The U-turns by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and failure to deliver on key election promises have only made him the target of attack by his political rivals, but even his die-hard supporters appear to be now parting ways with the BJP.
As reported by jantakareporter.com on Saturday, Modi’s speech on Uri attack had left his supporters incredibly dejected. considerably large section of Modi’s fans are unhappy because of his failure to keep his word with regards to India’s Pakistan policy.
A new audio of a conversation recorded allegedly between a member of the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh IT cell and a former Modi supporter, Deepak Sharma, has now gone viral on social media platforms.
In the audio, the BJP IT cell representative is heard trying to woo Sharma back to the party ahead of the UP assembly polls.
Sharma, who confesses to having worked for Modi’s campaign in 2014, uses the opportunity to vent out his frustration on the prime minister’s failure to deliver his poll promises.
The audio was first posted by user Pratik Sinha on his Facebook page. We are not in a position to authenticate the audio.
The chorus against the triple talaq practice through which Muslim men instantly snap their marital bond just got louder.
In the latest development, the chairperson of the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state minorities commission of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Abid Rasool Khan, has addressed a letter to the president of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), Moulana Syed Mohammed Rabe Hasani Nadvi, urging the Board to immediately declare that henceforth the utterance talaq, talaq, talaq will be treated as one only and therefore revocable.
"Today we have a huge social problem in the Muslim community where literally lakhs of women all over the country are suffering because their men have divorced them by pronouncing talaq thrice [in one sitting]," the letter said.
"I would like to alert you that if you (AIMPLB) insist on the triple talaq, you will be committing injustice to literally lakhs of our sisters and opening the doors for the Supreme Court to strike down this law as it is seen as being in violation of human rights," it added.
Citing the examples of the Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, providing for “the more effective prevention of the commission of sati and its glorification” which made the earlier act far more stringent and the recent verdict of the Bombay High Court upholding women’s right to equal access, on par with men, to the Haji Ali dargah, the letter warned of a similar fate awaiting the triple talaq practice.
Going a step further the letter also warned the Board and the Jamiatul Ulema that "this (triple talaq) has become an issue which has the potential to escalate and cause the eventual de-recognition of our personal law and the imposition of a uniform civil code," he said.
Latest Sanghi Attack on the University: performance of Mahasweta Devi play is branded 'sedition'! At Central University of Haryana, Mahendragarh, English Department students performed Mahasweta Devi's noted play 'Draupadi' on September 21
ABVP, RSS leaders joined by Modi's Minister for State Rao Inderjit reportedly claimed the play is 'anti-national' because it depicts an Adivasi woman confronting the commander of security forces who have raped her.
After the play was staged, a teacher at the department cited statistics from the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) on custodial sexual violence against Adivasi women.
Reports coming in suggest that several persons with links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Minister have mobilised ex-service-men by showing them clips from the play and the short speech cut out of the overall context. They are demanding that the teachers and students be booked for 'sedition.'
I am informed that there is a sizeable a menacing crowd at the University gates, and a distinct danger to the safety of the English Department students and teachers.
I notice in a news report that the VC, while saying that the 'protests' against the play are politically motivated, has constituted an enquiry committee including himself, as well as some literature teachers and an army man into the event. This is disturbing.
Can army men or even VCs now act as censor board for academic departments and faculty?
Can an academic department not perform and discuss a play by a world-renowned writer, whom even Modi and Shah claimed to mourn on her death not long ago?!
Is it even possible to discuss Draupadi as a play without talking about the context of systematic custodial atrocities against Adivasi women in India?!
Despite diplomatic tensions, Indian and Pakistani actors and singers have had a long history of collaboration, starting from Independence.
The cricket world has been left poorer ever since India and Pakistan drastically cut down their engagements on the field after 2008, because of Islamabad’s alleged support for cross-border terrorism. In the wake of the Uri attack on September 18, will cinema, television and music be permanently damaged too?
Putting it another way: Is Fawad Khan’s career in India finished before even properly taking off?
The attack on the Army camp in Uri has prompted Subhash Chandra, the head of the Zee network, to declare that he will stop airing Pakistani serials on his popular channel Zindagi, which has introduced Indians to several Pakistani actors, including Fawad Khan. The demand that Pakistani talent should not be allowed to work in India has found support beyond familiar rabble-rousers such as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Shiv Sena. It wasn’t Times Now's Arnab Goswami who wanted Fawad Khan to Quit India, but CNN News18 anchor Bhupendra Chaubey.
Doubts are being raised about the fate of upcoming films such as Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which stars Khan in a small role, and movies still under production such as Mom, starring Sridevi and Sajal Aly, and an untitled Yash Raj Films project featuring Danyal Zafar, the brother of the singer and actor Ali Zafar.
Over the years, Pakistani actors and singers have managed to escape the ultra-nationalist heat that has inevitably followed major terrorist strikes. They would lie low, ride out the calls for retribution and be back on the screen in a matter of weeks. That was before the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre, the proliferation of troll armies on social networking sites, the war-mongering on TV channels like Times Now and CNN News 18, and the polarisation of the movie industry into liberals, centrists, and proud ultra-rightwingers like the singer Abhijeet and actor Anupam Kher.
By training their verbal weapons on Pakistani artists working in India, the BJP’s supporters have managed to vitiate the co-operation that has marked Indo-Pakistani cultural encounters since Independence.
Partition saw a flight of talent from India to Pakistan and vice versa. Indian films were still being released in Pakistan after 1947. But by the mid-1950s, severe restrictions began to be placed on their distribution to boost the growth of the local film industry, known as Lollywood because it was headquartered in Lahore. “The restriction on Bombay films opened a new free and non-competitive market for local productions,” writes Mushtaq Gazdar in Pakistani Cinema 1947-1997. “1956 proved to be the most fruitful year of the first decade in terms of box-office returns from indigenous cinema.”
That year, two Indian actresses appeared in Pakistani productions: Sheila Ramani, of Taxi Driver fame, and Meena Shorey, who had charmed audiences in the song Lara Lappa in the 1949 movie Ek Thi Ladki. Ramani played the lead in Anokhi, produced by her uncle Sheikh Latif, and the music was composed by Bengali composer Timir Baran, “who came from India for this purpose”, writes Gazdar. Ramani returned to India and faded out after a few films.
Meena Shorey. Courtesy Upperstall.
Meena Shorey (born Kurshid Jehan) was the heroine of the Pakistani production Miss 56, directed by JC Anand. She was accompanied by her husband, Ek Thi Ladki director Roop K Shorey, who had to return to India after Meena Shorey decided to stay on in Lahore.
Many Indian directors and actors, including Zia Sarhady and Noor Jehan, migrated to Pakistan between the ’40s and the ‘60s and contributed to the consolidation of the indigenous industry. Pakistani cinema had its own star system and musical talent, but on occasion, it borrowed Indian singers such as Hemant Kumar and Sandhya Mukherjee for Humsafar (1960).
‘Akhiya Chalke’ from the Pakistani film ‘Humsafar’ (1960).
The Merchant-Ivory Production Bombay Talkie (1970), about a married film star’s dalliance with an American writer, stars one of the best-known Pakistani actors and voice artists. Zia Mohyeddin had appeared in several plays in London, including as Dr Aziz in a BBC adaptation of EM Forster’s A Passage to India in 1965. In Bombay Talkie, Mohyeddin plays Hari, a frustrated writer who is love with the American writer, played by Jennifer Kendal.
‘Bombay Talkie’ (1970).
Over the years, big-name Pakistani actors made appearances in Hindi films, including Nadeem in Ambrish Sangal’s Door Desh (1983) and Talat Hussain in Sawan Kumar Tak’s melodrama Souten Ki Beti (1989). Zeba Bakhtiar, the daughter of former Pakistan Law Minister Yahya Bakhtiar, played the lead along with Rishi Kapoor in Raj Kapoor’s cross-border romance Henna (1991). The story of a Kashmiri (Rishi Kapoor) who strays across the Line of Control after a bout of amnesia was inspired by the Pakistani classic Lakhon Mein Eik. Directed by Raza Amir in 1967, and based on a story by Zia Sarhadi, Heena has dialogue by legendary Pakistani television writer and playwright Haseena Moin, who wrote such iconic TV shows as Dhoop Kinare and Tanhaiyaan.
Bakhtiar was briefly married to singer and composer Adnan Sami, who became an Indian citizen in January 2016.
Among the Pakistani actors who have enlivened Hindi cinema through standout cameos is Salman Shahid. He plays a Taliban fighter in Kabul Express (2006) but is better known as Mushtaq Bhai, the hoodlum who tries in vain to tame Iftikhar (Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban (Arshad Warsi) in Abhishek Chaubey’s Ishqiya (2010) and Dedh Ishqiya (2014).
‘Ishqiya’ (2010).
The patrician Javed Sheikh has had a longer run, starring in John Matthew Matthan’s Shikhar (2005), Shirish Kunder’s Jaan-E-Mann (2006), Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om (2008), Anil Sharma’s Apne (2007), Vipul Shah’s Namastey London (2007) and Imtiaz Ali’s Tamsaha (2015). Sheikh’s most recent release is the cross-border rom-com Happy Bhaag Jayegi (2016) by Mudassar Aziz, who also stars his daughter, Momal Sheikh.
India-Pakistani co-productions are rare, but two examples stand out. One is Khamosh Pani (2003), directed by Pakistani director Sabiha Sumar, written by Indian filmmaker and writer Paromita Vohra , and starring Kirron Kher and Shilpa Shukla. The moving period drama, about a widow’s troubled relationship with her radicalised son, won the Best Film (Golden Leopard) prize at the Locarno International Film Festival.
Kirron Kher in ‘Khamosh Pani’.
Nandita Das crossed over to the other side to appear in Mehreen Jabbar’s Ramchand Pakistani (2008) as Champa, a Pakistani Hindu woman whose husband and son stray into India. Naseeruddin Shah has also been appearing in Pakistani films, such as Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda Kay Liye (2007) and Zinda Bhaag (2013), by Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi. Khuda Kay Liye, which starred Pakistani superstar Shan and Fawad Khan, was released by Eros Entertainment in India, followed by Mansoor’s Bol in 2013. Two of Bol’s lead actresses, Humaima Malick and Mahira Khan, have been signed up by Bollywood. Malick headlined the Emraan Hashmi-starrer Raja Natwarlal (2014), while Mahira Khan has been paired with Shah Rukh Khan in the 2017 release Raees.
Nandita Das in ‘Ramchand Pakistani’ (2008).
India has also been able to share the talent of Pakistani musicians over the years. ChupkeChupke, the popular ghazal by Ghulam Ali, whose concerts in India have been regularly blocked by Shiv Sena, was used in BR Chopra’s marital drama Nikaah (1982).
Subhash Ghai recruited renowned Pakistani folk singer Reshma to record her classic love ballad, Lambi Judai, for his romance Hero (1983). In a 2004 interview, Reshma, whose family left Rajasthan for Pakistan when she was a toddler, said, “I was born in India and brought up in Pakistan. To me, India and Pakistan are the left and the right eyes.”
One of the greatest Pakistani exports in music is the qawwal Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who recorded several songs in collaboration with Indian musicians and lyricists, including remixed versions of Piya Re and AafreenAafreen (with lyrics by Javed Akhtar) and Gurus of Peace with AR Rahman.
‘Aafreen Aafreen’ by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Numerous Pakistani singers and bands have followed in Khan’s footsteps, including his nephew Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Strings, Ali Zafar (who has also acted in Tere Bin Laden and Kill Dill), Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan and Atif Aslam. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Shafqat Khan and Aslam are especially popular in India. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan is one of Hindi cinema’s leading singers, most recently singing the hit trackJag Ghoomeya from Sultan (2016).
Shafqat Khan has sung Mitwa (Kabhi Alvidaa Naa Kehna, 2006), Tere Naina (My Name Is Khan, 2010) and Manchala (Hasee Toh Phasee, 2014). Aslam has crooned the hits Tere Bin(Bas Ek Pal, 2006), Pehli Nazar Mein (Race, 2008) and Jeena Jeena (Badlapur, 2015). Indian musicians too feature on Coke Studio Pakistan, such as Shilpa Rao in the 2016 edition.
Subhash Chandra’s decision to stop airing Pakistani soaps on Zindagi also casts a shadow over the Zeal For Unity initiative, which is aimed at promoting peace between India and Pakistan. The idea is to produce 12 short films by six Indian and six Pakistani filmmakers. Ketan Mehta has directed an adaptation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s short story Toba Tek Singh while Tigmanshu Dhulia has been recruited for Baarish Aur Chowmein. From Pakistan, Shahbaz Sumar has made Khaema Mein Matt Jhankain, a rural-set satire about a travelling circus, while Gaur and Nabi have helmed the reality show spoof Jeewan Hathi, starring Naseeruddin Shah among other actors. “Salaam or Namaste, it’s one and the same,” says Khalid Ahmed, one of the dozen filmmakers, in the promotional video. Not anymore, not after Uri.
He taught himself numbers counting the mile-stones from his native Birsingha village of Midnapore district, West Bengal to Calcutta when he was barely eight years old. Today, September 26 is 196th Birth Anniversary. Born into a family steeped in poverty, his life story is one of commitment and compassion. His life struggle was to dignify the life of the Hindu widow, prevent Child Marriage and ensure egalitarianism and dignity for those whom the caste system viewed as “lower”, unclean or polluted. The last two decades of his life were spent with the Santhals at ‘Nandan Kanan’ in the district of Jamtara where he died in 1891.
His fierce advocacy and campaigning ensured the enactment of a law in 1856 which removed all legal obstacles to the marriage of Hindu widows. The Widow Remarriage Act XV was passed in 1856.(July 25)
It was the plight of child widows in India that influenced his passionate campaign and he worked hard to make life better for these young girls and women. He was a staunch believer in the remarriage of widows and tried to create awareness about this issue.
Why were there so many increasing numbers of child widows? One of the huge contributing factors was that many wealthy men of high castes used to have numerous wives which they would leave behind as widows upon their death. Hence, as a logical extension of the campaign for modernity and reform, Vidyasagar also fought against the system of polygamy.
Ishwar Chandra Bandopadhyaya was born to Thakurdas Bandyopadhyay and mother Bhagavati Devi was a unique symbol of the Bengali Renaissance, a great scholar, academician and reformer of whom, on his death Rabindranath Tagore said, "One wonders how God, in the process of producing forty million Bengalis, produced such a man!"
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar campaigned for Widow Remarriage, Abolition of Child-Marriage and Polygamy. He also opened the doors of the colleges and other educational institutions to lower caste students, which were earlier reserved only for the Brahmins. For his immense generosity and kind-heartedness, people started addressing him as "Dayar Sagar" (ocean of kindness). He is credited and remembered across Bengal for revolutionizing the education system of Bengal. In his book, "Barno-Porichoy" (Introduction to the letter), Vidyasagar refined the Bengali language and made it accessible to all persons, reducing its exclusivist, Brahmanical orientation.
In this day and age of a dominant Hindutva men like Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar find no place or mention. Any surprises? They spoke of radical reforms and modernizing of faith practices. In his own words, why Widow Marriage needed to be Abolished. These are Excerpts from a booklet entitled, Whether the practice of widow-marriage among Hindus should or should not prevail, published by Vidyasagar in 1885:
“AN ADEQUATE idea of the intolerable hardships of early widowhood, can be formed by those only whose daughters and sisters have been deprived of their husbands during their infancy. How many hundreds of widows, unable to observe the austerities of a Brahmacharya life, betake themselves to prostitution and foeticide and thus bring disgrace upon the families of their fathers, mothers and husbands. If widow-marriage be allowed, it will remove the insupportable torments of life-long widowhood, diminish the crimes of prostitution and infanticide and secure all families from disgrace and infamy. As long as this salutary practice will be deferred so long will the crimes of prostitution, adultery, incest and foeticide flow on in an ever increasing current… so long will a widow’s agony blaze on in fiercer flames….
And this is a description of the first widow marriage, obtained from a biographical sketch of Vidyasagar by Pandit Shivanath Shastri, a Brahmo Samaj leader.
“I SHALL never forget the day. When Pandit Vidyasagar came with his friend, the bridegroom, at the head of a large procession, the crowd of spectators was so great that there was not an inch of moving space, and many fell into the big drains which were to be seen by the sides of Calcutta streets those days. After the ceremony, it became the subject of discussion everywhere; in the bazaars and the shops, in the streets; in the public squares, in students’ lodging-houses, in gentlemen’s drawing-rooms, in offices and in distant village homes, where even women earnestly discussed it among themselves. The weavers of Santipore issued a peculiar kind of women’s sari which contained woven along its borders the first line of a newly composed song which went on to say “May Vidyasagar live long.”
Sati ceremony in progress. (Pictorial History of China and India,185.)
Campaign for Reforms It was with the support of many including e Akshay Kumar Dutta, Vidyasagar introduced the practice of widow remarriages to mainstream Hindu society. The prevailing custom of Kulin Brahminpolygamy allowed elderly men — sometimes on their deathbeds — to marry teenage or prepubescent girls, supposedly to spare their parents the shame of having an unmarried girl attain puberty in their house. After such marriages, these girls would usually be left behind in their parental homes, where they might be subjected to orthodox rituals, especially if they were subsequently widowed. These included a semi-starvation, hard domestic labour, and close restriction on their freedom to leave the house or be seen by strangers.
Often, unable to tolerate the ill treatment, many of these girls would run away and turn to prostitution to support themselves. Ironically, the economic prosperity and lavish lifestyles of the city made it possible for many of them to have successful careers once they stepped out of the sanction of society and into the demi-monde. In 1853 it was estimated that Calcutta had a population of 12,718 prostitutes and public women. Many other widows had to shave their heads and don white saris, supposedly to discourage attention from men.
Background A brilliant mind that excelled at academics, his quest for knowledge was so intense that he used to study under a street light as it was not possible for him to afford a gas lamp at home. He cleared all the examinations with excellence and in quick succession. He was rewarded with a number of scholarships for his academic performance. To support himself and the family Ishwar Chandra also took a part-time job of teaching at Jorashanko. In the year 1839, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar successfully cleared his Law examination and two years later, in 1841, at the age of twenty one years, Ishwar Chandra joined the Fort William College as a head of the Sanskrit department.
After five years, in 1946, Vidyasagar left Fort William College and join the Sanskrit College as 'Assistant Secretary'. In the first year of service, Ishwar Chandra recommended a number of changes to the existing education system. This report resulted into a serious altercation between Ishwar Chandra and College Secretary Rasomoy Dutta. Following this, Vidyasagar resigned from Sanskrit College and rejoined Fort William College but as a head clerk.
How a Nawab's Shoe Helped Ishwa Chandra’s Dream of Staring the Calcutta An interesting story. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and his few friends decided to collect donations to form Calcutta University. He traveled across Bengal and neighboring states asking people to donate for the foundation. While doing so, one day he reached outside the palace of an influential King, a Nawab. After hearing his plea, not entirely sympathetically, the King, pulled one of his shoes and dropped into Vidyasagar's bag as donation. Vidyasagar thanked the Nawab and left. Turning this into an opportunity, the very next day Vidyasagar organised an auction of the Nawab's shoe and earned Rs. 1000. The Nawab after hearing that his shoe has fetched so much amount of money, he himself gave a similar amount of money as donation.
The title 'Vidyasagar' (ocean of knowledge) was given to him due to his vast knowledge in almost all the subjects. Poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta while writing about Ishwar Chandra said: "The genius and wisdom of an ancient sage, the energy of an Englishman and the heart of a Bengali mother".
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar passed away at the age of 70 on 29 July, 1891. After his death, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s home was sold by his son to the Mallick family of Kolkata that was later purchased by the Bengali Association, Bihar on 29 March 1974. They maintained the house in its original form and also started a Girls’ school and a free homeopathic clinic.
Girls Schools a Priority for Reformers Recognising the taboos imposed by caste, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, along with many other active reformers emphasized the importance of girls education and even participated in opening schools for girls. This was because, for him, educational reform was much important than any other reform. He believed that the status of women and all kinds of injustice and inequalities that they face could be changed only through education.
इंडिया टुडे के पूर्व संपादक और तमाम टीवी चैनलों में वरिष्ठ पदों पर काम कर चुके दिलीप मंडल ने पाकिस्तानी पत्रकार हामिद मीर की ख़बर पर सवाल खड़े किये हैं। मीर ने कल रात ट्वीट के ज़रिये बताया था कि इस्लामाबाद के ऊपर एफ-16 उड़ रहे हैं। हिंदुस्तानी चैनलों में इसके बाद उनका फ़ोनो चलाने की होड़ लग गई। साथ में और पर्दे पर कुछ उड़ते हुए रोशनी के गोले दिखाये जाते रहे। दिलीप मंडल ने अपनी फ़ेसबुक वॉल पर कुछ गंभीर सवाल उठाते हुए यह टिप्पणी की है–
पाकिस्तानी पत्रकार हामिद मीर ने ट्विट किया कि रात 10.20 बजे इस्लामाबाद के ऊपर F16 प्लेन उड़ रहे हैं। कई भारतीय चैनलों ने उनसे फ़ोन पर बात की।
हामिद मीर फ़ोन पर बात करने की जो फ़ीस लेते हैं, उसके आधार पर मेरा अंदाज़ा है कि उन्होंने दो घंटे के अंदर डेढ़ लाख रुपए से ज़्यादा कमा लिए…युद्ध हर किसी के लिए बुरी चीज़ नहीं है।
वैसे किसी भारतीय एंकर ने उनसे यह नहीं पूछा कि रात में उन्हें यह कैसे पता चला कि जो प्लेन उड़ रहा है वह F16 ही है!
मीर बुद्धु बनाकर चला गया अपने डॉलर गिनने।
एक ट्विट से डेढ़ लाख रुपए और यह तो शुरुआत है। वह अभी कई एक्सक्लूसिव बेचेगा।
देखते रहिए…मीर पर नज़र रखिए।
बंदा कमाल का है।
टीवी न्यूज इंडस्ट्री में अपने आठ साल के अनुभव के आधार पर यह लिख रहा हूँ।
यह देखना दिलचस्प है कि मोदीप्रिय अंबानी जी के सूचना साम्राज्य का हिस्सा 'ईटीवी उर्दू' वह अकेला चैनल है जिसकी कश्मीर घाटी में थोड़ी साख है। बाक़ी हिंदी और अंग्रेज़ी चैनलों को वहाँ के लोग झूठ की मशीन समझते हैं। इसका प्रमाण यह है कि देश के तीन वरिष्ठ पत्रकारों, अभय कुमार दुबे, संतोष भारतीय और अशोक वानखेड़े ने घाटी का दौरा करने के पहले इस चैनल को इंटरव्यू देकर अपनी मंशा स्पष्ट की। वे यह समझाने में क़ामयाब रहे कि वे सरकार या किसी एजेंसी के नुमाइंदे बतौर नहीं, बल्कि स्वतंत्र ढंग से हालात का जायज़ा लेना चाहते हैं। नतीजा यह हुआ कि इस टीम के लिए वे तमाम दरवाज़े खुल गये जो पिछले दिनों सरकारी प्रतिनिधिमंडल के लिए बंद नज़र आये थे।
तीन पत्रकारो का यह दल 11 से 14 सितंबर के बीच घाटी में रहा और तमाम लोगों से उसने बात की। हक़ीक़त देखकर उनकी आँखें खुल गईं। अभय कुमार दुबे ने लौटकर मीडिया विजिल से साफ़ कहा कि कथित मुख्यधारा मीडिया कश्मीर के बारे में रात-दिन झूठ प्रसारित कर रहा है। उन्होंने बताया कि लौटकर उन्होंने तमाम चैनलों से संपर्क करके सच्चाई बताने की कोशिश की, लेकिन किसी ने रुचि नहीं दिखाई। उन्हें यूपी में समाजवादी पार्टी में जारी उठा-पटक पर चर्चा के लिए तो बुलाया गया लेकिन कश्मीर को लेकर किसी ने भी उनकी या वहाँ गये साथी पत्रकारों की बात प्रचारित-प्रसारित करने में रुचि नहीं दिखाई।
बहरहाल, एक बार फिर ईटीवी उर्दू ने उनसे चर्चा की। लगभग आधे घंटे के इस कार्यक्रम में तमाम ऐसी बातें हैं जो कश्मीर को देश नहीं उपनिवेश मानने वालों को बेचैन कर सकती हैं, लेकिन उपचार की पहली शर्त निदान है। और निदान तभी हो सकता है जब बीमारी की हक़ीक़त को स्वीकार किया जाए। ख़ैर मीडिया विजिल आपके लिए यह बेहद ज़रूरी वीडियो लाया है, देखिये, सुनिये और गुनिये—
The Congress leader goes on trial in November for making the same charge that the minister of state has made in two of his books.
Not everyone in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet differs with Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi’s view that men associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were responsible for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
Like Rahul Gandhi, prominent Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar has also blamed men linked to the RSS, not once but at least twice, for the murder of the Mahatma.
In two of his books – India: The Siege Within (Penguin Books, 1985) and Nehru: The Making of India (Viking, 1988) – Akbar has taken a position that is no different from the one that has led the RSS, the BJP’s ideological parent, to file a case of criminal defamation against Rahul Gandhi.
Telling excerpts
On page 307 of India: The Siege Within, journalist-turned-politician Akbar explains Home Minister Vallabhbhai Patel’s decision to ban the RSS in the aftermath of the murder of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30, 1948. He writes: “The RSS suffered a set-back in 1948; even Sardar Patel could not overlook a crime it had inspired – the assassination of the Mahatma.”
On the previous page, Akbar talks of the deep hatred the RSS had for Gandhi: “The RSS kept away from the Independence struggle because it had only contempt and hatred for the man leading it: Gandhi. In fact, some people have suspected the RSS of helping the British against Gandhi.”
In Nehru: The Making of India, Akbar refers to a secret meeting in Pune on January 12, 1948 – the day Gandhi announced he would sit on yet another fast unto death, the last of his exercises using moral force to make his point, this time to bring back sanity in a country brutalised by Partition and widespread communal riots. Akbar writes:
“That same day, four men met in Pune: Madanlal Pahwa, aged twenty, a refugee from Punjab whose horoscope said he would be famous one day throughout India; Vishnu Karkare, thirty-seven, owner of the run-down Deccan Guest House and leader of the local RSS; Narayan Apte, thirty-four, handsome, flashy, charming, the well-groomed chairman of Hindu Rashtra [a right-wing newspaper]; and Nathuram Godse, thirty-seven, homosexual, fanatic, ascetic (addicted only to coffee), follower of Veer Savarkar, editor of Hindu Rashtra and a tailor by craft. Their decision: to kill Gandhi.”
A headache for the RSS?
About a week later, on January 20, the first attempt to kill Gandhi was made. It failed, however, as Pahwa accidentally ignited the guncotton slab about 75 feet away from the spot where the Mahatma was addressing a prayer meeting. The second attempt was executed with precision 10 days later when Godse pumped bullets in Gandhi’s chest, killing him instantly.
After the trial, Godse and Apte were hanged on November 15, 1949.
Vishnu Karkare, whom Akbar describes as “leader of the local RSS” in Pune, turned out to be one of the key conspirators in the assassination. Together with Pahwa and Gopal Godse (the younger brother of Nathuram Godse), he was sentenced to life.
On its part, the RSS never owned up to Karkare, maintaining constantly that he as well as Godse, Apte and Pahwa were associated with the All India Hindu Mahasabha, which was headed by Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar.
The conspiracy to kill Gandhi could not remain hidden for long even though the trial, held immediately after the assassination, failed to uncover its extent. If Karkare – a key conspirator – was indeed a “leader of the local RSS”, as claimed by Akbar, the Sangh may well be in for a shock when the trial in its defamation case against Rahul Gandhi starts on November 16.
Below are the full excerpts from the books from the portions relating to Gandhi's assassination. From India: The Siege Within, pages 306-7:
“The RSS anger was well-focused: the greatest danger to Hindu nationalism came from the ‘snakes’, Hedgewar’s terms for the Muslims. An official publication of the RSS, Sri Guruji, the Man and his Mission, explains: ‘It became evident that Hindus were the nation in Bharat and that Hindutva was Rashtriyatva [that is, ‘Hinduism’ was ‘nationalism’; incidentally, Jinnah agreed that Hindus were a separate nation]… The agony of the great soul [of Hedgewar] expressed itself in the formation of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. With four friends he started the day-to-day programme of the RSS. The great day was the auspicious Vijay Dashami day of 1925.’
The five friends who started the RSS were Dr BS Moonje, DR LV Paranjpe, Dr Tholkar, Babarao Savarkar and Dr Hedgewar himself. There was an initial hitch about the name. In 1921 the Congress had begun an organisation by a similar name; it had become defunct, but the idea of any shadow of the hated Congress falling on this new, pure effort was anathema. ‘Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh’ was suggested as an alternative, but Hedgewar insisted on the concept of nationalism being included in the title, and so the RSS it was. Inevitably the RSS first acquired a public reputation as the ‘saviour’ of the Hindus after its role in the Hindu – Muslim riots in Nagpur, in September 1927.
The RSS kept away from the independence struggle because it had only contempt and hatred for the man leading it: Gandhi. In fact, some people have suspected the RSS of helping the British against Gandhi. But the RSS came into its own during the communal riots. By 1945 it had 10,000 cadres and was rich enough to build its headquarters, the Hedgewar Bhawawn, in less than a year. In the madness of the pre-partition phase there was even an RSS wing within the highest echelons of government, in the Imperial Civil Service, most of whose Indian recruits were Oxbridge graduates. The RSS actually believed that power was within its grasp, not through conventional democracy, but through its control of the ruling system. Levers, not numbers, were its target. And the RSS could not believe that the Brits would actually surrender power to the khadi-clad Congressmen. Des Raj Goyal, an ex-RSS man, recalls in his informative book RSS (Radha Krishna Prakashan, New Delhi) that he was present at a cadre meeting addressed by Hedgewar’s successor, Guru Golwalkar. When asked what would be the RSS role after the British left India, Golwalkar replied with an ironic laugh. ‘Do you believe that the British will quit? The nincompoops into whose hands they are giving the reins of government will not be able to hold on even for two months.’
In 1939, the RSS formally introduced a Sanskrit prayer for its members:
O affectionate Motherland I bow to you eternally O land of the Hindus you have reared in comfort O sacred, good land, I dedicate my being to you I bow before you again and again Mighty God, we the integral members of the Hindu Rashtra salute you reverently Before a member is admitted to the sacred fold of the RSS he must take this oath: ‘In the name of the omnipotent God and my forefathers I solemnly swear that I am becoming a member of the RSS to promote the Hindu religion, Hindu society and Hindu culture and thereby achieve the true greatness of the country of Bharat. I shall do the work of the Sangh honestly, without thought of gain, with my body, mind and soul, and never break this oath all my life. Glory to Mother Bharat.’ The RSS suffered a set-back in 1948; even Sardar Patel could not overlook a crime it had inspired – the assassination of the Mahatma. Home Minister Sardar Patel banned the RSS as ‘in practice members of the RSS have not adhered to their professed ideals. The objectionable and even harmful activities of the Sangh have however continued unabated and the cult of violence sponsored and inspired by the activities of the Sangh has claimed many victims. The latest and most precious to fall was Gandhiji himself.’
From Nehru: The Making of India, page 428:
"Nehru worked without pause, sleeping five or less hours each night. Indira bravely entered Muslim areas where no Hindus ventured, alone or with Dr Sushila Nayar, to organize relief. But outside Gandhi’s residence, each day RSS-inspired groups gathered to chant hostile slogans: ‘Gandhi murdabad’ (‘Death to Gandhi’). The weeks passed and other enormous problems seized the first government of free India. Gandhi concentrated on his one-point mission – to bring peace. But for once the Mahatma’s crusade did not seem to be working. The circulation of the Urdu edition of his paper, The Harijan, aimed at the Punjabi Hindu as much as the Urdu-speaking Muslim, had dwindled to a point where he wanted to stop it. On 12 January he told a friend [quoted in Tendulkar, Vol 8]: ‘We are steadily losing hold on Delhi. If it goes, India goes, and with that goes the last hope of world peace.’ He had made up his mind to resort once more to a saint’s blackmail: do or die. A few hours before his prayer-meeting on 12 January 1948 he met Nehru and Patel but gave them no inkling of what he wanted to do. He disclosed his intentions at his prayer-meeting that evening; as in Calcutta, he would fast, and to his death, unless brother stopped killing brother. ‘No man, if he is pure, has anything more precious to give than his life,’ he said. Today he had no answer to give to his Muslim friends. ‘My impotence is gnawing at me of late. It will go immediately if the fast is undertaken.’
That same day, four men met in Pune, Madanlal Pahwa, aged twenty, a refugee from Punjab whose horoscope said he would be famous one day throughout India; Vishnu Karkare, thirty-seven, owner of the run-down Deccan Guest House and leader of the local RSS; Narayan Apte, thirty-four, handsome flashy, charming, the well-groomed chairman of Hindu Rashtra; and Nathuram Godse, thirty-seven, homosexual, fanatic, ascetic (addicted only to coffee), follower of Veer Savarkar, editor of Hindu Rashtra and a tailor by craft. Their decision: to kill Gandhi.”
