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     Vjavasi Side Hero Username: Vjavasi Post Number: 5208 Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 192.127.94.7 Rating: N/A |
another one http://www.dailypioneer.com/290053/DéjÃ-vu-over-Ayodhya.html Déjà vu over Ayodhya October 16, 2010 12:41:23 AM Ramesh N Rao The Left-Liberal, anti-Hindu campaign over the Ayodhya dispute has been stepped up in the US since the judgment. In their single-minded pursuit they are not desisting from even lampooning respected American institutions which see nothing wrong in the verdict President Obama came into office believing he could change how Washington worked. Two years into his tenure, he realises that the cussedness of human beings is ingrained, and that revolutionary changes are not the norm in human society. Slowly, a step forward, a half-step back, tarrying in the same place for a while. These are the moves of peoples and societies, even when the issue confronting them is benign. What then could be the response of groups when they have invested heavily in a particular strategy, and/or committed to winning at any cost? The left/progressive groups, the Indian Muslim Congress-USA (IMC-USA), and Pankaj Mishra writing for The New York Times, seemed stunned at the verdict of the Allahabad High Court in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case. So, two weeks after the verdict, we see them â mostly anti-Hindu groups who have donned the mantle of high-minded humanists âresorting to their old, high-pitched attack, and their reject and refute strategy. Mishra, the hired Katherine Mayo in pants, wrote one of his usual drain inspectorâs reports, three days after the Ayodhya verdict â a diatribe castigating all things Indian, including the verdict. And the newspaper, which claims to publish âall the news thatâs fit to print,â has refused to publish letters decrying the vile nonsense penned by Mishra. Hindu-Americans have mostly kept quiet, and there have been no triumphalist letter-writing campaigns, and no letter published in Indian-American newspapers âwith large or negligible circulations â trumpeting the victory of âHindutva,â the victory of Lord Rama, or the defeat of the smug âsecularistsâ. One senses wariness among Hindu-Americans for they know well that they have been pushed into corners before and even mild victories have been snatched from them on a variety of previous occasions, that this verdict will be appealed, and the Supreme Court can sit on the case for another two hundred years. The IMC-USA, which diligently archives every newspaper report and blog entry that seeks to provide evidence for the discrimination of Muslims in India, and ignores every bigoted statement by Indian Muslim clerics and politicians, and every attack against Hindus and others by Muslims (like in Deganga, West Bengal, or in Kerala where Muslim extremists chopped off the hand of a Christian professor, and the ululations by Syed Ali Shah Geelani demanding that Kashmir be dismembered from India) said one day after the Allahabad High Court pronounced its verdict: âWe had expected objectivity not political consideration from the courts. By passing judgment based on religious beliefs rather than on facts, the High Court has set a disturbing precedent. It is troubling that the High Court has chosen to ignore the archeological evidence and scientific evidence and ruled based on the emotions and beliefs of the parties in the dispute.â Rasheed Ahmed, its president, whose bona fides cannot be verified because there is nothing about him on the IMC-USA website, is neither an archaeologist nor a historian. But how could he weigh in so confidently on the Ayodhya verdict? What we do know is that he and the IMC-USA simply cut and pasted the response by the Sunni Central Wakf Board lawyer way back in 2003 when the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) released the report on the excavations it conducted on the orders of the Allahabad High Court. He was also drawing from the playbook of the âeminentâ historians who have proved to be past masters in political gamesmanship. Groups like âCommunalism Watch,â which have made it a habit to speak of the âHindutva forcesâ in the starkest terms, struggled to come to grips with the Allahabad High Court verdict, and so took recourse in posting invective laden, shrilly mocking pieces by tired, old Indian Left/Marxists known for their diatribes against the BJP and the RSS, and for their ostrich-like attitude to all other threats to the Indian nation. That those who claim to speak for peace and brotherhood can so easily and glibly mock all that is Hindu is evidence for the special type of âsecularismâ practiced in India. But this is not unexpected or new because as the Allahabad High Court observed, the experts asked to depose before the court deposed twice â once, before the ASI excavations, when they said there was no temple beneath the mosque and, the second time, after the site had been dug up, when they facilely claimed that what was unearthed was either a mosque or a Buddhist stupa. As Justice Aggarwal pointed out, these âindependentâ scholars were all connected through the activist/academic umbilical cord â one had done a PhD under the guidance of the other, another had contributed an article to a book edited by another, and so on. As Justice Agarwal noted of the âeminentâ historiansâ depositions, ââ¦instead of helping in making a cordial atmosphere it tends to create more complications, conflict and controversy.â These âeminentâ historians and those on their bandwagon would ignore what we are hearing from the few remaining Hindus in Pakistan: that they are fleeing from their homes fearing a backlash to the verdict, and that hundreds of students and clerics from the Jamia Ashrafia religious seminary in Lahore blocked the Ferozepur highway after the Allahabad verdict threatening to ârepeat the events of 1992â if the âbiasedâ verdict was not reversed! Finally, in a leaked email on the Friends of South Asia (FOSA) discussion list, a former reporter for a leftist magazine wrote, unable to fathom how those working with and volunteering for the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) were given space in mainstream American and British newspapers: âWhy The Guardian and The Washington Post are giving airtime to these HAF loons will always be beyond me. Itâs like giving Glenn Beck serious exposure.â This reporter, who it seems comes from a landed family, going by her last name, offers a bait for her fellow-travelers: she asks if anyone wants to âwrite a nasty email to HAF,â and âtell them to stop speaking for the so-called imagined community of âHindu Americansââ. Having assumed authority to speak for the âdispossessed, distressed, and the abusedâ (all excepting Hindus), these radicals, trained in programs at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the University of Chicago, where again all but Hindus get excused for acts of murder, mayhem, and terrorism, cannot fathom how a lawyer or a pediatric urologist, working or volunteering for the Hindu American Foundation, could have the skills and the knowledge to write, and to write for mainstream newspapers, and that Hindu-Americans could even be an identifiable group. It is best to chuckle at this viciousness and this ignorance simply because there is no use arguing with ideologues. Nothing will defeat them and lure them away from the trenches from where they keep lobbying spitballs at Hindus, and from where they seek to mislead their local American fellow-travelers into believing that those who speak for Hindus must not only be as crazy as the Mormon Glenn Beck but are also in cahoots with him. While the Indian Left has remained silent on arguably progressive issues of religious persecution of Hindu minorities outside of India or the separation of church and state in America, the paradox is that is many in the HAF are liberal or moderate in their social and political views, some even lifelong Democrats, who are willing and capable of working with Republicans and Conservatives, Muslims and Jews, Scientologists and Sikhs, even pagans and atheists, in making the world a better place. -- Ramesh N Rao is professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies and Theatre, Longwood University, and Human Rights Coordinator for the Hindu American Foundation. The views expressed here are his own | ||
| Kamal Hero Username: Kamal Post Number: 18132 Registered: 08-2009 Posted From: 68.32.27.63 Rating: N/A |
 Hindu tan man, Hindu jeevan, rag, rag mera Hindu parichay - Atal Bihari Vajpayee | ||
| Vjavasi Side Hero Username: Vjavasi Post Number: 5202 Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 75.131.192.17 Rating: N/A |
telegraph link for the same article http://www.telegraphindia.com/1101015/jsp/opinion/story_1305 7334.jsp | ||
| Cocanada Moderator Username: Cocanada Post Number: 27197 Registered: 01-2008 Rating: N/A |
 Thana sekrame thana satruvu | ||
| Vjavasi Side Hero Username: Vjavasi Post Number: 5201 Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 75.131.192.17 Rating: N/A |
MANA HISTORY BOOKS RAASINA MEDHAVULA TALENT GURINCHI CHADAVANDI...THEY ARE THOROUGHLY EXPOSED BY RAMAJANMABHOOMI JUDGEMENT http://www.swapan55.com/2010/10/imagined-histories.html Imagined histories The Court watched a parade of the good, the bad and the ugly By Swapan Dasgupta When the history of the Ayodhya movement comes to be written, there will be the inevitable search for heroes and villains. The selection will be contentious: one man's hero is, after all, another man's villain. At this interim stage, when the Allahabad High Court verdict has opened a small window of opportunity for an amicable settlement that leaves no side completely dissatisfied, it would help to examine how the beauty parade of the good, the bad and the ugly has been viewed from the Bench. An exploration of Justice Sudhir Agarwal's voluminous judgment is pertinent in the context of a determined bid by India's vocal Left-wing intelligentsia to rubbish the judgment as a departure from modernity, Constitutionalism and the rule of law. In a statement by 61 'intellectuals' led by historian Romila Thapar, that includes the cream of the Left-Liberal establishment and sundry art dealers, photographers and food critics, the judgment was attacked for dealing yet "another blow to India's secular fabric". At the heart of the fury of the 'intellectuals' is the court's assault on the reputation of the clutch of 'eminent historians' who have dictated the 'secular' discourse on the Ayodhya dispute. The Court questioned the competence of various 'expert' witnesses and cast doubts on their intellectual integrity. It was the Archaeological Survey of India report of court-monitored excavations in 2003 of the disputed site which set the cat among the pigeons. After exhaustive hearing s of "all possible angles in the matter so that there may not remain a grievance", the High Court accepted the ASI report which Dr R.C. Thakran of Delhi University, an expert witness for the Sunni Waqf Board, dubbed "an unprofessional document full of gross distortions, one-sided presentation of evidence, clear falsifications and motivated inferences." Thakran's indignation was understandable. In its conclusion, the ASI submitted that "a massive structure with at least three structural phases and three successive attached with it" was located at the disputed 2.77 acres in Ayodhya. The scale of the buildings indicated that they were for "public" functions. "It was over the top of this construction during the early 16th century the disputed structure was constructed directly resting over it." Without mincing words, the ASI report had brushed aside the so-called Historians Report to the Nation authored by Professors R.S. Sharma, M. Athar Ali, D.N. Jha and Suraj Bhan released in May 1991. This document was a plea to the Government of India "to include impartial historians in the process of forming judgment on historical facts." As an example of this "impartial" history, it was argued that "The full blown legend of the destruction of a temple at the site of Rama's birth and Sita ki Rasoi is as late as the 1850s. Since then what we get is merely the progressive reconstruction of imagined history based on faith." Subsequently, as more research pointed otherwise, the goal post was quietly shifted. In her deposition as an expert for the Waqf Board, Aligarh historian Shireen Moosvi suggested that "The legend of Ayodhya being the birthplace of Rama is found from the 17th century, prior to which there is no legend about Rama's birthplace in medieval history." However, during cross-examination Moosvi was also admitted: "It is correct that in Sikh literature this is a tradition that Guru Nanak had visited Ayodhya, had darshan of Ram janmasthan and had bathed in the River Saryu." A horrific misrepresentation was sought to be covered up without the slightest show of contrition. A curious feature of the 1991 intervention which emerged from Suraj Bhan's cross-examination was the disinclination of the "imartial historians" to undertake any field work. In his deposition, Bhan stated: "I gave this report in May. I might have gone to Ayodhya in February-Marchâ¦In my first deposition I may have stated that I had gone to the disputed site before June 1991 for the first time." Nor was Bhan the only armchair archaeologist. Echoing Moosvi, the medieval historian who felt that "to ascertain whether it is temple or mosque, it was not necessary to see the disputed site", Professor D.Mandal, another expert witness for the Waqf Board, admitted he wrote his Ayodhya: Archaeology After Demolition without even visiting Ayodhya and with an eye to the presidential reference to the Supreme Court. Mandal also admitted that "Whatsoever little knowledge I have of Babur is only that Babur was (a) ruler of the 16th century. Except for this I do not have any knowledge of Babur." Justice Agarwal was sufficiently moved to say about Mandal that "The statements made by him in cross-examination shows the shallowness of his knowledge on the subject." Shallowness and superficiality are themes that recur. Bhan confessed that the grandly titled Report to the Nation was written under "pressure" in six weeks and "without going through the record of the excavation by B.B. Lal". The lapse would have put an undergraduate to shame but not the "impartial" historians. During her cross-examination, Suvira Jaiswal, another Waqf Board expert historian, confessed: "I have read nothing about Babri Mosque⦠Whatever knowledge I gained with respect to the disputed site was on the basis of newspapers or â¦from the report of historians." Sushil Shrivastava, a "historian" whose bizarre book on Ayodhya secured favourable media publicity and is still cited approvingly by CPI(M)'s Sitaram Yechuri, admitted he had "very little knowledge of history", didn't know Arabic, Persian, epigraphy or calligraphy and had got translations done by his father-in-law. Justice Agarwal was stunned by his "dishonesty". Once the ASI excavations confirmed that the Babri Masjid wasn't built on virgin land, "impartial" history turned to imaginative history. It was suggested by Suraj Bhan that what lay beneath the mosque was an "Islamic structure of the Sultanate period." D.Mandal went one better suggesting that after the Gupta period "this archaeological site became desolate for a long time". The reason: floods. Supriya Verma contested the "Hindu" character of recovered artefacts from the Kushan, Shunga and Gupta periodsâsomething even Bhan and Mandal had admitted to. These, she said, "could well have been part of palaces, Buddhist structure, Jain structure, Islamic structure." There were also suggestions, never proven or pressed, that the ASI had falsified and suppressed data. The Court was not amused. Dismissing the unsubstantiated allegations "we find on the contrary, pre-determined attitude of the witness (Suraj Bhan) against ASI which he has admitted. Even before submission of ASI report and its having been seen by the witness, he formed (an) opinion and expressed his viewsâ¦" Justice Agarwala was "surprised to see in the zeal of helping â¦the parties in whose favour they were appearing, these witnesses went ahead â¦and wrote a totally new story" of a mosque under a mosque. The Judge was unaware of what constitutes "scientific" history in India. In her deposition as an expert in Ancient History, Suvira Jaiswal made an important clarification: "I am giving statement on oath regarding Babri Mosque without any probe and not on the basis of my knowledge; rather I am giving the statement on the basis of my opinion." She was articulating the prevailing philosophy of history writing in contemporary India. The Courts recoiled in horror at the "dearth of logical thinking" and the underlying cronyism behind the public stands of India's "eminent" historians. Quoting a British Law Lord from an 1843 judgment, it suggested their expertise was "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"âharsh words that civil society needs to remember the next occasion the "impartial" historians strut on the public stage. |
