The Summer of ’47

Ref: Fuzair $ 137

Fuzair:

``Sikhashai was synnomous with terror and tyrrany``

There was anarchy before and after Ranjit Singh, but things in Punjab were calm and without religious persecution compared to the Mughals. Ranjit Singh was successful against the Afghans only with the help of Punjabi Muslims as well as several Pathan chiefs. I had never read about the Jagirs being given for number of Afghan heads, but can believe you given the savage conditions in that area. Sikh prisoners were often forced to rip open their stomachs and bury their heads in their guts until they died of suffocation, bleeding or shock. Afghanistan never forgave the English to let Ranjit take over Peshawar and lead to the first Afghan War. Out of several thousand of the Sind Army and their camp followers, only one solitary man escaped. Decades later Kipling advised a wounded soldier to blow his brains out and meet his God, before the women came out with their carving knives.

There are two contemporary diaries available about Ranjit, one by Bokhara Burnes and an other by GG`s sister Emily somebody. Emily did not like the mousy one eyed pock-marked Maharaja but was impressed how liberal and just his rule was and how well he was loved by his subjects. She was also thoroughly impressed by Khalsa Army and the distance and accuracy of the Punjabi gunners, shooting guns cast locally in Lahore. Ranjit Singh had French, American, Irish, Italian, Russian military advisers and was able to keep the Company Bahadur at a respectful distance as long as he was alive.

Afghnistan served as a launching pad for the major Turkish invasions of India, but Punjab suffered at the hands of so many minor Afghans until Ranjit came along. Without the benefit of Wolepert he also remembered the Sandalwood gates in Gajani, taken from the Somanath temple centuries ago. The following is about Ranjit Singh, Shere-Punjab from an other site:

``After the death of Jassa Singh Ahluwalia in the year 1783 there was no successor who could have been unanimously accepted as the supreme commander of the Khalsa forces and Jathedar of the Khalsa Panth. In the absence of such a uniting force it was natural for the commanders of the Sikh Misals to assert themselves in order to enlarge their territories and areas of influence. This not only caused conflicts between various Misals, but also weakened the overall strength of the Khalsa forces. Under such conditions it would have been relatively easy task for the invading forces to defeat the Sikhs piecemeal and destroy them.

Shah Zaman, as soon as he succeeded his father Taimur, announced his intention of re-establishing the Afghan empire in India. He invaded India in 1793 and again in 1795 and 1796. By December 1796 he had occupied Punjab as far as Jhelum. Ranjit Singh decided to call a meeting of all Sikh chiefs for Sarbat Khalsa at Amritsar. While some chiefs were in favour of abandoning the plains and going into hills, the others felt that they should put up a united front under one supreme commander. Finally Ranjit Singh was chosen as the supreme commander of the Khalsa forces for the purpose of confronting Shal Zaman who had occupied Lahore by January 1797. The advancing Sikh forces drove the Afghans and their Indian supporters out of the countryside and Shah Zaman`s force started retreating. The combined Sikh forces drove Shah Zaman all the way across the Jhelum and took away much of his war material

Shah Zaman once again invaded India during the autumn of 1798. The Hindus and Sikhs began to leave their homes and seek safety in far off places. Sahib Singh Bhangi and Ranjit Singh Sukarchakia evacuated Gujrat and Gujjranwala respectively. Once again chiefs of all Misals were called at Amritsar and Ranjit Singh was chosen the commander of the combined Khalsa forces in order to defeat the forces of Shah Zaman. Once again Shah Zaman`s forces were defeated. After this the Afghans never dared to attack Punjab.

Had there been a permanently chosen supreme commander of Khalsa panth, it would have been possible to gather the combined Khalsa forces on a short notice and defeat the invading enemy. But as such an arrangement did not exist, the delay always occured in calling the chiefs of the Misals and obtaining their approval and concurrence for a common supreme commander and gathering the forces under him. Consequently during the delay some of the Misals suffered defeat and losses at the hands of the invading forces. Realizing that it may not be possible to reach at an agreement everytime to place all the combined forces under one supreme commander and also realizing that he may not be permanently selected as the supreme commander of combined forces by all Sikh Misals, Ranjit singh on the advice of his mother-in-Iaw Sada Kaur decided to subdue the other Sikh Misals one by one and gradually annex their territories to make a united Punjab of which he would be the Maharaja.

The first thing Ranjit Singh did in the direction of establishment of the kingdom of Punjab was to conquer Lahore. He encircled and occupied Lahore on 27th June 1799 from Sardars of Bhangi Misal who had liberated it from Afghans in 1765. As he was kind, just and a secular monarch the people of Lahore, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs welcomed him. There was no looting and no molestation and there was very little bloodshed in the process of conquering Lahore. During a coronation ceremony, Ranjit Singh assumed the formal title of the Maharaja of Punjab.

In the autumn of 1802 Ranjit Singh took possession of the city of Amritsar without much struggle. Many of Maharaja Ranjit Singh` victories were due to the outstandinh bravery of Baba Phula Singh and his Nihang forces.

There were a number of independent principalities still existing in the Punjab. Some of them continued to declare their allegiance to Afghanistan. Ranjit Singh invited them to declare their allegiance to the Government of Punjab. Some of them complied while some othera like Jhang under Ahmad Khan, Kasur under Nizam-ud-din Khan and Multan under Nawa Muzaffar Khan refused to do so. Ranjit Singh`s forces carried out military operations against Jhang, Kasur and Multan and annexed them to his kingdom.

Sansar Chand, ruler of Kangra was being harrassed by the Gurkhas under Ama Singh Thapa. He appealed to Maharaj Ranjit Singh to help him. Maharaja Ranjit Singh attacked the Gurkhas. They could not stand in front of the Sikh forces and took to their heels. Maharaja entered the fort of Kangra on 24th December 1809. The rulers of Kangra, Chamba, Noorpur, Kulu, Datarpur, Kotla, Jasrota, Basohli, Jaswan, Mandi and Suket came and paid homage to the Maharaja

Next Maharaja decided to take the fort of Attock in his hand. Without fighting a battle, the fort of Attock was taken by Maharaja in exchange of handsome Jagir through his minister Fakir Aziz-ud-din who negotiated with Jahandad Khan. As Attock fort was considered to be the gateway of India, Wazir Fateh Khan was furious when he came to know that it had passed into the hands of the Maharaja. He therefore came at the head of Afghan troops and surrounded the fort. The Maharaja sent a strong force under the charge of Diwan Mohkam Chand to meet the wazir. The Punjab forces crossed the river Attock and an intense battle ensued between Afghans and Sikhs in the month of July. At last the Afghans were exhausted. They broke their ranks and fled leaving their heavy guns and other war equipment to the victors. This was the first victory of the Punjabis against the Afghans. The capture of the fort of Attock meant the liberation of Northern India from Afghan menace.

The Maharaja was able to extend his kingdom in the north-west by capturing Peshawar. In October 1818 Maharaja along with two of his great Generals, Hari Singh Nalwa and Akali Phula singh marched out of Lahore at the head of his forces. After crossing the river Attock which was in flood, the Maharaja defeated the Khattaks and occupied the stronghold of Khairabad and Jahangiria. On hearing the defeat of the Khattaks, Muhammad Khan, the Afghan Governor of Peshawar, lost his heart. He ran away, leaving behind big guns, and other war materials in good condition.

The Maharaja captured Peshavar on November 19, 1818 and annexed it to Lahore. He appointed Yar Muhammad Khan as the Governor of Peshawar. On return from Peshawar, Maharaja made plans for taking Kashmir from the Afghan Governor Jabbar Khan who used to treat non-Muslims with utmost cruelty. The campaign against Kashmir started in April 1819. Jabbar Khan`s forces were defeated by Akali Phula Singh and his Akalis. The Afghans could not stand the Nihangs and fled to the hills. Thus the boundaries of the United Punjab extended upto the boundaries of Tibet and China in September 1819

Thus Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s kingdom extended from Kashmir in the north to Sind in the south, and from Sutlej in the east to Khaibar in the north-west. For centuries the Afghans and Pathans had become a source of terror to Indians, particularly to Punjabis. Maharaja Ranjit Singh had reversed the tide of repeated invasions, so that the Punjabis became a source of dread and terror to Pathans and Afghans. He ruled the United Punjab till his death in 1839. Through his secularism and kindness, he had so endeared himself to the people of Punjab irrespective of race, religion and creed that when he died in 1839, there was universal mourning in Punjab.``

Fuzair: ``It was the Industrial Revolution that put the seal on Western domination of the World``

I think you need to dig deeper. The Industrial Revolution did not just happen. What made it happen? The answer I think is: The Industrial Revolution was a big step forward, but nevertheless just one step forward, in the march of human progress. Previous steps included:

Step 1: our distinguished ancestors climb down from the trees;

Step 2: fashion and use tools;

Step 3: start civilization in the form of agricultural communities;

Step 4: engage in scientific inquiry.

These steps, incidentally, all took place without the benefit of the brits (1 and 2 were rift valley africa; 3 was bablyon, indus, china; 4 was china, greece, egypt, peru and mexico).

As the young lady sings to that quintessential englishman Mr. Higgins in My Fair Lady: we can all do bloody well without the brits if needed (and we better, since the brits, like other advanced folks, are headed towards self-genocide anyway given their declining populations).

Having said all that, hats off to the brits since they did give the world more than any other group of people I think.

Fuzair #176 To continue the use of two cows to explain things with respect to Pakistani Society:

(a) You have two cows. One cow became a bureaucrat, the other cow found God. Together the two cows milked the nation.

(b) You have two cows. One cow died. The other cow buried the first cow, declared it to be a saint, planted a few green flags, and milked all the inevitable followers.

(c) You have two cows. One cow grew a beard and milked the other cow.

dost-mittar #174: [But the loss of manufacturing industry in India under the British is well documented and cannot be ignored. Would the industry have survived in their absence. I think so. It would have either modernized or protected by whoever the local ruler was, as long as he did not have extraterritorial interests.]

Could you please post some reference which contains readonable data to back the above statement. All I know is about textile industry in Bengal. What was the industry in Punjab, Madras, UP, MP.......that was forced to close down because of the threat to British manufacturing? Was there any big business family, who became poorer from being millionaire before? I thought industry was modtly handicrafts before British came. There is definitely truth to clamping down on textile and salt? making industry in the early phase of British Raj (before 1880). However all the Parsis, Bohras, Khojas, Tatas, Birlas, Sehgals, Marwaris, Chinioti Sheikhs, Anjuman Punjabi Saudagaran-e-Delhi ( I hope Bilal Ahmad is recovering/recovered from surgery) and so on are the creation during British period.

I agree with you about ``what if`` situations. There is no way to predict what could have been and what would have been. Two nations around that area did not go through as much colonialism as we did. They are Afghanistan and Thailand. One is a relatively decent success story and other is an utter failure. My own feeling is that bureaucracy, military and tribalism/ ethnicity would have had similar mindset within each independent states of sub-continent.

Ref: Fuzair $ 137

Fuzair:

``Sikhashai was synnomous with terror and tyrrany``

There was anarchy before and after Ranjit Singh, but things in Punjab were calm and without religious persecution compared to the Mughals. Ranjit Singh was successful against the Afghans only with the help of Punjabi Muslims as well as several Pathan chiefs. I had never read about the Jagirs being given for number of Afghan heads, but can believe you given the savage conditions in that area. Sikh prisoners were often forced to rip open their stomachs and bury their heads in their guts until they died of suffocation, bleeding or shock. Afghanistan never forgave the English to let Ranjit take over Peshawar and lead to the first Afghan War. Out of several thousand of the Sind Army and their camp followers, only one solitary man escaped. Decades later Kipling advised a wounded soldier to blow his brains out and meet his God, before the women came out with their carving knives.

There are two contemporary diaries available about Ranjit, one by Bokhara Burnes and an other by GG`s sister Emily somebody. Emily did not like the mousy one eyed pock-marked Maharaja but was impressed how liberal and just his rule was and how well he was loved by his subjects. She was also thoroughly impressed by Khalsa Army and the distance and accuracy of the Punjabi gunners, shooting guns cast locally in Lahore. Ranjit Singh had French, American, Irish, Italian, Russian military advisers and was able to keep the Company Bahadur at a respectful distance as long as he was alive.

Afghnistan served as a launching pad for the major Turkish invasions of India, but Punjab suffered at the hands of so many minor Afghans until Ranjit came along. Without the benefit of Wolepert he also remembered the Sandalwood gates in Gajani, taken from the Somanath temple centuries ago. The following is about Ranjit Singh, Shere-Punjab from an other site:

``After the death of Jassa Singh Ahluwalia in the year 1783 there was no successor who could have been unanimously accepted as the supreme commander of the Khalsa forces and Jathedar of the Khalsa Panth. In the absence of such a uniting force it was natural for the commanders of the Sikh Misals to assert themselves in order to enlarge their territories and areas of influence. This not only caused conflicts between various Misals, but also weakened the overall strength of the Khalsa forces. Under such conditions it would have been relatively easy task for the invading forces to defeat the Sikhs piecemeal and destroy them.

Shah Zaman, as soon as he succeeded his father Taimur, announced his intention of re-establishing the Afghan empire in India. He invaded India in 1793 and again in 1795 and 1796. By December 1796 he had occupied Punjab as far as Jhelum. Ranjit Singh decided to call a meeting of all Sikh chiefs for Sarbat Khalsa at Amritsar. While some chiefs were in favour of abandoning the plains and going into hills, the others felt that they should put up a united front under one supreme commander. Finally Ranjit Singh was chosen as the supreme commander of the Khalsa forces for the purpose of confronting Shal Zaman who had occupied Lahore by January 1797. The advancing Sikh forces drove the Afghans and their Indian supporters out of the countryside and Shah Zaman`s force started retreating. The combined Sikh forces drove Shah Zaman all the way across the Jhelum and took away much of his war material

Shah Zaman once again invaded India during the autumn of 1798. The Hindus and Sikhs began to leave their homes and seek safety in far off places. Sahib Singh Bhangi and Ranjit Singh Sukarchakia evacuated Gujrat and Gujjranwala respectively. Once again chiefs of all Misals were called at Amritsar and Ranjit Singh was chosen the commander of the combined Khalsa forces in order to defeat the forces of Shah Zaman. Once again Shah Zaman`s forces were defeated. After this the Afghans never dared to attack Punjab.

Had there been a permanently chosen supreme commander of Khalsa panth, it would have been possible to gather the combined Khalsa forces on a short notice and defeat the invading enemy. But as such an arrangement did not exist, the delay always occured in calling the chiefs of the Misals and obtaining their approval and concurrence for a common supreme commander and gathering the forces under him. Consequently during the delay some of the Misals suffered defeat and losses at the hands of the invading forces. Realizing that it may not be possible to reach at an agreement everytime to place all the combined forces under one supreme commander and also realizing that he may not be permanently selected as the supreme commander of combined forces by all Sikh Misals, Ranjit singh on the advice of his mother-in-Iaw Sada Kaur decided to subdue the other Sikh Misals one by one and gradually annex their territories to make a united Punjab of which he would be the Maharaja.

The first thing Ranjit Singh did in the direction of establishment of the kingdom of Punjab was to conquer Lahore. He encircled and occupied Lahore on 27th June 1799 from Sardars of Bhangi Misal who had liberated it from Afghans in 1765. As he was kind, just and a secular monarch the people of Lahore, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs welcomed him. There was no looting and no molestation and there was very little bloodshed in the process of conquering Lahore. During a coronation ceremony, Ranjit Singh assumed the formal title of the Maharaja of Punjab.

In the autumn of 1802 Ranjit Singh took possession of the city of Amritsar without much struggle. Many of Maharaja Ranjit Singh` victories were due to the outstandinh bravery of Baba Phula Singh and his Nihang forces.

There were a number of independent principalities still existing in the Punjab. Some of them continued to declare their allegiance to Afghanistan. Ranjit Singh invited them to declare their allegiance to the Government of Punjab. Some of them complied while some othera like Jhang under Ahmad Khan, Kasur under Nizam-ud-din Khan and Multan under Nawa Muzaffar Khan refused to do so. Ranjit Singh`s forces carried out military operations against Jhang, Kasur and Multan and annexed them to his kingdom.

Sansar Chand, ruler of Kangra was being harrassed by the Gurkhas under Ama Singh Thapa. He appealed to Maharaj Ranjit Singh to help him. Maharaja Ranjit Singh attacked the Gurkhas. They could not stand in front of the Sikh forces and took to their heels. Maharaja entered the fort of Kangra on 24th December 1809. The rulers of Kangra, Chamba, Noorpur, Kulu, Datarpur, Kotla, Jasrota, Basohli, Jaswan, Mandi and Suket came and paid homage to the Maharaja

Next Maharaja decided to take the fort of Attock in his hand. Without fighting a battle, the fort of Attock was taken by Maharaja in exchange of handsome Jagir through his minister Fakir Aziz-ud-din who negotiated with Jahandad Khan. As Attock fort was considered to be the gateway of India, Wazir Fateh Khan was furious when he came to know that it had passed into the hands of the Maharaja. He therefore came at the head of Afghan troops and surrounded the fort. The Maharaja sent a strong force under the charge of Diwan Mohkam Chand to meet the wazir. The Punjab forces crossed the river Attock and an intense battle ensued between Afghans and Sikhs in the month of July. At last the Afghans were exhausted. They broke their ranks and fled leaving their heavy guns and other war equipment to the victors. This was the first victory of the Punjabis against the Afghans. The capture of the fort of Attock meant the liberation of Northern India from Afghan menace.

The Maharaja was able to extend his kingdom in the north-west by capturing Peshawar. In October 1818 Maharaja along with two of his great Generals, Hari Singh Nalwa and Akali Phula singh marched out of Lahore at the head of his forces. After crossing the river Attock which was in flood, the Maharaja defeated the Khattaks and occupied the stronghold of Khairabad and Jahangiria. On hearing the defeat of the Khattaks, Muhammad Khan, the Afghan Governor of Peshawar, lost his heart. He ran away, leaving behind big guns, and other war materials in good condition.

The Maharaja captured Peshavar on November 19, 1818 and annexed it to Lahore. He appointed Yar Muhammad Khan as the Governor of Peshawar. On return from Peshawar, Maharaja made plans for taking Kashmir from the Afghan Governor Jabbar Khan who used to treat non-Muslims with utmost cruelty. The campaign against Kashmir started in April 1819. Jabbar Khan`s forces were defeated by Akali Phula Singh and his Akalis. The Afghans could not stand the Nihangs and fled to the hills. Thus the boundaries of the United Punjab extended upto the boundaries of Tibet and China in September 1819

Thus Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s kingdom extended from Kashmir in the north to Sind in the south, and from Sutlej in the east to Khaibar in the north-west. For centuries the Afghans and Pathans had become a source of terror to Indians, particularly to Punjabis. Maharaja Ranjit Singh had reversed the tide of repeated invasions, so that the Punjabis became a source of dread and terror to Pathans and Afghans. He ruled the United Punjab till his death in 1839. Through his secularism and kindness, he had so endeared himself to the people of Punjab irrespective of race, religion and creed that when he died in 1839, there was universal mourning in Punjab.``

Re:Reply #: 147

ylh,

Yes, we got all the bright ideas about democracy, free speech etc from the British. Still, would we have not gotten those ideas if we were not colonised? Would such ideas not have galvanised us to unity? These good ideas were not something specially churned out for the Indians.Ideas of liberty, equality, free speech are potent for any generation. Look how quickly these ideas permeated the U.S. It is to the credit of some Indians that they took what best the British could offer. Food for thought.

Sridhar

Re:Reply #: 144

Pankaj,

A nice analysis.

Sridhar

Re:Reply #: 136

sigalph235

``Had the English not ruled the Subcontinent would the place be more democratic, more healthy, more open, more tolerant, and more unified than it is today?``.

We will never know the answer to your question as we were not given that choice.

Re:Reply #: 123

tahmed321,

No Sir, I am not claiming to be holier than anyone. All i am trying to do is to point out in my own way that we were not as bad as we think we were. We (i mean the people of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh)are heir to a great civilization. That civilisation touched its nadir when East India Company came to trade with us. Mughal power had declined and there was a vaccum. Traders soon became rulers. That history is well known to all of us. British used to take a lot of pain to tell us that we were of a race born to be ruled. This created a kind of inferiority complex among Indians. When the chips are down, it is easy to believe what you are told by your masters. To this day, we find it hard to break the shackles. How many of us have not noticed, while travelling in our respective countries,the instant recognition and respect we get when we coverse in English.

One thing i do concede. They did make India into a geo-political entity. Until then India was just a concept without any geographical reality. The Mughals or the rulers before might have called the land of hindus as Hindustan but they certainly did not mean any fixed geographical area. British did build a vast network of roads, postal and telegraph etc. The question is did they do it from an altruistic motive or for personal gains. Railways were needed to speedily move troops to the areas of insurgency. So also the telegraphs and other means of communications.

Would free India not have established these anyway? As Gandhiji said, we would have preferred bad self-rule to a good foreign rule.

Regards,

Sridhar

This has absolutely nothing to do with any topic currently under discussion but, what the heck. Its funny.

Needless to say, its NOT a Fuzair original.

Enjoy!


A COWSMIC VIEW OF WORLD ORGANIZATION

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else`s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else`s cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and as many eggs as the regulations say you should need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

SINGAPORE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. The government fines you for keeping two unlicensed animals in an apartment.

MILITARISM: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: The government promises to give you two cows if you vote for it. After the election, the president is impeached for
speculating in cow futures. The press dubs the affair ``Cowgate``.

BRITISH DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You feed them sheep`s brains and they go mad. The government doesn`t do anything.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not
to milk them. After that it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms
accounting for the missing cows.

ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors kill you and take the cows.

CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

HONG KONG CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your
brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax
deduction for keeping five cows. The milk rights of six cows are transferred via a Panamanian intermediary to a Cayman Islands company secretly
owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows` milk back to the listed company. The annual report says that the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Meanwhile, you kill the two cows because the Feng Shui is bad.

ENVIRONMENTALISM: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

FEMINISM: You have two cows. They get married and adopt a veal calf.

TOTALITARIANISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: You are associated with (the concept of ``ownership``is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war-mongering, intolerant past)
two differently-aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

COUNTER CULTURE: Wow, dude, there`s like... these two cows, man. You got to have some of this milk. Far out! Awesome!

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

JAPANESE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You give the milk to gangsters so they don`t ask any awkward questions about who you`re giving the
milk to.

EUROPEAN FEDERALISM: You have two cows which cost too much money to care for because everybody is buying milk imported from some cheap
east-European country and would never pay the fortune you`d have to ask for your cows` milk. So you apply for financial aid from the European
Union to subsidise your cows and are granted enough subsidies. You then sell your milk at the former elevated price to some government-owned
distributor which then dumps your milk onto the market at east-European prices to make Europe competitive. You spend the money you got as a
subsidy on two new cows and then go on a demonstration to Brussels complaining that the European farm-policy is going drive you out of your job.

EASTERN EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. You sell the milk (diluted with some water) at a high price to the neighbors or to anyone at the open-air market. If somebody asks for a receipt, you charge a two-times higher price, so nobody will request an invoice. For concerned
families with small babies you claim that the milk is ``bio``, though you collect the grass for feeding at the side of the highway and you keep the
milk in plastic barrels used previously as containers for toxic chemicals. Later, your neighbor or somebody else from town will steal the cows and will sell their meat for a high price, and if you ask for a receipt, you will be charged a two-times higher price.

FINNISH SOCIALISM: You have two cows. Soon you have to kill one of them because in the Netherlands there is an overproduction of milk and the European Union rules say so. When you do so, you realize that it was not necessary, only the system was too slow in getting you the up-to-date
news. From the stress, you get an ulcer in your stomach so you go to a doctor. The doctor realizes that this ulcer is a serious one, so you need
urgent treatment. Therefore, you soon get a call to the local hospital. The call`s date is for 3 months later, because there is a queue with
more urgent cases. Then your ulcer becomes even more serious because you remember that 40 percent plus of your income is taken for social tax.

Re: Dost-mittar #174

I beg to differ with you re: Japan. If you remember, the Japanese government, the Shogun, had deliberately decided to give up ALL technological progress in the seventeenth century when European colonialism/technology wasn`t really all that much better--if it was better at all--than the Chinese or Indian. You have the Meiji Restoration in Japan ONLY because certain elements in the Japanese elite were afraid that they too would be soon colonized by the West (remember Commodore Perry`s infamous Black Ships?) unless they discarded their ancient ways and beat the West at its own game. That is precisely what they proceded to do.

Japan, without the goad and model of the West, was actually going backwards in time, as far as technological development of its manufacturing base was concerned. So, no west, no progress and no modernization for Japan. I suspect that the decaying empires in India and the internecine series of wars and successor states would have put paid to any nascent industrial revolution in the Bengal. I don`t see Siraj ud Dowlah or Mir Jafar trying to ensure that Bengal has a socio-economic climate favorable for the small artisan and budding proto-bourgeois manufacturer. Or have I missed reading about their industrial development plan?

It was the Industrial Revolution that put the seal on Western domination of the World and it was the steam engine that really made the Industrial Revolution feasible. Now, the ancient Greeks had a working model of a steam engine BUT it was a children`s toy that was never put to any practical use. I believe I`ve also read somewhere that the ancient Chinese also had one (but then, didn`t they have everything? they just didn`t know what to do with any of it).

Regards again.

ylh

[`Jinnah is secular is an Islamist propaganda` ... `YLH reads Islamist Propaganda`]

Dont lie. I never said anything of that kind. If your hero Jinnah was anything like you he must have been the biggest lier of the twentieth century.

Show me where I said those things, or accept that you are a little learning-disabled LIER.

Shah 167

[DONT THE SIKKIM,BHUTANESE, GOANESE,even the Naga,& whole N.E. wish they shared border with ONE country like PAKISTAN,then true independent india would have been tested.]

They dont. If they did, Pakistan would have disappeared by now. One Kashmir obsession is making you eat grass. Ten obsessions would have killed you.

[equivalent to STALKING & Sexual harrasment.]

Legally Pakistan should be stoned to death for Zina - adultery with someone else`s legally married spouse.

ylh

Your beating your own drums is pitiable. It is not what you read, it what you learn, baby. You have nothing to show for your readings.

Some one come give this kid coupla ego shots. PM?

Gowardhan :

If shah is bad you are worse... your sweeping statements `Jinnah is secular is an Islamist propaganda` ... `YLH reads Islamist Propaganda`( YLH reads Bolitho, Wolpert, Dr AJeet Javed Singh, Sarah Heath, Ayesha Jalal, Bandopadhya, BR Ambedkar, HV Hodson, Patrick French, Beverley Nichols etc Indeed they are all ISLAMISTS!)

Instead of making sweeping statements which have no basis in reality try showing me the problems with the facts... Since you couldnt argue you started making these statements ... arguing against the imagined origin ... instead of arguing on the basis of facts....

Akash read Post #747 on Desouza`s board... where you clearly infer that Fuzair and Sameerjb hate me.

If you can infer that I am racist from `Shah Rukh Khan is as brown as me so his family probably didnt move from Peshawar to India one generation ago` then there is a lot to be said about your statement.