Not many know the Indian past he had discovered!

"What is it that keeps the country down", asked the speaker. A young man in the audience replied unhesitatingly: "Undoubtedly the institution of caste that kept the majority low castes and the society backward" and added "it continues".

The speaker replied, "May be". But, pausing for a moment, he added, "May not be". Shocked, the young man angrily asked him to explain his "may-not-be" theory.

The speaker calmly mentioned just one fact that clinched the debate. He said, "Before the British rule in India, over two-thirds - yes, two-thirds - of the Indian kings belonged to what is today known as the Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

"It is the British," he said, "who robbed the OBCs - the ruling class running all socio-economic institutions - of their power, wealth and status." So it was not the upper caste which usurped the OBCs of their due position in the society?

The speaker's assertion that it was not so was founded on his study - unbelievably painstaking study for years and decades in the archives in India, England and Germany. He could not be maligned as a 'saffron' ideologue and what he said could not be dismissed thus. He was Dharampal, a Gandhian in ceaseless search of truth like his preceptor Gandhi himself was, but a Gandhian with a difference. He ran no ashram on state aid to do 'Gandhigiri'.

Admitting that "he and those like him do not know much about our own society", the young man who questioned Dharampal - Banwari is his name - became his student. By meticulous research of the British sources over decades, Dharampal demolished the myth that India was backward educationally or economically when the British entered. Citing the Christian missionary William Adam's report on indigenous education in Bengal and Bihar in 1835 and 1838, Dharampal established that at that time there were 100,000 schools in Bengal, one school for about 500 boys; that the indigenous medical system that included inoculation against small-pox.

He also proved by reference to other materials that Adam's record was 'no legend'. He relied on Sir Thomas Munroe's report to the Governor at about the same time to prove similar statistics about schools in Madras. He also found that the education system in the Punjab during the Maharaja Ranjit Singh's rule was equally extensive. He estimated that the literary rate in India before the British was higher than that in England.

Citing British public records he established, on the contrary, that 'British had no tradition of education or scholarship or philosophy from 16th to early 18th century, despite Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Newton, etc'. Till then education and scholarship in the UK was limited to select elite. He cited Alexander Walker's Note on Indian education to assert that it was the monitorial system of education borrowed from India that helped Britain to improve, in later years, school attendance which was just 40, 000, yes just that, in 1792. He then compared the educated people's levels in India and England around 1800. The population of Madras Presidency then was 125 lakhs and that of England in 1811 was 95 lakhs. Dharampal found that during 1822-25 the number of those in ordinary schools in Madras Presidency was around 1.5 lakhs and this was after great decay under a century of British intervention.

As against this, the number attending schools in England was half - yes just half - of Madras Presidency's, namely a mere 75,000. And here to with more than half of it attending only Sunday schools for 2-3 hours! Dharampal also established that in Britain 'elementary system of education at people's level remained unknown commodity' till about 1800! Again he exploded the popularly held belief that most of those attending schools must have belonged to the upper castes particularly Brahmins and, again with reference to the British records, proved that the truth was the other way round.

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

The situation was almost similar in Malayalam, Oriya and Kannada-speaking areas, with the backward castes dominating the schools in absolute numbers. Only in the Telugu-speaking areas the share of the Brahmins was higher and varied from 24 to 46 per cent. Dharampal's work proved Mahatma Gandhi's statement at Chatham House in London on October 20, 1931 that "India today is more illiterate than it was fifty or hundred years ago" completely right.

Not many know of Dharampal or of his work because they have still not heard of the Indian past he had discovered. After, long after, Dharampal had established that pre-British India was not backward a Harvard University Research in the year 2005 (India's Deindustrialisation in the 18th and 19th Centuries by David Clingingsmith and Jeffrey G Williamson) among others affirmed that "while India produced about 25 percent of world industrial output in 1750, this figure had fallen to only 2 percent by 1900." The Harvard University Economic Research also established that the Industrial employment in India also declined from about 30 to 8.5 per cent between 1809-13 and 1900, thus turning the Indian society backward.

PS: This great warrior who established the truth - the truth that was least known - that India was not backward when the British came, but became backward only after they came, is no more. He passed away two weeks ago on October 26, 2006, at Sevagram at Warda.

Comment: gurumurthy@epmltd.com

Defaming as a profession, to doing down businesses and communities...

S Gurumurthy

Is it time to audit Non-Government Organisations, the NGOs, as they are popularly known? They claim more credibility than elected governments. More importance than nations. More durability than families. More relevance than communities.

The word NGO, coined in the West, is deceptive. At least here, it includes Gandhi Peace Foundation to Sankara Mutt to professional social outfits seeking foreign funds. For most NGOs, being so is as much, if not more, a profession as a mission. Most of them have a global agenda. Are driven by it. Are also funded globally. Many nations even fear them as the latest weapons of the West against the Rest. They can even bring down governments. Such is their power. What can ordinary mortals do if such NGOs target them? Here is a story of a hard working community in the small town of Sivakasi struggling for survival against globally funded NGO agenda.

They suffered for long. Business down. Reputation gone. All pleas fell on deaf ears. Governments turned mute. Politicians shied away. The media eulogised the NGOs. Desperate, they did what no businessman does except as the last resort _ approach the court. The court did respond, and issued a warrant of arrest against a culprit, a minority religious head. But with Andipatti poll only days away, the police would not arrest him obviously.

Dead-ended everywhere, they took to streets. Last Tuesday, February 19, the entire town of Sivakasi and surrounding areas observed a total bandh. Thousands were on the roads. Then woke up a section of the media, to little-known facts. Sivakasi's case is this: a motivated campaign by NGOs is on against them.

Sivakasi's main business is fireworks, match units and printing press. Its annual business is over Rs 1000 crores. Half of it is from sale of fireworks. This is where the NGOs hit them. They allege child labour in Sivakasi fireworks and match units. The basic facts about Sivakasi clearly contradict the charges. This small town has as many as 42 educational institutions. This includes three arts colleges, a women's college, an engineering college, two polytechnics and one pharmaceutical college. About 39,000 students, almost equal number of boys and girls, are on their rolls. Who built this huge educational infrastructure? Not the government. The fireworks owners. If children were their human resource why would they build schools for them? Also colleges. They have enough money to send their children to any place in India or abroad for studies.

Not just that. The government has declared Virudhunagar district in which Sivakasi falls as 100% literate. How can that go with child labour? It is not all. `Child labour in Sivakasi is a myth, a 15-year-old story'. Not the fireworks owners, the District Collector says so. Just three months back. He discloses that in Virudhunagar district in which Sivakasi falls, from four lakh households 2.24 lakh children attend schools. Some of course do not. But lack of awareness, not child labour, is the reason for that, he asserts. The number of those bunking schools, he says, is less than 9%, even though the people below poverty line is between 36% and 40%. He said so in public. The very media, of course only the Tamil media, reported him. More evidence exists, if needed.

Why then the charge of child labour? See how the facts unfold.

Unfailingly, every year a month before Deepavali the campaign against Sivakasi starts. Not in Sivakasi or thereabouts. Many NGOs, most of them funded from abroad, begin massive campaigns to boycott fireworks during Deepavali. Cite child labour as the justification. Use emotive slogans like ``Is it the glitter of the fireworks or the shrieks of the dying children?'' to drive home the message. Assemble school children in thousands and make them take oath against use of firecrackers. Advocate celebrating Deepavali with, interestingly, candles, not traditional lamps.

The campaigners are highly articulate. Media savvy. Know the media and how to use it. The charmed media takes them at their face value. Covers their rallies extensively. Blindly repeats the campaigner's charges. The victims, the Sivakasi people, who work more and talk less, are not media savvy. Their inarticulate voice is just silenced by the high voltage campaign of the NGOs. The result, Sivakasi is defamed and condemned unheard as an economy built on the blood of children. The lay to the expert, including the courts, are led by the campaign. The NGOs' campaign has virtually settled that Sivakasi means child labour. Some of them have even called for the prosecution of government officials who have contradicted them. See their capacity to terrorise.

What is their motive? Why do they suppress the facts? Why such shrill campaign? Even on the child labour issue, why only target Sivakasi? The answers are indeed uncomfortable.

Here is where the identity behind the campaigning NGOs becomes relevant. The campaigning NGOs, say the Sivakasi people, are mostly Christians. The Missionary schools deploy their captive children to campaign against fire crackers. This is what shuts the mouth of the otherwise wide-mouthed media. This is what blinds the politicians who otherwise sniff around for issues. This is why the state authority disappears.

It is unfair to blame Christians as a whole or Christianity as such. But definitely some enthusiastic evangelists are responsible. They see a chance to spread their faith through the child labour issue. So call for boycotting fire crackers and promoting candles, instead of lamps, during Deepavali. In the process, they have made Sivakasi synonymous with child labour.

Also financial stakes are high. An instance. The International Programme for Elimination of Child Labour has made available Rs 4 crores for studying an integrated approach to child labour in Sivakasi and Tirupur. But for claims of child labour, such funds would dry up. So the need to insist that it exists. Asserting it exists is a potential revenue stream.

What is the answer? Unless an NGO declares from where it gets its funds, it should not be heard. The source of its funds will decide its credibility.

Then, the real issue is NGOs' role in Indian economy. Whether it is the carpet Industry in Rajasthan or UP, or the knitwear units of Tirupur, or the fireworks of Sivakasi, the NGOs are around. In the world of business seen as war, NGOs, many unknowingly, become instruments in the hands of foreign economic forces. They use their clout as a moral force to weaken national economies. To benefit foreign forces invariably funding them. In most cases they do end up as lobbyists, though some may really not be.

Nevertheless NGOs do have the right to say what they want to. But they should admit they get money for their work. They are an interested party. But the status the NGOs seek and in fact, enjoy is high. As an arbiter, a judge, a disinterested witness. The distortion in public discourse is that the NGOs are taken as disinterested parties. Once they are taken for what they are, their view will be taken to be what it is worth.

The apprehensions about NGOs are global. Many believe that some of them are used by the West even to split societies and break up nations. It is unfortunate that all NGOs, the genuine and the spurious, the service-minded and the lobbyist claim to be the same. Are treated alike, respected alike, in India. All for lack of information.

Only the patriotic and vigilant public can scan and separate the genuine from the spurious. Otherwise we will allow professional NGOs to defame with respect and destroy with impunity businesses and peoples in this country. They have very nearly done down Sivakasi. Will such a thing happen in China whether they use child labour or prison labour? It will not. Let us think why it happens here.

“Every Indian should sing Vande Mataram” says K.S. Sudarshan

RSS Sarsanghachalak Shri K.S. Sudarshan has said that Vande Mataram is not a contentious issue and every patriotic citizen of the country should sing it with full respect on September 7 to mark the centenary celebrations of the national song. He was talking to mediapersons after releasing a book, Samarasata ke Sutra, in New Delhi on August 30.

He said singing Vande Mataram should be compulsory in all schools and academic institutions and Indians irrespective of their religion or faith should have no objection to reciting the national song. Replying to a question about the protest from some people to the recitation of the national song, he said: “Those who do not have faith in Bharatmata have no right to live in the country.” Terming the whole controversy as a dangerous sign, he said such controversies led to the partition of the country in 1947 and cannot be allowed again. “The current bout of controversies is the manifestation of a wider conspiracy. The nation was bifurcated in similar situations in 1947,” he added.

The book-release function was jointly organised by Sewa Bharati, Delhi, and Akhil Bharatiya Navyuvak Dalit Utthan Sangh at Hindi Bhavan. The book has been edited by Shri Ramesh Patange and Shri Tarun Vijay, editor of Panchjanya. Shri Premchand Goel, Akhil Bharatiya Sewa Pramukh of RSS was also present on the occasion.

The Sarsanghachalak stressed the need to bring harmony among all castes and said the Sangh is preparing the people who understand the pain and grief of every person of the society. He underlined the need to abolish the conventions, which develop problems in smooth functioning of the society and prevent people from coming together. “Such conventions may be relevant during a particular phase of time and under certain circumstances. But today most of them have no significance. Hence, they should be abolished,” he said.

He further said the Sangh has resolved to establish harmony in the society during the birth-centenary year of Shri Guruji, the second Sarsanghachalak. He stated that efforts are being made to spread the message of social harmony all over the country.

Speaking at the function, noted Marathi poet and founder of Dalit Panthers, Shri Namdev Dhasal said though he is not a member of any RSS organisation, he supports the work done by the Samarasata Manch in Maharashtra. Samarasata Manch is an RSS-associated organisation working for brining harmony in the society. “If the Sangh really wants to work for social harmony, it is not untouchable for me, no matter I have to face criticism from my own people for it,” he added. He further said he is an experimentalist and does not fear of any criticism or opposition from his leftist friends. He said Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains are very much part and parcel of the Hindu society and those who treat them separate commit an unpardonable offence. He stated that Hinduism has greater flexibility and it is a broad religion. He said if the country remains divided into castes and sub-castes it has no future. He remarked that the work of social transformation could not be done through politics or power.

Baba Prakash Shah, Valmiki saint from Gannaur, Haryana, said Valmiki and Ravidas worked for the humanity and all Hindus should celebrate their birth anniversaries. “If only one section of the society celebrates their anniversaries, it will continue to develop the feeling of separation among them. We should understand that all the rishis, munis and saints of this country belong to all of us and not to any particular section. “If you are the true follower of Rama and Krishna, imbibe their teachings,” he added. Baba Prakash Shah also presented gangajali to all the distinguished guests who shared the dais.

Introducing the book, Shri Ramesh Patange said various steps are being taken today by various people in the country to uplift the downtrodden sections of the society and also to bring all communities together. He said the book provides information about all such activities. He said harmony should be visible in practical conduct. Shri Tarun Vijay termed discrimination on the basis of caste as inhuman. Shri Deepak Rathi, president of Delhi Sewa Bharati, proposed a vote of thanks.

Bismillah Khan personified cultural oneness...

There is a delicious irony in the Congress-led UPA government declaring national mourning for Varanasi icon Bismillah Khan on the very day that Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh issued a directive making the recitation of Vande Mataram optional in educational institutions on September 7, the centenary of its adoption.

Consider how the venerable Ustad took the ritual gangasnaan daily with his mentor, Ali Baksh ‘Vilayati’ Khan, and played the shehnai at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple every morning. Consider that the Ustad shunned the creation of Pakistan and the two-nation theory amidst unprecedented communal upheavals in northern India and performed at the ramparts of Red Fort on the very first Independence Day celebrations.

Ustad Bismillah Khan was one of those rare talents who personified and lived the cultural and civilizational unity and glory of India. It was not just that he took the simple shehnai to a pinnacle on the crowded pantheon of Hindustani classical music, but that his music transcended the limitations of faith. He loved the soil of Varanasi; his favourite raga was Shivranjani; he most cherished the holy waters of the Ganga. Music and the Vishwanath Mandir offered “divine unity,” he considered himself a devout Muslim though a staunch devotee of Ma Saraswati.

The Divine Mother Kali has been less fortunate in receiving cross-religious affiliations. Ever since Bankim Chandra penned the song that became the rallying cry of all revolutionary freedom fighters, Muslim clergy, possibly inspired by British officials, have expressed reservations about respecting the motherland as a divine entity. Organised opposition from the ulema denied Vande Mataram the status of national anthem, and even the uneasy compromise regarding the ‘national song’ has not been free of glitches. Though the Muslim community has contributed some of independent India’s most gallant officers and soldiers, and Muslim politicians have no reservations about expressing loyalty to the Constitution and national flag, and community as a whole has not been able to transcend ulema diktat.

The result is that generations of Muslim children are being raised to disrespect Vande Mataram. For, this is what the Congress exemption to the Muslim community from reciting the song in educational institutions on the centenary of its adoption, amounts to. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi’s protestation that the party is proud of the national song rings hollow, because it has endorsed the scandalous circular issued by the HRD Ministry in this regard.

That is why Firangi Mahal cleric, Maulana Khalid Rasheed, was not challenged when he declared Vande Mataram was un-Islamic and asked the community to shun it. Nor was the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari. With Congress party eager to woo Muslims for next year’s Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, a principled stand on a song that galvanized a generation of freedom fighters to make untold sacrifices was too much to expect.

The BJP has done well to query Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the status of the national song with the UPA government. The party has rightly pointed out that all opposition to the recital of the national song is rooted in the two-nation theory that continues to be overtly and covertly promoted by Muslim fundamentalists. Vande Mataram is about Indian nationalism; rejection of the song has obvious connotations.

Coming as it does so close on the heels of the Mumbai serial bomb blasts which took over 200 lives and wounded over 700 persons, and the discovery of a large network of terrorist sleeper cells in all major cities, the obdurate stance of the Muslim community does not bode well for the country. It shows that a new wave of pan-Islamic fervour is sweeping the orthodox sections of the community, which have the power to turn the masses away from nationalism. Thus, the nation is not merely humiliated by the refusal of Muslims to sing the national song, it may be in danger of another attempt at territorial secession. In this connection, the frustrated anger of BJP leaders Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Vijay Kumar Malhotra, that those opposed to reciting Vande Mataram should migrate to the country of their choice, should be read as a warning bell for the Republic.

It is too much to expect the likes of Begum Teesta Setalvad to come forward and meet Muslim fundamentalists head-on on this issue. No worthwhile Muslim activist will lend his voice to the national song, certainly not any of the big-wigs who strode the national stage bad-mouthing Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, for the post-Godhra riots, and stayed safely indoors when Mumbai bled. The Muslim ulemma are clearly giving a political signal in favour of the Muslim terrorism networks ripping civil society apart, and no amount of gloss by the secular media will succeed in erasing the negative image that Muslims have acquired in the popular mind for such acts of omission and commission.

That is why, though his last journey was probably the best attended in Varanasi’s recent history, with shopkeepers and traders voluntarily downing shutters as a mark of respect, it was a lonely Bismillah Khan who travelled from Harha Sarai to the Fatman shamshaan bhumi. Even as the nation mourned the passing of one of her greatest sons, his own community rejected the love, unity and inclusive embrace of his shehnai. The spiritual legacy of the maestro was thus buried with his bones.

Sister Sonia, he wanted a total ban on conversions!

“The Congress party's views on this are well known,” Sonia says. ‘This’ means laws banning forcible religious conversions. She goes on: “They are enactments passed by state legislatures where the Congress is in opposition.” She adds, “The Congress party has opposed (them) strongly in the assembly and through demonstrations.” She made these profound remarks in a letter she wrote to Dr John Dayal. Who is he? He has a respectable visiting card, as member of the National Integration Council. But he has other visiting cards too like President of All India Catholic Union, Secretary General of All India Christian Council, President of United Christian Action, and Member of Justice and Peace commission Archdiocese of Delhi.

But these cards do not exhaust his definition. In the assessment of a responsible Christian scholar, PN Benjamin, who runs the Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue, “John Dayal opens his mouth and wields his pen only to spew venom on the Hindu community.” This completes his profile. He had written to Sonia complaining about the laws banning religious conversions in different states. To which she replied implying that the BJP is the author of anti-conversion laws.

But is that - that is, it is the BJP, not the Congress, which passed the anti-conversion laws and the Congress had actually opposed them - a fact? Only a novice in political history post freedom would say something like what Sonia says. On the contrary, it was the Congress Party, which had still some traces of the Mahatma Gandhi left in it, that had passed the anti-conversion laws.

That Congress, which still had some respect for the Mahatma, took his words on religious conversions seriously. Mahatma Gandhi had written extensively against conversions by Christians. He wrote, “I hold that proselytisation under the cloak of human work is unhealthy to say the least.” This was in Young India on April 23, 1931. Later, he went one step further and wrote, “If I had the power to legislate, I should stop all proselytisation work” (Young India 5.11.1935). He told the missionaries, “He is ashamed of them” (Young India 8.8.1925), disputed their claim that theirs “is the only true religion” (Harijan 3.6.1937), warned that “conversion should not mean denationalisation” (8.8.1925), and pointed out that it means just that, as many converts are “ashamed of their birth” and of their ancestry (20.8.1925).

Gandhiji's ideas were still influencing the Congress when the Madhya Pradesh government constituted the Neogi Committee to study missionary activities in tribal areas. This was in 1954. S.K George, ‘a devout Christian and a nationalist belonging to the oldest church in India - the Syrian Christian Church' was a member of the Committee. The Committee exposed the massive, fraudulent conversions of tribal people and recommended that a law be enacted to ban such fraudulent practices. The MP government, led by the Congress Party, enacted the Neogi-recommended law banning conversions in the year 1968. The Orissa government, again a Congress-led government, did so even earlier in 1967. And Arunachal Pradesh under the central rule of the government headed by another Gandhi, unrelated to the Mahatma, Indira Gandhi, also passed a similar law.

This is the origin and history of anti-conversion laws in India. So these laws owe their origin in Mahatma Gandhi's wish. He actually wanted a ban on all religious conversions. These laws fall far short of his wish. But she would not know that Gandhiji wanted a total, not partial, ban on conversions. She would not know that it was the Congress in which Gandhi's views were respected which passed these laws first. One can also dismiss her ignorance of the history of a country she is totally unfamiliar as natural. But the tragedy is that, by design, not by accident, this nation itself has kept its people and polity so ignorant of the views of that Gandhi that many today think that this Gandhi's views are also that Gandhi's views!

His statues in lakhs are all over the country from small village panchayat offices to Parliament. Roads running to hundreds of thousands of miles bear his name in every small town. His name is alive through his statues and roads but his ideas are nowhere. That is why the later Gandhis saw the political gain in appropriating his name but rejecting his ideas. Just like the name Gandhi is all over but his ideas are nowhere, the name Congress is all over but Gandhi's ideas are nowhere in the Congress. So, while Mahatma Gandhi had commended a ban on conversions, the Congress led by Sonia Gandhi is opposing even a ban on fraudulent conversions. The difference between the two Congresses is as much as the difference between the two Gandhis - today's Sonia Gandhi and yesterday's Mahatma Gandhi.

India should oppose DRM: Richard Stallman

India should not enact a Digital Rights Management (DRM) law, Richard M. Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Movement and the GNU Project said. He was speaking at the Fourth International Conference on GPL v3 held at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, on August 23rd, 2006. He commented that the people who implement DRM, which he called the "Digital Restrictions Management", should be in prison if the government is really of the people, by the people and for the people. This law actually restricts the freedom of the people. A company that uses the restrictions in producing its DVD will give the format it uses to create the DVD only to a company that promises to protect that restriction. The law has been enacted in the S and the European Union has given a direction in favour of DRM. Now the government of India is contemplating modifying its laws to incorporate DRM. The time given for the public to register their comments on the law was short and was insufficient for anyone to give a comprehensive response. That time itself is now over. It is important that the public take this issue and try to convince the government that what they are planning to do goes against the interests of the people and protects only the interest of the large companies. He went on to say that the Free Software licences like the GNU General Public Licence can do only a little to protect users from these laws.

The conference was organised by the Free Software Foundation of India, and the Free Software Users Group, Bangalore, in association with the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, to discuss the draft of the new version of the General Public Licence (GPL), GPL v3. Stallman explained why a new version became necessary. He said that revisions become necessary when problems with the existing licence became clear, and when new circumstances threatened the freedom that Free Software promised its users.

As an example of the new circumstances, he mentioned the DRM law and the example of a program called Tivo. Tivo is a device that records television programmes for the user to watch at another convenient time. This is a combination of software and hardware. The software is based on the GNU/Linux operating system, which is Free Software. All Free Software gives its users the freedom to modify the software to
suit their purpose, and thus this software also gives the freedom to its users. But the hardware is designed to reject any software that is not one of the versions that is designed to run on it. Thus, though the user has the freedom to modify the software, it becomes meaningless because then it cannot be used. In other words, though the software is Free, the freedom becomes meaningless. The present GPL is not violated, though the freedom is, in practice, useless. The new version became necessary because of such circumstances.

Prof. Eben Moglen, Professor at the Columbia University , Legal Advisor to the Free Software Foundation, and one of the important contributors to the new draft, said that protecting the licence from violations is not an easy job, and involves considerable work from a trained advocate. He said that a legal expert will be engaged in India if many violations of the GPL are found here. Referring to the problem related to some circuits used in wireless networking, he said that there has been serious problems from Japan, which has declared that any programmer who releases software for wireless circuits under any licence that makes its source code available, will be arrested next time the person lands in Japan.

The conference will continue on 24th August, when two panels will discuss the relevance of Free Software for software businesses and in
Education. The draft of GPLv3 can be read at http://gplv3.fsf.org/ and the detailed programme of the conference can be seen at http://gplv3.gnu.org.in/Conference/Schedule. Some photographs of the event are available at -- http://gnu.org.in/media/gplv3-conf-pics/index.html

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The latest version of the license, version 2, was released in 1991. The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a modified version of the GPL, intended for some software libraries

The GPL grants the recipients of a computer program the following rights:

• the right to run the program, for any desired purpose.
• the right to study how the program works, and modify it. (Access to the source code is a precondition for this)
• the right to redistribute copies.
• the right to improve the program, and release the improvements to the public. (Access to the source code is a precondition for this)

In contrast, the end-user licenses (EULA) that come with proprietary software generally only grants the end-user the right to copy the software onto a limited number of computers. The terms and conditions of such license agreements may even attempt to restrict activities normally permitted by copyright laws, such as reverse engineering.

The primary difference between the GPL and more "permissive" free software licenses such as the BSD License is that the GPL seeks to ensure that the above points are preserved in copies and in derivative works. It does this using a legal mechanism known as copyleft, invented by Stallman, which requires derivative works of GPL-licensed programs to also be licensed under the GPL. In contrast, BSD-style licenses allow for derivative works to be redistributed as proprietary software.

By some measures, the GPL is the single most popular license for free and open source software. As of April 2004, the GPL accounted for nearly 75% of the 23,479 free-software projects listed on Freshmeat, and about 68% of the projects listed on SourceForge. (These sites are owned by OSTG, a company that advocates Linux and the GPL.) Similarly, a 2001 survey of Red Hat Linux 7.1 found that 50% of the source code was licensed under the GPL, and 1997 survey of MetaLab, then the largest free-software archive, showed that the GPL accounted for about half of the licenses used. Prominent free software programs licensed under the GPL include the Linux kernel and the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). Some other free software programs are dual-licensed under multiple licenses, often with one licenses being the GPL.

Third-class governance can’t give first-class response to terrorism..

In the concluding part of his analysis, Arun Shourie details how a weak-kneed government response, in terms of both administration and diplomacy, has cost India the momentum and the edge in the Kashmir issue

By the end of 2003, we were being told that our agencies had neutralised over 160 ISI modules — counting only those outside Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast. Since then, up to July 11, 2006, again counting only those outside Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast, another 75 modules are reported to have been neutralized.

These are substantial achievements — we can imagine how many more deaths and how much more dislocation would have been caused if these had not been got at and the persons caught or killed. But the figures have another side to them.

First, that there were that many cells to be neutralized shows that ISI had been able to set them up. Second, the cells that have been unearthed were found to exist across the entire country.

Going by the tabulation of the cells that have been located and finished just since January 2004, we see them having been found in state after state, town after town. In Andhra: Hyderabad (several), including one at the Begumpet airport, Nalgonda; in Karnataka: Alamati, Hesaraghatta on the outskirts of Bangalore, Jelenabad area in Gulbarga district; Delhi (several separate ones in several localities across the city); in Bengal and neighbouring regions: Ghosepur, Darjeeling district, Rishra, Hooghly district, Chowgacha village, Nadia district, Kaliachak, Malda, Kolkata; in Uttaranchal: Dehra Dun; in Maharashtra: Mumbai, Aurangabad, Manmad, Malegaon; in Rajasthan: Jaipur, Ajmer, Jodhpur; in Punjab, where a serious effort is being made to stoke up Sikh militancy: Jalandhar, Amritsar, Nawanshehar, Ropar, Hoshiarpur, Batala, Malerkotla; in UP: NOIDA, Lucknow, Hardoi, Lalkurti; Goa; in MP: Gwalior; Faridabad; in Gujarat: Ahmedabad; and so on.

The list of these 75 modules apart, just look at the far-flung places from which suspects of the July train blasts in Mumbai are being picked up — that itself shows the long reach of the ISI and its terrorist limbs within India, of the faraway places at which they have been able to set up sanctuaries.

Finally, that the blasts and other terrorist operations have continued unabated shows that the cells which have been located are but a fraction of the ones that have been set up. Several factors have afforded such easy access for the ISI. The principal one is the near collapse of law enforcement — from intelligence to investigation to combat to the courts.

As is well said, you cannot have a first class response to terrorism in a third class system of governance. Why should anyone be deterred from executing another round of blasts in Mumbai trains when he sees that those caught for the blasts executed 13 years ago are well and kicking; when he sees that their lawyers have been able, and with such ease, to ensnare Government prosecutors in the courts?

But the evaporation of governance and of the law-enforcement mechanisms is just one aspect, indeed it is in large part a consequence of complicity. In particular, of the perversion of pubic discourse — by which every action against terrorists, their sponsors and their collaborators is called into question and the national resolve dissipated; second, by the ever-strengthening nexus of rulers and criminal elements. And by the permissive atmosphere that has been fomented by these factors.

Which terrorist group, which potential recruit to terrorism will be deterred when he sees the solicitude with which the prime suspect of the blasts in Coimbatore, Abdul Nasser Mahdani, is being looked after? When he sees, as The Indian Express has reported (July 24-25, 2006) the comforts that the DMK Government has arranged for him, including Ayurvedic massages — with 10 masseurs and a senior physician labouring over him; and that too at the tax-payers’ expense? When he sees that even the elementary restrictions on Mahdani’s moving about in the prison have been cancelled in the face of opposition from security services?

When he sees that the representatives of the CPI(M) come calling on him in jail to seek his help in fighting elections? When he sees the Kerala Assembly pass a unanimous resolution on his behalf — and sees that that Assembly has not passed any comparable resolution for any other individual?

When he sees how doggedly the Government of Karnataka holds up the investigation into Telgi’s doings? When he sees a Chief Minister defend SIMI, an organization that has been banned for secessionist and anti-national activities? When he sees what happens in our Parliament — how members shout each other down and cannot speak in one voice even while discussing the blasts in Mumbai? When he sees how, even after the Supreme Court has struck down the IMDT Act as unconstitutional and as a threat to national security, the Government, the principal party of which depends on votes of illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh, incorporates those very provisions in the Foreigners’ Act? Who would not feel emboldened to sign up for the greater glory of jihad and shahadat?

THE FATAL CONCESSION

Nor is it just the terrorist module that is encouraged. The organisers and controllers of these modules are given a free hand. In the statement that Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf issued on 6 January, 2004, the words that Pakistan was made to agree to were very, very carefully chosen. There was great resistance from Pakistan. But, in the end, it had to agree to those words. By that declaration, Pakistan was made to commit that for sustaining the dialogue it would stop cross-border violence, and ensure that no part of the territory under its control — that is, including PoK — shall be used for terrorism.

By contrast, in the statement that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed with General Musharraf in April 2005, India agreed that to ensure that terrorism will not be allowed to thwart the ‘‘peace process’’. This was a fatal concession — for by it Pakistan was in effect enabled to continue terrorist activities at will. The onus would henceforth be on India to continue the ‘‘peace process’’ and the ‘‘dialogue’’ in spite of the terrorist attacks.

The result has been dramatically brought home in the wake of the Mumbai train blasts. The Prime Minister’s address to the nation was anaemic. Perhaps that registered even in the Government. The second statement had a hue of firmness. And with much background briefing — ‘‘we won’t put up with this nonsense forever’’ — the Foreign Secretaries’ meeting was called off.

And then? The Prime Minister goes to Moscow. Meets Bush. And suddenly, the official line becomes, ‘‘We won’t let the terrorists succeed in their design to halt the peace process’’!

So, Pakistan can pursue both limbs — talk peace, wage war! And all we can do is to go through the ritual again.

Blasts in Mumbai. Blasts in Srinagar. Another debate in Parliament. Another slew of statements — ‘‘We resolutely/ strongly/unequivocally condemn this dastardly/ cowardly/treacherous/barbaric act... It shows their desperation... Government remains committed to fighting terrorism in all its forms... We will not allow them to disturb communal harmony… We will not allow them to derail the peace process...’’

The Home Minister repeated all the standard phrases in his statement to Parliament last week. He also implied that his ministry had done its job. ‘‘The Central Government has been sensitising the state governments/UTs about the plans and designs of terrorist outfits. They were asked to streamline physical and protective security of vital institutions...’’

And the Government is on the job even now, he assured. “The Government has made an assessment of the situation following these blasts,” he told Parliament. And what did the assessment yield? “The security apparatus has to focus greater attention and improve intelligence-gathering capabilities particularly at the local level to collect actionable intelligence... There is also a need to further enhance physical security and access control at airports, metros, vital installations... besides accelerated border fencing, overall coastal security... State Governments have been asked to improve coordination between the Railway Police Force and the Government Railway Police to enhance security of trains and railway stations...’’

Should he not have said, “The Government has made yet another assessment of the situation following these blasts”? And did we really need yet another “assessment of the situation”? After all, what is new in this list? And what happened to that claim of 100 per cent of the recommendations of those Task Forces having been implemented?

THEIR SUCCESS

But while we keep repeating, “Terrorists will not be allowed to succeed,” the fact is that through them Pakistan has already succeeded in several respects:

• It has succeeded in creating the impression — I dare say, in India too — that the status of Kashmir vis a vis India is not a settled issue. Indeed, that what will happen in the future, what some Government of India will do is an open question. When it is asked in Parliament, “Does the Government stand by the unanimous Resolution which Parliament had passed, namely that the only unfinished business relating to J&K is that we have to get back the parts of the state that Pakistan has usurped?,” the Government remains silent.

• Pakistan has succeeded in establishing that it shall have an equal say in what the final solution shall be.

• It has succeeded in establishing that the secessionists it has been patronising, arming, financing are the representatives of the Kashmiris, and so they are the ones to whom the Indian authorities must talk.

• And the Indian authorities must talk to them without the secessionists agreeing to anything in advance — in the Rajya Sabha, on July 26, the Home Minister was specifically asked by Yashwant Sinha, “Has Hurriyat agreed to give up violence?”; all he could claim was that they are giving the impression that they are willing to do so! As for their avowed goal of taking Kashmir out of India, they are not even giving any impression that they have diluted that goal one whit.

• Pakistan and its local agents have already accomplished the “ethnic cleansing” of the Valley, having driven the Hindus out. They are now systematically driving them out of Doda.

Equally ominous is the fact that, while India has always maintained that issues between Pakistan and India shall be dealt with bilaterally, that we will not agree to any third party mediation, now the US is the very visible third party in everything. Recall the change in the Prime Minister’s tenor after he met Bush in Moscow.

Moreover, the initiative has by now passed completely into the hands of Musharraf. He is the one who is forever proposing formulae, and we are put to reacting. Worse, he has succeeded in bringing the various political groups in Kashmir to talking his language. Omar Abdullah, the PDP leaders as well as the Mirwaiz are now lauding Musharraf’s formulations, and proclaiming that these — “Self Rule,” division into Regions — are the ones that show the way forward.

FUNDAMENTALISATION OF DISCOURSE

It is because our media is so preoccupied with the “controversy” of the day, it is because it is so preoccupied with “life-style” journalism, it is because there is the censorship of “political correctness” that we do not realise how fundamentalist the discourse has become in Kashmir. We keep repeating nonsense about the great tolerant traditions of Kashmir, about the “Sufi Islam” of Kashmir, about the unique catholicity of “Kashmiriat”, about the incomparable blend of Shaivism and “liberal Islam” in Kashmir.

In fact, the very persons who are “people like us” are now taking positions that cannot but shock every Indian, and cannot but wreak a terrible outcome. Hari Parbat is sacred to every Kashmiri Hindu: how do you feel when Hindu refugees hear it being referred to in speeches and publications as Kohi Maaran — the hill of evil? Can you imagine a person who has held high office in the state telling Kashmiris that hey must learn from Hamas? Can you imagine his leading associate denouncing the Amarnath yatra as “a cultural intrusion”? Can you imagine a situation, when persons holding a peaceful observance against the massacres in Doda are killed, the Chief Minister proclaims in effect that the protestors invited the deaths upon themselves? Can you imagine a person who was till the other day Chief Minister telling the second “Round Table Conference” that we must accept “One country, two systems”? Can you imagine a leading political light of the Valley tell the same conference that the Kashmir Constituent Assembly was a “sovereign body”, that Article 370 was a “treaty between two sovereign bodies”?

How do you feel as you see the glee with which a Pakistani website reports a mainstream, “nationalist” Kashmiri politician proclaim that New Delhi “is responsible for the volatile situation in Kashmir, where its troops are killing Kashmiris unjustifiably and forcing them to take up arms”? How do you feel when you read him demanding to know, “Why is India killing innocents?,” and declaring, “By these evil designs, India forces our youth to take the gun and sacrifice their lives”? When he declares that the Indian Army has been given “a free hand to kill innocent people”? When you see that his charge against his political rivals, that is the current Government in the state, is that it is “in league with the occupation authorities to run a campaign of terror against Kashmiris”?

Such rhetoric is the staple today. And the results are brought home every other day. When a Lashkar man is killed these days, four to five thousand turn up for an ostentatious demonstration in his honour. The counter-insurgency groups which had been built up with such great effort have all been abandoned by Delhi. The killings by the terrorist bands become more and more brutal by the week — corpses are left with their heads hacked off, people are sent back to their homes with their limbs and parts sawn off... New technologies are introduced — car bombs; grenades — the man who throws it is paid when he produces the pin...

Has Pakistan not succeeded? Has its instrument, terrorism, not succeeded? And our Government applies itself to organizing yet another “assessment of the situation.” Actually, it does more. It is only by a hair’s breadth, it is only at the very last minute that the decision that had been taken — namely, to agree in the Indo-Pak meeting of May 21, 2006 to withdraw troops from Siachin — was abandoned.

The terrorist infrastructure remains intact in Pakistan, and securely in the hands of ISI and the Army. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and other such groups have been allowed a free field to operate in POK after the earthquake — to organise relief, to open “educational institutions”. A better opportunity to pick up recruits for jihad and shahadat could not have been provided. Musharraf remains set in his singular aim.

HENCE

The first thing that is required for standing up to what is in store can be put in the words that were used by a high-up in the present Government itself:

• The PM and others must see that this Government does not have the mandate to make any fundamental changes in our foreign policy, certainly not in our defence policy; that it does not have the mandate to take decisions that will jeopardise our country’s territory;

• They must give up the delusion that problems that it has not been possible to solve in 55 years can be solved by “out-of-the-box thinking” in five weeks;

• Individuals must give up the delusions of what has been rightly called “the Gujranwala School of Foreign Policy” — the delusion, namely, that while others have failed, I will succeed because I am manifestly more sincere, because I am from that part of the sub-continent.

Next, the Government must spell out what the ultimate solution is that it has in mind for Kashmir. It must share with the people and Parliament what is happening in talks around Round and other tables.

In the alternate, Parliament must insist that it be taken into confdence. Once the deed is done, it will be too late.

Parliament must also get Government to specify what it understands by “Self Rule”; by “making borders irrelevant”; by “autonomy” - is “the sky the limit” still?; by the proposals that are being bandied about — joint management for power, tourism, horticulture...

Most important, it must rescind the fatal concession it made in the April 2005 statement — that we will continue the “peace process” irrespective of terrorism.

And a final plea — to the media: report in detail what the “nationalist”, mainstream political leaders of J&K are saying in the Valley. Unless the country is alerted now, obituaries will be all that will be left to pen.

(Concluded)

National security through redefinition

Arun Sourie

‘‘This has not happened in six months’ time. In 2001, it was 131 districts; in 2003, it had gone up to 143, and in 2004, this number had gone up to 157. I would say that the number has gone up, but it has not gone up only in six months time; it has gone up in three years’ time. That has to be borne in mind.’’

That was Shivraj Patil, the Home Minister, speaking in the Rajya Sabha in November 2004.

I had cited figures from official sources about the spread of Naxalite violence. Could it be any consolation that the sway of these violent groups had been spreading for a longer period than just six months? Quite the contrary: every year, year after year, the reach and lethality of Naxalites had continued to spread, showing that the rot in governance had continued to increase without let.

The situation continued to worsen. By October 2005, open sources were reporting that the number of districts affected by Naxalite violence and activity had risen to 165. The Rajya Sabha debated the matter again, in November 2005. Shivraj Patil improved on the reasoning. Though the figures I was citing are published by the Home Ministry itself, he said that such figures give a misleading impression. If one village in a district is affected, the whole district is counted as being affected, he said. Hence, the figures gave an impression of large stretches of the country being in the grip of extremist violence when that is not the case.

Why not disaggregate further, I had to inquire. After all, when the terrorists attack, they do not decimate the entire village. They kill just a handful from the village. They burn down just a few houses. Why not publish figures by household? And divide the number of households that have been attacked by the total number of households in the region, and thereby do even more to keep people’s morale up? Better still, why not disaggregate and count the number of individuals who have been killed, and divide that number by the total population of the region or the country? Wouldn’t we feel even safer?

But the Home Minister is the Home Minister. His reasoning has prevailed. Faced with more lethal attacks over a wider area, his Ministry has just stopped giving figures of the total number of districts that are affected by Naxalite operations and activity. It now gives figures only of districts “badly affected” by Naxalite violence. This comes to 76 districts. Isn’t that reassuring? National security through redefinition!

A truer index of the extent to which this virus is spreading is the fact that, after all, the Home Ministry had been using the same criteria for decades. On that basis, in the early 1990s, 16 districts were affected. In 2003, 56 districts were listed as affected. In October 2005, the number had risen, as I said, to 165. Since then, the situation has become much, much worse.

That Naxalites are actually carrying out violent attacks on police stations, that they are actually executing people is not the index of their sway. Violence comes at a much later stage of their operations; in almost every case, years later. In an interview with The Telegraph (July 15, 2005), a member of the Maoist Central Committee, “Comrade Dhruba”, is reported as saying that, apart from Bankura, Purulia and Midnapur districts, “our mass base in Murshidabad, Malda, Burdwan and Nadia is ready.” He adds, and this is what has a bearing on the Home Minister’s way of measuring, “After five years, we will launch our strikes.”

By the time violence is unleashed, the Naxalites have entrenched themselves firmly in the area. They commence with surveys — a 56-page survey that was recently recovered of “Perspective Areas” in a targeted state is so proficiently done that it would put some of our best institutions to shame: pattern of holdings; crops; problems of each crop; issues relating to wages and tenure; caste composition and tensions. Then front organisations are formed to instigate people on these issues. Experts instigate the demonstrations into violence. Reprisals fuel polarisation. Sympathisers and agents are steered into “voluntary organisations”, local bodies, cooperatives. Only after years of such capture and consolidation are dalams and the like formed. Violence is unleashed thereafter.

By that time, the situation has gone so far beyond the reach of the State apparatus that it can only do what the Home Minister is doing now.

THE PROPER CRITERIA

The criterion, therefore, is not whether violence has actually been unleashed, nor whether the level of violence has become embarrassingly “bad”. That entire area must be taken to be affected by terrorist activity in which that group — say, Naxalites — is able to prevent officials of the State from carrying out their primary functions: of governance, of dispensing justice, of executing development works. The relevant questions to ask, therefore, are:

• Do the people of the area look to the police for protection from the Naxalites, or are they now conducting themselves in such a way that the Naxalites would spare them?

• Have the contractors of the area to pay Naxalites a cut for the works they execute - say, on construction involved in “development projects”?

• Who is dispensing “justice” in the area? The regular courts, or the Naxalites’ mobile courts?

• Are the government officials themselves not paying protection money to the Naxalites?

And remember, there are many types of insurgencies that are afoot in different parts of the country. The tests apply to the NSCN(IM) in Nagaland, to the score or so groups in Manipur, to the terrorists in Kashmir, as much as they apply to Naxalites.

THE COMPREHENSIVE MECHANISM

Replying to the debate in November, 2005, the Home Minister had gone further in providing comfort. He had taken the House into confidence, and, going by the way he spoke, he had shared a deep secret of the State. The passage is worth reading in full. Shivraj Patil told the Rajya Sabha that, in fact, a comprehensive mechanism is already in place to tackle challenges to internal security. ‘‘This mechanism is already there’’, he said. ‘‘Probably, it is not known to the Hon. Members because it is an internal matter that we are doing.’’ He shared this State Secret, the information about this ‘‘mechanism’’: ‘‘We have a Special Security Secretary here. The responsibility given to the Special Security Secretary is to talk to the DIGs and other officers in the Naxalite-affected states every month or two months or whenever it is necessary, and decide as to what has to be done... Then there is a committee which is presided over by the Home Secretary, who talks to the Chief Secretaries of the states and DIGs of the states and they decide as to how the policy should be evolved to deal with the Naxalite activity or the terrorist activities in J&K or the North Eastern states. And, then, there are regional committees of the Home Minister and the Chief Ministers who meet periodically to decide about the policies. And, then, the Chief Ministers have been talking to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister every now and then, whenever they want. There is coordination. There is institution for coordination. You don’t think that we are not talking.’’

So there is a mechanism. There is committee upon committee. There are meetings after meetings. All concerned are talking. The result is before you — in the increasingly lethal depredations wreaked by Naxalites — by now in 14 states; they must have been visible in the trains in Mumbai.

100 PER CENT IMPLEMENTATION

In his statement on the Mumbai train blasts too, the Home Minister gave a long list of meetings that had been held in the wake of the blasts. The last time, there had been more. I had cited recommendations that had been made by the Task Forces on Border Management and Internal Security — two among four set up after the Kargil War. I had shown in detail how little had been done in regard to them.

The first reaction of the Congress Party and its props was, ‘‘Which reports? Where are the reports? Is he prepared to authenticate them?’’ As I had carried both the voluminous reports with me, I lifted them, and said I would authenticate them there and then. The attack shifted, ‘‘These are secret reports, how is he citing them?’’ Then, ‘‘But what did your Government do for three years?’’

Uncharacteristically, the Leader of the Opposition, Jaswant Singh got provoked enough to state, ‘‘As a matter of personal knowledge, I do wish to say that I had the distinction and honour of simultaneously holding the portfolio of Defence at that time and I can state to the House that about 95 per cent of the recommendations of the Subramaniam Committee report and the Task Force on the Armed Forces were implemented.’’

He had, as is usual with him, been careful in his choice of words. He had referred only to the recommendations of the main report of the Subramaniam Committee and the Task Force on the Armed Forces — not to the Task Forces on Border Management and on Internal Security, whose findings and recommendations I had been reading out. But that was enough. The Home Minister built on what Jaswant Singh had said: ‘‘Sir’’, Shivraj Patil said, ‘‘The points which were raised by Mr Shourie have been replied now by the Leader of the Opposition sitting over there. And, I can assure the House that the recommendations which have not been implemented are in the process of being implemented.’’ The Home Minister returned to this later in his response, and remarked, ‘‘I am very happy to point out that when this point was made by Mr. Arun Shourie, the Leader of the Opposition was here in the House and he did get up and say that nearly 95 per cent of the recommendations of the Group of Ministers have been acted upon, have been implemented and I had no difficulty in getting up and saying that even 5 per cent recommendations which remained unimplemented, would certainly be implemented by the Government because they are good recommendations and we have no difficulty in implementing them.’’

One hundred per cent of the recommendations having been implemented — for we must assume that, months having passed, even those remaining 5 per cent have been implemented — the results should not surprise us! On 21 February, 2006, the Minister of State for Home told Parliament that in 2004, 653 had been killed in Naxalite-related violence. In 2005, 892 were killed. Going by open source compilations, in 2006, up to 23 July, already 550 have been killed.

But, as I mentioned, that is not even a partial index of the state of affairs. Captured documents indicate that Naxalites have already put in place ‘‘Regional Bureaus’’ for two-thirds of the country: including one for Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and UP — and, a high authority on Left-wing violence tells me, the person who has been identified as heading this ‘‘Bureau’’ is one of the very best organisers among them. Further, barring the Northeast, J&K, Himachal and Rajasthan, ‘‘State Committees’’ are by now in place for every other state, ‘‘Special Area Committees’’ have been instituted for UP-Uttaranchal, Bihar-Jharkhand, and Bengal.

An ‘‘Urban Perspective Document’’ sets out detailed strategy for extending operations into and unsettling urban areas. Governance is weakening in many cities even now, it notes. And this weakening can only accelerate: urban population is expected to increase from 285 million to 540 million by 2020. A fertile field.

The point is that each such terrorist movement is proceeding systematically. Its programmes cover every aspect: land, caste-tensions, ‘‘courts’’, targets for raising finances, recruitment, training, capture and production of arms, calibrated unleashing of violence. And on our side?

The Home Minister’s ‘‘comprehensive mechanism’’. His ‘‘100% implementation’’. His redefinitions of the area that is affected.

And yet, the inattention to Left-wing violence is not the worst of the problems.

(To be concluded)

editor@expressindia.com

INDEPENDENCE DAY: REBUILD INDIA’S HISTORICAL MAGNIFICANCE

On August 15, India will be celebrating India’s 59th Independence Day. Independence Day is perhaps one of the most important national holidays in India. For India, Independence Day is a day for remembrance of the hard struggle to claim our freedom from hundreds of years of colonial oppression. As we celebrate our Independence, the celebration always must be a day of national recollection and reaffirmation of the great Hindu tradition and principles that kept India as a nation. Wherever we are, whatever we do, Hindus should think of Bharat as a nation of spirituality, tolerance, pluralism and universalism, and should think about our nation as a birthplace of Dharma every day of our life.

We should strive to make it known that we are proud of our Vedic heritage, the oldest surviving tradition in the world. It is impossible to be a world citizen without absorbing the essential Hindu spiritual principles of tolerance, freedom and Dharma.

Our life in this world is a swirl of confusing, distracting and seemingly complex issues. We simply will not be able to lead a good, peaceful, harmonious life in the midst of Jihadi terrorism, coercive religious conversion and corrupt political practices without cultivating the habit of seeking our eternal Hindu Dharma. But what exactly it means to have a clear Hindu principles and vision? Some people have the mistaken view that a clear sense of Hindutva requires tolerance of intolerance, accept religious conversion, cope up with Jihadi terrorism, condone appeasement of Christian and Muslim fundamentalists, and live with bogus secularism. But freedom and liberty does not mean tolerance of intolerance, ignoring the erosion of political power and living under subjugation.

Human life does not work that way. As we celebrate Independence Day, Hindus must always be striving to think things through in view of the past holocaust and the real current circumstances we face. So, on this Independence Day, what is the importance of Hindutva in making political, social and personal judgments? The critical value of Hindutva is to ensure that in the complexity of political India, we must have a firm commitment for Hindutva. Hindutva must guide us in the midst of constant change, political oppression, Jihadi terrorism and missionary efforts in “harvesting souls”.

Freedom is not free until Hindus join together and fight to preserve our freedom. With Hindutva in our hearts, we can be sure that our Independence can be preserved, protected and practiced. On this Independence Day, let us all make a pledge that we will not be drawn away from our Hindutva ideas and objectives and we will not be pushed to chase illusory, or bogus secular goals. We got independence through sacrifice. Several Hindu leaders worked tirelessly to liberate us from foreign yokes. Hindutva was their guiding principles. The principles that Shivaji, Jhansi Rani, Swami Vevekananda, Gopalakrishna Ghokale, Bala Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajapat Roy, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Dr. Hedgewar, Sarvarkar, and Guruji, have followed have soundness, eternal value and fundamental truth. Let these principles be our political and social starting point, the spiritual and moral fabric of Bharat.

The Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh established by Dr. Hedgewar is still working tirelessly to preserve our national character, freedom and eternal Hindu Dharma. Today’s phony secular politicians made India a heaven for Jihadi terrorists, missionary saboteurs, and criminal politicians. Politicians see power chiefly a wonderful tool to be used for personal gain to take care of themselves, their political parties and for appeasing Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fanatics. Independence Day is a day for Hindus to reaffirm our eternal Hindu Dharma. Indeed, many of the worst abusers have been associated with people who refuse to have faith in Hindutva and follow the phony secular policies of the Congress party.

They replaced our Dharma, our culture, spiritual principles and national pride and replaced it with a more benign anti national ideology and they are responsible for most of the awful mass evil of our country. Independence Day is also a day to remember millions of Hindus who lost their lives for the hundreds of years in the hands of invading Jihadi warriors and imperialist colonialists. It is a day to reflect on the Hindu massacre and carnage in Hindu Kush, Panipat, Delhi, Sindh, Punjab, Meerut, Agra, Gujarat, Bihar, Malappuram, Chittoor, and Jhansy. It is a day for remembrance of Hindu holocaust and genocide, the lost generation from 8th century through independence in 1947.

Let us remember this Independence Day to bring those buried holocausts out so that the present generation of Hindus in Bharat and abroad stand up for their rights. The awareness of this Hindu genocide is important to preserve our freedom, culture and spiritual heritage. Our freedom is not free until we fight to protect it. The power to preserve Hindu Dharma, to gain political power, dignity and respect is not a matter of freedom, but a question of power and courage to take goal directed action.

Let us pledge on this Independence Day that we shall preserve our liberty and establish real freedom to preserve, protect, practice and promote Hindu Dharma. Let us embrace the new era, the era of Hindutva, a new future.