This piece has been co-authored by Shanmukh, Saswati Sarkar and Dikgaj.
18-11-2015
अमरीकबरी भार भ्रमरी मुखरी कृतम्।
दूरी करोतु दुरितं गौरीचरणपङ्कजं॥
Thus begins Kuvalayananda of Appayya Dikshita, one of the finest books on Alankara in Sanskrit – with a prayer to Goddess Gowri that the endeavour may be free of obstacles and problems. Similarly, when the kings of Mysore went to war, they would begin by seeking the blessings of Chamundeshwari Devi in Mysore. Even today, Mysore Dasara, so famous across the world, is rooted in the martial tradition of the erstwhile rulers of Mysore, who prayed to Chamundeshwari Devi for her blessings. From poets and scholars, to warriors all over India, Goddess Gowri, in the multitude of her forms, is close to the hearts of many Hindus.
Indeed, Shakti Peethas exist from Hinglaj (Baluchistan) to Sitalkunda (eastern Bangladesh) and from Manas (Tibet) and Amarnath (Kashmir) to Nainativu (Sri Lanka) and Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu), the worship of Shakti spanned the length and breadth of the Bharat that existed from ages, the "Indu" whose territories Xuanzhang, the Chinese pilgrim of the 7th century AD described: "was above 90,000 li in circuit, with the snowy mountains [the Hindu Kush] on the north and the sea on its three other sides. It was politically divided into above seventy kingdoms; the heat of the summer was very great and the land to a large extent marshy. The northern region was hilly with a brackish soil; the east was a rich fertile plain; the southern division had a luxuriant vegetation; and the west had a soil coarse and gravelly" p. 56, [46]. In fact, so widespread is Durga Puja that most states boast at least a major Shakti Peetha/Maha Shakti Peetha. Mahamaya (Jammu and Kashmir) in Amarnath, Chinnamastika at Chintpurni (Himachal Pradesh), Savitri at Thaneswar (Haryana), Varahi at Panchsagar (Uttarakhand), Lalita at Sangam (near Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh), Sarvamangala at Gaya (Bihar), Kalika at Kalighat (West Bengal), Kamakhya in Neelachal (Assam), Tripura Sundari at Udaipur (Tripura), Jayanti at Nartiang (Meghalaya), Avanti at Bhairavparvat (Madhya Pradesh), Gayatri at Manibandh (Rajasthan), Chandrabhaga at Prabhas (Gujarat), Bhadrakali at Nashik (Maharashtra), Bimala at Puri (Odisha), Vishveshwari at Sarvashaila, Chamundeshwari at Mysore (Karnataka), and Sharvani at Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu) constitute some of the Shakti Peethas, dedicated to the worship of Shakti. Even outside today’s India, the worship of Shakti was spread in all of the civilisational Bharat. From Kottari of Hingula, through Uma at Mithila (Nepal), Dakshayani at Manas (Tibet), Aparna at Bhabanipur, Jeshoreshwari at Ishwaripur, Bhavani at Chandranath Hill, Mahalakshmi at Shree Shail, Sugandha at Shikarpur (all Bangladesh) to Indrakshi at Nainativa (Sri Lanka), the worship of Shakti is highly prized. The Goddess as Shakti (Durga or Kali) is worshipped with passion and fervor by tribals throughout India, starting from the Jaintias of Manipur (Durga), Bodos of Assam (Durga), Gorkhas of the Himalayan belt (Kali), to the Santhals of West Bengal and Jharkhand (Durga), and other tribes of Odissa, Chhattisgarh (Kali) [27] [72], [73]. Like other polytheist Hindus, the tribes worship local gods and goddesses in addition to the more mainstream forms of Shakti (Durga, Kali). Interestingly, the war deity of the Santhals is Goddess Jaher-era, who accompanies their principal God, Marang-Buru, the God of the mountains. Similarly, the worship of Saraswati, the mistress of all knowledge, is spread from the Sharada Peetha on the banks of the Neelam river (Kashmir) to Sringeri on the banks of the Tunga river (Karnataka). The worship of Lakshmi, as the fount of all wealth, similarly enjoys India-wide worship. It may be said, without exaggeration, that Hinduism embraces the worship of the feminine in all forms, and distinguishes itself from all major religions existing in today’s world, and that perhaps is why the Goddess is ruthlessly targeted by the contemporary expansionist religious fundamentalists.
In this article, we show that the worship of Shakti (strength or valour) as Goddess has inspired principal Hindu resistances across ages and throughout the civilisational land of the Hindus. It is perhaps this worship that has inspired Hindu women to militarily defend their civilisation against invaders, along with, and many times leading their male counterparts. In Part II of this series, we show that in contrast, Abrahamic religions exhibit a deep-rooted aversion towards worship of Goddess in any form, and provide theological sanctions for disrupting Hindu public worship and festivals, which has in turn inspired dastardly attacks on the same since the beginning of India’s subjugation to foreign powers (Islamic and British). In Part III, we demonstrate that the tradition of denial of the right to practise religion in general, and worship the Goddess in particular, continues till date. In Part IV, we show that the denial of religious freedom to Hindus is the result of active collusion of India’s political class with Abrahamic fundamentalists, or complicity of silence in the face of grave atrocities. The state of the affairs is in sharp contrast to the values that India’s genuine freedom fighters had lived, fought and died to defend. The anti-Hindu nature of the Indian polity may in future alienate Hindus vested in the freedom to practise their religion from the polity.
Section A: The Shakti in the Hindu resistance to foreign invasion
Goddess worship, all over India, is an integral component of Hinduism. In the form of Shakti, she has been the symbol of sacrifice and strength, as the existence of the major Shakti Peethas scattered all over the Indian subcontinent testify. Shakti is the embodiment of valour, martial spirit and the will to conquer enemies. And the imagery of Shakti fits her indeed. As Asura Dalani, she is the destroyer of Asuras – Mahishasura, Chanda, Munda, Raktabeeja and so many others. As Sinha bahini, she rides a lion/tiger; as Shakti Rupini, she is armed with weapons and wears a garland of skulls of her enemies. When Hindu Gods lost out to the Asuras, the forces of Adharma, they invoked the Mahisasura-Mardini Durga. The imagery and the significance of her ferocity in the Hindu psyche has been eloquently described by Aditi Banerjee, in her article "Fierce is beautiful" [1].
Section A.1: Shakti as Inspiration
In the course of its long history, India has faced two sustained invasions that aimed at destroying the indigenous culture and replacing it with the culture of the invaders as the basis of an occupying regime and state. The first invasion was by the Muslims, starting in 632 AD (when the first Arab naval expedition which aimed at the conquest of Thana near Bombay was undertaken as early as 636 AD, (p. 209, [55]), and the second by the European imperialists (Portugese, French, English) starting in 1500 AD when Pedros Alvarez Cabral ordered his ships to bombard Calicut. The Muslim invasion lasted for more than 1,000 years – the last independent Muslim ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar, fell in 1857 AD. The European invasion ended in 1947, when power was transferred to a divided India. The political conquest of India by these invaders was significantly slower than the rest of the world by these forces, and cultural control never complete. In a period of more than 1,200 years, starting from the first Muslim invasion, by the time both invading powers lost political control, about 70 per cent of undivided India remained Hindu. In a sharp contrast, by 732 AD, which marked the first centenary of the death of the Prophet of Islam, "the Arabs had set up the largest and most powerful empire of the world, extending from the Bay of Biscay to the Indus and the frontiers of China, from the Aral sea to the upper Nile" p. 78, [57], p. 5, [48]. The subjects were not only politically vanquished but also culturally assimilated-Islamised and, often, Arabised over a period of time. North African conquests like Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia speak Arabic till date. Arabic was enforced on the Persians for about two hundred years [59] until the Persian language was resurrected through Shahenamah, a masterpiece by Ferdowsi in the tenth century AD [58]. Persian would later become the court language in several Muslim kingdoms outside Iran, including in India. The pertinent point, however, is that the religions followed in these countries (eg, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism) were all but obliterated except among the populace who emigrated abroad to retain the same (eg, large number of Zoroastrians migrated to India and live there as Parsis). Similarly, the conquest of the Incas and the Aztecs by the Spaniards in the early 16th and 17th centuries by Francisco de Pizarro and Cortes respectively resulted in the extermination of the two cultures. The Inca populace was pressed into silver mining with the result being the near extermination of the native population. The Machu Picchu of the Incas and the Tenochtitlan of the Aztec are mute remains of once thriving cultures in the respective regions. Similarly, the Portuguese extinguished the original culture of what is today’s Brasil, conquering it in the 16th century, with massive genocides of the Tupi and the Tapuya tribes, and the British conquest of the eastern American seaboard in the 17th and 18th centuries resulted in the wipeout of the various native American tribes that lived in region between the north American coast and the Great Lakes. Their languages are nearly extinct. The Hindu story has, however, been different. And, we show that worship of the Goddess as Shakti is intimately related to the remarkable resistance offered by the Hindus to invaders.
The worship of Shakti has always been a source of strength for the national heroes of resistance. जननी जन्मभूमिश्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी। The country has been visualised as Bharat Mata or Bharat Lakshmi by the Hindus and thus, worship of the country follows naturally from a worship of Shakti herself. Thus, Shakti has always been an inspiration for Indic freedom fighters.
Section A.1.1: The Resistance to Islamic Invasion
During the struggle against the Islamic invasion, the Sisodias of Mewar, the clan that produced Rana Pratap, the most formidable foe of Akbar, drew strength from the worship of Shakti; their Kuladevis were Amba, Kalika, Baan Mata, different forms of Shakti (Chapter 2, Kuladevi tradition Myth, Story and Context [78], [79]). Pratapaditya, from Jessore, mounted one of the foremost challenges to the supremacy of Akbar – Jessoreshwari Kali, was the presiding deity of his kingdom. Shivaji who stalled the religious bigot and tyrant, Aurangzeb, drew strength from the worship of Tulja Bhavani. "उदे उदे ग अंबाबाई", and "आदी शक्ती तुळजाभवानी जोगवा दे" are till date famous prayers of Tulja Bhavani among the Marathas. In honour of Durga, Shivaji’s teacher and religious mentor (guru) Ramdas had composed:
दुर्गे दुर्घट भारी तुजविण संसारी।
अनाथ नाथे अम्बे करुणा विस्तारी।
वारी वारी जन्म मरणांते वारी।
हारी पडलो आता संकट निवारी॥
Guru Govind Singh who seeded the Sikh resistance against the Mughals composed "Chandi Di Var" in honour of Durga as Chandi or Mahakali:
चिंतन कुरू मा महाकाली देवाक्षी। रूद्रकाली सा महामाया राक्षसमारणे॥ "Raise your awareness towards the eye of the Devas, i.e. Mahākāli Rudrakali, is she who is this great veil for the slaying of the demons."
Lachit Borphukan inflicted a crushing defeat, on the army of Aurangzeb in 1671 in the battle of Saraighat, in Guwahati. And, one of the oldest of the 51 Shakti Peethas, the Kamakhya temple, where goddess Kamakhya and tenMahavidyas: Kali, Tara, Sodashi, Bhuvaneshwari,Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamalapreside, reside in Guwahati. Section A.1.2: The Resistance to European Invasion
During the freedom struggle against the British, when Bankim Chandra composed his "Bande Mataram"– the song which inspired thousands of Indian revolutionaries to die with the words on their lips - he vocalised the heartfelt cry of millions of Indians. It is this song that saw motherland as Goddess reincarnate, as a combination of Durga, Laxmi, Saraswati:
वन्दे मातरम्। सुजलाम् सुफलाम् मलयज शीतलाम् शस्यश्यामलाम् मातरम्। वन्दे मातरम्। त्वम् हि दुर्गादशप्रहरणधारिणी कमला कमलदलविहारिणी वाणी विद्यादायिनी, नमामि त्वाम् नमामि कमलाम् अमलां अतुलाम्सुजलां सुफलाम् मातरम्।। ४।। वन्दे मातरम्।
It translates as:
Mother, I salute thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, bright with orchard gleams, Cool with thy winds of delight, Dark fields waving Mother of might, Mother free.
Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen, With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen, Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned, And the Muse a hundred-toned, Pure and perfect without peer, Mother lend thine ear, Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleems, Dark of hue O candid-fair.
Songs that celebrated the nation as mother Goddess subsequently appeared in multiple regional languages, particularly in Bengal which was at the forefront of the armed incursions against the British. We transcribe one such song, composed by Atulprasad Sen in Bangla, and in Devnagri scripts: উঠ গো ভারত-লক্ষ্মী, উঠ আদি-জগত-জন-পূজ্যা, দুঃখ দৈন্য সব নাশি করো দূরিত ভারত-লজ্জা।ছাড়ো গো ছাড়ো শোকশয্যা, কর সজ্জা পুনঃ কনক-কমল-ধন-ধান্যে! জননী গো, লহো তুলে বক্ষে,সান্ত্বন-বাস দেহো তুলে চক্ষে; কাঁদিছে তব চরণতলে ত্রিংশতি কোটি নরনারী গো।
उठगो भारत लक्ष्मी उठो आदि जगत जन पूज्या
दुःखदैन्य सब नाशि करो दुरित भारत लज्जा
छारगो छार शोक सज्जा करो सज्जा
पुन कमल कनक धन धान्ये
जननी गो लह तुली बक्षे सन्तान बाश देह तुलि चोखे
कन्दिच्छे तब चरण तले त्रिंशति कोटि नर नारी गो
Next, "When Bengal was partitioned in 1905, in Calcutta, gatherings of 50,000 people took a collective oath before Goddess Kali in the holy Kalighat temple that they would throw the British out of our homeland. Numbers touching 50,000 marched through the streets after taking a dip in the holy Ganges, anointing their foreheads with tilak, and holding copies the Bhagvad Gita in their hands’’ pp. 9-10, [43].
Aurobindo, who was at the forefront of the anti-Partition agitation and organised armed insurgencies against the British, began his lectures and speeches often with a prayer to Chandikaamba. Invoking the Goddess Durga to lend aid to the Freedom Struggle, Aurobindo wrote:
"Mother Durga! Rider on the lion, giver of all strength, Mother, beloved of Shiva! We, born from thy parts of Power, we the youth of India, are seated here in thy temple. Listen, O Mother, descend upon earth, make thyself manifest in this land of India." [44].
Revolutionary Veer Savarkar, who was an atheist himself, composed "Jayostute"– a prayer where he saw Freedom as his Goddess.
जयोस्तु ते श्रीमहन्मंगले Iशिवास्पदे शुभदे
स्वतंत्रते भगवतिIत्वामहं यशोयुतां वंदे II
[Victory to you, O Auspicious One, O Holy One (also Abode), O Granter of Joy,
O Goddess of Freedom, Victorious One, we salute you]
One of the eminent leaders of the freedom struggle, Subhas Chandra Bose, who sought to liberate India through military action, was devoted to worship of Goddess as Shakti, especially as Durga or Kali p. 123 [46]. On December 26, 1925, from Mandalay jail in Burma, he wrote to his sister-in-law, "In Durga, we see Mother, Motherland and the Universe all in one. She is at once Mother, Motherland and the Universal spirit" p.170, [40]. Shakti worship had formed an important component of his struggle against the British. On February 18, 1926, again in Mandalay jail, he had organised a fast in protest against the authorities who denied financial allowances to the prisoners for conducting Durga and Saraswati Puja pp. 221-226, [40]. On December 9, 1930, he had called upon the women to participate in liberation struggle, invoking the imagery of asuradalani Durga: "Women had not only duties to their family, but they had also a greater duty to their country. When the gods found their sliver almost vanquished in their fight with the demons, they invoked the help of 'Sakti' in the form of mother. The country was in a sad plight, therefore the country looked up to the mothers to come forward and inspire the whole nation" p. 238, [47]. Years later, when he was illegally incarcerated, in Presidency jail, he announced at fast unto death in protest. He announced it on the sacred day of Kali puja (30.9.1940) to affirm his faith. He wrote to the Superintendent of Prison: "There is no other alternative for me but to register a moral protest against an unjust act and as a proof of that protest, to undertake a voluntary fast. This fast will have no effect on the 'popular' ministry, because I am neither the Maulavi of Murapara, Dacca nor a Muhammadan by faith. Consequently, the fast will, in my case, become a fast unto death. ... Britishers and the British Government have been talking of upholding the sacred principles of freedom and democracy, but their policy nearer home belied these professions. They want our assistance to destroy Nazism, but they have been indulging in super-Nazism. My protest will serve to expose the hypocrisy underlying their policy in this unfortunate country-as also the policy of a Provincial Government that calls itself 'popular', but which in reality, can be moved only when there is a Muhammadan in the picture.....I repeat that this letter, written on the sacred day of Kali Puja, should not be treated as a threat or ultimatum. It is merely an affirmation of one's faith, written in all humility" pp. 187-189, [39].
The worst atrocities perpetrated on the religion, culture and livelihood of the tribals were by the British during their regime, and by the Christian missionaries subsequent to the transfer of power in 1947. It is the tradition of Shakti puja that inspired them to mount the desperate resistances they could despite severe limitation of resources in comparison to that of their adversaries. It is the imagery of Durga they invoked when they fought off Islamist aggression launched by Pakistan against India in 1999. Excerpts from an article written by a tribal student at JNU, on behalf of the JNU Tribal Students Association, provides testaments to the above, as also to how Shakti Puja is an organic component of Hinduism throughout the lands the tribals inhabit [72]:
ॐ जयन्ती मङ्गला काली भद्रकाली कपालिनी।
दुर्गा क्ष्यमा शिवा धात्री स्वाहा स्वधा नमोस्तु ते॥
We tribals revere our mother Goddess Durga in all her forms, we go into the battlefield invoking her name, when our Gorkha brothers captured territories from the invading Pakistani army in 1999 we invoked the name of Durga Mata and this is our religion and culture! We tribals from Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh also worship Goddess Durga. It is unfortunate that some of our brothers and sisters have fallen prey to the evil activities of invading Christian evangelical missionaries who have tried to lure us away from our culture and religion but we have resisted their nefarious designs and we shall continue to do so. Durga Puja is a very important part of our identity. We tribals from this region have not forgotten how the missionaries have tried to ridicule and attack our religion and now a small group of people in JNU are trying the same with the backup of these evil missionaries. We again repeat. WE ARE TRIBALS. WE WORSHIP GODDESS DURGA AND WE SHALL DO SO FOR GENERATIONS TO COME!
The santhal tribe of West Bengal and Jharkhand also worship Durga and Durga Puja is a very important festival for us, we remember the sacrifices of our leaders against the British and the Evangelical missionaries years ago when we went to war with them for defending our lands, culture and beliefs. Remember our leaders Brojo Murmu and Durga Murmu who invoked the name of our Mother Goddess and fought against the British, what more we still follow the age old custom of sacrificing a white goat to the Goddess seeking her blessings in defending our culture and religion. We are proud worshippers of Goddess Durga and we are tribals. We have not forgotten what the Christian evangelical missionaries have done to us, they have played with our feelings and have tried to destroy us but because the Mother Goddess is with us they have failed and will always fail!
We tribals know what imperialist evangelical missionaries have done to our brothers all over the world, they have changed their history in Ethiopia, caused war between brothers in Rwanda, they forced our brothers to convert in Ecuador and they have for years tortured, harassed and hurt us all over the world. This is the holy land of India where we exist and we shall exist. We shall not bow down before this imperialist agenda, we tribals have resisted these evil peddlers and we shall defend our religion and culture no matter what! To those who have sold their souls to these imperialist agents, we are not like you and we spite you, we are Hindus we are tribals and we worship our Mother Goddess. We dance and sing in her honour and we revere her!... WE ARE TRIBALS, WE ARE HINDUS AND WE ARE PROUD OF IT! JAI MA DURGA, JAI MA KALI, WE SWEAR BY OUR RELIGION AND WE SWEAR BY OUR GODDESS! …JAI MA KALI AAYO GORKHALI!’’ [72]
We now narrate in greater detail the relation between Durga Puja and the tribal rebellion led by Brojo and Durga Murmu alluded to in the above. The year was 1907 and the region, the Sulunga village of Birbhum, West Bengal, then inhabited by the Santhal tribe. Birbhum district Left Front chairman, Arun Chowdhury, describes: "The zamindari of this area was given away to one Kerap saheb from Bihar, who resorted to violence to collect taxes from poor peasants. Those who failed to pay the tax on time were forcibly sent to Assam, where they had to work as coolies (porters). However, Kerap saheb had once announced that if the defaulters convert to Christianity they would be exempted from paying taxes. While a few chose to do so, most revolted against the landlord under the leadership of Brojo Murmu (who belonged to Sulunga). It was Brojo Murmu who introduced this Durga Puja. The puja has been performed every year since then" [76]. Brojo Murmu, worshipped "Mahishasuramardini" - "the warrior form of the goddess - some 100 years ago. It was intended to unite Santhals living in the bordering areas of Birbhum and in the Jharkhand region against oppressive British rule. Priest Robin Tudu, who has been overseeing the puja here for over two decades now, said: 'An animal sacrifice is made on Ashtami, usually a white goat, as according to local belief, a white goat symbolises "gora sahib" (the whiteman)." [76] Tapan Murmu, a descendant of Brojo Murmu’s family said: "Many years ago, our ancestors Brojo Murmu and Durga Murmu were inspired to overpower the British rulers by uniting our people by initiating the worship of Durga as the goddess of Shakti" [76].
Last, but not the least, the Goddess is conspicuously absent in the Hinduism espoused by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the leader who staunchly opposed Indian resistance to the British by force (he did not, however, oppose application of force by and in support of the British). He referred to God in the masculine, by and large.
Section A.2: Shakti in Action – the Martial Women of India
Given the fact that a Goddess is the protector of the righteous and the destroyer of her enemies, it is unsurprising that India has always had her women fighting for the country, not only as soldiers, but also as inspirational figures. In our epics, Vidula berated her son for being passive after being defeated in battle, Kaikeyi and Satyabhama accompanied their husbands to the battlefield (and rendered invaluable aid on the battlefield itself). Chandragupta Maurya had his bodyguard corps comprised exclusively of women. Thus, not only the rulers, but also common women have rendered yeoman service in the defence of the country.
During the Islamic invasion, in 1178 AD, Muizuddin Ghori descended in Gujarat seeking to repeat Mahmud Ghazni’s feat of sacking Somnath. He was defeated by the army of the Rai of Anhirwala, Bhim Deo, (also known as Mularaja) who was then a minor p. 36, [53], p. 170, [49]. Hindu records state that the mother of Mularaja, Maharani Naiki Devi, the daughter of Parmardin, king of Goa, "taking her son (Mularaja) in her lap led the Chalukyan army against the Turushkas and defeated them at Gadararaghatta at the foot of Mount Abu" pp. 186, 198, [50], p. 154, [51], p. 210, [52], p. 95, [48]. As the onslaught continued, medieval rulers like Rani Padmini of Chittaur, first fought Alauddin Khilji to aid her husband and then committed Jauhar to avoid capture and humiliation. The tale of Padmini has been eloquently sung in the Padmavat. Then, Rani Durgavati of Gondwana, fought Akbar’s mighty Mughal army. RC Majumdar narrates, "She [Rani Durgavati] was a capable and benevolent ruler, a good shot and a courageous leader; …. The advance of the Mughul army alarmed Durgavati's soldiers, many of whom deserted. The rani, however, made a gallant stand at Narhi to the east of Garha against the Mughuls in spite of their overwhelming superiority in number. She was easily overpowered, received two vounds from arrows and stabbed herself to death to avoid disgrace" p. 143, Vol. 7, [65]. Obavva, defended the fortress of Chitradurga against the invasion of Haidar Ali with a pounding staff [67].
During the invasion by the European imperialists, Rani Abbakka of Ullal, led the attack on the Portuguese, torching their ships and ending their depredations on the hapless countryside of South Kanara and Malabar [66]. Pietro della Valle writes of Rani Abbakka [66], "In brief, her aspect and habit represented rather a dirty Kitchen wench, or Laundress, than a delicate and noble Queen; whereupon I said within myself. Behold by whom are routed in India the Armies of the King of Spain which in Europe is so great a matter!” Rani Velu Nachiyar, the brave queen of Sivaganga, fought the British several times, causing them much damage. It is recorded in [68], "When Nachiyar finds the place where the British stock their ammunition, she builds the first human bomb. A faithful follower, Kuyili douses herself in oil, lights herself and walks into the storehouse. Finally ending the agony that lasted eight long years, Colonel Bonjour's troops promise to leave the region.'' Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi and Rani Chennamma of Kittur, braving desperate odds, defended the states they ruled.
The martial tradition of Indian women has continued even after the British brought India under its yoke. Rani Gaidinliu, the brave Naga leader, fought the British many times, leading her men with patriotic fervor. During the freedom struggle, many women revolutionaries played a vital role.
In 1907, Durga Murmu led the santhal rebellion against the British along with Brojo Murmu (refer to A.1 for details) [72], [76].
"In 1915, when Rasbehari Bose, the great revolutionary leader, was hunting for a house in Lahore to organise an All-India Uprising, he could not get accommodation anywhere as the Police Commissioner of Lahore at that time had issued a notice that no house would be given to a bachelor. Rasbehari Bose was, at that time, a bachelor. The problem was, however, solved when Yamuna, the young wife of Ramswaroop Das, one of Rasbehari's close associates, came froward. She posed as Rasbehari's wife. A house was then taken at Lahore where Rasbehari and Yamuna started staying as "husband and wife" and thus Rasbehari got the opportunity to organise his plan. However, within a few days, the whole plot was uncovered by the police. Rasbehari could manage to escape but Yamuna was arrested and taken to Lahore jail. After three days of ceaseless interrogation which yielded no result, she was sent to the barracks of the Baloch regiment. The Baluch soldiers physically tortured and raped her. Ultimately she became unconscious and was left stripped on the roadside p. 3, [54]." Thus, she didn't flinch under extreme stress. Rasbehari Bose considered her as any other (male) combatant, didn't return to rescue her and sacrifice his mission either. In due course, he would escape to Japan to form the Indian National Army which Subhas Bose led to the Indian soil, and indirectly forced the British to leave India.
"Suhasini Ganguly, posing as the wife of Sasadhar Acharya, did housekeeping in Chandernagore to shelter four revolutionaries. Suhasini, being a spinster, showed tremendous moral strength to pose as somebody else's wife with regular vermilion mark and conch shell bangles just to give shelter to the four runaway revolutionaries." p. 56, [54] "In August 1915, Ramachandra Majumdar, a leader of the Indo-German plot, was captured. He kept concealed one Mauser pistol in a place but he could not inform his colleagues before his arrest. A widow, Nanibala, dressed herself as a married woman with vermilion mark on the forehead and conch shell bangles in hand and posing as Ramachandra's wife met him in Presidency jail and obtained information from him about the pistol. In those days it was unthinkable for a Bengali widow to change her dress." p. 59, [54] The phenomenon was replicated welsewhere in India as well. "After Bhagat Singh shot dead Saunders, the Assistant Superintendent of Lahore Police, on 17 December 1928, Durga Devi Vora, wife of Bhagwati Charan Vora, one of Bhagat Singh's close associates, helped him to escape from Lahore. Posing as Bhagat Singh's wife she along with her infant son accompanied Bhagat Singh in his journey to Calcutta." pp. 5-6 [54] Thus, throughout India, women easily transcended social norms as required during combat.
On September 24, 1932, Preetilata Waddedar, the first and the only woman who died during an armed revolutionary action, led a group of seven male revolutionaries, to launch an attack on the Pahartoli European Club in Chittagong to avenge the death of innocents at Jallianwallahbag. While they were about to leave, after succeeding in the mission, "she got a bullet shot in her breast and fell down on the ground. She coolly handed over her revolvers to one of her companions and asked them to go back immediately and herself took potassium cyanide and collapsed there"; pp. 93-95 [54]. All others in her group returned unhurt. A testament was found with her in which she had written: "I wonder why there should be any distinction between males and females in a fight for the cause of country's freedom? If our brothers can join a fight for the cause of motherland, why can't the sisters ? Instances are not rare that the Rajput ladies of hallowed memory fought bravely in the battlefield and did not hesitate to kill their country's enemies. The pages of history are replete with high admiration for the heroic exploits of these distinguished ladies. ...As regards fitness, is it not sheer injustice to the females that they will always be thought less fit and weaker than the males in a fight for freedom ? Time has come when this false notion must go. ...Females are determined that they would no more lag behind, but they will stand side by side with their brothers in any activities, however dangerous or difficult;" p. 4 [54].
"On 19 May, 1933, Kalpana (Dutta) when asked to surrender to the police and military force at Gairala village, forced her leader Tarakeshwar Dastidar to give all the arms to her, so that she could create an impression that she was the leader of their group. In doing so, her main object was to save the leader from capital punishment and instead get herself hanged;" p. 111 [54].
The courage of Bina Das, who tried to assassinate Stanley Jackson, the Governor of Bengal, in a convocation hall is also exemplary. In her trial, she calmly declared, "I fired on the governor, impelled by the love of my country, which is repressed. I sought only a way to death by offering myself at my country's feet.... I invite the attention of all to the situation created by the measures of the government. This can upset even a frail woman like myself, brought up in the best traditions of Indian womanhood"; [69].
Shanti Ghosh and Suniti Chaudhary shot dead Stevens, District Magistrate of Tippera, and were sentenced to life in prison.
Subhas Bose had installed an all-women brigade, the Jhansi Rani brigade, in the Indian National army he led against the British during the Second World War. Led by Capt. Lakshmi Sehgal, it comprised the first combat troops composed exclusively of women.
None of the women revolutionaries could be broken, despite capture and often, brutal torture, and some of them preferred death to subordination to the enemy. "Shanti, Suniti, Kalpana and Parul were physically tortured. Even in that stage they remained silent. When they became involved in those actions, they were fully aware of the risks involved to themselves. These considerations could not stand in their way to join such actions"; p. 110, [54].
Thus, the role of women on the battlefield has always been phenomenal. The news about the induction of women into the ranks of fighter pilots by the Indian Air Force is merely the latest indication of the martial spirit of Indian women.
[All references can be found in Part IV of this sequence.]
In the prequels [read Part I and Part II] to this piece, we have shown that the worship of Shakti (strength or valour) as Goddess has inspired principal Hindu resistances across ages and throughout the civilisational land of the Hindus. It is perhaps this worship that has inspired Hindu women to militarily defend their civilisation against invaders, along with, and many times leading their male counterparts. In contrast, Abrahamic religions exhibit a deep-rooted aversion towards worship of Goddess in any form, and provide theological sanctions for disrupting Hindu public worship and festivals, which has in turn inspired dastardly attacks on the same since the beginning of India’s subjugation to foreign powers (Islamic and British). In this part, we show that the tradition of denial of the right to practise religion in general, and worship the Goddess in particular continues till date. In the concluding part, we show that the denial of religious freedom to Hindus is the outcome of active collusion of India’s political class with Abrahamic fundamentalists, or complicity of silence in the face of grave atrocities. The state of the affairs is in sharp contrast to the values that India’s genuine freedom fighters had lived, fought and died to defend. The anti-Hindu nature of the Indian polity may in future alienate Hindus vested in the freedom to practise their religion from the polity. Section D: Attack on Goddess worship and public Hindu festivals in contemporary Indian subcontinent
Having described the historical and the theological context for the attack on Hindu festivals and public worship, we now document some instances of such assaults in Pakistan, Bangladesh and indeed, India itself. We focus on the situation from 2010 onwards.
Section D.1: Pakistan
Pakistan has been home to numerous Hindu temples, of which only 360 remain, with an even smaller number functioning; thousands of temples have been destroyed since 1947 [6]. Attacks on miniscule Hindu community during public worship are also very common. On March 18, 2014, Hindus celebrating Holi were attacked with acid by Islamist goons [7]. During the same festival, Islamists attacked the Hindu community centre and a temple and burnt them down in Larkana [8]. The Hindus live in abject fear and are terrified to celebrate their festivals [9].
Section D.2: Bangladesh
The situation in Bangladesh is even worse, as far as attacks on Hindu festivals are concerned. The Daily Star has chronicled how the Hindu festivals have been targeted in a systematic manner [10]. In [10], Jyotirmoy Barua, an advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, says, "Attacks on temples and festivals have become a common phenomenon. Durga Puja is the prime target for vandalism and creating panic among the locals. The practice has become so widespread now that the Hindus plan to keep backups in case their idols fall under attack by the majority. One might task, what about law and order in the country? I don't know which country you are thinking of but I do know now that no law in this country will be able to prevent this happening in the coming years". Continuing, in the same article, he writes [10], "In the last two weeks in 15 districts, at least 22 Durga Puja pandals were vandalised by the local Muslims. BDnews24.com reported on September 27 that 82 out of 408 puja pandals at Rajshahi have been declared as risky (important) by the police! This is the scenario in most of the districts. Even after 43 years of our independence, religious festivals of minorities face threat of being attacked by the Muslims".
Just in the last few years, there have been many attacks on the Durga Puja marquees and many of them have been by policemen themselves. These attacks are almost a regular feature, with attacks coming on the Durga Puja mandaps and idols every year. Garga Chatterjee, in his article in DNA [17], calls it "The Annual Durga Idol Desecration Festival of Bangladesh". He writes, "So widespread is this pre-Puja idol desecration phenomenon that one Puja organiser said in sad resignation that instead of hitting arbitrarily, idol-destroyers should pre-specify each year which puja mandaps will be targeted. Already, the pre-Puja idol-breaking campaign has picked up. There’s a good geographical spread this year — five in Kishoreganj district, six in Rishipara of Gopalpur, three in Joari Bajar of Natore, four in Garua of Faridpur, three in Protapnagar of Sherpur and so on. Care is taken to attack late in the idol-making process and do a thorough job so that the idol cannot be repaired or replaced. The ‘unindentifiable’ strike with the regularity of monsoon thunderbolts — only the timing and location varies"; [17].
On October 17, 2010, the Daily Bhaskar reported, "Witnesses said at least 10 people were injured when around 15 drunk men attacked Hindus devotees, who were dancing at a pavilion in Minabazar area of Tanbazar early Saturday.
They stabbed organising secretary of the Puja celebration committee of the area, Ankan Saha Rana, 35, and member Sumon Das, 24, when they attempted to stop the drunks. In Sunamganj in northeastern Bangladesh, six policemen including a sub-inspector were withdrawn from a police station for attacking devotees at a temple in Tahirpur Upazila (sub-district)."
On October 10, 2012, BDNews24 reported the attacks on Hindu temples in Chittagong region (Cox’s Bazaar) which were vandalised during Durga Puja [16]. BDNews24 says, "Unidentified miscreants damaged idols of Hindu Goddess Durga in several makeshift temples in different parts of Munshiganj and Narail districts in the wee hours of Wednesday". It also quotes Keshob Chakrabarty, the head of Sirajdikhan Battola Puja Committee as saying,"Miscreants broke all the idols immediately after those were installed and the temple was razed to the ground".
The US State Department Report on "International Religious Freedom" mentions attacks on Durga Puja in 2013 [14]: "Attacks against Hindus continued throughout the year. For example, on October 15, residents observing Durga Puja in Damurhuda, Chuadanga, said (Islamic Chatra) Shibir attacked a shrine set up for the ceremony".
On September 29, 2014, BDNews24 reported on the fear of the Hindus of Chittagong in Bangladesh, which was manifest when it quoted the organisation in charge of hosting the Durga Puja festival [15]. "The organisation's joint general secretary Shyamal Kumar Palit recalled hate attacks on Hindus at Banshkhali after Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee's war crimes conviction." On September 30, 2014, the Daily Star reported: "Bangladesh Puja Udjapon Parishad (Bangladesh Puja Organising Committee) stated that miscreants attacked and vandalised at least 23 altars in 14 districts although law enforcers had claimed that adequate security measure were in place."
"Five mandaps (altars) in Kishoreganj came under attack on September 18,"the parishad president Kajal Debnath told the Daily Star; [13].
On October 18, 2015, the DNA reported that Kajal Debnath said that ahead of the puja, sporadic incidents of attacks on idols were also reported in 16 other places despite an assurance of security during the festival [11]. Even theHuffington Post reported on October 19, 2015 that "three idols of goddess Durga were vandalised ... by unidentified miscreants in southern Bangladesh, the latest such incident as the country prepares to celebrate Durga Puja".
"Organisers of the Durga Puja site at Babulia High School grounds at the Sadar Upazila said three idols were damaged early today," BDnews24 reported.
"Organising committee chief Arvind Mandal said that the idols were guarded until early morning after artisans provided finishing touch the previous night. 'Some of the committee members were at the site the whole night, but left in the morning. It is then that unidentified miscreants vandalised the idols,' he was quoted by the online portal as saying;" [20].
Section D.3: India
Given the increasing rise of Islamism and anti-Kafirism across the world, it is only to be expected that the attacks on Hindu festivals, and in particular, Durga Puja, would increase in India too. Such indeed has been the case.
The Shakti (Durga, Kali and their other forms) Puja, as may be expected, has been attacked viciously by the Islamists, Christian fundamentalists and their allies. In just the last few years, the following attacks on Durga Puja have been recorded.
- In 2008, Bangladeshi infiltrators attacked Bodos during Durga Puja. This was chronicled in [27], where the BJP spokesman, Prakash Javadekar, had pointed out, "The Bangladeshi settlers, who had illegally infiltrated into the country, concentrated in Darrang and Dalgaon area. In many villages, these infiltrators had outnumbered locals resulting in such village attacks. The attackers even hoisted Pakistan and Bangladesh flags and attacked hundreds of vehicles carrying Durga Puja idols, he said"; [27].
- In September 2010, Islamists launched organised violence on a Durga Puja pandal (makeshift structure) in Deganga Bengal, followed by arson and loot of properties of local Hindus. As senior journalist Kanchan Gupta then reported, "Starting September 6, Haji Nurul Islam (local TMC MP) and his thugs, who met with resistance when they tried to demolish the main Durga Mandap that has existed for long, ran riot in Deganga block of West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, a short distance from Calcutta. Hindu homes were ransacked, Hindu shops were set on fire, Hindu temples were desecrated. All this happened while the district administration and the police twiddled their thumbs. In West Bengal, the Marxists are loath to take on the mullahs; for the Trinamool Congress, the mullahs are powerful allies in Ms Mamata Banerjee’s quest for power at any price. Humiliated and simmering with rage, abandoned and forsaken by their own in West Bengal and elsewhere, the grieving Hindus of Deganga decided not to celebrate Durga Puja, the most important festival in the Bengali Hindu calendar, this year. The Durga mandaps in Deganga wore a deserted look, the joyous sound of dhaak, the traditional drum, was not heard, and an overwhelming sense of mourning prevailed. Fear played spoil sport, too: If the September riots were any indication, Muslim belligerence was not to be taken lightly. Meanwhile, in a demonstration of crude triumphalism, Haji Nurul Islam and his goons, with the full support and blessings of the Trinamool Congress, have built and inaugurated a new mosque right in the middle of Deganga market. The high-volume and high-pitched azaan is more a taunt to the Hindus than a call to prayers for the faithful"; [80]. Yet another report on Deganga riots echoes the same: "Rapid Action Force was called out as members of two communities clashed in the Basirhat sub-division of North 24 Parganas, about 150km from Kolkata, leaving at least 24 persons, including the officer-in-charge of a police station, injured. Reportedly, clashes started around 11pm on Monday and continued intermittently till Tuesday morning when members of one community started digging the pathway leading to a Durga temple at Chattal Pally village in Deganga police station, sources said. "When repeated requests to stop the digging failed, we called the police," said one of the victims, adding that the clashes started only when the police intervened. Some people reportedly led by local ruffians — Maqbur Rehman and Mintu Sahji — attacked shops selectively and ransacked a couple of religious places, sources said, adding that a mob of about 500 persons resorted to massive stone-pelting, injuring three policemen. Officer-in-charge of Deganga, Arup Ghosh, received head injuries and suffered fracture in his hand. District Magistrate V Kumar said precautions had been taken and curfew had been clamped in the area. Paramilitary forces had been called out to assist the RAF, sources said, refusing to give further details. Two temples of Kartickpur and Deganga Biplabi colony were desecrated by the mob, sources said. "When we protested, they chased us with swords and hurled bombs. The police intervened but were hopelessly outnumbered," Anil, a local who was also injured in the clashes, said. A particular community wanted to stop the 25-year-old Durga Puja in the area but failed in the face of resistance from the other community, sources said, but added that in recent times, the administration, in its bid to woo the minorities after the 2009 general elections, "simply looked the other way leaving us at their mercy". The clashes spread to Kartickpur, Kadambagachi area as four stationary buses were torched. Traffic on the Deganga-Kadambagachi-Basirhat route came to a standstill even as the police resorted to lathicharge to control the crowd. The mob attacked shops at Beliaghata market as well, police sources said, adding, "the situation was tense but under control";September 12, 2010, [81]. Another said: "Nights have never been so cruel for the residents of Deganga village in North 24 Parganas, which has seen one community’s members perpetrate terror on another for days together. To make matters worse, the violence - taking place just 45 km from Kolkata - is backed by local MP Nurul Islam.""Either kill us or give us a reason to live with dignity. They have torched our houses and shops, looted everything we had," cried Uttam Saha of Saha Communications, who lost goods worth Rs 4.5 lakh to the bedlam on Monday. Niranjan Sarkar of Kartickpur said, "I myself saw Nurul Islam shouting at his men, who came in trucks from Beliaghata, Sashan and Basirhat, to ravage the temple.” Overcome with rage and humiliation, he added, "They smashed the Kali and Shani idols after desecrating them". …"Incidentally, things would not have come to such a pass had the administration moved earlier. The culprits earlier belonged to the CPI(M), which had some kind of control over them. But after 2009, they have joined the Trinamool and the party, on account of its communal politics, has given them the licence to riot," claimed Anadi Pradhan. "They would return on Id," he said. …Earlier, the row reached a flashpoint when members of one community dug up the pathway leading to a Durga temple at Chattal Pally village, barely 100 metres from the Deganga police station. They attacked the other community members, when they were requested to stop the digging. The land, which originally belonged to Rani Rashmani of Kolkata, is now disputed. Part of it is used as a graveyard and another part by the Durga Puja committee for the past 40 years. A narrow road slices the two pieces of land. "This is the biggest of the 40-odd Pujas that take place in the area. We have even been awarded by the police station for conducting peaceful Puja," said Arun Sadhukhan. The rioters looted at least 250 shops, torched 50 houses and desecrated five temples since Monday afternoon as punishment for raising objections to digging the pathway leading to the Durga Puja pandal. "They did not only burn the Kakra Mirza Nagar Kali temple, but also desecrated the Mother goddess," complained another resident; [82].
- In Kannauj, Durga Puja procession was attacked by Islamists and curfew was imposed in the area [26]. The newschannel Zee News is quoted as saying, "SP Kalanidhi Naithani said the prohibitory orders were imposed following tension here over yesterday's clash at the Lakhan tri-section after some people allegedly opened fire and hurled brickbats at a procession for the immersion of Durga idols;" [26].
- Similar attacks on Durga Puja processions were reported from Allahabad, Bulandshahr and Raebareli. India Today [30] reported on October 22, 2015 that "clashes also erupted in Bulandshahar, where over a dozen people who were part of a procession sustained injuries. Krishna Veer, a police constable was also left injured in the violence. Similar clashes broke out in Allahabad and Raebareli, leaving five people injured".
- In Hooghly district, Durga idols were vandalised during Durga Puja as chronicled in IndiaFacts [25]. In Nandlalpur, in Maldah District, the procession to immerse Goddess Durga at the Charianantapur Ghat was attacked by the Islamists on October 30, 2015 [71]. In Harua village, PS Pursurah, Hooghly district, twenty five Kali idols were beheaded by the Islamists on November 8, 2015 [70].
- The other Abrahamism is not to be outdone either. Christianist terrorists have long targeted the Hindus and Bengalis in the North East. In particular, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), a self-confessed Christianist group, has carried out several attacks on Durga Puja [28]. In 2008, the NLFT set off bombs in Agartala during Durga Puja as a strike against Hindus. Further, in 1999 and 2000, the NLFT had issued bans on the Durga Puja [29]. As Abhinav Prakash, a research scholar of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has written, in 2014, "an evangelist Christian magazine, Forward Press, reprinted the 're-interpretation' of the Durga Puja story, which was first published in an obscure hate magazine named Yadav-Shakti. The story asserts that Durga Puja has its origin in the Aryan invasion of India. According to it, Mahishasura was a just and valiant defender of a buffalo-rearing tribe, which is equated with the Yadavs of today. The Aryans failed to defeat him in open battle, so they hired a prostitute called Durga to seduce and kill him by treachery. Durga honeymooned with Mahishasura for several days and killed him on the ninth day. Thereafter, the Aryans committed a large-scale massacre on the tenth day, which is now celebrated as Vijayadashmi. While the original story was just a perversion of the sacred lore with wild speculations peppered with 'maybe', 'there might have been', it metamorphosed under the poisonous pen of Forward Press and was presented as an authentic historical account. In 2011, it was used a poster in JNU by AIBSF during Durga Puja"; [18].
While Shakti Puja has borne the brunt of attacks from Islamists and Christians, other Hindu public worship and festivals have not been spared either. These follow from the injunctions left by Islamist scholars such as Hamdani, as recorded in the prequel to this article (Part I). In Kashmir, Hindu Yatras and festivals have been routinely attacked. The Amarnath Yatra has been subjected to repeated attacks by Islamist terrorists, with many fatalities and injuries [22], [23], [24]. Then, in August 2014, Hindus were denied permission to conduct the Kousar Nag Yatra [19] (we describe this episode in detail later). The Hindu festivals in the districts of West Bengal where Muslims constitute a substantial component of the demographics have encountered similar destiny. On January 28, 2015, Saraswati idols were broken by Islamists during an immersion procession at Bhawanipur More of Kharagpur in West Medinipur district (near Golbazar market). The procession was taken out by scheduled tribe youth of the Adivasi dominated area Singhpara of Debalpur, who were attacked with swords and iron rods. A severely injured ST child of nine years was rushed to and admitted in Kharagpur Sub-Divisional Hospital (was kept at 1st floor Bed No. 23) and FIR lodged immediately at Kharagpur (Town) police station against five known Islamist miscreants, who were later identified by the Adivasi Hindu boys. Complainants have subsequently been harassed by police, administration and local TMC councilors, many of the complainants are absconding now [83]. As often, local media did not follow this incident up.
Nonetheless, this is quite consistent with the trend reported in the following (translated) report from Bartoman, a leading Bengali newspaper in West Bengal:
"Islamists are targeting Hindu religious and social festivals in different villages of Murshidabad district through Talibani fatwas issues at regular intervals. Often times, they are succeeding owing to the inaction of police. The Bharat Sebashram Sangha of Beladanga has been a recent victim. The head of the Sangha, Swami Pradipananda Karthik Maharaj has received threats from some Islamist militant organisations. The gravity of the situation can be comprehended from some recent events that we describe next.
The Karthik contest is a traditional local festival in the Dolua village of Beladanga, Murshidabad. It is celebrated every year during Karthik Puja. This year Islamic fundamentalists have issued a fatwa that processions with Karthik idols shall not be permitted through the village. This led to tension. Local Hindus demanded that the police and the administration intervene. Karthik Maharaj had to step in, and the situation was temporarily resolved. Local Hindus however fear that the traditional festival of Karthik contest will have to be eventually discontinued because processions with Karthik idols will not be permitted. Earlier, in 2010 March, a fatwa was issued that Saraswati Puja must be stopped in the Beladanga Jhautala High School. Everyone surrendered to the fundamentalists and silently accepted the fatwa. In the same school, it was later demanded that a separate room must be provided where the four Muslim teachers can perform their daily namaz. Hindu students demanded that they be allowed to perform their annual Saraswati Puja if Muslim teachers are allowed separate facilities for performing namaz. Then a crowd of about 10,000 gathered and assaulted the students. The properties of 30 Hindu families livimg in the village were ransacked. Roads were blocked using trees to prevent the arrival of police. In 2012, processions for Laxmi Puja immersion were obstructed by fundamentalists who insisted that the procession can not proceed through the road in the village. The participants of the processions had to leave relinquishing the idol on the road. Later police did the immersion. Similarly, attacks were organised in 2011 on the annual Chaitra Sankranti fair in Panchkhupi.
After retirement, a teacher in the Amtala High School had planned to place a statue of Swami Vivekananda in the school courtyard, using his personal savings. He was thwarted by the obstructionist activities of Islamic fundamentalists. This incident has happened this September. Statues of renowned individuals were installed on the walls of the Mapukuria and Natunpara schools, utilising the funds that were not used in the complete education mission. Those statues were all destroyed.
In the last three to four years, fundamentalist fatwas have stopped the annual Saraswati Puja in at least five schools. In Raghunathganj, women of the local Ghosh family were decorating their courtyard with the traditional Alpana. They were stopped from doing so on the pretext that such decorations were against Islam. Not only in villages, even in Baharampur town, in a condo complex, three Muslim families objected to Hindu women blowing the conch every evening. This year interferences were attempted in the organisation of the local Durga Puja too.’’
![durga-new_112515015630.jpg]( "durga-new_112515015630.jpg") |
In the prequel to this article, we have shown that the worship of Shakti (strength or valour) as Goddess has inspired principal Hindu resistances across ages and throughout the civilisational land of the Hindus. It is perhaps this worship that has inspired Hindu women to militarily defend their civilisation against invaders, along with, and many times leading their male counterparts. In this piece, we show that in contrast, Abrahamic religions exhibit a deep-rooted aversion towards worship of Goddess in any form, and provide theological sanctions for disrupting Hindu public worship and festivals, which has in turn inspired dastardly attacks on the same since the beginning of India’s subjugation to foreign powers (Islamic and British). In the sequels we show that the tradition of denial of the right to practise religion in general, and worship the Goddess in particular, continues till date, through active collusion of India’s political class with Abrahamic fundamentalists, or complicity of silence in the face of grave atrocities. The state of the affairs is in sharp contrast to the values that India’s genuine freedom fighters had lived, fought and died to defend. The anti-Hindu nature of the Indian polity may in future alienate Hindus vested in the freedom to practise their religion from the polity. Section B: The Abrahamic aversion to the worship of the Feminine All Abrahamic faiths characterise God as a masculine and dislike idol worship. We will, however, focus on the Islamic theological antagonism to the Goddess, as most of the attacks on her worship in India have been led by fundamentalists adhering to Islam. Nonetheless, Christian fundamentalists are not innocent in this regard, as [72] reveals, and we will cover the atrocities perpetrated by them as well; hence we chose the generic characterisation in the title above. The worship of Goddesses is specially frowned upon in Islam. Thus Durga Puja is not only damned for being a Kafir festival, it is doubly damned since it is the worship of a female deity. We elucidate the aversion Islam has shown towards Goddesses by studying the interaction of early Muslims led by their prophet, Muhammad, with pagan Arabs. Pre-Islamic Pagan Arabia worshipped a multiplicity of Gods and Goddesses. Many scholars argue that Al-lah was the principal among them pp. 278-279, [42]. The Goddesses who received the most veneration in Mecca and elsewhere in Arabia were Al-lat, Manat and Al-Uzat. Some Quranic verses suggest that they were regarded as Allah's daughters pp. 282-285, [42]. "The name Al-Uzza means most mighty"; p. 285, [42]. The significance of Al-Uzza can be comprehended from the fact that the military commanders, who opposed the Prophet of Islam in wars, often invoked her, eg.: "Before his conversion to Islam, Abu Sufyan of Mecca set out to attack Muhammad with the war cry that 'Al Uzza is for us and not for you'. He took the symbols of Al Uzza and Al Lat with him"; p. 285, [42]. The Prophet of Islam started preaching his new monotheistic religion in Mecca, one of the principal centres of pagan polytheist Arabia. Quoting Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah, the earliest biography of the Prophet, "They (the residents of Mecca) said: 'Muhammad, come let us worship what you worship, and you worship what we worship. You and we will combine in the matter. If what you worship is better than what we worship we will take a share of it, and if what we worship is better than what you worship, you can take a share of that.' So God revealed (to Muhammad) concerning them, 'Say, O disbelievers, I do not worship what you worship, and you do not worship what I worship, and I do not worship what you worship, and you do not worship what I worship; you have my religion and I have mine', i.e. if you will only worship God on condition that I worship what you worship, I have no need of you at all. You can have your religion, all of it, and I have mine"; p. 165 [60]. That the Prophet of Islam rejected the religion of the pagans of Mecca estranged them from him. His God came to his rescue and sent him verses that honour the principal Goddesses of pagan Arabia, Al-lat, Manat and Al-Uzat. "Now the apostle was anxious for the welfare of his people, wishing to attract them as far as he could. It has been mentioned that he longed for a way to attract them, and the method he adopted is what Ibn Hamid told me that Salma said MB Ishaq told him from Yazid B Ziyad of Medina from MB Ka'b al-Qurazi: When the apostle saw that his people turned their backs on him and he was pained by their estrangement from what he brought them from God he longed that there should come to him from God a message that would reconcile his people to him. Because of his love for his people and his anxiety over them, it would delight him if the obstacle that made his task so difficult could be removed; so that he meditated on the project and longed for it and it was dear to him. Then God sent down, 'By the star when it sets your comrade errs not and is not deceived, he speaks not from his own desire,' and when he reached His words 'Have you thought of Al Lat and Al Uzza and Manat the third, the other, Satan, when he was meditating upon it, and desiring to bring it (sc. reconciliation) to his people, put upon his tongue "these are the exalted Gharaniq whose intercession is approved'. .... Then the people dispersed and Quraysh went out, delighted at what had been said about their Gods, saying, 'Muhammad has spoken of our Gods in splendid fashion. He alleged in what he read that they are the exalted Gharaniq whose intercession is approved"; pp. 165-166, [60]. But very soon we note that God would annul the verses honouring the three Goddesses as those interjected by Satan: "Then Gabriel came to the apostle and said, 'What have you done, Muhammad? You have read to these people something I did not bring you from God and you have said what He did not say to you.' The apostle was bitterly grieved and was greatly in fear of God. So God sent down (a revelation), for He was merciful to him, comforting him and making light of the affair and telling him that every Prophet and apostle before him desired as he desired and wanted what he wanted and Satan interjected something into his desires as he had on his tongue. So God annulled what Satan had suggested and God established His verses, i.e., you are just like the prophets and apostles. Then God sent down: 'We have not sent a prophet or apostle before you but when he longed Satan cast suggestions into his longing. But God will annul what Satan has suggested. Then God will establish his verses, God being knowing and wise'"; p. 166, [60]. Thus the contempt for worship of Goddesses has sanctions in core Islamic theology. As the Prophet of Islam won battle after battle in pagan Arabia, a total destruction of the shrines of the Goddesses and the subsequent extinction of the worship of these Goddesses followed. Its true that the shrines of pagan Gods weren’t spared, but pejorative physical characterizations were almost exclusively reserved for the worship of the feminine form: - "The expedition to Manat was sent under Sa'd b. Zayd al-Ashahli in the Ramzan of AH 8.... It was the idol of Ghassn, Aws and Khazraj in al-Mushallal...Sa'd started with twenty cavalrymen and reached there at a time when the priest was in attendance. The priest asked them, 'What do you want?' They said, 'Destruction of Manat.' The priest exclaimed, 'You, and want to do this!' Sa'd approached the idol. A black and nude and disheveled woman came out and advanced towards him, cursing and beating her breast. The priest said, 'O Manat, manifest your might.' Sa'd started hitting her, and she was cut down. He had asked his companions to take care of the idol in the meanwhile. They smashed it. But the treasury yielded nothing"; p. 485-486 [61]. "Other sources attribute the destruction of the sanctuary of Manat in Qudayd to Ali bin Abu Talib, still others to Abu Sufyan"; pp. 231-232, Vol. V, [62]. "One wonders whether more than one temple of Manat was destroyed"; p. 360, [42].
- When the army of the Prophet of Islam arrived at Ta’if, his court poet Ka'bb Malik sang: "Till you turn to Islam, humbly seeking refuge.
We will fight not caring whom we meet Whether we destroy ancient holdings or newly gotten gains ….Al-Lat and Al-Uzza and Wudd are forgotten, And we plunder them of their necklaces and earings For they had become established and confident And he who cannot protect himself must suffer disgrace.’’ p. 588, [60] And Shaddad B. Arid al Jushami said: "Don't help Al-Lat for God is about to destroy her How can one who cannot help herself be helped ? She that was burned in black smoke and caught fire, None fighting before her stones, is an outcast, When the apostle descends on your land None of her people will be left when he leaves.’’ p. 588, [60] "Muhammad could not however subjugate Taif on this occasion and Al-lat survived." p. 362, [42] - "While Initiating, Ali B Abu Talib into Islam, Muhammad said: 'I call you to God, the One without associate, to worship him and to disavow Al-Lat and Al-Uzza.' When Talib agreed after some deliberation, Muhammad said to him, 'Bear witness that there is no God but Allah alone without associate, and disavow al-Lat and al-Uzza.' p. 350 [42]
- "Then the apostle sent Khalid to Al-Uzza which was in Nakhla. It was a temple which the tribe of Quraysh and Kinana and all Mudar used to venerate. Its guardians were B Shayban of B Sulaym, allies of B Hashim. When the Sulami guardian heard of Khalid's coming he hung his sword on her, climbed the mountain on which she stood, and said:
O' Uzza, make an annihilating attack on Khalid, Throw aside your veil and gird up your train. O Uzza, if you do not kill this man Khalid Then bear a swift punishment or become a Christian. When Khalid arrived he destroyed her and returned to the apostle." p. 565, [60], p. 359 [42] Then "He (the Prophet) asked him (Khalid), "Did you see anything?" Khalid replied, "Nothing." He (the Prophet) said, "Go again, and smash her to pieces." Khalid went back, demolished the building in which the idol was housed, and started smashing the idol itself. The pagan priest raised a cry, 'O Uzza, manifest your might.' All of a sudden a nude and disheveled black woman came out of that idol. Khalid cut her down with his sword and took possession of the jewels and ornaments she wore. He reported the proceedings to the Prophet who observed: "That was Uzza. She will be worshipped no more." pp. 404-405, [63], p. 359, [42] - "Strangely enough, a deputation came to Muhammad from Ta'if soon after he had suffered a repulse outside that city. It seems that the morale of the people in this town has collapsed as they saw what was happening all around. ... Finally, a deputation consisting of six chiefs reached Medina and met the Prophet." p. 366, [42] "Among the things they asked the apostle was that they should be allowed to retain their idol Al-Lat undestroyed for three years. The apostle refused, and they continued to ask him for a year or two, and he refused; finally they asked for a month after their return home; but he refused to agree to any set time. All that they wanted as they were trying to show was to be safe from their fanatics and women and children by leaving her, and they did not want to frighten their people by destroying her until they had accepted Islam. The apostle refused this, but he sent Abu Sufyan b. Harb and al Mughira b. Shuba to destroy her. They had also asked that he would excuse them from prayer and that they should not have to break their idols with their own hands. The apostle said: 'We excuse you from breaking your idols with your own hands, but as for prayer there is no good in a religion which has no prayers.' They said that they would perform them though it was demeaning." pp. 615-616 [60]. The chiefs decided to accept Islam.Subsequently: "When they had accomplished their task and had set out to return to their country the apostle sent with them Abu Sufyan and Al Mughira to destroy the idol.....When al Mughira entered he went up to the idol and struck it with a pickaxe....The women of Thaqif came out with their heads uncovered bewailing her and saying:
O weep for our protector Poltroons would neglect her Whose swords need a corrector. Abu Sufyan, as Al Mughira smote her with the axe, said 'Alas for you, alas!' When Al Mughira had destroyed her and taken what was on her and her jewels he sent for Abu Sufyan when her jewellery and gold and beads had been collected." pp. 616-617 [60] These are only a few of the instances detailed in the life of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. However, it clearly establishes his deep discomfort with the female deities of Arabia. Section C: The theological sanction and history of Abrahamic attacks on public worship of infidels There is a further motivation to Islamists' assaults on the temples of the heathens. The first move to destroy Pagan traditions is to stop their celebrations and order their religious practices stopped and/or to be respectful of Muslim sentiments. This emerges from the sanction provided by Islamic theologists on attack on public observance of religious practices, including the festivals, of the infidels. This has been demonstrated time and again in the history of India: - Sir Jadunath Sarkar has this to say about Islamic practices: "In addition to the obligation to pay this poll tax [Jizya], the Hindu was subjected to many disabilities by the very constitution of the Muslim theocracy. ... Finally, in the exercise of his religion, he must avoid any publicity that may arouse the wrath of the followers of the Prophet" [2]. This view of Islamic practice regarding the Hindus is borne out by the writings of Hamdani, "There is another mandate relating to those who are unbelievers and protected peoples. ... Rulers should impose these conditions on the zimmis of their dominions and make their (infidels') lives and property dependent on their fulfillment." [3]. Among the conditions listed by Hamdani are "a) They (zimmis) are to build no new homes for images or idol temples; b) They are not to rebuild any old buildings (temples) destroyed." [3]. Further, Zia-ud-din-Barani writes indignantly, when Islamic kings were unwilling to or unable to impose the Islamic ban on temples and Hindu festivals, "How will the true faith prevail if the rulers allow the infidels to keep their temples, adorn their idols, and make merry during their festivals with the beating of drums and dhols, and singing and dancing?" [4]
- Historically, Bengal, in particular, has seen several episodes of assaults on Hindu public festivals. Vijaya Gupta, a contemporary of Husain Shah, Sultan of Bengal (1494-1519 AD), details one particular incident, "On one occasion, a Muslim Mullah happened to pass by a hut in a wood, where a few shepherd boys were worshipping the Goddess Manasa, with the symbol of sacred earthern pots to the accompaniment of music. In righteous indignation, the Mullah attempted to break the pots, but was severely trounced. The Mullah brought the matter to the notice of the two Qazi brothers, who exclaimed, 'What! The haramzadeh Hindus make so bold as to perform Hindu rituals in my village? The culprit boys should be seized and made outcast by being made to eat Muslim bread!' So, the two brothers gathered a large number of armed Muslims and proceeded towards the shepherd's hut. The mother of the Qazis, a Hindu girl forcibly married by the former Qazi, vainly tried to dissuade her sons; they demolished the shepherd's hut, broke the sacred pots into pieces, and threw away the offerings to the Goddess. The affrighted shepherd boys had concealed themselves in the woods, but some of them were hunted out and seized"; [5]. There is an instance narrated by both Chaitanya Charitamrita and Chaitanya Bhagavata, where Sri Chaitanya's attempts to sing kirtans in public in the streets of Nadiya (Nabadweep), with the accompaniment of special musical instruments, was attacked by Qazis, but the attack was beaten back by the Hindus. RC Majumdar has recounted many more instances of similar dread in which the Hindus of Bengal lived, even during the reign of Husain Shah, a supposedly enlightened king.
- The disdain for Hindu festivals continued in the British times. An incident is narrated in [41]. "Rani Rasmani’s family was at first Vaishnavite (Bhakti cult). Once during the Durga Puja ceremony at her Janbazar Road house, some Europeans were very angry about the terrible noises made by the trumpets (dhak, dhol, etc) especially during the Navami Puja and Sandhi Puja at midnight. Some of them ordered the trumpeters to stop that noise but they kept right on playing. One angry English sahib came with some associates to attack her house. Then Rani, with a sword in her hand, appeared before them as Asuradalini (destroyer of Asuras). The Englishmen had to retreat. After this affair, she became a devotee of Kali, the destructive goddess, whose other name is Bhabatarini (saviour of the world). This goddess in our Bengali tradition has 12 forms, varying from affectionate saviour to destructive deity"; [41]].
- Throughout the Muslim and British regimes, Hindus were often denied permission to play music in proximity of mosques even during Hindu festivals. In late 1920s, Satindra Nath Sen led the Patuakhali Satyagraha in Barisal, Bengal, which was based on the demand of Hindus to be allowed to play music before mosques. Quoting the Calcutta High Court judgment on Satindra Nath Sen And Ors. vs Emperor on July 14, 1930: "The appellants are said to have associated together in what is known as the Satyagraha movement which started at Patuakhali in the Backergunje District in 1926 in connexion with a dispute between the Hindus and Mahomedans because the latter objected to Hindu processions with music passing a certain mosque. The authorities intervened and, in order to prevent breaches of the peace, such processions were prohibited. The members of this movement defied the law and a number of them were sentenced to terms of imprisonment;" [63]. On July 7, 1928, Government of Bengal withdrew the charges, possibly under public pressure, but rearrested Sen again in March 1929. Subsequently, throughout 1929, Subhas Bose campaigned vociferously against the Government of Bengal's unfair treatment of Satindra Nath Sen of Barisal, and demanded national support, notwithstanding the fact that it appeared to be a narrow Hindu issue for the appeasement politics that was in full swing even then; pp. 200-201 [47].
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"When economic freedom is lost - subsistence is lost; when political freedom is lost - honour is lost; when religious freedom is lost, everything is lost."– Subhas Chandra Bose, Mandalay jail, February 21, 1926 (when a financial allowance for Durga Puja was refused to political prisoners, which effectively meant a ban on the puja) p. 232 [40].
In the prequels (read Part I, Part II and Part III) to this piece, we have shown that the worship of Shakti (strength or valour) as Goddess has inspired principal Hindu resistances across ages and throughout the civilisational land of the Hindus. It is perhaps this worship that has inspired Hindu women to militarily defend their civilisation against invaders, along with, and many times leading their male counterparts. In contrast, Abrahamic religions exhibit a deep-rooted aversion towards worship of Goddess in any form, and provide theological sanctions for disrupting Hindu public worship and festivals, which has in turn inspired dastardly attacks on the same since the beginning of India’s subjugation to foreign powers (Islamic and British). We have also shown that the tradition of denial of the right to practise religion in general, and worship the Goddess in particular continues till date. In this concluding part, we show that the denial of religious freedom to Hindus is the outcome of active collusion of India’s political class with Abrahamic fundamentalists, or complicity of silence in the face of grave atrocities. The state of the affairs is in sharp contrast to the values that India’s genuine freedom fighters had lived, fought and died to defend. The anti-Hindu nature of the Indian polity may in future alienate Hindus vested in the freedom to practise their religion from the polity. Section E: Denial of Hindu religious freedom due to the unholy matrimony of politics and minority fundamentalism
Given Islamist opposition to the worship of a female deity in particular, it is not surprising that Durga Puja has come in for many attacks, both in public and in private, from the Islamists. What is, however, of far greater concern, is that multiple clear instances of violation of religious freedom of Hindus have not been highlighted in the Indian public discourse. This is, of course, consistent with the persistent religious discrimination against Hindus that is evident in contemporary Indian political discourse [74] [75]. This is perhaps a direct consequence, or even the cause, or perhaps both, of anti-Hinduisation of Indian polity. Many political parties and their affiliated intellectuals have not limited their role to silent complicity, but have joined in this Abrahamic festival of hatred for Hindus. Secular groups and politicians, that purportedly do not take any sides in religious matters, have decidedly weighed in on the side of the Abrahamic fundamentalists. We demonstrate the charges of religious discrimination against each political entity.
One of the two major national parties, the Congress, had made its stand unequivocal when its prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, declared openly that the minorities have the first right on Indian resources [37]. The natural corollary, when one group has the first right on the resources of the nation, is that they automatically turn those who do not belong to the group to second class citizens – the group that may get something only if it is left behind after the minority has had its fill. The religious bias of Congress against the Hindus has become so apparent that the party itself is acknowledging the obvious, if only in its brainstorming sessions: "At a 'brainstorming' meeting Rahul Gandhi had with AICC general secretaries recently to discuss the 'roadmap' for the party’s revival, it was decided to seek out Hindu voters and ask them how they view its attitude towards them. And if they think it is 'anti-Hindu', is that the reason why they rejected it last May swayed by the BJP’s Hindu nationalist claims.’’ (reported by Hassan Suroor on January 3, 2015 inFirstpost [36]). That the Congress should have to ask this of the people is proof enough just how out of touch with reality the party is, and just how loathed its pro-minority stance has become among the Hindus.
Left parties and their ecosystem bear the brunt of the guilt of discrimination against Hindus. We have already shown how the government of West Bengal has allowed systematic targeting of Hindu public worship and festivals at least since 2010; the phenomenon has started much earlier, and the Left was in power for 35 years until 2011. We now describe the animosity against the Goddess worship of Hindus in the Kremlin on the Yamuna, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which till date constitutes a citadel of left intellectuals. JNU research scholar Abhinav Prakash, writes [18] "Durga Puja is especially hated by the liberal-secular formations in the campus. Perhaps because it is the biggest Hindu festival in JNU and can’t be passed off as a secular festival unlike Holi which is 'rationalised' as a 'peasant' festival. Moreover, Durga Puja brings together almost all sects of Hinduism and people from all castes and regions. The Left has been opposed to it since its inception in the year 2001.
Before this, such was the anti-Hindu terror unleashed on the campus that it was virtually unthinkable to publicly celebrate any Hindu festival in JNU. Even the Bengali students had to go out of the campus, to CR Park, to celebrate Pujo and they were always sure to wipe out any traces of worship before entering the campus. In 2001, the then Dean of Student, MH Quraishi, stood in the front of the Durga Puja pandal and exhorted the Leftists and Islamists to break the 'havan kund' and throw the 'murti' and pandal out of the campus. It almost led to a mini-riot in JNU. The efforts to stifle Durga Puja failed but the Left continues to boycott it and coerce the newcomers to stop them from attending it. Needless, Durga Puja continues to grow in strength and numbers with each passing year and is now among the biggest events in the JNU calendar." As described before, in JNU, during Mahishasura Day, Durga is portrayed as a prostitute who enticed Mahishasura, a tribal leader into a marriage and killed him after nine nights of honeymoon [18]. This is not only pure hatred, but also overtly sexist, and reminds us how the Prophet of Islam and his followers associated pejorative physical characteristics, "nude, disheveled, black woman", with pagan Arabic goddesses, Manat p. 485-486 [61] and Uzza pp. 404-405, [63], p. 359, [42]. Colour bias was quite rampant during the times of the Prophet, and therefore, the characterisation of complexion would be derogatory for then social norms, the rest of the adjectives clearly were pejorative. We are not aware of secular doyens of JNU taking on this particular piece of sexism involving physical and moral descriptions of the feminine.
As a natural corollary, the Left has been similarly disdainful of Hindu interests. As a specific instance, we learn from an article in Vijayvaani [38], written by CI Isaac: "Major holders of coconut plantations and paddy lands were Hindus and their temples; their holdings were not brought under ‘estates’ when the land reform bills were drafted. Hence, the entire land of temples became surplus land and temple deity the landlord/janmi. But the land owned by churches was not subjected to land reforms. Thus the ‘revolutionary land reforms’ of Kerala only impoverished the Hindus. At present, the average landholding of a Christian family is 126.4 cents and Hindus and Muslims are 69.1 and 77.1 cents respectively."
We now examine the role of the regional parties. In Kashmir, in August 2014, the National Conference denied permission to the Kousar Nag Yatra [19]. The Rediff [19] reports on August 2, 2014, "The Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday denied revoking permission to Kousar Nag yatra, saying no permission had been sought or granted in the first place. The National Conference government maintained that 'Kousar Nag has never been a pilgrimage site'. 'It has been an adventure tourism site and a picnic spot,' a senior state tourism department officer said.' The refusal of the National Conference government to give permission to Hindus to conduct their Yatra owes to the fact that Syed Ali Geelani, a hardcore Islamist leader, had opposed the Yatra. Rahul Pandita, writing in [20], said, "Mr Geelani, in practice, is opposed to the idea of sharing Kashmir with non-Muslims, especially the Pandits. A few days ago, owing to his strong opposition, the State government withdrew permission to a small group of Pandits to undertake the historical Konsar Nag yatra in south Kashmir. The group comprising 40 people, including women, had to halt its journey midway after Mr Geelani’s supporters resorted to stone-pelting and blocked the road leading to the pilgrim site. The pilgrims took shelter in a temple and were then forced to return to Srinagar. A journalist friend in Kashmir calls Mr Geelani’s strategy to thwart Hindu pilgrimages such as Konsar Nag as a 'multistage rocket'. The first stage involves terming such yatras as a 'threat to [the] environment'. Then, very systematically, they are termed as 'conspiracies to change Kashmir’s demography'. Then, as it happened in the case of Konsar Nag, Mr Geelani fires his last salvo by denying the Valley’s Hindu past. 'The Hindus had no stake over Konsar Nag,' he claimed."
In West Bengal, led by Ms Mamata Banarjee, the Trinamul Congress Partyhas been in power since 2011. Durga and Kali idols have been continually desecrated, and other Hindu public worship and festivals been obstructed or stopped, with impunity, throughout this period ([25], [70], [71], Bartomanpatrika report that we have cited, [80] – [83]). These establish complicity of this regime with the Islamists. TMC MP Nurul Hassan had led desecration of Durga Puja pandals, temples and violence against Hindus during the Deganga riots in 2010 [80]-[82]. Next, the administration has actively violated religious freedom of Hindus by choosing to ban Durga Puja in places where the minorities objected to it. One such event has been in Kanglapahari village, a Hindu majority village in Birbhum district [31]. Starting 2013, the government of West Bengal passed orders banning Durga Puja, for the third year in a row, here [31], [32]. We now reproduce the heart-wrenching application that the villagers of Kanglapahari Committee submitted to the district administration, SDO Rampurhat Sub-division, Rampurhat, Birbhum [32]:
Respected Sir,
We are original Hindu residents of your jurisdiction, of Nalhati police station, Haridaspur region, Kanglapahari village. Sir, in our village, although there live 250-300 Hindu families, we could not commemorate the annual autumnal Durga Puja due to financial limitations. So all Hindu villagers, including the mothers and sisters who fast during the rituals, have to travel 3-4 Km to another village to perform our puja rituals. So we definitely want to perform Durga puja in our village. We therefore held a meeting where all hindu villagers participated, including our youngsters, and decided to organize a puja. A generous gentleman Mohanlal Sao has donated his land for building a Durga temple, and all Hindu villagers contributed to raise funds for the same. We have now built a Durga temple with mud walls, and formed a Puja committee comprising of 25 villagers, and have installed Durga idol in the temple.
Sir, we could not perform Durga Puja in the last three years since we could not get permission from the administration. We approached all administrative units last time, and administration denied permission, advising us to reapply. Under these circumstances, we are appealing to you once again, Sir, so that we are not denied the opportunity to celebrate our most important festival, the annual autumnal Durga Puja, so that we can perform Durga Puja in our village. We humbly request you to issue the necessary clearances.
This year the puja needs to start on 24th Ashwin (Bengali calendar) and would end on 4th Karthik. So, if we can not receive the necessary clearances within the next few days, it will be difficult to organise the puja in the limited remaining time. We therefore request you to issue the clearances soon.
Sincerely,
On behalf of the Kanglapahari Durga Mandir Puja Committee
President Chandan Sau
Secretary Madhu Mal
August 31, 2015
(Copy forwarded to SDPO Rampurhat, OC Nalhati PS, BDO Nalhati-1)
The application submitted by the poor Hindu residents was summarily dismissed, and the request denied, as in previous years. We learn the real reason here: "As Kanglapahari Durga Puja Committee president Chandan Sau said: In August this year, we once again approached the Nalhati sub-divisional officer for permission to hold the Durga Puja. But once again, we were denied permission. We came to know that some Muslim residents of our village had voiced their objections on the grounds that since Durga Puja had never been held in our village, doing so now would disturb communal harmony and lead to resentment among the minorities. We believe the authorities took a sympathetic view of their objections and thus refused to grant us permission for the puja…" [31].
When queried on the state of affairs, the TMC MP Saugata Roy arrogantly advised the Hindus to approach the courts, if they feel violated, as may be seen in this NewsX debate [35]. He perhaps knew very well that the poor Hindus of Kanglapahari lacked the resources to sustain a long drawn out legal fight with the government of West Bengal to defend their religious freedom. This does not, however, alter the basic fact that the right to practise a religion of choice constitutes one of the core fundamental rights of any individual; the denial in this case is particularly galling given the deep sentiments Hindus in Bengal associate with Durga Puja. Such sentiments have been best expressed by Subhas Chandra Bose, in letters that he wrote to his sister-in-law and brother while being incarcerated in far off Mandalay jail in Burma. On December 26, 1925, he wrote to his sister-in-law, "Who knows how long we shall have to be in prison? But, all our suffering will be bearable if we get the chance of worshipping the Mother once a year. In Durga, we see Mother, Motherland and the Universe all in one. She is at once Mother, Motherland and the Universal spirit", p.170, [40]. Elaborating further in a letter to his brother, Sarat Bose, a year later on October 16, 1926, he wrote, "It (Durga Puja) is a source of aesthetic enjoyment, intellectual recreation and religious inspiration and affords abiding solace. Today is Bijoya Dasami and throughout Bengal relations, friends and even enemies - children of the same Mother - will be soon embracing one another in fraternal love"; p. 84, [45]. Citing this letter, Bose’s biographer, Leonard Gordon has written: "So Durga Puja was the moment in the round of the year when he (Bose) and his Bengali prison mates felt united with the Bengali people from whom they had been arbitrarily separated"; pp. 135-136, [47]. It is this sense of bonding with fellow Hindus of Bengal – that Subhas Bose and other Hindu Bengali freedom fighters felt on the auspicious occasion from remote Mandalay - that chief minister Mamata Banarjee, who happens to share his ethnicity, has denied the poor Hindus of Kanglapahari. Ironically, it is their religious freedom that the chief minister of a state in free India is duti-bound to protect, and it is that freedom that Bose lived, fought and possibly died for.
What is particularly galling is that when Durga Puja was banned in Italy in 2009, Indian ambassador there, Mr Arif Shahid Khan, could get the same reversed after frantic efforts, but villagers in free India could not receive the same success with a state government therein for three years. We quote senior journalist Kanchan Gupta on this incident: "The Municipal Police authorities of Rome have today withdrawn permission, granted three weeks ago, to celebrate Durga Puja in Rome. The cancellation came a few hours before the Ambassador of India was scheduled to inaugurate the Puja at 8 pm local time. No acceptable explanation has been given. This has caused the local Indian community the loss of thousands of Euros spent in preparatory arrangements. The same thing was done in the same manner in 2008 also. Please monitor developments.”….Our Ambassador, Mr Arif Shahid Khan, a feisty man who has in the past taken up the issue of Sikhs being forced to take off their turbans at Italian airports, campaigned throughout the day, calling up officials, including the Mayor of Rome, and contacting members of the ‘Friends of India’ group in the Italian Parliament, arguing with them why permission for the Puja should be restored. By evening, the authorities had reversed their order and permission was granted to celebrate Durga Puja, which will now begin on Saturday, Ashtami — a full 48 hours behind schedule. Provided, of course, there is no last minute cancellation, as it happened on Thursday. Mr Khan will inaugurate the Puja, an honour he richly deserves" [84].
***
Our saga of misfortune of Hindus in Bengal continues. Even in other places where Durga Puja is not banned, the government of West Bengal imposed harsh deadlines for Durga Puja processions. In 2015, the ritually approved date for bidding the Goddess farewell was on October 23. Yet, as we learn,"immersion of Durga idols has been banned on October 23 and 24 throughout West Bengal. The restriction on immersion of idols on those two days is because the dates clash with Muharram. The announcement with regards to this was made by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on the September 18 during an event at Netaji Indoor Stadium"; [33] (October 24, 2015).Ironically, Muslim-majority Bangladesh allowed immersion of Durga idols on time [33]. Even more, the announcement on the ban was made by the chief minister from Netaji Indoor Stadium, we will shortly learn how strongly the namesake of this stadium insisted on performing Durga Puja rituals on religion-approved times even in British jails.
Other regional parties are not far behind Mamata Banarjee as to imposing restrictions on the immersion of Durga idols. In Patna, governed by JD(U) led by Nitish Kumar and RJD led by Lalu Prasad Yadav, the deadline on the immersion of Durga idols is even more harsh: "The Patna district administration has set October 23 (2015) as the deadline for idol immersion for Durga Puja organisers. Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vikas Vaibhav told The Telegraph today that because of Muharram on October 24 and the elections in Patna on October 28, the Puja committees have been asked to finish up the immersion ceremonies by October 23 (Friday)….'The administration has asked the organisers to ensure that the idol immersion ceremony is over by 10pm on October 23. The arrangements on the ghats are being made by the agencies concerned. Once the immersions are over, the police will move on to ensure a safe Muharram followed by the elections,' the SSP said"; [34].
As may be observed from the above instances, that almost entire polity (with possibly the exception of one national party, the BJP, whose role we will discuss separately) has adopted a stance that puts them completely on the side of the minorities, irrespective of the merits of the case. They bend over backwards to appease the minorities and have no hesitation compromising on Hindu interests. Their double standards gall everyone with even a shred of conscience. Political parties never compromise on the religious feelings of the minorities, but feel free to do so with the Hindus. An essay competition on Christmas day, which also happens to be the birthday of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, raises shrill screams about secularism from the supposedly secular intelligentsia, but the banning of Durga Puja in West Bengal is met with utter disdain and indifference. By the same token, organising a Tipu Jayanti (which actually is on November 20) on Diwali day is a similar humiliation handed out to the Hindus. The secular doyens casually overlook that Tipu had massacred 700 Hindus at Melukote on Naraka Chaturdashi [77], leading to the corresponding sect of Hindus to observe Diwali as a day of mourning and not a festival. However, they engage in the most hysteric reactions when the feelings of the minorities are violated.
Section F: Is this the freedom India strove for?
The anti-Hindu nature of the Indian polity makes us question if this is really the freedom that the genuine freedom fighters strove for. It is well known how Dr Shyamaprasad Mookerjee and Veer Savarkar had resisted discrimination against Hindus. We now present how Subhas Chandra Bose struggled for granting uninhibited freedom to Hindus to practise their religion. We choose him because none on the Left or Centre has so far accused him of playing divisive communal politics, while shrill voices on the right or even right-wing scholars like Sitaram Goel have (in short and perhaps perfunctory analysis) accused him of Islamism.
While being incarcerated in Mandalay, Subhas Bose, and a set of others wrote to the Chief Secretary, of the Government of Burma on February 2, 1926, demanding that they receive financial allowance for performing Durga and Saraswati pujas, Holi and Dol Purnima, in the jail, citing allowances for observance of religious practices provided to Christians:
"To the Chief Secretary to the Govt. of Burma
Mandalay
February 2, 1926
Re-Allowance for Religious Ceremonies
Dear Sir,
We submitted to you dated the 16th January, 1926, regarding allowance for the Saraswati Puja to which no reply has yet been received by us.
We have already requested the Inspector general of Prisons that there are three important religious ceremonies which we have to perform here (viz the Saraswati Puja, the Holi and Dol Purnima Festival and the Durga Puja) and that we expect Government to sanction the expenditure in connection with those ceremonies.
...It would not be out of place here to mention that in the Alipore Central Jail a sum of Rs. 12,000 per annum is spent for the Christian convicts in connection with their religious worship (vide report Indian jail Committee 1919-20 vol III page 744).
Yours faithfully,
S.C.B., S.C.M., T.C.C., B.B.G., M.M.B., M. M. G., S.S.C., J. L. C"; pp. 207-208, [40].
And when the prayers of the prisoners were ignored, Bose wrote a stinging rejoinder to the chief secretary, along with a declaration of intent to fast until their demands were conceded. The contrast to the present politicians, who are basically people of straw, should be starkly apparent.
"To the Chief Secretary to the Govt. of Burma
Through The Superintendent of Jails, Mandalay, Dated,
Mandalay, the 16th February, 1926
Dear Sir,
We are sorry that we have received no satisfactory reply to our representation of the 16th January and the 2nd February, 1926. Neither has the question of the last Durga Puja been yet settled to our satisfaction, though six months have elapsed.
...
By failing to meet our religious demands, your Government has shown a lamentable ignorance of the religious instincts of the Indian people and of their past and present history. To us orientals, religion is neither a social convention nor an intellectual luxury nor a holiday recreation. It is life itself. Religion is woven into the very texture of our daily and social life and it permeates our whole being - individual and national.
…
The pages of Indian history teem with the undying examples of martyrs who suffered and died for the sake of their religious beliefs. They died so that India may live. And in spite of our misery and degradation, India still lives. She lives because of her soul is immortal - her soul is immortal because she believes in religion. We have lost much. Political freedom is no more. Economic independence is a thing of the past - even our national culture is being daily undermined by the subtle policy of peaceful penetration. But we still have our religion. We still claim the right to worship our God after the fashion of our glorious ancestors, and we shall sooner cease to exist than succumb to the religious domination of the West.
…
From the ashes of the dead past India is again rising phoenix-like to take her place among the free nations of the world, so that she may deliver her message, the message of the spirit, and thereby fulfill her mission on earth. India lives today because she still has a mission unfulfilled. For no other reason has she survived the onslaughts of time. Civilisations have risen and fallen, empires have grown and have melted away into thin air; Babylon and Nineveh, Carthage and Greece have crumbled into dust. But Indian culture is as potent a factor today as it was thousands of years ago when some of the foremost nations of the modern world were no better than savages. And do you think, Sir, the people who have suffered so much and braved so much throughout their whole history will obsequiously acquiesce in an arbitrary infringement of their religious rights ? We hope against hope that the lessons of the war of 1857 and of the Akali and Tarakeswar Satyagraha movements of yesterday have not been altogether lost on this Government.
The action or rather the inaction of your Government constitutes an unwarranted interference with our religious rights. It militates against the spirit of the Queen's proclamation which promises liberty of worship to the different religions and sections in India. Further - and this is of much greater import - it is a violation of God's Law, as we understand it. Spending Rs. 12,000 per annum for the religious worship of a few Christian criminals lodged in the Alipore Central Jail - and refusing to sanction a pie for the religious ceremonies of the Hindu detenus of high education and culture - is not this, Sir, an outrage on justice and fair play?
The utterly unreasonable and uncompromising attitude of your Government has left us no other alternative and for the vindication of our religious rights as well as the redress of several long-standing grievances, we are being compelled to adopt the only honourable course open to persons in our position. We have accordingly resolved to commence hunger strike on Thursday, February 18, 1926.
..... Subhas Chandra Bose (and others) pp. 221-226, [40].
***
Unlike politicians who change their stances as frequently as the chameleon, Bose never compromised on his early insistence on the rights of the Hindus to worship even while being incarcerated in British jails. Fourteen years since he wrote the above letter, on September 20, 1940, again citing the fact that Muslims and Christians are granted the freedom to observe their religious practices in British jails, he demanded that Hindu prisoners be allowed to perform the Durga Puja exactly as prescribed by Hindu religious practices and at the time required by astronomical calculations. He wrote to the Superintendent of the Presidency Jail,
"The Superintendent
Presidency Jail
September 20, 1940
Dear Sir,
...The following points regarding the Durga Puja have to be noted:
(1) It is the great national festival among Hindus in this part of the country.
(2) It is a congregational worship. Hence it is called not merely 'Puja' but 'Utsav' also.
(3) Three priests are necessary for Durga Puja - including 'Chandi Path' the recital of Chandi. It is physically impossible to do with less than two - and that is possible only by saddling one of the priests with 'Chandi Path', which they often refuse as involving too much strain.
(4) The hours of Puja are fixed by astronomical calculations. For instance, the most important ceremony is 'Sandhi Puja' which is held on the 8th day of the moon - and the Puja hour is often late at night (I do not know yet what the hours for 'Sandhi Puja' are this year).
Durga Puja in Jail will consequently be possible only if the following extra concessions are being allowed:
(1) Since Durga Puja is congregational in character, all Hindu prisoners who are so desirous should be permitted to participate. It may be remarked here that similar facilities are given to Muslim prisoners during Id and to Christian prisoners in Alipore Central Jail during Christian festivals. In any case, there is no reason why all Hindu political prisoners should not be allowed to participate.
(2) At least two priests should be allowed.
(3) They should be allowed to perform the ceremony in the hours fixed by astronomical calculations, whatever those hours may be.
(4) Minimum music should be allowed. Music is essential for 'Arati' ceremony in particular. (The question of Puja allowance should be considered along with the general question of our status which is under consideration).
If these concessions are not allowed it will mean virtually that Government does not allow Durga Puja in jail. This will be an unjustifiable cancellation of the concessions we gained after considerable suffering injail in the fifteen-day hunger strike in 1926. It will mean, further, that concessions allowed by the bureaucratic regime are being withdrawn by the popular ministry.
The consequences of such situation will naturally be serious for us...
Yours faithfully
Subhas C Bose.
pp. 182-183, [39].
Chief minister Mamata Banarjee did justice to Bose’s legacy in part by declassifying the files West Bengal state government held on him. It is equally true that she rejected the values he stood for, as shown by the ban her government imposed on Durga Puja in a poor village of West Bengal and also by delaying the immersion by two days beyond that prescribed by astronomical calculations so as to yield right of way to Muslim religious practices? She chose instead to follow in the footsteps of her counterpart of the past, Fazlul Haq, whose double standards Bose had ridiculed in a letter he wrote on September30, 1940 to the Superintendent of Prison as: "This fast will have no effect on the 'popular' ministry, because I am neither the Maulavi of Murapara, Dacca nor a Muhammadan by faith. Consequently, the fast will, in my case, become a fast unto death"; pp. 187-189, [39].
Above and beyond, one wonders what Bose, Mookerjee, and Savarkar, whose chosen ideologies diverged more often than not, would have to say if they could observe the religious freedom granted to Hindus in India, that all of them fought for?
Section G: What the future portends
The end result of the actions of the Congress, left and regional parties has been to alienate the educated Hindus, except for a few elites invested in the system. The slow and agonising demise of the Left, with violent convulsions, has to do with the Hindus slowly, but steadily turning against it. The regional parties are no better but have not been divested of public support, by and large, owing to local equations comprising of caste loyalties, long cultivated party loyalties, disbursement of material advantages, lack of better option, etc.
Among all political parties, the BJP is perceived to be the least anti-Hindu owing to its congenital links with organisations that have associations with Hindus, eg, RSS, VHP, etc. It does not usually actively participate in denial of religious freedom to the Hindus. But, it is not pro-Hindu or even neutral by any stretch, in that it rarely, if ever reverses, the decidedly discriminatory laws and executive decisions adopted by other parties (eg, government continues to regulate Hindu temples but eschews interference in religious institutions of the minorities in its regime; the Right to Education Act, that provides substantially more freedom of operation for minority educational institutions than to Hindu educational institutions, continues too). It acts with alacrity when minorities allege denial of religious freedom, even on state subjects, but rarely if ever when Hindus put forward similar legitimate grievances. BJP has not organised any meaningful and sustained political protest on any one of the instances of violation of religious freedom of Hindus documented in this article. All these are despite the fact that whenever BJP wins, it does because of Hindu consolidation, minorities largely opt for the parties best poised to defeat BJP. So, due to the apathy shown by BJP towards legitimate Hindu grievances, the vote of the BJP, especially among the Hindu professional classes and the well-educated, owes far less to it than to the lack of choice for the Hindus. Hindus, or at least the section thereof that is concerned about the freedom to practise their religion, face the Hobson choice of either having to vote for the less than appealing BJP or vote for the even worse decidedly anti-Hindu parties. As a simple example, two Hindu citizens, Colonel Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, have been incarcerated for about a decade now, merely suspected of involvement in terror, but without having been charged of any offense. Both allege torture, and one is suffering from cancer. The present BJP government has continued the abuse of the civil rights of the duo, but is still applauded by the Hindutva supporters, owing to the fear of far worse alternates. The current PM has connected temples and toilets (which he wouldn't do to churches or mosques), did not mention the hardships of the Kashmiri Pandits in a rally in Jammu, nor the plight of the Jats and the Gujjars after the Muzaffarnagar riots in a rally in Meerut, publicly criticized the army in a rally in Srinagar, ignored the riot stricken Hindus of Saharanpur, Kandhla, Nadia and so many other places, while hyperventilating about the far less serious attacks on the churches; but still the Hindutva afficionados proclaim him as the Hindu hriday Samrat and the pinnacle of nationalism – again because the alternatives to him are all infinitely worse. It is again this vacuum in the political space of demanding equal treatment of the Hindus that the least anti-Hindu party has any incentive of righting the legacy wrongs.
The major problem with the Indian political establishment completely disowning the Hindus is that the Hindus in turn are left with no stake in the system. And those with no stake in the system have no interest in its existence, much less continuation. Thus, the anti-Hindu parties are digging their own graves. The weakening of both the Congress and the Left owes directly to this phenomenon. It is a telling indictment of the system that the present BJP government is less pro-Hindu than even the Narasimha Rao government of the 90s and is still excoriated by the secular intellectuals for following "Hindutva". The greater danger, in all this, is that the Hindus, especially the educated class, may totally disown the system in India itself. And this will inevitably happen if they are made to feel second class citizens by the secular establishment. And if that happens, only the Idea of India will remain, with the actual real India being defenseless and thus, left to collapse.
या देवी सर्वभूतेषु शक्ति रूपेण संस्थिता
नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमोनमः॥
References:
[2] – Hindusthan Standard, Puja Issue, 1950.
[3] – Sources of Indian Tradition, Columbia University Press, 1938, pp. 489-490
[4] – ibid, p. 489
[5] – Manasa Mangala, pp. 54
[11] - 'Durga Puja idols vandalised’, DNA, 18/10/2015. http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-durga-idols-vandalised-in-bangladesh-second-such-incident-in-two-weeks-2136166
[32] Copies of the Government order banning Durga Puja, https://twitter.com/malviyamit/status/659371264318959616
- [33] 'Bangladesh immerses Durga while Mamata’s Bengal bans it for Muharram’, 24/10/2015, NitiCentral,http://www.niticentral.com/2015/10/24/bangladesh-immerses-durga-mamatas-bengal-bans-muharram-335646.html
- [34] 'Friday deadline for immersion’, Joy Sengupta, 21/10/2015,Telegraph,http://www.telegraphindia.com/1151022/jsp/bihar/story_49231.jsp#.Vju3eNIrLhl
- [35] NewsX Debate involving Saugata Roy, TMC MPhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H0nDAKurzI
- [36] 'Follow BJP: Congress has a ruinous plan to remake its 'pro-Muslim' image’, Hassan Suroor, 03/01/2015,http://www.firstpost.com/politics/follow-bjp-congress-has-a-ruinous-plan-to-remake-its-pro-muslim-image-2026639.html
- [37] 'Muslims have the first claim on resources’, 09/12/2006, Times of India, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Muslims-must-have-first-claim-on-resources-PM/articleshow/754937.cms
- [38] 'Anti-national and anti-Hindu Marxists in Kerala’, 21/07/2009,Vijayvaani, http://www.vijayvaani.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?aid=707
[39] - 'The Alternative Leadership, Speeches, Articles, Statements and Letters’, June 1939-1941 Subhas Chandra Bose, Netaji Collected Works, Volume 10
[40] - 'In Burmese prisons', Subhas Chandra Bose Correspondence May 1923-July 1926, Netaji Collected Works, Volume III
[42] - 'Hindu Temples – What happened to them’, Sitaram Goel
[43] - 'The Concept of Hindu Nation’, Abhas Chatterjee, Voice of India Publications.
[44] - 'Durga Stotra’, Aurobindo Ghosh, Dharma newspaper, October 9, 1909.
[45] - Netaji Collected Works, Volume IV
[46] - Salley Hovey Wriggins: The Silk Road journey of Xuan Zhang, Icon Editions, West View Press
[47] - Leonard Gordon, Brothers Against the Raj
[48] - Ram Gopal Misra, "Indian Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders UpTo 1206 AD’’, Sahitya Sindhu Prakashana
[49] - Tarikh-i-Firishta, Translated by Briggs, Calcutta, 1966, Vol I
[50] - Indian Antiquary, 1877
[51] - Merutunga "Prabandhachintamani’’, Translation by Tawney
[52] - "Prakrit and Sanskri Inscriptions’’; Published by the Bhavanagar Archaeological department, v. 29
[53] - Tabaqat-i-Akbari, Translation by B Dey, Vol I
[54] - The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal, Tirtha Mandal
[55] - Baloadhuri: "Kitab Futuh-al-Buldan"; Tr. Hitti and Murgotten, Vol II
[56] - Kalhana, Rajtarangini, Book VII
[57] - Philip K Hiti, The Arabs, 1946
[58] - Abolqasem Ferdowsi (Author), Dick Davis (Translator), The Shahenama: The Persian Book of Kings
[59] - Abdolhossein Zarrinkoub, Two Centuries of Silence
[60] - Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah (The Life of Muhammad, translated by A Guillaume)
[61] - Tabaqat-i-Ibn Sa’d, translated into Urdu by Alama Abdullah al-Ahmadi, 2 Volumes, Karachi, n.d.
[62] - First Encyclopedia of Islam, 1931-1936, 9 Volumes, Leiden Reprint
[63] - Tarikh-i-Tabari, translated into Urdu by Sayyid Muhammad Ibrahim, Vol. I: Sirat-un-Nabi, Karachi, n.d.
[64] - http://indiankanoon.org/doc/550445/
[65] - History and Culture of the Indian People, RC Majumdar, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Press.
[67] - March of Mysore, Vol.3, 1966, ed.
[69] - 'Girl, would-be assassin, gets nine years in India', Reading Eagle, 15/02/1932
[76] - 'Santhal Durga Puja symbolises revolt against British'http://zeenews.india.com/news/jharkhand/santhal-durga-puja-symbolises-revolt-against-british_659842.html
[84] Kanchan Gupta, 'In Rome, Durga is not welcome', http://kanchangupta.blogspot.in/2009/09/in-rome-durga-is-not-welcome.html
New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday sought four weeks' time to spell out its stand on the controversial Sethusamudram project initiated to facilitate navigation between India's east and west coasts.
Prof Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, who headed Kakatiya University’s history department, was appointed by the new government as chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research. ( Express Photo)
Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said a copy of the annual report will be sent to every party’s office. (PTI Photo)
"
A single dotted circle pierced through with a string or band is shown 1. on the right shoulder; and 2. on the forehead.
Pylon with womb-shaped sculptural relief, Candi Sukuh. 
Ekamukha Sivalinga
Cosmic Dancer, Nataraja sculptural frieze, Ellora caves. Kailasha temple.
Statue of red stone. Torso of male. Harappa.
Torso Male dancer. Harappa. 
Dance-step in a cire perdue bronze statue, Mohenjodaro replicated on a Bhirrana potsherd. The red potsherd with the engraving resembling the Dancing Girl bronze figurine of Mohenjodaro, found at Bhirrana.
Sign 44 (this glyph could be compared with the orthography of three dancers in a row; the glyph is a ligature showing a 'dance step' and a rimless pot). Glyphs: meD 'dance' (Remo); rebus: meD 'iron'; bat.a 'pot'; bat.hi 'furnace'.
Former Union Telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran
PMO India 
DailyO
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Limestone sculpture. Mohenjo-daro. Priest king adorned with Indus Script hieroglyphs
Panoramic view of the gardens and outside of the 
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