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First ‘Hindu Court’ set up in India by Hindu Mahasabha

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On 15th August, the members of Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha set up the first Hindu Court in Meerut, UP. This court has been opened to deal with the issues of Hindus such as property disputes, Hindu Marriages, harassment of Hindu women and so on.

The Hindu Mahasabha plans to open 5 more such courts in other districts such as Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Firozabad and Shikohabad which will be inaugurated on November 15th the day when Nathuram Godse, the man who shot Gandhi was hanged.

However the main purpose of setting up Hindu Courts is to counter the plan of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board to set up Shariah courts. The Hindu Mahasabha members argue that if there can be Darul qaza court for Muslims then why can’t there be a court for Hindus? And that there should be just one constitution for everyone.

They claim that they had objected to the Shariah Courts and demanded that these courts be closed but their demands have not been met which is why Hindu courts have been set up.
 

The first court in Meerut will have its bylaws, rules and regulations framed and declared on 2nd October. The first judge who has been appointed for this court in Meerut is Pooja Shakun Pandey. Pooja Shakun Pandey is the National secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha and was in the news a few months back for shooting an effigy of Mahatma Gandhi along with her husband and some other members. And she had also distributed knives to school children in the month of May 2019.
 

This court will also have systems of punishment with their own jails and the highest punishment will be death sentence.

TwoCircles.net spoke to some activists and laypersons on this new turn of events.

Khalid Hassan, General Secretary of Awami Insaaf Movement said, “I believe this is an attempt by the right wing to put pressure on the Government to end the Qazzat system, Dar Al Iftah, Deoband etc. Whenever there will be an objection or court case, they will give reference of these and petition that our court is no different from theirs, shut that and we will shut these.”

Pallavi Gupta pursuing her Phd, said, “This move by the Hindu Mahasabha raises several concerns; first whether informal systems for redress can enable access to justice. And in the process replace or address the pending cases in court?”

“Second, having an informal redress system is not really a solution for the problem of pending cases. Third, what is the locus standi of these Hindu courts? How have they been set up and under what law, rule and procedures will they operate? Finally, I think it’s important to reflect on the larger issue “Hindu courts on lines of Sharia system” is not only demonizing Sharia and uncodified Muslim personal laws but also laying the ground for demands for a Uniform Civil Code in India.” She concluded.

Indrani, a private employee who is affiliated with a political party said, “It is not a bad idea to have our own courts. It will save both money and time.”

The Hindu Mahasabha members also feel that through these courts they can bring all Hindus under one umbrella and unite them. They plan to set up at least 15 Hindu courts in India.

Courtesy: Two Circle

Israel Consulate in Mumbai Organises Event on Hindutva and Zionism

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All masks are off and all veneers discarded- the Consulate General of Israel in Mumbai along with one Indo-Israel Friendship Association is organising a public discussion on Hindutva and Zionism on August 26th, at the The Convocation Hall of University of Mumbai. The poster of the event flaunts images of Theodor Herzl and VD Savarkar, and the event has Subramanian Swamy and a professor from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gadi Taub as speakers. So far, Israel’s mission in India spoke the language of bringing technology and building cultural ties. Israel’s agencies, as part of its Brand Israel, have tried to whitewash its occupation, apartheid and settler-colonialism against Palestinians by hosting events, film festivals, etc, in an attempt to deflect attention from its crimes.


Palestinians during Al-Nakba, their mass expulsion to establish Israel | Image Courtesy: Medium

However, this time the ruling dispensation in India gives the Israeli embassy the confidence to drop all pretenses. All along, it is the connivance of these ideologies that has brought India and Israel closer in the last half a decade, at the cost of Indian solidarity to Palestine. In this context, we are sharing an excerpt from Sukumar Muralidharan’s essay “The ideological common ground between Hindutva and Zionism”, from the collection From India to Palestine: Essays in Solidarity edited by Githa Hariharan.

As Hindu nationalist ideology moves into its more extreme fringes, its inherent paradoxes stand out with similar starkness. Early pioneers of the ideology articulated these in the confident belief that minor doctrinal inconsistencies would be of no consequence in the mission of facing down a common enemy in Islam. As India under colonial rule lurched from the bitter aftermath of the collapse of the Khilafat agitation into an extended phase of communal estrangement, the notion of a country inhabited by two nations became widely accepted, crystallised especially in two political vehicles: the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). A text published in 1939 by M.S. Golwalkar, a year before he took over the leadership of the RSS, remains one of the most authoritative statements on Hindu nationalism, offering rich insights through its comments on contemporary world events into the ideological pantheon it drew sustenance from.

Golwalkar’s statements lauding Nazi Germany for its virulent manifestation of “race pride”, which led to the expulsion of the Jews despite the world recoiling in horror at the enormity of the deed, are widely cited. These offer eloquent testimony in themselves, but only tell the full story when juxtaposed with the observations on Zionism that the same text offers. Golwalkar identifies India as one among the early nations that afforded sanctuary to the Jews after their country passed into Roman tyranny. This was obviously a bond in his rather twisted historical imagination, which persisted into that moment in history when the greater dispersal of the Jews took place, with the “engines of destruction . . . under the name of Islam” being let loose in the land. Palestine, in Golwalkar’s sense, suffered much like India did, losing its culture and traditions on account of the intrusions of Islam “Palestine became Arab, a large number of Hebrews changed faith and culture and language and the Hebrew nation in Palestine died a natural death.” But hope was not lost, since “the attempt at rehabilitating Palestine with its ancient population of the Jews is nothing more than an effort to reconstruct the broken edifice and revitalise the practically dead Hebrew National life.”

Nationalism for Golwalkar was a compound of religion, culture and language, which he found lacking in Palestine. All three attributes, though, were on display among the Jews, who, unfortunately, lacked a territory. It was entirely appropriate then, that “in order to confer their lost Nationality upon the exiled Jews, the British with the help of the League of Nations, began to rehabilitate the old Hebrew country, Palestine, with its long lost children.” “The Jews,” said Golwalkar, “had maintained their race, religion, culture and language: all they wanted was their natural territory to complete their Nationality”.

Golwalkar’s attitude towards India’s Muslims is well-known and recorded. They could either adopt the Hindu religion and all its customs, learn to glory in its heritage, or live on sufferance, “wholly subordinated… claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment – not even citizen’s rights”. India did not quite take that path, though Guruji, as he is referred to in RSS circles, should be credited with a remarkably accurate forecast of how life for the Palestinians would be after the Zionist takeover of their land.

Sukumar Muralidharan is a senior journalist and currently teaches journalism at O.P. Jindal Global University.

The following is an excerpt from From India to Palestine: Essays in Solidarity, edited by Githa Hariharan and published by Leftword Books (2014). Republished here with permission from the publisher.

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

Srinagar, Kashmir: The Protests and Seige of Soura

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The govt and most of India’s Television media have portrayed that the situation is normal in all of Kashmir and that the people of the valley are ok with this move.

On 5 August 2019 the Indian Govt. struck down Article 370 and spilt the state of J&K into two Union Territories. The govt and most of India’s Television media have portrayed that the situation is normal in all of Kashmir and that the people of the valley are ok with this move. However, some incidents of unrest were reported in Soura, a dense neighbourhood in Srinagar. Newsclick spent a week covering the neighbourhood and found that there have been regular protests against the removal of article 370 and that the neighbourhood is under siege by Govt. forces.

Courtesy: New Click

FIR filed against Gandhian intellectual for criticising the RSS

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Two members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have filed two identical FIRs in two different police stations in Odisha accusing Gandhi Peace Foundation (GPF) chief Kumar Prashant of ‘conspiring against the nation’. It is being seen in yet another brazen attempt to hide uncomfortable facts and gag dissenting opinions


Image Courtesy:Indialogue Foundation
 

Speaking at the three day ‘Gandhi Katha’  in Bhubaneshwar, organised as a part of the sesquicentennial celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, Kumar Prashant had said the RSS played no role in India’s freedom struggle. He also said that Vinayak Damodar (‘Veer’) Savarkar had collaborated with the British to get out of the Cellular jail in Andaman. On abrogation of Article 370, Mr Prashant had said that it was an ‘undemocratic’ measure taken without taking the people of the Kashmir into confidence. He compared it to what Mohammed Ali Jinnah did to partition the country.

The FIR in Lalbagh PS, Cuttack was signed by advocate Biswarajan Swain while the one in Phulbani, the district HQ of communally sensitive Kandhamal, was signed by advocate Bhagaban Mohaty. RSS state spokesperson Ravinarayan Panda, however, readily admitted that both are members of the Sangh. Mr Panda said that Kumar Prashant was a learned man and should read relevant literature to enlighten himself about the role of RSS in the Quit India movement and that Hedgewar was an eminent Congress leader before he broke off to form the RSS in 1925.

These claims have been summarily proved to be dubious. Mr. Panda can read about it here.

Established in 1958, the Gandhi Peace Foundation (GPF) is the leading organization working with Gandhian thoughts.  Kumar Prashant is the chairman of GPF and a well known Gandhian intellectual.
 

Not behind document calling CJP anti-national: NRC Authority

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For the last few days a few notes are being circulated on Whatsapp groups claiming that Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and its secretary Teesta Setalvad are against the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and engaging in anti-national activities. However, the NRC authority has clarified that it has nothing to do with the offensive notes.

Image result for NRC authority claims it has nothing to do with its creation or circulation

The notes are PDF copies of a document and all bear the logo of the NRC authority. They appear to be dossiers on specific people and groups. The people named include senior journalists, activists and social welfare organisations. The objective of the notes appears to be to incite ill will and possibly even violence against those named.

But, alarmed at the misuse of its logo and brand for such a despicable purpose, the NRC authority has issued a clarification categorically stating that it has absolutely nothing to do with the extremely wicked and shockingly vile note. The clarification says, “It has come to the notice of the NRC authority that a document naming some journalists as being involved in anti-NRC propaganda is being circulated in social media etc. from around 17th August 2019. On this matter, it is clarified that NRC authority has nothing to do with its creation or circulation.”

The clarification may be viewed here:

 It is however, noteworthy that there are more than one documents in circulation, all of which appear to have mischievously misused the NRC logo and brand. While CJP secretary Teesta Setalvad and Assam program coordinator Ali Zamser find their names in the list of anti-NRC journalists, there are two more dossiers specifically targeting CJP’s work in the state and singling out Teesta Setalvad. The only purpose behind such documents is to generate hate and fear for people engaging in humanitarian work and possibly even provoke people to act against them.
 

We don’t want anyone to suffer like we did in 1984: Harminder Singh Ahluwalia

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Shortly after the communication blackout in Jammu and Kashmir and the subsequent abrogation of Article 370, Harminder Singh Ahluwalia sent out words of support to Kashmiris living in the rest of the country, offering help. Within the next few days, his group United Sikhs, in association with another NGO Sangat, helped take 32 Kashmiri girls stranded in Pune home to their villages in the valley.

kashmiri girls

At 1:50 AM, early on the morning of August 5, 2019, just hours before Article 370 was abrogated, Ahluwalia went live on Facebook with the following message:

“My friend’s father was lynched and murdered as he stepped out of a Gurudwara during the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984. My community knows what it is like to be targeted and butchered. Many innocents had suffered then and we resolved that never again would we allow anything like this to happen again,” says Ahluwalia explaining his motivation behind reaching out. “When the attack in Pulwama took place Kashmiris were targeted across India. Then when the communication blackout happened and rumours began flying, I feared the worst. Our community believes in service to mankind and we don’t want anyone to suffer like we did in 1984. I knew social media would help me reach out to the maximum number of people,” he says.

Ahluwalia’s Facebook live video was shared widely and went viral within hours! Shortly afterwards, he started getting frantic calls from people unable to connect with their families. But his greatest fear was something else. “I saw how people were talking about Kashmiri women and girls. The words used were derogatory and offensive, and I feared there was an imminent threat to the wellbeing of such girls everywhere,” says Ahluwalia.

Just then he received a text message from Rukaya Mohiuddin, a coordinator who was working for the DDU-GKY program where 32 Kashmiri girls were undergoing a course to become Multi-purpose Health Workers. The message said, “Please help us, as I am here in Pune with 30 female trainees between 17 to 22 years old with one male and female warden and I am the coordinator, we came here for training cum placement purpose under DDU-GKY programme. All trainees are from under privileged families and are first time outside their home place. They all feel scared and panic want to go home and said want to die with our families.  Please help us. Please arrange their safe passage to their home place (sic).”

Moved by the plight of these young girls, Ahluwali and his team swung into action. They tied up with Sangat, an NGO to generate and collect funds to purchase airline tickets for the girls. “We got generous donations from Sikh community members from as far as Australia, but were still falling short. Then a local donor offered to take care of the balance and used his connections to get us tickets that were fast becoming unaffordable,” recalls Ahluwalia. But there was one hitch. The girls feared what would happen to them en route. So Sikhs United, Sangat and the rest of the team decided that they would never leave the girls unescorted. “We ensured that our team members escorted the girls to the Pune airport. Another team drove down with them to Mumbai from where we were able to arrange tickets. I personally joined the team with my friend Sam and Raukaya ji at New Delhi and flew to Sri Nagar with them. We reached at about 6:30 AM and ensured that the girls who lived in and around Sri Nagar were all dropped home by 12 noon. The second batch arrived in the afternoon and we stayed overnight in Sri Nagar before leaving to drop them home the next day,” he says.

The girls came from Baramulla, Budgam, Shopian and Kupwara and many lived in interior villages, far away from any major cities or towns. “We prioritised their safety and went with each of them and ensured they reached home. In fact at one point we were surrounded by a group of locals who were very suspicious, but when the girls explained to them that we were there to help, they gave us their local boys to escort us and ensure we were not stopped again,” says Ahluwalia. Explaining what brought the team satisfaction from undertaking such a huge task, he says, “The greatest reward was to see the relief on the faces of their parents as they were sick with worry in the absence of any information due to the communication black out. Every single time we reached someone’s home, we found the mothers deep in prayer. There were many tearful reunions.” Some images of the girls being reunited with their families may be viewed here.

Ahluwalia remains humble despite accomplishing such a difficult task. “We are all one in the eyes of God. People of all religions and castes have suffered unspeakable violence and discrimination at different points of time in history and many suffer even today. It is time we all unite; Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits and all others. We have to look beyond majority and minority and focus to preserving our humanity,” he signs off.
 
 

Endgame for Zakir Naik?

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The televangelist and his Salafi brand of Islam can only survive in the arid landscape of Saudi Arabia 

Zakir Naik

It is almost as if Zakir Naik has no control over his inner urge to denigrate religions other than Islam. After getting refuge in Malaysia, a Muslim majority country, he is again at his acerbic best trying to insinuate that Malaysian Hindus are not loyal to that country. Earlier, he also called Malay Chinese as ‘old guests’ of the country implying that they should now return to China. This time, he told a congregation that Hindus living in Malaysia were more loyal to Prime Minister Modi than to the Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad. His comments have not been taken lightly. He has been thoroughly criticised for his bigoted views by many Muslim religious organizations and now even the prime minister has sought a report on his ‘political’ anti-pluralistic utterances. Already, Zakir Naik has been banned from speaking in some of the states in Malaysia and it looks very likely that he will be banned from preaching throughout Malaysia.
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Ridiculing minorities and constantly testing them in the name of nationalism has been the hallmark of right wing politics the world over. Zakir Naik was forced to leave India due to his terror inspiring lectures but then argued that he was hounded out because of his Muslim identity. Today, Zakir Naik seems to be vomiting the same hatred that he accused the Hindu right wing in India of. But more importantly perhaps, the Malaysian authorities have realised that people like Zakir Naik and his version of Islam are unfit for the plural mosaic of their country. Zakir Naik and his Salafi brand of Islam can only survive in the arid landscape of Saudi Arabia where the very ideological superstructure is anti-plural. Societies in South and South East Asia have been religiously plural for centuries and hence Zakir Naik variety of Islam is wholly unsuited for these regions.

There are many in India who think that Zakir Naik was a victim due to his identity. There is some truth in this assertion. There are many god-men in other religious traditions who have been accused of money laundering and other more grievous charges. And yet the prosecution against them have moved at snail’s pace or in some cases not started at all. But the alacrity at which Zakir Naik’s case was taken up the by government did point to the fact that there were other considerations at play. However, for those Indian Muslims supporting Zakir Naik, this should not become an excuse to absolve him of the very content and implications of preaching. The fact that he might be the victim because of his identity does not mean that we should support the content of his preaching.

He had regressive views about people of alternative sexualities, other religious traditions and certainly women. Naik’s Islam was about supremacy over all other religions and certainly he did not mince his words. He argued that this is the correct position because the Quran had ordained it to be so. He exhorted that Islam is the final and perfect religion and that Muslims will one day rule over the planet. It is due to this Islamic supremacy that he wanted apostates to be killed but certainly put a gloss over its interpretation. He argued that Islam does not say that apostates should be killed. But when the person (the apostate) starts preaching his own religion or ideology (which is different from Islam), then he is liable to be killed. He might have thought that he is putting a clever gloss but then it is no brainer to understand that he is exhorting Muslims to kill any dissenter within Muslim society who has a different point of view on Islam. He similarly argued that homosexuals should not be killed right away but if they start ‘exhibiting’ this lifestyle in public, then they should be killed. Thus in his version of Islam, people (including Muslims) were not free to profess their ideas and actions in public. This kind of robotic Islam can only produce Muslims who will be happy to revel in their un-freedom.

His so called inter-religious debates was again hardly mature. Always eager to prove that other religion were ‘false’, he targeted his opponents with half-baked knowledge of other religious scriptures, mostly cherry picking lines within their holy texts without understanding the whole context. Thus, according to him, Hinduism was essentially monotheistic because a line within the Gita said so. He claimed that he defeated his opponents (mostly Hindus and Christians) and his supporters cheered for him. In reality Zakir Naik defeated centuries old practice of Islam which debated its opponent with warmth and mutual respect. Zakir Naik was singularly responsible for painting a negative image of Islam at a time when news television had not yet started making fun of this religion. Through his poor and boorish arguments, he showed the world how regressive Islam had become. The secular media which toasted him from time to time, failed to ask tough questions like the implication of his lectures on the social fabric of India.

Those who cheered for him cannot be faulted as much. Through decades of impoverishment, Indian Muslims wanted a leader and in Zakir Naik they saw someone who could speak English and trounce his opponent’s arguments. In their collective schizophrenia, it was not Zakir Naik but the victory of an embattled community over another. But Naik cannot escape the blame. Being an educated Muslim, his responsibility was to steer the community towards the path of rationalism and science rather than induce some kind of a collective hallucination within the community. That he chose to do so (and make billions out of it) tells us of a man devoid of any commitment towards the betterment of Muslim society. That he was hounded out of India has certainly done good to the Muslim society as they are away from his poisonous lectures. His only hope now is to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia. I am certain he will be amongst his own kind in the holy land.

Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam-and-sectarianism/arshad-alam,-new-age-islam/endgame-for-zakir-naik?-zakir-naik-and-his-salafi-brand-of-islam-can-only-survive-in-the-arid-landscape-of-saudi-arabia/d/119525

Courtesy: newageislam.com
 

Beyond Kashmir – some thoughts

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‘ Extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves’

Naomi Klein from ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’

Many analysts have presented critique of the Abrogation of Article 370 and its impact on the political and social conditions but not much has been expressed about the causes of such hasty policy decisions. While the ‘ timing’ has been somewhat unexpected, there were many indicators that led to such a move. Hence, the decision is not very much surprising.

Past history

The hindutva organizations have been very critical of special status for Kashmir almost from the time of Independence. The political party representing these groups has openly expressed its intentions by incorporating the removal of special status in the manifesto. From 2014, after assuming power, leaders have, at various forums, expressed the agenda quite openly. Now, with a brute majority, the implementation has become easy without hindrances.

In the earlier situations when the party came to power, it did not have requisite conditions to take this step. Under Vajpayee, BJP could not muster strength because of its partners who had some influence on the coalition. Again, after gaining power, though it had simple majority, the BJP still had some hurdles that prevented it from taking this crucial step. Now, various factors presented opportunity and made abrogation possible in such a short span of time.

Factors

One of the most important factors is rising unemployment which has been highest since four and a half decades. Intellectuals as well as common people started discussing reason for such a grim situation and pointing out lapses in government policies. To divert the attention, Kashmir issue might have been thought of as a potential ‘weapon’.

Economic slowdown and its ‘worrisome’ impact on the nation has been articulated by many economists including Raghuram Rajan and prominent industrialists. One of the worst-hit automobile sector caused many ordinary workers loose jobs creating crises in their lives. To divert dissenting voices, Kashmir might have been used as a ploy.

Also, some leaders belonging to ruling party have been involved in cases relating to rape and abuse of women, lynching, supporting acts of caste and religious bigotry openly and many of them have been left scot-free attracting widespread criticism. To counter this uncomfortable situation, such drastic acts might have been felt necessary.

No foresight

When UPA II was riddled with corruption, the elections presented opportunity for change. The BJP and its allies used the conditions skillfully.

People had no viable alternative but to vote for a change. The Left had no foresight of the events that would lead to consolidate power by the Right. Fragmented opposition gave a golden opportunity which they grabbed with both hands. After coming to power, they started to ‘saffronise’ all the major institutions. BJP / RSS supporters and hindutva admirers were given top positions in many crucial institutions. They began to bring media and other forms of social forms of communications under their control so as to gain huge advantage in the next elections. The 2019 elections were crucial for their aim of implementing their goals and succeeded in their plans.

Grim future

Now that the BJP can dictate terms on its own, it has every opportunity to impose all or , atleast most, of its agenda. It can get the numbers easily and if required, it can divide opposition by any means including threats to level charges of corruption, violation of rules relating to foreign exchange, etc. Many of the opposition too have cases on them and to escape harassment constantly, they may toe the line of ruling party.

Parliament session just concluded reflects how crucial bills have been passed without discussion in a hurry.

To ‘ cover up’ issues like poverty, unemploy- ment, health care, etc one way is to foment communal trouble and perpetrate violence so that discussion is diverted. Another way is to apply ‘ shock doctrine’ and create chaos. Kashmir is one such tool to prevent people from questioning policies.

For the next few years , issues like relating to construction of Ram Temple, debate on the continuance of reservations, in addition to already present cow protection, beef ban, etc may prop up regularly and take center-stage relegating issues of livelihood to the margin and completely shutting out peoples’ minds from issues connected to their daily lives till the Rightists hindutva forces gain complete control of political power to impose ancient brahminism on vast majority. This would be a preparatory ground for next elections (if and when they are held).

Therefore, more violence, unexpected and surprising decisions and more draconian laws along with strict surveillance may be a common feature in the coming days or years giving ‘ shock’ to the people.

In these dark times, committed activists and social workers should explain layman about present situation and counter fake news with effective convincing arguments. Left, which spearheaded many struggles, should come out forcibly and vociferously raise the voices against laws that infringe constitution and fundamental rights of citizens.

( The ‘ golden? Age of Guptas might have arrived ….)

Sheshu Babu is a political commentator

Courtesy: Counter Current

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