Hindu Swaraj Killed the Rajputs for 22nd Time to make Corporate Bania King as Gandhi Begot a Bastardised Ideology Manipulating VARVNA Vedic System to Benefit His Caste Only. Thus, Banias Sidelined the Brahamins in the Brahaminical Hegemony and the Zionists Rule!
Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time -Two Hundred Thirty SEVEN
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
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Every year, in the month of May, an enormous fete in the form of a parade, referred as Parshuram Jayanti, with hundreds of tableaux, thronged through the ...
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Hind Swaraj
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Please read this BOOK to know about the status of the Rajputs:
History of Hindu imperialism
~ Dharma Theerthan (Author)
http://www.gautambookcenter.com/index.php?product_id=127&page=shop.product_details&category_id=84&flypage=flypage.tpl&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=58&vmcchk=1&Itemid=58
GANADEVTA, so called Classic written by Bengali Brahamin Tarashankar Bandopadhya, a Gandhian as well as a Feudal Lord, who was made the President of Sahitay Academy and won GYANPEETH, opens with a CHANDITALA episode as the Panchayat was called to discipline the Villagers who tried for Job Mobilisation breaking the VEDIC Varna System based Indigenous Labour Division. Hind Swaraj is all about this which is glorified as the OPPOSITION of Capitalism and Industrialism. In fact, Gandhi wanted to maintain caste System INTACT and also he wanted to sustain the BRAHAMINICAL system inserting the BANIAS as supreme.Tarashankar Literature is a HUMAN Documentation of Hatred, I have already written. Gandhian Ideology is all in Defence of the Brahamin Vedic Raj.Congress Party is led by a ZIONIST Dynasty and claims to be following Gandhian Idelology. Whlie, Prabhash Joshi listed Jawahar Lal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, rajiv gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and atal Bihari Bajpayee as the best leaders India ever had. Joshi was Vocal against RSS and Ironically defended the Zionist as well as Brhamanism just because he was a GANDHIAN CARBIDE, most Poisonous.
Hindu Swaraj Killed the Rajputs for 22nd Time to make Corporate Bania King as Gandhi Begot a Bastardised Ideology Manipulating VARVNA Vedic System to Benefit His caste.Thus, Banias Sidelined the Brahamins in the Brahaminical Hegemony and the Zionists Rule!
Some Ideologies are good, some bad. The Followers of the Ideology may either good or bad. But Gandhian Ideology is the only Ideology which is the Worst and Inflicts the Evil in its Followers to dead End. Thus, the Gandhian Icons are not only Involved in ETHNIC Cleansing and Mass Destruction Agenda of the Galaxy Zionist Regime, but are INSTRUMENTAL in Cultural national DEGENERATION. In fact, Gandhian Ideology and Zionism are two Sides of the same Coin. The Vedic system chose the KSHATRIYAS to defend VARNA Discipline Arming them and reserved the RIGHT to Knowledge and Right to Lead only for the Brahammins. First Raja Venu Revolted against the Brahaminical Supremacy and he was EXECUTED by the Brahamins who Crowned his son PRITHU. PARSURAM, killed the Kastriyas for Twenty One Times and the Rajputs, the Power House of India , could not Resist one Single Brahamin and continued to Defend the Brahaminical system which killed them at the END. Even today, the Rajputs continue to glorify the Brahaminical Icons as ALOK Tomar, a Rajput defends the Brahmin ICON PRABHASH Joshi who not only defended Brahamincal system lifelong but advocated SATI and Varna supremacy of Brahamins and implemented Ethnic Cleansing of the Non Brahamins in Media. Tomat was himself on of the VICTIMS.
In Vedic system , the Rajputs were entrusted with the Mandatory task to put off the FOUR Fires of the BHOO Devatas, the Gods on Land, the Brahamins.The Fire of Mind. The Fire of Speech.The Fire of Heart and Finally the Fire of SEX. The Rajputs had to gift away their Daughters and Sisters and even Wives if the Brahamins Demanded. Parshuram`s Mother was a PRINCESS very Young and Beautiful and had been dedicated to an OLD SAGE, the Father of PARSURAM. Just for being attracted to another Male who was young and beautiful and thinking about him, enraged the SAGE and he ordered PARSURAM to kill his mother. PARSURAM not only killed his MOTHER but KILLED the KSHATRIYAS for TWENTY One times as the Young Man SAHSRABAHU had been a RAJPUT.
Before the POWER Transfer to the Brahamins in India, Rajputs had the Key to Power and Property.The Banias had the right to Property and knowledge in accordance with Varna System. They could not lead. GNDHI with his BASTARDISED Ideology and FOX Policy enslaved the Brahmin as well as Rajput leadership and included all Castehindus in the FLOCK on the Forum called Congress and DUPED everyone while wiping out the Banias. Gandhi made SARDAR Patil EXIT and Pdt. Jawahar Lala Nehru who was INstrumental in Lord Mountbatten`s Manipulation for a HINDU Empire, dividing India and making the Most Militant SIKH, PUNJABI and Bengali nationalities handicapped, was Gandhi`s choice as the First Prime Minister of India. Nehru got elected SIXTY SIX percent BRAHMINs in the First General Elections in 1952 and NEVER did allow Dr BR AMBEDKAR or Jogendra Nath mandal, the leaders of Indigenous Aboriginal Movement national, to be elected from anywhere in Independent India. Nehru`s daughter, Indira Gandhi did the rest as she FINISHED the Rajpt clan with an excuse to withdraw the PRIVY Purse. But the THAKURs remained the LIEUTINENTS of NEHRU GANDHI Zionist Dynasty. Meanwhile,Congerss killed every Rajput Leader as it did in Bihar with Finishing CHANDRA SHEKHAR Singh, SATYENDRA Narayan Sinha and Bhism Narayan Singh!
Only Two THAKURS revolted against the Brahaminical system. VP SINGH and ARJUN Singh.VP Singh passed MANDAL Commision report which finally inflicted Brahaminical supremacy as Majority OBC Communities got the equal Opportunity. VP was FINISHED with the BRAHAMINICAL Vedic Wrath and ironically, SC, ST and Even OBC Communities failed to understand his role as SAVIOUR. Arjun singh is also finished as he killed the Supremacy of the Brahamins in the field of Knowledge.
Mind you, Gautam Buddha was a RAJPUT. Mahaveer was also a RAJPUT. Buddha and Mahaveer tried their best to kill the VARNASHRAM and Vedic system, the Hindu IMPERIALISM. Buddha was instrumental to break the BONDAGE of the RAJPUTS as the Rajputs followed him and changed Indian society in its FIRST Ever Revolution. Brahamin PUSHYMITRA kiled Raja BRIHDRATH and captured Power for the BRAHAMINs and introduced MANUSMRITI which divided Indian Hinduism in more than SIX Thousand castes and every caste is superior to another which keep them indulge in INFIGHTING as the Rajputs were Famous to Stand ALONE and to kill their own kith and kin whenever the Brahamins wanted.
Gandhi meant Hindu Rashtra as he demanded RAM Rajya. His Swaraj was Hindu Vedic Brahmin Raj which could arouse Lokamnya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the Pune Brahamin. The Pune Brahamins denied Maharaja Shivaji CORONATION. Vijay Tendulkar in Ghasi Ram Kotwal has stripped NAKED the CHITPAVAN Brahamins in Pune. Maratha nationalism i essentially associated with ANTI Brahamin Movement but the Brhamins have HIJACKED the Maratha Manush Representation!
MK Gandhi was more Dangerous than any Pune Brahmin and thus, Bal gangadhar Tilak did rightly chose him to lead the Struggle for power Transfer to Brahmin Bania Raj!
Parashurama
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This article or section has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page.
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Parashu-rama | |
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Devanagari | परशुराम |
Affiliation | Avatar of Vishnu |
Weapon | Parashu |
Parashurama (Sanskrit: परशुराम) (also known as Parasurama, Bhrigupati, Bhargava, Bhargava Rama, Jamadagnya (Sanskrit: जामदज्ञ्य़) as Jamadagni's son), a Brahmin, the sixth avatar of Vishnu, belongs to the Treta yuga, and is the son of Jamadagni and Renuka. Parashu means axe, hence his name literally means Rama-of-the-axe. He received an axe after undertaking a terrible penance to please Shiva, from whom he learned the methods of warfare and other skills. He fought the advancing ocean back thus saving the lands of Konkan and Malabar. The coastal area of Kerala state along with the Konkan region, i.e., coastal Maharashtra and Karnataka, is also sometimes called Parashurama Kshetra (Parashurama's area). Some say it extends all the way to Mumbai in Maharashtra. Parashurama is said to be a "Brahma-Kshatriya" (with the duties between a Brahmana and a Kshatriya), the first warrior saint. His mother is descended from the Kshatriya Suryavansh clan that ruled Ayodhya and Lord Rama also belonged to.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] History
[edit] Haihaya-Kshatriya Background
parashurama belonged to srivatsasa gothra.It appears that the Haihayas may have been enemies and at war with several groups, including other Kshtriyas themselves. For example the Haihayas sacked Kashi during the reigns of King Haryaswa and King Sudeva (whom they killed), King Divodas and his son Pratarddana (who finally expelled them outside of the Vatsa Kingdom). All these kings were born in the Solar Dynasty and the Haihayas were a Lunar Dynasty.
The hostile Haihaya King Arjuna Kartavirya also defeated the Nāga Kshatiryas led by Karkotaka Naga and made Mahishmati (present day Maheshwar) the capital of his own kingdom.
All the five Haihaya clans called themselves together as Talajangha (Vishnu Purana IV.11).
According to numerous Puranas, the military corporations of the Shakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pahlavas and Paradas, known as five hordes (pānca-ganah), had militarily supported the Haihaya and Talajunga Kshatriyas in depriving Ikshvaku King Bahu (the 7th king in descent from Harishchandra) of his Ayodhya kingdom.
A generation later, Bahu's son, Sagara recaptured Ayodhya after totally destroying the Haihaya and Talajangha Kshatriyas in the battle. King Sagara had punished these foreign hordes by ordering their 'heads shaved' (a common practice used to humiliate and shame the enemy in the ancient and modern world) and turning them into degraded Kshatriyas.[1]
[edit] Extermination of the Haihaya-kshatriya caste
The enmity between the Haihaya and the Bhargavas is mentioned in the Mahabharata Hindu text numerous times. In the Bhagavata Purana SB 9.8.5-6, the Haihaya are mentioned as "the uncivilized".[2]
Once, when Parashurama returned home, he found his mother crying hysterically. When asked why she was crying, she beat her chest 21 times. In a rage, Parashurama vowed to exterminate the world's Haihaya-Kshatriyas 21 times. He killed the entire clan of Kartavirya Arjuna (or Sahasrarjuna), thus conquering the entire earth. He then conducted the Ashvamedha sacrifice, done only by sovereign kings, and gave the entire land he owned to the head-priest who performed at the yagya, viz. Kashyapa.
Parashurama then became responsible for killing the world's corrupted Haihaya kings and warriors who came to attack him in revenge for the killing of Kartavirya Arjuna, to prevent a Brahmin from being emperor and threatening their position. The Ashvamedha demanded that the kings either submit to Parashurama's imperial position or thwart the sacrifice by defeating him in battle. They did neither and were killed. Parashurama exterminated the world's Haihaya-Kshatriyas 21 times, thus fulfilling his vow.
[edit] bhumihar brahmins
bhumihar brahmins along with other such type i.e.,niyogi brahmins are said to be clans from prasu rama.They are said to be have brahma-kshatram and taken up jobs such as ministers,generals,kings.shatavahanas,ananda gotrikas,etc., are brahmin dynesties ruled deccan claimed that they are descended from parasu rama and said that they have brahma-kshatam.
[edit] Legends
It is said that when Parashuram saved and reclaimed some coastal parts of Kerala from the retreat of the sea, that was the beginning of the Kollam Era (AD 825) (possibly named after the city Kollam) for the Malayalam Calendar.[3]
According to one legend, Parashurama also went to visit Shiva once but the way was blocked by Ganesha. Parashurama threw the axe at him and Ganesha, knowing it had been given to him by Shiva, allowed it to cut off one of his tusks. There is another interesting legend with regards to Parashurama's retreat of the seas. It is said that he fired an arrow from his mythical bow that landed in Goa, at a place called Benaulim creating what is known locally as "Salkache Tollem", literally meaning "lotus Lake".
There is an interesting side to Parashurama's conquest of Kshatriyas. After one of his conquests, he returns to Aihole (Badami Taluka, Bagalkot district in Karnataka) which, some say was where he lived. The river Malaprabha does a near 180 degree turn there. While Parashurama washed his blood soaked axe upriver, beyond the bend, there were village belles washing clothes downriver. The axe was so bloody that it turned the entire river red. This, the women washing clothes saw and exclaimed "Ai hole!" (oh, what a river!). The name stuck and the village is now known as Aihole. There is another legend that Nairs (Nagas)of Kerala removed their sacred thread and hid in the forests to avoid Parasuramas revenge against Kshatriyas. Parashurama donated the land to Nambuthiri Brahmins and Nambuthiris denied the Nairs Kshatriya status (though they did Kshatriya duties and almost all the royal houses in Kerala come from them[citation needed]).
[edit] Evidence in the Mahabharata of conflict spanning generations
Reflections of Aurva, the Great-Grandfather of Parashurama (Mahabharata, Book 1, Chapter 182) While lying unborn, I heard the doleful cries of my mother and other women of the Bhrigu race who were then being exterminated by the Kshatriyas. When those Kshatriyas began to exterminate the Bhrigus together with unborn children of their race, it was then that wrath filled my soul. My mother and the other women of our race, each in an advanced state of pregnancy, and my father, while terribly alarmed, found not in all the worlds a single protector. Then when the Bhrigu women found not a single protector, my mother held me in one of her thighs.
(Mahabharata, Book 13, Chapter 153) The mighty Kshatriya Talajangala was destroyed by a single Brahmana. viz., Aurva. (Mahabharata, Book 1, Chapter 2) In the interval between the Treta and Dwapara Yugas, Rama (the son of Jamadagni) great among all who have borne arms, urged by impatience of wrongs, repeatedly smote the noble race of Kshatriyas. And when that fiery meteor, by his own valour, annihilated the entire tribe of the Kshatriyas, he formed at Samanta-panchaka five lakes of blood.
(Mahabharata, Book 1, Chapter 64) The son of Jamadagni (Parasurama), after twenty-one times making the earth bereft of Kshatriyas wended to that best of mountains Mahendra and there began his ascetic penances. Mahendra Mountains are in central India, the northern end of the Eastern Ghats of India, situated in the western part of Orissa. (Mahabharata, Book 1, Chapter 104) In olden days, Rama, the son of Jamadagni, in anger at the death of his father, slew with his battle axe the king of the Haihayas. Haiheya was a central Indian kingdom in Madhya Pradesh of India, on the banks of Narmada river. Its capital was Mahishmati, the modern day town named Maheswar. (Mahabharata, Book 3, Chapter 85) One proceeds to Surparaka, where Jamadagni's son (Parasurama) had formerly dwelt. Surparaka also is in central India with the modern name Sopara.
(Mahabharata, Book 3, Chapter 115) Akritavrana (a disciple of Parashurama) said, 'With pleasure shall I recite that excellent history, of the godlike deeds of Rama, the son of Jamadagni, who traced his origin to Bhrigu's race. I shall also relate the achievements of the great ruler of the Haihaya tribe. That king, Arjuna by name, the mighty lord of the Haihaya tribe was killed by Rama. By the favour of Dattatreya he had a celestial car made of gold. (Mahabharata, Book 3, Chapter 117) Rama, the leader, thrice smote down all the Kashatriya followers of Kartavirya's sons. And seven times did that powerful lord exterminate the military tribes of the earth.
The above shown extracts from Mahabharata shows the conflict between the Bhargavas and the Kshatriyas spanning at least for four generations.
[edit] Shiva's Bow
In the Ramayana, Parashurama came to the betrothal ceremony of the seventh Avatara, Rama, to the princess Sita. As a test of worthiness the suitors were required to lift and string the bow of Shiva, given to the King Janaka by Parashurama. Rama successfully strung the bow, but in the process it broke in two, producing a tremendous noise that reached the ears of Parashurama.
In one such version, played in ramlilas across India, Parashurama arrived after hearing the sound of the bow of Shiva breaking. The Kshatriyas were advised by Brahmarishi Vasistha not to confront the sage, but Sita approached the sage. He blessed her, saying "Saubhagyawati bhavah", literally meaning "you will have your husband alive for your lifetime, you wont see his death". So when he turned to confront Rama, the destroyer of Shiva's bow, he could not pick up his axe to do so as he pacifies by the brilliance of rama (vishnuavatara). This was also because, as he blessed Sita with good luck, he could not cause any harm to her husband which was a part of his own (Shri Vishnu). After recognising Rama for what he truly was, namely, the avatar of Vishnu as his bow went flying in the hands of Lord Rama.
[edit] The Mahabharata
When Amba came to Parashurama for help because Bhishma refused to marry her, he decided to slay Bhishma and fought with him for twenty three days. It was a long and equal combat between the two greatest men-at-arms of the age, but in the end Parashurama had to acknowledge defeat because Bhishma was blessed by his father to choose the time of his own death & Parshurama was immortal So there was no way that they could settle the duel without quitting. He told Amba: "I have done all that I could and I have failed. Throw yourself on the mercy of Bhishma. That is the only course left to you."
Parashurama was giving away his earning and wealth of a lifetime to brahmanas, Drona approached him. Unfortunately by the time Drona arrived, Parashurama had given away all his belongings to other brahmanas. Taking pity upon the plight of Drona, Parashurama said you can choose any of my weapons, which one would you like to have? The clever Drona said I will like to have your weapons with their mantars as and when I need them. Parashurama said so be it. In other words Drona decided to impart his knowledge of combat which made him supreme in the science of arms.
In the Mahabharata, Parashurama was the instructor of the warrior Karna, born to a Kshatriya mother but raised as the son of a charioteer, or lower class of Kshatriyas. Karna came to Parashurama after being rejected from the school of Drona, who taught the five Pandava and one hundred Kaurava princes. Parashurama agreed to teach Karna, believing him to not be of Kshatriya birth[citation needed], and gave him the knowledge of the extremely powerful Brahmastra weapon. But an incident would render the Brahmastra almost useless to Karna.
One day, Parashurama was sleeping with his head resting on Karna's thigh, when a scorpion crawled up and bit Karna's thigh, boring into it. In spite of the bleeding and the pain, he neither flinched or uttered a cry so that his teacher could continue his rest. However, the blood trickled down, reaching Parashurama and awakening him. Convinced that only a Kshatriya could have borne such pain in silence and that Karna had therefore lied in order to receive instruction, he cursed Karna that his knowledge of the Brahmastra would fail him when he needed it most. Later, during the Kurukshetra war, Karna had a dream at night when he thought of his guru and asked him to take back the curse he had warranted years back. Parashurama explained that he knew that the day would come; he knew that Karna was a Kshatriya[citation needed], but deemed him to be a worthy student and instructed him nevertheless. However, the outcome of the war would have left the world in ruins if Duryodhana were to rule, as opposed to Yudhishthira. For that reason, Parashurama requested that Karna accept the curse and fall at the hands of Arjuna, inadvertently saving the world.[citation needed]
Parashurama was the guru of both Bhishma (Devavrata) and Dronacharya[citation needed].
[edit] Later life
In the later life of Parashurama, he gave up violence, became an ascetic and practiced penances, mainly on the Mahendra Mountains. The territories he received from the Kshatriyas he slew, were distributed among a clan of Brahmins called the Brahmrishi Brahmins. They ruled these lands for many centuries. The kingdoms like Dravida, Karnata and Konkana were among them. Parashurama also retrieved from the sea a virgin-land which was a stretch of coastal-area to the west of Western Ghats of India, giving rise to the myth of Parashurama, saving a part of the land of Kerala from the sea. This happened in Surparaka Kingdom (Coastal Area of Southern Gujarat), from where the myth spread to Kerala, by migration. This land also was given to Brahmin rulers.
[edit] The Sixth Avatara
The purpose of the sixth incarnation of Vishnu is considered by religious scholars to be to relieve the Earth's burden by exterminating the sinful, destructive and irreligious monarchs that pillaged its resources, and neglected their duties as kings.
Parashurama is of a martial Shraman ascetic. However, unlike all other avatars, Parashurama still lives on earth, even today[citation needed]. Secondly, he is an Avesha Avatara, a secondary type of Avatara. In such an Avatara, Vishnu does not directly descend as do Rama or Krishna but instead enters the soul of a man with His form. Accordingly, unlike Rama and Krishna, Parashurama is not worshipped. But in South India, at the holy place Pajaka, there exists one major temple commemorating Parashurama.
Parshurama, the creator of the Konkan coast, is also worshipped in a temple at Lote Parshurama , chiplun in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district.The people of the Konkan call their land 'Parshurama Bhoomi' or the land of Parashurama in accordance with the legend that the sage reclaimed the land from the sea.
There are several Parashurama temples throughout the western coast of India as well as North India, but especially more in the costal areas from Bharuch(ancient name of Bharuch is Bhrugu Kutchchh) in the west Indian state of Gujarat right up to Kerala, the southern tip of India. One can see a Parashurama Temple with a Agni Mandir in Shivpuri - Akkalkot, Khopoli in Maharashtra and Fort Songadh in Gujarat.
A temple of Parashurama is also situated at Akhnoor, 18 km away from Jammu city, J&K. Every year, in the month of May, an enormous fete in the form of a parade, referred as Parshuram Jayanti, with hundreds of tableaux, thronged through the main city of Jammu. Local community leaders and followers arrange for the celebrations and it is celebrated with great enthusiasm.
[edit] Jain Version
According to Jain version of Parashurama, he was killed by Chakravati Subhoum.[4]. Subhoum was the son of Sahasrarjun and 8th Chakravarti (Emperor)of the total 12 Chakravartis. The Jain version is available in Trishasti Shalaka Purush, the famous Jain book on 63 great people of ancient times.
[edit] Kalki Purana
The Kalki Purana states Parashurama will be the martial guru of Sri Kalki, the 10th and final avatar of Lord Vishnu. It is he who instructs Kalki to perform a long penance to Shiva to receive celestial weaponry.
[edit] Temples
In the Kanyakumari Temple in Kanyakumari town, Parashurama installed the Idol made of blue stone. Parashurama installed the idol of Dharma Sastha (Ayyappa) on the peak on the Sabarimala Hill in the forest.[5] Parashurama trained Ayyappa[6] just as Parashurama had trained Karna in the Mahabharata and is believed will train the future Kalki.
He created a temple of worship right after he resurfaced Kerala from the sea. He placed statues of various deities in 108 different places and introduced martial arts ("Kalari Payattu") to protect the temple from the evils.[7]
Also, while the other pilgrimages created by Parashurama are devoted to Lord Shiva, Lord Subramanya and Lord Ganesha, Kollur is the only one devoted to goddess Parvati.[8]
There are "Seven Mukti Stalas" of Karnataka, which were created by Parashurama and some of the above such as Kollur belong to them.
108 are said[who?] to be in kerala. 108 are said[who?] to be ambalams for siva vazhipadu[citation needed]
There is Mandir dedicated to Lord Parashurama in Khatti, near Phagwara in Punjab, India.
[edit] Parashurama Kshetras
Eight kshetras are popularly known as Parashurama kshetras and a.k.a. 'Parashurama Srishti'.
"Seven Mukti Stalas"
[edit] Further Kshetra Legend
There is a legend that in one of the kshetras a King called Ramabhoja worshipped Lord Parashurama[9] He was the ruler of the lands between Gokarna and Cape Comorin and was proclaimed king of the entire Parashurama Kshetra.[10] Once he decided to perform the aswamedha yajna and plowed the land but mistakenly killed a serpent. However, the serpent was a demon. To repent this sin, King Rambhoja was directed by Lord Parashurama to build a big silver pedestal with the image of a serpent at each of its four corners and to worship Him who would be seated in spirit on the pedestal and also to distribute gold equal to his own weight (Tulabhara) to deserving persons. Rambhoja did likewise and performed the ashwamedha yajna successfully. At its conclusion, Lord Parashurama appeared and declared that he was pleased with the Yajna and that henceforth the sacrificial land 'Roopya Peetha' (silver pedestal) would become a famous centre of pilgrimage. This land is also known as 'Thoulava' land and because Rambhoja performed 'Tulabhara'. This is, in brief, the legend of the land.
[edit] Reclamation of Konkan (coastal Maharashtra) & Kerala
There is also the Panhala Fort founded by Raja Bhoja in the late 12th century[11] which Chhatrapati Shivaji had used and is said to be the only fort in which he stayed for 500 days! This fort is said to have a connection with Parashurama.
Konkan is the karmabhumi of Parashurama (the land founded by him), but very few people know about his janmabhumi (birthplace). there is one view that his birthplace was Mahoor gadh, which is at the border of Marathwada and Vidharbha in Maharastra. At Mahoor on the left hand side of main Renuka Mata temple there is a temple which is believed to be Parashurama's birthplace. However, there is also one belief that the birthplace of Lord Parashurama is Janapao or Jaana pau in present day Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian State.[12] Parashurama had spent most of his childhood time in and around the Mandagni Parvath near Vajreshwari in Maharashtra. You can see a Bala Parashurama temple believed to be built by Bhima on the edge of the Mandagni Parvath.There is also a temple for Renuka devi and Sage Jamadagni.This makes us to believe that the birth place of Lord Parashurama could be around this place.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Harivamsa 14.1-19
- ^ Srimad Bhagavatam B 9.8.5-6
- ^ Encyclopedia Britannica
- ^ Parashuramacha Vadh By Mahavir Sanglikar, Published by Subhoum Prakashan
- ^ http://www.indiayogi.com/content/indgods/ayyapan1.asp
- ^ http://www.ayyappaa.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19
- ^ http://www.fistindia.com/martial.html
- ^ http://www.sathyasaitourist.com/pilgrims.htm
- ^ http://www.ourkarnataka.com/states/udupi/udupitemple.htm
- ^ http://www.chennaionline.com/hotelsandtours/Placesofworship/2006/01temple72.asp
- ^ Tourism in Maharashtra
- ^ "Dainik Bhaskar - Indore edition July 2007
- "Ramayashogatha" Book on Life of Bhagwan Parshuram (21 years of compilation) by M.S. alias Baburaoji Parkhe. Marathi (1975), Hindi (2008)
- परशुराम महागाथा शोध ग्रंथ by Dr D.R. Sharma
- Mahabharata of Krishna Dwaipayana Vyasa
- Ramayana of Valmiki
- Bhagwan Parashurama :Jayant Potdar
[edit] External links
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Buddhist | Western | Major Events | World Figures and Events |
- 120* | 6th Century B.C.E. * | • Life of Siddhartha Guatama, the historical Buddha: conventional dates: 566-486 B.C.E. (According to more recent research, revised dates are: 490-410 BCE). | • Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great (550 B.C.E.) |
- 20 | 5th Century | • First Buddhist Council at Rajagaha (486) after the Parinirvana*, under the patronage of King Ajatasattu. | • Socrates (469-399) • Plato (427-347) • Battle of Marathon (490) • Greek-Persian Wars (490-479) • Partheon Built (438) |
144 | 4th Century | • Second Buddhist Council at Vesali (386) about 100 year after the Parinirvana. | • Aristotle (384-322) • Alexander the Great (356-323) |
244 | 3rd Century | • Reign of Indian Emperor Asoka (272-231) who converts and establishes the Buddha's Dharma on a national level for the first time. | • Great Wall of China (250) • Hadrian's Wall circa 3rd Century AD • Hannibal Barca (247?-183?) |
344 | 2nd Century | • Beginnings of Mahayana Buddhism (20O). | • Buddhist monuments: Sanchi, Amaravati, Bodhi Gaya, India. (185-175) • Han Dynasty in China |
444 | 1st Century | • Entire scriptural canon of Theravada School was committed to writing on palm leaves in Pali at the Aloka Cave, near Matale, Sri Lanka (35-32) | • 01BCE Mar 1, Start of the revised Julian calendar in Rome. • Julius Caesar (100-44) • Virgil, Latin poet (70-19) |
544 | 1st Century C.E.* | • King Kaniska (78-101) convened the Fourth Buddhist Council at Jalandhar or in Kashmir around 100 C.E. (This is not recognized by the Theravadins). | • Jesus of Nazareth (0-33 C.E.) • Destruction of Jerusalem and the second Temple: (70 C.E.) • The Buddha first represented in art as human form. |
644 | 2nd Century | • The Age of Indian Buddhist philosopher Nargarjuna (150) founder of the school of Madhyamika ('the Middle Way'). | • Roman Empire reaches the height of its power. |
744 | 3rd Century | • Expansion of Buddhism to Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Indonesia. | • Three Kingdoms dynasty (220–265) Division into three states: Wei, Shu, Wu. Many scientific advances adopted from India. |
844 | 4th Century | • Asanga (310-390) and his brother Vasubandhu (420-500) prominent teachers of the Yogacara school of Buddhism. | • Gupta dynasty exemplified by Chandra Gupta II (375-415) dominated North Central India. • Saint Augustine (354-430)
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944 | 5th Century | • Buddhist monastic university founded at Nalanda, India. | • 5th Century Anglo-Saxon Invasion of England • Earliest hospital in Sri Lanka (437) • Fall of the Western Roman Empire (476) |
1044 | 6th Century | • Bodhidharma founder of Ch'an (Zen) arrives in China from India. (526) | • Prophet Mohammed (570-632) • The Age of Islamic Expansion • First pagoda built in China (600) |
1144 | 7th Century | • Construction of Potala Palace, Jokang and Ramoche temples to house Buddha images (641-650) | • Islam sweeps across North Africa (700-800) • Tang dynasty, China (618-906) |
1244 | 8th Century | • Academic schools (Jöjitsu, Kusha, Sanron, Hossö, Ritsu, and Kegon) proliferate in Japan. | • Nara Period in Japanese history (710-784) • First monastery built in Tibet (Sam-ye) (749) • Moslem invasion of Central Asia (760) • Charlemagne (742-814) |
1344 | 9th Century | • Khmer kings build Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument. • Biography of Buddha translated into Greek by Saint John of Damascus and distributed in Christianity as "Balaam" and "Josaphat". | • Heian Period in Japanese history (794-1185) • First printed book, Diamond Sutra, China (868) |
1444 | 10th Century | • First complete printing of Chinese Buddhist Canon (983), known as the Szechuan edition. • Buddhism in Thailand (900-1000) • Islam replaces Buddhism in Central Asia (900-1000). | • Sung Dynasty in Chinese History (960-1279) • 1000 C.E The population at this time was about 200 million people in the world. |
1544 | 11th Century | • Conversion of King Anawrahta of Pagan (Burma) (1044-1077) by Shin Arahan. • Atisha (982-1054) arrives in Tibet from India (1042). •The bhikkhu and bhikkhuni (monk and nun) communities at Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, die out following invasions from South India. • Sakya School of Tibetan Buddhism established. | • 1000-1100 There was a Confucian revival in China. • Edward the Confessor, English king (1042-1066) • Great Schism between Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches (1054) • 1st Crusades (1096-1099) |
1644 | 12th Century | • Theravada Buddhism established in Burma. • Eisai (1141-1215) founds the Rinzai Zen School of Japanese Buddhism. • In 1193 the Moslems attacked and conquered Magadha, the heartland of Buddhism in India, and with the destruction of the Buddhist Monasteries and Universities (Valabhi and Nalanda) - in that area Buddhism was wiped out. • Buddhism in Korea flourishes under the Koryo dynasty (1140-1390). | • Omar Khayyam, Persian poet and mathematician (1044-1123) • 1119 Bologna University founded in Italy; Paris University, in France, is founded in 1150. • Kamakura Period in Japanese history (1192-1338) |
1744 | 13th Century | • Shinran (1173-1263 ) founds True Pure Land School of Japanese Buddhism. | • Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) |
1844 | 14th Century | • Bu-ston collects and edits Tibetan Buddhist Canon. | • John Wycliffe (1328-1384) English theologian and biblical translator. • China regains its independence from the Mongols under the Ming dynasty (1368) |
1944 | 15th Century | • Beginning of Dalai Lama lineage in Tibetan Buddhism. • In Cambodia, the Vishnuite temple, Angkor Wat, founded in the 12th century, becomes a Buddhist centre. | • Development of printing in Europe • Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519) • Columbus "finds" the new world (1492) |
2044 | 16th Century | • Tibet's Gelugpa leader receives the title of "Dalai" from Altan Khan (1578). | • Martin Luther (1483-1546) • Protestant Reformation • Shakespeare, (1564-1616) • Galileo (1564-1642) |
2144 | 17th Century | • Control of Japanese Buddhism by Tokugawa Shögunate (the ruling feudal government) (I603-1867) | • Japan closes the door to foreigners (1639) |
2244 | 18th Century | • Colonial occupation of Sri Lanka, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. | • 1700s Age of Enlightenment introduces revolutionary new ideas to Europe. |
2344 | 19th Century | • New sects begin to emerge in Japanese Buddhism. | • Meiji Restoration in Japanese history 1868, marking end of military rule. • 1833 Abolition of slavery in British empire. |
2444-2544 | 20th Century | • Buddhist Society of Great Britain, founded (1907). | • Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) • WW I (1914-1918) • Russian revolution (1917-1922) • 1919 Ernest Rutherford splits atom for first time. • WW II (1939-1945) • Cultural Revolution (China) (1966) • Pope John Paul II pardons Galileo (1995) • The Fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War ends. (1989)
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* B.C.E. = Before Common Era (Equivalent to B.C.) * C.E. = Common Era (Equivalent to A.D.)
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/b_chron-txt.htm
Introduction -Mahaveer
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Inventing a history: Hindu-Muslim conflict
HINDUTVA is specifically a post-colonial development which took birth under the impact of British Orientalist scholarship and which imparted a great deal of its own meaning and political content to Hinduism. Just as in the case of Islam, in the case of Hinduism too, Orientalism was acting as the academic arm of political Imperialism, only that while Imperialism did not succeed in imposing its meaning and content upon Islam, it did succeed to a large extent in inventing its own synthetic brand of Hinduism, now called Hindutva.Hinduism and Hindutva are certainly not one and the same. The Indian law does not allow the use of Hindu or any other religious appeal, but such ban does not include Hindutva. That is how Hindutva forms part of the BJP manifesto. The mother of an arch Hindutva leader, Bal Thackeray, died recently and he was so upset with this act of God that he said he felt like revolting against Hinduism. However, he took care to state it did not mean he was reneging on Hindutva.
The traditional Hinduism was ecumenical, syncretic, and Indo-Aryan with Arab, Persian and Turkish embellishments which it acquired after it came into contact with Muslims. It was very private but willing to adapt and accommodate any new theology in its pantheon. The neo-Hinduism of Fort William College, Calcutta was narrow, intolerant and specifically anti-Muslim.
Hinduism is a vast spectrum of races, tongues, ideas, history and identities, it's a coalition and not a singular socio-political entity. The creation of a new 'Hindu' rashtra was an imperialist necessity: an entity that they could use as an ally against Muslims. They had deposed Muslim political power and it is Muslims who were continuously challenging their imperialist rule. However, this new 'nation' had to be necessarily anti-Muslim in its psyche and ethos. But imperialist scholars had a problem there- of creating hostility of which there had been little.
It is the most significant fact of Indo-Muslim history that although Muslim rule in India covered a period of almost 1,000 years, in which there were good rulers as well as bad rulers and there were also occasional wars between the Muslim power in Delhi and one or the other Hindu raja who chose to defy the central power, yet it is not a history of ruler versus the ruled. It is a history of mostly just and caring rulers where even an humble washerman could knock at the gate of the Emperor's fort and obtain justice against the Empress, where the state made regular benefactions to support Hindu shrines and temples and accorded full respect to the belief and way of life of the various people. It is interesting that all 'reforms' in Hindu religion were enacted by the British while Muslim had left them totally untouched, to be reformed by the society itself.
The Hindu author, Girilal Jain, admits (The Hindu Phenomenon, UBSPD, New Delhi, 1994) that 'the well-known British historian [Sir Henry] Elliot wondered why the Hindus had not left any account which could enable us to gauge the traumatic impact the Muslim conquests and rule had on them.' [History of India from its own Historians (8 Volumes), 1867.]
Jain offers his lame explanation 'that when Hindus fought and lost, they did not throw up prophets of woe and doom'. However, the simple truth is that if Hindu history is so remarkably free of any anti-Muslim annals and if Hindu chronologists did not leave the kind of account, Elliot had been looking for, it is for the logical reason that those who had lived through and witnessed that history had not suffered from 'any traumatic impact' of 'the Muslim conquests'. Normal people do not write about pains they have not experienced.
Therefore, having produced a Fort William College Hinduism, imperialist historians took upon themselves also to invent an entire new version of Indo-Muslim history of despotic Muslim rulers persecuting and killing their Hindu subjects so that the latter day paranoid writers could 'throw up prophets of woe and doom' for events which had never happened.
For example: the Mogul Emperor Babar is accused of demolishing a sacred Hindu temple in modern Ayodhya and building in its place a mosque named after him, the Babari Mosque. Babar had not destroyed a temple. He had destroyed the temple which marked the exact spot where his parents had conceived (sic) and given birth to the Hindu deity Rama.
This is the kind of history and social time bomb which imperialist scholarship has left behind even though there is no archaeological or historical evidence about Ayodhya being the birthplace or capital of Rama's kingdom. Babar never visited the place and even otherwise there was no question of anyone building a mosque in place of a temple that never existed. A panel of four eminent Indian archaeologists and historians, three Hindus and one Muslim, described the entire episode surrounding Rama's birth place as progressive reconstruction of 'imagined history based on faith'.
But it was more than mere imagination, it was part of imperialist deconstruction of Indian history. On 9 October 1857 the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (1784-1865) wrote to the Viceroy of India, Lord Canning: 'Every civil building connected with Mahommedan tradition should be levelled to the ground without regard to antiquarian veneration or artistic predilection.' (Canning Papers.)
Muslim rule had given political oneness to India. The British introduced bureaucratic centralism in place of what used to be a devolved system of government. They deconstructed Hinduism. They deconstructed Indo-Muslim history. They deconstructed the administrative structure. They deconstructed Indo-Muslim philosophy of governance. Not surprisingly by the time they had departed, India had ceased to be one country.
Courtesy: Impact International, London.
Muslimedia - April 1996-August 1996
BOOKS
Nuclear weapons and imperialism
SUKUMAR MURALIDHARAN
The Unfinished Twentieth Century by Jonathan Schell; Verso Books, London and New York, 2001; pages xvi + 104, $19.
COUNTING in tens has a natural appeal and the tenth multiple of ten years, the calendar century, possesses a mystique that has led to its observance as an epochal passage in the lifetime of the human species.
History, as it is crafted by humanity, does not quite follow the same principles of demarcation. But perceptions of the appropriate manner of distinguishing one discrete period from another could vary. Jonathan Schell, a consistent voice of conscience for nuclear abolition, identifies the 20th century as an unfinished period of human history since it has thrown up a problem that yet remains unresolved. It has witnessed the build-up of nuclear arsenals that could exterminate all of humanity. And curiously, with the future of the human race hanging in the balance, there is little overt concern over this terrifying prospect. Indeed, when the political rivalry that had fuelled the nuclear arms race ceased with the demise of the Soviet Union, these weapons of mass destruction disappeared from human consciousness.
This did not mean that nuclear weapons disappeared, says Schell. They continue not merely to exist, but to multiply and proliferate. No adequate history of the 20th century can be written, he says, while mankind remains trapped in this moral hiatus, a unique creation of this epoch.
The First World War beginning in 1914 truly inaugurates the 20th century. It was, as the historian Eric Hobsbawm has pointed out, the first major conflict in a century and launched the concept of "total war", of throwing a nation's entire resources into an effort to subjugate and conquer an adversary. Rules of engagement learnt over centuries were jettisoned as civilian populations became fair game and belligerent nations ardently embraced techniques of warfare that had been earlier stigmatised for indiscriminate killing and maiming.
In the unstable equilibrium that followed the conclusion of hostilities in 1918, Schelltotalitarian regimes emerged in Russia and Germany, which enshrined mass slaughter as an integral element of state policy, targeting particular sections of the population. When the uneasy balance was ruptured with full-scale hostilities breaking out in 1939, new concepts of mass killing were put into practice by both the totalitarian regimes and the supposed liberal democracies they confronted: the concentration camp, "terror bombing", and in the memorable words of Britain's war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill, "exterminating" air attacks. In 1945, with the dawning of the nuclear age, extermination became the official policy of liberal democracy, ostensibly as a defence against the dangers of totalitarianism. argues,
Depending upon how mankind responds collectively to the most momentous choice that it is today faced with, future generations could look at the 20th century in two different, markedly opposed, perspectives. If ethical concerns were to foster determined movements for nuclear abolition, which were then to secure their objective through moral suasion and propaganda, then the policy of exterminationth century - would be understood as a way-station for liberal democratic politics as it charted a course towards a truly enlightened idiom of mass engagement. - a defining attribute of the 20
As Schell puts it: "The rise and fall of totalitarianism from start to finish will wear an altered aspect. It will turn out to have been a ghastly, protracted detour from the progress (the word itself might even gain new credit) and enlightenment offered by liberal civilisation, which, although capsized in 1914 by the First World War, will have righted itself in 1991, bringing on an era of prosperity and peace. Then liberal civilisation itself, freed of its complicity in the policies of extermination it adopted in 1945, will rest at last on a sure foundation."
If, on the other hand, the nuclear powers were to block all overtures towards disarmament, and where coercion fails, even acquiesce in the proliferation of arms among selected states while retaining the strategic balance of terror overwhelmingly in their favour, then the future would look at this epoch and indeed of its politics in an entirely different light. Gone would be the superior moral claims of political liberalism, says Schell, since a grave "suspicion" would be confirmed: "that the United States and its nuclear allies did not build nuclear weapons chiefly in order to face extraordinary danger,... but for more deep-seated, unarticulated reasons growing out of its own, freely chosen conceptions of national security".
The moral stain would soon enough spread to the founding political doctrines of Western civilisation, warns Schell. If the Western liberal democracies were to resist and defeat the calls for nuclear abolition, then the world would with some justification begin to view nuclear arsenals as "less a response to a particular external threat, totalitarian or otherwise, than an intrinsic element of the dominant liberal civilisation itself - an evil that first grew and still grows from within that civilisation rather than being imposed from without". And in this moment of revelation, it would also be recalled that the "seminal event of the real twentieth century, the First World War, sprang in all its pointless slaughter and destructive fury from the midst of that same liberal civilisation".
These propositions are eloquently put, though the choice that Schell only broadly points to is perhaps already pre-figured in the epoch that precedes the real 20thth century were to be understood as the period between the French Revolution and the outbreak of the First World War, then the context in which the doctrine of extermination was formulated and first implemented would be quite evident in the furious competition among the Western powers for colonial possessions, when liberalism usurped the moral authority to civilise the world, invariably at gunpoint and with enormous loss of lives. century. If the real 19
Schell is sensitive to this aspect of the story. He sees in Colonel Kurtz, a prototypical missionary for Western liberal values in Joseph Conrad's masterwork The Heart of Darkness, a chilling presentiment of future mass slaughters. But Schell is perhaps in error when he puts down Kurtz's injunction to "exterminate all the brutes" as a reflection merely of the realities of colonial rule in Belgian Congo. Extermination, whether by force of arms or by the impersonal laws of free-market liberalism, was very much a reality in virtually all countries subjugated by colonialism. It has been reliably estimated, for instance, that in the last quarter of the 19th century - if one were to revert temporarily to the calendar rather than the figurative concept - between 32 and 61 million people died as a consequence of famines in Asia, North Africa and Latin America. And these famines were only partly induced by stressful weather conditions. In the main, they were directly attributable to the policies of free-market liberalism that came to these regions under the colonial dispensation.
The real 20th century brought the doctrine of extermination to the heart of the Western world. But it must seem less than plausible to argue that liberalism retained its innocence until it was compelled in 1945, by the challenge of totalitarianism, to embrace the doctrine of extermination. If the real 19th century is viewed as the crucible of liberal values, then the categories employed in Schell'sversa. And the "lethal virus" of nuclear extermination, far from being injected into the bloodstream of liberalism by totalitarianism, was rather cultured within this milieu by the ideology of imperialism. narrative seem to undergo a complete inversion. It was not "totalitarianism" that played the role of a "harsh and effective tutor to liberalism" but vice
Despite his own firm moorings in the liberal milieu, Schell is fair-minded enough to insist that liberalism as a political doctrine still has to prove itself by confronting and then defeating the ultimate threat to the future of humanity. Schell may himself remain oblivious to the baleful lingering consequences of imperialism. But his work has the great virtue of impelling the reader into directly grappling with this question. And the answers seem fairly unequivocal: the task of nuclear abolition is one that has to be addressed through a global constituency and then, only after first stripping off the mantle of imperialism that the U.S. today is the sole legatee to.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1825/18250740.htm
History Of Hindu Imperialism by Swami Dharma Theertha
A Tale of a God who was a British Ally
During Orissa Invasion in 1803
(Study of the Role of Jagannath of Puri
During Orissa Invasion in 1803)
A. K. Biswas
Former Vice - Chancellor, B.R.Ambedkar University, Bihar.
The Modern Rationalist, March 1998
Forty six (46) years after the battle of Plassey, the East India Company invaded Orissa on September 3, 1803. Lord Wellesley was the then Governor-General. The Province, with the exception of holy city of Puri, fell to them unopposed as the Marathas fled without offering resistance whatsoever. Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, the Commanding Officer, along with his forces, camped off Puri for rest and relaxation. And an extraordinary thing happened then.
In his work History of Hindu imperialism (ed 1941), Swami Dharma Teertha discloses that a delegation of priests armed with a divine desire of the temple of Lord Jagannath, marched to the victorious British Commanding Officer's camp. According to the same Swam :.
" The oracle of the Puri Jagannath temple proclaimed that it was the desire of the deity (Lord Jagannath) that the temple too be controlled by the (East India) company, and the latter undertook to maintain the temple buildings, pay the Brahmins and do everything for the service of the deity as was customary"
East India Gazatter (ed 1828 of Walter Hamilton, on the other, discloses that "possession was accordingly taken of the town and the temple on 18th September, 1803; the sacred will of the idol having first ascertained through the medium of the officiating priest." William Hunter in his account of Puri (ed 1877) says " a deputation of Brahmins accordingly came into the camp, and placed the temple under his (Commanding Officer's) protection without a blow being struck" (emphasis added). Thus the entire Province was subjugated in fourteen days (3-18 September, 1803). And the sacred shrine, came under the enemy occupation voluntarily and unconditionally on the oracle of Lord Jagannath!
The rest is a spectacular saga of joint management and novel experiment; the mercantile West and spiritual East taxed the pilgrims of Lord Jagannath and earned millions of sterling pounds. Besides, they indulged in caste prejudice, discrimination and inequality. Several Regulations were passed by the Company to degrade people. Swami Dharma Teertha informs that the year the East India Company took control of the temple the tax collection amounted to Rs.135,000. Regulation XII was possed in 1805 whereby tax ranging from Rs.2-10was imposed on pilgrims. By Regulation Iv of 1809, the pilgrims were divided into four classes. Between 1806 and 1831, the tax collection grossed to Rs.2,437,570; the charges on pay of Brahmins, sebaits, devadasis, panda, ceremonies, maintenance of buildings, etc. amounted to Rs.1,154,440, leaving a balance of Rs.1,287,790 which was the profit to the East India Company. The annual profit out of the Jagannath temple thus stood at Rs.61,101! .To wash their hands of the religious affairs, the East India Company finally passed an Act in 1840 and dissociated themselves from the temple. But to ensure adequate financees for the shrine, the Company made huge endowments to Lord Jangannath to yield annually over Rs.56,000 to defray these expenses.
A similar tax, it is pertinent to note, was levied from the Hindus visiting pilgrimage centres at Tirupati, Gaya and Prayag too and millions were exacted by the mandarins there. The jazia imposed during the Muslim rule was replicated in essence and substance in those centres. The preamble to the Regulation IV of 1809 says "A tax shall be levied on the part of the Government as was heretofore done under the late Marhatta Government. The Marhatta Government, on the other hand, followed the footsteps of their predecessors (Muslim rulers) in taxing the Hindu pilgrims. Devout as they were, the Marhatta rulers did not consider it invidious to extract the same tax which the Muslim sovereigns imposed on their Hindu co-religionists! Today it is cited as an epitome of communal policy of Muslim rulers of medieval India. Rarely in history, is an instance where pecuniary benefit has been surrendered on moral qualms or spiritual consideration. Only Akbar did away with the vexatious religious tax. However, Feroz Shah tughlaq (1351-1388 AD), and Aurangazeb (1658-1707) continued to be derided as anti-Hindus.
Neither the British not their "holy"compradores in the shrines were accused of being anti-Hindus or anti-Indian for their action; rather they pretend to be as pure and serene as the morning-lily!
The Puri Temple is the seat of Lord Krishna and Balaram along with their beloved sister Subhadra. A legendary hero in war and diplomacy, Krishna's sudarshan chakra is omniscient and omnipresent and capable of beheading and destroying enemies in no time. Orissa was vanquished, nevertheless the disc remained impotent! It did not even quiver. Boastfully Lord Krishna proclaims in the sacred Gita:
"Whenever (Dharma) righteousness declines And there is an uprise of inequality,
I lose myself forth into birth in the world.
For the protection of the holy men,
The chastisement of the wicked and enthroning
Of Dharma I am born from age to age."
Worshipers of Jesus Christ who overran Orissa were not "the wicked" who merited Lord Krishna's chastisement." "The Holy Men" were unmindful though Jagannath voluntarily and unconditionally surrendered to the invading forces. Nonetheless the Dharma was not in danger or jeopardy! The occupation forces were wamely welcomed and ceremoniously escorted into Puri, the "Mecca of Hindustan" in broad daylight!! A strange historical truth. The Greeks, it may be recalled, entered the city of Troy in a huge wooden horse, attacked and conquered the capital and carried off the princess Hallen in the darkness of night. The Trojans fought valiantly against the clandestine invaders. The Oriya nation was enslaved by deliberate collaboration and submission. In future annexation of India, they used the unique instance of voluntary surrender of Lord Jagannath as trumph card to induce the Hindus elsewhere not to fight the British!
Juxtapose Dr. Ambedkar who is currently under fire from certain quarters as being, "anti-national, pro-British...."
He is, we are told, "a false god;" nevertheless worshipped by hundreds and thousands of dalits across the vast Indian subcontinent. They hold that facts of his proclivity towards the British have been erased. The facts of British victory in Orissa, though astounding, is too embarrassing to place it in history book for school children.
Wellesley's master-stroke of diplomacy coupled with appeasement of the Brahmins of the Puri temple brought Orissa along with the temple of Jagannath under the British rule. His orders issued on 3 August, 1803 to the Commanding Officer, quoted below, bear testimony of his strategy:
" The Brahmans are supposed to derive considerable profits from the duties levied on the pilgrims. It will not, therefore , be advisable at the present moment to interrupt the system which prevails for the collection of those duties. Any measures calculated to relieve the exactions to which the pilgrims are subjected by the rapacity of the Brahmans, who necessarily tend to exasperate the persons whom it must be our object to reconciliate."
Rapacity of the class of mandarins became handy in dealing with the destiny of the Oriya nation; it was utilized as a strategy to appease the greedy men. So they were left to do as they liked. Attention was specifically directed to preserve their prejudice. So the Governor-General enjoins:
"On your arrival at Jagannath, you will employ every Possible precautions to preserve the respect due to the pagoda, and to the religious prejudices of the Brahman and pilgrims. You will furnish the Brahmins with such guards as shall afford perfect security to their persons, rites and ceremonies and to the sancity of the religious edifices and you will strictly enjoin those under your command to observe your orders on this important subject, with utmost degree of accuracy and vigilance. (Emphasis added)
The final point he emphasized was with respect to indiscipline and unruly behaviour of victorious forces. To forestall any desecration, Wellesley instructs: You will understand that no part of the property, treasure or valuable articles of any kind, contained in the pagoda of Jagannath, or in the religious office. or possessed by any of the priests and Brahmans, or persons of any description attached to the temples or religious institutions is to be considered prize to the army. All such property must be considered as consecrated to religious use, by the customs or prejudices of the Hindus. No account is to be taken of any such property nor is any person be allowed to enter the pagoda or sacred buildings without the express desire of Brahmans."(emphasis added)
(Finally, the most tantalizing offer was dangled by the Governor-General:
"You shall assure the Brahmans at the pagoda of Jagannath that they will not be required to pay other revenue or tribute to the British Government than that which they have been in the habit of paying to the Marhatta Government, and that they will be protected in the exercise of their religious duties."")
Mir Zafar conspired with Lord Clive in Plassey, eclipsed the independence of India and laid the foundation for British rule in India. In Bengali, Mir Zafar is synonym with perfidy, treachery, treason, fifth column, and quisling. Bidheeshan of the epic Ramayana is remembered in the Hindu world with the disdain he merits for betrayal of his brother leading to the conquest of Lanka. King Ravana was subjugated by the Aryan invader Rama. Both Mir Zafar and Bidheeshan have been thrown into the garbage dumps of history. Notwithstanding his betrayal , Jagannath continues to be worshipped till date, thanks to the studied "Culture of silence" and embarrassment of the intellectuals to place it on record.
Certain foreigners have earned admiration of Indians as friends and Indologists. The orchestra of encomiums on these Indologists and friends is selective. The misdeeds of Jagannath and Wellesley's instructions appeasing a class which undermined national freedom and interest, cited above, have failed to provoke the ire of the so-called anti-British and anti-Ambedkarite brigade. They are conspicuous by their golden silence. Governor-General Linlithgo's observation golden silence. Governor-General Linlinthgo's observation that Ambedkar was "of good quality and a useful colleague, it he could be harnessed" has been found to be anti-Indian. Today Wellesley must be having his last laugh! The Imperial authorities conferred honors—Rai Bahadur, Khan Bahadur, Sit, CIE, OBE, etc. on selected Indians whose loyalty to the throne was conspicuous. They oiften made spectacular e]exhibition of their servile obedience obviously not by opposing or agitating against the alien domination but by promoting its interests. Dr. Ambedkar was never honored by the same rulers though the imperial list of honors included far less illustrations or enlightened people.
PRIESTS OF JAGANNATH HANDED OVER THE KOH-I-NOOR TO THE BRITISH!
It is little known that Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab bequeathed the world famous diamond koh-i-noor to the temple of Jagannath. A Government publication in 1877 says, "Ranjit Singh bequeathed, by will, the celebrated koh-i-noor which now forms one of the crown jewels of England, to Jagannath." On the occasion of the visit of the British Monarch Queen Elizabeth II in October (1997) reports appeared in the media that the precious diamond was taken away by the British through deceit and trickery. The fact is that the diamond was given to the British officials as a gesture of goodwill of Lord Jagannath for the consideration the deity received from the alien officials. We are afraid to tell it to the world and record it in history. Our children do not know how India's precious jewel has become the most coveted gem of the British Crown. They are taught the theory of "trickery" which betrays their intellectual dishonesty.
A.K.Biswas
Dalitstan Journal,
Volume 2, Issue 5, October 2000
Rajput Period Was Dark Age Of India
Dr. K. Jamanadas,
Rise of Rajputs was for suppressing Buddhism
This was the time when a new people i.e Rajputs were coming up on horizons, in North India, who were subsequently to dominate the history of India, for some centuries to come. Rise of Rajputs is too big a subject to be discussed here. It could form a subject matter of a separate work. Suffice it to say here that these people were made prominent by the Brahmins, for the specific purpose of suppressing Buddhism by use of force, from among the remnants of Hunas and other foreign hordes which had been broken down by the activities of kings like Baladitya and others.
The following account is mainly drawn from a school text book, "History of India (Hindu period)" by Prof. L. Mukherjee, M.A., Mondal Brothers & Co. Pvt. Ltd. 54-8, College Street, Calcutta. 12. 26th edition., p 198 ff.
"It was a transition period marked by a new grouping of states due to Hun invasions"
"The series of invasions by the Huns and other associated foreign tribes in the fifth and sixth centuries shook the fabric of the Hindu society and brought a rearrangement of the caste system and of the ruling dynasties. The destructive effects of the Hun inroads were, to a certain extent, arrested by Harsha but as soon as his strong hand was removed, they manifested themselves in a regrouping of states. Hence the latter half of seventh century, during which this new grouping of states took place, may be regarded as a period of transition from early to medieval India.
Rise of the Rajputs
"The most prominent feature of this transitional period is the rise of the Rajput Clans. Henceforth the Rajputs began to play a prominent part in the history of Northern and Western India. Almost all the kingdoms were ruled by families of Rajputs. Hence the period from the death of Harsha to Muslim conquest of Hindustan may be called the Rajput period.
India split up into numerous states due to absence of a paramount power
"Another feature of this period is that during this long interval, India was not permanently occupied by any foreign people. The country was split up into a large number of states ruled by local Hindu rajahs, often at war with each other. There was no paramount power to unite together under one rule the various kingdoms each of which pursued its own course quite independently. Hence the history of this period lacks unity and can not be conveniently presented as a continuous narrative.
The Rajput were mostly of foreign origin
"The term 'Rajput' does not occur in early Sanskrit literature nor do we hear of Rajput clans before the eighth century A.D. This proves that they were a later addition to the population of India. During the troubled times that followed the breakup of the Gupta Empire, many foreign races such as the Huns, the Gurjaras, etc. settled in the Punjab and Rajputana and became Hinduised in course of time. The upper ranks of these foreigners, whose main occupation was war, came to be known as Rajputs, while the humbler folks ranked low in social status and developed into inferior castes such as Gurjaras, Jats and others.
They were descended from Hinduised Gurjars and other foreign tribes
The division of the same class of people into different social grades was based not on birth but on occupation. Of the Hinduised descendants of the original invaders, those who belonged to ruling classes, with war and government as their chief business, came to be treated as Kshatriyas. The common people, on the other hand, took rank in castes of lower degree.
Some of the Rajput clans are descended from low caste native tribes raised to importance
Thus many of the most distinguished Rajput clans such as the Chauhans, the Pariharas, the Pawars (Paramaras), the Solankis (Chalukyas) are descended mainly from foreigners, called Scythians by Tod. While others are descended from indigenous tribes of inferior castes elevated to the rank of Kshatriyas. The Rashtrakutas of the Deccan, the Rathors of Rajputana, the Chandels of Bundelkhand are examples of the Rajput clans formed by the promotion of the indigenous tribes of inferior social status. Thus, the huge group of the Rajput clans include people of the most diverse descent.
The Rajputs not a race but a group of clans of distinct origin
"From what has been said it is clear that the word Rajput has no reference to race, meaning by that term common descent or blood relationship. The diverse origin of the Rajputs show that they were descended from distinct racial stocks. "The term denotes a tribe or clan of warlike habits, the members of which claimed aristocratic rank." It is their war like occupation coupled with their aristocratic rank that gave them a distinctive common feature and made the brahmins recognize them as Kshatriyas."
Proof of foreign (scythian) origin of Rajputs
The Rajputs according to Tod, are of Scythian origin. He includes under the designation of the Scythian, the nomad hordes of foreign tribes who swooped down upon India during fifth and sixth centuries A.D. Thus the term Scythian refers to the Huns and other associated tribes. Smith puts forward the following arguments to prove the foreign origin of Rajputs. :-
The Pratihara clan of Kanauj has been proved to be of Gurjara origin
"It is now clearly established that the Huns made their permanent settlements mainly in the Punjab and Rajputana. The Gurjaras, the most important of the Hun group of tribes established a powerful dynasty in Kanauj. It has now been definitely proved that Bhoja and other kings of the dynasty belonged to the Pratihara clan of the Gurjara tribe. Hence the famous Pratihara or Paramara clan of Rajputs was certainly descended from the Gurjara stock. The fact that one of the well known Rajput clans is undoubtedly of Gurjara stock raises a strong presumption that the other clans also are the descendants from the Gurjaras or the allied foreign immigrants.
Evidence of legend of fire pit at Mt. Abu
This presumption receives support from the familiar legend about the fire pit at Mount Abu in southern Rajputana. The legend appears in the Chand Raisa and other works. It groups together four Rajput clans into a brotherhood based on their common origin from a sacrificial fire pit at Mt. Abu. The clans mentioned are the Pawars (Paramaras), the Pariharas (Pratiharas), Chauhans and the Solankis or Chalukyas. They are all mentioned as being "Agnikula" or fire born. The legend shows that the four clans mentioned are all related to one another and that they all arose in southern Rajputana. Now as the Pariharas are undoubtedly of foreign origin their allied tribes are also similarly descended from foreign sources.
Prof. Mukherji makes a note, which is now more or less an accepted view that:
"The fact seems to be that when a foreign clan or a tribe became Hinduised that ruling families were recognized as Kshatriyas while the rank and file lost their tribal character and developed into an Indian caste of inferior rank."
Dr. Ambedkar has observed:
"One view is that they are foreigners, remnants of the Huns who invaded India and established themselves in Rajputana and whom the Brahmins raised to the status of kshatriyas with the object of using them as means to suppress Budhisms in Central India by a special Ceremony before the sacred fire and who were therefore known as Agnikula kshatriyas...."
He has also given views of Vincent Smith, William Crooke and R.D Bhandarkar. A relevant portion is reproduced here. Vincent Smith observed:
"...These foreigners like their fore -runners the Sakaa and the Ye-chi university yielded to the wonderful assimilative power of Hinduism and rapidly became Hinduised. Clans or Families which succeeded in winning chieftains were admitted readily into the frame of Hindu polity as Kshatriyas or Rajputs and there is no doubt that the pratiharas and many other famous Rajputs clans of the north were developed out of the barbarian hordes which poured into India during the fifth and sixth centuries. The rank and file of the strangers became Gujars and castes ranking lower than Rajputs in theirs precedence. Further to the south, Various indigenous or aboriginal tribes and clans underwent the same process of Hinduised social promotion in virtue of which Gonds, Bhars, Kharwars and so forth emerged as Chandels, Rathors, Gaharwars and other well known Rajputs clans duly equipped with pedigree reaching back to the sun and moon."
Agnikula Rajputs
William Crooke observed:
"... The group denoted by the name Kshatriaya or Rajput depended on status, rather than on descent, and it was therefore possible for foreigners to be introduced into these tribes without any violation of the prejudices of the caste, which was then only partially developed. But it was necessary to disguise this admission of foreigners under a convenient fiction. Hence, arose the legend, how, by a solemn act of purification or initiation under the superintendence of the ancient Vedic Rishis, the fire born septs Known as Agnikula or fire born - viz., the Parmar, Parihar, Chalukya and Chauhan."
Why was the word used to denote illegitimate children?
Though the word "Rajput" is supposed to be a corrupted form of the Sanskrit word 'Raajaputra' which means a "scion of the royal blood" and that the word occurs in the Puranas and also in the Harshcharita of Bana, Mahajan is honest enogh to accept that the word, in earlier times and in some areas even now, had an disrespectful meaning, as he says:
"The word "Rajput" is used in certain parts of Rajasthan to denote the illegitimate sons of a Kshatriya chief or Jagirdar." [Mahajan Vidya Dhar, "Ancient India", Fifth Edition, Reprint 1972, Chand and Co., New Delhi. p. 550 ff.]
Mahajan does not explain why this is so. But the conclusion is obvious that they were not considered by the original residents to be respectable, to start with. This is because "Raaja" means royal but "Raj" means semen. The progeny of mixed marriages is even now called by that name in some parts.
Tod's views about their Origin
There are many theories about the origin of the Rajputs.. Mahajan summerizes Tod's views. [p.551] According to Tod, the Rajputs were the descendants of the Sakas, Hunas, Kushanas, Gurajaras, etc., who came to India and settled there. In course of time, they were merged into Hindu society. They married Indian wives and made India their home. They were admitted into the Hindu castes. The upper ranks of these foreigners formed a separate war-like class and began to call themselves Rajputs while the lower classes began to be known as Jats, Ahirs, etc. In support of his theory, Tod pointed out certain resemblances between the various settlers and the Rajputs. Those were horse-worship, Asvamedha sacrifice, bards, war chariots, position of women, omens and auguries, love of strong fermented liquor, worship of arms, initiation of arms, etc.
Views of Tod were accepted by Europian Scholars
The view of Tod was accepted by European scholars. According to William Brooke,
"Recent investigations have thrown much new light on the origin of the Rajputs. A wide gulf lies between the Vedic Kshatriya and the Rajput of medieval times which it is now impossible to bridge. Some clans, with the help of an accommodating bard, may be able to trace their lineage to the Kshatriyas of Buddhist times, who were recognized as one of the leading elements in Hindu society, and in their own estimation, stood even higher than the Brahmana. But it is now certain that the origin of many clans dates from the Saka or Kushana invasion, which began about the middle of the second century B.C. or more certainly, from that of the White Hunas who destroyed the Gupta Empire about 480 A.D. The Gurjara tribe connected with the latter people adopted Hinduism, and their leaders formed the main stock from which the higher Rajput families sprang. When these new claimants to princely honours accepted the faith and institutions of Brahmanism, the mythical would naturally be made to affiliate themselves to the heroes whose exploits are recorded in the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Here arose the body of legend recorded in The Annals by which a fabulous origin from the Sun or Moon is ascribed to two great Rajput branches, a genealogy claimed by other princely families like the Incas of Peru or the Mikado of Japan." [Quoted by Mahajan, p. 551]
Foreign origin not accepted by Brahmanic Scholars
The idea of foreign origin hurt the pride of Brahmanic scholars, like C. V. Vaidya and Gauri Shankar Ojha, who do not accept the theory of foreign origin. They believe that ethnology, tradition and probabilities all point to the conclusion that the Rajputs were pure Aryans and not the descendant of the foreigners.
Prof. Mahajan [p.551] summarizes their objections. According to Ojha, there is nothing striking in the similarities of the customs and manners of the sakas and Rajputs. The worship of the Sun prevailed in India from the Vedic times and the practice of sati existed before the coming of the Sakas as is proved by the Mahabharata. The practice of the Asvamedha sacrifice was not unknown. There is mention of such sacrifice in the epic. The worship of arms and horses is not a new thing. The ruling classes in India have always worshipped them.
It is also pointed out that the reading of the Puranas that after King Mahananda of the Sisunaga dynasty, Sudra kings will exercise sovereignty, is not correct. There is evidence to prove the existence of Kshatriya rulers even after the Nanda and Mauryan dynasties.
When Pushyamitra established his power after killing Brihadratha, the last Mauryan king, he performed the Asvamedha sacrifice and at one of those sacrifices Patanjali, the commentator Mahabhashya was also present. If Pushyamitra had been a Sudra, Patanjali would not have been present there.
In the Hathigumpha inscription of Kharvela, there is a mention of the Kshatriyas of Kausambi. The Yadava Kshatriyas ruled over Mathura and the adjoining country before the war of the mahabharata.
Certain inscription of the 9th and 10th centuries show that the then reigning Rajput families drew their descent from Ram of Suryavamsi or Solar clan and Krishna of Chandravamsi or lunar race. The former Rajput rulers of Bikaner, Mewar, and Jaipur claimed their descent from 'Suryavamsi clan. Likewise, the princes of Jaisalmer and Cutch took pride in calling themselves the descendants of Chandrawamsi clan. All this must have some history basis.
From the above objections, these scholars seem to have missed the point. Pedigrees from Sun and Moon and Rama and Krishna are definitely creations of Bards. Nobody says Pushyamitra was a Shudra. He was a staunch Brahmin who murdered the Buddhist King and started the counter revolution in ancient India, after which culture of yadnyas, which had gone into disrepute due to teachings of the Buddha, again started. That there were no Kshatriyas after Nandas was the arrogance of Brahmins to condemn and downgrade the Buddhist Kings like Asoka and deny them the status of Ksatriyas. No body doubts that horses were worshipped by Vedic Kings. We all know about the Rajmahishi, the principal queen, sleeping with the dead horse at the close of Horse sacrifice. How does all that disprove Tod's theory of foreign origin?
Agnikula Origin
The theory of Agnikula origin of the Rajputs is given in Prithviraj Raso of Chand Bardai. According to this Theory, Parsuram, an incarnation of Vishnu, destroyed all the Kshatriyas. However, the Brahmanas felt the need of warrior class to defend them. They offered prayers to God at top of Mount Abu. A great Havan was performed for about 40 days. The prayers of the Brahmanas brought forth fruit. Form that Agnikund or fire pit, there sprang up four heroes and each one of them created a separate Rajput class. Thus came into existence the Chauhans, the Solankis or Chalukyas, the Parmaars and the Praiharas. This theory still finds credence among the Rajputs. Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar and others have found in this myth a confirmation of their theory of the foreign origin of the Rajputs. According to Edwards, the Agnikul myth represents a rite of puragation by fire, the scene of which was in Southern Rajputana whereby the impurity of foreigners was removed and they became fit to enter caste system. The fictitious character of the story is obvious. It represents a Brahamanical effort to find a lofty origin for the Kshatriya who stood very high in the social order and who gave them a lot of money in charity.
Views of Dr. V. A. Smith,
He believes that the Rajputs were a mixed race. Some of the Rajput clans were the descendants of foreigners like Hunas, Sakas and Kushanas and others belonged to the old Kshatriya tribes. In the beginning, these two groups were opposed to each other but in course of time they got mixed up with each other. To quote Smith, "Thus, the Kshatriya or Rajput group of castes at present essentially an occupational group composed of all clans, following the Hindu ritual, who actually undertook the work of Government; consequently, people of most of the great Rajput clans now in existence in spite of their hoary pedigrees are descended either from foreign immigrants or from indigenous races such as the Gonds and Bhars." [Mahajan, p. 552]
Rajput Culture and Civilization.
Mahajan sumerizes their culture. [p.552] The Rajputs had high pride of their lofty pedigrees. Very soon, they developed into a proud and haughty aristocracy and claimed prerogatives and privileges over the general population and were very jealous to maintain them.
However, they had many outstanding virtues and a spirit of chivalry and lived up to it in spite of difficulties. Rajputs were generous and merciful even to enemies if the latter submitted and sought shelter. "A suppliant who had taken sanctuary by his hearth was sacred." According to Tod, "High courage patriotism, loyalty, honour, hospitality and simplicity are qualities which must at once be conceded to them."
Even when they were victorious they did not resort to wholesale massacre of their enemies. They did not cause needless misery to the poor and innocent people. They offered the stiffest resistance to the foreign invaders but if they once submitted and took an oath of fidelity, they remained faithful to their word of honour and gave up allegiance only when they were themselves deserted by the foreign victors.
Veer V. D. Sawarkar, however, considers this as a demerit of Hindus, that they were showing compassion to others at unwanted times, in several places in his Marathi book, "Saha Soneri Pane" (Six golden Leaves in the Indian History), which he wrote as an rejoinder to Dr. Ambedkar's remark that the History of Hindus is the History of Defeats.
Fighting was their duty
As they were created for the purpose of putting down the Buddhists by use of force and uphold the supremacy of Brahmins, it was natural that they be mentally prepared to keep themselves ready to fight any time the Brahmanism needs their services. Prof. Mahajan explains:
"The whole of the life of a Rajput was devoted to war. On reaching puberty, a Rajput boy was initiated in knighthood by the ceremony of Kharg Bandha or binding of the sword. He was brought up on the stories of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. His ideal was Rama. When not fighting, a Rajput spent his time in hunting and hawking or in feats of arms. During his leisure time, he was entertained by his bards and dancing girls. He also spent his time in drinking opium water (Kusumba) with his retainers. According to Bernier, 'If the Rajput is a brave man, he need never entertain an apprehension of being deserted by his followers; they only require to be well led, for their minds are made up to die in his presence rather than abandon him to his enemies. It is an interesting sight to see them on the eve of adieu one another, as if certain of death.' " [Mahajan, p. 554]
"... The Rajputs loved war so passionately that they passed the night before battle, listening to recitation from the Mahabharata, longing for the morning as a lonely wife longs for her husband. They asked: When will the night pass away; when will the morning come: the time of battle?" [Mahajan, p.554]
Why Rajputs failed
Their loyalty to the chief and the clan was very great. They spent their time in quarreling with their neighbours and raiding their territories even for the most trivial reasons. It is stated that once a bloody battle was fought because a Raja, when out hawking, picked up a particle which had fallen over the boundary of his neighbour. But that was the intention of their creators. Brahmins knew that if these people did not fight among themselves, they would be burden to brahmins and a danger to their position in times to come. That was the reason only the selected few were made Rajputs, the rest remaining Jats, Ahirs and other commoners. Loyalty to Clan and not for nation was the cause of their fall, as Mahajan explains:
"Although the Rajputs were strong and brave, they failed to accomplish much. That was partly due to their clannish patriotism. They cared only for their chiefs and the clans. They did not brother about the country as a whole. They were not able to combine together and defeat the foreign invaders. They kept on quarreling among themselves. They fought separately against the foreign invaders and each one of them was defeated separately. They wasted all their time and energy in mutual bickerings and jealousies and no wonder they accomplished nothing. Had the Rajput learned to pool all their sources together. it would have been impossible for the Muslim invaders to defeat them. The history of India would have been different." [Mahajan, p.554]
Rajput Government.
As is well known, the government of the Rajputs was of a feudal character. All Rajput kingdoms in Northern India were divided into a large number of jagirs held by the jagirdars, who were mostly of the same family as the Rajput chiefs. The strength and security of the State depended upon those jagirdars rendering financial assistance and military service to the king. They were bound to the king by ties of personal devotion and were supposed to prove their fidelity in times of difficulty or danger. Such a government was bound to be inefficient as it fostered individualism and stood in the way of to combination of all the political forces in the state for a common purpose. Since everything depended upon the personality of the king, everything was paralysed if the king happened to be a weak person. No wonder, feuds were a common feature. [Mahajan, p.554]
Life of a common man
It is to be noted that changes in the government at the centre did not affect the life of the people in the villages. The people continued to manage their affairs in their village councils undisturbed by bigger events. Revenue of the state was collected through the agency of Panchayats. The latter also administered civil and criminal justice. The head man of the village and the Patwari performed their usual functions of collecting land revenue and submitting the same to the Treasury.
Social Life.
Prof. Mahajan explains how caste system was made rigid and how Brahmins arranged for their dominance to be always maintained.:
"The caste system dominated the Rajput society. There were not only the Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Sudras but also many new sub-castes. In Rajput society, the Brabmanas occupied the first place and commanded the greatest respect. They claimed to have the monopoly of all knowledge, whether it was spiritual or secular. They acted as counselors and ministers of the Rajput Kings. ... The Brahmanas were known as priests and philosophers. They enjoyed those privileges and facilities which were not enjoyed by others. for example, capital punishment was not awarded to Brahmanas. The Rajput rulers and soldiers came from the kshatriyas. The work of business and money-lending was done by the Vaishyas. The Sudras followed the profession of agriculture and artisans. They also served all the three higher castes. The untouchables lived outside the village or the town." [Mahajan, p. 555]
Rigidity of Caste System
The rigidity of Caste system is the legacy of the Rajput period. All the severity and the degradation was brought about during this period. All those masses practicing Buddhist faith and following different vocations became castes. That is, they stopped marrying among themselves. How such castes were produced by imposition of endogamy on an exogamous group and how this was due to the feeling of imitation of Brahmins, was explained by Dr. Ambedkar long time back in 1919. About Rajput period, Prof. Mahajan observes:
"Caste system was not rigid at the beginning of the Rajput period ... However, in the later Rajput period, the caste system become very rigid and in doing so the Brahmanas played the most important part. During this period a large number of new castes or sub-castes came into existence. ... Many new occupational castes such as those of the carders, weavers, smiths, fishermen, brewers, oil men, cow-herds, carpenters, etc., came into existence. A new caste known as that of the Kayasthas also appeared. The main function of the Kayasthas was clerical. Probably the Kayasthas came from many castes." [Mahajan, p. 555 ff.]
The role of a Bard
The importance of bards in Rajput period can not be under estimated. The bard, the Bhat or Charan was an important feature of the court life of the Rajputs. He recited the heroic deeds of the ancestors of the Rajputs. He was an important and favoured person, He was the reposiitory of the unwritten history of the clan. He was the undisputed authority on all genealogical matters. He was the registrar of the family's births, deaths and marriages. His verdict was final in setting disputes about the division of ancestral property or of caste and consaguinity in the case of wedlock. The person of the bard was sacrosanct. He acted as a herald in war, and as a pledge for the fulfilment of contracts. If those contracts were broken the bard would commit "Traga" or religios suicide, and thereby bring the most terrible of curses upon the head of the offender.
The difficulty in deciding about origin of Rajputs has been increased on account of the fact that the Brahamanas and these bards have given very lofty pedigrees to the Rajputs. The Rajputs claimed to be the lineal descendants of the Kshatriyas of the Vedic times. They traced their pedigrees from the Sun and the Moon and some of them believed in the theory of Agnikula.
Condition of women in Rajput times
Though we hear of "swayamwara" in Rajput times, which gives an impression of adult marriages, in reality, the age of marriage was growing earlier, as per tenets of Manu Smriti, and child marriages were rampant. This curse goes on even today, and many responsible leaders do not consider it as an evil practice. There were plenty of child widows and the remarriage of a widow was not allowed. The result was that young widows had to live a life of misery. The practice of polygamy was very common. The birth of a daughter was not liked by the Rajputs as it was felt that the father of a girl would have to show himself inferior at the time of her marriage. No wonder, many girls were killed at the time of their birth by or with the connivance of their own prents. The question of women education was unthinkable. The condition of an average woman was deteriorating. She was becoming more and more dependent on her husband or his male relatives.
The Brahmanic authors, poets and bards have not only glorified "Sati", they have glorified the "Jauhar" also, which was a mass suicide in order to escape defilement at the hands of the victor of alien faith. Women were made to believe that this was worse than death. This was most horrible method to preserve the caste, ever seen in India. There are examples in Rajput history when women entered fire to save their honour.
Conditions of upper classes
As of today, agriculture was the main profession of the people. While the poor toiled as free labour for constructions of temples and forts and palaces, for the construction of many irrigation works, reservoirs, tanks, wells and canals in time of famine, scarcity or drought, the condition of upper castes was very good. Mahajan explains:
"... Trade and commerce flourished during the Rajput period. Big cities were linked up with roads. The people were wealthy and prosperous. The fame of their riches invited the cupidity of the Muslim invaders." [Mahajan p. 557]
"The upper classes lived in palatial buildings and enjoyed all kinds of comforts. They had even slaves. There were many festivals and fairs throughout the year. Music, dancing, drama, dice, hunting, chess, etc. were very favorite hobbies. Both men and women put on ornaments, they were fond of various kinds of dresses. ... The upper classes did a lot of drinking. The use of opium and wine was common. The use of betel leaves was popular, ..." [Mahajan, p.557]
Superstitions in Rajput period
About how caste system and brahmin supremacy was destroying the old Buddhist vitality and assimilative power, Mahajan observes:
"It has been stated that "the people were kept in ignorances, fed with unwholesome superstition and beguilded with gorgeous and never ending festivals." The Hindus were losing their old assimilative power. They were losing their old vitality. The rigid caste system was making them unprogressive. The dominance of the Brahmanas, both in spiritual and secular matters was doing havoc." [Mahajan, p.557]
Regional Languages flourished
The "Kalivarjya" had made its impact. The country was broken into regions and even a few miles constituted "par desh", a foreign land. The language which originally was Prakrit with slight differences in dialect, spoken by masses throughout the country, got divided into regional languages. These were made stronger and stronger by regional feelings developed by brahmins by creating literature in these languages thus making them even more powerful, though at the same time taking care that their own language, i.e. Sanskrit, over which they retained monopoly, remains same throughout India. Mahajan observes:
"It is to be noted that it was during the Rajput period that vernacular literature made progress. It is rightly contended that the foundation of the modern vernacular languages of India such as Hindi, Gujrati, Marathi and Bengali were laid down in the Rajput period. Poetry was first developed in the vernacular literature of this period. Hemchandra Suri, a great Jain saint, made a great contribution towards our national literature." [Mahajan, p. 559]
Obscene Art flourished
The Rajputs were great builders of temples, for the benefit of Brahmins. Though many are destroyed by Muslims, some are still surviving to show the skill, money and labour spent on creation of them. Unfortunately the later Rajput creations of art are the preservations of sexual obscenity.
"... The art critics divide the evolution of temple architecture in the Rajput period into two parts, The first part covered the period from 600 to 900 A.D. During the first period, there was a regular progress in the abundance of ornamentation in temple architecture. The originality of the ancient times was lost and the artisans relied on volume to give an expression of grandeur. Their tastes degenerated and we come across obscene figures. That was probably due to the influence of Tantrism on Hinduism. It has rightly been said that there is no beauty of original art in the architectural monuments of the age." [Mahajan, p. 559]
Ranas of Mewar too
Also some tribal chiefs were among those who became the Rajputs. Giving example of House of Mewar which played important role in political and military history of India for centuries to come, and gave heroes like Bapa Raval, Rana Sanga, and Rana Pratap, Stella Kramerish observes:
"Formerly they (Bhils) ruled over their own country. This was prior to the arrival or Rajputs. The Rajputs, the 'sons of king', invaded the country, subsequently Rajasthan in about sixth century A. D. They became Ksatriyas, the nobility par excellence of India. Some of these Rajput princes, including the most exalted of them, the Rana of Mewar, at the inception of their rule, had their foreheads marked with the blood of a Bhil. It was drawn from his thumb or big toe. This was an acknowledgement of the precedence of Bhils as rulers of the country". [Stella Kramerish, "Selected writings of Stella Kramerish", Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968, p. 90; fn:- Koppers, "Die Bhil", p.14]
Southern India
In Southern India, the rite performed for purification, convertion, and initiation into awarding Ksatriyahood was called "Hiranya-garbhs mahadana" and the king was designated as Hiranya- garbha-prasuta, i.e. "one who performed the sacred rite of hiranya-garbha which consists in the performer passing through an egg of gold which was afterwards distributed among the officiating priests". [D. C. Sircar, 'The Classical Age', HCIP vol. III, p. 225]
The Hiranya garbha prasuta kings of South India belong to the following dynasties,
1. Ananda gotra connected with Chezarla
2. Vishnukundin connected with Srisaila
3. Chalukyas
4. Pandyas
5. Rashtrakutas
Andhra Desha - Ananda Kings
Pallavas of Kanchi conquered heart of Andhra country around end of third century. The area around Guntur was freed from Pallavas by the dynasty of kings called "Ananda gotra". Only three kings are known from inscriptions; they are 1. Kandra, 2. Attivarman, and 3. Damodarvarman. Different dates, from 290 to 630 A.D., have been ascribed to these kings by different scholars. King Kandara was founder of city of Kandarapura, identified with modern Chezarla in Guntur District.
Damodarvarman, who is regarded predecessor of Attivarman, was devotee of Samyak Sambuddha. The Kapoteswara temple at Chezarla of fourth century was a originally a chaitya hall later converted into a brahmanic temple. He is described as son of king who performed Hiranyagarbha mahadana. Attivarman, worshiper of Sambhu, performed this mahadana. [D. C. Sarkar, 'Classical age' p.202 ff.]
Vihnukundins - Srisailam
Their original home was Venukonda, 60 miles east of Srisaila hills, giving them the name. They were worshipers of god "Shriparvata Swamin". Whether it is identified with Srisailam Mallikarjuna Siva can not be certain.
As a matter of fact, Sriparvata has been identified with a Buddhist site Nagarjun Konda. Whether it is identified with Srisailam or Nagarjun Konda, in either way it denotes Buddhist origin.
In his own charters, Madhava Varman I is credited with having performed Hiranygarbha mahadana. He was great patron of learning. He is referred to in the Arya Manjushri Mulkalpa as Madhava. [D. C. Sarkar, 'Classical Age', p. 208 ff.]
Shri K. R. Srinivasan has confirmed that what is now known as Anantasayangudi cave temple in Undavali was a temple of Vishnukundin times and originally a Buddhist temple which was converted to a Vishnu temple. [p. 33 and 81, 'Temples of South India']
Chalukyas of Badami
Imperial Chalukyas of Badami (Bijapur district) reigned over vast areas for about two centuries. They were indigenous people, claiming status of Ksatriyas. Hiuen Tsang refers to Pulakesin II as Ksatriya. The Badami inscription of Chalukya Vallebheswara, i.e Pulakesin I, of 543 A.D., represents the monarch as "Hiranya garbha prasuta". So also do the records of his son Mangalesha's times. [D. C. Sarkar, 'Classical Age', p. 227]
It is interesting to note that later inscriptions try to connect the dynasty to Manu or Moon and associates it with Ayodhya, though all such claims are myths. [Clas. Age, p. 229 ff.]
Swami Dharmatirtha observes:
"In the Deccan the Buddhist Kings were superseded by a Rajput dynasty, the Chalukyas, who were protagonists of Brahmanism. The fourth king of this line Pulkesi I destroyed the monastery at Amaravati and abolished Buddhism in those parts. He performed Ashwamedha Yajna and other sacrifices; grants of lands were made to the brahmanas; temples were built; worship of Siva in the terrible form of Kapaleswara was made popular." [p. 115, Menace of Hindu Imperialism]
The Pandyas
We know the Kalabharas, the Buddhist kings, had convulsed the affairs in Tamil country. They were defeated by Kondugan Pandya, (c. 590-620 A.D.) who is considered as the founder of Pandya dynasty. Huen Tsang says there were many Buddhist monasteries in ruins but only a few monks.
Arikesari Parankusha Marvarman (c.670-710) was the ruler under whom began the imperial career of Pandyas. He is identified with Kun Pandya who was converted from Jainism to Saivism by saint Sambandar who cruelly persecuted the Jains. According to the story, 8000 Jains were impaled on stakes. Chola queen had invited Saint Sambadar to Madura.
Marvarman Rajsimha I, was a powerful ruler, (c. 740-765) who defeated Chalukyas and married a Western Ganga princess. The famous Velvikudi grant of his son Nedunjadaiyan mentions that Rajsimha had made many mahadanas, gosahasras, hiranya-garbhas and tulabharas. [D. C. Sarkar, 'Classical Age', p.268]
Rashtrakutas - Dantidurga
Formerly a feudatory of Chalukya, Dantidurga was the founder of Rastrakuta dynasty, a strong, aggresive and militant supporter of Brahmanism. Cave XV at Ellora called Dasavtara, which has a long undated inscription of Dantidurga carved on its entrance, was originally a Buddhist Vihara, which was converted to Brrahmanic Temple, by chiseling out Buddhist images. [Yazdani G., 'Early History of Deccan', Oxford Univ. Press, 1960, p.731]
Dantidurga is reported, in a later record, to have performed Hiranyagarbha at Ujjayini in which "kings such as Gurjara lord and others were made door-keepers" [Altekar A. S., 'The Age of Imperiaal Kanauj', p.1, HCIP vol. IV, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan 1955]
Persecution of Buddhists was maximum during Rajput period
The persecution of Buddhists was started by the brahmins long time back. The authority of Brahmins over the masses was tremendous. Masses following Buddhist tenets was a great danger to Brahmin supremacy. They had tried to sabotage Buddhist sangha and Asoka had to drive away sixty thousands of fake bhikus. Real persecution of Buddhists had started at the time of Pushyamitra Shunga, who burnt monasteries and killed many monks.
Persecution by Mihirgula was so horrible, that he was declared by Brahmins to be an avatar of "Kalanki", the tenth avatar of Vishnu, which now they say is yet to come. He built big temples for the benefit of Brahmins and wiped out all Buddhist monasteries.
All this had happened before the Brahmins brought in the Rajputs. But there was some life left in Buddhism, the religion of masses. This was wiped out during the Rajput period. this period was the "Dark Age" of India. Mentioning about this period, Swami Dharmateertha rightly observes:
"But so long as India had at least a glimmer of national life and freedom, she made incessant efforts to assert her self-respect and thwart Brahman tyranny and it was only when the country ultimately fell a victim into the hands of foreigners the Buddhism was crushed to death and Brahmanism spread its fangs over the prostrate people.
He quotes R. C. Dutt who says:
"For it was in the Dark Age that religious persecution began in India. Monasteries were demolished, monks were banished, and books were burnt: and wherever the Rajputs became rulers, Buddhist edifices went down and Hindu temples arose. By the end of the 10th century, Buddhism was practically stamped out from India, and the work of destruction was completed by the Muslims who succeeded the Rajputs as masters of India." [Epochs of Indian History, by R. C. Dutt]
Swami Dharma Teertha further avers:
"So complete was the destruction that modern antiquarians and historians who have gathered Buddhist sacred books from all parts of Asia have not succeeded in gleaning any valuable text from India. [Swami Dharma Teertha, "The menace of Hindu Imperialism", p.n.108 ]
Why did Brahmins need the Rajputs?
We find in the history of India, king after king came into power by brahmin help, but got disgusted by the tyranny of Brahmins and accepted Buddhism. Brahmins had to find another usurper or invader to replace him. They already had acquired legal and religious right to kill the unwanted king through Manu. Explaining how Brahmins frequently used Indian usurpers and even foreign invaders as an instrument of enforcement of Brahmanism over masses, Swami Dharma Teertha observes:
"... These unpatriotic and some times treacherous methods were also sought to be justified by the philosophy of Puranas. ..." [Dharma Teertha, p. 111]
Chandragupta Maurya, came to power by help of a clever Brahmin, Kautilya. They tried to invite Alexander to invade Magadha. Chandragupta's empire grew but his grandson Asoka became devout Buddhist and all plans of Brahmins were foiled. So they brought in Pushyamitra and later Kanva kings. But another rising Indian people, the Satvahanas, who were patrons of Buddhism, foiled their designs. So Brahmins carved out a kingdom for Wema- Kadphises II, who worshipped Brahmanic gods. The next king Kanishka was initially under brahmanic influence but later on when he became enthusiastic patron of Sangha, he was killed by smothering to death in his bed by a pillow.
King of Kashmir Jayapira, who trusted Kayastha ministers, was killed. King Nahapana in Saurashtra was helped to revolt against Magadha. He helped Brahmins but later refused to become puppets of Brahmins and also patronized Buddhism along with Brahmanism..
After Kingdom of Magadha under Satvahanas broken down, Brahmins managed to bring Gupta reign, and thus started "a long period of Brahmanical supremacy, huge horse sacrifices, and the revival of Sanskrit" [Dharma Teertha, p.116]
During Gupta period Brahmins consolidated their gains, temple worship was started in place of Vedic religion, Puranas were edited and reedited, caste system, the "most deadly weapon of imperialistic domination ever invented by human brain" was started to "effectively divide them into groups and prevent their rising against their oppressors", temple worship was started which was "another instrument in the scheme of priests to exploit the people". They had to make some changes in their religion but as Swami Dharma Teertha observes:
"Brahmanism has never stood for any religious doctrine or faith. Its life and soul, then, as it is now, was the Caste System with the Brahmin as the highest sacredotal caste, and its vital interest was priestly exploitation." These objects were achieved to a great extent before Gupta age. Then why did they need the Rajputs? Swami Dharma Teertha observes:
"Though all these things were accomplished in the Gupta period, there was yet no guarantee that Brahman predominance would be upheld by succeeding rulers, and without the king's support it could not be maintained. Repeated experience had shown that though new kings, in order to obtain Brahman co- operation to establish their power, often yielded to the wishes of the latter, no self-respecting ruler would long tolerate the yoke of Brahmanism. Indian kings almost invariably, encouraged Buddhism side by side with Brahmanism, even when they had been raised to power with the help of Brahmans. Brahmanism could therefore be permanently established only with the disappearance of Buddhism and also of all Indian rulers, Its security lay in the revival of a race of Kshatriya princes who would submit to the Brahmanas the highest caste and whose primary concern would be exploitation of the country the common platform on which priestly imperialism could join hands with foreign imperialism. It happened exactly like this. The Brahmans did not rest until they succeeded in handing over the nation to a new race of Kshatriyas, the Rajputs whom they raised to Kshatriya hood for the purpose and who in a few centuries enslaved the country first to debasing priest craft, and then to Mohammedan fanaticism. [Swami Dharma Teertha, p. 117]
Harshavardhana was a staunch supporter of Buddhism, along with Brahmanism. At the time of visit of Huen Tsang, Brahmins tried to kill Harsha. As a result, five hundred Brahmins, it is said, were banished from the kingdom. This temporary setback did not deter the Brahmins. After the death of Harsha, Brahmins got their opportunity. As Havel expressed,:
"It was therefore to be expected that orthodox Brahmanism would seize the opportunity of Harsha's death to reassert its political supremacy in Aryavrata." [E.B.Havell, History of Aryan Rule in India, p. 217, Quoted by Dharma Teertha, p. 118]
Chinese mission who visited in response to Harsha's complementary mission, was insulted by the minister of Harsha who had usurped the throne. This infuriated the Chinese leader and getting help from Tibet, he overran Magadha and the Brahman king of Assam helped Chinaman with large supplies of military equipment and cattle, thus finishing the mighty Buddhist kingdom of Harsha. This was the opportunity for the Brahmins to assert their dominance. Swami Dharma Teertha observes:
"The empire having been broken up, the Brahmans took the opportunity to invite foreign adventurers to support their cause. The Rajputs appear on the scene as the valiant protectors of Brahmanism. Historians do not know definitely the origin of the Rajputs, but all are agreed in believing that they were the descendants of some of the foreign invaders. That they were raised to power by the Brahmans is admitted in the legend of the Puranas. It says that they were the descendants of four warriors conjured into existence by the sage Vasishta from the sacrificial fire he kindled on Mount Abu. In plain language they were a new people raised to Kshatriyahood by the Brahmans in order that they might reestablish Brahmanism in the land.
"Everywhere they favourd Puranic Hinduism, and the Brahmans rewarded them for their toil, and reorganized the new race as the Kshatriyas of modern time." [Dutt R. C., 'Later Hindu Civilization', p.38]
"Whatever the origin of the Rajputs may be, there is no doubt that they were newcomers within the pale Hindu civilization and religion. Like all new converts they were fired with an excessive zeal to revive the religion they embraced. Brahmans worked on the zeal of this new race of Kshatriyas and the Chohan and the Rathore vindicated their claims to be regarded as Kshatriyas by established the supremacy, of the Brahmans." [Dutt R. C., 'Later Hindu Civilization', p. 40, quoted by Dharma Teertha, p. 119]
Rajput age was a Dark Age for masses of India
Swami Dharma Teertha narrates the further story in these words:
"With the help of the Rajputs who became powerful in all parts of India, Brahmanism entered on a career of merciless extirpation of Buddhism, and with it of nationalism. The avenues of light and information were all closed, From the 8th to the 10th century an impenetrable darkness enveloped Northern India. History refuses to disclose the nature of the happenings of that terrible darkness. As in the Dark Age which followed the Mahabharata War, so under the cover of this frightful oblivion, Brahmanism did its work thoroughly monasteries were demolished, monks were banished or killed, books were burnt, Buddhism was stamped out; nationalism was crushed. The country fell into the hands of Rajput barons, soon to be followed by the Mohammedan invaders who completed the work of annihilation. Rajputana became a congeries of rival states, each with its own chief, war loving and constantly quarreling with each other." [Dharma Teertha, p.119]
"There could be hardly any doubt that Rajput rule was an undiluted military imperialism, a coalition of Kashtriya exploiters and insatiable Brahman priests, in which the people were fleeced to amass wealth for palaces and temples. In an incredibly short time huge temples requiring the labour of many thousands of workmen, generally slaves or prisoners, and involving fabulous expenditure, were built all over the country; the secret cells of temples were filled with gold and silver and other treasures beyond description. Hundreds of dancing girls with all the temptations of music and decoration served in the temples to complete the vices of priest craft. The kings surrounded themselves with all imaginable pomp, luxury and vice. Nobody cared for the people; we hear nothing of the people when the Mohammedan invaders made their incursion in to the big cities and temples for plunder of the accumulated treasures. The princes kept quarreling among themselves for wealth and women. The Brahmans were sunk deep in the temptations of the temple. We see Mohammedans marching through the country hundreds of miles without anybody opposing them, appearing before the gates of cities and temples, before the authorities got any information, and loaded with rich booty returning unmolested over vast tracts of inhabited area. There seemed to be no government in the land.
"The despotic nature of the regime could be noticed also in the employment by Rajput rulers of large bodies of Mohammedan mercenaries. It was so in Vijayanager too. another Brahman dominated empire. Both in North India and in Vijayanager, the presence of Mohammedan troops in the heart of the Hindu kingdoms, in the employed and confidence of their rules, facilitated the final success of the Mohammedans. What was worse, the soldiers of Islam were invited to invade India, and there were Rajput princes to help them in their conquest of the country. The four chief royal houses of North India were Delhi, Chittor, Kanouj and Gujrat. The last two kings sided with Mohammedans until they became undisputed masters of the situation. Raja Jaichand of Kanouj is said to have invited Shahabuddin to attack Prithvi Raj of Delhi. [Lala Sundar Dass, "Decline and fall of Hindu Empire", p. 25] India fell betrayed by her own princes and priests who were no more interested in the unity, strength and prosperity of the Indian masses then the Mohammedan or the European conquerors.[ p.n.121 ]
The Ruling Class
Swami Dharma Teertha explains how the fate of any country usually depends on the character of its Ruling Class. Even in democratic countries, the rise and fall, the progress and decadence of the nation depends to a great extent on the ideals which animate the policy and conduct of this class. In India, this class is the Brahmins. Swami observes:
"From days immemorial, the Brahmans have been the undoubted aristocrats of India, the leaders of the people, the custodians of religious and secular learning, unrivaled politicians and administrators, and owners of wealth and power, besides being the trustees of the peoples conscience as priests. Probably no other class of persons in any society ever combined in themselves all these advantages so exclusively as the Brahmans. It is equally doubtful if any other aristocratic class has ever exercised their privileges to the detriment of the common people so unscrupulously and for so long a period as these Hindu priests.
"For an understanding of the causes which have brought India to her present condition no study is more important than that of the policy and doctrines of the Brahmans." [Dharma Teertha, p. 122]
Brahmins were benefited by Muslim Conquest
There is a lot of propaganda, that Muslim period was a foreign rule over Indian masses, who were crushed under the foreign yoke. All this is a great and fake propaganda by the brahmanical scholars. Actually, it was this class who got the maximum benefits of Muslim raj. Here we have to remember that India has triple governance. Governance at the village and town level, second is regional level and top most is national level. The local level governance is the actual governance. In India it makes no difference, who ruled at the top, at the local levels it was the Brahmins who always ruled. And their rule was as per the Laws of caste. Swami Dharma Teertha observes:
"The disappearance of Buddhism and the passing of political power into the hands of the Mohammedans, though they meant the extermination of national life, was a triumph for Brahmanism. ... in the period of national prostration and political chaos roughly from the eight to the twelfth century after Christ, there is a phenomenal revival, expansion and consolidation of the theocratic domination of the Brahmans. One prominent result of the invasion of India by the Mohammedans was that, so far as Hindu society was concerned, Brahmans became its undisputed leaders and law givers.
"After the overthrow of the Hindu princes by the Mohammedans, the Hindu princes and chiefs lost a good deal of their prestige, but the leadership of the Hindus instead of passing into the new political authority, namely Mohammedan rulers, passed almost entirely to the brahmans." [Kelkar S. V., "An Essay on Hinduism, p. 149]
"There were no powerful Indian rulers to question their right to decide what should be or should not be the religion of the people, and by what principles their social life should be governed. When the Mohammedans had overcome all opposition and settled down as rulers, unless some of them were fanatically inclined to make forcible conversions, they left the Hindus in the hands of their religious leaders and whenever they wanted to pacify them by quiet methods, they made use of Brahmans as their accredited representatives.
"Another great advantage was that, for the first time in history, all the peoples of India, of all sects and denominations, were brought under the supremacy of the Brahmans. Till then they had claimed to be priest of the three higher castes only and did not presume to speak for the Sudras and other Indian peoples except to keep them at a safe distance. The Mohammedans called all the non-Muslims inhabitants, without any discrimination, by the common name "Hindu", which practically meant non-Muslims and nothing more. This simple fact contributed to the unification of India more than any other single event, but also, at the same time, condemned the dumb millions of the country to perpetual subjection to their priestly exploiters. Indians became "Hindus," their religion became Hinduism and Brahmans their masters.
"The word Hindu itself is a foreign one. The Hindus never used it in any Sanskrit writing, that is those which were written before the Mohammedan invasion." [p. 22, An Essay on Hinduism, by Kelkar]
"When the Mohammedans came they called all people who were in India, but who did not belong to Mohammedan religion, Hindus.... All castes and creeds which did not acknowledge Mohammedan religion were Hindus." [p.29, An Essay on Hinduism, by Kelkar.]
"Thus was the Indian people by an innocent accident of history, permanently subjected to a disastrous social and religious in the shaping of which they had no hand and could thereafter obtain no voice, but were entirely at the mercy of the Brahmans. Brahmanism became Hinduism, that is the religion of all who were not followers of the prophet of Mecca. Fortified thus in an unassailable position of sole religious authority, Brahmans commenced to establish their theocratic overlordship of all India." [Swami Dharma Teertha, pp. 123 ff.]
What did they do first?
Swami Dharma Teertha explains the activities of Brahmins after they captured the power. It was creation of shastras to suit newer conditions. He observes:
"One of the first signs of Brahmanical revival, as in the past, was the promulgation of new Shastras, Puranas and other religious literature alleged to be the works of ancient sages. The priests must have been conscious of the untenability of their doctrines and their own unworthiness to lay down rules for the good of society, for they wrote new works in the name of ancient authors and altered ancient works to suit their present contentions. There is hardly
Brahmins were benefited by Muslim Conquest
There is a lot of propaganda, that Muslim period was a foreign rule over Indian masses, who were crushed under the foreign yoke. All this is a great and fake propaganda by the brahmanical scholars. Actually, it was this class who got the maximum benefits of Muslim raj. Here we have to remember that India has triple governance. Governance at the village and town level, second is regional level and top most is national level. The local level governance is the actual governance. In India it makes no difference, who ruled at the top, at the local levels it was the Brahmins who always ruled. And their rule was as per the Laws of caste. Swami Dharma Teertha observes:
"The disappearance of Buddhism and the passing of political power into the hands of the Mohammedans, though they meant the extermination of national life, was a triumph for Brahmanism. ... in the period of national prostration and political chaos roughly from the eight to the twelfth century after Christ, there is a phenomenal revival, expansion and consolidation of the theocratic domination of the Brahmans. One prominent result of the invasion of India by the Mohammedans was that, so far as Hindu society was concerned, Brahmans became its undisputed leaders and law givers.
"After the overthrow of the Hindu princes by the Mohammedans, the Hindu princes and chiefs lost a good deal of their prestige, but the leadership of the Hindus instead of passing into the new political authority, namely Mohammedan rulers, passed almost entirely to the brahmans." [Kelkar S. V., "An Essay on Hinduism, p. 149]
"There were no powerful Indian rulers to question their right to decide what should be or should not be the religion of the people, and by what principles their social life should be governed. When the Mohammedans had overcome all opposition and settled down as rulers, unless some of them were fanatically inclined to make forcible conversions, they left the Hindus in the hands of their religious leaders and whenever they wanted to pacify them by quiet methods, they made use of Brahmans as their accredited representatives.
"Another great advantage was that, for the first time in history, all the peoples of India, of all sects and denominations, were brought under the supremacy of the Brahmans. Till then they had claimed to be priest of the three higher castes only and did not presume to speak for the Sudras and other Indian peoples except to keep them at a safe distance. The Mohammedans called all the non-Muslims inhabitants, without any discrimination, by the common name "Hindu", which practically meant non-Muslims and nothing more. This simple fact contributed to the unification of India more than any other single event, but also, at the same time, condemned the dumb millions of the country to perpetual subjection to their priestly exploiters. Indians became "Hindus," their religion became Hinduism and Brahmans their masters.
"The word Hindu itself is a foreign one. The Hindus never used it in any Sanskrit writing, that is those which were written before the Mohammedan invasion." [p. 22, An Essay on Hinduism, by Kelkar]
"When the Mohammedans came they called all people who were in India, but who did not belong to Mohammedan religion, Hindus.... All castes and creeds which did not acknowledge Mohammedan religion were Hindus." [p.29, An Essay on Hinduism, by Kelkar.]
"Thus was the Indian people by an innocent accident of history, permanently subjected to a disastrous social and religious in the shaping of which they had no hand and could thereafter obtain no voice, but were entirely at the mercy of the Brahmans. Brahmanism became Hinduism, that is the religion of all who were not followers of the prophet of Mecca. Fortified thus in an unassailable position of sole religious authority, Brahmans commenced to establish their theocratic overlordship of all India." [Swami Dharma Teertha, pp. 123 ff.]
What did they do first?
Swami Dharma Teertha explains the activities of Brahmins after they captured the power. It was creation of shastras to suit newer conditions. He observes:
"One of the first signs of Brahmanical revival, as in the past, was the promulgation of new Shastras, Puranas and other religious literature alleged to be the works of ancient sages. The priests must have been conscious of the untenability of their doctrines and their own unworthiness to lay down rules for the good of society, for they wrote new works in the name of ancient authors and altered ancient works to suit their present contentions. There is hardly
Brahmanic methods of Conversion
H. H. Risley has given a vivid description of methods of social control and mimesis of Brahmins over the Indian masses, which deserved to be quoted in toto.:
"Brahmanism knows noting of open proselytism or forcible conversion, and attains its end in a different and more subtle fashion, for which no precise analogue can be found in the physical world. It leaves existing aggregates very much as they were, and so far from welding them together, after the manner of Islam, into large cohesive aggregates, tends rather to create an indefinite number of fresh groups; but every tribe that passes within the charmed circle of Hinduism is inclined sooner or later to abandon its more primitive usages or to clothe them in some Brahmanical disguise. The strata, indeed, remain, or are multiplied; their relative positions are on the whole unaltered; only their fossils are metamorphosed into more advanced forms.
"One by one the ancient totems drop off, or are converted by a variety of ingenious devices into respectable personages of the standard mythology; the fetish gets a new name, and is promoted to the Hindu Pantheon in the guise of a special incarnation of one of the greater gods; the tribal chief sets up a family priest, starts a more or less romantic family legend, in course of time blossoms forth as a new variety of Rajput. His people follow his lead, and make haste to sacrifice their women at the shrine of social distinction. Infant marriage with all its attendant horrors is introduced; widows are forbidden to marry again and divorce, which plays a great and, on the whole, a useful part in tribal society, is summarily abolished. Throughout all these changes, which strike deep into the domestic life of people, the fiction is maintained that no real change has taken place, and every one believes, or affects to believe, that things are with them as they have been since the beginning of time. It is curious to observe that the operation of these tendencies has been quickened, and the sphere of their action enlarged by the great expansion of railways which has taken place in India during the last few years."
"The leading men of an aboriginal tribe, having somehow got on in the world and became independent landed proprietors manage to enroll themselves in one of the leading castes, They usually set up as Rajputs; their first step being to start a Brahman priest, who invents for them a mythical ancestor supplies them with a family miracle connected with the locality where their tribe are settled, and discovers that they belong to some hitherto unheard-of clan of the great Rajput community. In the early stages of their advancement they generally find great difficulty in getting their daughters married, as they will not marry within their own tribe, and Rajputs of their adopted caste will of course not intermarry with them. But after a generation or two their persistency obtains its reward, and they intermarry, if not with pure Rajputs, at least with a superior order of manufactured Rajputs, whose promotion into the Brahmanical system dates far enough back for the steps by which it was gained to have been forgotten. Thus a real change of blood takes place; while in any case the tribal name is completely lost, and with it all possibility of accurately separating this class of people from the Hindus of purer bloods, and of assigning them to any particular non-Aryan tribe. They have absorbed in the fullest sense of the word, and henceforth pose, and are locally accepted, as high-caste Hindus. All stages of the process, family miracle and all can be illustrated by actual instances from the leading families in Chota Nagpur.
"A number of aborigines embrace the tenets of a Hindu religious sect, losing thereby their tribal name and becoming Vaishnabs, Ramayats, and the like. Whether there is any mixture of blood or not will depend upon local circumstances and the rules of the sect regarding inter- marriage. Anyhow the identity of the converts as aborigines is usually, though not invariably, lost, and this also may therefore be regarded as a case of true absorption."
"A whole tribe of aborigines, or a large section of a tribe, enroll themselves in the ranks of Hinduism under the style of a new caste, which though claiming an origin of remote antiquity, is readily distinguishable by its name from any of the standard and recognized castes. Thus the great majority of Koch inhabitants of Rungpore now invariably describe themselves as Rajbanshis or Bhanga Kshatriyas - a designation which enable them to represent themselves as an outlying branch of the Kshatriyas who fled to North-Eastern Bengal in order to escape from the wrath of Parasu-Rama. They claim descent from Raja Dashrath, father of Rama. They keep Brahmans, imitate the Brahmanical ritual in their marriage ceremony, and have begun to adopt the Brahmanical system of gotras. In respect of this last point they are now in a curious state of transition, as they have all hit upon the same gotra (Kasyapa), and thus habitually transgress the primary rule of the Brahmanical system, which absolutely prohibits marriage within the gotra. But for this defect in their connubial arrangements - a defect which will probably be corrected in a generation or two as they and their purohits rise in intelligence - there would be nothing in their customs to distinguish them from Aryan Hindus, although there has been no mixture of blood, any they remain thoroughly Koch under the name of Rajbanshi.
"A whole tribe of aborigines, or a section of a tribe, became gradually converted to Hinduism without, like the Rajbanshis abandoning their tribal designation. This is what is happening among the Bhumij of Western Bengal. Here a pure Dravidian race have lost their original language, and now speak only Bengali; they worship Hindu gods in addition to their own (tendency being to relegate the tribal gods to the women), and the more advanced among them employ Brahmans as family priests. They still retain a set of totemistic exogamous subdivisions closely resembling those of the Mundas and the Santals, but they are beginning to forget the totems which the names of the subdivisions denote, and the names themselves will probably soon be abandoned in favour of more aristocratic designations. The tribe will then have become a caste, and will go on stripping itself of all customs likely to betray its true descent. The physical characteratics of its members will alone survive. After their transformation into a caste, the Bhumij will be more strictly endogamous than they were as a tribe, and even less likely to modify their physical type by intermarriage with other races."
"There is every reason to suppose that the movement of which certain phases are roughly sketched above, has been going on for many centuries, and that, although at the present day its working can probab Foreigners were assimilated by Buddhist ideals and not the Brahmanic
Some brahmanic scholrs try to glorify their religion by boasting that Sakas Kusanas Hunas and other foreigners have disappeared leaving no trace, wheras Brahmanism still persists. Dr. Ambedkar had mentioned that mere survival is not the evidence of greatness. The level of survival was very low. Whereas, Shri L. M. Joshi avers that the assimilation of foreigners into Indian society took place not because of Brahmanism but because of the tenets of Buddhism which preached equality, liberty and brotherhood in the following words:
"Another aspect of Buddhist contribution in ancient India lay in the area of social harmony and racial integration on a national scale, It was through Buddhist influence and teaching of social harmony and tolerance that foreign invaders such as the Greeks, Sakas, Pahlavas, Kusanas and Hunas who came to India and settled here in the course of centuries immediately preceding and following the Christian era, were assimilated by Indian society. This was a permanent contribution to social integration and national growth and it could not have been so easily accomplished in a strictly Brahmanical scheme of social gradation without the wholesome effects of the Buddhist disregard for varna- organization and respect for the liberty of the individual."
Mindu Muslim Conflict would not have be there if Buddhism was alive at the time of Muslim invasion
Not only that but he laments that the assimilation of Muslims could not be done into Indian society, beause of the feeling of supremacy of their caste that was practiced by the Brahmins of those days. He further says:
"We are of the view that had Buddhism been a living force at the time of the Turkish invasions, the problems of Hindu- Muslim communal discord in medieval and modern India would not have taken such a strong turn as they did. Because of the revival of the traditional Brahmanical social scheme, reinforced with fresh religious injunctions, and because of the decline of Buddhism in India after the tenth century A.D., the mass of early medieval early Islamic followers in India could not be assimilated and digested by Indian Society. Arnold J. Toynbee has rightly remarked that, "If either Buddhism or Jainism ha succeeded in captivating the Indic world, caste might have got rid of. As it turned out, however, the role of universal church in the last chapter of Indic decline and fall was played by Hinduism, a parvenu archaistic syncretism of things new and old; and one of the old things to which Hinduism gave new lease was caste." [A study of History, (abridged by D. C. Somervll) vol. I, New York, 1969, p. 350] [L. M. Joshi, "Aspects of Buddhism in Indian History", 1973, Wheel publication No. 195/196, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy (Sri Lanka), pp. 52 ff.]
http://www.ambedkar.org/research/Rajput_Period_Was_Dark_Age_Of_India.htmWhere woman is worshipped
Submitted by admin on 6 July, 2005 - 09:00.Chandra Latha
So free am I, so gloriously free,
Free from three petty things -
From mortar, from pestle and from my twisted lord,
Freed from rebirth and death I am,
And all that held me is hurled away.
(Mutta, Theri gatha, Poems by Buddhist nuns, c. 6 BCE
Translated by Uma Chakra varthi and Kumkum Roy ) 1
What if William Jones, Indian supreme court judge, 1784, sensed "the breath of liberty" 2 and enthused in the "serenity" and "calm 4" that filled the mind of woman?
Perhaps, he would have given a new perception to "Warren Hastings "Plan of 1772" of an equalitarian society of reason and compassion, a step ahead, in the modern world, where, each and every ".. woman well set free! How wonderfully free...!" 5
Instead Jones developed enthusiasm in Dharma shastras that said "Women shall not have freedom", with help of orthodox scholars, he translated Manu Dharma shasthra into English. And it served the Colonial purpose.
The initial enthusiasm and deep impression of the religious textual law, received additional support by the proclamation of Queen Victoria, after The Great Revolution (1857, Sepoy Mutiny), "in framing and administering the law, due regard to paid to the ancient rights, usages and customs of India" 6
Judicial decisions, administrative classifications and even by legal enactments, religions are categorized and systemized by state. Religious laws are established and deeply strengthened.
No single teacher or a prophet, nor a single god or goddess, no single text or sacred book that is accepted by all Hindus...to quickly refer or identify with Hinduism.
But, there are many. And the most conservative manu smrithi (Laws of Manu) was chosen.
Patriarchy and caste hierarchy were legitimized by Personal law.
People were divided and ruled by religions, castes and gender.
Sacred texts, pundits and khazis stepped into courts and women into slumber.
***
Post colonial India emerged as a secular, democratic state providing its citizens liberal fundamental rights.
- Fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the state to its every citizen, with right of equality ie," equality before law " and "Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race ,caste ,sex or place of birth."
- Right to freedom of religion is explained as "Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion."
On contrary to the fundamental rights of citizens or to the secular state policy, state governs, advocates, judges its citizens by its Personal law, a colonial seepage, based on religions.
The status of woman in any religion is secondary. Thus patriarchy in India is established and protected by the state. Women are discriminated by Law. A paradox to equalitarian policy of the state.
***
It is difficult to understand what is known as Hinduism today... without realizing the multiplicity of Indian culture and plurality of ethnic roots.
The wider application of the term 'Hindu' originated with the Arabs after the eigth century AD when it referred to all those who lived beyond the river Indus.
Deep rooted in the corpus of Vedas, the Vedic Brahmanism evolved over innumerous cults, sects, rituals, beliefs, faiths, doctrines and codes over the ages, and parallel to shramanic (monastic) and materialist religions and through sectarian... later to be broadly identified as Hinduism.
Hindu-ism as a religion is a modern identity.
"Hindus become Hindus by sort of mass conversion of mass classification..." 7(Hindu Imperialism)
Until the first census report of 1871- 72 was declared, the identity was sectarian.
Shaiva and Vaishnava being 'the broader labels' and 'narrower labels like pashupathas, bhaghavathas, and so on.'.
"The consciousness of a religious identity was that of a sect and not that of all- inclusive religion incorporating every sect. This makes a significant difference to understanding the nature of what today is called Hinduism." 8 (Romila Thaper )
This demographical classification was based on conservative sacred text ,manu smrithi People were categorized by the caste hierarchy, eventually those who were not followers are brought under this label.
Matriarchal societies like Nair community, apart from their fight against it, regularized by patriarchal sacred laws.
"Some of the poorer classes who did not know what all meant or... even some influential communities were, without their knowledge and consent, brought under low caste groups by officers and historians." Thus "who were out side the savarna... brought under dharma shastra who consist 85% of the religion are Non-Hindus" (Hindu Imerialism)9
Even today, every Indian village has unique grama devatha (village goddess), kula devathalu (caste deities) and many matriarchal rituals and beliefs still continue simultaneously with main religion, many connected to fertility and agricultural operations.
Some of these were adopted by main religion.This female principal is captured, diminished and overshadowed by Vedic patriarchy by a simple technique of identifying the mother goddess with wife of Aryan male deity.
...and most of their status also met heirarchy as many regarded as mean goddess (khsudra devathalu ).
This broad classification created a general idea of Hinduism as majority religion and Muslim the major minority. Hence to be protected.
And also, a general perception that Religions covered under Hindu law as religions of indigenous origin and the rest religions of foreign origin.
By assimilating matriarchal societies like that of Nair's community, patriarchy is established by state.
***
Laws of Manu (Manu smrithi ): The religious sanction of personal law which was found in Manu smrithi brought into the modern period.this results from the claim that personal laws are part of religious traditions, whether one is believer or not.
Like many ancient texts it claims divine origin and sacred sanction.
Manu concerns justice based on inequality.
Caste hierarchy and patriarchy... are the quintessential of it.
Manu smrithi gives no freedom to woman. If some men are lower than other men, women are lower than men.
(Women are by nature passionate and not to be trusted alone. In childhood a woman should be in her father's control, in youth under her husbands and when her husband is dead, under her sons.")
Manu made marriage a sacred one and woman has no property or divorce right.
Purity and pollution or contamination by mlechhcas was the basic concern. Severe rules based on caste heirarchy are strictly advocated. Breach of it included excommunication. Sudras and women were meticulousy pushed to survile status.
Laws of manu are in fact duties to be followed and lays down punishments if failed.
These punishments are not limited to mundane world, some punishments will continue in the eternal world.. Rebirth and theory of Karma are base for this. "A woman who is unfaithful to her husband is an object of reproach in this word, (then) she is reborn in the womb of a jackle and tormented by the diseases born of her evil."
"The earlier dharma suthras were written when the urbanization in the Ganges plain was upsetting the moves of the Vedas and the "heterodox sects" were questioning brahmanical norms. And manu dharma shastra was written during the period of degenararte kshayathriyas" 10 ( Romila thaper pg,261)
That was the period of Sramanism (monastic religions), Buddhism and Jainism.
Sharamanic religions, buddhism and Jainism..provided woman freedom and an alternative in as much as it offered security within a socially accepted system.
Women had freedom of divorce, property right and freedom of education.
- There was no caste hierarchy in the monastic religions, and teaching of reason and compassion gave many oppressed a new alternative institution.
- Vedic Brahmanism based in vedic idealism and imperial kingdoms. The necessity to combat the non-vedic religions understood in writing dharma shastras, epics, and puranas.
Epics were heroic ballads and have imaginary space. Puaranas were created to meet the need for the assimilation of new deities and Dharma shastras to with held the "change" in the contemporary society and uphold vedic supremacy.
But, historians observe a lack of fit between the vision of normative texts and social reality. Society was enjoying the economic stability. Social norms endorsed by a small privileged group was not adapted by state as shramanism was patronized by royal and merchantile classes and women and marginalized castes who were the majority population.
"Manu with an aspiration to oppose Buddhism forged chaines to bind and suppress woman..." "Manu did not create any new regulations or laws but only reiterated them and gave the social doctrine of suppression of a new shape ie, made it a policy of the state... Manu's aim was to eliminate freedom women enjoyed during Buddhist period. (Dr.BR Ambedkar, "Rise and fall of Hindu woman")
"The severity of Dharma shastras was doubtless a commentary arising the insecurity of the orthodox in an age of flux."( 279-romila)
This helps us to understand how the orthodox, coalition with state, could suppress reason and compassion. and women's freedom is targeted and pathetically curbed to preserve and keep up the conservative religious traditions which they never enjoyed.
"Manu did not content himself with just declaration of principals but prescribed injuctions to women." (Dr.BR Ambedkar)
***
Whether geographical identification or demographical categorization or legally applied, multi-ethnic, pluralistic Hindus form one of the major homogeneous group
The dramatic effects after identifying as a single group ,in the colonial conditions lead to nationalism and introspection to social reforms. most of the times nationalism and social reform ran together.
Since then, caste issue and woman issue have been concern for nationalists and social reformers and the positve effects resulted in Independence and modernity of India.
This categorization as majority group also initiated Hindu - ness or Hindutva. (Hindu fundamentalism.)
Hindutva which was started in 1920's (Savarkar's Hindutva: what is Hinduism, first quoted this word) came into prominence after 80's and after demolition of Babri masjid strengthened politically and socially.
Hinduthva is moving ahead with jingoistic fervor training "strong militant sons " to protect "chaste mothers and passive sisters".
Fundamentalists organize woman groups. They have many programs to promote virtues of ideals and principles of Hindu woman and their roles as mothers and sisters with devotional attachments.
***
Last few decades, seen a radical change in woman perspective.
Educated Women excel in various fields and their entry into "male space" is often highlighted. Figurative growth is published periodically and discussed enthusiastically.
50% of medical graduates, 50% of graduates, 21% of software professionals, 18% employees in organized sector are woman. (India Today,4-4-2005)
These figures speak something. A silent revolution on traditions and idealized womanhood. There is an unspoken redefinition of pre-existing social values.
Woman began to talk about themselves ...about their body, psyche and mind ,their status at home, work and state, beyond patriarchal conditioning.
Issue and identity based woman perspective is more scholastic and relative.
On the other side, domestic, social and institutional violence on woman is recorded as... "a physical assault every 30 min., a rape every 54 minutes, an eve teasing for every 51 min.s ,for every 26 min. violence on women and every 100 min. a dowry death!"
Even today more than 50% Indians are non-litarate and most of women work in unorganized, unprotected sectors. Economically and socially marginalised
Classes.
Their needs are humble. Their lifestyles are simple. Most of them have no idea of rights or laws. Their religion is their caste and family. And not the manu smrithi or personal law. The caste courts often conclude cruel upon woman.
Hinduism is also multi layered. It is not the same for all. If look as we go down the hierarchy the rigidity decreases. They become more porous. As we go up religion hardens.and bounded.
So, the focus and solutions of issue and identity based woman activism can't have unilateral application.
Diverse socio-economic relations and conditions influence woman's status and gender suppression.
Indian culture and religions... unique and diverse... live in family. Human relations play vital role to maintain beliefs, traditions and culture.
Feminist movements have often considered as anti-family movements disturbing
harmony of the family and community. And also understood as belittling and attacking the traditional roles in family.
The status of woman was directly related to language. Majority of multi-lingual Hindus overlaid by language of minorities.
The taboos of language that feminist writers broke were taboos for upper class literates.
Literature of non-literates is of oral tradition and had no language inhibitions or taboos as such. This was the reason why figuratively minor literate classes looked down folk literature of majority, multi-lingual, non-literate groups, until recent times.
Communalists started replacing vernacular languages by sanskrit in prayers etc.
Right wing groups have under taken all issues ranging from personal Laws to reproductive rights. Some issues like beauty contests and demand for Uniform civil code... feminists found... same goal as fundamentalists, though they have different reasons.
Personal Law:
In 1951 the Hindu code bill was introduced by Dr, Ambedkar and under his able guidance this Bill sought to make radical changes in the Hindu personal law. Code bill was reconfiguration of Hindu Law on the principles of modernity.
It is not coincidental to call personal law as family law. Though many changes were done to the colonial sacred law to make secular, traditional elements and religious rituals and customs are legitimized.
Indian secularism is that of pluralist approach.So are the personal laws. If the pluralistic fundamental model of secularism gains ground, family and family law will make stronger claim on the polity.
Uniform civil code is the solution ahead for both Left and Right.
Religious fundamentalists have come up with manu smrithi while some them are strong supporters of uniform civil code.
The completely secular Uniform civil code may be a break from tradition and the community identity as majority homogeneous group will be undermined. This identity value may be the strong point to fundamentalists to go back to dharma shastras or pre independent-religious law.
"Such a return would involve giving up practices that bridges between orthodox Hinduism and modernity and which have become acceptable to many Hindus."
Uniform civil code is often identified with nations unity. Uniform law for a nation-state is more theoretical, but not a necessity.
And the uniform code should not be derived or influenced by any particular religion, but by human rights and that can keep up human dignity of men and woman alike.
When Law is divine, it will be beyond question. If Law is by state there is always chance to rationalize. For securing and exercising human rights it is a crucial requisite.
Rights and laws alone cannot bring a social change, but they create an ambiance for change.
For example, dowry is a menace. and laws are made to prevent and abolish the dowry system. It is not only deep rooted but, is in practice of non-Hindu religions. So, is monogamy.Many educated muslims follow monogamy though they are legally permitted for polygamy. Though Sati is abolished, cases are recorded in Uttarpradesh.
A secular state with seperation of state and religion is crucial for woman.
The Indian model is that of pluralism, all embracing tolerence
Now, it seemed to be moving towards pluralism of fundamentalism.
And the formidable alliance between state and fundamentalism is a threat to freedom of woman.
In democratic legislation, women have little or no significance in policy making.
The Political security by reserving electoral seats for woman in parliament is a strong proposal to secure liberty of a woman. Why do we need reservation? Because the percentage of women in First parliament is 4.4% and after 50 years it is 8.8%.
In fact it is the rural and uneducated women who already showed active participation in rural polity ( 77,210 / 638,000 ). This was possible only after the 73 amendment of the constitution.
Kerala that has highest literary rate of 90% has political representation of women is 9.2%.
Where as the assembly of Bihar that has lowest literacy rate in India has 3% representation of woman.
Modern Hindu woman knows that she is not goddess or slave.
"The modern woman doesnot want to create a social chaos.She is only trying to get out of it. Let her not be handicapped by the load stone of the fictious ideal of the Indian Woman hood, tied round her neck."
Career oriented education, professional pressures, competitive stress, pressure to meet the global challenges, modernization of life turning young generation more and more practical.
Consumer culture and global marketing strategies made many luxuries of yesterday a need today.
They are redefining personal, social and institutional relations. Global exposure brought new perceptions.
The nostalgia for ethnicity or insecurity of the day educated are looking towards religion.
On the other side, people who are illiterate, poor, paupers by unexpected calamities continues to seek comfort in religion.
Both conditions are ideal for Religious fundamentalism...whether it is faith or fear. Religion is revisited and re-embraced. More than ever before.
But, many live between these two. Optimistically. Working for positive space of reason and compassion.
A Space where there will be freedom, equality, fraternity.
***
References
Engish:
History of Hindu Imperialism by Swami Dharma Theertha.,Published by Dalith educational literature center, Madras.
Dr.Baba saheb Ambedkar Writings and speeches Published by Govt of.Maha Rastra
Rise and Fall of Hindu woman : Dr.Ambedkar
Ideal of Indian Woman hood :MNRoy.
Women and Social Reform by Malladi subbamma
Castes of Minds by Nicholas B. Dirks published by Permanent Black
Early India ,from origins to AD 1300 By Romila Thaper Published by Penguin.
Women writing in India :600 BC to the Early Twentieth Century
Edited by Susie Tharu and K. Lalitha
Religion and Law in Independent India Edited By Robert D, Baird
Lokayatha By Debiprasad Chattopadhya
Telugu :
Haindavam : sthreelu by Malladi Subbamma
Manudharmala kautilyamu by Ravipudi Venakatadri
Vanitha varthamanam by Vikram
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BASIC ELEMENTS OF HINDUISM
Excerpts From: Hinduism and Islam A Comparative Study
Index :
Hindu and Hinduism
Main Features
Lack of a Common System
Caste System
Superiority of the Brahman
Polytheism
Sex and Sex-Worship
Authority of the Veda
Hindu and Hinduism
The term 'Hinduism' has been derived from 'Hindu'. 'Hindu' is a Persian word which means dark [ 1 ]. The word was first used by Muslims [ 2 ] for the inhabitants of the 'land beyond the Indus (Sindhu) river' and later, for the ancient Indians in general. The word was never used in Indian literature or scriptures before the advent of Muslims to India [ 3 ]. According to Jawaharlal Nehru, the earliest reference to the word 'Hindu' can be traced to a Tantrik book of the eighth century C.E., where the word means a people, and not the followers of a particular religion. The use of the word 'Hindu' in connection with a particular religion is of very late occurrence [ 4 ].
The Muslim rulers used the term 'Hindu' to mean Indian non-Muslims only. The Brahmans gladly welcomed it as it brought all the non-Muslim Indians under a single umbrella and thus provided them with a rare opportunity to expand their social, religious and political influence over them in the name of religion. The British rulers maintained it with one modification. They excluded the converted Christians from those covered by the term 'Hindu'.
The non-Muslim people of the South Asian subcontinent called Hindu had no precise word for their religions [ 5 ]. They were, as they are, divided into thousands of communities and tribes, each having its own religious beliefs, rituals, modes of worship, etc. Finding it difficult to get the names of the religions of these communities, the British writers gave them the word "Hinduism" to be used as a common name for all of their religions in about 1830 [ 6 ]. Thus the people called Hindus got a common element, at least in word, to be identified as a distinct, single community.
The people called Hindu have nothing common in their religious affairs. 'Hinduism', therefore, cannot give any precise idea as to what it means. Attempts were made to define the term but could not succeed. Faced with this dilemma, Hindu scholars sometime use the word Sanatan Dharma (eternal religion) and sometime Vedic Dharma (religion of the Veda), etc. for their religion. But as names of their religion, these words are also untenable as they do not imply anything precise for all the people called Hindu.
Main Features
Hinduism is a bundle of many things, often mutually contradictory. It is, therefore, not easy to identify its main features. However, some elements which are generally regarded as its main features are given below.
Lack of a Common System
Hinduism is not a revealed religion and, therefore, has neither a founder nor definite teachings or common system of doctrines [ 7 ]. It has no organization, no dogma or accepted creeds. There is no authority with recognized jurisdiction. A man, therefore, could neglect any one of the prescribed duties of his group and still be regarded as a good Hindu. "Hinduism has never prepared a body of canonical scriptures or a common prayer book; it has never held a general council or convocation; never defined the relation between laity and clergy; never regulated the canonization of saints or their worship; never established a single centre of religious life; never prescribed a course of training for its priests."[ 8 ] In the words of S.V. Kelkar, "There is in fact no system of doctrines, no teacher, or school of teaching, no single god that is accepted by all the Hindus."[ 9 ] In Hinduism, none is, therefore, regarded to have forsaken his or her religion, even if he or she deviates to any extent from the usually accepted doctrines or practices.
Caste System
Hindu society is divided into several thousands of caste and sub-caste. Caste is a highly organized social grouping. A Hindu is born in a caste and dies as a member of that caste. As caste is determined by birth, one can never move from one caste to another. Castes are not equal in status but arranged in a vertical order in which one caste is at the top and is the highest (the Brahman), another at the bottom and is the lowest (the Dalit) and in between them there are the Kshatriya, the Vashya and the Sudra in a descending order. This inequality in status is said to be an outcome of a person's deeds (good or bad) accomplished in his previous life. Caste differences find their expression largely in connection with marriages and eating together. In the words of S.D. Theertha, "... the Hindu social order is simply a menace to freedom, unity and peace. The three thousands and odd castes and the larger number of sub-castes, into which the Hindus are irretrievably divided, keep nearly ninety-five per cent of the Hindus in perpetual disgrace and permanently condemned to an inferior social status [ 10 ]. More on Caste System.
Superiority of the Brahman
The Brahmans occupy the highest position in the hierarchy of the caste system. They are said to have sprung from the mouth of Brahma (god), they are the rightful possessors of the Veda. They possess spiritual superiority by birth. They have the monopoly right to act as priests, conduct religious ceremonies and festivals, and accept alms. The Brahman is the deity on earth by his divine status [ 11 ]," born to fulfil dharma. Whatever exists in the world is his property. On account of the excellence of his origin, he is entitled to all. "Let a Brahman be ignorant or learned, still he is a great deity. To Brahman, the three worlds and the gods owe's their existence." [ 12 ] (emphasis added). More on Brahman from Hindu Scriptures.
Polytheism
Hindus believe in many gods and goddesses. Some of them are human (e.g. Krishna, Rama [ 13 ]), some animals (e.g. fish, monkey, rat, snake), (some animal-humans as in the case of Ganesh who has the head of elephant with trunk and the body of a human), and some others are natural phenomena (e.g. dawn, fire, sun). Their number is generally believed to be 330 million. According to Hindu belief, god incarnates, i.e., takes the form of human being and other animals and appears in this earth in that form. Gods and goddesses were born like human beings and had wives and children. No god possesses absolute power; some of the gods are weaker than the sages and some others even weaker than the monkey (e.g. Rama).
Another aspect about Hindu gods is that the status of their godhood is not fixed. One finds that some gods were worshipped for a time and then abandoned and new gods and goddesses were adopted instead. The gods and goddesses worshipped now-a-days in Hindu homes and temples are not Vedic. The Vedic gods like Agni (fire), Surya (sun) Usha (dawn) are completely rejected and the gods and goddesses mentioned in the Puranas are worshipped by modern Hindus. Similarly, Rama who is currently receiving increasing acceptance among Hindus in India because of the wide propagation of the official and other media was never worshipped as a deity until the eleventh century.
Sex and Sex-Worship
Hindu scriptures are essentially pornographic in nature, full of sexual allusion, sexual symbolism, passages of frank eroticism and stories relating to venal love. Some religious sects even introduced ritual intercourse as part of their cult and a potent aid to salvation [ 14 ]. The rituals, festivals and ceremonies are characterized by the display of obscene portraits, sex and sex-worship. The temples, places of pilgrimage and other holy shrines are full of sculptures with all sorts of sexual postures. The sexual life of Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, is well-known for its indecency. He had illicit relations with Radha, wife of his maternal uncle, in addition to a number of milk-maids, although he had a large number of wives [ 15 ]. Among Hindu gods, the most prominent ones are: Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the sustainer) and Siva (the destroyer). Brahma is found guilty of cohabiting with his own daughter, Saraswati. It is for that reason that he is deprived of being worshipped. Vishnu is guilty of deceitfully ruining the chastity of a married woman, called Tulasi. Siva is not worshipped but the image of his linga (sex-organ) is widely worshipped. This is because of the curse of some sage [ 16 ]. In the sculpture, Siva and his consort Parvati are depicted in various explicit poses of the sexual act.
Prostitution is encouraged in the form of religious custom of devdasi (slave-girls dedicated to temple-idols). Hindu gods and rishis (sages) are found engaged in sexual act with beautiful women and breeding illegitimate children. As for instance, in order that Rama could have strong soldiers in his army, the gods engaged themselves in begetting powerful sons. This they did by engaging themselves, in the words of Dr. Ambedkar [ 17 ], "in wholesale acts of fornication, not only against apsaras, who were prostitutes, not only against the unmarried daughters of Yashas [ 18 ] and nagas, but also against the lawfully wedded wives of Ruksha, Vidhyadhar, Ghandharvas, Kinnars, and Vanaras (monkeys) and produced the vanaras who became the associates of Rama" [ 19 ].
Authority of the Veda
It is generally believed that the Veda is recognized as an absolute authority in Hinduism but the so-called low- caste (non-Aryan) Hindus have no access to the scripture because they are considered impure by birth. So the Veda is far from being an authority for these people. The only people who are allowed to read and listen to the scripture are the Aryan Hindus. The Brahmans, the sole custodians of the Veda, too hardly benefit from it because it is written in Sanskrit, a dead language, 'its content has long been practically unknown to most Hindus, and it is seldom drawn upon for literal advice' [ 20 ].
References
[l] Firuz al-Lughat (Lahore: n.d.), p. 615. Also see Lugat Sa'idi: (Kanpur: 1936), p. 633.
[2] H.G. Rawlinson, Intercourse Between India and the Western World, (Cambridge: 1926), p. 20.
[3] Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (ERE), (New York: l 967), 6:699. Also see Swami Dharma Theertha, History of Hindu Imperialism, (Madras: 1992), p. vii.
[4] Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, (New Delhi: 1983), pp.74-75.
[5] Benson Y. Landis, World Religions, (New York: n.d.), p. 49.
[6] The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (NEB), 20:581.
[7] Richard F. Nyrof, Area Handbook for India, (Washington: 1975), p. 163.
[8] ERE. 6:7 12.
[9] Theertha, p. 177.
[10] Ibid., p.209.
[1l] Wilkins: Modern Hinduism, (London: 1975), p.239.
[12] Theertha, p. 37.
[13] Hindu zealots demolished the historic Babari Masjid on 6 December 1992 in order to construct a temple on its site for Rama.
[14] A.L Basham, The Wonders That Was India (Calcutta: 1967), p. 172.
[15] The number of his wives was sixteen thousand one hundred and eight (16,108) and his children numbered one hundred and eighty thousand (180,000). See Ambedkar, Riddle of Rama and Krishna, (Bangalore: 1988), p.25.
[16] See Chapter 4.
[17] Dr. Ambedkar was the first law minister of independent India and was the author of India's constitution.
[18] Yaksha, naga, ruksha, vidyadhar, gandharva, kinna, each of these words means demigod.
[19] Ambedkar, p.7.
[20] NEB, 20: 581.
http://india30.tripod.com/hinduism1.htm
On the meaning and origins of Hinduism
"The term Hinduism … [ was ] introduced in about 1830 AD by British writers. " [Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 `Hinduism' 519 ]
"The term Hindu was first imposed on south Asian nations by the Afghan dynasty of Ghori in the 12th century; this term was never used in south Asia prior to the Muslim era and is not even found in early (pre-12th century AD) Brahmanical or Buddhist texts. Such a term and concept has no historical depth in any social, religious, ethnic or national sense past the 12th century when Mohammed Ghori for the first time named his conquered subjects Hindus." [G. Singh, Sakasthan and India, Toronto, 1999, p. 20]
"Hinduism, as a faith, is vague, amorphous, many-sided, all things to all men. It is hardly possible to define it, or indeed to say definitely whether it is a religion or not, in the usual sense of the word." [Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, New Delhi, 1983, p.75]
"Frankly speaking, it is not possible to say definitely who is a Hindu and what Hinduism is. These questions have been considered again and again by eminent scholars, and so far no satisfactory answer has been given." [Swami Dharma Theertha, History of Hindu Imperialism, Madras, 1992, p. 178]
"Hinduism defies definition… It has no specific creed." [Khushwant Singh, India: An Introduction, New Delhi, 1990, p. 19]
"The more Hinduism is considered, the more difficult it becomes to define it in a single phrase… A Hindu may have any religious belief or none." [Percival Spear, India: A Modern History, Michigan, 1961, p.40]
http://pakhub.info/2009/on-the-meaning-and-origins-of-hinduism/
DECLINE AND FALL OF BUDDHISM
(A tragedy in Ancient India)
Important Bibliography
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Previous Chapterhttp://www.ambedkar.org/books/dob16.htm
he Politics of the Aryan Invasion Debate
Dr. Koenraad ELST
A number of participants in the Aryan invasion debate as relayed in the fall/winter 2002 issue of the Journal for Indo-European Studies have alluded to the role of political predilections in influencing and distorting the argument. In particular, Aryan invasion skepticism, presented there by Prof. Nikolas Kazanas, is painted by some of its critics as essentially a political ploy by Hindu nationalist (or "Hindutva") forces. In India, apolitical scholars known to have crossed over to this position, most notably archaeologist B.B. Lal, have been accused of political motives for doing so. Questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) is now widely presented as a part of the alleged hinduization or "saffronization" of history by the BJP-led government in India.
This much is true, that in its tentative and clumsy manner, the BJP (Indian People's Party) and the nationalist movement behind it, the RSS (National Volunteer Corps), have been trying to effect glasnost in the Marxist-dominated history establishment. Through the media, the West has vaguely heard an echo of the commotion about this development among Indian Marxist historians trying to hold on to their power positions. The focus has mostly been on deplorable gaffes like the planned introduction of astrology as an academic subject and the attempt to weed out reference to cow-slaughter in the Vedic age, not on the serious and perfectly valid reasons for the attempted reform, esp. the entrenched distortions of history imposed by the Marxists. It is a pity that the BJP doesn't have the resources and the competent people to achieve a proper and satisfactory overhaul of the textbooks (the Marxists having blocked Hindu-minded young historians from access to academic careers for decades), so that its reforms have been less than adequate and in a few cases downright laughable. Fortunately, however, AIT skepticism is a trend far older and wider than the recent politics of "saffronization", and should be dealt with on its own terms.
European political uses of the Aryan invasion theory:
Anyone familiar with the uncertainties inherent in historical research will be amazed to notice the immense self-assuredness with which most spokesmen for either side in the Aryan invasion debate are making their case. In reality, a lot in this question of ancient history is undecided: the Harappan script remains undeciphered and the archaeological findings (e.g. Lal 2002) are open to interpretation. Analysis of the historical data in the Rg-Veda fails to find any trace of an Aryan invasion (pace Witzel 1995:321, as shown by Elst 1999:164-166, Talageri 2000:425-476), though along with the Puranas it alludes to episodes of Aryan emigration (Renu 1994:26-33, Talageri 1993:359-370, 2000:140, 256-265), but these textual findings cannot be deemed conclusive. Even if they are accepted as solid historical data, scenarios of immigration at an earlier date than hitherto assumed remain compatible with them. So the claim by linguists that the genealogy of the Indo-European language family is best explained by an (as yet not firmly dated) invasion scenario should not be dismissed lightly. We are faced here with an open and undecided question, a fit object for intense but open-minded research.
One of the reasons for the absolutist rhetoric bedevilling the Aryan invasion debate is the enormous investment of various political messages in the competing theories. Their political use in India will be discussed below; but the Western scholar may be expected to know about their political uses in the West, which predate the Hindu nationalist involvement by at least a century. The Out-of-India Theory (OIT) was briefly popular in Europe in the Romantic age as part of the Orientomanic fashion, but the AIT had many more political uses. By relating an ancient instance of white colonization in a dark subcontinent, it confirmed the colonial worldview.
The AIT specifically justified the presence of the British among their "Aryan cousins" in India, being merely the second wave of Aryan settlement there. It supported the British view of India as merely a geographical region without historical unity, a legitimate prey for any invader capable of imposing himself. It provided the master illustration to the rising racialist worldview:
(1) the dynamic whites entered the land of the indolent dark natives;
(2) being superior, the whites established their dominance and imparted their language to the natives;
(3) being race-conscious, they established the caste system to preserve their racial separateness;
(4) but being insufficiently fanatical about their race purity, some miscegenation with the natives took place anyway, making the Indian Aryans darker than their European cousins and correspondingly less intelligent and less dynamic;
(5) hence, for their own benefit they were susceptible to an uplifting intervention by a new wave of purer Aryan colonizers.
The AIT was consequently a must in all Nazi textbooks on race (e.g. Günther 1932, 1934). In this controversy, the AIT camp happens to be Hitler's camp. I would like to caution those who expect to trump the indigenist argument by insinuating political motives: you have no chance of winning that game, for no ugly name, not even "Hindu chauvinism", can trump "Hitler" in branding an opponent with guilt by association and blowing him out of the arena.
Contemporary Euro-nationalists uphold the pro-invasionist tradition, e.g. Meerbosch 1992, Van den Haute 1993. Certain rightist circles, vaguely known on the Continent as the Nouvelle Droite, devote particular attention to the Indo-European heritage, invariably claiming a European homeland, e.g. Schuon 1979; de Benoist 1997, 2000; Benoît 2001:13; or Venner 2002:63. This trend has enlisted the contributions of eminent scholars, and their political views need not detract from the validity of their argumentation, but the political dimension is undeniably and explicitly present, e.g. AIT supporters Varenne (1967:25) and Haudry (1985, 1987, 1997, 2000) are, or were members of the Scientific Committee of the French nationalist party Front National. Conversely, the French Left has tried to delegitimize any research into the "tainted" topic of Indo-European ("Aryan"!) culture and origins, leading to the closure of the Institut d'Etudes Indo-Européennes in Lyons. Likewise in the US, the Journal for Indo-European Studies has been under attack for alleged rightist connections.
Indian political uses of the Aryan invasion theory
Western AIT proponents, right-wing or otherwise, may not realize very well who their allies in India are, and vice versa. The Indian uses of the AIT predate any political use (or even the mere articulation) of the OIT. On this topic, the Western scholars who so unhesitatingly parrot denunciations of the Indian indigenists by Indian invasionists, are simply babes in the wood. For their information, a brief overview of the several AIT-exploiting movements is given here:
(1) Dravidian Separatism. Sponsored by the British colonial government, a movement of the middle castes in the southern Tamil region started attacking Brahmin and North-Indian interests and symbols, taking the shape of a political party, the Justice Party (later Dravida Kazhagam) in 1916. Given the Brahmin leadership in the independence movement, Dravidian self-assertion had obvious uses for the colonial status-quo. To beef up Dravidian pride, a claim was made that the whole of Indian culture, or at least all the good things in it (including, from ca. 1925 onwards, the Harappan cities), belonged to the aboriginal Dravidians, while the Aryans had mostly brought destruction and reactionary social mores. After independence, the movement opted for a separate Dravidian state, a demand which never caught on outside Tamil Nadu and was abandoned even there after the Chinese invasion of 1962. In the next years the movement got integrated into the political system and after a split the two successor parties have been alternating with each other in power at the state level ever since, but with an ever-decreasing fervour for Dravidian separateness. The movement's greatest success was when, in 1965, it joined hands with the English-speaking elite in Delhi to thwart the Constitutional provision that from that year onwards, Hindi rather than English be the sole link language of India, -- surely a fitting thanksgiving for the British patronage which had groomed the movement into political viability.
(2) Dalit neo-Ambedkarism. Dalit, "broken" or "oppressed", is a term applied to the former Untouchable castes, sparingly by the late-19th-century reform movement Arya Samaj, and more officially by mid-20th-century Dalit leader Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar and by his followers ever since. Today, the term has eclipsed the Gandhian euphemism Harijan. Ambedkar himself (1917:21) rejected both the AIT and its caste-racialist implication that lower castes sprang from the native race while upper castes were the invaders' progeny. Yet, his followers (e.g. Theertha 1941, Rajshekar 1987, Biswas 1995), along with his 19th-century precursor, the Christian-educated Jyotirao Phule, took the more conformist road of adapting the AIT and staking their political claims in the name of being "aboriginals" deprived of their land, culture and social status by the "Aryan invaders". Among these neo-Ambedkarites, who claim Ambedkar's mantle but have turned against him on many points (e.g. favouring conversion to Christianity or Islam, which Ambedkar energetically rejected in favour of native religions, esp. Buddhism), strange international alliances abound, e.g. with Islamic militancy, Evangelical fundamentalism and cranky American Afrocentrism. Many of V.T. Rajshekar's brochures are transcripts of lectures at Christian institutions, and one wonders if the latter are aware of the more eccentric parts of his work, e.g. he is the only Indian to merit a mention in an authoritative study (Poliakov 1994) of contemporary anti-Semitism. His anti-Brahminism is also moulded after the anti-Semitic model, e.g. just like both capitalist plutocracy and Bolshevism have been blamed on the Jews, Rajshekar (1993) treats both religious Brahminism and Brahmin-led Indian Marxism as two hands of a single Brahmin conspiracy. Note that his anti-Brahmin plea opens with a profession of belief in the AIT: "The fair-skinned foreigners, the Aryan barbarians, who strayed into India, came into clash with India's dark-skinned indigenous population - the Untouchables" (1993:1). This kind of company ought to worry those who rely on the principle of "guilt by association" in their argument against the AIT skeptics.
(3) Tribal separatism. Whereas the first tribal revolts of the colonial age (Santal Hool, Birsa rebellion) had a distinctly anti-British and anti-missionary thrust, administrators and missionaries tried to redirect tribal frustration and aspiration in an anti-Hindu and anti-Indian sense. This caught on quite well among the more peripheral, least "aryanized" tribes, particularly in the Northeast. The claim of being primeval Indians displaced from the fertile plains by the Aryan invaders was a logical rallying-point for their new self-consciousness. To a very large extent, this "pre-Aryan" identity was a total novelty tutored by the Christian missions, who made the tribals their privileged focus of activity and rechristened them as "aboriginals" (âdivâsî), a pseudo-indigenous term falsely suggesting that non-tribals had all along been seen as foreign intruders. Given the frequency with which journalists and even scholars swallow the invasionist implication of the term âdivâsî, this coinage deserves a gold medal as a brilliantly successful one-word disinformation campaign. Some of the Northeastern tribes have been converted to Christianity in toto and refuse to give "Indian" as their nationality during the census, preferring their tribal identities as "Naga" or "Mizo" instead, thus confirming Hindu nationalist suspicions against Christianity. Ironically, it is these Northeastern tribes who have the least right to be called "aboriginal", as their immigration from the East in the medieval period, much later than any Aryan invasion, is well-documented. Even the older Munda-speaking tribes are widely assumed to originate in Southeast Asia, still the centre of gravity of their Austro-Asiatic language family; while the Dravidians have variously been traced to Central Asia, Elam and even Africa. If the Aryans must perforce pass as invaders, they are not the only ones.
(4) Christian mission. The single biggest promoter of the AIT as the bedrock of new political group identities has undeniably been the Christian mission, incidentally also the biggest operator of elite educational institutions in India and a major media owner, hence a powerful moulder of public opinion. Christian missionary authors in the 19th century such as Sir Monier Monier-Williams, Friedrich Max Müller, Bishop Robert Caldwell and Rev. G.U. Pope laid the intellectual groundwork for Dravidian, Tribal and Dalit political movements and for a new fragmented self-perception of Hinduism. Quite deliberately, Hindu self-esteem was undermined by breaking the Hindu pantheon into a set of native gods like Shiva and a set of Aryan-invader gods like Indra; by redefining reform movements like Buddhism and Bhakti as "revolts of the natives against Aryan-Brahminical impositions"; and by reinterpreting the Dharma-Shâstras as nothing but an elaborate apartheid legislation for preserving the race and dominance of the Aryan invader castes.
(5) Indian Islam. In recent years, militant Muslims such as Muslim India monthly's editor Syed Shahabuddin have tried to integrate the AIT in their anti-Hindu polemics. The thrust of their argument is that if Hindus see Muslims as foreigners, they should be told that they themselves, at least the Aryan elite among them, once were foreign intruders. And that not Muslims but Aryan Hindus were the trail-blazers of destructive invasions pillaging and destroying native centres of civilization. Further, building on the erroneous but by now widespread belief that most Indian Muslims were low-caste Hindus who sought equality by converting to Islam, it is argued that they are largely part of the native stock, hence more Indian than Hindu nationalists, who are (equally erroneously) identified as upper-caste and hence as Aryan invaders.
(6) Indo-Anglian snobbery. English education and more recently the westernization of the workplace, of popular music and other everyday circumstances have generated a class of Indians quite alienated from and ignorant of native culture. More than the English-employed Babus of yore, they delight in mocking and belittling native culture. In their hands, the AIT is simply an instrument to tease Indian "chauvinists" and deconstruct the very notion of a distinct Indian or Hindu civilization. With the decline of ideology and the rise of the commercial outlook in the media, this supercilious and nihilistic attitude is now a rising force in the opinion landscape, but it has always been around in non-Marxist sections of independent India's anglicised elite.
(7) Indian Marxism. Among the English-educated elite, a class of Marxist intellectuals has been very active and increasingly influential since the 1930s. Around the time of independence, they emphasized the Leninist theory of national self-determination, favouring the creation of a Muslim state Pakistan and the further partition of India into separate linguistic states. Though not actively militating for separatism later on, they kept on promoting notions like "Bengali nationhood" and refused to accept the Indian state, for "India was never the solution", according to Marxwadi Communist Party politburo member Ashok Mitra (1993). In that discourse, the AIT didn't figure very prominently at first because as Marxists they focused on present social realities rather than the distant "feudal" past. Well into the 1980s, as long as they thought in terms of socio-economic class, they refused to cultivate casteist and ethnic identities and consequently took only a limited interest in AIT-based identity politics. But with the decline of world Communism, the Indian comrades increasingly compromised with identitarian populism, in some states even with Islamic fundamentalism, in fact with any force deemed hostile to the perceived ruling class, characterized as upper-caste Hindu. In the 1990s, when the AIT was getting challenged, they became its most ardent and most effective defenders, vide e.g. Thapar 1996; Sharma 1995, 1999. While the other above-mentioned anti-Hindu or anti-Indian groups merely assume and use the AIT, the Indian Marxists have seriously invested in intellectually upholding it.
The common denominator in all these uses of the AIT is that it undermines or contradicts India's sense of unity. In Hindu nationalist parlance, the AIT is "anti-national". The reason why the votaries of Hindutva have recently rallied around the position of AIT skepticism is simply to counter these anti-national uses of the AIT.
Ideological power equation in India
To grasp the political dimension of the Aryan invasion debate, it is necessary to clarify the political power equation in the dominant media and academic institutions in India. As former Times of India editor Girilal Jain (sacked in 1989 for developing Hindutva sympathies) used to say: "Nothing ever dies in India." Movements long dead in the West are still alive and vigorous in India. That is why the last Communist will not be called Popov or Zhang or Kim, but Chatterji or Bose. Numerically, the Communists' power base in India was always small, but in a few key sectors, including the bottlenecks in the information flow to the West, their presence was overwhelming and remains disproportionate even now.
Around 1970, entryist policies (Communists entering Congress, the ministerial offices and the cultural institutions) and a very gainful quid pro quo with a besieged Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made Marxism the dominant ideology in the Indian state and parastatal institutions such as the Indian History Congress and the National Centre for Educational Research and Training. While ruling parties came and went, the entrenched Marxists defended their position and reserved access for their own kind. The first BJP government at the centre (1998-99) made no dent in the Marxist academic hegemony, and the second one (1999-present) only very partially. Even then, the Marxists didn't take kindly to this first fresh breeze of glasnost, hence their campaign against new anti-colonial and allegedly "saffron" accents in the textbooks.
The Marxists don't like to be caught in the searchlight. One of the most respected Marxist scholars, Romila Thapar, chides her critics thus: "Those that question their theories are dismissed as Marxists!" (1996:17) Well, apart from her reliance on a Marxist conceptual framework in her publications, she is also confirmed to be a representative of the Indian Marxist school of historiography in an authoritative Marxist source, the Dictionary of Marxist Thought (Bottomore 1988), under its entry "Hinduism", along with R.S. Sharma. For those still in doubt, Irfan Habib, one of the deans of the Marxist school, has put his cards on the table in a book subtitled "Towards a Marxist Perception" (1995). Among the print media, the one most active in the anti-indigenist crusade is the Chennai-based fortnightly Frontline, a consistent defender of the Cuban and North-Korean regimes and of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. After the mock referendum in Iraq in the autumn of 2002, Frontline displayed its nostalgia for Soviet mock elections by treating Saddam Hussein's 100% approval rate as a genuine democratic endorsement. Judging from its record, we may take the Frontline initiative to prominently feature pro-AIT contributions by Asko Parpola and Michael Witzel, participants in the present JIES debate, to be motivated by something else than a concern for good scholarship.
To be sure, the Marxist motives of the Frontline editors and of the old history establishment have no logical implications for the correctness or otherwise of the pro-invasionist argument. Of course not. But then it is not invasion sceptic Prof. Kazanas who tried to twist this debate to his advantage by raising the issue of political motives; that was the doing of some of his critics. If they don't feel troubled by their de facto alliance with crackpots like V.T. Rajshekar or with the Marxist school and its record of history distortion, they have no reason to mobilize (false!) rumours of Hindu nationalist connections against Prof. Kazanas.
Hindu nationalist approaches to the Aryan invasion hypothesis
For all their focusing on the all-purpose bogey of Hindu nationalism (or worse isms), it is remarkable that Indian Marxists and their Western disciples have completely failed to study this ideology. During my Ph.D. research on this very topic (vide Elst 2001/1), I found that practically all secondary publications in the field, including some influential ones (e.g. Pandey 1993, McKean 1996, more recently Hansen 1999), dispensed almost completely with the reading of primary sources. Typically, a few embarrassing quotations, selected by Indian critics of Hindutva from some old pamphlets (mostly Golwalkar 1939), are repeated endlessly and in unabashedly polemical fashion.
A shameful example of the total reliance of Western scholars on outright partisan secondary Indian sources while passing judgment on a Hindu nationalist position was the Ayodhya temple/mosque dispute, as I discussed in detail in Elst 2002. Until the late 1980s, there was a complete consensus among all Hindu, Muslim and Western sources about the fact that the mosque had been built in forcible replacement of a temple, a very common occurrence throughout Muslim-conquered territories. This consensus, nowadays mischaracterized as the Hindu nationalist position, was since confirmed by new findings and remained strictly unchallenged by any counter-findings. Note indeed that all the official and unofficial argumentations against the temple limited themselves to downplaying the impact of some of the evidence for the temple, and never offered even one piece of positive testimony for an alternative scenario. Yet, the dominant Marxist circles decreed that there had never been a temple at the site (e.g. Sharma et al. 1991) and lambasted Western scholars who had earlier confirmed the consensus as handmaidens of Hindu fundamentalism (Gopal 1991:30),-- enough to send these scholars into prudent retirement from the Ayodhya debate, vide Van der Veer 1994:161. Lately the Marxists have had to swallow that maximalist position and revert to the more reasonable political position that temple demolitions of the past do not justify mosque demolitions in the present; but for more than a decade, their leaden dogma has stifled the history debate, viz. that the temple demolition was merely a "Hindu chauvinist fabrication".
Those who stuck to the old consensus view, the one confirmed by the evidence, have had tons of mud thrown at them not just by Indian Marxists but by their Western dupes as well, e.g. Hansen 1999:262. Not one of the latter ever took issue with the actual evidence, behaving instead as obedient soldiers carrying out and amplifying the Indian Marxist ukase. At the time of this writing, Indian archaeologists are digging up more Hindu religious artefacts from underneath the temple/mosque site (Mishra 2003), yet the Financial Times (Dalrymple 2003) carries a long article extolling Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib, ridiculing the consensus view on Ayodhya along with the non-invasionist "myth", denouncing Ayodhya consensus representative K.S. Lal (conveniently dead and unable to defend himself), and bluffing about "all the evidence" disproving the Ayodhya temple's existence but not actually mentioning any of it.
The same pattern, though less extreme, is in evidence concerning the specific involvement of declared Hindu nationalists in the Aryan invasion debate. Their positions are systematically ignored or misrepresented, and false motives are attributed to them according to the accuser's convenience. A brazen-faced example is Thapar 1996:8, about the Vedic revivalist movement Arya Samaj, a social-reformist society founded in 1875 whose spokesmen incidentally also rejected the AIT: "The Arya Samaj was described by its followers as 'the society of the Aryan race'. The Aryas were the upper castes and the untouchables were excluded." In reality, the Arya Samaj made its mark in Indian history by working, often at great personal sacrifice, to undo the exclusion of the untouchables; and by redefining "Arya" as "Vedic", away from both its old Indian casteist and its new Western racist interpretation. As for the expression "society of the Aryan race", while I am unaware of its application to the Arya Samaj specifically, it is true that around the turn of the 20th century, the expression "Aryan race" was fairly commonly used by Indian nationalists in the sense of "Indian nation", neither more nor less.
Romila Thapar's use of "Aryan" cited above, by contrast, is a transparent attempt to play on its post-Nazi connotations, as if its meaning hadn't radically changed at some dramatic point between 1875 and 1996 (this exploitation of the confusion and hysteria about the term "Aryan" is standard fare in Indian anti-indigenist polemic, e.g. Sikand 1993). And yet, Romila Thapar remains the most celebrated Indian historian among Western India-watchers, a status recently confirmed by her honorary doctorate at the Sorbonne. In the laudatio, the authorities of France's most prestigious university repeated the well-known Indian Marxist rhetoric against "saffronization", with the unusual extra of specifically denouncing the French pro-Indian journalist François Gautier, a well-known critic of the AIT (1996). Nobody took the trouble to verify the criticisms raised against the scholarly performance of the honorary doctor.
If we want to know about Hindu nationalist involvement in the Aryan invasion debate, the Indian Marxist school and its Western spokesmen cannot help us. The one extant critical review of the various Hindu nationalist positions regarding the Aryan problem was written by Shrikant Talageri, ironically but significantly a declared Hindu nationalist himself. The following much briefer review is indebted to his input.
(1) Acceptance of the AIT
A number of Hindu nationalists have accepted the AIT. Most prominent among them is Hindu nationalist seed ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. In his influential booklet Hindutva ("Hinduness"), he wrote of how migrations had "welded Aryans and non-Aryans into a common race" (1923:8) and how "not even the aborigines of the Andamans are without some sprinkling of the so-called Aryan blood in their veins and vice-versa" (1923:56). This way, he rejected the divisive implication of the AIT that India was composed of several distinct nations, arguing instead that they had biologically mingled and culturally fused into a single Hindu nation. Like his leftist opponent Jawaharlal Nehru, he accepted that the nation was a product of historical processes, not an age-old God-given essence. There is no organic link between Savarkar's positions on nationalism and ancient history: as a non-specialist, he merely accepted the dominant paradigm and tried to accommodate it into his political views. But note at any rate, all you who identify OIT with Hindutva, that the founder of the Hindutva ideology was an AIT believer.
Sharply to be distinguished from Hindu nationalists, who are modernists and social reformers for the sake of national unity, there is also a dwindling school of Hindu traditionalists. Among them, you find pandits who are steeped in Sanskritic lore and have never even heard of an Aryan invasion, which is after all unattested in Vedic literature. The one traditionalist who must be mentioned here as accepting the AIT was a Western "honorary Hindu", the French musicologist Alain Daniélou (1971, 1975), companion of the traditionalist leader Swami Karpatri. Here again, there is no organic link between his Hindu-traditionalist view of society and his historical beliefs, which were borrowed wholesale from the dominant Western school of thought.
The most well-known Hindu nationalist to actively support the AIT and explore its implications was Bal Gangadhar Tilak, an Indian National Congress leader in the early 20th century. His chronology, worked out in dialogue with Hermann Jacobi (and still upheld by archaeo-astronomers, e.g. Kak 2003), was sharply incompatible with the currently dominant theory: he put the Rg-Veda ca. 4000 BC rather than 1500 BC (Tilak 1893, 1903). If the Vedas were that old, the invasion would have to be pushed back accordingly, as the Vedic geographical setting is obviously South-Asian; but Tilak solved this problem by having the Vedic seers compose their hymns far outside India, in an Indo-European homeland situated in the Arctic region. Except for a handful of European rightist non-scholars, nobody takes this eccentric scenario seriously anymore, not even the Tilak loyalists in Maharashtrian Brahmin circles which happen to be the cradle of both the Savarkarite and RSS-BJP strands within the Hindu nationalist movement. All the same, Tilak's acceptance of a version of the AIT again disproves the identification of the OIT with Hindu nationalism.
(2) Rejection of the AIT
Few among the Hindu nationalists have really studied the relevant evidence. Some even reject the whole notion of historical evidence as pertinent to this question. From Jaimini's Mimânsâ-Sûtra (BCE) down to Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayananda's Satyârtha Prakash (ca. AD 1875), a school of Vedic scholars has believed that the Vedas were not a human creation, but were created by the Gods aeons ago and then revealed in complete form to the Vedic seers. Oddly, for people who held the Vedas in such awe, their theory flies in the face of the Vedic testimony itself: unlike the Quran, the Vedas never take the form of a statement by God addressing man. Instead, they take the form of hymns in which man is addressing the Gods. The names of the seers composing the hymns are also given, and they are put in a historical context, often with their mutual relations, genealogical kinship and faction feuds detailed in the texts themselves. Moreover, a number of presumably historical events are described or alluded to, most famously the Battle of the Ten Kings. All this points to the historicity of the Vedas: they came about as a creation of human poetry in a specific society at a specific phase in its development. But Vedic enthusiasts like Dayananda and to a lesser extent Sri Aurobindo Ghose chose to disregard this information and reinterpreted all these mundane data as spiritual metaphor. Though they also happened to reject the invasion hypothesis, they excluded the Vedic information as possible source of evidence for their own indigenist position. Aurobindo's correct observation (1971:242-251) that the Vedas contain no mention of an Aryan invasion, thereby loses its force.
After Aurobindo's death, his otherwise loyal secretary K.D. Sethna (1982, 1992) abandoned this position and started using Vedic data on material culture to argue the chronological precedence of Rg-Vedic over high Harappan culture, e.g. that the Harappan cultivation of cotton goes unmentioned in the older Vedic layers so that its early-Harappan introduction must coincide with some mid-Vedic date. More perhaps than the archaeologists' acknowledged inability to discover any remains of an Aryan invasion (Shaffer 1984, Rao 1991, Lal 1987, 2002, etc.), Sethna's theses truly were the opening shot in the Hindu nationalist mobilization against the AIT. Within the Aurobindo circle, this work was continued by Danino & Nahar 2000.
Since Sethna's publications, many Hindu authors of divergent levels of qualification have felt emboldened to contribute to the anti-invasionist argument. Some of them lose themselves in projects they are not up to, such as the decipherment of the Indus script, but in matters of textual interpretation and of matching archaeological and genetic data with cultural history, they are often better equipped than their invasionist opponents. Those who care to read this literature, will notice how it belies its characterization by hostile commentators as "far-rightist" and the like. It actually taps into the discourse of anti-colonialism, anti-racism and anti-orientalism (e.g. Rajaram 1995, 2000), which most Westerners would spontaneously describe as leftist. A lone Indian Marxist (Singh 1995) has also contributed to the anti-invasionist argument, predictably focusing on material and economic data suggesting Harappan-Aryan continuity, and thus upholding the more usual Third World Marxist tradition of anti-colonialism as opposed to the Indian card-carrying Marxists' championing of the colonial view of history.
Conclusion
The political instrumentalization of theories about Indo-European origins has yielded coalitions of strange bedfellows. On the side of the hypothesis of an Aryan invasion of India, we find old colonial apologists and race theorists and their marginalized successors in the contemporary West along with a broad alliance of anti-Hindu forces in India, most articulate among them the Christian missionaries and the Marxists who have dominated India's intellectual sector for the past several decades. This dominant school of thought has also carried along some prominent early votaries of Hindu nationalism. On the side of the non-invasionist or Aryan-indigenist hypothesis, we find long-dead European Romantics and a few contemporary Western India lovers, along with an anti-colonialist school of thought in India, mainly consisting of contemporary Hindu nationalists. Obviously, among the subscribers to either view we also find scholars without any political axe to grind. And even in the writings of politically motivated authors, we do come across valid argumentations. Consequently, it is best to continue this research without getting sidetracked by the real or alleged or imagined political connotations of certain scholarly lines of argument.
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Golwalkar, M.S., 1939: We, Our Nationhood Defined, Bharat Publ., Nagpur.
Gopal, Sarvepalli, ed., 1991: Anatomy of a Confrontation. The Babri Masjid Ram Janmabhumi Issue, Penguin, Delhi.
Günther, Hans F.K., 1932: Die nordische Rasse bei den Indogermanen Asiens, (re-edited by Verlag Hohe Warte, Pähl 1982).
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Hansen, Thomas Blom, 1999: The Saffron Wave. Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Haudry, Jean, 1985: Les Indo-Européens, PUF, Paris.
--, 1987 : La Religion Cosmique des Indo-Européens, Arché, Milan.
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--, 2000: «Les Aryens sont-ils autochtones en Inde ? » (a reply to Koenraad Elst), Nouvelle Ecole 51, Paris, p.147-153.
Kak, Subhash, 2003: "Babylonian and Indian astronomy: early connections", www.arXiv:physics/0301078v1.
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McKean, Lisa, 1996: Divine Entreprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Meerbosch, Janus, 1992: Héritage Européen, L'Anneau, Brussels.
Mishra, Dina Nath, 2003: "Digging history", The Pioneer, Delhi, 23 March 2003.
Mitra, Ashok, 1993: "India was nooit de oplossing", interview in NRC Handelsblad, Rotterdam, 20 March 1993.
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(April 2003)
http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/aid/aryanpolitics.html
Muslims in India: Past and Present
Edited from book:
Hindu Chauvinism and Muslims in India
By Murtahin Billah Jasir Fazlie
1995
The Muslim community of India, with its major segment having indigenous Indian origin is more Indian then the descendants of Aryan invaders who had their origin somewhere in the Central Asia.
The Country and the People
India is the seventh largest country in the world, and the second largest in Asia. Before the advent of Muslims, the country was fragmented into small warring states and there was no concept of Indian nationalism. The Muslim rulers, especially the Mughals, unified the country and gave it a central administration. They called the country Hind and Hindustan, i.e. a country of the Hindus (non-Muslims). The name 'India', a distortion of Hind, was given to her by the British rulers. Before the establishment of Muslim rule, there was no history of India. People of particular locality recorded some events of certain rulers vaguely. The Muslims took special care to record historical events and appointed historians to do that job. The British administration reconstructed their accounts and gave the Hindus a history of the distinct past not without their self interest to play one community against the other.
In respect of population, India with about 900 million people, is second only to China. It is a country with people of multireligious, multilingual and multiethnic people. Because of the large variety of the ethnic origin of her people, the country is often called an ethnic museum. The racial groups include the adi vasis (original settlers), the Dravidans, the Aryans, the Semites and the Mongols.[1] There are 845 dialects and 225 distinct languages spoken in the country.[2] Hindi, the language of the cow-belt region of the north, is the official language of the country but there are several others which are recognized as state languages. Sanskrit, though a dead language not spoken by anybody, is also recognized by the Indian Constitution because it is the religious language of the Aryan Hindus.
The main religious communities of India are Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians. These groups are divided into two broad groups: Hindus and non-Hindus. Among the non-Hindu population, the Muslims are 11.19 percent, the Christians 2.16 percent, the Sikhs 1.67 percent and the Buddhists and the Jains 1.14 percent.[3] These non-Hindu communities together make 16.16 percent of the total population. The Muslims are the second largest religious community.
The Hindus are broadly divided into two groups, namely, high caste Hindus- descendants of the Aryan invaders, known as Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas- and low caste Hindus, the original inhabitants of India (Shudras, Dalits, Other Backward Castes and Tribesmen). Among the low caste Hindus, Dalits are 15.05 percent, Backward Castes (including Shudra) 43.70 percent and Tribesmen 7.51 percent. In fact, these groups who together make 66.26 percent of the total population are not Hindus. Only the high caste Hindus (those who are Aryans by race) are Hindus. M.K. Gandhi says, "Hindus (Aryan high caste Hindus) are not considered to be original inhabitants of India."[4] For this very reason, no member of the low caste Hindu is allowed to enter a Hindu temple, join the high caste Hindus in worshipping their gods or even mix with them in social life. The religious activities, rituals, way of social and economic life of the low caste Hindus are completely different from those of the caste Hindus and are permanently determined by the rules and codes prepared by the Brahmins in the name of religion.
Hindu is a Persian word[5] which was first used by the Muslims for all the non-Muslim inhabitants of India. "The Hindus never used it in any Sanskrit writing, that is those which were written before the Mohamedan[6] invasion."[7] Swamy Dharma Theertha says, "The Mohammadans called all the non-Muslim inhabitants, without any discrimination, by the common name 'Hindu', which practically meant non-Muslims and nothing more. This simple fact contributed to the unification of India more than any other single event, but also at the same time, condemned the dumb millions (low caste Hindus) of the country to perpetual subjection to their priestly exploiters. Indians became 'Hindus', their religion became 'Hinduism' and Brahmans their masters."[8]
India was under the rule of different nations from time to time. The Aryan invaders conquered the sub-continent in about 1500 B.C. and remained in power for about one thousand years. This foreign minority subjugated the indigenous peoples through the most barbaric and demoralizing practices. They compelled and conditioned these peoples to ready submission to the ethics and laws of the Hindu caste system and thus, in the name of Dharma (Religion), they made a permanent arrangement for denying the indigenous peoples human dignity. The first revolt against the Aryan tyranny and oppression came about in the form of Buddhism founded by Goutom Buddha. The Buddhist rule was established in 500 B.C. and continued up to 800 A.D. The Muslim rule was initiated by the conquest of Sind in 713 A.D. by Muhammad Ibn Qasim al-Thaqafi and ended in 1858 A.D. when the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah, was deposed by the British colonial power. The British rule came to an end in 1947 A.D., with the partition of the sub-continent which gave way to the emergence of two independent states, namely, India and Pakistan.
The Muslims
The Muslims of India, over 120 million, constitute about 12 percent of the total population and are the second largest religious community in the country. They are about 10 percent of the total Muslim population of the world and are nearly one third of the total Muslim minority population in the world.[9] India has the largest concentration of the Muslims outside the member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the second largest (after Indonesia) in the world.
The Muslim immigrants, mostly Arabs, Turks, Afghans and Mughals, made the sub-continent their own homeland. Scattered in different cities, towns and villages, they became indistinguishable from the original inhabitants of India. The Muslim scholars and religious leaders propagated Islam among the original inhabitants and a large number of them converted to Islam. The vast majority of the present-day Indian Muslims are the descendants of these converts. It is therefore not correct to say that Indian Muslims are not Indian but outsiders as it is wrong to say that they are all descendants of the converted Muslims. As far as the question of Indian origin is concerned, there is no difference between the descendants of the Aryan invaders (Brahmins, Kshatryas, Vaishyas) and the offsprings of the Muslim immigrants. In fact, the Muslim community of India, with its major segment having indigenous Indian origin, is more Indian than the descendants of the Aryan immigrants who had their origin somewhere in the Central Asia.
The Muslim Rule
The invasion of Sind by Muhammad Ibn Qasim al-Thaqafi in 713 A.D. was precipitated by the failure of Dahir, the ruler of Sind, to punish the pirates who had interfered with Muslim shipping near the coast of his province.[10] The Muslim kings and emperors who ruled over India for over one thousand years were not colonial rulers. Those who had gone there from other countries made the sub-continent their own home. They did not make any discrimination between religious communities but gave equal opportunity and ensured social justice to all irrespective of their religious affinity. In fact, the Muslim rulers-the Khaljis, the Lodis, the Syeds and the Mughals- kept the indigenous Muslims, who constituted the bulk of Indian Muslims, at a safe distance from the apparatus of power. In the words of Iqbal Ansari, "It is the greatest travesty of facts to call this period of dynastic rule of Persian and Turkish origin as Muslim rule. Islam did make its presence felt during this period on Indian social and cultural life. But Islam did not play a dominant role in statecraft. The conquest of India by Islam was again not on the agenda of the Muslim kings. Islam and its promotion was not even a major factor in state policies."[11] This is well-established by the fact that although Delhi remained the capital of Muslim rulers for 647 years (1211-1858 A.D.), the Muslims were a small minority there throughout the period. According to the 1971 census, the Muslims of Delhi constituted only 7.8 percent of the total population of the city.[12] The bulk of the indigenous converted Muslims- artisans, craftsmen, and tillers- did not enjoy any privilege under the system of Muslim rule. Rather high caste groups from among Hindus enjoyed greater privileges under the patronage of the Muslim monarchies. In many cases, the most important jobs like those of ministers and chiefs of army were given to non-Muslims, especially Hindus.
During Muslim rule, there was complete social peace and harmony all over the country. This is aptly proved by the fact that history fails to produce even a single instance of communal disturbance which took place during the period of Muslim rule. Communal disturbance is a phenomenon which came to be known in the sub-continent only during the British rule. This menace has emanated from the 'divide and rule' policy of the British colonial power.
The British Rule
The process of colonization of India by the British colonial power began in 1757 AD. with the downfall of Siraj-ud-Dowla, the ruler of Bengal. This was the outcome of a staged drama, known as the Battle of Plassey, where the main actors were the British East India Company, a group of Hindu aristocracy and their stooge, named, Mir Ja'far (commander-in-chief of the government army). The British emperor took up the reign of the sub-continent in 1858 AD. following the abortive revolution of 1857 led by the Muslims against the colonial forces. The new colonial power regarded the Muslims as a potential threat to their political power as it were the. Muslims from whom they had snatched the power. The Muslims, naturally, were hostile to the alien rule and showed their apathy to the new administration. The Hindus, on the other hand, welcomed the new masters, began flirting with them and reoriented themselves with the blessing and sympathy of the ruling class.
From the very beginning therefore the foreign rulers adopted a discriminatory policy, hostile towards the Muslims and sympathetic towards the Hindus. The privileges earlier enjoyed by the Muslims in terms of property rights, etc., were withdrawn, government jobs were denied to them and trade facilities were made restricted for them. They remained backward also in education as they did not like to accept the new education system to the detriment of the traditional one. All these factors combined together relegated them to a lower cadre in the new social order of the country. The pioneer role played by the Muslims in the struggles waged from time to time against the colonial rule made the government more and more anti-Muslim.
The Hindus, especially the Brahmins, readily cooperated with the new rulers and did not fail to seize any opportunity to upgrade their status in every sphere of life. It did not take much time for them to become dominant in various spheres of the society. The spread of education gradually made a new renaissance movement started in the Hindu community who had made a lot of progress in the areas of education, trade and commerce. When the Muslims realized that their noncooperation with the new administration was only adding to their miseries and backwardness, it was too late and they were much behind the conscious Hindu community.
As a part of their 'divide and rule' policy, the colonial power tried to instill communal feelings among the two major communities, Hindus and Muslims. As a result of this, it did not take much time for parochialism and anti-Muslim feelings to overtake the Hindu leaders. Gradually, they became so communal in their attitude and behavior that it became clear to the Muslim leadership that in a united independent India dominated by Hindu majority, the religion and culture of the Muslims would be in jeopardy and socially and economically they would be relegated to a level of second-class citizens. This feeling among the Muslims led to the demand for separate independent states for Muslims constituting the areas where they were in majority. However, a section of Muslim leaders were against the partition of the sub-continent, may be, keeping In view the fate of the Muslims who would remain within Indian territory. Among them was a towering figure like Moulana Abul Kalam Azad who was among the top-ranking leaders of the Congress Party. Another eminent Muslim scholar and freedomfighter, Moulana Husain Ahmad Madani, the then President of Jami'at Ulama Hind, was among them. They decided to throw the lots of the Muslims with the Hindus expecting that in course of time sanity and reason would prevail upon the latter. In apprehension of the far-reaching consequences of the partition of the sub-continent, Moulana Azad put forward his formula of federated India, but it was outrightly rejected by Jawaharlal Nehru (leader of the Indian Congress), although it was acceptable to Muhammad Au Jinnah (leader of the Muslim League).
The Partition
In the wake of the partition of the sub-continent in 1947, which led to the creation of Pakistan an India, hundreds of thousands of Indian Muslims lost their lives and property in the hands of Hindu hooligans. The educated Muslim middle classes migrated in large number to Pakistan. The migration of a major portion of the elite to Pakistan created a large vacuum in the leadership of the Indian Muslims. The vast majority of them who could not forsake their ancestral homes, became weak in the economic, political, social and cultural arenas. Moreover, the Hindu chauvinists made it a fashion not only to question their patriotism and loyalty to the state but also to dub them as agents of Pakistan. The Muslims were constantly under pressure to prove their patriotism, as if they were new settlers in India.
Having developed India for about a millennium side by side with other communities, now the Indian Muslims discovered in agony that they had been made strangers in their own country. In the medieval period, particularly the Mughal era, they forged a united India and made it the biggest world power of the time. They made significant contribution to enrich Indian culture and civilization. They initiated freedom movement, fought the British and made immense sacrifices until the freedom was achieved. Just having won the battle for long-cherished independence they, to their dismay, found themselves in a situation forcing them either to shed their cultural identity or leave the country. It is indeed difficult to conceive such a human tragedy!
Discriminatory Policy of the Government
Since the dawn of independence, the Government of India dominated by the Aryan Brahmins, adopted discriminatory measures against the Muslims. The Constitution of India, drafted by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, guarantees fundamental rights to all communities of India. Article 15(1) says, 'The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them." The records of the Central and State Governments during the last half a century of independence aptly prove that the constitutional provisions have been honoured more by their violation than by their observance. That the Hindu leaders were not sincere in giving fundamental rights to the non-Hindus was evident from the fact that no sooner had these and other rights been given than checks and obstacles were created through the Directive Principle added to the Constitution. The Directive Principle says that Government will strive for 'National Integration' and for which a common Civil Code will be adopted. This Civil Code meant only Hindu Code as it became evident from various acts of the Government. In other word, to the non-Hindu communities, the Common Civil Code meant only a measure for Hinduaisation of all the citizens of the country.
It is a well-known fact that the Indian Muslims are being systematically and increasingly marginalized in their own homeland. Soon after the independence, various states and territories were reorganized splitting the minority dominated areas in parts and absorbing them in different states with a view to reducing their influence and making it difficult for them to win in any election. In an effort to further reduce their political strength, the names of Muslims are sometime deleted from the electoral rolls. The names of 138,000 Muslim voters, for example, were deleted from the electoral rolls prepared in Hyderabad and Sekanderabad for the election of December, 1994[13] Deliberate and concerted efforts are being made to change the composition of population in areas where non Hindus, especially Muslims, are in majority. As a result of this policy, the Sikhs in the Punjab have been relegated from absolute to a simple majority status only with a slight margin (52 percent of the total population). In Jammu and Kashmir, the only state where Muslims are in majority, there has been a continuous fall in the Muslim population and simultaneous rise a the non-Muslim population. The percentage of Muslims in that state fell from 70 in 1951 to 62 in 1991.[14] If this trend continues for a few decades more, the Muslims of the State of Jammu and Kashmir may be reduced to a minority community.
India is a vocal advocate of secularism but nowhere else in the world secularism was so blatantly betrayed. It was expected that in an independent India, Hindu fanaticism will completely evaporate. Long before independence, Moulana Azad said, "I firmly hold that it (communal frenzy) will disappear when India assumes the responsibility of her own destiny."[15] In so-called secular India, Azad's hope was not only belied but Hindu fanaticism gained enormous strength and that also under the direct patronage of the government. The Congress party, which ruled India for over four decades, instead of making any effort to contain Hindu fundamentalism, did everything for its nourishment. Just after becoming the first President of independent India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad removed from the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President's House) all the Muslims who were working there. There are thousands of examples which show how secularism is being betrayed in India. Secularism was betrayed by the federal government by covertly becoming a party to the demolition of the Babari Masjid. Secularism was betrayed by the Bombay police by openly participating in the killing of thousands of Muslims in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babari Masjid. The jails of Bombay are still packed with scores of innocent Muslims rounded up in the wake of the blast (12 March, 1993) but not a single brute involved in the massacre of the Muslims was brought to book. Those who are held under the notorious Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) are 90 percent Muslims, although the Muslims constitute only over 12 percent of the total population of the country. The instances of how the Muslims have been made target of all kinds of discrimination and subject of perennial persecution are endless. These all have resulted in a process whereby the Indian Muslims are fast moving towards ruination culturally, educationally, economically, socially and politically.
Socio-Economic Conditions
The socio-economic conditions of the Muslim community of India present a dismal picture. The Muslims are deprived of due representation in public employment even at the lowest level. The Public Service Commission has fixed 200 marks for the viva test. The Muslim candidates who qualify the written tests lose badly in viva. In the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) caamination of 1993, for instance, only 20 out of 789 Muslim candidates were successful. This comes to only 2.5 percent of the total number of candidates who qualified in the examination.[16] In this way, the representation of the Muslims in various Ministries is approaching to zero. The number of Muslims in class I and II jobs in various Ministries of the Central Government was 677 as against a total of 39,375 on 31 March 1971.[17] This comes to only 1.7 percent, although the Muslims constitute 12 per cent of the population of the country. The representation of the Muslims in the Parliament showed a downward trend. While their representation in the Parliament was 9.26 percent (73 among a total of 788) in 1982 election, it came down to 6.20 per cent (49 among a total of 790) in 1991 election. Moreover, the number of states with zero Muslim representation increased from 10 in 1982 to 14 in 1991.[18]
Muslims are also denied equal opportunity in the private sector. Their representation is indeed very poor in the law and order machinery, whether state police, armed constabulary or central para-military and armed forces. Minority educational iutitutions, especially those run by the Muslims, are facing various types of constraints and impediments. Minority concentration areas are neglected by the government in respect of establishing educational institutions. As a result, the literacy level of the Muslim community is much below the average level of India (among men 18 percent against the country's average of 51 percent and among women less than 8 percent). The school enrolment level of the Muslim children is also very low. Because of the hurdles at the lower level of education, the share of Muslim students at higher and professional level is also much below the national level of India.
In 'secular' India, schools and other educational institutions are being systematically Hinduised. Hindu culture incorporating glorification of idol-worship and stories of Hindu mythological characters form part of the syllabus pursued at various schools. References to Hindu gods and goddesses abound in the text books. Books prescribed by the Education Boards contain lessons giving false stories of Muslim atrocities on Hindu women, kidnapping, forced conversion, etc. Children are taught to worship Hindu gods and idols. Recently, the BJP Government of Delhi has issued instructions to the schools to begin daily activity with collective singing of Vande Matram of Bankim Chaterjee. Singing this song is tantamount to worshipping the motherland, and therefore against the basic tenets of Islam.[19] In the name of promoting common culture, the government is pursuing a policy of instilling Hindu idolatry and paganism among the children irrespective of their religion. The Muslims are discouraged and sometime denied to observe their religious duty. The government has recently decided not to allow the Muslim soldiers an hour's absence for observing Friday prayer.[20]
The Muslims have established some educational institutions in an effort to keep their children away from idolatry and paganism. But a condition is imposed on these institutions that 50 percent of the total intake in them shall be permitted to be filled by candidates selected by the agencies of the State Government on the basis of a competitive examination. Urdu is the language of about 62 per cent of the Indian Muslims and has the richest Islamic literature among Indian languages in all fields of learning. As a part of their efforts to obliterate the cultural entity of the Muslims, both the Central Government and the Governments of the States seem to do whatever is possible to strangle this language and deny it all opportunities of existence and growth. It is virtually banished from all the schools run by the Government.
The decennial censuses or the national sample surveys do not generally address themselves to the living conditions of the Muslims. The socio-economic plight of the Indian Muslims therefore remain clouded in mystery. It is, however, never disputed that the Muslims are not better than the Dalits (Harijans) or the OBC (Other Backward Castes). As V.T. Rajshekar observes, the Muslims of India "are in many ways worse than Untouchables and in recent years they are facing dangers of mass annihilation."[21] The National Sample Survey Report of 1988,[22] presents some data about the socio-economic conditions of the Indian Muslims.
- 52.3 percent of Muslims live below poverty line with a monthly income of Indian Rupees 150 (US$ 5) or less.
- 50.5 percent are illiterate.
- Only 4 percent of Indians who receive education up to high school are Muslims.
- Only 1.6 percent of Indian college graduates are Muslims.
- Only 4.4 percent of Indians in government jobs are Muslims.
- Only 3.7 percent of Indians who receive financial assistance from the government for starting business are Muslims.
- Only 5 percent of Indians who receive loan from government-owned banks are Muslims.
- Only 2 percent of Indians who receive institutional loans from the government are Muslims.
Awqaf (endowment) properties worth millions of dollars, dedicated by the Muslim philanthropists for some specific purposes and objectives, are now given to the Waqf Boards which are constituted by the Governments of the States and the Central Government. The members of these boards are nominated on the basis of political consideration. A large portion of these properties is misused by the members and officials of the boards. Moreover, very significant portion of these properties is allowed to be misappropriated and occupied by the Hindus [23]
The Muslims are not only deprived of their legitimate rights in all spheres, whatever they could build up to sustain their lives is also destroyed and plundered during the riots which take place now and then as per the long-term plan of the Hindu communal organizations working for annihilation of the Muslim entity in India.
Communal Riots
Nowhere in the world other than India the life and property of a particular community (Muslims) is so insecure only because of its affinity with a particular religion (Islam). The Indian Muslims are persistently under persecution and harassment only because they are Muslims. Communal riot, which started in India after the establishment of the Rashtriya Swaywak Sangh (RSS) in 1926, has become a regular phenomenon in Indian society. According to the Home Ministry, Government of India, there were 13,356 serious anti-Muslim riots in 39 years between 1954 and 1992; that is almost one riot daily.[24] As J.B. D'Souza observes, "It is a matter of shame that in these 47 years [of independence] we have lost in communal riots many times the number of lives lost in the 150 years when the British ruled us and we accused them of a divide and rule policy." [25]
The incidents of communal disturbance flare up sometimes on flimsy grounds and mostly according as the communal forces of Hindu chauvinists wish to organize it in pursuance of their long-term plan deliberately chalked out for annihilation of the Muslims. Communal riot in India is a one-way traffic not only because of a 7:1 Hindu-Muslim ratio, but also because of the active participation of the forces of law and order (almost all non-Muslims) with their co-religionists in accomplishing their heinous act of butchering the innocent and unarmed Muslims and also in plundering their property. This is a unique phenomenon with the Government of India where security forces deployed officially to protect the victims of hooliganism actively cooperate with the hooligans in carrying on their odious aimes and that also very much with the full knowledge and logistic support of the government. It is doubtful if there exists any single example of such an organized hooliganism in the civilized world.
During the riots that took place in Meerut in 1987, UP's Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) exposed its brutality of killing the innocent Muslims in the ugliest form. They picked up the young Muslim boys from their houses, packed them in jeeps and buses, took them outside the city, gunned them down and threw the dead bodies into the nearby river. In Muradabad in 1980, the PAC opened fire on the Muslims who had assembled to celebrate Eid festival and perform their Eid Prayer collectively. During the riots that took place in Ahmadabad more people were burnt alive than died of stabbing. They were burnt not because they were caught in fire. The technique was to set fire to a group of houses belonging to the Muslims and as men, women and children rushed out, they were caught hold of, their hands and feet were tied, then they were thrown into the fere.[26] In these incidents, the leading role was played by the police
The recent major communal riot which resulted in the holocaust of thousands of Muslims took place in Bombay in January 1993 in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babari Masjid on 6 December, 1992. Here are some excerpts from the news papers:
"Bombay: Day after day after day, for nine days and nights beginning on January 6, mobs of Hindus rampaged through this city, killing and burning people only because they were Muslims. No Muslim was safe - not in the slums, not in high-rise apartments, not in the citys bustling offices - in an orgy of violence that left 600 people dead and 2,000 injured... Interviews have suggested, moreover, that the killing, arson and looting were far from random. In fact, they were organized by Hindu gangs, abetted by the Bombay police, and directed at Muslim families and businesses. The extent of police cooperation with the Hindu mobs appears to have spread through the entire police force, excluding only the most senior officers. Transcripts of conversations between the police control room and officers on the street... made available to the New York Times... show that the officers at police headquarters repeatedly told constables in the field to allow Muslim homes to burn and to prevent aid from reaching victims. Throughout the nine days of rioting...neither the Maharashtra authorities nor the central Government in New Delhi made any effort to stanch the flow of blood." (New York Times, Feb. 4, 1993)
"Tragedy has struck Surat (Muslim) women.., for them, it was hell let loose... While men were thrown into bonfires, torched alive or had burning tyres put around their necks, women were stripped of all their clothes and ordered to 'run till they can't. run'. As the naked women ran for their lives, with shivering and shuddering children clinging to them, the ancient game of tripping horses was played out... so that women would trip and fall down, becoming easy prey for the hoodlums. A 20-year old girl married recently.. was also gang-raped. Her husband was slaughtered in front of her. She is now struggling for life following an 'acid attack' on her body... Perhaps the plight of Jamila Banu, who is several months pregnant, is the most tragic of all. Having seen her husband and three children slaughtered in front of her own eyes and their bodies hurled into bonfire, she has lost her mental balance. She was amongst several women who were brought to the camp totally naked... she has not opened her eyes in the last five days." (The Times of India, 22 December, 1992)
In almost all the riots that has taken place in India, the police became a party in the orgy of murder, maiming, torturing, mutilating, raping, destruction, arson and plundering. At every riot, it is customary to surround the Muslim areas and pockets and take away licensed guns and even the appliances used in the kitchen from the Muslims but leave the Hindu areas free to move about. Mass arrest of Muslims follow every riot. Muslim leaders are not allowed to visit the place till the traces of atrocities are removed. Another peculiar policy of the government is that instead of taking the hooligans to book, the innocent youths belonging to the Muslim community are arrested and harassed in an effort to clean (?) the society from hooliganism and terrorism! In the Bhiwandi riot in 1970, for example, 17 Hindus and 59 Muslims were killed. But the police arrested only 21 Hindus and 901 Muslims.[27] For obvious reason, almost all the victims of communal disturbances are Muslims, although the media almost entirely controlled by the Brahminic communal elements present such incidents in a grossly distorted manner. As Iqbal Ansari observes, "The worst aspect of communal violence is that in most cases the victims are absolutely innocent people. They are subjected to violence and cruelty just because they happen to belong to a particular community, and because they are mostly weak and unprotected members of the community. It would be admitted that this is worse than bloodshed in wars between nations, where war objectives are defined and rules of the game are known. Whenever there are violations of the rules, voices are raised asking combatants to adhere to the rules. ...But as in a nuclear war, there are no victors or vanquished after the devastation of a communal carnage."[28]
Indian Muslims, deprived of their democratic rights and social justice, make their own efforts to improve their living conditions but they are often frustrated in these attempts by the brute forces of Hindu fanaticism, who always want to see that Muslims do not cross the barrier of economic and social backwardness. Government machinery, instead of assisting them in their attempts to attain economic progress, often puts snags on their way. The residential houses and commercial establishments built by the Muslims are demolished either by the communal forces or by the government machinery in the name of enforcing law. Obviously the purpose of all these is to retard their progress and development. A recent example of such a nefarious and cruel action was the demolition of 20 multi-storeyed commercial complexes in Miralam at the outskirts of Hyderabad. The buildings constructed by the local Muslims after attaining proper permission from the municipality were reduced to rubble using heavy duty bulldozers even without issuing any notice to their owners. The action was reportedly taken by the municipality on the instruction of the State Government in line with its policy of uprooting the new Muslim settlements in the area.[29]
Question of Survival
Hindu fundamentalism is increasingly widening its influence everywhere and has already established for itself a firm base in every sector of the Indian society including bureaucracy, media, educational institutions, and the like. The hate campaign unleashed by the fundamentalist forces is keeping the Muslims wholly preoccupied with defending their basic human rights and cultural identity, leaving little time for them to work for upliftment of their social status and improvement of their standard of living. Under these circumstances, their social and economic conditions are deteriorating day by day.
During eighties, Hindu chauvinism in the name of Hindutva assumed a dangerous proportion. This ominous development has posed a great threat to the Indian Muslims because so-called Hindutva movement is expressly and singularly directed against their interests, against their religion, against their culture and against their very existence as a distinct community. The demolition of their historic shrine (Babari Masjid) in 1992 did not blunt the edge of Hindu chauvinism. The avowed mission of Hindu chauvinists is to make India an abode for Hindus and only Hindus. All their programmes are geared to annihilate the Muslims, the significant non-Hindu community. They are very systematically working according to a long-term but subtle plan to wipe out every trace of Islam from the body of Indian society as the first step towards establishing what they call 'Hindu Rajya' or 'Ramrajya'.
References:
1. For details, see Khushwant Singh, India. An Introduction, Bombay, 1990, p.14.
2. Ibid.
3. The Economist, London, 8 June, 1991.
4. M.K. Gandhi, Hindu Dharma, Bombay, 1991, p. 33.
5. H.G. Rawlinson, Intercourse Between India and the Western World, Cambridge, 1926, fn. 1, p.20.
6. "There is no such thing as 'Mohamedanism', and no such thing as a 'Mohamedan'. The name is Islam and its followers are Muslims." See Ahmed Deedat, The Choice, Verulam, South Africa, 1993, p.175.
7. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. ed., James Hastings, vol. VI, Edinburgh, 1967, p. 699.
8. Swami Dharma Theertha, History of Hindu Imperialism, Madras, 1992, p. 115.
9. Ausaf Ahmad, Indian Muslims. Issues in Social & Economic Development, New Delhi, 1993, p. 1.
10. Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, vol. VII, Netherlands, 1991, p. 405.
11. Iqbal A. Ansari, The Muslim Situation in India, New Delhi, 1989, p.12.
12. Ausaf Ahmad, op. cit., p. 22.
13. Arab News, 15 November, 1994.
14. Muslim India, March, 1994.
15. Saudi Gazette, 3 November, 1994.
16. News from India, 25 July, 1994.
17. Indian Muslim Relief Committee, Victims of Indian Secularism London, 1981, p.61.
18. Ausaf Ahmad, op. cit., pp. 27-29.
19. A Muslim worships Allah and only Allah, his Creator and Sustainer. Worshipping anything else takes him beyond the limits set by Islam.
20. This decision has been issued in a letter of the Ministry of Defence bearing No. 85347 (R.G.-5(COV)C) dated 25 April, 1994. See Urdu Gazette, Jeddah, 15 June, 1994.
21. V.T, Rajshekar, Indian Muslim Problem, Bangalore, 1993, p.ii.
22. Amrit Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, 11 May, 1994 and Muslim India, January, 1994.
23. Indian Muslim Relief Committee, op. cit., p.80.
24. India Human Rights International, Muslims in India, U.S.A., November, 1993.
25. The Times of India, 8 April, 1994.
26. Patriot, 28 August, 1969.
27. The Times of India, 8 April, 1994.
28. Ansari, op. cit., p.187.
29. Saudi Gazette, 8 July, 1994.
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Persecution of Buddhists
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Many Buddhists have experienced persecution from non-Buddhists during the history of Buddhism. Persecution may refer to unwarranted arrest, imprisonment, beating, torture, or execution. It also may refer to the confiscation or destruction of property, or the incitement of hatred toward Buddhists.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Pre-modern Persecutions of Buddhism
[edit] Sassanids
In 224 CE Zoroastrianism was made the official religion of the Persia, and other religions were not tolerated, thus halting the spread of Buddhism westwards.[1] In the 3rd century the Sassanids overran the Bactrian region, overthrowing Kushan rule,[2] were persecuted[clarification needed] with many of their stupas fired.[1] Although strong supporters of Zoroastrianism, the Sassanids tolerated Buddhism and allowed the construction of more Buddhist monasteries. It was during their rule that the Lokottaravada followers erected the two colossal Buddha statues at Bamiyan.[2]
During the second half of the third century, when the Zoroastrian high priest Kirder dominated the religious policy of the state.[2] He ordered the destruction of several Buddhist monasteries in Afghanistan, since the amalgam of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism mainfested in the form of a "Buddha-Mazda" deity appeared to him as heresy.[2] Buddhism quickly recovered, however, after his death.[2]
[edit] Persecution under the Sunga Pusyamitra
Pusyamitra Sunga (reigned 185 to 151 BCE) assassinated the last Mauryan emperor Brhadrata in 185 BCE, and subsequently founded the Sunga dynasty. From the mid 3rd century BC, under Ashoka, Buddhist proselytization had begun to spread beyond the subcontinent. Buddhist texts such as the Ashokavadana and Divyavadana, written about four centuries after his reign, they contain accounts of the persecution of Buddhists during his reign. They ascribe to him the razing of stupas and viharas built by Ashoka, the placement of a bounty of 100 dinaras on the heads of Buddhist monks and describe him as one who wanted to undo the work of Ashoka.[3] However, some historians have rejected Pushyamitra' s persecution of Buddhists and the traditional accounts are often described as exaggerated. The Asokavadana legend has been likened to a Buddhist version of Pusyamitra's attack of the Mauryas, reflecting the declining influence of Buddhism in the Sunga Imperial court. Later Sunga kings were seen as amenable to Buddhism and as having contributed to the building of the stupa at Bharhut.[4]. The decline of Buddhism in India did not set in until the Gupta dynasty.
[edit] Hepthalites
Central Asian and North Western Indian Buddhism weakened in the 6th century following the White Hun invasion who followed their own religions such as Tengri, Nestorian Christianity and Manichean.[2] Around 440 CE they conquered Sogdiana then conquered Gandhara and pushed on into the gangetic plains.[1][2] Their King Mihirkula who ruled from 515 CE suppressed Buddhism destroying monasteries as far as modern-day Allahabad before his son reversed the policy.[2]
[edit] Emperor Wuzong of Tang
Emperor Wuzong of Tang (814-846) indulged in indiscriminate religious persecution, solving a financial crisis by seizing the property of Buddhist monasteries. Buddhism had flourished into a major religious force in China during the Tang period, and its monasteries enjoyed tax-exempt status. Wuzong closed many Buddhist shrines, confiscated their property, and sent the monks and nuns home to lay life. Apart from economic reasons, Wuzong's motivation was also ideologica. As a zealous Taoist, he considered Buddhism a foreign religion that was harmful to Chinese society. He went after other foreign religions as well, all but eradicating Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism in China, and his persecution of the growing Nestorian Christian churches sent Chinese Christianity into a decline from which it never recovered.
[edit] King Langdarma of Tibet
Langdarma was a Tibetan King, who reigned from 838-841 CE. He is held to be have been anti-Buddhist and a follower of the Bön religion.
[edit] Oirat Mongols
The Oirats (Western Mongols) converted to Tibetan Buddhism around 1615. The Dzungars were a confederation of several Oirat tribes that emerged suddenly in the early 17th century. The Dzungar Khanate was the last great nomadic empire in Asia. In 18th century, the Dzungars were annihilated by Qianlong Emperor in several campaigns. About 80% of the Dzungar population, or around 500.000 to 800.000 people, were killed during or after the Manchu conquest in 1755-1757.[5]
The Kalmyk Khanate was founded in the 17th century with Tibetan Buddhism as its main religion, following the earlier migration of the Oirats from Dzungaria through Central Asia to the steppe around the mouth of the Volga River. During the course of the 18th century, they were absorbed by the Russian Empire, which was then expanding to the south and east. The Russian Orthodox church pressured many Kalmyks to adopt Orthodoxy. In the winter of 1770-1771, about 300,000 Kalmyks set out to return to China. Their goal was to retake control of Dzungaria from the Qing Dynasty of China.[6] Along the way many were attacked and killed by Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, their historical enemies based on inter-tribal competition for land, and many more died of starvation and disease. After several grueling months of travel, only one-third of the original group reached Dzungaria and had no choice but to surrender to the Qing upon arrival.[7]
[edit] Persecution by Militaristic Regimes
[edit] Imperial Japan
Buddhist monks were forced to return to the laity, Buddhist property confiscated, Buddhist institutions closed, and Buddhist schools reorganized under state control in the name of modernizing Japan during the early Meiji Period.[8] The state-control of Buddhism was part of Imperial Japanese policy both at home and abroad in Korea and other conquered territories.[9]
[edit] Persecution in Myanmar
The Government of Myanmar has attempted to control Buddhist institutions through coercive means, including the intimidation, torture, and murder of monks [10], After monks played an active role in the protest movements against the military dictatorship in 2007, the state cracked down on Buddhist monks and monasteries[11].
[edit] Persecution by Christians
[edit] South Korea
Some South Korean Buddhists have denounced what they view as discriminatory measures against them and their religion by the administration of President Lee Myung-bak, which they attribute to Lee being a Christian.[12] The Buddhist Jogye Order has accused the Lee government of discriminating against Buddhism and favoring Christianity by ignoring certain Buddhist temples but including Christian churches in certain public documents.[12] In 2006, according to the Asia Times, "Lee also sent a video prayer message to a Christian rally held in the southern city of Busan in which the worship leader prayed feverishly: 'Lord, let the Buddhist temples in this country crumble down!'"[13] Further, according to an article in Buddhist-Christian Studies: "Over the course of the last decade a fairly large number of Buddhist temples in South Korea have been destroyed or damaged by fire by misguided Christian fundamentalists. More recently, Buddhist statues have been identified as idols, and attacked and decapitated in the name of Jesus. Arrests are hard to effect, as the arsonists and vandals work by stealth of night."[14] A 2008 incident in which police investigated protesters who had been given sanctuary in the Jogye temple in Seoul and searched a car driven by Jigwan, executive chief of the Jogye order, led to protests by Buddhists who claimed police had treated Jigwan as a criminal.[12]
[edit] Sri Lanka
Under British rule, Christians were openly favoured for jobs and promotions.[15] Robert Inglis, a prominent 19th Century British Conservative, likened Buddhism to "idolatry" during a parliamentary debate over the relationship of "Buddhist priests" to the British colonial government, in 1852.[16] (Inglis was also an outspoken opponent of Jewish Emancipation).
[edit] Vietnam
Buddhists were discriminated against under the reign of President Ngô Đình Diệm.
Already in 1953, first rumors of discrimination against Buddhists surfaced in Vietnam. The allegations stated that Catholic Vietnamese armed by the French had been raiding villages. By 1961, the shelling of pagodas in Vietnam was being reported in Australian and American media[17]
After the Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem came to power in South Vietnam, backed by the United States, he favoured his relatives and correligionists over the Buddhists. Though Buddhists made up 80% of Vietnam's population, Catholics were favoured for high positions in the army and civil service. Half of the 123 members National Assembly were Catholic. Buddhists were also forced to procure special government permits to hold large meetings, a tactic used generally for trade unions.[18] In May 1963, the government forbade the flying of Buddhist flags on Vesak. After Buddhist protesters clashed with government troops, nine people were killed.[18] In protest, the Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to death in Saigon.[19].
[edit] Persecution in the Modern Era
[edit] Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge actively persecuted Buddhists during their reign from 1975 to 1979[20]. Buddhist institutions and temples were wantonly destroyed and Buddhist monks and teachers were killed in large numbers[21]. A third of the nations monasteries were destroyed along with numerous holy texts and items of high artistic quality. 25,000 Buddhist monks were massacred by the regime.[22] The persecution was undertaken because Pol Pot believed Buddhism to be "a decadent affectation". He sought to eliminate Buddhism's 1,500 year old mark on Cambodia.[22].
[edit] China
Since the Communist takeover, Buddhism was at times severely restricted and brought under state-control. During the cultural revolution, Buddhists were actively persecuted and sent for re-education, and temples, statues, and sutras were vandalized and destroyed. In recent years, Buddhism has been enjoying a revival but most Buddhist institutions are within the confines of the state.
[edit] Tibet
Although many temples and monastories have been rebuilt after the cultural revolution, Tibetan Buddhists have largely been confined by the Government of the People's Republic of China[23]. Buddhist monks and nuns have been reported tortured and killed by the Chinese military, according to human rights groups[24]. There were over 6,000 monasteries in Tibet, and nearly all were ransacked and destroyed by the Chinese communists, mainly during the Cultural Revolution.[25]
[edit] Mongolia
Buddhist monks were persecuted in Mongolia during communist rule up until democratization in 1990.[26] Khorloogiin Choibalsan complied with the orders of Joseph Stalin, destroying almost all of Mongolia's over 700 Buddhist monasteries and killing thousands of monks.[27]
[edit] North Korea
Religious practices are severely restricted in North Korea, as many religious denomination are persecuted by the communist regime. Nevertheless, Buddhists in North Korea reportedly fared better than other religious groups—particularly Christians. The only cult that is encouraged by the government is that of 'Dear Leader' Kim Jong-II and his late father Kim Il-Sung.
[edit] Soviet Union
Buddhism was persecuted and looked down upon by the Soviet authorities. Adherents were brutally attacked by the authorities[28] to "free" the masses to work in gulags[29]. During Stalin's rule, all the Kalmyk Buddhists were forcibly moved to Siberia and only allowed to return after his death[30].
[edit] Vietnam
Despite the communist regime's hostility, Buddhism is still widely practiced in Vietnam. According to Human Rights News, "Vietnam continues to systematically imprison and persecute independent Buddhists as well as followers of other religions." [31].
[edit] India
Various personages involved in the revival of Buddhism in India such as Anagarika Dharmapala and the The Mahabodhi Movement of 1890s as well as Dr. B. R. Ambedkar hold the Muslim Rule in India responsible for the decay of Buddhism in India[32][33][34][35][36]
In 1193, Qutb-ud-Din, a Turkish commander, seized control of Delhi, leaving defenseless the northeastern territories that were the heart of Buddhist India. The Mahabodhi Temple was almost completely destroyed by the invading muslim forces.[33] One of Qutb-ud-Din's generals, Ikhtiar Uddin Muhammad Bin Bakhtiyar Khilji, invaded Magadha and destroyed the great Buddhist shrines at Nalanda.[37] The Buddhism of Magadha suffered a tremendous decline under Khilji.[33]
In 1200 Muhammad Khilji, one of Qutb-ud-Din's generals destroyed monasteries fortified by the Sena armies, such as the one at Vikramshila. Many monuments of ancient Indian civilization were destroyed by the invading armies, including Buddhist sanctuaries[38] near Benares. Buddhist monks who escaped the massacre fled to Nepal, Tibet and South India.[39]
Timur destroyed Buddhist establishments and raided areas in which Buddhism had flourished.[40][41]
Mughal rule also contributed to the decline of Buddhism. They are reported to have destroyed many Hindu temples and Buddhist shrines alike or converted many sacred Hindu places into Muslim shrines and mosques.[42] Mughal rulers like Aurangzeb destroyed Buddhist temples and monasteries and replaced them with Islamic mosques.[43][verification needed]
The Ladakh Buddhist Association has said: "There is a deliberate and organised design to convert Kargil's Buddhists to Islam. In the last four years, about 50 girls and married women with children were taken and converted from village Wakha alone. If this continues unchecked, we fear that Buddhists will be wiped out from Kargil in the next two decades or so. Anyone objecting to such allurement and conversions is harassed."[44][45]
[edit] Thailand
Primarily Buddhist Thailand has been involved in a fight with Muslim insurgents in the South. Buddhists have been beheaded[46] and clergy and teachers are frequently threatened with their lives.[47] Shootings of Buddhists are quite frequent in the South,[48][49] as are bombings,[50] and attacking religious establishments.[51]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Ehsan Yar-Shater, The Cambridge History of Iran, Cambridge University, 1983, ISBN 0521246938 pg. 860-861
- ^ a b c d e f g h Alexander Berzin, Historical Sketch of Buddhism and Islam in Afghanistan and Buddhists, November 2001, Online Article from the Berzin Archives. Last accessed 3 January 2007
- ^ Ashok Kumar Anand, "Buddhism in India", 1996, Gyan Books, ISBN 8121205069, pg 91-93
- ^ Akira Hirakawa, Paul Groner, "A History of Indian Buddhism: From Sakyamuni to Early Mahayana", Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1996, ISBN 8120809556 pg 223
- ^ Michael Edmund Clarke, In the Eye of Power (doctoral thesis), Brisbane 2004, p37
- ^ The Kalmyk People: A Celebration of History and Culture
- ^ History of Kalmykia
- ^ James Edward Ketelaar, Of Heretics and Martyrs in Meiji Japan; ISBN 0691024812
- ^ Brian Victoria, Zen War Stories, ISBN 0700715819
- ^ Burma: A Land Where Buddhist Monks Are Disrobed and Detained in Dungeons
- ^ Burma's Buddhist monks take to the streets
- ^ a b c Rahn, Kim (July 30, 2008). "President Embarrassed Over Angry Buddhists". The Korea Times. Retrieved October 7, 2008.
- ^ http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JB01Dg01.html A 'God-given' president-elect
- ^ Harry L. Wells, Korean Temple Burnings and Vandalism: The Response of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Buddhist-Christian Studies, Vol. 20, 2000, pp. 239-240; http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/buddhist-christian_studies/v020/20.1wells.html
- ^ BuddhaNet.Net: Sacred Island - A Buddhist Pilgrim's Guide to Sri Lanka: Kelaniya
- ^ Hansard, 3rd Series, cxxiii, 713–714.
- ^ Errors Escalated Too NY Times Books - May 16, 1965.
- ^ a b The Religious Crisis (Page 1) TIME - Jun. 14, 1963
- ^ Vietnam at 25 - CNN
- ^ Chronology of Cambodian Events Since 1950 Cambodian Genocide Program - Yale University
- ^ Remembering the deaths of 1.7-million Cambodians St. Petersburg Times - May 3, 2000
- ^ a b Phnom Penh Journal; Lord Buddha Returns, With Artists His Soldiers New York Times - January 2, 1992
- ^ Human rights abuses up as Olympics approach Asia News - August 7, 2007
- ^ Area Tibetans mourn their nation's lost independence Star Tribune - March 10, 2001
- ^ Tibetan monks: A controlled life. BBC News. March 20, 2008.
- ^ Mongolia's monks make a comeback TVNZ - July 18, 2006
- ^ Mongolia: The Buddha and the Khan. Orient Magazine.
- ^ Buddhist revival tangles with politics Asia Times Online - August 26, 1999
- ^ The Red Mugwump TIME - June 9, 1961
- ^ Kalmykia dismayed that Dalai Lama is not coming Phayul - June 25, 2004
- ^ Vietnam: Religious Freedom Denied
- ^ A Close View of Encounter between British Burma and British Bengal
- ^ a b c The Maha-Bodhi By Maha Bodhi Society, Calcutta (page 205)
- ^ The Maha-Bodhi By Maha Bodhi Society, Calcutta (page 58)
- ^ The Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi: And Other Essays, Philosophical and Sociological By Ardeshir Ruttonji Wadia (page 483)
- ^ (B.R. Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol.3, p.229-230.)
- ^ The Maha-Bodhi By Maha Bodhi Society, Calcutta (page 8)
- ^ History > The early Muslim period > North India under Muslim hegemony, c. 1200–1526 > The Delhi sultanate > The Turkish conquest - Brittanica
- ^ Islam at War: A History By Mark W. Walton, George F. Nafziger, Laurent W. Mbanda (page 226)
- ^ Sir Aurel Stein: Archaeological Explorer By Jeannette Mirsky
- ^ Ethnicity & Family Therapy edited by Nydia Garcia-Preto, Joe Giordano, Monica McGoldrick
- ^ War at the Top of the World: The Struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet By Eric S. Margolis page 165
- ^ India By Sarina Singh
- ^ Tundup Tsering and Tsewang Nurboo, in: "Ladakh visited", Pioneer, 4/12/1995.
- ^ The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Jammu & Kashmir
- ^ Insurgents Behead Buddhist in Thailand Fox News - January 14, 2007
- ^ In Muslim Thailand, teachers face rising threat International Herald Tribune - July 4, 2005
- ^ South Thailand: 'They're getting fiercer' Asia Times - December 7, 2006
- ^ Boonthanom, Surapan (2007-03-19). "Three Buddhist women dead in south Thailand attack". Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSBKK34991. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
- ^ Two killed in south Thailand Al-Jazeera - November 20, 2006
- ^ "Three Buddhist Temples Attacked With Explosives (Thailand)". Reuters (Pluralism Project). 2004-05-16. http://www.pluralism.org/news/article.php?id=7046. Retrieved 2007-09-22.
[edit] Further reading
- Al-Biladhuri: Kitãb Futûh Al-Buldãn, translated into English by F.C. Murgotte, New York, 1924.
- Elliot and Dowson: The History of India as told by its own Historians, New Delhi reprint, 1990.
- Majumdar, R. C. (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People, Volume VI, The Delhi Sultanate, Bombay, 1960; Volume VII, The Mughal Empire, Bombay, 1973.
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