Distorted History - Causes, Consequences and Remedies

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ramana
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Post by ramana »

Yes her book has a lot of epigraphic evidence and citations. Thats why I started reading D. Sircar's book on Indian Epigraphy which I linked in the E-Books thread.

We need to get Shiv to post those three pages (pdfs) on Hoyasalas that he once psoted on BR in that thread.
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Post by Keshav »

Kaushal wrote:Finally, I agree that taking pride in not having attacked anyone, is something that can easily be misinterpreted,even if it were true and i would certainly not highlight it as the defining characteristic of the indic civilization.
Even if we limit it to 500 years didn't Zorawar Singh connect Ladakh and Sikkim to India? We also have Hari Singh Nalwa who attacked Afghanistan, so its a moot point that I think Indians should refrain from using.
If anything , I would regard india as the originator of the current view that remains entrenched in Washington and western capitals , namely the realist imperative (john Meerscheimer, Hans Morgenthau). It is clear from reading the BG that sri Krishna , practiced an early version of geopolitics very similar to realism
Could you explain what the "realist imperative" is, how it has changed from India to Washington, and how Lord Krishna comes into the picture?
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Regarding Jadunath Sarkar's books

Post by G Subramaniam »

His books are all out of print and his estate faces pressure from the seculars not to reprint his books

I found this out, when about 7 years ago, we were trying to put his books online at bharatvani.org
ramana
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Post by ramana »

GS as there are many multiple conversations going on it helps if you give context when posting.

Who is his books?

Btw WOW! I didnt know you were part of the Bharatvani folks.
G Subramaniam
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Post by G Subramaniam »

ramana wrote:GS as there are many multiple conversations going on it helps if you give context when posting.

Who is his books?

Btw WOW! I didnt know you were part of the Bharatvani folks.
The secularist cabal can use the hindutva tag against KS.Lal etc
but they cant dismiss RC.Majumdar and Jadunath Sarkar

You can buy RC.Majumdars books
But the seculars have suppressed the reprint of many of Jadunath Sarkars books

because his books are even more anti-islam than RCMajumdar

I am retired from bharatvani some years ago
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Post by SSridhar »

SwamyG wrote: Chola soldiers have been accused of looting & raping women in some of its territories captured in its northern borders. I do not know how much of it is true, and certainly don't think it is of the same magnitude as that of the Islamic hordes.
It could very well be true as these were routine in wars of those periods. The difference between Islamic hordes and the likes of Cholas would be while the former went on campaigns with a religious zealotry with pre-ordained religious permissions for such actions which indeed made them savage, the latter went more with an expansionist mind, either out of valour or lebensraum or revenge.
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Post by shyam »

SSridhar wrote:
SwamyG wrote: Chola soldiers have been accused of looting & raping women in some of its territories captured in its northern borders. I do not know how much of it is true, and certainly don't think it is of the same magnitude as that of the Islamic hordes.
It could very well be true as these were routine in wars of those periods. The difference between Islamic hordes and the likes of Cholas would be while the former went on campaigns with a religious zealotry with pre-ordained religious permissions for such actions which indeed made them savage, the latter went more with an expansionist mind, either out of valour or lebensraum or revenge.
It is not be proper to say that it was routine in those days. Somewhere I read it was not proper for the Hindu kings to attack women. One example I can quote is from action of Travancore King Marthandavarma in, as late as, 1730AD. Few landlords (ettuveettil pillamar) of Travancore attempted a coup to prevent Marthandavarma from becoming king. After he defeated those landlords, he executed them and to decimate their families he gave their women folk to fishermen.

Imagine what he would have done if he were a muslim? Brutal destruction, rape, taking beautiful womenfolk to harem, slavery and more.

To suggest that rape was a norm among hindu kings without evidence, people are underestimating the moral values of the Hindu society in old time.
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Post by SSridhar »

Shyam, rape as a weapon of war has long since been happening. I would be surprised if the soldiers of various Indian kingdoms didn't indulge in that, even if not on a wide scale. There are reasons why such things happen, even if not propelled by zealotry. If a certain Kerala king's army didn't do that, good. If a certain Chola king's army didn't do that, good also. I am talking in general terms and without any particular reference to anybody. This is like the discussion that India never attacked anyone in the neighbourhood in the last 5000 years.
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Post by csharma »

Quoting from A L Basham's book 'The wonder that was India".

In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of massacres of non combatants. The ghastly sadism of Kings of Assyria, who flayed their captives alive is without parallel in ancient India. There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but in comparison with the conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilization is its humanity.
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Post by shyam »

SSridhar wrote:I would be surprised if the soldiers of various Indian kingdoms didn't indulge in that, even if not on a wide scale.
This statement doesn't prove that it was happening. I can understand that it is natural for frustrated menfolk in the army to do such things and it happened in various parts of the world.

But there were certain codes of conduct for wars in India. For example, not to attack peasants, to let go a a king who has surrendered etc. If we look at clauses in Geneva convention, many well known ones were practiced in pre-islamic India.

Please provide evidences to prove that rape etc were a norm in pre-islamic India too. An instance like, when a kingdom was defeated the women folk in that palace committed suicide to avoid rape, will prove that it was norm. But I am not aware of any such incident.
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Post by SSridhar »

I have no proof for or against rape. I am also not interested in proving or disproving.

Absence of proof is not an indication it did not happen.

Codes of conduct have been generally breached, including Geneva Convention.
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Post by sanjaychoudhry »

The wars in ancient India were fought between kings strticly for the right to collect land revenue from an area. Only Kshatriyas took part in the battle. Non-combatants and non-Kshatriya varnas were not touched. Megasthenese says that it was common to see a full-fledged war going on in a battle field while peasants calmly tilling thier fields next to it unconcerned. Another greek writer Arrian says that Indians never attacked any place outside the borders of India because of their strong sense of justice.
From the time of Dionysus to Sandracottus the Indians counted 153 Kings and a period of 6042 years, but among these a republic was thrice established * * * * and another 300 years, and another 120 years. The Indians also tell us that Dionysus was earlier than Heracles by fifteen generations, and that except him no one made a hostile invasion of India – not even Cyrus the son of Cambyses, although he undertook an expedition against the Scythians, and otherwise showed himself the most enterprising monarch in all Asia; but that Alexander indeed came and overthrew in war all whom he attacked, and would even have conquered the whole world had his army been willing to follow him. On the other hand, a sense of justice, they say, prevented any Indian king from attempting conquest beyond the limits of India.
All this has been possible because of the strong sense of Dharma prevailing in India.

Link
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Post by SSridhar »

The Lalit Kala Akademi in Chennai had organized an art exhibition on Aurangzeb by Francois Gautier for a week. Local Muslim organizations cried foul and the TN police expectedly advised the organizer to close it down immediately. The Nawab of Arcot said[quote]it “seemed obvious that the effect of such an exhibition would be to promote enmity between various groups, thereby vitiating the peaceful atmosphere of coexistence of different religions in the city and the State of Tamil Nadu.â€
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Post by alokgupt »

csharma wrote:Quoting from A L Basham's book 'The wonder that was India".

In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of massacres of non combatants. The ghastly sadism of Kings of Assyria, who flayed their captives alive is without parallel in ancient India. There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but in comparison with the conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilization is its humanity.
The only instances of which I know of in the Indian history is during invasion of Mohammed Gauri, Gazni, and Timur. Indian history books are myteriously silent on this.
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Post by Gus »

Not all wars were fought 'dharmic'. The Chalukyas were nasty to the Pallava outlying settlements when they retreated from their unsuccessful campaign on Pallavas. Mahendra Pallava's son Narasimha later took a huge army to Chalukya kingdom and razed the entire huge city of Vatapi to the ground.
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Post by sanjaychoudhry »

Gus wrote:Not all wars were fought 'dharmic'. The Chalukyas were nasty to the Pallava outlying settlements when they retreated from their unsuccessful campaign on Pallavas. Mahendra Pallava's son Narasimha later took a huge army to Chalukya kingdom and razed the entire huge city of Vatapi to the ground.
These were rare exceptions in a history spanning 3000 years. Even in these exceptions, is there any record of the victorious army dishonouring women, killing children and enslaving the non-combatants? If not, even these were Dharmic enough by world standards.
ramana
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Post by ramana »

Frontline has a couple of articles on need to reform Hindu calenders.

Kaushal please review and comment.

Medieval Mistake

Long article with pics.



Reform panel recommendations

[quote]Reform panel recommendations

THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

Meghnad Saha, who headed the Calendar Reform Committee. A 1934 picture.

IN the preface to the Report of the Calendar Reform Committee (published in 1955), the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wrote: “I am told that we have at present thirty different calendars, differing from each other in various ways, including the methods of time reckoning. These calendars are the natural result of our past political and cultural history and partly represent past political divisions in the country. Now that we have attained independence, it is obviously desirable that there should be a certain uniformity in the calendar for our civic, social and other purposes and that this should be based on a scientific approach to this problem.â€
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Post by Gus »

ramana wrote:Gus thanks for the examples but do you agree they were the exceptions than the rule?
Of course. That's why I said "Not all wars were fought dharmically"...implying that only a few weren't. If there had been more 'total wars' (populations Vs populations, razing of vanquished cities, erasing cultural artifacts, humiliation and subjugation etc), we would probably be carrying the memes of the hatred that we would not be getting along well now.

The Pallava - Chalukya feud is well covered in the novel "Sivakamiyin Sabatham" (the vow of Sivakami) by your favorite writer Kalki :)
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Post by Anujan »

India's Survivors of Partition Begin to Break Long Silence
Washingtonpost wrote:Projects Document Anguish of 1947 Split
Every year in March, Bir Bahadur Singh goes to the local Sikh shrine and narrates the grim events of the long night six decades ago when 26 women in his family offered their necks to the sword for the sake of honor.

At the time, sectarian riots were raging over the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, and the men of Singh's family decided it was better to kill the women than have them fall into the hands of Muslim mobs.

"None of the women protested, nobody wept," Singh, 78, recalled as he stroked his long, flowing white beard, his voice slipping into a whisper. "All I could hear was the sound of prayer and the swing of the sword going down on their necks. My story can fill a book."
Now, however, the aging survivors of partition are beginning to talk, and historians and psychologists are increasingly acknowledging the need to study the human dimensions of one of the most cataclysmic events of the 20th century.

About 1,300 survivors of partition, including Singh, have been interviewed as part of an ambitious, 10-year research project that examines the experiences of people across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. And since late last year, a number of new books, research papers and cultural events have attempted to lift the shroud of silence surrounding partition.
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Post by SwamyG »

SSridhar wrote: It could very well be true as these were routine in wars of those periods. The difference between Islamic hordes and the likes of Cholas would be while the former went on campaigns with a religious zealotry with pre-ordained religious permissions for such actions which indeed made them savage, the latter went more with an expansionist mind, either out of valour or lebensraum or revenge.
Routine? Well it might be routine. But the actions seem to be the same only the motivation and zeal seems to be different.
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Post by SwamyG »

Ramana: In the yahoo groups - HinduCivilization there are few individuals who constantly write about Hindu Calendar reforms. IIRC, there is another group that focuses on highlighting the issues.
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Post by shiv »

SwamyG wrote:
SSridhar wrote: It could very well be true as these were routine in wars of those periods. The difference between Islamic hordes and the likes of Cholas would be while the former went on campaigns with a religious zealotry with pre-ordained religious permissions for such actions which indeed made them savage, the latter went more with an expansionist mind, either out of valour or lebensraum or revenge.
Routine? Well it might be routine. But the actions seem to be the same only the motivation and zeal seems to be different.
If you look at isolated events the actions are the same.

But the words "motivation and zeal" are important.

Both Christianity and Islam have been on a continuous expansion path since their establishment. Cholas etc are one-hit wonders with 15 minutes of fame.

All pre-Christian religions in Europe and south America have been eliminated. All pre-islamic religions in North Africa and the Middle east have been eliminated. The elimination of non Islamic faiths from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh is a continuation of history that has occurred in the last 60 years. The spread of both religions was mostly by physical elimination and coercive conversion. This is recorded history. Buddhism has been eliminated from many of the lands that it occupied. Afghanistan is only one such example. Korea is a new example. Even today the replacement of Buddhists by Christians is not spoken of in any harsh or derogatory terms, but the replacement of Christians by Buddhists is called "persecution". The same rhetoric of paranoia is used by Islam. As long as the flow of society is towards the spread of Christianity or Islam, nothing harsh can be said. If the tide stops, or is reversed, it becomes persecution. And anyone who speaks up against the spread or seeks to support anything outside of these two faiths is a fundamentalist. An opponent of modernity.

After a particular culture or faith is replaced by Islam or Christianity, it is forgotten and it is fair game to say how it was faulty and how it was replaced by a superior belief system. The world survives on double standards such as this, and we, who have been born after a long period of skewed and violent history accept what we are taught without seeing the inherent contradictions.

For example the terms "barbarian" and "vandal" are both perjorative expressions. The RSS consists of "vandals". But if you go back to pre-Christian European history, you find that "barbarians" and "vandals" were groups of people with languages, cultures and religions that opposed Rome and the Christianity that Rome spread into Europe. Those cultures are gone. And they were "bad". Zoroastrianism is dead and even today Jews are openly opposed - especially by Islam, but not without fundamentalist support from predominantly Christian societies in Europe.

Equal-equalitis between Chola expansionism and Islamic expansionism is fine and dandy as long as you pick up isolated events in history and ignore the fact that history is a long running story and must not be viewed in a berry-picking "compare a window here with a window there" style.

History has not ended. Processes that may have started centuries ago are continuing. As humans we need to stop for a minute to comprehend what is past and we therefore stop to learn what has happened in the past and tend to imagine that it is "past" and not continuing. This is totally wrong.
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The suppressed pre-partition history of the Meos

Post by G Subramaniam »

The meo muslims are the center of the taglibi movement
and have a base in Haryana
In the 1947 riots they thought that all of punjab will go to pakistan and did a lot of riots and finally got ethnic cleansed to pakistan
Gandhi allowed lakhs of them to return and their pre-partition history has been suppressed
These days the secular press is full of stories of how the meos are persecuted by the RSS

The following is a book by a secular, but it still has useful snippets

The further shores of Partition: ethnic cleansing in Rajasthan 1947
Past & Present, August, 1998 by Ian Copland
..

For one thing, BJP rule at state level has not always led to an upsurge of rioting. During the twenty months of V. P. Singh's Congress government in Uttar Pradesh, from 1980 to 1982, there were ten riots; during the fourteen-month tenure of the Kalyan Singh's BJP ministry, just one.(10) Conversely, communal riots do not necessarily translate into BJP seats
...

as for Rajasthan, apart from the flare-up in 1989, the state since 1950 has been comparatively riot-free (Table 5).(15) On the face of it, the `fundamentalist' BJS/BJP would seem to have prospered in a region with little history of communal conflict. Either the communalism theory is flawed, or we are missing an important piece of the puzzle. This article plumps for the latter explanation. It argues that, at least in the case of Rajasthan, the Home Ministry's figures obscure a significant historical legacy dating from the colonial era, when Rajasthan was a cluster of dynastic monarchies -- `princely states', in the parlance of the period.

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Accurate data about communal riots in the princely states is extremely hard to get, with crucial Indian Ministry of States files on the subject still closed to researchers. However, I have managed to piece together enough information from the Indian Statutory (Simon) Commission report, the press and other sources to draw a broad statistical picture for the period 1920-40 (summarized in Table 6). It is, of course, incomplete. Many small affrays simply did not get reported; people injured in riots were sometimes not hospitalized and therefore not counted; the police had a vested interest in minimizing casualty figures.(27) Conversely, the figures given here have been inflated by the inclusion of rioters shot by police -- an accounting practice I would defend, but which others may think unwarranted. Yet, even allowing a wide margin for error, the evidence seems open to only one interpretation. According to the 1941 census, the population of the princely states was 93.2m., that of the provinces 258.8m. On that basis, one would expect the provinces to have suffered about two-and-three-quarter times more carnage as a result of communal conflict than the states. In fact, depending upon whether deaths or injuries are counted, they suffered between fifteen and eighteen times more. While the states were certainly not, as their rulers frequently boasted, `free' from communalism,(28) they do seem to have experienced, overall, much less of its violent manifestations than `British' India.

Secondly, after about 1929 the gap between incidents of communal violence in the provinces and the states, while still large, begins to narrow, to the point that around 1933 something like parity is achieved for the first time


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But in 1947, on the eve of the transfer of power, two neighbouring states on the eastern marches of the agency -- Alwar and Bharatpur -- broke with tradition. Incensed by reports of communal killings in the Punjab and alarmed by rumours of pro-Pakistan activities closer to home, Hindus in Alwar and Bharatpur unleashed a pogrom against their Muslim neighbours in June 1947. Whole villages were razed; scores of mosques desecrated; thousands killed or forced on pain of death to convert to Hinduism; and many more thousands were forced to flee for their lives. Naturally, we cannot be precise (conditions at the time did not permit accurate reporting), but there are indications that during the first seven or eight months of 1947 as many as 30,000 Muslims in Alwar and Bharatpur may have been killed, and up to 20,000 forcibly converted.(31) More certain are the figures for refugees. By August 1947, about 100,000 had fled Alwar and Bharatpur for the relative safety of the neighbouring Punjab district of Gurgaon.(32) Most never returned, preferring to take their chances in Pakistan. Under agreements negotiated in 1948 with the government of India, their lands were assigned to about 60,000 Hindu and Sikh refugees from West Punjab. As a result, the demographic character of the two states was irrevocably altered. Alwar's prime minister, N. B. Khare, exaggerated when he claimed later that the state during 1947-8 `became non Muslim',(33) but not much. In 1941, Muslims made up 27 per cent of Alwar's population and 19 per cent of Bharatpur's; ten years later, they comprised in the order of 6 per cent. This represented a net loss of 115,000 Muslims

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A second factor was demography. As noted above, Alwar and Bharatpur were atypical of Rajputana, and indeed of princely India at large, in being home to a sizeable population of Muslims (over a quarter of a million in 1931). This translated into a Muslim minority in these two states of something like a quarter, well in excess of the 15 per cent that Gopal Krishna deems the threshold proportion for open communal conflict.(40)
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Again, while the religious life of the Meos was far from orthodox and still bore conspicuous traces of the community's idolatrous Hindu past,(42) during the 1920s their identity as Muslims was reinforced through the influence of the tabligh (education) campaign of the itinerant missionary, Maulana Ilyas (1886-1944), who encouraged the Meos to give up their syncretic practices, recite the profession of faith in proper form, say their prayers regularly and spread the message of the Prophet.(43) Here was a Muslim population with a martial tradition, a developed sense of community and a growing sentimental attachment to Islamic values: in short, a Muslim population ripe for political mobilization.
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Post by Santosh »

"None of the women protested, nobody wept," Singh, 78, recalled as he stroked his long, flowing white beard, his voice slipping into a whisper. "All I could hear was the sound of prayer and the swing of the sword going down on their necks. My story can fill a book."
I never understand the wisdom of such decisions. Would it not be better to just live to fight another day. Both overtly and covertly. Killing your own people is a self goal.
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Meo history part 2

Post by G Subramaniam »

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... 24125/pg_1

For another, while neither ruler seems to have been personally bigoted towards Muslims,(46) their administrations discriminated against them in various ways. In Bharatpur, regulations against the opening of `unauthorized' schools and the collection of subscriptions were used to restrict Islamic education

and Muslim missionaries suffered police harassment.(47) In Alwar, the situation was worse. The darbar persistently refused to allow new mosques to be built and on several occasions fined congregations who attempted to refurbish existing ones without permission. By the early 1930s, at least four Muslim religious buildings, including the important Shahi Jama Masjid in Alwar City, had been converted to other uses by the government. Although the literate Muslims in the towns wrote in Urdu, the sole medium of instruction in state schools was Hindi; Urdu was merely an optional subject. Yet the opening of private Urdu schools was discouraged. In the public service, too, use of Hindi was mandatory. And in the police and military departments the wearing of beards (more commonplace among Muslims) was forbidden.
--


A fourth factor in the denouement of 1947 in Alwar and Bharatpur was the Meo revolt of 1932. As remarked above, the princely states in the early twentieth century exhibited few overt signs of Hindu-Muslim antagonism. Alwar and Bharatpur were no exception. Prior to the 1930s the two states experienced no communal riots. Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that at the village level Muslims in Alwar and Bharatpur had `always lived amicably with Hindus'.(49) But this peaceful co-existence (if that is what it was) came to an abrupt end during the Mohurrum celebrations in Alwar City in May 1932, when a Muslim procession led by the Anjuman-i-Khadim-ul-Islam collided with a crowd of Saivite Hindu Chamars inaugurating a new caste-temple. At least three persons were killed and over forty injured (most of them Muslims) in the ensuing riot. This, in turn, precipitated a mass exodus of Muslims from the capital and other places in Alwar to British India, and a visible stirring among the Meos, who, though not directly involved in the foregoing events, apparently saw in them a sign that darbari authority was weakening.(50) When, on 14 November, a party of revenue officers entered Dharmkar village in Tijara district to collect the half-yearly tax payment due on the rabi crop, they were attacked and beaten. In retaliation, Alwar officials burned the village. For the longsuffering Meos it was one atrocity too many. They refused to pay any more tax until there was a proper inquiry. Meanwhile, expecting the worst, they dug fortifications, cut down trees to impede the passage of the darbar's forces, sent their women and children across the border into Gurgaon District and levied subscriptions for a war fund. By December 1932, some seventy villages populated by about 80,000 Meos were in open rebellion.(51)


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However, the ostentatious aloofness of Hindu peasant castes such as the Ahirs and the Gujars, the aggressively pro-darbari posture of most of the local Hindu merchants,(52) the growing support given to the Meo cause by representative Muslim organizations in British India and the propagandist activities of Alwar officials gradually lent it a communal edge. Relations between the communities soured. Meos boycotted Hindu moneylenders; Hindu shopkeepers refused to supply Muslim customers; several Hindu temples were desecrated. In May, there was a major riot at Tijara.(53) But for British military intervention at the maharaja's request, early in 1933, the situation might well have degenerated into outright civil war.
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Yet British intervention did not really settle the communal problem in Alwar; on the contrary, it compounded it. Before agreeing to come to Jey Singh's aid, the government of India imposed strenuous conditions: total control in the disaffected areas; the appointment of an Indian Civil Service officer as prime minister; the right to make such administrative changes as seemed necessary to alleviate the causes of the Meo insurgency.
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the land-revenue demand was reduced by a quarter; and some eighty new schools were opened in the Meo districts. In May 1933, the maharaja himself was forced to step down and go into indefinite exile. Many Alwar Hindus, particularly those close to the darbar, were personally disadvantaged by these changes; many others felt humiliated by what they saw as an imperial witch-hunt against `their' ruler.
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At this stage the Hindus were still clearly focusing their ire on the meddling British, but as the dust settled more and more came to the conclusion that the blame for their problems really lay with the refractory Meos.

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For the Meos, however, the events of 1932-3 represented a triumph of daring. Albeit with a little British assistance, they had taken on the Alwar darbar and humbled it. In the process, they had ridded themselves of a clutch of hated officials, obtained firm title to their lands and guarantees of greater access to education, and secured a significant tax break (the economic benefits of which were further enhanced after 1932 by a succession of good agricultural seasons).(55) Not surprisingly, the Meos emerged from this experience prouder and more confident in themselves as a community. In 1935, they gave notice of this by coming together to establish an Alwar branch of the All-India Meo Panchayat (Council). Fatefully, though, the enhanced self-assurance of the Mewati Muslims in the aftermath of the 1932 rebellion was not tempered by restraint or discretion. Both in Alwar and Bharatpur they became more demanding of the government, complaining of the impact that the newly introduced civil procedure code had on them, of the slow progress of Muslim recruitment into the public service, of the continuing links of senior officials in the two darbars with Hindu organizations like the Arya Samaj and of the persistence of bureaucratic restraints on Muslim education.(56) Similarly, they also began to adopt a more aggressive stance in respect of religious processions and contested religious sites. During Mohurrum 1937, Muslims in several towns refused to accept police and Hindu assurances over the passage of tazias, while in Behror the Muslims insisted on routing their procession past a long-disused mosque which had recently been converted, with the permission of the authorities, into a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Bhaironji. The stand-off in Alwar City resulted in the tazias not being interred, as required by ritual, for several tense days; in Behror, it resulted in a full-blooded riot, in the course of which fifteen people were shot dead by the police.(57) `The Muhammadans', opined a worried British resident, `are in a decidedly restless condition'.(58)

For instance, persistent communalism in the Meo tracts of Alwar where the British had vigorously pursued a `policy of replacing Hindu officials with Muslims'(60) was attributed by Francis Wylie, an acute observer, to the loaned officers inculcating `a contumacious attitude amongst His Highness's Muslim subjects'.(61)

nundated by telegrams from frightened Hindus and by clandestine appeals for assistance from Jey Singh, the Mahasabha saw the Alwar crisis as a golden opportunity to expand its influence in an arena where neither the Congress nor the Muslim League yet had a significant stake; accordingly, the party sent its secretary, Ganpat Rai, to investigate. It held an Alwar Day and hosted a conference at Rewari to focus attention on Meo `atrocities'

--

This growth was capped in April 1947 by the appointment of N. B. Khare, a former premier of the Central Provinces who had moved into the orbit of the Mahasabha after a confrontation with the Congress high command in 1939, as prime minister of Alwar.(72) Within weeks of his arrival, Khare had talked the erratice Tej Singhji out of a bizarre plan to ally Alwar with Pakistan and arranged for the maharaja to underwrite a Mahasabha conference of Hindu `Princes and People' at Delhi in July 1947 to `consider the future' of India after the transfer of power.(73)
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Post by G Subramaniam »

Santosh wrote:
"None of the women protested, nobody wept," Singh, 78, recalled as he stroked his long, flowing white beard, his voice slipping into a whisper. "All I could hear was the sound of prayer and the swing of the sword going down on their necks. My story can fill a book."
I never understand the wisdom of such decisions. Would it not be better to just live to fight another day. Both overtly and covertly. Killing your own people is a self goal.
You do not understand the situation
the women were trapped deep inside pakistan
They had the choice of death with honor or entering an islamic harem and producing 10 jihadis
They chose death
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Post by Keshav »

G Subramaniam wrote:
Santosh wrote: I never understand the wisdom of such decisions. Would it not be better to just live to fight another day. Both overtly and covertly. Killing your own people is a self goal.
You do not understand the situation
the women were trapped deep inside pakistan
They had the choice of death with honor or entering an islamic harem and producing 10 jihadis
They chose death
Not just them. The Rajputs had several such "jauhars" when they felt they were outnumbered and defeated. I can't imagine the strength and resolve of these people, our ancestors, and what they went through in their fight against Islamic imperialism.
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Meo history part 3

Post by G Subramaniam »

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... 4125/pg_15

the Meos proved irritatingly resistant -- many, it seems, found the notion of `joining Pakistan' incomprehensible(79) -- the League's millenarian message made them restless and sharpened their sense of shared political identity. Significantly, the later years of the war witnessed a renewed upsurge of Meo militancy, symbolized by a short-lived tax revolt in Kishengarh district in March 1946 and an unprovoked assault in September on a party of pilgrims visiting a Hindu shrine at Dholibub.(80)

By the 1940s Alwar and Bharatpur were simmering cauldrons of communal rivalry and popular discontent, of inchoate millenariai hopes and thwarted political ambitions. Early in 1947 this volatile mix exploded. But who or what lit the fuse?

Whipped up by their leaders, Jats and Ahirs began attacking Meo villages in Gurgaon district. By the end of the month the violence had spilled over the border into Alwar.(82)

Meanwhile, at a succession of caste councils over the winter of 1945-6, speakers such as the socialist historian Mohammad Ashraf (once, ironically, a prot6g6 of Maharaja Jey Singh), Punjab MLA Choudhuri Mehtab Khan and barrister Mohammad Yunus Khan called for the formation of a new Mewati province comprising the Meo areas of the United Provinces, Punjab, Alwar and Bharatpur. The implication was that they planned to carve out their independent state by force, under cover of the turmoil that was expected to descend on north India in the aftermath of the British withdrawal. This was tantamount to a unilateral declaration of secession. Moreover, in early 1947, the conventional wisdom was that the whole of the Punjab would go to Pakistan. If this expectation held, there would be nothing, in theory, to stop Meostan from joining Pakistan. On both counts, the Alwar and Bharatpur darbars were determined to nip the scheme in the bud.(83)

Separating `aggressors' from `victims' in this context is difficult, perhaps even pointless. Both sides were culpable. Nevertheless, if there was a starting point, it was probably the Jat/Ahir attack of March 1947. This, catching the Muslims off guard, caused them to accelerate their plans for a separate Meostan. What happened next can be interpreted either as a popular backlash by the Alwar and Bharatpur Hindus, who `forgot their differences and united to meet the attacks on the Meo Musssalmans',(84) or as a premeditated act of communal vengeance by a majority against a vulnerable minority

We were with the RSS. It had been

decided to clear the state of Muslims. The orders came from [the Congress

Home Minister] Sardar [Vallabhbhai] Patel. He spoke to HH on the hot

line. The killings of Hindus at Noakhali [in Bengal] and Punjab had to

be avenged. We called it the `Clearing Up campaign'(safaya) All the Meos

from Firozepur Jhirka down were to be cleared and sent to Pakistan
[and]

their lands taken over ....(85)

To be sure, the darbars and their Hindu `defenders' were not the only perpetrators of atrocities. Once the Meo revolt got going it was prosecuted with fanaticism and ferocity. For a short time, it even looked as if it might prevail. Zindoli village in Mundawar district, Mubarakpur village in Ramgad district, Ismailpur village in Kishengarh district and Bahadarpur village in Alwar district were looted and burned; the town of Tijara was sacked and many of its Hindu citizens slaughtered; a Jain temple was looted; and the main Hindu temple at Prithvipura was defiled by the killing of a cow and the sprinkling of its blood over the image of the deity.(87) But these crimes, though serious enough, were vastly overshadowed by what the governmental forces and their civilian allies accomplished by way of revenge once they had recaptured the military advantage.(88) As noted earlier, perhaps 30,000 Muslims perished in this orchestrated bloodletting What needs to be stressed again is the way that this licensed campaign of mayhem transformed the face of Alwar and Bharatpur society. By the end of 1947 only a handful of Muslims remained in Mewat, mostly in the larger towns. As the Judicial Minister of Alwar noted smugly at the end of 1947: `the Meo problem... has been solved'.(89)

The darbari position, as put to the government of India's inquiry, was that there was no motive, that the wholesale extermination, reconversion and expulsion of Muslims from Alwar and Bharatpur that took place in 1947 was merely a manifestation of spontaneous popular outrage, a spilling over of emotions in the heat of the moment.

Let us now return to the problem identified at the beginning of this article: the problem of reconciling Rajasthan's history of voting for the Hindu Right with its history, since 1950, of relative communal peace. The argument advanced above makes three points. The first is that, while Rajasthan has indeed remained largely riot-free during the post-colonial period, the region does have a considerable pre-history of communal violence going back at least to the early twentieth century.

Significantly, though, Rightist parties have fared poorly in the two states right down to the 1990s, when the Bharatpur family finally confronted its past and declared for the BJP.(96)



An additional explanation can be sought in the other rupture of Partition. Everywhere in India, the 1950s saw a marked drop in the incidence and ferocity of communal violence between Hindus and Muslims.(97) If we accept Gopal Krishna's paradigm of a demographic threshold to violence, this can be understood simply as a consequence of the fact that after 1947 there were many millions fewer Muslims in north India to pose a `threat' to the security of the majority community. Alwar's and Bharatpur's share of this exodus m around 100,000 -- was not large compared with that of East Punjab, but it was enough to make a difference locally. Where once the Mewati Muslims had been a substantial minority, they are now a small one. Moreover, there has been a palpable change in the community's demeanour. While the Meos remain tightly knit and unwavering in their Islamic piety,(98) they have obviously learned from their terrible experience in 1947. The rallying cry of `Meostan' is no longer heard; now their demands are mainly for a better deal in respect to government services, and they make these through the ballot box.

7) Jogendra Yadav, 'Political Change in North India: Interpreting Assembly Election Results', Econ. and Polit. Weekly, 18 Dec. 1993. Yadav cites an exit poll taken after the 1993 Rajasthan Vindhan Sabha elections which suggested that the BJP picked up over 70 per cent of the Hindu vote in constituencies with a Muslim population of 20 per cent or more.
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Post by shiv »

Santosh wrote:
"None of the women protested, nobody wept," Singh, 78, recalled as he stroked his long, flowing white beard, his voice slipping into a whisper. "All I could hear was the sound of prayer and the swing of the sword going down on their necks. My story can fill a book."
I never understand the wisdom of such decisions. Would it not be better to just live to fight another day. Both overtly and covertly. Killing your own people is a self goal.
You may not have understood the magic of Islamic fundamentalism. It gets easier to understand if you put yourself in a situation where you are going to be attacked by a crowd of Islamic zealots.

If you know you cannot fight them, the choice you are advocating is "live to fight another day". What would have happened to the Sikhs in this case was what Islam learned 1300 years before you were born

Kill the men. Take the women and have babies from them. The next generation will all be born Islamic and everything will be forgotten.

If you are a man and you choose to "live" then you die anyway and your wife/sister get taken. Some people would consider it a better choice to chop their heads off and die fighting.
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Meo History part 4

Post by G Subramaniam »

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... 4125/pg_23

According to the Prime Minister of Alwar, N. B. Khare, 15,000 Muslims were killed and 50,000 converted: see N. B. Khare, My Political Memoirs: or Autobiography (Nagpur, 1959), 331; Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi (hereafter NMML), oral hist. transcript 230, interview between Khare and H. D. Sharma, New Delhi, 16 July 1967. On the other hand, the Chief Commissioner, Ajmer, claimed that `30,000 were killed' in Bharatpur alone

--

Census of India, 1941, xxiv, 2, 156-7, 164; Census of India, 1951, x, I-B, 285. By 1951, Alwar and Bharatpur were part of the new Rajasthan state, but they retained virtually the same boundaries. One of the interesting things revealed in the census figures is a rapid rise in the Sikh population of the two states/districts.
--

(40) The exact figures were 26.2 per cent for Alwar and 19.2 per cent for Bharatpur; only Jaisalmer with 29 per cent had a higher proportion of Muslims: Census of India, 1931,

--

The extent of discrimination should not, however, be exaggerated. With the exception of processions in Bharatpur City, there was freedom of worship: Friday was observed as a public holiday; Muslims in the state forces were compelled to `attend to their prayers'; and stone was provided from state-owned quarries free of charge for the construction of mosque
--

The no-tax campaign soon spread across the border into Bharatpur, where agrarian conditions were similar. In January 1933, Meos in Papra village refused to permit the rabi inspection to be carried out. Other villages followed suit. The campaign was crushed in June with British military aid,
-

The Hindu merchants resented the Meos' standover tactics in the matter of `subscriptions'; they were also fearful for their safety. During January, hundreds fled Tijara and other Meo centres for the security of Alwar City. Hindu support for the darbar was made all the more galling to the Meos by the severity of the government's reprisals, culminating in a fierce encounter at Govindgarh on 7-8 January, in which upwards of thirty Muslims were killed by fire from Lewis guns. See Maharaja Jey Singh to Sir Charles Watson, Political Secretary, Govt of India, Alwar, 26 Dec. 1932:

--

59) One of the main purposes of the fair was to raise money for the new Bhaironji Temple, which was nearing completion on the site of the former mosque. The latter, the so-called Akbari Masjid, had been unceremoniously demolished, apparently with the approval of the district authorities, in 1936
--

Mayaram emphasizes the Left-Congressite links of many of the senior Meo leaders, such as Kunwar Mohammad Ashraf, but one suspects that most Meos were no more anxious to be part of a Congress Raj than they were to join Pakistan: Mayaram, `Speech, Silence and the Making of Partition Violence', 131-2.

--

83) Memoir by Judicial Minister, Alwar, [19477], quoted in Khare, My Political Memoirs, 328-9; ibid., 300; N. B. Khare to Manilal Doshi, 13 Aug. 1947: NMML, Khare Papers, file 165. This interpretation was later upheld by investigations by Sardar Patel's States Ministry and the CID. The second Meo revolt, Patel concluded, was `inspired by League leaders who had done extensive propaganda for it and had (cont. on p. 233) arranged for the supply of arms, ammunition etc.'. See `Sardar Patel to Rajendra Prasad, 24 June 1948'

--

Memoir by Judicial Minister, Alwar, [19477]; quoted in Khare, My Political Memoirs, 331. This was also the Mahasabha line. In the absence of protection from the government of India, Hindus and Sikhs had `retaliated' in `self-preservation'. See speech by V. D. Sarvakar, quoted in the Hindustan Times, 8 Oct. 1947

--


Memoir by Judicial Minister, Alwar [19477], quoted in Khare, My Political Memoirs, 330-3; ibid., 302. The rebel forces were significantly strengthened from May onwards by the desertion of large numbers of darbari soldiers and officials. The Meos became more desperate after 5 August when Alwar signed an instrument of accession, signalling its intention to join the Indian Union.

--

88) The turning-point came on 12 August ( 1947 ) when a strike force of 10,000 Meos from Alwar, Bharatpur and Gurgaon was routed by the Alwar army. Thereafter the Meos were pushed back into the hills where they were systematically hunted down. By the end of August most of them had fled across the border into Gurgaon. Eventually, the majority found their way to one of the Punjab holding camps for Muslim refugees.
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Post by Santosh »

Shiv, GS correct. I understand that the men will die fighting or be beheaded and the women/children will be taken to raise the next generation of army of Islam. My point about the women was to survive by conversion or whatever it takes but later wait for an opportune moment to poison/kill/stab the fundoo. There will be plenty in a life time. Maybe I am oversimplifying or underestimating the magic of islam. Sorry for being OT.

GS, good articles.
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Post by Kalantak »

Santosh wrote:Shiv, GS correct. I understand that the men will die fighting or be beheaded and the women/children will be taken to raise the next generation of army of Islam. My point about the women was to survive by conversion or whatever it takes but later wait for an opportune moment to poison/kill/stab the fundoo. There will be plenty in a life time. Maybe I am oversimplifying or underestimating the magic of islam. Sorry for being OT.

GS, good articles.
After losing her family and her self-respect what will she achieve by killing just one fundoo? And would the muslims leave her alone. No, rather she would he mass raped and killed.

Would it not be better that she kills herself with her self-respect intact rather than get raped by muslims and die latter at their hands.
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Post by csharma »

There is also the possibility of being sold to a brothel after being dishonoured.
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Post by AjayKK »

" What happened to the women during the riots before and after Partition "
From here
This is my personal experience, during partition. It was 1947, my husband was working as chief accountant in United commercial Bank in a town called Amritsar in Punjab.

Lahore was an hour by train from Amritsar. We were staying in the city very near to the bank. The Golden Temple of Amritsar was 10 minutes walking distance. We had colonies of Hindus and Muslims all living closely. All of sudden in the end of May riots broke out in the whole of Punjab.

Our men every night used to watch that door by rotation so that no one could enter and burn our houses. The curfew was ordered at night they could lift curfew for few hours we could buy only lentils, rice, oil, potatoes and onions. We could not get any fresh fruits or fresh vegetables as the vendors also were afraid of their safety. For milk we would send someone to bring it for us.

Nothing was easy. When it got worse, they enforced martial Law, it was to shoot at sight order for the police. The Muslims took so many Hindus young girls and raped them, made them parade on the road naked with only a green flag on their body. The green flag was Muslims sign at that time.

After partition there, police found so many Hindu girls and rescued them and brought them back to their parents. It was a shame that their parents would not accept them. Thus became such a mess to keep these girls in the refugee camps for how long? There was chaos in the whole of Punjab.


Since I had two little girls and I could not get even milk everyday for them, we decided that I could go to Karachi, where there was no trouble. My parents were in Hyderabad Sind and my in-laws were in Karachi. I took a train to Karachi.

In the train, I heard that in the train before ours, the Muslims had pulled out all Hindu men, women and children and killed them on the platform at Multan. Multan as a border town of Punjab and Sind.

You can imagine what must be my condition. In the whole journey, I did not speak to anyone or aid anything as to who was I. I was holding my both girls tight, praying to God and by Grace of God , I reached Karachi.

I was in Karachi or a month when on 14th August it was decided that India was divided in the Pakistan and India. They gave half Punjab, whole Sind to Pakistan and thus 15th August, India became an independent country.

Amritsar in India and Lahore in Pakistan became a border on one side.

Now Muslims from Hindu side of Punjab started coming to Sind with the stories how Sikh and Punjabi Hindus had killed Muslims. They did not mention what they did to Hindus and Sikhs.


We left Karachi by ship to Bombay. There were only a few cabins and hundreds of people wanted to go. We all had to come as deck passengers.

Pakistan police and customs did not let us take with us anything except clothes. We managed to bring our jewellery and cash on our waist and I brought four young girls with me as my mother was scared that Muslims refugees might repeat abducting girls like Punjab.

It was August monsoon season.The sea was rough and so many people were sea sick. It was a terrible journey to Bombay.

On 8th of January 1948, Muslims refugees (Mohargees) started to loot and killed some people in their own houses in Sind. They wanted Sindhi Hindus to go away from Sindh. It frightened so many Hindus. They left their furnished houses and other things behind. They tried to sell the houses but no body wanted to buy. Muslims immigrants knew that they will get everything for free.
Not so long ago, there was a picture of a few women being paraded in Pakistan during Partition with only a piece of cloth on their bodies. Now, it is not to be easily found.
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Post by satyarthi »

ramana wrote:Frontline has a couple of articles on need to reform Hindu calenders.

Kaushal please review and comment.

Medieval Mistake
Reform panel recommendations
On the issue of beginning the year with Chaitra and not Vaishakha, the report explains that: “The dates of festivals have already shifted by 23 days from the seasons in which they were observed about 1,400 years ago as a result of our almanac-makers having ignored the precession of equinoxes. Although it may seem desirable that the entire amount of shifting should be wiped out at a time, we consider it expedient to maintain this as a constant difference and stop its further increase. As a result, there would at present be no deviation from the prevailing custom in the observance of the religious festivals.â€
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Post by satyarthi »

To make it clear:

Indian astronomers know that Sun starts moving northwards around Dec 22. But Makar sankranti is not a festival to celebrate exactly that day. It is a festival celebrating transition of Sun into the constellation of Makara (capricorn), the real one, not the arbitrary and shifting one as defined in "tropical" astronomy.

There was a time in the past when Makara-sankranti and sun turning northwards Uttarayana coincided. But that was true only at a certain age. It wasn't true before that age and is not true now. And this fact is known to Indian astronomers.

If they had meant Makara sankranti as Utrrayana day (winter solstice), they could have actually named it that way.

There does seem to be widespread confusion that Makara-sankranti means winter-solstice. Please, pay attention to the precise meaning of Makara-sankranti, and also the sidereal nature of Indian astronomy. It is signfying a sidereal recurring event, viz Sun's position in the background of stars. It is not celebrating a "tropical" event like solstice.

Makara sankranti signifies the "punyakala" of Uttrayana, i.e. the auspicious time AFTER sun turns north.
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Post by satyarthi »

Western festivals are all solar and with precessional correction tropical also. That is festivals recur at same time of the year relative to equinoxes and solstices.

Hindus had other ideas about what it means to be "recurrent".

Has a date really recurred, when sun appears to be at same position from a solstice, or is it when the sun (or other grahas) appears to be in the same background of stars, or is it when moon also has a certain phase? Hindu festivals are decided on a mix of all these periodicities to decide on what we mean by a "recurrent event", which is what a festival is.

Remember that on a planet in a galaxy far far away, the idea of what "recurrent" means will be quite different too, and will be decided by selecting some locally relevant periodicities.

Of course, agriculture etc depend upon the seasons, and seasons depend upon the tropical year, i.e. distance from a solstice or equinox. Some festivals that are specifically tied up with seasons, could be adjusted to make them tropical.

But most other festivals, say Rama-navami (birthday of Rama) etc don't depend upon a season. They are about deciding what is the best way to come up with a day which approximates the conditions of Rama's birthday. In such festivals, Indian method of taking sidereal positions as well as lunar phases is far better in approximating a truer recurrence than tying them down to tropical recurrence only on account of ease.
Last edited by satyarthi on 13 Mar 2008 21:03, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by sanjaychoudhry »

Not so long ago, there was a picture of a few women being paraded in Pakistan during Partition with only a piece of cloth on their bodies. Now, it is not to be easily found.
In any confrontation, women are the main target of Muslims. Their rape and abduction is the main aim.

As some British colonialist once said: "Money is the weakness of Hindus, Women are the weakness of Muslims and liquor is the weakness of Sikhs."

During the Naokhali massacre, a Hindu teenage girl was taken to the main crossing of the town by Muslims and made to stand there all afternoon rank naked to humiliate the Hindus. Why the Muslim tribals couldn't capture Srinagar during 1948 was that they abducted Hindu women and turned every house and mosque into a brothel. They forgot all about advancing. Within days, the Indian army had air dropped over Srinagar and secured the town. Jinnah was furious when he heard why Srinagar couldn't be taken by the Muslims. The women were first taken to an army camp and then sold in kothas of lahore and karachi. These must be the ones who were being paraded semi-naked on the streets with the average Abdul on the road whistling and lusting after them.

No race inflicts so much brutality on women as Muslims. They do not spare their own women through the Shariah. Women are considerd war booty in the fine tradition of their deranged, lusting prophet. This is the only religion which has elaborate harems with thousands of women for each noble. It is sickening how Islam brings out the animal in man.

To Gandhi's eternal shame, he did not utter a single word of condemnation of Muslims's treatement of HIndu women, but he was busy fasting and cursing the hapless Hindus for their treatment of Muslims.

Sometimes I think a man so far gone in his delusions that he cannot hear the screams of his own people but all the time curses them for resisting the invaders, is as deranged and off-balance as the Prophet of Islam.
Last edited by sanjaychoudhry on 13 Mar 2008 20:58, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by SwamyG »

Shiv:
So you want to argue that Christians and Muslims were very very efficient at what they did, and were extremely better than some of the Indian dynasties. So be it.
But that does not mean the Indian Kings did not look at expansion and that their rule was without brutalities.
By sheer quality and quantity the Islamic hordes have wrecked greater damage, but that does not mean every time one talks about a local dynasty or ruler doing routine war related atrocities that we have to jump and say "But the Christians and Muslims did these far frequently and in greater numbers."
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Post by sanjaychoudhry »

SwamyG wrote:Shiv:
So you want to argue that Christians and Muslims were very very efficient at what they did, and were extremely better than some of the Indian dynasties. So be it.
But that does not mean the Indian Kings did not look at expansion and that their rule was without brutalities.
By sheer quality and quantity the Islamic hordes have wrecked greater damage, but that does not mean every time one talks about a local dynasty or ruler doing routine war related atrocities that we have to jump and say "But the Christians and Muslims did these far frequently and in greater numbers."
What are you trying to prove by this equal equal business? Is it that there is no difference between Hindu kings and Muslim hordes and both were equally expansionist and brutal? That flies in the face of history of our civlisation. If Hndus were expansionist, they would have been fighting the civlisational war in Arabia, not in their own homeland. And what brutality do you have in mind? Can you give me some examples? Combatants inflicting brutality on combatants do not count.

I am intersted in knowing history of brutality of Hindu kings over non-combatants, especially women and children and peasantry. How many were abducted and taken to Hindu harems or sold into slavery in flesh markets of Sri Lanka and Malaysia? How many cities were put to sword by Hindu kings in a general slaughter of civilians? Which towns were razed to the ground and a tower of skulls made? Where did the rivers of blood flow?
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