Are the Converted Tribals Really Hindu? Last December, I spent 10 days working with a Don Bosco school ouside Madras. For those of you who are not aware of the Don Bosco schools, these are vocational high schools that teach students useful trades like carpentry, electrical wiring, machining, welding, etc.

The schools are run by Jesuit priests. The school I went to had about 200 students, approximately 40 of them being Christians and the rest Hindus. Every morning, there would be a prayer session for the Christians in a small building used as a chapel. The priest, after leading the prayer session, would spend about 10 minutes preaching about the social responsibilities the students have.

At no time did I see any Hindu student being forced to come to these prayer sessions. The Hindu kids were outside, brushing their teeth, taking a bath, playing, etc., unmindful of the activity inside the chapel.

These Catholic priests themselves (some of them with master's degree in Social Work) were scornful of the evangelical churches that have come up in India with American money who send monthly tally sheets to their American sponsors on the number of new converts.

There is nothing wrong with Christians doing what they want to do. What Hindus object to is subtle as well as direct pressure on the poor, the defenseless and on students in Christian schools to convert.

Are the Converted Tribals Really Hindu? Murad Ali Baig writes

[The conversion of Christians in the riot hit areas Kandhamal in Orissa underlines the hypocrisy of the whole conversion business. Several reports confirm that many tribals have cynically accepted the tonsuring of their hair and the mouthing of Vedic prayers as a small price to pay to get back to theirvillages.]

On the other hand, saying "La Illahi il-allah Mohammad Rasool Allah" and eating a dish of beef at the bidding of a mullah and under the watchful eye of a soldier brandishing a sword is "voluntary" conversion and has resulted in folks like Murad Ali Baig lecturing on the loss of Hinduism's gentle core!

Are the Converted Tribals Really Hindu? Ref Regards #8

[There is some justice in these 'conversions' of tribals to christianism. The argument that missionaris are giving material and social advantage to convert is no longer valid. Why Hindus are not doing same, especially now when we have multi-billionnaires among us?]

Who said Hindus aren't doing it?

The Kanchi Sankaracharya and his monastery run a University in Kanchipuram. As an accredited university, its curriculum is approved by the University Grants Commission and includes all fields of arts and science, including Computer Science. Under the prodding of the Sankaracharya, Dr. Badrinath set up Sankara Nethralaya, a hospital for treating the eye, and 50% of surgeries are for the poor and performed free of charge. The Balaji Temple at Tirupathi has been running the Sri Venkateswara University for almost 50 years now and even runs a medical college.

The Masanamuthus who run the Tamil Nadu state government (and who constantly preach against Hinduism) have requested the Sai Baba of Puttaparthi to please clean up the Cooum river which they have managed to convert into a stinking sewer. If it happens, the only good thing is that the current bunch of thugs in government wouldn't be able to extort 30% of the project money from the Sai Baba!

The Sai Baba paid Rs 2.5 billion from his funds to line the canal that brings water to Chennai from the Krishna river with concrete so that losses along the way due to seepage would be minimized. This is public works project that should have been funded by the government. To my knowledge, the Sai Baba has not demanded that the water should not be given to Christian or Muslim homes. The Sai Baba also runs a huge hospital at Whitefileds, Karnataka (outside Bangalore).

The Ramakrishna Mission runs schools and hostels across the country where students are admitted without regard to caste and brought up without any indoctrination about the caste system. Yet, the Ramakrishna Mission had to go all the way to the Supreme Court of India to have itself declared a minority institution to be free from the clutches of government regulations specifically aimed at Hindu-run institutions.

[Why Bajrang dal does not gherao Lakshmi Mittal who considers himself too young to do any charity or Vijay Mallya who will gild the Tirupati temple but do not feel any responsibility towards poor on the footpath of his office?]

Why should Lakshmi Mittal do anything for you fcukers? He made his money sitting in London, not in India where the only one allowed to have the privileges of wealth are the G@ndu-Nehru clan of bandits and their hangers-on?

Are the Converted Tribals Really Hindu? Ref jang #7

[hindoos have terrible minority relations. they need to learn how to keep peace.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Malaysia_bans_Hindu_organisat ion/articleshow/3603889.cms]

Typical Islamic Logic.

The Malays are 45% of the population of Malaysia. 35% are Chinese, 10% are Orang Asli (aborigines) and 10% are Indians.

This 45% minority, by sheer threat of violence, has appropriated power; has kept 80% (on paper; in reality, more) of government jobs to itself; funds the construction of mosques with government money but won't pay for public schools for the Chinese or the Indians; demands that all private enterprises should have a Malay chairman of the Board who, for lending his name, takes home a fat salary and perks; etc., etc., etc.

On top of that, any frikking mullah can conveniently claim that somebody had become a Muslim after his death and take his body and bury it in Islamic fashion, against the wishes of the family of the dead man.

So, the insults and injuries do not stop even after death.

And you mufukka idiot is telling us that the Hindus are trouble-makers?

Fcuk you!

And fcuk all of you who red-flag this post.

Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity Yaaaawn!

Yasser, dear boy, I don't think you have your normal handle on Gandhi in your interacts on this board. So here it goes:

Gandhi is a racist, fascist pig who slept with his nieces.

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Ref masanamuthu #305

[he..he.. that's why masanamuthus are now entering the priestly class and will slowly kick out the Brahmins and take over the temples (their last bastions). :-) ]

How about getting one of you guys appointed the official priest at Elder Brother's (Annadorai, erstwhile Chief Minister, to those unfamiliar with Tamil Nadu politics) grave at the Marina Beach in Chennai? You are already showing up with coconuts to break and camphor for arti as if the place were a temple so you might as well take it to the next level with an official priest. That would be the perfect irony for a movement that is atheistic and claimed to be Rationalist.

The next possibility is of course the temple to Khushbhoo, the fat Muslim actress, whom you Masanamuthus adore for her huge size. I believe currently there is a move afoot to build a temple to Namitha, another fat Tamil actress. So long as Tamil moviemakers churn through the tart of the day for movie actresses, there should be plenty of opportunity for employment as priests for you guys.

This also opens up possibilities for doctoral dissertations at Periyar University. You might want to apply for a PhD in Tamil Rationalist Studies with the dissertation topic of "1008 Names for Puja at Annadorai's Grave". That should get approved in no time at all!

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Ref HP #330

[Harimau makes some scattered connections. He needs to come up with the references or some research to prove the point. Some common words between the Brahui language, and some south Indian language do not provide the definite prove. People travel and the Brohi area was part of Sindh for a long time too.( Brohi, brohvi, and brahui represent a slight change of accent.Some also refer to as Brohki. Brohi is the popular spelling)]

You can search the web and look up Encyclopedia Brittannica On-line. You can get a temporary pass to read the section you are interested in.

I didn't look up this particular reference material when I wrote my interact #300. I recalled most of it from my memory {not of my IVC days, if you get what I mean ;-) }. I have also read extensively on the Dravidian Language family on the web from various US Universities who do not have any specific India vs.Pakistan agenda to push.

It is not exact congruence of words that linguists look for when they group languages together, even though that can be found within the four major South Indian languages of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. They look for language and grammatical constructs that show similarity and posit a common ancestor for the languages. While Sanskrit and Latin share common word roots (brathu - brother, matru - mater, pitru - pater, etc.,) linguists do not get swayed by these alone though a lay person might. Altaic and Uralic, Hungarian and even Finnish are considered as candidates for linking to proto-Dravidian. Brahui is today considered a descendant of proto-North Dravidian while South Indian languages have been assigned to the South Dravidian family.

Happy reading to you!

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Ref Mullah32 #312

[Dost Mittarjee: The reason history is so confusing to the harimaus of India is the same reason evolution is so confusing to Sarah Palins of Alaska. What are mere facts before Ideology!!]

In the presence of Islamic Logic, science does not matter.

Ancient history has to be inferred from clues left behind by civilizations or human beings that existed in those times. One such evidence would be tangible remains of their existence such as tools, pottery, art, grains and other food items, garbage and even sh!t that they left behind. Another would be the language they spoke if it continues to be spoken or its written form.

The Indus Valley seals have not yet been deciphered. However, the seals are the hot topic of discussion among Indologists and academicians regularly publish articles in scholarly journals supporting their pet theories. Where such articles link, or deny the link, between Sanskrit and the seals, they even get re-published in newspapers in India as articles of interest to the reading public so one doesn't have to go only to academic journals. (These are not written by some science correspondent of the newspaper; the original articles are published under the bylines of the authors themselves.)

The Columbia Encyclopedia (and other on-line sources) do show the distribution of Dravidian languages in the form of a map. Wikipedia seems to have copied Columbia Encyclopedia pretty much in its entirety. However, Al-Quran doesn't talk about Dravidian Languages and hence for Islamists, a language family called Dravidian Languages doesn't exist; hence, any conclusion drawn on the basis language analysis has to be wrong.

There is nothing wrong with Pakistanis claiming that the they are the true inheritors of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). All I refuted was their claim that IVC has no connection with India. And if the reasons I mentioned suggest the possibility of an Aryan Invasion, that in fact contradicts the position of Hindutva-wadis. But the question is: if Pakistanis are all descendants of Prophet Mohammad, Chengiz Khan, Taimur Leng, Nadir Shah, Mahmud Ghaznavi, etc., how could they simultaneously be true inheritors of the IVC?

Today, paleontology posits the existence of dinosaurs based on the bones and eggs excavated at various sites. However, while Al-Quran has a chapter titled "The Cow", it doesn't have one called "The Dinosaurs" nor does it mention dinosaurs anywhere; hence for Islamists, there never were and never could be any dinosaurs.

Thought for Islamists: Al-Quran doesn't mention any land called Pakistan either. Perhaps this is reason enough for Pakistanis to burn the Quran!

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Not content with the bullss!t spread by Bull-Yeah, we have more people weighing in with Aryan Invasion Theory, roots of Sanskrit, etc., etc., etc., about which of course they are clueless but think they have profound knowledge just because they can search Wikipedia.

The claim that present-day India has no connection with the Indus Valley Civilization is total bunk. To begin with, the Dravidian languages are related to the Brahui language still spoken in parts of Pakistan. Certain tribal languages in Central and Northern India are also related to this prototype Dravidian language. To have isolated pockets of languages sharing similar grammatical structures and word roots is an indication that these people once lived in the same area and were dispersed for whatever reason.

Secondly, pottery fragments are still being discovered in Tamil Nadu (the most recent discovery was about 6 months back) with writings similar to writings found on the clay tablets of Mohanja Daro and Harappa.

Thirdly, the phallic symbol thought to be worshipped by the IVC people is today's Shiv Mahadev and he was later incorporated into the Rudra that the Vedic people talk about.

Thus the connection between India and IVC is quite strong despite the nonsense that is being talked about here.

But the interesting thing is that no matter where these Vedic people went, they took their legends with them and recreated them in the localities they settled in. If the Aryans were in fact invaders from Caucasus/Persia -- as indicated by the commonalities between Sanskrit and Latin, and Old (Rig Vedic) Sanskrit and the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta in general -- they do not have any memories of holy places in present-day Iran or the Caucusus. Instead, all their legends were transplanted to the Indus Valley and later on to the Gangetic Plains. In fact, when you come farther south, you will find that these same legends are transplanted into the local scene so that the local population felt integrated with Hinduism. It is thus that all of Kerala celebrates Onam, the day Lord Vishnu in his avatar as Vamana sent King Mahabali to the netherworld. Kerala also claims Parasurama, another avatar of Vishnu, as a Native son. One has to ask if that is in consonance with Bhagavatam and the Eighteen Puranas. The first two avatars, Matsya and Kurma, took place in the primordial ocean; the next, Narasimha, if the Pakistani Hindu Patrika is to be believed, was in Multan; Vamana and Parasurama, according to Malayalees at least, were in Kerala; Rama and Krishna were back in North India. Why are people then questioning whether the culture/religion of Hinduism is pan-Indian or not?

That also answers the question whether the tribals are Hindus and whether those animists who worship stones, trees, rivers, etc., are Hindus. Hinduism accepts anyone as a Hindu who considers himself a Hindu. In fact, this definition is what allows the Masanamuthus of Tamil Nadu, who want to upgrade themselves from worshipping Small-Pox, to visit the nearby Vishnu temple in Srirangam too and consider themselves Hindus. The ever-helpful Hindus, in their turn, declared the Goddess of Small-Pox to be an avatar of Parvati, so that the Masanamuthus have now closed the circle. It is only those tribes that stayed unintegrated till the 20th century that might not consider themselves Hindus but under the legal definition of Hindus, all those who are residents of India who are not Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Parsi, Jewish, Buddhist or Jain are Hindus. Thus the tribals of Orissa are Hindus.

The thing that distinguishes Hinduism from the Abrahamic religions is that the Hindus simply put down deep religious roots wherever they went and set their current locale as the setting for their legends and myths. Thus, you do not have Hindus pining for an ancient homeland that they lost nor have they mounted crusades to recover their holy places lost to others. Contrast this with the Jews, Christians and Moslems who cannot to this day agree on who should own Jerusalem. Indians do not seek ownership of shrines in Persepolis nor do they make pilgrimages to the Caucasus. The only exception to this is Mt Kailash and Lake Manasarovar but they were added to Hindu legends when political borders were unknown and Tibetan Buddhism accepted a whole lot of Hindu myths as its own.

The final question is: what is wrong with Muslims in general and Indian Muslims in particular. The easy answer of course is murderous rampage at every imagined provocation. But the deeper answer is the extra-territorial loyalty to Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina, the Caliph in Turkey, etc. The same thing goes for Christians except that Vatican replaces Mecca and Medina for them. At least, early Indian Christians followed the Hindu tradition by claiming that St. Thomas the Apostle came in 52 AD to convert them amd was martyred in today's Chennai. They should have gone further and set Jesus' place of birth as some unknown village in Kerala. At least, the Mormons did it right. They claim that Jesus was reborn in the United States of America.

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Bull-Yeah likes to construct his own theories of what life must have been like 600 years ago and then extrapolates it to create fanciful fables about the benevolence of Moslem sultans.

The sacking of Delhi by Nadir Shah is well chronicled. History states that Chandni Chowk ran with blood; that after seven days of killings, the only sounds that could be heard in Delhi were the cries of wild animals feeding on the dead bodies; that the sky was dark with vultures; that, after a while, even the wild animals and vultures were sated and could eat no more; that disease then took over and finished off any wounded persons still alive; that the stench was so bad nobody could venture into Delhi.

Yet for Bull-Yeah, this was a minor excess committed in a slightly off-balance moment by an otherwise exemplary humanitarian. To hear him talk, you would think that 17th Moslems were just the kind of folks you would like to have as your neighbors and that one couldn't find better husbands for one's daughters. Wake up and smell the coffee, Bull-Yeah: Shabna Azmi claims she can't buy a flat in Bombay despite her wealth and fame. Want to know why? We don't want her husband and sons walking off with our girls, that is why.

The expanding Islamic sultanates ran into a wall of resistance in the Vijayanagara Empire. For 300+ years, it held the Bahmani sultans at bay, saving the Southern plains of India from Moslem depredation. In one series of battles, the estimated loss of life was half a million... at a time when India's population might have been around 35-40 million. The entire area was in fact heading towards depopulation on account of the deaths of so many able-bodied young men in their prime. Even the Bahmani sultans agreed to a ceasefire after the loss of so many lives. For Bull-Yeah, the ceasefire would be a sign of Moslem moderation!

Bull-Yeah turns to his advantage the fact that Hindus did not generally write down their histories. But Moslem depredation are chronicled by Islamic historians who lived contemporaneously with the wars they were describing. Read the "History of India as Told By Its Own Historians". That describes the conquest of Sindh, the sacking of Delhi, Mathura, etc.

Read the history of India from its original sources rather than read the bullsh!t peddled by Bull-Yeah.

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Ref ana #179

[harimau:

believe me, i would have been the first to have noticed a remark regarding "the supposed genocide of the Armenians" because a remark like that would only have been made by turk lovers, and it would have been A LIE, but tell me where did you see bulleya make such a remark?]

Here it is. I am sorry I didn't say "possible genocide" instead of "supposed genocide" but I was quoting from memory. And I think I was not too far off in that the meaning is just the same.

[#96 Posted by bulleya on October 2, 2008 12:59:12 am

so, the muslim rulers, in the world, were ruthless.......the turkish possible genocide of armenian christians being one example....but the more i read, the more i am begining to realize, perhaps, they were far less ruthless than rulers of other faiths.....]

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Ref dost_mittar #175

[harimau#170:

You must be really, really upset with me to consign me to a chair at JNU. ;) ]

I am NOT giving you a job at Jwahirullah Nehru University. I said that there would be an endowed Chair at JNU named in your honor and that is a better deal than just teaching there! ;-)

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Ref dost_mittar #174

[To be fair, bulleya did provide some examples of "genocide" by non-muslims. If he were not being an advocate, he could have also added some examples from Islam, starting with the total ethnic cleansing of Abu Huzair and his Jews from Medina by none other than the Prophet himself, and ending with the Shah of Afghanistan in Nuristan just a hundred years ago.]

If he were fair, Bull-Yeah would not have said "supposed genocide of Armenians" either. Yup, he is well qualified for a teaching job at Jwahirullah Nehru University.

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia It is just laughable when people who do not understand history, and who do NOT want to understand history, talk about Indian history.

Let us take the instance of why the Islamic thugs did not convert all of India to Islam. It is just that there were way too many Hindus for them to convert! Bull-Yeah points out that the Westerners are wiping out Islamic thugs all over the world, starting with the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in the 16th century to the current elimination of Palestinians from Israeli territory. The same Westerners also wiped out the American-Indian population in North America, and the Aborigines in Australia. But they couldn't do so in India for the simple reason that there was an estimated population of 60 million in India when the British arrived as against 6 million in North America. There is such a thing as scale. Indians remained and continue to remain Hindus merely because of the vast population of India and there was no way, with the inefficient means available in those days, to wipe out the Indian population. This is precisely why the Islamic thugs could not convert ALL Indians to Muslims; it has nothing to do with the religious tolerance of Arab wannabe's no matter how much that theory helps you avoid introspecting over the utter cowardliness of your ancestors in converting rather than fight.

The second argument advances is that the mutineers in 1857 voluntarily chose Bahadur Shah Zafar II as their emperor and chose to fight under his flag, again proving the religious tolerance of Islamic thugs. You are all pretending that Bhadur Shah actually had an empire he was ruling over and Nana Sahib, Tantia Tope, etc., were mere satraps who finally recognized his sovereignty over the lands that they ruled over. Again, this is a figment of Islamic imagination that causes Islamic thugs to blame the British for taking away their empire and throw bombs in crowded places in Delhi, Bombay, etc. All you need is to look at a map of India in 1857 before the mutiny began. The Marathas had taken away from the Moghul emperor not only wide swathes of Maharashtra and Gujarat, but were already ruling over Indore (the Holkars) and were practically at the doorsteps of Delhi in Gwalior (the Scindias). In fact, the so-called Moghul Emperor's writ did not run outside the Red Fort even in Delhi and British historians record that Bahadur Shah was dressed in torn clothes. The Moghul Empire couldn't even collect tax revenues or tribute from its governors in various provinces and inaugurated the principle of outsourcing by taking a one-time payment of 10 million and letting the British collect the tax revenues of Bengal, which of course Siraj-ud-Dowla refused to pay and caused the British to conquer Bengal.

The British preserved the fiction of a Moghul Empire because that justified their outsourcing contracts. If they had acknowledged that Bahadur Shah was a toothless old man pretending he was an emperor while Siraj-ud-Dowla and his ancestors had been independent for a couple of hundred years, then that outsourcing contract would not have any legality. The mutineers merely continued this legal pretence; if the British considered that Bahadur Shah was the emperor of India, then they were equally prepared to acknowledge him as the emperor; it also postponed the question of who would take over the Delhi crown if the British were to be expelled. The Marathas could duke it out later after the British were expelled.

Bull-Yeah should apply to Jwahirullah Nehru University for a job. He will most likely be accepted and appointed to the Dost-Mittar Chair of Moghul History and Minority Relations.

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Ref Dinaric #70

[I pity the Madrassi school spending time teaching its kid history of who was sleeping withn whom ( i didnt )]

No school in India teaches history at that level of detail.
I wrote that to point out that perhaps the dates for bin Qasim's invasion of Sind as 711AD and his death as 715AD may be incorrect, though I did not explicitly point that out and expected that even people with brains slightly smaller than sub-atomic particles (detectable only by the Hadron Collider) would draw that conclusion for themselves.

As to the next detail in history, since it relates to 1857, what was Mangal Pandey's last word to the British as he was taken to the gallows to be hanged?

The answer is: "Behnchodh!"

Yes, that is what he is reported to have said after he had exhorted his fellow soldiers who were watching the execution to rise up against the British.

Now, redflag this all you want. You cannot erase history by redflagging it!

PS. This bit of information is from a book written by a French traveller in India. He states that Mangal Pandey uttered a vile oath that he could not bring himself to translate. But he did provide the original word in Hindi.

Historian Amaresh Misra on South Asia Ref ana #59

[and some people should really get their dates straight. Muhammad bin Qasim died in 715 AD. The date given for his venture into Sindh is exactly and approximately (thank you PK Dube/Monsoon Wedding) 711 AD.]

The history book I read (I can't immediately recall which one) stated that Mohammad bin Qasim presented King Dahir's two daughters as war booty to his king and patron. The brahmin princesses (brahmin conspiracy for you... just add it to your list of them!) confided to the king that night that they were unworthy of him as they were already defiled by bin Qasim, which was an untruth of course. The enraged king ordered bin Qasim to be killed and thus did the princesses avenge the death of their father at the hands of bin Qasim.