Let Us Stand United Rock Solid!
The outcaste black untouchables are targeted to be mobilised and sacrificed once again with the names of Rama and a non existent Setu Samudramam to make the Brahminical Hegemony survive
We should not forget what the sikhs suffered after 31st October,1984 and the Operation Blue star. Who may forget the anti Reservation movements time to time? The genocideds of Untouchables in different parts of the country and the continuous persecution of dalits, Muslims, sikhs, Minorities, Refugees, Tribals, OBC and women in this subcontinent run by the Brahminical rulers!
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: alashbiswaskl@gmail.com">palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
They are trying their best to kill the Constitution and abolish the provision of reservation! At the sametime, making capital on Islamophobia and War against Terrorism they want to escalate the enslavement of the aborigins with fresh wave of Hindutva! The holy month of Ramzan will commence from Friday. RSS, BJP and shiv Sena choes this time to launch their agitation on Setu samudramam inviting Communal tension! Flaying the Government for saying there was no historical proof on the existence of Lord Rama, Yoga guru Swami Ramdev today said this was an insult to the Hindu faith. What is frozen is the Muslim mindset that is still committed to re-enacting the earlier triumphs; in contrast, the Hindu mindset is presented as vibrant, full of contradictions and so capable of creative growth.The BJP has decided to stick to its core electoral plank of Hindutva as it starts preparing for the next general elections with an assessment that it barely has 200 days in hand.This was decided at a meeting of the party’s core committee yesterday, followed by another of office-bearers Tues day.But the party has learnt its lessons from the recent Uttar Pradesh elections where its anti-Muslim propaganda boomeranged. So now it wants to package its message with greater sophistication and has decided to build up a campaign around minority appeasement and national security.Party chief Rajnath Singh has formed a committee headed by former president M. Venkaiah Naidu to plan programmes highlighting the two issues, which the BJP leadership thinks are interlinked.
"The new moon of Ramzan was not sighted today. Hence, Ramzan will start from Friday," Mufti Mukarram, Shahi Imam of Shahi Masjid Fatehpuri said in a statement.
The Muslim devotees fast throughout the holy month which culminates in the Id celebrations.
BJP leaders, while debating the prevailing political situation, felt that the nuclear deal cannot become an election issue.Had the polls been held soon, say in November, the issue could have marginally affected electioneering. But since elections will be at a later date, there was no point harping on the intricacies of the agreement before the common man. So, the leaders said, it was better to stick to issues like betrayal of the common man by the Congress-led UPA government, terrorism, price rise and the plight of farmers.
And what they are highlighting!
It is the personality of the God Ramchandra and the Setu Samudram!Activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Wednesday blocked roads all over the Indian capital and the National Highway Number 1 in Haryana to protest the Sethusamudram canal project in Tamil Nadu that they say will destroy a 'bridge' that is held sacred in Hindu mythology.The VHP claims that the canal project, that will cut shipping time in the southern tip of India, would damage the Adam's Bridge or Ram Sethu, that many Hindus claim was built by the monkey brigade to enable Ram to reach then Lanka (now Sri Lanka) to rescue his wife Sita from the clutches of demon king Ravana. Hindutva parties claim that US space agency NASA had the bridge in the Indian Ocean carbon dated as being 1.7 million years old. However, NASA and Indian scientists say the 'bridge' was nothing but a natural string of underwater coral reefs.
A group of pro-Hindutva organisations in the US have planned a protest against Congress president Sonia Gandhi representing India at the UN in New York!
Patriots Forum in New Delhi and Infinity Foundation (USA) are organizing a one-day long Seminar on 'Violation of Human Rights of Hindu in India' on Tuesday (11 September, 2007) at New Delhi. This subject has been completely ignored by the Pseudo Secular Mafia of Mass Media for too long, and this has led to the build-up of a helpless feeling among members of the majority Hindu Community that they have been reduced to the status of children of a LESSER GOD in their own ancient Homeland. While the 'Secular' political class, mainstream media, the National Human Rights Commission and multiple NGOs are often seen clamouring at the drop of a hat for protection of the Human Rights of Minorities, no tears are shed or any concern ever expressed about the pitiable plight of the members of the shattered and battered majority Hindu Community in different parts of India. The most glaring example relates to the callous disregard of the plight of lakhs of Hindus ethnically cleansed from Jammu and Kashmir with the tacit political consent of the pseudo-secular Government of India and the anti-Hindu Government of Jammu and Kashmir. A similar silent campaign of ethnic cleansing of Hindus (euphemistically called 'Hindi Speaking') living in Assam and certain parts of North East, has also gathered momentum in recent times. No one, however, seems to be bothered about such abominable violation of Hindu Human Rights. There is a longstanding complaint about the misuse of the funds and lands of Hindu temples by Islam-embracing, Christianity-coveting and Hindu-hating avaricious State governments.
God Rama demonised the aborigin Black untouchables and tribals of Indian Subcontinent and Killed them in genocides glorifed.The God killed Shambuk. The Idealmost Man of Hindu mythology banished his wife, Sita! And now, the outcaste black untouchable are targeted to be mobilised and sacrificed once again with the names of Rama and a non existent Setu Samudramam to make the Brahminical Hegemony survive and to implement the agenda of the Zionist Hindu Post Modern Manusmriti Galaxy Order leading the enslaved eighty five percent Indian masses to Self Destyruction. Not so many days passsed, this subcontinent sufferd the heat and dust of Ram Janma Bhoomi Movement. The nationwide Hindutva Wave changed the scenerio in Indian Polity as the RSS got hold on the almighty State Power for the first time. Before the Islamophobia became the zionist tool for US Imperialism to launch a worldwide War against terrorism, the Nazis of India launched a systematic Muslim Hatred campaign.Before this, We should not forget what the sikhs suffered after 31st October,1984 and the Operation Blue star. Who may forget the anti Reservation movements time to time? The genocideds of Untouchables in different parts of the country and the continuous persecution of dalits, Muslims, sikhs, Minorities, Refugees, Tribals, OBC and women in this subcontinent run by the Brahminical rulers!The history of this country, from this perspective, comprises an unending cycle of wrongs and revenge, aggression and defeat that continues to the present day.
But the tragedy is that the Killers have the mastery over misinformation and appeasement and always succeeded to divide the society. Thus, Sikhs are misled to indulge in infight amongst them and the Deras are used to divide the most militant community in India! Meenas are fielded agaist Gujjars, Jats,Yadavs and Kurmies against Untouchables everywhere! Muslim Mev community is fielded against Gujjars by Meenas! The dalit Bengali refugges are isolated everywhere and are not considered Dalits by the Dalits! We never feel anything when we witness in calm the destruction of tribal life and livelihood. Entire North East, The Himalays and Kashmir peole suffer so much and the so called Indian mainstream does not recognise its own blood spilled all over the subcontinent. Again the so called militants kill the weakermost communities to highlight their cause and help the State Power to be Absolute in its use of Guns and Uniforms aginst the Innocent masses.
This is Blck Indian Magic in real!
Major traffic jams were seen all around the country Wednesday as activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) blocked roads and disrupted train services to protest the Sethusamudram canal project in Tamil Nadu that they say will destroy a 'bridge' held sacred in Hindu mythology. The controversy over the Sethusamudram project took a fresh twist Wednesday with the Centre telling the Supreme Court that there was no historical and scientific evidence to establish the existence of Lord Rama or the other characters in Ramayana. In an affidavit, the Centre stated that the contents of the Valmiki Ramayana, Tuslidas`s Ramcharitmanas and other mythological texts cannot be a historical record to prove the existence of the characters mentioned in the book.
As the 'chakka jam' called by the VHP to protest against the Sethusamudram project stalled traffic for three hours here, a woman was forced to give birth to her child on a road as her way to hospital was blocked by demonstrators.Sangita, in her 20s, suffered acute labour pains and gave birth to the child on the Khagaul-Danapur road during the protest.saharasamay reports from Patna.Womenfolk from nearby households came to Sangita's aid in her moment of crisis and put up black polythene sheets to shield her from public view, her husband Jitendra Kumar said.
According to the Centre the "Ram Setu"/Adam`s Bridge is not a man-made structure, "but rather a natural formation made up of shoals/sand bars, which are possessed of their particular shape and form due to several millennia of wave action and sedimentation." The Centre filed the affidavit in response to two writ petitions filed by former union minister Subramaniam Swamy and one Ram Gopalan who had sought an assurance from the government that there would be no destruction of the mythical barrier "Ram Setu" during the construction of Sethusamudram project. The multi-crore project proposes to provide a shorter sea route from Rameshwaram to Sri Lanka.
"A comparison can be there, it cannot be there. I see a comparison in terms of the government's response to both issues," said BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad, whose party colleague Vijay Kumar Malhotra accused the Congress-led Centre of blasphemy because of its submission before the Supreme Court that there was no historical evidence to establish existence of Lord Ram.
With his party attacked on numerous occasions by the VHP for not keeping its election promise to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya while being in power, Prasad ws defensive when asked whether the BJP would put realignment of the Palk Strait shipping canal project on its manifesto.
"It would be demeaning to make this an election issue," he said, but hastened to add that the party did pass a resolution opposing the Sethusamudram project in its present alignment at its national executive. "We don't want to make it an election issue alone."
Prasad, who condemned the government for its affidavit over Lord Ram and the Ramayana as a "classic patent example of appeasement of politics", wondered whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government can make a similar submission regarding other faiths. "What a rubbish! It's an insult to our cultural heritage and Hindu sentiments."
He slammed the Culture Ministry for its submission that it has carried out no study on the Ram Sethu, an undersea bridge believed to be linked to the Ramayana.
Let us stand united rock solid as the forces of Nazi Hindutva and Zionist US Imperialism have launched an all out War against Black Untouchables worldwide and particularly in Indian subcontinent. Indian Polity as well as Judiciry act together to wage War aginst Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhas, Christians,Dalits, tribals and OBC. They divide us and rule us. The Brahminical hindutvwa has got another issue Sethusamudram to unite the Caste ridden graded inequality based so called Hindu
Society to destroy the untochables as the Black Brotherhood faces the White Supremacy all over the world!
Putting behind their bitter past that threatened to break the NDA, the BJP and Shiv Sena have once again joined hands, with an eye on the possible mid-term elections at the Centre.Leader of the Opposition L K Advani had to step in as the Bhishmapitamah to bring about a patch-up between the two warring parties in Mahrashtra.At the luncheon meeting hosted by BJP leader L K Advani for Shiv Sena Executive President and Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray's son Uddhav Thackeray, along with Manohar Joshi, BJP General Secretary Gopinath Munde and Maharashtra BJP President Nitin Gadkari decided to bury their hatchet for the present, in order to secure their future in both the Lok Sabha and the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly elections.
On the other hand, The Supreme Court Wednesday expressed concern over the increased number of castes that figure in the backward classes list for reservations in jobs and educational institutions. The 93rd Amendment under which the quota law has been enacted “breaches the secular character of the Constitution,” senior counsel K.K. Venugopal argued before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The “Constitution [93rd Amendment] Act inserting Article 15 [5] is unconstitutional and violates the basic structure of the Constitution,” Mr. Venugopal, appearing for the Resident Doctors Association, submitted before a Constitution Bench hearing petitions questioning the amendment and the OBC quota law enacted under it.
The Bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, included Justices Arijit Pasayat, C.K. Thakker, R.V. Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari. Mr. Venugopal said, “The amendment breaches the secular character of the Constitution by placing a minority based on religion, which has established aided educational institutions, on a special footing, by exempting it from bearing the common burden.
"Is there a list of total number of castes," asked a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan while observing "it is strange that when we do not have an outer limit we are adding more castes in the list".
The court`s remark came when senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for anti-quota petitioners, said the `creamy layer` eats away into reservation and a backward castes remains a backward class despite the country making economic advancement.
"India is shining but backwardness is increasing rapidly with number of backward castes," he said and elaborated that only reason for adding more and more castes can be elections in mind.
"The policy of reservation is intended for obtaining votes at the elections," Venugopal said before the bench which is examining the constitutional validity of the Central Educational Institution (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, providing 27 per cent quota for OBCs in educational institutions.
He gave the example of recent Uttar Pradesh assembly election in which Bahujan Samaj Party came to power with 206 seats with a mere difference of four per cent of votes as against its nearest rival Samajwadi Party.
The senior advocate said so far as backward class are concerned, by giving them benefit on quid pro quo basis it would be possible for a political party to obtain a large percentage of bloc votes as each caste consist of an identifiable group of voters.
It unequivocally destroys the essence of equality embedded in the Constitution by excluding educational institutions established by minorities and subjecting non-minority established institutions alone to bear the burden of weaker sections that are less meritorious.”
Counsel said making special provisions for socially and economically backward classes (SEBCs) and the Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes for admissions, including by way of reservation of seats in educational institutions, both in minority and non-minority established aided institutions was covered by Article 15 (4).
\But Article 15 (5) excluding minority institutions was inconsistent with Article 15 (4). “The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, to the extent that it makes no provision for excluding the creamy layer is invalid.
“The invalidity of identification of the SEBCs by the Centre without laying down a mechanism and procedure, including the requirement of following the principles of natural justice, renders the entire Act arbitrary and violative of Article 14.”
He will continue his submissions on Wednesday.
Earlier, continuing his arguments, senior counsel P.P. Rao said, “The state’s failure to provide free and compulsory education at least to the children of the Backward Classes, the SCs and the STs for six decades and the high rate of dropouts among them in classes 1 to 10 lead the irresistible conclusion that the state is concerned more about the ‘haves’ among the BCs than the ‘have-nots’. Moreover, in the present policy there is no provision for removing the educational disparities among BCs inter se.”
Rae Bareli:A district court, hearing the Babri Mosque demolition cases against BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani and seven others, on Tuesday fixed September 19 for pronouncing its order on applications moved by a VHP leader and two others on whether they could be tried by the same court, Sahara Samay sources said. According to the sources, special judge Vansharaj Singh issued the direction while hearing applications filed by Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ram Vilas Vedanti and two more persons.
Vedanti and the others, against whom trial in the Babri mosque demolition cases are pending in a court in Lucknow, have sought the transfer of their cases to the district court here so that they can be tried along with Advani. The applicants said they were co-accused in the matter and, as such, their cases should be tried by the district court. Many prominent leader including former union ministers M.M. Joshi, Uma Bharti, BJP general secretary Vinay Katiyar, VHP leaders Ashok Singhal, Acharya Giriraj Kishore and Vishnu Hari Dalmiya are the other accused in the case.
Govt to transform Sarva Siksha Abhiyan into national mission.The government is likely to re-orient Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), the flagship programme of Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry, into a national mission for quality elementary education.While the books and funds are used as fuel for Caste Hindu carnival
Our People are stripped off citizenship, human rights and civil rights. They are burnt to death as branded Witches even in the Left Ruled West Bengal. The Tribals and Muslims and untouchables suffere and starve , thogh so many state and central government schemes are on. But the budgetary allocations and welfare schemes like Mid Day Meal, BPL card, Work for Food, Annapurna Yojana, Antodaya and the entire set up of local autonomus bodies including the much hyped are used to feed regimented colorful different gestapos regionwise, corrupt officials, dons, promoters, contractors, PDS system and Builders.
The chief minister of India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh, Maywati, has sacked 6500 police officers, saying they paid bribes to get jobs under the previous government.See the rot ! And they claim social justice, freedom and fraternity, equal opportunity and Merit! In a huge level sacking of police personnel alleging corruption in police recruitment during Mulayam Singh Yadav government, the ruling BSP party in Uttar Pradesh suspended around 6500 police personnel including 12 senior IPS ...
This is globalisation of torture, atrocities, persecution and genocide. This is globalisation of displacement, destruction, calamities, disease, pollution, poverty and starvation!
Where do we stand , friends!
What for we stand?
Now see! Congress goes for sacchar Committtee recommendations and Left launches an antiimperialist Movemet.
VP Singh Implemeted mandal, RSS inserted Kamandal with Kamal. Ram was there to be the saviour of Brahminical Hindutva as he ahs been omnipresent as a savour down the Indian History. Ram was being sought in Ayodhya and now they look for the God in Ramesharam. Setusamudram becomes the Post ModerN Kamandal to stall Dalit Muslim Insurrection as well as the Left used the farce of antiimperialist movement and congress General Appeasemnet drive!
Congress plans to replace a Marxist Brahmin with another Brahmin and forget the Dalit Muslim Insurrection supperted by the Brahmin Kanay and Brahminical Intelligentsia Benagl. Mamta`s priority was alwasy to capture power using gimmicks. She is not so serious about either Nandigarm or singur. her Tea war is yet to start and perhaps is never to start at all! As Buddha is supported by worldbank slave Dr manmohan singh in his plight for Capitalist development with indiscriminate Land Aquisition for urbanisation and industrialisation, Mamta has no chance to continue with her adventure with romantic ressistance whatsoever!
The West Bengal Congress leadership believes “the situation is conducive for negotiations” with Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee for either “welcoming” her back to the Congress or for a political understanding with her party in the State. The Congress views Ms. Banerjee’s recent remark of “trying to stand on our feet” as a move towards dissociating from the National Democratic Alliance.Ms. Banerjee met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Monday. The former has been silent on whether the talks included a future political tie-up between the two parties.
It is the State government’s responsibility to address the housing concerns of the financially weak people, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said here on Tuesday.
“There is a real estate boom in both government and private sector but the financially weak are not benefiting from those projects,” he said at a seminar and workshop organised to assess the progress made on the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and other poverty alleviation measures.
While seeking a “holistic approach” that would provide a “convergence between infrastructure development and human development” in the municipal areas, he said legislation had to be brought in to provide housing for the financially weak. Dwellings could also be set up for at least one lakh slum dwellers.Pointing out that the first phase of work under the JNNURM was weak, he said that in order to initiate the pace of work, all sections of society should be involved in development activities.
Finance Minister Ashim Dasgupta said that in case land was to be bought, the cost would be borne by his department. The financially weak might be provided low-interest easy-instalment loans.
At least Rs. 12,000 crore worth projects would be taken up in the State under the JNNURM in the next five years, Ashok Bhattacharya, Minister for Municipal affairs and Urban Development, said.
Congress Wednesday sought to put BJP on the mat on the Ram Setu issue, saying the Sethusamudram project had been started during the tenure of the erstwhile NDA.
In election mode, the BJP on Wednesday drew a parallel between the row over the Sethusamudram shipping canal project and its Ram temple movement, saying it found similarity in the ruling Congress' response to the saffron objections in both the cases. Meanwhile, in a judgment that is sure to raise many questions, the Allahahabad High Court has said that it is duty of the government to recognize Bhagvat Gita as the national religious scripture (rashtriya dharma shastra). The judgment said that it was Bhagvat Gita, a Hindu Holy book that inspired freedom struggle as well as all aspects of Indian life.While,Jamiat threatens agitation if Govt. does not givereservation to Muslims . Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JUH)has threatened to launch large scale nationwideprotests if government does not implement SacharCommittee and Justice Mishra Commission reports. Thiswas announced here Monday in a Press Conference by Jamiat General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP Mahmood Madani. He also said that Muslims backwardness warrants immediate reservation facility for Muslims in jobs and education.
Meanwhile,The Kerala High Court on Wednesday restrained the state government from conferring the 'Raja Ravi Varma' award to noted painter M F Husain. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice H L Dathu and Justice K T Shankaran issued the interim order on a petition by one Ravi Varma of the erstwhile royal family challenging government's decision to confer award to Husain.
The petitioner argued Husain had "abused" the freedom of expression by depicting Hindu gods and goddess in a "vulgar" manner, disregarding religious sentiments and feelings. Hence there were no guidelines for selection of the award. Despite several protests in the state, the government had not withdrawn the award, he stated. Earlier, the Education and Cultural Department had announced that Husain would be conferred the award on September 17.
Dalit schoolgirls are on a hunger strike for three days now in protest against being served rotten food in their residential school in Ara, district headquarters of Bhojpur district.
All the 250 Dalit girls at the Rajkiya Ambedkar Awasiya Balika Vidyalaya are refusing to touch the “worm-infested food.” At least nine of them have fallen sick and have been admitted to the Sadar hospital in Ara.
The students have been protesting for well over two months now against the inhuman treatment being meted out to them. They alleged that the authorities were ignoring their protests because they were poor Dalits.
Television clippings showed the worm-infested rice in the school’s kitchen. A school official admitted that she failed to detect the poor quality rice and pulses and replace them.
Surprisingly, district officials who visited the school on an inspection too did nothing to replace the stock. They said they would submit their report to the higher authorities and hoped that the children would give up their indefinite fast.
The girls have resolved not to relent till their demands are fulfilled.
A leader of the dalit community in Gohana has claimed that several families from Balmiki Basti near here have fled to Delhi in the wake of the killing of a Dalit youth.
A one-man panel arrived in Gohana town to probe the incident.
"The family of Rakesh alias Lara who was shot dead on August 27 were the first ones to lock their house and leave for Delhi," Dalit Nayay Andolan president Pran Ratnakar told reporters.
He said other families followed suit. They had "taken shelter" at Bhagwan Balmiki Mandir on Punchkuian Road in New Delhi, he added.
Ratnakar claimed these families were feeling insecure as the district and police administration had failed to take steps for the safety of Dalit families living in Balmiki Basti in Garwal village of this district.
Rohtak Divisional Commissioner J P Kaushik appointed by the Haryana government to hold the magisterial inquiry into the murder of Rakesh reached Gohana town yesterday and has begun the probe.
A role model like Mr. Premji might seem to be what India's Muslims need. Though the country's economy is growing at 9% a year, the vast majority of India's estimated 150 million Muslims -- the largest Islamic population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan -- remain socially marginalized, badly educated and mired in deep poverty. By and large, they're left out of the social transformation that is propelling millions of their Hindu compatriots into prosperity, as barriers of caste disappear and India's new corporate giants provide opportunities that never existed before.
Yet, to many in India's Muslim community, Mr. Premji's enormous wealth, far from being inspiring, shows that success comes at a price the truly faithful cannot accept. They resent that Mr. Premji plays down his religious roots and declines to embrace Muslim causes -- in a nation where people are pegged by their religion and where Hindus freely flaunt theirs. "If you are a Muslim and want to be rich in India, you have to show you are very secular," says Zafarul Islam Khan, secretary-general of the All-India Muslim Majlis e Mushawarat, an umbrella group.
A native of Mumbai, Azim Premji has tapped India's abundant engineering talent to transform a family vegetable-oil firm, Wipro Ltd., into a technology and outsourcing giant. By serving Western manufacturers, airlines and utilities, the company has brought Mr. Premji a fortune of some $17 billion -- believed to be greater than that of any other Muslim outside of Persian Gulf royalty.
Such success, Mr. Premji says in an interview, shows that globalization -- a force Islamist activists decry as Western neocolonialism -- is turning into "two-way traffic" that can bring tangible benefits to developing countries.
Mr. Premji's rise is already inspiring some Indian Muslims to embrace the modern, globalized world. "He's an icon. He shows that excellence has no caste and no creed, and that if one has excellence, one can make it to the top," says Mohamed Javeed, principal of Bangalore's predominantly Muslim Al-Ameen College. One of the students, Mohammed Nasseer, enthuses, "I'd love to become like Premji one day."
RELIGIOUS DIVIDE
• The Issue: Wipro executive Azim Premji has inspired other Muslims in India to embrace the modern world -- but not all Muslims approve of his secular ways.
• Behind the Debate: Muslims are among the poorest and least educated groups in India.
• Hiring Prospects: Technology giant Wipro says it seeks to hire regardless of creed, but relatively few Indian Muslims meet its standards because they lack English skills and engineering degrees.A Muslim school a half-hour's
M.S. PRABHAKARA writesin frontline:
The controversy over a recent Kannada novel provides an insight into the direction of the politics of religion and culture in Karnataka. ...
History and creative writing, sometimes masquerading as each other, have not escaped the beguilement of such ideologies.
Avarana (meaning, cover, concealment) by S.L. Bhyrappa, a popular and successful Kannada writer, has created somewhat of a record in Kannada publishing and marketing. Published in February this year, the book had gone through to it s twelfth imprint by the beginning of August. It has been the subject of at least three books, two collections of essays and a full-length study. The book has received intense and sustained critical attention in the media almost from the day it came out.
The story is simple, though the narration tries to be complicated. The central character is Razia, aged 54 years. Born Lakshmi in a Vokkaliga family, she converted to Islam at the age of 26 on her marriage to Ameer, her classmate, friend and lover at the Pune Film Institute. That she belongs to a non-Brahmin peasant caste of Karnataka is central to the narration. It is through her persona that the author ‘speaks’, giving expression to what he sees as the degeneration of the present and the hope for a regeneration of tomorrow. In this perspective, the lower castes will ultimately drive the Hindutva agenda, which incidentally is increasingly the political reality in Karnataka, notwithstanding feeble refutations by well-intentioned progressives. An earlier work, Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane, in the making of whose Hindi film version (Godhuli) progressive intellectuals were involved, also had a non-Brahmin peasant character driving the Hindutva agenda.
The story begins on January 13-14, 1993, “a month and eight days” after the fall of the Babri Masjid, as the author precisely notes. The locale is the government tourist lodge at Hampi where Razia and Ameer have arrived to film a documentary sponsored by the heritage department of the Central government, part of a larger project to make documentary films on all heritage sites. The ‘implicit’ purpose of the project is to counter the anti-Muslim sentiments that animate those who view the ruins of Hampi and similar sites. The larger context is the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in the country that so recently had led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid. The ideological contours are already in place: a dishonest government out to appease Muslims by falsifying historical truth.
The carefully chosen date and context marks two kinds of transition: one of time and seasons in a system of beliefs, the other an act of contemporary revenge for remembered wrongs of the past. The Sankramana emanates from and encomp asses other preoccupations: Forced conversions of Hindus to Islam, slaughter of cow
