Communal Award

An Essay Towards Balkanisation

By Dr. Santosh Bhattacharya

Political parties are now desperately trying to promise job reservation to Muslims and Other Backward Classes by amending the Constitution in the name of “protection of minorities”. Even the Prime Minister is reportedly seeking consensus on the issue of Muslim reservation. India will become a union of balkanised religious and caste groups.

The demand for Muslim reservation has arisen because in certain states the community can swing the election results. The so-called secular parties find it convenient to woo them, by promising quotas in government jobs and educational institutions. UPA-II exists on the support by such state parties.

What will the Muslim reservation lead to? After Partition, the vast majority of Hindus, not necessarily supporters of the BJP, consider the Muslims who stayed back as impostors, who should have gone to Pakistan, their homeland. Hence, they do not support any reservation of State benefits for Muslims. On the other hand, the Muslims who stayed back complain that they are ignored and oppressed by the Hindu majority, resulting in lack of development. They demand that the secular State should give them equal opportunities, often termed as "reverse discrimination". However, whatever may be the arguments for or against reservation for Muslims, the fact remains that such State programmes will reinforce the already-existing Hindu-Muslim divide in society. The Muslims will always try to remain as a closed and separate community to garner the advantages of reservation.

Lest somebody thinks that this perception of India’s Hindu-Muslim divide is an expression of over-reaction, a brief history of the country's polity over the past 62 years will prove the contrary. Consider first the Muslims. Kashmir is a tell-tale example of Muslim separatism. Whatever the secularists, the Congress leaders, and the so-called democratic leaders in Kashmir may say, there is little doubt that the overwhelming majority of Kashmir’s Muslims refuse to be citizens of secular India. They have driven out the minority Hindus from the Kashmir Valley, and want Kashmir to be a Muslim State on the principle of the 1947 Partition. They may decide to be an independent State or to join Pakistan.

All other demands raised by Muslims are intended to keep the community as a separate category, no matter what some sophisticated Muslim celebrities say. They do not have any influence over the Muslim masses. They are totally against a Common Civil Code. Branding the Hindu majority as oppressors, they demand reservation in jobs and other State benefits, proportionate to their population as equivalent shareholders of the State. They refuse to recognise any distinction between Dalits and others within the fold of Muslims.

The separatism of the Muslim masses is manifest in the field of sports. When India plays against Pakistan, Muslims in India and outside support the other country. Even Muslim celebrities speak up against perceived discrimination against the community, but not in the wake of blatant communalism.

Hindus are no different. Hindu and Muslim communities were never integrated and remained separate throughout history, even after centuries of Muslim rule, despite well-meaning efforts at integration by some kings and saints. Since India followed the Hindu religion since time immemorial, Hindus consider India as rightfully belonging to them, and not to other communities whose religions were imported from other countries. All communities in under-developed countries consider their own religion to be superior to those of others and refuse to integrate with them socially. So do the Hindus. The origin of our Hindu-Muslim divide is much more deep-rooted than it may appear.

However, Hindus are responsible for harbouring animosity. The Congress agreed to Partition for the sake of power. The overwhelming majority of Hindus never reconciled themselves to the development. In their reckoning, the Muslims connived with the British to force Partition. Hence, they hold Muslims responsible for dividing their motherland, and their age-old animosity towards Muslims only intensified. The Hindu middle class swears by secularism, but they do not treat Muslims as equals. Muslim resentment has grown in parallel over the years.

The BJP is no less responsible than the Congress for the communal situation. The party and its cohorts like to imagine that the Muslims have no rights, even the rights to which the minorities are entitled to. The BJP opposes reservation for Muslims, it refuses to accept the existence of Dalits within Muslims and Christians, and is opposed to refugee status to Muslims fleeing from Bangladesh and Pakistan. The BJP, however, is forthright in its views, as distinct from the Congress. The latter is no less communal, but it takes recourse to sophistication.

The Hindu masses, even if they don't support the BJP on every issue, do nurse their separatism, which explodes whenever India and Pakistan are opposed in sport. The Hindu sportsmen openly declare that they consider the contest with Pakistan as ‘special’. It will be difficult to find a Hindu championing a Pakistani team opposing India, even though they are unquestionably superior in talent.

The communal situation is worsening day by day. Could it lead to further balkanisation? To prevent that, various suggestions are being advanced. Kashmir can be allowed to opt out as a Muslim territory, in accord with the principle of Partition. Those who advocate this formula think that the Kashmir issue is at the root of the present communal militancy. Those who oppose such a step argue that it will amount to accepting the defeat of secularism, and will strengthen the demand for sending all Muslims out of the country, which is not feasible. A large majority of Muslims, who have stayed back, are rooted here. Thus, Kashmir has pushed India to a cul-de-sac. Possibly, India has to live with the Kashmir imbroglio, the price of the original sin of Partition.

Apart from Kashmir, India is threatened by further balkanisation in the wake of the recent moves by the Congress and the Communists to reserve jobs for Muslims by conferring the OBC status to the Dalit segment of the community. Since reservation for Muslims is unconstitutional, the political parties want to bypass the problem by bracketing as many Muslims as they can within the OBC category. This is constitutional, as decided by the Supreme Court. They argue that since the OBCs are backward, they need reservation for development, in government jobs, and educational institutions including the centres of higher learning. Muslims will get the benefit of reservation through the backdoor.

The country is thus faced with the danger of further balkanisation between Hindus and Muslims. The political parties must stop pursuing this policy of reservation. Islam does not recognise any Dalit. Experience suggests that there can be no uplift of non-Muslim backward classes through reservation. They require special measures to avail of educational opportunities as do the Muslims.

Reservation for Muslims and OBCs, in addition to such special measures, may also help in their “development” over time. But the immediate effect of such reservation policies will surely consolidate the groupings around religion and caste, leading to strident demands for constitutional reservation on the basis of the proportion of population both in the Centre and in the states. If the Constitution is thus amended, the number of Muslims in the Lok Sabha will be around 70 (12 per cent of the total Indian population), instead of their present number of around 30 elected by political parties. A similar representation may be evident in the state assemblies. Such balkanisation of the representatives in the legislatures will have an immediate effect because of their large numbers. It will be permanent in character because of group interest. The Indian State will become a Union of “balkanised” groups. That precisely is the way in which reservation will lead to balkanisation.

Courtesy: The Statesman Kolkata 28 Sep 2010

UPDATES OF KULPI INCIDENT

UPDATES OF KULPI INCIDENT :

(See : Kulpi Police station ransacked by Armed Islamic gangs

http://hindusamhati.blogspot.com/2011/10/armed-islamic-gangs-run-riot-in-kulpi.html)

1. In the O.C.'s office room, Muslims broke Goddess Kali Mata's photo.

2. The television set among other things of the police station has been looted by the Muslim mob.

3. In the police residential quarters, the mob molested and did 'all kinds' of misbehaviour with the womenfolk including striping.

4. No incident of rape has been reported or alleged.

5. The 3 Muslim dacoits have not been killed by the Hindu mob (as reported earlier) in Gomukhberia village, but their eyes have been severely injured by pouring acid.

6. These 3 criminals have been arrested, now under treatment in Diamond Harbour hospital, not granted bail by court.

7. Several police vehicles have been torched by Muslim mob at Kachuberia.

8. Total 3 cases have been registered against the Muslim hooligans.

9. One RAF jawan's head has been fractured by stoning by the Muslims.

10. Police/RAF's behaviour was not anti Hindu.

11. Tremendous tension is going on between the police administration and Muslim leadership of TMC of the district.

12. Today in another village named 'Bhatberia' under Falta P.S. in the same subdivision Diamond Harbour, a Muslim thief was caught and killed by Hindu mob.

Psychological Warfare Against Hindus

Dr. Babu Suseelan

Hindus in India and abroad are facing an intensive psychological warfare. The massive and deliberate ideological warfare is intended for creating cognitive confusion and mental misdirection as well as to psycho program Hindus. The purpose of the skillfully managed psychological warfare is to liberate gullible Hindus from their universal, pluralistic spiritual culture and uplifting Dharma. The goal is to enslave them with rigid, divisive and totalitarian ideologies which are paraded as religions. It is a deliberate attempt to enslave free spirited Hindus into servitude. The slave masters, and politicians and their cohorts exploit Hindus by offering fictitious heaven and bogus socialism while keeping them in permanent servitude. The slave masters and their ideologues stupefy and demoralize innocent Hindus and enjoy material life while forcing enslaved innocent Hindus into servitude.

Hindus are mired into blind optimism and grandiose illusion that all religions are the same and nothing can be done to destroy Sanathan Dharma. They ignore or refuse to see past history or current reality. Brainwashed Hindus find themselves increasingly unable to use language with precision to recall the basic facts of Islamic invasion, plunder, looting and mass murder. They have a built in inability to evaluate atrocities and cultural destruction committed by European Christian colonialists. Indoctrinated Hindus appear to acquiesce in the devaluation of our tradition, and they have nothing to say about coercive religious conversion or jihadi terrorism. Nor do they criticize corrupt politicians that push Hindus into servitude. A surprisingly large number of Hindus choosing to accept Marxism, and foreign ideologies paraded as panacea for India’s problems. The esoteric knowledge administered by psychological warfare experts encourages the steady exploitation of Hindus by phony secular politicians. In view of all evidence, it should not surprise us that Hindus are becoming increasingly ignorant about their own rights. Our media and education, instead of creating vibrant and strong Hindu communities, has contributed to the spread of intellectual torpor and political passivity.

A major pressing problem of our society is the structure of our educational system that advantages the Christians and Muslims. The deliberate purpose of the Indian education system is to deconstruct Hindu culture and brainwash students directly towards anti Hindu ideologies. Schools, Colleges and universities, and government controlled cultural institutions have absorbed major currents of anti-Hindu ideology. Our educational institutions have become a watery blend, a mind-emptying indoctrination centers for bogus secular revolution and cultural alienation. Our education is tailored to liberate young students from their life sustaining culture and to enslave them with pseudo secularism. Not only our education destroys Hindu minds, it incapacitates them for intellectually confronting our enemies and the destructive ideology they represent. Far from preparing students to live authentically as proud Hindus, education in India leaves them as zombies.

There is a paradigm conspiracy against Hindus and Hindu ideology. Since Hindus are mired into abstract philosophy, introspection, and mindless universalism, it is easy for our distracters to manipulate Hindus and impose their absolutism. How? They use propaganda, indoctrination methods through the media, educational institutions, and disinformation through our nongovernmental social service organizations. Once Hindu mind is controlled and domination is firmly established, the imperialistic and oppressive apparatus are used to squash our freedom, culture and religious tradition.

Why have we bargained away our future to our slave masters? Have we lost insight and shared Vedic values in a frantic search for approval from our tormentors and slave masters?

How could Hindus defend against the ideological warfare? Our media, government, educational institutions and nongovernmental organizations are controlled by the agents of our enemies. We need strong-willed discipline-firm commitment and fearless Hindus to build a new political-social order based on Hindutva. The struggle against psychological warfare therefore requires a struggle against our current bogus secular political system. We need a strong commitment for our eternal Hindu ideology and a firm commitment to fight against psychological warfare. We don’t have a strong, single and firm ideology. We have a thousand, a hundred thousand ideological groups pulling us in different directions while our culture and tradition is attacked from outside and vilified from inside. We have to face a variety of interest groups working against us with the help of our enemies. They work relentlessly to misguide and misdirect Hindus to divert attention from internal and external danger. Our inner source of strength becomes a weakness in competition with rigid, reductionist, divisive, totalitarian dogmas and their concentrated power.

We need an ideological counter attack. We need to wake up our fellow Hindus who find comfort in silence, denial, apathy and indifference. The modern masters of bogus secularism and totalitarian ideologies have created a one-dimensional communication system against our country and Hindus. Our universal point of views are quickly shredded by political parties, paid professional agents, bureaucrats, trade unions, Churches, Jihadi groups, media, Marxist intellectuals and vested interest groups. How do we roll back the lies, disinformation and propaganda? We cannot survive as a nation, as members of the oldest religion, preserve our culture, practice our Dharma and promote our universal philosophy except by opposing propaganda of totalitarian ideologies with force with our eternal truth. Unfortunately, we are not very good or effective in waging a counter psychological war. We are unskilled to fight in halting the spread of false ideas with plain facts.

Hindus around the world are waking up to deprogram Hindus who are indoctrinated with false notions. They are willing to provide an ideological defense of Hindu society and culture. We have a mission to unify and inspire our Hindu brothers and sisters and restore our psychic balance while nailing down the psyche of our enemies.

There are thousands of Hindu professional elites of doctors, social scientists, technicians, civil servants, bio-scientists, computer programmers and professors who play a leading part in the administration of the knowledge industry around the world. The Hindu professional elite must serve the class interest of Hindus. They need to use their expertise in identifying problems and develop effective strategies to counter psychological warfare against Hindus. Ordinary Hindus cannot fight against new sophisticated form of mind control that is spreading fast in our society. The struggle against psychological warfare therefore requires professional expertise and assertive techniques. We have all the knowledge to fight against psychological warfare.

Our puranas, sastras, and religious texts are replete with stories and narratives explicitly explaining psychological warfare. Pancha Tantra and Chanakya Sutra provide concrete examples and active measures designed to confront and defeat enemies. How to wage counter attacks against our ideological enemies. A reassertion of Hindutva with strong conviction and force will prevent Hindus from falling prey to the illusory fantasies of closed, totalitarian dogmas promoted as religions for salvation. Let us all work together to create Hindu communities of competence. Only then will the all embracing Hindu thought together with the spiritual knowledge come to serve the interests of Hindus and the world humanity.

Why Hindus are treated as Non-Entity in India?

Dr. Babu Suseelan

Criminals, vagabonds, miscreants, cheaters, law abusers and violators are now ruling India. Criminal Politicians, corrupt bureaucrats, and law enforcement officials in India act with out fear, shame or guilt. They have no empathy for the Indian victims.

In Democratic countries law enforcement officials ensure that criminals, corrupt bureaucrats, money launderers and robbers are arrested, prosecuted and sentenced for long prison terms for the safety and security of society. For democracy to prevail such strict guidelines and enforcement are required.

Unfortunately, India who claims to be the largest democracy, citizens elect, retain, reelect and acclaim corrupt politicians who cheat, loot and plunder the wealth of the poor people. In India, the, Hindus disfranchise themselves. Since they have less concerns, the government support looters, Jihadi terrorists, conversion gang,anti nationalists, bogus secularists, and those Marxist misfits who are against Hindus.

The general public (majority Hindus) are brainwashed, mentally misdirected, and made them submissive zombies by phony secularists, alienated intellectuals, and bleeding heart liberals. The silent majority is indoctrinated through Macaulay Education and media game to tolerate and compromise with evil and compromise with criminal politicians, Jihadi terrorists, missionary mafia, money launderers, corrupt bureaucrats and drug pushers.

How could one explain this social pathology? Tamil Nadu is ruled by the corrupt anti Hindu Dravidian Parties. UP has retained plunderer Mayavathi as Chief Minister. India is the only country where Mafia Leaders, political big wigs, and business tycoons never serve long term prison sentences for their crime and corruption. MPs and MLAs get big salary and allowance for their meaningless and useless legislative participation and debates supporting alien rule and Jihadi subsidy. Instead of studying and enacting integrating and nationalist policies, they are keen on passing bills that will ensure division and destruction of the country.

There is no social check or external restraints for any individual endorsing or supporting corrupt politicians, anti nationalists, and Jihadi terrorists. Criminal and corrupt politicians will ensure that constitutional checks and restraints are not enforced. India is the only country in the world where the Supreme Court Chief Justice is appointed based on caste and political consideration. The past Supreme court Chief Justice has amassed wealth disproportionate to his know income by corruption. No case was registered against him and he was appointed as the Human Rights Commissioner.

The majority (Hindus) are taught to be passive. The propensity for political passivity with Hindus disfranchise themselves. They have faith in personal conscience and Dharma. But those who do not believe in any personal conscience or Dharma are well organised, united and bargain for more. They get more than what they deserve. We admire our democracy, but we often ignore the importance of imposing restraints on Jihadis, anti nationals, and media persons who promotes terrorism, coercive religious conversion or corruption. No constitution can produce an effective, corruption free government based on Dharma until the majority (Hindus) increase in the extent of social prerequisites on these corrupt rulers.

A good deal is now known about the nefarious political activities of our bleeding heart liberals, phony secularists who support terrorists, social disruptor's, and Naxalite criminals. We know that their anti national activities are funded and directed by our foreign enemies.

Indian politicians ensure that Hindus are ignorant of India's history. They have tinkered with our education and kept the Islamic and Christian colonial education to make sure Hindus are kept in ignorance. Most Hindus have little knowledge of the centuries of history of Islamic conquests and Christian colonialism. Brutal Islamic conquest of India resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. Millions of Hindus were forcefully converted and enslaved. Nor do most Hindus understand the Sharia-based subjugation of Hindus as "Dhimmis". Hindus are treated as third class citizens in their own land even after independence from British Christian Colonialists. One of the most egregious error is that Hindus are indoctrinated to believe that Islamic invaders and Christian colonialists were tolerant, progressive and unified the nation.

The lies, bigotry, corruption, Islamic appeasement, coercive religious conversion, and policy failures must be exposed if Hindus are to ever understand not only what happened thousands of years ago but to understand Why Hindus are oppressed, maligned, and treated as third class citizens by the tyrannical Congress Party and pseudo secularism.

For the corrupt and Hindu politicians in India, any insult, terrorism and violence against Hindus is correct. This is the piece of the puzzle Hindus fail to grasp. Hindus who want to protect their sacred Temples and Sanathana Dharma are provocateurs, a breach of peace which amounts to anti democratic, anti Islam and anti democratic. Muslims marching with swords and bombs, missionaries using deceptive methods, Marxists undertaking subversive activities, corruption, public looting are legitimate. It is a fair game for Jihadis to chop off hands of a professor, destruction of Hindu Temples and burning alive Hindu passengers in train.

Now we understand why Hindus are treated as Third Class Citizens in Our Motherland? It's simple, knowledge eludes us. Why? I think the answer is that we expose facts and corruption, Islamic terrorism, Coercive religious conversion, Bureau pathology, and criminal politicians.

Let me conclude with the wisdom of Albert Einstein "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing".

A New Pakistan Policy: Containment

Bruce O. Riedel, NYT

AMERICA needs a new policy for dealing with Pakistan. First, we must recognize that the two countries’ strategic interests are in conflict, not harmony, and will remain that way as long as Pakistan’s army controls Pakistan’s strategic policies. We must contain the Pakistani Army’s ambitions until real civilian rule returns and Pakistanis set a new direction for their foreign policy.

As Adm. Mike Mullen, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee last month, Pakistan provides critical sanctuary and support to the Afghan insurgency that we are trying to suppress. Taliban leaders meet under Pakistani protection even as we try to capture or kill them.

In 2009, I led a policy review for President Obama on Pakistan and Afghanistan. At the time, Al Qaeda was operating with virtual impunity in Pakistan, and its ally Lashkar-e-Taiba had just attacked the Indian city of Mumbai and killed at least 163 people, including 6 Americans, with help from Pakistani intelligence. Under no illusions, Mr. Obama tried to improve relations with Pakistan by increasing aid and dialogue; he also expanded drone operations to fight terrorist groups that Pakistan would not fight on its own.

It was right to try engagement, but now the approach needs reshaping. We will have to persevere in Afghanistan in the face of opposition by Pakistan.

The generals who run Pakistan have not abandoned their obsession with challenging India. They tolerate terrorists at home, seek a Taliban victory in Afghanistan and are building the world’s fastest-growing nuclear arsenal. They have sidelined and intimidated civilian leaders elected in 2008. They seem to think Pakistan is invulnerable, because they control NATO’s supply line from Karachi to Kabul and have nuclear weapons.
The generals also think time is on their side — that NATO is doomed to give up in Afghanistan, leaving them free to act as they wish there. So they have concluded that the sooner America leaves, the better it will be for Pakistan. They want Americans and Europeans to believe the war is hopeless, so they encourage the Taliban and other militant groups to speed the withdrawal with spectacular attacks, like the Sept. 13 raid on the United States Embassy in Kabul, which killed 16 Afghan police officers and civilians.

It is time to move to a policy of containment, which would mean a more hostile relationship. But it should be a focused hostility, aimed not at hurting Pakistan’s people but at holding its army and intelligence branches accountable. When we learn that an officer from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, is aiding terrorism, whether in Afghanistan or India, we should put him on wanted lists, sanction him at the United Nations and, if he is dangerous enough, track him down. Putting sanctions on organizations in Pakistan has not worked in the past, but sanctioning individuals has — as the nuclear proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan could attest.

Offering Pakistan more trade while reducing aid makes sense. When we extend traditional aid, media outlets with ties to the ISI cite the aid to weave conspiracy theories that alienate Pakistanis from us. Mr. Obama should instead announce that he is cutting tariffs on Pakistani textiles to or below the level that India and China enjoy; that would strengthen entrepreneurs and women, two groups who are outside the army’s control and who are interested in peace.

Military assistance to Pakistan should be cut deeply. Regular contacts between our officers and theirs can continue, but under no delusion that we are allies.

Osama bin Laden’s death confirmed that we can’t rely on Pakistan to take out prominent terrorists on its soil. We will still need bases in Afghanistan from which to act when we see a threat in Pakistan. But drones should be used judiciously, for very important targets.

In Afghanistan, we should not have false hopes for a political solution. We can hope that top figures among the Quetta Shura — Afghan Taliban leaders who are sheltered in Quetta, Pakistan — will be delivered to the bargaining table, but that is unlikely, since the Quetta leadership assassinated Burhanuddin Rabbani, the leader of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council and a former Afghan president, last month. The ISI will veto any Taliban peace efforts it opposes, which means any it doesn’t control. Rather than hoping for ISI help, we need to continue to build an Afghan Army that can control the insurgency with long-term NATO assistance and minimal combat troops.

Strategic dialogue with India about Pakistan is essential because it would focus the Pakistani Army’s mind. India and Pakistan are trying to improve trade and transportation links severed after they became independent in 1947, and we should encourage that. We should also increase intelligence cooperation against terrorist targets in Pakistan. And we should encourage India to be more conciliatory on Kashmir, by easing border controls and releasing prisoners.

America and Pakistan have had a tempestuous relationship for decades. For far too long we have banked on the Pakistani Army to protect our interests. Now we need to contain that army’s aggressive instincts, while helping those who want a progressive Pakistan and keeping up the fight against terrorism.

Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the author of “Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad.”

Durga Puja and the NRIs from Bengal

Dr. M Kaushik

Islamic extremism is something that America has confronted with only in its recent history. However, there are nations which have been dealing with and many times succumbed to radical Islam for several centuries. These war torn regions in Darfur in Somalia to Bali in Indonesia have been facing the onslaught of jihadi extremism on a daily basis. One such land is Bengal, a northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. A primarily Muslim land, Bengal has a minority Hindu population most of whom live in the Indian state of West Bengal. The Islamic nation of Bangladesh, the home of most Bengalis in the world, is located to the east of West Bengal.

In Bengal today the Islamists are violently displacing the Hindu population whose homes and possessions they either destroy or occupy. They are attacking the young, the elderly, and especially the girls and women, whom they kidnap, forcibly convert, or traffic into brothels. The locals are terrified of them. The police rarely come to their aid, nor do the politically correct media or government. Both are terrified by the criminals and terrorists who are riding these immigrant waves.

A growing number of young Bengalis settled in US, however, are forming a strong awareness movement aimed at combating this Jihadi menace, using awareness and networking. From organizing seminars to fund raising events, these activists are trying to exert its influence on people around the world, to consolidate the people of Bengali origin, against these Jihadists. Under the banner of FACTUSA, a US registered NGO, these Bengalis have task force teams that proactively follow up on any incident of Islamic atrocity in the villages of Bengal. In several cases of kidnapping of Hindu women, these activists have a 24 hour emergency cell to monitor the situation, informing the media and making several phone calls to the local police station to make sure that something is being done.

Take the case of Mouli Sinha, an 8 year old girl who was kidnapped near the Indian border in West Bengal by Muslim youths. As is typical in such cases, Mouli’s parents were poor farmers whereas the kidnappers were goons employed by a local Muslim politician which made sure that nothing was being done to help Mouli. For several weeks both the police and the media was silent until the matter was brought to the attention of FACTUSA activists. A campaign was initiated where several influential Bengali NRIs formed a movement to free Mouli.

Like many other third world nation, the justice system is skewed in these backward regions of India in favor of the powerful and the wealthy. Hence, it is only the power and the influence of these NRIs which can salvage the situation of women like Mouli who have no one else to look up to. Finally the police was successfully coerced to take action against the perpetrators. Mouli, brutally raped and forcibly converted to Islam, was finally freed three months later.

Every year in the month of October, Bengali Hindus celebrate Durga Puja all over US. Today there are over 50 pujas being celebrated in US each with its own pandal, and deity, and ancient Hindu rituals. However, in these congregations which adequately reflect the Bengali demographics in US, one will find only a handful of Bengalis who are aware of the growth of radical Islam in Bengal, and how it is percolating from Bangladesh to West Bengal.

These courageous Bengalis have taken it upon themselves to spread the awareness in the American Bengali community. From architects to programmers, and scientists to engineers, these activists have a full time day job. They all have families and some of them have never been to Bengal in their entire life. But just like the Jewish and the Armenians, they feel a strong sense of connection to their native land, and just like the former, they are passionate to save their land from the Islamic menace.

The On-Going Loot of Hindu Temples

M V Kamath

It is time some one asked the Government to lay down all the facts on the table so that the public would know what is happening behind its back. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not secularism. And temples are not for looting, under any name. One thought that Mohammad of Ghazni has long been dead.

WHILE Congress leaders are hell-bent on damning the RSS – it is an old game that has long ceased to have any meaning – they seem to be unaware (or deliberately wish to ignore) that as late as on July 4, 2010 the right hand of a 53-year old Christian college professor (one TJ Joseph) was chopped off by Muslim fundamentalists, at Thodapurzha, Iduki district, in Kerala, for alleged blasphemy.

Digvijay Singh probably doesn’t want to be reminded of this. Nor, one suspects, would he be anxious to know that police found out that this heinous crime was committed as part of the implementation of the verdict of a Shariah court run by fundamentalist elements in Kerala. The police apparently discovered that 14 such parallel courts have been running in Kerala for the last twenty years and Kerala State Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has been reported as confessing that since 1993, twenty two murders have taken place under the direction of the Shariah courts in Kerala (vide, Mangalam Daily Kottayam, July 21, 2010).

Digvijay Singh can check this bit of information as could Rahul Gandhi. At the same time, they could both check out on the performance of The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Act of 1951 which allows State Governments and politicians to take over thousands of Hindu Temples and maintain complete control over them and their properties. It is claimed that they can sell the temple assets and properties and use the money in any way they choose.

A charge has been made not by any Temple authority, but by a foreign writer, Stephen Knapp in a book (Crimes Against India and the Need to Protect Ancient Vedic Tradition) published in the United States that makes shocking reading. Hundreds of temples in centuries past have been built in India by devout rulers and the donations given to them by devotees have been used for the benefit of the people.

If, presently, money collected has ever been misused (and that word needs to be defined), it is for the devotees to protest and not for any government to interfere. This letter is what has been happening currently under an intrusive law. It would seem, for instance,that under a Temple Empowerment Act, about 43,000 temples in Andhra Pradesh have come under government control and only 18 per cent of the revenue of these temples have been returned for temple purposes, the remaining 82 per cent being used for purposes unstated.

Apparently even the world famous Tirumala Tirupati Temple has not been spared. According to Knapp, the temple collects over Rs 3,100 crores every year “and the State Government has not denied the charge that as much as 85 per cent of this is transferred to the State Exchequer, much of which goes to causes that are not connected with the Hindu community”. Was it for that reason that devotees make their offering to the temples? Another charge that has been made is that the Andhra Government has also allowed the demolition of at least ten temples for the construction of a golf course. “Imagine the outcry” writes Knapp, “if ten mosques had been demolished”. It would seem that in Karanataka, Rs. 79 crores were collected from about two lakh temples and from that, temples received Rs seven crores for their maintenance, Muslim Madrassahs and Haj subsidy were given Rs 59 crore and churches about Rs 13 crore. Very generous of the government. Because of this, Knapp writes, “25 per cent of the two lakh temples or about 50,000 temples in Karnataka will be closed down for lack of resources”, and he adds: “The only way the government can continue to do this is because people have not stood up enough to stop it”. Knapp then refers to Kerala where, he says, “funds from the Guruvayur Temple are diverted to other government projects denying improvement to 45 Hindu temples”. Land belonging to the Ayyappa Temple, apparently has been grabbed and “Church encroaches are occupying huge areas of forest land, running into thousands of acres, near Sabarimala”.

A charge is made that the Communist state government of Kerala…. wants to pass an Ordinance to disband the Travancore & Cochin Autonomous Devaswom Boards (TCDBs) and take over their limited independent authority of 1,800 Hindu temples. If what the author says is true, even the Maharashtra Government wants to take over some 450,000 temples in the state which would “supply a huge amount of revenue to correct the state’s bankrupt conditions….” And to top it all, Knapp says that in Orissa, the state government intends to sell over 70,000 acres of endowment lands from the Jagannath Temple, the proceeds of which would solve a huge financial crunch brought about by its own mismanagement of temple assets. Says Knapp: “Why such occurrences are so often not known is that the Indian media, especially the English television and press, are often anti-Hindu in their approach, and thus not inclined to give much coverage, and certainly no sympathy, for anything that may affect the Hindu community. Therefore, such government actions that play against the Hindu community go on without much or any attention attracted to them”.

Knapp obviously is on record. If the facts produced by him are incorrect, it is up to the government to say so. It is quite possible that some individuals might have set up temples to deal with lucrative earnings. But that, surely, is none of the government’s business? Instead of taking over all earnings, the government surely can appoint local committees to look into temple affairs so that the amount discovered is fairly used for the public good? Says Knapp: “Nowhere in the free, democratic world are the religious institutions managed, maligned and controlled by the government, thus denying the religious freedom of the people of the country. But it is happening in India. Government officials have taken control of Hindu temples because they smell money in them, they recognise the indifference of Hindus, they are aware of the unlimited patience and tolerance of Hindus, they also know that it is not in the blood of Hindus to go to the streets to demonstrate, destroy property, threaten, loot, harm and kill…

Many Hindus are sitting and watching the demise of their culture. They need to express their views loud and clear….” Knapp obviously does not know that should they do so, they would be damned as communalists. But it is time some one asked the Government to lay down all the facts on the table so that the public would know what is happening behind its back. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not secularism. And temples are not for looting, under any name. One thought that Mohammad of Ghazni has long been dead.