Archive for the ‘Hindutva’ Category
Rediscovering the forgotten crops
Many farmers have stopped growing traditional crops, such as millet
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Over the last century about 75% of the world’s crop varieties have been lost, data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggests.
UN researchers say that we now rely on just three crops: wheat, rice and maize.
The fact that poorer nations are almost twice as dependent on these cereals as richer nations has led to the question: are we now too reliant on too few crops?
The Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu, southern India, is home to about 40,000 people.
Scientists have visited the area to see if ancient traditions offer any clues to finding a way out of a future global food crisis.
Changing landscape
“First of all, I think the environment is going to be more unpredictable,” Sayed Azam-Ali, professor of tropical agronomy at the University of Nottingham, UK, tells the Television Trust for the Environment’s Earth Report programme.
“So we need crops that are going to be safe,” he said.
For centuries, farmers of the Kolli Hills harvested millet
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“We can’t rely on importing and moving crops around the world indefinitely.
“I think we have to be more reliant on locally sourced food.”
Until the first road was built in the 1960s, the Kolli Hills were cut off from the outside world.
Farming families had been harvesting millet for centuries, and it was their main source of nutrition.
“This was the only food crop they could depend on,” explained Dr S Bala Ravi, a researcher from the Swaminathan Research Foundation.
“There was no communication system; there was no public distribution system, so this was the only dependable crop for them which could be grown in the hills.”
However, the construction of the road presented an opportunity for some farmers to switch to more profitable crops.
One such crop is cassava, also known as tapioca.
One farmer explained that until 20 years ago he used to grow millet, but tapioca offered a better return and a better standard of living.
Growing demand
The demand for relatively few crops has left experts worried that traditional knowledge of how to harvest millet will die out; something they have called “cultural erosion”.
A project to reintroduce the crop has begun to have some success.
Researchers believe the high nutritional value and its resilience means millet offers a more secure future for farmers, rather than growing cash crops and buying cheap rice to eat.
Thirty-two of the 250 villages in the hills are growing millet again, but Professor Bala Ravi knows more is needed; farmers need to be able to sell it for cash too.
The farmers’ millet products are finding their way into more stores
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“We want the farmers, instead of selling the raw harvest at a low rate, to enhance its value by various processing methods.
“We are supplying the various machineries and increasing the capacity for processing,” he added.
“We have created a market line so that they can bring out their own entrepreneurship and enhance it.”
Kolli Hills millet products are now on sale in 34 stores in the region, and sales have increased by 300% over the past year.
Mixing minor crops, such as millet, into the major farming system could be the future for food, locally and globally.
But researchers warn that the success of this type of venture still hangs in the balance.
Five US state senates to open with Hindu prayers
Indo-Asian News Service
New York, January 25, 2008
Five state senates in the US are set to open their sessions with Hindu prayers in the coming few weeks, creating a sort of milestone in American history.
Rajan Zed, prominent Hindu chaplain who hit the headlines last July when he recited Vedic prayers at the US senate in Washington DC, has now been invited to read the prayers in the senates of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Washington and Arizona.
He will deliver these prayers from ancient Hindu scriptures at senate halls in state Capitols in Santa Fe (Jan 28), Denver (Jan 29), Salt Lake City (Feb 13), Olympia (Feb 22), and Phoenix (March 24).
After first reciting in Sanskrit, he will then read the English translations, a press release by him said.
Besides US senate, Zed has already done the honours at California and Nevada senates.
Reno, Nevada based Zed is active in inter-faith dialogue in the region. Rajan Zed will recite from the Rig-Veda, believed to be the world’s oldest scripture dating from around 1,500 BC, besides lines from Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, both ancient Hindu scriptures.
He plans to start and end the prayer with “OM”, the mystical syllable that in Hinduism is used to introduce and conclude religious work, the press release said.
History of the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement
December 6, 1992 and after
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| The demolition of the disputed structure that stood on the site of Ram Janmabhoomi has left a bad memory. It was indeed regrettable and was articulated as such by the towering leaders of the movement. But the movement was justified, because it contained the seeds of future Hindu-Muslim understanding based on the acceptance of a common cultural heritage. | |||
| After 1947, the new India was faced with the problem of how to create an integrated, national society. No national integration is possible unless all sections of society believe in a common historical tradition and cultural heritage. The Ayodhya movement sought to achieve precisely this. It was not anti-Muslim. That was a Leftist canard. All that it wanted Muslims to do was admit that Ram was as much their’s as the Hindus’. | |||
| Genuine secularists should have welcomed the initiative. Instead, they got swayed by Marxist propaganda. To the Communists, the Ayodhya movement represented an opportunity to further ghettoise the Muslims and then blackmail them into deference. Today, through the Taslima Nasreen incident, we are seeing the ugliest manifestations of that policy. | |||
| When the mind travels back to the months that preceded December 6, 1992, we see the Ayodhya movement bogged down in competitive party politics. A section of the national political class is hell bent upon ensuring that there is no settlement arrived at between the leaders of Hindus and Muslims. Through vitriolic prose, Syed Sahabuddin is blocking all attempts by Kalve Sadiq to strike a middle ground in the debate. Marxist historians, after placing themselves at the disposal of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, are fanning communal passions by churning out pseudo-historical analysis on Lord Ram — saying he did not exist, Ayodhya is a myth, etc. Meanwhile, Allahabad High Court is dragging its feet on the acquisition of land case. | |||
| Anger is sweeping the nation. Centuries of accumulated rage have reached boiling point. By October, it is clear that the movement has spun out of control. Sadhus, sanyasis, students, housewives — everybody wanted to play a part. The myriad organisations who came together had little contact with each other. There is — and never was — a coordination committee to ensure it progressed according to a common plan. For centuries, justice at Ayodhya had been an universal Hindu dream. After the Ram Shila Pujan of 1989, people in every village of India rushed to join what was easily the greatest mass movement ever. | |||
| After the Sri Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas gives a call for karseva, more than 250,000 people headed for Ayodhya. The rest is history. The question that was asked for some years after the tragedy was “could the Government have prevented it?” I don’t think it was within the power of any authority to check the sea of humanity that had assembled that day with the pent-up rage of centuries. For example, no subsequent Government could remove the idol of Ramlala which was placed there. Narasimha Rao had said he would have a “new mosque” built there. But no power in the world could change the new status quo. Finally, on January 1, 1993, a High Court order by Justice Tilhari confirmed the changed ground reality. | |||
| Yet, December 6, 1992 was a catastrophe. | |||
| Apart from riots and bomb blasts, it caused a setback to the political fortunes of Hindus. Though great intellectuals like Nirad C Chaudhuri and VS Naipaul welcomed it in the historical context of the Hindu’s journey for justice, the event, in hindsight, happened too suddenly. Had the hated structure remained on the site for a couple of more years, the process of Hindu social and political unification would have been completed by now. | |||
| It is my firm belief that the demolition was not pre-planned. It was hasty — and had a nasty overspill which nobody wanted. Doubtless, there existed higher sentiments of patriotism and national integration. They proved that the Hindu resolve was not so much focussed on constructing a new temple on the disputed site as it was on removal of the so-called Babri Masjid. | |||
| But, had leaders like Mr LK Advani and Mr Ashok Singhal been in control, they would certainly have recalled the larger objective — integrating the Muslims of India with the collective cultural ethos — and kept the crowds in check. That goal is yet to be achieved. | |||
| Those who hoped that in the post-1992 period the Hindu would remain steadfast with the resolve that preceded the demolition were deeply disappointed. After that began the process of fragmentation of Indian politics. The caste factor emerged as all powerful. Meanwhile, the pseudo-secularists, guided by Marxist propaganda, succeeded in pushing the Muslims in ghettos, frightening them about Hindus and everything Indian. Today, we are seeing the unfortunate fallout of that pernicious, cynical policy. | |||
| The Vishwa Hindu Parishad had operated with the mindset that the organisation was the architect of the movement. Its leaders placed top priority on constructing a new temple. In the process, they made things difficult for the Vajpayee Government, forgetting that the law of the land tied the Prime Minister’s hands. Had they taken the position that a new temple was imminent, sooner or later, the damage to the credibility of the movement could have been avoided. | |||
| In summation, Hindus have nothing to apologise for. The demolition was regrettable and the riots that followed it were wholly avoidable. If anybody is to be blamed it is the Communists. They had an interest in Muslim separatism and they achieved their goal. December 6, 1992, signalled off vote-bank politics of the worst variety. | |||
| – The writer is a RSS ideologue and historian | |||
Poison tree of Islamism
From: Kanchan GuptaSunday Pioneer/Agenda/Column: Coffee Break/July 22, 2007
The poison tree of Islamism
Kanchan Gupta
Teacher, I want to go London next month. I want bomb, big bomb in
London, again. I want make jihad!”
“What?” I exclaimed. Another student raised both hands and shouted:
“Me too! Me too!”
Other students applauded those who had just articulated what many of
them were thinking…”
That’s how Ed Husain records his experience in the Saudi Arabian
school where he had taken up a teaching assignment after embracing
radical Islam. It was the day after the 7/7 suicide bombings in London
that killed 52 commuters and Ed Husain, his faith in radical Islam by
then dwindling rapidly after experiencing life in Saudi Arabia, was
hoping to hear his students denounce the senseless killings. Instead,
he heard a ringing endorsement of jihad and senseless slaughter in the
name of Islam.
Disillusioned, Ed Husain returned to London and penned his revealing
account in The Islamist – Why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what
I saw inside and why I left. Debunking the lib-left intelligentsia’s
explanation that deprivation, frustration and alienation among
immigrant Muslims in Britain are responsible for the surge in jihadi
fervour, Ed Husain writes:
“Many Muslims enjoyed a better lifestyle in non-Muslim Britain than
they did in Muslim Saudi Arabia… All my talk of ummah seemed so
juvenile now. It was only in the comfort of Britain that Islamists
could come out with such radical utopian slogans as one government,
one ever expanding country, for one Muslim nation. The racist reality
of the Arab psyche would never accept black and white people as
equal… I was appalled by the imposition of Wahhabism in the public
realm, something I had implicitly sought as an Islamist…”
So, what does an Islamist seek? The reams of rubbish churned out by
bogus activists and windbag columnists desperately seeking to
rationalise crimes committed in the name of Islam, ranging from the
ethnic cleansing of the Kashmir Valley to the Mumbai bombings, from
the attack on Parliament House in New Delhi to the destruction of the
World Trade Center twin towers in New York, from the horrific assault
on human dignity by the Taliban in Afghanistan to the nauseating
anti-Semitism of the regime in Iran, cannot explain either the core
idea of Islamism or what motivates Islamists. For that, we have to go
through the teachings of Hasan al-Banna, the original Islamist and
progenitor of the Muslim Brotherhood, but for whom and which perhaps
we would have been spared the terror that stalks us today.
Hasan al-Banna’s articulation of Islamism in the 1930s, distilled from
complex theological interpretations of Islam, was at once simple
enough for even illiterate Muslims to understand and sinister in its
implications when seen in the context of what we are witnessing today:
“The Quran is our Constitution. Jihad is our way. Martyrdom is our
desire.” Imagined grievances and manufactured rage came decades later,
as faux justification for adopting this three-sentence injunction that
erases the line separating the spiritual from the temporal and giving
Islam a political dimension in the modern world, thus expanding the
theatre of conflict beyond the sterile sands of Arabia.
Hasan al-Banna died a nasty death when he was murdered in 1949,
apparently in retaliation of the assassination of Egypt’s then Prime
Minister, Mahmud Fahmi Naqrashi, but the seed he had planted in his
lifetime was to grow into a giant poison tree, watered and nourished
by Sayyid Qutub (whose tract, Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq was interpreted as
treasonous, fetching him the death sentence in 1966) which over the
years has spread its roots and branches, first across Arabia and then
to Muslim majority countries; so potent is that tree’s life force, its
seeds, carried by the blistering wind that blows from the Mashreq,
have now begun to sprout in countries as disparate as Denmark and
India, Turkey and Malaysia, changing demographic profiles and
unsettling societies.
The world chose to ignore subsequent events and, like those who
clamour for a gentler, accommodative approach to Islamism today by
pushing for compromise over conflict, ‘enlightened’ scholars and
public affairs commentators rationalised Anwar Sadat’s assassination
by Islamists on October 6, 1981. Even Egypt erred in setting free
scores of conspirators, including a certain Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Similarly, the ‘Islamic Revolution’ in Iran with its blood-soaked
consequences was hailed as a “people’s victory” over Shah Reza
Pehalvi’s dictatorial regime. For Europe, which now is fast turning
into Eurabia, it was business as usual – Iran’s oil swamped out
rational analyses. If any country had the farsight to sense the danger
signals, it was, ironically so, Egypt which continues to remain wary
of Iran, not least because of its export of rabid Islamism. That
Tehran has riled Cairo by naming a street after Sadat’s assassin,
Khalid Islambouli, is only of partial significance.
It was in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan that Islamism acquired a new dimension and a vicious edge
when it was coupled with Wahaabism, Saudi Arabia’s severely austere
version of Sunni Islam. Arab nationalism, which was unencumbered by
Islamism till then, became an expression of faith in radical Islamism.
In what passes for Palestinian territories, the intifada was born and
while the popularity of Yasser Arafat’s largely secular (which
explained his hugely corrupt ways) PLO began to decline, Hamas, led by
its paraplegic spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, began its
murderous march which has culminated with Gaza Strip being declared
‘Hamastan’. Yassin was killed by the Israelis for inspiring young
Palestinians to blow themsleves up in buses, restaurants and markets,
but that has not stalled Hamas or weakened it as an Islamist
organisation.
In Lebanon, the Hizbullah is now facing competition from Fatah-al
Islam in Palestinian refugee camps. In Britain, Hizb ut-Tahrir is
seducing young Muslims like Ed Husain with its acid message of
intolerance and bigotry. In India, we have the Jamaat-e-Islami and the
Tablighi Jamaat. The Deobandis are not to be scoffed at.
To neutralise the three-sentence injunction of Hasan al-Banna, we need
more than a ‘War on Terror’. We need to launch an assault on the idea
that motivates terrorists. There is no scope for accommodation, nor is
there any reason to capitulate or strike a compromise.
–
Kanchan Gupta
Associate Editor,
The Pioneer,
