Quantcast
Channel: thinking through
Viewing all 287 articles
Browse latest View live

Here's a reminder of the 'undeclared Emergency' of the UPA-II era that elicited no 'Award Wapsi'

$
0
0
Published way back in September 2012, this interview with R. Jagannathan, the then editor of Firstpost, dates back to UPA-II era. 

It is a striking illustration of all the government intolerance, censorship, intimidation, even Emergency-like situation that was going on then -- not to mention massive corruption scandals like 2G and public outrage over them.

One is absolutely struck by the likeness that the issues raised by the interviewer, Madhu Trehan of News Laundry, bear to the issues that are being raised now in the Narendra Modi era in order to build the false narrative that Modi's rule has pushed India into an abyss of barbarism and totalitarianism.

Trehan talks about cartoonist Aseem Trivedi's arrest, Kapil Sibal's crackdown on social media, censorship (including of Jagannathan's article on Chidambaram), journalist Kanchan Gupta's having being summoned by a high-level government panel for answering questions on something he published, and such other issues and idiocies and ineptitude of the government led by Manmohan Singh.

Trehan even wonders if an Emergency like situation is upon us because of all the imperious and repressive measures taken by the UPA-II government.

So this interview brings before one's eyes the frightful scenario that prevailed in the year 2012 without a large section of the Media and 'Award Wapsi'/'Not in My Name' gang hollering that an undeclared Emergency was upon us as they have been doing ever since Narendra Modi has become the prime minister.

Watch the interview to understand what a massive fraud this section of the Media and 'Award Wapsi' gang have been perpetrating on the people!
-----

Following is the Web-link used in this post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89mSWWeo-A0&spfreload=10


Partition of India: The British and the BBC continue to be imperialist scoundrels they've always been

$
0
0
Compare this brief Partition documentary produced by BBC with a number of YouTube videos produced by amateurs like Sanwal Dhami, Desi Infotainer, IK Pind Punjab Da, Keshu Films Multani, Muhammad Sarfraz, and Muhammad Alamgir, and you will be convinced that this imperialist propaganda organisation has not even learnt the basics of sensitively reporting on a human society in 94 years of its absolutely shameful existence.This BBC clip is a beautiful example of how misleading imperialist propaganda can be produced in which people of the Indian Subcontinent are portrayed as emotive fools who are hopelessly divided among themselves on the basis of caste and creed.The sketchily, insensitively and selectively put together footage of the tearful response of a Muslim man returning to the house he was born in in India is contrasted with a British accented voice-over that is supposed to be "clinically observant, calm, rational and dispassionate". The viewers are supposed to feel the pathos arising out of BBC's reduction of Partition of India into a silly melodrama (with no sensible resolution) and be immensely thankful for the calm rationality that the British accented voice-over (and the consoling hug of British raised son of the Muslim man) provides to the emotional and disunited fools that people of the Indian Subcontinent are. Needless to say the British continue to be the colonial-imperialist butchers, spreaders of falsehood, sowers of discord, and shameless fraudsters.We need no less than an international tribunal to try the British imperialist criminals for the monstrous crimes against humanity that they have committed in the last three centuries. And BBC represents the very worst and the most mendacious of colonial-imperial propaganda broadcasters. I think there is a clear case for a social boycott of BBC across the former British colonies and for a demand that this shamelessly imperialist propaganda organisation be closed down.
------

The following are the Web links used in this post.

1. 'This is not my country' | My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947 - Episode 1 | BBC One

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw411sAHRSs

2. Sanwal Dhami's YouTube channel with videos featuring people of Indian Punjab who were witness to the Partition.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcn73C3_GG5S_NUrkWglC1Q

3. Desi Infotainer YouTube channel that has published a lot of Partition of India stories told by Pakistanis.

https://www.youtube.com/user/khayyamchohan

4. IK Pind Punjab Da channel on YouTube with videos that feature old Pakistanis who'd first-hand experience of the Partition of India.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpRY-UERK0vEiHG-vU3l4Yw

5. Keshu Films Multani's YouTube channel that has short documentaries featuring people and families who had to flee their homes in what became Pakistan in 1947 and to settle in the divided India, primarily Haryana.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcJSPI9grBwy11PHfaHxW7g

6. Muhammad Sarfraz's YouTube channel with videos featuring people in Pakistan who were witness to the Partition of India.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChSd3SOtbb-1IDoWPeHS5sQ

7. Muhammad Alamgir's YouTube channel featuring people who had migrated during Partition in 1947 from Haryana to what became Pakistan.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtzW8B-CxrmjgDqvbzEGR5w
----

One fine day your dearest 'Geeta' is no more; in her place is 'Fatima' you've never known

$
0
0
Media debates on 'Love Jihad', such as this one, elicit the following thoughts in my mind. I also recount here an experience of mine whereby one of my cousins eloped with a Muslim man.

Any realistic person of any community who has ever lived in the Indian subcontinent knows that the phenomenon whereby "people of a certain community" eye the women of the other communities is as real as Delhi's Jama Masjid and has existed for centuries of Islam's expansion in this part of the world.

It's not a recent phenomenon, but has existed since medieval times.

It's immaterial whether one calls it 'Love Jihad' or something else.

(In the 'Ghazwas' that Muhammad fought, women of the vanquished would be taken away as 'Maal-e-Ghaneema' and used as sex slaves with full Quranic backing. See, for instance, this Quranic injunction.)

Women of the other community is often targeted for abduction during inter-communal conflicts and riots, corroborating the existence of this phenomenon.

(In the Pothohar region of what is now Pakistan, alone, about 4000 Sikh and Hindu women were abducted by those who attacked these communities during Partition of India. See, for instance, this narration by Amrit Pal Singh of the violence visited upon Sikh and Hindu residents of Pothohar during Partition.)

So the "debate" whether this phenomenon exists or not is dishonest even if you introduce a few valid nuances into it (such as saying: 'Where is the evidence for planning and organisation behind the so called 'Love Jihad').

Also dishonest is the introduction of concerns for individual rights and liberties because Muslims have NEVER accepted the principle (and the legal codification) that "religion" (which itself is a fraudulent concept) is entirely a matter of personal choice.

(They cite this principle only after bamboozling a woman into conversion to Islam followed quickly by Nikah with a Muslim.)

So most marriages that take place between a non-Muslim woman and a Muslim man are those where the former is converted to Islam and then taken in Nikah by the latter.

(The number of civil marriages that take place through the Special Marriage Act is negligible; and even if a wedding is registered under that Act, there is little chance that the alliance will not very soon become an all Muslim one.)

So overnight Geetas, Poojas and Radhikas become Fatimas, Abidas and Humras.

(Parents not only lose overnight their lovingly brought up Geetas, they are also supposed to prepare for the arrival of little Muhammad Qasims or Taimur Alis for grandchildren!)

I have personal experience of this open fraud that 'Muslims' inflict on others.

We learnt one fine day in late 1997 that one of my closest and dearest cousins eloped with a Muslim man and married him.

She called her parents to inform them that she had become 'Ayesha' and had married this guy (who, it later transpired, had sexually exploited her over months prior to her conversion in a mosque followed by the Nikah).

Within days of committing this 'dacoity', the guy was already asking for the girl's share of the property. (So much for the 'love' marriage!)

As luck would have it, the girl was homesick enough to decide to come to meet her parents.

She was lovingly received midway in a car with the entire family in it (with a few changes of clothes and some other essentials), and taken to a safe destination.

Thus started the de-brainwashing that lasted for about two months.

She was difficult to control initially, but eventually saw reason and realised that she had cheaply given up some essential parts of her identity in doing what she did.

All this while, the guy had been making threatening calls to all the relatives (including one that I received) and followed up his threats with a Habeas Corpus petition in high court.

Fortunately, we got sufficient time for de-brainwashing during which we also accessed a copy of the Muslim marriage law, and learnt that reconversion will automatically annul the Nikah.

As soon as the young woman was stable enough, we got her reconverted in an Arya Samaj Mandir. (So technically at least, the Nikah had dissolved at that moment.)

Then came the admittedly nervous moment when my cousin had to be taken to the high court to appear before the judges (in camera) in the presence of the guy to say what she wanted.

Fortunately, two months of patient rehabilitation did not prove to be in vain. She told the judges that she had been exploited and bamboozled by the guy into a relationship she no longer wanted.

The Habeas Corpus petition was thrown out and the Nikah stood dissolved.

Her parents had won back their beloved 'Geeta' and had thwarted the terrible prospect of having a Mohammad Qasim or a Taimur Ali for grandchild.
----

The following Web links have been used in this post in the order of occurrence.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y-uACK4B8s

2. https://quran.com/33/50

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBF-VcokuAw&t=8s

'Quam' is a false concept that madly seeks to homogenize cultural diversity; it must be shunned

$
0
0
There is no such thing as "Sikh Quam". Anyone who believes in the so called "Sikh Quam" -- as the keshdhari discussant in this YouTube video (at 9:29 min) seems to do -- has to be a dangerously deluded person.

"Quam" is an artificially homogenizing and imperialist concept that militates against cultural diversity and syncretism. 

Some idiot Khalistanis, like the keshdhari discussant in the video in question, have slavishly borrowed this pernicious concept from Islamic propaganda and use it thoughtlessly without looking at the death and destruction that the fraudulent concept of a "Muslim Quam" has already caused in the Indian subcontinent -- once in 1947 and second time in 1971.

The cultural clash between Punjabi and Bengali Muslims of Pakistan, the atrocities that the Bengali Pakistanis suffered, and the civil war that culminated in the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 demonstrated the falsity of the claim that Muslims of the Indian subcontinent make up a "Quam".

If Sikhs are sensible -- which they certainly are -- they would resist falling into the trap of this fraudulent concept called "Quam".

As far as I understand it, Sikhi is a 'panth' and a 'gyan marg', and Sikhs come from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.

Seeking to straitjacket the synthesizing, edifying and liberal traditions of Sikhi into an unnaturally homogenizing and false concept like "Quam" will destroy whatever remains of those great traditions.
-----

The following Web link has been used in this post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iuCUIk1f2I



इस्लाम और मुस्लिम भाईचारे के नाम पर हिंसा और गुंडागर्दी को छुपाओ. यह है रवैया, अमूमन, बड़े मीडिया का.

$
0
0
न्यूज़ मैगज़ीन Lallantop के अनुसार जयपुर में 8 सितम्बर को शुरू हुए हिंसक फ़साद के बारे में फेसबुक पर कुछ भ्रामक और भड़काने वाली सामग्री दी गई है.

Lallantop के इस विडियोके अनुसार, दिनेश भाटी सियाणा नामक एक फेसबुक उपयोगकर्ता ने अपनी वाल पर फर्ज़ी सामग्री की मदद से 'हिन्दुओं'को 'मुसलामानों'के खिलाफ भड़काने का प्रयास किया है.

Lallantop की इस रिपोर्ट पर पेश हैं मेरे कुछ विचार.
----

मैं फेसबुक सब्सक्राइबर नहीं हूँ. दिनेश भाटी सियाणा ने यदि भ्रामक और भड़काऊ प्रचार किया है तो वह निंदनीय है. 

पर Lallantop और अन्य मुख्यधारा के मीडिया वालों का रवैया सियाणा से भी अधिक भ्रामक है क्योंकि वे इस्लाम और मुस्लिम भाईचारे के नाम पर किये जाने वाले दंगो और हिंसा को न तो इमानदारी से कवर कर रहे हैं और न ऐसी हिंसा की भयानक सच्चाई को उसके यथार्थ नामों और विशेषणों से पुकार रहे हैं.   

परिणाम यह हो रहा है कि यह भयानक सच्चाई न तो जनता तक पहुँच रही है और न उस पर तबसरा और समालोचना हो रही है. 

सूचना और समझ का अभाव एक बड़ी वजह है कि सियाणा जैसे सोशल मीडिया उपयोगकर्ताओं की पोस्ट को हज़ारों व्यूज़ मिल रहे हैं.

पश्चिम बंगाल में बसीरहत में जुलाई में सैकड़ों लोगों ने इस्लाम के नाम पर दंगा किया और हिंसा की. 

वहां मुसलमानों के हजूम ने पुलिस स्टेशन को घेर लिया था और एक नाबालिग़ लड़के -- जिस पर इस्लाम कि तौहीन का इलज़ाम था -- को जान से मारने की मांग कर रहे थे. 'हिन्दुओं'के घर और दुकानें जलाई गईं. एक 'हिन्दू'का क़त्ल भी किया गया.

अधिकतर मीडिया संस्थाओं ने इस इस्लामी उत्पात को या तो नज़रंदाज़ किया या दबे हुए, छुपाने वाले लहजे में बयान किया.

यदि आपने पिछले दिनों इंडियन एक्सप्रेस पढ़ा है तो आपको जयपुर में हुए दंगे पर भी 'इस्लाम'और 'मुस्लिम'भाईचारे की छाप साफ़ नज़र आयेगी.

(हालांकि इंडियन एक्सप्रेस ने भी कभी इस्लाम या मुस्लिम भाईचारे के नाम पर की गई हिंसा और गुंडागर्दी को ठीक से रेखांकित नहीं किया है.)

जयपुर में भी सैकड़ों लोगों की भीड़ ने पुलिस स्टेशन को घेरा. ख़बरों में एक रिक्शे वाले की मौत का उल्लेख है जिसे  देख कर लगता है इस के ज़िम्मेदार दंगाई थे.

आनंद रंगनाथन और कुछ अन्य पत्रकारों ने मुख्यधारा की मीडिया संथाओं के इस भ्रामक रवैये को तथ्यों और आकड़ों से उजागर करने का प्रयास किया है, और इसकी आलोचना भी की है. 

रंगनाथन के अनुसार क्षेत्रीय और हिंदी मीडिया ही है जो कुछ हद तक तथाकथित 'अल्पसंख्यकों'के आतंक और हिंसा को उजागर कर रहा है. बड़ा मीडिया ऐसी ख़बरों को देख कर भी अनदेखा कर रहा है और इस अनदेखी को अपनी 'असाम्प्रदायिकता'की दलील समझता है.  

नीचे मुसलामानों द्वारा किये गए उत्पात, दंगे और हिंसात्मक हरकतों की कुछ ख़बरें हैं जो क्षेत्रीय मीडिया ने तो छापीं पर राष्ट्रीय मीडिया ने नज़र-अंदाज़ कर दीं. 

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/907191821846974465

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/905072871684182016

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/905072131100205056 

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/905071434489249792

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/905070609880645632

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/905069443323011074

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/899637777968398336

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/899636415696297985

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/899635298920931328

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/899631972443607041

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/896706387287330816

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/895669971015028737

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/895668897638006788

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/895667442038341632

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/895665504479727616

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/892364666713784320

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/892363288746405888

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/891364438824992768

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/891362586360332288

https://twitter.com/ARanganathan72/status/890189283864203264
------


इस पोस्ट में आनंद रंगनाथन के tweets के अतिरिक्त निम्नलिखित वेब लिंक्स दिए गए हैं.

1. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/jaipur-clashes-one-dead-in-police-firing-curfew-imposed-in-ramganj-area-live-updates-4835187/

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmOoK0kCUIg

Using Urdu as a tool of Islamic imperialism and India's role as number one Islamist country in the world

$
0
0
BBC presenter Aliya Nazki mispronounces 'Brahmaputra' as 'Bhramaputra' at 10:02 min. in this BBC Urdu newscast called ‘Sairbeen’.

This woman had part of her education in Delhi and has lived elsewhere in India!!

The mispronunciation may be inadvertent, but it seems that the controllers of Urdu language in the Indian subcontinent not only continue their chauvinistic eschewal of Hindi teaching and learning (i.e. in Pakistan), but continue with the practice of colloquializing the pronunciation of almost all Sanskrit-origin Hindi words that are used in Urdu.

That is despite the fact the majority of 'Urdu speakers' in the region, especially in India, are now better socialized and educated in Hindi than in Urdu.

For example, they continue, like silly poseurs, to pronounce 'prachaar' as 'parchaar', 'bhram' as 'bharam', 'var' as 'bar', 'graahak' as 'gaahak', 'vyaapaari' as byopaari', and 'grahasti' as 'garhasti'.

This cultivated avoidance of Hindi has pushed the institutionalized use of Urdu on to the path of hopeless Arabization and Persianization.

This institutionalized usage is already alienated from the soul of a language born in India.

Mispronunciation of Sanskrit-origin words is just one aspect of a larger picture; there is also deliberate misunderstanding of the meanings of those words.

The controllers of Urdu language thus knowingly continue with a pretense -- of misrepresentation and misunderstanding of an entire culture.

It's a cultivated misrepresentation and misunderstanding.

The fact is that Urdu has long come to be the tool of Islamic correctitude and imperialism in the Indian subcontinent.

It's the subtle and unsubtle means of acculturation to 'ideal Muslimhood' in the subcontinent, which is why a huge number of Muslims from not just northern parts of India but also eastern, western and southern parts tend to claim, quite counterfactually and unreasonably, that they are Urdu speakers, even if they can't manage even a smattering of idiomatic Hindustani.

For example, I have long heard the so called "Bihari Muslims" -- a number of whom continue to be stuck in Bangladesh and allegedly being discriminated against -- being described as "Urdu speakers", which is a laughable claim.

These so called "Bihari Muslims" hardly speak any Urdu that will satisfy even a primary teacher in a Madrasa.

The fact is that they speak the languages of the cultural areas (or anchals) they hail from, such as Bhojpuri, Maithili, etc.

Only a very small fraction of the "educated" Bihari Muslims can be said to have some knowledge of Urdu.

And the Bihari Muslims stuck in Bangladesh seem to have long forgotten whatever little Urdu they allegedly possessed once.

In a BBC report I checked on YouTube, even a young Muslim in Bangladesh whose family hailed from Odisha described himself as a "Urdu speaker" while he could hardly manage a sentence.

Why on earth?

The answer lies in Urdu's role as a language of Islamic imperialism and ethnocide, which resulted -- in the first place -- in the suppression of Banglahood, perceived by Islamic imperialists of the subcontinent as hardly 'Islamic' because of being too deeply rooted in Sanskritic culture.

The same mentality of Islamic imperialism works elsewhere in the subcontinent, especially in Pakistan (i.e. Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan) which was never an Urdu-speaking area beyond the limited sphere of some 'educated' people in Lahore and a few other places.

The use of Urdu as an imperialist tool is a manifestation of an Islamism that India has bred and nurtured for a very long time.

The story of this Islamism in all its lurid detail has never been allowed to be told in India in a language that people will understand.

I believe India had become the number one Islamist country in the world in the 19th century, thanks to Deoband, Barelvi, and a host of other Islamic madrasas in the area that's part of present-day Uttar Pradesh.

India-bred Islamism later influenced - and continues to influence - the foreign lands through organizations like the Tablighi Jamaat.

Taliban, for instance, who established the most medieval form of Islamic state in recent memory, were brought up as jihadis by Deobandi mullahs in Pakistan.

Needless to say home-grown Islamism created the conditions that culminated in the demand for a separate state for Muslims in India.

Based on whatever little I know about Islam, I don't understand what merit people find in attributing Islamic "radicalisation" to one form of Islam or another, such as Wahhabi, Deobandi and Barelvi.

Such hairsplitting is unneeded. Islam by the book – i.e. Islam by Quran and Sunnah (Mohammad’s utterances and deeds as borne out by collections of oral reports or Hadith) -- is lethal and ethnocidal, whatever label is given to it.

It's as simple as that.

I have not so far been able to gather anything that will explain to me as to how Deobandi is different from Wahhabi and how that difference, if any, affects Islam's baleful impact on human societies.

Mumtaz Qadri, who murdered Punjab governor Salman Taseer in January 2011 for an idiotic reason, was a Barelvi, which is supposedly a milder form of Islam.

So Islam is Islam. Its fundamentals are guaranteed to unbalance people who delve into them.

It's also a lie to claim that the so called 'Sufism' (whatever wishy-washy things it means to various people) flows from Islam.

I don't think Islam by the book allows any freethinking, free seeking and syncretism.

Whatever freethinking, free seeking and syncretism happens, it happens as a cultural phenomenon; it happens despite Islam, not because of Islam.

Syncretism, by the way, is a crucial concept.

Islam - like Christianity - rejects and execrates syncretism by rejecting and execrating 'Shirk' which means including others in the unique status of one and only Allah who is comprehensible only and only through a long dead person called Muhammad.
--------

The following Web-links have been used in this post in the order of occurrence.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g96KkpwV7h8

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0MGSZQlKhA&pbjreload=10

3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/29/pakistan-hangs-mumtaz-qadri-who-killed-blasphemy-law-governor

Pakistani academic deems Sanskrit dead; Indian lawyer deems Hindi non-existent!

$
0
0
Arfa Sayeda Zehra, a Pakistani professor of history and a lover of Urdu language, likes to illustrate the idea of death of a language with Sanskrit.

She deems Sanskrit a dead language and believes that this death occurred because the language lost its ability to adapt to the changing times.

I heard her on YouTube expressing this view at more than one forum, including the one that I have discussed in this post.

On this particular occasion, Zehra makes only a cursory comment on Sanskrit (relevant part: 13:21 min), but there is another YouTube video I have watched in which she makes a fuller statement turning Sanskrit into a metaphor for linguistic extinction.

(In that video, she also suggests that Sanskrit became extinct because its use was restricted to “religion”.

I haven’t had time to locate that particular video and link it here, but reader can easily look for Zehra’s videos on YouTube. She has repeatedly expressed the opinion described above.)

Zehra made the remarks in question at Karachi Literature Festival that took place over three days in February 2017.

In this post I have commented on Zehra's remarks.

I have also commented on the utterances on Urdu of another guy who I learnt is a Delhi-based lawyer. He is Saif Mahmood. He made his remarks (relevant part: 16:50 min) at the 2016 edition of the same festival.
-----

Arfa Sayeda Zehra is a glib speaker, but her portrayal of Sanskrit as an example of unavoidable death of a language through ossification of expression betrays the misconceptions that her milieu has knowingly harboured within itself.

She seems to call out the Islamism that has undermined cultural diversity and expression in Pakistan, but hardly realises that her own milieu is not unaffected by the same Islamism resulting in her holding pretty ignorant views about Sanskrit's relationship with cultures and consciousness of the people of India.

Associating Sanskrit -- which has continued to the present times to animate almost all Indic languages and cultural memes -- with "death" shows that she has pretty crude appreciation of that relationship and she herself has not been immune from the phantasmagoria that Islam's ethnocidal and epistemicidal system builds for itself everywhere.
-----

Saif Mahmood says that a misconception has taken root in India that "Urdu is the language of the Muslims and Hindi is the language of the Hindus".

He says "everyone in northern and central India" speaks what he would term "Urdu" and yet there is this perverse "insistence" on calling it "Hindi"!

"Ninety to 95 per cent of the words being used are Urdu words, such as kursi, maiz, etc," contends Mahmood.

(Really? Doesn't that imply that thousands of non-Farsi and non-Arabic words like aana, jaana, uthna, baithna, dekhna, soonghna, ped, paudha, kapde, lakdi, betaa, beti, doodh, cheeni, kutta -- not to mention the entire syntactical structure of the language -- are Hindi? Of course not. It's "Urdu speakers" like Saif Mahmood the genius who invented the entire vocabulary and the syntactical structure of the language spoken for centuries by millions of native-born Indians!)

Dialogues of Bollywood movie Mughal-e-Azam were in "Urdu" but "wrongly branded" as "Hindi" on the censor certificate, Mahmood says, translating one in "Hindi" to show how bizarre that would sound, eliciting much laughter from his Pakistani audience.

(That must have been an act of great injustice that the producer of the film somehow forgot to contest in public or in a court of law!! That's why Indians need a genius like Saif Mahmood.)

So, going by Mahmood's argument, a phrase like Taleem par sab ka haq hai (my example) is "Urdu" and that's how an overwhelming majority of Indians would express that idea.

(Presumably, no one will phrase it as Shiksha par sab ka adhikar hai.)

But of course this overwhelming majority of Indians, according to Mahmood, are such idiots -- or secret conspirators -- that they would perversely call that expression "Hindi" rather than "Urdu"!

As for "Hindi"  -- hardly anyone (perhaps no one) speaks it, according to Mahmood.

It takes an unsung and courageous linguist like him to call out this great dishonesty or perfidy (or both) of the millions of Indians!!

I think Mahmood, who is also a lawyer, should take the next logical step.

He should file a lawsuit demanding that all Bollywood films that have ever been made should be re-categorized as Urdu language productions!

He should file another lawsuit against the millions of his fellow Indians to make them correctly describe the language they speak in their everyday lives!

I have known very few people as honest and intelligent as Saif Mahmood.

I think he should be recognized as a great linguist and honoured with a Padma award as well as a Pakistani Sitara-e-Khidmat.
-------

The following Web links have been used in this post in the order of occurrence.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkg8km5MYOM&t=2244s
(Karachi Literature Festival-2017 discussion on "Urdu Nu Kia Hua?". Discussants: Arfa Sayeda Zehra, Ali Akbar Natiq, and Afzal Ahmed Syed. Moderator: Saif Mahmood

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbzAwHBKo2g
(Idhar Urdu, Udhar Urdu, Kidher Urdu?: Urdu in India and Pakistan
Saif Mahmood and Arfa Sayeda Zehra
Moderator: Bari Mian


Indian and Pakistani Muslims live in denial of their origins, says Pakistani journalist

$
0
0
The majority of Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent live in denial of their origins, says Pakistani journalist Wusatullah Khan.

It’s a sort of ‘Extra Subcontinental Ethnic Syndrome,’ a condition that neither allows them to respect themselves nor be respected by others, he writes in an Urdu column posted on Humsub.com on 29 Oct. 2017.

Their cure lies in making a collective effort to rid themselves of this Syndrome by learning to take pride in their real identities, writes the Karachi-based journalist.

The following is my English translation of Wusatullah Khan’s column, a very insightful piece.

The parenthesized-italicized glosses are mine.
-------

http://www.humsub.com.pk/81786/wusatullah-khan-199/

Who are we?

By Wusatullah Khan

Fifteen hundred years before Christ, when the Aryans of Central Asia began to spread into Europe and western and southern Asia, they became people of the places they settled in.

The Aryans became Slavic and German in Europe, Irani in Asia, and Hindu in southern Asia.

As against the Aryans, the Jews of the Semitic race, being God’s pampered people, don’t care much about anybody even today despite three and a half millennia of unsettledness.

Over this time period, they have, however, been able to develop a constituency that believes that a Jew is first and foremost a Jew and then something else, no matter what country he lives in.

So a Jew hailing from anywhere in the world can settle in Israel – as well as move out at will and, having moved out, return at will.

The Arabs, another Semitic kind, have shown a similar state of mind. They were affected by Arab hubris before the advent of Islam and failed to rid themselves of that discriminatory state of mind after the birth of Islam.

Keep in mind that Arab identity is as much Syrian and Egyptian as it is Saudi; an Arab is as much a Palestinian and Lebanese Christian as he is a Muslim.

And an Arab is as much an Iraqi Shia as he is a Kuwaiti Sunni.

The Chaush, who first came to India from Yemen to work as military men for Deccan’s Osmania sultanate, may engage in a lot of ‘batan’ (talk), but their eighth generation continues to see Yemen in their dreams 250 years after the original migration.

Fourteen hundred years after Khutbah Hajjatul Wida (the farewell sermon of prophet of Islam), the Arabs continue to view the world as divided between the ‘Arabi’ (meaning ‘articulate’ and ‘eloquent’) and the ‘Ajmi’ (meaning ‘alien’ and ‘inarticulate’).

And the Arabs who deny having such a mentality take no more than 10 minutes of prodding to show you who they think they are (and who they think you are).

It’s not just about Arabs. A Berber of the Sahara or the Bilali Muslim of Nigeria, or the baptized son of a South Sudanese Christian, for instance, will rather sell himself but not his African identity.

As for southern Asia, the Bengalis, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, trace their roots only in Bengal; they take as much pride in being son of the soil as they do in being Hindu or Muslim or Buddhist.

The same can be said about the Malays and Indonesians. Whatever be their faith, they are certain that their life and death is closely linked to their own ‘bhoomi’; that their ancestors might have come from somewhere centuries ago is of no consequence to them.

But who are the Muslims of southern Asia (excluding Bengal)?

If they belong to this land, why do they look outside?

And if they belong elsewhere, why don’t the people of those lands acknowledge them as their own?

For how long are the Muslims of southern Asia going to be lost in the wilderness of identity? When will their spirits find repose?

When will their hearts and minds understand as to what soil they originally belong to?

Some people find answer to this quandary in Allama Iqbal’s works, but tend to forget that pan-Islamism of the writer of Tarana-e-Hindi was born of possible political unity and not racial pride.

When I look around, I find very few Muslims who say they belong here and who are not proud of looking for their identity outside.

Consider this: How many, at the most, of Turk, Pathan, Persian, Kurd, and Caucasian soldiers, noblemen, dervishes or people of skill would have migrated from Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia to settle in the Subcontinent, right from the time of Muhammad bin Qasim to that of Bahadur Shah Zafar?

(Muhammad bin Qasim was the Umayyad general who is said to have started the Muslim conquest of India by conquering in the early 8th century the Sindh and Multan regions along the Indus River. Bahadur Shah Zafar was the last Mughal emperor who died in 1862.)

Ten lakh? 20 lakh, 30 lakh, 50 lakh? A crore?

The total number of Muslims in today’s India and Pakistan is said to be between 38 crore and 40 crore. (This number is greater than the Muslim population of the entire Middle East and North Africa put together.)

The fact of the matter is the ancestors of 90 per cent of these 40 crore people became Muslim through Sufi influence.

And yet, excluding the Jat, Rajput and Bengalis Muslims, all of these people continue to look for their origins outside the Subcontinent.

So southern Asia has the most ‘Syeds’ of the world and family trees of all of them start and end in Iran, Bukhara, and Hejaz.

(Syed is an honorific title denoting people accepted as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons.)

Following the Mongol invasions, people, especially from Bukahra and Samarkand, Iran and Arabistan, did indeed come to settle in the Subcontinent, but were all of them scholars, Sufis and the noblemen?

There must have been at least some carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths, labourers and farmers among them, mustn’t there?

Where are they today?

Muslims are said to have ruled India for a thousand years. From Slave Dynasty to the Mughals, they all came to settle here, accepting the influence of local customs and traditions and in turn influencing the natives with their ways.

They were also buried here, but until the last breath they continued to call themselves -- and (their descendants) still call themselves – a Turk, Mughal and Afghan child instead of an Indian.

Also curious is the fact that since the fall of the Mughal Sultanate most Mughals are found in Punjab. Why?

Why are they not found in significant numbers in other provinces of Pakistan? And why all of the surviving ‘Mughaliyat’ doesn’t go beyond the Mughlai cuisine?

Likewise, some Pashtuns believe that they are not the local Aryan race but are the twelfth ‘lost tribe’ of Bani Israel.

Fair enough, but why don’t the descendants of the other 11 ‘lost tribes’ acknowledge them as their brothers?

You might respond: Since this ‘lost tribe’ of Bani Israel became Muslims, why would Jews acknowledge them as their brothers?

If you do, you need to be reminded that the State of Israel has two official languages, Hebrew and Arabic, and Arab Muslims account for 20 per cent of Israel’s population (excluding the Palestinians of the occupied territories).

As I said earlier, the basis of Israeli citizenship is Jewish race. You may continue to hate Israel, but why don’t you get your DNA checked to satisfy yourself as to your origins?

Sindhis are nationalist enough to ‘Marson, marson, Sindh na deson’ (will die and die, but will not give up Sindh), but when it comes to the question of origins the Kalhoras and Daudpotas lose no time in linking themselves to the Abbasid Caliphate.

(Abbasid Caliphate was the third of the Islamic caliphates to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad).

Talpur, Chandio, Jatoi, Zardari, etc, are Baloch and Baloch consider themselves to be a Kurdish tribe.

Only Brahui say they belong here.

Soomras have been Sindhis for ages but talk to them and they never forget to tell you about their arrival from Arabistan. ‘Syed Association’ is also found only in Sindh.

The Samat tribes of Sindh say they belong here, but don’t like to say or hear that their forebears would have been the subjects or co-religionists of Raja Dahir.

(Raja Dahir is said to have ruled Sindh in a period between the 7th and 8th centuries and his kingdom was conquered by Muhammad bin Qasim, an Arab general of Umayyad Caliphate).

I have quite a few Sindhi friends who take pride in calling themselves Samat, and also claim in the next breath that their ancestors’ settlement here accompanied Mohammad bin Qasim or occurred immediately thereafter.

So we are finally left with Kohlis, Bheels, Meghwars, and Thakars who neither came to Sindh from anywhere nor went anywhere from here.

There was a time before Zia-ul-Haq’s term (1978-88) when Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, and Taxila would at least be considered a part of Pakistan’s cultural and racial heritage in the educational curriculum.

And now?

About five years ago when I asked a curator of the Mohenjo-daro Museum about the sorry state of the relics exhibited there, he said, “This is the heritage of the Hindus who have moved out. We are maintaining it as much as we can. What more can we do Saain…”

Whilst most of the Muslims of the Subcontinent believe that the blood in their veins belong to places ranging from Central Asia to Hejaz and Yemen, (which is also the reason why their reverence for these places is double than that of other Muslims of the world), an Irani, Turk or Arab, upon meeting the same Muslims, doesn’t consider them anything other than Indians or Pakistanis.

And far from granting citizenship to the people from the Subcontinent who are settled in their countries for as long as three generations, the Irani, Turk or Arab is not even ready to view them as anyone other than those who can help or need help, and to at least regard them as his brothers.

Despite all that, the Muslim of the Subcontinent continues to cherish and gloat over his foreign lineage rather than to look for his real identity and learn to be proud of that.

As long as people continue to look outside rather than inside, they can neither respect themselves nor be respected by others.

A stone is heavy in its own place, they say.

However, this dictum realizes its truth only if people make a collective effort to rid themselves of Extra-Subcontinental Ethnic Syndrome, learning a lesson from those Muslim communities who take pride in their identities and yet their Islam doesn’t become imperiled.

You belong here and will continue to belong here.

Whether you admit that or not, others acknowledge you as such.

(End of Matter)


The world's oldest and most dangerous criminal syndicate!

$
0
0
Here are some thoughts on the so called 'Roman Catholic Church' that crossed my mind while skimming through this article by Jaideep Mazumdar in which he underlines the monstrous fraud that the church has committed by portraying some stray incidents of burglary and vandalism in 2014 and 2015 as "Hindutva" attack on "Christians".

The church frequently engages in fraud and falsehood such as claiming in March 2015 that an incident of alleged rape of a 72-year-old nun at a 'convent' in Nadia district of West Bengal was an act of 'communalism' against Christians.

The church also portrayed a number of other stray incidents of burglary and vandalism at places of Christian worship in the country as instances of hatred and intolerance directed at Christians and other "minorities".

"... the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) president cardinal Baselios Cleemis told the media before visiting the nun and the convent in Bengal that 'not only cows, but human beings too need to be protected'... alluding to the BJP’s proposed cow protection measures," writes Mazumdar.

The investigation of the Nadia 'rape' case did not yield any Hindutva foot soldier, but some Bangladeshi men who, according to the police, just wanted to commit robbery (and did commit it).

"On Tuesday (07 Nov. 2017), a Kolkata court held only the prime accused, Nazrul Islam, guilty of rape. Four other members of the gang – all of them Bangladeshis – have been held guilty of only committing a dacoity."

Have the church and others crying wolf apologized?

Of course not!

Does one expect inveterate fraudsters and criminals to own up to their crimes?

I read Mazumdar's article on Bharatabharati.wordpress.com - even though it was originally published on 08 Nov. 2017 on Swarajya magazine's website.

The following is my brief comment.
----

Having read a lot about the Catholic Church I have come to believe that it is the world’s oldest and most dangerous criminal syndicate.

In 2013-14, I had done some probing of an incident of “theft” reported by the Catholic Church in Jharkhand and found that it was a staged theft.

The church reported in January 2008 that a statue of “Dhori Mata” (Mary) had been stolen from Dhori Mata Tirthalaya at Jarangdih in Bokaro district.

The incident was well reported by the media and the church made a lot of song and dance about it.

Within just a few days the statue was reported to have been found abandoned somewhere.

I did a careful reading of these media reports and found that the theft had been faked with the help of a police officer (Assistant Superintendent of Police A.V. Minz).

This discovery was part of a wider probe I was doing of this business of fabricating “Mata” cults (of Mary) across India that the Catholic Church has been engaged in for a long time, which I found to be another huge fraud and ethnocidal tactic aimed at conversions.

This fraud has already resulted in setting up 'Velankanni Mata' in Tamil Nadu, 'Niramalagiri Mata' and 'Gunadala Mata' in Andhra Pradesh, and other such 'Mary Mata' shrines.

My probe then had also led me to discover an effort made by Catholic 'Archbishop' of Ranchi Telesphore Toppo (an Indian 'Cardinal', also one of the electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that selected Pope Francis) to get the Vatican to proclaim Mary as "the spiritual mother of all humanity".

That proclamation -- in the eyes of Toppo and other Catholic fraudsters -- would allow the church to better exploit the existing culture in India of veneration for Durga and other Mata avatars in order to convert more 'Hindus' to Christianity.

This proposal is also known in Vatican jargon as the 'fifth Marian Dogma'.

The 'Roman Catholic Church' never fails to surprise me with its enormous capacity for committing fraud and other crimes; it's indeed the world's oldest criminal syndicate.
-----

The following Web links have been used in this post in their order of occurrence.

1. https://bharatabharati.wordpress.com/2017/11/09/catholic-church-must-apologise-for-falsely-accusing-nda-government-of-hate-crime-jaideep-mazumdar/

2. https://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/mother-marys-statue-mising-from-shrine-in-bokaro/539485

3. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/Mother-Maryrsquos-lost-statue-found/article15153091.ece

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Good_Health

5. http://www.nirmalagiri.org/history.htm

6. http://www.gunadalashrine.org/contact.html

7. https://zenit.org/articles/cardinal-toppo-on-a-proposed-marian-dogma/

8. http://www.motherofallpeoples.com/about-mother-of-all-peoples/
------

Christianity is the most advanced science and practice of ethnocide ever devised

$
0
0
Continuing with the subject of the previous post about the fraud and criminality that Christianity and Christian Church embody, I have the following to say.

I feel that none of the words that people tend to use about Christianity clearly nail its actual nature and purpose.

Christianity, in my view, is the most advanced science and practice of ethnocide ever devised in human history.

Its ultimate purpose is to undermine all human cultures found on Earth through its ever more refined ethnocidal weapons, such as inculturation.

This undermining works to gradually supplant the autonomy and inherent syncretism of the targeted culture with the heteronomy and unnatural homogenization that the church administration represents.

Christianity was the original instigator -- the gene and the meme -- of European colonialism and imperialism that continues to destroy cultural diversity and syncretism across the world at such a rapid pace that human survival has become threatened.

So ethnocide, heteronomy (or undermining of cultural autonomy) and homogenization make up the quintessence of Christianity.

Ethnocide, heteronomy (or undermining of cultural autonomy) and homogenization are also the defining characteristics of what European (or Western) colonialism has done to the world in the last 500 years.

I like to connect these dots in order to get the fuller picture.

In my view, Christianity -- indeed the whole Judeo-Christian-Islamic imperialism -- needs to be seen without the red herrings of fraudulent concepts/categories like religion, secular domain, political domain, economic domain, etc.

Behind these fraudulent concepts/categories lies unvarnished colonialism/imperialism.

So whether it's Judeo-Christianity, or the West, or Islam -- it's all colonialism/imperialism which seeks continuously to expand its domain by enslaving ever larger chunks of humanity.

So please try to see through a conceptual fraud like 'religion' and understand that this fraudulent category is applicable only and only to Judeo-Christianity and Islam -- and not to other human cultures, Indic or non-Indic.

In other words, please stop mislabelling human 'cultures' as 'religions'.

India, for instance, never produced anything that remotely resembles 'religion'.

Why do we denigrate our own autonomous and syncretistic cultures by labelling them as 'religion' -- thus putting them in the same fraudulent category that consists of Judeo-Christianity and Islam?

While the soul of Bharatiyata -- indeed of all human cultures -- is 'syncretism', the fraudulent concept of 'religion' rejects and execrates 'syncretism'.

Judeo-Christianity and Islam are dangerous and pernicious for all human cultures precisely because they reject -- even anathematize -- 'syncretism'.

Check the Vatican website, for instance, to understand how it views 'syncretism'.

Islam rejects 'syncretism' by branding it as 'Shirk', an Arabic word whose more specific meaning is 'to include others in the unique status of Allah'.
--------

Partition of India: the purge that took place in 1947 completely unbalanced Pakistan

$
0
0
Muhammad Akram says he is still proud of having taken part in the lynching of Niranjan Das Bagga in Gujranwala in 1947, shows this very brief documentary published on 15 August 2017 on YouTube, one of the many that the BBC produced to mark the 70th anniversary of the Partition of India.

Bagga was a local politician who was trying to calm tensions in a public place after a 'Muslim' was killed, says the 2:20 minute long documentary film.

While he did that someone egged the people gathered there to target Bagga for killing and succeeded in generating the lynching frenzy.

"(We) finished him in less than an hour," Akram tells the BBC reporter.

I had watched this documentary a day or two after it was published on YouTube in August and wrote something in the comments section. 

Nobody replied to my comments until a few days ago when an 'Ali Maksud' (presumably a Pakistani) posted something. 

He wrote that his grandfather's family had similarly been killed by a "mob of Hindus and Sikhs" in Jalandhar district. 

I made a rejoinder to him.

My comments, the response by 'Ali Maksud', and my rejoinder are pasted below, after which I have added some more of my thoughts.
-------

My comments

"Whoever does not hit him with a stone is not the son of his mother and father. Then everyone hit (him) -- some threw two stones, some one. Well within an hour, (we) finished him". 

Who was he: A "Hindu"

Who were they: "Muslims"

Muhammad Akram, who was a member of the lynch mob, refers to "Muslims" with Punjabi words "sadyan bandyan" (our people) and refers to "Hindus" with the word "unan" (their).

He says he wanted to kill more of "them" and he continues to be proud of contributing to the lynching of one of "them".

So the lynching had no reason other than that Niranjan Das Bagga was a "Hindu" -- especially as Akram says he had absolutely nothing against Bagga.

The old man (Muhammad Akram) comes across as bigoted, benighted and churlish. He cannot be an example to any young person anywhere.
---------

Ali Maksud

All the family members of my grandfather were killed by a mob of Hindus and Sikhs in Patti, Zila Jalandhar (adjecent to Zila Kasoor in Pakistan), only he survived. A sikh woman saved him and later sent him to Pakistan. 

Those who would've killed my grandfather's wouldn't probably have had no guilt about it, just like that old man from Gujranwala.

More muslims were killed in the partition becausw More people migrated to Pakistan than India. So India has more such killers than Pakistan. 

The sad thing is nobody took judicial action against such people across both sides of the border.
---------

My rejoinder

I sympathize with your grandfather for the terrible loss he suffered on account of a terrible crime that was committed.

However, your comment doesn't show you have tried sincerely to see beyond the Hindu-Sikh versus Muslim narrative -- which is why you make assertions like "India has more such killers than Pakistan".

That assertion does not convince me.

India currently has more than 20 crore people who call themselves 'Muslims' (with birth rate that has always been more than the national average). 

Pakistan has no more than 2-3 million people who are labelled 'Hindu'.

(The population of 'Hindus' in what was united Pakistan has been declining since 1947 -- from about 23 per cent to less than 10 per cent in what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh.)

One can see clearly that in the provinces that were turned into West Pakistan in 1947, there had been an ethnic cleansing of people labelled 'Hindus' and 'Sikhs'.

(Given the population mix in India since 1947, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for any sensible person to assert that there had been a reciprocal ethnic cleansing of 'Muslims' in partitioned India.)

My father -- who was born in Haripur Hazara in 1939 and lived there until his family was uprooted by the Partition -- tells me he remembers the day Pakistan Day was celebrated, implying his family never wanted to leave.

But the ongoing violence forced his family within a day or two to flee their home to save their lives, and to eventually cross the border.

(In Hazara district, mobs had started killing 'Hindus' and 'Sikhs' and looting and burning their property as early as December 1946.)

The oral histories that I have gone through so far show that a huge number of people labelled 'Hindu' and 'Sikh' would never have left what became Pakistan, had they not been forced to leave their homes and hearth through rape, violence and loot.

And so the current population of Pakistan would have had a more balanced ethnic mix today, had all those people been allowed to stay.

A more balanced society would also have helped Pakistan to save itself from sliding into Islamic radicalism.

The uprooting and exchange of populations was obviously a disastrous idea, but it's impossible to ignore the ultimate cause -- namely that some people who called themselves 'Muslims' wanted a separate country for themselves.  

And they wanted separation on the false ground of being a "separate quam"!

I think many Pakistanis have come to realise the falsity of the ultimate cause (which was especially driven home through Bengali separation), but a lot of Pakistanis continue to be vulnerable to the propaganda that continues to promote the fraudulent concept of "quam" and reinforces the 'Muslim' identity at the cost of more syncretistic and accommodating cultural identity.

I believe 'Muslim' identity will neither allow Pakistanis to live in peace with non-Muslims, nor with themselves; it will continue to cause turbulence and strife in Pakistan.
-------------

I have heard at least one Pakistani admitting that what happened in 1947 (and since then) in the areas that went to Pakistan was ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims. 

(It's also clear that a similar ethnic cleansing took place in 1947 in parts of Punjab that went to India in which 'Muslims' were looted, killed, raped and driven away from their homes. So violence took place on both sides.)

Pakistani politician and lawyer Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan says in this video (relevant part 58:50 min. to 1:00:55 min.) that Pakistanis like to criticize India for riots in which Muslims suffer violence. 

"However, Muslims live in huge numbers there. We (in contrast) have carried out ethnic cleansing (here)... sparing no Hindus, Christians. The few who are left here want to leave this country and we can give them no reason as to why they should stay," said Ahsan in a discussion on 'Sindh Sagar and creation of Pakistan' at Karachi Literature Festive-2015.

In my rejoinder above, I have also mentioned Hazara district. 

Both my parents were born in Hazara in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). 

(NWFP is now called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.) 

My father was born in Haripur town in 1939 and my mother in a village called 'Bagra' somewhere around 1944.

My father has quite vivid and chronological, but understandably sketchy, memories of his life there.

The first time I heard someone narrate an account of Partition violence in Hazara which was not personal-anecdotal was when I chanced earlier this year upon Amrit Pal Singh's YouTube channel.

His channel describes Amrit Pal Singh as a hermit, an independent researcher, and a seeker of truth.

He has narrated the violence perpetrated on 'Hindus' and 'Sikhs' during Partition in Hazara, Lahore and Pothohar region very coherently, chronologically and in great detail.

Amrit Pal Singh's own family belonged to Hazara and was uprooted in the Partition violence.

He has described the violence in Hazara during Partition in a series of five videos of which this is the first part.

I hope to write more on Partition, especially my own family's experience of that cataclysmic event, in future posts.
-------------

This post has used the following Web links in the order of occurrence. 

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FJdEXTazoQ&t=

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOJ3lXXlMvg 

3. https://www.youtube.com/user/amritworldnetwork/videos

4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f107BeFW6M8

"Hindus are wicked people living in India; they are our enemies"

$
0
0
Schoolchildren in Pakistan are fed a lot of propaganda and nonsense, especially under the subject 'Pakistan Studies', as this article in Urdu by Zunaira Saqib shows.

It was published on 19 Nov. 2017 in 'Humsub.com.pk.

I have provided here the Devanagari transcript of Saqib's article without any other change.

'Pakistan Studies' is called 'Mutaalia-e-Pakistan' ('मुतालिआ-ए-पाकिस्तान') in Urdu.

Saqib teaches management and HR at NUST Business School in Islamabad and also writes columns for newspapers and magazines.
------------

मुतालिआ-ए-पाकिस्तान की आख़िरी किताब
(ज़ुनैरा साक़िब, ‘हम सब’ मैगज़ीन, 19 नवम्बर 2017)

“हम सब कौन हैं?”
“मुसलमान”
“लेकिन टीचर मैं तो मुसलमान नहीं. मैं तो...”
“चुप! चूड़ा कहीं का!”
“चुप रह! यहाँ रहना है तो चुप रह.”
-------

“हिन्दू कौन हैं?”
“हिन्दू इंडिया में रहने वाले रज़ील लोग हैं. ये हमारे दुश्मन हैं.”
“लेकिन टीचर मैं तो हिन्दू हूँ. मैं तो पाकिस्तानी हूँ”
“हिन्दू हो तो हिन्दुस्तान जाओ ना!”
-------

“1965 में हिन्दुस्तान ने रात के अँधेरे में पाकिस्तान पर हमला कर दिया.”
“पाक फ़ौज ने जम कर मुक़ाबला किया और आख़िरकार 17 दिन बाद हिन्दुओं की फ़ौज ने हथियार डाल दिए.”
“लेकिन टीचर ‘ऑपरेशन जिब्राल्टर’ तो पाकिस्तान ने शुरू किया था”
“क्या कहा?”
“और ‘ताशकंद मुआहिदे’ में तो सीसफ़ायर का ज़िक्र है”
“कैसा ग़द्दार बच्चा है. पकिस्तान का नाम बदनाम करता है. चल मुर्गा बन मुर्गा.”
-------

‘जीम’ से जग, ‘चे’ से चिड़िया, ‘हे’ से हब्शी”
“हब्शी? हब्शी कहना तो कोई अच्छी बात नहीं”
“क्यूँ बे! तुझे बड़ी हमदर्दी है कालों से”
“चलो भई, आज से इस को भी ‘काली अंधी’ बोला करो.”
-------

“सब से अच्छा मज़हब कौन सा है?”
“सब से अच्छा मज़हब इस्लाम है.”
“क्यूँ बे तू नहीं बोल रहा?”
“जी मेरा मज़हब तो कुछ और है.”
“इस्लामी जम्हूरिया पाकिस्तान है ये. इस्लामी जम्हूरिया. समझा क्या? सब से अच्छा मज़हब इस्लाम, बाक़ी सब बकवास.”
-------

“दो क़ौमी नज़रिया ये है कि हिन्दू और मुसलमान दो अलग अलग कौमें हैं और ये मिल कर नहीं रह सकतीं. इसीलिए हम ने पाकिस्तान बनाया.”
“लेकिन अगर ये दोनों मिल कर नहीं सकतीं तो 1000 साल हिन्दुस्तान में जब मुसलमान हुक्मरान थे तो कैसे मिल कर रहती थीं?”
“चलो चलो बच्चों ब्रेक का टाइम हो गया.”
--------

“तो ये रही पाकिस्तान की तारीख़”
“टीचर इस में तो बांग्लादेश का कोई ज़िक्र ही नहीं”
“बांग्लादेश तो पुरानी ख़बर हुई. चलो आज बलोचिस्तान को पढ़ते हैं.”
-------

“जिहाद क्या होता है?”
“जिहाद अल्लाह की राह में काफ़िरों के ख़िलाफ़ जंग को कहते हैं.”
“काफ़िर कौन होता है?”
“जो मुसलमान न हो.”
“पाकिस्तानी हिन्दू, ईसाई, यहूदी, क़ादियानी, शिया, सब काफ़िर हैं? उन के ख़िलाफ़ जिहाद फ़र्ज़ है?”
“क्या बे बहुत सवाल करता है! चल निकल यहाँ से! जा जाकर उन्हीं काफ़िरों से पढ़. चल भाग!”
---------

The following Web link has been used in this post.

http://www.humsub.com.pk/17755/zunaira-saqib-14/

Pakistani cinema never had any attractiveness for Indians - not even in the age of YouTube - for a very strong reason

$
0
0
In this BBC interview, published on 20 Dec. 2017, Pakistan film-star Shaan asks for "utni hi market" in India for Pakistani cinema "jitni" Pakistan supposedly has for Indian films -- and he addresses his demand to the "government" of India!!

He talks as if "markets" are created by "governments"!

He talks as if it's the government of Pakistan that's somehow responsible for creating Pakistani market for Indian cinema -- as if this market will just disappear if the government of Pakistan were to disallow exhibition of Indian films in Pakistan!

Shaan also pretends as if Indian audience is as receptive to Pakistani cinema as Pakistani audience has long been to Indian films!

I am a 43-year-old Indian from Hindi-speaking region (who stopped watching cinema long ago but who has been reasonably clued-up about cinematic happenings) and I have NEVER known ANY Indian in person EVER discussing ANY Pakistani film or a Pakistani film star other than those who get to act in Bollywood productions.

(Until I chanced upon this BBC interview, I had never heard of Pakistani film-star Shaan. The only Shaan I knew was Indian singer by the same name.)

I don't know a single Indian in person ever showing ANY enthusiasm for a Pakistani film or even a Pakistani film song -- even in this age of YouTube.

And I am pretty sure if you were to randomly stop some Indian in the Hindi-speaking region going about her/his daily business and ask her/him to name three recently released or exhibited Pakistani films or three popular playback singers who sang in Pakistani films, you will draw a blank.

Shaan and other Pakistani cinema worriers need to realize something very important.

What is now called Pakistan used once to be a subset of larger Indian cultural matrix, but post Partition the fraudsters in Pakistan have left no stone unturned to devalue or damage or wipe out the Indianness of their society -- with degrees of success.

This Indianness is nothing but the diversity, syncretism and inclusion that's so characteristic of Indic ethnosphere -- and is also evident in India's cinematic culture.

That's what contributes so handsomely to the attractiveness of Indian cinema.

Pakistani cinema NEVER had that attractiveness; it lost it the moment it was made to be labelled 'Pakistani cinema' as something separate from the life-force called Indian cinema.

Difficult to imagine a film goer in Delhi or Mumbai or Bhopal showing any great enthusiasm for a "Pakistani film" with the entire star cast, lyricists, playback singers, and production team with Islamic-Arabic names with actors speaking a pretty heavily Arabized-Persianized Hindi (which Pakistanis call "Urdu") and singing songs in similarly Arabized-Persianized lingo!

What diversity!

So despite common origins, the so called Pakistani cinema has NEVER had even a tiny fraction of all those characteristics that contribute to the heady Indian cinematic cocktail.
----------

The following is the Web-link used in this post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d8KdrL6Gas

(BBC correspondent Henna Saeed talks to Pakistani film-star Shaan Shahid about his upcoming film 'Arth' and his reluctance to do films in India, unlike Pakistani actors Fawad, Mahira and Ali Zafar who have quite notably acted in Bollywood productions.)



मेरे बाप की यादें हरिपुर हज़ारा (NWFP) की, भारत के विभाजन की, और विभाजन के बाद की

$
0
0
मेरे पिता, भूषण लाल बजाज, 1939 में हरिपुर हज़ारा में एक पंजाबी अरोड़ा परिवार में पैदा हुए. 

हरिपुर एक छोटा शहर था जो NWFP (North-West Frontier Province या उत्तर-पश्चिम सीमान्त प्रांत) के हज़ारा क्षेत्र का हिस्सा था. 

NWFP को अब ‘ख़ैबर पख़्तूनख़्वा’ कहते हैं और ये पाकिस्तान के मुख्य प्रान्तों में से एक है. 

अगस्त 1947 में भारत के विभाजन के समय – जब मेरे पिता की आयु लगभग आठ वर्ष की थी – उनका परिवार लाखों अन्य परिवारों की तरह अपना घर-बार छोड़के उस ‘सीमा’ को लांघने पर मजबूर हुआ जो 1947 से पहले लोगों के ख्वाब-ओ-ख्याल में भी नहीं थी और जिसका औचित्य आज भी भारतीय उपमहाद्वीप के अधिकतर लोगों की समझ से बाहर ही मालूम पड़ता है.

मेरे पिता का परिवार विभाजन के समय हरिपुर हज़ारा से उजड़ने के बाद ‘सीमा’ के इस पार कई जगहों में रहने के बाद दिल्ली में बसा. 

मेरे पिता ने 40 साल P.T./खेल के शिक्षक की नौकरी की और सन 2001 में सेवानिवृत हुए.

पेश है मेरे पिता की हरिपुर हज़ारा में बिताए बचपन की और विभाजन के हंगामे में अपने घर से उजड़ने की कुछ यादें उन्हीं की ज़बानी. 

ये पोस्ट मेरे पिता के संस्मरण की पहली किस्त है.
---------------

मेरी पैदाइश का दिन टेवे के मुताबिक़ 30 जुलाई 1939 है और जन्म-स्थान है हरिपुर हज़ारा जो एक पहाड़ी इलाक़ा था. यहाँ ‘चौकी मोहल्ले’ में हमारा घर था.

मैं अपने छः भाई-बहनों में दूसरे नंबर पर था, हालांकि मेरे माँ-बाप के चार और बच्चे नवजात गुज़र गए थे, जिनमें से दो 1947 तक चल बसे थे. हम छः भाई-बहनों में से पांच हरिपुर हज़ारा में ही पैदा हुए.

चौकी मोहल्ला पुलिस चौकी के पास था. शायद इसी लिए इसे ‘चौकी मोहल्ला’ कहते थे.

हमारा पक्का, तीन-मंज़िला मकान था जिसमें मेरे दादा, करमचंद बजाज (जिनकी मृत्यु मेरे जन्म से पहले हो चुकी थी), और ताऊ, नानकचंद बजाज, के परिवार रहते थे.

मेरे बाउजी (पिता), जगदीश राम बजाज, सात भाईओं और एक बहन में सबसे बड़े थे. उनकी बहन और तीन भाइयों की शादियाँ भी विभाजन होने तक हो चुकी थीं.

चौकी मोहल्ले से बाहर एक नहर बहती थी जिसे ‘कट्ठा’ कहते थे. गलिओं में पक्की नालियाँ होती थीं जिनमें साफ़ पानी बहता था जिसे लोग पीने और नहाने-धोने के लिए इस्तेमाल करते थे.

कुँए भी थे, पर हमारे मोहल्ले से ख़ासी दूरी पर.

नहर के किनारे किनारे चलो तो आगे बाज़ार आ जाता था. एक ही बड़ा बाज़ार था जो हरिपुर रेलवे स्टेशन तक जाता था.

इस बाज़ार में हमारी कपड़े की दुकान थी जो मेरे बाउजी (पिता) और उनके भाइयों की सांझी थी. दुकान का नाम था ‘लाला करमचंद एंड सन्ज़’.

नहर की सीध में ही बाज़ार पार ख़ालसा स्कूल था जहां मैं पढ़ता था. ये एक प्राइमरी स्कूल था यानि पांचवी जमात तक का.

मुझे इस स्कूल के बारे में इतना याद है कि वहां हमें उर्दू पढ़ाई जाती थी. मुझे सिवाए अपनी एक बुआ के लड़के के, जो मेरे साथ पढ़ता था, कोई सहपाठी याद नहीं है.

और एक मुसलमान ‘उस्ताद जी’ याद हैं जो हमें उर्दू पढ़ाते थे. वे दरम्याने क़द के, पतले, गोरे, दाढ़ी वाले आदमी थे. ख़ासे dedicated उस्ताद लगते थे; बच्चों से स्नेहपूर्वक व्यवहार करते थे, पर सख्ती भी करते थे और बच्चों को ‘मुर्गा बनने’ की सज़ा देते थे.

हम तख्ती पर क़लम-दवात से लिखते थे और नहर में अपनी तख्तियां धोते थे.

स्कूल 10 से तीन बजे तक होता था. हम आराम से खा पी कर स्कूल जाते थे.

मेरी उम्र के लड़के कमीज़ और कच्छा पहनते थे और इसी लिबास में स्कूल जाते थे. बड़े कमीज़ के साथ सलवार पहनते थे.

स्कूल खेलते कूदते जाते थे. आते जाते जी किया तो नहर में कूद कर डुबकियां लगाते थे.

पुलिस चौकी के सामने सड़क पार ‘सनातन धर्म स्कूल’ था जो दसवीं जमात तक था. खालसा स्कूल पास करने वाले बच्चों का दाख़िला सनातन धर्म स्कूल में होता था.

मुझे याद है मैं इस स्कूल में अपने एक चाचा, गोवर्धन लाल बजाज, के साथ RSS (राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ) के एक समारोह में गया था, जिसमें RSS के एक बड़े नेता आए थे.

मेरे ये चाचा, जो मुझसे 8-9 साल बड़े थे, RSS से जुड़े हुए थे.

चौकी मोहल्ले से एक तरफ कुछ दूरी पर हमारे खेत थे जो हमारे परिवार के सांझे थे.

खेत के सामने हमारा बाग़ था जिसमें फलों के पेड़ थे. एक फल जो मुझे याद है उसे ‘लूचा’ कहते हैं; ये आलू बुख़ारे जैसा एक फल है. लुकाट और माल्टा भी उगता था.

मुझे याद है कि हमारे बाग़ के पास एक सूखी नहर थी जिसमें एक छोटा हवाई जहाज़ गिर गया था, जो शायद सिविलियन जहाज़ था. जब मैं ये घटना देखने वहां गया तो जहाज़ उठा कर ले जाया जा चुका था.

हमारे घर के पास एक खेल का मैदान था जिसे ‘खोला’ कहते थे जिसमें रामलीला भी खेली जाती थी और लोहड़ी भी जलाई जाती थी. एक गोरा सिख लड़का सीता का रोल अदा करता था.

कट्ठे (नहर) पर एक ज़नाना घाट था जहां औरतें भजन गाती थीं. एक पंजाबी भजन जो गाया जाता था उसकी पंक्ति थी: ‘हरिओम दी आवाज़ पई आवे श्याम तेरे मंदरां विचों.’

कट्ठे किनारे कुल्फ़ी बनाने वाले थे, जिनमें एक ‘अमर कुल्फ़ी वाला’ मुझे याद है. उसके सामने एक हलवाई की दुकान -- ‘मनोहर लाल गोवर्धन लाल हलवाई’ -- थी जिसके मालिक हमारे रिश्तेदार भी थे.

चौकी मोहल्ले में रहने वाले अन्य लोग जो मुझे याद हैं उनमें एक आनंद परिवार था और एक सूरी परिवार. ये दोनों परिवार विभाजन के बाद ग्वालियर आकर बस गए थे. ग्वालियर में मेरे कुछ चाचाओं के परिवार भी आकर बसे.

हमारे खेतों में गेहूं और मक्का उगता था.

हमारे मकान के भूतल में तीन गोदाम थे जिसमें हम अनाज रखते थे और दो अन्य कमरे थे; मेरे ताऊ के बेटे, जयचंद बजाज, का परिवार भूतल पर ही रहता था.

हमारा एक गोदाम बाज़ार में भी था.

मकान में दो तरफ से खुली एक बैठक थी जहां औरतें गर्मियों में ठंडक पाने के लिए बैठती थीं. मकान में बिजली भी थी; रेडियो और पंखे थे.

ऊपर जाने के लिए खुल्ली सीढ़ियां थीं.

पहले तल पर तीन कमरे और एक रसोई थी. दूसरे तल पर एक ही कमरा था.

मकान में शीशे का काफ़ी काम था और टाइलें भी लगी हुई थीं.

मोहल्ले में मिटटी के तेल से जलने वाली स्ट्रीट लाइट्स थीं जिन्हें ‘चिमनियाँ’ कहते थे.

मोहल्ले में मंदिर और गुरुद्वारा थे. मुसलमानों का एक-आध ही परिवार था. मोहल्ले से काफ़ी दूर एक मस्जिद थी जहां से वो इलाक़ा शुरू होता था जिसके निवासी मुख्यतः मुसलमान थे.

हमारे सम्बन्ध सबसे अच्छे थे.

मुझे याद है हमारे खेत में एक मुसलमान मुलाज़िम था जो खेत की देख-रेख करता था और खेती का काम करवाता था.

एक बार कुछ मुसलमान लड़कों की पतंग हमारे घर के पास उलझ गई, जो मेरे चाचा, गोवर्धन लाल, ने तोड़ ली.

वे लड़के हमारे घर अपनी पतंग मांगने आ गए; उनका कहना था कि मेरे चाचा ने उनकी पतंग तोड़ के ली है, जबकी मेरे चाचा का कहना था कि उसने पतंग लूटी है; इसलिए वापिस नहीं होगी.

मुझे याद है मैं बोल पड़ा, ‘चाचा क्यों झूठ बोल रहे हो. आपने पतंग तोड़ी है.’

फिर हमारे बड़ों ने बीच बचाव करके उन लड़कों को उनकी पतंग वापस करवा दी.
------

PHFI’s Rs 100 crore scam and ensnaring of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute in a corrupt deal: impostors’ club hurtles from fraud to fraud

$
0
0
By Kapil Bajaj

Twelve years after it was fraudulently implanted into government by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) continues to engage in corruption, fraud and criminality to fulfill its illegitimate objectives and to cover its tracks.

I received a call in November 2017 from someone – let’s call her/him Source One – who worked for PHFI at a senior position for a long time until she/he had had enough of the skulduggery that she/he witnessed there and resigned.

Source One told me there has been a scam amounting to more than Rs 100 crore in PHFI, wiping out the entire government contribution of Rs 65 crore to the ‘initial fund corpus’, which has been suppressed by president K. Srinath Reddy and his henchmen.

PHFI has redacted its publicly available reports in order to hide the swindle which took place through collusion between scamsters within PHFI and those claiming to represent Dena Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), Source One said.

No media organisation has written or shown anything that will name PHFI in connection with the scam which is being investigated by the CBI. Not a word.

Head-Finance Amit Chaturvedi, who is directly answerable for the stolen funds, continues to be on the payroll of PHFI while propriety demands he should have been the first to quit or be asked to step down, Source One said.

“Absolutely no one in PHFI has been held to account for the massive fraud even though, as far as I can understand, there is criminal culpability of the people on whose watch the funds were siphoned off – including that of Srinath Reddy.”

Source One said the swindle and the cover-up took place during the chairmanship of N.R. Narayana Murthy – who has since Jan. 2015 been enjoying his second stint as the chair of the corrupt private club, the first being July 2011-Oct. 2013 – showing what hypocrisy the Infosys man embodies in projecting himself as an advocate of high standards of "corporate governance".

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) – which led the gang of capitalist racketeers in setting up PHFI (which should most appropriately stand for 'Public Health Fraud of India') in 2006 – has washed its hands off the whole episode and government representatives on the PHFI board have predictably been supine.

Plots of land acquired in states for setting up public health schools haven't been built upon, which is another big scam, Source One said.

“All the bungling and mismanagement has caused a haemorrhage of workers, shrinking PHFI from a 1000-plus organisation to about half that strength.”

Meanwhile, K. Srinath Reddy, the criminal-minded president of PHFI who, in August 2012, forged a document (purportedly a copy of the signed and stamped document setting out the composition of PHFI governing body as on 31 March 2006.) and had it sent to me under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, continues to enrich himself, drawing a pay package of about Rs one crore per annum.

(Reddy the crook has indeed come a long way since the time he worked as a cardiologist at New Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences or AIIMS on a modest salary. 

While working at AIIMS-New Delhi, he wangled himself a wholly illegal “deputation” to PHFI, the impostors’ club that he himself helped to register as society along with Rajat Gupta of McKinsey and six other wheeler-dealers and hirelings. 

His is thus a Jeffery Archeresque tale of how a humble but scoundrelly public official helped carve a parasitical private empire inside government and manoeuvred himself into the position of its fabulously-paid steward.

Reddy pulled that off by hitching his wagon to a ‘star’ which in his case was Rajat Gupta, the suave henchman in India of American corporate interests and a favourite crony of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s. 

Gupta became the founding chairman of PHFI and made Reddy the chief executive, but had to give up his position after falling foul of the law in the US.

Gupta was found to be involved in the Galleon insider trading ring; he was later to be prosecuted for and convicted of securities fraud in that case and jailed for two years.)

Source One told me that the aforementioned swindle took place when PHFI dealt with middlemen of Dena Bank and Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) in transferring money into fixed deposits (FDs).

“Fake FD receipts were issued to PHFI and the money was diverted to the third parties.”

The media reported in August 2014 that “the finance ministry has ordered a forensic audit of Dena Bank and OBC after some of their Mumbai-based branches allegedly misappropriated funds worth Rs 437 crore, mobilised through fixed deposits”.

“The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is already looking into the alleged fraud,” said a report by the Hindu-Business Line.

The media gave wide coverage in 2017 to the home ministry’s revoking of PHFI’s licence to receive foreign funds without saying anything about money swindled through FDs at Dena Bank and OBC.

PHFI’s licence to receive foreign funds was revoked, according to media reports, on account of a number of "undesirable activities", including failure to declare over 100 FDs and “having more than one PAN (permanent account number) for opening accounts and FDs” in violation of the law.

I checked on PHFI’s website its annual reports (two of which, for the years 2012-13 and 2013-14, are available) and found large portions blurred and rendered unreadable.

These portions contain information such as sources of funds, application of funds and bank deposits.

It’s notable that despite allowing PHFI to scrounge off public assets worth hundreds of crores, the government continues not to force this racket to submit itself to audit by Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).

Ensnaring Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute
Continuing with its criminal ways, PHFI manipulated Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST) at Trivandrum into wrongly recognizing the former’s dubious ‘Master of Public Health’ (MPH) and PhD programmes.

The SCTIMST has been recognized by the central government as a university and an institute of national importance.

“An entirely corrupt and unlawful arrangement was reached after SCTIMST’s academic committee and governing body repeatedly refused PHFI’s request for affiliation, citing serious problems,” said another source – let’s call her/him Source Two – who contacted me this month (February 2018).

The change of direction came about with new SCTIMST director Asha Kishore taking office on 15 July 2015.

“She brings the matter again in the academic committee (on 31 Oct. 2015) on the basis of a letter (dated 05 Oct. 2015) from PHFI’s Srinath Reddy re-seeking “strategic partnership” and a discreetly encouraging email from Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DST),” said Source Two who has long worked for SCTIMST.

(Making a pitch for recognition of PHFI’s courses by DST Secretary Ashutosh Sharma is another illustration of how the impostors’ club has honeycombed the government, so that it’s hard to say who a babu works for. 

In addition to being the top bureaucrat at DST, which happens to be the department supervising SCTIMST, Sharma also sits on PHFI’s general body! 

No point looking for conflict of interest here! Rather appreciate the sublime convenience of imposture, like the numinosity of a many-faced god!)

“The matter was smuggled into the academic committee as an out of agenda item without a word of justification. So Asha Kishore managed to circumvent the requirement to circulate an item at least seven days before the meeting,” said Source Two.

“The SCTIMST’s academic committee then accepts PHFI’s request on the basis of falsehoods that are uttered in the meeting, such as the statement that ‘PHFI is already partner for some of SCTIMST’s projects’. I drew a blank when I asked SCTIMST for documents that would support that statement,” Source Two said.

Subsequently, the SCTIMST governing body (chaired by former Union Cabinet Secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar), which had earlier taken on board serious problems in affiliating PHFI, accepts the recommendation without discussion and with a single, clumsily scribbled sentence that neither cites the course title nor names the PHFI institute to be granted the favour.

“It’s transparent that the match was fixed,” said Source Two.

“Srinath Reddy’s letter says he spoke with K.R. Thankappan, who headed SCTIMST’s public health school and favoured the affiliation. Asha Kishore tables a ‘note’ from Thankappan supporting affiliation and allows V. Ramankutty (of the same school) to make false statements like ‘PHFI is already partner for some of SCTIMST’s projects’.”

The inclusion of PhD programme in the arrangement that SCTIMST and PHFI entered into on 28 December 2015 is no less than daylight robbery, considering that PhD was not only not discussed in the academic committee meeting, it was not even mentioned in the letter that Srinath Reddy the crook wrote on 05 October 2015 to SCTIMST director Asha Kishore.

That’s not all.

The SCTIMST accommodated PHFI by changing eligibility conditions for MPH, allowing engineering, management and law graduates also to apply for the course.

(This change was also effected quite dubiously. While there is an SCTIMST notification of 02 Sep. 2016, citing a decision made by the academic committee and endorsed by the governing body, which adds engineering graduates to the candidates eligible to be admitted to MPH, there is nothing in the public domain that accounts for the inclusion of management and law graduates.)

Earlier, the SCTIMST allowed into its MPH course people with qualifications in medicine and allied sciences, or at most those holding post graduate degrees in social sciences or nutrition.

In fact, a Gazette of India notification of 22 Dec. 2011 deems SCTIMST’s MPH to be a “medical degree awarded to those persons holding recognized medical qualifications under the Medical Council of India Act, 1956”.

So the change made to accommodate PHFI goes against this gazette notification.

“It’s clear that change in eligibility conditions was made to help PHFI bag candidates and make money. PHFI has also been allowed a much greater intake of students and to charge much higher tuition fees,” Source Two told me.

While SCTIMST admits 25 students in its MPH course, PHFI has been allowed to admit 50; as against the former charging tuition fee of Rs 1.10 lakh for whole of the two year course the latter has been allowed to charge Rs 1.80 lakh per year.

After entering the arrangement with PHFI on 28 December 2015, the SCTIMST also relaxed the maximum period in which a student can complete the MPH course from two to three years (and to four years in ‘extraordinary circumstances’ with director’s approval).

There are more signs of a fixed match, such as PHFI’s citing of engineering graduates (as also management and law graduates) among those who are eligible to apply for the MPH course, in a press release issued on 29 January 2016 – long before SCTIMST’s academic committee took a decision to that effect.

The SCTIMST academic committee took a decision to add engineering graduates to the candidates eligible to take the MPH course only on 05 April 2016 (with the governing body endorsing it in July 2016 and the institute notifying the decision in September 2016).

“A complaint against the PHFI-SCTIMST deal was filed in Sep. 2017 with the Lokayukta-Kerala (case No. C/1009/2017) and another complaint has been sent to the CBI. The Kochi branch of the CBI has already been conducting a preliminary inquiry into this matter,” Source Two told me.

That PHFI is a parasitical body created and propped up by suborning government and misappropriating public money is illustrated by a letter dated 10 Jan. 2017 that PHFI’s Sanjay Zodpey wrote to the mission director of National Health Mission-Madhya Pradesh, begging for “few candidates” to be nominated for the MPH course – which won’t be worth anything without a government institute like SCTIMST legitimizing it.

So the impostors’ club faking private-sector competence and efficiency appropriates government’s resources and then begs the same government for being allowed to provide a paid service to the government!

That’s how Manmohan Singh's Public Health Fraud of India (PHFI) has been playing out for the last 12 years!

A law unto itself
To have a perspective on the two scams described above, bear in mind that PHFI was designed as a scheme that would allow its beneficiaries to enjoy power and privilege without any public accountability, as I explained earlier in my articles here, here (four-part series in Moneylife), here, and here.

It is accountable to no one except fraudsters like Bill Gates, N.R. Narayana Murthy and Harpal Singh (of Fortis Healthcare) who use it as a convenient handle on governments in the centre and the states to promote their private interests.

I had shown in my articles that PHFI is neither a ‘public-private partnership (PPP)’ in any formal meaning that the government attaches to that descriptor nor an ‘autonomous body’ under any ministry (nor any recognized hybrid of a ‘PPP’ and an ‘autonomous body’), as the Manmohan Singh government falsely and repeatedly claimed and as this impostors’ club continues to suggest even today.

It’s no surprise that there is no one to take responsibility for the actions of PHFI. Nor is there anyone who will ensure that it faces the consequences of its actions.

So PHFI has been a law unto itself. Over 12 years of its existence, it has been perverting with impunity the norms and processes of the central and state governments and public and private entities that it entraps in corrupt deals.

I believe rackets like PHFI came out of some kind of ‘elite consensus’ or ‘elite connivance’ in India, which means all those in power, whichever political party they belong to, are together in it, even though their stakes may vary --- be it Manmohan Singh of Congress or Narendra Modi of BJP or Naveen Patnaik of Biju Janata Dal (BJD), or even the so called ‘Left’ which has had no problem with it.

So Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “launched”, public-funded, and legitimized this fraud in 2006.

His party colleague Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy gave PHFI land for setting up its ‘public health school’ in Andhra Pradesh, as did Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat, and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Odisha.

It has been reported that Gujarat government (post-Narendra Modi) also legislated PHFI’s public health school in Gandhinagar into acquiring ‘university’ status.

While I investigated PHFI back in 2012, I had also learnt that the close family of a Biju Janata Dal (BJD) politician, who has long been the most prominent face of his party in Delhi, might have benefited from setting up PHFI’s public health school in Bhubaneswar – in the land deal, as far as I can remember.

(I understand that this politician's wife is the managing director of a company in which Rajat Gupta’s private equity firm New Silk Route Partners had invested.)

The ‘elite consensus’ has meant that the entire ‘establishment’ (by which I mean people with power – executive, legislative, judicial and media) has ignored this elephant in the room.

It also helps explain why government led by Narendra Modi has not shut down the racket that his predecessor Manmohan Singh set up.

PHFI case also shows that mass ‘media’ organizations are nothing but constituents of a glorified PR/propaganda system, affecting stupid ‘ideologies’ and showing pernicious selectivity in purveying news and commentary.

A self-professed ‘journalism-of-courage’ rag like the Indian Express, for example, has reported about PHFI right from 2006, helping this entity acquire legitimacy, but never asked the basic question: If PHFI claims that it’s a ‘public-private partnership’ (or ‘public-private initiative’) then who is the public authority and who are the private parties in this relationship and where is the agreement that they signed between themselves?

Has anyone seen that agreement? What is written in it? What is its scope and duration? What are the things that the parties to it are supposed to do? And who is responsible for ensuring that the parties adhere to the agreement?

It’s funny to see that in reporting on revocation of PHFI’s FCRA licence, the Indian Express and other rags portrayed PHFI as an “NGO” being victimized by the Narendra Modi government – (presumably in order to feed their favoured narrative that this government has engendered a riot of “right wing” fascism in the country) – but refrained from digging into the alleged hiding of over 100 fixed deposits by PHFI.

A number of people may be liable for the Public Health Fraud of India (PHFI), but I believe if ever the process of accountability starts, four individuals who must first be prosecuted for setting up this racket, in that order, are: Manmohan Singh, Rajat Gupta, K. Srinath Reddy, and Bill Gates.
--------

The following Web links have been used in this post in their order of occurrence.

1. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/money-and-banking/Finance-Ministry-orders-forensic-audit-on-Dena-Bank-OBC-in-Rs-437-cr-fraud/article20848451.ece

2. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/mha-order-revoking-license-of-phfi-lists-7-undesirable-activities/articleshow/58294627.cms

3. https://phfi.org/about-us/annual-reports

4. http://kbforyou.blogspot.in/2011/03/manmohan-singhs-public-private.html

5. https://www.moneylife.in/article/will-phfi-be-any-different-under-narayana-murthy/18337.html

6. http://kbforyou.blogspot.in/2012/09/with-phfi-falsification-is-truth.html

7. http://kbforyou.blogspot.in/2014/03/public-health-fraud-of-india-heres-why.html

8. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-economy/PM-launches-Public-Health-Foundation/article20203479.ece

9. http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/phfi-gets-rolling-with-grants-from-govt-gates-/9886/

10. http://naveenpatnaik.com/news/Indian-Institute-of-Public-Health-to-come-up-in-Orissa-at-investment-of-Rs-140-crore/170.html

11. http://www.expressbpd.com/healthcare/cover-story-healthcare/iiph-gandhinagar-has-become-the-first-public-health-university-via-gujarat-state-act-passed-in-2015/380717/

12. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/govt-cancels-fcra-licence-of-phfi-top-public-health-ngo-foreign-funds-4620326/





Here's a media report that names PHFI as having lost money to a fixed deposit scam

$
0
0
After searching long and hard, I did manage to find on 08 March 2018 one media report that names Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) as having lost money to a fixed deposit scam.

It’s a Times of India report, filed by reporter Mateen Hafeez and published on 07 Sep. 2014, which I have pasted at the bottom of this post along with its Web-link.

The report says that PHFI lost Rs 82 crore to a “cash credit scam” involving the lure of big “returns on fixed deposits and later withdrawal of money through cash-credit using these FDs”.

According to my sources, PHFI lost “more than Rs 100 crore” to the scam. That’s what I said in my article published on this site on 16 Feb. 2018.

I stand by that.

According to the latest information I’ve gathered from my sources, PHFI lost Rs 108 crore to a fixed deposit swindle in the year 2013-14, which was more than half of fund corpus.

That left only about Rs 100 crore of fund corpus out of which about Rs 20 crore was frozen as security, sources said.

Manmohan Singh government had in 2006 (i.e. the year PHFI was set up) contributed Rs 65 crore to PHFI fund corpus to be primarily used for setting up two public health schools.

That grant has been wiped out, which means PHFI now has hardly any money to build upon large pieces of land acquired in states, sources said.

"PHFI is currently sitting on about 160 acres of land, acquired from state governments for free, most of which is lying vacant. It has no wherewithal to build on that land. So it's nothing short of land grab,” my sources told me.

Now that I have found one media report that refers to PHFI in connection with the fixed deposit scam, the statement I included in my 16 Feb. article that "no media organisation has written or shown anything that will name PHFI in connection with the scam" stands amended.

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

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-economic-offences-wing-files-four-chargesheets-in-fraud-cases/articleshow/41962416.cms?from=mdr

Mumbai economic offences wing files four chargesheets in fraud cases

Mateen Hafeez | TNN | Updated: Sep 7, 2014, 21:08 IST

MUMBAI: A 35-year-old MBA, who claimed to be a financial consultant, was charged for his alleged role in the cash-credit scam two days ago.

The economic offences wing (EOW) of the city police filed four separate chargesheets against the accused, Anil Pawar, where the accused along with his associates had duped the south Indian education society (SIES) of Rs 38 crore.

Pawar, who stayed in a chawl at Tardeo, had approached the SIES authorities claiming to be a financial consultant and stated that he had strong connection in some nationalized banks.

“If you invest money in fixed deposits in certain banks, you will get one per cent more interest due to my connection. Besides this, we are running a company which will get commission and from this we will give you one more per cent on your total investment,” Pawar reportedly told SIES authorities.

SIES, in the four FIR, has mentioned cheating amount up to Rs 38 crore. The accused forged papers and on the SIES FDs, they availed the cash credit facility.

The fifth FIR, filed by the SIES, is currently under probe.

“He worked as a senior manager with a Financial Information Source firm before being sacked due to some internal problems. Even after he was sacked, he would use the business card of this firm,” said the investigating officer.

His three associates, Mohammed Fasih, chairman and managing director of the Showman Group that runs the countrywide Sheesha lounge chain, Avinash Khandale and Roy Josesph will be charged next week, said police.

The EOW registered nine criminal cases against the accused. It is currently probing seven more complaints (cheating amount Rs 101 crore) against them for targeting various private and government institutions by luring them huge returns on fixed deposits and later withdrawing money through cash-credit using these FDs.

In all the nine FIRs, the accused are suspected to have cheated several institutions of Rs 227.38 crore. Besides this the latest seven enquiries are looking into cheating of Rs 101.5 crore.

All the four accused currently in the Arthur Road jail while the police have issued look out circular notices against five accused to all the airports in the country.

The police are probing the cash-credit fraud and how the money went to Fasih’s company accounts using the affected FDs.

The latest complainants are Mahalaxi trust (Rs three crore cheating case), Public Health Foundation of India (three separate complaints of collective cheating amount Rs 82 crore), Akhil Bharat Varshiya Marvadi Jatiye Kosh (Rs 8.5 crore), M/s Market Place Technology pvt Ltd., (Rs three crore) and Ayurved Prachar Sanstha (Rs five crore). The investigation of Mahalaxi temple trust has been entrusted to the Gamdevi police station.

Police probe found that the loans availed on SIES FDs were diverted to Bhairav Trading, Yashraj Enterprises, Shivam Trading, Darshan Sales, Lovely Fabrics, etc, and after a series of transfers ended up in Showman Group's bank accounts.

Fasih, also a Bollywood producer, after spending 15 days was sent to the Arthur Road along with his cronies. So far, 50 bank accounts belonging to Fasih, his company and cronies have been frozen that contain Rs 5.5 crore.
--------------

This post contains the following Web-links.

1. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Mumbai-economic-offences-wing-files-four-chargesheets-in-fraud-cases/articleshow/41962416.cms?from=mdr

2. https://kbforyou.blogspot.in/2018/02/phfis-rs-100-crore-scam-and-ensnaring.html

Manmohan Singh's PHFI unravels under its own fraud and criminality: "Half dead, in critical care"

$
0
0
Manmohan Singh's "world class" Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) that was to teach "public health" to the whole of India has actually unraveled like the plot of a B-grade Bollywood movie, as I'd suggested in this Moneylife article as far back as September 2012.

A Health Ministry official told me on Tuesday that "we have had no links with PHFI" (contrary to PHFI's 12-year-old claim that Health Secretary sits on its board and it is some kind of 'PPP') and that PHFI is "already half-dead and in critical care, although some people are pleading with the government to save it".

The Health Ministry has also asked PHFI to respond to my complaint (highlighting cover-up of a scam of Rs100 crore and other instances of criminal conduct) within 10 days of receipt of a notice dated 16 March 2018.

All relevant arms of the government have officially confirmed through RTI that no order was ever issued allowing Health Secretary and other top government officials to be on the PHFI governing board. 

So PHFI governing board has been a fraud right from 2006 when this sneaky private club was registered as society by McKinsey's Rajat Gupta, K. Srinath Reddy and six other frontmen and hirelings!

(Mail me at bajajk74@gmail.com for all RTI requests and responses sent by Health Ministry, the PMO, and the Department of Science and Technology. You can also take a look at a few screenshots of these RTI inquiries in this, this, and this tweet of mine.) 

I have already shown in the article linked above as well as this one that PHFI was NEITHER a 'Public-Private Partnership', NOR an 'autonomous body' under any ministry of the central government, NOR did it ever have any other legally tenable status as a public service entity.

I have also shown that Rs 65 crore grant that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a non-entity like PHFI in 2006 was illegal as it fell foul of the General Financial Rules 2005.

Manmohan Singh and his ministers employed falsehood and fraud in Parliament and outside to insinuate PHFI into government, creating enduring conditions for wide-spread corruption and perversion of norms of public service. 

So PHFI is entirely fraudulent in its conception, registration, formation, area of work/influence, and in its continued existence. 

And PHFI has proven that time and again. 

I showed in 16 Feb. article that PHFI Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy and President K. Srinath Reddy have hushed up a Rs 100 crore swindle that has wiped out the Rs 65 crore government grant -- without incurring any consequences of this criminal conduct.

Sources have been informing me about more instances of corruption and criminality in PHFI, such as about 100 acre land grab across the country.

I'll be detailing those instances of corruption and criminality in my forthcoming writings.

'Bhagat Singh My Hero: Our real heroes were taken away and foreign warmongers imposed on us,' says Pakistani writer

$
0
0
While real protectors of our 'dharti' were taken away from us by drawing borders of religion and sect, warmongers imported from outside were foisted upon us as our heroes, says Pakistani writer Farah Lodhi Khan in an Urdu article published on 23 March 2018 .

Her real hero is Bhagat Singh and all those young men who prepared the ground for Hindostan's freedom with their blood, writes Farah in the article that was published in online magazine 'Hum Sub' (हम सब) on the occasion of death anniversary of the great freedom fighter. 
  
Pakistanis have been done a great injustice in that their real heroes and benefactors like Bhagat Singh have been snatched away from them, she says.

"And in place of our real protectors and defenders, invaders and warmongers imported from foreign lands have been imposed on us as our heroes and benefactors."

Farah Lodhi Khan is a pretty regular columnist for Humsub.com.pk. She also has a blog site where her latest post is dated August 2016. 

Her Twitter ID is @farah_lodhi.

The following is the English translation that I've done of Farah's Urdu article on Bhagat Singh.
-----------------

Hero of Freedom Struggle Bhagat Singh’s Death Anniversary

By Farah Lodhi Khan
(23 March 2018, ‘Hum Sab’ magazine, Pakistan)

Three individuals were put to death by hanging for waging war of independence at what is now Shadman Chowk of Lahore on 23 March 1931.

These three individuals were the heroes of our freedom struggle and their names were Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev.

It has been our misfortune that whilst we were taught about Somnath temple and told about the conquerors of Babel of Islam, our very own heroes were snatched away from us.

In just 86 years, we have completely forgotten that there was only one colour of the blood that was poured into the foundations of our freedom and that was red.

That blood had no religion, creed, or sect.

One of the immense sacrifices that gave us our freedom -- whose credit we like to give only our favourite people and the elders of our own social group -- was made by a brave young man whose name was Bhagat Singh.

At an age that today’s children spend finding intense love or loathing on their smart-phones, this boy was showing the world how to liberate one’s land from servitude and indignity.

On 23 March 1931, he was only 23 years old and was already a mortal threat to the Empire.

Resolutions, movements and celebrations became possible only much later; understanding of and demand for freedom came only after Bhagat Singh and other young men of his kind had shaken up the Empire by sacrificing their lives.

For him freedom was not a dream; freedom was his obsession, the mission of his life, and, in his words, his beloved bride.

He is not only Bharat’s but also Pakistan’s hero because he is the hero of Hindostan’s freedom struggle.

He did not belong to our religion; so nobody knows when, if at all, his memorial will be built at the place in Lahore where he was hanged.

If he too had thought like that, he would have fought only for the freedom of Sikhs.

But he died for Hindostan.

So my hero is Bhagat Singh and why I am not embarrassed in admitting that a Sikh figures in my list of heroes?

Because the freedom that we spend today in song and dance and looking for ways to have fun, that freedom he gave his life to.

We’ve been done a terrible injustice – our heroes have been snatched away from us!

We were never told who our real benefactors are.

Bhagat Singh himself said, ‘I am human and everything that affects humanity affects me’.

He was human and so he was free even while in captivity.

We, the captives of our thinking, are unfree despite the freedom we have.

An appeal pending decision and filed by Shaheed Bhagat Singh Foundation at the Lahore High Court seeks re-naming of Lahore’s Shadman Chowk after Bhagat Singh, but peddlers of religion who usually set up their stalls just before elections feel threatened.

They are dead set against any such measure.

And yet even a small cow-related incident in Bharat elicits protests in this country.

It’s a different matter that while Aligarh University continues to be Aligarh University there, no
Bhagat Singh University ever came up here.

It’s actually all a difference in the way we think.

We like to believe that while those Kafirs cannot do any good, we Muslims have a birthright over
Jannat and so we take pride in doing wrong.

Here people litter the roads in order to keep their cars clean and visit others’ homes not for sociality but to spy on them.

Here a boy’s adulthood is greeted with pride and a girl’s coming of age is a cause for concern. Here even a visit to a sickbed is made in exchange for a similar visit or as a favour.

Here a 16-year education is pursued merely for a degree, not for broadening one’s mind.

Here selfish interests regularly set up shop in the name of God, prophet, and faith.

But I have been wronged in having my heroes snatched away from me and my poets and writers pushed into shadow of controversy and dispute.

While the real protectors and defenders of my ‘dharti’ were taken away from us by drawing borders of religion and sect, warmongers imported from outside were foisted upon us as our heroes and benefactors.

This really is an injustice – a dark night in which all our benefactors are disputed.

We have been confined in a circle and made to go round and round, asking each other when this journey will end, when we will reach our destination.

There really is darkness and only darkness.
-------------------------------

The following Web-links have been used in this post.

1. http://www.humsub.com.pk/117494/farah-lodhi-khan-19/

2. http://www.humsub.com.pk/author/farrah-lodhi-khan/

3. https://farahlodhi.wordpress.com/



"भगत सिंह जैसे हमारे असल नायकों को हमसे छीन लिया गया और उनकी जगह विदेशी लड़ाकू थोप दिए गए,"कहती हैं पाकिस्तानी लेखिका

$
0
0
पाकिस्तानियों को आज़ादी दिलाने वाले असल नायकों को उनसे छीन लिया गया है और उनकी जगह विदेशी जंगजूओं को हीरो बना कर थोप दिया गया है.

ये कहना है पाकिस्तानी लेखिका फ़रह लोधी खान का जो कि उर्दू ऑनलाइन पत्रिका 'हम सब' की एक स्तंभकार हैं.

फ़रह कहती हैं, मेरे हीरो भगत सिंह, राजगुरु, सुखदेव और वे सारे नौजवान हैं जिन्होंने हिन्दोस्तान की आज़ादी के लिए अपना खून बहाया. ये नौजवान केवल भारत के ही नहीं बल्कि हमारे भी हीरो हैं.

भगत सिंह की बरसी (23 मार्च 2018) पर प्रकाशित अपने लेख में फ़रह कहती हैं कि पाकिस्तानियों के साथ बहुत बड़ा अन्याय किया गया है. उनसे मज़हब की झूठी बुनियादों पर उनके असली हीरो और "धरती के रखवाले"छीन लिए गए. उन्हें कभी बताया ही नहीं गया कि उनपर वास्तव में एहसान करने वाले कौन थे.

पाकिस्तानियों की सोच को मज़हब और पंथ की सरहदों में क़ैद कर दिया गया और विदेशी आक्रमणकारियों को उन का हीरो बना दिया गया.

फ़रह एक ब्लॉग भी लिखती हैं. उनका ट्विट्टर आई डी @farah_lodhi है.

पेश है फ़रह का भगत सिंह पर लिखा उर्दू लेख जिसका मैंने हिंदी में अनुवाद किया है. 
---------------------------

आज़ादी के हीरो भगत सिंह की बरसी

फरह लोधी खान - ‘हम सब’ मैगज़ीन (पाकिस्तान), 23 मार्च 2018

23 मार्च 1931 को लाहौर के मौजूदा शादमान चौक पर तीन व्यक्तियों को आज़ादी की जदोजहद के जुर्म में फांसी की सज़ा दी गई. वो तीन व्यक्ति जो हमारी आज़ादी के हीरो थे उन के नाम थे भगत सिंह, राज गुरु और सुखदेव.

हमारी बदकिस्मती है कि हमें सोमनाथ के मंदिर तो पढ़ा दिए, इस्लाम की जंगें जीतने वालों के बारे में तो बता दिया, मगर हमारे अपने हीरो हम से छीन लिए गए. सिर्फ़ 86 साल में हम ने भुला दिया कि हमारी आज़ादी की बुनियादों में जो खून डाला गया उस का रंग सिर्फ एक था: लाल.

उस खून का कोई मज़हब या पंथ नहीं था.

वो आज़ादी जिस का श्रेय हम सब सिर्फ अपनी अपनी पसंद के लोगों और अपने अपने समुदाय के बुजुर्गों को देते हैं, इस में एक बहुत बड़ी कुर्बानी उस बहादुर नौजवान की भी थी जिस का नाम था भगत सिंह.

जिस उम्र में आज के बच्चे स्मार्ट-फ़ोन पे या तो शदीद नफ़रत या फिर शदीद मुहब्बत को ढूंढते हैं, ये लड़का वो तरीक़े दुनिया को सिखा रहा था जिस से उस की धरती को गुलामी और तिरस्कार से मुक्ति मिल जाए.

23 मार्च 1931 को वो सिर्फ 23 साल का था मगर साम्राज्य के लिए एक असहनीय ख़तरा बन चुका था.

प्रस्ताव, आन्दोलन, और जश्न सब बहुत बाद में संभव हो पाए; समझबूझ और (स्वाधीनता की) मांग ऐसे बहुत से बलिदानों के बाद संभव हुई जब भगत सिंह और उस जैसे बहुत से लड़कों ने अपनी जान दे कर साम्राज्य को झिंझोड़ा.

आज़ादी उस के लिए एक सपना नहीं थी; आज़ादी उस का जूनून, उस के जीवन का उद्देश्य और उसी के शब्दों में उस की दुल्हन थी.

वो सिर्फ भारत का नहीं पाकिस्तान का भी हीरो है क्योंकि वो हिन्दोस्तान की आज़ादी का हीरो है.

लाहौर जहां उसे फांसी दी गई, वहाँ उस की यादगार न जाने कब बन पाए क्योंकि उस का तालुक़ हमारे मज़हब से नहीं था. अगर उस ने भी ये सोचा होता तो वो केवल सिखों की आज़ादी के लिए लड़ता. वो तो हिन्दुस्तान के लिए मर चला.

मेरा हीरो भगत सिंह और मुझे कोई संकोच नहीं कि मेरे हीरो की फेहरिस्त में एक सिख क्यों है?

क्योंकि आज हम सब जिस आज़ादी को महज़ जश्न और नाच-गाने की नज़र करते हैं, उस ने अपनी ज़िंदगी उस आज़ादी को दी.

हमारे साथ बड़ा अन्याय हुआ. हम से हमारे हीरो छीन लिए गए. हमें बताया ही न गया कि हम पर उपकार करने वाले कौन कौन हैं.

ख़ुद भगत सिंह का कहना था कि मैं एक इंसान हूँ और हर वो चीज़ जिस से इंसानियत को फ़र्क पड़ता है उस से मुझे फ़र्क पड़ता है.

वो इंसान था इसलिए वो क़ैद में भी आज़ाद था. हम सोच के क़ैदी आज़ाद हो कर भी क़ैद में हैं.

लाहौर हाईकोर्ट में शहीद भगत सिंह फाउंडेशन की तरफ से एक अपील लम्बित है जिसमें शादमान चौक को भगत सिंह के नाम पर रखने की मांग की गई है.

मगर चुनाव से थोड़ा पहले ज़िंदा हो जाने वाले मज़हब के दुकानदारों को इस से कुछ ख़तरा मालूम होता है और वो ऐसे किसी भी क़दम के विरोधी हैं. मगर हाँ भारत में गाय सम्बन्धी कोई भी घटना घट जाए तो विरोध प्रदर्शन यहाँ होता है.

ये और बात कि वहाँ अलीगढ़ यूनिवर्सिटी का नाम आज भी वही है; यहाँ कोई भगत सिंह यूनिवर्सिटी न बन सकी.

ये दरअसल सोच का फ़र्क है. हमारा यकीन है कि वो काफिर कोई नेकी नहीं कर सकते जबकि हम पैदाइशी मुसलमान खुद को जन्नत का अधिकारी बताते हैं; इस लिए बड़े गर्व से ग़लत काम करते हैं.

यहाँ लोग अपनी गाड़ी साफ़ रखने की लिए बाहर सड़क को गंदा रखते हैं. किसी के घर जाने का मक़सद अपनाइयत नहीं बल्कि जासूसी होता है. यहाँ लड़के के जवान होने को गर्व से और लडकी के जवान होने को चिंता की दृष्टी से देखा जाता है.

यहाँ किसी बीमार का हाल पूछने जाना भी केवल बदले या एहसान के लिए होता है. यहाँ 16-साल लम्बी शिक्षा सिर्फ़ डिग्री हासिल करने के लिए होती है, विवेक का विस्तार करने के लिए नहीं और यहाँ खुदा, नबी और विश्वास के नाम पर निजी फ़ायदों की दुकान लगती है.

मगर मेरा दुर्भाग्य है कि मुझ से मेरे हीरो छीन लिए गए. मेरे साहित्यकार और कवि विवादों के शिकार बना दिए गए.

मेरी धरती के असल रखवाले और उसकी रक्षा करने वाले मज़हब और पंथ की लकीर खेंच कर हम से दूर कर दिए गए और बाहर से ला-ला कर जंगजू हमारे हीरो बना कर थोप दिए गए.

ये वास्तव में अन्याय है.

अँधेरी रात है कि हम पर एहसान करने वाले सभी विवादों के शिकार हैं. हमें एक दायरे में लाकर छोड़ दिया गया है और हम घूमे जा रहे हैं और पूछे जा रहे हैं कि सफ़र कब ख़त्म होगा? मंजिल कब आयेगी?

वाक़ई अन्धेरा ही अन्धेरा है.
------------------------------

इस पोस्ट में निम्नलिखित वेब-लिंक्स शामिल किये गए हैं.

1. http://www.humsub.com.pk/author/farrah-lodhi-khan/

2. http://www.humsub.com.pk/117494/farah-lodhi-khan-19/

3. https://farahlodhi.wordpress.com/

It's complementarity -- not equality -- that is the basis of all human relationships

$
0
0
I liked a very thoughtful talk Pratiksha delivered in Hindi on the subject of disadvantages men and women suffer for being men and women in her video-blog on Lallantop, and posted the following comment addressing Pratiksha.

You've been courageous and candid in your expression, Pratiksha.

So thanks for that.

And special thanks for relying on that primordial human emotion 'love' which can heal all wounds there are, and bridge all differences there can be.

There are, however, less thought out threads in your view.

Calling men a 'quam' is cringe-worthy because all men are women, just as all women are men.

My mother, my sister, my cousins, and all other women close to me are inside me. They are part of me.

I like the view that Gulab Kothari has disseminated through his writings, namely that the
difference is only in the degree of non-material elements: 'som' and 'agni'.

Men tend to have more 'agni' and less 'som', just as women have more 'som' and less 'agni'.

So a man and a woman complement each other.

'Complement' is the operative word.

Guess what? The basis of all human relationships is 'complementarity' -- not 'equality'.

In all our relationships, we 'complement' each other --- and not 'equal' each other.

None of us is 'equal' or can be 'equal' to any other human being.

'Equality' is, in my view, is a meaningless concept. Why on earth would I want to be 'equal' to any other person? What does it mean to be 'equal'?

Another less thought out thread in your talk is to posit an ultimate culprit called 'society' and seek to hang everything on this peg called 'society'.

But aren't you 'society' too?

And I?

Isn't your sister or brother society? And your cousin or friend or colleague?

Each one of us is society. So who are we blaming for what each of us is?

I believe we need to have a clearer understanding of primordial human community and culture -- which has continued to exist among us although it seems to have been fast eroding -- and how it reconciled all differences without taking this fraudulent  view of men and women as two opposite poles.

A lot of our imagined "problems' has to do with fraudulent concepts introduced by a fraudulent domain called 'political'.

A cohesive human community and culture has the capacity to reconcile all differences and allow every member to have a fulfilling life.

So the key is not to engage in the wild goose chase after fraudulent or meaningless concepts like 'equality', but to appreciate the value of human community and culture -- and seek to set right whatever fault we find in our community and culture.
----------

This post contains the following Web-links.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJxKLtYu_hY
(पुरुषों, आज एक औरत तुम सबको Thank you कहना चाहती है.  The Lallantop; published on 02 April 2018)

2. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/complementarity
(Definition of 'complementarity' in online Oxford English dictionary: A relationship or situation in which two or more different things improve or emphasize each other's qualities.
‘a culture based on the complementarity of men and women’)

Viewing all 287 articles
Browse latest View live