Srijan Foundation

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/songs-from-a-classroom.-or-is-it-a-thana/585283/0

We are working on finding out the contact details of Inspector Surender Kumar, our Good Samaritan, to help raise funds for this wonderful initiative. Please stay tuned on this article, if you would like to help him out.

———–

The lilting rhythms and throaty choruses of the Manganiyar folk music break the morning air at the Ramsar police station in Barmer, 25 km from the border. Here, more than 200 children practise Manganiyar music, a famed but dying folk art, in the police station that for four years has doubled as a music and elementary education school for children in the region.

Saroof Khan, all of 10, has been attending the ‘Apna School’ since 2008. “My father was a Manganiyar musician, but he travelled a lot and had no time to teach me his music. So I never learnt. Now that I have been learning it for two years, I can appreciate my father’s talent and our tradition better,” says Khan.

The Manganiyar community, traditionally from Barmer, Jaisalmer and other parts of western Rajasthan, has used its music to bridge religious and caste barriers in the state. Muslims by birth, the Manganiyars are called upon to compose and sing songs on different occasions—a wedding, a birth in the family or a festival. Their music, which describes the life of the people of their land, has a touch of Sufism. Over the years, their music has gone global with names like Rukma Devi and Talab Khan travelling across the world showcasing their art.

But back here in Barmer, the artisans say though their music was appreciated, it didn’t do much for their lives once the show and the applause wound up.

“Despite our musical talents and the concerts abroad, we never managed to make a decent living. But now, this school in Ramsar is a godsend for all of us,” says Sakhi Khan, Rukma Devi’s son.

The story of the school began four years ago with a police inspector, Surender Kumar, who had an ear for music and experience in community policing. While on deputation with the UN peacekeeping mission to Bosnia, he says he learned about community policing while dealing with Serbians and Albanians. “On my return, I was posted to Ramsar and decided to emulate that model here,” he says.

Kumar began by rounding up a few children from the village and decided to use the police station as a music school, which is now run on donations from Kumar and celebrated dancer-choreographer Mallika Sarabhai.

Manganiyar teachers were never a problem in Ramsar but Kumar wanted the school to offer more than music. “There are several experienced teachers who could teach the children music, but I soon realised that the children had no elementary and academic education,” says Kumar.

And so, the police station-turned music school became a regular school. Kumar then set out to find a teacher. “We got a teacher from Ramsar to teach children the state syllabus. Now, we have four such teachers,” says Kumar, who now heads the Mahila Thana in Jodhpur.

Shakhar Khan, a Manganiyar who is in charge of ‘Apna School’, is one of the educated few in Ramsar. He believes the school has changed Ramsar. “We are a poor community and the government schools were far away and we could not afford to send our children there,” says Khan.

The classes are held for two hours in the morning and two in the evening—lean hours for the policemen. After Apna School set a precedent and the community realised the value of education, more children wanted to join the school. So another, much smaller, Apna School was set up in Ramsar. “But a majority of the students study in the police station. Now we have 310 students, four music teachers and four regular teachers,” says Khan.

However, Sakhi Khan, Rukma Devi’s son, says Apna School’s very popularity will possibly be its undoing. “It began as an elementary and music school for children from poor families. But news has spread and more and more students join every year. We just do not have the funds to handle them all,” says Khan.

So while Kumar and Sarabhai fund four teachers, including Shakhar Khan, they need at least three more. “We have hired another teacher and I forgo my salary to pay him. However, the number of students increases every year and now it is time for the annual exams and the students find it hard to cope with just four teachers,” says Shakhar Khan.

He says he has been looking for donors in Barmer city, but with little success. “We have come so far and we want to continue this, but it is difficult. Kumarji cannot possibly fund everything,” Khan says.

—————

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-new-story-from-militant-labours-own-country-it-park-owned-by-workers/556731/0

—

School drop-outs who once crushed stones at granite quarries have now become the directors of a Rs 600-crore info-tech park in Kerala.

Apart from the directors, 943 manual workers are also part-owners of the Uralungal Labour Contract Cyber Park, a 100-per cent subsidiary of the Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative Society (ULCCS).

The park, spread over 25 acres in Kozhikode, got Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status early this month.

A major construction co-operative venture in north Kerala, ULCCS has executed several showpiece road and bridge projects. Headquartered in Madappally, a village in Kozhikode district, ULCCS was established in 1925 with 14 members to fight poverty and caste oppression, to generate employment for the poor and the backward.

Over the years, the number of permanent members grew to 950-odd, around 10 per cent of them disabled. All members of the society are daily-wagers from Madappally and surrounding areas.
ULCCS has its own system of enrolling a worker-cum-member. On approaching the society for job, a labourer is first asked to crush stones at the quarries it owns. If the aspirant’s performance is satisfactory, he would be taken in as a member after a year. From the quarry, he would move on to road projects. If his performance is good, he gets promoted—as site supervisor and later as project manager.

M M Surendran, 44, a director of the cyberpark and a Class IX drop-out, joined the ULCCS as a stone-crusher 30 years ago. “After one year at the quarry, I became a permanent member and became a road worker. Later, I became a site leader,” said Surendran, who has been a director of the cooperative for nine years. He said seven other directors of the park have only school education. All members of the society, including the directors, draw daily wages. The directors get 15 per cent more than member workers. Workers retire at 60 with various benefits, said Surendran.

Paleri Rameshan, an ITI certificate holder who joined the society as a site supervisor, is now the president of the ULCCS and the Chairman and Managing Director of the proposed IT Park. “In the future, the society might have to diversify to meet the changing aspirations of the generations to come. For last three years, we have been facing shortage of fresh hands as Kerala youths are least interested in manual work. Hence we logged in to the IT venture as an investment for the next generation,” said Rameshan.

Rameshan said the society used to purchase land adjacent to major project sites to house its mixing plant and other equipment. “Thus, we had bought nearly 15 acres on the outskirts of Kozhikode city as part of the NH bypass work there. After completing the work, the plant site was lying idle. As the society wanted to do something meaningful for the next generation, we thought about an IT park and bought 10 more acres of private land,” said Rameshan. He said the Kerala government had wholeheartedly supported the venture, which would be the first IT park in north Kerala. The profits from the IT venture would also get divided among the members.

To run the proposed IT Park, the labourers’ society has roped in K G Girish Babu, founder CEO of state-owned Info Park in Kochi. “The society is known for its quality work and track record for finishing work on time. Society members have not wasted a single day in its history on labour problems. It is not their educational background, but the directors’ vision that attracted me,” said Girish Babu, who joined the project as its CEO.

The IT Park, expected to give employment for 15,000, would be implemented in three phases. A part of the funds for the project would come from the society’s resources, while the rest would be raised from banks. The project has already advertised for an architect for its green building.

The ULCCS has assets worth Rs 125 crore. Last year, the society executed projects worth Rs 75 crore. The paid-up capital is Rs 4.18 crore, 40 per cent of which comes from the workers and the rest from the government in the form of loans. Ten per cent of the daily wage of a worker is kept apart and converted into a share at the end of the year. Members increase their stake till they retire.

CPI(M) leader and Kozhikode MLA A Pradeepkumar said, “The project would prove that ordinary people can do great things in life.  The social ownership of an IT park may be the first in the country. We would see the park-owners constructing it brick by brick.”

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-conditional-charity/543351/

—

The disgraceful conduct of a UK-based Muslim charity with the victim-survivors of the 2002 communal carnage in Gujarat could have been ignored as an isolated, if highly deplorable act. Sadly, this is no isolated incident. If anything, it is but the latest manifestation of a malignancy common to many Muslim outfits, in India and internationally.

For those who missed the news in the November 15 edition of this paper, here is the gist. A UK-based NRI charity named Muslim Relief Organisation (MRO) had built a colony in Detral village in Bharuch district to rehabilitate the victim-survivors of Gujarat’s state-sponsored carnage (2002). Even in charity, it seems, conditions apply.

The MRO has now issued an ultimatum to the Muslims it had helped rehabilitate: Shariah-compliant beards are a must. No rubbing shoulders with fellow Muslims in the village mosque, namaaz only in the special (sectarian) mosque we have built. Banish TV sets from your homes, all music is prohibited. Follow the “Shariah rules” or out you go of the homes we built. For you.
It can’t be an easy choice for Detral’s Muslims who, dispossessed by Hindu extremists seven years earlier, now face a second dispossession: by co-believers this time. My salaams to those village folks who at great cost to themselves have chosen freedom over capitulation to mean despots masquerading as custodians of Islam! A Google search doesn’t tell us much about the MRO or its broader ideological affiliation. But it’s easy to see where they are coming from.

The Detral ignominy is no isolated incident. Last year, televangelist Dr Zakir Naik’s flush-with-petro-dollars Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) launched a scholarship scheme for Muslim students. That you might think is a good idea. But here again, conditions apply. Before all else, the aspiring candidates must pass the “Islam test”. Since IRF is the screening body, it is reasonable to assume that the would-be grantee must match-up to the sponsor’s brand of an intolerant Islam. So here is free tuition to future aspirants on IRF’s ‘model answers’ to frequently asked questions:

Is it OK for Indian Muslims to sing Vande Mataram?

Model answer: Forget Muslims, even Hindus must follow the Vedas and refrain from such sinful act. (Rigveda, page…, para…, mantra…; the IRF is pretty good at playing the memory game).

Why can’t non-Muslims practice their faith in Saudi Arabia?

Model answer: Simple, stupid! Islam is the only true religion. How can sinful ways of worship be allowed in the land of the only true religion?

Were the Taliban justified in demolishing the Bamiyan Buddhas?

Model answer: But of course! Since there were no Buddhists in Afghanistan and the territory belonged to the Afghans, they were right in destroying their own property. (How did Buddhists disappear from Afghanistan? Don’t act smart!)

Co-education?

Model answer: Un-Islamic.

Burqa for women?

Model answer: It’s a symbol of women’s dignity while their participation in the Olympics, alongside men, symbolises degradation of women.

How to promote peace in the world?

Model answer: Through a 24/7 ‘Peace TV Channel’ and mega-budget ‘International Islamic Peace Conferences’ in Mumbai, London, Tokyo. Message: “My dear Hindu, Christian, Jews and the rest of you, brothers and sisters, Peace be upon you! We are here to prove with reason and logic how ignorant you are, clueless about your own faith and guilty of the greatest sin: idol worship. Convert to Islam for “Global Unity and Peace”.

(No Islam, no peace? At an estimated expenditure of rupees one crore per convert, IRF’s must be the most cost-inefficient model in the conversion business).

The Sachar Committee’s report convincingly establishes the fact of institutionalised discrimination against Muslims in our ‘infidel’ state? But the Muslim Relief Organisation, the IRF and their types do a much better inside job in discriminating: between Muslims (good) and Muslims (bad) in Islam’s name. It’s a discrimination that’s inevitable when faith is converted into a totalitarian ideology.

“There is no compulsion in religion” (“La ikraaha fiddeen”), says the Quran. “Diversity of opinion in my ummah is a blessing from Allah,” said the Prophet. For the despots of Islam, however, not only is Islam the only true religion, “their Islam” is the only “true Islam”. No space for doubt, no question of choice.

For sensible scholars of Islam, the Shariah is only a problem-solving methodology for those who seek to unravel the Divine Intent with the help of the Quran, teachings of Prophet Mohammed (Ahadith and Sunnah), consensual approach (ijma) and critical reasoning (ijtehad). But when a methodology (Marxist or Islamic) is elevated to the status of Law — frozen in time, all fresh approaches outlawed — you cannot but end up with a totalitarian ideology that by its own internal logic must aspire to the establishment of a totalitarian state (Marxist or Islamic).

It may seem like an ugly utopia for you and me. But to the hopelessly indoctrinated, a school in Mumbai, a village of bruised and battered Muslims in Gujarat, the Swat valley in Pakistan, a country named Afghanistan, or any social space big or small will do as a laboratory for the pursuit of their totalitarian fantasy.

Fortunately for the world and for the ummah itself, when given a chance to express themselves, the vast majority of Muslims — Indonesian, Malaysian, Bangladesh, Pakistani — continue to deliver a resounding ‘No’ to the enemies of freedom and choice. But beware of the dangers of the malevolent, modern-day messiahs. Unlike the poor maulvi sahib from a Muslim mohalla, this seemingly sophisticated lot comes draped in suit and tie, speaks fluent English, swears faith in “reason and logic”, quotes from the Vedas and the Bible as comfortably as from the Quran, oozes cash and promotes disharmony and discord in the name of peace. Don’t take them lightly for many among the new generation of otherwise well-educated but theologically ignorant Muslims assume this out-of-date medievalism to mean ‘Modern Islam’.

The writer is co-editor, ‘Communalism Combat’ and general secretary ‘Muslims for Secular Democracy’.

Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Trickle-of-hope-in-the-parched-Himalayas/articleshow/5357550.cms

—-

POKHRI: It’s a sparkling morning, the dawn chill lifting as the sun’s rays light up this little village in Pauri Garhwal. Situated nearly on top of a hill, and facing east, the villagers get the early sun. It helps, because morning is the time for fetching water from the three public taps in this small village of 235 people. Each family gets two buckets, no more, and then the tap is put under lock and key, using an ingenious contraption made from a metal dabba.

This is a fairly common story in the parched Himalayas, often called the ‘‘Water Tower’’ or even the Third Pole of the world, because these mountains contain the largest store of freshwater in the world after the north and south poles. Most of it is in the form of snow and glaciers. Life-giving waters of 10 major river systems originate from the Himalayas, sustaining nearly one-fifth of humanity from southern China, through the Mekong delta in Vietnam and the Irrawady in Myanmar to the Indo-Gangetic plains in north India

But for the people here, water is arguably the greatest hardship. Spring water, the main source of water in the hills, is drying up. In Pokhri, it trickles in at about 11 litres per minute, while the need of the villagers — for personal use, as well as for animals and kitchen gardens — will get fulfilled only by 24 litres per minute. And, this is leaving aside irrigation needs.

With changes in rainfall pattern, deforestation and growing population, the springs are going dry across the hills. This has unleashed many responses, ranging from government schemes to lay pipelines to more lasting efforts by NGOs at rejuvenating water sources.

One of the most innovative efforts is the result of an unlikely collaboration between villagers of Nagrasu, in Rudraprayag district, and nuclear scientists of the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (Barc),  Mumbai. Using isotope analysis, the scientists traced water flows inside the mountain. This helped locate the areas from where water starts percolating into the ground to finally reappear at the spring. Water conservation structures were built on these areas so that the water doesn’t flow off but gets absorbed into the ground.

Gursharan Singh, head of Barc’s isotope division explained the process to TOI. ‘‘Naturally occurring isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen were analysed from water collected at various points above the spring by the scientists.

An article by Javed Anand, co-editor at “Communalism Combat” and General Secretary, Muslims for Secular Democracy. The article talks about the medieval mindset of the Deoband, and its hardline interpretation of the Quran, leading to keeping India’s muslims in clutches of ignorance, and away from the true message of the Quran. This we feel, has a direct relationship with poverty, as well as fanaticism.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/a-madrasa-in-mind/527403/2
———————

To those who might have concluded from media reports that Indian Muslims are not interested in the HRD ministry’s proposed bill to give madrasa students access to subjects like mathematics, science and maybe English, here’s some Breaking News: a significant section of Muslims, including maulanas and maulvi sahibs, are very keen. But the number of “Ayes” is difficult to assess because in this respect at least Muslims are more like Hindus than Christians: there is a great deal of decentralisation and there is no universally accepted hierarchy among the ulema even within the same sect.

We also have another problem on hand. Even in the ranks of the interested there are many who have serious issues with the draft bill — the Central Madrasa Board Bill 2008 — currently in circulation. This is because it does not adequately address legitimate concerns about autonomy, non-interference and corrupt babus.

Responding to strong objections raised by several delegates present at the October 3 all-party meeting in New Delhi, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal gave a categorical assurance that if the Muslims do not want it, there will be no central madrasa board. The assurance, paradoxically, has the pro-board maulanas really worried. Their fear is that for the lack of a well-conceived draft, what in principle is a most welcome idea might be prematurely buried. This column, however, is not concerned with offering advice on how to revise the draft. Rather, the intention is to address the objections of that section of the ulema who will continue to object no matter how satisfactory the revised bill.

Though they are not the only ones, in the forefront of the opposition to the idea of a board is the Darul-uloom Deoband, arguably India’s largest and most influential madrasa. Deoband’s objections were well encapsulated in the inaugural address of its rector, Maulana Marghub ur-Rahman, at a massive all-India meeting of the ulema convened in late 2008. For reasons of space, of the many anti-arguments, let’s deal with the two most important ones:

The conspiracy argument: The Government of India is trying to please its Western masters who have hatched a “sinister conspiracy” to dilute or destroy the Islamic character of madrasas through a variety of strategies. The “madrasa modernisation” call is but a part of this devious game-plan. Why should the Western powers, the US particularly, be targeting madrasas?

Because madrasas have historically been “a major hurdle in their expansionist and imperialist designs”.

Comment: Interesting! But then, what was Deoband doing when in the ’80s innumerable madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan that proclaimed Deoband-lineage ganged up with “American imperialists” (in addition to Pakistan’s General Zia-ul-Haq and the Saudi regime) to transform what would have been a legitimate war of national liberation against the occupying Soviet forces into a “Holy War” (Islamic Jihad?) against the Evil Empire? There is more to be said on the subject but leave that to another day.

The hypocrisy argument: The Sachar Committee reports that only 4 per cent Muslim children go to a madrasa for education, the remaining 96 per cent depend on secular education. Why doesn’t the government concentrate on the education of the 96 per cent instead of losing sleep over the future of 4 per cent?

Comment: Good point. How our secular UPA government responds to this is its business. But I for one have a serious Islamic objection to raise against this compartmentalised method of learning.

You might have heard of Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, who converted to Islam and whose English translation of the Quran is considered to be among the most authentic by Muslims. In a 1924 public lecture in India, bemoaning all the damage the sub-continent’s ulema had done to Islam in Allah’s name, he recalled a tradition of Prophet Mohammed: “To acquire knowledge is the sacred duty of every Muslim (male) and Muslimah (female)”.

Reminding his Muslim audience that in Islam “all knowledge is

sacred”, he added: “Islam teaches us that the man with the widest knowledge and experience of life is the man best qualified to expound religious truths to resolve the problems which arise among Muslims in connection with the practice of religion. I deny the right of men with limited knowledge and outlook to exclusive interpretation. I deny their conclusions and I also deny their premises”.

Lest you dismiss his words as the ranting of a neo-convert ignoramus, please recall that in the heydays of Islam, a Muslim from Baghdad, Bokhara, Cairo, Damascus, Samarkand and elsewhere learnt his theology in the same madrasa (educational institution, literally) where he was also taught science and mathematics, logic, philosophy and mysticism, music, literature and architecture.

You adore Imam Ghazali; consider his to be among the most respected names in the field of Islamic theology. But do you teach in your madarsas what Imam Ghazali did: “He who has never doubted is not a true believer”, or that every ayat (verse) of the Quran can be interpreted in 60,000 ways? Do you tell them ever that this highly learned Imam believed that Allah has prescribed two basic texts for the ummah: one, the Quran, the other is His “open book”, otherwise known as the Universe/ Cosmos. And that the Quran itself repeatedly asserts that to even begin to fathom Divine Intent, in addition to imaan (faith) you need aql (intellect) and ilm (reasoning).

A rounded education for the 4 per cent is critical, for it is they from whom the 96 per cent learn their Islam. Because of the compartmentalised, fragmented, insular and sectarian nature of his education, the Maulvi Sahib’s ignorance of the world he inhabits is tragic — and the Mr Muslim’s knowledge of Islam pathetic.

But of course, Muslims must be part of the battle against the neo-cons, the neo-colonialists, the uncritical Westophiles and the diehard Islamophobes. The good news is that there is a growing tribe of Muslim men and women who are engaged in this battle for hearts and minds and I can rattle off a long list of names. Sadly, or maybe not, almost all of them occupy distinguished positions in the top universities of the West. They are proud of their Islam which is different from yours and the West is listening with interest and respect. A pity not one of them will find a place in any madrasa or university in the Islamic world.

To end, more Breaking News: A fortnight ago, Saudi King Abdullah cut the ribbon opening the gates of a multi-billion dollar, co-educational, postgraduate university. A fatwa on Deoband’s website declares this to be strictly “unlawful”.

On October 8, the Grand Mufti of Egypt and head of Al-Azhar university, Sheikh Mohammed Syed Tantawi, issued a fatwa against the niqab. (Ideally, says a Deoband fatwa, even a woman’s eyes should not be seen.) Strict instructions have been issued that no woman draped in a head-to-toe burqa will now be permitted to enter the university or any of its affiliated institutions. Al-Azhar, among the oldest madrasas in the Islamic world, is also “old-fashioned”: it seems to treat all knowledge as sacred.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/from-indus-to-india/514737/0
————-
Professor K.P.N. Rao and his associates assert, on the basis of their recently published computer studies on the Indus script, that this script has statistical regularities which are in line with other natural languages. Thus, the various signs of the Indus script cannot be explained away as only symbols of different sorts. The latter opinion was expressed by an American group sometime back and apparently taken seriously enough by Rao and his colleagues to undertake their own analysis. That the Indus script represents a language is amply shown by the way its signs were found scratched from the right to the left on an inscribed potsherd from Kalibangan and the way in which the signs were arranged on the seals of Mohenjodaro. Further, the rarity with which many of these signs occur is almost a certain indication of the fact that much of the textual corpus of the Indus civilisation was written, on the analogy of the Indian tradition which continued down to the end of the nineteenth century, on perishable materials like palm and birch leaves.

The basic problem, however, lies elsewhere. There is a conscious attempt in certain quarters to disassociate this civilisation from the later mainstream tradition of Indian/ Vedic culture. Historically, the beginning of this attempt can be traced to the period around India’s Independence when Mortimer Wheeler proposed that the impetus for this civilisation came from Mesopotamia. Earlier, when India was a jewel in the British crown, there was no compulsion to depict it as an offshoot of Mesopotamian or other contemporary civilisations. The early excavators had no problem hypothesising that this civilisation was deeply rooted in the Indian soil and that many of its features could be explained with reference to the later Indian civilisation.

The current attempts to disassociate the Indus civilisation from the mainstream Indian tradition has assumed many forms. The term ‘Indus valley civilisation’, which is being increasingly common, suggests that this civilisation was primarily a product of the Indus valley alone, which is far from being the case. The civilisation is also bandied about as the product of what is dubiously dubbed as the ‘middle Asian interaction sphere’ and not as a product of a vast region of the sub-continent. Its chronology has been needlessly shortened, suppressing a long and continuous developmental span of about 2500 years in the modern Indian section of its distribution area. The civilisation is also visualised at the end of a straight arrow-line of wheat-barley-based development beginning in Baluchistan at c.7000 BC, completely ignoring the contribution which came from the east — from the early farming and metallurgical developments in the Aravallis or from the rice-cultivating tradition that began in the Ganga plain and its Vindhyan periphery in the seventh millennium BC. The famous Sramana image from Mohenjodaro, which shows the bust of a shawl-wearing man with a meditative expression, is now advocated as belonging to an artistic tradition of north Afghanistan and beyond. Notorious Hindu-baiters are aghast at the thought that anything related to Hinduism could occur in that civilisation, whereas the first excavators’ frame of reference for the study of the religion of this civilisation was Hinduism. That Siva was worshipped in this civilisation is proved not merely by the phallus-shaped stone objects found at Mohenjodaro and Dholavira but also by the find of an indisputedly Sivalinga set in a Yonipatta at Kalibangan. If anybody is interested, Bhang and Dhatura , both favourites with a class of Siva-worshippers, occur in the Indus civilisation.

The battle raging these days is whether there can be a relation between the life depicted in the Vedic literature and this civilisation. Without trying to pull down this debate to the all-too-common Indian level of ‘progress versus reaction’ syndrome which implies that that any talk in favour of Veda-Indus civilization relationship is a ‘right reactionary’ proposition ( a la Irfan Habib), we note that scholars of the stature of M.S.Vats, R.P.Chanda, B.N.Datta and P.V.Kane had no difficulty in arguing for a relationship between the two.

The opinions which we have noted above and which try to disassociate the Indus civilisation from the mainstream Indian tradition are endemic in modern First World archaeological literature on the subject and its followers in India. First World Archaeology, as my long familiarity with it tells me, suffers from a sense of inordinate superiority in relation to the archaeologists of the Third World. By allowing it to enjoy a free run in the country as the present archaeological policy of the government does and by allowing it to set up ‘Indus Centres’ in Vadodara or Pune, grievous damage is being caused to national archaeological scholarship in India.

The writer is emeritus professor of South Asian archaeology, Cambridge University.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Aryan-Dravidian-divide-a-myth-Study/articleshow/5053274.cms
——–
HYDERABAD: The great Indian divide along north-south lines now stands blurred. A pathbreaking study by ancestral Indian populations says there is a genetic relationship between all Indians and more importantly, the hitherto believed “fact” that Aryans and Dravidians signify the ancestry of north and south Indians might after all, be a myth.

“This paper rewrites history… there is no north-south divide,” Lalji Singh, former director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and a co-author of the study, said at a press conference here on Thursday.

Senior CCMB scientist Kumarasamy Thangarajan said there was no truth to the Aryan-Dravidian theory as they came hundreds or thousands of years after the ancestral north and south Indians had settled in India.

The study analysed 500,000 genetic markers across the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 diverse groups from 13 states. All the individuals were from six-language families and traditionally “upper” and “lower” castes and tribal groups. “The genetics proves that castes grew directly out of tribe-like organizations during the formation of the Indian society,” the study said. Thangarajan noted that it was impossible to distinguish between castes and tribes since their genetics proved they were not systematically different.

The study was conducted by CCMB scientists in collaboration with researchers at Harvard Medical School,
Harvard School of Public Health and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. It reveals that the present-day Indian population is a mix of ancient north and south bearing the genomic contributions from two distinct ancestral populations – the Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and the Ancestral South Indian (ASI).

“The initial settlement took place 65,000 years ago in the Andamans and in ancient south India around the same time, which led to population growth in this part,” said Thangarajan. He added, “At a later stage, 40,000 years ago, the ancient north Indians emerged which in turn led to rise in numbers here. But at some point of time, the ancient north and the ancient south mixed, giving birth to a different set of population. And that is the population which exists now and there is a genetic relationship between the population within India.”

The study also helps understand why the incidence of genetic diseases among Indians is different from the rest of the world. Singh said that 70% of Indians were burdened with genetic disorders and the study could help answer why certain conditions restricted themselves to one population. For instance, breast cancer among Parsi women, motor neuron diseases among residents of Tirupati and Chittoor, or sickle cell anaemia among certain tribes in central India and the North-East can now be understood better, said researchers.

The researchers, who are now keen on exploring whether Eurasians descended from ANI, find in their study that ANIs are related to western Eurasians, while the ASIs do not share any similarity with any other population across the world. However, researchers said there was no scientific proof of whether Indians went to Europe first or the other way round.

Migratory route of Africans

Between 135,000 and 75,000 years ago, the East-African droughts shrunk the water volume of the lake Malawi by at least 95%, causing migration out of Africa. Which route did they take? Researchers say their study of the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar islands using complete mitochondrial DNA sequences and its comparison those of world populations has led to the theory of a “southern coastal route” of migration from East Africa through India.

This finding is against the prevailing view of a northern route of migration via Middle East, Europe, south-east Asia, Australia and then to India.

Of 105 elephants that died in 2007-08, post-mortem of 22 was done after 10 to 25 days of death.

Due to the delay, between 2002 and 2008, the bodies of 23 elephants decomposed and the reason for deaths couldn’t be ascertained.

Five elephants died due to dehydration and starvation

Bangalore: Elephants are starving to death.

Around 137 of them died over two years (2006-2008), and most due to starvation, dehydration and infection. This is a cause of concern as Karnataka has only 5,500-6,000 elephants.

Post-mortems have revealed that they died due to infection, diseases like peritonitis, diarrhoea, encephlyomyconditis, cardiac arrest, starvation and dehydration.

The number of deaths drastically increased after 2006. Between 2002 and 2006, 24 elephants died, 32 in 2006-07 and 105 in 2007-08.

Nobody cares for them

Of the 105 elephants that died in 2007-08, over 70% died before completing even half their lifespan, which is normally 55-60 years.

Also, 61 were below 20 years old and 21 between 21 and 30 years old.

Shockingly, forest department officials made no effort to find out the reasons for the outbreak of infection.

Displeasure over attitude of officials
The Public Accounts Committee led by Congress leader Siddaramaiah highlights these aspects in its report. The committee expressed shock and displeasure at the attitude of forest officials.

“It’s a serious issue of concern. The department made no efforts to find out the reasons for the outbreak of the epidemic. This is shocking.’’ The committee felt delay in the information to officials about elephants’ death was due to improper vigil (beat system).

Causes of deaths
Inadequate food and water holes and failure to manage and develop grassland were cited as major causes of death. The authorities registered 2,987 forest crimes between 2001 and 2008. Referring to this, the committee felt camps to prevent illegal hunting had not been set up properly.

More camps had been set up in areas less prone to illegal hunting and few camps in crime-infested areas. For long, animal rights activists have been asking the government to save elephants. It seems the effort is just not there.

Corrective measures
Study by Wildlife Society on reasons for major outbreak of epidemic and diseases Tighten beat system, conduct postmortem of dead animals and record reasons for death Ensure speedy disposal of pending cases

No peace even in death

Of 105 elephants that died in 2007-08, post-mortem of 22 was done after 10 to 25 days of death.

Due to the delay, between 2002 and 2008, the bodies of 23 elephants decomposed and the reason for deaths couldn’t be ascertained.

Five elephants died due to dehydration and starvation

Forest dept felled twice

CAG REPORT REVEALS LAPSES

IN FOLLOWING CONSERVATION ACT.

PAC REPORT SLAMS OFFICIALS FOR RISE IN ELEPHANT DEATHS

Jayashree Nandi | TNN

Bangalore: Who destroys our forests? The forest department!

The latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has revealed non-compliance of the administration of Forest Conservation Act, 1980 by the forest department, which has led to several hundred hectares of forest land diverted for non-forest use.

Shockingly, compensatory reforestation has not been carried out on 5,73,297 acres in Karnataka and Rs 17.09 crore fine has not been recovered from 23 user agencies.

Forest land of 483.52 acres were transferred by the revenue department without the Centre’s approval. Though renewal of lease in two cases was rejected by them, 24.09 hectares were not resumed. In 22 other cases, proposals of renewals of lease were not sent to the Centre by the PCCF despite lapse of 1 to 45 years!

And if this was not enough, the records in the forest department at Bangalore, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Sirsi and nine other divisions headed by DCFs were checked by the auditor general’s office.

Seven user agencies had sought approval for utilization of 342.35 hectares for non-forest purposes. But over 391.71 hectares of forest land were utilized prior to obtaining an approval from the government.

This included 49.36 hectares utilized in excess of that approved for diversion in two cases in Bidar and Mangalore.

Way off the mark

In 19 cases of diversion of forest land for non-forestry purposes like irrigation, wind power, mining, road work and others involving an area of 3,198 hectares, compliance with conditions by Centre were not ensured despite a lapse of 2 to 27 years from the date of clearance.

LAND DRAIN

Of 594.10 hectares of forest land approved (December 1995 to September 1996) for settlement of displaced families of Sea Bird project in Karwar, only 182.94 hectares utilized

Out of balance area of 411.16 hectares, 277 hectares where felling was done, reforested subsequently at Rs 45.49 lakh without resuming land

Centre not informed

Forest land of 483.52 acres were transferred by the revenue department without the Centre’s approval

In 22 cases, proposals to renew lease were not sent to the Centre by the PCCF despite lapse of 1 to 45 years

The trail of terror continues with cricketers as the latest target. The Mumbai and Lahore attacks, public executions and the murder of over a thousand civilians in the Swat valley by Taliban-style terrorists are horrifying examples of atrocities committed by militant groups thriving on political Islam.

Global Muslim communities urgently need to condemn the agenda of political Islam that distorts religious scriptures to legitimise violence. This ideology of Islamism is threatening to replace a moderate and spiritual Islam, leading to the destruction of many societies and, in particular, oppression of women and minorities.

Muslims have a moral responsibility to engage in the social, political and economic development of the societies they live in. Global Muslim societies would do well to imitate the exceptional efforts of Indian clerics in denouncing terrorism and delinking it with Islam. Sincere moral outrage needs to be expressed at Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, political kidnappings and assassinations, militancy in Kashmir, Shia-Sunni killings in Iraq and Pakistan, fatwas condoning suicide bombings in the Israel-Palestine conflict and other atrocities affecting innocent lives.

Muslims require an international consensus on combating extremism. Our credibility is lost when we express selective outrage, as in the aftermath of the Danish cartoons controversy.

Political Islam draws its lifeblood from the ideology of fighting the oppressor, but has clearly become the oppressor itself. Though some Islamist groups have renounced violence, accepted the principles of democracy and marginally improved their stand on women and minority rights, they remain socially conservative.

In Jordan, the Islamist party does not support the rights of women to file for divorce. In Kuwait, the Islamists fought against the right of women to vote. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood will not allow a woman or a person from a minority community to become head of state. Unfortunately, militant Islamist groups thrive in the political vacuum created by oppressive regimes in most Islamic countries.

Muslims must stop blaming the problem of extremism on catastrophic policies of foreign countries. For, two wrongs simply do not make a right. It is primarily a Muslim problem, threatening both Muslim and non-Muslim societies. We need to acknowledge that there is a problem of theology when extremists talk of going straight to heaven after taking innocent lives.

The roots of all modern militant Islamic movements can be traced to one man, Abdul Wahab from Nejd in the Arabian Peninsula. He set out to ‘purify’ Islam, believing that Muslims had drifted away from true religion. Wahab’s followers destroyed many sacred sites that he
considered linked to idolatry. Attacking the arts for being frivolous and dangerous, Wahab sanctioned the rape, murder and plunder of those who refused to follow his injunctions. He was considered a heretic by most, for Mecca and Medina were then centres of contemplative Islam, inhabited by Sufis from all over the world.

In 1774-75, Wahab negotiated a deal with the then nomadic tribe of Saud, forebears of the current royal family, in exchange for support to their quest for political domination. Most Saudis reject the name Wahhabi; they either call themselves Muwahuddin — Unitarians — or Salafi, referring to salaf, the venerated companions of the Prophet. In this blinkered view, no other version of religious truth can exist.

This new face of Islam has nothing to do with Sufis, music, poetry, miracles or the countless devotional customs of Muslim cultures across the world.

Under the patronage of Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism went from strength to strength. Abul Ala Mawdudi, a journalist who translated the Quran outside the classical paradigms, propagated the Wahhabi ideology. He founded the political party Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, making jihad central to Islamic discourse. Addressing non-Muslims as infidels, he grouped Muslims into ‘partial’ and ‘true’ Muslims. Mawdudi’s ideas of Islam as a revolutionary doctrine to take over governments and overturn the whole universal order deeply influenced Syed Qutub of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

These groups have been motivated by political upheavals and the rejection of traditional scholars. Syed Qutub’s brother happened to be among the teachers of Osama bin Laden.

The extremism now found in Mecca and Medina, the heartland of Islam, is the Wahhabi ideology that the Saudis have spent millions in promoting through their outreach programmes. There is no tolerance for Shias, Sunni Sufis or other Muslim traditions, leave alone non-Muslims.

Unfortunately, there is no collective Muslim protest against the Saudi regime for bulldozing graveyards, destroying the cultural and religious heritage of the holy cities, imposing a certain segregation of the sexes inside the Prophet’s mosque at Medina, radical sermons or distribution of radical literature outside Saudi mosques, many of them issuing calls for death to whoever they view as infidels or innovators of Islam.

The problem of Muslim extremism began in the Muslim world and the responsibility of resolving it lies with us.

The inability to present Islam as a peaceful religion is a collective failure of global Muslim communities. We could begin by increasing the decibel in condemning violence and sectarianism and standing up for women’s rights.

We should stop demonising the ‘other’ as infidels and show increased support for democratic movements in Muslim countries. It is time for the devout, silent and peace-loving Muslim majority to speak for Islam.

Let our voices be louder than the radical voices claiming to represent us.

The writer is a Delhi-based commentator.

Sadia Dehlvi is a renowned Delhi based media person. She is a prominent face on prime time television debates dealing with the issues of Muslim communities.

A well-known columnist and writer, Dehlvi is frequently published in frontline Urdu, Hindi and English newspapers and magazines. She has been the editor of Bano, a popular woman’s journal in the Urdu language with the Shama group of Publications. Dehlvi has produced and scripted a number of documentaries and television programs.

For over thirty years Sadia Dehlvi has engaged in voicing concern on issues regarding heritage, culture, women and Muslim communities. She is currently working on a book on Delhi’s Sufi history. Her surname ‘Dehlvi” means someone from Delhi reflecting her family’s long association with Delhi

Filed under: Advocacy and Activism, Articles, Creating a new Spiritual movement, Essays on Hinduism and Islam, Security, Spirituality and Religion, World | No Comments »

A story from today’s Indian Express: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/24797.html talks about a man Ramesh Arnalkar, a trader from Pune, who is giving out a brand new tractor to small land-owners in Maharashtra’s suicide belt, free of cost to help them till their land, and thus start earning from it. While returning with his wife, Shalini, from a [...]