On
August 2, the Supreme Court heard Solicitor General Harish Salve read out a 1992
question paper set for West Bengal's higher secondary Hindi examination under
the auspices of its Communist government. Students were asked to write an essay
on one of the following:
- National
unity and integrity are false political slogans.
- In
Hindustan, there is no place for Hindu and Hindi.
- Five-year
plans are a sham.
- Statistics
on national development are a fraud.
- Democracy
is a conspiracy.
- National
revolution is the only way for progress.
The students were also given a
choice to précis the passage: "New Delhi is a heartless administrative
seat, on which sit not elected representatives of people, but anti-social
poisonous snakes coming out of the caste jungle. Progress has been destroyed by
tradition, education by the English medium, religion by political secularism,
human beings by greed, idealism by dirty consumerism..."
Or,
expanding upon: "Red Flag in Red Fort is the demand of
Hindustan."
Next
came a question in the mathematics paper for the 1999-2000 annual examination
for Class VI students in a higher secondary school: "Three friends, Pervez,
Atal and Bill went on a picnic. Pervez bought 750 grams of meat at Rs 120 a kg;
Atal bought other food for Rs 75, and Bill gave some money to Atal and Pervez,
so that their expenditure was equal. How much money did Atal and Pervez receive
from Bill?"
At which
point, Justice M B Shah got the gist of it and asked Mr Salve "not to read
any more."
Of
course the papers are hilariously blatant examples of leftist indoctrination,
variations of which are being hammered into Indian children since the prime
ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru, he of Glimpses of World History.
However, more hilarious and blatant are the comments in The Telegraph's
report:
- Salve
*dramatically* brought out a question paper...
- Justice
Shah stopped the court room *drama*...
- Salve
also attached *BJP propaganda material* against this question...
When the
scribe -- or the copy editor -- couldn't avoid reporting material damaging to
his ideological masters, he ensured that readers at least got the impression
that the Solicitor General of India is no more than a loud actor, one carrying a
Hindutva party card. No matter that the "propaganda" Mr Salve
"attached" to his argument was: "Marxists, who have reached
ideological bankruptcy, are now targeting young students through education in
West Bengal. They are making an attempt to sow poisonous seeds, reflective of
their low thinking, into the consciousness of the children in Burdwan district
of West Bengal."
But even
more comical is the impetus for Mr Salve's sins: The court is hearing a public
interest litigation filed by social activist Aruna Roy, columnist B G Verghese
and sociologist Meena Tyabji, challenging the revised national curriculum --
which is "saffron" and "impinges on the country's secular
character," hahahahahaha...
And how
reasonable was the pinko attack? Well, when their counsel repeatedly made
disparaging references to Hindu castes and scriptures, the Bench shot him down
with: "Do not abuse any caste, do not abuse the word 'Brahmin' as it has a
wider meaning... How can India live without the Vedas and the Upanishads which
are the essence of the spiritual heritage of the country? If you look at it with
a coloured approach, it is coloured." Thank god for the Supreme
Court.
"Islam
and Christianity are the only religions which treated man with honour and
equality," is an extract from a textbook for Class V in West Bengal. From
the books written by our "eminent" historians, we learn
that Veer Savarkar, Khudi Ram Bose and Hardayal were terrorists; Bengal's
disparate revolutionaries, bound by their devotion to Ma Kali, were terrorists;
Aurangzeb was a "zinda pir"; in ancient India, "people
ate beef but did not take pork on any considerable scale"; Chhatrapati
Shivaji's victories were a mere "growth of Maratha national
sentiment"; Jats were "plunderers"; the martyrdom of Guru Tegh
Bahadur "was due to the intrigues of some members of his family"; and
Alauddin's attack on Chittor to get Padmini is a "popular
legend."
Fortunately,
my school curriculum was regulated by, what was known as, Senior Cambridge (yup,
a thorough Macaulite). So I can discern why Prof Amartya Sen sees nothing wrong
in "Red Flag in Red Fort is the demand of Hindustan," even as he
claims an "organised attempt [is] on to distort history." Or
why Prof Irfan Habib is silent about "In Hindustan, there is no place for
Hindu," even as he states that the Sangh Parivar wants to
"present facts in such a fashion as to inculcate 'pride in the nation'
which in turn is the India of their narrow imagination."
"India
of their narrow imagination"? Not too long ago, Pakistani columnist Irfan
Hussain wrote in the Dawn: "Recently, a very perceptive and
learned Indian reader wrote me a long e-mail in which... he argued that over
time, large groupings of disparate nationalities like India would break up into
their component parts which would then be more vibrant entities, freed from the
stifling stranglehold of the centre." Need we wonder about the ideological
moorings of this Indian reader...? Especially in the light of "National
unity and integrity are false political slogans"?
Did you,
for instance, know that the thesis of a Sikh homeland -- propagated as "Khalistan"
in the 1980s -- was propounded for the first time by the Communists in the
1940s, had its roots in the Soviets' Thesis of Nationalities, and was
drafted by CPI-M's Harkishan Singh Surjeet...? Though the final draft of the
Sikh homeland thesis was published in the name of senior leader Gangadhar
Adhikari on behalf of the CPI in 1944 (the Punjabi translation was done by CPI's
Avtar Singh Malhotra in 1946), Surjeet is the one to whom we owe the concept of
Khalistan.
The
creation of political instability is a key feature of the Left's politics. They
neither believe in parliamentary democracy nor do they accept the existence of
one Indian nationality -- their views on nationality inclining towards the
balkanisation of the Indian state. During the 1940s, the CPI supported the
Muslim League's demand for Pakistan and Gangadhar Adhikari became the
self-styled spokesman of the League. The pinkos held that the country must
concede the Muslims' "right to self-determination accompanied by the right
of autonomous state of existence" -- prompting Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, himself
a leftist, to say, "India was killed by the CPI, which provided the Muslim
separatists with an ideological basis for the irrational and anti-national
demand for Pakistan."
Even
after Independence, the 1951 Madurai congress of the CPI, and the third party
congress in 1953, endorsed the "right of nationalities and their right to
self-determination." That spirit of balkanisation still exists in their
concept of Indian nationality -- and is the mooring of the "learned Indian
reader" who dreams of an India shattering into tiny pieces. Hindutva at
least has an imagination of India; Communism wishes its annihilation.
Which is
why India is touted as a "multilingual, multinational and multiracial
subcontinent, and it was merged into a single state under British rule by the
British bayonet." Which is why Adivasis are "animists."
Which is why "if India had a golden age before the coming of the Muslims,
it was a Buddhist age." Which is why there's nothing like a Hindu period in
Indian history. Which is why Ramakrishna Missions are attacked by the CPI-M's
goons. Which is why a separate identity is legitimised as a
"sub-nationality." Which is why the demand for the UCC is condemned as
an attack on the existence of minorities...
Bottom-line:
Should India's 85 per cent majority get a sense of pride in its Hindu identity,
the Red blocks would swiftly come tumbling down.
Nevertheless,
I must admit that pinkos think laterally. While the few proud Hindus who still
exist in India are busy defending their religion in their own backyard, the
leftists have embarked on an attack to weaken Hinduism's roots abroad -- among
whites! Wow, I didn't even know about the threat of Hinduism entering mainstream
America. Ace pinko Vijay Prashad brought it
to my notice with his article,
"Suburban Whites and Pogroms in India," in Z Magazine.
Overtly,
this piece acts as a warning to whites to stop funding the Sangh Parivar for its
supposed pogroms against minorities in India, and is the usual spit-and-bile
trash pinkos regularly churn out. Normally, like the other 15-per-week of this
genre, I'd have junked the piece after a scan. But this got my attention with
its anti-Hinduism undercurrent -- one that subtly ridicules whites for being
attracted to or being conned towards Hinduism. Thus:
- what
do we do about the romantic entry of suburban whites into Hinduism
- "Asia"
functions as an alibi for a politics to transcend the condition of the
suburb
- Are
"curiosity" and "respect" sufficient grounds for the
entry of the suburban white into the theocratic fascism
- Those
so-called "Hindu values" that would not accept the child's desire
to live as a human being in a complex world
- The
legacy and persistence of racism provides respect to any artifact or
institution of color that is worn or frequented by whites
- Many
came, mainly white women, who study various aspects of Hinduism and are...
otherwise respected scholars of Indology. Eager for cash, they disregarded
the role they played for Hindutva
- those
whites who become Hindus in this day and age
Ok,
let's take the funding of Hindutva pogroms. Prashad says, millions of dollars
"finance right-wing activity in the subcontinent. This long-distance
theocratic fascism was part of the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya in 1992,
the anti-Christian riots in Gujarat... in the state-engineered pogrom against
Muslims in Gujarat." Kanwal Rekhi claims,
"recipients of their money are out to destroy minorities and their places
of worship." Robert Hathaway adds, "monies so raised are used to
promote religious bigotry."
Yes, ok,
we got all that. But could you please tell us, into what do the millions of
dollars actually go? Have you heard of Uzi firings in Gujarat, or RDX blasts in
Ayodhya, or Dara Singh's using Stingers? Do the worthies of the RSS zip around
in private jets? No, na? Then where have these millions disappeared?? To make
accusations as grave as these stick, they must be supported by evidence about
the other end of the saffron-dollar channel. But there's none forthcoming!
Except stuff like "Hindutva-style cruelty devastates the landscape" --
the kind of garbage spewed by a mediocre "secular" columnist.
In
December 1999, Thomson and Thomson (ie, Prashad and
Biju Mathew) penned an "exposé" in Himal about saffron
dollars. In it, they claimed to have begun a "study of the Hindu
Right in the US several years ago." They vilified the Indian Development
and Relief Fund, they slammed the Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra, the Keshava Seva
Samithi and the Hindu Heritage Endowment, all with the typical polemics against
Hindutva. Point is, after the "several years" plus two years, they
still can't offer a shred of evidence on monies funding Hindu terrorism...
But we
all know what the desperation is all about, don't we? It's the dreaded
"A" and "D" words -- Adivasis and Dalits, groups which are
being guided *back* to the Hindu stream by the Parivar. For instance, in January
1999, the Vishwa Hindu Sammelan re-converted 37 Adivasis from Christianity; in
January 2002, 2 lakh Adivasis vowed to save Hinduism at a rally organised by
Sewa Bharati at Jhabua. That's where the bulk of these dollars go: to educate
the tribals and Dalits and make them aware of being constituents of Hindu
society.
And
that's what worries the pinkos, Rekhi-with-a-Christian-wife, Father Prakash et
al -- an integrated Hindu populace. No wonder Arundhati Roy moans,
"How else can you explain why Dalits in Gujarat, who have been despised,
oppressed and treated worse than refuse by the upper castes for thousands of
years, have joined hands with their oppressors..." (By the way, what
"thousands" of years? But novelists earn via fiction. And bad
novelists, via bad fiction.)
Since
decades, Christian missionaries and Islamists have been pumping money into
India. And what did that get Hindus...? Expulsion from Mizoram; massacres in
Meghalaya; harassment in Nagaland; reduction to a minority status in J&K, as
well as in many districts of Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Kerala; and
subversive madarssas in every nook and cranny of the country. Do pinkos protest
about any of this? Any testimonies before the US Commission on International
Religious Freedom...?
Why
would they?! Unlike the RSS' Adivasi programmes, those of Islamists and
Christian fundamentalists take pinkos towards their ultimate goal -- the
balkanisation of India.
Towards
Balkanisation, Part II
Towards
Balkanisation, III: Missionaries
Towards
Balkanisation, IV: Catholics
Towards
Balkanisation, V: Adivasis
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