!
The "University community" in this case is a Commie/muslim combine. Again typically giving themselves a very innocuous label!

Other Anti-national organization hiding under innocuous labels include-

K.F.D. - Karnataka Forum for Dignity, which is nothing but an Islamic fundamentlist group with links to SIMI

P.F.I. - Popular front of India - Another pro-Islamic anti national organization which uses nice words such as freedom, justice, equality to hide their venomous agenda of Islamic conquest.

The Truth behind Kandhahar

Recently with the election about to start there has been a lot of mud-slinging against the BJP with Congress falsely accusing the BJP of many things it is not guilty of. One such accusation is that the BJP government succumbed to the hijackers of the Indian Airlines plane and therefore they do not have any right to talk against the Congress on their bad performance on terrorism.

This article by Kanchan Gupta is eye opening as to what really happened.

The truth behind Kandahar

Kanchan Gupta

Was it really an ‘abject surrender’ by the NDA Government?

There have been innumerable communal riots in India, nearly all of them in States ruled by the Congress at the time of the violence, yet everybody loves to pretend that blood was shed in the name of religion for the first time in Gujarat in 2002 and that the BJP Government headed by Mr Narendra Modi must bear the burden of the cross.

Similarly, nobody remembers the various incidents of Indian Airlines aircraft being hijacked when the Congress was in power at the Centre, the deals that were struck to rescue the hostages, and the compromises that were made at the expense of India’s dignity and honour. But everybody remembers the hijacking of IC 814 and nearly a decade after the incident, many people still hold the BJP-led NDA Government responsible for the ‘shameful’ denouement.

The Indian Airlines flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi, designated IC 814, with 178 passengers and 11 crew members on board, was hijacked on Christmas eve, 1999, a short while after it took-off from Tribhuvan International Airport; by then, the aircraft had entered Indian airspace. Nine years later to the day, with an entire generation coming of age, it would be in order to recall some facts and place others on record.

In 1999 I was serving as an aide to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the PMO, and I still have vivid memories of the tumultuous week between Christmas eve and New Year’s eve. Mr Vajpayee had gone out of Delhi on an official tour; I had accompanied him along with other officials of the PMO. The hijacking of IC 814 occurred while we were returning to Delhi in one of the two Indian Air Force Boeings which, in those days, were used by the Prime Minister for travel within the country.

Curiously, the initial information about IC 814 being hijacked, of which the IAF was believed to have been aware, was not communicated to the pilot of the Prime Minister’s aircraft. As a result, Mr Vajpayee and his aides remained unaware of the hijacking till reaching Delhi. This caused some amount of controversy later.

It was not possible for anybody else to have contacted us while we were in midair. It’s strange but true that the Prime Minister of India would be incommunicado while on a flight because neither the ageing IAF Boeings nor the Air India Jumbos, used for official travel abroad, had satellite phone facilities.

By the time our aircraft landed in Delhi, it was around 7:00 pm, a full hour and 40 minutes since the hijacking of IC 814. After disembarking from the aircraft in the VIP bay of Palam Technical Area, we were surprised to find National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra waiting at the foot of the ladder. He led Mr Vajpayee aside and gave him the news. They got into the Prime Minister’s car and it sped out of the Technical Area. Some of us followed Mr. Vajpayee to Race Course Road, as was the normal routine.

On our way to the Prime Minister’s residence, colleagues in the PMO provided us with the basic details. The Kathmandu-Delhi flight had been commandeered by five hijackers (later identified as Ibrahim Athar, resident of Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Gulshan Iqbal, resident of Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, resident of Defence Area, Karachi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, resident of Akhtar Colony, Karachi, and Shakir, resident of Sukkur City) at 5:20 pm; there were 189 passengers and crew members on board; and that the aircraft was heading towards Lahore.

At the Prime Minister’s residence, senior Ministers and Secretaries had already been summoned for an emergency meeting. Mr Mishra left for the crisis control room that had been set up at Rajiv Bhavan. In between meetings, Mr Vajpayee instructed his personal staff to cancel all celebrations planned for December 25, his birthday. The Cabinet Committee on Security met late into the night as our long vigil began.

Meanwhile, we were informed that the pilot of IC 814 had been denied permission to land at Lahore airport. With fuel running low, he was heading for Amritsar. Officials at Raja Sansi Airport were immediately alerted and told to prevent the plane from taking off after it had landed there.

The hijacked plane landed at Amritsar and remained parked on the tarmac for nearly 45 minutes. The hijackers demanded that the aircraft be refuelled. The airport officials ran around like so many headless chickens, totally clueless about what was to be done in a crisis situation.

Desperate calls were made to the officials at Raja Sansi Airport to somehow stall the refuelling and prevent the plane from taking off. The officials just failed to respond with alacrity. At one point, an exasperated Jaswant Singh, if memory serves me right, grabbed the phone and pleaded with an official, “Just drive a heavy vehicle, a fuel truck or a road roller or whatever you have, onto the runway and park it there.” But all this was to no avail.

The National Security Guards, whose job it is to deal with hostage situations, were alerted immediately after news first came in of IC 814 being hijacked; they were reportedly asked to stand by for any emergency. The Home Ministry was again alerted when it became obvious that after being denied permission to land at Lahore, the pilot was heading towards Amritsar.

Yet, despite IC 814 remaining parked at Amritsar for three-quarters of an hour, the NSG commandos failed to reach the aircraft. There are two versions as to why the NSG didn’t show up: First, they were waiting for an aircraft to ferry them from Delhi to Amritsar; second, they were caught in a traffic jam between Manesar and Delhi airport. The real story was never known!

The hijackers, anticipating commando action, first stabbed a passenger, Rupin Katyal (he had gone to Kathmandu with his newly wedded wife for their honeymoon; had they not extended their stay by a couple of days, they wouldn’t have been on the ill-fated flight) to show that they meant business, and then forced the pilot to take off from Amritsar. With almost empty fuel tanks, the pilot had no other option but to make another attempt to land at Lahore airport. Once again he was denied permission and all the lights, including those on the runway, were switched off. He nonetheless went ahead and landed at Lahore airport, showing remarkable skill and courage.

Mr Jaswant Singh spoke to the Pakistani Foreign Minister and pleaded with him to prevent the aircraft from taking off again. But the Pakistanis would have nothing of it (they wanted to distance themselves from the hijacking so that they could claim later that there was no Pakistan connection) and wanted IC 814 off their soil and out of their airspace as soon as possible. So, they refuelled the aircraft after which the hijackers forced the pilot to head for Dubai.

At Dubai, too, officials were reluctant to allow the aircraft to land. It required all the persuasive skills of Mr Jaswant Singh and our then Ambassador to UAE, Mr KC Singh, to secure landing permission. There was some negotiation with the hijackers through UAE officials and they allowed 13 women and 11 children to disembark. Rupin Katyal had by then bled to death. His body was offloaded. His widow remained a hostage till the end.

On the morning of December 25, the aircraft left Dubai and headed towards Afghanistan. It landed at Kandahar Airport, which had one serviceable runway, a sort of ATC and a couple of shanties. The rest of the airport was in a shambles, without power and water supply, a trophy commemorating the Taliban’s rule.

On Christmas eve, after news of the hijacking broke, there was stunned all-round silence. But by noon on December 25, orchestrated protests outside the Prime Minister’s residence began, with women beating their chests and tearing their clothes. The crowd swelled by the hour as the day progressed.

Ms Brinda Karat came to commiserate with the relatives of the hostages who were camping outside the main gate of 7, Race Course Road. In fact, she became a regular visitor over the next few days. There was a steady clamour that the Government should pay any price to bring the hostages back home, safe and sound. This continued till December 30.

One evening, the Prime Minister asked his staff to let the families come in so that they could be told about the Government’s efforts to secure the hostages’ release. By then negotiations had begun and Mullah Omar had got into the act through his ‘Foreign Minister’, Muttavakil. The hijackers wanted 36 terrorists, held in various Indian jails, to be freed or else they would blow up the aircraft with the hostages.

No senior Minister in the CCS was willing to meet the families. Mr Jaswant Singh volunteered to do so. He asked me to accompany him to the canopy under which the families had gathered. Once there, we were literally mobbed. He tried to explain the situation but was shouted down.

“We want our relatives back. What difference does it make to us what you have to give the hijackers?” a man shouted. “We don’t care if you have to give away Kashmir,” a woman screamed and others took up the refrain, chanting: “Kashmir de do, kuchh bhi de do, hamare logon ko ghar wapas lao.” Another woman sobbed, “Mera beta… hai mera beta…” and made a great show of fainting of grief.

To his credit, Mr Jaswant Singh made bold to suggest that the Government had to keep the nation’s interest in mind, that we could not be seen to be giving in to the hijackers, or words to that effect, in chaste Hindi. That fetched him abuse and rebuke. “Bhaand me jaaye desh aur bhaand me jaaye desh ka hit. (To hell with the country and national interest),” many in the crowd shouted back. Stumped by the response, Mr Jaswant Singh could merely promise that the Government would do everything possible.

I do not remember the exact date, but sometime during the crisis, Mr Jaswant Singh was asked to hold a Press conference to brief the media. While the briefing was on at the Press Information Bureau hall in Shastri Bhavan, some families of the hostages barged in and started shouting slogans. They were led by one Sanjiv Chibber, who, I was later told, was a ‘noted surgeon’: He claimed six of his relatives were among the hostages.

Dr Chibber wanted all 36 terrorists named by the hijackers to be released immediately. He reminded everybody in the hall that in the past terrorists had been released from prison to secure the freedom of Ms Rubayya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, while he was Home Minister in VP Singh’s Government. “Why can’t you release the terrorists now when our relatives are being held hostage?” he demanded. And then we heard the familiar refrain: “Give away Kashmir, give them anything they want, we don’t give a damn.”

On another evening, there was a surprise visitor at the PMO: The widow of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, whose plane was shot down during the Kargil war. She insisted that she should be taken to meet the relatives of the hostages. At Race Course Road, she spoke to mediapersons and the hostages’ relatives, explaining why India must not be seen giving in to the hijackers, that it was a question of national honour, and gave her own example of fortitude in the face of adversity.

“She has become a widow, now she wants others to become widows. Who is she to lecture us? Yeh kahan se aayi?” someone shouted from the crowd. Others heckled her. The young widow stood her ground, displaying great dignity and courage. As the mood turned increasingly ugly, she had to be led away. Similar appeals were made by others who had lost their sons, husbands and fathers in the Kargil war that summer. Col Virendra Thapar, whose son Lt Vijayant Thapar was martyred in the war, made a fervent appeal for people to stand united against the hijackers. It fell on deaf ears.

The media made out that the overwhelming majority of Indians were with the relatives of the hostages and shared their view that no price was too big to secure the hostages’ freedom. The Congress kept on slyly insisting, “We are with the Government and will support whatever it does for a resolution of the crisis and to ensure the safety of the hostages. But the Government must explain its failure.” Harkishen Singh Surjeet and other Opposition politicians issued similar ambiguous statements.

By December 28, the Government’s negotiators had struck a deal with the hijackers: They would free the hostages in exchange of three dreaded terrorists — Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Sheikh — facing various charges of terrorism.

The CCS met frequently, several times a day, and discussed the entire process threadbare. The Home Minister, the Defence Minister and the Foreign Minister, apart from the National Security Adviser and the Prime Minister, were present at every meeting. The deal was further fine-tuned, the Home Ministry completed the necessary paper work, and two Indian Airlines aircraft were placed on standby to ferry the terrorists to Kandahar and fetch the hostages.

On December 31, the two aircraft left Delhi airport early in the morning. Mr Jaswant Singh was on board one of them. Did his ministerial colleagues know that he would travel to Kandahar? More important, was the Prime Minister aware of it? The answer is both yes and no.

Mr Jaswant Singh had mentioned his decision to go to Kandahar to personally oversee the release of hostages and to ensure there was no last-minute problem. He was honour-bound to do so, he is believed to have said, since he had promised the relatives of the hostages that no harm would come their way. It is possible that nobody thought he was serious about his plan. It is equally possible that others turned on him when the ‘popular mood’ and the Congress turned against the Government for its ‘abject surrender’.

On New Year’s eve, the hostages were flown back to Delhi. By New Year’s day, the Government was under attack for giving in to the hijackers’ demand! Since then, this ‘shameful surrender’ is held against the NDA and Mr Jaswant Singh is painted as the villain of the piece.

Could the Kandahar episode have ended any other way? Were an Indian aircraft to be hijacked again, would we respond any differently? Not really. As a nation we do not have the guts to stand up to terrorism. We cannot take hits and suffer casualties. We start counting our dead even before a battle has been won or lost. We make a great show of honouring those who die on the battlefield and lionise brave hearts of history, but we do not want our children to follow in their footsteps.

We are, if truth be told, a nation of cowards who don’t have the courage to admit their weakness but are happy to blame a well-meaning politician who, perhaps, takes his regimental motto of ‘Izzat aur Iqbal’ rather too seriously.

The last Pagan European Emperor

I discovered that the last pagan emperor of Europe who tried his best to remove the murdering Xtianity from the empire and re-introduce paganism was Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus.

It can be seen that even then theXtians indulged in activities such as temple burning and mass murders of Pagans.

"He is sometimes termed Julian the Apostate, because of his rejection of Christianity in favour of Neo-Platonic paganism; Edward Gibbon wrote:
The triumph of the party which he deserted and opposed has fixed a stain of infamy on the name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has been overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the signal was given by the sonorous trumpet of Gregory Nazianzen."

Interesting notes on his opinion on Religion:

"The 4th century was a time of religious frenzy when people were obsessed with the divine and relations with the gods had to be kept in constant order. For Julian, as it had been for the Tetrachs, Christianity was a threat because by their non-compliance they placed the welfare of the state at risk and sought to abandon the faith that had been the founding of classical civilization. Julian considered Christianity a disease (ep. 41 & 58, 229d) and he referred to the members of the faith as Galileans to deny their creed the claim of being universal. Among his objections was that Christianity did not promote virtue by allowing its adherents simple absolution for sins, even capital crimes (336a-b). Indeed, Constantine had waited until his deathbed before being baptized to receive forgiveness for his numerous crimes. The veneration of martyrs he saw as a morbid preoccupation with corpses.
Julian had been at pains to keep his pagan faith a secret, even after he was proclaimed emperor he continued to observe Christian ceremonies. On the march from Naissos to Constantinople he openly performed a sacrifice which hr recounted to Maximus (ep. 8; Lib. 18.114) writing that the gods had commanded him to restore their worship to its former purity. However, Julian had no intention of merely restoring pagan religion but raising a challenge against the dominance of Christianity. Had Julian enjoyed a reign as long as his cousin or uncle paganism might have been established as a power to be reckoned with, a far greater threat to Christianity.

Among the reforms of early 362, Julian issued one or more decrees aimed at restoring the ancient faith. Property that had been confiscated from pagan temples was restored and public worship of all religious ceremonies, pagan as well as Christian, were allowed. Subsidies that the imperial government had paid to Christian clergy were withdrawn and shifted to pagan clergy and for the rebuilding of temples. Julian also recalled Christian heretics from exile hopeful that their presence would cause the Christian church to fragment.

Unlike Christianity, pagan religion did not perform missionary work to seek converts. Julian sought to remedy this by creating pagan monasteries and establish a systematic theology. Salutius, his military advisor in Gaul, wrote a catechism, almost certainly with Julian's participation, called On the Gods and the Cosmos that sought to establish religious unity, at least among the educated. Pagan faith, however, had never been exclusive in its worship; cities and small communities had charge of their own rites and festivals. Pagan monotheism, in Christian terms, did not exist and was the recognition of a supreme god, as Helios was for Julian (138c, 151a-d), with the other gods as his subordinates.

One of Julian's goals was to establish a pagan clergy with the emperor at the apex as pontifex maximus. Regional high priests, ideally schooled in Neoplatonic philosophy, would be given charge over major areas and were entitled to appoint priests. Julian intended to write a guide for the priesthood but it seems he did not accomplish this task, however, many of his principles appear in his letters. His priests were charged to perform charitable works based on brotherhood "because every man, whether he will or no, is akin to every other man" (291d). Priests were exhorted to be generous to the poor, even to criminals, in the belief that philanthropy does not hinder justice (290d-291a). In a letter to Arascius, the high priest of Galatia, (ep. 22) Julian is particularly clear in what expected from his priests. One fifth of the corn and wine that was provided to Arasacius must be set aside for the poor. The pagan priesthood in each city were to found orphanages and hostels that were open to all in need, not just pagans. Julian was critical of the Christians for keeping their charity to themselves (ep. 22.430d). These ideas may appear to be Christian in origin but the Stoics had maintained a long and deeply felt tradition of philanthropy based on brotherhood.

Pagan priests usually performed their duties part-time; Julian endowed pagan temples to allow a priest to worship full-time. Days and times were fixed for sacrifices and priests were urged to set an example for the community by abstaining from frivolous company and habits, and cultivating the reading of edifying books. They were to preach regularly in the temple and to avoid going to the theater. Julian defined the function of the images of the gods to his priests as symbolic representations only that allowed one to worship, but not being the god himself (293a-b, 294b-c). On the other hand, Julian associated the cult of the emperor with the traditional gods as their sole representative on earth, upholding the notion of the divinity of the emperor, something his model, Marcus Aurelius, would have disapproved of.

Always impatient, Julian had expected paganism to make quicker gains against Christianity (ep. 22.429c). in the summer of 362, while residing in Antioch, he issued a rescript concerning the character of the person city councils ought to appoint as teachers. But the law was so vague it needed further explanation by an additional edict (ep. 36). This law, in no uncertain terms, forbade Christians to teach classical literature for the reason that Christians should not teach what they do not believe. The literature of Greek antiquity was cherished by society; its study was intended to form a student's character and the ability to express oneself in a classical frame of reference. Anyone who wished to pursue a career in public affairs or gain social distinction needed such an education. For believers of Hellenism, writings such as those of Homer and Hesiod, were divinely inspired by the gods, so it was contrary to allow Christians to teach this sacred literature.

The law forced Christian teachers to abandon their professions, although Julian made an exception with Prohairesios, who he knew, but who refused the dispensation. Christian students, of course, could attend the lectures of pagan teachers, giving no choice to a youth who wished to pursue a career in law or the civil service. The edit was well-timed as Julian understood that Christians had not established an educational system of their own. Perhaps the scope of the law went further than teachers of literature to include other professions as the edict was considered inhumane by pagans (Amm. 22.10.7), as well as Christian. Whatever the full implications of this edit were for Julian's contemporaries, for modern historians, the passage of time has blurred its impact.

Julian's idea that Homer and Plato could not be appreciated unless they were thought of as sacred was eventually accepted by the Christian church. Homer, Plato and Aristotle, the main influences of intellectual life for the eastern empire, were given a place as saints in the kingdom of Christ."


There are many parallels to what happened in Europe at that time and what is happening in India right now.

An interview with Ram Madhav

Ram Madhav is the RSS spokesman. This is a good interview of him by the usually anti-hindu tehelka,

http://tehelka.com/story_main41.asp?filename=Ne040409rss_members.asp

An important point to note here is the following

"After the post-Godhra violence, there was propaganda the world over that the RSS is anti-Muslim and a violent organisation. The whole case was presented wrongly by a section of the media as if Hindus were butchering Christians and Muslims, which is not the reality. The ground situation is totally different, both in Gujarat as well as in Kandhamal.
A report telecast on a reputed English TV channel had sound-bites from some people accusing the RSS and the Hindu groups of the violence against Christians. Later, I saw a documentary by a filmmaker in Kolkata in which the same people were speaking against the Christians! Last week, a story on [Gujarat Chief Minister] Narendra Modi in The Atlantic magazine of the US devoted one full paragraph to abusing us."

The joke that is the Indian Media

Pen pricks is a ingenious blog which exposes the goan media for the joke that it is and also expands sometimes to the national scale. Of course whatever ails the goan media is common to the national media as well except it is on a smaller scale in Goa.

Here is one of their posts,

"We ran a post sometime back telling you guys, how the Goa Editor's Guild which met on July 11, 2008 at the Goa Marriott Resort, contemplated the extermination of Penpricks. Here's an invite issued by the GEG chairman and The Navhind Times editor Arun Sinha.

This scanned hard copy of the invite dispatched to the rest of the editors in Goa (barring the TOI resident editor, who did not attend the meeting, because he was made a last minute inclusion into this 'elite' club).

The point we are concerned about, is the second one on the agenda, where Arun Sinha wants the editors in the guild to "'discuss' the 'tirade' against guild members by blog spot Pen Pricks". Sinha wanted to fire at us, using the collective bulk of the guild-member's shoulders to steady his rifle. Read the last para. Sinha wanted have a 'collective decision on the above-mentioned issues'

Don't ask us how we got hold of the copy. We aren't gonna tell, but one thing's pretty clear guys. Over the last year and half, Penpricks does appear to have rattled these editor buggers a bit.

Our criticism of the media in Goa and the dysfunctional editorial leadership has begin hurting these guys. And we are not apologetic about it.We will continue to hammer these guys down, when they err. Hammer them with a hope, that the next time they are on the verge of making that mistake again, they will remember the beating they got from this blog.

Like Arun Sinha... From what we hear, a major grudge he has against the Penpricks, was when we published his mobile number in his own newspaper, as a contact in one of those shady massage parlour ads, along with two other editors.How dare they print these ads? And this guy Arun, has the gall to complain to the rest of the editors at the Guild meeting, that people still call him for a massage. Why did your newspaper publish an ad in the first place Arun? Didn't your newspaper have any objection to the fact that the classified ad was peddling 'minor children'. Or is entertainment with 'minor children' is the 'done' thing when it comes to The Navhind Times journos?

The Goa Editor's Guild as point number three on the agenda states, needs a place to function from. We really have no issues against these annual editorial orgies behind close-doors, but to have the government sponsor a place for it, is not really in the right spirit. How much more are these guys going to beg anyway?

We also have a problem with these guys meeting at the Marriot's for these GEG meetings, especially when employees at the Herald publication Pvt Ltd are getting paid after the 20th of every month because the management claims they are short of funds.

No no, we understand that the editors did not foot the bill themselves. They must have latched on to some industrialist to foot the Marriot bill. Most of these Goan editor sorts are pretty resourceful that way. That's the only way they can survive, like maggots feasting on journalism's carcass."

The Islamic threat

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=India&id=4564d4ad-4290-4163-a2e7-0aaf0de26557&Headline=Rape+victim+converts+to+Islam+to+marry+accused

A shocking news that shows exactly how muslims in India threaten innocent hindus. If someone stood up for this girl I bet the Indian media and the congress/left parties would brand them communal!!

"A rape victim has told a city court that she wants to marry her violator. Almost four years after Sheila was allegedly raped by Ali (both names changed), she has converted to Islam and is ready to accept him as her husband."

"Sheila, who had earlier identified the accused and deposed against him in court, pleaded that after registration of the case in 2005, people in her locality (Most likely more muslims) were constantly maligning the image of her family. “The rape case has made my life hell and jeopardised my future prospects of leading a happy married life. I want to marry Ali, as our marriage would end my ordeal,” Sheila told the court."

"The court dismissed Ali's bail plea saying rape was a criminal case and the accused should be punished for the crime. “The mother of the accused had approached the victim and put pressure on her for the marriage. It is a ploy to organise a false marriage ceremony to get the accused out of the jail,” said advocate Banju, who is associated with the Rape Crisis Cell, Delhi Commission of Women."

Congress and the Indian Media

This is a brilliant piece by Tarun Vijay on rediff on the systematic way the Congress party and the trecherous media are working hard to undermine the HIndu population in India.


Family legacy and the Varun effect

Those who opposed the Ayodhya temple movement, wore silence over the plight of Kashmiri Hindus, damaged the Ram Sethu and denied Lord Rama ever existed, denied the violence at the Godhra railway station, and embraced the butchers of 1984, are collectively gunning at Varun Gandhi's political life.

Column after column by Padma Shris in the media have created an atmosphere where supporting Varun has become a sin. Why? The simple reason is that the farmhouse of Gandhi-Nehru politics has been broken and a scion of the family chose to speak out as his conscience directed.

More than what Varun said or didn't say, it is the hurt and bewilderment over the loss of a Gandhi to the saffron brigade that has made the media and anti-Hindutva politicos react with such venom and acid. He was not heard, not given a chance to present his case, nor did forensic experts examine the so-called proof in the form of a CD containing his speech.

Varun has suddenly dwarfed the media-supported Rahul.

Nobody has ever heard a dynasty member to say with understandable assertion that he or she is a Hindu. Rather, they have always tried to look differently at things. They banned Hindu organisations, imposed the Emergency, removed basic human rights, never willingly facilitated the Sikh massacre probe, rewarded hardened criminals, made alliance with those who were convicted for murder or were facing scandalous charges, had the Muslim League join the government after Partition. Yet, they are nice, decent, peace-loving, patriotic democrats who love to tell others: 'Go read the Gita.'

When Indian soldiers were fighting Pakistani marauders in 1947, we didn't have enough jeeps. So orders were placed with the British company and supply demanded immediately. Our high commissioner in London V K Krishna Menon, Pandit Nehru's blue-eyed boy, messed it up. The jeeps reached a year late.

That was the first scandal in independent India.

We lost Gilgit, Baltistan and Skardu. We lost Aksai Chin because the government in New Delhi didn't know the exact boundaries and so no patrolling was being done there.

In all we have lost 125,000 square km to the Pakistanis and Chinese during Congress rule.

Plus we had a bad dream called 1962.

At that time our ordnance factories were making coffee machines as Pandit Nehru openly argued against having a well-equipped large army for defence. 'Who is going to attack us?' he would ask.
And people still remember the mysterious death of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who simply wanted Kashmir to be a part of India like Bihar or Bengal and the permit system to enter the valley be abolished. Kashmir had two rulers then, its ruler was called Sadr e Riyasat or 'head of state', and it had a prime minister. Mookerjee's martyrdom compelled the Nehru government to remove the permit system and the two heads of state.

Then we had the Mundhra scandal, the Nagarwala case, the L N Mishra murder. The Jana Sangh's fast-emerging leader Deendayal Upadhyaya was murdered. A Congress leader canvassed openly against the official Presidential candidate and supported her own choice as independent nominee. The original Congress symbol was a pair of oxen. After the official Congress broke up, they got the hand as a temporary symbol till the case is finally settled. It would never be.

Opposing Sonia Gandhi's sudden rise in politics only on the grounds of her foreign origin were leaders like Sharad Pawar and P A Sangma. Old Congressmen still feel sad that they lost dynamic and promising leaders of substance like Rajesh Pilot, Madhavrao Scindia and Jitendra Prasada, who could have steered the Congress on an entirely different and strong nationalist course. And a veteran like Sitaram Kesri was humiliated no end.

The only non-dynasty prime minister to run a Congress government for full five years successfully was insulted even in his death and his body-in-state was not allowed to enter the Congress headquarters in New Delhi. An airport in his home state to be named after him was opposed to by Congressmen although the proposal was put forth by an Opposition leader.
This is how they treat their party leaders not belonging to the family. They amended, abused and twisted the Constitution, put the entire Opposition behind bars for an undisclosed period and were harsh on the unyielding masses.

Yet, they are the democrats and secular lighthouse of freedom of expression and liberty.
They kept India backward in such a planned manner that even after 62 years of independence we are yet to have a spacious functional airport in the national capital, 70,000 farmers committed suicide in one year, decorated soldiers returned their medals in protest and a movie on our poverty-stricken 'slum dogs' fetches the Oscar. And they loved illegal infiltrators for the sake of their votes -- and still they say they are the inheritors of a freedom struggle that demanded the ouster of aliens.

No electoral reforms, no police reforms or strengthening their morale and weapons, the administration is still run the way it functioned during the Sahebs; and despite having won a well-fought war in 1971 we couldn't settle the Kashmir issue or control the jihadi tail-wagger in the neighbourhood.

Minorities were so well supported in Congress regimes that in the sixth decade after independence they felt a need to provide special crutches for them. Show the 'M' card and get the privilege, became the new secular psalm, further shrinking the space and opportunities for the condemned majority.

More than anything else they tried to wreck the morale of the assertive Hindus who faced the onslaught of invaders for 12 centuries with unparalleled bravery and with invincible spirit to protect their culture and the fragrance of the land. They deserved to be comforted most after a fractured independence and a massacre that was thrust upon them by a weak Congress leadership. Yet, a large section of Hindus today feel cheated and anguished.

They form governments in 12 states, prove they can run the country beautifully with a coalition of 25 parties with diametrically opposed ideologies. And one of their Swayamsewaks unfurled the tricolour six times from the ramparts of the Red Fort as the prime minister, impressed world leaders and the international media with a record of infrastructure-building, communication revolution and women's empowerment, chose a Muslim to be the President and conducted Pokhran II by fooling the CIA's 'eyes', and resisted extraordinary world pressure and sanctions.

Yet, they are called anti-development, anti-women, even anti-social. In not a single so-called mainstream media outlet are their views published, but every news item is scanned to hurl stones on them through editorialising on the front-page.

Still, they are the very objective face of our independent media.

The choicest abuses used by 'decent guarantors of the freedom of expression' columnists and editorial-writers can be collected as a bouquet of India's uncivilised lexicon, yet their films against the very spirit of Hindu nature get widely supported by a regime that survives on Hindu money and votes.

Their love for development and secularism is so deep that they can send dredgers to destroy a million years of faith and marine life because that was Ram Sethu, but won't dare to touch a six feet by six feet dargah in the middle of the road blocking the highway and causing accidents, for fear of annoying a vote-bank.

And then they say, they are the future of India.

Conspiracy to destroy India

The Congress seems to be leaving no stone unturned to destroy India and make it a slave country. It is a fact that our Prime minister Man Mohan Singh's daughter was involved in making a history textbook for Delhi University which had extremely derogatory statement against the Ramayana!

Here is a very good article on exactly how the congress and the communists are falsifying Indian history to paint a picture of their liking and in the process are leading India into destruction. (I personally disagree with the author's opinion on national language. The only language which really deserves to be the national language is Sanskrit)

The muck we teach our children
A conspiracy to distort history and de-nationalise students
By Himanshu Shekhar Jha

Education at the school stage in India today suffers from a number of ills which are difficult to detail within the compass of a few words. Each evil needs to be addressed separately and elaborately. One of such evil is the anti-Hindu, and therefore, the anti-national educational policy of the Government.

Though the word “National” has been used both in the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 and in the National Policy on Education (1986), if anything makes its absence conspicuous in the various textbooks published by the NCERT, it is love for the motherland and pride in her glorious past.

That the NCERT text books are anti-national is abundantly clear from the introductory note for teachers given in the book of social science called Social and Political Life II prescribed for class VII. The aforesaid note says:

SPL (Social and Political Life) functions by the pedagogic principle that the children learn best through an experimental understanding of concepts. This poses a contradiction when the effort is to write a “National” textbook, because a national text can neither sufficiently represent all the various aspects of the various locals, nor fix the sociological background of the child for whom the book is intended.”

If by the word “Locals” used above is meant children belonging to the minority community, that cannot be the ground for framing an anti-national educational policy which admittedly the NCF 2005 and NPOE 1986 diligently seek to do. If India is a democratic republic as the preamble to the Constitution solemnly declares, the interests of the children belonging to the majority community cannot be justifiably jeopardised on any ground whatsoever.

The anti-national features of the NCERT textbooks particularly those related to history and social studies are too glaring to be overlooked. Take, for example, a textbook in history for class VII. This book begins with the photograph of a Muslim cartographer from Arab and ends with that of another Muslim holding a scroll in his hand. The photograph of the Arab cartographer is carried again in much larger form covering almost half of a page. On the very next page appear pictures of Persian and Arabic handwritings and different varieties of their style called nastaliq and shikaste. While these photographs and pictures may have some significance for a book of cartography and art, they are not at all relevant for a book of history whether of India or any other country in the world. In any event, these totally irrelevant photographs and pictures are not going to give anyone knowledge about medieval India which the writer of a book of history is expected to impart.

The NCERT’s above textbooks of history abounds in the pictures of Muslim rulers such as Babar, Humayun, Akbar, Aurangzeb and others, but has no space to carry the portraits of Maharana Pratap, Chatrapati Shivaji and other illustrious historical personages of our sacred Motherland. What inspiration will our children, whether Hindus or Muslim, draw from the portrait of cruel Nadir Shah who had invaded our country, looted gold coins and jewels worth crores of rupees and perpetrated unspeakable atrocities on the people?

In the chapter on “The Mughal Empire” it has been written “Quite in contrast to their predecessors, the Mughals created an empire and accomplished what has hitherto seemed possible for only short periods of time. From the latter half of the sixteenth century they expanded their kingdom from Agra and Delhi until in the seventeenth century they controlled nearly all the subcontinent. They imposed structures of administration and ideas of governance that outlasted their rule leaving a political legacy that succeeding rulers of the subcontinent could not ignore.”

Does the aforementioned political legacy not include forcible conversion of millions of Hindus, destruction of their places of worship in large number and other abominable acts of cruelty and callousness? Does such political legacy deserve to be retained in future as the NCERT historians seems to suggest?

In the subsequent chapter while answering “Why were temples destroyed” an extremely vague and misleading statement has been given in the following words—“Because kings built temples to demonstrate their devotion to God and their power and wealth, it is not surprising that when they attacked one another’s kingdoms, they often targeted these buildings.”

Thus according to NCERT historians the temples were destroyed not by Muslim rulers, but by the Hindu kings themselves when they waged war with one another. Can any historical account be more untrue and anti-national?

The utter falsity of the above statement is evident from the illustration given in the text itself. The account of the Buddhist monk and chronicler Dhammakiti given in the textbook does not show that any Hindu temple had ever been destroyed by a Hindu king. It discloses that only valuables including the statue of Lord Buddha made entirely of gold and other golden images kept in various monasteries had been removed.

Even the subsequent citation related to Chola Kingdom does not lead to the inference that the temples were destroyed by the Hindu kings themselves.

The NCERT is not only all set to oppose nationalism as is evident from the introductory note to teachers already referred to in the foregoing paragraphs, but is also brazenly against patriotism. In the textbook Political Theory prescribed for class XI we come across an excerpt in which Rabindranath Tagore has wrongly and disparagingly spoken against patriotism. The poet might have his own reasons for expressing such views but the NCERT was not under any compulsion to include such anti-national views in a textbook which is prescribed for immature school going children who might certainly be misled by them.

In order to bring its anti-national and anti-patriotic educational policy in limelight the NCERT has super-scribed the caption Tagore’s critique of nationalism above the poet’s impugned quote which can be seen at page 108 of the book Political Theory for Class XI.

Tagore says, “Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I am live.”

Is there any hostility between patriotism and humanity? Should children at schools be taught not to be loyal to their Motherland by following the lofty ideals of patriotism? Should they not be told that true patriotism can never be opposed to humanity?

A man who cannot love and serve his own mother can never love and serve mankind. There is no conflict between patriotism and humanity and the question of the one triumphing over the other does not arise as the words “I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity” used by Tagore suggest. It is unethical to compare patriotism with ordinary glass and humanity with costly diamonds. Both are equally important.

In the textbook of history for class XII one of the most important and also most neglected subjects—national language has been discussed under the sub-heading “The Language of the Nation”.

Instead of teaching the students to have love and respect for Hindi which alone is fit to be the national language on India the NCERT had given the following excerpt in its book on Social Science from Gandhi's thought under the sub-heading “What should the qualities of a national language be?” which, inter alia, reads as follows:

“To confine oneself to Hindi or Urdu would be a crime against intelligence and patriotism.” (Harijan Sevak, October 12, 1947). How love for one’s own national language which is spoken by the majority of the people including both Hindus and Muslims, be a crime against patriotism?

There is no language in the world like Hindustani. How could a non-existent language become the national language of India?

There is no doubt that NCERT’s textbooks are creating misleading and anti-national feelings among students. A book of history particularly that which is taught in schools must embody moral lessons for the building of the character of students. This can not be done by the NCERT or any other institution run by the Government if its policy is anti-national.

Communal Indian Media

Found a good analysis of Indian Media's coverage of Varun Gandhi episode

Media communalism
If the media really believed that Varun Gandhi’s speech would cause unrest among a section of the people, did the repeat telecasts of the speech make any sense?
S R RAMANUJAN finds the media’s indignation hypocritical.

In one of his responses to media "interrogation", Jawaharlal Nehru's great grandson and a political debutant Varun Gandhi said that he was being targeted simply because he was a "Gandhi". What he probably meant was that because he was an "estranged Gandhi", he was on the firing line of his rivals (no prizes for guessing who they are) and specially the English media. The speech that was attributed to him, doctored or otherwise, was certainly not in good taste. His defence that the fact that his speech did not incite any single individual for nearly 15 days was by itself a pointer that there was no malice on his part, may not wash either.

However, the role of media is certainly open to question. While reporting that it was a "hate speech" "blatantly communal" etc, did the media behave responsibly by telecasting the tape umpteen times a day for the last few days? If the media really believed that the speech was intended to or likely to cause unrest among a section of the people, do the repeat telecasts of the speech make any sense, or does it show the media as a responsible institution?

When the Election Commission sincerely believes that it was indeed a "hate speech" and might cause communal disturbances, it should have intervened and restrained the media from repeat telecast. They did their job by reporting the event with the CD supplied to all channels by a mysterious source. Follow up stories need not always be with the same offensive CD. Finding an excuse to repeat the telecast of the CD only exposes the channels' real intentions. It also helps those who charge the mainline channels of being anti-majority.

Though conventional ethics demands that the source need not be disclosed, on instances like this, where the CD is not the result of the efforts put in by the reporting staff, revealing the source might help viewers make up their mind as to the intentions of those behind the CD that is dished out to them at least a dozen times a day, irrespective of the genuineness of the CD. Particularly so when Varun is harbouring a conspiracy theory. This is analogous to the tendency of both print and electronic media to decry obscenity while showing obscene pictures on the pretext of dealing with the subject, in the process titillating readers and viewers.

Varun Gandhi made certain observations relating to the context in which he made objectionable statements. He was citing atrocities, real or imaginary, committed on the majority community in the border constituency of Pilibhit. Should not the media make its own independent investigation into the charges made by the fresher in politics rather than repeating the telecast of the same CD? Is the media afraid that it will not help its ultra secular image?

When National Conference leader Omar Abdullah made a speech during the Trust Vote in the Lok Sabha stating that he was proud to be a Muslim and an Indian, the fell all over his speech, declaring it the best speech in recent times in Parliament. He was equivocal on the Amarnath issue during the speech and his role during the Amarnath agitation is no secret to the citizens of this country. But the media did not think he was communal or practising divisive politics when he spoke for Muslims.

Take the case of the Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen (MIM). Everyone knows how rabidly communal the party is. The MIM was an ally of the UPA in the last elections. Now, the party wants to have the veto power in the appointment of Police Commissioners or Director General of Police in Andhra Pradesh. MIM President Asaduddin Owaisi petitioned the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of AP against the inclusion of a particular officer in the panel for the top Police post stating that his "communal and high-handed" behaviour had alienated him from "the Muslims of Andhra Pradesh". So, the basic pre-condition for appointment to the top police post, it seems, is that he/she should enjoy the confidence of the minority community. If the majority community makes a similar demand, we know what the reaction of the media will be. The community or its leaders will attract instant criticism that they are divisive and communal. But the national media is silent over the MIM's demand.

Abdul Nassar Madhani's alleged terror links and the Kerala CPI-M's proximity to him is no news for the national media. Interestingly, while the chief minister betrays his helplessness on the issue stating that it takes time for him to get information from his intra-party rival and the state home minister, the latter feels there is no need for an enquiry into Madanis' terror links. The party wants Madani's PDP support to win elections. Never mind the fundamentalist nature of the PDP's policies and programmes. For the uninitiated, Madani was accused of master-minding the Coimbatore blast in the nineties to assassinate L K Advani who, however, had a narrow escape.

(Madani was acquitted of all charges in this case in 2007. Ed.)

The latest is Imran Kidwai's Chandigarh speech. Though he made the "hate speech" on March 15 closer to Delhi and not in far off Pilibhit, and the BJP petitioned the EC on March 19 with the CD which was circulated to the media by the party, the national media do not seem to have picked up the story. Imran Kidwai is a senior Congress leader and he said "I regret not being a mufti. Had I been one, I would have issued just one fatwa that going with the BJP amounts to committing kufr". AICC in-charge for Punjab Moshina Kidwai and party candidate and Union Minister Pawan Bansal were reportedly present at the public meeting in which Imran is alleged to have made this statement. This seems to be a perfectly secular sermon for our media. Hence, the deafening silence?

In contrast, on the same day, Mallika Sarabhai's decision to take on Advani in Gandhinagar was a great developing story for most of the national channels. There was a "live" debate with her in at least two English channels. While the anchors conceded that there was "negligible" chance of her winning, and that her real intention may be to hog publicity, the debate, nevertheless, continued for quite some time. Of course, in all fairness to her, she maintained that her foray into electoral politics was not to score a point or two on secularism.

An interesting side-show to this secular-communal diatribe is the petition filed by the "Vaishnavites" of Andhra Pradesh before the CEO, Hyderabad, against the CPI-M state secretary B V Raghvulu who asked the state finance minister K Rosaiah to wear "namam" and roam the streets of Andhra Pradesh as a mendicant. Vaishnavites felt that their sentiments were hurt by Raghavulu's statement as he ridiculed their sacred "namam". For the uninitiated, what the Chief Election Commissioner Gopalaswamy wears on his forehead is "namam". Even this story had no takers in the national media.

The lesson, therefore, is that communalism, whether prefixed with the labels like "majority" or " minority", is not confined to men occupying political space in this country. The media is also not untainted by it.

RSS-A secret organization?

A brilliant article on a report carried by the Times of India (becoming better known as TOIlet paper of India)

The Secretive RSS
24/03/2009 13:49:38
Article by Ratan Sharda

( A comment by Times of India in today's (23 Mar 2009) report about the new Sarsanghchalakof RSS, triggered off this article.)

My morning began as usual with freshening up myself with No. 1 newspaper of the world, Times of India accompanying to the wash room. I was stumped to find the RSS change of guard as the lead story. What’s gone wrong with the guys? Where had my familiar and comforting news about IPL and incest and violence related staple news?And how come a communal outfit got the top billing? I am yet to fathom this secret. But, I was surprised by the expert comment of TOI that RSS was a secretive organization. I reflected very hard on these comments by the most responsible newspaper of India (or the world). It won’t make a comment lightly on such an issue of national importance. I went back over my years or rather decades of association with RSS and tried to make sense of this comment. As a hapless citizen of India ensnared by RSS in his tender young age secretly through simple Indian games which were on the verge of extinction and a secret to our west educated elite intellectuals, maybe I never realized the secretive nature of RSS. So, I tried to day past regression analysis of self vis a vis RSS. I remembered the dubiousness of RSS recruitment. The simple looking fun loving teacher in RSS shakha had never told me that I was being initiated to a Hindu outfit which believed in Hindu consolidation and nor did he tell me that I would be taught the virtues (liabilities in today’s world) of high moral values and discipline without me realizing all this. All this happened so unknowingly to me.

Yes, now I could slowly comprehend the import of the wise words of TOI.May be the commands were designed in Sanskrit – an archaic and communal language so they could be kept a secret from people who wanted to study RSS?Why ofcourse, even the daily prayer the motherland was in Sanskrit. Naturally, our journalists couldn’t understand it and thought it was a Nazi exhortation to kill non-Hindus and talk of superiority of Hindus? Luckily, I was explained the meaning of this prayer. A simple booklet about it was available off the shelf from RSS promoted book shop. As it turns out the prayer glorified our motherland and reminds us of doing our best to work hard for the motherland for its all round progress.

Why this secretiveness I wonder now? Perhaps, we could have had it in English.I realize now that we had quaint names for simple activities. Like calling snacking together in team as ‘Chandan’. I am told, that the police got fooled by this secretiveness and went hunting for this guy ‘Chandan’ to arrest him after the first RSS ban in 1948. I had my own experience of this secretiveness when the police came calling to arrest my elder brother, who had been active years back in his youth and had moved to Surat by then, after the ban in 1975 during the glory days of emergency but failed to arrest me though I was a young activist giving trouble to police by being part of a team that organized ‘satyagrah’ every week in our college! Yes, we should have updated the volunteer list of police regularly.

As I grew up and got some responsible positions in RSS, I tried to remove the veil of secrecy by inviting press to various programmes of RSS. I used to feel quite let down when hardly any press person turned up for our programmes like festivals and camps etc. Generally, the English press reporters would simply forget the event by the evening probably with more interesting evening activities and the news would never get printed. If at all it got covered the inspiring speeches would be missing and so would be the stirring photographs of massive disciplined drills and parades.

I remember seeing a single photograph of RSS swayamsevaks taking bath on common taps in a camp with a cryptic line describing this chore, without any reference to the fact that the camp was being attended by nearly 10,000 RSS volunteers and had such a meticulous planning and organization that it would be envy of any organization. No indiscipline, no looting of stalls on way etc. etc.! Who is interested in such a boring organization.

Same fate awaited massive rallies of RSS or its associate organizations anywhere in India . I recall a massive Hindu mahasammelan that RSS associated organizations held in Mangalore just last week. Ofcourse it escaped the eyes of the so called National press as no one was beaten up nor was there any arson. May be if the volunteers had behaved abominably with some people the veil of secrecy over RSS could be ripped off.

I am aware, as a part of the young team of RSS workers during emergency, that the majority of people arrested during emergency were RSS workers. Not only that, but nearly 90% of satyagrahis who fought against emergency were from Sangh parivar. ( COMMENT: OF COURSE!! THE 'SECULARISTS' WERE COWERING IN THEIR RAT-HOLES!! THAT'S NEHRUVIAN SECULARISM!!).

But, all this was done so diabolically secretively that our thought leaders never got to know about this secret. They didn’t even study police records to find who were arrested and kept in jails for months, spoiling careers and businesses of thousands of RSS and associated activists. When new born Janata Party had no cadres or organization, RSS provided a readymade organization and cadres to fight elections and defeat the fascist Congress ideology. This secret was unraveled when our dear socialist friends tasted the fruits of power on the shoulders of young people like us and then tore apart the dreams of venerable leaders like Jai Prakash.

May be, what upsets the critics is the secret of the success of RSS. How does it manage to organize such massive numbers without any publicity machinery or media relations? May be, RSS should share the biggest secret of this success. May be it is mutual love and trust and bonding between its members, the nurturing of young workers by sheer love and training by seniors by examples of their own selfless and simple lives, rather than by lectures, the selfless love for the motherland, burning desire to do something for the society.

I am still thinking all this over and trying to unravel the secret.As I think over, I realized that the veil of secrecy has been thrown around RSS by the press itself. It thinks that by closing its eyes to the biggest voluntary organization in the world and not letting people know about its contributions to the society. May be in its own judgemental wisdom it has decided to be the prosecutor and the jury and decided that RSS work must be kept a secret from the society so the harm can be kept to the minimum.

J.P. Morgan and Chase

Found some interesting information on the links between Chase bank and the Nazi's in Germany!
Apparently Hitler was a creation of Wall Street financiers and the international bankers. This has been verified as a historical fact by British historian and writer Antony C. Sutton. The roles played by J.P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, General Electric Company, Standard Oil (now Exxon), Chase and Manhattan banks, and other corporations in the rise of Hitler and Nazism was well documented by Sutton.

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=6209.0;wap2

THE RIGHT-WING RELATIONSHIP OF CHASE MANHATTAN & JP MORGAN
by Robert Lederman

The Rockefeller family's Chase Manhattan Bank has as its motto, "Chase: The right relationship." As Chase is on the verge of buying J.P. Morgan and becoming the world's richest bank, it might be timely to explore a bit of the history behind that slogan. Chase Bank actively supported the most viciously racist regime in world history, Nazi Germany's Third Reich. Unlike many other banks which also have done business with murderous regimes, Chase's involvement was much more than just a business arrangement. Morgan Bank has a similar history of closely working with Hitler and advocating Nazism both before and throughout WWII.

Chase Bank, its owners, the Rockefeller family and the family's other main business--Standard Oil (now known as Exxon)--were an integral part of Hitler's war effort. Rockefeller, Standard Oil and Chase Bank helped put Hitler in power, helped him build the world's deadliest army, supplied him with oil throughout the war, and after the war helped the Nazi elite to smuggle billions of dollars stolen from Holocaust victims and Nazi-occupied countries out of Germany and into Swiss and Latin American banks.

The powerhouse of Germany's war industry was I.G. Farben, the chemical company that patented and manufactured Zyklon-B, the nerve gas used in Auschwitz. The relationship of I.G. Farben to Auschwitz went much deeper than Zyklon-B. Auschwitz was built by I.G. Farben as a slave labor camp that manufactured rubber and other materials for the Nazi war effort and "recycled" gold fillings, human hair, and other substances derived from those worked to death or killed in the gas chambers. At the end of WWII, I.G. Farben was transformed into BASF, Bayer, and Hoescht.

Rockefeller/Standard Oil was the largest stockholder in I.G. Farben, and I.G. Farben was--next to Rockefeller--the largest shareholder in Standard Oil.. Presidents Roosevelt and Truman considered Standard Oil's executives and Rockefeller to be traitors to America. John D. Rockefeller was also the world's biggest promoter of Eugenics, the pseudo-science of racial differences, selective breeding, and "race betterment." Among the "scientists" his foundation funded was Auschwitz's infamous doctor of death, Josef Mengele. Eugenics led directly to the Holocaust. Today, Rockefeller foundations continue to fund Eugenics programs worldwide under the guise of improving human health, population control, and disease control.

In America Rockefeller/Chase's most influential front may be the Manhattan Institute, a right wing think tank founded by former CIA director William Casey after he helped bring thousands of former Nazis to America following WWII. The Manhattan Institute is the origin of every racially-biased, constitution-violating policy Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has instituted in New York City during the past six years.

Among the resident scholars associated with the Institute is Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve. This controversial book advances the idea that African Americans are genetically and intellectually inferior to Whites as a justification for eliminating welfare and affirmative action.

The Manhattan Institute is also the originator of G.W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism." Bush, who has presided over more executions than all other US governors combined, claims that next to the Bible, Chase Bank's Manhattan Institute has been the greatest influence on his ideas. G.W. Bush's father, George Bush, was a Rockefeller puppet, according to Ronald Reagan, and had numerous former Nazis involved in his presidential campaign. G.W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, managed Wall Street front companies that raised money for Hitler and shipped supplies to the Nazis. These companies were seized by the US government in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act.

he Rockefeller's art museum, the Museum of Modern Art, insists on displaying art seized by the Nazis from Jews on their way to the concentration camps. It recently got a $65 million dollar gift of NYC tax dollars from Mayor Giuliani at the same time he was cutting the budget for art education in NYC schools and asking the US Supreme Court to eliminate First Amendment protection for all visual art.

Chase Manhattan Bank's logo is a modified swastika. When you see or hear their ads about Chase: "The Right Relationship," think Hitler, Nazism and Auschwitz. Morgan Bank, the Swiss Banks that stole and hid Jewish bank accounts, and Chase belong together. They truly are, "the right relationship."