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A Glorious Hindu Legacy: Indic influence in Southeast Asia.

Hinduism in Burma (Myanmar)

Horace Hayman Wilson who used to be professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, says:

 "The civilizations of the Burmese and the Tibetans is derived from India."

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda  p. 180). 

It is contended that this relationship can be traced back to the time of the Buddha. Hindu settlements were set up in Arakan, Tagaung, Srikshetra, Thaton and Pegu at a very early period. Literary and archaeological evidence shows that the entire culture and civilization of Burma was borrowed from India and not from China. Ptolemy, the geographer, tells us that in the 2nd century A.D. many places in Burma had Sanskrit names. Indian religions flourished in Burma. Many religious structures having the images of Indian gods and goddesses have also been found from Burma. 

Burmese history had been buried for a century or more as part of "Farther India."

The Burmese who are most Hinduised are the Mons. Some of their places have Pali names. The Mon kingdom in the 6th century A.D. was known as Dvaravati. The rulers of this kingdom had mostly Indian names. The Mon settlements of the Hindus were known as Ramanna-desa.

(Note: Considered the national epic of Myanmar, the Yama Zatdaw, an adaptation of Ramayana, has been influenced greatly by Thai, Mon, and Indian versions of the play. The Burmese name for the story itself is Yamayana, while zatdaw refers to the acted play).

The Yama Zatdaw was introduced by oral tradition during King Anawratha's reign. It was influenced greatly by Ayutthaya Kingdom, during which various Konbaung Dynasty kings invaded the kingdom. The invasions often brought back spoils of war, including elements of Ramakien (Thai version of Ramayana) into the epic. The characters of Yama Zatdaw share the same features and characteristics as those in the original story. However, in acting, the costumes are a mixture of Bamar and Thai elements. The names of the characters, in general, are Burmese transliterations of the Sanskrit names. Rama is known as Yama; Sita is known as Thida; Ravana is known as Dat-thigiri).

Ramayana and Mahabharata the two ancient Sanskrit epics of India exerted a profound impact upon the cultures of South East Asia and have played no small role in the Indianisation of the major portion of that region. Out of ASEAN TEN at least seven nations Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia have received the influence of Hindu culture since the early days of Indian colonisation. 

(source: Ramayana in Myanmar).  Refer to Rama or Ramchandra.

The Pali literature of Burma on law is based on the Dharamsastras of Manu, Narada and Yajnavalkya. The art of Burma was also influenced by the Indian art. 

In Burma, the finest temple is the Ananda at Pagan. It occupies the center of a spacious courtyard which is 564 ft square. There is no doubt of its derivation from Indian type. Temples of the same type existed in Bengal and most probably suggested the model of the Ananda temple. 

Charles Duroiselle, pioneer of Burmese Studies in France, who composed the Epigraphia Birmanica, says on the Ananda temple: 

" There can be no doubt that the architects who planned and built the Ananda temple were Indians. Everything in this temple from Sikhara to the basement as well as the numerous stone sculptures found in its corridors and the terra-cotta...adoring its basement and terraces, bear the indubitable stamp of Indian genius and craftsmanship...In this sense, we may take it, therefore, that the Ananda, though built in the Burmese capital, is an Indian temple."

(source: Ancient India - By R. C. Majumdar p. 497).

Michael Symes author of An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava in the Year 1795 p. 326 says: "The Burmans, we are told, call their Code generally, Dharmasath or Shastra; it is one among the many commentaries of Manu. Mr. Syme speaks in glowing terms of the Code."

(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 180-181).

Hindu Bas-relief inside the Nan Paya Temple, Burma.

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Nan Paya temple at Myinkaba, Near Pagan, Burma.

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The names of its rivers are Sanskrit names - Irrawati, Brahmaputra and Chindwin. Her head of state is also known as Adipadi, which is the Sanskrit Adhaipati, referring to the chief executive. 

The  Pagan Kingdom (849-1287) is considered to be the first Burmese empire.

During the time of the Pyu kingdom, between about 500 and 950, the Bamar, people of the Burmese ethnic group, began infiltrating from the area to the north into the central region of Burma which was occupied by Pyu people that had come under the influence of Mahayana Buddhism from Bihar and Bengal . By 849, the city of Pagan (now spelled Bagan had emerged as the capital of a powerful kingdom that would unify Burma and filled the void left by the Pyu.

(image source: Pagan Kingdom).

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Indian-Hindu influences must certainly have been the strongest if not the earliest influence upon that countryside. The Sarabha Gate, still standing, is commonly associated with 9th century King Pyinbya. It is the frontispiece to what will become Pagan a century and half later. It is Hindu in design and structure. This great out reach of Indian-Hindu style is also evident in some 9th century ruins surrounding Angkor Wat. This Hindu push through India, Burma, Thailand, Indochina and Indonesia must have been an extraordinary one, certainly equal to the Graeco-Roman thrust on the Mediterranean cultures. It left behind an indelible imprint upon the civilizations of those two peninsulas of Asia stretching deep into the Indian Ocean. The mark of its art, architecture, and its religion are still to be found in these Buddhist and Moslem countries.

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A paltry 2 per cent of the Burmese population amounting to 240,000 accounts for Hindus that too happen to be Burmese Indians. But Hinduism held a major sway over Burmese history and thereupon its literature. Yama Zatdaw is Burmese rendition of the Ramayana. The dominant ethnic group, Bamar living mostly in countryside follow Nat worship which has several adaptations of Hindu Gods and Goddesses. The Burmese God Thagyamin, King of the Nats rides a three-headed elephant is identified with Indra, the king of Hindu Gods. Burmese Buddhists are devout of Thuyathadi, counterpart of Goddess Saraswati. As the Goddess of knowledge, She is avidly worshipped by students before examinations. Some other Gods are as well worshipped by Burmese Buddhists.

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Religious Conversion is a foreign policy objective of the Christian West.


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How the British Longed to convert the Parsis to Christianity  

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) The 16^th President of the United States, successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, only to be assassinated as the war was coming to an end. Before becoming the first Republican elected to the Presidency, Lincoln was a lawyer, an Illinois state legislator, a member of the United States House of Representatives. He was an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery in the United States.  

He said:

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."   

(source: What Some Famous People Have Said About Christianity).  Refer to jesusneverexisted.com. 

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That the Parsis of today, now that the light of science is breaking upon them, should be making inquiries into the genesis of their faith and the almost lost threads of their history, is a most significant fact. They have found many things to astonish them. The old Pahlavi literature has revealed to them many doctrinal crudities which the better minds would gladly ignore as authority on worship and creed, and which are deviations from the severer code of Zoroaster. Bu these candid inquiries can only result in good. They will suggest the striking contrast between the conglomerate Parsi religion and Christianity, while the contact with European Christians will constantly lessen the prejudice against the Christian religion, an make the Parsis more accessible to the Gospel. 

In the plane of moral ideas, they stand so far above the Hindus that we must regard them as occupying a midway position between Christianity and Buddhism.

Parsi from Bombay.

It must be admitted, however, that the Parsis have proven very inaccessible to the Gospel.

Refer to chapter on European Imperialism and Harvesting Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims - By Arun Shourie and Things they don't tell about Christianity.

Refer to jesusneverexisted.com 

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We cannot but believe that the Parsi, as he studies more closely the difference between his own faith and the Christian, will, in due time, come to accept the latter. It must be admitted, however, that the Parsis have proven very inaccessible to the Gospel. It is said, that of all the Christians in the presidency of Bombay , not more than a dozen are from the Parsi community. 

But Rev. J Murray Mitchell, (1815 - 1904) who has studied the prevailing tendencies among the people during his residence in Bombay, has a hopeful view of their Christian future. He says:

“The immense disparity between Christ and Zoroaster is dawning, we believe, on that interesting people, the Parsis of India. They have been clinging to their ancient faith from a feeling of nationality rather than of religion – from tradition more than conviction; but immense changes are certainly at hand. But we believe that, as the Magi from the East, who probably were Zoroastrians, hastened to lay their gold, frankincense, and myrrh at the feet of the new-born Redeemer, so ere long, the Parsis will in all probability be the first of Eastern races to take upon them, as a race, the easy yoke of Christ.”

(source:  Indika: The Country and the people of India and Ceylon - By Rev. John F Hurst p. 151 - 152).

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The Hypocrisy of English Imperialism
How British wanted to Christianize India

Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1774) France's greatest writers and philosophers, was atheist, and a bitter critic of the Church, which he looked upon as the instigator of cruelty, injustice, and inequality, wrote, in a letter to Frederick the Great (1712–86): 

"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." "Where is the prince sufficiently educated to know that for seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm?'

"Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror." “You will notice that in all disputes between Christians since the birth of the Church, Rome has always favored the doctrine which most completely subjugated the human mind and annihilated reason.” “As you know, the Inquisition is an admirable and wholly Christian invention to make the pope and the monks more powerful and turn a whole kingdom into hypocrites.”  

In his 'Philosophical Dictionary', Voltaire gave a time-defying verdict: "Pagan religion shed very little blood, while ours flooded the earth with it. Christianity has deluged the earth with blood for the sake of sophisms'."  

About the atrocities committed by the Roman Catholic Church in Goa in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Voltaire in his 'Fragments of India's History' observed: 

"Goa is sadly famous for its Inquistion, which is contrary to humanity as much as to commerce. The Portuguese monks deluded us into believing that the Indian populace was worshipping the Devil, while it is THEY who served him'.

(source: Letter to Frederick the Great, quoted in the Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Prometheus Books, 1985, p. 715 and The Burningcross and Letter to Frederick the Great, quoted in the Encyclopedia of Unbelief  Prometheus Books, 1985, p. 715).  Refer to jesusneverexisted.com. 

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Conversion (Christian and Islamic) is not Spirituality - it is Imperialism, Intrusion, and Terrorism

Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975) philosopher and President of India, Eastern Religions & Western Thought  p. 149 that:

“Christian proselytism has done irretrievable harm to native races by disintegrating their culture."

Refer to Memoirs of Goa - By Alfredo DeMello and Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust - By Kevin Annett and documentary Unrepentant and Canada's Genocide. Refer to The Bible Unmasked - by Joseph Lewis.

Tim Mitchell a Columnist has wisely observed that:

"Christianity’s rapacious evangelical agenda has caused, and will continue to cause, incalculable damage to humanity’s spirit. Because of its steadfast conviction that it is “universal” and that it can transplant itself into any culture at any time and any place, as if it were somehow making things they way they should be, Christianity fails to recognize the damage it is inflicting upon religion as a collective human experience when it compromises the integrity of other faiths. Just as industrialization has caused countless environments across the globe to erode due to overpopulation, pollution and massive clear-cutting efforts, I believe that Christianity’s ruthless evangelization efforts that resulted in the destruction of countless religious traditions has caused a spiritual erosion of sorts around the world." 

(source:  Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Destiny - By Tim Mitchell.   Refer to Harvesting Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims - By Arun Shourie

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Christian Spiritual Domination 

"Who is Christianity for? It may seem an odd question. The plainest of answers is furnished by the so-called 'great commission' which concludes St Mathew's Gospel: 'Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.' What could be more explicit than that? But it needs only a slight acquaintance with the history of the past 2,000 years to show that Christians have not always heeded even the least ambiguous of instructions. consider the withering rebuke delivered by a gathering of Baptist ministers to the young William Carey, later to be so famous in the Indian mission field, when in 1786 he first voiced his wish to become a missionary: 

'Sit down, young man. When it pleases the Lord to convert the heathen He will do it without your help or mine.'

(source: The Barbarian Conversion -  By Richard Fletcher  p. 1). Refer to chapter on European Imperialism  

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Protestant Missions in British India - By Rev. John F Hurst  

While India has attracted the commercial and military spirit of the West, its great spiritual needs have not been less potent in attracting the evangelist. The beginning was simple and obscure, but abundant in faith and sacrifice.

Evangelization of India from America

Important facts show the early relation between American Christianity and India.  The first gifts from Anglo-Saxon Christians for the evangelization of India were from America; that one of the first full accounts of the methods of work in Indian evangelization sent to the English-speaking world was to New England; and that some of the first copies of books which came from the mission press in India and fell into Anglo-Saxon hands were sent to New England and were received by Cotton Mather. Serampore was the first English purpose to bring to pass, in the realm of Christian life, what Clive and Hastings achieved by military and civil triumphs in India.

Ziegenbalg and Plutschau

Ziegenbalg and King Fredrick of Denmark.

Fredrick IV, the Danish king, lost no opportunity and instructed his court preacher, Dr. Lutkens, to take measures for sending out missionaries to Tranquebar. While India has attracted the commercial and military spirit of the West, its great spiritual needs have not been less potent in attracting the evangelist.

Refer to Crimes of Christianity - By G W Foote and J M Wheeler Progressive Publishing Co. London. 1887.

Refer to chapter on European Imperialism and Harvesting Our Souls - Missionaries, their design, their claims - By Arun Shourie and Things they don't tell about Christianity. Refer to jesusneverexisted.com. 

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Tranquebar, a little town 180 miles south of Madras, was the cradle of Protestant missions in the Orient. That the missionaries from Denmark began their magnificent work here belongs to the region of religious romance. On July 9, 11706, Ziegenbalg and Plutschau landed here. Why should they come to this obscure and insignificant place? Simply because Tranquebar was a little possession of Denmark. It became a Danish settlement through the accident of a shipwreck. In 1618 Roland Crape, the captain of a Danish East India ship, was shipwrecked here.

The King of Tanjore Vijaya Raghunatha Nayak in 1620, saw in this accident an advantage and permitted the Danes to settle in Tarangambadi (Tranquebar) and carry on Trade in the Tanjore country. Believing it to be a good opportunity to show a kindness to the Danes, he made over the town of Tranquebar to Crape, and the Danish flag floated over the fort of Tranquebar.  Fredrick IV, the Danish king, instructed his court preacher, Dr. Lutkens, to take measures for sending out missionaries to Tranquebar.

Schwartz

Christian Frederik Schwarz, who was destined to prove an inspiration to the cause of missions world over, arrived in Southern India in 1759, and, without waiting for a critical knowledge of Tamil, began at once with a few words and in broken speech. If we consider all the qualities which constitute a sublime missionary life, the career of this man is almost without a parallel in missionary history. With the death of Schwarz, in 1798, the first period of Protestant missions came to an end. The difficulties had been numerous, and of such magnitude as to terrify any spirits less brave than the heroes who made the first Protestant attack upon the dense mass of Hindu paganism.

Carey, Marshman, and Ward  

William Carey arrived in Calcutta in 1793, began a new era, not alone in the Indian missions, but in the history of universal evangelization. He was joined afterwards by Marshman and Ward, and the three planned for the occupation of all Northern India . The forces of this mission radiated in all directions. 

Martyn

Henry Martyn, a chaplain of the East India Company, arrived in 1806, and began his brief but remarkable career in the valley of the Ganges . In less than two years after his arrival he had translated the New Testament into Hindustani, written a commentary in the same language on our Lord’s parables, and began a Persian translation of the New Testament. He was consumed by his passionate zeal for souls. He died in 1812 at the age of 31 at Tokat, Asia Minor on his way home from Persia to England . His body lies where he died, and his tombstone bears the following inscription, written by Lord Macaulay:

“here Martyn lies! In manhood’s early bloom
The Christian found a Pagan tomb;
Religion, sorrowing o’er her favorite son,
Points to the glorious trophies which he won”

Martyn left behind an example which has been a singular force in leading many, in both England and America, to enter upon the missionary career.

Judson and Newell

In 1812 two American missionaries, Judson and Newell, arrived in Calcutta. The British government, which had not yet learned that the Christian religion was a greater force to preserve India to England than the army itself, ordered their expulsion from the country. After 1813, there were no further expulsions of missionaries. The Bishop’s College in Calcutta and the Baptist College in Serampore had been doing invaluable work, each in its own way, towards translating the Scriptures, establishing schools and building up a Christian life among the native populations. The British government had learned that its interests in India lay in the same path with the evangelization of the country.

Of the 791 foreign missionaries , 25 of these are connected with American societies. The nationalities of the others are as follows:

England – 276
Scotland – 78
Ireland – 17
 Wales – 11
Canada – 23-404
United States – 139
Germany – 128
Switzerland – 18
Denmark – 9
 Others – 40
 Native Sons – 42

“ India is now open to missionary work. All the Indian gates are down; the bars are shattered into small fragments; the locks are ground into fine dust. Every stream sings a welcome to the evangelist of peace. The King of Nations is entering”

One of the most significant signs of the Indian times lies in the fact that since the Mutiny of 1857 (War of Independence) England has learned that the Christian religion is the real, and only, basis of a permanent tenure of the country. 

In 1862 Lord Palmerston paid a tribute to the loyalty to the British government of the native Christians of India, and added:

“It is not only our duty, but it is our interest to promote the diffusion of Christianity, as far as possible, through the whole length and breadth of India .” The report of the Secretary of State and Council of India, 1871- 72, says: “the government of India cannot but acknowledge the great obligations under which it is laid by the benevolent exertions made by missionaries, whose blameless example and self-denying labors are infusing new vigor into the stereotyped life of the great populations placed under English rule, and are preparing them to be in every way better men and better citizens of the great empire in which they dwell.” There will be no lower attitude occupied by the government than is expressed in these strong words.

No missionary will ever again be warned off, as Judson was, from an Indian port.

(source: Indika: The Country and the people of India and Ceylon - By Rev. John F Hurst p. 432 – 444 and  p. 450 - 453). Refer to jesusneverexisted.com. Refer to chapter on European Imperialism  

Refer to Foreign contributions to India 2006 - 2007 and Christian Institutions Top List of NGOs Operating in India in 2007

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1857 War of Independence and Justifying British Colonialism in India

James Madison (1751-1836) was an American politician, the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817), and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Considered to be the "Father of the Constitution", he was the principal author of the document. In 1788, he wrote over a third of the Federalist Papers, still the most influential commentary on the Constitution.  

He has observed this about Christianity:

"What have been Christianity's fruits? — Superstition, bigotry and persecution".

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Victor Hugo rightly said that revolution is the lava of civilization. Political convulsions, like geological upheavals, often usher in new epochs in the life of any nation. The War of 1857 was undoubtedly an epoch-making event in India’s struggle for freedom. For what the British sought to deride as a mere Sepoy mutiny was India’s First War of Independence in a very true sense, when people from all walks of life, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion and language, rose against the British rule. 

Indian history appears to be remarkably free of large scale peasant revolts (like The French Revolution and The Russian Revolution) of the kind that have provided the historians of Europe and China with materials for assessing class antagonisms. For this reason the war of 1857 has been of special interest. 

Western Intrusion into Non-European World and tampering with the religions of India?

Ross Lewis Mangles (1833 - 1905) the Chairman of the Directors of the East India Company said in the House of Commons in 1857:

"Providence has entrusted the extensive empire of Hindustan to England, in order that the banner of Christ should wave triumphant from one end of India to the other. Everyone must exert all his strength that here may be no dilatoriness on any account in continuing in the country the grand work of making India Christian."

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It was war in which Western man was pitted against Orientals, race against race, Christianity against the resurgent religions of India. 

Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870 ) fulminated like a savage tyrant when he wrote:

‘I wish I were a Commander In Chief in India . The first thing I would do to strike that Oriental Race with amazement....should be to proclaim to them that my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested; and that I was there for that purpose and no other, . . .now proceeding, with all convenient dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of mankind and raze it off the face of the Earth.’

British Atrocities

One of the conspicuous features of British writing of 1857  had been on emphasis on the atrocities committed by Indians on Europeans.  

"If in 1776 the Americans had failed, would you now talk about the American Mutiny?" 

Speaking in the House of Commons in July 1857, Benjamin Disraeli described the uprising of 1857 as a ‘national revolt’ while Lord Palmerston, the then Prime Minister, tried to down play the scope and the significance of the event as a ‘mere military mutiny’ (much like what is termed as "insurgency in Iraq by the American Government today").

White Man's burden. Civilizing the Heathens of India and Spreading Democracy in Iraq.

 America: The 21st century Britain's Imperial apprentice.

The First War of Independence was a war in which Western man was pitted against Orientals, race against race, Christianity against the resurgent religions of India. 

The British tried to down play the scope and the significance of the event as a ‘mere military mutiny’ much like what is termed as "insurgency in Iraq" by the American Government today.

Refer to chapter on European Imperialism  

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Reflecting this debate, the early historian of the rebellion, Charles Ball, though he sided with the name of ‘Mutiny’ in his title (using mutiny and Sepoy insurrection), yet he labeled it a ‘struggle for liberty and independence as a people’ in the text of his book.

Sir John Kaye (1814 - 1876) historian and author of Christianity in India, writing with an evangelical mindset made the Brahmins the scapegoat for revolt. 

"Every monstrous lie exploded, every abominable practice suppressed, was a blow struck at the Priesthood; for all these monstrosities and abominations had their root in Hindooism, and could not be eradicated without sore disturbance and confusion of the soil. The murder of women on the funeral-pile, the murder of little children in the zenana, the murder of the sick and the aged on the banks of the river....Education, pure and simple in its secularity, was quite enough in itself to hew down this dense jungle of Hindooism; but when it was seen that the functions of the English schoolmaster and the Christian priest were often united in the same person at examinations conducted by chaplains or missionaries, a fear arose lest even secular education might be the mask of proselytism...every year there were there manifestations of a continually increasing desire to emancipate the natives of India from the gross superstitions which enchained them."

Surendra Nath Sen formerly the Head of the Department of History, Calcutta University and Vice Chancellor of the Delhi University wrote:

"The Mutiny was inevitable. No dependent nation can for ever reconcile itself to foreign domination. A despotic government must ultimately rule by the sword though it might be sheathed in velvet. In India the sword was apparently in the custody of the Sepoy Army. Between the Sepoy and his foreign master there was no common tie of race, language, and religion."

He wrote in his book Eighteen fifty seven: 

"The cause of the mutiny was as much as anything a kind of collective English insensitivity to Indian religious beliefs and Indian ways in general, combined with the excesses of nineteenth century Christian evangelism. Admittedly, this evangelism did embrace reforms such as the suppression of suttee, but Sen stresses that there was a body of educated Indian opinion moving in the same direction. Further, many of the vaunted reforms of the English, such as the suppression of feudal tyranny, were deeply flawed in practice: hence he dwells upon the sheer scale of the looting practiced by the English soldiery, and even their officers, and the corruption which was the norm in a civil government presided over by Englishmen. In short, while Sen is forced to recognize the Later English Raj component of his own heritage, he resents the brutality with which it was imposed."

Henry Mead author of The Sepoy Revolt: Its Causes and Its Consequences "the measureless folly of our rule” in India, a rule based, he declares, on “torture and lawlessness, and the perpetual suffering of millions”. He traces in excruciating detail the system of torture employed by tax collectors of the raj and asserts that “under Christian sway,” the peasant population of India has been reduced almost to a state of “ultimate wretchedness”  The British have imposed on India, he concludes, “a system of rule which is wholly destructive”

Gautam Chakravarty author of The Indian Mutiny and the British Imagination has remarked that: 

"that nineteenth-century imperial expansion, like the “US-led neo-colonial globalisation of the twentieth century,” “justified multiform violence through self-serving, self-congratulatory high talk about civilizing and racial missions”; Victorian professions of philanthropic intent toward India were only so much “humbug” designed to justify plunder."  British imperialism in India was propelled by general belief in “an inevitable national and racial urge” to foreign domination and that there was in Britain an “almost immediate manufacture of a language combining patriotic fervour with xenophobia,” a language anticipating the “jingoism and warmongering of later, high imperial, decades.” 

The analyses of the nature and courses of the war that had been made by British writers were challenged by a young Indian writer in a work that has played a remarkably influential role in the development of modern Indian historgraphy. 

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883 - 1966) was one of a group of students who went to Europe and realized that something more than the destruction of the British was needed: Indians must be filled with the desire to rise against their oppressors. It was for this reason that he wrote his account of 1857, calling it "the First Indian War of Independence." His book was printed in Holland, was immediately proscribed by the British authorities, nevertheless copies were smuggled into India, and those who never read it began to think of the revolt of 1857 as a great national war of liberation. 

The use of the term "Indian Mutiny" is considered as unacceptable and offensive, as it is perceived to belittle what they see as a "First War of Independence" and therefore reflecting a biased, imperialistic attitude of the erstwhile colonists. 

Hira Lal Gupta of Saugar University in the Journal of Indian History wrote:

"Although the 19th century political and philosophical concept of nationalism of a strictly western type was not evolved in India till then, the idea of a nationhood and the concept of India, as one country inhabited by the Hindus and Muslims, were not new. Sri Savarkar designated the uprising of 1857 as the first war of Indian Independence, he revealed a simple truth and provided inspiration to the English educated intelligentsia of India coming to the forefront of the nationalist oragnizations. There is nothing wrong in calling the great Revolt as the national uprising of India against foreign domination."

Somnath Chaterjee  (1929 - ) Office of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha in October 2006 said:

“The War of 1857 was undoubtedly an epoch-making event in India ’s struggle for freedom. For what the British sought to deride as a mere sepoy mutiny was India ’s First War of Independence in a very true sense, when people from all walks of life, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion and language, rose against the British rule. Not only did these martyrs give up their lives for the sake of the country’s freedom but also left a message for the future generations --- a message of sacrifice, courage of conviction, a strong belief in the ultimate victory of the people in their war against oppression. 

'With these words, I once again pay my humble tributes to the martyrs of the 1857 War of Independence ...”  

(source: 1857 in India: Mutiny or War of Independence - Edited by Ainslee T Embree and War of No Pity: The Indian Mutiny and Victorian Trauma - By Christopher Herbert).

Refer to chapter on European Imperialism  

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Racial Equality Bill Of 1919, And Massacre At Jallianwala Bagh
No apology for the Massacre by the Government of Britain  

The British enacted the Rowlatt Act in February 1919 essentially designed to suppress all Indian demands. The Rowlatt Bill drew nation wide protests. The people of Amritsar chose to hold a peaceful meeting on Sunday the 13th of April 1919, which was also the Baisakhi, in Jallianwala Bagh to express their opposition to the Bill. 

While the Indian nationalists of Amritsar made arrangements for a peaceful meeting, the staunch British imperialist General Reginald E. H. Dyer, chief of the British army in Amritsar , resolved to teach the natives a lesson. Dyer commanded his troops to open fire, without warning, on the peaceful gathering of about 20,000 local Indians from Amritsar and the nearby villages. The machine guns killed 379 men women and children, and at least 1200 received serious injuries. Eminent journalist and historian Khuswant Singh claims a higher figure of 2000 wounded, many of whom succumbed to their injuries in the months to follow. 

The Government of Britain as of today, despite demands from the Government and people of India , have not offered an official apology for the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh.
 
The 13th of April 1919 was the day of Baisakhi, which marks the beginning of the solar New Year in India . For the people of the province of Punjab where lies the city of Amritsar , where the massacre took place, Baisakhi is a mega event. Adherents of the Sikh religion celebrate Baisakhi for a combination of reasons; it is the day of their most important religious festival, harvest festival and the New Year’s Day. Religious significance of Baisakhi stems from several important historical facts, which are as follows. The Hindus, not only of Punjab but of the entire country of India , observe Baisakhi as the New Year’s Day, celebrated by ritual bathing, worshipping and merriment. And the Baisakhi is the day the British chose to massacre the unarmed civilians, men women and children, of Punjab , and to utterly humiliate Indians, who had most generously contributed to the war efforts of the British. 

The massacre of Jallianwala Bagh was a turning point in Indo-British relations, just as the rejection of the Racial Equality Bill was for the Anglo-Japanese relations. The massacre brought a new resolve among the Indian leadership demanding freedom. Mahatma Gandhi launched his non-cooperation movement that would eventually succeed in driving the British off India .

(source: Racial Equality Bill Of 1919, And Massacre At Jallianwala Bagh - By Mrs Shizuka Imamoto with Dr Nachiketa Das).

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An abysmally apocalyptic condition of Hindus In India

Only in India: Where 17% aggressive religious Minority rules over Majority

India is a predominantly Hindu nation.  83% of the Indian population is Hindu.  But it is a matter of great regret that India is the only country in the world where the Hindu majority population is being ruled by the other 17% minority communities. 

Sonia Maino Gandhi, the President of the ruling Congress Party is a practicing Catholic Christian.  Her son Rahul Gandhi who is being groomed as the next Prime Minister of India is also a Christian.  Sonia’s daughter Priyanka Vadera and her husband are also Christians.  India’a Defense Minister is A. K. Anthony, a Christian. 

Sonia’s closest advisors are:  Margaret Alva (resigned yesterday), Oscar Fernandes, Ambika Soni, all Christians (yes, despite Ambika’s Hindu sounding name, she is a Christian).  India ’s Vice President is Mohammad Hamid Ansari.  Ahmed Patel, Gulam Nabi Azad and Salman Khurshid – the core members of Sonia’s think tank – are all Muslims.   

Dr. Shakeel Ahmad is Minister of State in Home Ministry, a very sensitive post.  One more fundamentalist Islamist E. Ahmed, President of the Indian Union Muslim League is the Union Minister for External Affairs.  Mr. Abdul Rahman Antulay is the Minority Affairs Minister and Mr. Shafi Qureshi is the Chairman of National Commission on Minorities.  In addition, Sonia’s handpick Andhra Pradesh Chief MinisterY. S. Rajasekhara Reddy is also a Christian (again, to deceive the gullible Hindu public, he maintains a Hindu sounding name). 

 An abysmally apocalyptic condition of Hindus in India

Lord Krishna.

India: A Land of The Upanishads, The Bhagavad Gita and Vedas is being ruled by 17% of Aggressively religious Minority.

Watch video - Intellectual Terrorism and Subversion in polity – By Radha Rajan and After Haj, it is Christian pilgrimage - crusadewatch.org and  Nomenclature terrorism - By Rajeev Srinivasan - haindavakeralam.com and The disadvantaged Hindus, pampered Minorities - By R K Ohri

Refer to AP Govt. move to demolish ISKCON Temple

Refer to Hindu Human Rights Watch and Foreign contributions to India 2006 - 2007 and Christian Institutions Top List of NGOs Operating in India in 2007

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Prof. Valson Thampu, a Christian theologian, an academic and author, Chairman, NCERT Curriculum Review Committee, is a known Hindu baiter.  Mr. John Dayal, Chairman of Indian Catholic Union, notorious for his hate mongering proclivity, is playing a very disastrous role in National Integration Council.  Anti-Hindu UPA government uses the services of Mr. John Dayal and Mr. Kanchan Ilaya, another Hindu hater, to lobby with the U.N. and U.S. Congress, to drive a wedge in Hindu society and weaken it.  

From the above, it is absolutely clear that India is actually being ruled either by the Moslems or by Christians.  The situation for Hindus in India , in short, could be described as abysmally apocalyptic.      

While most Hindus are busy in their daily chores like earning a living, doing yoga, making money, celebrating festivals, enjoying their lives, building temples, our adversaries have hatched very sinister plans to enslave us politically and then obliterate Hindu Dharma from the Indian soil.  As a matter of fact, the Hindus are under a multi-pronged seize. 

Muslim population in the world is approximately 1.3 billion.  They have more than 54 countries.  It is a paradox that Hindus with approximately one billion adherents in the world do not have even one country where they could live without any fear of being terrorized!   

We must rectify this dichotomy at the earliest.

Because of our internal squabbles, in the medieval period, Afghans and Moguls used us to fight for them and finally they subjugated India .  Now, because of our disunity, myopic vision, apathy, selfishness, greed, and ego-centric attitude, the Islamists, Christians and Communists are vying with one another to control Hindus politically.

The next Parliamentary elections are round the corner.  If Hindus really want to jettison the anti-Hindu forces (such as Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Ramvilas Paswan, the deadly combination of Leftists-cum-Islamists), who have entrenched themselves in the corridors of power and reduced Hindus to second class citizens in their own country, Hindus have to shed their squeamishness, and make a Machiavellian move to end this sordid chapter of servitude and vulnerability.

(source: How to Establish the Pro Hindu Government in India ? - By Narain Kataria - haindava keralam).

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Christian Conquest of India - White Man's Burden

Christian Conversion are a plot to Murder Ancient Indic Civilization and Culture.

To Colonize our souls and Cannibalize our Cultures. 

Massive Foreign funds to annihilate the native faith of the World.

Conversion (Christian and Islamic) is not Spirituality - it is Imperialism and Terrorism

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother..."

                                                                 Matthew 10:34-35 - Things they don't tell about Christianity  

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."  - Isaac Asimov 

"Whoever will take the trouble to read attentively, will find in all those passages where the Old Testament is cited, only an obvious abuse of words, and the seal of falsehood on almost every page."  - Voltaire

“The calculation is that this (India) is the last great missionary front on Earth”  - John L. Allen Jr a Vatican expert based in Rome.

"A new mood of aggressive evangelism has been emanating from America. Well-funded, superbly networked, backed by the highest of the land, seized of its moral supremacy, it has India as one of its key targets."

                                -  V K Shashikumar - Preparing for the harvest ...  - By Tehelka.com.  Refer to Debunking Christianity and Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity - by John W. Loftus and