A look back at the partition

[anupmisra]

Has anyone done or read of a comparative study between Hindu/Sikhs from West Punjab (who migrated to East Punjab and Delhi at partition) and Punjabi Muslims from East Punjab who migrated to pakjab? A study involving their comparative wealth (pre- and post- partition), education standards, level of economic contributions to their new countries (buinesses started, wealth created), etc. My thesis is that Hindu/Sikh Punjabis that migrated to India have done relatively much better for themselves and the nation as compared to their Muslim counterparts. I see (and hear) of Punjabi businesspeople in Delhi, Punjab and elsewhere who have built empires from ground up. I don't hear of such cases about the Pakistani musalmans who migrated to pakjab. Am I mistaken?

[SSridhar]

My thesis is that Hindu/Sikh Punjabis that migrated to India have done relatively much better for themselves and the nation as compared to their Muslim counterparts. I see (and hear) of Punjabi businesspeople in Delhi, Punjab and elsewhere who have built empires from ground up. I don't hear of such cases about the Pakistani musalmans who migrated to pakjab. Am I mistaken?

No, you are not mistaken. This is absolutely correct. One example alone will drive the point. The East Punjab that became of India was known in British rulers' parlance as 'crown wasteland'. There were therefore no irrigation facilities, and no agriculture. The Punjabis who migrated from West Punjab, have converted that 'crown wasteland' into what it is today. One comparison into productivity figures of various crops in the most irrigated and most fertile Panjnad in West Punjab with those in the Indian Punjab will show the difference. West Punjab produces 2.46 metric tonnes of wheat per hectare, the staple food crop of Pakistan, while in India’s East Punjab it is 4.11 mt/ha and in Haryana it is even 4.6 mt/ha.

[ramana]

In First Five year plan, East Punjab brought 105 million hectares under cultivation. The West Punjab let that region go as it was 'banjar' lands and had Sikh population, just as Nizam let Northern Circars go to East India company.

Bhakra Nangal is truly a national project.

[Abhi_G]

http://www.dailypioneer.com/364051/India-divided.html

Partition, Bengal and After: The Great Tragedy of India
Author: KP Mukhopadhaya
Publisher: Reference Press,
Price: Rs 575

The Great Calcutta Killings and Noakhali Massacre
Author: Dinesh Sinha, A Dasgupta
Publisher: H Maiti
Price: Rs 500

In Freedom’s Shade
Author: Anis Kidwai (translated by Ayesha Kidwai)
Publisher: Penguin
Price: Rs 450

In his book, Partition, Bengal and After: The Great Tragedy of India, Kali Prasad Mukhopadhaya, a refugee from East Pakistan, provides a detailed eyewitness account of the horrible sufferings of Hindus, including his own family, after Partition — from the barbarism of Noakhali to major pogroms of 1947-48, 1950 and 1964. The book also tells us several grim stories, including the 1971 genocide of 300,000 people and the ongoing Arabisation/Islamisation in that country. He surveys the mass exodus of harassed Bangladeshi Hindus to India, the illegal immigration of Muslims from Bangladesh, the growing number of madarsas, and their demographic consequences.

Mukhopadhaya shows the tragedy of Trailokynath Chakrabarty (‘Maharaj’), a revolutionary, who had spent 30 years in British jails (Andaman and Mandalay), and then suffered humiliation in East Pakistan. He tells us the story of freedom fighters like Pravash Chandra Lahiry and communist leader Ila Mitra who were tortured in East Pakistani jails, like thousand other Hindus. The ongoing genocide of the Jumma people (Chakmas/Buddhists) in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, along with Christians, is also mentioned.

In the second book, The Great Calcutta Killings and Noakhali Massacre, Dinesh Sinha and Ashok Dasgupta write, with personal experience, about the Great Calcutta Killings (1946), and the pogrom unleashed on Hindus in Noakhali and Tipperah districts.

Before the Muslim League’s call for ‘Direct Action’ in Calcutta, “Bengal Muslim leaders were sharpening their weapons for jihad in Bengal”. League leader Abul Hashim had warned that “shining steel would decide the day”, while Khawaja Nazimuddin proclaimed that the Muslim League was no believer of non-violence” and it had 150 ways of causing “trouble”. Inspiring their followers with their ideology of massacring “others”, making mohalla-wise preparations, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Osman (Mayor) arranged coupons for petrol for their volunteer-assassins.

A state-sponsored attack was let loose on Hindus with help from mosques and butchers’ shops, without harming any European establishment. Muslim policemen were blatantly partisan, and Governor Frederick Burrows lent full support to this jihad. Hindus hit back late. One of the tragic victims of this pogrom was the son of Sir Jadunath Sarkar.

Hindus in six police stations — Raipur, Lakshmipur, Ramganj, Begamganj, Senbag and Sandwip — suffered immensely at the hands of local Muslims. Muslim League leader Pir Golam Sarwar led the “holy” ulema to unleash loot, murder, rape and forced conversion of about 150,000 Hindus to Islam and forced marriage (nikah) of Hindu women. Desecration of Hindu temples and deities were extensively reported. When Mahatma Gandhi visited Noakhali, all was over.

[brihaspati]

I am sorry! I do not think the Pir was to blame in anyway! Our great secular socialist leader who gifted us our Indepedence solely on the strength of his superbly muscular arms that were often rolled up to chase people criticizing him - like Shyamaprasad in cabinet, or the anecdotal rash Punjabi senior who touched his female kin to show what it really felt like for beloved female members of family be "used" - the great sole leader JLN, wanted the RAF units then stationed in India to strafe supposed "Hindu" rioters rioting against "Muslims" in Bihar. This great compassionate and perfectly neutral leader however had only mumbling anticipation of our current honbl PM ji - when he went in tow with the other perfectly unbiased and neutral indepndence gifting leader MKG on a tour of Noakhali - after, after, a good Hindu doctor and humanitarian's head was presented to the local Muslim leader, and his daughters appropriated for the pleasure of the peaceful Muslim jihadis, and almost the entire Hindu population had been decimated - males culled in classic Prophetic tradition and sunna, and women raped and enslaved after forced conversion. The great neutral, unbiased seculars only had words of peace and desire for peace - no Nehruvian strafing wish - after all this time around it were Muslims onlee. We must gratefully thank them for at least having the unintended effect of the Brit admin discreetly dragged along to watch over their proteges - and hence have a salutary effect. After all - all women to be had were already had, property looted, men killed - any direct show of violence would jeopardize the sanitization and whitewashing campaign of our unbiased leaders and their British collaborators in transfer of power to Islamophiles.

It was C.R.Das who started the game. Look at the list of people he encouraged into politics from the Muslim side - and which side they landed on during the partition peaceful overtures from the Muslims.

Of course the Muslim communities all around were also up in arms against jihadis tarnishing and deviating from true Islam, isnt it?

[ramana]

Original post by Rony

--------------------

How-urdu-got-associated-with-muslims-in-India-- written by a Paki

Languages are basically a means of communication, expression of emotion, attitude and mood. But they are also associated with identity in various degrees. Identity is nationalistic, sub-nationalistic (ethnic) and, in some rare cases, also religious. In India, it so happened that Urdu got associated with the Indian-Muslim identity between the late 18th and the early 20th centuries. Despite the fact that this language is spoken by both Hindus and Muslims and Muslims themselves speak a number of languages, mainly Bengali, Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi and Gujrati. Moreover, in the villages of UP and Bihar, both Hindus and Muslims actually speak the dialects of Hindi such as Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Braj Bhasha, Maithili etc. And yet, modern Urdu is associated with Islam in India in both India and Pakistan. How did this happen? This is explained in two parts. The first part deals with the movement for the purification of Urdu between 1750 to the early 1900s.
The movement for linguistic purification — which I call the ‘Islamisation of Urdu’ for reasons given below — started in the middle of the 18th century. The ancestor of Urdu was an Indic-oriented language. By this I mean that it had words of the local languages (bhaka or bhasha) and Sanskrit, and its allusions were to India and the local culture. Even though the script of some writings in this language is Perso-Arabic (Urdu), as opposed to Devanagari used in the Rajput writings, the language is similar. This common language underwent a great change from the 1750s onwards which is the theme of this article.
In this purification movement, the Indic element was purged out by Muslim poets who, it appears, wanted a class-identity marker. Among the changes which occurred were: the removal of local (bhaka) and Sanskritic words, the substitution of Iranian and Islamic cultural allusions and metaphors in place of Indian and Hindu ones, and the replacement of the Indian conventions about the expression of love (woman to man) by Persian ones (man to woman or adolescent boy). Among the more than 4,000 words purged out were nain (eye), prem (love), mohan (dear one) etc. They do exist in songs and some other forms of poetry, of course, but they were banished from the ghazal. The grounds given in the writings of the poets who did all this — such as Shah Hatim (1699-1786), Imam Baksh Nasikh (d. 1838), Insha Ullah Khan Insha (1752-1818), etc — are not communal. They said that certain words are obsolete, unfashionable and rough. However, the end result was that words of Indic origin were the ones which were purged. That is one reason why I call this movement ‘Islamisation’. To take one concrete example, Hatim made a small extract of his voluminous poetic work calling it Divan Zada (1756). In the preface of this compilation, he writes in Persian that he “had stopped using the local idiom which was called ‘bhaka’” (bhaka goend mauquf karda). In its place, he tells us, he had started the refined idiom of the gentlemen of Delhi. And what was this? For an answer we have to go to Insha who defined it precisely in his Persian book Darya-e-Latafat (1802). For Insha, this was the language of the Muslim elite of Delhi and Lucknow. Such notions about linguistic excellence were in circulation from the 14th century at least, as Amir Khusro’s own notions illustrate. However, during the 1750s the ideas of Sirajuddin Ali Khan Arzu (1687-1756), a Persian poet and linguist, had a stronger impact on Hatim and the other reformers. Arzu corrected an existing dictionary naming it Navadir-ul- Alfaz (1751). In this he indicates at several places that the standard language he had in mind was that of the elite of Delhi. And this idiom was far more Persianised and full of Islamic cultural references than the other styles of the language spoken elsewhere. So it was this Persianised language which became a marker of the educated, mostly Muslim but also Hindu Kaesth, identity during British India.
The impact of this movement was that it changed the identity of the common language of north India to two languages: Persianised Urdu and Sanskritised Hindi. The process of Sanskritisation started from 1802 onwards and it was a consequence of political awareness, incipient nationalism and reaction to Muslim cultural dominance. But this dominance had been contributed to; by the same movement of the Islamisation of Urdu so that a Hindu poet had to use Islamic phraseology in order to be appreciated. And yet, ironically and most unjustly, Azad’s book Ab-e-Hayat ignores both Hindu poets as well as women. There is no doubt that this process of Persianisation was a class movement meant to strike out an independent path rather than to write in Persian itself as the Iranians made fun of Indian-Persian. Moreover, from the 1830s onwards, Persian was being phased out from the domains of power. Both the Muslims and Kaesth Munshis were interested in using Persianised Urdu to retain their monopoly over jobs in UP and the Punjab. But the apprenticeship (ustadi-shagirdi) tradition, the poetry recitation sessions (mushairas) which were assemblies of rivals and the cultural capital given to language was such that the allusions, references and the atmosphere, at least in the ghazal, was Persian and Muslim. That is why the movement alienated Hindus and that is why I call it the Islamisation of Urdu. Its greatest harm was that it began the division of Urdu-Hindi into Urdu and Hindi and this was continued by the Sankritisation of Hindi later. And yet, the spoken language of ordinary people remains undivided. It is only by recognising this history and resolving to build upon common themes and continuities of this common language of north Indian cities that we exorcise the ghosts of the past from this subcontinent.

[wig]

pakistan is a nation that elevates a dastardly murderer to chairman of the punjab education board. to expect that this nation brought up by such evil minds will do anything humane in times to come is unreasonable.

Mr Madan Gopal Singh was the Registrar of Punjab University at Lahore before the partition of India. He had a P.A. named Ghulam Hasan, who was attached with him for more than 10 years and was quite close to him. He, like Mr Madan Gopal Singh, stayed on the university campus.

Once the P.A’s daughter got seriously ill and had to be shifted to Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Lahore for an operation. At that time the treatment in a private hospital, specially by a foreign doctor, was very costly. Mr Madan Gopal not only personally assisted the family of Ghulam Hasan in the treatment but also gave him Rs 1,200 (a big amount at that time). He also told him that since he treated his daughter as his own, there was no need to return the money.

Later, Ghulam Hasan suffered a serious attack of jaundice and was hospitalised. Mr Madan Gopal not only deputed his staff to take care of him but also gave him financial help of more than Rs 1,000 and ensured an improved diet for weeks together. Many similar favours were shown by him to Ghulam Hasan and his family from time to time. The kindness of the Registrar was well known and other employees used to feel envious of Ghulam Hasan.

The Radcliff award was announced on 17 August, 1947. Lahore went to Pakistan and Punjab University was to be bifurcated. There were communal riots in which lakhs were killed. There was communal tension and killings in Lahore also. Hindus and Sikhs were migrating in thousands.

Mr Madan Gopal stayed on and attended his office regularly. The Home Secretary, Punjab, Mr A.A. Macdonald, was also holding the charge of the Vice-Chancellor of the university.

On 31 August 1947, Mr Madan Gopal went to his office and started working. After a few minutes he saw his P.A entering his room menacingly who pushed a dagger into his stomach. A second blow followed, which killed him.

The atmosphere was so vitiated with communal overtones that the body remained on the floor for 2-3 hours till the acting Vice-Chancellor came there accompanied by Inspector-General of Police, Khan Qurban Ali, and the acting District Magistrate of Lahore, Mr A.A Williams.

The university staff was dumb struck. No case was registered and there were no investigations to trace the killer. Everybody was saying that Ghulam Hasan had given a brutal return compliment to his boss for the favours, help and kindness shown by him over more than a decade.

Ghulam Hasan was never arrested and a few days later he killed the head of the economics department of the university, Prof. Brij Narayan, in a similar manner. The actions of the P.A were rewarded by the then Chief Minister of Punjab (Pakistan), Nawab Iftikhar Hussein of Mamdot, by making him the Chairman of the Education Board of Punjab.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110831/edit.htm#5

moderators: i am not sure if this article goes to the islamphobia thread or perhaps this should go to the header of the TSP thread

[Abhi_G]

It was C.R.Das who started the game. Look at the list of people he encouraged into politics from the Muslim side - and which side they landed on during the partition peaceful overtures from the Muslims.

Brihaspati, who were the ones promoted by C.R. Das? Fazlul, Suhrawardy et al.?

In fact much later, before SCB made the escape, he seems to have had a coalition with radical islamists after breaking off with Hindu Mahasabha (this comes from some USSR (big daddy of Tojo's poodle propagandists!) espionage source, so I am not sure about the veracity of the claim). Indian Independence League had a propaganda arm called INA Islamic Radio or something of that sort that was broadcasted in Af-Pak during the INA struggle.

Even today we have the same malaise - Kiran Bedi sucking up to bukhari for "secular" anti corruption support.

[Abhibhushan]

Crossing the Border

[Kakkaji]

X-posted from TSP thread:

How-urdu-got-associated-with-muslims-in-India-- written by a Paki

IMHO the Persianizing and tearing away of Urdu fro Hindustani was an early example of the implementation of the Two Nation Theory.

In an earlier time, there were a number of prominent Muslim poets such as Rahim and Raskhan in present-day UP-Delhi area that wrote in 'Brajbhasha', and wrote about Hindu Gods and the themes of the land they were living in.

IIRC, Rahim (Abdurrahim Khankhana), who was Bairam Khan's son, was a prominent general in Akbar's army. He was one of Akbar's 'Navratnas'. Yet his writings show deep knowledge of Hindu scripture. He was so well known for his acts of charity, that even Sant Tulsidasji praised him.

Raskhan was from a Muslim jagirdar family, who became a devotee of Lord Krishna. He wrote devotional poetry to Lord Krishna and other Hindu Gods.

It is this tradition that was destroyed by 'partitioning' Urdu away from Hindi.

The Pakistan project has been long in making. It did not spring suddenly out of Iqbal's or Jinnah's head.

JMT

[abhishek_sharma]

About Abul Kalam Azad (From the book "100 Great Lives", pages 16-23)

His claim that he learnt English on his own and could read books in English on philosophy and history, is not supported by the events of his later life. He was not able to converse in English with the English officials and statesmen; an interpreter always accompanied him. The only book in the English language which stands in his name (India Wins Freedom) was dictated by him in Urdu to Humayun Kabir, who translated it into English.

In 1908, Azad visited Iraq, Egypt, Syria and Turkey and as a result, he was attracted to the concept of Pan-Islamism. On his return to India, Maulana Azad started a weekly Al-Hilal (the crescent) from Calcutta in Urdu in 1912. This was the time when the Balkan Wars started, in which Turkey was involved. His paper carried a strong campaign along with the Comrade of Muhammad Ali, in favor of Turkey and became the mouthpiece of the anti-British propaganda. In the pages of Al-Hilal, Azad highlighted the belief that Abdul Hamid of Turkey was the universal Caliph of the Muslim world and the territorial integrity of his empire should be preserved at all costs. He argued that the institution of Caliphate was necessary to secure the organic unity of the Muslim world. The writings of Sir Syed Ahmed asserting that Abdul Hamid was not a Caliph for Indian Muslims were attacked by him [1].

Even after his elections as Congress president, Maulana Azad did not adhere to all the tenets of Gandhism. He did not spin regularly as was required by the Congress constitution. Azad also did not believe in non-violence. In his opinion, opposing violence with violence was fully in harmony with the natural laws of the God, in circumstances under which Islam permits the use of violence. In a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru on 13 July 1942, Gandhi wrote: "This is my plea about Maulana Saheb. I find that the two of us have drifted apart. I do not understand him, not does he understand me. We are drifting apart on the Hindu-Muslim question as well as on other questions. I have also a suspicion that Maulana Saheb does not entirely approve of the proposed action (Quit India Movement). Therefore, I suggest that the Maulana should relinquish Presidentship but remain in the Committee. The Committee should elect an interim President and all should proceed unitedly." [2].

...

Fortunately, for Azad, the Congress leaders, including Gandhi and Azad, were arrested the following month and the question of Azad resigning was postponed indefinitely. In fact, he acted as president of the Congress until June 1946. During this period, being the Congress president, he was spokesman too. He participated in the negotiations during the Cripps Mission (March-April 1942), Simla Conference (June 1945) and Cabinet Mission (March-June 1946).His role as the principal negotiator of the Congress, however, has come under a cloud. "It will always remain a matter of speculation whether it was a blessing or reverse that at this crucial phase of India's history Maulana Abul Kalam Azad happened to be the president of Congress", wrote V. Shankar, editor of Sardar Patel's correspondence [3]. While the Cripp's mission was Mission was rejected by the Congress and the Simla Conference failed on flimsy grounds, the greatest boon offered to the Muslims was by the Cabinet Mission proposals. It was stipulated that the Muslim majority areas will be grouped in a way that the whole of Punjab, Bengal and Assam will be included in it; that there will be a very weak centre having jurisdiction to foreign affairs, defence and communications only; and the rest of the subjects will be directly under the provinces, which will have an option to cede after ten years; that Muslims will have fifty per cent seats in the legislature (Parliament) and in the executive (ministry). The Maulana could see that Muslims could never have a better bargain and was so excited at the proposal that he wrote to the Mission members that he would get the proposals accepted by the Congress, even if Gandhi and others opposed them. Stafford Cripps (a member of the Mission) sent this letter to Gandhi, through his emissary Sudhir Ghosh. Gandhi had just finished reading the letter when the Maulana walked in. Gandhi asked the Maulana if he had written such a letter. The Maulana, with a straight face, denied it. Gandhi was stunned. The Maulana had lost Gandhi's trust. Later, Gandhi in a letter to Nehru on 24 July 1947 wrote that he should drop the Maulana from his Cabinet. Nehru did not heed the advice as he needed persons like Azad and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai as a bulwark against the rising tide of, what he termed as, "Hindu communalism and revivalist outlook of certain leaders like Puroshottam Das Tandon, Rajendra Prasad and others". Nehru was very unhappy at the victory of this group in getting Hindi, in Devanagari script, recognised as the official language of India in the Constitutional Assembly, in spite of his opposition. The victory of Rajendra Prasad as president of India (1950) and of Puroshottam Das Tandon as Congress president (1950) over Nehru's candidates should also be seen in this light. To spite the Hindi-wallahs, he had appointed Azad who did not know Devanagari nor much about Indian culture as education and culture minister.

...

His claim of being a secular Muslim leader must be taken with a pinch of salt because even after independence he continued to help the Muslim cause. He brought many Muslim officers, holding high positions, back to India, who had migrated to Pakistan. In his ministry, all the key posts were held by Muslims: Humayun Kabir, K. G. Saidayin, Ashrafaque Hussain, Nurul Hassan. In speech after speech, he advised the Muslims not to migrate to Pakistan because "it will weaken the Muslims of India". During the post-Partition days, he exaggerated the death and plights of the Muslims in Delhi, oblivious of the pitiable condition of millions of Hindu and Sikh refugees. Along with Mountbatten, he incited Gandhi to undergo a fast unto death for the release of fifty-five crore rupees to Pakistan, a country at war with India, against the declared policy of the government. Gandhi's fast was camouflaged as being meant for Hindu-Muslim unity though there were with no riots in Delhi at that time. Lord Mountbatten has spilled the beans, asserting in his memoirs that the fast was essentially to force the government to release fifty crore rupees to Pakistan [5].

However, the character of Maulana Azad is revealed to a greater extent in their pages of his memoirs India Wins Freedom. The first edition of the book was published in 1959 and the fuller version which included the most controversial thirty pages, in 1988. In this, he has reviled persons like Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad and even Nehru, his benefactor and faithful friend.But his worst venom was reserved for Sardar Patel, whom he called communal, anti-Muslim and worse, on page after page. The Maulana received brickbats for writing such a book from unexpected quarters. Rammanohar Lohia, while reviewing his book, wrote, "Maulana's book contains at least one lie on each page and it is wholly unreliable in respects of historical interpretation. The whole story is an uninteresting lie." [6]

...

According to Rajmohan Gandhi, "Pride was Azad's failing. We glimpse it in India Wins freedom in the form of 'I-was-wiser-than-the-rest.' He refers several times to the errors of Gandhi, Nehru and Patel and not less frequently to his own sounder judgment. 'Later events proved how justified my apprehensions were'. We encounter such statements a shade too often" [8] ...

References

[1] Nagarkar. V. V. Genesis of Pakistan. Allied. 1975 pp. 98-99 and A. C. Banerjee. Two Nations; Philosophy of Muslim Nationalism. New Delhi Concept. 1981. p. 209.

[2] Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 76, p. 293

[3] Shankar, V. ed Sardar Patel: Selected Correspondences, 1945-1950. Vol 1, Ahmedabad, Navajivan, 1976, p. 58

[4] Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol 88, p. 408.

[5] Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre. Mountbatten and the Partition of India. New Delhi, Vikas 1983, p. 52.

[6] Lohia, Rammanohar. Guilty Men of India's Partition. Hyderabad, 1970, p. 12, 16.

...

[8] Gandhi, Rajmohan. Eight Lives; A Study of Hindu-Muslim Encounter, New Delhi; Roli Books, 1986, p. 251.

[brihaspati]

Azad's statements suddenly become criticizable onlee after his biography comes out? Not a single public or restricted public domian criticisms were forthcoming while he was at his active best? Why no lambasting of his pro-Islamic or Islamist sentiments expressed openly in the years before independence?

Or it was just H&D in return for attacks from a protege - to the installed icons of congrez? That is an immoral criticism from the congrez side - because for this criticism to have been really "moral" it must have come contemporarily to the ideological line of Azad - not as areaction onlee to personal venom in his biography.

The congrez is not interested in setting history straight - because it had its own share of distorting it by not protesting Azad on spot as he was showing his Islamophile identity. Its sole obsession is about protecting the idolatric status of Gandhi and Nehru.

[brihaspati]

It was C.R.Das who started the game. Look at the list of people he encouraged into politics from the Muslim side - and which side they landed on during the partition peaceful overtures from the Muslims.

Brihaspati, who were the ones promoted by C.R. Das? Fazlul, Suhrawardy et al.?

In fact much later, before SCB made the escape, he seems to have had a coalition with radical islamists after breaking off with Hindu Mahasabha (this comes from some USSR (big daddy of Tojo's poodle propagandists!) espionage source, so I am not sure about the veracity of the claim). Indian Independence League had a propaganda arm called INA Islamic Radio or something of that sort that was broadcasted in Af-Pak during the INA struggle.

Even today we have the same malaise - Kiran Bedi sucking up to bukhari for "secular" anti corruption support.

Suhrawardy is the prime kingpin. But there were others too.

[A_Gupta]

http://murderofhistory.blogspot.com/201 ... gious.html
This speech was delivered by Mr. Sris Chandra Chattopadhya in opposition to Objectives Resolution, in Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 12 March 1949

[member_19686]

Are the papers regarding Netaji's death still classified and Acharya sir ,could Netaji stop the partition as he commanded the loyalty all the major communities in India?.

If Bose could get the Muslim officer in the BIA to show allegiance to the INA there would be no Pakistan. British made sure that INA was disbanded and never to be heard of. Read the INA history thread

[If Bose could get the Muslim officer in the BIA to show allegiance to the INA there would be no Pakistan. British made sure that INA was disbanded and never to be heard of. Read the INA history thread

The very fact that Bose could command such intense loyaltly and generate such intense love in M's (including Punjabi M's) is ample proof that Partition was not inevitable.

Not just the Brutish rulers, even after they left they left they extracted a promise from JLN to not accomodate the INA, which JLN dutifully complied with. He continued to fear the Brutes, even after they supposedly left.

I am not aware that MKG went on a hunger-strike to accomodate them.

Found these posts while searching for something in old posts, unfortunately facts tell a different story.

The secularists look back at the Azad Hind Fauj days with misty eyes as that golden moment when Moslem soldiers marched arm in arm with their Hindu-Sikh comrades for liberating their common motherland, as perfectly symbolized in the “Sahgal-Dhillon-Shah Nawaz” trinity of one Hindu, one Sikh, and one Moslem INA officer jointly facing the famous Red Fort trial of 1946. But if only one explores the Azad Hind history more deeply and sincerely, the uncomforting facts stare at one’s face about the motivation behind most Moslems in joining the INA.

We provide four different evidences from four different sources.

We have a loud and clear testimony of INA senior officer Capt. Abdul Rashid Ali, who held very senior positions in the Azad Hind Fauj, at the same level as Dhillon, Sahgal and Shah Nawaz Khan. During his later Trial & Court Martial by the British in 1946, he clearly stated that his predominant objective in joining the INA was to serve the interests of Islam and safeguard the Indian Moslems from getting dominated by the Hindu-Sikhs of INA. His court martial testimony, unlike those of Shah Nawaz and others, are never ever quoted by the secularist narratives.

A newspaper report:

“Reading from written statement, in a clear ringing voice, he [Capt. Abdul Rashid Ali] declared, I was cut off from the rest of the world and could get only such news as was supplied by the Japanese. I was convinced that the non-Muslims who were the moving spirit in the INA were going to invade India with the help of the Japanese. I was also convinced that this would result in the domination of India by the non-Muslims [helped] by the Japanese. In order to safeguard the interests of my community I decided like the rest of the Muslims to join the INA in order to arm myself and thus be in a position to safeguard the interests of my community in India…” [Foot note 13]

Rashid Ali was awarded seven years of imprisonment by the British, and was turned into a hero by Muslim League. In his honour and to demand his release, Muslim League announced to observe 12 February 1946 as Rashid Ali Day and to hold demonstrations and agitation all over India on that date. As is usual for the ignorant and moronic Hindu leadership, eager still to forge some kind of Hindu-Moslem unity and gain some approving nod from Muslim League, foolish Hindu leaders too announced support to this Rashid Ali Day (of course they called it ‘INA Day’!) and held joint rallies and protest marches especially in Calcutta!

Most, if not all, secularist narratives ignore Capt. Abdur Rashid Ali’s testimony. Some play it down since his words are reported by the Star of India, Calcutta newspaper with pro-Muslim League tendencies.

But the motive of most Moslems joining INA, as reported by Capt. Abdur Rashid Ali, is also corroborated by multiple other independent testimonies of other INA Moslem officers.

In the earlier Trial and Court Martial of Sahgal-Dhillon-Shahnawaz trio, testimony of some Moslem soldiers and officers of how they joined INA is also documented. The argument delivered by the Defence Attorney Advocate Bhulabhai Desai includes quoting the testimony of one witness Muhammad Hayat (a PoW who had refused to join INA), reproduced below:

“The Camp Commandant was Capt. M. Z. Kayani, who was succeeded by Col. Shah Nawaz Khan. I heard Col. Shah Nawaz Khan [was] lecturing to the camp. I was not present at the lecture he delivered at the camp, but I was present at the lecture he delivered in the Mosque. He said that the Sikhs and Hindus had already volunteered, and that Mussalmans should also join. He said: ‘Muslims must join the INA because when the Hindus and Sikhs go [victorious to India], they will trouble you in your homes in India’… He did not say that he only wanted sincere men [i.e. interested in the INA cause].” [Foot note 14]

This is Shah Nawaz Khan, the INA hero, coercing Moslem PoWs in a mosque, to join INA not to fight for the emancipation of their motherland or to serve the cause of the Indian liberation, but to empower Moslems against the Hindu-Sikh soldiers! And in his own statement during the Court Martial, Shah Nawaz Khan himself stated that he had reluctantly joined the first INA of General Mohan Singh and Rash Behari Bose only to sabotage it from within, and had had his part in its failure, but that he underwent a change of heart after seeing Subhas Bose’s character and ideology (which is not surprising as we have already seen what it was.)

Muhammad Hayat and some other Moslem witnesses also narrated another episode when yet another Moslem INA officer applied similar communal reasoning to motivate them to join INA, albeit using a different pressure. Maj. Aziz Ahmed of INA charged the Moslem soldiers of a PoW camp in Burma, of having captured some cows from the local Burmese village and having slaughtered them in the camp. This charge was used as a pressure to create fear and coerce the Moslem soldiers in either joining the INA thus becoming equally empowered as the Hindu-Sikh soldiers, or remain a PoW and face being sent to the concentration camp for having done such a deed. The episode was corroborated by other witnesses, that in reality no such act of cow slaughter had taken place, but Maj. Aziz Ahmed wanted to frighten the Moslem soldiers into joining INA. It further shows how Moslem officers of INA were driven by the same fanatic passions and motivations, to recruit more and more Moslems in INA, their object being to not let Hindu-Sikh soldiers becoming too dominant in INA.

By the early part of 1945 in Manipur & Burma, Azad Hind Fauj faced several instances of treachery by their own officers. Bose as the “Sipah Salar” (Supreme Commander) of the INA issued a Pronouncement of Purge on March 13, 1945. Excerpts:

“We were hoping that with the advent of the New Year, all evidences of cowardice and treachery would be wiped out… But that was not to be… the recent treachery of five officers of the H.Q. of the Second Division has come as an eye opener to us that all is not well in our ranks and that the seeds of cowardice and treachery are yet to be wiped out. If we now succeed in exterminating this cowardice and treachery once and for all, this shameful and despicable incident may, through God’s grace, prove to be a blessing in disguise. I am, therefore, determined to take all possible measures necessary for the purification of our Army.”

The Order then goes to list eight points of how the Purge was to be carried out and declares Death as punishment for the actions of treachery after the Purge.

This much is a common knowledge. But what most secular-sensitized narratives skip over here is the motivations behind the treachery in INA, and no surprise, one of the main and indeed catalytic reasons was desertion and active sabotage by many Moslem INA officers due to their pan-Islamist ideology. Once they began deserting, in many cases actively assisting the British against their INA comrades, it resulted in a cascading effect of severe moral handicap for the still loyal INA troops who too either surrendered as PoWs or deserted.

From the diary of Col. P K Sahgal who was an eye witness to these events:

“After a very careful study of these points, and the circumstances under which the unit fought, I am of the opinion that these desertions were due to the following causes:

i) Turkey’s alignment alongside the anti-Axis powers has had a very adverse effect on certain Muslim Officers. In spite of our efforts to explain to them the circumstances under which Turkey has been forced to join the War, the officers feel that by fighting against the powers that are allied with the Turks, they are being disloyal to Islam.

ii) In the minds of a number of officers and men there is a lack of faith in our final victory. They are in their own minds convinced that the Anglo-Americans are going to win the war and it is futile to carry on the struggle.

iii) In this particular operation, after the desertion of Lt. Yasin Khan and his companions, there was a general feeling among the officers and men of the unit that it was useless to continue fighting the enemy, so superior in numbers and armaments, and helped by the traitors who had gone over to his side. Majority of these officers, in normal circumstances, would never have done anything treacherous, but finding themselves so overwhelmed, they did not have the moral strength to continue… ” [Foot note 15]

Thus again, we are staring at the same phenomenon which keeps hammering Hindus from time to time but from which they always refuse to learn the lesson: that no matter how much Secularism Hindus would display as Bose did, in Moslem psychology Islam and its interests come first and foremost, all other loyalties are secondary.

One does not expect Bose to have known the dark history of the debacle at Talikota, about 390 years before the above events, when Vijayanagara army had fallen precisely due to the Moslem commanders trusted by Emperor Ramaraja having deserted at the crucial moment in the battle to the invading Sultan at the cries of allahu-akbar. But one surely expects Bose to have known the facts of not so long back about the behaviour of the Moslem soldiers of British Indian Army during the WWI, when at many places they deserted and joined the Turks for the pious motivation of the call of Islam being above any other mundane loyalties and pledges:

“…a much more serious incident took place in February 1915 among the Muslim infantry posted at Singapore. Thinking that they were going to be sent to fight the Turks, they mutinied, shot eight officers, gave a pitched battle and escaped into the hinterland. Again in 1916, several killings and desertions were reported from among the Afridi units. In fact, a large number of Indian prisoners of war, especially after the fall of Kut al-Amra (April 1916), fought alongside the Turkish forces on various fronts.” [Foot note 16]

But well, little blame to Bose; this is a common disease of Secularism among Hindus which causes them becoming semi-blind to reality, inviting debacle after debacle and calamity after calamity!

Another Moslem INA officer who deserves mention before we move on is Brig. Habib-ur-Rahman. This was the same famous INA officer whom Bose had chosen to accompany him on his attempted escape to Soviet Russia, when the fateful crash took place allegedly killing Bose. The survived Habib-ur-Rahman, originally from Kashmir, would within months become the chosen handyman of Jinnah to architect Pakistan’s plans of annexing Jammu & Kashmir. Habib-ur-Rahman was first instrumental in leading the diplomatic mission to Srinagar for coercing Maharaja Hari Singh Dogra and his Prime Minister Ram Chandra Kak in acceding to Pakistan, and then when Maharaja declined, it was the same INA veteran Habib-ur-Rahman who not only provided training to the Kabailis and armed them as Mujahids but also architected the whole Pakistani Army operation of the 1947 invasion of Jammu & Kashmir....

http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/04 ... ra-bose-5/

If I may add info on an another interesting character:

INA's Major General Md. Zaman Kiyani, who was second only to Bose. This was a bigoted Sunni who in 1947 went over to Pakistan and served its military/govt in Gilgit.

I recommend people read the entire series:

Subhas Chandra Bose – Another Look Part 1: “The Seeds of Islamophile Secularism”
http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/02 ... ndra-bose/

Subhas Chandra Bose – Another Look Part 2: “Urdu for Secularism”
http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/03 ... da-bose-2/

Subhas Chandra Bose – Another Look Part 3: Crush Hindu Mahasabha “By Force If Need Be”
http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/04 ... ok-part-3/

Subhas Chandra Bose: Another Look Part 4: Holwell Monument & with Muslim League
http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/04 ... ok-part-4/

Subhas Chandra Bose – Another Look Part 5: The Jehadis of Azad Hind Fauj
http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/04 ... ra-bose-5/

[member_19686]

X-posted from TSP thread:

How-urdu-got-associated-with-muslims-in-India-- written by a Paki

IMHO the Persianizing and tearing away of Urdu fro Hindustani was an early example of the implementation of the Two Nation Theory.

In an earlier time, there were a number of prominent Muslim poets such as Rahim and Raskhan in present-day UP-Delhi area that wrote in 'Brajbhasha', and wrote about Hindu Gods and the themes of the land they were living in.

IIRC, Rahim (Abdurrahim Khankhana), who was Bairam Khan's son, was a prominent general in Akbar's army. He was one of Akbar's 'Navratnas'. Yet his writings show deep knowledge of Hindu scripture. He was so well known for his acts of charity, that even Sant Tulsidasji praised him.

Raskhan was from a Muslim jagirdar family, who became a devotee of Lord Krishna. He wrote devotional poetry to Lord Krishna and other Hindu Gods.

It is this tradition that was destroyed by 'partitioning' Urdu away from Hindi.

The Pakistan project has been long in making. It did not spring suddenly out of Iqbal's or Jinnah's head.

JMT

Rahim was somewhat unique in the sense that he was of foreign ancestry, there were other Muslim authors of a similar bent.

Paraphrase from one of Acharya Hazari Prasad Dwivedi's books:

This should not be surprising that, of all the medieval scriptures we find which throw light about the life and ideas of Nath-sampraday and Yogis, majority are written by muslims! Ali Raja's 'Gyan Sagar', Syed Multan's 'Gyan Pradeep' and 'Gyan Chauntisa', Mohammed Sharif's 'Sur Kandil', Murshid's 'Barahmasya' and 'Yog Kalandar' and 'Satya Gyan Pradeep'...at least I have not come across such scriptures written by Hindu Jogis of middle period.

So I have a firm opinion, all these poets, and even beyond them, many others were born to such jatis of Nath-panthis which were going through gradual, partial, and reluctant conversion to Islam. They had if marginally converted, they had not left the traditions from their Jati, at least just as then. Kabir, Dadu, Rajjab, Kutuban, Jayasi, Noor Muhammad, Fajilshah, etc and other bhakt-sant Hindi/Bengali poets should be seen and read in that light.

Second point to note (esp for people not from North India) is that Hindi is NOT the mother tongue of most Northerners including in so called Hindi-belt like UP and Bihar, barring Delhi area most people elsewhere speak Braj, Marwari, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Maithili etc as their mother tongue.

Khariboli (Hindi) developed naturally over time for cross communication for speakers of these diverse tongues, it was standardized and popularized by Bharatendu Harishchandra. In the aftermath of 1857 people were asking themselves questions about the reasons for failure, at least one of the reasons was lack of a common language. For example the Tilanga's (Hindu cavalry recruited from the Telangana region) and Purbiyas (recruits from East UP-Bihar) could only speak in bits and pieces while fighting side by side against the Brits.

Bharatendu saw this and recognized the need for a common language of communication, he set about standardizing Khariboli with a grammar (for which he worked with Hindu pandits of the older Southern languages like Tamil, Telugu etc) and producing quality literature. His own family were Marwari's settled in Bengal for generations and mother tongue was Braj Bhasha.

Rivaling Bharatendu was Sitar-i-hind Raja Shivprasad who:

“Sitar-i-hind Raja Shivprasad kept sermonizing on the need for an “aam-faham” and “khaas-pasand” language, that is, Hindi studded with Arabic-Farsi words, (or simply Urdu by another name), but fate of Hindi had already decided her own course… When all other members of the Indian language family had, since eternity, taken energy from the familiar Sanskrit, her structure, vocabulary, and cultural continuity, how could Hindi be forced to abandon this emotional connection for adopting a foreign spirit through import of foreign words, as advocated by him? Now that Bangla, Marathi, and all her elder sisters in south had already gained the revivalist momentum, then no, Hindi was not destined to be bound in stagnation of foreign imperialism! She was not ready to sever her ancient and spiritual ties with her sister-languages. Born from the womb of the same mother, she was agonized at being forced to become a stranger to them… that is when, to her rescue, Bharatendu appeared on the scene.”

http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/03 ... da-bose-2/

It is also a lie perpetrated by the secularists Sanskrit heavy language is not spoken anywhere.

The fact of the matter is that languages like Bhojpuri, Awadhi and Maithili are largely Sanskrit derived, the rural Muslims of these regions also speak these languages not Urdu. As you move more westward to Haryana-Panjab area you get more Farsi influence but even rural Panjabi has quiet a lot of Sanskrit derived words in it that Bollywood (whose language is Urdu mixed with English trying to pass off as Hindi) would never use.

You can listen to Sikh gyanis give talks to hear this type spoken, my friend told me in his Panjab village area he has heard the word takaal used for evening (from sanskrit trikaala) instead of the farsi shaam, atma hatya is used commonly not khud khushi, viah/biah for shaadi etc.

That movie Omkara is a decent experiment to give people an idea of the language used in rural & small town UP. Notice here in this clip that Saif says "karor rupaiya ka prasan hai" (prasan here meaning question, sawaal is whats always used in Bollywood):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLDKfJ5l ... ure=relmfu

In the past if an Urdu writer was not a Muslim he would usually be a Kayastha or a Panjabi (Khatri usually). Besides Muslim elite it was only some of these Kayasthas who could understand this Farsi heavy tongue and were in favor of it because they used to work as accountants and such under the Mughals. "Sitar-i-hind" Raja Shivprasad was a Kayastha himself.

Most of the Dasam Granth written by Guru Gobind Singh is in Sanskrit heavy Braj Bhasha.

[brihaspati]

Found these posts while searching for something in old posts, unfortunately facts tell a different story.

To be fair - SCB should not be singled out for Islamophilia. He must take his fair share of responsibility - but he is only a junior follower in this strategic deviation, initiated by MKG. We know SCB was under the psychological shadow/awe of MKG to a certain extent [in spite of intense differences and political competition] - no doubt facilitated by the guruvaadi/avataarvaadi trends established before by the religious movements that swept Bengal in the previous centuries.

But, MKG's islamophilia and SCB's Islamophilia had an important qualitative difference : MKG had no reason or pragmatic political pressure to be Islamophile, while SCB was faced with the hard reality of a two sided opposition so typical in lower GV.

Unlike MKG, SCB had to deal with two entrenched interest networks. The first was the upper GV hatred of the "Baangali ka baccha" [some of the early Bong insurrectionists were handed over to Brit sarkaar mai-baap huzur bahadur as "daaku"'s by the faithful sons of the soil of upper GV - probably because of legitimate jealousy against these non-"bhumiputras" not refusing to take western education and getting gov jobs or Brit admin required professions].

The second was the superbly organized Bengali Muslims led right from the beginning by at least two centres of Muslim theological politics - one being the Nawabs of Dhaka.

When the upper GV hatred would not give - he most likely opted to coopt the second as a hedge. MKG had no such situation in the west coast - yet contributed to at least one side of the pressure on SCB.

[Agnimitra]

^^^ Pardon, what's "GV"? Didn't find it in BRF dic.

[BijuShet]

^^^ Pardon, what's "GV"? Didn't find it in BRF dic.

IMVHO GV is Gangetic Valley

[Agnimitra]

^^^ Thanks.

[SBajwa]

ou can listen to Sikh gyanis give talks to hear this type spoken, my friend told me in his Panjab village area he has heard the word takaal used for evening

non-farsi Punjabi words

Trakala Wela --- evening time
Amrit Wela --- morning time
Sarovar -- Pond
Puttar -- son
Sikh -- Shishya
Kirpan --
Khanda -- also called Khadag
Tir --
Bir/Vir -- Brave from Sanskirt Bir

million others.

[member_19686]

Found these posts while searching for something in old posts, unfortunately facts tell a different story.

To be fair - SCB should not be singled out for Islamophilia. He must take his fair share of responsibility - but he is only a junior follower in this strategic deviation, initiated by MKG. We know SCB was under the psychological shadow/awe of MKG to a certain extent [in spite of intense differences and political competition] - no doubt facilitated by the guruvaadi/avataarvaadi trends established before by the religious movements that swept Bengal in the previous centuries.

I wasn't singling him out, he was only following a well established pattern of Muslim appeasement which still goes on today.

But more importantly I was trying to point out the results of his Islamophilia.

People are falsely led to believe that the INA was some glorious hunky dory harmonious group with Hindus-Sikhs-Muslims all united for the motherland but facts tell a different story.

Most people here believe in this myth I assume because they never studied the primary sources until Sarvesh Tiwari laid bare the truth.

We have multiple sources confirming that:

1) Many Muslim officers pressured Muslim cadre to join not for any nationalistic reasons but to protect Islamic interests in case INA was victorious in driving out the British.

2) A number of them betrayed and actively sabotaged INA efforts when Turkey joined the Allies because they saw it as a betrayal of Islam, a well established pattern from Talikota to WW1 (when many joined the Turks against the British).

If Bose with all his Islamophilia could not secure their loyalty then what chance do we have...

And most importantly the past is never really past, the same things are being repeated right now.

The remaining legacy of Bose is visible in the activities of his brother Sarat Bose, who in the crucial partition days, led the efforts to “Keep Bengal United”, which really meant partitioning India with the whole of undivided Bengal, that is today’s West Bengal and Bangladesh, becoming a separate “secular” country. “If dividing India is a sin”, Sarat Bose would declare, “Dividing Bengal is a bigger Sin!!”

Another Subhas Bose supporter and Forward Bloc leader in Punjab, Sardul Singh Caveeshar, would float the similar secular plan of keeping Punjab united, which too meant taking the whole of Punjab to Pakistan.

Thankfully, Mahasabha and Akalis were strong enough in East Punjab to douse this crackpot proposal before it got any life. The Bengali Hindus also had already had enough of such utopian secularism, when right before their eyes they had seen what the undivided Bengal meant through bloodbaths from Calcutta to Noakhali, and led by Syama Prasad Mookerjee they also bounded up Sarat Bose from going too far with his “plan”. Sardar Patel also came and read to Bose his riot act which was sufficient to make him silent. Mujib-ur-Rahman, after the formation of Bangladesh in 1971, would remember Subhas Bose in his first speech, wistfully recalling that had Bengal stuck to Bose’s vision, Bangladesh would have already been in a much better shape!

Indeed!

Concluded. (Or as Sita Ram Goel said, the trouble is that this past is not really past, the same behaviour patterns, of both the seculars and the Moslems, are intact and repeating right before us. Can we at least learn something from the past and do something about it for our present?)

http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/04 ... ra-bose-5/

Compare Bose & Chitrranjan Das to Bipin Chandra Pal who seems to be forgotten in Bengal. His clarity of thought about Islam & the clash of civilizations (which he predicted in 1923 well before Huntington) are very surprising.

Hindu understanding of Islam far from maturing with time is only becoming ever more confused including for many on this forum.

When we look at leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal they had studied Islam and were absolutely clear about what Islam entails. Even Aurobindo for that matter was far more clear than the current crop.

Subhas Bose began his career in the 1920s under the wings of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, the rising star in Bengal Congress, since Gandhi’s coup d’état at the center. As Gandhi’s deputy, the first significant program of Deshbandhu was his over-enthusiastic campaign for the holy cause of Khilafat. Most of the important leaders within Congress like Pandit Malaviya, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai, and Sardar Patel were clearly and rightly opposed to making Khilafat as a Congress program. Deshbandhu Das took it upon himself to open direct personal communications with them to garner their support to Khilafat. Malaviya refused to relent till the end, but Lajpat Rai finally acquiesced on the logic that if Britain came into possession or control of larger Moslem domains, it would only mean more Moslem influence on British policies, more moslem recruitment in armed forces, and undue pressure on India and Hindus.

Visionary Bipin Chandra Pal was opposed to congress taking up Khilafat. He later recorded in his Memories of My Life and Times, how he dreaded the “virus of pan-Islamism among the Indian Moslems” which Khilafat would invariably affect. In his 1921 presidential address, which was to be his last, Bipin Chandra Pal warned Gandhi against preferring hocus-pocus emotionalism over hard reasoning with his acidic speech, “you want to do magic while I try to give you logic.” (Bipin Chandra lived for another decade, but the rise in Central politics of Gandhi, and in Bengal of Deshbandhu Das and Bose brothers, practically elbowed out this visionary Hindu and hardliner of Lal-Bal-Pal fame, out of politics. He left Congress at this time, and died in 1932 in condition of abject poverty, refusing to accept help from his wealthy comrade Lajpat Rai. A true genius, one only needs to read his works to understand the depth of his understanding of Moslem question. It was the leaders like Pal and Lajpat Rai who could have won an Akhanda Swaraj, if such a thing was ever possible. It was largely under Pal’s influential leadership that Bengali Hindus defeated the Bengal partition of 1905. And today, while Bose brothers and Chittaranjan Das share between themselves a majority of prominent landmarks, roads, and establishments of Bengal to their name, Bipin Chandra Pal seems to have been almost deleted from the Bengali memory. We shall try to dedicate a separate exploration of Pal’s thought and work later. For now, let us return to Khilafat, Deshabandhu, and his deputy Subhas Bose.)..

Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, the literary genius and arguably the Father of the modern Indian Novel, also tried to talk sense to C R Das, his close friend. Like Lajpat Rai, Sarat Chandra was an astute student of the Moslem situation. He had recently toured the rural Bengal especially in the East where Hindus were a minority, and seen the pattern of behavior of the Moslems there. He rightly felt that far from bringing about any Hindu-Moslem unity, such placatory gestures of “sacrifice” were a slippery slope and would only make Moslem bullies see “success” of their hardened attitude and demand more and more until there was nothing left. Anxious that these policies would only bring disaster upon the Hindus in Bengal and for whole of India, he took up the issue with C R Das, who himself being an accomplished Bengali poet shared a cordial friendship of long standing with him. But Sarat Chandra’s discussions with C R Das proved futile. In a discussion Deshbandhu Das simply told Sarat Chandra that since Moslems were soon going to replace Hindus from power anyway by their demographics, it was a fait accompli, better would be for the Hindus to accept the fate and let it happen peacefully! (We shall return to Sarat Chandra again in a while)

Like Subhas Bose, Deshbandhu Das was a very religious Hindu in his personal life; his mansion in Calcutta always resounding with Kirtans of vaishnava mandali in which he used to actively participate. As a spiritual retreat, in the June of 1923, C R Das travelled to Pondicherry to briefly stay with Shri Aurobindo whom as his attorney he had eloquently and successfully defended in the Alipore Bombing case about fifteen years back. Aurobindo also tried to enlighten Deshbandhu Das about futility of his policy of making the so called Hindu Moslem unity as a prerequisite for the national movement. Das held on to his opinion and went on to say so much that unless the so called communal questions were settled, in his view he would not even like the British to leave! (So records a letter of Shri Aurobindo to Mother that month.)...

Krishnanagar Session of Bengal Congress in 1926 must have been a historic moment in a unique sense. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay attended it as an observer, and presented a paper in Bangla on the Hindu-Moslem communal issue entitled ‘Bortoman Hindu-Musalman Somosya’. Backing up by sound arguments he made a strong pitch to Congress leaders that the unity of Hindus and Moslems was impractical in the ways they were trying, and the history of Islam in India does not support it. He argued that instead of pursuing the mirage of Hindu-Muslim unity, what was pertinent and more desired at the time, was unity within the Hindu community by putting to end the curse of treating a section of the Hindus as low castes. Said Sarat Chandra, “If we go by the lessons of history we have to accept that the goal of Hindu-Muslim unity is a mirage. When Muslims first entered India, they looted the country, destroyed the temples, broke the idols, raped the women and heaped innumerable indignities on the people of this country. Today it appears that such noxious behaviour has entered the bone-marrow of Muslims. Unity can be achieved among equals. In view of the big gap between the cultural level of Hindus and Muslims which can hardly be bridged, I am of the view that Hindu-Muslim unity which could not be achieved during the last thousand years will not materialise during the ensuing thousand years. If we are to drive away the English from India depending upon this elusive capital of Hindu-Muslim unity, I would rather advise its postponement.”

http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2011/02 ... ndra-bose/

SBajwa Tir is a Farsi word for arrow adopted into Panjabi, the Sanskrit words are bANa & shalya.

[member_19686]

Bipinchandra Pal on India and Clash of Civilizations (1923)

http://kalchiron.blogspot.com/2010/11/b ... sh-of.html

[SBajwa]

aren't farsi (persian) and sanskrit from the same branch?

[member_19686]

aren't farsi (persian) and sanskrit from the same branch?

Yes both are IE languages but not all the words are the same.

Avestan was closer to Sanskrit than modern Farsi.

Anyway don't want to go OT, can discuss in another thread if you have any more questions.

[Sanku]

Bipinchandra Pal on India and Clash of Civilizations (1923)

http://kalchiron.blogspot.com/2010/11/b ... sh-of.html

Sir-jee that blog author is a prolific poster on BRF.

[Agnimitra]

Surasena ji,
Your points are well taken. IMHO a political solution to 'Bortoman Hindu-Musalman Somosya’ is definitely a mirage -- whether conceived in terms of unity OR separation and competition. Either way it is too complicated and there will be some net loss.

There has to be a comprehensive spiritual, cultural and political movement to re-integrate and forge a new common identity, but one that clearly continues and extends the hoary legacy of the past. The work and mission of the Sikh Gurus, for example, provides a lot of food for thought, though IMHO that was left incomplete as it degenerated into triumphalism and visceral politics.

BTW, "tira" is also used in Sanskrit to mean a particular type of arrow. It may be borrowed from Persian, or a contracted form of tivra:
tIra 1 m. tin (cf. %{tIvra}) L. ; n. a kind of arrow (cf. Pers. $) Pan5cad. ii , 76 ; (%{I}) f. id. L.

[member_19686]

There has to be a comprehensive spiritual, cultural and political movement to re-integrate and forge a new common identity, but one that clearly continues and extends the hoary legacy of the past. The work and mission of the Sikh Gurus, for example, provides a lot of food for thought, though IMHO that was left incomplete as it degenerated into triumphalism and visceral politics.

Since you brought up the Sikh Guru's then you should know who struck the first blow.

Guru Arjundev was tortured to death by Jahangir who says in his autobiography that he wanted to bring this "kaffir" into the assembly of Islam. Ahmad Sirhindi was delighted and wrote that the execution of the "accursed kaffir of Gobindwal ... is a great defeat for the Hindus" (paraphrasing).

Then Guru Tegh Bahadur was similarly tortured to death.

Then Guru Gobind Singh's 2 youngest sons were bricked alive for refusing to become Muslims.

As long as the Sikh Guru's were talking nicely and trying to spread the message of Hindu-Muslim harmony they were at the receiving end of nothing but persecution.

It is only when the Sikhs picked up the sword and hit back and established their own rule that this stopped.

Under Ranjit Singh's rule the Jihadi's respected and feared the likes of Akali Phula Singh and his Nihangs, Hari Singh Nalwa because they knew they meant business unlike Ranjit Singh.

How many more losses and humiliation should Hindus take for the sake of "communal harmony"?

Hindus only asked for the return of 3 of their most important shrines out of the thousand's of mosques which sit on destroyed mandirs and even this was scorned. I hope everyone remembers what happened in Mahabharata after the Kaurava's refused to give even 5 villages to the Pandavas.

It's not even a case of forgiving the past, the same behavior goes on everyday even NOW in India whether it be in Deganga or Tenkasi (where Muslim fanatics have tried to usurp temple land) or most recently in Bharatpur where the police had to fire on the Meo Muslim mob gathered to attack.

I have news reports with me of unprovoked Muslim rioting and attacks on Hindus in 1956 in UP, i.e barely 9 years since Partition. These news reports were published in the Time Magazine at that time.

INDIA: Infidel Dog
Monday, Jan. 23, 1956

To the simple, rugged men of mountainous Nepal, the word "muhammad" means great and strong. It seems a fine name to give a faithful dog. To the touchy Moslem minority in the state of Uttar Pradesh near New Delhi, however, the same syllables, no matter what their spelling, mean only one thing: Mohammed, the Prophet. One day last month a Nepalese traveler named Maganlal Shah came to Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and lost his dog, a dog so beloved that he led it with a silver chain. Maganlal advertised in the Lucknow Pioneer: "Lost, from the Hindustan Hotel, one fox breed dog, brown color, long hair, answers to name Muhammad."
The ad succeeded in restoring the lost Muhammad to his owner, but that was not all. It aroused the ire of some 100,000 affronted Moslems who claimed their Prophet had been insulted. Some 5,000 of them jammed the streets in front of the Pioneer's offices shouting "Shame." Students boycotted school, and businessmen shut their shops. A protest meeting was held in the city's biggest mosque. In the state assembly, a Hindu Communist took advantage of the situation to decry the government's "indifference to the resentment of the Moslem minority." The Pioneer published an abject apology for having run the ad, and Dog Lover Shah was arrested for offending the public.
Last week, as the battle continued to rage, Muhammad and his baffled master, out on bail, fled back to the mountain fastnesses of Nepal. After all, as Maganlal said, "A man can change his name but a dog cannot. No dog will answer to a different name."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 98,00.html

INDIA: The Battle of the Book
Monday, Oct. 01, 1956

The bitterest communal riots since the 1947 partition convulsed much of India last week and spread across the border to Pakistan. At least 23 Hindus and Moslems were dead, another 500 injured. The riots ripped the delicate fabric of peaceful Hindu-Moslem relations and dealt a cruel blow to Prime Minister Nehru's belief that in nine years of the "secular" state the ancient religious animosities of his people had been "healed and forgotten."
The trouble was caused, oddly enough, by an obscure book published in the U.S. 14 years ago. One day last month a rabble-rousing Moslem editor named Ishaq Almi from Kanpur in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, chanced to find on a newsstand a cheap Indian reprint of Living Biographies of Religious Leaders by Henry and Dana Lee Thomas. Inside Almi found a foreword by Uttar Pradesh's Governor Kanialal M. Munshi, director of the Bombay firm which published the book in India, praising it as "worthwhile reading." He also found a biography of Mohammed with the following story:
Mohammed told Khadija, his wife, of his vision of God and asked, "Do you believe it was a good or an evil spirit that revealed itself to me?" Whereupon his practical wife put the matter to an infallible test. She invited Mohammed to sit upon her lap. And when he had sat down, she asked, "Do you still behold the vision?" And when he replied that he did she began seductively to disrobe herself. And then she asked him once more, "Do you still see the vision?" "I can no longer see it. The vision has fled in bashfulness at our intimacy." "Then rejoice," cried Khadija, "for by the Lord it was an angel and no devil that you have beheld."
"Take Up the Challenge!" PROPHET INSULTED IN GOVERNOR MUNSHl's PUBLICATION, shrieked the headline in Editor Almi's anti-Hindu newspaper Siyaset* "Has the Moslem world become so docile that it cannot take up the challenge?" Almi asked. Kanpur's Moslems, all too eager to blame Hindus for their frustrations and poverty, took up the challenge. Thousands who had not read the book trotted through the streets carrying signs that demanded: "Ban the Religious Leaders Book" and "Down with Governor Munshi." In Aligarh students of the Moslem University snaked through the college grounds with a chant: "Long live Pakistan! Death to India!" In neighboring Bhopal rioters burned Munshi in effigy.
Hastily, Munshi ordered the book withdrawn from sale and tendered an official apology: "I have the greatest regard for the Prophet." But the wave of wrath rolled on through India's 36 million Moslems. From the Ganges to the Indus, Moslem villagers stabbed Hindus, looted Hindu shops, stoned Hindu temples. Hindu townspeople fought back. In industrial Jubbulpore seven Hindus, Moslems and police died and 50 were wounded in one sanguinary knifing melee. In Khamgaon rioting Hindus broke into Moslem shops and fought with police; when the police opened fire five died. Some Hindu extremists, organizing a boycott of Moslem rug dealers and lockmakers, shouted that Pakistani agents had "cooked up the whole thing" to embarrass Nehru on the eve of his departure to visit King Saud in the Moslem holy land. Police, some of them dressed as Moslem women, prowled the mosques and bazaars and arrested 500 Moslems.
Deck Him with Shoes! At week's end the trouble crossed into Pakistan. In Karachi, 15,000 students and hired stooges of Moslem League politicos recently fallen from power marched through the streets. "War with India," they shouted, and "Down with Nehru's Tyranny!" Students bore Nehru's picture through the city, garlanded with old shoes, an extreme sign of disrespect to Hindus. By noon the mob had forced shops to close. broken the windows of the Indian bank, stoned school buses and stopped all traffic in Bunder Road, Karachi's main street. The East Pakistan legislature, not content with Governor Munshi's apologies, demanded that the governments of India and the U.S. formally ban the book.
Calling a mass meeting in New Delhi, Nehru laughed off "the special honor I've been paid in Karachi," but warned gravely against rumors of "communal troubles" and "spy stories" spreading through the bazaars. "Our ears are too sensitive," he said, and announced that the government would speedily put through "legislation that will curb those opportunists who are fanning communal passions."
* This story jibes essentially with the earliest and standard account of Mohammed's life (by Ibn Ishaq—8th century), but the tone of the book's 16-page biography might well give offense to devout Moslems.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... z1Yc34LpaA

We are always told that the vast majority of Indian Muslims are very "patriotic" then where did mobs of 100,000 materialize from and remember this was only 9 years after the bloodbath of Partition.

Was this also due to the RSS or Hindu "extremists"?

I hope the secularists will bear the "losses" they expect other Hindus to take for the sake of "communal harmony", my patience ran out a long time ago thanks to the continued anti Hindu atrocities.

Bipinchandra Pal on India and Clash of Civilizations (1923)

http://kalchiron.blogspot.com/2010/11/b ... sh-of.html

Sir-jee that blog author is a prolific poster on BRF.

I am aware that poster Atri here is the author.

[SBajwa]

The appeasement of the muslims in India is mind boggling., unprecedented anywhere in the non-islamic world. It is only in India that they get to marry 4 times, go to hajj on govt. subsidy and have double reservations (BC, OBC and Muslim).

[brihaspati]

ou can listen to Sikh gyanis give talks to hear this type spoken, my friend told me in his Panjab village area he has heard the word takaal used for evening

non-farsi Punjabi words

Trakala Wela --- evening time
Amrit Wela --- morning time
Sarovar -- Pond
Puttar -- son
Sikh -- Shishya
Kirpan --
Khanda -- also called Khadag
Tir --
Bir/Vir -- Brave from Sanskirt Bir

million others.

trakala wela - trikaala bela: a classic reference to tri-sandhya, in turn derived from "sandhi[kshana]" - the triurnal division of Vedic day, important for Gayatri recitation. In fact Brahma has one sandhya gayatri recitation forgotten for reasons connected to Saraswati. This made him unfit to act as the caller of akala-bodhana required by Rama. Tir could have ancient Sanskrit or proto Sanskrit roots - from possible sense of "edge/end". OT.

[brihaspati]

Surasena ji,
I do not defend Bose, have never really done it. I squarely fault him for his "teenage" political spirit, which led to many wrong steps, including leaving India and acknowledging MKG's "superiority" or near avataara state.

But to focus on his Islamophilia and consequent effects on Partition - without looking at the circumstances of this inclination - gives a wrong understanding of the driving factors. This will simply repeat the blunders of the past.

We cannot, and should not forget the essentially Islamophile, hedging, mercantile mentality portion of Hindu/Buddhist/Jaina society that survived [after the non-compromisers either perished or emigrated] in compromise with Islamics in the UP-Punjab-Sindh belt, and which always played a divisive role in the rest of Hindu society.

If a financially influential, well entrenched sub-network of your own idenity grouping is constantly toying with the idea of subverting your efforts at reassertion - and essentially always ready to sell you off in return for "profits" [prosperity and "growth" which are always deafeningly shouted about by a small but exceptionally loud section involved in extracting benefits from transnationl trade and financial flows - with not much sign of such prosperity actually evident in the "lower" commons] - one of the common responses would be to try and neutralize that hedging.

Bose's approach falls within the tactical ambit of countering the use of Muslims by the upper GV network alone. Some of my ancestors were involved in supporting/funding the early founders of the Swarajya party, and the hostility and politicking that went on using the so-called Bong-hatred has been handed down as legends within family lore. We were probably in unique dilemma as most of their branches were clan connected with both upper as well as lower valley.

This important aspect of upper GV cliques and old networks which always survived making compromises with each new invader for the sake of feudal power and "profits" of trade [ with each generations "fighters" either liquidated or pushed out] have left a territory with singularly entrenched and enmeshed "foreign" ideological presence. The cliques see other ends of the GV arc - from Saurashtra to Banga, and even Madra to an extent - the three gateways to GV flows, as rivals to be always kept down. If necessary by helping foreign forces to crush the others.

This internal dynamic of Hindu society should not be hidden from the view. It will hide an important potential subverter.

[Agnimitra]

Surasena ji,
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting in the least bit that we also walk into the maw of wajib-ul-cattle like 10 generations of Sikh Gurus. Rather, their historic sacrifice serves as a signpost for posterity. What I'm saying is that, along with political spunk, we also need to outflank Islamism morally, culturally and spiritually. There has to be ideological harmony amongst ourselves, and an expansive attitude rather than a conservative, vindictive grouse. Political action should be guided by an inspired sense of creativity and discovery rather than anger, complaining and crying. First go and win the hearts of two Moslems before you demand to be given back two plots of land for demolished brick-and-mortar temples.

The actual intention and impact of the Sikh Gurus was not a mere game of political cat and mouse, nor a sentimental plea for communal harmony. They were not naive fools who walked into deceitful death traps cluelessly. There was gain of some kind at every step. Remember that even after that senile old coot Aurangzeb murdered Guru Gobind Singh ji's 4 little sons and almost assassinated him, the Guru was still open to talks. In fact he responded to a last letter from the deathbed of the Pagal Mughal and was on his way to meet him when the decrepit fanatic croaked.

The final success of GGS and the Khalsa was also due to:
(a) the defection of significant numbers of Moslems to his ranks; some of his closest bodyguards were Pathans who were martyred protecting the Guru,
(b) the complete exposure of the immorality of the Mughal regime and its cruelty,
(c) the usurpation of the banner of righteousness, sacrifice and focussed spiritual mission by the Gurus. That turncoat Allama Iqbal bemoaned that the Sikhs "snatched the Qur'an and the Sword from the hands of Moslems".

Even towards the end, GGS was still a political nothing, hounded by Mughals and Hindu Hill Rajas, a man on the run. Yet, he had already won the psychological war, while Aurangzeb went down leaving behind a pathetic will and testament worth reading. JMT.

[abhishek_sharma]

From 'Munshi Premchand: A Literary Biography' written by Madan Gopal

Chapter 'For Hindu-Muslim Unity' pages 214-223

Because of his advocacy of Hindu-Muslim unity, Premchand was bitterly critical of the movement for conversion from one religion to the other. "I strongly disagree with this movement," he wrote to Nigam, "and even though I have practically given up writing anything in Urdu, I am writing a short article against this movement for Zamana. It'll reach you in three or four days. The Arya Samajists will raise a hue and cry. I am sure, nevertheless, that you'd give it some space in Zamana.

The article, entitled "Malkana Rajput Mussalmanon ki Shuddhi" was published in Zamana of May 1923. Herein Premchand took up cudgels on behalf of the Muslims who deprecated the shuddhi movement launched by the Bhartiya Hindu Shuddhi Sabha, formed by several sections of the Hindu society, including the Sanatanists, the Arya Samajists, the Jains and the Sikhs. While Premchand agreed that the shuddhi movement had been originally started by the Muslims, the launching of the shuddhi movement by all sections of Hindu opinion to him signified a grave danger to the Muslims. They had not been afraid of the movement carried out by the Arya Samajists, he said, but apprehended danger in the combined opposition by all sections of the Hindus. There were many among the Muslims, said Premchand, who were leaving the Congress fold because, according to their thinking, Congress raj would now by synonymous with Hindu raj. This trend, Premchand thought, would, therefore, weaken, the movement for swaraj. This being so, the movement which gave spiritual satisfaction to a few individuals, but hurt a large section of the people, should be called off. The Hindus, he added, were better educated, were politically more conscious, and were greater patriots. Propagation by them of the shuddhi movement, when they had earlier opposed the movement launched by Muslims, was regrettable. Their policy in effect amounted to one of "retaliation". While the conversion movements during the Moghul rule were motivated by religious objectives, this shuddhi movement was basically political in character. It was indeed sad, he maintained, that people viewed problems from the communal angle rather than from the national angle: "Hindus thought of themselves as Hindus first and Indians next".

...

Premchand's ideas, according to Nigam, corresponded to those of C. R. Das who too blamed the Hindus for rigidity in approach to the shuddhi movement and Hindu-Muslim unity.

Premchand was all praise for the sacrifices of and the ideas of swaraj as propagated by the Ali brothers (Md. Ali and Shaukat Ali) on their release from prison. He compared their thoughts to those of Rama and Lakshmana, the highest praise that a Hindu could pay to the Muslim leaders.

In an article entitled "Qahar-ur-Rijjal" (or a famine of wise men), in Zamana of February 1924, Premchand wrote that in the light of the Muslim approach to the problem of Hindu-Muslim unity, the Hindu attitude was not above board. He felt sorry that the Hindus had not understood nor cared to understand the implications of the Khilafat movement. In fact, they had looked upon it with suspicion, and not from a wider angle -- that of Gandhiji. The Maulana, he said, had equated swaraj with Hindu-Muslim unity and had given his all for the cause. "The attitude of the Hindus shows that the nation has gone bankrupt. If the Hindus had even one Kitchlew, or Md. Ali, or Shaukat Ali, the movement of the Hindu Sangathan or shuddhi would not have led to such heat," and would have resulted in the reduction of incidents that had taken place under their impact.

...

What pained Premchand deeply was an attempt to divide the nation on communal lines. .... With the idea of making the Islamic history and culture better understood by the Hindus, he himself wrote a drama, Karbala....In fact, the drama includes references to the presence of Hindu soldiery in the army of Hussain whose martyrdom creates the impact of tragedy on the reader. The language of this work, incidentally, is more Persianised.... The drama has no female character worth the name, possibly because the inclusion of women in a drama of religious importance is disfavored by the Muslims.

...

[abhishek_sharma]

[Prem]

Talking about Aurangzeb,
The young sons of Guru Gobind Singh were most probably the last decendants of ancient Ikshvaku dynasty.

[member_19686]

Surasena ji,
Political action should be guided by an inspired sense of creativity and discovery rather than anger, complaining and crying. First go and win the hearts of two Moslems before you demand to be given back two plots of land for demolished brick-and-mortar temples.

And how do you propose to do this winning of "hearts and minds"?

Not even the Sikh Guru's won the hearts of a majority of Muslims, not even close.

And by the way only 2 of Guru Gobind Singh's were little when they were bricked alive, the elder sons died in the Chamkaur battle.

Gandhi, Bose, Nehru, Swami Prannath all failed to win their "hearts & minds" because they were trying the wrong approach.

I support what Goel says here and this is the ONLY way to solve the problem not through wishy-washy communal harmony speeches:

I have wondered over the years why we Hindus have remained
preoccupied with the behaviour patterns of Muslims and
Christians and not with the belief systems which create those
behaviour patterns. We object to Christian missions, but refuse
to discuss Christianity and its God, Jesus. We object to Islamic
terrorism, but refuse to have a look at Islam and its prophet,
Muhammad. I see no sense or logic in this Hindu habit.
In fact, we go a step further. We appeal to the Christian
missionaries in the name of Jesus, and ask them not to do what
they have been doing. We appeal to the Muslims in the name of
Muhammad, and ask them to stop doing what they have been
doing. In the process, we have invented a “real” Jesus and a
“true” Christianity. We have also invented a “real” Muhammad
and a “true” Islam. The missionary and the mullah smiles at our
inventions but goes ahead and makes good use of our softheadedness.
That is why we have failed to solve the “communal
problem” all these years. We have never tried to find out why
our own people, which both Christians and Muslims are, should
become alienated from us when they pass under the spell of
Christianity and Islam. Flattering the bully may become necessary when the bully is
powerful and there remains no other way of softening him except
by extolling his heroes or his cult. Hindus have experienced such
emergencies vis-a-vis both Islam and Christianity. But there is
no reason for their continuing with the same psychology. Hindus
should not convert an apaddharma into Sanatana Dharma.

Source: Jesus Christ – An Artifice for Aggression by Sita Ram Goel

Downloadable here: http://bharateeya.wordpress.com/2009/05 ... -ram-goel/

Now since you talked about "winning of hearts & minds" there is at least one such documented case (i.e Akbar) whose mind was won over through open debates in his court, he left Islam and even seems to have had plans to crush it for good before his sudden death, you can read about it here:

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... start=1640

When he held the debates in his court the Brahmins trounced everyone else, even the fanatic Badayuni is forced to admit this:

We do know that brAhmaNa-s had not only participated in the debates but had the foresight of collaborating well among like-minded, the shvetAmbara-s and the nAtha-yogI-s, and had indeed fared very well in the debates. Their performance evokes much disappointment from badAyUnI who is forced to admit that Hindus are superior philosophers and disputers than his own co-religionists: “Hindu ascetics and Barhmans… suppress all other learned men in their treatises on morals and on physical and religious sciences, and since they attain a high degree of knowledge of the future and of spiritual power and human perfection, they managed to bring proofs based on reason and testimony for the truth of their own religion and falsity of other faiths, and inculcated their doctrines so firmly that no man, by expressing his doubts, could raise a doubt in pAdishAh, even though the mountains should crumble to dust or the heavens be torn asunder.”[4.3]

http://bharatendu.wordpress.com/2009/04 ... nsition-4/

This is the way to solve the problem, free and open debate about the claims of Islam and Christianity not wishy-washy stuff about promoting an "Indian" Islam or bringing in Ahmadiyas into India or adding Jesus and Muhammad to Hindu pantheon.

Abhishek "Munshi" Premchand was a good dhimmi, no surprise there.

So was the Marxist Rahul Sankrityayan, though he was more sympathetic to Dharma than the other commies.

[Agnimitra]

This is the way to solve the problem, free and open debate about the claims of Islam and Christianity not wishy-washy stuff about promoting an "Indian" Islam or bringing in Ahmadiyas into India or adding Jesus and Muhammad to Hindu pantheon.

But who here was talking about wishy washy sentimentality? Free and open doctrinal debate together with producing examples of human advancement is precisely the way to go.

Re: promoting an "Indian" Islam or Christianity, note that a superior philosophy can re-interpret and adjust an inferior or more parochial system within its own operating basis. It can explain it as s special case. So there are possibilities there, but the re-interpretation must be thorough and clear.

[devesh]

"free and open" debate cannot happen until the Mullah-mafia networks are in power. only when they are gone, the individual Muslim will come out of his shell and that is when debate will happen. either way, the first phase will require ruthlessness in crushing these elements. debate will only come later.

[brihaspati]

Sorry - not everything can be reduced to special cases of a theory. This is not physics. This is social constrcution of identities and doctrines of theology.

[Agnimitra]

Devesh ji, that's true. The sheep are held hostage by ulema 'shepherds' and their thug dogs.

Bji, theology and identity do not have to be interpreted only in the social plane. Once the tight brace of ulema-thuggery siege mentality around the flock is broken then anyone can define his social identity in terms of common civic ethics and national identity, while theologies can have free play in a different scope. The fact that such an idea is not alien to Islamic Sufism must be recognized and exploited, even if it has been contradicted in the past from within the same system!