sahiti

(Whose Life Is It Anyway - Part 2)

The My Lai Massacre (mee-leye) was the massacre of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, by U.S. soldiers on March 16, 1968, in the hamlet of My Lai, during the Vietnam War. It prompted widespread outrage around the world and reduced American support at home for the war in Vietnam.

On the eve of the attack, U.S. military command advised Charlie Company (the platoon that killed the villagers) that any genuine civilians at My Lai would have left their homes to go to market by 7 a.m. the following day. They were told they could assume that all who remained behind were either Viet Cong or active Viet Cong sympathizers (The target to be killed). They were instructed to destroy the village. At the briefing, Captain Ernest Medina was asked whether the order included the killing of women and children; those present at the briefing later gave different accounts of Medina’s response.

The soldiers found no insurgents in the village on the morning of March 16. Many suspected there were Viet Cong in the village, hiding underground in the homes of their elderly parents or their wives. The American soldiers, one platoon of which was led by LT William Calley, killed hundreds of civilians. Dozens were herded into a ditch and executed with automatic firearms. The soldiers said they were convinced any and all villagers could be a threat.

Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., a 24-year-old helicopter pilot from an aero-scout team, witnessed a large number of dead and dying civilians as they began flying over the village - all of them infants, children, women and old men, with no signs of draft-age men or weapons anywhere. He and his crew witnessed an unarmed passive woman shot at point-blank range by a US soldier. They made several attempts to radio for help for the wounded and landed their helicopter by a ditch which they noted was full of bodies and in which there was movement. Thompson asked a sergeant he encountered there if the sergeant could help get the people out of the ditch and the sergeant replied that he would ‘help them out of their misery.’ Thompson was shocked and confused but took it as some kind of a joke at the time. The helicopter took off then one of the crew said ‘My God, he’s firing into the ditch.’

Thompson then saw a group of civilians (again consisting of children, women and old men) at a bunker being approached by ground personnel. He landed and told his crew that if the soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to fire back. Thompson later testified that he spoke with a lieutenant (identified as Lieutenant Calley) and told him there were women and children in the bunker, and asked if the lieutenant would help get them out. According to Thompson, ‘he [the lieutenant] said the only way to get them out was with a hand grenade.’ Thompson testified he then told the lieutenant to ‘just hold your men right where they are, and I’ll get the kids out.’ Thompson found 12-16 people in the bunker, coaxed them out and led them to the helicopter, standing with them while they were flown out in two lots.

Returning to My Lai, he and other air crew noticed several large groups of bodies. Spotting some survivors in the ditch he landed again and one of the crew entered the ditch and returned with a bloodied but apparently unharmed boy who was flown to safety. Thompson then reported what he had seen to his company commander, Major Watke, using terms such as ‘murder’ and ‘needless and unnecessary killings.’ His reports were confirmed by other pilots and air crew.

The precise number killed varies from source to source, with 347 and 504 being the most commonly cited figures. A memorial at the site of the massacre lists 504 names, with ages ranging from one to eighty-two years.

As is evident from comments made in a 1969 telephone conversation between United States National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, revealed recently by the National Security Archive, the photos of the war crime were too shocking for senior officials to stage an effective cover-up. Secretary of Defense Laird is heard to say, “There are so many kids just lying there; these pictures are authentic.”

On 17 March 1970, the United States Army charged 14 officers with suppressing information related to the incident. Most of these charges were dropped.

US Army Lt William Calley was convicted in 1971 of premeditated murder in ordering the shootings and initially sentenced to life in prison; two days later, however, President Richard Nixon ordered him released from prison, pending appeal of his sentence. Calley eventually served 4½ months at a military prison at Fort Leavenworth. Calley claimed he was following orders from his captain, Ernest Medina; Medina denied giving the orders and was acquitted at a separate trial. Most of the soldiers involved in the My Lai incident were no longer enlisted. Of the 26 men initially charged, Lt Calley’s was the only conviction. (4 and half months!!)

Some argue that My Lai was a reversal of the rules of war that were set in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. The tribunals set a precedent in history that no one may be excused from reprimand for war crimes because they were ordered to do so. Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in the New York Times for stating that Calley’s sentence was reduced because Calley honestly believed that what he did was a part of his orders. This is in direct contradiction to the standards set in Nuremberg and Tokyo where German and Japanese soldiers were executed for similar actions. (Talk about double standards!!)

That's it! So much for Uncle Sam's respect for “Human Rights”! I started to believe that true human instincts are more basic and baser than that I have ever imagined!!!


source : wikipedia

I have recently started reading contemporary political history of the world. Am shocked beyond words! If you thought that the persecution of the Jews and the world wars are the only "mass killings" that happened, you are wrong. There are thousands and thousands of people killed right NOW, and a lot more living sub-human or rather sub-animal lives in the world right, at this moment!

The Uganda, Rwanda, Cambodia, Vietnam, Congo, Somalia, Sudan and the list goes on! It shows the basic animalistic instincts in man as well as the apathy of the developed/developing countries towards the under developed. All men are born equal, but some are more equal than the rest! "Human rights" of select few are more important than the innocent lives of the rest! Hundreds of them are killed without blinking an eye and nobody would even know or notice! (This reminds me the mass culling of chickens when the chicken guinea struck!!)

Did u know that the Hutu tribe of Rwanda has killed the Tutsi men, women and children, with the aim of exterminating the Tutsi tribe from the face of earth as early as 1994? It was so organized and systematic that 8 -10 lakh ppl were killed in 100 days, while the world watched and calculated the pros and cons of interfering! There are similar stories all around, where in a single camp in village there are 40,000 rape victims (No points for guessing that most of the cases are of gang rape) At a place where there is no respect for life, where people are routinely killed or starved to death, speaking of women's rights/health might even sound preposterous! I have been reading wiki extensively about the region and I shall share with u the contents! At the end of it one cannot but agree with the ingenuity Calvin.

Hobbs: "Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?”
Calvin: “I’m not sure that man needs the help.”

The Biggest myth … Britishers “educated” us!!!

There goes a famous saying in Tamil, if you want to kill a dog, you give it a bad name and then kill it! That's what the British have precisely done to the ancient Indian education system.

We need to know a few facts that we never (allowed to?!) study at school. As i had already covered in some of my prev posts, India had world famous universities long before the British or for that matter the Muslim invaders came. For a quick recap, there existed the universities of Nalanda, taxasila, Mithila, Benares, Kanchi(The kashi of the south), so on and so forth. The Gurukuls and the Guru-shishya parampara are too well known to need any introduction. The ancient education system was individual based and each student learnt at his own pace. The Guru decided when the shishya can be claimed to be “educated” and leave, to proceed to get married and start his life and livelyhood as a house-hold man (gruhasta) Greed in any form was not encouraged. Respect for elders (old parents not thrown out of houses), respect and worship of Nature (trees and rivers not vandalized), respect for women (yatra naaryasthu poojanyte tatra ramante devataah, where the women are worshiped, Gods dwell there!) were part of the Indian culture and education. The realization that life is beyond just accruing material possessions and at the same time carrying on household duties with perfection was order of the day. A perfect blend of simple living and high thinking !!

Medicine
Charaka samhita and susruta samhita are 2 main works. Susruta was a great surgeon, who is supposed to have conducted even plastic surgery at those times! He stressed the need to dissect the cadevors and understand the human anatomy for the students of medicine. The course of medicine at Taxila was so long that it is recored that ….a student was sent home reluctantly by his teacher after he studied medicine for 7 yrs. Dhanvantari was another renowned doctor of ayurveda.

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_agraw_susruta.htm

Susruta says there can be nothing more magnificent than the act of removing human suffering. The science of life in practice is godly, life giving; indeed it is virtue and fame personified. “Vaidyo narayano hari” goes a sanskrit saying that says doctor is like a God who gives life. Compare it with today's impersonal and commercialized study of medicine and it’s “practice"!!!

Aryabhatta -astronomy
Bhaskara - Mathematetian
chanakya - artha saastra(economics), political science

You name a branch of modern science; you have an ancient indian scientist or professor who excelled in it!!! If saying “Gurus”, tarnishes their image, call them professors, if “rishis” is "religious", call them scientists! Refer to my post that maps the endocrine gland system to the 7 chakras. The ancients knew the human anatomy a lot better than we do at present time with all the “advanced” facilities we have! Present day doctors are still caught in “how” the body funtions, the physcial aspects, where as the rishis of the yore delved into the meta physics of “why” the human body is as it is!!!

The education was more all round and based on character building, than on mugging and reproducing verbatium, a few books! Knowledge or education that does not make you humble is said to be incomplete and dangerous! ("vidya dadaati vinayam")

I don't want to get into the destruction of the universities again. google for “Nalanda destruction” and read it urself! Muslims, being the barbarians of the deserts where more outspoken and straight forward. After them came the more dangerous and crafty Britishers! As for the Indian education system just before the Britishers meddled with it, lets know about it from the renowned gandhian, Dharampal.

Quote begins
“Citing the Christian missionary William Adam's report on indigenous education in
Bengal and Bihar in 1835 and 1838, Dharampal established that at that time there were 100,000 schools in Bengal, one school for about 500 boys; that the indigenous medical system that included inoculation against small-pox.

Dharampal relied on Sir Thomas Munroe's report to the Governor at about the same time to prove similar statistics about schools in Madras. He also found that the education system in the Punjab during the Maharaja Ranjit Singh's rule was equally extensive. He estimated that the literary rate in India before the British was higher than that in England. Citing British public records he established, on the contrary, that 'British had no tradition of education or scholarship or philosophy from 16th to early 18th century, despite Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Newton, etc'. Till then education and scholarship in the UK was limited to select elite. He cited Alexander Walker's Note on Indian education to assert that it was the monitorial system of education borrowed from India that helped Britain to improve, in later years, school attendance which was just 40, 000, yes just that, in 1792. He then compared the educated people's levels in India and England around 1800. The population of Madras Presidency then was 125 lakhs and that of England in 1811 was 95 lakhs. Dharampal found that during 1822-25 the number of those in ordinary schools in Madras Presidency was around 1.5 lakhs and this was after great decay under a century of British intervention. As against this, the number attending schools in England was half - yes just half - of Madras Presidency's, namely a mere 75,000. And here to with more than half of it attending only Sunday schools for 2-3 hours! Dharampal also established that in Britain 'elementary system of education at people's level remained unknown commodity' till about 1800!
Quote ends!

Before the British came, there were schools in every village, supported by the local temple, which in turn was supported by the temple land and the village head. Ok! You say Only Brahmins had access to such education, but not the Dalits? That's the well propagated myth again!!! The classic case of naming the dog “bad” before killing it!!!

There is a research conducted by Dharmapal, a renowned Gandhian. You can read about it here http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/t_es/t_es_goyal_education.htm or i shall summarize it for you.

Quote begins
Sir Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras, ordered a mammoth survey in June 1822, whereby the district collectors furnished the caste-wise division of students in four categories, viz., Brahmins, Vysyas (Vaishyas), Shoodras (Shudras) and other castes (broadly the modern scheduled castes). While the percentages of the different castes varied in each district, the results were revealing to the extent that they showed an impressive presence of the so-called lower castes in the school system.

Thus, in Vizagapatam, Brahmins and Vaishyas together accounted for 47% of the students, Shudras comprised 21% and the other castes (scheduled) were 20%; the remaining 12% were Muslims. In Tinnevelly, Brahmins were 21.8% of the total number of students, Shudras were 31.2% and other castes 38.4% (by no means a low figure). In South Arcot, Shudras and other castes together comprised more than 84% of the students!

During 1822-25 the share of the Brahmin students in the indigenous schools in Tamil-speaking areas accounted for 13 per cent in South Arcot to some 23 per cent in Madras while the backward castes accounted for 70 per cent in Salem and Tirunelveli and 84 per cent in South Arcot.

The situation was almost similar in Malayalam, Oriya and Kannada-speaking areas, with the backward castes dominating the schools in absolute numbers. Only in the Telugu-speaking areas the share of the Brahmins was higher and varied from 24 to 46 per cent. \

Even Dalit intellectuals have questioned what the British meant when they spoke of 'education' and 'learning'. Dr. D.R. Nagaraj, a leading Dalit leader of Karnataka, wrote that it was the British, particularly Lord Wellesley, who declared the Vedantic Hinduism of the Brahmins of Benares and Navadweep as "the standard Hinduism," because they realized that the vitality of the Hindu dharma of the lower castes was a threat to the empire.

Quote ends

Again Dharampal exploded the popularly held belief that most of those attending schools must have belonged to the upper castes particularly Brahmins and, again with reference to the British records (only Europeans can be trusted of being objective as one of my friends at the iland says!), proved that the truth was the other way round.

In October 1931 Mahatma Gandhi made a statement at Chatham House, London, that created a furor in the English press. He said, “Today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and left the root exposed and the beautiful tree perished”.

Dharampal’s work proved Mahatma Gandhi's statement completely right!

The only reason that Hinduism survived and Buddhism succumbed to the invaders in India is because "religion" is inseparable from "life" for Hindus. Rage the Buddhist monasteries, viharas, kill the monks and Buddhism is threatened. But Hinduism did not just thrive at certain places!! It is a way of life that permeates every sphere of life of a hindu, be it education, profession, political, economic or even that of a house-wife!!! Even an infant sleeps to the lullaby of Rama and wakes up to the stories of Krishna! First the Indians were made believe that these were just fables, mythological figures! Itihasa, which means "it was so" is the "history", it is not a "myth"!!! Discovery of a drowned city (dwaraka) on the shores of Gujarat which matches the times of Krishna in Indian scriptures doesn't deter such "modern" "secular" historians! Nor does the NASA images of rama setu, connecting srilanka to India, which matches the time period of Rama!!! As a first step Indians were made to disown their role models. Disown their culture. Disown their education (character building than money earning machine), values (respect for life, human, plant, animal and nature), dressing (dhoti, saree in humid south, or the kurta paijamas and salwar kameej of the north), food habits (more natural and fresh, milk n milk products, vegetables, yet tasty with spices) ..everything that is "Indian" is to be disowned and everything that is foreign is to be embraced to be abreast of times!! Guess who we owe this perpetuation of degeneration to?? Yes! Macaulay who saw to it that the later generations are successfully cut off from their roots!!! I indeed feel indebted to him beyond by vocabulary permits me to express Mr. arvind verma (he says "that we also owe it to Macaulay, who inculcated literacy in this country to some extent.)!!! Afterall, Macaulay was the one who set out the time bomb, through the western education system, which only does "batch" processing of men, turning the "graduated" finished products only capable of "serving" in jobs and weeding out any kind of self-employment or self-sufficiency!

And a friend of mine is ready to believe Europeans to Vivekananda, Tilak, Gandhi and Aurobindo (he says "Indians as a race can never be trusted to be objective. I would prefer to read about Indian histroy from Europeans .) Now!! I can only pity those Poor/Great Souls, who no longer exist to prove their "objectivity" in person!! Their works, however live on, and speak on their behalf! (I challenge on their behalf for anybody to read them and come up with sth that is untrue or fabricated or bloated in ANY of their works!!!) He further says "what is more pernicious is a bloated self image of our past." I say, may I suggest to you to read "The forgotten Empire" by Robert Sewell. It is an account of the Vijayanagara Empire and the destruction of Hampi. You may believe him, he is a European afterall!!! (Most of those who read it said it brought tears to their eyes. I am yet to read it!)




Interesting read: http://www.indiatogether.org/education/opinions/btree.htm
Please read both the parts of this article. It is indeed simple but eye-opening

Myth 1: Britishers unified India. If not for Britishers, India would still have been a bunch of princely states

Some Facts: Britishers had Provinces for administrative ease. Princily states did exist during the British Raj. They were probably the kings who accepted the terms of Britishers instead of fighting them and a mutual agreement has been sorted out.

There were not one or two but nearly 600 such princely states!

To quote wiki

“There were between 570 and 600 princely states which enjoyed special recognition by and relationship with the British Raj. The British government announced in the Indian Independence Act 1947 that with the transfer of power on August 15, 1947, all of these states would be freed of their obligations to the British Empire, and thus would be free to join either India or Pakistan, or to choose to become independent.”

The states of Gwalior, Bikaner, Patiala and Baroda were the first to join India on April 28, 1947. Others were wary, distrusting a democratic government led by revolutionaries of uncertain, and possibly radical views, and fearful of losing their influence as rulers. Travancore and Hyderabad announced their desire for independence while the Nawab of Bhopal, Hamidullah Khan, expressed his desire to either negotiate with Pakistan or seek independence. The Nawab was a powerful influence on a number of princes, as he was the former chancellor of the Chamber of Princes. In addition, Jodhpur, Indore and Jaisalmer conducted a dialogue with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the slated Governor-General of Pakistan, to discuss terms for a possible accession to it. While this surprised many in both India and Pakistan, neither party could ultimately ignore the
fact that these kingdoms were Hindu-majority, which rendered their membership in overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan untenable.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was the Minister for Home and States Affairs, and was given the explicit responsibility of welding a
united and strategically secure India in time for the transfer of power. Patel was considered the best man for the task by the Congress Party, as well as Lord Mountbatten and senior British officials. Mahatma Gandhi had, in fact, said to Patel “the problem of the States is so difficult that you alone can solve it”. He was recognised by the Princes and parliamentarians alike to be a man of integrity; and, in addition, he was believed to have the practical acumen and resolve to accomplish the monumental task.

Quote ends.


So “Britishers” have not unified India..as we are popularly made to believe…! It was our own iron man, sardar vallabhai patel, who was instrumental in unifying all the princely states, using mostly diplomacy and even military action if and when needed!


Myth 2: Britishers “gave” us the railways.

The Steam engine was discovered in 1765, by James watt (though it was discovered much earlier The increased efficiency of the Watt engine finally led to the general acceptance and use of steam power in industry)and it was around 1811 that the worlds first commercial railway was run. It is no wonder that the railways were established in india at the same time when they were established all over the world.

Railways were established by the British for quicker transport of material and men to the areas required and not to “serve” Indians !!!! Afterall they have come to India for business (not social service, as they want us to believe!) and meant business till the very day they left !!!

The surmise that in absence of Britishers, independent kings of india would not have used that invention to their advantage or for the benifit of their citizens is too far fetched !!!

ditto with the postal system. The ancient postal systems or communication systems all over world were the same, the courier
personally carrying the message or a pigeon or a person running from one village to the other in relay. General postal systems as used today by the common public evolved only during the 18th and 19th centuries. Britishers happened to be in India during that time and hence they introduced it.

If postal and railway sytems existed long before Britishers came, but the incapable, uneducated, Indians or the self-centered kings did not take them up and were living in ignorance…then Britishers came and “introduced” or “gave” them to us….only then the argument holds some water…!!!!

More myths about the education system, administrative system and the medical care are to follow..am a bit hard pressed for time…




PS: Motivated by the comments of Mr. Bharatiya for my prev post


As for Mr. Bharatiyas medal to the Britishers about “human rights” i prefer not to say much. For, history speaks for
itself ..if throwing out someone out of train or stepping on someones back to step into carriage bcos they are not “white” is human rights, and if Jaliyan walah bagh is human rights….i have nth to say!!!!

If he is just comparing them to the muslim invaders and said they did not persecute as much as the later did…may be yes! But i wonder if that can be called human rights awareness !!

Some of the “secular” historians of today have took upon them the benovelant task of white washing the Indian history and of absolving the muslim invaders of the blood stained ruthless acts. Such versions of history would only incite hatred against “certain” sections and hence should be refrained from, is what they say!! Excuse me! Did you say you want to re-write history- literally? Oh! yes! It is being done very well already! The school text books are full of them! The school text books have become such a farce that they keep changing the content whenever the party in the power changes at the center..!!!! so much for the triumph of the truth !!! (Satyameva Jayate!)

Are these “secular” ppl happy by just absolving the invaders? No! That wouldnt suffice, right? There was distruction as can be seen and some one had caused the destruction…then who??? Whoelse, you block head! The hindus themselves! The “majority” hindus, drove away the “minority” Buddhists out of their motherland!!! The higher caste hindus or the “Brahmins” to be precise!!!They are the only reason, we see less buddhists in India and more in Nepal, Tibet, China and the far East..poor Buddhists fleed from Hindus !

Who says this? No, not some uneducated uninformed fellas! They are our own historians including our beloved first PM Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru who promoted this view !!! Dont believe, read it here … http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/mar/12spec.htm

Quotes Begin

“In 1965, André Malraux, the French philosopher, author and minister for culture, told an audience at Benares Hindu University about a conversation he had had with Jawaharlal Nehru. The French writer had asked the Indian prime minister, “What, according to you, is the reason Buddhism was lost to India, after India had given Buddhism to the world?” Nehru did not have an immediate answer, but later said he thought India had gradually made Buddha into one its gods and this had led to the disappearance of Buddhism from India.”

A more precise version of the history was given by B.R. Ambedkar in his book “The decline and fall of Buddhism,” “Such was the slaughter of the Buddhist priesthood perpetrated by the Islamic invaders. The axe was struck at the very root. For by killing the Buddhist priesthood, Islam killed Buddhism. This was the greatest disaster that befell the religion of the Buddha in India….”

As Arun Shourie says.. “But today the fashion is to ascribe the extinction of Buddhism to the persecution of Buddhists by Hindus, to the destruction of their temples by the Hindus. One point is that the Marxist historians who have been perpetrating this falsehood have not been able to produce even an iota of evidence to substantiate the concoction.”

V.S. Naipaul summed up the situation well. He said, “In art and history books, people write of the Muslims “arriving” in India as though they came on a tourist bus and went away again. The Muslim view of their conquest is a truer one. They speak of the triumph of faith, the destruction of idols and temples, the loot, the casting away of locals as slaves.”

“I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel that the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions … The Old World is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed.”

He further says,"How do you ignore history? But the nationalist movement, Independence movement ignored it. You read the Glimpses of World History by Jawaharlal Nehru, it talks about the mythical past and then it jumps the difficult period of the invasions and conquests. So you have Chinese pilgrims coming to Bihar, Nalanda and places like that. Then somehow they don't tell you what happens, why these places are in ruin. They never tell you why Elephanta Island is in ruins or why Bhubaneswar was desecrated."

Disown your past and you are half a people! V.S. Naipaul told Indians, “There is this great denial of the past, this shame to acknowledge of 500-600 years of great defeat. You must understand that other countries have had them too.”

It is only Indian Nehruvians like Romila Thapar who pretend that Islamic rule was benevolent. We should face facts: Islamic rule in India was at least as catastrophic as the later Christian rule. The Christians created massive poverty in what was a most prosperous country; the Muslims created a terrorised civilization out of what was the most creative culture that ever existed."

"India was wrecked and looted, not once but repeatedly by invaders with strong religious ideas, with a hatred for the religion of the people they were conquering.

Quotes end:

One may rightly wonder how a handful of invaders were able to conquer India and demolish the temples, viharas, the culture and wisdom. It was possible bcos of the differece in war-culture. The issue is, such an attack was totally unexpected. Hindus/Buddhists never considered that non-combatants could be killed, women ravaged and towns/cities raged to ashes!! Imagine well after the king and the soldiers have died or fled, a throng of barbarians descend upon the priests at the temples and the teachers at the Viharas! Who would stop them? The Buddhist monks who dont even care to raise a finger in voilence? The looming threat was underestimated. There was no unity amongst Indian rulers. There was no single powerful king and small split up kingdoms only helped the invader.

The first muslim invader had struck in 7th-10th century and it went on till the europeans came in 15th century ! A minimum of 500 years! That is five generations of no patronage no proper guidance for Hindu scholars! Then is it a wonder that there is nobody left who understands it, the sanatana dharma of India? Idol worship was scorned by Muslims and Christians(15h -19th century) alike !!!

The level of destruction left such a scar on the psychology and resulted in such a loss of self-respect and self-confidence that it took 500 years for the Indians to stage the first war of Independance ! (1847) Generations and generations of Indians were made to believe that they were unclivilized and un-competent as a race. The extent of the brain washing given to the convent educated Indians of today can be gauged from the fact that my Btech roommate at the prestegious Institution where i studied declared one fine day “We should be thankful that Britishers had ruled us and civilized us! They gave us universities, hospitals,railways, postal system, civil admistration ..what not! If not for them we would still be riding horses and using pegions !! ” No, thats not enough, she concluded “Actually, we are not capable of ruling ourselves. Look at our politians! It would have been better if britishers had continued to rule us!!”(Thankfully, my room was on ground floor, else i would have jumped off the balcony in shame!!! :-)))

What pains me is that most of the “educated”, “intellectual” “secular” “objective” Hindus still think that Hinduism or Indian culture is nothing but idol worship and a bunch of dogmas like the caste system and sati. Most of them or atleast some of them are ashamed to call themselves Hindus..and it pains me!

That keeps me wondering, if such is the state of the “educated” and well informed Indian…how easy it would be to manipulate the uneducated Indians into hating their culture and country !!!??

walking down the lanes of history (2)

Note: Please do not leave comments of hatred towards Muslims after reading this. My view of history is more intellectual and less emotional. We need know the truth, so as to learn a lesson from history bcos as someone said, History has the strange habit of repeating itself!!! An innocent Muslim is thousands of times better than a rogue Hindu and an innocent Hindu is thousands of times better than a rogue Muslim. It is high time that both Hindus and Muslims understand this! Am putting the note in the beginning and not at the end, so that you will read this as "history" and with right "prespective". This should also serve to restore the self-respect of Indians. Indians were not barbarians before our "saviors" (the Europeans) came and it was not the British who taught us "culture" brought us "civil service" "education" and "science"!(More on this later) Read on!

We had a glimpse of the glory that India has basked in in the previous post. The glory of India has reached so far and wide that number of sailors from west (Europe, as America was not discovered yet :-)) set out to find a route to India. It was such a lucrative option that the kings of those countries even sponsored such sailors. It is a well known fact that Colombus discovered America during one such expedition to find out a sea route to India. Till his death, he still thought he was travelling on west of India towards India. Hence he named the islands that he found enroute as “West Indies"!!

Coming back to where we left, India was albeit peaceful and prospered till 11th-12th century. The existing religions hinduism, budhism co-existed peacefully. So much so that it was common place for the king to be a hindu and the prince to be a Buddhist and vice-versa. Even Hindu Kings patronaged the Buddhist viharas and the university of Nalanda and other universities. The Hindu wars left the non-combatants like peasants, teachers, businessmen as well as women and children unharmed and untouched.

Islamic imperialism knew no such code of honor. The only rule of war they observed without fail was to fall down the helpless civil population after a decisive victory had been won on the battlefield. They sacked and burnt down villages and towns after the defenders had died fighting or had fled. The cows, the Brahmins and Buddhist Bhikshus invited their special attention in a mass murder of non-combatants. Their temples and shrines were their special targets in an orgy of pillage and destruction. Those that they did not kill, they captured and sold as slaves.

Lured by tales of the fertile plains of the Punjab and the fabulous wealth of Hindu temples, Mahmud of Ghazni first attacked India in 1000 AD. Other raiders from Central Asia followed him.

The invasions

Muhammad Ghajni had famously vowed to invade India every year. He did invade 13 times and carried back countless riches. Temples were his main target as they served his religious purpose of "holy war" as well. He burnt in 1018 of the temples of Mathura, razing Kanauj to the ground and destroying the famous temple of Somnath, sacred to all Hindus. His successors were as ruthless as Ghazni: 103 temples in the holy city of Benaras were razed to the ground, its marvelous temples destroyed, its magnificent palaces wrecked.
Mohammed Ghori had the Hindu temples of Ajmer demolished and ordered the construction of mosques and Quran schools on their ruins He plundered Kanauj and Kashi and destroyed their temples. While his generals destroyed in passing the remaining Buddhist communities of Bihar and destroyed the universities of Nalanda. Bakhtiar Khilji "established a Muslim capital in Lakhanauti (Gaur) on the Ganga and destroyed, in 1197, its basalt temples. In Odantpuri University, in 1202, he massacred two thousand Buddhist monks. "
I had personally visited Hampi and it gave me goose bumps to see the scale of the mindless destruction!! I wonder what kind of ppl and what kind of mindset is required to carryout such destruction. It took complete 6 months to bring down the entire vijayanagara empire to ashes.

Robert Sewell (1845-1925) the British civil servant who discovered the ruins of Vijayanagar, wrote of its tragic end, ‘Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought, and wrought suddenly, on so splendid a city’. In A Forgotten
Empire says writes about the missing, defaced or vandalized temples and about the destruction of the mighty Vijayanagar kingdom. An empire where “it used to rain gold and gems in the days of the mighty rulers here,” He has written: “for five months the Mohammeddans with fire and sword, with crowbars and axes carried on day after day their work of destruction. Never perhaps in the history of the world has such havoc been wrought so suddenly, and reduced to ruins amid scenes of savage massacre and horrors beggaring description”.

Ferishta, the late 16th Century Persian traveler describes the 1565 rout thus ? “the river which ran near the field was dyed red with their blood. It is computed that 1,00,000 infidels were slain during the pursuit.”

Summary
Right from Mohammed bin Qasim who conquered the lower Indus basin in 712 CE. to Aurangzeb, the last mughal, hindu and Buddhists scholars were ruthlessly murdered. It is said that when Ghori invaded Somnath he got the 50,000 inmates killed. Almost 1 lakh teachers and scholars of Nalanda were beheaded when Nalanda was plundered. All the Hindu teachers and scholers either were killed or fled. Any educational institution needs patronage of the rules. No such patronage was given to Hindu Sanatana Dharma, the Ancient Indian Science. Almost all the books were burnt. The only bits and pieces we have is from the direct orders given by kings (Aurangzebs order for forceful conversion or to pay “hindu-religion-tax” is still there in mumbai musesum)The only accounts of the prosperity available are from the travellers like Megasthesne, Hien-Tsang(stayed in Nalanda for 13 yrs and Mastered Yoga. He carried copies of some of the books to china which are still there in a chinese musesum), Fa-Hein, Marco Polo. Arurangzebs hatred for Hinduism is so complete that he even killed his brother for evincing interest in Hindu way of life!There were some moderate muslim emporeres like Akbar. But they were very very very rare and too far apart to really help preserving any of the wisdom.

Hindu Society has been suffering a sustained attack from Islam since the 7th century, only to be joined by Christianity in 15th century to make the obliteration complete!!!!

Note 1: The educational institutions of India were called Viharas or Biharas and hence the name Bihar(vihar) is what i read in one of the websites and it was eye-opening Most of the famous ancient Indian Universities were in Bihar.

Note 2: The list of the invaders given is only a tip of the iceberg. It includes, Alaudddin Khilji, Firuz Tughlaq, Husain Nizam shah,Mohammad Ghori,Ghazni Mohammad,Qutb-ud-Din Aibak,Balban,
Mohammaed bin Qasim,Mohammad Tughlak to name a few, the most ruthless of the lot!
TBC: The role of the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British in completing whatever little was left (missed?!)by Muslims shall be seen in next post and we can see that the alienation of Indians from everything that was "Indian" was hence complete!!!


source:hinduwisdom.com

After my few previous posts which indicate that the “hindu dharma” was infact “Indian Science” which agrees well with the current day science. It even dares to explore the vast vistas albeit untouched and unexplored by the scientists of today. Indians as well as few ancient civilizations of the world (Egypt, tibet, Greece..etc) seems to have independently (or otherwise, doesnt matter) arrived at similar conclusions about man and Nature. Given that the Absolute Truth is beyond all the boundaries this does not come as a complete surprise. It only comes a proof.

What surprises me is how and when was it that this ancient wisdom was lost? I began my googling and shall take you down the lanes of history that i could gather. Ofcourse, there are missing links. We have got only bits and peices, but there are enough of them for us to imagine the rest or even give us a wholistic view without imagining anything at all.

3rd century BC - 1st century BC: The Mauryas

The Maurya Empire,founded in 322 BC by Chandragupta Maurya, was the largest and most powerful political and military empire of ancient India. It included almost all of India including Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of Persia. Chandragupta’s minister Kautilya Chanakya wrote the Arthashastra, one of the greatest treatises on economics, politics, foreign affairs, administration, military arts, war, and religion ever produced in the East. The Lion Capital of Asoka at Sarnath, is the emblem of India.

Farmers were freed of tax and crop collection burdens from regional kings, paying instead to a nationally-administered and strict-but-fair system of taxation as advised by the principles in the Arthashastra. Chandragupta Maurya established a single currency across India, and a network of regional governors and administrators and a civil service provided justice and security for merchants, farmers and traders. A vast espionage system collected intelligence for both internal and external security purposes and they had the largest standing army of the times. Its decline began fifty years after Ashoka’s rule ended, and it dissolved in 185 BC with the foundation of the Sunga Dynasty in Magadha.

3rd - 6th th century AD: The Guptas

The time of the Gupta Empire is referred to as Golden Age of India in science, mathematics, astronomy, religion and Indian philosophy. The peace and prosperity created under leadership of Guptas enabled the pursuit of scientific and artistic endeavors. Sanskrit language and literature reached its peak during the Gupta era. Poets Kalidasa, Dandi, Visakhadatta, Shudraka, and Bharavi all belong to this period. Most of the twenty-eight Ajanta caves were constructed during this period.
Books on medicine, veterinary science, mathematics, astronomy and astrophysics were written. The famous Aryabhata and Varahamihira belong to this age. Overseas trade and commerce flourished. Hindu and Buddhist mythology, architecture, along with religion took root in Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries. The Chinese monk Lui Kang who was in India and Sri Lanka between 399 and 414 noticed general prosperity and peace-loving nature of the people. He wrote of beautiful cities, fine hospitals and universities, and described a content and prosperous people. Panchatantra, the animal fables by Vishnu Sharma, were also written in this period. The Gupta Dynasty also left behind an effective administrative system. During times of peace, the Gupta system was decentralized, with only taxation flowing to the capital at Pataliputra. Education included grammar, composition, logic, metaphysics, mathematics, medicine, and astronomy. These subjects became highly specialized and reached an advanced level. The Indian numeral system?sometimes erroneously attributed to the Arabs, who took it from India to Europe where it replaced the Roman system?and the decimal system are Indian inventions of this period. Aryabhatta’s expositions on astronomy in 499, moreover, gave calculations of the solar year and the shape and movement of astral bodies with remarkable accuracy.

In medicine, the Guptas were notable for their establishment and patronage of free hospitals. Indian physicians excelled in pharmacopoeia, caesarean section, bone setting, and skin grafting and were soon adopted in the Arab and Western worlds.

The University of Nalanda was founded during this period. It is credited to be the worlds first known residential university, i.e., it had dormitories for students. In its heyday it accommodated over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers. The university was considered an “architectural masterpiece”. The library was located in a nine storied building where meticulous copies of texts were produced.(I read somewhere that it took the muslim invader, kilji, 6 months to burn ALL the books! ) The subjects taught at Nalanda University covered every field of learning, and it attracted pupils and scholars from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey. The Tang Dynasty Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang left detailed accounts of the university in the 7th century. (Note 1)

6th century AD to 12th century AD: The Chalukyas in the south

The most enduring legacy of the Chalukya dynasty is the architecture and art that they left behind. More than one hundred and fifty monuments attributed to the Badami Chalukya, remain in the Malaprabha basin in Karnataka. The rock-cut temples of Pattadakal, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Badami and Aihole are their most celebrated monuments. Two of the famous paintings at Ajanta cave no. 1, “The Temptation of the Buddha” and “The Persian Embassy” are attributed to them. Karnataka and Telugu literature flourished.

7th century AD to 11th century AD: The Palas in the North

The founder of the empire was Gopala. He was the first independent Buddhist (however Vaishnavite) king of Bengal and came to power in 750 in Gaur by democratic election, which was unique at the time. Palas legacy gets remembered not much in Bengal but elsewhere. Tibet’s modern culture and religion is heavily influenced by Palas. Palas are credited with spreading Buddhism to Tibet and around the world through missionaries.

In summary:
People showed brilliancy in all departments of Mathematics, Astronomy, Medicine, Chemistry, Poetry, Drama, Grammar and Philosophy. From the 4th century B.C. to the 11th century A.D. all foreigners who came in contact with India and studied her civilization critically were very much impressed by it. This included Megasthanese, Fa-hein, Huein-Tsang etc. They spoke highly of Indian prosperity, Civilization, Science, Arts and even Indian character was praised, especially their truthfulness, honesty, and sense of justice.

Ofcourse, India was a country with plenty of wars fought by Hindu princes &
kings(before the advent of Islamic imperialism). But in all their wars the Hindus had observed some time honored conventions sanctioned by the Shastras. The Brahmins and Bhikshus were never touched. The chastity of women was never violated. The cows & domestic cattle were never killed. The temples were never touched. The non-combatants were never killed or captured. A human habitation was never attacked unless it was a fort. The civilian population was never plundered. The martial class (kshatriyas) who clashed, mostly in open fields, had a code of honor.

As early as as the 4th century B.C. Megasthenes (c. 350 BC-290 BC) Greek Scholar and historian, noticed a peculiar trait of Indian warfare. “Whereas among other nations it is usual, in the contests of war, to ravage the soil and thus to reduce it to an uncultivated waste, among the Indians, on the contrary, by whom husbandmen are regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even when battle is raging in their neighborhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger, for the combatants on either side in waging the conflict make carnage of each other, but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested. Besides, they never ravage an enemy’s land with fire, nor cut down its trees.”

Hence even though there were wars, Science, mathematics, logic, philosophy, art, everything was growing at an unlimited pace.

Earth is round was never disputed in India, so much so that we find Varahavatar lifting the rounded earth on His tusks in many ancient sculptures. The law of conservation of matter and energy and the law of cause and effect were the two fundamental laws of Hinduism. Anybody not accepting these two laws would be considered a nastic. The agnostics and people who refuted the existence of God were considered equally respected as others. The last in the glorious tradition of scholars was Bhaskaracharya , who invented the gravitational force also. David E. Duncan writes in his book The Calendar, "After Brahmagupta, India continued to produce noted mathematicians, including Bhaskara (1114–1185), considered by mathematicians to be the most brilliant in his field anywhere during the twelfth century.” At this period North India fell to Muslim invaders!

Note 1: The known and excavated ruins extend over an area of about 150,000 square metres, although if Xuanzang’s account of Nalanda’s extent is correlated with present excavations, almost 90% of it remains unexcavated. source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda