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Tilak and Gokhale
Tragedy or Triumph?
A sensational rediscovery of Jinnah & India’s Partition
BY VT PATIL & ASIANANDA
Mohammad Ali Jinnah always claimed that he was an Indian first and Muslim next. The Muslim Gokhale, the ‘future Indian Prime Minister’, the archetypal Indian of the imperial Victorian era, were all his epitaphs. It was only at the last phase of his life that Jinnah became the arch enemy of the unity idea and the author of two nation theory and of Pakistan. How could this dramatic shift take place, one that changed the fate of India’s future and of human future in a certain sense? Was it Jinnah’s personal wound that was magnified as the collective partition wound of the subcontinent? No other Muslim of the then British India could have exerted the will enforcing the partition upon the subcontinent. Was partition Jinnah’s response for the negations and lack of personal fulfillment he experienced and then projected them as the hurt and humiliation of the Muslim community in India? Was Islam going to be in danger under the Hindu Raj? As the only solution available at that time, was partition more a boon than bane? If Freedom to India came in 1949, i.e. after Jinnah died, would there have been partition? The book looks at these questions afresh and in a way never attempted before.
Hegel correctly characterized the way of life of the East as ‘Oriental Despotism’. Until the British administrators took steps to organize Indian opinion by founding the Indian National Congress in 1885, Indians hardly knew of national consciousness or popular will. The masses had no awareness whatever that the predominantly Jammu & Kashmir was ruled by a Hindu Maharaja or the predominantly Hindu Hyderabad by the Muslim Nizam. The so called First Independence Revolution which for the British was ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ was organized in equal partnership between Hindus and Muslims to replace the British again with the Mughal emperor. This shows that there is still no idea that Hindus and Muslims were two communities, leave alone two nations.
Congress emerged predominantly as Hindu organization, the Muslims kept aloof. It was the partition of Bengal (1905) and the massive Hindu agitation for revoking it that made the Indian Muslims feel the Hindu antagonism and their will to dominate the passive fellow Muslims. Won’t the British Raj one day be replaced by Hindu Raj and Muslims enslaved by Hindus?
Muslim response was prompt: on 1 October 1906 thirtysix representatives of the Muslim aristocracy under the leadership of Aga Khan waited on Lord Minto the Viceroy in Simla, and 30 December of the same year Muslim League was founded in Dacca. MA Jinnah, the leading Indian Muslim of the time, was attending the twentyfirst session of the Indian National Congress under the presidency of Dadabhai Naoroji, which was coincidentally happening in Calcutta on the day the Muslim League was founded in Dacca. As secretary to the Grand Old Man and the secretary to the twentyfirst Congress, Jinnah was indeed one of the architects and key players of the twentyfirst Congress session responding to the crucial Bengal partition. Jinnah saw the partition as a master stroke of the British policy of divide and rule, his sole concern since then was to bring together Congress and Muslim League under the same roof. This was crowned with success in the 1916 Lucknow Pact. Jinnah had such an awareness of India’s fundamental unity – which he knew was geographical, historical, civilizational, strategical, metaphysical (spiritual) – the indivisible unity of diversities that India is. Jinnah was truly the visionary, missionary, prophet, saint, martyr - in the cause of defending and upholding that unity – except during the last phase of his life, the Pakistan phase.
Chasm between Gandhi’s politics & TRUTH
Gandhi was the staunch British supporter during World War I. Back from South Africa, Gandhi the Mahatma the saint of nonviolence went on the recruiting spree during 1917 and 1918. At the War Conference called by viceroy Chelmsford in the April of latter year Gandhi seconded the resolution on recruitment with the words, “With a full sense of my responsibility I beg to support the resolution.” [Wolpert,54]. Having rendered such unconditional cooperation to the British, how could this Gandhi have launched such a massive and vehement non-cooperation movement just after another year? Not only was Jinnah the veteran Congress leader but also all his peers – Motilal Nehru, CR Das, Malaviya, Lajpat Rai, Annie Besant – stood for cooperation. But non-cooperation and its boycotts were populist, Gandhi had mass appeal and charisma, he made the pact with the Khilafat Muslims, and could manage thus to capture Congress leadership. If cooperation were the path Congress chose, it would have been not Gandhi but Jinnah who would have been the towering figure of the Freedom movement. If so Gandhi would have been the shadow, the anti-particle, the negated mirror image. Which was to become Jinnah’s lot.
Having captured the leadership, he himself called off non-cooperation for the flimsiest imaginable reason. Gandhi took nationalist politics to the road of populism, emotionalism, religious polarization, chaos. Increasingly it appeared to the Muslims that Congress was a Hindu organization. Down the road of non-cooperation Congress became just a pubertarian rebel – somewhat comparable only to the Kashmiri Hurriyat or today’s Jihadis. In 1929 when the British announced the Round Table Conferences of 1930, 1931, 1932 Congress simply felt threatened in its pubertarian fixations. Instead of accepting responsibility, it declared Purna Swaraj at the Lahore Congress of December 1929 and entered again the road of civil disobedience – Gandhi’s historic Salt March 1930.
Again in 1942, Congress rejected the most generous Cripps Offer, which virtually offered what Congress sought, because Britain was then in the sinking ship of World War II. The Congress then went for the famous or notorious Quit India, and thus inflicted upon partition of India on itself.
Congress and Congress alone is responsible for partition. Gandhi stood for chaos, or spiritual anarchy. He stood against order and civilization. His prescription to British fighting Hitler was to lay down the arms and practice nonviolent resistance! While the Indian army was frantically defending the subcontinent against the Japanese, his exhortation was alone ‘Quit India’, ‘leave the country to God or chaos’.
But for partition and the order it imposed on the subcontinent, Gandhian chaos would just have plunged the region in chaos and a mighty civil war, comparable alone to the Chinese or the American civil war. Partition was no tragedy; it was the blessing in disguise, the triumph. But for partition there would have been no centralized Indian state; and no Indian presence in world politics as a great civilization and alternative global vision. No other scheme – like the Cabinet Mission Plan – would have worked. For one thing it would have devolved the residual power of sovereignty to the provinces, which in effect would have castrated the Indian personality. For the other, the Indian princes would have asserted their sovereignties, India would have been terribly balkanized, and ended up in protracted civil wars in any other but partition arrangement.
Partition is what saved India from the Gandhian chaos, it stood as bulwark against the fragmentation the Congress non-cooperation had tumbled the subcontinent into. It was his martyrdom that made Gandhi the Father of the Nation. Nehru who was his anointed successor could have created the era that is named after him alone by consciously cultivating Gandhi as the Father of the Nation. Gandhi became Father of the Nation alone during the Nehru era, progressively vanishing from the national scene during his successors, with BJP and Pokhran II completing the eclipse.
Because Gandhi was the Mahatma, the Saint, the Father of the Nation, its shadow images were projected on Jinnah – the villain of partition, sinner against Mother India, the anti-Christ of everything that is Gandhian, Indian, Hindu – the devil of Pakistan. Pakistan was no tragedy, it was created by the Gandhian politics, it was but a blessing in disguise. What Indians and Pakistanis are called upon today is to diffusing the emotional fixations, misconceptions and obsessions, the shadows and mirror images.
There is a way to re-trace the path of non-cooperation and pubertarian rebellions that led to partition, there is indeed a way to reach back to the Jinnah of the Lucknow Pact, the epoch of Hindu-Muslim consensus, the imperial consensus of the Pax Britannica of the pre-Gandhian India, and building up a South Asian Home and South Asian Peace Order extending into an Asian Home and Asian Peace Order, Planetary Home and Planetary Peace Order. And such a grand millennial goal of the ultimate Human Commonwelath, the Round Table, is what is promised in this Sensational Redisocovery of Jinnah and India’s Partition. If enduring peace has to come about in South Asia and the nuclear catastrophe is to be prevented, the clock of Indian history is to be put back to 1920 is the argument of this book.
His TRUTH made him the Supreme Soul, the Mahatma
If Gandhi incarnated the spirit of Hindu India, Jinnah incarnated much of the Muslim India. If we put the clock back to 1920, neither is there a Hindu India nor Muslim India. While Gandhi’s politics polarized, his Truth transcended politics and history. It was the cosmic Truth – Moral Order of the Cosmos – it was the vedic and the vedantic truth, the buddhistic truth embodied in emperor Ashoka, the syncretic truth that India personifies. Gandhiji’s soul verily embodied the Self – the Self that could contain all egos, the One that is the whole of the Many. At this level Gandhi’s Self contains also Jinnah’s ego – Gandhi sincerely offered the prime ministership of Free India to Jinnah. Hinduism is the metaphysical religion, it is the Religion of all religions, India has accommodated Islam, her avataric chain contains the Prophet and the Allah as it contains the Buddha and Christ and all other religious founders. Gandhi has come to embody this all-encompassing Self that gives us the definite reassurance that there is going to be a South Asian Home and South Asian Peace Order flowing into a common Asian Home and Asian Peace Order heralding the Planetary Home and the Planetary Peace Order.
Like Christ symbolizes the watershed between the Old Testament and New Testament, Gandhi symbolizes the watershed of the passage of History from the linear to the cyclical, from ego to Self, from Force to Peace, from the exploding greed and profit and pleasure maximization that is going to destroy this planet to a need-based life in the wholeness of the Self. Gandhi is the promise of History’s passage from animality (Force) to Humanity (Nonviolence) and its transcendence to Divinity (Truth).
History is moving from its industrial age of the modern period to the postmodern period of the Planetary Age. It heralds a post-nuclear and millennial GLOBAL PEACE ORDER, which can rise alone from the cyclical, the Self, Gandhi embodied. Like the Pax Britannica passed away, the ruling order of the unipolar world will pass away; the Pax Indica of the Spirit is the world order of the third millennium. Posterity will remember Gandhi as the watershed as Buddha or Christ are remembered, the Prophet and similar religious and historic figures are remembered.
There is such an unbridgeable difference between Gandhi’s politics and Gandhiji’s TRUTH. This mega range analysis of the sensational discovery of Jinnah and the partition of India in the final analysis is the metaphysical discovery of Gandhi, not the person, but the Self the Truth that he embodies. At this level there is no conflict between Jinnah and Gandhi, nor between Hindus and Muslims. It is to reach out this Gandhi we will have to put the clock back to 1920 and reach out the Jinnah – cooperation – of the pre-Gandhian era. Then Gandhi and Jinnah, Hindus and Muslims, will be reconciled as the root and shoot of the same Tree.
This is the summary of the introductory part of the book. It follows Jinnah in the four crucial phases of his life – each in a part - (1) his meteoric rise in Congress leadership in the pre-Gandhian India, (2) 1920s – his persistence to bring about accommodation from the Muslim League matrix ending in Delhi Proposals and Fourteen Points (3) 1930s – the Round Table Conferences & his self imposed exile in Britain, and (4) 1940s – the Pakistani Phase. And leads the reader through the sensational re-discovery of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the partition of we have narrated here.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 11, 2003 09:17 am
JINNAHTragedy or Triumph?
A sensational rediscovery of Jinnah & India’s Partition
BY VT PATIL & ASIANANDA
Mohammad Ali Jinnah always claimed that he was an Indian first and Muslim next. The Muslim Gokhale, the ‘future Indian Prime Minister’, the archetypal Indian of the imperial Victorian era, were all his epitaphs. It was only at the last phase of his life that Jinnah became the arch enemy of the unity idea and the author of two nation theory and of Pakistan. How could this dramatic shift take place, one that changed the fate of India’s future and of human future in a certain sense? Was it Jinnah’s personal wound that was magnified as the collective partition wound of the subcontinent? No other Muslim of the then British India could have exerted the will enforcing the partition upon the subcontinent. Was partition Jinnah’s response for the negations and lack of personal fulfillment he experienced and then projected them as the hurt and humiliation of the Muslim community in India? Was Islam going to be in danger under the Hindu Raj? As the only solution available at that time, was partition more a boon than bane? If Freedom to India came in 1949, i.e. after Jinnah died, would there have been partition? The book looks at these questions afresh and in a way never attempted before.
Hegel correctly characterized the way of life of the East as ‘Oriental Despotism’. Until the British administrators took steps to organize Indian opinion by founding the Indian National Congress in 1885, Indians hardly knew of national consciousness or popular will. The masses had no awareness whatever that the predominantly Jammu & Kashmir was ruled by a Hindu Maharaja or the predominantly Hindu Hyderabad by the Muslim Nizam. The so called First Independence Revolution which for the British was ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ was organized in equal partnership between Hindus and Muslims to replace the British again with the Mughal emperor. This shows that there is still no idea that Hindus and Muslims were two communities, leave alone two nations.
Congress emerged predominantly as Hindu organization, the Muslims kept aloof. It was the partition of Bengal (1905) and the massive Hindu agitation for revoking it that made the Indian Muslims feel the Hindu antagonism and their will to dominate the passive fellow Muslims. Won’t the British Raj one day be replaced by Hindu Raj and Muslims enslaved by Hindus?
Muslim response was prompt: on 1 October 1906 thirtysix representatives of the Muslim aristocracy under the leadership of Aga Khan waited on Lord Minto the Viceroy in Simla, and 30 December of the same year Muslim League was founded in Dacca. MA Jinnah, the leading Indian Muslim of the time, was attending the twentyfirst session of the Indian National Congress under the presidency of Dadabhai Naoroji, which was coincidentally happening in Calcutta on the day the Muslim League was founded in Dacca. As secretary to the Grand Old Man and the secretary to the twentyfirst Congress, Jinnah was indeed one of the architects and key players of the twentyfirst Congress session responding to the crucial Bengal partition. Jinnah saw the partition as a master stroke of the British policy of divide and rule, his sole concern since then was to bring together Congress and Muslim League under the same roof. This was crowned with success in the 1916 Lucknow Pact. Jinnah had such an awareness of India’s fundamental unity – which he knew was geographical, historical, civilizational, strategical, metaphysical (spiritual) – the indivisible unity of diversities that India is. Jinnah was truly the visionary, missionary, prophet, saint, martyr - in the cause of defending and upholding that unity – except during the last phase of his life, the Pakistan phase.
Chasm between Gandhi’s politics & TRUTH
Gandhi was the staunch British supporter during World War I. Back from South Africa, Gandhi the Mahatma the saint of nonviolence went on the recruiting spree during 1917 and 1918. At the War Conference called by viceroy Chelmsford in the April of latter year Gandhi seconded the resolution on recruitment with the words, “With a full sense of my responsibility I beg to support the resolution.” [Wolpert,54]. Having rendered such unconditional cooperation to the British, how could this Gandhi have launched such a massive and vehement non-cooperation movement just after another year? Not only was Jinnah the veteran Congress leader but also all his peers – Motilal Nehru, CR Das, Malaviya, Lajpat Rai, Annie Besant – stood for cooperation. But non-cooperation and its boycotts were populist, Gandhi had mass appeal and charisma, he made the pact with the Khilafat Muslims, and could manage thus to capture Congress leadership. If cooperation were the path Congress chose, it would have been not Gandhi but Jinnah who would have been the towering figure of the Freedom movement. If so Gandhi would have been the shadow, the anti-particle, the negated mirror image. Which was to become Jinnah’s lot.
Having captured the leadership, he himself called off non-cooperation for the flimsiest imaginable reason. Gandhi took nationalist politics to the road of populism, emotionalism, religious polarization, chaos. Increasingly it appeared to the Muslims that Congress was a Hindu organization. Down the road of non-cooperation Congress became just a pubertarian rebel – somewhat comparable only to the Kashmiri Hurriyat or today’s Jihadis. In 1929 when the British announced the Round Table Conferences of 1930, 1931, 1932 Congress simply felt threatened in its pubertarian fixations. Instead of accepting responsibility, it declared Purna Swaraj at the Lahore Congress of December 1929 and entered again the road of civil disobedience – Gandhi’s historic Salt March 1930.
Again in 1942, Congress rejected the most generous Cripps Offer, which virtually offered what Congress sought, because Britain was then in the sinking ship of World War II. The Congress then went for the famous or notorious Quit India, and thus inflicted upon partition of India on itself.
Congress and Congress alone is responsible for partition. Gandhi stood for chaos, or spiritual anarchy. He stood against order and civilization. His prescription to British fighting Hitler was to lay down the arms and practice nonviolent resistance! While the Indian army was frantically defending the subcontinent against the Japanese, his exhortation was alone ‘Quit India’, ‘leave the country to God or chaos’.
But for partition and the order it imposed on the subcontinent, Gandhian chaos would just have plunged the region in chaos and a mighty civil war, comparable alone to the Chinese or the American civil war. Partition was no tragedy; it was the blessing in disguise, the triumph. But for partition there would have been no centralized Indian state; and no Indian presence in world politics as a great civilization and alternative global vision. No other scheme – like the Cabinet Mission Plan – would have worked. For one thing it would have devolved the residual power of sovereignty to the provinces, which in effect would have castrated the Indian personality. For the other, the Indian princes would have asserted their sovereignties, India would have been terribly balkanized, and ended up in protracted civil wars in any other but partition arrangement.
Partition is what saved India from the Gandhian chaos, it stood as bulwark against the fragmentation the Congress non-cooperation had tumbled the subcontinent into. It was his martyrdom that made Gandhi the Father of the Nation. Nehru who was his anointed successor could have created the era that is named after him alone by consciously cultivating Gandhi as the Father of the Nation. Gandhi became Father of the Nation alone during the Nehru era, progressively vanishing from the national scene during his successors, with BJP and Pokhran II completing the eclipse.
Because Gandhi was the Mahatma, the Saint, the Father of the Nation, its shadow images were projected on Jinnah – the villain of partition, sinner against Mother India, the anti-Christ of everything that is Gandhian, Indian, Hindu – the devil of Pakistan. Pakistan was no tragedy, it was created by the Gandhian politics, it was but a blessing in disguise. What Indians and Pakistanis are called upon today is to diffusing the emotional fixations, misconceptions and obsessions, the shadows and mirror images.
There is a way to re-trace the path of non-cooperation and pubertarian rebellions that led to partition, there is indeed a way to reach back to the Jinnah of the Lucknow Pact, the epoch of Hindu-Muslim consensus, the imperial consensus of the Pax Britannica of the pre-Gandhian India, and building up a South Asian Home and South Asian Peace Order extending into an Asian Home and Asian Peace Order, Planetary Home and Planetary Peace Order. And such a grand millennial goal of the ultimate Human Commonwelath, the Round Table, is what is promised in this Sensational Redisocovery of Jinnah and India’s Partition. If enduring peace has to come about in South Asia and the nuclear catastrophe is to be prevented, the clock of Indian history is to be put back to 1920 is the argument of this book.
His TRUTH made him the Supreme Soul, the Mahatma
If Gandhi incarnated the spirit of Hindu India, Jinnah incarnated much of the Muslim India. If we put the clock back to 1920, neither is there a Hindu India nor Muslim India. While Gandhi’s politics polarized, his Truth transcended politics and history. It was the cosmic Truth – Moral Order of the Cosmos – it was the vedic and the vedantic truth, the buddhistic truth embodied in emperor Ashoka, the syncretic truth that India personifies. Gandhiji’s soul verily embodied the Self – the Self that could contain all egos, the One that is the whole of the Many. At this level Gandhi’s Self contains also Jinnah’s ego – Gandhi sincerely offered the prime ministership of Free India to Jinnah. Hinduism is the metaphysical religion, it is the Religion of all religions, India has accommodated Islam, her avataric chain contains the Prophet and the Allah as it contains the Buddha and Christ and all other religious founders. Gandhi has come to embody this all-encompassing Self that gives us the definite reassurance that there is going to be a South Asian Home and South Asian Peace Order flowing into a common Asian Home and Asian Peace Order heralding the Planetary Home and the Planetary Peace Order.
Like Christ symbolizes the watershed between the Old Testament and New Testament, Gandhi symbolizes the watershed of the passage of History from the linear to the cyclical, from ego to Self, from Force to Peace, from the exploding greed and profit and pleasure maximization that is going to destroy this planet to a need-based life in the wholeness of the Self. Gandhi is the promise of History’s passage from animality (Force) to Humanity (Nonviolence) and its transcendence to Divinity (Truth).
History is moving from its industrial age of the modern period to the postmodern period of the Planetary Age. It heralds a post-nuclear and millennial GLOBAL PEACE ORDER, which can rise alone from the cyclical, the Self, Gandhi embodied. Like the Pax Britannica passed away, the ruling order of the unipolar world will pass away; the Pax Indica of the Spirit is the world order of the third millennium. Posterity will remember Gandhi as the watershed as Buddha or Christ are remembered, the Prophet and similar religious and historic figures are remembered.
There is such an unbridgeable difference between Gandhi’s politics and Gandhiji’s TRUTH. This mega range analysis of the sensational discovery of Jinnah and the partition of India in the final analysis is the metaphysical discovery of Gandhi, not the person, but the Self the Truth that he embodies. At this level there is no conflict between Jinnah and Gandhi, nor between Hindus and Muslims. It is to reach out this Gandhi we will have to put the clock back to 1920 and reach out the Jinnah – cooperation – of the pre-Gandhian era. Then Gandhi and Jinnah, Hindus and Muslims, will be reconciled as the root and shoot of the same Tree.
This is the summary of the introductory part of the book. It follows Jinnah in the four crucial phases of his life – each in a part - (1) his meteoric rise in Congress leadership in the pre-Gandhian India, (2) 1920s – his persistence to bring about accommodation from the Muslim League matrix ending in Delhi Proposals and Fourteen Points (3) 1930s – the Round Table Conferences & his self imposed exile in Britain, and (4) 1940s – the Pakistani Phase. And leads the reader through the sensational re-discovery of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the partition of we have narrated here.
Unsettling Precedents for Pakistan
Pak drive to destroy India’s secular ethos
by G. Parthasarathy
DURING their recent visit to Pakistan, Indian Members of Parliament warmly embraced and shook hands with the President of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Chaudhuri Shujaat Hussain, who was the Interior (Home) Minister in Mr Nawaz Sharif’s government. Chaudhuri Shujaat broke ranks with Mr Sharif and spearheaded the movement to establish the PML (Q), with due encouragement and support from General Musharraf and the ISI. He was a leading aspirant for the post of Prime Minister in the Musharraf dispensation, but had to settle for his cousin Chaudhuri Parvez Elahi being appointed the Chief Minister of Punjab while he became the leader of the PML (Q). He is now one of General Musharraf’s closest political cronies. Even as our parliamentarians were bending backwards to meet Chaudhuri Shujaat, he had some interesting things to say about relations with India.
He proclaimed: “Running buses, trains and exchange of cultural delegations between the two countries cannot buy peace without a resolution of the core issue of Kashmir. Peace in this region can be achieved only when the core issue (of Kashmir) is resolved to the satisfaction of the wishes of the Kashmiri people.” Put bluntly, Chaudhuri Shujaat was disowning the Simla Agreement that requires all issues, including Kashmir, to be resolved peacefully and bilaterally. He was also threatening recourse to war if Pakistan’s ambitions on Kashmir were not fulfilled. All this was happening when our parliamentarians led by Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav were talking about the need to “demolish the wall of hatred”.
There is little doubt that hardly any of our parliamentarians knew about the backgrounds of their interlocutors. If they had done their homework properly, they would have known that Chaudhuri Shujaat Hussain and his family have been part of a network in Pakistan, backed by the ISI, that has been at the very epicentre of efforts to fan separatism and terrorism in Punjab. Both Shujaat and his late father Chaudhuri Zahoor Elahi were part of this network set up by Gen Zia-ul-Haq. Incidentally, Pakistani moves to fan Sikh separatism in Punjab picked up momentum shortly after the visit of the then Foreign Minister of India, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to Pakistan in 1978. Virtually all important separatist Sikh leaders from abroad like Jagjit Singh Chauhan and Ganga Singh Dhillon enjoyed the personal hospitality of the family of Chaudhuri Zahoor Elahi during their visits to Pakistan. Even today this Pakistani infrastructure of terrorism plays host to wanted terrorists from Punjab linked to organisations like the Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation that were involved in the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. This infrastructure extends to ISI cells in Pakistani missions abroad that incite persons running gurdwaras to keep alive the call for “Khalistan”.
At a recent meeting that I had with a group of prominent Pakistanis in a South Asian capital, a close associate of General Musharraf bluntly remarked that if India believed that it could ignore differences with Pakistan and move ahead economically, his country would have no difficulty in taking steps to retard Indian economic progress. A few years ago a former Director-General of the ISI remarked to me that Pakistan would see to it that jihad in Kashmir would draw support from Muslims all across India. This was in response to an assertion by me that Muslims in India were proud of the secular ethos of their country. It is important to bear these factors in mind while assessing the challenge that Pakistani policies pose to India. Pakistani ideologues, especially in their Punjabi dominated armed forces establishment, believe that they are the true inheritors of the Mughal throne in Delhi. Like the Mughals, their concept of “Hindustan” ends with the Vindhya mountains. A former ISI chief actually told me that he did not regard me to be “Hindustani” because my hometown Chennai was south of the Vindhya mountains!!
Terrorist acts like bomb blasts in Mumbai, the attack on the Red Fort and Parliament in Delhi and on the Akshardham Temple in Gujarat have to be seen and understood in the context of this Pakistani mindset. Assertions by General Musharraf and his sidekick, Gen Aziz Khan, that low intensity conflict and tensions with India will continue even if the Kashmir issue is resolved merely reflect this mindset. They strongly believe that India must be weakened and divided and its secular and pluralistic ethos undermined at all costs. The 1993 Bombay bomb blasts were personally approved by then Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif and executed by his fundamentalist ISI chief Gen Javed Nasir, who now heads the so-called Pakistan Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PGPC). The main function of the PGPC is to incite Sikh pilgrims from India visiting their holy shrines in Nankana Sahib and elsewhere in Pakistan. Less than a week after the Lahore summit, General Javed Nasir was spreading a message of poison and hatred against India and Hindus to a group of Sikh pilgrims visiting the holy shrine of Nankana Sahib. General Nasir belongs to a fundamentalist group called the Tablighi Jamaat that is patronised by the Sharif family. Sectarian groups like the Tablighi Jamaat and the Ahle Hadis are used to spread fundamentalism and separatism in Muslim minorities abroad, including in India. Fundamentalist outfits like SIMI, founded in 1977, have close links with these Pakistani sectarian organisations. Saudi Arabia serves as a convenient and hospitable venue for such activities.
What the military establishment in Pakistan is today engaged in is nothing short of an attempt to undermine the very basis of a united, secular and pluralistic India. This is not an effort that can be diluted by candlelight vigils at the Wagah border, or sentimental reminiscing about our common culture and values. Sadly, very little effort is made to educate public opinion in India about these realities. We are instead fed with daily diets of how one or another “peace initiative” is going to bring about instant success merely because of sentimental outpourings over the surgery of Baby Noor, or the witticisms and profound wisdom of some of our parliamentarians and journalists visiting Pakistan and interacting with the likes of Chaudhuri Shujaat. The relationship with Pakistan will normalise only when its people are made to realise that their military establishment is leading the country to ruin and disaster. That effort will require consistency and sense of national will and purpose even while keeping the doors to contacts and dialogue open.
Pakistan will spare no effort to undermine India in every possible manner. But we would do well to remember that it was able to exploit the situation in Punjab only after political parties in the state espoused and adopted policies that sought to promote separatism and exclusionism. The Pakistani effort to undermine communal harmony in Punjab failed because of the bonds of Hindu-Sikh unity and brotherhood. Pakistan exploited disaffection in Kashmir following what many young Kashmiri politicians believed were the flawed elections in 1987 and the abject surrender of the V.P. Singh government to extortionist demands by Kashmiri terrorists in December 1989. Pakistan exploited communal tensions in India in 1993 and after the Gujarat communal carnage last year to incite and assist disaffected Indians to resort to terrorism. It is true that there is no justification for a resort to terrorism. But is it not time for our political parties to vow not to repeat their past mistakes and follies?
The writer is a former Ambassador of India to Pakistan
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 11, 2003 08:27 am
Terrorism is a product of mindsetPak drive to destroy India’s secular ethos
by G. Parthasarathy
DURING their recent visit to Pakistan, Indian Members of Parliament warmly embraced and shook hands with the President of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Chaudhuri Shujaat Hussain, who was the Interior (Home) Minister in Mr Nawaz Sharif’s government. Chaudhuri Shujaat broke ranks with Mr Sharif and spearheaded the movement to establish the PML (Q), with due encouragement and support from General Musharraf and the ISI. He was a leading aspirant for the post of Prime Minister in the Musharraf dispensation, but had to settle for his cousin Chaudhuri Parvez Elahi being appointed the Chief Minister of Punjab while he became the leader of the PML (Q). He is now one of General Musharraf’s closest political cronies. Even as our parliamentarians were bending backwards to meet Chaudhuri Shujaat, he had some interesting things to say about relations with India.
He proclaimed: “Running buses, trains and exchange of cultural delegations between the two countries cannot buy peace without a resolution of the core issue of Kashmir. Peace in this region can be achieved only when the core issue (of Kashmir) is resolved to the satisfaction of the wishes of the Kashmiri people.” Put bluntly, Chaudhuri Shujaat was disowning the Simla Agreement that requires all issues, including Kashmir, to be resolved peacefully and bilaterally. He was also threatening recourse to war if Pakistan’s ambitions on Kashmir were not fulfilled. All this was happening when our parliamentarians led by Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav were talking about the need to “demolish the wall of hatred”.
There is little doubt that hardly any of our parliamentarians knew about the backgrounds of their interlocutors. If they had done their homework properly, they would have known that Chaudhuri Shujaat Hussain and his family have been part of a network in Pakistan, backed by the ISI, that has been at the very epicentre of efforts to fan separatism and terrorism in Punjab. Both Shujaat and his late father Chaudhuri Zahoor Elahi were part of this network set up by Gen Zia-ul-Haq. Incidentally, Pakistani moves to fan Sikh separatism in Punjab picked up momentum shortly after the visit of the then Foreign Minister of India, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to Pakistan in 1978. Virtually all important separatist Sikh leaders from abroad like Jagjit Singh Chauhan and Ganga Singh Dhillon enjoyed the personal hospitality of the family of Chaudhuri Zahoor Elahi during their visits to Pakistan. Even today this Pakistani infrastructure of terrorism plays host to wanted terrorists from Punjab linked to organisations like the Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation that were involved in the assassination of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. This infrastructure extends to ISI cells in Pakistani missions abroad that incite persons running gurdwaras to keep alive the call for “Khalistan”.
At a recent meeting that I had with a group of prominent Pakistanis in a South Asian capital, a close associate of General Musharraf bluntly remarked that if India believed that it could ignore differences with Pakistan and move ahead economically, his country would have no difficulty in taking steps to retard Indian economic progress. A few years ago a former Director-General of the ISI remarked to me that Pakistan would see to it that jihad in Kashmir would draw support from Muslims all across India. This was in response to an assertion by me that Muslims in India were proud of the secular ethos of their country. It is important to bear these factors in mind while assessing the challenge that Pakistani policies pose to India. Pakistani ideologues, especially in their Punjabi dominated armed forces establishment, believe that they are the true inheritors of the Mughal throne in Delhi. Like the Mughals, their concept of “Hindustan” ends with the Vindhya mountains. A former ISI chief actually told me that he did not regard me to be “Hindustani” because my hometown Chennai was south of the Vindhya mountains!!
Terrorist acts like bomb blasts in Mumbai, the attack on the Red Fort and Parliament in Delhi and on the Akshardham Temple in Gujarat have to be seen and understood in the context of this Pakistani mindset. Assertions by General Musharraf and his sidekick, Gen Aziz Khan, that low intensity conflict and tensions with India will continue even if the Kashmir issue is resolved merely reflect this mindset. They strongly believe that India must be weakened and divided and its secular and pluralistic ethos undermined at all costs. The 1993 Bombay bomb blasts were personally approved by then Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif and executed by his fundamentalist ISI chief Gen Javed Nasir, who now heads the so-called Pakistan Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PGPC). The main function of the PGPC is to incite Sikh pilgrims from India visiting their holy shrines in Nankana Sahib and elsewhere in Pakistan. Less than a week after the Lahore summit, General Javed Nasir was spreading a message of poison and hatred against India and Hindus to a group of Sikh pilgrims visiting the holy shrine of Nankana Sahib. General Nasir belongs to a fundamentalist group called the Tablighi Jamaat that is patronised by the Sharif family. Sectarian groups like the Tablighi Jamaat and the Ahle Hadis are used to spread fundamentalism and separatism in Muslim minorities abroad, including in India. Fundamentalist outfits like SIMI, founded in 1977, have close links with these Pakistani sectarian organisations. Saudi Arabia serves as a convenient and hospitable venue for such activities.
What the military establishment in Pakistan is today engaged in is nothing short of an attempt to undermine the very basis of a united, secular and pluralistic India. This is not an effort that can be diluted by candlelight vigils at the Wagah border, or sentimental reminiscing about our common culture and values. Sadly, very little effort is made to educate public opinion in India about these realities. We are instead fed with daily diets of how one or another “peace initiative” is going to bring about instant success merely because of sentimental outpourings over the surgery of Baby Noor, or the witticisms and profound wisdom of some of our parliamentarians and journalists visiting Pakistan and interacting with the likes of Chaudhuri Shujaat. The relationship with Pakistan will normalise only when its people are made to realise that their military establishment is leading the country to ruin and disaster. That effort will require consistency and sense of national will and purpose even while keeping the doors to contacts and dialogue open.
Pakistan will spare no effort to undermine India in every possible manner. But we would do well to remember that it was able to exploit the situation in Punjab only after political parties in the state espoused and adopted policies that sought to promote separatism and exclusionism. The Pakistani effort to undermine communal harmony in Punjab failed because of the bonds of Hindu-Sikh unity and brotherhood. Pakistan exploited disaffection in Kashmir following what many young Kashmiri politicians believed were the flawed elections in 1987 and the abject surrender of the V.P. Singh government to extortionist demands by Kashmiri terrorists in December 1989. Pakistan exploited communal tensions in India in 1993 and after the Gujarat communal carnage last year to incite and assist disaffected Indians to resort to terrorism. It is true that there is no justification for a resort to terrorism. But is it not time for our political parties to vow not to repeat their past mistakes and follies?
The writer is a former Ambassador of India to Pakistan
Forgive me, Danny
The US is ignoring evidence of links with Pakistan`s secret service
By Tariq Ali
in Lahore, Pakistan
It has been a stunningly beautiful spring in Pakistan. But the surface calm is deceptive. When the war in Afghanistan began, I suggested that the Taliban would be rapidly defeated and that the ``jihadi`` organisations and their patrons would regroup in Pakistan and, sooner or later, start punishing General Musharraf`s regime. This process is now under way.
In recent months, the jihadis have scored three big hits: the kidnapping and brutal murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl; the assassination of the interior minister`s brother; and the bombing of a church in the heart of Islamabad`s tightly protected diplomatic enclave. There have also been targeted killings of professionals in Karachi: more than a dozen doctors belonging to the Shi`a minority have been shot.
All these acts were designed as a warning to Pakistan`s military ruler: if you go too far in accommodating Washington, your head will also roll. Some senior journalists believe an attempt on Musharraf`s life has already taken place. Are these acts of terrorism actually carried out by hardline groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkatul Ansar, which often claim them? Probably, but these groups are only a shell. Turn them upside down and the rational kernel is revealed in the form of Pakistan`s major intelligence agency - the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), whose manipulation of them has long been clear.
Those sections of the ISI who patronised and funded these organisations were livid at ``the betrayal of the Taliban``. Being forced to unravel the only victory they had ever scored - the Taliban takeover in Kabul - created enormous tensions inside the army. Unless this background is appreciated, the terrorism shaking the country today is inexplicable.
Colin Powell`s statement of March 3, exonerating the ISI from any responsibility for Pearl`s disappearance and murder, is shocking. Few in Pakistan believe such assurances. Musharraf was not involved, but he must know what took place. He has referred to Pearl as an ``over- intrusive journalist`` caught up in ``intelligence games``. Has he told Washington what he knows? And if so, why did Powell absolve the ISI?
The Pearl tragedy has shed some light on the darker recesses of the intelligence networks. Pearl was a gifted, independent-minded investigative journalist. On previous assignments he had established that the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory - bombed on Clinton`s orders - was exactly that and not a shady installation producing biological and chemical weapons, as alleged by the White House. Subsequently, he wrote extensively on Kosovo, questioning some of the atrocity stories dished out by Nato spin-doctors to justify the war on Yugoslavia.
Pearl was never satisfied with official briefings or chats with approved local journalists. Those he was in touch with in Pakistan say he was working to uncover links between the intelligence services and terrorism. His newspaper has been remarkably coy, refusing to disclose the leads Pearl was pursuing.
Any western journalist visiting Pakistan is routinely watched and followed. The notion that Daniel Pearl, setting up contacts with extremist groups, was not being carefully monitored by the secret services is unbelievable - and nobody in Pakistan believes it.
The group which claimed to have kidnapped and killed Pearl - ``The National Youth Movement for the Sovereignty of Pakistan`` - is a confection. One of its demands was unique: the resumption of F-16 sales to Pakistan. A terrorist, jihadi group which supposedly regards the current regime as treacherous is putting forward a 20-year-old demand of the military and state bureaucracy.
The principal kidnapper, the former LSE student Omar Saeed Sheikh - whose trial begins in Karachi today - has added to the mystery. He carelessly condemned himself by surrendering to the provincial home secretary (a former ISI operative) on February 5. Sheikh is widely believed in Pakistan to be an experienced ISI ``asset`` with a history of operations in Kashmir. If he was extradited to Washington and decided to talk, the entire story would unravel. His family are fearful. They think he might be tried by a summary court and executed to prevent the identity of his confederates being revealed.
So mysterious has this affair become that one might wonder who is really running Pakistan. Official power is exercised by General Musharraf. But it is clear that his writ does not extend to the whole state apparatus, let alone the country. If a military regime cannot guarantee law and order, what can it hope to deliver? Meanwhile, Daniel Pearl`s widow is owed an explanation by her own state department and the general in Islamabad.
Tariq Ali is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. HIs latest book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, is published by Verso.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 11, 2003 08:27 am
Who Really Killed Daniel Pearl?The US is ignoring evidence of links with Pakistan`s secret service
By Tariq Ali
in Lahore, Pakistan
It has been a stunningly beautiful spring in Pakistan. But the surface calm is deceptive. When the war in Afghanistan began, I suggested that the Taliban would be rapidly defeated and that the ``jihadi`` organisations and their patrons would regroup in Pakistan and, sooner or later, start punishing General Musharraf`s regime. This process is now under way.
In recent months, the jihadis have scored three big hits: the kidnapping and brutal murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl; the assassination of the interior minister`s brother; and the bombing of a church in the heart of Islamabad`s tightly protected diplomatic enclave. There have also been targeted killings of professionals in Karachi: more than a dozen doctors belonging to the Shi`a minority have been shot.
All these acts were designed as a warning to Pakistan`s military ruler: if you go too far in accommodating Washington, your head will also roll. Some senior journalists believe an attempt on Musharraf`s life has already taken place. Are these acts of terrorism actually carried out by hardline groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkatul Ansar, which often claim them? Probably, but these groups are only a shell. Turn them upside down and the rational kernel is revealed in the form of Pakistan`s major intelligence agency - the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), whose manipulation of them has long been clear.
Those sections of the ISI who patronised and funded these organisations were livid at ``the betrayal of the Taliban``. Being forced to unravel the only victory they had ever scored - the Taliban takeover in Kabul - created enormous tensions inside the army. Unless this background is appreciated, the terrorism shaking the country today is inexplicable.
Colin Powell`s statement of March 3, exonerating the ISI from any responsibility for Pearl`s disappearance and murder, is shocking. Few in Pakistan believe such assurances. Musharraf was not involved, but he must know what took place. He has referred to Pearl as an ``over- intrusive journalist`` caught up in ``intelligence games``. Has he told Washington what he knows? And if so, why did Powell absolve the ISI?
The Pearl tragedy has shed some light on the darker recesses of the intelligence networks. Pearl was a gifted, independent-minded investigative journalist. On previous assignments he had established that the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory - bombed on Clinton`s orders - was exactly that and not a shady installation producing biological and chemical weapons, as alleged by the White House. Subsequently, he wrote extensively on Kosovo, questioning some of the atrocity stories dished out by Nato spin-doctors to justify the war on Yugoslavia.
Pearl was never satisfied with official briefings or chats with approved local journalists. Those he was in touch with in Pakistan say he was working to uncover links between the intelligence services and terrorism. His newspaper has been remarkably coy, refusing to disclose the leads Pearl was pursuing.
Any western journalist visiting Pakistan is routinely watched and followed. The notion that Daniel Pearl, setting up contacts with extremist groups, was not being carefully monitored by the secret services is unbelievable - and nobody in Pakistan believes it.
The group which claimed to have kidnapped and killed Pearl - ``The National Youth Movement for the Sovereignty of Pakistan`` - is a confection. One of its demands was unique: the resumption of F-16 sales to Pakistan. A terrorist, jihadi group which supposedly regards the current regime as treacherous is putting forward a 20-year-old demand of the military and state bureaucracy.
The principal kidnapper, the former LSE student Omar Saeed Sheikh - whose trial begins in Karachi today - has added to the mystery. He carelessly condemned himself by surrendering to the provincial home secretary (a former ISI operative) on February 5. Sheikh is widely believed in Pakistan to be an experienced ISI ``asset`` with a history of operations in Kashmir. If he was extradited to Washington and decided to talk, the entire story would unravel. His family are fearful. They think he might be tried by a summary court and executed to prevent the identity of his confederates being revealed.
So mysterious has this affair become that one might wonder who is really running Pakistan. Official power is exercised by General Musharraf. But it is clear that his writ does not extend to the whole state apparatus, let alone the country. If a military regime cannot guarantee law and order, what can it hope to deliver? Meanwhile, Daniel Pearl`s widow is owed an explanation by her own state department and the general in Islamabad.
Tariq Ali is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. HIs latest book, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, is published by Verso.
The Kal Aaj Aur Kal of Secularism
Prachi Jatania
Mumbai, September 9: Get saffron outfits ready. No non-vegetarian food for 10 days. Rehearse Ganesh aartis.
The instructions could hardly have been easy for the 40-odd Muslim men at Malad-Marve. But as the enthusiastic bunch of trained swimmers helped devotees during visarjan at the suburban seafront, they all thought it was well worth the effort, as it is every year.
Flashing identity-cards of the Jan Jagruti Seva Mandal, 75 Hindu and Muslim men aged between 18 and 30, have been performing the visarjan for more than 10 years now.
‘‘Pure devotion and respect for individual faiths,’’ explains Shakil Qureshi (20), a saree vendor, when asked what brings him here.
The group has worked from early morning to late night on every visarjan day this week. ‘‘On the tenth day visarjan, we finish only the next morning,’’ says Ismail Babu Shaikh (23), a fish retailer. He wrings his dripping uniform, only to step into the water with another idol.
‘‘We don’t believe in religious differences, what matters is whether we’re good swimmers and whether we’re committed to the cause,’’ says Yeshwant Kesarkar (24).
Kesarkar is a Bollywood lights-man, he’s used to these odd working hours.
Usha Mishra, a housewife from Malad (East), waits with her idol for a swimmer to come up and take it. Inform her that the swimmer is Muslim and she looks up quizzically. ‘‘I have no qualms about it, why bother about such identities? It’s faith from within that God asks for.’’
Besides volunteering during the immersion, the group also has a Ganesha idol of their own, at Sunrise Mitra Mandal in Malwani.
Zilani Shaikh (28) tucks a hundred-rupee note in his pocket and grins. ‘‘If they’re impressed with our work, a parting gift is certain,’’ he says.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 05:43 pm
A Hindu idol, immersed by a Muslim swimmerPrachi Jatania
Mumbai, September 9: Get saffron outfits ready. No non-vegetarian food for 10 days. Rehearse Ganesh aartis.
The instructions could hardly have been easy for the 40-odd Muslim men at Malad-Marve. But as the enthusiastic bunch of trained swimmers helped devotees during visarjan at the suburban seafront, they all thought it was well worth the effort, as it is every year.
Flashing identity-cards of the Jan Jagruti Seva Mandal, 75 Hindu and Muslim men aged between 18 and 30, have been performing the visarjan for more than 10 years now.
‘‘Pure devotion and respect for individual faiths,’’ explains Shakil Qureshi (20), a saree vendor, when asked what brings him here.
The group has worked from early morning to late night on every visarjan day this week. ‘‘On the tenth day visarjan, we finish only the next morning,’’ says Ismail Babu Shaikh (23), a fish retailer. He wrings his dripping uniform, only to step into the water with another idol.
‘‘We don’t believe in religious differences, what matters is whether we’re good swimmers and whether we’re committed to the cause,’’ says Yeshwant Kesarkar (24).
Kesarkar is a Bollywood lights-man, he’s used to these odd working hours.
Usha Mishra, a housewife from Malad (East), waits with her idol for a swimmer to come up and take it. Inform her that the swimmer is Muslim and she looks up quizzically. ‘‘I have no qualms about it, why bother about such identities? It’s faith from within that God asks for.’’
Besides volunteering during the immersion, the group also has a Ganesha idol of their own, at Sunrise Mitra Mandal in Malwani.
Zilani Shaikh (28) tucks a hundred-rupee note in his pocket and grins. ‘‘If they’re impressed with our work, a parting gift is certain,’’ he says.
The Passion of The Pacifist
Meet the man who will greet Ganesha as he passes Byculla
Express News Service
Mumbai, September 6: Ten years ago when the King of Lalbaug wove through a tense Muslim thicket of Duncan Road, a modest group in skull caps had waited by the ringside, with garlands for Mumbai’s favourite Ganesha.
It was 1993, not a great year to break communal stereotypes or ignore nervous advice from a thick cordon of police.
But over this difficult 10-year passage, signs of a city steadily shedding those inhibitions are sprinkled along a bold route—unchanged for 70 years—which the Lalbaug Ganesh will rumble along for immersion on Tuesday.
Sajid Khan, a maker of chair seats (with a photo album of Ganesha immersion processions since 1990 in his cubbyhole) says his mohalla has made choices to move beyond a painful past. ‘‘Once we started joining in Hindu festivals, we made friends with our neighbours. This way there’s no tension, no lafda.’’
By the Hindustani Masjid in downtown Byculla, Maulana Abdul Jabbar Azmi presides over namaaz, then steps outside to make plans to welcome Ganpati with his flock—as the mosque’s faithful have, since 1962. ‘‘Do you know why Mumbai kept its peace after this year’s blasts? Look here. I tell my people, as I did in 1993, that we have to live here, die here. Is it not better to just stick together?’’
New to this faith is Farhan Khan, a young scrap dealer clutching an invitation to visit Lalbaug’s Raja. He was a mere bystander at the Duncan Road halt, until the good cheer worked on him two years ago.
‘‘Cops tell me this halt is now a ‘cool point’ because we give them no headache,’’ he grins widely. His job: 18-20 drums of sherbet for the guests and fussing over VIPs.
Zabiullah Shaikh, joint secretary of the Bombay Citizen Welfare Committee, recalls Ganeshotsav 1990, when only a handful of Muslims had participated at Duncan Road and Byculla. ‘‘By 1993, the atmosphere was so charged, there were more cops than locals. Yet, acceptance increased. Soon our celebrations grew to require a stage. The first stage was just 10 ft by 15 ft.’’
‘‘More Muslims, more garlands since the Eighties and Nineties,’’ says Ashok Pawar, who headed the Lalbaug Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav Mandal in 1993.
That explains Salim Khan’s presence at Ganesha poojas at the hardline Mohammedan tenements of Bhendi Bazaar. Sixteen years ago, the Ganesha idol here was 1 inch high. As bonds were forged, the idol grew to 8 feet.
‘‘During the 1993 curfew, Hindus and Muslims like us had rushed milk, flour and essential goods door-to-door. Nobody forgot that. Sentiments have strengthened since,’’ says Salim.
Salim and 40 per cent Muslims of the Tarun Mitra Mandal fuss over Bhendi Bazaar’s Ganpati Raja. Local Muslim Secunder Pathan lords over the all-important decorations.
‘‘Our procession passes by a dargah. We proceed only after offering shawls, coconuts and a holy chaddar,’’ says Dilip Sawant, mandal head.
In a Ghatkopar slum, the good faith stands in a cross-over named Ram Rahim Ganesh Mandal.
Commerce student Jabir Khan (18) performs aarti. Sagar Suresh Singh, his 16-year-old pal, attends daily namaaz. By evening, some 40 Muslims from nearby Azadnagar arrive gingerly for aarati.
‘‘Our first Ganesha, paid for by local Muslims also,’’ smiles Anand, Sagar’s brother. He’s unemployed, but knows his mixed group is on to something serious. They forge bonds with the help of Gods.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 05:43 pm
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=62476Meet the man who will greet Ganesha as he passes Byculla
Express News Service
Mumbai, September 6: Ten years ago when the King of Lalbaug wove through a tense Muslim thicket of Duncan Road, a modest group in skull caps had waited by the ringside, with garlands for Mumbai’s favourite Ganesha.
It was 1993, not a great year to break communal stereotypes or ignore nervous advice from a thick cordon of police.
But over this difficult 10-year passage, signs of a city steadily shedding those inhibitions are sprinkled along a bold route—unchanged for 70 years—which the Lalbaug Ganesh will rumble along for immersion on Tuesday.
Sajid Khan, a maker of chair seats (with a photo album of Ganesha immersion processions since 1990 in his cubbyhole) says his mohalla has made choices to move beyond a painful past. ‘‘Once we started joining in Hindu festivals, we made friends with our neighbours. This way there’s no tension, no lafda.’’
By the Hindustani Masjid in downtown Byculla, Maulana Abdul Jabbar Azmi presides over namaaz, then steps outside to make plans to welcome Ganpati with his flock—as the mosque’s faithful have, since 1962. ‘‘Do you know why Mumbai kept its peace after this year’s blasts? Look here. I tell my people, as I did in 1993, that we have to live here, die here. Is it not better to just stick together?’’
New to this faith is Farhan Khan, a young scrap dealer clutching an invitation to visit Lalbaug’s Raja. He was a mere bystander at the Duncan Road halt, until the good cheer worked on him two years ago.
‘‘Cops tell me this halt is now a ‘cool point’ because we give them no headache,’’ he grins widely. His job: 18-20 drums of sherbet for the guests and fussing over VIPs.
Zabiullah Shaikh, joint secretary of the Bombay Citizen Welfare Committee, recalls Ganeshotsav 1990, when only a handful of Muslims had participated at Duncan Road and Byculla. ‘‘By 1993, the atmosphere was so charged, there were more cops than locals. Yet, acceptance increased. Soon our celebrations grew to require a stage. The first stage was just 10 ft by 15 ft.’’
‘‘More Muslims, more garlands since the Eighties and Nineties,’’ says Ashok Pawar, who headed the Lalbaug Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav Mandal in 1993.
That explains Salim Khan’s presence at Ganesha poojas at the hardline Mohammedan tenements of Bhendi Bazaar. Sixteen years ago, the Ganesha idol here was 1 inch high. As bonds were forged, the idol grew to 8 feet.
‘‘During the 1993 curfew, Hindus and Muslims like us had rushed milk, flour and essential goods door-to-door. Nobody forgot that. Sentiments have strengthened since,’’ says Salim.
Salim and 40 per cent Muslims of the Tarun Mitra Mandal fuss over Bhendi Bazaar’s Ganpati Raja. Local Muslim Secunder Pathan lords over the all-important decorations.
‘‘Our procession passes by a dargah. We proceed only after offering shawls, coconuts and a holy chaddar,’’ says Dilip Sawant, mandal head.
In a Ghatkopar slum, the good faith stands in a cross-over named Ram Rahim Ganesh Mandal.
Commerce student Jabir Khan (18) performs aarti. Sagar Suresh Singh, his 16-year-old pal, attends daily namaaz. By evening, some 40 Muslims from nearby Azadnagar arrive gingerly for aarati.
‘‘Our first Ganesha, paid for by local Muslims also,’’ smiles Anand, Sagar’s brother. He’s unemployed, but knows his mixed group is on to something serious. They forge bonds with the help of Gods.
The Kal Aaj Aur Kal of Secularism
Meet the man who will greet Ganesha as he passes Byculla
Express News Service
Mumbai, September 6: Ten years ago when the King of Lalbaug wove through a tense Muslim thicket of Duncan Road, a modest group in skull caps had waited by the ringside, with garlands for Mumbai’s favourite Ganesha.
It was 1993, not a great year to break communal stereotypes or ignore nervous advice from a thick cordon of police.
But over this difficult 10-year passage, signs of a city steadily shedding those inhibitions are sprinkled along a bold route—unchanged for 70 years—which the Lalbaug Ganesh will rumble along for immersion on Tuesday.
Sajid Khan, a maker of chair seats (with a photo album of Ganesha immersion processions since 1990 in his cubbyhole) says his mohalla has made choices to move beyond a painful past. ‘‘Once we started joining in Hindu festivals, we made friends with our neighbours. This way there’s no tension, no lafda.’’
By the Hindustani Masjid in downtown Byculla, Maulana Abdul Jabbar Azmi presides over namaaz, then steps outside to make plans to welcome Ganpati with his flock—as the mosque’s faithful have, since 1962. ‘‘Do you know why Mumbai kept its peace after this year’s blasts? Look here. I tell my people, as I did in 1993, that we have to live here, die here. Is it not better to just stick together?’’
New to this faith is Farhan Khan, a young scrap dealer clutching an invitation to visit Lalbaug’s Raja. He was a mere bystander at the Duncan Road halt, until the good cheer worked on him two years ago.
‘‘Cops tell me this halt is now a ‘cool point’ because we give them no headache,’’ he grins widely. His job: 18-20 drums of sherbet for the guests and fussing over VIPs.
Zabiullah Shaikh, joint secretary of the Bombay Citizen Welfare Committee, recalls Ganeshotsav 1990, when only a handful of Muslims had participated at Duncan Road and Byculla. ‘‘By 1993, the atmosphere was so charged, there were more cops than locals. Yet, acceptance increased. Soon our celebrations grew to require a stage. The first stage was just 10 ft by 15 ft.’’
‘‘More Muslims, more garlands since the Eighties and Nineties,’’ says Ashok Pawar, who headed the Lalbaug Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav Mandal in 1993.
That explains Salim Khan’s presence at Ganesha poojas at the hardline Mohammedan tenements of Bhendi Bazaar. Sixteen years ago, the Ganesha idol here was 1 inch high. As bonds were forged, the idol grew to 8 feet.
‘‘During the 1993 curfew, Hindus and Muslims like us had rushed milk, flour and essential goods door-to-door. Nobody forgot that. Sentiments have strengthened since,’’ says Salim.
Salim and 40 per cent Muslims of the Tarun Mitra Mandal fuss over Bhendi Bazaar’s Ganpati Raja. Local Muslim Secunder Pathan lords over the all-important decorations.
‘‘Our procession passes by a dargah. We proceed only after offering shawls, coconuts and a holy chaddar,’’ says Dilip Sawant, mandal head.
In a Ghatkopar slum, the good faith stands in a cross-over named Ram Rahim Ganesh Mandal.
Commerce student Jabir Khan (18) performs aarti. Sagar Suresh Singh, his 16-year-old pal, attends daily namaaz. By evening, some 40 Muslims from nearby Azadnagar arrive gingerly for aarati.
‘‘Our first Ganesha, paid for by local Muslims also,’’ smiles Anand, Sagar’s brother. He’s unemployed, but knows his mixed group is on to something serious. They forge bonds with the help of Gods.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 05:43 pm
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=62476Meet the man who will greet Ganesha as he passes Byculla
Express News Service
Mumbai, September 6: Ten years ago when the King of Lalbaug wove through a tense Muslim thicket of Duncan Road, a modest group in skull caps had waited by the ringside, with garlands for Mumbai’s favourite Ganesha.
It was 1993, not a great year to break communal stereotypes or ignore nervous advice from a thick cordon of police.
But over this difficult 10-year passage, signs of a city steadily shedding those inhibitions are sprinkled along a bold route—unchanged for 70 years—which the Lalbaug Ganesh will rumble along for immersion on Tuesday.
Sajid Khan, a maker of chair seats (with a photo album of Ganesha immersion processions since 1990 in his cubbyhole) says his mohalla has made choices to move beyond a painful past. ‘‘Once we started joining in Hindu festivals, we made friends with our neighbours. This way there’s no tension, no lafda.’’
By the Hindustani Masjid in downtown Byculla, Maulana Abdul Jabbar Azmi presides over namaaz, then steps outside to make plans to welcome Ganpati with his flock—as the mosque’s faithful have, since 1962. ‘‘Do you know why Mumbai kept its peace after this year’s blasts? Look here. I tell my people, as I did in 1993, that we have to live here, die here. Is it not better to just stick together?’’
New to this faith is Farhan Khan, a young scrap dealer clutching an invitation to visit Lalbaug’s Raja. He was a mere bystander at the Duncan Road halt, until the good cheer worked on him two years ago.
‘‘Cops tell me this halt is now a ‘cool point’ because we give them no headache,’’ he grins widely. His job: 18-20 drums of sherbet for the guests and fussing over VIPs.
Zabiullah Shaikh, joint secretary of the Bombay Citizen Welfare Committee, recalls Ganeshotsav 1990, when only a handful of Muslims had participated at Duncan Road and Byculla. ‘‘By 1993, the atmosphere was so charged, there were more cops than locals. Yet, acceptance increased. Soon our celebrations grew to require a stage. The first stage was just 10 ft by 15 ft.’’
‘‘More Muslims, more garlands since the Eighties and Nineties,’’ says Ashok Pawar, who headed the Lalbaug Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav Mandal in 1993.
That explains Salim Khan’s presence at Ganesha poojas at the hardline Mohammedan tenements of Bhendi Bazaar. Sixteen years ago, the Ganesha idol here was 1 inch high. As bonds were forged, the idol grew to 8 feet.
‘‘During the 1993 curfew, Hindus and Muslims like us had rushed milk, flour and essential goods door-to-door. Nobody forgot that. Sentiments have strengthened since,’’ says Salim.
Salim and 40 per cent Muslims of the Tarun Mitra Mandal fuss over Bhendi Bazaar’s Ganpati Raja. Local Muslim Secunder Pathan lords over the all-important decorations.
‘‘Our procession passes by a dargah. We proceed only after offering shawls, coconuts and a holy chaddar,’’ says Dilip Sawant, mandal head.
In a Ghatkopar slum, the good faith stands in a cross-over named Ram Rahim Ganesh Mandal.
Commerce student Jabir Khan (18) performs aarti. Sagar Suresh Singh, his 16-year-old pal, attends daily namaaz. By evening, some 40 Muslims from nearby Azadnagar arrive gingerly for aarati.
‘‘Our first Ganesha, paid for by local Muslims also,’’ smiles Anand, Sagar’s brother. He’s unemployed, but knows his mixed group is on to something serious. They forge bonds with the help of Gods.
Educational Apartheid
By Frederick Noronha
09/09/2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/09/article07.shtml
TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software
If a project by India’s premier software giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), can find the right partners and hit critical mass, India’s 300 million illiterates could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards and perhaps even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time.
The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.
Some rules: Don`t make an adult sit for tests. Don`t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can`t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
``There`s almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don`t need a trained teacher [because of the software],`` says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.
This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services` literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.
A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS`s reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India`s literacy problems.
The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.
The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.
Explains TCS, ``This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy.``
Learning by Association
Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates
Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha
CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make ``90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.``
It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.
Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. ``With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom],`` say the project promoters.
Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and `flashcards`. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.
This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.
Claimed advantages of this approach include:
- Acceleration in the pace of `learning to read` (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).
- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.
- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.
- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.
- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).
- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.
- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).
Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern
``One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern,`` says Major General Shively.
The CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.
Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, ``apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions.`` Between 1990 and 2000, India`s literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China`s grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia`s literacy touches 87%, Thailand`s is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.
In ten years, over the nineties, India`s literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. ``At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%,`` argues TCS.
More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy
Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.
``For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year,`` says Dey.
CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.
This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari`s emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.
The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the commonman in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
India’s Illiterates Get a Magic Wand By Frederick Noronha
09/09/2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/09/article07.shtml
TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software
If a project by India’s premier software giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), can find the right partners and hit critical mass, India’s 300 million illiterates could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards and perhaps even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time.
The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.
Some rules: Don`t make an adult sit for tests. Don`t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can`t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
``There`s almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don`t need a trained teacher [because of the software],`` says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.
This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services` literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.
A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS`s reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India`s literacy problems.
The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.
The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.
Explains TCS, ``This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy.``
Learning by Association
Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates
Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha
CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make ``90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.``
It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.
Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. ``With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom],`` say the project promoters.
Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and `flashcards`. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.
This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.
Claimed advantages of this approach include:
- Acceleration in the pace of `learning to read` (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).
- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.
- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.
- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.
- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).
- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.
- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).
Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern
``One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern,`` says Major General Shively.
The CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.
Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, ``apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions.`` Between 1990 and 2000, India`s literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China`s grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia`s literacy touches 87%, Thailand`s is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.
In ten years, over the nineties, India`s literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. ``At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%,`` argues TCS.
More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy
Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.
``For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year,`` says Dey.
CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.
This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari`s emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.
The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the commonman in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
Conflict of Science with Theocracy
By Frederick Noronha
09/09/2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/09/article07.shtml
TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software
If a project by India’s premier software giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), can find the right partners and hit critical mass, India’s 300 million illiterates could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards and perhaps even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time.
The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.
Some rules: Don`t make an adult sit for tests. Don`t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can`t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
``There`s almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don`t need a trained teacher [because of the software],`` says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.
This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services` literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.
A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS`s reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India`s literacy problems.
The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.
The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.
Explains TCS, ``This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy.``
Learning by Association
Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates
Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha
CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make ``90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.``
It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.
Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. ``With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom],`` say the project promoters.
Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and `flashcards`. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.
This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.
Claimed advantages of this approach include:
- Acceleration in the pace of `learning to read` (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).
- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.
- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.
- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.
- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).
- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.
- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).
Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern
``One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern,`` says Major General Shively.
The CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.
Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, ``apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions.`` Between 1990 and 2000, India`s literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China`s grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia`s literacy touches 87%, Thailand`s is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.
In ten years, over the nineties, India`s literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. ``At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%,`` argues TCS.
More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy
Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.
``For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year,`` says Dey.
CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.
This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari`s emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.
The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the commonman in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
India’s Illiterates Get a Magic Wand By Frederick Noronha
09/09/2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/09/article07.shtml
TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software
If a project by India’s premier software giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), can find the right partners and hit critical mass, India’s 300 million illiterates could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards and perhaps even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time.
The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.
Some rules: Don`t make an adult sit for tests. Don`t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can`t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
``There`s almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don`t need a trained teacher [because of the software],`` says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.
This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services` literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.
A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS`s reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India`s literacy problems.
The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.
The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.
Explains TCS, ``This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy.``
Learning by Association
Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates
Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha
CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make ``90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.``
It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.
Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. ``With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom],`` say the project promoters.
Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and `flashcards`. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.
This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.
Claimed advantages of this approach include:
- Acceleration in the pace of `learning to read` (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).
- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.
- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.
- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.
- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).
- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.
- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).
Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern
``One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern,`` says Major General Shively.
The CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.
Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, ``apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions.`` Between 1990 and 2000, India`s literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China`s grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia`s literacy touches 87%, Thailand`s is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.
In ten years, over the nineties, India`s literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. ``At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%,`` argues TCS.
More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy
Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.
``For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year,`` says Dey.
CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.
This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari`s emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.
The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the commonman in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
What kind of India shall we give to our children?
By Frederick Noronha
09/09/2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/09/article07.shtml
TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software
If a project by India’s premier software giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), can find the right partners and hit critical mass, India’s 300 million illiterates could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards and perhaps even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time.
The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.
Some rules: Don`t make an adult sit for tests. Don`t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can`t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
``There`s almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don`t need a trained teacher [because of the software],`` says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.
This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services` literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.
A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS`s reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India`s literacy problems.
The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.
The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.
Explains TCS, ``This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy.``
Learning by Association
Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates
Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha
CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make ``90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.``
It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.
Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. ``With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom],`` say the project promoters.
Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and `flashcards`. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.
This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.
Claimed advantages of this approach include:
- Acceleration in the pace of `learning to read` (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).
- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.
- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.
- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.
- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).
- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.
- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).
Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern
``One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern,`` says Major General Shively.
The CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.
Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, ``apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions.`` Between 1990 and 2000, India`s literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China`s grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia`s literacy touches 87%, Thailand`s is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.
In ten years, over the nineties, India`s literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. ``At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%,`` argues TCS.
More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy
Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.
``For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year,`` says Dey.
CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.
This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari`s emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.
The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the commonman in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
India’s Illiterates Get a Magic Wand By Frederick Noronha
09/09/2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/09/article07.shtml
TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software
If a project by India’s premier software giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), can find the right partners and hit critical mass, India’s 300 million illiterates could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards and perhaps even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time.
The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.
Some rules: Don`t make an adult sit for tests. Don`t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can`t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
``There`s almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don`t need a trained teacher [because of the software],`` says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.
This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services` literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.
A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS`s reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India`s literacy problems.
The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.
The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.
Explains TCS, ``This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy.``
Learning by Association
Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates
Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha
CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make ``90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.``
It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.
Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. ``With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom],`` say the project promoters.
Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and `flashcards`. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.
This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.
Claimed advantages of this approach include:
- Acceleration in the pace of `learning to read` (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).
- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.
- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.
- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.
- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).
- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.
- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).
Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern
``One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern,`` says Major General Shively.
The CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.
Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, ``apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions.`` Between 1990 and 2000, India`s literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China`s grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia`s literacy touches 87%, Thailand`s is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.
In ten years, over the nineties, India`s literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. ``At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%,`` argues TCS.
More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy
Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.
``For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year,`` says Dey.
CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.
This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari`s emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.
The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the commonman in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
Online Education and Less Developed Countries
By Frederick Noronha
09/09/2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/09/article07.shtml
TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software
If a project by India’s premier software giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), can find the right partners and hit critical mass, India’s 300 million illiterates could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards and perhaps even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time.
The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.
Some rules: Don`t make an adult sit for tests. Don`t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can`t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
``There`s almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don`t need a trained teacher [because of the software],`` says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.
This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services` literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.
A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS`s reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India`s literacy problems.
The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.
The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.
Explains TCS, ``This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy.``
Learning by Association
Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates
Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha
CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make ``90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.``
It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.
Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. ``With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom],`` say the project promoters.
Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and `flashcards`. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.
This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.
Claimed advantages of this approach include:
- Acceleration in the pace of `learning to read` (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).
- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.
- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.
- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.
- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).
- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.
- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).
Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern
``One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern,`` says Major General Shively.
The CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.
Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, ``apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions.`` Between 1990 and 2000, India`s literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China`s grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia`s literacy touches 87%, Thailand`s is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.
In ten years, over the nineties, India`s literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. ``At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%,`` argues TCS.
More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy
Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.
``For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year,`` says Dey.
CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.
This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari`s emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.
The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the commonman in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
India’s Illiterates Get a Magic Wand By Frederick Noronha
09/09/2003
http://www.islam-online.net/English/Science/2003/09/article07.shtml
TCS claims it can teach an Indian to read in only 40 hours using its new software
If a project by India’s premier software giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), can find the right partners and hit critical mass, India’s 300 million illiterates could be converted into productive individuals who can read signboards and perhaps even the simple text of a newspaper in less than 40 hours of learning-time.
The software giant TCS is using low-end computers to take out the monotony from teaching, piggy-backing on the initiatives already undertaken by the National Literacy Mission, and treating adults very differently from children when it comes to teaching them.
Some rules: Don`t make an adult sit for tests. Don`t get caught up with writing, as the difficulties involved act as a major disincentive; reading skills are most important. Adults can`t be made to study alphabets the same way children unquestioningly take to it.
The software generated by TCS, which is given to volunteer groups free-of-cost, tries to teach adults to learn to read a language by words, rather than the traditional method of learning by alphabets.
``There`s almost nothing for the teacher to say. Everything is in the software. So teachers can run 5-6 [one-hour] classes in a day, without getting tired. You don`t need a trained teacher [because of the software],`` says Retired Major General B. G. Shively.
This military man turned consulting advisor to the Tata Consultancy Services` literacy plan suggests that the computer can turn into a magic wand of sorts, to spread reading skills without the need for a huge army of teachers.
A team lead by a veteran considered a doyen of Indian software exports and credited with building up TCS`s reputation, Fakir Chand Kohli, along with Professors P. N. Murthy and K. V. Nori, came up with this low-cost, technology-based, effective solution to India`s literacy problems.
The goals are to give a 300-500 word vocabulary to learners in their own languages. Five major Indian languages are currently covered by the software. Many more are waiting to be done. This skill could enable India’s illiterates to read a simple newspaper.
The idea is to help adults learn how to build an association between sounds and their graphic presentations. Familiar words are broken down into syllables and the written form, finally ending in the alphabet and their sounds. The focus is on learning words rather than alphabets.
Explains TCS, ``This method focuses on reading, the most important of the 3 Rs [reading, (w)riting and (a)rithmetic] in literacy. Once this is achieved, a person can accelerate learning the other Rs through the use of the reading skill. In other words, the reading ability is expected to act as a trigger to develop the full measure of literacy.``
Learning by Association
Major General B. G. Shively explains how animated graphics are used to teach India’s illiterates
Photo courtesy of Frederick Noronha
CBFL, or Computer-Based Functional Literacy as the TCS calls it, an interesting but not-adequately noticed project from the Tata Group, claims it can make ``90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.``
It uses animated graphics and a voice-over to explain how individual alphabets combine to give structure and meaning to various words. It is designed from education material developed by the National Literacy Mission. The CBFL method employs puppets or lively images as the motif in the teaching process.
Lessons are tailored to fit different languages. They focus on reading, and are based on the theories of cognition, language and communication. ``With the emphasis on learning words rather than alphabets, the project addresses thought processes with the objective of teaching these words in as short a time span as possible. The settings for the lessons are visually stimulating and crafted in a manner that learners can easily relate to [the puppet-show idiom],`` say the project promoters.
Voiceovers reinforce the learners’ ability to grasp the lessons easily, and repetition adds to the strengthening of what is learned. The method is implemented by using computers and `flashcards`. The computer delivers the lessons in multimedia form to the learners. The flashcards, which have letters printed on them, support the process by fortifying what has been absorbed and by helping beneficiaries memorize what they have learnt.
This TCS software runs even on earlier-generation higher-end 486 PCs with 16 MB (megabyte) RAM and free hard-disk space of half a GB (gegabyte) or more. Multimedia support is needed for the speakers, since the software ‘reads out’ texts and repeats lessons to the neo-learners.
Claimed advantages of this approach include:
- Acceleration in the pace of `learning to read` (it takes about one-third of the time that writing-oriented methods require).
- Flexibility in adjusting to individual learning speeds.
- Lower dropout rates in comparison with other adult literacy programmes.
- Does not require trained teachers or large-scale infrastructure.
- Can be conducted on computers with configurations as low as 486 (these are the kind of machines that many organizations can afford to give away).
- Can effectively enhance existing adult-literacy programmes.
- The multimedia format ensures that the pronunciation of the words/letters is taught accurately through the system, rather than being left to individual teachers. This is particularly useful for languages like Tamil, where the same letter can be pronounced differently (based on the context).
Illiteracy a Major Indian Concern
``One-third of our population -- old, young and adults -- are illiterate. Some 150-200 million are adult illiterates between 15-50 years. Illiteracy is a major social concern,`` says Major General Shively.
The CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years.
Even five and a half decades after Independence we have not been able to tackle this problem. Comparing China with India, TCS argues that, ``apart from other factors that build the economy, it would appear that the level of literacy affects the economy in many dimensions.`` Between 1990 and 2000, India`s literacy crept up from 52.5 per cent to just 65.5 per cent. In this same time, China`s grew from 73 to 92 percent. Malaysia`s literacy touches 87%, Thailand`s is 95%, and that of South Korea is 99%.
In ten years, over the nineties, India`s literacy rate showed only a ten percent increase. ``At this rate, it will take at least another 30 years to reach a literacy level of 90-95%,`` argues TCS.
More Endeavors to Improve India’s Literacy
Other initiatives to battle the huge problem of illiteracy are also underway. Some time back, the Indian expatriate researcher Tanu Dey, while at the University of California in Berkley, was involved in raising funds for a few primary schools run in rural Andhra Pradesh.
``For the cost of training one student in IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) for one year, we can provide basic literacy skills and a midday meal for 200 [primary school] students each year,`` says Dey.
CALP (Computer Aided Literacy Programme) -- which uses puzzles and games designed to interest the young mind while in the background teaching the language, is another initiative being employed. It has been made by Pratham for CRY, an Indian organization called Child Relief and You (www.cry.org). Founded in 1979, CRY is an Indian non-governmental organization “working to secure the basic rights of underprivileged Indian children.” Pratham sees itself less as a non-governmental non-profit organization, and more as a “platform that brings together the local self-government, the corporate sector and the voluntary sector” to achieve the daunting task of universal primary education in India.
This ties up with the initiative of educationists like Brij Kothari, of the prestigious management academy called the Indian Institute of Management of Ahmedabad (IIMA). Kothari`s emphasis is on strengthening the skills of neo-literates, by using same-language subtitling for the lyrics of popular television film songs, so popular across the country.
The ultimate goal of these and other such programs? Accelerating adult literacy in India through the effective use of IT.
Frederick Noronha is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who is interested in the developmental potential of IT. He is the co-founder of the BytesForAll, an initiative which looks at how IT and the Internet can help the commonman in South Asia. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@islam-online.net
Muslim League’s Politics (1937-1947)
By Lavina Melwani
Nathuram Godse gets his turn.
He lurks in the shadows of history, always abhorred, marginalized, a demon in the history books. He is after all, India`s national villain — Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi. Standing inches away from him, staring him in the face Godse pulled the trigger on the revered ``Mahan atma`` or great soul who had never so much as harmed a fly. The world still reviles Godse, for his act was almost as heinous as killing a sacred cow, the assassin of piety.
Now as we mark Gandhi`s birth anniversary in October and as Time magazine considers him for ``Man of the Century,`` Godse — the forgotten, the accursed — is suddenly back in the picture. He is back, once again explaining his point of view, explaining why he had to place his finger on the trigger. ``Gandhi Godse,`` a play in Hindi, premiered in the United States playing in 18 cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Rutherford, N.J., and Queens, N.Y.
Based on the original Marathi play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy written by Pradeep Dalvi, the book May I please Your Honor and the Marathi book Gandhi Hatya Aani Mee (Gandhi`s Assassination and Me) by Gopal Godse, Nathruram`s brother. ``Gandhi Godse,`` which is written by Mihir Bhuta and directed and produced by Jaysukh Ravrani, is performed under the banner of Performers Group (Mumbai). The play is largely based on the court records and Godse`s lengthy speech to the court, as well as the playwright`s interviews with surviving conspirators.
The local organizers, Hitesh and Himanshu Shah of Pranam/Nu-Creations who have been bringing in Hindi and Gujarati plays to the East Coast, emphasized that this was possibly the only chance to ever see ``Gandhi Godse`` performed, for it has been banned in India. Ironically, the Gujarati and Marathi versions of the play had showed in Mumbai without much ado, but were eventually banned when after playing for a year, the event took on a political color and rioting occurred outside the theaters.
Here in the United States, large Indian audiences turned out to confront an uncomfortable situation, a perplexing man whom they neither understand nor liked. It is to the credit of actor Paresh Raval, who plays the lead character, that viewers came away with mixed, confused feelings, and almost against their will — a bit more empathy for Godse.
This noted stage and screen actor has acted in many plays and films, and won every important award, including National Awards for his performance in ``Sir`` and ``Sardar`` and also Filmfare awards. A versatile linguist, he has acted in every major regional language including Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Telegu. In ``Gandhi Godse,`` Raval has taken on a difficult character, and gone into his pysche, showing him as a Gandhian and a patriot who took on the killing of the Mahatma as a duty killing to save ``Akhand Bharat`` or Undivided India.
Says Raval, ``I was excited by the character Godse and the way he was sidelined in history. It instigated me to do this — in our democracy everyone should be given a chance to speak and you cannot curb anyone`s voice.``
After doing this remarkable performance so many times, had his feelings towards Godse changed? ``My feelings towards Gandhi or Godse shouldn`t change necessarily because I`m an actor and just doing my job,`` explains Raval. ``We never wanted to re-interpret anything — we just wanted to represent whatever had happened at that time.``
What did he think of the reaction in Los Angeles and New York, where often audiences clapped and cheered wildly during his impassioned dialogue. He says, ``The audience reaction was very positive — they said they had never known this part of history.``
He points out that while history books write about Nehru and Gandhi, people know little about other freedom fighters and revolutionaries. For however misguided, Nathuram Godse was a desh bhakt or patriot. Says Raval, ``Whatever he did he did it for the country — he and his brothers never stood for any kind of elections. Whatever he did, right or wrong — that is for people to judge — he did it for India.
``He was not a contract killer, he was an educated man, the editor of a magazine. In the history of assassination, his is the only case where one man planned and pulled the trigger too. In other cases, someone plans, and someone else pulls the trigger. He didn`t walk away — he just stood there.``
The versatile Raval has played villains and dons in many different films and plays, including South Indian, Haryanvi, Nepali bad guys. How different was this role of national villain of India as compared to all the other villains Raval has played? He observes, ``You can`t call Godse a villain because he killed Gandhi, or a wise man because he did it for the country. You shouldn`t label him. This villain had a human face. It was more a clash of differing ideologies. It was his view of the world, it was his view of the truth.``
According to Hitesh Shah, `` Godse himself was a strict Gandhian, so there had to be a reason for his doing this — he was not a maniac. What he did was for his reason. This play shows the other side of the coin.`` He recalls that in Houston, people belonging to a Gandhian organization had tried to stop the performances. They did not succeed in banning the show and did come to watch it. At the end, they got up and gave a standing ovation to Paresh Raval.
Indeed, Raval has received standing ovations at every performance across the United States. Interestingly enough, there was a lot of applause from the audience when Godse calls Gandhi the Rashtrapita or Father of the Nation of Pakistan. Says Raval, ``That`s what Godse believed because India already existed — Gandhi was not the one who formed the country. Because of him Pakistan was born — he didn`t prevent its creation.``
A lot of people in the audience seemed to agree with his sentiments, and there seems to be still this sense of disbelief and grief among older Indians that India actually got divided. There is regret and a fantasy that all the bloodshed and mayhem could be wiped away and India would once again be one. The applause one feels was for that regret, that death of the idea of a united India that Godse espoused.
Hitesh Shah recalls an elderly man who came with his family to see the play in New Jersey: `` He was about 80 years old. After the performance, he came up to Paresh and all he did was weep; he kept on weeping and bowed to Paresh. We didn`t know what to do — we waited for a while for him to cool down.`` The old man then explained that he had lived through the whole horror of partition, and had been a neighbor of Nathuram Godse. He told Raval that he was not touching his feet, but saw Godse in him and was trying to pay tribute to him. Such is the sadness at losing a part of India.
Shah also believes that the positive applause at the play was heightened by the Kargil situation. This was the very thing that Godse had warned against — that the creation of Pakistan would only create more problems. Godse himself willed that his ashes not be disposed until there is one India again, and the Sindhu River flows in a united land. The ashes still wait in Gopal Godse`s apartment in Mumbai, to be scattered in the Sindhu.
What was the rational for creating a play that relives a dark period in India`s history, when a Hindu stilled the life of a fellow Hindu in the name of patriotism? Says Rawal, ``But don`t you think that is a good thing that we have some kind of introspection? Fifty years have gone by and some kind of introspection is really essential.``
Gandhi has always been a sacred cow, a demi-god whose character is all white with no room for shades of gray or black. Many different plays and films have been trying to fill in the blanks and understand the Mmn behind the Mahatma.
Asked about the response to the show, Raval concedes, ``Not everyone was happy with it but that`s fine too because that`s one kind of a reaction too.`` Did he think the play should be shown in India?
Raval pauses. Then he says, ``Well, it has to be. Because why not? How can you illumine Ram`s life without going into Ravan`s life, what he did? How can you shun people? How can you put up with such things in a democracy? Godse was sympathetic to Muslims but was never in favor of partition. He believed, `Why partition? We are here to stay together. Why create a country in the name of religion? Why did nobody stop them?’"
— Lavina Melwani
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
The Man Who Shot GandhiBy Lavina Melwani
Nathuram Godse gets his turn.
He lurks in the shadows of history, always abhorred, marginalized, a demon in the history books. He is after all, India`s national villain — Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi. Standing inches away from him, staring him in the face Godse pulled the trigger on the revered ``Mahan atma`` or great soul who had never so much as harmed a fly. The world still reviles Godse, for his act was almost as heinous as killing a sacred cow, the assassin of piety.
Now as we mark Gandhi`s birth anniversary in October and as Time magazine considers him for ``Man of the Century,`` Godse — the forgotten, the accursed — is suddenly back in the picture. He is back, once again explaining his point of view, explaining why he had to place his finger on the trigger. ``Gandhi Godse,`` a play in Hindi, premiered in the United States playing in 18 cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Rutherford, N.J., and Queens, N.Y.
Based on the original Marathi play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy written by Pradeep Dalvi, the book May I please Your Honor and the Marathi book Gandhi Hatya Aani Mee (Gandhi`s Assassination and Me) by Gopal Godse, Nathruram`s brother. ``Gandhi Godse,`` which is written by Mihir Bhuta and directed and produced by Jaysukh Ravrani, is performed under the banner of Performers Group (Mumbai). The play is largely based on the court records and Godse`s lengthy speech to the court, as well as the playwright`s interviews with surviving conspirators.
The local organizers, Hitesh and Himanshu Shah of Pranam/Nu-Creations who have been bringing in Hindi and Gujarati plays to the East Coast, emphasized that this was possibly the only chance to ever see ``Gandhi Godse`` performed, for it has been banned in India. Ironically, the Gujarati and Marathi versions of the play had showed in Mumbai without much ado, but were eventually banned when after playing for a year, the event took on a political color and rioting occurred outside the theaters.
Here in the United States, large Indian audiences turned out to confront an uncomfortable situation, a perplexing man whom they neither understand nor liked. It is to the credit of actor Paresh Raval, who plays the lead character, that viewers came away with mixed, confused feelings, and almost against their will — a bit more empathy for Godse.
This noted stage and screen actor has acted in many plays and films, and won every important award, including National Awards for his performance in ``Sir`` and ``Sardar`` and also Filmfare awards. A versatile linguist, he has acted in every major regional language including Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Telegu. In ``Gandhi Godse,`` Raval has taken on a difficult character, and gone into his pysche, showing him as a Gandhian and a patriot who took on the killing of the Mahatma as a duty killing to save ``Akhand Bharat`` or Undivided India.
Says Raval, ``I was excited by the character Godse and the way he was sidelined in history. It instigated me to do this — in our democracy everyone should be given a chance to speak and you cannot curb anyone`s voice.``
After doing this remarkable performance so many times, had his feelings towards Godse changed? ``My feelings towards Gandhi or Godse shouldn`t change necessarily because I`m an actor and just doing my job,`` explains Raval. ``We never wanted to re-interpret anything — we just wanted to represent whatever had happened at that time.``
What did he think of the reaction in Los Angeles and New York, where often audiences clapped and cheered wildly during his impassioned dialogue. He says, ``The audience reaction was very positive — they said they had never known this part of history.``
He points out that while history books write about Nehru and Gandhi, people know little about other freedom fighters and revolutionaries. For however misguided, Nathuram Godse was a desh bhakt or patriot. Says Raval, ``Whatever he did he did it for the country — he and his brothers never stood for any kind of elections. Whatever he did, right or wrong — that is for people to judge — he did it for India.
``He was not a contract killer, he was an educated man, the editor of a magazine. In the history of assassination, his is the only case where one man planned and pulled the trigger too. In other cases, someone plans, and someone else pulls the trigger. He didn`t walk away — he just stood there.``
The versatile Raval has played villains and dons in many different films and plays, including South Indian, Haryanvi, Nepali bad guys. How different was this role of national villain of India as compared to all the other villains Raval has played? He observes, ``You can`t call Godse a villain because he killed Gandhi, or a wise man because he did it for the country. You shouldn`t label him. This villain had a human face. It was more a clash of differing ideologies. It was his view of the world, it was his view of the truth.``
According to Hitesh Shah, `` Godse himself was a strict Gandhian, so there had to be a reason for his doing this — he was not a maniac. What he did was for his reason. This play shows the other side of the coin.`` He recalls that in Houston, people belonging to a Gandhian organization had tried to stop the performances. They did not succeed in banning the show and did come to watch it. At the end, they got up and gave a standing ovation to Paresh Raval.
Indeed, Raval has received standing ovations at every performance across the United States. Interestingly enough, there was a lot of applause from the audience when Godse calls Gandhi the Rashtrapita or Father of the Nation of Pakistan. Says Raval, ``That`s what Godse believed because India already existed — Gandhi was not the one who formed the country. Because of him Pakistan was born — he didn`t prevent its creation.``
A lot of people in the audience seemed to agree with his sentiments, and there seems to be still this sense of disbelief and grief among older Indians that India actually got divided. There is regret and a fantasy that all the bloodshed and mayhem could be wiped away and India would once again be one. The applause one feels was for that regret, that death of the idea of a united India that Godse espoused.
Hitesh Shah recalls an elderly man who came with his family to see the play in New Jersey: `` He was about 80 years old. After the performance, he came up to Paresh and all he did was weep; he kept on weeping and bowed to Paresh. We didn`t know what to do — we waited for a while for him to cool down.`` The old man then explained that he had lived through the whole horror of partition, and had been a neighbor of Nathuram Godse. He told Raval that he was not touching his feet, but saw Godse in him and was trying to pay tribute to him. Such is the sadness at losing a part of India.
Shah also believes that the positive applause at the play was heightened by the Kargil situation. This was the very thing that Godse had warned against — that the creation of Pakistan would only create more problems. Godse himself willed that his ashes not be disposed until there is one India again, and the Sindhu River flows in a united land. The ashes still wait in Gopal Godse`s apartment in Mumbai, to be scattered in the Sindhu.
What was the rational for creating a play that relives a dark period in India`s history, when a Hindu stilled the life of a fellow Hindu in the name of patriotism? Says Rawal, ``But don`t you think that is a good thing that we have some kind of introspection? Fifty years have gone by and some kind of introspection is really essential.``
Gandhi has always been a sacred cow, a demi-god whose character is all white with no room for shades of gray or black. Many different plays and films have been trying to fill in the blanks and understand the Mmn behind the Mahatma.
Asked about the response to the show, Raval concedes, ``Not everyone was happy with it but that`s fine too because that`s one kind of a reaction too.`` Did he think the play should be shown in India?
Raval pauses. Then he says, ``Well, it has to be. Because why not? How can you illumine Ram`s life without going into Ravan`s life, what he did? How can you shun people? How can you put up with such things in a democracy? Godse was sympathetic to Muslims but was never in favor of partition. He believed, `Why partition? We are here to stay together. Why create a country in the name of religion? Why did nobody stop them?’"
— Lavina Melwani
Muslim League’s Politics (1937-1947)
‘Jinnah’s solution for Muslims was a disaster, Nehru and Patel lacked foresight’
Dr Rafiq Zakaria’s book The Man Who Divided India:An Insight into Jinnah’s Leadership and its Aftermath (see box) has come in for sharp criticism in Pakistan. Leading the anti-Zakaria campaign is Najam Sethi, editor of the Lahore-based weekly magazine The Friday Times who dubbed Zakaria’s condemnation of Pakistan’s creation as a ‘‘dangerous idea’’. Initiating a fresh debate on Jinnah’s diabolical Two-Nation theory, the book has been reviewed by various national and international publications. BBC has already interviewed Zakaria while America’s channel DIALOG, which airs nationally every Saturday and also on ATN in Canada, has sought his appointment. Stung by Pakistani intelligentsia’s comments, Zakaria fiercely defends his book in an interview with MOHAMMED WAJIHUDDIN:
Your book has evoked strong reactions in Pakistan. Did you expect it?
It`s not unexpected. But Najam Sethi and his ilk have misunderstood me. My book is not about Jinnah’s foibles, but about the disaster he brought onto the Muslims of undivided India. Those who are opposing my book have irrationally put their blinkers on.
Sethi claims you have recycled Stanley Wolpert, the well-known historian and biographer of Jinnah.
Rubbish. I referred to him only thrice. Sethi says I have not referred to Ayesha Jalal. I referred to a number of authentic official and non-official sources including Jalal, Jinnah’s papers and comments in Pakistani newspapers like Dawn.
E X C E R P T S
‘‘...Sometimes when his detractors questioned him on what sacrifice he would be ready to make for the Muslims, he scoffed at them saying he did not believe in aping Gandhi whose methods of non-cooperation and mass agitation he detested. He missed no opportunity to pour venom on the Congress and the Hindus and always kept the British on his side; within the League he was able to have complete sway. This he did surprisingly by maintaining a distance from all. He enjoyed being eulogised; his monumental ego brooked no opposition. He thrived on his command being unquestionably obeyed. His vanity was overbearing; he had contempt for all those who disagreed with him. In the evening of his life, when he was obsessed with his pet scheme of Pakistan, he had convinced himself that it was the solution. He refused to listen to any argument against it. Nor was he deterred by mounting opposition unleashed by his opponents. The more they questioned him about the viability of Pakistan the more dogmatic he became in pursuing it. Jinnah’s weapon was not logic but debating skills in which few could equal him. Also few could match his organising capacity. He adhered firmly to the constitutional path; he did not encourage illegal agitations. Only once when he was utterly frustrated, after the failure of his negotiations with Viceroy Wavell, did he agree, under pressure from his colleagues, to declare ‘Direct Action’; it unfortunately resulted in more death and destruction of the Muslims. This reaffirmed his resolve not to ever deviate from the constitutional path. He genuinely regretted having come down from the politics of the ivory tower to that of the marketplace. There are, indeed, few instances in history where a leader had been able to achieve so much by doing so little, except through play of words. He once remarked that he got Pakistan by using just the services of his secretary and typewriter...’’
But what is your main complaint against Jinnah?
My main complaint is that the solution Jinnah chose for the Muslims of the sub-continent was disastrous. First, he created a religious frenzy by saying Islam was in danger. That despite the fact that he had no love for that religion. He ate pork, drank liquor, neither did he offer namaz nor did he go for Haj. Yet he claimed to be a saviour of Islam.
Secondly, by misguiding Muslims that they would be eternally under Hindu domination in India, he sowed a seed of hatred which we are reaping till today. He took away the educated, affluent Muslim middle class, leaving poor Muslims in the lurch. In united India, in five out of eleven provinces, Muslims had their own governments. By dividing the sub-continent into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Jinnah reduced the once forward-looking community into hewers of wood and drawers of water.
No one ever claimed that Jinnah was a practising Muslim. Aren’t you flogging a dead subject?
If they think so, why is he still called Quaid-e-Azam(Great Leader) in Pakistan? Theologian and founder of Jamaat-I-Islami Maualana Maududi once said: ‘‘One cannot discover even a hint of Islam in the ideas, ideals and the political style of Jinnah... From the most trivial to the most crucial problems, he shows no knowledge of the Quranic point of view nor does he care or consider it necessary to seek it. All his knowledge comes from western laws and sources.’’ Many prominent Muslims who participated in the struggle for Pakistan including Chaudhury Khaliquzzaman, who moved the resolution for Pakistan, Suharwardy and Fazlul Haq, deplored their decision.
You have held Nehru and Patel responsible for the Partition as well. Don’t you think that not heeding Jinnah’s demand would have pushed India into civil war?
Nehru and Patel lacked the determination and foresight of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln would have rather faced a civil war than budged from his resolve to keep America together. During Partition and its aftermath we lost more lives than we would probably have in a civil war.
Many shared Jinnah’s view and continue to believe that Hindus and Muslims, being different nations, couldn’t live together.
This is a lie. For thousands of years Hindus and Muslims have lived together. They may be following different religions, but they have a lot in common in terms of culture, custom, tradition and language. In my book, I referred to the great Muslim leader of the 19th century, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who often described Hindus and Muslims as the two beautiful eyes on the face of India. If one was hurt, he said, the other was bound to be affected.
Book: The Man Who Divided India
Blame it on Jinnah!
DOM MORAES meets and interviews DR. RAFIQ ZAKARIA (Father of Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria), the eminent Islamic scholar, whose new book The Man Who Divided India deserves to be read by one and all.
OFF Cuffe Parade, in a large flat that also contains his library and his office, Dr. Rafiq Zakaria contemplates the world and writes his books. He is one of the most eminent Islamic scholars left in India, and the most reliable spokesman for the Muslim community. He is also a fervent defender of the rights of Indian Muslims, and a renowned educationist. He has set up a number of schools and colleges for the young of the community, including girls, in Mumbai and other parts of western India. But at 81, he is as restless as an eagle disturbed in its eyrie. What most disturbs him is the present state of Indian Muslims. There are 140 million of them, and they are predominantly passive and sad, afraid to speak.
He attributes their troubles, and those of the other Muslims in the subcontinent, primarily to one person, whose life he describes in his latest book, The Man Who Divided India, (Popular Prakashan, Rs. 350). The man who divided India also founded Pakistan. There his name is remembered, though it has been almost completely forgotten on this side of the division lines. He was Mohammed Ali Jinnah, known as the Quaid-e-Azam. As Dr. Zakaria points out, it is ironic that Pakistan should have been founded by someone who was wholly western in his habits, knew very little about Islam, drank whisky every night of his life, and ate pork sausages with relish, as the anecdotes in this book illustrate.
But he is very bitter about Jinnah. ``He died in 1948,`` he remarked. ``Had the Congress leaders, Nehru and Patel, stood fast for a few months, the whole process of partition could have been avoided, and India would still be intact. The only man who wanted it was Jinnah. The British also wanted to finish the deal as quickly as possible so that they could get out of India. The Viceroy, Mountbatten, pushed Nehru and Patel to make up their minds quickly. Nehru wavered and hesitated instead of taking a firm stand. Even Patel, it is said, succumbed to a false argument. He was told that if India remained undivided there would be trouble from the Muslims. But at least it would have remained a domestic issue.
``It could have been resolved internally, by political means. What happened instead was that by allowing partition, Nehru and Patel created a hostile nation on their doorstep. The hostility came after partition, first with the killings that took place at the time.`` Slowly and bitterly, Dr. Zakaria said, ``A million people were killed at the time of partition. Hundreds of thousands of women were raped and kidnapped. Children were not spared. Both sides suffered equally. This created hatreds that could not be forgiven nor forgotten. And then came Kashmir. A Hindu ruler with a predominantly Muslim state opted for India. The Kashmir problem still remains the biggest obstacle to peace between the two nations.`` Dr. Zakaria has had a very full and active life. He has not only been a lawyer, educationist, and author. He has also been a journalist, a politician, even a diplomat who represented India at the United Nations. It is a frightening number of professions for one man to have followed. Anyone who has done all this would by necessity have to have a highly organised personal life. Today, silent servants efficiently served tea, cake, and biscuits on request. Whenever Dr. Zakaria pressed a bellpush, a genie in contemporary attire emerged from the shadows to produce photographs and books, xerox documents, and find files. Begum Zakaria has been a working woman all her life, and is well known as a journalist; but one saw her hand invisibly direct all these small details of her husband`s life. Their son is a highly placed and senior editor with Newsweek in America.
It is a very successful family and has been, at least through Dr. Zakaria, of service to the nation. There are others like it in India today, but the point is that hardly any of them are now Muslim. When the country was undivided, several such families were. I recall them from childhood as friends of my father`s. This, as Dr. Zakaria says, is due to Jinnah. ``Now 140,000 million Muslims are under Hindu domination. If Pakistan ever takes over Kashmir, their lives in this country will be in jeopardy. As for the Muslims in Pakistan, they live under military dictatorship and their aspirations are smothered. India has some benevolent influence in Bangladesh, but where now in the subcontinent do Muslims have any chance?``
It seems now to be his mission to restore the chances of Indian Muslims. ``Because of the change in attitudes since the Ayodhya incident, Muslims here are not even considered Indians. I spoke to Mr. Advani on the phone today to wish him happy Diwali.`` He smiled ironically. ``I`m glad that because of all the work I have done, the BJP considers me to be an Indian. Some extremists after September 11th, consider the Muslims to be a threat. How are they a threat? They are mostly poor, illiterate, and scattered all over India, often in villages. Most of them have never heard of Osama bin Laden. They are afraid of the Hindus. If only the BJP government offered them even a little help, they could be rescued from this situation, into which they only fell because India was divided.
``A few of them, in urban areas, may be misguided. They may stand in the streets and shout against the Americans in Afghanistan. This will be seized on by the Hindu extremists as an example of what Muslims are like. This is not the case with the majority. The majority would like to get on with their lives in this country, which is the only one they have or know. They have no options now.`` Dr. Zakaria looked extremely sad, but also extremely determined. ``The government must help them save themselves from illiteracy and poverty. Otherwise the Muslims will replace the Dalits as the lowest and worst treated community in India. I have written my book on Jinnah not only to establish that he was the one responsible for their situation, but to point out what the situation of Muslims on the subcontinent has become as a result of his irresponsible actions.``
It is a very fine book, and should be widely read, perhaps more by young Hindus than by anyone else. The travesty of history taught in Indian schools and colleges has led young people to accept many lies as historical truth. The British, even in the 1930s, fully intended to leave India at some future date. The freedom movement was only intended to bring that date forward. Muslims as well as Hindus took part in this movement. The British from time to time attempted to suppress it. But the numbers of people imprisoned, tortured in prison, executed, or killed by police in the course of movements opposed to the government were far fewer during the 89 years of British rule than during the 54 years that India has been independent. Why should young Indians not know these facts? Dr. Zakaria`s book doesn`t mention this aspect of Indian history, but it does point out that independence and partition, in the end, did not come about by any heroic struggle. They came about through a tripartite horse trade between the Congress on one hand and the British on the other, with a mephistophelian Jinnah whipping them both on to hasten their decisions, and so precipitate disaster. In writing on Jinnah, Dr. Zakaria has also written on the most crucial moment in all Indian history, and, for both, he deserves our congratulations.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
Controversy: Rafiq Zakaria on his new book on Jinnah and the partition ‘Jinnah’s solution for Muslims was a disaster, Nehru and Patel lacked foresight’
Dr Rafiq Zakaria’s book The Man Who Divided India:An Insight into Jinnah’s Leadership and its Aftermath (see box) has come in for sharp criticism in Pakistan. Leading the anti-Zakaria campaign is Najam Sethi, editor of the Lahore-based weekly magazine The Friday Times who dubbed Zakaria’s condemnation of Pakistan’s creation as a ‘‘dangerous idea’’. Initiating a fresh debate on Jinnah’s diabolical Two-Nation theory, the book has been reviewed by various national and international publications. BBC has already interviewed Zakaria while America’s channel DIALOG, which airs nationally every Saturday and also on ATN in Canada, has sought his appointment. Stung by Pakistani intelligentsia’s comments, Zakaria fiercely defends his book in an interview with MOHAMMED WAJIHUDDIN:
Your book has evoked strong reactions in Pakistan. Did you expect it?
It`s not unexpected. But Najam Sethi and his ilk have misunderstood me. My book is not about Jinnah’s foibles, but about the disaster he brought onto the Muslims of undivided India. Those who are opposing my book have irrationally put their blinkers on.
Sethi claims you have recycled Stanley Wolpert, the well-known historian and biographer of Jinnah.
Rubbish. I referred to him only thrice. Sethi says I have not referred to Ayesha Jalal. I referred to a number of authentic official and non-official sources including Jalal, Jinnah’s papers and comments in Pakistani newspapers like Dawn.
E X C E R P T S
‘‘...Sometimes when his detractors questioned him on what sacrifice he would be ready to make for the Muslims, he scoffed at them saying he did not believe in aping Gandhi whose methods of non-cooperation and mass agitation he detested. He missed no opportunity to pour venom on the Congress and the Hindus and always kept the British on his side; within the League he was able to have complete sway. This he did surprisingly by maintaining a distance from all. He enjoyed being eulogised; his monumental ego brooked no opposition. He thrived on his command being unquestionably obeyed. His vanity was overbearing; he had contempt for all those who disagreed with him. In the evening of his life, when he was obsessed with his pet scheme of Pakistan, he had convinced himself that it was the solution. He refused to listen to any argument against it. Nor was he deterred by mounting opposition unleashed by his opponents. The more they questioned him about the viability of Pakistan the more dogmatic he became in pursuing it. Jinnah’s weapon was not logic but debating skills in which few could equal him. Also few could match his organising capacity. He adhered firmly to the constitutional path; he did not encourage illegal agitations. Only once when he was utterly frustrated, after the failure of his negotiations with Viceroy Wavell, did he agree, under pressure from his colleagues, to declare ‘Direct Action’; it unfortunately resulted in more death and destruction of the Muslims. This reaffirmed his resolve not to ever deviate from the constitutional path. He genuinely regretted having come down from the politics of the ivory tower to that of the marketplace. There are, indeed, few instances in history where a leader had been able to achieve so much by doing so little, except through play of words. He once remarked that he got Pakistan by using just the services of his secretary and typewriter...’’
But what is your main complaint against Jinnah?
My main complaint is that the solution Jinnah chose for the Muslims of the sub-continent was disastrous. First, he created a religious frenzy by saying Islam was in danger. That despite the fact that he had no love for that religion. He ate pork, drank liquor, neither did he offer namaz nor did he go for Haj. Yet he claimed to be a saviour of Islam.
Secondly, by misguiding Muslims that they would be eternally under Hindu domination in India, he sowed a seed of hatred which we are reaping till today. He took away the educated, affluent Muslim middle class, leaving poor Muslims in the lurch. In united India, in five out of eleven provinces, Muslims had their own governments. By dividing the sub-continent into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Jinnah reduced the once forward-looking community into hewers of wood and drawers of water.
No one ever claimed that Jinnah was a practising Muslim. Aren’t you flogging a dead subject?
If they think so, why is he still called Quaid-e-Azam(Great Leader) in Pakistan? Theologian and founder of Jamaat-I-Islami Maualana Maududi once said: ‘‘One cannot discover even a hint of Islam in the ideas, ideals and the political style of Jinnah... From the most trivial to the most crucial problems, he shows no knowledge of the Quranic point of view nor does he care or consider it necessary to seek it. All his knowledge comes from western laws and sources.’’ Many prominent Muslims who participated in the struggle for Pakistan including Chaudhury Khaliquzzaman, who moved the resolution for Pakistan, Suharwardy and Fazlul Haq, deplored their decision.
You have held Nehru and Patel responsible for the Partition as well. Don’t you think that not heeding Jinnah’s demand would have pushed India into civil war?
Nehru and Patel lacked the determination and foresight of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln would have rather faced a civil war than budged from his resolve to keep America together. During Partition and its aftermath we lost more lives than we would probably have in a civil war.
Many shared Jinnah’s view and continue to believe that Hindus and Muslims, being different nations, couldn’t live together.
This is a lie. For thousands of years Hindus and Muslims have lived together. They may be following different religions, but they have a lot in common in terms of culture, custom, tradition and language. In my book, I referred to the great Muslim leader of the 19th century, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who often described Hindus and Muslims as the two beautiful eyes on the face of India. If one was hurt, he said, the other was bound to be affected.
Book: The Man Who Divided India
Blame it on Jinnah!
DOM MORAES meets and interviews DR. RAFIQ ZAKARIA (Father of Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria), the eminent Islamic scholar, whose new book The Man Who Divided India deserves to be read by one and all.
OFF Cuffe Parade, in a large flat that also contains his library and his office, Dr. Rafiq Zakaria contemplates the world and writes his books. He is one of the most eminent Islamic scholars left in India, and the most reliable spokesman for the Muslim community. He is also a fervent defender of the rights of Indian Muslims, and a renowned educationist. He has set up a number of schools and colleges for the young of the community, including girls, in Mumbai and other parts of western India. But at 81, he is as restless as an eagle disturbed in its eyrie. What most disturbs him is the present state of Indian Muslims. There are 140 million of them, and they are predominantly passive and sad, afraid to speak.
He attributes their troubles, and those of the other Muslims in the subcontinent, primarily to one person, whose life he describes in his latest book, The Man Who Divided India, (Popular Prakashan, Rs. 350). The man who divided India also founded Pakistan. There his name is remembered, though it has been almost completely forgotten on this side of the division lines. He was Mohammed Ali Jinnah, known as the Quaid-e-Azam. As Dr. Zakaria points out, it is ironic that Pakistan should have been founded by someone who was wholly western in his habits, knew very little about Islam, drank whisky every night of his life, and ate pork sausages with relish, as the anecdotes in this book illustrate.
But he is very bitter about Jinnah. ``He died in 1948,`` he remarked. ``Had the Congress leaders, Nehru and Patel, stood fast for a few months, the whole process of partition could have been avoided, and India would still be intact. The only man who wanted it was Jinnah. The British also wanted to finish the deal as quickly as possible so that they could get out of India. The Viceroy, Mountbatten, pushed Nehru and Patel to make up their minds quickly. Nehru wavered and hesitated instead of taking a firm stand. Even Patel, it is said, succumbed to a false argument. He was told that if India remained undivided there would be trouble from the Muslims. But at least it would have remained a domestic issue.
``It could have been resolved internally, by political means. What happened instead was that by allowing partition, Nehru and Patel created a hostile nation on their doorstep. The hostility came after partition, first with the killings that took place at the time.`` Slowly and bitterly, Dr. Zakaria said, ``A million people were killed at the time of partition. Hundreds of thousands of women were raped and kidnapped. Children were not spared. Both sides suffered equally. This created hatreds that could not be forgiven nor forgotten. And then came Kashmir. A Hindu ruler with a predominantly Muslim state opted for India. The Kashmir problem still remains the biggest obstacle to peace between the two nations.`` Dr. Zakaria has had a very full and active life. He has not only been a lawyer, educationist, and author. He has also been a journalist, a politician, even a diplomat who represented India at the United Nations. It is a frightening number of professions for one man to have followed. Anyone who has done all this would by necessity have to have a highly organised personal life. Today, silent servants efficiently served tea, cake, and biscuits on request. Whenever Dr. Zakaria pressed a bellpush, a genie in contemporary attire emerged from the shadows to produce photographs and books, xerox documents, and find files. Begum Zakaria has been a working woman all her life, and is well known as a journalist; but one saw her hand invisibly direct all these small details of her husband`s life. Their son is a highly placed and senior editor with Newsweek in America.
It is a very successful family and has been, at least through Dr. Zakaria, of service to the nation. There are others like it in India today, but the point is that hardly any of them are now Muslim. When the country was undivided, several such families were. I recall them from childhood as friends of my father`s. This, as Dr. Zakaria says, is due to Jinnah. ``Now 140,000 million Muslims are under Hindu domination. If Pakistan ever takes over Kashmir, their lives in this country will be in jeopardy. As for the Muslims in Pakistan, they live under military dictatorship and their aspirations are smothered. India has some benevolent influence in Bangladesh, but where now in the subcontinent do Muslims have any chance?``
It seems now to be his mission to restore the chances of Indian Muslims. ``Because of the change in attitudes since the Ayodhya incident, Muslims here are not even considered Indians. I spoke to Mr. Advani on the phone today to wish him happy Diwali.`` He smiled ironically. ``I`m glad that because of all the work I have done, the BJP considers me to be an Indian. Some extremists after September 11th, consider the Muslims to be a threat. How are they a threat? They are mostly poor, illiterate, and scattered all over India, often in villages. Most of them have never heard of Osama bin Laden. They are afraid of the Hindus. If only the BJP government offered them even a little help, they could be rescued from this situation, into which they only fell because India was divided.
``A few of them, in urban areas, may be misguided. They may stand in the streets and shout against the Americans in Afghanistan. This will be seized on by the Hindu extremists as an example of what Muslims are like. This is not the case with the majority. The majority would like to get on with their lives in this country, which is the only one they have or know. They have no options now.`` Dr. Zakaria looked extremely sad, but also extremely determined. ``The government must help them save themselves from illiteracy and poverty. Otherwise the Muslims will replace the Dalits as the lowest and worst treated community in India. I have written my book on Jinnah not only to establish that he was the one responsible for their situation, but to point out what the situation of Muslims on the subcontinent has become as a result of his irresponsible actions.``
It is a very fine book, and should be widely read, perhaps more by young Hindus than by anyone else. The travesty of history taught in Indian schools and colleges has led young people to accept many lies as historical truth. The British, even in the 1930s, fully intended to leave India at some future date. The freedom movement was only intended to bring that date forward. Muslims as well as Hindus took part in this movement. The British from time to time attempted to suppress it. But the numbers of people imprisoned, tortured in prison, executed, or killed by police in the course of movements opposed to the government were far fewer during the 89 years of British rule than during the 54 years that India has been independent. Why should young Indians not know these facts? Dr. Zakaria`s book doesn`t mention this aspect of Indian history, but it does point out that independence and partition, in the end, did not come about by any heroic struggle. They came about through a tripartite horse trade between the Congress on one hand and the British on the other, with a mephistophelian Jinnah whipping them both on to hasten their decisions, and so precipitate disaster. In writing on Jinnah, Dr. Zakaria has also written on the most crucial moment in all Indian history, and, for both, he deserves our congratulations.
Gandhi, Godse and Geeta
By Lavina Melwani
Nathuram Godse gets his turn.
He lurks in the shadows of history, always abhorred, marginalized, a demon in the history books. He is after all, India`s national villain — Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi. Standing inches away from him, staring him in the face Godse pulled the trigger on the revered ``Mahan atma`` or great soul who had never so much as harmed a fly. The world still reviles Godse, for his act was almost as heinous as killing a sacred cow, the assassin of piety.
Now as we mark Gandhi`s birth anniversary in October and as Time magazine considers him for ``Man of the Century,`` Godse — the forgotten, the accursed — is suddenly back in the picture. He is back, once again explaining his point of view, explaining why he had to place his finger on the trigger. ``Gandhi Godse,`` a play in Hindi, premiered in the United States playing in 18 cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Rutherford, N.J., and Queens, N.Y.
Based on the original Marathi play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy written by Pradeep Dalvi, the book May I please Your Honor and the Marathi book Gandhi Hatya Aani Mee (Gandhi`s Assassination and Me) by Gopal Godse, Nathruram`s brother. ``Gandhi Godse,`` which is written by Mihir Bhuta and directed and produced by Jaysukh Ravrani, is performed under the banner of Performers Group (Mumbai). The play is largely based on the court records and Godse`s lengthy speech to the court, as well as the playwright`s interviews with surviving conspirators.
The local organizers, Hitesh and Himanshu Shah of Pranam/Nu-Creations who have been bringing in Hindi and Gujarati plays to the East Coast, emphasized that this was possibly the only chance to ever see ``Gandhi Godse`` performed, for it has been banned in India. Ironically, the Gujarati and Marathi versions of the play had showed in Mumbai without much ado, but were eventually banned when after playing for a year, the event took on a political color and rioting occurred outside the theaters.
Here in the United States, large Indian audiences turned out to confront an uncomfortable situation, a perplexing man whom they neither understand nor liked. It is to the credit of actor Paresh Raval, who plays the lead character, that viewers came away with mixed, confused feelings, and almost against their will — a bit more empathy for Godse.
This noted stage and screen actor has acted in many plays and films, and won every important award, including National Awards for his performance in ``Sir`` and ``Sardar`` and also Filmfare awards. A versatile linguist, he has acted in every major regional language including Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Telegu. In ``Gandhi Godse,`` Raval has taken on a difficult character, and gone into his pysche, showing him as a Gandhian and a patriot who took on the killing of the Mahatma as a duty killing to save ``Akhand Bharat`` or Undivided India.
Says Raval, ``I was excited by the character Godse and the way he was sidelined in history. It instigated me to do this — in our democracy everyone should be given a chance to speak and you cannot curb anyone`s voice.``
After doing this remarkable performance so many times, had his feelings towards Godse changed? ``My feelings towards Gandhi or Godse shouldn`t change necessarily because I`m an actor and just doing my job,`` explains Raval. ``We never wanted to re-interpret anything — we just wanted to represent whatever had happened at that time.``
What did he think of the reaction in Los Angeles and New York, where often audiences clapped and cheered wildly during his impassioned dialogue. He says, ``The audience reaction was very positive — they said they had never known this part of history.``
He points out that while history books write about Nehru and Gandhi, people know little about other freedom fighters and revolutionaries. For however misguided, Nathuram Godse was a desh bhakt or patriot. Says Raval, ``Whatever he did he did it for the country — he and his brothers never stood for any kind of elections. Whatever he did, right or wrong — that is for people to judge — he did it for India.
``He was not a contract killer, he was an educated man, the editor of a magazine. In the history of assassination, his is the only case where one man planned and pulled the trigger too. In other cases, someone plans, and someone else pulls the trigger. He didn`t walk away — he just stood there.``
The versatile Raval has played villains and dons in many different films and plays, including South Indian, Haryanvi, Nepali bad guys. How different was this role of national villain of India as compared to all the other villains Raval has played? He observes, ``You can`t call Godse a villain because he killed Gandhi, or a wise man because he did it for the country. You shouldn`t label him. This villain had a human face. It was more a clash of differing ideologies. It was his view of the world, it was his view of the truth.``
According to Hitesh Shah, `` Godse himself was a strict Gandhian, so there had to be a reason for his doing this — he was not a maniac. What he did was for his reason. This play shows the other side of the coin.`` He recalls that in Houston, people belonging to a Gandhian organization had tried to stop the performances. They did not succeed in banning the show and did come to watch it. At the end, they got up and gave a standing ovation to Paresh Raval.
Indeed, Raval has received standing ovations at every performance across the United States. Interestingly enough, there was a lot of applause from the audience when Godse calls Gandhi the Rashtrapita or Father of the Nation of Pakistan. Says Raval, ``That`s what Godse believed because India already existed — Gandhi was not the one who formed the country. Because of him Pakistan was born — he didn`t prevent its creation.``
A lot of people in the audience seemed to agree with his sentiments, and there seems to be still this sense of disbelief and grief among older Indians that India actually got divided. There is regret and a fantasy that all the bloodshed and mayhem could be wiped away and India would once again be one. The applause one feels was for that regret, that death of the idea of a united India that Godse espoused.
Hitesh Shah recalls an elderly man who came with his family to see the play in New Jersey: `` He was about 80 years old. After the performance, he came up to Paresh and all he did was weep; he kept on weeping and bowed to Paresh. We didn`t know what to do — we waited for a while for him to cool down.`` The old man then explained that he had lived through the whole horror of partition, and had been a neighbor of Nathuram Godse. He told Raval that he was not touching his feet, but saw Godse in him and was trying to pay tribute to him. Such is the sadness at losing a part of India.
Shah also believes that the positive applause at the play was heightened by the Kargil situation. This was the very thing that Godse had warned against — that the creation of Pakistan would only create more problems. Godse himself willed that his ashes not be disposed until there is one India again, and the Sindhu River flows in a united land. The ashes still wait in Gopal Godse`s apartment in Mumbai, to be scattered in the Sindhu.
What was the rational for creating a play that relives a dark period in India`s history, when a Hindu stilled the life of a fellow Hindu in the name of patriotism? Says Rawal, ``But don`t you think that is a good thing that we have some kind of introspection? Fifty years have gone by and some kind of introspection is really essential.``
Gandhi has always been a sacred cow, a demi-god whose character is all white with no room for shades of gray or black. Many different plays and films have been trying to fill in the blanks and understand the Mmn behind the Mahatma.
Asked about the response to the show, Raval concedes, ``Not everyone was happy with it but that`s fine too because that`s one kind of a reaction too.`` Did he think the play should be shown in India?
Raval pauses. Then he says, ``Well, it has to be. Because why not? How can you illumine Ram`s life without going into Ravan`s life, what he did? How can you shun people? How can you put up with such things in a democracy? Godse was sympathetic to Muslims but was never in favor of partition. He believed, `Why partition? We are here to stay together. Why create a country in the name of religion? Why did nobody stop them?’"
— Lavina Melwani
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
The Man Who Shot GandhiBy Lavina Melwani
Nathuram Godse gets his turn.
He lurks in the shadows of history, always abhorred, marginalized, a demon in the history books. He is after all, India`s national villain — Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Mahatma Gandhi. Standing inches away from him, staring him in the face Godse pulled the trigger on the revered ``Mahan atma`` or great soul who had never so much as harmed a fly. The world still reviles Godse, for his act was almost as heinous as killing a sacred cow, the assassin of piety.
Now as we mark Gandhi`s birth anniversary in October and as Time magazine considers him for ``Man of the Century,`` Godse — the forgotten, the accursed — is suddenly back in the picture. He is back, once again explaining his point of view, explaining why he had to place his finger on the trigger. ``Gandhi Godse,`` a play in Hindi, premiered in the United States playing in 18 cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Rutherford, N.J., and Queens, N.Y.
Based on the original Marathi play Me Nathuram Godse Boltoy written by Pradeep Dalvi, the book May I please Your Honor and the Marathi book Gandhi Hatya Aani Mee (Gandhi`s Assassination and Me) by Gopal Godse, Nathruram`s brother. ``Gandhi Godse,`` which is written by Mihir Bhuta and directed and produced by Jaysukh Ravrani, is performed under the banner of Performers Group (Mumbai). The play is largely based on the court records and Godse`s lengthy speech to the court, as well as the playwright`s interviews with surviving conspirators.
The local organizers, Hitesh and Himanshu Shah of Pranam/Nu-Creations who have been bringing in Hindi and Gujarati plays to the East Coast, emphasized that this was possibly the only chance to ever see ``Gandhi Godse`` performed, for it has been banned in India. Ironically, the Gujarati and Marathi versions of the play had showed in Mumbai without much ado, but were eventually banned when after playing for a year, the event took on a political color and rioting occurred outside the theaters.
Here in the United States, large Indian audiences turned out to confront an uncomfortable situation, a perplexing man whom they neither understand nor liked. It is to the credit of actor Paresh Raval, who plays the lead character, that viewers came away with mixed, confused feelings, and almost against their will — a bit more empathy for Godse.
This noted stage and screen actor has acted in many plays and films, and won every important award, including National Awards for his performance in ``Sir`` and ``Sardar`` and also Filmfare awards. A versatile linguist, he has acted in every major regional language including Gujarati, Hindi, Marathi and Telegu. In ``Gandhi Godse,`` Raval has taken on a difficult character, and gone into his pysche, showing him as a Gandhian and a patriot who took on the killing of the Mahatma as a duty killing to save ``Akhand Bharat`` or Undivided India.
Says Raval, ``I was excited by the character Godse and the way he was sidelined in history. It instigated me to do this — in our democracy everyone should be given a chance to speak and you cannot curb anyone`s voice.``
After doing this remarkable performance so many times, had his feelings towards Godse changed? ``My feelings towards Gandhi or Godse shouldn`t change necessarily because I`m an actor and just doing my job,`` explains Raval. ``We never wanted to re-interpret anything — we just wanted to represent whatever had happened at that time.``
What did he think of the reaction in Los Angeles and New York, where often audiences clapped and cheered wildly during his impassioned dialogue. He says, ``The audience reaction was very positive — they said they had never known this part of history.``
He points out that while history books write about Nehru and Gandhi, people know little about other freedom fighters and revolutionaries. For however misguided, Nathuram Godse was a desh bhakt or patriot. Says Raval, ``Whatever he did he did it for the country — he and his brothers never stood for any kind of elections. Whatever he did, right or wrong — that is for people to judge — he did it for India.
``He was not a contract killer, he was an educated man, the editor of a magazine. In the history of assassination, his is the only case where one man planned and pulled the trigger too. In other cases, someone plans, and someone else pulls the trigger. He didn`t walk away — he just stood there.``
The versatile Raval has played villains and dons in many different films and plays, including South Indian, Haryanvi, Nepali bad guys. How different was this role of national villain of India as compared to all the other villains Raval has played? He observes, ``You can`t call Godse a villain because he killed Gandhi, or a wise man because he did it for the country. You shouldn`t label him. This villain had a human face. It was more a clash of differing ideologies. It was his view of the world, it was his view of the truth.``
According to Hitesh Shah, `` Godse himself was a strict Gandhian, so there had to be a reason for his doing this — he was not a maniac. What he did was for his reason. This play shows the other side of the coin.`` He recalls that in Houston, people belonging to a Gandhian organization had tried to stop the performances. They did not succeed in banning the show and did come to watch it. At the end, they got up and gave a standing ovation to Paresh Raval.
Indeed, Raval has received standing ovations at every performance across the United States. Interestingly enough, there was a lot of applause from the audience when Godse calls Gandhi the Rashtrapita or Father of the Nation of Pakistan. Says Raval, ``That`s what Godse believed because India already existed — Gandhi was not the one who formed the country. Because of him Pakistan was born — he didn`t prevent its creation.``
A lot of people in the audience seemed to agree with his sentiments, and there seems to be still this sense of disbelief and grief among older Indians that India actually got divided. There is regret and a fantasy that all the bloodshed and mayhem could be wiped away and India would once again be one. The applause one feels was for that regret, that death of the idea of a united India that Godse espoused.
Hitesh Shah recalls an elderly man who came with his family to see the play in New Jersey: `` He was about 80 years old. After the performance, he came up to Paresh and all he did was weep; he kept on weeping and bowed to Paresh. We didn`t know what to do — we waited for a while for him to cool down.`` The old man then explained that he had lived through the whole horror of partition, and had been a neighbor of Nathuram Godse. He told Raval that he was not touching his feet, but saw Godse in him and was trying to pay tribute to him. Such is the sadness at losing a part of India.
Shah also believes that the positive applause at the play was heightened by the Kargil situation. This was the very thing that Godse had warned against — that the creation of Pakistan would only create more problems. Godse himself willed that his ashes not be disposed until there is one India again, and the Sindhu River flows in a united land. The ashes still wait in Gopal Godse`s apartment in Mumbai, to be scattered in the Sindhu.
What was the rational for creating a play that relives a dark period in India`s history, when a Hindu stilled the life of a fellow Hindu in the name of patriotism? Says Rawal, ``But don`t you think that is a good thing that we have some kind of introspection? Fifty years have gone by and some kind of introspection is really essential.``
Gandhi has always been a sacred cow, a demi-god whose character is all white with no room for shades of gray or black. Many different plays and films have been trying to fill in the blanks and understand the Mmn behind the Mahatma.
Asked about the response to the show, Raval concedes, ``Not everyone was happy with it but that`s fine too because that`s one kind of a reaction too.`` Did he think the play should be shown in India?
Raval pauses. Then he says, ``Well, it has to be. Because why not? How can you illumine Ram`s life without going into Ravan`s life, what he did? How can you shun people? How can you put up with such things in a democracy? Godse was sympathetic to Muslims but was never in favor of partition. He believed, `Why partition? We are here to stay together. Why create a country in the name of religion? Why did nobody stop them?’"
— Lavina Melwani
Shalom or Salaam
India has been one of the greatest hosts to Judaism, as India is to all the religions of the world. Indian Jews are very proud of their Indian culture, native language, and Indian way of life.
This is an extra feather in their cap.Indian Jews staying in Israel protect and nurture their Indian heritage with great passion. Majority of Indian Jews now stay in Israel.
Here, one very important point should be emphasized that Jews of India migrated to Israel by their own will, influenced by the religious considerations and not by force or persecution.
Indian Jewish Community is mainly divided in three sects Bene Israels from Konkan and Mumbai, Baghdadi from Mumbai and Kolkata, and Cochinis from Kerala.
Existence of Judaism on the Indian soil dates back to many centuries and was less known to the western world.
Western Jews are now in constant contact with their Indian counterparts and work hand in hand for the development and progress of the community here.
The Documentary covers following points: India and Judaism, Hebrew and Marathi language, Important Synagogues, Bene Israels , Customs, Inter Faith meeting, and Challenges ahead for the community.
The music is traditional Bene Israel music, which is basically a mix of Indian classical music, Marathi Musical Theatre and Indian traditional instruments.
Bombay thus has become an important Jewish center for the world Jewry
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
In 1960 there were 20000 Jews staying in India. Mostly in big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, etc.Today there are only 5500 left in India and more than 70% of them stay in the Bombay province [Mumbai & Thane] this makes the Bombay’s Jewish community a very special one.India has been one of the greatest hosts to Judaism, as India is to all the religions of the world. Indian Jews are very proud of their Indian culture, native language, and Indian way of life.
This is an extra feather in their cap.Indian Jews staying in Israel protect and nurture their Indian heritage with great passion. Majority of Indian Jews now stay in Israel.
Here, one very important point should be emphasized that Jews of India migrated to Israel by their own will, influenced by the religious considerations and not by force or persecution.
Indian Jewish Community is mainly divided in three sects Bene Israels from Konkan and Mumbai, Baghdadi from Mumbai and Kolkata, and Cochinis from Kerala.
Existence of Judaism on the Indian soil dates back to many centuries and was less known to the western world.
Western Jews are now in constant contact with their Indian counterparts and work hand in hand for the development and progress of the community here.
The Documentary covers following points: India and Judaism, Hebrew and Marathi language, Important Synagogues, Bene Israels , Customs, Inter Faith meeting, and Challenges ahead for the community.
The music is traditional Bene Israel music, which is basically a mix of Indian classical music, Marathi Musical Theatre and Indian traditional instruments.
Bombay thus has become an important Jewish center for the world Jewry
Shalom or Salaam
Four years of DNA tests on the 4,000-strong Bene Israel, now mainly based in Mumbai, Pune, Thane and Ahmedabad, indicates they are probable descendants of a small group of hereditary Israelite priests or Cohanim, according to new results exclusively made available to the Sunday Times of India.
The priests are scattered worldwide but genetically related in a distinctive fashion that leaves just a billion to one chance of a mistake in identifying who the Bene Israel really are, says Tudor Parfitt, Jewish Studies professor at London`s School of Oriental and African Studies.
Parfitt, who initiated and led the research, says this is the first concrete proof that “exiles from Palestine made it as far as India and managed to maintain Judaism in the sea of Hinduism and Islam”.
Contacted in the Israeli town of Ramla, 15 miles from Tel Aviv, where he emigrated from Mumbai, Aharon Daniel expressed doubt about the new findings. “Many scientists have claimed to have found Israeli or Cohanim genes in tribes in black Africa and other communities around the world and many here were sceptical about this,” he told STOI.
But some analysts said that Daniel`s doubt could be a reflection of the shoddy treatment given to a few of the 30,000 Bene Israelis who returned to the Promised Land in the early `50s, soon after the state of Israel was created. Their Indian appearance, cricket-playing, sari-wearing, curry-eating and Marathi-speaking habits led to a bitter battle for recognition as “real Jews”.
The name Bene Israel literally means Children of Israel and their unsubstantiated legend of origin holds their ancestors to be Jews fleeing persecution in Palestine in 175 BC.
According to the legend, seven men and seven women survived a shipwreck near Navgaon village on the Konkan coast. Their descendants became thoroughly Indian except for observing Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, as a weekly holiday. The practice led them to be known as Shanwar Teli, Marathi for `Saturday oilpressers`.
It was only in 1964, that the Israeli prime minister declared they were genuinely Jewish and should be allowed to return home (to Israel) and inter-marry.
But now, the new study goes one better. By studying certain genetic markers on the DNA chain, found only in male descendants of Aaron, Moses` elder brother, who founded the line of Jewish priests, the Bene Israel could well claim to be the purest of the pure.
Prominent Bene Israelis include poet Nissim Ezekiel and actress Pearl Padamsee.
The new research has also found preliminary genetic evidence to show the declining community of Black Jews of Cochin left Israel in remote historical times.
The new data, which is to feature in leading Western scientific journals over the next few months, comes after painstaking efforts to genetically source the origins of India`s other, self-professed “lost” Jewish tribes, including the Manipuri Jews and the Telugu-speaking Jews of Guntur.
“We took DNA samples, but there was nothing that could prove they were related to other than the general family of mankind”, said Parfitt, who has researched Indian Jewry since 1984.
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
LONDON: More than 2,000 years after they first claimed to have set foot in India, the mystery of the world`s most obscure Jewish community - the Marathi-speaking Bene Israel - may finally have been solved with genetic carbon-dating revealing they carry the unusual Moses gene that would make them, literally, the original children of Israel. Four years of DNA tests on the 4,000-strong Bene Israel, now mainly based in Mumbai, Pune, Thane and Ahmedabad, indicates they are probable descendants of a small group of hereditary Israelite priests or Cohanim, according to new results exclusively made available to the Sunday Times of India.
The priests are scattered worldwide but genetically related in a distinctive fashion that leaves just a billion to one chance of a mistake in identifying who the Bene Israel really are, says Tudor Parfitt, Jewish Studies professor at London`s School of Oriental and African Studies.
Parfitt, who initiated and led the research, says this is the first concrete proof that “exiles from Palestine made it as far as India and managed to maintain Judaism in the sea of Hinduism and Islam”.
Contacted in the Israeli town of Ramla, 15 miles from Tel Aviv, where he emigrated from Mumbai, Aharon Daniel expressed doubt about the new findings. “Many scientists have claimed to have found Israeli or Cohanim genes in tribes in black Africa and other communities around the world and many here were sceptical about this,” he told STOI.
But some analysts said that Daniel`s doubt could be a reflection of the shoddy treatment given to a few of the 30,000 Bene Israelis who returned to the Promised Land in the early `50s, soon after the state of Israel was created. Their Indian appearance, cricket-playing, sari-wearing, curry-eating and Marathi-speaking habits led to a bitter battle for recognition as “real Jews”.
The name Bene Israel literally means Children of Israel and their unsubstantiated legend of origin holds their ancestors to be Jews fleeing persecution in Palestine in 175 BC.
According to the legend, seven men and seven women survived a shipwreck near Navgaon village on the Konkan coast. Their descendants became thoroughly Indian except for observing Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, as a weekly holiday. The practice led them to be known as Shanwar Teli, Marathi for `Saturday oilpressers`.
It was only in 1964, that the Israeli prime minister declared they were genuinely Jewish and should be allowed to return home (to Israel) and inter-marry.
But now, the new study goes one better. By studying certain genetic markers on the DNA chain, found only in male descendants of Aaron, Moses` elder brother, who founded the line of Jewish priests, the Bene Israel could well claim to be the purest of the pure.
Prominent Bene Israelis include poet Nissim Ezekiel and actress Pearl Padamsee.
The new research has also found preliminary genetic evidence to show the declining community of Black Jews of Cochin left Israel in remote historical times.
The new data, which is to feature in leading Western scientific journals over the next few months, comes after painstaking efforts to genetically source the origins of India`s other, self-professed “lost” Jewish tribes, including the Manipuri Jews and the Telugu-speaking Jews of Guntur.
“We took DNA samples, but there was nothing that could prove they were related to other than the general family of mankind”, said Parfitt, who has researched Indian Jewry since 1984.
Shalom or Salaam
- After a troubled integration in Israel, Indian Jews stay on but still cherish the India in them
Sejal Mandalia
The town of Beersheva lies in the Negev Desert in southern Israel. The palms that line the wide roads provide little shelter from the sweltering heat. As you enter the city, the swank Ben Gurion University gives the impression of prosperity, a town to rival the vivacity of Tel Aviv. But look closely at the outlying buildings and you notice a string of worn-out housing estates. This is Tel Aviv`s poor relative. It`s also home to 10,000 Bene-Israel Jews, originally from Maharashtra.
In Israel, the Indian Jews form an estimated community of 60,000, consisting largely of Cochin Jews and the Bene-Israel. Very few Baghdadi Jews, who tended to be more affluent, migrated to Israel, preferring to settle in Britain or America.
Of all the Indian Jews here, the Bene-Israel had the most difficult time integrating into their new society. As Dr Shalva Weil, an anthropologist at the Hebrew University specialising in Indian Jews, explained, ``Unlike the Cochin Jews, who were put into agricultural settlements and became wealthy, the Bene-Israel were placed in peripheral towns such as Dimona, Ashdod or Beersheva, not in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. They are now on the margins of society; this was not the case in India, where the Bene-Israel played a prominent part, such as Nissim Ezekiel, who was awarded the Padmashri. In Israel, Indian Jews don`t occupy equivalent positions.``
There were two main migrations of India`s Jews to Israel. The first came with the almost simultaneous partition of India and Palestine in 1947 and 1948, which led to the creation of the religiously exclusive states of Pakistan and Israel. In both cases, Partition sparked an unprecedented transfer of communities from towns and villages in one nascent state to another. While in India Hindu refugees flooded in and Muslims moved out, in West Asia almost 750,000 Palestinians were forced out and replaced by Jews from across the world, including those from India.
Raymond Abraham was one of those first immigrants who arrived here in 1949. Now a sprightly 78-year-old, Abraham was born in Karachi and fled to Bombay during Partition. Life in the new city was grim. ``Then in 1949, when I was 18, some people came from Israel and asked us to emigrate,`` said Abraham. ``Having no home in India, we put our names down. We sailed to the port of Haifa where we stayed in a camp with Jews who had come from all over the world. Then we were put in groups and distributed around the country. Only Indian Jews came to Beersheva where we again lived in tents. There was no food, no water, but it was a good time. We wanted to build our country and people gave you respect.``
For many Indian Jews, however, their arrival was not so rewarding. In the `50s, Indian Jews were among the darkest of all the new immigrants and experienced racism. As Reuben Raymond, a community leader, explained, the reality of life in Israel from what they imagined it to be was a shock to many Indian Jews. ``In India, we never had to fight for our rights but in Israel we did, and this was something new for us,`` he says. ``In the early `50s, people had a problem because of their colour. They were subjected to differential treatment in everything. In employment, they got bad jobs and had less money. One group even returned to India in 1952.``
The biggest insult to the community came when the Israeli government refused to recognise that the Bene-Israel were real Jews. So from 1962 to 1964, the Bene-Israel held a sit-down strike in Jerusalem until their status as Children of Israel was officially acknowledged. This triggered the second largest migration of Indian Jews to Israel, during which Reuben`s family arrived. Since then, the Bene-Israelis have come to feel accepted in their new homeland. Many of Abraham`s generation now have children and grandchildren born in Israel. Although, as Abraham admits, while the older generation still speak Marathi and Hindi and cook Indian food at home, the Israeli-born generation speak only Hebrew and know little of their Indian heritage.
This is something that worries Reuben, who is involved in a committee to build a museum to preserve and promote the heritage of the Bene-Israel. ``We have tried to preserve as much of our Indian life as possible. We have cricket and hockey teams and spice shops. We have kept our Indian folklore, songs, and teach Indian classical dance. Through our museum and cultural centre, we can establish good ties with India. We can import teachers to teach the younger ones Marathi.``
It is clear that the bond with India is still cherished. As Reuben explains, ``Other Israeli Jews don`t like their motherland because they were driven out but we weren`t. We can never forget what India has done for us. India is still our motherland and Israel is our fatherland.``
Posted by
sarwar
Sep 10, 2003 12:24 pm
INDIAN JEWS IN ISRAEL- After a troubled integration in Israel, Indian Jews stay on but still cherish the India in them
Sejal Mandalia
The town of Beersheva lies in the Negev Desert in southern Israel. The palms that line the wide roads provide little shelter from the sweltering heat. As you enter the city, the swank Ben Gurion University gives the impression of prosperity, a town to rival the vivacity of Tel Aviv. But look closely at the outlying buildings and you notice a string of worn-out housing estates. This is Tel Aviv`s poor relative. It`s also home to 10,000 Bene-Israel Jews, originally from Maharashtra.
In Israel, the Indian Jews form an estimated community of 60,000, consisting largely of Cochin Jews and the Bene-Israel. Very few Baghdadi Jews, who tended to be more affluent, migrated to Israel, preferring to settle in Britain or America.
Of all the Indian Jews here, the Bene-Israel had the most difficult time integrating into their new society. As Dr Shalva Weil, an anthropologist at the Hebrew University specialising in Indian Jews, explained, ``Unlike the Cochin Jews, who were put into agricultural settlements and became wealthy, the Bene-Israel were placed in peripheral towns such as Dimona, Ashdod or Beersheva, not in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. They are now on the margins of society; this was not the case in India, where the Bene-Israel played a prominent part, such as Nissim Ezekiel, who was awarded the Padmashri. In Israel, Indian Jews don`t occupy equivalent positions.``
There were two main migrations of India`s Jews to Israel. The first came with the almost simultaneous partition of India and Palestine in 1947 and 1948, which led to the creation of the religiously exclusive states of Pakistan and Israel. In both cases, Partition sparked an unprecedented transfer of communities from towns and villages in one nascent state to another. While in India Hindu refugees flooded in and Muslims moved out, in West Asia almost 750,000 Palestinians were forced out and replaced by Jews from across the world, including those from India.
Raymond Abraham was one of those first immigrants who arrived here in 1949. Now a sprightly 78-year-old, Abraham was born in Karachi and fled to Bombay during Partition. Life in the new city was grim. ``Then in 1949, when I was 18, some people came from Israel and asked us to emigrate,`` said Abraham. ``Having no home in India, we put our names down. We sailed to the port of Haifa where we stayed in a camp with Jews who had come from all over the world. Then we were put in groups and distributed around the country. Only Indian Jews came to Beersheva where we again lived in tents. There was no food, no water, but it was a good time. We wanted to build our country and people gave you respect.``
For many Indian Jews, however, their arrival was not so rewarding. In the `50s, Indian Jews were among the darkest of all the new immigrants and experienced racism. As Reuben Raymond, a community leader, explained, the reality of life in Israel from what they imagined it to be was a shock to many Indian Jews. ``In India, we never had to fight for our rights but in Israel we did, and this was something new for us,`` he says. ``In the early `50s, people had a problem because of their colour. They were subjected to differential treatment in everything. In employment, they got bad jobs and had less money. One group even returned to India in 1952.``
The biggest insult to the community came when the Israeli government refused to recognise that the Bene-Israel were real Jews. So from 1962 to 1964, the Bene-Israel held a sit-down strike in Jerusalem until their status as Children of Israel was officially acknowledged. This triggered the second largest migration of Indian Jews to Israel, during which Reuben`s family arrived. Since then, the Bene-Israelis have come to feel accepted in their new homeland. Many of Abraham`s generation now have children and grandchildren born in Israel. Although, as Abraham admits, while the older generation still speak Marathi and Hindi and cook Indian food at home, the Israeli-born generation speak only Hebrew and know little of their Indian heritage.
This is something that worries Reuben, who is involved in a committee to build a museum to preserve and promote the heritage of the Bene-Israel. ``We have tried to preserve as much of our Indian life as possible. We have cricket and hockey teams and spice shops. We have kept our Indian folklore, songs, and teach Indian classical dance. Through our museum and cultural centre, we can establish good ties with India. We can import teachers to teach the younger ones Marathi.``
It is clear that the bond with India is still cherished. As Reuben explains, ``Other Israeli Jews don`t like their motherland because they were driven out but we weren`t. We can never forget what India has done for us. India is still our motherland and Israel is our fatherland.``
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