** Wolf in sheep’s clothing

Atma Jyoti Ashram: Wolf in sheep’s clothing
By Swami Devananda Saraswati

Organiser Weekly

The sponsorship of Ramana Ashram and the publication of the Atma Jyoti Ashram brothers’ articles under assumed Hindu names in the Ramana Ashram journal Mountain Path is not really surprising. Sri Ramana Ashram is a family business headed by a hereditary trustee. The current president is the Advaita Vedanta paralogist VS Ramanan. The Ashram was declared a non-Hindu institution in 1963.

This kind of advice is irresponsible, especially when made to foreign seekers who take the guru’s instruction as divine word. Christianity is based on a false doctrine of vicarious salvation, and there is nothing in Hindu scripture or the ancient Rishi tradition to support the ill-conceived advice handed out to foreign seekers by Hindu teachers who do not want to take spiritual responsibility for their charges.

In Catholic Ashrams: Sannyasins or Swindlers, Sita Ram Goel describes the Christian missionary strategists’ plan to infiltrate Hindu society and gain the confidence of the people: “Christianity has to drop its alien attire and get clothed in Hindu cultural forms. In short, Christianity has to be presented as an indigenous faith. Christian theology has to be conveyed through categories of Hindu philosophy; Christian worship has to be conducted in the manner and with the materials of Hindu puja. Christian sacraments have to sound like Hindu samskaras; Christian churches have to copy the architecture of Hindu temples; Christian hymns have to be set to Hindu music; Christian themes and personalities have to be presented in styles of Hindu painting; Christian missionaries have to dress and live like Hindu sannyasins; Christian mission stations have to look like Hindu Ashrams. And so on, the literature of Indigenisation goes into all aspects of Christian thought, organisation and activity and tries to discover how far and in what way they can be disguised in Hindu forms.”

The late Sita Ram Goel wrote this in 1988, and he would not be surprised to learn that Christian priests and monks in America have adopted these very tactics to attract a whole generation of American youth interested in Hindu spirituality, back to Christianity. The leader in this movement today is Abbot George Burke of Atma Jyoti Ashram in Cedar Crest, New Mexico. He is better known on the Internet as Swami Nirmalananda Giri.

Isha Jyoti to Atma Jyoti
Atma Jyoti Ashram was originally called Sri Isha (Jesus) Jyoti Sannyas Ashram and was located at Borrego Springs, California. Fr. George Burke is a Greek Orthodox Christian priest, and if reports are correct, most or all of the community of brothers attached to him are Christian priests.

On a visit to India, Fr. George met the Bengali saint Ananda Mai Ma. She is said to have instructed him to remain in the Christian religion and continue his Christian practices. This is not unusual advice from a Hindu guru. In spite of their enlightenment, most are grossly ignorant of Christianity’s ideology and imperial designs, its triumphant, sectarian prayers and bloody rituals. Hindu gurus advise their foreign followers to remain in the religion of their forefathers, not realising the negative consequences of their thoughtless words.

This kind of advice is irresponsible, especially when made to foreign seekers who take the guru’s instruction as divine word. Christianity is based on a false doctrine of vicarious salvation, and there is nothing in Hindu scripture or the ancient Rishi tradition to support the ill-conceived advice handed out to foreign seekers by Hindu teachers who do not want to take spiritual responsibility for their charges.

Ananda Mai’s alleged instruction suited Fr. George and his followers and they quoted her later as their authority to don the ochre robes of Hindu sannyasis and adopt the Sanskrit titles and names of Smartha Dasnami monks. The fact that Ananda Mai Ma was not an initiated Dasnami sannyasin and had no authority to give them ochre robes or Dasnami titles did not deter them in the impersonation drama.

They continued to perform the bloody sacrifice of the Christian Mass in secret, even as they presented themselves in public as simple, unaffiliated Hindu monks. It was the old fraud of Robert de Nobili and Henri Le Saux being repeated on an unsuspecting public, only this time it was an American and not an Indian public being duped by persuasive snake oil salesmen.

Om on Cross
At one point in their career, while still the Sri Isha Jyoti Sannyas community in Borrego Springs, they were caught out in their charade by none other than the Shaiva Siddhanta Church in Hawaii. The brothers did carpentry for a living, being followers of the Carpenter, and one of the items they produced for sale was a Roman cross with the sacred Hindu word-symbol ‘Om’ nailed to its cross bars. They sent a sample to Hinduism Today with the hope of attracting sales. They got instead a negative response and a return of the obscene article. Hindus, even modern American Hindu converts, are deeply offended by this kind of syncretism and do not understand the appeal it has for New Agers and gay Christian priests who flaunt it on their cassock fronts as a sign of their radical universalism.

Catholic writer S. Kulandaiswami said vis-à-vis Fr. Bede Griffiths and his bastardised Om-on-Cross iconography: “Ritual, rites, and ceremonies in Hinduism have not been changed to suit the whims of modern innovators. Griffiths, by superimposing the sacred word ‘Om’ on a Cross, imagines he has created a new spiritual phenomenon. On the contrary, he confuses and insults both Hinduism and Christianity. He fails to realise that by such acts he is neither enriching Christianity nor honouring Hinduism. One has to respect the unique rites and rituals of each religion, which placed in another context, will be meaningless and confusing.”

In a later debate published in the letters column of The Indian Express, Chennai, in 1989, The Hindu correspondent S Venkatachalam wrote: “It is highly outrageous and objectionable to compare … Hindu leaders and religious heads with the Christian missionary experimentalists like Bede Griffiths, Hans Staffner and the Christian missionary Fr. Henri Le Saux, the so-called Abhishiktananda. Swami Vivekananda, Gandhiji, Ramana Maharshi and Paramacharya of Kanchi never resorted to such experimentation of a “cocktail religion” or “masala and kichidi religion” by mixing religious symbols, donning the dress of a Christian father or Muslim mullah, building church-like or mosque-like temples, fabricating Bible or Quran-like Hindu shlokas, or asserting that Rama or Krishna or Shiva is the only God and by accepting Him alone one can get salvation.”

The Sri Isha (Jesus) Jyoti Sannyas Ashram brothers did not succeed in pedalling their original handcrafted ‘Om-on-cross’ to the Hindus of Hawaii then, but in their new incarnation as sadhus of Atma Jyoti Ashram they have succeeded in getting advertising space in Hinduism Today and the sponsorship of Ramana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai. Yet they remain, so far as we know, Christian priests in orange robes with false Sanskrit names and titles, the usual New Age bells and beads added. They are quite a success in Christian duplicity, if not in true Hindu spirituality.

The sponsorship of Ramana Ashram and the publication of the Atma Jyoti Ashram brothers’ articles under assumed Hindu names in the Ramana Ashram journal Mountain Path is not really surprising. Sri Ramana Ashram is a family business headed by a hereditary trustee. The current president is the Advaita Vedanta paralogist VS Ramanan. The ashram was declared a non-Hindu institution in 1963.

Theosophists and Benedictines
Though Ramanan is the editor of Mountain Path as required by law, the de facto editor is the Australian theosophist Christopher Quilkey, a disciple of the anti-modernist French Sufi Rene Guenon. Quilkey is assisted by the American Catholic Benedictine monk Brother Michael.

Brother Michael divides his time between Shanti Vanam near Tiruchirappalli, the Benedictine hermitage of the notorious Christian missionary Fr. Bede Griffiths, and Ramana Ashram in Tiruvannamalai. He is a Catholic priest and will say, Mass whenever and wherever the Catholic spirit moves him, including Ramana Ashram and other places of Hindu pilgrimage and worship. His other duty is to vet articles sent to Mountain Path and forward them to Christopher Quilkey in Kodaikanal for acceptance and publication. Ramanan shows little or no interest in the articles selected for publication, and though the ashram follows Vedic Brahminical traditions and can afford to employ a professional, it is not able to find and keep a responsible and dedicated Hindu editor for its magazine.

Ramanan appears to be in a state of denial regarding Christians in his own ashram and missionaries in general. He writes, “There is no doubt that Christianity has, over centuries been a proselytising religion and some of the preachers had indulged in scurrilous propaganda against Hindu beliefs and mores. But there is nothing to worry. The worst is over and the Vedantic Truth is eternal and imperishable. I know a number of Christian priests who revere Hinduism and Vedanta. It is well known that Westerners are increasingly being drawn to Yoga and Vedanta which Swami Vivekananda called the ‘Religion of the Future.’”

Nothing to worry, eh? The worst is over, eh? Either Ramanan is a fool or he is in league with the Christian missionaries who publish in the ashram journal.

The first articles to appear in Mountain Path by an Atma Jyoti Ashram member were by a Catholic priest who resides in Tiruvannamalai and calls himself Swami Sadasivananda Giri. The articles were inoffensive enough, but because it was known to a number of sadhus and Ramana Ashram devotees that the author was in fact a Christian priest masquerading as a Hindu sannyasi, the matter was brought to the Ramana Ashram president’s attention with the request that Sadasivananda be identified by his real Christian name and titles to Mountain Path readers.

The letter was ignored, and when the April-June 2009 issue of Mountain Path appeared, it was discovered that not only did Swami Sadasivananda’s article appear without proper identification, but an article by Fr. George Burke, Greek Orthodox abbot of Atma Jyoti Ashram, New Mexico, was also included under the name Swami Nirmalananda Giri. The request to identify Christian contributors to the journal was not only denied by the Ramana Ashram president Ramanan, but a strong message of contempt and scorn for Hindu sannyas traditions was given out by the Mountain Path editor and his dubious, uncommitted assistants.

Infiltration by Impersonation
The problem of Christian priests and missionaries masquerading as Hindu sannyasis is an old one in India. The impersonation drama was first carried out by Robert de Nobili in Madurai in the 17th century.

It was continued and made notorious by Fr. Bede Griffiths (aka Swami Dayananda) in the 20th century, though his collaborator, the French Benedictine monk Fr. Henri Le Saux, was without doubt the most successful Hindu sadhu impersonator. He is known to this day by his assumed Sanskrit name Swami Abhishiktananda, and had none other than the late Swami Chidananda Saraswati of Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh as a patron.

Also Read:

1)  Fooling Hindus  2) Shlokas on Mount

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** Artistic Freedom/Responsibility

Artistic Freedom & Social Responsibility

U. Narayana Das

ivarta.com

This article raises questions about the observations of Indian courts which have been generally liberal in preserving individual freedoms vis-à-vis the rights of the majority religion. Could the defenders of artistic freedom, have inveigled the courts into delivering ill-conceived judgements by speciously citing mischievous evidence? In the process were the courts oblivious to pertinent alternative views on the matter?

There was a time when judicial pronouncements were characterized by the erudition and scholarship of the judges in quoting chapter and verse, and precedents in jurisprudence that they are based on. In Shakespeare”s “The Merchant of Venice”, both Shylock and Portia exclaim: “A Daniel come to judgement!” Could you imagine that the Delhi High Court judgement about which this article primarily deals with, was anchored on an internet blog posted by a fourth year law student in Bhopal?

Did the Delhi High Court grant M. F. Hussain amnesty?

Did Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Dlehi High Court grant amnesty for all of M. F. Hussain”s paintings? If you watched English news channels on the day the judgement was delivered or read English newspapers the next day or read references to the judgement in articles / columns since, you should be excused for concluding that Justice Kaul did so. Let us examine the facts:

In point of fact, the judge held that in his

“considered view, the alleged past misconduct of the petitioner cannot have any bearing on the present case … It is made clear that the paintings depicting Hindu Gods / Goddesses in nude by the petitioner do not form a subject matter of the present case … The persons who may feel aggrieved by those set of paintings have an appropriate remedy in law to get their rights redressed. Hence, commenting on those paintings would be prejudging the said paintings and passing a verdict on the same thus prejudicing the rights of the accused / petitioner.” (Para 103)

The last sentence in Justice Kaul”s verdict (in the criminal revision petition No. 114 / 2007 of the Delhi High Court) came as manna from heaven for the secularists. Justice Kaul ended his 29-page judgement with the remark:

“A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home painting his canvass!”

The following observation of the judge must have made their day for them, for was it not one of the arguments the left-liberal intellectuals proffered in support of Hussain all along?

It seems that the complainants are not the types who would go to art galleries or have an interest in contemporary art, because if they did, they would know that there are many other artists who embrace nudity as part of their contemporary art.” (Para 107)

In the instant case, firstly, the judge allowed the criminal revision petition and dismissed summons and warrants issued against M.F. Hussain by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Delhi based on the plea of the petitioner (M.F. Hussain) that

“..the said painting was sold to a private collector in the year 2004 and that the petitioner did not deal with the same in any manner whatsoever after sale..Subsequently in the year 2006, the said painting entitled Bharat Mata was advertised as part of an on-line auction for charity for Kashmir earthquake victims organized by a non-governmental organization with which the petitioner claims to have no involvement..the petitioner at no point in time had given a title to the said painting” (Para 5).

Secondly, the judge discussed at length about the limits of artistic freedom and the applicability of allegations such as obscenity, prurience, pornography etc. within the meaning of the “Obscene Publications Act” or Sections 292, 294 and 298 of the IPC, and specifically sub-section (2) of Section 292, attributed to the painting that was the subject of the instant litigation. The judge delved deep into the question of

“..the line which needs to be drawn [is] between the art as an expression of beauty and art as an expression of an ill mind intoxicated with a vulgar manifestation of counter-culture where the latter needs to be kept way from a civilian society.” (Para 110)

Thirdly, in view of a number of similar criminal complaints pending in various local courts the judge examined the applicability of jurisdiction of courts especially in cases where

“..an artist like in the present case is not made to run from pillar to post facing proceedings..balancing of interest between the person aggrieved and the accused so as to prevent harassment of artists, sculptors, authors, filmmakers etc. in different creative fields….” (Para 129)

Alternative views

As eighteen of the twenty references cited in the judgement were from internet sources it is unfortunate that the following escaped the honourable court”s attention:

Freedom of religion and other beliefs. (1994). Otto-Preminger-Institut v. Austria, (13470/87) [1994] ECHR 26 (20 September 1994).; and

Otto Preminger Institute V Austria. (1994). Otto Preminger Institute v. Austria. ARTICLES: 10; 26..

These refer to a case very similar to that of Hussain”s. The case was adjudicated in the Innsbruck regional court and the Innsbruck Court of Appeal (the Austrian equivalents of our subordinate and high courts) and finally dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights (corresponding to an appeal in our Supreme Court). See “Artistic Freedom and Social Responsibility”, listed in the references below.

In the case of Otto Preminger Institute v. Austria, the Austrian Courts made interesting observations about artistic freedoms which flow as corollaries of the right to freedom of speech. The trial court observed that

“..Artistic freedom cannot be unlimited. The limitations on artistic freedom are to be found, firstly, in other basic rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution (such as the freedom of religion and conscience), secondly, in the need for an ordered form of human coexistence based on tolerance, and finally in flagrant and extreme violations of other interests protected by law…..”

The Innsbruck court of Appeal held that artistic freedom was,

“..necessarily limited by the rights of others to freedom of religion”; indignation was justified to attract penal provisions when “..offended..the religious feelings of an average person with normal religious sensitivity” and that “the whole derision of religious feeling outweighed any interest the general public might have…”

And finally the 9-member commission of the European Court of Human Rights in its 6-3 judgement held that

“..whoever exercises the rights and freedoms [enshrined in the first paragraph of that Article (10)] undertakes “duties and responsibilities”. Amongst them, in the context of religious opinions and beliefs, may legitimately be included an obligation to avoid as far as possible expressions that are gratuitously offensive to others and thus an infringement of their rights, and which therefore do not contribute to any form of public debate capable of furthering progress in human affairs. This being so, as a matter of principle it may be considered necessary in certain democratic societies to sanction or even prevent improper attacks on objects of religious veneration, provided always that any “formality”, “condition”, “restriction” or “penalty” imposed be proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued.”

The dissenting judges, while holding that the Article 43 of the “Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Convention) does not guarantee religious freedoms, nonetheless agreed that:

“.it must be accepted that it may be “legitimate” for the purpose of [Article 10] to protect the religious feelings of certain members of society against criticism and abuse to some extent; tolerance works both ways and the democratic character of a society will be affected if violent and abusive attacks on the reputation of a religious group are allowed. Consequently, it must also be accepted that it may be “necessary in a democratic society” to set limits to the public expression of such criticism or abuse.”

Fallacy, ignorance – or mischief!

The fallacy, ignorance – or mischief – of western scholars in interpreting the Shiva Linga as a phallic symbol has unfortunately been swallowed hook line and sinker by left-liberal commentators without an understanding of our scriptures or the Sanskrit language or both. Such depraved / perverse interpretations are standard staple for debating warriors in the left dominated universities like the JNU. One looks askance when they become part of judgements pronounced by the higher judiciary while adjudicating in momentous matters, especially when the judgement seems to be anchored on such interpretations or when such interpretations seems to form one of the major pivots of the judgement:

“..very concept of Lingam of the God Shiva resting in the centre of the Yoni, is in a way representation of the act of creation, the union of Prakriti and Purusua.” (Para 3)

Did the amicus curie or other legal officers who assisted in the case mislead the court by placing before it material with an ideological slant, screening out others?

The Sanskrit word Linga simply means a “mark” or “sign”. Vaman Shivram Apte”s dictionary of Sanskrit has seventeen definitions of the term. The following are some of them.

. The image of a god
. A symptom or mark of disease
. A spot or stain
. A means of proof, a proof, evidence
. The effect or product which evolves from a primary cause
. The concept of grammatical gender
.
An example of the use of the word Linga from the Bhagavat Gita, may cited here: Arjuna prays Bhagavan Sri Krishna to reveal him the signs / marks / symptoms of a man who has risen above the three Gunas (the three qualities, Sattva, Rajas, Tamas), he uses the word Lingais (plural form of Linga) as a synonym for signs / marks / symptoms.

“Kair li?gais trin gu?an etan | atito bhavati prabho..” (14.21)

A few authoritative translations of the sloka are quoted below:

“O my dear Lord, by what symptoms is one known who is transcendental to those modes? What is his behaviour? And how does he transcend the modes of nature? ” (Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, A.C., His Divine Grace, Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, Collier Books, New York, 1972, p.684-5)

“O Lord, by what signs is one (known) who has gone beyond these three qualities?” (Gambhirananda, Swami)

“By what marks is he recognized, who has transcended these three qualities, O Lord?” (Winthrop, Sargeant)

“What are the marks of him who has risen above the three Gunas, and what his conduct? And, how Lord, does he rise above the three Gunas?” (The Bhagavadgita or The Song Divine, Gita Press, Gorakhpur, 1998, p.140-1)

The following example of the word Linga in philosophy is from the Sa?khya-Karika as translated in: Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore. A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy. (Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 1957; Twelfth printing 1989) ISBN 0-691-01958-4, p. 428.” which describes the role of attributes in recognition of objects perceived by the senses:

“Perception is the ascertainment of objects [which are in contact with sense-organs]; inference, which follows on the knowledge of the characteristic mark (li?ga) [i.e., the middle term] and that which bears the mark….” (Cited in Wikipedia encyclopaedia)

Or look at the following aniconic interpretation of the (Shiva) Linga as a conceptual confluence of the holy triumvirate of the Hindu dharma:

“Shivalinga consists of three parts. The bottom part which is four-sided remains under ground, the middle part which is eight-sided remains on a pedestal and the top part which is actually worshipped is round. The height of the round part is one-third of its circumference. The three parts symbolize Brahma at the bottom, Vishnu in the middle and Shiva on the top. The pedestal is provided with a passage for draining away the water that is poured on top by devotees. The Linga symbolizes both the creative and destructive power of the Lord and great sanctity is attached to it by the devotees.” (Bansi, Pandit Hindu Dharma cited in Wikipedia encyclopaedia)

A.L. Basham a doyen of Indian historiography worshipped by the left-liberal historians has this interpretation of “Lingam” as a symbol of Shiva. His reference to “a cult order” might have been picked up from an earlier Western scholar, but in any case this seems to have put an indigenous stamp on exogenous chicanery:

“… Shiva was and still is chiefly worshipped in the form of the Li?ga, usually a short cylindrical pillar with rounded top, which is the survival of a cult older than Indian civilization itself…. The cult of the Li?ga, at all times followed by some of the non-Aryan peoples, was incorporated into Hinduism around the beginning of the Christian era, though at first it was not very important.” (Wikipedia encyclopedia)

For Swami Dharmananda a great saint and practitioner of Yoga there is a mysterious power in the Linga, its shape has been designed to induce concentration of the mind.

“Just as the mind is focused easily in crystal-gazing, so also the mind attains one-pointedness, when it looks at the Linga. That is the reason why the ancient Rishis and the seers of India have prescribed Linga for being installed in the temples of Lord Shiva.” (Wikipedia encyclopedia)

Our scriptures are replete with instances of the worship of Shiva in the form of Linga as a means for acquisition of divine knowledge or powers or as an invocation for the triumph of good over evil. For example, in the epic Mahabharata, the great warrior Arjuna worshipped Shiva in the form of Linga for acquiring the Pashupatasthra.

In the epic Ramayana Ravana, who was a great Vedic scholar worshipped Shiva in the form of a Linga to present his mother with the Atmalinga. Would an erudite Vedic scholar be as depraved / perverse as to present his mother with a phallic symbol?

In the same epic, Sri Rama performs prathistha (installation) of a Shiva Linga at Rameswaram (hence the name) before embarking on an odyssey to defeat Ravana and liberate his divine consort Sri Sita held captive by him.

Bhakt Markandeya and numerous other sages worshipped the simplest looking Linga. In order to abstain from all materialism and attain spirituality, the rishis used to retire to forests and use a lump of soil as a tool to help them concentrate on the Supreme Being. They used the Linga as a symbol to relate to cosmic energy through meditation.

Defenders of Hussain have often pointed out that promiscuity was widely prevalent in Indian social life and found its reflection in erotic art. In support of this view they cite erotic bas-reliefs in temple architecture and Vatsayana”s Kamasutra. Did the bas-reliefs and murals in temple architecture reflect promiscuity in social life or were they a necessary social corrective? Was the Kamasutra by the sage Vatsayana a text book similar to anatomy and physiology taught to medical students as a part of their curriculum or was it pornography? The views of western scholars on these subjects were as far removed from reality as they were on the subject of the Shiva Linga and as gullibly accepted without scrutiny by our left-liberal intellectuals.

Finally, Hussain pleaded that “in his art nudity was used as an expression of purity”! In the past many commentators wondered if for Hussain “nudity is an expression of purity” why does he always choose Hindu subjects for his expressions of purity? Does he consider there is no purity elsewhere or in his vicinity?

The case

M.F Hussain approached the Supreme Court with a plea to consolidate criminal cases related to private complaints filed in lower courts in Bhopal and Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Pandharpur (Mahrastra) and Rajkot (Gujrat) against a nude painting allegedly of Bharat Mata. Accordingly the Supreme Court consolidated the cases and transferred them to the court of the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Delhi, who issued summons to Hussain for a trial of various offences u/s 292 / 294 / 298 of the IPC. Notices were also issued to the petitioners who filed the original petitions in various lower courts.

Following this Hussain filed a revision petition in the Delhi High Court. Only one of the original petitioners sought to be heard in the proceedings in the Delhi High Court and was allowed to do so. This is understandable because not everyone who is pained by Hussain”s paintings is rich enough to fight litigation in far away Delhi nor can afford to retain high profile lawyers like Mr. Akhil Sibal to represent him.

While hearing the revision petition, the Delhi High Court granted exemption from personal appearance to Hussain. The court was assisted by the Additional Solicitor General of India as amicus curie.

In assaying the case the learned judge cited the works of various contemporary writers on art such as Love and Lust; An anthology of Erotic Literature from Ancient and Medieval India (2004, Pavan K. Verma and Sandhya Mulchandani; Harper Collins).

The judge has also taken into consideration material available in certain tell-tale internet sources such as Freedom of art under siege in India by Pallabi Ghosal; (excerpts from) Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism (Jyotirmaya Sharma, Penguin Books India, Viking) and Prudes take charge in India, The Independent, (Jun 7, 1998, London).

The other sources relied upon by the judge to arrive at his conclusions are: Constitutional Underpinnings of a Concordial Society, The 21st Dr. Kailashnath Katju Memorial Annual Lecture by M.N. Venkatachaliah; Indian Democracy: Reality or Myth – We have pledges to fulfill, V.M. Tarkunde Memorial Lecture by Soli J Sorabjee, Former Attorney General of India and the proceedings in the case of Dr. Ramesh Yeshwant Prabhoo v. Prabhakar Kashinath Kunte and Ors. AIR1996SC1113.

The Judgement

The learned judge traced the history of Indian art forms from the second century till date and vetted precedents of similar cases from the jurisprudence of Canada, Australia, India, the UK and the USA with a view to

“..balancing the individual”s right to speech and expression and the frontiers of exercising that right..” and “arrive at a decision that would protect the quality of life without making closed mind a principal feature of an open society or an unwilling recipient of information the arbiter to veto or restrict freedom of speech and expression” (Para

The judgement concedes that occasionally art ceases to be art and plunges into the forbidden, which is called obscene, vulgar, depraving, prurient, or immoral:

“..occasionally come under the line of fire for having crossed the Lakshman Rekha and for plunging into the forbidden, which is called obscene, vulgar, depraving, prurient and immoral.3 No doubt this form of art is a reflection of a very alluring concept of beauty and there is certainly something more to it than pearly flesh4 but what needs to be determined is which art falls under the latter category..” (Para 4)

While the first amendment to the American constitution absolutely prohibits abridgement of the freedom of speech, US courts held that the test of obscenity had to be judged from the point of view of an average person and not the high priests of art / culture.

“..obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected freedom of speech or press..The Court further held that the rejection of obscenity was implicit in the First Amendment…The aspect of obscenity had to be judged from the point of view of an average person by applying contemporary community standards..” (Para 12)

In Australia, “there is no express right to free speech but only a limited implied guarantee of political discussion.”

“..The courts while answering the question in particular cases relating to visual art and obscenity as to whether the artwork offends contemporary community standards..have taken in consideration the following factors into account: the circumstances of the artwork”s publication..the target group of the publication..and whether or not the artwork has artistic merit…There is not, however, any absolute or partial defense of artistic merit.” (Para 22)

In the Indian context, Article 19 (1) provides the right to freedom of speech (which is the basis for artistic freedom) and clause (2) of the article places reasonable restrictions on the right:

“..This freedom is subject to sub- clause (2) of Article 19, which allows the State to impose restriction on the exercise of this freedom in the interest of public decency and morality. The relevant portion of the same has been reproduced below: Article 19(1) (a): All citizens shall have a right to freedom of speech and expression. (2) Nothing in sub-clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, insofar as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub-clause in the interests of.the sovereignty and integrity of India,.the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. (Para 46)

“..A bare reading of the above shows that obscenity which is offensive to public decency and morality is outside the purview of the protection of free speech and expression, because the Article dealing with the right itself excludes it..” (Para 47)

The cases of the famous movies Bandit Queen (vide Bobby Art International and Ors. v. Om Pal Singh Hoon and Ors. (1996) 4 SCC 1) and “Schindler”s List” were cited, quite appropriately, as “may be” relevant for the present matter.

“..humiliated, stripped naked, paraded, made to draw water from the well, within the circle of a hundred men. The exposure of her breasts and genitalia to those men is intended by those who strip her to demean her. The effect of so doing upon her could hardly been better conveyed than by explicitly showing the scene. The object of doing so was not to titillate the cinema-goer”s lust but to arouse in him sympathy for the victim and disgust for the perpetrators. The revulsion .. was not at Phoolan Devi”s nudity but at the sadism and heartlessness of those who had stripped her naked to rob her of every shred of dignity. Nakedness does not always arouse the baser instinct..in “Schindler”s List”, the scene depicting rows of naked women, shown frontally, being led into the gas chambers of a Nazi concentration camp. Not only are they about to die but they have been stripped in their last moments of the basic dignity of human beings. Tears are a likely reaction; pity, horror and a fellow feeling of shame are certain, except in the pervert who might be aroused. We do not censor to protect the pervert or to assuage the susceptibilities of the over-sensitive. “Bandit Queen” tells a powerful human story and to that story the scene of Phoolan Devi”s enforced naked parade is central. It helps to explain why Phoolan Devi became what she did: rage and vendetta against the society that had heaped indignities upon her.. (Para 41)

In dealing with matters of art and literature the Indian courts have been generally constrained or lenient in applying the law:

“..The court in Sada Nand and Ors. v. State (Delhi Administration) ILR (1986) II Delhi 81 laid down the test to the affect that the pictures of a nude/semi- nude woman cannot per se be called obscene unless the same are suggestive of deprave mind and are designed to excite sexual passion in the persons who are likely to look at them or see them….However, a look at the impugned pictures was held to show beyond a shadow of doubt that they can hardly be said to have any aesthetic or artistic touch, rather they seem to have been taken with the sole purpose of attracting readers who may have a prurient mind. The women in nude had been just made to lie on a grassy plot or sit on some stool etc. and pose for a photograph in the nude. So they may well be said to be vulgar and indecent but all the same it may be difficult to term them obscene within the meaning of Section 292 IPC. (Para 40)

The judgement cites Justice Krishna Iyer, in the famous “Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram”, case (Raj Kapoor v. State AIR 1980 SC 258), “dealing with a pro bono publico prosecution against the producer, actors and others”:

“..Art, morals and law”s manacles on aesthetics are a sensitive subject where jurisprudence meets other social sciences and never goes alone to bark and bite because State-made strait-jacket is an inhibitive prescription for a free country unless enlightened society actively participates in the administration of justice to aesthetics. The world”s greatest paintings, sculptures, songs and dances, India”s lustrous heritage, the Konarks and Khajurahos, lofty epics, luscious in patches, may be asphyxiated by law, if prudes and prigs and State moralists prescribe paradigms and prescribe heterodoxies..” (Para 50)

However the Supreme Court felt that while dealing with litigation concerning matters of art it is necessary to maintain a delicate balance between freedom of speech and expression and upholding public decency and morality and that when public decency and morality are transgressed the transgressor forfeits the right to freedom of speech. More importantly in the delicate task of deciding what is artistic and what is obscene, the evidence of men of literature or others on the question of obscenity is not relevant.

“..The Apex court in Ranjit Udeshi”s case while answering the question in affirmative as to whether the test as laid down of obscenity squares with the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under our Constitution, or it needs to be modified and, if so, in what respects, pointed out as under: The laying down of the true test is not rendered any easier because art has such varied facets and such individualistic appeals that in the same object the insensitive sees only obscenity because his attention is arrested, not by the general or artistic appeal or message which he cannot comprehend, but by what he can see, and the intellectual sees beauty and art but nothing gross. The test which we evolve must obviously be of a general character but it must admit of a just application from case to case by indicating a line of demarcation not necessarily sharp but sufficiently distinct to distinguish between that which is obscene and that which is not. A balance should be maintained between freedom of speech and expression and public decency and morality but when the latter is substantially transgressed the former must give way…..this Court held that the delicate task of deciding what is artistic and what is obscene has to be performed by courts and as a last resort by the Supreme Court and, therefore, the evidence of men of literature or others on the question of obscenity is not relevant.. (Para 54)

Similarly, courts have held that public interest is the test to be applied for the application of the right to free speech:

“..When there is propagation of ideas, opinions and information or public interests or profits, the interests of society may tilt the scales in favour of free speech and expression. Thus books on medical science with intimate illustrations and photographs though in a sense immodest, are not to be considered obscene, but the same illustrations and photographs collected in a book from without the medical text would certainly be considered to be obscene….. (Para 66)

“..Obscenity without a preponderating social purpose or profit cannot have the Constitutional protection of free speech or expression. Obscenity is treating with sex in a manner appealing to the carnal side of human nature or having that tendency. Such a treating with sex is offensive to modesty and decency… (Para 61)

However the instant case was judged based on certain technicalities in the applicability of the law namely Sections 292 / 294 / 298 of the IPC. The law mandates that for the offender to be eligible for punishment under these sections, the offence must have been committed in the presence / within sight of the complainant.

As to the contention of the counsel for the respondents,

“….The valuable and cherished right of freedom of expression and speech may at times have to be subjected to reasonable subordination to social interests, needs and necessities to preserve the very core of democratic life preservation of public order and rule of law ..(Para 84)

“..that it is not the case that the impugned painting was put up for display in some art gallery or private exhibition, instead it was uploaded on his own website which could be accessed by any person and any common man who is a patriot would get affected by the said picture. Hence, the yardstick to determine whether the painting is obscene or not should be seen from the mindset of the society as a whole and not of a particular “class”.. (Para 87)

“..that when the petitioner can make the deliberate act of outraging the sentiments of his fellow nationals by drawing such painting at the fag end of his life then he might as well be punished for such act if so held guilty. Thus, the petitioner cannot take the advantage, excuse and defense of his old age.. (Para 89)

The learned judge opined:

“..At some such grave situation at least the decision as to the need and necessity to take prohibitory actions must be left to the discretion of those entrusted with the duty of maintaining law and order, and interposition of courts unless a concrete case of abuse or exercise of such sweeping powers for extraneous considerations by the authority concerned or that such authority was shown to act at the behest of those in power, and interference as a matter of course and as though adjudicating an appeal, will defeat the very purpose of legislation and legislative intent..(Para 84)

“..Though some might feel offended or disgusted at the very inception of seeing the alleged Mother India in nude but that by itself and nothing more in my opinion is not sufficient to qualify the test of obscenity. The said painting depicting India in a human form in no manner has that tendency to make an average person feel embarrassed by naked portrayal of a concept which has no particular face to it since the painting has not lost its artistic value / touch.. (Para 98)

The learned judge pays a great tribute to Hinduism not only as one of the world”s oldest religious traditions but also as the most liberal tradition that transcends definition. This could probably the reason why it can be easily offended with impunity!

“..Hinduism being the world”s oldest religious tradition, incorporates all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any. The Hindu is inclined to revere the divine in every manifestation, whatever it may be, and is doctrinally tolerant. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be Hindu, and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods, and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind. The core of religion does not even depend on the existence or nonexistence of God or on whether there is one god or many. Since religious truth is said to transcend all verbal definition, it is not conceived in dogmatic terms. Hinduism is then both a civilization and a conglomerate of religions with neither a beginning, a founder, nor a central authority, hierarchy, or organization.7..” (Para 104)

The judgement selectively invokes Swami Vivekananda in defining the reason behind religious conflicts.

“..The conundrum which has blocked the minds of a few today was given a riposte by Swami Vivekananda in the following words8: …we tend to reduce everyone else to the limits of our own mental universe and begin privileging our own ethics, morality, sense of duty and even our sense of utility. All religious conflicts arose from this propensity to judge others. If we indeed must judge at all, then it must be “according to his own ideal, and not by that of anyone else”. It is important, therefore, to learn to look at the duty of others through their own eyes and never judge the customs and observances of others through the prism of our own standards.. (Para 105)

The plea for toleration, opposition to fundamentalism, the defense of free speech and the caveats for restrictions to free speech in the interest of public order are equally applicable to both sides of a disputed issue:

“..Our Greatest problem today is fundamentalism which is the triumph of the letter over the spirit.14 In a free democratic society tolerance is vital especially in large and complex societies comprising people with varied beliefs and interests. An intolerant society does not brook dissent. An authoritarian regime cannot tolerate expression of ideas which challenge doctrines and ideologies in the form of writings, plays, music or paintings. Intolerance is utterly incompatible with democratic values. This attitude is totally antithetical to our Indian Psyche and tradition. It must be realised that intolerance has a chilling, inhibiting effect on freedom of thought and discussion. The consequence is that dissent dries up. And when that happens democracy loses its essence.15 .. (Para 115)

“..Our Constitution by way of Article 19 (1) which provides for freedom of thought and expression underpins a free and harmonious society. It helps to cultivate the virtue of tolerance. It is said that the freedom of speech is the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom. It is the wellspring of civilization and without it liberty of thought would shrivel.16 .. (Para 116)

“..the criminal justice system.. should not be used as a mere tool in the hands of unscrupulous masters which in the process can cause serious violations of the rights of the people especially taking into consideration the people in the creative fields. Such a pernicious trend represents a growing intolerance and divisiveness within the society which pose a threat to the democratic fabric of our nation..” (Para 111)

Epilogue

At about the time this article was written, the Supreme Court upheld the judgement of the Delhi High Court. A “Special Leave to Appeal” (Crl No. 6287/2008) moved by Dwaipayan Venkateshachrya Varkhedkar was “heard” and “dismissed” by a bench headed by the Hon”ble Chief Justice, K. G. Balakrishan and comprising Hon”ble Justices P. Sathasivam and J.M. Panchal. It was thus reported in the record of proceedings of the Supreme Court of India.

However the “secular” press reported that during the course of the hearing the Hon”ble Chief Justice K.G.Balakrishan, asked the complainant: “There are so many such subjects, photographs and publications. Will you file cases against all of them?” and added, “It is art. If you don”t want to see it, then don”t see it. There are so many such art forms in the temple structures.”

This writer believes that Indian judiciary generally upheld the noblest principles of jurisprudence; protected the weak from depravity, excesses, and profligacy and on several occasions from the excesses committed by ruling oligarchies. As such this writer notes with sadness a lack of sensitivity to the sentiments of eight hundred and fifty million Hindus in the Hon”ble Chief Justice”s remarks. This writer most humbly wishes the Hon”ble Chief Justice and the other Justices consider the points raised in the two sections of this article named “Alternative Views” and “Fallacy, ignorance – or mischief!”

The quintessence of Indian secularism in its zeitgeist is not in separating the state from religion as the word originally connoted but in opposing Hinduism, its philosophy and social mores. The mantra of Indian media who would rather wear “secularism” on its sleeve is to oppose any opposition of Hindu organisations – which for them come under the collective moniker of “the Sangh Parivar”.

Therefore if Hindu organisations protest against M. F. Hussain”s paintings as derogatory of Hindu gods and goddesses, then the secular brigade must rush to his defence. Indian media dotingly refers to members of the Sangh Parivar as goons. For them, there are no goons in other religions and that is a fact. And every time there is a reference to religious fundamentalism (in other religions) the spectre of Hindu fundamentalism had to be invoked, in the name of balance!

(N.B.: Numbers in superscript refer to citations in the original judgement)

Where’re Human Rights @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/08/10/wherere-human-rights-advocates/

http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/MF-Hussain-Artistic-Freedom-Social-Responsibility/blog-282.htm

** Tilak on Gita Rahasya

http://www.kamat.com/database/articles/gita_rahasya.htm

How I came to write the “GITA RAHASYA” 

by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Reproduced from Bhavan’s Journal

It is now nearly 43 years since I made my first acquaintance with the Bhagavadgita. In 1872, during the last illness of my father, the task of reading out to him a Prakrit commentary on the Bhagavadgita called Bhasavivrtti fell to my lot. At that date, that is, when I was only 16 years old, it was not possible for me to fully understand the import of the Gita.

Still, as the impressions made on the mind in young age are lasting, the liking for the Bhagavadgita, which then came into existence, did not die out; and when I had later on made further studies in Sanskrit and English, I had occasion to read time to time the Sanskrit commentaries and other criticisms, as also the expositions by many learned scholars in English and in Marathi on the Gita.

I was then faced by the doubt as to why the Gita, which was expounded in order to induce Arjuna, who was dejected by the idea that it was a sin to war with one’s own relatives, to fight, should contain only an exposition of the manner in which Release could be obtained by knowledge (jnana) or by devotion (bhakti), that is to say, of the moksa-marga; and that doubt gradually gained ground because I could not find a satisfactory answer to that question in any commentary on the Gita.

Gita doesn’t preach Renunciation. Gita preaches Action!

It is quite possible that others too might have felt the same doubt. One cannot say “no” to that. When a person is engulfed in commentaries he cannot find a different solution, though he may feel that the solution given in the commentary is not satisfactory.

I, therefore, put aside all criticisms and commentaries, and independently and thoughtfully read the Gita over several times.

I then got out of the clutches of the commentators and was convinced that the original Gita did not preach the Philosophy of Renunciation (nivrtti), but of Energism (Karma Yoga); and that possibly, the single word yoga used in the Gita had been used to mean Karma Yoga.

Though my opinion that the creed preached in the Gita was one of Action became quite definite, and though I decided to reduce it to writing, many years went by. And I thought that a considerable amount of misunderstanding would arise if I merely published in a book form this moral of the Gita, which had not been accepted in the commentaries, criticisms, or translations now commonly available, without assigning any reason as to why I was unable to accept the conclusions arrived at by the former commentators.

No Time

At the same time, as the work of dealing with the opinions of all the commentators, and exposing their incompleteness with reasons, and of comparing the religion expounded in the Gita with other religions or philosophies was one entailing great labour, it was not possible for me to satisfactorily complete it within a short period of time.

And later on, when, in the year 1908, I was convicted and sent to Mandalay, in Burma, the chance of this book being written came practically to an end.

But when, after some time, Government was pleased to grant permission to take books and other things essential for writing this book from Poona to Mandalay, the draft of this book was first made in the Mandalay Jail in the winter of 1910-1911 (between Karttik Shuddha 1st and Falgun Vadya 30th of the Saka Year 1832); and thereafter, the draft was improved upon from time to time, as things suggested themselves to me; and those portions which had remained incomplete as the necessary books had not been available, were completed after my release from jail.

It is true that this work was completed in the Mandalay Jail; but it had been written with a lead pencil, and it contained corrections and deletions on many places; so, when it was returned to me after inspection by Government, it was necessary to make a fair copy of it for printing; and if I myself had to do that work, who knows how many months more would have passed before the work was published!

The Gita was not preached either as a pastime for persons tired out after living a worldly life in the pursuit of selfish motives nor as a preparatory lesson for living such worldly life; it was preached in order to give philosophical advice as to how one should live his worldly life with an eye to Release (moksha) and to teach the true duty of human beings in worldly life.

My last prayer to everyone, therefore, is that one should not fail to thoroughly understand this ancient science of the life of a householder, or of worldly life, as early as possible in one’s life.

Also Read: Remembering TILAK @  http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/itihas/tilak.htm

** Godhra:The True Story

GODHRA: THE TRUE STORY

Nicole Elfi,  jaia-bharati.org

 Godhra, a city of the Indian State of Gujarat, was the lead story in all Indian newspapers on February 27th-28th, 2002.

A shattering piece of news: 58 Hindu pilgrims had been burned alive in a train. “57 die in ghastly attack on train” ran the Times of India’s headline; 

“Mob targets Ramsevaks [Devotees of Rama] returning from Ayodhya”; “58 killed in attack on train with Karsevaks [volunteers]” (The Indian Express);

“1500-strong mob butcher 57 Ramsevaks on Sabarmati Express” (The Asian Age).

But the BBC’s announcement had a very different tone: “58 Hindu ‘extremists’ burned to death” …

or Agence France Press on March 2nd: “A train full of Hindu ‘extremists’ was burnt.”

     A deluge of anguished news followed about a “Muslim genocide”: “Mass killings of Muslims in reprisal riots” (NYT, March 5th),

“The authorities … share the prejudices of the Hindu gangs who have been busy pulping their Muslim neighbours” (The Observer, March 4th).

We were told that Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, intended to eradicate Muslims from the State — more than 9% of Gujarat’s population, in other words five million people.

We read that the police was conniving in the mass slaughter and did nothing to prevent it. Narendra Modi was compared to Hitler, or Nero. We shuddered reading the reports describing rapes and various horrors, supposedly inflicted on Muslims by Hindus.

     Today, six years later, with the noises and cries of the wounds having fallen silent, what emerges from those events? What are the facts?

     At 7:43 A.M. on February 27th, 2002, the Sabarmati Express rolled into the Godhra station, fortunately with a four-hour delay, in broad daylight. This train transported more than 2,000 people, mainly karsewaks on their way back to Ahmedabad after participating in the Poorna Ahuti Yagya at Ayodhya, a ritual at the traditional birthplace of Rama.

     As it pulled out of the station, the train was pelted with stones and bricks, and passengers from several bogeys were forced to bring down their windows to protect themselves.

Someone pulled the emergency chain: the train came to a halt about 100 metres away from the platform, surrounded by a large crowd of Muslims. The railway police managed to disperse the crowd, and the train resumed its journey.

     Within minutes, the emergency chain was simultaneously pulled again, from several coaches.

It halted at about 700 metres from the station. A crowd of over 1,000 surrounded the train, pelting it with bricks, stones, then burning missiles and acid bulbs, especially on the S-5, S-6 and S-7 coaches.

     The vacuum pipe between coaches S-6 and S-7 was cut, thereby preventing any further movement of the train. The doors were locked from outside. A fire started in coach S-7, which the passengers were able to extinguish. But the attack intensified and coach S-6 caught fire and minutes later, was in flames. Passengers who managed to get out of the burning compartment were attacked with sharp weapons, and stoned. They received serious injuries, some were killed. Others got out through the windows and took shelter below the coach.

     Fifty eight pilgrims were burned alive, including twenty-seven women and ten children. The whole attack lasted 20-25 minutes.[1]

     What transpired then, in the Indian press? Let’s imagine a coach of French pilgrims coming back from Lourdes, burned alive.

     Strangely, instead of clearly, straightforwardly condemning the act, the Indian English-language press tried to justify it: “Pilgrims provoked by chanting pro-Hindu slogans” (they were not slogans but bhajans, or devotional songs, ending with “Jai Sri Ram” (Victory to Sri Rama). “It’s because they were returning from Ayodhya, where they asked for the reconstruction of a temple at the traditional birth place of Rama; this offends the feelings of the Muslims.”

In sum, the victims, roasted alive, were guilty.

The Anger

     Numb with shock, the people of Gujarat did not react straightaway. They remained calm at first. Till that afternoon, when the charred bodies started arriving at their respective families — with no comforting voice sounded, either from the government, or from the media, no condemnation for this barbaric act, but an indifferent, deafening silence — then these people known for their non-violent nature and exceptional patience, burst into a frenzy.

     There was a revolt in the whole of Gujarat. For three days, tens of thousands of enraged Hindus set fire to Muslim shops, houses, vehicles: They came out from all sides, all parties, all classes, uncontrollable — one cannot control a revolution (except in China maybe).

The fatalities: 720 Muslims, 250 Hindus, according to official figures.

     We read all over about a “genocide of Muslims.” Do we remember a single report on the Hindus who heroically helped save Muslims in their neighbourhood? Was even one family of Hindu victims interviewed following the criminal burning of the Sabarmati Express?

One fourth of the dead in the ensuing riots were Hindus. How to classify those 250 victims? Who evoked the dead on the Hindu side? According to reports, Congress Party councillor Taufeeq Khan Pathan and his son Zulfi, notorious gangsters, were allegedly seen leading Muslim rioters.

Another such character, Congress member of the Godhra Nagarpalika [municipality], Haji Balal, was said to have had the fire-fighting vehicle sabotaged beforehand.[2]

Then, he stopped the vehicle on its way to the Godhra Station and did not allow it to proceed any further. A man stood in front of the vehicle, the mob started pelting stones, … The  headlights and the windowpanes of the vehicle got damaged … Fearing for his own and his crew’s life, the driver drove the vehicle through the mob, as it was not possible to move backwards. The mob gave in but 15-20 precious minutes had been lost.[3]

     Lost for a coach full of innocent people in flames. 

     
     Which newspaper article stated that the most violent events took place following provocations by leaders of this sort?

The Union Home Ministry’s Annual Report of 2002-03 stated that 40,000 Hindus were in riot relief camps. What made those 40,000 Hindus rush to relief camps? To seek protection from whom? Why was it necessary if they were the main aggressors?

     More than the barbaric event itself, it is the insensitivity of the Indian “elite” and of the media that infuriated the Gujaratis.

     Those accused of terrorism often receive political support, are benevolently portrayed by the media, and a host of “human rights” organisations are always on hand to fight for them. But those victims whose life is cut down for no reason, are they not “human” enough to get some rights too? The great majority of those who took to revolt in Gujarat were neither rich nor particularly intellectual — neither right nor left: they were middle- and lower-class Gujaratis, simple people, workers, also tribals. But some from the upper middle class, among them a lot of women, took part in the upheaval.

The media sources

     Apart from local journalists usually more objective in their reports, no English media reporter, thought it worthwhile to look deeper into the events at the Godhra railway station. Nobody came to question possible survivors of the tragedy. Is a coach of Hindu pilgrims even worth the trip? They had to wait for the “elite” to react; they had to receive directives from the politically correct, before taking their pens. Worse, they reported deliberate rumours and made up versions as actual news.

     We were told, for instance, that when some pilgrims got off the ill-fated coaches to have tea, “some altercation took place” between them, and a Muslim tea vendor: “They argued with the old man on purpose,” wrote some newspapers; “they refused to pay for their tea” (though Gujarati honesty is well known); “they pulled his beard and beat him up … They kept shouting ‘Mandir ka nirmaan karo, Babar ki aulad ko bahar karo’ (start building the temple and throw out the sons of Babar). Hearing the chaos, the tea vendor’s 16-year-old daughter came forward and tried to save her father from the karsevaks. She kept pleading and begging them to leave him alone. The karsevaks, according to this version, then seized the girl, took her inside their compartment and closed the door. The old man kept banging on the door and pleaded for his daughter. Then two stall vendors jumped into the last bogey, pulled the chain, and put the bogey on fire.”

     But would they have been stupid enough to set fire to the coach where their colleague’s young daughter was being held? And why were 2,000 Muslims assembled there at 7 A.M. with jerry-cans of petrol bought the previous evening?

     Rajeev Srinivasan, an American journalist of Indian origin, was e-mailed this anonymous report a dozen times, supposedly written by Anil Soni, Press Trust of India reporter. He contacted Anil Soni to check on the veracity of this account. Soni answered:

Some enemy of mine has done this to make life difficult for me, do you understand, sir? I did not write this at all. I am a PTI correspondent. Yes, that is my phone number, but it is not my writing.

     Anil Soni apparently had heard about it from hundreds of people, and was upset to see a false report circulated in his name.

     Inquiries with the Railway Staff and passengers travelling in the Sabarmati Express showed that: no quarrel whatsoever took place on the platform between a tea vendor and pilgrims, and no girl was manhandled nor kidnapped.

     As the Nanavati Report established later, this fictitious report was in fact circulated by the Jamiat-Ulma-E-Hind, the very hand responsible for the carnage.[4] It nevertheless went around the world, exhibited as “the true story.” Aren’t we compelled to conclude that the assailants, in India, are those who dictate what’s “politically correct,” and instruct the media?

Arson and Canards

     On the afternoon of February 28th, Gujarati Hindus’ revolt broke out. A few journalists then booked their tickets for Gujarat.

As far as we can see, they had a framework in place: the outbreak would be dealt with independently of the Godhra carnage, as a different, unrelated subject; it was a planned violence perpetrated by “fundamentalist” Hindus against Gujarat’s Muslims, fully backed by the State of Gujarat. From this day on, the burning of coach S-6 was to be left behind, forgotten.

     On February 28th evening, Chief Minister Narendra Modi announced his decision to deploy the Army, and the next day, March 1st, by 11 A.M. the actual deployment of troops at sensitive points had begun. Violence abated in most major cities, after their arrival with orders to shoot on sight.

But security forces were largely outnumbered by the angry flood of people, spreading for the first time like rivers in spate, to rural areas and villages.

Apprehending the seriousness of the situation, Narendra Modi had made a request for security personnel from neighbouring States of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab. This request was turned down by each State. Why did no one report this fateful refusal?

     That same day (1st March), at the peak of the turmoil, the National Human Rights Commission faxed a notice to the Gujarat Government, calling for a report within three days on the measures being taken … “to prevent any further escalation of the situation in the State of Gujarat which is resulting in continued violation of human rights of the people.”[5] But it was silent on what had led to such a situation in the first place.

     One major event which received a great deal of attention from the media was the conflagration at the Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad, home of a former Member of Parliament, Ehsan Jaffri. This man, rather refined and usually respected, did not feel threatened. But on February 28th morning, a crowd surrounded his house, in which a number of Muslims had taken refuge. Jaffri made a number of panic-stricken phone calls for help to authorities and to his colleagues, journalists and friends. The crowd was growing … (from 200 to 20,000, figures vary in the reports).

The Indian Express (March 1st, 2002), as well as police records, reported that “eventually, in panic, he fired at the 5,000-strong mob … 2 were killed and 13 injured … That incensed the mob …” which at 1:30 P.M. set the bungalow ablaze by exploding a gas cylinder. Final toll: 42 (March 11th edition).

     Human Rights Watch, an NGO based in New York, published a dossier (on April 30th, 2002) about the Gujarat events which caused a sensation and fed a large number of articles in the international press.

     In this report, Smita Narula had an unnamed “witness” at hand, to relate the attack on Jaffri’s house. First “a 200 to 500-strong mob threw stones; refugees in the house (also 200-250 people — sic!) also threw stones in self-defence.” Then the crowd set the place on fire at about 1:30 P.M. Our witness then jumped from the third floor where he was hiding — and from where he had been observing in minute detail all that was going on in the ground floor, even the theft of jewels (it would seem the floors between the third and the ground floor were transparent). At that point we jump into the sensational. Narula’s witness sees that “four or five girls were raped, cut, and burned …; two married women were also raped and cut. Some on the hand, some on the neck” …; “Sixty-five to seventy people were killed.” Those rapes and hackings are said to have started at 3:30 P.M. … when the house was already on fire. Was the mob waiting for everything to be reduced to cinders to commit its crimes?

     Among the most morbid canards, the novelist Arundhati Roy’s vitriolic article (Outlook magazine, May 6th, 2002). She describes the event which precedes Ehsan Jaffri’s death (extract):

… A mob surrounded the house of former Congress MP Iqbal Ehsan Jaffri. His phone calls to the Director-General of Police, the Police Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) were ignored. The mobile police vans around his house did not intervene. The mob broke into the house. They stripped his daughters and burned them alive. Then they beheaded Ehsan Jaffri and dismembered him …

     Wait a minute. Jaffri was burned alive in the house, true — is it not awful enough? Along with some other 41 people. Not enough? But his daughters were neither “stripped” nor “burnt alive.”

T. A. Jafri, his son, in a front-page interview titled “Nobody knew my father’s house was the target” (Asian Age, May 2nd, Delhi ed.), felt obliged to rectify:

Among my brothers and sisters, I am the only one living in India. And I am the eldest in the family. My sister and brother live in the US. I am 40 years old and I have been born and brought up in Ahmedabad.

     There we are, reassured as regards Ehsan Jaffri’s children. He had only one daughter, who was living abroad. No one was raped in the course of this tragedy, and no evidence was given to the police to that effect.

     The Gujarat Government sued Outlook magazine. In its May 27th issue, Outlook published an apology to save its face. But in the course of its apology, the magazine’s editors quoted a “clarification” from Roy, who withdrew her lie by planting an even bigger one: the MP’s daughters “were not among the 10 women who were raped and killed in Chamanpura that day”!

From Smita Narula to Arundhati Roy, “four or five girls” had swollen to “ten women,” equally anonymous and elusive.

     Roy begins theatrically:

Last night a friend from Baroda called. Weeping. It took her fifteen minutes to tell me what the matter was. It wasn’t very complicated. Only that Sayeeda, a friend of hers, had been caught by a mob. Only that her stomach had been ripped open and stuffed with burning rags. Only that after she died, someone carved ‘OM’ on her forehead.

     Balbir Punj, Rajya Sabha MP and journalist, shocked by this “despicable incident” which allegedly occurred in Baroda, decided to investigate it. He got in touch with the Gujarat government.

The police investigations revealed that no such case, involving someone called Sayeeda, had been reported either in urban or rural Baroda. Subsequently, the police sought Roy’s help to identify the victim and seek access to witnesses who could lead them to those guilty of this crime. But the police got no cooperation. Instead, Roy, through her lawyer, replied that the police had no power to issue summons.[6]

     This redefines the term “fiction writer.”

     Another story about a “pregnant Muslim woman” whose stomach was allegedly “ripped open,” her “foetus taken out” and both being burnt, horrified people all over the world. The first mention of it seems to be in a BBC report around March 6th, which, though “uncorroborated,” spread like wildfire, with fresh details (divergent and varied, but who cares?), so much so that you end up feeling there is no smoke without fire.

The rumour was never confirmed — which twisted tongue first whispered it?

     Press articles kept quoting one another, creating “dossiers” out of floating rumours. None of the authors even deigned to visit the scene of the alleged events; none except the official inquiry commissions, had the honesty to question fairly, in parallel, the involved Hindu families regarding the tragedy unfolding in the two Gujarati communities.

Onlookers get caught

     On March 1st, 2002, in a village on the outskirt of Vadodara (Baroda), the “Best Bakery” was set on fire: fourteen persons were burnt alive (nine Muslims and three Hindus).

This particular incident made much ink flow, since the prime witness, young Zaheera Habibullah Sheikh, aged 19, turned against the prosecution in favour of the accused in the trial court.

     Though Zaheera lost several family members in the tragedy, on May 17th, 2003, in the Vadodara High Court, she testified that the accused persons in the dock were innocent and had nothing to do with the arson. She, as well as the other witnesses, did not recognize their own alleged statements before the police.

Justice Mahida of the High Court observed that:

1) There has been an inexcusable delay in the First Information Report (FIR). The so-called FIR of Zahiribibi (Zaheera) was sent to the Magistrate after four to five days. So there is every reason to believe that factually this FIR was cropped up afterwards in the manner suitable to the police.

2) The arrested persons had nothing to do with the incident.

     “We all knew these accused persons and because of them, our lives are saved,” reported Lal Mohammed Shaikh, a witness before the court. … “There were cordial relations between my family members, the persons residing in the compound of Best Bakery and all the accused persons before the court … The 65 persons who are saved in this incident are all before the Court and all these were saved by and due to the accused and their family members … These persons had called us, in darkness we silently came out of our house, and they saved our lives.”

3) The police is trying to put as accused passers-by at the place of incident, innocent persons gathering there or persons residing in the neighbourhood (in confidence that the police wouldn’t do anything to them).

4) No legal or acceptable evidence at all is produced by the prosecution against the accused involving them in this incident. In this case, … it has come out during the trial … that false evidences were cropped up against the present accused to involve them in this case. The case … is not proved and hence the accused are acquitted [7].

     On June 27th, 2003, the twenty-one defendants were freed, and Zaheera Sheikh felt the court has given her “all the justice she wanted.”

In the interests of a community

     But all were not satisfied. A former Chief Justice of India, A.S. Anand, Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission decided that the Vadodara judgement was a “miscarriage of justice” and the twenty-one “not-guilty” people were actually guilty and therefore should be punished. Now this honourable person should have been aware that seated in Delhi at the helm of this “human rights” affair, he would have been the first target of a number of dubious NGOs with vested political interests. Strangely, Justice Anand did not even consider it important to send his own team of independent inquiry before questioning the judgment of another court of law.[8]

     Consequently, just after the fast-track court acquittals, three members of Zaheera’s community “barged into her home” around midnight, and told her she would have to change her statement “in the interests of the community.”

     This meant that Zaheera had to declare that she had lied to the court (which is a criminal offence [9]). Did she have a choice?

     Along with her mother and brother, she was taken to Mumbai “without their consent,” and brought to Teesta Setalvad,[10] an activist of the much-vaunted “human rights.” The activist took them under her wing for several months, accommodated them in a rented apartment while providing assistance for a living. In the meantime she(Teesta) prepared affidavits (in English which Zaheera does not read) for the girl to sign before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), in which she “confessed” to having lied to the Vadodara trial court, “trembling with fear and threatened” by BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastav (who had nothing to do with her area and whom she did not even know). And Zaheera now designated as guilty, the twenty-one people she had considered innocent. All media were ready with their cameras, mikes and pens to splash the news.

     The Gujarat High Court dismissed the appeal, rightly suspecting that the witness had been pressured to turn hostile, and upheld the acquittals.

     But the Supreme Court accepted the retraction and, as demanded by NHRC and Setalvad, ordered the retrial of the case outside Gujarat. The acquittal of the twenty-one people was quashed.

     In 2004, Zaheera “managed to flee” from her confinement by the activist, and in November, seized by remorse for having allowed innocent people to be accused, stated that whatever she had told the Supreme Court, was done under duress from Teesta Setalvad and her associate Rais Khan; and whatever she told the NHRC was a lie. “Ramzan is on and I want to state the truth,” she said. “What I had said in Vadodara Court during the trial was my true statement. The judgement was correct and had given me all the justice I wanted.” She sought police protection from Teesta Setalvad.[11]

     The Supreme Court judge called the girl “flip-flop Zaheera,” accepted a “high-powered committee” report which indicted Zaheera Sheikh as a “self-condemned liar,” and awarded the girl with a simple one-year imprisonment for contempt of court, as well as a fine of Rs. 50,000. Activist Teesta Setalvad was cleared.

     Now, who took the court for a ride? Especially in light of the new revelation that “a host of Gujarat riot case victims were misled into signing affidavits giving false information,” for which as many as ten of them had received 100,000 rupees from Teesta Setalvad NGO.[12]

     As it stands today, nine persons among the twenty-one passer-bys picked up, have been condemned to life imprisonment and are languishing in jail.

     In December 2004, a fatwa was issued against Zaheera by the Muslim Tayohar Committee, excommunicating her with the approval of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, “for having constantly lied.” In other words, for having stood by the twenty-one wrongly accused Hindus neighbours.

     Let us pursue our investigation.

Premeditated files

     Human Rights Watch Smita Narula’s report (April 30th, 2002) was titled “ ‘We have no order to save you’ — State participation and complicity in anti-Muslim violence.” From US shores, its words were lapped up by the Indian elite and politicians:

What happened in Gujarat was not a spontaneous uprising, it was a carefully orchestrated attack against Muslims … planned in advance and organized with extensive participation of the police and state government officials.[13]

     But where are the facts to corroborate such an allegation, which of course was instantly peddled the world over? Can a “carefully orchestrated attack” happen overnight? And how can someone sitting in the U.S., gauge the “spontaneity” of such an outbreak?[14]

Authentic inquiry

     By contrast, a genuine, on-the-spot investigation was conducted under the aegis of the New Delhi-based Council for International Affairs and Human Rights.[15] Its findings were made public as early as April 26th, 2002, through a press conference held in Delhi. Running counter to the politically correct line of an “orchestrated attack,” they were largely ignored by the media.

     On March 3rd, 2002 the five-member fact-finding team under Justice Tewatia’s direction went to Godhra and spent six days visiting three affected areas in Ahmedabad and some of the relief camps. At all places, team members interacted with the two communities freely, without intervention of any officials. Five delegations from both communities presented their facts and views. The team then went to the Godhra railway station and interviewed officials, survivors and witnesses of the burning of the S-6 coach, as well as the fire brigade staff. They met the Godhra District Collector, along with other officials.

     On April 4th, the team was in Vadodara (Baroda) visiting five relief camps of both communities, and seven areas which were the scenes of violence in the preceding month, as well as a number of sensitive areas. To have exposure to the ground realities they visited some areas still under curfew and also met the Commissioner of Police and District Collector along with other officials. Thirteen delegations consisting of 121 citizens met the team and presented their testimonies; they included not only members of both communities, but ranged from the Association of Hoteliers to a group of Gujarati tribals (Vanavasis).

“Indisputable” facts

     Let us quote some findings of Justice Tewatia’s Inquiry Commission, which its report described as “indisputable”:

• The attack on Sabarmati Express on 27.02.02 was pre-planned and pre-meditated. It was the result of a criminal conspiracy hatched by a hostile foreign power with the help of local jehadis … carried out with the evil objective of pushing the country into a communal cauldron.

• The plan was to burn the entire train with more than two thousand passengers in the wee hours of February 27th, 2002.

• There were no quarrels or fights between the vendors and the Hindu pilgrims on the platform of Godhra Railway Station.

• Firebombs, acid bulbs and highly inflammable liquid(s) were used to set the coaches on fire that must have been stored [the day before] already for the purpose.

• The fire fighting system available in Godhra was weakened and its arrival at the place of incident wilfully delayed by the mob with the open participation of a Congress Councillor, Haji Balal.

• Fifty-eight passengers of coach S-6 were burnt to death by a Muslim mob and one of the conspirators was a Congress Councillor, Haji Balal.

• Someone used the public address system exhorting the mob “to kill kafirs and enemies of Bin Laden.”

     About the police:

• Police was on many occasions overwhelmed by the rioting mobs that were massive and carried more lethal weapons than the police did.

• [They] did not have the training and know-how to manage situations of communal strife witnessed in the state in recent weeks.

• In many places, … [they] made a commendable work in protecting life and property. Barring a few exceptions, it was not found to be communally motivated.

     Army deployment:

• Available information shows that the Army was requisitioned and deployed in time.

After Godhra

     The involvement of the “tribal” communities or Vanavasis, in the post-Godhra riots added a new dimension to the communal violence, as Justice Tewatia’s report reveals:

• In rural areas the Vanvasis attacked the Muslim moneylenders, shopkeepers and the forest contractors. They used their traditional bows and arrows as also their implements used to cut trees and grass while attacking Muslims. They moved in groups and used coded signals for communication. Apparently, the accumulated anger of years of exploitation … had become explosive.

     About the media:

• Gujarati language media was factual and objective. Yet its propensity to highlight the gory incidents in great detail heightened communal tension.

• English language newspapers … appeared to have assumed the role of crusaders against the State [Gujarat] Government from day one. It coloured the entire operation of news gathering, feature writing and editorials. They distorted and added fiction to prove their respective points of view. The code of ethics prescribed by the Press Council of India was violated … with impunity. It so enraged the citizens that several concerned citizens in the disturbed areas suggested that peace could return to the state only if some of the TV channels were closed for some weeks.[16]

 A few healing voices

     It would be unfair not to mention a few voices that rose from among the journalists themselves, against this enormity.

The most eloquent one was Vir Sanghvi’s, usually part of the “secular” establishment, ever ready to portray Muslims as victims, Hindus as aggressors. Vir Sanghvi’s crisis of conscience suddenly gave him intellectual clarity. Some extracts from his article “One-way ticket” in The Hindustan Times of Feb. 28th, 2002:

There is something profoundly worrying in the response of what might be called the secular establishment to the massacre in Godhra. …

There is no suggestion that the karsewaks started the violence … there has been no real provocation at all … And yet, the sub-text to all secular commentary is the same: the karsewaks had it coming to them.

Basically, they condemn the crime; but blame the victims …

Try and take the incident out of the secular construct that we, in India, have perfected and see how bizarre such an attitude sounds in other contexts. Did we say that New York had it coming when the Twin Towers were attacked last year? Then too, there was enormous resentment among fundamentalist Muslims about America’s policies, but we didn’t even consider whether this resentment was justified or not.

Instead we took the line that all sensible people must take: any massacre is bad and deserves to be condemned.

When Graham Staines and his children were burnt alive, did we say that Christian missionaries had made themselves unpopular by engaging in conversion and so, they had it coming? No, of course, we didn’t.

Why then are these poor karsewaks an exception? Why have we de-humanised them to the extent that we don’t even see the incident as the human tragedy that it undoubtedly was …

I know the arguments well because — like most journalists — I have used them myself. And I still argue that they are often valid and necessary.

But there comes a time when this kind of rigidly ’secularist’ construct not only goes too far; it also becomes counter-productive.

When everybody can see that a trainload of Hindus was massacred by a Muslim mob, you gain nothing by blaming the murders on the VHP[17] or arguing that the dead men and women had it coming to them.

Not only does this insult the dead (What about the children? Did they also have it coming?), but it also insults the intelligence of the reader.

There is one question we need to ask ourselves: have we become such prisoners of our own rhetoric that even a horrific massacre becomes nothing more than occasion for Sangh Parivar-bashing?[18]

     S. Gurumurthy in The New Indian Express (March 2nd), Jaya Jaitley, in The Indian Express (March 7th), Rajeev Srinivasan in Rediff on Net (March 25th), Arvind Lavakare in Rediff on Net (April 23rd), T. Tomas in Business Standard (April 26th), François Gautier in The Pioneer (April 30th), M.V. Kamath in The Times of India (May 8th), Balbir Punj in Outlook (May 27th), each one expounded the absurdity of a situation where the majority of Indians — the Hindu community — are looked down upon as second class citizens.

A negligible lot taken for granted because it is harmless, non-aggressive, and unable to speak and act as one coherent, organized group.

A farcical interlude

     Two and a half years after the events, on Sept. 3rd, 2004, the cabinet of the Central Government (ruled by the UPA coalition[19]) approved the setting up of a committee constituted by the Railways Minister Lallu Prasad Yadav, and headed by Justice U. C. Banerjee, former judge of the Supreme Court, to probe the causes of the conflagration in the Sabarmati Express.

     “The blaze is an accident,” Justice Banerjee coolly concluded in January 2005. There was “no possibility of inflammable liquid being used,” said he, and the fire originated “in the coach itself, without external input.” The Cabinet ministers were fully satisfied.

     Now among the few survivors, Neelkanth Bhatia, was not one. He gathered enough strength to challenge the formation of this committee, and in October 2006, the Gujarat High Court quashed the conclusions of the Banerjee Committee. It declared its formation as a “colourful exercise,” “illegal, unconstitutional, null and void,” and its argument of accidental fire “opposed to the prima facie accepted facts on record.”

 Moreover, one high-level commission conducted by Justice Nanavati-Shah had been appointed by the Gujarat Government to probe the incident, two months earlier.

The Court also did not miss the point that the interim report was released just two days before the elections in Bihar — the State of the Railways minister, well-known for his political ambitions and notorious for his histrionics.

     Politicians know no common sense or shame. But what about the judiciary?

The Nanavati Report

     The first part of Justice Nanavati-Shah Inquiry Commission report was released in September 2008, after four years of thorough investigations.[20] It lifted the cloak of blame that had been wrapped around the Gujarati people all those years. It also cleared the most blackened Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi.

There is absolutely no evidence to show that either the Chief Minister and/or any other Minister(s) in his Council of Ministers or Police officers had played any role in the Godhra incident or that there was any lapse on their part in the matter of providing protection, relief and rehabilitation to the victims of communal riots or in the matter of not complying with the recommendations and directions given by National Human Rights Commission. There is no evidence regarding involvement of any definite religious or political organization in the conspiracy. Some individuals who had participated in the conspiracy appear to be involved in the heinous act of setting coach S/6 on fire.

The policemen who were assigned the duty of travelling in the Sabarmati Express train from Dahod to Ahmedabad had not done so and for this negligent act of theirs an inquiry was held by the Government and they have been dismissed from service.

On the basis of the facts and circumstances proved by the evidence the Commission comes to the conclusion that burning of coach S/6 was a pre-planned act. In other words there was a conspiracy to burn coach S/6 of the Sabarmati Express train coming from Ayodhya and to cause harm to the Karsevaks travelling in that coach. All the acts like procuring petrol, circulating false rumour, stopping the train and entering in coach S/6 were in pursuance of the object of the conspiracy. The conspiracy hatched by these persons further appears to be a part of a larger conspiracy to create terror and destabilise the Administration.[21]

     According to Justice Nanavati, Maulvi Hussain Umarji from Godhra was the brain behind the events. Two of the main accused, Salim Panwala et Farukh Bhana, are absconding, very likely having fled to Pakistan.

The report named a few others, with various degrees of involvement in the events, but they are unlikely to be troubled in view of their political connections.

Heartstrings for whom?

     It is easy to see why the Nanavati Report was frowned upon by Citizens for Justice and Peace, namely Activist Teesta Setalvad who asked the Supreme Court “to restrain the Gujarat Government from acting upon, circulating and publishing this report.”

Fortunately on October 13th, 2008, the highest court sharply turned down the petition, thus making the testimonies and inquiries available to all (the Nanavati Report is available on the Internet).

     However, under pressure from the UPA Government and pestered by the National Human Rights Commission and Citizens for Justice and Peace NGO, on October 21st, 2008, the Supreme Court directed that the Prevention of Terrorist Act (POTA) could not be used against the 134 accused in the Godhra train burning incident, whose trial was to be held under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code.

This amounted to accepting prima facie that the guilty were not terrorists: we are allowed to call them “militants,” “gunmen” — but not terrorists.

This ruling will have nationwide impact, as other State governments may have to drop charges under POTA against those accused of indulging in terrorist activities.

The recent terrorist attacks on Mumbai (on November 26th) demonstrate the danger of such a withdrawal.

Pattern for Harmony

     This appears to be a pattern: whenever Muslim riots or bomb attacks target Hindus, it is thought acceptable to accuse the victims, in order to avoid possible revolts.

Thus in 1993 in Mumbai, after eleven coordinated bomb blasts in Hindu majority areas, which killed 257 people and injured 713, the then Maharashtra Chief Minister Sharad Pawar quickly cooked up a twelfth explosion … in a Muslim area!

 “I have deliberately misled people,” he explained later, to show that both communities had been affected.”[22] And to portray both communities’ potential to behave as “terrorists”! Truth and clarity of mind are the casualties.

     We remember the great art historian A.K. Coomaraswamy’s words in 1909:

It is unfortunate that libels upon nations and religions cannot be punished as can libels upon individuals.[23]

     Gujarat had greatly suffered throughout all those years. Through a devastating Bhuj region earthquake in January 2001, in which more than 20,000 people died; the pilgrims burned alive at Godhra in Feb. 2002 and just six months later another terrorist attack in the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar, where thirty-three peaceful worshippers were brutally gunned down (with seventy injured). Amidst those tragedies the people of Gujarat seemed to have no doubt whatsoever regarding the sincerity of their Chief Minister, whose administration happens to be among the least corrupt in the whole of India. State elections were held twice since those events: in December 2002 and December 2007. How is it that Narendra Modi won landslide victories on both occasions despite extremely hostile and sustained media campaigns, seeking to demonise him as a blood-thirsty ruler?

     Official India has chosen to forget a millennium of Islamic intolerance and brutality. Millions of butchered Indians have no right to be remembered, not even in history textbooks, where invaders are sometimes turned into heroes. Sadly, this ostrich-like attitude leaves the wounds open and condemns us to relive the past rather than heal it.  January 2009   nicole_elfi@yahoo.com

Also Read :

1)  Truth of Godhra @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/the-myth-and-truth-of-godhra/

2) Where’re Human Rights @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/08/10/wherere-human-rights-advocates/

Notes & references

[1] See Commission of Inquiry Report of Justice G.T. Nanavati & Justice Akshay H. Mehta (“Justice Nanavati Report” for short further below): p. 71-84: 97-125; p.86: 128; p.89-90: 130; p.170: 223; p.172: 226-27; p.174-175: 229; the integral text is available on the website of the Gujarat Government: http://home.gujarat.gov.in/homedepartment/downloads/godharaincident.pdf
See also Godhra the Missing Rage, by S.K. Modi (New Delhi: Ocean Books, 2004).

[2] One of the main vehicles was out of order, as its clutch-plates had been taken out a few days earlier. On their arrival on 27.02.02 in their office, firemen found that the other fire engine had been tampered with. (Justice Tewatia Report and Justice Nanavati Report: p.88-89: 131.)

[3] Ibid.

[4] Justice Nanavati Report, p.39-41: 50-52, p.48-49: 67-68.

[5] To which Gujarat Chief Secretary sent a request to grand further time of 15 days, as “the State machinery is busy with the law & order situation, it would take some time to collect the information and compile the report.” Indeed.

[6] See Balbir Punj in Outlook, May 27th and July 8th; also in The New Indian Express, March 8th, 2002.

[7] See Vadodara Sessions Court, Best Bakery Case, Justice H.U. Mahida’s Judgement, June 27th, 2003.

[8] Columnist Arvind Lavakare in “Blindfolded in Best Bakery” (9.9.2003), commented: “ … The Gujarat government quickly appointed three public pleaders for the purpose of suing [Justice Anand] for contempt of court; these pleaders, in turn, filed an application before the Vadodara judge asking him to move the state’s high court to punish the contemnor who, they said, had insulted the honour and dignity of the judge, besides undermining the entire judiciary. … But Justice Anand … went to the Supreme Court even before an appeal against the Vadodara verdict could be thought out by the Gujarat government. His NHRC petitioned the apex court to order a re-trial of the 21 ‘not guilty’ Best Bakery accused. And the re-trial demanded is one that should be out of Gujarat state!…” Though article 20(2) of the Constitution of India prohibits trial for the same offence twice (M. N. Buch, The Indian Express, Mumbai, August 13th, 2003).

[9] Section 191 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, says, “Whoever, being legally bound by an oath or by an express provision of law to state the truth or being bound by law to make a declaration upon any subject, makes any statement which is false, and which he either knows to or believes to be false or does not believe to be true, is said to give false evidence.” Section 193 lays down that punishment for the offence of giving “false evidence” is imprisonment which may extend to seven years and shall also be liable to fine.

[10] Social activist and Secretary of the NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, and co-editor of Communalism Combat, a CPI-CPI(M) affiliated magazine.

[11] Zaheera isn’t the only one to seek police protection from activist Teesta Setalvad. Rais Khan, who worked closely with her, now feels under threat and recently asked for it too.

[12] As it happens, “a host of Gujarat riot case victims were misled into signing affidavits giving false information at the behest of Setalvad’s Citizens for Justice and Peace, which was instrumental in organising payment of Rs. 1 lakh each to ten witnesses in various post-Godhra riot. Among the recipients, four are Best Bakery case witnesses. A list of names were sent to the CPI(Marxist) relief fund, and demand drafts were handed out at a function in Ahmedabad on August 26th, 2007 by CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat, Teesta Setalvad and Rais Khan. Incidentally, those who were both victims and eyewitnesses received 100,000 rupees, some others 50,000 rupees, while the victims got a mere 5,000 rupees each. This has raised eyebrows over the selection of beneficiaries and the purpose of paying a disproportionately large sum to the eyewitnesses before the trial.” See Navin Upadhyay, Daily Pioneer, Dec. 20th, 2008: www.dailypioneer.com/144856/Godhra-riot-witnesses-got-Rs-1-lakh-each.html

[13] South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch and author of the report.

[14] This New York-based Human Rights Watch, still watches the Indian shores closely, as it appears, but not to protect innocent lives. On Dec. 3rd, 2008, just a week after the ghastly Nov. 26th terrorist attacks in Mumbai, HRW issued a statement to the Government of India, offering gratuitous advice on how to manage its affairs and demanding that investigators should respect the human rights of captured terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab (also called “Butcher of Mumbai”). A commentator in The Jerusalem Post pointed out, “The HRW’s website lists 38 reports attacking counter-terrorism efforts around the globe but only three on the brutal impact of terrorism on civilians.” See also Kanchan Gupta’s excellent article, “Mumbai’s Butcher and human rights,” in The Pioneer, Dec. 17th, 2008.
www.dailypioneer.com/144038/Mumbai’s-Butcher-and-human-rights.html

[15] Council for International Affairs and Human Rights (governing body for the term 2001-2003), New Delhi. “Facts Speak for Themselves: Godhra and After,” A Field Study by Justice D. S. Tewatia, Dr. J.C. Batra, Dr. Krishan Singh Arya, Shri Jawahar Lal Kaul, Prof. B. K. Kuthiala. Available online at www.geocities.com/hsitah9/facts_speak_for_themselves.htm .

[16] From Justice Tewatia Report.

[17] The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) is a pro-Hindu organization.

[18] The Sangh Parivar is a network of pro-Hindu organizations deriving from the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh (RSS).

[19] The UPA is a coalition of political parties, the main one being the Congress presided over by Sonia Gandhi; Manmohan Singh is the Prime Minister. As many as 10 Cabinet ministers (at the helm of India’s affairs till today …) as well as 93 Lok Sabha MPs face criminal charges ranging from rape, extortion and murder (Association of Democratic Reforms, New Delhi, in The New Indian Express, Dec. 6th, 2006).

[20] Among its specific tasks, the Nanavati Commission was required by the Government to consider: “Role and conduct of the then Chief Minister and/or any other Minister(s) in his council of Ministers, Police Officers, other individuals and organizations in both the events referred to in clauses (a) and (b); (e) Role and conduct … (i) in dealing with any political or non-political organization which may be found to have been involved in any of the events referred to hereinabove; (ii) in the matter of providing protection, relief and rehabilitation to the victims of communal riots (iii) in the matter of recommendations and directions given by National Human Rights Commission from time to time.” By that notification the Government also included within the scope of inquiry the incidents of violence that had taken place till 31-5-2002.

[21] Nanavati Commission Report, p.174-75: 229; p.175: 229; p.176: 230.

[22] New Indian Express, August 13th, 2006.

[23] Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in Essays in National Idealism, p.143 (Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1981).

** Terror against India

Terror Against India
By David Frawley

The Indian media will not use the term terrorism for any religious group other than the Hindus. Terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam will be called ‘jehadi terrorism’ or simply ‘terrorism’. It is said that terrorism has no religion, but this is not the case if terrorism can be linked to Hinduism, a religion unlike most others, built upon non-violence.

I was raised a Catholic and grew up in the United States. I have been to India more than twenty times over a thirty-year period and have visited many gurus and ashrams. I have seen a few bigoted or conservative Hindus here and there but overall Hindus are the most tolerant and accepting of all religious groups and the most concerned with spiritual practices rather than converting others or conquering the world.

Unlike most Biblical traditions, Hindus do not claim that theirs is the only path and if you don’t accept their religion, you will suffer eternal damnation or at least never receive the favour of God.

Instead they teach you methods of Yoga and meditation so that you can experience the Divine for yourselves and in yourself, freeing you from any dependency upon institutions or dogmas.

Unfortunately today, under the pretext of Hindu terrorism, terrorism is being enacted against Hindus in India today. Hindu nuns are being stripped of their human rights, subject to narcotic testing that is illegal in the rest of the world, and tortured. Clearly such treatment would never be given in India by the police to a Christian nun.

Even in India, evidence gained in this manner is not admissible in a court of law, yet it seems to be not only admissible but unquestionably true in the Indian media, which builds a case of Hindu terrorism based upon the torture of Hindus and allegations built upon that torture.

What is the brazen face of terrorism they are showing us among Hindus? Not a Bin Laden and 9/11 with Al Qaida proudly boasting of its attack and citing scripture in its justification, not a Taliban taking over a country and turning it into a terrorist state, not an attack on India’ Parliament, but a Hindu nun and her two wheeler, even though polygraph tests, torture and narcotic drugs injected into her have failed to produce a confession.

Terrorism is a big problem in India as it is in Pakistan and in the rest of the world. The main religious group to which the great majority of terrorists belong is obviously not the Hindus.

While the media in India likes to blame Hindus for terrorism in the country, even if Hindus are the victims, clearly they can’t blame Hindus for the yet greater terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, much less in the US and UK.

Yet the media of India seems to think that Hindu terrorism is more dangerous or at least a better story, while the greater number of Indians who have died from terrorism caused by non-Hindu groups don’t seem to be worthy of consideration. The nearly ninety people who died in Assam seem to have been forgotten, for example, mainly it seems because one cannot make them into a case of Hindu terrorism.

Note that the Indian media will not use the term terrorism for any religious group other than the Hindus. Terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam will be called ‘jehadi terrorism’ or simply ‘terrorism’. It is said that terrorism has no religion, but this is not the case if terrorism can be linked to Hinduism, a religion unlike most others, built upon non-violence. Alleged terrorism in the name of anyone, even a nun, who might be a Hindu, even if it is not proved, will be called ‘Hindu terrorism’.

I suspect I may be called a Hindu terrorist for writing this article.

Does this mean that Hindus are never violent and may not at some point be involved in attacks on other communities? Certainly not, but Hindus remain largely passive and are generally the last community to assert itself with violence.

The reason for this fixation on Hindu terrorism is clear. India has suffered from many recent terrorist attacks and there has been little headway in bringing any of the terrorists to justice. Elections are coming up and those who are afraid of losing seats for their failure to deal with real terrorism, which is generally directed against Hindus, feel that raising the bogey of Hindu terrorism will improve their chances at the polls.

Their war on terror is largely a war against Hindus to promote anti-Hindu voting sentiments.

Jehadis won’t need to terrorise Hindus anymore because Indians themselves will do it to get elected, calling Hindus terrorists while they take away their human rights and let the real terrorists go free.

Recently more than eight Hindu students have been murdered in the United States. Is the government of India making a protest against anti-Hindu terrorism in the US? Certainly the American government would make a protest if American students were being murdered in India, particularly if they were Christians or Christian workers.

But deaths of Hindus don’t count it seems.

Hinduism is the religion that most commonly teaches us to respect all religions and honour a diversity of paths to the Divine, yet we find Hinduism remains the most denigrated of all the world’s major religions.

It is time for Hindus to stand up against the distortions of Hinduism that abound in the world today, which means challenging the media and political groups that target and malign Hindus and Hinduism for their advantage. This anti-Hindu media actually seems worse in India than in the West.

Sadly, many of these anti-Hindu sentiments come from Hindus in India who see certain other Hindu groups as their enemies. They will sell out their own religion and vilify it with the name of terrorism, if it brings them money, fame or another few years of political power regardless of its ramifications for the future of their country or their religion.

So let us address the real problem of terrorism and not target Hinduism. If the main thing we can boast for in dealing with terrorism is capturing Hindu nuns, our campaign against terror is certainly lacking.  (Write to:  pvshastri@aol.com)

1) Hindus under Seige @ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6644225536753124845&hl=en

2) Nomenclature Terrorism @ http://rajeev2007.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/nomenclature-terrorism/

 

3)  Provoked to Write

4)  Video on Indian Media

5)  Media’s Handshake

6)  Suicidal Secularism

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/looking-at-christianitys-handshake-with-media-in-india-book-review_10074366.html —

** Inculturation: Fooling Hindus

Inculturation: Fooling Hindus

Nithin Sridhar, ivarta

In early 1982, Father Joseph Parekatil of the Catholic Church of Parasahi, Madhya Pradesh, destroyed the sacred murthi of the Goddess Visweshwari Siddheswari enshrined on the nearby Nawain Tekdi hill and erected a small wooden cross. Later, the father erected a 31 – foot high concrete cross illegally on the hill on February 18th, 1983. Enraged villagers destroyed the cross a month later on March 17th.

On February 20th, 1985, with the intent once again of trying to gain possession of the hill, Father Parekatil put on the orange robes of a Hindu sannyasin, built a hut on the hill, sat on a tiger skin and began performing worship in the Hindu style. As a result, thousands of simple Hindus came to the hill on Fridays, unaware of the deception they were witnessing.

On May 18th, a complaint was registered, but to no avail. Again there was agitation in the area, and this time, on October 1st, 1985, the villagers tore down the priest”s hut and tossed away the remaining pieces of the concrete cross. Father Parekatil only gave up when he was arrested a week later for breaking the peace and released on bail with instructions to behave [1].

This tactics used by Father Parekatil of adopting Hindu symbols, to further his missioanry goal is called as “Inculturation” or “Indigenization”. Christianity has always been following a policy of “Inculturation.”

This means that it adopted Pagan elements in Christianized form in order to ease the transition from Paganism to Christianity. Pagan gods became Christian saints. Pagan Festivals became Christian festivals.In this process of inculturation, the Christian Church adapted old forms to its new message, but made sure that through the Pagan veneer the Christian doctrine was impressed upon the converts [2]. “Indigenization,” says Kaj Baago, “is evangelization. It is the planting of the gospel inside another culture, another philosophy, another religion [3]“. In Indian case, “Inculturation” or “Indigenization” means “the incorporation of Jesus in Indian spiritual tradition”.

Fr. Bede says “In India we need a Christian Vedanta and a Christian Yoga that is a system of theology which makes use not only of the terms and concepts but of the whole structure of thought of the Vedanta [4].”

Shantivanam Ashram on the banks of the sacred Cauvery River at a forested place near Trichy in South India appears Hindu. It has a Hindu shrine; saffron-robed “swami” seated cross – legged on a straw mat; devotees practising yogic meditations, even chanting Hindu scriptures. But these impressions gradually prove false. First, the eye detects that the courtyard shrine is for Saint Paul and that “puja” is actually, a daily Mass, complete with incense, arati lamps, flower offerings and prasadam. Finally, one meets the “swami”, learning he is Father Bede “Dayananda” Griffiths, a Christian “sannyasin”. This is a Christian ashram, one of more than 50 in India, which are variously described as “experiments in cross-cultural communication,” “contemplative hermitages that revolve around both Christian and Hindu ideals.

Fr. J. Monchanin [5], one of the founding members himself defines his mission in these terms: “I have come to India for no other purpose than to awaken in a few souls the desire (the passion) to raise up a Christian India. It will take centuries, sacrificed lives and we shall perhaps die before seeing any realizations. A Christian India, completely Indian and completely Christian will be something so wonderful the sacrifice of our lives is not too much to ask.” His words clearly show the motive behind these ashrams.

Lausanne Movement (for world evangelization) published a paper “Christian witness to Hindus [6]” (1980). In the report, under the title “Methodology Issues” lists some of the methods to be implemented to convert Hindus.

Some of them are-

(1) We should enunciate theology in Indian categories so that the Hindu can understand the gospel.

(2) We must develop a truly Christian world view consistent with the Indian context.

(3) While presenting the gospel, we must be aware of the fact that the Hindu understands the doctrine of God, man, sin, and salvation in a way entirely different from the biblical doctrine.

(4) Communicate the gospel through indigenous methods such as bhajans, drama, dialogue, discourse, Indian music, festival processions, etc.

Sita Ram Goel, in his book “Catholic Ashrams [7]“, lists 108 such Christian ashram in India, 4 in Nepal and 8 in Sri Lanka. His list includes Asha Niketan, Bangalore, Karnataka, Bethany Ashram (1938), Channapatna, Karnataka, Christa Sevakee Ashram (1950), Karkala, Karnataka, Christian Institute for the study of Religion and Society, Bangalore, Karnataka, Yesu Karuna Prarthanalaya, Kote, Mysore District, Karnataka. The present Catholic ashrams have inherited a history of intrigue and subterfuge.

Here is a description from the “Madhya Pradesh Report(1956) [8]“: “Robert De Nobili (A Catholic Jesuit priest) appeared in Madura in 1607 clad in the saffron robes of a Sadhu with sandal paste on his forehead and the sacred thread on his body. He gave out that he was a Brahmin from Rome. He showed documentary evidence to prove that he belonged to a clan that had migrated from ancient India. He declared that he was bringing a message which had been taught in India by Indian ascetics of yore and that he was only restoring to Hindus one of their lost sacred books, namely the 5th Veda, called Yeshurveda (Jesus Veda). It passed for a genuine work until the Protestant Missionaries exposed the fraud about the year 1840. This Brahmin Sannyasi of the “Roman Gotra”, Father De Nobili, worked for 40 years and died at the ripe age of 89 in 1656. It is said that he had converted about a lakh of persons but they all melted away after his death“.

This is the situation the Hindu finds himself in. Christian missionaries have adopted Hindu ways of life, Hindu religious symbols, architecture, worship forms and declared themselves as Swamis. A Catholic priest who calls himself “swami” instantly attains the status and authority of a holy man in Hindu society, which he can use to make converts.

By using Sanskrit terminology in his sermons he implies a close relationship of Hindu theology to Catholic theology, a relationship which does not really exist. Such missionaries speak authoritatively on Hindu scriptures and argue that their [Christian] teachings are consonant with everything Hindu, but add a finishing touch, “fullness” to the traditional faith.

Related stories:

Shalokas on Mount @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/slokas-on-the-mount/

What’s in Name? @ http://indiasecular.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/what-is-in-name/

What Made Hindus Angry @ http://worldmonitor.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/what-made-hindus-angry

http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/Inculturation-Fooling-Hindus-Christian-India-Goal/blog-194.htm —

** Radical Universalism

Radical Universalism - By Dr. Frank Morales

Voice of India, pp 56, Rs 100.00

Book Review: By Manju Gupta

Does Hinduism Teach that All Religions are the Same?

THIS is a booklet in which the author, a practicing Hindu considered America’s leading authority on Hinduism, reiterates his important message that Sanatana Dharma must be understood and practiced only in its original form if it is to survive and thrive as the world’s most important and relevant spiritual tradition.

All human beings have a common religious urge—a seeking to contact the Divine or a higher spiritual reality—which has had different expressions according to the time, place, culture and the individual himself or herself.

Due to different beliefs and practices in existing religions, something that is regarded as holy in one religion may be considered unholy in another. As a result, religion has often prevented the spread of unity among human beings; it has instead, led to disagreement, hatred, war and even genocide in the world.

In an effort to be tolerant and more inclusive than others, Hinduism has made “the blanket that all religions are true, valid and equal and lead to the same goal—what could be called a ‘radical universalism’,” says the author.

It is this radical universalism that promotes acceptance of all religions as same in order to lead us to unity behind our religious strivings—it is immaterial what religion one follows or whether one goes to a church, mosque or a temple.

One needs to have full faith in the religion that one has adopted to reach the highest truth.

Different religions of the world contain various doctrines and teachings that cannot all be equally valid. Here the author states that the law of karma and rebirth, for example, is either true or false. “If it is true, then religions which do not teach it are flawed. If it is not true, then the religions that teach are incorrect. Both cannot be true at the same time.”

He says that similarly there can be no final guru, prophet or saviour for all humanity. Religion should, in its real import, be a quest for eternal truth and “seeking to realise it within our own consciousness.” This means that we question everything and accept only that which is proved by our experiences.

Hindu Dharma “teaches us pluralism relative to the spiritual life, which can both tolerate many points of view but also discriminate between them and find out what is best for each individual.”

Thus an enlightened pluralism must rest upon a higher sense of discrimination.

In this book Dr Morales bases his views on a rationality reflecting the great principles of Vedanta, which insist upon a clear understanding of the issue and not just the imposition of one’s belief as the answer.

He shows how the Hindu tradition does not teach us blind equation of all religions, but instead emphasises on enlightened pluralism.

This not only allows the existence of many paths but insists that only a razor-sharp path can take us to our highest goal.

It is heartening to read a Western scholar of Hinduism say that a traditional Hindu has always been the most tolerant of all religious persons and that Hindu India has been the sole nation on earth where the Jewish community was never persecuted and who have lived in India for over 200 years.

Similarly Zoroastrian refugees, escaping the destruction of Persian civilisation at the hands of Islamic conquerors, were greeted with welcome refuge in India over 1,000 years ago. The Zoroastrian community, now known as Parsis, has thrived in India in all these many centuries, living together as they do with their Hindu neighbours in peace and mutual respect.

He says that in keeping with the Vedic adage that the guest in one’s home is to be treated with as much hospitality as a visiting divinity, Hindus have always lived peacefully with indigenous Indian religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism and even the foreign religions like Christianity and Islam.

Radical Universalism ( in detail) @ http://www.dharmacentral.com/universalism.htm

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=238&page=23

** Shlokas On The Mount

Slokas On The Mount

Outlook India Magazine

May 12, 2008

Om Namah Jesu could well reverberate inside hundreds of Catholic churches in India very soon, if the changing physical face of these places of worship is anything to go by.

The Vatican-blessed process of ‘inculturation’ being implemented by the 168 Catholic dioceses in India has already seen Jesus acquiring the form of a Hindu sage, St John the Baptist with a ‘kamandalu’, grottos in the shape of conch shells, and a church in Bangalore that can easily be mistaken for a temple. 

‘Inculturation’, broadly speaking, is the indigenisation of the Church through the process of assimilating local culture and symbols in construction, layout, interior design, furniture and religious fixtures like the tabernacles. 

So far, around 45 churches across the country have been wholly or partially ‘inculturated’—many have adopted Indian architectural forms and motifs, and quite a few have been refurbished and their interiors redesigned to include murals, panels, furniture et al that have been inspired

by Hindu religious symbols. The tabernacle at the recently inaugurated Our Lady of Mount Carmel church at Murugani near Dumka in Jharkhand, for example, has been rendered in the shape of a ‘kula’—used by local tribals and people in neighbouring states, including West Bengal, to thresh foodgrains, and regarded as an auspicious symbol.   This process began gradually in the early 1990s, but gathered momentum about five years ago. “Initially, there was a lot of opposition to this from conservative elements in the Church. For them, any dilution of the European element in church construction, or in the murals depicting scenes from the Bible where all the people look European, or in statues or church articles, was totally unacceptable. That has slowly changed with the growing realisation that the Church has to incarnate the Gospel in the culture in which it is being preached,” a senior priest from the Archdiocese of Calcutta told Outlook on condition of anonymity.  Explained Father Varghese Puthussery, the Jesuit Provincial of Dumka-Raiganj who inaugurated the Murugani church, “In many parts of Asia, especially in India, Christianity is inseparably linked with Western culture, which is looked upon as alien.   Many committed Christians in India feel a split between their Indian cultural experience and the still-Western character of what they experience in the Church. Inculturation, thus, is the Church’s attempt to bridge that divide.” The Murugani church is an eloquent example of ‘inculturation’. “The structure is not typical; we’ve incorporated elements of Islamic architecture since many old buildings in this region have a strong Islamic influence. The tribal influence too is very strong in this church. The pulpit is a replica of a ‘morai’ used by local Santhal tribals to store grains, the altar rests on a tribal drum, the fibreglass statue of Jesus at the sanctuary looks as if it is carved out of wood, since tribals worship wood-carved deities, and the stained glass windows depicting parables from the Bible have persons with a distinctly tribal look,” Subrata Ganguly, the man helping the Catholic Church implement the ‘inculturation’ process, told Outlook.  Ganguly runs Church Art, a firm that designs new churches and renovates existing ones to give them a strong local flavour. “We have worked in all states of the country. In the case of new churches, we formalise a concept after intensive discussions with the local diocese and congregations, and then work with a local architect to give the concept a concrete shape on the drawing board. Next, we work with the contractor to ensure proper construction.    After that, we start working on the interiors and various other objects like the pulpit, the altar, murals, windows and various other objects. With old or existing churches, too, we follow a similar routine. All the moveable ‘inculturated’ objects, including murals and statues, are made at my workshop in Calcutta and transported to the respective sites. Big objects like statues are transported in knocked-down form and then reassembled at the site,” says Ganguly.    Remarkable specimens of the studio’s creations exist around the country. Like Jesus sitting cross-legged on a lotus (installed in a church in Hyderabad), or Jesus emerging after a purifying bath in the Ganges with temples on the riverbanks (in a mural in a Haridwar church), or rendered as a typical Bastar tribal priest surrounded by tribal women at a church at Bhopal. At a church at Jhansi, scenes from Christ’s life in a set of 40 paintings has human and animal characters that leap straight out of Amar Chitra Katha and Panchatantra comics. “We’ve installed similar panels in many churches and the feedback has been very good. We’re getting requests to make more such panels and murals, which show biblical characters in Indian forms, from various churches, seminaries and Catholic institutions all across the country,” says Ganguly.    “There is greatness and divinity is every culture and the Church draws from that to make itself more acceptable to local congregations. This is more so with tribals and in tribal areas,” says Dumka’s Bishop Rev Julius Marandi. ‘Inculturation’, say Catholic priests, is an evolving process specially tailored to different local traditions. “The requirements for an inculturated church or seminary in Northeast India are very different from those at Ambapara in Rajasthan’s Udaipur, where the next ‘inculturated’ church is coming up,” explains Ganguly.     “At a seminary near Shillong, for instance, Jesus is shown in a mural standing under a pine tree with people in Khasi and Garo headgear around him. At Ambapara, we’ll show Jesus as a Bhil tribal. We’ve studied and researched extensively on the Bhils; we always do this before every such project, to get an accurate idea of local customs, traditions and culture,” he adds. Already, typical Hindu rituals like ‘aarti’ are being performed inside churches.    At a church in Nadia, the Good Shepherd looks like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the 15th century Vaishnavite saint of Bengal, his arms raised in a beatific trance. At this rate, can the cross taking the shape of a trishul be far behind? http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080512&fname=Church+%28F%29&sid=1  It is not totally baseless if Hindu leaders fear that ‘Indianisation of Christianity’  is meant to bring about ‘Christianisation of India’.  – Nitya Chaitanya Guru

What’s in a Name? @ http://indiasecular.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/what-is-in-name/

Interview of Evangelist @ http://indiasecular.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/interview-of-anevangelist/

Evangelism for Sikhs @ http://www.info-sikh.com/PageChris1.html

Tsunami Muslims Christianized @ http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2005-01/13/article05.shtml

Religious Harmony @ http://www.crusadewatch.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=928

Inculturation Danger @ . http://newstodaynet.com/col.php?section=20&catid=29

Evangelizing the Jews @  http://www.israelenews.com/view.asp?ID=2532

Contextualizing Gospel for Sikhs @ http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=26542

** LTTE-Sonia link ?

An LTTE-Sonia family link?

S. Gurumurthy,Newindpress

April 29 2008

 

The LTTE suicide squad did plan and eliminate Rajiv Gandhi. But, why did the LTTE do it? Was there a larger conspiracy that extended beyond the LTTE as the strike force?

Was the LTTE the author of the crime or the mercenary for some one else or for some purpose that yielded some benefit to it? These questions persisted even after the actual assassins were brought to book.

The Narasimha Rao government appointed the Jain Commission to go into the conspiracy angle to the murder.In its interim report the commission did exceedingly good work to bring on record evidence about the political forces involved in promoting the LTTE in Tamil Nadu that made the crime possible.

Yet it made a mockery of its main work, the conspiracy angle. It floated dubious and wild theories, involving Mossad! CIA! Besides adding confusion, it ended up trivialising a very serious exercise. This also robbed the commission of its credibility.

As the commission’s final report proved a flop, the Vajpayee government appointed a Multi- Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) in 1998 to unearth the conspiracy angle.

But the person who first demanded, but, ultimately made, investigation into the conspiracy to murder Rajiv Gandhi irrelevant was none other than his widow Sonia Gandhi.

Her attitude to the investigation and suspected actors in the murder dramatically changed. Her conduct in 1997 when she was working to enter active politics was a stark contrast to her attitude after taking over the congress leadership on the Jain Commission issue.

In 1997, she demanded that the DMK which, the Jain commission had said, was part of the conspiracy, be sacked as a partner of the UF alliance and pulled down the government when the demand was not met. Her party insisted the entire facts about the conspiracy be investigated and revealed.

Addressing a meeting at Amethi, Sonia hinted that the DMK was a fan of the LTTE and charged that those who doubted the Jain commission report were diverting the attention from the investigation into the conspiracy to murder Rajiv and demanded that the probe be completed expeditiously (Indian Express 2.2.1998).

 

But, once she took over the party leadership, she not only ceased to evince any interest in pursuing the Rajiv Gandhi murder conspiracy, but also began allying with the alleged conspirators themselves.

The developments, put together, reveal a shocking picture.The year after taking over the Congress, Sonia Gandhi makes a secret move.

In the year 1999, she told then President Dr K R Narayanan privately that ‘neither she nor her son and daughter wanted any of the four convicts’ sentenced to death for Rajiv’s assassination ‘to be hanged’, and pleaded that no child should be orphaned by an act of the State.

Noted the Indian Express (Nov 20, 1999) that before her plea for mercy to the Rajiv killers the Congress party was the leading opponent of mercy to them. This silenced the party once and for all.

What transpired at her private meeting with the President was revealed not by Sonia, but by Mohini Giri (the former chairperson of the National Women’s Commission) and on that basis Nalini’s death sentence was commuted to life. (Frontline Nov 5-18, 2005).

Then, in February 2004, there were reports, editorially commented by the Island newspaper in Colombo on Feb 20, 2004, that Eduardo Faleiro, her emissary, had a secret meeting with the LTTE chief Prabhakaran at Killinochi. Island had also referred to reports that Sonia’s mother Ms Paula Maino had met Anton Balasingham, LTTE’s point man in London, in connection with the electoral alliance between the DMK and the Congress. While Eduardo Faleiro at least made a feeble attempt to deny the meeting, Paulo Maino would not even deny that.Third, the Paulo Maino meeting preceded, and the Faleiro meeting succeeded, the unbelievable U-turn of Sonia Gandhi to forge alliance with the DMK which was accused by her own party in 1997 of being part of the conspiracy to murder her husband. The DMK-Congress alliance seems to have been agreed upon sometime in December 2003. In January 2004, Sonia met the DMK chief and concretised the alliance.

The coming together of one of the alleged conspirators and the victim of the conspiracy made a mockery of any further investigation into Rajiv Gandhi murder.

For the last four years there is not a single word spoken by Sonia on pursuing the Rajiv Gandhi murderers and on unearthing the conspiracy or for the extradition of Prabhakaran or Pottu Amman.

This is despite the fact that, when, on April 10, 2002, Prabhakaran met the press at Killinochi, he did not even deny that LTTE was involved in Rajiv assassination.

Fourth, the LTTE too responded favourably to signals from Sonia that she was not against LTTE.

On January 27, 2006, Anton Balasingham, told an Indian TV news channel that the Rajiv killing was ‘monumental tragedy’ and asked the people of India to be ‘magnanimous to put the past behind’ and deal with the LTTE.

Fifth, Sonia did not object to the inclusion of the DMK woman MP in whose house Sivarasan the main killer of Rajiv Gandhi had stayed for which she was detained under the TADA, as a minister in the UPA government.

Sixth, the MDMA which was appointed by the NDA government after Sonia rejected the Action Taken Report on the Jain Commission, has virtually become defunct under the UPA regime.

Since 2004, she has not uttered a single word asking what the MDMA is doing.

And finally now in March 2008, Priyanka Vadra, Sonia’s daughter makes a secret visit to Vellore jail and meets the first accused in the murder of Rajiv, for over an hour.

Media reports say that they sat by each other’s side, cried and professed goodwill towards each other! No one knows what transpired between them. The meeting clearly illegal, looks almost a conspiracy, would have remained a secret had the media not exposed it.

Priyanka said that neither Sonia nor Rahul or Priyanka believe in hate or anger, and that the visit was her way of coming to terms with the Rajiv Gandhi murder.

Moral high ground seems to be a cover for undisclosed political strategies. But where was this high moral ground when Sonia angrily pulled down the UF government on the ground that DMK, a suspected co-conspirator with LTTE, was part of the alliance?

Is Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination a personal affair between the Sonia Gandhi family and the LTTE for the former to punish or pardon the latter?

LTTE has neither confessed nor regretted its action for the Gandhis to pardon. The LTTE is even today unrepenting.

The prosecution case is that the LTTE supremo decided to avenge Rajiv Gandhi for sending IPKF to Sri Lanka and betraying the LTTE. But that was no personal decision of Rajiv Gandhi. The assassination was an act against the state of India.

This is how it should be seen and pursued. Neither Sonia nor Priyanka nor the Congress has the right to pardon the criminals who have challenged the sovereignty of India.

QED: Sonia Gandhi family and the LTTE connection is mysterious. Is the maverick Dr Subramanian Swamy right after all in his theory that LTTE and the Maino family have had links before?  http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEM20080428231348&Title=Main+Article&rLink=0  

RELATED STORIES:   

 

Do you know Sonia : Subramanian Swamy @ http://www.saveindi aforum.com/ dynamic/

Sonia Cong’s blitzkrieg evangelisation thru RBI: V. Sundaram @ http://www.newstodaynet.com/2007sud/may07/230507.htm  

She became loyal bit late: by Gurumurthy@ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/06/14/she-became-loyal-to-india-a-trifle-late/

Demo-narchy of India @ http://indiaview.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/de%e2%80%99mo-narchy-of-democratic-india/

Sonia-LTTE link : by Gurumurthy @ http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEM20080428231348&Title=Main+Article&rLink=0

** Secularism vs. Terrorism

Secularism encouraging terrorism

Organiser Weekly

Former Punjab Director General of Police, K.P.S.Gill made the point that India was being ruled by pseudo-secularists who did not have the will to fight terrorism. At a meeting organised by the Forum on Integrated National Security (FINS), Gill said that “intellectuals and some political establishments are wedded to weaken the country consciously and as a programme, in the name of secularism.” As Gill saw it, Islamic fundamentalism backed by Pakistan is growing.

Something is terribly wrong not only with our national law and order system, but the distribution of prosperity throughout the length and breadth of the country. The distribution is very uneven, but that is only one aspect of the situation.

The other aspect is the growth of jehadism in the country and it has now been discovered that Karnataka has become a centre of recruitment. What comes as a shock is that the recruits are not illiterate or poor Muslims eking out a bare living, but well-educated youths among whom were noticed a civil engineer, a software engineer, a mechanical engineer with a Ph.D in computational fluid dynamics and a doctor.

Apparently there is growing radicalisation of educated Muslim youth who have pursued their education in Britain and the United States.

What has India done to these youths that they should turn into jehadis and antinationals? India has gone out of its way to do what it can—including subsidising Haj visits—to the so-called minorities in the name of secularism. Even where they are in a majority, as in Jammu and Kashmir, Muslims get preference.

The damage done by Islamic terrorists in other parts of India, speaks for itself. From March 2006 to December 2007, in a space of 18 months, jehadi acts of terrorism are just unimaginable.

Consider this list:

In March 2006 there was twin bombing in Varanasi, one at the railway station and the other at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple killing 20 people.

In July 2006, seven serial bombings of a Mumbai railway station killed more than 200 and injured 700 others.

In September 2006 at least 30 persons were killed and 100 injured in twin blasts at Malegaon in Maharashtra. Not even Hyderabad, which has a large Muslim population, was spared.

On August 25, 2007, bombs ripped through crowded public areas killing at least 42 persons. It is as if these deaths do not matter. The brutal incidents are quickly forgotten.

Speaking in Bangalore on August 4, 2007, former Punjab Director General of Police, K.P.S.Gill made the point that India was being ruled by pseudo-secularists who did not have the will to fight terrorism.

At a meeting organised by the Forum on Integrated National Security (FINS), Gill said that “intellectuals and some political establishments are wedded to weaken the country consciously and as a programme, in the name of secularism.”

As Gill saw it, Islamic fundamentalism backed by Pakistan is growing with its sleeper cells increasing across the country, while extremist political leaders are posing a larger danger of dividing the society in the pretext of advocating welfare of Muslims and OBCs.

Now—believe it or not—the UPA government has decided to provide a relief package to dependents of terrorists—those very men who fought in the past against the integrity of India and were killed by the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

Is anybody aware of the damage done by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir?

A souvenir of the Jammu and Kashmir police released in 2003 and quoted by another senior officer, Joginder Singh (Pioneer, February 11) provides the facts. According to the souvenir, between 1990 and December 2002 there were 56,041 incidents of violence including 10,093 explosions, 29, 931 firing incidents, 5,561 cases of arson, 763 rocket attacks, 4,597 abductions, 229 cases of hanging to death, 275 arms snatching cases and 4, 592 other acts of violence.

During those 14 years, more than 30,000 civilians were killed and security forces seized 24,785 AK—type rifles, 9,387 pistols and revolvers, 58 carbines, 91 light machine guns, 6,865 kgs or RDX , 742 rocket launchers and the list grows.

Worst, due to terrorism, 3.70 lakh Hindus and Sikhs were forced to leave the Valley and there has been total ethnic cleaning. Can we call it genocide?

So what do we do?

In the period between 2000-2003, the state got Rs 13, 188 crore as grant which is three times what Bihar, one of the poorest states in India, received—about Rs 4,047 crore.

On November 17, 2004, our kind Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh announced an “Economic Revival Plan” of Rs 24,000 crore for Jammu and Kashmir.

 Incidentally, according to Joginder Singh “no one really knows what was spent where and who got what”, since the state’s accounts have not been audited for our a decade.

Par for the course, one might add. Never question a Muslim majority state how it spends money. That would not be secular.

And all this, when, according to Army sources, over 2000 militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba were trying to sneak into the Valley in August 2007. Major-General Ramesh Halgali, G-O.C of the 19th Infantry Division told PTI that many militants had been brought to the border by Pakistan to wreak terror.

Pakistan gets away with murder and its patron in Washington turns a blind eye to what is going on. Pakistan is fighting terrorism, isn’t it? So what is India complaining about, is the US response. But does the large Muslim community say a word of what’s going on? Hardly.

In any event, where are the Muslim community leaders who can speak with authority? If there are any, their argument would be that one does not have to apologies every time a jehadi indulges in violence.

They become self-defensive, quoting figures to show how poor the Muslims are, and how important it is for them to attend a madrasa and the secularists lap it up, not wishing to recognise that there are poor among Hindus who do not complain, and yet they attempt to give their children as much education as is within their capacity.

A Muslim writer, Ed Hussain, in his book The Islamist, notes that Islamic extremism did not descend from another planet or was imposed on the community by outside forces. “It breeds within the community and is the product of a certain kind of interpretation of Islam”, wrote Hussain, quoting Zia-ud-din Sardar, one of Europe’s most prominent Muslim scholars.

According to Zia-ud-din, Islamists were “ nourished by an Islamic tradition that is intrinsically inhuman and violent in its rhetoric, thought and practice”.

Commenting on this Husan Suroor, writing in The Hindu (July 17, 2007) said that “more Muslims need to realise that Islamic terrorists are not simply ‘misguided’ individuals acting on a whim but that they are people who know what they are doing and they are doing it deliberately in the name of Islam.”

And that has has been most noticeable in Karnataka in recent times when police caught terrorists and one of them spilled the beans, saying eight fidayeens are presently on the loose in India and could strike any time.

All that our secularists would say is, that is not a Big Deal. http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=228&page=15

Related story -> 

Aiding Communalism @ http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=221&page=5

INDIA’S  SECULARISM @ http://indiasecular.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/india-and-secularism/