Hindus, Wendy Doniger and our fraudulent Left-liberals

Our fraudulent Left-liberals, who dominate the commentariat and academic institutions, poisoning impressionable minds, are out in full force, doing what they do best: Maligning Hindus by propagating falsehood. They have seized upon Penguin Books India’s decision to withdraw and pulp a book, ‘The Hindus: An Alternative History’, authored by Wendy Doniger who is on the faculty of the Divinity School at Chicago University, to accuse “Hindu nationalists”, “fringe fundamentalists”, “Hindutvawadis” of enforcing ‘censorship’. This fiction is being repeated, again and again, in keeping with Goebbels’s dictum of repeating a lie till in the popular perception it begins to appear as the truth.

Here are the facts. Wendy Doniger’s book was published in India by Penguin five years ago. It met with a hostile reception and its contents were contested by several writers well-versed with Hindu texts and Sanskrit. Even the most casual reading of the book would show that the ‘alternative history’ that Wendy Doniger peddles is so much bunk and no more.  For all her scholarship, her interpretation of text and tradition, her understanding of the finer nuances of Sanskrit, come across as amazing shallow in this book.

Critics of ‘The Hindus: An Alternative History’ have argued, and not without reason, that the book was crafted to intentionally pour scorn on Hinduism; to titillate those who feel it is obligatory, either for reasons of ideology or faith if not both, to denigrate Hinduism; to use the papier mâché mask of scholarship to mock at Hindus for worshipping gods and goddesses who are portrayed as high on Viagra.

Hinduism does not abnegate the recreational pleasures of sexual intercourse – an entire chapter, The Anodyne, in Nirad C Chaudhuri’s celebrated treatise, ‘The Continent of Circe’, elaborates this point. Nirad babu drew upon a vast body of Sanskrit text, both religious and secular. But whereas it is a pleasure to read Nirad babu’s exposition, and a joy to read the texts he refers to even in translation, crudity and misinterpretation makes Wendy Doniger’s “alternative history” odious.

It could be entirely coincidental, but what Wendy Doniger has to say about Hindus and Hinduism bears remarkable similarity with the salacious, slanderous contents of lesser pamphlets used by pastors sponsored by foreign evangelists who run a multi-billion-dollar trans-national business of harvesting souls. For evidence, compare Wendy Doniger’s slickly produced ‘The Hindus’ with Pastor MG Matthew’s shabbily printed ‘Haqeeqat’. I would desist from quoting either of the authors because that would amount to giving undue publicity to scurrilous comments aimed at demeaning Hindus and defaming their faith.  The similarity does not necessarily suggest a larger conspiracy, not the least because Wendy Doniger, I am told, is not a Bible-thumping Christian but a secular Jew. 

A year after the book’s publication in India, Dinanath Batra, representing an organisation called Shiksha Bachao Andolan, filed a case against Penguin Books India and Wendy Doniger, demanding that the book be withdrawn from circulation. The petition extensively cited flaws in the book and explained why these were unacceptable. In brief, someone offended by the book exercised his right to seek legal remedy. On February 4, Penguin Books India, instead of contesting the petition and fighting it out in the courts of law to uphold the author’s right to free speech, decided to cut its losses and pulp the book.

It would be in order to mention that Penguin Books India has in the past elected to dump another author without even so much as a murmur of protest. Khushwant Singh, who was an adviser to Penguin Books India those days, was the first to propose that Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ should be dropped and went on to urge Rajiv Gandhi that it should be banned. Rajiv Gandhi did ban ‘The Satanic Verses’, making India the first country to proscribe it. Penguin Books India never contested that decision. Instead, it meekly recalled and pulped all unsold copies.

Some 30 years ago Sunanda K Datta-Ray’s ‘Smash & Grab: The Annexation of Sikkim’, perhaps the only book on one of the most important chapters of post-1947 history, was withdrawn and pulped by Vikas Publishing, the biggest publisher of the times. Vikas did so to settle a case filed by India’s last representative to Gangtok who had been uncharitably portrayed in ‘Smash & Grab’. Publishers in India are not known to fight legal battles to a bitter finish.

If our Left-liberals are truly upset, they should direct their ire at Penguin Books India for letting down Wendy Doniger and her book. They won’t do that because it would mean castigating ‘people like us’. It would also mean burning bridges with Penguin Books India which they are loath to do for reasons that are not limited to India’s premiere publishing firm. Yet our Left-liberals need to be seen as angry and outraged. So they viciously turn on “Hindu nationalists”, “fringe fundamentalists”, “Hindutvawadis”, their fangs bared in hatred.

Some years ago when a callow student of fine arts at MS University in Baroda ran into trouble over two paintings, one allegedly depicting Jesus on the Cross and the other Durga, there was a similar attempt to malign Hindus. Conveniently glossed over was the fact that the protest was led not by Hindus but Christians horrified by what they perceived to be a sacrilegious portrayal of Jesus.

We didn’t hear a pipsqueak from our Left-liberals when the Church was asked to clear the film ‘The Da Vinci Code’, whose screening was proscribed in several Congress-ruled States. There are several instances of Left-liberals slyly acquiescing to censorship by the Congress which has over the decades banned and proscribed scores of books, journals and films.

Our Left-liberals forget, ever so conveniently, that book-banning would not have been an issue in this country but for Jawaharlal Nehru introducing the first amendment to the Constitution. In India, the first amendment curbed freedom of speech. In the US, the first amendment enshrined freedom of speech as non-negotiable. If intolerance towards inconvenient views and obnoxious opinions exists in this country, it stems from that original sin. Let us also never forget that our Left-liberals are the most bigoted and intolerant of all.

Banning, burning and pulping books are not welcome options. But neither is it welcome that authors who wear a halo of ‘academic scholarship’ abuse their position and perch to defame a community and its faith. And definitely the carping of the spurious Left-liberals is unacceptable.

(Photo courtesy lokvani.com)

Abusing freedom, falsifying gods -- The Haqeeqat of Christian evangelism in India

(This article was published on March 25, 2006 in The Pioneer. I am republishing it for the remarkable similarity between the language used by Christian evangelists to denigrate Hinduism and the bunk peddled by 'scholars' like Wendy Doniger as she did in her book 'The Hindus: An Alternative History'. Seen in the photo is Pastor MA Thomas, founder of Emmanuel Mission International of Kota, Rajasthan.)

* * *

On Monday, March 20, 2006, Assist News Service, based in Lake Forest, California, USA, which circulates news about the work of evangelists around the world, put out a story by Michael Ireland, its chief correspondent, headlined 'India's Prime Minister launches investigation into arrest and persecution of Indian Christians'.

According to this story, "India's Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, has launched an investigation into the arrest of Hopegivers International President Dr Samuel Thomas.

'Our letter writing campaign is working,' says Hopegivers Executive Director Michael Glenn, 'we must continue to write and fax letters of protest this week.'

Glenn said that because of the campaign, 'The Prime Minister of India has today appointed a four-member commission to investigate the persecution in Kota where our president and top administrative staff have been falsely accused and jailed. This is simply a naked effort to force Emmanuel to shut its doors'." 

The story then goes on to urge Christians in the US to petition Senators, Congressmen and the US President against what it portrays as outrageous action by the Government of Rajasthan, prodded by 'Hindu fascists', against Dr Thomas and his fellow evangelists of Emmanuel Mission International that operates five registered societies in that State. These are: Emmanuel Bible Institute Samiti, Emmanuel Anath Ashram, Emmanuel School Society, Emmanuel Chikitsalaya Samiti and Emmanuel Believers Fellowship, all funded by the US-based Hopegivers.

What it does not mention, however, is the reason why Dr Thomas and his associates have been booked for violating Sections 153(a) and 295(a) of the IPC, "which deal with deliberately outraging religious feelings or insulting the religious beliefs of another community." Dr Samuel Thomas has been arrested and his father, Mr MA Thomas, has been declared an absconder.

And, while choosing not to elaborate on the nature of charges, the report quotes Ms Shelley Thomas, wife of Dr Thomas, who is at present in the US: "Nothing that my husband has done was intended to outrage or insult any other religion... This is a totally false charge and unrelated to the organised violence, threats, and attacks that have been conducted against us for the last six weeks." 

It also points out that the Government of Rajasthan has "revoked without due process or hearing, all the operating licenses of the Hopegivers-supported bookstores, churches, the hospital and leprosy or HIV-AIDS outreaches, orphanages, printing presses, schools and other institutions."

Dr Thomas has been quoted saying, "Of course, none of these actions are legal. The terrorists and hate groups have taken the law into their own hands and sadly, we have lost confidence in the local Government to control them."

Since evangelist advocacy groups have willfully refused to tell the full story, it would be in order to place the facts on record.

The immediate provocation that led to the arrest of Dr Thomas and others involved with the Emmanuel mission's work in Kota is born of the contents of a book that he and his associates have been distributing among the people. The book, Haqeeqat, is authored by a Kerala-based evangelist, MG Matthew, and purports to be a rebuttal of MS Golwalkar's writings that have been published by the RSS as Bunch of Thoughts. 

In reality, it is unadulterated abuse of Hindu scriptures, faith, ritual and tradition. It denigrates every tenet of Hinduism and pours undiluted scorn on Hindu icons and gurus. It casts aspersions on the chastity of Hindu women and questions received wisdom.

Published by the Kerala-based Truth & Life Publications, which puts out evangelist literature, it has been translated into Hindi by Dennis Nathaniel, associated with the Emmanuel mission, who has been arrested by Rajasthan Police. The book has been banned in Rajasthan. The author, against whom a non-bailable warrant has been issued, is believed to be hiding somewhere in Kerala. 

Here are some samples of what Haqeeqat, which was being used by the Thomases and their associates to convince Hindus in Kota to abandon their faith and embrace Christianity, has to say:

* "Hindu gods and goddesses are fictitious and were invented to persecute Dalits" (Page 9). 

* "To prevent indigenous people from acquiring knowledge, Saraswati invented difficult Vedas (which nobody can understand)". (Page 16)

* "With the progression of time, people all over the world (except India) were freed of their ignorance and they began to disown wicked and cruel gods and goddesses. But in India, because people are (enveloped) in the darkness of ignorance, imaginary gods and goddesses are still worshipped." (Page 17)

* "Naked sanyasis are worshipped by (Hindu) women. The moment (Hindu) women see naked sanyasis, they fall on the ground and prostrate themselves before the sanyasis. (Hindu) women pour water on the sanyasis' penises and then happily drink that water. Ling Devata is gratified when he sees all these repulsive things and feels empowered... These people are ignorant and do not know the difference between what is right and wrong." (Page 93) 

* "Sita was abandoned in the forest as per Ram's wishes... Ram later asked Lakshman to kill Sita. In the end, Ram frustrated with life, drowned himself in Saryu. Such are the teachings of half-naked rishis who are praised by Hindutvawadis." (Page 100)

* "Lord Shiva, to get people to worship him, dropped his penis on Earth (Devi), shaking the ground and the sky! ... . Poor Dharti Devi was shaken by the weight of his penis. Seeing this, all the Gods were scared. It seems Gods would use their penises as bombs! Whenever and wherever they wanted to, they would drop their 'penis bombs' to terrorise the people. Thus, they were able to enslave the people... But compared to foreign bombs, these penis bombs were a damp squib." (Page 106-107)

* "(Ramakrishna) Paramahansa should have known that Ganga is the world's filthiest and dirtiest river. How many dead bodies float down this river every day? How many half-burnt dead bodies are dumped into it every day? And Hindus call it the holy river! In fact, all the rivers of India are dirty and polluted... Hindutvawadis pollute the rivers... and then depend on their false Gods to cleanse them..." (Page 122-123) 

* "(For Hindus) men can be Gods, women can be Goddesses... animals are gods, snakes are gods... they (Hindu Gods) fight among themselves, marry among themselves, throw out their wives, run away with others' wives, they steal, get intoxicated, drink blood, are reincarnated as animals, fish and tortoise, some of them can lift mountains... Some Gods are in same-sex relationships and are yet able to produce babies. These Gods and Goddesses are always armed because they believe in killing and plunder. Some Gods think their penises are more powerful than nuclear bombs. Others like animals live naked among their followers. Some of them spend their time in yogic exercises, others are in samadhi and happy to see the number of blind followers swell... You can wash away your sins by worshipping the penises of Gods" (Page 146)

* "How could Arya Hindus bring Aryanisation on this earth. To be Arya, one has to be born of an Arya womb... If Arya Hindus want to bring Aryanisation then they must lend or rent out all Arya wombs to non-Aryans. Non-Aryans should be given Brahmin women so that children are born from Brahmin womb" (Page 182-183). 

* "In modern India, many Ramas of this belief are living a carefree life. They marry several times, desert their wives, marry several times, and leave them. Many Ramas kill their Sitas. They are following their God Rama." (Page 269)

* "(Lord) Krishna had a despicable sex life... Shri Krishna is famous because of his love life. He had 16,008 wives. And all Yadav women were his illegitimate lovers. (Hindu) women are drawn towards him because of pornographic and vulgar tales of his sex life." (Page 391) 

This is not the first time that the Emmanuel mission has run foul of the local administration and upset Hindus. On February 24, 2005, there was a near riot situation following the mission's crude attempt to convert Hindus through allurement and false propaganda. On that occasion, the mission head, Mr MA Thomas, had promised not to continue with such provocative activities.

The agenda papers at the National Integration Council meeting held under the tutelage of the UPA Government had this to say about Emmanuel mission and similar evangelist outfits:

"Communal tensions due to alleged conversion/reconversions: 

In recent years, the issue of conversion/re-conversion has also become a major cause of communal tensions in some parts of the country. Allegations of forced conversions/ reconversions and subsequent communal tensions have surfaced from time to time. On many occasions even apprehensions, not founded on facts, on this account have given rise to communal tensions. Cases in point are the recent events on the occasion of the annual religious Assembly of the Emmanuel Bible Institute Samiti at Kota, Rajasthan, in February 2005. The situation was controlled due to prompt measures taken by the District States of Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have already passed legislations to regulate conversions by coercive means or offering allurements."

And yet, there is outrage over action against the Thomases. Such perverse drivel, such horrendous hate, as exemplified by the contents of Haqeeqat, the operating manual of Emmanuel mission, of course, is of no consequence to those who have taken up cudgels on behalf of its peddlers masquerading as Good Samaritans and Christian evangelists. 

Instead, they are faxing letters to the White House, the US State Department, the United Nations, and Indian ambassadors to the US and the UN to paint the Government of Rajasthan in communal colours.

And, if Hopegivers Executive Director Michael Glenn is to be believed, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has appointed a four-member commission to inquire into the "persecution" of peddlers of anti-Hindu hate. If this is true, then a public statement is called for from the Prime Minister's Office. If it's untrue, then the least the PMO can do is issue a denial.

Nitish Kumar is welcome to smirk, but Narendra Modi wave is sweeping Bihar

Narendra Modi consoles the family of Rajnarian Singh, a victim of the October 27 serial bomb blasts at Gandhi Maidan, in Patna on Diwali eve. Photo courtesy PTI.

The fraudulent Left-liberal ‘idea of India’ now looks dangerously similar to the ‘idea of India’ of jihadis who were allowed to bomb Modi’s Patna rally

Let it be said, and said right away, that if the alleged Indian Mujahideen jihadis who planted more than 16 bombs in the stretch of Patna’s sprawling Gandhi Maidan where Narendra Modi addressed a mammoth public rally on October 27, are guilty of trying to trigger a stampede with catastrophic consequences, then Nitish Kumar is guilty of not preventing a situation that could have been used by assassins to target the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate. The consequences of even a failed attempt on Narendra Modi’s life would have been too horrendous even to imagine. It would be silly to suggest that the Chief Minister of Bihar is not sharp enough to have known both the consequences.

Yet Nitish Kumar not only failed to ensure adequate security measures for the ‘Hunkar Rally’ of which he had known for months, he also displayed amazing callous indifference after the bombings left six persons dead and at least a hundred people injured. Hours after the rally Nitish Kumar, while speaking to mediapersons, put on a little boy act, pretending great surprise that something so dastardly should have happened and refuting valid charges of lax, indeed absent, security measures at the venue. He also asserted, firmly and repeatedly, that his administration had not received any information from the Intelligence Bureau, alerting the police about a potential attempt to target Narendra Modi. In the event, both his ersatz condemnation of the jihadi strike and denial of an IB alert have been proved to be as hollow as his cynical politics of donning the ‘topi’ and the ‘tilak’ to fool Muslims and Hindus.

It is now established that the IB did send a letter to the police chiefs of various States, including Bihar’s Director-General of Police, on October 1, alerting them about the Indian Mujahideen’s plans to bomb cities. That alert may have been ‘non-specific’, but a subsequent message sent by IB on October 23 to Bihar’s Additional Director-General of Police who heads the Special Branch was as specific as any intelligence report can be. According to this message, Indian Mujahideen operatives were planning to attack Narendra Modi’s rally. Two messages, two alerts, yet Nitish Kumar says his administration had no information. We can only surmise that he is telling a lie — blatantly, brazenly.

What serves to underscore Nitish Kumar’s brazenness, his almost criminal callousness, is the subsequent silence he has maintained on this issue. We haven’t heard a pipsqueak from him on why his administration, which he counter-poses as the ‘Nitish Model’ to the ‘Modi Model’ of governance, failed to take preventive measures, why only a handful of constables were deployed to ostensibly ‘sanitise’ themaidan, why no senior police officer trained in standard security operations was on duty on the day of the rally, why there was no emergency evacuation plan in place even hours after the first bomb had exploded at Patna Railway Station. If we are to presume that the police kept him in the dark about the IB alert, we are yet to see him take disciplinary action against the errant police officers. If we are to believe that he is truly shaken by the turn of events, then it is grossly missing from his crass and fanciful attacks on Narendra Modi.

Hence we can only come to the conclusion that Nitish Kumar couldn’t care a toss whether the bombers succeeded in their evil mission to trigger low intensity blasts, create panic among the more than five lakh people who had gathered on Gandhi Maidan, and trigger multiple stampedes that would have left hundreds dead. He couldn’t care less if in the resultant chaos assassins would have found it easier to target Narendra Modi in a classic replay of similar assassinations in other places at other times. This was a copybook conspiracy that fortuitously failed —not for want of effort by the conspirators but due to possibly their incompetence or, as some would believe, the intervention of the hand of fate. Destiny has other plans for Narendra Modi, plans which understandably unsettle those who think they are destined to rule India, not the man who now rides the crest of a never-seen-before popularity wave. There is no reason to respect such individuals: They are undeserving of regard.

The intolerable cussedness if not complicity (that would be an exaggeration unless evidence emerges to the contrary; it may be entirely coincidental that he instructed his officers not to provide Narendra Modi with a custom-built bulletproof SUV and jammers to neutralise remote-controlled bombs) of Nitish Kumar is further heightened by the fumbling investigations by the National Investigation Agency. It is stunningly unbelievable that a potential key witness was allowed to escape from the NIA’s custody. It is equally unthinkable that the NIA should come up with the lamest of all excuses in defence of its appalling lapse in guarding Mehre Alam, who could have led the investigators to the hideouts of the conspirators, by saying that he could not have escaped from its custody as he had not been formally arrested. Which would raise the question: Why wasn’t he arrested? Does the answer lie in Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde’s recent instruction that has left jihadis feeling bolder?

We could also ask some discomfiting questions to the ‘topi-tilak’-wallah Chief Minister of Bihar whose smug smile reflects his confidence that he shan’t be called to account for his severe lapses, and that’s putting it mildly. We could, for instance, ask him as to why he told the Bihar Police not to arrest Yasin Bhatkal after IB sleuths picked him up at the India-Nepal border. The IB does not have the power to arrest and needed Bihar Police to take Bhatkal into custody before bringing him to Delhi. We could ask him why he has refused to allow intensive combing of certain districts, for example Darbhanga and Madhubani, where Indian Mujahideen cells are believed to be located. We could ask him why his party, the Janata Dal (United), found it expedient to declare Ishrat Jahan, a Lashkar-e-Tayyeba operative, as “Bihar ki beti”. We could ask him what restrictions he enforced for Eid-ul-Juha this year, corresponding to the restrictions he imposed on community Durga Puja.

Sadly, these questions will not be asked because that would be deemed to be politically incorrect, an assault on the secularism practised by charlatans who occupy high office and, hence, an attack on the ‘idea of India’ about which fraudulent Left-liberals in the political establishment and the establishment media never tire preaching, an idea that increasingly looks not dissimilar to the ‘idea of India’ of jihadis, some of whom planted the bombs at Gandhi Maidan.

All, of course, is not lost. Or else Narendra Modi would not have been in Bihar on Saturday, visiting the homes of those who died in last weekend’s bombings, meeting their families, sharing their grief on the eve of Deepawali. While Nitish Kumar smirks, Narendra Modi has emerged the winner, winning hearts in Bihar and India.

Church and the Mahatma: How Gandhi was reviled by missionaries

Jomo Kenyatta had a sharp tongue and a sharper mind, both of which he used to devastating effect while lashing out at the 'civilising' West. The White man's fictional burden of taming the savage East and enlightening the 'Dark Continent' was no more than a convenient cover to hide his role as the master of the subjugated races.

Colonialism and Empire-building were inspired as much by a sense of racial superiority as driven by greed; it was a complex social, political and economic enterprise facilitated in no small measure by Christian missionaries who helped deracinate the indigenous people -- the 'heathens' -- and convert them into loyal subjects of an alien Emperor.

As in India, so in the African colonies were people uprooted from their ancient cultural moorings in preparation for their political suppression and economic deprivation. They were accorded the 'privilege' of embracing a strange faith and genuflecting at the altar of Christ in exchange of what they possessed and held dear till then: Their land, their language, their rites and rituals, and their religion. By the time the natives realised that all this was no more than a con job to disinherit them and enrich their foreign rulers, they had invariably lost most, if not all, of what once belonged to them.

Jomo Kenyatta, not given to niceties and asphyxiating political correctness, put it succinctly: "When the missionaries came, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray'. We closed our eyes. When we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible!"

At a gathering of Christian missionaries a couple of years ago soon after the evangelist-provoked violence at Kandhamal in Odisha, I made bold to recall Jomo Kenyatta's famous comment which fetched a fusillade of denial and denunciation. I was accused of trying to divert attention from the depredations of 'rapacious' and 'murderous' Hindu mobs which have brought a 'bad name' to the land of Mahatma Gandhi, the "apostle of peace" as one of them described him. That's a Christian description, I protested, to which the response was: How else would you describe him? Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a crafty politician who made a fetish of non-violence; so call him a 'man of peace' if you must, but don't describe him as a follower of Jesus, as were the 12 apostles of Christ, which he definitely wasn't.

In any event, the Mahatma the Church now holds up to shame those who object to proselytisation and conversion through allurement and deceit, the harvesting of the souls of the poor and the vulnerable, was mercilessly denigrated and lampooned in his lifetime by Christian missionaries in keeping with their loyalty to the Empire. Charles Freer Andrews was an exception and his association with Gandhi did not exactly make him welcome in mission residences.

Many years ago, while researching the Goa Inquisition, I had chanced upon material about the attitude of Christian missionaries towards Gandhi. Those notes resurfaced while I was clearing out the accumulated, fraying papers in my study; they make for interesting reading, especially when Gandhi is being touted by Christian missionaries as an 'Apostle of Peace', one of their own, in an effort to silence their critics. Yet, there was a time when missionaries loathed Gandhi and held him in contempt, and not all who did so were of foreign origin.

For Christian missionaries, Gandhi was an "extraordinary casuist"... Unless stopped, his views would become a "dangerous phenomenon of present day politics in India"... His teachings can lead to "chaos and anarchy only"... His politics will lead to "mischievous consequences". 


These words have been taken from history. From cold print. From journals published by Christian missionaries. Journals that still exist as evidence of missionaries willingly allowing themselves to be used as instruments of British rule in India. And the target of their ire is Mahatma Gandhi, whom the Church now describes as an "apostle of peace" because it suits its social, political and cultural agenda.

Gandhi's arrival on the scene had greatly charged the nationalist movement and expanded the spread and scope of the struggle against British colonial rule. Gandhi's philosophy of peaceful resistance to colonial rule had found expression in the non-cooperation agitation. This in turn set alarm bells ringing - the colonial establishment, including the Church, was quick to realise Gandhi's potential. It retaliated in full force, using its arsenal, including missionaries and their publications.

In September 1919, the Christian Missionary Review fired the first salvo. A year later, the Christian Missionary Review dropped all niceties and described Gandhi as an "extraordinary casuist", an "unscrupulous and irresponsible demagogue" responsible for the disturbances in Punjab the previous year. Urging India's colonial masters to "adequately" deal with Gandhi's "egotistical mysticism," the Christian Missionary Review said that unless putdown, Gandhi and his nationalism would emerge as "one of the dangerous phenomena of present day politics in India."

In fact, the murderous attitude of the British in Punjab and the terrible fallout of the Rowlatt Act, found ample support among the missionaries. Bishop Henry Whitehead not only supported the Act but went on to denigrate the nationalist agitation against the Act as a "striking illustration of the incapacity of a large section of Indian politicians to face facts and realities, or to understand the first principles of civilised government." We all know of the action of the "civilised Government" so ardently backed by the missionaries - the massacre at Jallianwala Bag.

Indeed, Ms Marcella Sherwood, speaking on behalf of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society and Rev Canon Guildford, speaking on behalf of the Church Missionary Society, lauded Gen Dyer's brutality, saying it was "justified by its results". The Christian Missionary Review, describing Gen Dyer as a "brave man", said, absurdly though, that his action was "the only means of saving life".Another missonary publication, rather disingenuously named The Young Men of India, heaped praise on Sir Michael O'Dwyer, the Lt Governor of Punjab during those terrible days of bloodshed and brutality by a ruthless colonial administration, saying that he was "the strongest and best ruler the country has had in modern times." The Harvest Field, also a missionary journal, was quick to point out that during the nationalist uprising against the Rowlatt Act, Indian Christians were not found "wanting in loyalty to the (British) Government." The International Review of Missions was clear in its pronouncement that the means and methods adopted by the British to put down the uprising in Punjab were neither un-Christian nor a blot on British rule.

It is important that we understand the import of the missionaries' view of the nationalist uprising against the Rowlatt Act, their justification of the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, their unrestrained praise for Gen Dyer. Those who saw nothing wrong with drenching the ground of Jallianwala Bagh with the blood of Indian nationalists, those who saw nothing "un-Christian" about the bloodshed, those who found "loyalty to the British" in the cowardice of Indian Christians, could not but have derided Gandhi and his non-violence.

For, Gandhi's unique contribution to India's freedom movement, as also to freedom struggles in oppressed nations across the world, Satyagraha, was considered "un-Christian" by a majority of Protestant missionaries. The Christian Missionary Review describing Gandhi's agenda as dangerous, predicted that it would lead to violence, chaos and anarchy.

This view was seconded by The Young Men of India. Commenting on Gandhi's freedom campaign fashioned around the philosophy of Satyagraha, in March 1920, The Young Men of India wrote: "Though Mr Gandhi may have satisfied his conscience as to its morality, to plain common sense it means playing with fire, with the certainty that if used with masses of Indian people, the fire will become a conflagration?" . The Harvest Field, yet another missionary journal, in its May 1921 issue, put on record its belief that "Mr Gandhi's teachings" would result in "chaos and anarchy only." Gandhi, it said, had brought a "sword to his beloved land." "We have no animus against the man," said the Madras Christian College Magazine in October, 1921 -- the best way to rubbish a person, to inflict the most grievous wound, is to preface the attack with "we have nothing against the man" -- "but we have always regarded the doctrines he has been preaching and the policy he has advocated as pernicious." The Magazine, of course, had a pious purpose behind its attack: to save India from the mischievous consequences that must follow from their (Gandhi's doctrines) adoption." Such concern! Such piety!

But that was not all. The Madras Christian College Magazine went on to offer a homily. All those who want "peace and sobriety of life and progress," it urged, should reject the "sophistry of non-violence". Let us recall these words when the current president of the Congress today pays tribute to Gandhi as an apostle of non-violence.

By 1922, the Madras Christian College Magazine had dropped all pretensions. It declared that there was nothing "positive or constructive" about Gandhi's programme of Satyagraha and that his role till then had been "negative throughout". Gandhi, the Madras Christian College Magazine added with a sweeping flourish, was "an anarchist at heart? prone to mental confusion."

In her book, The Attitude of British Protestant Missionaries Towards Nationalism in India, Elizabeth Susan Alexander, offers an explanation for such vile diatribe against Gandhi as articulated by the missionary publications: "British officials came to accept missionaries as partners in the 'noble' task of shouldering the 'white man's burden.' British officials defended their support of Christian missionaries as being in the interest of their rule, for missionaries were used as instruments of their policies of reform? Missionary activities were seen to have lucrative results for British commercial interests."

Lucrative results now accrue to the Christian West which funds missionaries and evangelists.

Which other democracy has a doormat for PM?

Cornered, bruised and battered, the Prime Minister decided to do an angry old man act in Rajya Sabha on Friday while reading out a banal statement on the ruinous state of the Indian economy. He need not have bothered with reading it out; it may well have been taken as read. India was looking forward to more than a Press Information Bureau handout and the fact that the Prime Minister failed to rise to the occasion is as much a reflection of his towering incompetence as further proof, if at all that is needed, of the huge crisis of leadership that the country faces in these troubled times.

We shall return to what Manmohan Singh said, and did not say, in a while. Before that it would be in order to comment on his mock heroic anger which has so enthused Congress stooges in media, one of whom, an over-rated anchor-turned-editor-in-chief at a media house which has just sacked hundreds of its staff on account of the looming economic crisis, couldn’t stop blabbering and gushing over what he described as the Prime Minister ‘striking back’ at the Opposition. Like much of what he says and writes, this too is an exaggeration whose purpose would be lost on the naïve and the ill-informed.

The perceived ‘anger’ of the Prime Minister was not the rage of a wronged man or a slandered politician, it was the impotent rage of a feckless person who, having offered to serve as the doormat of his boss, can’t figure out why nobody holds him in high esteem. Had Manmohan Singh been half the person he would like others to believe he is, he would have raged against Congress president and Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty matriarch Sonia Gandhi and stormed out of office. Instead he has chosen to not only supinely do her bidding that has fetched rack and ruin to the national economy but also demean the office he holds, bringing disrepute to South Block like no other Prime Minister has ever done, not even Chandra Shekhar during the few months he held that post.

A Prime Minister so denuded of honour, integrity and esteem can’t really expect his party colleagues, leave alone those in the Opposition, to treat him with anything except contempt as they do. It is only natural that the Opposition, barring those individuals who are given to supping with Sonia Gandhi in private while denouncing the Congress in public, should treat Manmohan Singh as beneath contempt. To pretend otherwise, as Manmohan Singh does, is to live in denial. He is welcome to do so, but he should not expect respect — that’s an unfair expectation.

As for his ersatz anguish over being called a ‘chor’ — as some MPs are believed to have done while remonstrating against the limitless corruption under his tutelage — he need not play Little Red Riding Hood; much worse has been said by his party and his boss about the Opposition and its leaders. Surely Manmohan Singh has not forgotten Sonia Gandhi’s vicious attack on Atal Bihari Vajpayee in bazaar Hindi spoken in guttural Italian accent. Or her spiteful description of Narendra Modi as “Maut ka Saudagar”. In which democracy does this happen?

Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley did not allow despise and loathing to get better of his sense of decency and decorum or else in his sharp repartee he would have gone beyond reminding Manmohan Singh that in no other democracy does a Prime Minister win a confidence vote by buying MPs. But neither decency nor decorum need restrain us from asking Manmohan Singh in which other democracy does a Prime Minister hold office without winning a direct election? In which other democracy does a Prime Minister hold himself unaccountable for the sins of omission and commission committed in his watch? In which other democracy does a Prime Minister preside over scam after scam, scandal after scandal without so much as bothering to even offer to resign? In which other democracy does a Prime Minister shield a Railways Minister hawking top jobs to the highest bidder? In which other democracy does a Prime Minister ask his Law Minister to fix the report of investigators looking into a massive scam? In which other democracy does a Prime Minister willingly mislead Parliament on crucial foreign policy issues that impinge on national security? In which other democracy has a Prime Minister been repeatedly found to be telling less than the truth? In which other democracy does a Prime Minister slyly blame the Opposition for the swindle-and-loot, tax-and-splurge, steal-and-scoot Government he heads?

It is laughable that Manmohan Singh wants the people of India to believe that the Opposition questioning him and his Ministers on dubious deals and stalling Parliament to expose the crimes of the Congress and his amazing silence have led to loss of investor confidence at home and abroad. That’s undiluted bunk. Investors have not lost confidence in India — the country and the people are the same as they were before the waning of trust happened — they have lost confidence in the UPA Government, the Congress which leads this Government, and the Prime Minister who heads the Government.

Surely Manmohan Singh knows better than to expect investors to have faith in a Government whose leading lights are constantly looking for opportunities to feather their own nests? Nor should he expect us to believe that investors are not deterred by his Government’s wasteful ways. The Prime Minister conveniently forgets that imposing retrospective taxes on corporates was not the doing of the Opposition. If licences have been cancelled by the Supreme Court, causing telecom investors to shy away from India, it is not because the Opposition stalled Parliament on the Great 2G Spectrum Robbery, it is because Manmohan Singh did nothing to stop the robbery that took place with his full knowledge. If big ticket reforms have languished, it is not on account of the Opposition but due to the pusillanimity of the Prime Minister. We could either accept these facts or blame the crisis in Syria for our woes.

Meanwhile, the latest financial figures came out last evening, delayed by several hours so that Manmohan Singh could make a last ditch effort to sell the fiction that not all is lost and he shall bravely soldier on to resuscitate a sputtering economy. Growth rate is down to 4.4 per cent, exports are down on a year-to-year basis and food inflation remains frighteningly high. Worse, jobs are disappearing across sectors at an alarming rate. And here we have our Prime Minister blaming everybody except the culprits responsible for this criminal destruction of the economy. That’s understandable, though not condonable, since he is primarily to blame for this wanton destruction. No punishment would be sufficient for him.

Why is Manmohan Singh so desperate to appease Pakistan?

Army chief Bikram Singh pays last tribute to jawans killed by Pakistani soldiers

A feckless Prime Minister can only be expected to cut corners with India's interest and security. But that does not mean we should let Manmohan Singh do so unchallenged and unquestioned

The outpouring of rage across the country after Pakistani soldiers sneaked across the Line of Control in the Poonch sector and ambushed an Indian Army post, killing five jawans, earlier this week, could have only been missed by a criminally callous Government like the one which currently presides over India’s steady but steep decline and decay. Hence it’s not surprising that Defence Minister AK Antony stumbled so badly in articulating the UPA’s response to the dastardly deed by Pakistan in our Parliament.
Instead of pinning the responsibility for the murder of our soldiers on Pakistan, Antony first sought to absolve those guilty of the crime by describing them as “persons in Pakistani Army uniform”. It is now believed the Defence Minister’s statement, which marked a sharp departure from the Defence Department’s statement blaming the Pakistani Army, was vetted and cleared by the National Security Adviser and senior officials of the Ministry of External Affairs. That followed their meeting with diplomats of the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi who had been ostensibly summoned to South Block to register India’s protest.
We will never know what prompted the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of External Affairs to rush to Pakistan’s aid and put a gloss over its crime. Friends in the Ministry of External Affairs who are appalled by the Government offering an escape route to Pakistan say Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is desperate to broker ‘peace’ at any cost, even if it means cutting corners with India’s national interest.
The reasons for this desperation are no secret. Manmohan Singh believes that if he tries hard enough, he can secure the Nobel Prize for Peace. For that he needs the US’s endorsement. The US, in turn, wants him to turn a Nelson’s eye to Pakistan’s offences and accept Islamabad’s terms for a rapprochement, no matter how tenuous that may be. Pakistan, meanwhile, has let it be known that it shall persist with its policy of inflicting a thousand cuts and India could either take it or leave it. Manmohan Singh, clearly, is more than willing to take it if it means a pat on the back by US President Barack Obama and an invitation to the glittering Nobel ceremony to collect this year’s Peace Prize.
For a man whose inaction, chicanery and incompetence has dragged India’s economy back to the pre-1990s (Morgan Stanley says this year’s growth could be as low as 3.5 per cent) and whose crafty pandering to crass minorityism to keep his political boss (Congress president and NAC chairperson Sonia Gandhi) happy has caused buried communal fault lines to resurface, this is the only road to securing a place in history. Little does he realise that once he demits office, which he will have to, he shall be reduced to no more than a footnote of history, a reminder that India was misgoverned by a gang of thieves for nine years with Manmohan Singh playing Ali Baba.
Yet he persists in search of the proverbial ‘sim-sim’, the magic code that will allow him entry to the world of immortality. If that means the truth should be subverted and national security compromised, if it requires playing fast and loose with India’s pride and dignity, he is game. We have seen this in the past too —when he travelled to Havana and declared, along with General Pervez Musharraf, that Pakistan is not the tormentor and perpetrator of terror as Indians believe it is, but a victim of terror; when he agreed to the shameful joint statement dictated by Yousuf Raza Gilani, then Prime Minister of Pakistan, and issued from Sharm el-Sheikh; when he slyly bypassed the national consensus that there should be no talks with Pakistan till it brings the masterminds of the 26/11 Mumbai carnage to book; when he allowed Pakistani Ministers and officials to pour scorn and ridicule on India while standing on Indian soil. The tailoring of the Defence Minister’s statement is, therefore, understandable, as is the rush to whitewash Pakistan’s sin.
Thankfully, an alert Opposition spotted the difference and the BJP pilloried the Government till it ate crow and the Defence Minister made a second statement, this time accusing “specialist troops” of the Pakistani Army for the killings: “We all know nothing happens along the Line of Control without the support... direct involvement of the Pakistani Army,” he added for good measure. The revised statement followed reports, planted (or leaked, as some would prefer) by ‘sources’, that Sonia Gandhi was mighty displeased with the Government for playing ducks and drakes.
A revised statement implicating Pakistan directly for the killing of our jawans, however, does not mean corrective action on the policy front. It was expected that Manmohan Singh would, in the least, call off his scheduled meeting with Nawaz Sharif in New York in late September when he is there for the United Nations General Assembly’s annual jamboree. It was also expected that the Foreign Secretary-level talks, which had been put on hold after the brutal slaying of two Indian jawans (one of them was beheaded; the other disfigured) by Pakistani soldiers at Mendhar, will remain off the radar for the foreseeable future.
But no, that’s not happening. We are told Manmohan Singh will meet Nawaz Sharif in New York and the Foreign Secretary-level talks will resume next month. After he meets Nawaz Sharif, Manmohan Singh will travel to Washington, DC to meet Barack Obama. Is one predicated on the other? The answer to that question is obvious: The Americans want us to carry the can for Pakistan, never mind the cost to India, as they prepare to exit from Afghanistan. Predictably, Manmohan Singh is more than happy to play ball with the Americans.
The alternative to the craven approach adopted by Manmohan Singh (he can’t stand up and be counted either at home or abroad) is not to go to war with Pakistan, as is mockingly and jeeringly suggested by his flag-wavers, especially in media. Nor is it to halt all interaction with Pakistan. It is to adopt a calibrated approach, making it abundantly clear to both Islamabad and Rawalpindi that every cut inflicted on India comes attached with a price to be paid by Pakistan. We could start getting there by insisting that if Pakistan wishes to talk, it should agree to joint secretary-level dialogue which would be restricted to comparing notes and no more.
That, however, would require guts. And a Prime Minister who is not as feckless as Manmohan Singh. Unfortunately, for the moment we are stuck with him. All that we can do is raise our voice and say ‘No’ to him. He is unlikely to listen, but at least our conscience would be clear.