After decades of strenuous research, the environmental scientists and mathematicians have highlighted two primary hypotheses about these Circles. They are Plant Competition Hypothesis and Termite Colony Hypothesis, writes Chitrangada Saikia
Wonder and mystery surrounds the magnificent “Fairy Circles”. They are one of the most beautiful creations of God. These unique “Fairy Circles” are found in the Namib Desert of Namibia in South-Western Africa. They are 10-65 feet in diametre. Usually, they are barren circles lined with patches of vegetation. They stretch for hundreds of kilometres. Surprisingly, these circles look other-worldly from images taken from various satellites. According to the local folklore, the “Fairy Circles” were once created by the God himself. Some say that they are no other than the footprints left behind by the God on the red soil of the Namib Desert. Another local tradition claims that these circles are patches of desert poisoned by the breath of dragons living beneath the Namibian Desert. This is mentioned in the folk tales of the Himba residents of Namibia.
Much beyond, it has always been popular in South-Western Africa that “Namibia is the land that God made in anger”. This comes from the wide areas of Namibia that consists of rugged and deeply forbidding jungles. Indeed, rare records show that this series of expressions believe to derive from the local inhabitants who directly refer to the treacherous skeleton coast of the Namib Desert. Thus the tales of the Fairy Circles go on. They provide us clues to rediscover the strange patterns.
Some mathematicians say that the whole landscape that covers the Fairy Circles looks like polka dots dress. Interestingly, these dots are regularly spaced across the Namib Desert. From far and the sky, they look like islands in a sea of small grasslands. Even the biologists have found it difficult to unearth the existence of them. Tarnita, a theoretical biologist and her team at the prestigious Princeton University in the US say that it is not possible to conduct close experiments about the Fairy Circles in an area like the Namib Desert. Therefore such vast areas pose real big hurdles to test multiple hypotheses.
However, after decades of strenuous research, the environmental scientists and mathematicians have highlighted two primary hypotheses about these Circles. They are Plant Competition Hypothesis and Termite Colony Hypothesis. Firstly, the entire Namib Desert is an arid desert. And such arid deserts are normally found closer to the equator because of direct sunlight it gets. Water is very rare and the existing plants struggle to survive in areas like the Namib Desert. About the growth of strange patterns like the Fairy Circles, Tarnita says, “As vegetation expands, and thrives into a patch, smaller plants nearby cannot get the water necessary to survive. The amount of vegetation thins or disappears at the edges of the patch, forming regular distanced gaps.”
Thus, all the Fairy Circles exhibit regular patterns across this desert. Secondly, the Termite Colony Hypothesis says that under each of these patches, there exists a termite colony. According to the ecologists, the eusocial insects where individuals are divided into specialised groups to support the overall survival of their colony make a large number of underground tunnels to transport food for the rest of the members. In this whole process, the termites seem to destroy the vegetation around their colonies. Further, scientists state that in case of encroachments of one colony by the other, they fight till their enemy is finished. In this long and underground war of survival, a series of termite colonies develop in due course of time. But interestingly, these colonies are seemed to be of equal size and there is no “termites land” between two colonies. These are some of the novel revelations that open up scope for future research.
Thus, the Namibian Fairy Circles represent a unique ecosystem so far till 2015. In the year 2016, such Fairy Circles were discovered outside Newman, in a small mining town called Pilbara region in Western Australia. This provides a new opportunity to the scientific community to once again uncover the origin and growth of such phenomena. By now, the Australian Fairy Circles indicate that these circles are the reaction of the plants to scare waters. Though both the Australian and Namibian Fairy Circles are more than almost thousands of kilometre apart, they are declared to be identical. Unlike Namibia, where a large number of insects of species like ants and termites are found in the Fairy Circles, the majority of the circles found in Pilbara do not have ant or termite colonies. Such nests or mounds of insects wherever discovered in Australia are also randomly distributed unlike the Namibian ones.
Besides their mysteries and scientific discoveries, the Fairy Circles add to the beauty of the biodiversity of Namibia and Australia. They attract numerous insects and animals such as ants, bees, geckons, spiders, wasps and small mammals like golden moles, bat-eared foxes, black-backed jackals and aardvarks. Again, the Fairy Circles can be well-regarded as fine examples of allogenic ecosystem engineering. Such ecosystems refer to an environment that transforms the environment by mechanically changing materials from one form to another. Such land forms helps in restoring water, perennial plant and termite biomass across the Namib Desert. As far as they are not a threat to human and natural environment, the Fairy Circles are to be preserved.
For years, though the scientists and researchers have suggested various theories about the Fairy Circles yet the mysteries have not come to an end about them. Hence, its very existence is highly debatable. They would remain enigmatic unless destroyed in the course of nature or through some man-made actions.
(The writer is a young environmental activist)
Just two years ago, a tribal boy was killed in Karmatar because he wished to marry a widow. Has anything really changed in modern India?
On September 26, 200 years ago, an extraordinary personality was born in a village in south West Bengal. By the standards of his time, why, even by today’s standards, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was unique in every respect. As Rabindranath Tagore once said, “One wonders how God, in the process of producing 40 million Bengalis, produced a man.”
The 19th century Bengali society was in an advanced state of decay brought about by a lethal cocktail of superstition, depravity and exploitation, being trapped inside a complex hierarchy of castes and sub-castes embedded within each other. One half of the society — women — was excluded from education and economic activities, being confined to homes where they had no voice. They were treated as intellectually and morally inferior, and hence unworthy of education. Superstition proclaimed that a girl’s education would inevitably beget her widowhood. Her best contribution to society was to become one of the countless wives of Kulin Brahmins, whose main aim was collecting handsome dowries from multiple marriages — one had as many as 156 wives as per records. She would be lucky to enjoy her absentee husband’s company a few nights a year. She would attain salvation by burning on the same funeral pyre with her husband, who was 50-60 years older than her. Through the efforts of Raja Rammohan Roy (1772-1838), the horrendous practice of Sati was abolished in 1829, nine years after Vidyasagar’s birth.
Child marriage was the order of the day. Girls were married before attaining puberty in a custom called gouridan. Born into a Kulin Brahmin family, Vidyasagar himself was married at the age of 14 to a girl eight years old. Bankimchandra, who was born 18 years after Vidyasagar, was married at 11 to a girl only five years old. Female infanticide was also the order of the day. Female foetuses would be destroyed brutally through what was called “ghat murder.” These monstrosities still exist in many pockets in rural India despite all the laws we have in our books.
Women had no right to property or inheritance. Once they became widows, a lifetime of misery awaited them. They were forced to a single stringent vegetarian meal a day to rob them of their sexuality, youth and beauty. Sexual exploitation by relatives and termination of unwanted pregnancies leading to death were not only common but met with society’s tacit approval. Legal abolition of sati did not end women’s miseries. The daily privations, insults and misery of existence forced many to join the brothels that were there to sustain the perverted Babu culture of Bengal. In 1853, the population of sex workers in Kolkata was 12,419 and by 1867 it touched over 30,000. And 90 per cent of them, according to the Amritabazar Patrika, were widows. By a crude estimate, the sex worker population increased from about five to nearly 10 per cent of Kolkata’s population over this period.
This, then, was the society Vidyasagar was born into, and this was the society he had sought to reform. He did so with a gusto and a fearlessness we have not seen in any other personality ever since. To fight the orthodox society steeped in deep superstition and ruled by the semi-literate Brahmins, Vidyasagar knew he would have to beat his adversaries at their own game. So, in January and October 1855, he wrote his two famous treatises on the Marriage of Hindu Widows, drawing upon the Sutras (literary compositions) and the Sastras (scriptures) to establish his logical argument that there was no prohibition on remarriage of widows in the Sastras.
Rather the Parashara Samhita sanctioned widow remarriage: “Women are at liberty to marry again if their husbands are insane, dead, have renounced the family or are impotent or outcasts.” About 2,000 copies of the first book were sold in the first week itself, followed by 3,000 and then a third reprint of 10,000 copies got sold out too. But the sales figures did not indicate society’s response. He was heaped with criticism, insults, motives, ridicule and even threatened with death.
The Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act was finally passed on July 26, 1856 and the reform did not remain limited to Bengal alone. In 1864, Jyotiba Phule succeeded in persuading a Saraswat Brahmin widow to remarry. In 1866, Vishnu Shastri Pandit translated Vidyasagar’s book on widow remarriage into Marathi. But passing of the statute was only the first of the many obstacles. Vidyasagar personally presided over the first remarriage of a widow, Kalimati, with Srishchandra Vidyaratna, and then many others at his own expense, in the process gathering significant personal debt.
He even got his only son, Narayanchandra, married to a widow, Bhavasundari. Not many have the courage to practise what they preach. As he wrote to his brother: “Remarriage of widows is the noblest deed of my life. I don’t think I shall be able to accomplish a greater one, ever. I have sacrificed everything for this cause and won’t mind even laying down my life for it.”
He was also propagating women’s education. In 1849, he set up the Calcutta Female School along with Drinkwater Bethune for educating the girl child. In 1856, appointed Special Inspector of Schools, he established 30 schools exclusively for girls. Between 1857 and 1858, when the Mutiny was ravaging the country, he was fighting a different kind of battle, opening 35 girls’ schools all over Bengal.
After widow remarriage, it was the turn of polygamy. In 1857, he orchestrated a petition to the Government with 25,000 signatures for the prohibition of polygamy among Kulin Brahmins. The Mutiny postponed any action on this petition but in 1866, he inspired another petition, this time with 21,000 signatures. The Government, reluctant to interfere in Indian customs, refused to take any legislative measure, instead allowing time and education to bring an end to the practice.
In 1871 and 1873, he wrote two brilliant critiques on polygamy, arguing that it was not sanctioned by the sacred texts, but was opposed by five eminent scholars, led by his friend Taranath Tarkavachaspati of Calcutta Sanskrit College. Outlawing polygamy among Hindus, however, had to wait till 1955, eight years after Independence, through the Hindu Marriage Act. As regards child marriage, the Indian Penal Code, 1860, had fixed the age of consent to 10 years for girls, which was raised successively to 12 (1891), 14 (1925), 16 (1940) and 18 (2013). The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, also known as the Sarda Act, fixed the age of marriage at 14 for girls and 18 for boys, that was later raised to 18 and 21 respectively in 1978. This has since been repealed and replaced by the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006.
In 1873, disgusted with the so-called bhadralok society, Vidyasagar went to live with the Santhals at Karmatar, a sleepy hamlet about 20 km from the district headquarters of Jamtara now in Jharkhand, where he would spend the last 18 years of his life till his death in 1891. There he set up a girls’ school and a night school for adults on the premises of his house, which he called Nandan Kanan. The house today lies in shambles.
The irony is that though in this village 24 tribal child widows were remarried by Vidyasagar, just two years ago, a tribal boy was killed in Karmatar because he wished to marry a widow. Has anything really changed in modern India?
Sati was abolished only in name. Countless satis continue to get burnt in 21st century India, though not on pyres. Countless brides get burnt to death in their nuptial homes for dowries, the faces and minds of countless more are scarred forever by acid attacks inflicted by spurned lovers and others. Scores of girls are murdered in “honour-killings” in rural India for marrying into another caste or community, by defying their families’ diktats.
Sati has actually metamorphosed into another form that is equally brutal and vicious. It is not about burning a woman. It is about denying her the choice to decide the course of her life. She is continued to be treated as morally and intellectually inferior to men, as she was 200 years ago. We need another Ram Mohan Roy and a Vidyasagar now, more than ever.
(The author is a retired Director-General from the Office of the CAG)
The rising crime against women has emerged as yet another factor for augmenting the traditional preference for sons
Last week, a six-month pregnant woman in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh (UP), was attacked by her husband with a sharp-edged weapon. Her family alleged that he slit her stomach to find out the gender of the unborn baby. They told the police that the father of five daughters was so desperate for a son that he resorted to this brutal way to check if the foetus was that of a boy or a girl. Although a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered and the husband arrested, this gruesome crime underlines once again the deeply-entrenched preference for sons in our culture. Despite the best efforts of the Union Government, States and non-governmental organisations over the years, there seems to be very little change in attitudes towards the girl child in the country. This is not just deeply worrying but also frightening.
It is not, however, surprising that girls are less valued than boys in UP, a State that has recorded the most crimes against women in the country. The latest 2018 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data ranked the State as the worst for women’s security with 59, 443 crimes against them. Incidentally, in 2018, the crime rate was the highest for cruelty by husbands and relatives. Although the NCRB data for 2019 has not been released as yet, media reports of crimes against women in UP during the last two years do not inspire confidence in the possibility of any turnaround.
But do the rising crimes against women have any bearing on the preference for a son? Yes, says a new study conducted in UP and Haryana. Its objective was to examine discrimination against the girl child and its linkages with the declining child sex ratio and violence against women. The report states that the responsibility of security and maintaining the chastity of daughters in the context of rising sexual violence in the country has added to the larger concern of wanting a son. In other words, the increasing crime against women has emerged as yet another factor for augmenting the traditional preference for a son.
Supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), the study was conducted by Bijaylaxmi Nanda, Nupur Ray and Ritwika Mukherjee. The preliminary findings indicate that perceptions about crime play a pivotal role in the increasing preference for a male child. Thus, as long as women continue to remain insecure in the nation, chances that girls will be unwanted by families will be high.
Further, with three out of every 10 women, who had more daughters than sons, reporting that the husband/family members express dissatisfaction at the birth of a girl child, the study also reinforces the fact that gender inequality remains at the heart of violence against women in UP. The male offspring is preferred because he is culturally perceived as a protector and provider during the old age of the parents. An earlier study to understand the intrinsic relationship between masculinity, son preference and intimate partner violence came to similar conclusions.
The 2014 study by the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), found that in UP, the two most important reasons for having a son were to carry on the family name and to provide support to parents in their old age. Six years later, as the ICSSR study shows, little seems to have changed on the ground.
The ICRW-UNFPA report found that of the seven States studied, UP had the largest proportion of men reporting high control over their intimate partners and the lowest proportion of men displaying gender equitable attitudes.
Education is a big tool to engender transformation in beliefs, attitudes and practice. It is an equally important predictor of son-preference attitudes. In UP, the ICRW-UNFPA study found that 55 per cent of men with no education had a high preference for sons compared to 39 per cent of men with graduation or higher degrees.
Studies have shown that spouses of men with no or little education are unlikely to have ready access to sexual and reproductive health services. In the Badaun case, the fact that the woman had five children and was pregnant with her sixth child indicates she may have faced barriers in accessing family planning services. The fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS 2015-16) states that the unmet need in UP was 18 per cent for currently married women aged between 15 and 49 years. This means an estimated 8.2 million women have been denied access to family planning. In Badaun, which has a more than 70 per cent rural population, the total unserviced need is almost 14 per cent. This is higher than the national average of 12.9 per cent.
The preference for sons puts women under so much pressure to produce a male heir that many times they are forced into numerous pregnancies and a series of abortions until they do so. The preference for a son has led to around 4,60,000 girls going missing due to sex selection at birth each year between 2013 and 2017, according to the UNFPA’s 2020 State of the Population Report.
Last month, noted researcher Fengqing Chao of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, and his colleagues projected an even darker future for girls in India. According to their research published in the journal PLOS ONE, the average annual number of missing female births between 2017 and 2025 was likely to be 4,69,000 per year and would increase to 5,19,000 per year for the time period between 2026 to 2030. This research singles out UP as the Indian State most likely to have the maximum missing female births due to the preference for a boy and accounting for almost a third of the total number projected.
But girls don’t just go missing at birth. India also has the highest rate of excess girl child deaths at 13.5 per 1,000 births. This critical data suggest post-birth sex selection. An estimated one in nine deaths of girls below the age of five may be attributed to post-birth sex selection, says the UNFPA report. So, while gender-biased sex selection accounts for about two-thirds of the total missing girls, post-birth girl child mortality accounts for about one-third.
UP lags behind on many indicators of gender equality, including early marriage and crimes against women.
If Yogi Adityanath really wants development, the Chief Minister must make greater investments in improving gender indicators. Prejudice against girls can be countered by programmes that focus on engaging boys and instilling values of gender equality in them at an early age. Comprehensive sex education in schools could help redefine notions of masculinity and foster respect for women.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
The World Bank’s human capital index shows the potential development of kids slid to 50 per cent in pandemic times
As expected, the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic has not just been on health and global economies; its multi-pronged effect is now threatening to erase the gains made in improving child education and health in the years before the outbreak. This fallout of the contagion is the most evident in the poor and Third World nations, the World Bank said while commenting on the Human Capital Index for 2020, which ranks countries on how well children are prepared for the future, with an emphasis on factors like schooling and healthcare. Despite the fact that most countries made steady gains in improving health and education prior to the pandemic, the virus has dealt a body blow to all these efforts. Children in a low-income country will likely achieve only 56 per cent of their human capital compared to ones with access to a complete education and full healthcare. This is alarming as human capital is absolutely vital to the financial and economic future of any country as well as its social well-being. And as World Bank President David Malpass has warned, “inequalities among children are set to increase” and as “more than one billion children have been out of school due to Covid, they could lose as much as $10 trillion in lifetime earnings.” In our case, the girl child would be the first victim as her education is the first casualty in poor households forced to choose between feeding the family and reserving knowledge pursuit as a rare privilege. Besides, while the education of children from well-heeled families will not face so much disruption, students from marginalised families and in rural areas will suffer, both due to lack of smartphones, computers, laptops and the lack of infrastructure and knowhow on how to use these enablers. Though both teachers and students have adapted to online classes to a large extent in urban areas, teachers themselves are not satisfied because they feel that the learning experience can never compete with brick and mortar classrooms. In an online setting, students may have more distractions and less supervision, which can reduce their motivation to do well academically. First there is the issue of keeping them engaged. Then how do you teach subjects which require live experiments and demonstrations? What of personal attention to struggling students? Research shows that students who struggle in physical classes are likely to struggle even more online. Also, being in school/college in person with teachers and friends creates social pressures and benefits that can help motivate the young to engage.
On the health front, too, there is cause for concern as the lockdown impacted programmes tackling malnutrition. With schools closed, children from impoverished families have been deprived of their one, daily nutritious food in the form of free mid-day meals. Immunisation programmes have been hit by the lockdown as has the community vigilance by the ASHAs and ANMs, who were the first point of contact for parents with sick children. If the world had to work hard to provide an equitable world for children, it will have to work doubly hard to mend the damage caused by the contagion in the years to come.
There’s proof of life in the unlikeliest of planets, also known for being one of the least explored
For years, the search for extraterrestrial life inside our solar system has always concentrated on the “red” planet Mars. That is because Mars is similar in size to Earth. There is now clear evidence that there was once water on its surface and most importantly, like Earth, it is also in the so-called “habitable” zone, close enough to its star for enough radiation but not so much that life wouldn’t take off. Mars is, therefore, considered to either have life or to have once harboured life and capable of supporting a human expedition. As a result, we are constantly sending probes to Mars and even to its tiny moons. Probes that circle the planet as well as robotic vehicles that have roamed its surface. We actually have a greater grasp of the surface of Mars than we do of the bottom of our oceans. Even now, the aim for mankind, both in real and reel life, is to make Mars the first step on our eventual voyage to the stars.
Venus, the second rock from the Sun, is, however, given as an example of where global warming will take us. A planet benign on the outside but one where every probe sent since the start of space exploration has been dissolved in acid in the atmosphere or fried by the extreme heat that the greenhouse effect has caused. Even though the Soviet Venera programme did land several probes on Venus and many survived a few hours, there was a succession of lens cap failures. As a result, Venus is one of the least explored planets of the solar system, lacking the romanticism of Mars and the grandeur of Jupiter and Saturn, which have both seen billion-dollar spacecraft visit them in the past decade. Yet, the discovery of phosphine in the Venusian atmosphere is an intriguing prospect because the only way for this gas, with three hydrogen molecules attached to one phosphorus molecule, to occur naturally is as a byproduct of biological processes. While the gas can be made industrially by man, that isn’t clearly a possibility on Venus. So, have we been barking up the wrong tree for decades? After all, as the old adage goes, “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” and as we all know, women have all the answers. Maybe some strange process creates phosphine on Venus that we are unaware of and we should send a probe or two to the planet we never thought could harbour life. But as we know from Earth herself, life can survive in some really extreme conditions. This time though, let us make sure that the lens caps work.
Those in charge of publicity policies hardly realise that by attacking critics they are instigating an equally vitriolic counter-narrative
The criticism of the present turmoil in the Indian media, particularly television, comes with the rebuttal of the critic being a Libtard. The next volley is about the media being sympathetic to the earlier regime too and why then no questions were asked for such sympathies. There is no denying the fact that many present-day vociferous flag-bearers, protesting the slant being brazenly projected in the media, were themselves guilty of enjoying undue access and patronage, blighting the line between honest journalism and patronised pen-pushing.
Having said this, the aforementioned premise cannot be justified as the only factor for acrimony and rancour, which has come to define the state of Indian television. It has more to do with the market and the revenue models. This writer worked with The Pioneer at a time and in an era when it was seen as the only major Right of the Centre English daily. But to the credit of the editorial leadership of the newspaper, despite the slant, it never discouraged contrary opinion and gave prominent space to it.
More importantly, it held the ideological position, paying a commercial price as many Government agencies and departments worked overtime to demolish the revenue model of the newspaper. It indeed was a challenging task to be the paper of the Opposition and also being the paper of the Right of the Centre thought.
The same cannot be said about the present-day votaries of the Right of the Centre ideology. It’s more a case of being on the right side of the Government. Being honest to an ideology demands a price, which these present-day pretenders did not pay then, nor are they paying now, as on both the occasions they were on the right side of the Government.
Then there is another issue. Does being supportive of a political thought make a media house mortgage its right to question a Government of the same ideology? During the prime ministership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, there was this instance of a border skirmish with Bangladesh in which a Border Security Force officer was killed. His corpse was returned in a most undignified manner. The images made one shudder and at the same time angry even as the Government talked of peace.
The front-page editorial in The Pioneer said, “Bend, don’t genuflect.” Now this was a startling criticism coming from the newspaper known for its ideological proximity to the Government of the day. This must have needed much courage on the part of the editor, and a real large heart on the part of the Government to take the criticism in the right spirit.
The current news trend followed by the media houses, of the Government never going wrong, should make the powers that be worry. This worry should be on two counts: First, the loss of credibility of these media houses and anchors known to be sympathetic to the Government. Second, by giving no space to the Opposition, the mainstream media has pushed it into a situation where it has launched its own agitprop vehicles, expressing distrust in the media houses, calling them vehicles of Government propaganda.
Those in charge of the publicity policies of the Government, by unleashing a vendetta towards critics, realise little that they are instigating an equally vitriolic counter-narrative. With social media and technological advancements completely democratising the media space, a Government’s image cannot be lynchpinned on mere whataboutery of prime-time anchors.
We live in times where troll armies are ever-ready to provide their services at mud-slinging. It’s just the question of who is hiring them. While it has taken more than half-a-century to create memes of Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being subjected to this obnoxious criticism in his lifetime. Nehru and several Prime Ministers after him were lucky that they were subjected to such criticism by erudite scholar-cartoonists like RK Laxman. They were at the same time fortunate that the space of social media did not exist then, which could have dragged them into the muck.
Today counter-narratives on Government claims make it to various social media platforms within moments of being released in the public domain. Dependence on fake and misrepresented facts has come to create an atmosphere of distrust, where ready acceptance of a news, howsoever true, is not easy.
This situation has given rise to such an atmosphere that reason is the biggest casualty. When fake information becomes a marketable commodity, there would not be very many clients for evidence-based, well-reasoned information. Let’s take the case of the “infodemic”, a term coined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the surge of information regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. The contagion in fact has hit the media hardest both in matters of finances and credibility. The failure of journalists, both television and newspaper, to go beyond the Government’s briefings on the pandemic and its opinionated criticism has left the consumers of news absolutely chary. Nobody has a clear picture on where the virus is steering the world.
If there is distrust for a product, there obviously would not be a market for it. The market searches for such products which can be easily consumed. So here is a case of a market looking for news products. In fact, the present situation reminds one of Italian dramatist, novelist, poet and short story writer Luigi Pirandello’s early 20th century play titled, Six Characters in Search of an Author. The initial reception to the play from the audience was it being incomprehensible. It was only after Pirandello added a foreword to the play a few years later that it came to be better appreciated. The connoisseurs of news are today eagerly waiting for the foreword to the current incommensurable media scenario.
(The writer is professor-chairperson, Vivekananda School of Journalism and Mass Communication, VIPS, GGSIPU, Delhi)
If Raghuvansh Prasad Singh joins Nitish, there is no hope left for the Opposition in the Bihar polls
There is no doubt that Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav changed the political discourse in India by carving electoral worth for the backward castes and empowering them enough to dictate the course of the coalition era. He worked the ground, picked up the people’s pulse and cleverly used his rustic charm to become a cult phenomenon. Yet much of his acceptability in the intellectual space has got to be credited to Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, who has been his loyal lieutenant since the 1980s, an upper caste inclusion in the early years of the movement. He is said to have crafted India’s biggest welfare programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of 2005, which continues to be the one bright spot of the Congress-led UPA-1 Government and has a legacy strong enough to survive regime changes. And for all his commitment to Lalu, he wasn’t a blind courtier, quick to point out his leader’s flaws in public and force him into course-correction. For the persona that he is, Lalu, too, didn’t mind such criticism, knowing it was well-meant. And so the duo continued as each other’s sounding board for years together. Singh, who was feted by the Congress for his welfarist models and was even invited to join it many times, didn’t do so. In 2009, he even turned down the Congress offer of heading the Rural Development Ministry as RJD was no longer an ally then. So when he resigned from the RJD — that too while recovering from COVID-19 in hospital — Singh, known for his honesty and integrity, seemed like he had been broken irreparably. Of course, Lalu himself refused to accept his letter, knowing that his resignation would not just be a body blow for the party but the movement he shared with his colleague. But the truth of the matter is that regime change within the RJD and Lalu’s frail health meant that there weren’t enough takers for this old comradeship. Tejashwi Yadav had new ideas and yes men and sidelined him badly, overturning his advisories. Much to his discomfort, Tejashwi met his upper caste rival from his seat of Vaishali, Rama Kishore, hoping to induct him, a clear message that Singh’s traditional constituency could be taken away from him. And Lalu’s older son Tej Pratap Yadav recently insulted his contribution to the party as just “a potful of water.” Lalu’s silence on his sons hurt him even more and this drift just might prove RJD its costliest moment. For it would make Lalu look like a doting father who forgot realpolitik and sacrificed a wise lieutenant and asset for dynastic interests.
The most unfortunate part for Lalu is that Singh would be a prize catch for the Janata Dal (United) just ahead of the Assembly polls. Though the party is in alliance with the BJP, Singh himself has had no problems confabulating with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Bihar’s problems at various points in time. In fact, he has already written a separate letter to Nitish to upgrade development in Vaishali and ramp up MGNREGA work in the State with suitable amendments, a move which is being seen a precursor to his inclusion in the JD(U). Nitish, swamped as he is by the barrage of criticism on handling the pandemic, flood management and the returnee migrants, could benefit from Singh’s advice. Any further slide in image and his credibility as a leader would take a further hit. He may be in alliance with the BJP but the latter, while acknowledging him as chief ministerial candidate, is still as ambitious about becoming the voters’ first choice and having its own man in the future. It hasn’t helped that he has lost out in ratings to his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath in crisis management, the appreciation damagingly coming from his own people, mostly labourers and students. So he needs to have someone like Singh on his side before the BJP coopts him. Given the Congress’ past respect for him, the BJP, too, may lure him to Delhi with a ministerial posting and use him for correctional policies. Nitish already has the Dalit vote, having neutralised the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), whose leader Chirag Paswan was attacking him almost every day, by inducting Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) founder and his protégé Jitan Ram Manjhi into his fold. According to the 2011 census, the Scheduled Castes are 15 per cent of Bihar’s population. The Mahadalits constitute nearly 16 per cent and though cultivated by Nitish, are now swerving towards the RJD, which has the core traditional votes of the Muslims and Yadavs. Manjhi could return the Dalit swing in his favour. Meanwhile, Singh could bring in a part of his old base too. This would bring Nitish the numbers he needs to stay relevant. Besides, by valuing Singh, he could make amends for his mishandling of affairs so far, be it the Patna floods, the Muzaffarpur encephalitis deaths, the accumulation of prohibition-related cases in courts and the State’s dismal rank in the Sustainable Development Goals India Index. Singh could help Nitish win back the respectability that he lost, just like he did for Lalu. As for Lalu himself, he now just has a shell called the Opposition.
As the Govt becomes busy resuscitating the economy and fighting the pandemic, all environmental initiatives will take a back seat
Fears of the pandemic worsening the already ailing economy of the country are starting to come true as India reported its first fiscal contraction since 1980 and a maiden quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fall as well. As a spate of lockdowns ravaged the economy even further, the figures said it all. The National Statistical Office (NSO) data showed that India’s GDP contracted by 23.9 per cent in the April-June quarter in comparison to the same period last year. The combined impact of demonetisation, implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime had already decelerated the economy in the last two years, but the current pandemic threatens to bring it to a grinding halt. Some of the biggest sectors are in a dismal state. The construction sector, for instance, is seeing a 50 per cent fall in business activity whereas manufacturing is witnessing a drop of 39 per cent. The hospitality sector, on the other hand, is undergoing a 47 per cent slump. These conditions are not only stoking unemployment and exacerbating poverty but are making it difficult for the common man to get access to quality healthcare. This steep GDP plunge of the last four decades highlights the economic predicament that the nation finds itself in and worryingly these conditions do not bode well for the environment as well.
What makes it worse for India is the fact that there has been no major progress in its Human Development Index (HDI) which can cushion this economic decline. According to the United Nations (UN) 2019 HDI report, India ranks 129th out of 189 nations. This, basically translates to grim social sector development in terms of life expectancy, per capita income and education levels. Past trends show that a better social sector development in India automatically caused increased awareness among people in environmental conservation and conversely when the economy deteriorated, people become more interested in their self-preservation and less concerned with the state of the environment. This is evident by the fact that major environmental movements such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan or protests against the Tehri Dam projects happened while the economy was in the midst of changing gears and not going through a slump.
To many observers, it may appear as though the slowdown may have eased the voracious demands of a burgeoning economy on natural resources, thereby giving the environment a much-deserved break. But this is a short-term gain because in the long-term the very initiatives that are taken to fight climate change, cope with greenhouse gas emissions and tackle pollution problems are all based on the functioning of a healthy economy which can fund these activities. In the absence of a sustainable source of finances, much of the environmental conservation initiatives in India would just drift and make no progress. As the Government becomes increasingly busy in resuscitating the economy on the one hand and fighting the pandemic on the other, environmental concerns and related initiatives will get junked.
Another aspect that will hit the environment is the fact that there will be an inevitable drop in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of India Inc. Thanks to a dwindling economy, most of the cash- starved businesses are struggling to meet their monthly wage bills, let alone divert funds for CSR initiatives. This translates into a double whammy for the environment as Government-funded projects are poised to slow down and CSR projects, too, are unlikely to be accorded budgets and priority. This sudden paucity of finances, coupled with the stringent social distancing norms and lockdown conditions, can stop many environmental projects in their tracks. This is unfortunate as the considerable progress made so far would be rendered futile.
Given the direct relationship between the economic slump and environmental deterioration, it is essential for the Government to decouple both aspects in the best interests of the environment. In its effort to decouple the economic downturn and its impact on the environment, the Government must build on the initial advantages the slowdown provided the environment. The relief to the environment on account of lesser exploitation of natural resources and pollution generated must be coupled with specific economic initiatives that are directed towards generating employment in the environment conservation sector. This will address two problems in one go: That of addressing unemployment as well as conserving the environment.
Similarly, for those marginal and micro, small and medium enterprises that have gone bankrupt due to COVID-19, the Government can offer a fresh lease of life by announcing special financial, technical and infrastructural support packages if they choose to restart business activities in the renewable energy sector or any environment conservation-related one. Every dark cloud has a silver lining, and so does the current economic crisis, provided the latent opportunity for environment conservation is spotted and leveraged. If this is not done, the environment will suffer the same way the economy already is bleeding.
(The writer is an environmental journalist)
Just by managing their care based on financial help, you cannot assume hundred percent execution of, and exemption from, your duties
According to the Population Census of 2011, there are nearly 104 million elderly people (aged 60 years or above) in India, which has a ratio of 53 million women and 51 million men. A report released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) and HelpAge India suggests that the number of elderly is expected to grow to 173 million by 2026, which is roughly, 18 crore by the next seven years. That’s just a figure, though scary enough to tell the story of the challenge we have right in front of us: Our elders and our responsibilities towards them. Today, the world is facing an unprecedented crisis caused by an invisible virus, which has the worst impact on the elderly. However, this susceptibility is not just limited to the Coronavirus as their immunity gets compromised as they age.
I would specifically like to draw attention to the elderly in Himachal Pradesh as I belong to that beautiful State. The number of elderly people in Himachal is growing very fast. According to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report, Himachal has seven lakh people aged 60 years or more, which is 10.2 percent of the total population of the State, higher than the national average of 8.6 percent. The elderly population in Himachal is projected to grow at a rate of 3.1 percent annually and is expected to reach 1.1 million by 2026, which will be about 15 percent of its total population by that year. A whopping 90 percent of the population lives in rural areas, so it can be said that an increasing elderly population is a major phenomenon in the rural areas of Himachal.
The significant thing here is that this elderly population is equally distributed in these districts. As per Census 2011, Hamirpur has 13.8 percent of the total population of the elderly, followed by Bilaspur (11.9 percent), Kangra (11.7 percent) and Auna (11.5 percent). Solan and Sirmaur (8 percent) have the lowest proportion of the elderly. About three-quarters of the elderly (71 percent) live with their family members and they play an important role in family decisions such as arranging social and religious events, buying household items and property. If we look at the lockdown that was imposed for more than 100 days to deal with the Corona epidemic in a positive light, then it has given us an unprecedented opportunity to communicate and commune with the elders.
Things like sitting with them, listening to their experiences, eating together may seem to be insignificant or too small but through these, we are seeing the social institution called family strengthened in society. Recently, in an online discussion held by the Dadi Dada Foundation, a not-for-profit social organisation working for the rights of the elderly in India, I put forth some points that can help create a good environment in society for the elderly. Give them your time: First, increase communication with the elderly and spend time with them. Often we leave the elders to live in their own world. Even if they want to say something, we tend to ignore it. This leads to a communication gap, which further gives rise to many psychological complexes in them and that creates social disorder.
Discharge your duties towards them: Fulfil your duties towards the elderly and give them care and service. The obligation is to fulfill the moral and social needs of the elderly. Do not forget that to make you reach this point in life, they have discharged small responsibilities by depriving themselves of many worldly satisfactions. Learn the rites, rituals and values from the elders and adopt them for life. Our children spend so much time on their mobile phones, gadgets and so on but taking out time for grandparents is not one of their priorities. Motivate children to receive values from their grandparents. But first of all, apply these morals to your lives as you can teach children more from your actions than words.
Make them your role model: Share the achievements of the elderly when you talk to the young ones in your family. Today, our society lacks role models. We continue to seek role models in movies and books. Whereas in every household youngsters can be inspired by the achievements of their elders, from their real life experiences and hard work. Take them along through the changes in life: Often the elderly are left out because of the rapid changes occurring in our lifestyles. To deal with that, we must include the elders in our lifestyle changes. Often we assume that they would not be interested in technology, fashion and social media and so on. However, it is not like that. At one time, our elders were the drivers of change in their generation. So we need to introduce them to changes in technology, lifestyle, innovation, social media and fashion in our generation.
Take advantage of their experience: Take suggestions from them at every turn of life. Later, it depends upon you whether you fully accept their advice or not. But certainly, their experience will enrich your decision-making process. Experience-based on age cannot be acquired from a book, so take their opinion whenever there is confusion or a new turn in your life. You will see that some positive solution will always come out of the conversation to the challenge you are facing. Don’t leave them alone: Today, the biggest challenge for the elderly is increasing loneliness and mental depression. In the metropolitan cities in their pursuit of material things, children are lagging in the discharge of their duties towards the parents and grandparents.
Just by managing their care based on financial help, you cannot assume hundred percent execution of, and exemption from, your duties. After the birth of a child, until he/she begins to speak and walk, the presence of the mother is indispensable for the kid. In the same way, elders expect the same affection and intimacy from their children after a time. Financial support is a must: As age progresses, the needs and preferences of the elderly change. They will have to be provided with financial security for every requirement including medicines, treatment, food and clothes. Support them financially if they are not independent and get banking services and facilities for those who have pension and other social security assistance from the Government or other organisations.
Do keep in mind that the elderly are the pillars of our society. The stronger we make them, the stronger the all-round development of our society and nation will be. For the welfare and care of the elderly, we must protect the already existing social support systems and traditional social institutions such as the family and kinship, neighbourhood bonding, community bonding and community participation. Recently we celebrated Senior Citizen’s Day and Ganesh Chaturthi. Remember the mythological story of Ganesha? To prove his superiority, Ganesha’s brother Karthik went off on a journey of the three worlds while Ganesha simply circumambulated his parents. When asked why he did so, he answered that his parents Shiva and Parvati constituted the three worlds and thus he was given the fruit of knowledge. Do give your parents and grandparents that status in life.
(The writer is General Manager, Corporate Communications, with Power Grid Corporation of India)
India’s Independence Day since 15TH August 1947 has not freed Indian people completely from the western clutches who are often seen as full of greed. Even today we have many Indian supporting this western block that live overseas wishing to exploit homeland with their western warmonger associates. This classified segment of NRIs/ POIs Diaspora is a dangerous threat that needs urgent monitoring before India gets into bigger conflicts, communal riots and increased terrorism attacks by western block by adopting the old trusted policy of ‘Divide & Rule’. India and State of Punjab has suffered due to bad political decisions, bad policing, broken legal systems, lack of employment, lack of business trade, increased corruption, terrorism, religious discrimination, increased uncensored western influences via many Indian MSM News, movies, music and the increasing gap between the rich and poor in India. The addition of the man-made COVID19 virus in India and the border clash with China has only increased more outside threats.
The present Indian government led by Narendra Modi and his BJP ministers have the perfect opportunity to peacefully unite strengthen India before India is attacked and further weakened by its neighbours (Pakistan, China) and warmongering western countries who wish to use India to play the “Divide and Rule India” games against China and Pakistan. The state of Punjab and Sikhs is the only unbreakable shield of India, it is high time for the Indian government to give justice to the disgruntle part of the Sikh community within the laws of equal rights listen to the groups based in India (even when the west supports them) and amicably agrees so that India remains wholly peacefully united. The present youth living in Punjab want jobs, more business opportunities; want better health facilities, better educational institutions, a corruption-free Punjab police and more farming loan waivers assistance from the Indian Government. The state of Punjab requires more government funding than the state of Gujarat and state of Maharashtra. If India’s northern land borders with Pakistan are breached by neighbouring countries (Pakistan and China), it will be the State of Punjab, Punjabis and Sikhs in Punjab that will suffer the most NOT Delhi, Gujarat or Maharashtra.
The World Homeland Security fully supports and encourages peace without bloodshed and without any discrimination first before resorting to merciless actions that top the threats posed against innocent people no matter which country, culture or religious beliefs one has. And it is for the sake of all innocent people; the self-centric politicians start becoming and behaving more humane. The nepotism and corruption has given birth to active groups who are in many ways right in rebelling fighting against the unfair systems and simultaneously many political parties have countered this by creating their own groups which they discreetly fund to let them break country laws, fight their opponents, create communal riots and who in turn get them more votes at election time. The man-made COVID19 virus which is spreading in India and across the World will escalate more terror threats and increased crimes internally. The world is fully waking up in regards to India, Indian politics and its destruction of millions of people’s peaceful lives because of religious beliefs pitted against each other in communal riots.
Denying The Truth does Not Change The Facts
The US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its annual report said that Hindu nationalist groups and their sympathisers perpetrated numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment, and violence against religious minority. “National and state laws that restrict religious conversion, cow slaughter, and the foreign funding of non-governmental organisations and a constitutional provision deeming Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains to be Hindus helped create the conditions enabling these violations,” it said.
“While Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke publicly about the importance of communal tolerance and religious freedom, members of the ruling party have ties to Hindu nationalist groups implicated in religious freedom violations, used religiously divisive language to inflame tensions, and called for additional laws that would restrict religious freedom,” it alleged. These issues, combined with longstanding problems of police and judicial bias and inadequacies, have created a “pervasive climate of impunity” in which religious minorities feel increasingly insecure and have no recourse when religiously motivated crimes occur. “Based on these concerns, in 2017 (and 2020) USCIRF again places India on its Tier 2, where it has been since 2009,” it said.
The USCIRF urged the US government to integrate concern for religious freedom into bilateral contacts with India, including the framework of future Strategic Dialogues, at both the federal and provincial levels, and encourage the strengthening of the capacity of state and central police to implement effective measures to prohibit and punish cases of religious violence and protect victims and witnesses. USCIRF report recommends the US government to urge the Indian government to publicly rebuke government officials and religious leaders who make derogatory statements about religious communities.
Khalistan Movement: historical prospective & zero roadmap
The Khalistan movement is a Sikh separatist movement seeking to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing a sovereign state, called Khalistan (‘Land of the Khalsa’), in the Punjab region. The proposed state would consist of land that currently forms Punjab, India and Punjab, Pakistan, as well as other areas of both countries, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Sindh in Pakistan; and Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and Rajasthan in India. Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, according to Jagjit Singh Chohan, had proposed to make Nankana Sahib (currently in Pakistan) the capital of Khalistan during his talks with Chohan following the conclusion of the Indo- Pakistani War of 1971.
The Khalistan movement was established in the wake of the fall of the British Empire. In 1940, the first explicit call for Khalistan was made in a pamphlet titled “Khalistan”. With financial and political support of the Sikh diaspora, the movement flourished in the Indian state of Punjab—which has a Sikh- majority population. There is some support within India and the Sikh diaspora, with yearly demonstrations in protest of those killed during Operation Blue Star. operation Blue Star was an Indian military operation carried out between 1and 8 June 1984, ordered by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to remove militant religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed militants from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar, Punjab. Bhindranwale died and militants were removed from the temple complex. The military action in the temple complex was criticized by Sikhs worldwide who had interpreted it as an assault on Sikh religion. Four months after the operation, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in vengeance by her two Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, who shot Indira Gandhi 33 times.
Public outcry over Gandhi’s death led to the killings of Sikhs in the ensuing riots. Even the so-called Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan shamelessly was inciting violence, revenge and death against the Sikhs. In the aftermath of the riots, the government reported that 20,000 had fled the city; the People’s Union for Civil Liberties reported “at least” 1,000 displaced persons. The most- affected regions were the Sikh neighbourhoods of Delhi. Human rights organizations and newspapers across India believed that the massacre was organised. The collusion of political officials in the violence and judicial failure to penalise the perpetrators alienated Sikhs and increased support for the Khalistan movement The Akal Takht, Sikhism’s governing body, considers the killings genocide. In 2011, Human Rights Watch reported that the Government of India had “yet to prosecute those responsible for the mass killings”. According to the 2011 WikiLeaks cable leaks, the United States was convinced of Indian National Congress’ complicity in the riots and called it “opportunism” and “hatred” by the Congress government, of Sikhs.
Although the U.S. has not identified the riots as genocide, it acknowledged that “grave human rights violations” occurred. In 2011, a new group of mass graves was discovered in Haryana and Human Rights Watch reported that “widespread anti- Sikh attacks in Haryana were part of broader revenge attacks” in India. The Central Bureau of Investigation, the main Indian investigative agency, believes that the violence was organised with support from the Delhi police and some central-government officials. In early 2018, some militant groups were arrested by police in Punjab, India. Chief Minister of Punjab Amarinder Singh claimed that the recent extremism is backed by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and “Khalistani sympathisers” in Canada, USA, Italy, France, Germany and the UK. Many in the MSM Media news throughout the world have twisted and turned words to suit their narratives to brainwash messages to the public.
This was the case in regards to the Middle East and their freedom fighters who were (some still are) protecting their Country, their Communities and their cultures from/against the western invaders namely the USA, UK and The British created Illegal State of Israel (Created by stealing the land of the Peaceful Palestine People). The State of Punjab is a part of India, already it has suffered the “dividing state” land loss because of previous Indian governments and their lack of true justice decisions in the rightful favour of Punjabi Sikh people. If the Indian government of the past and present do not listen or abide by true International human rights law than the present Indian government should not be surprised by the blossoming of the Khalistan movement and groups who are galvanising support and unbiased justice from the Western World to give them the true justice they and Punjab Sikhs deserve. We at the WHS Group of Companies agree with this as long as it is peacefully resolved and solved without any more bloodshed so that the Sikh Punjabi and Punjab gets the justice they truly deserve and are entitled to. I, Joginder (Jo) Singh Birring will lead and attack without any mercy with my fearless forces and destroy anyone and anything that is Anti-Sikh, Anti-Punjab and Anti-India. We support NO Politician, NO Political Party. The best of the west with the egoless east so that more peace prevails without any more bloodshed so that innocent children grow into more sane sensible adults taking care of this World without anymore wars or racial discrimination. The selfish politicians around the World come into power for 4-5 years and destroy the fabrics of peaceful peoples and their children’s lives and unbiased justice filled societies. The blossoming of Khalistan Movement and groups is solely the responsibility of the previous Indian governments and Modi’s BJP Government has a chance to peacefully and lawfully solve this mess permanently.
A new hub: Italy - Khalistan
In Italy Intel our WHS Group C8I IND Humint teams with trusted L.T.I (Local True Intelligence) Sources have confirmed the following: ‘Khalistani’ asylum seekers are reportedly arriving in hordes in Italy, claiming ‘persecution by India’.
Naples, Italy: According to our WHS Group C8I IND Humint squad and local L.T.I (Local True Intelligence) Unit teams, since the last couple of months, a steady stream of Sikh asylum seeker has been arriving every day at the local offices. They arrive mainly by boat, in most cases already carrying a petition written by a local lawyer. And all of them declare to be ‘persecuted in India’, being members of the ‘Khalistan Movement’.
According to our same local L.T.I (Local True Intelligence) Unit team, it is a totally new phenomenon. Earlier, Sikhs would mainly come as economic migrants or to join their families already working and living in Italy. The stream of asylum seekers in the past few months is big enough to have been noticed by the people working every day at the refugee offices, and to puzzle them. There are no official data yet about the number of requests being actually accepted by the Italian authorities, but most likely, they will accept almost all requests – mainly because in Italy, the concept of ‘Sikh militancy’ is widely unknown.
Sikhs in Italy: A Traditionally Well-integrated Group
In Italy, there are about 70,000 persons of Sikh religion, mainly coming from Indian Punjab: the biggest minority community in Europe after the Sikh group in the UK. They settled in Italy mostly during the ‘80s and ‘90s, when the lack of local workers for the agricultural and food sectors had deeply affected many local companies. The communities settled mainly in the Po valley in the North, and in the Agro Pontino area near Rome, soon becoming essential for the production and development of many ‘Italian excellences’, including the production of Parmesan cheese. Many representatives of the Sikh community, for at least the past two years, have regularly been joining demonstrations organised by Pakistan in support of Kashmir, or simply against India, carrying placards with ‘Khalistan Khalsa’ written on them. And members of Sikh organisations banned in India, like ‘Sikhs for Justice’, advocating a separatist referendum, are now very active in Italy.
Referendum 2020: Myth or Substance?
A US-based group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) has planned REFERENDUM-2020 in support of a separate state of Khalistan, throwing the Indian establishment in panic. According to SFJ legal adviser Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, they will certainly build Khalistan. Reports have revealed that most gurdwaras in the US and Canada have started campaigns for the referendum. Pannu, as per the Indian media, says that the SFJ would hold an unofficial referendum in 2020 and would follow the matter after taking into account the response it gets. If required, the SFJ will seek the United Nation’s intervention to help the community conduct a referendum for a separate Sikh state. “If Scotland can have a referendum to stay with Britain or not, why can’t we have one for Punjab?” questions Pannu. Asked about the boundary of the separate state, he said it would be the present boundary of the state of Punjab in India. on the other hand, Dr Amarjit Singh, the president of the Khalistan Affairs Centre, wants the new state at all costs. He stated: “Why are we giving the option by way of a referendum? We need Khalistan because the Sikhs have been suffering since the rule of (Maharaja) Ranjit Singh (the last Sikh ruler) got over.”
“The referendum asks Sikhs living across the world to build a consensus in favour of Khalistan and sign a declaration for the formation of a sovereign and independent country in India-occupied Punjab on the basis that Sikhs are the indigenous people of Punjab and have a historical homeland, are a separate religion and have the right to self-determination.” The referendum also asks Sikhs to reject article 25(B)(2) of Constitution that says Sikhs are a part of the Hindu religion. The Indian security establishment is deeply worried as the Khalistan idea is generating deep interest in East Punjab mostly inhabited by Sikhs. It believes there is a wave of radicalization among young Sikhs, who are moving towards another independence movement since 1984. The Indian security agencies have claimed of busting six Khalistan terror modules and arresting 23 terrorists with a small arsenal of weapons. They believe that the Khalistan movement was regenerated following the desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib in Faridkot’s Bargari village on October 12, 2015. More than 150 such incidents of desecration of Guru Granth Sahib have occurred in East Punjab, deeply upsetting the population. The consequent protests and demonstrations have been poorly tackled by the police and agencies, increasing the chasm between the Sikhs and Indian state.
Other reasons why Sikhs support Khalistan is the Anand marriage act that is still not applied on Sikhs, who are still forced to marry under Hindu marriage act, Sikh political prisoners are not released even after they have completed their punishment and police injustice. The police are accused of killing hundreds of innocent Sikhs extrajudically, whose mass graves were also found. It is also advocated that the majority Sikh state would foster Sikhism in a better manner.
Opinion Express News has reached out to Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to request comment on how they would handle the matter if they find themselves in the prime minister’s seat come 2020. Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, SFJ’s legal adviser, said his group is indifferent to how the Canadian and Indian governments view the referendum. “We’re not asking any political party or any Member of Parliament for their support, “This referendum is not for the political leaders, this is for the Punjabi community. “The [Indian Prime Minister]Narendra Modi government or the Canadian government can agree or not, but we have a right to voice our concerns. We have a right to ask for our rights to self-determination.” The Indian government has been steadfast in its opposition to the creation of an independent Khalistan, and has been particularly vociferous in trying to curtail SFJ’s activities. In early August, the country’s minister of external affairs asked U.K. authorities to deny SFJ permission to hold a gathering in London’s Trafalgar Square. The U.K. rebuffed the request, however, and SFJ held an Aug. 12 gathering in which it issued its so- called “London Declaration” demanding a Khalistan referendum.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs described the campaign as “a separatist activity which impinges on India’s territorial integrity” and “seeks to propagate violence, secessionism and hatred.” Pannu urged Canadian political leaders to resist caving into any pressure from the Indian government to stifle the Khalistan movement. “The United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights gives all people the right to self-determination. The Canadians have given that right openly to the Quebecois, the British have given it to the Scottish,” he said. “They should not [compromise] their principles and human rights values because they’re afraid of economic sanctions if they stand with the Sikh community or go against the wishes of the Indian government that’s how India pushed Trudeau by saying that Canada will lose economically if they support the referendum campaign.” Pannun said the Khalistan campaign is justified because it seeks simply to re-establish a state that existed from 1799 to 1849, when it was annexed by the British.
The Punjabi Sikhs have always fought, died and lived for truths so for them these wise words flow in their bloodstreams for generations. The present Indian government should lawfully peacefully and truthfully solve the local Punjab issues. A more united people of India will raise the flag of India with more peaceful pride across the World. We can only express, serve and deliver our best to peaceful innocent people irrespective of one’s country culture or religious beliefs as the true universal forces bless and guide us forward. We only lose 100% when we stop breathing, however our wise words, breaths of peaceful true life and fearless fighting warrior ways still will be in the air of this World and will be understood/read and breathed by good people who believe as well as treasure Humanity which they will pass on to their innocent children, the next generation on this Earth. It is an utter shame that human beings of today have lost touch with the teachings of peaceful sages, spiritual leaders and the great true teachings of the essence of peace love life and the planet. The Sikhs have always fought, died and lived for truths so for them these wise words flow in their bloodstreams for generations. India united peacefully is the only path forward if India is to survive in 21ST century without being invaded or destroyed by the western funded enemies “Trojan horse” groups in India that we at The WHS Group of Companies know of which are supported by the NRIs/POIs individuals and their western-based companies operating in India.
The Punjabi Sikhs are Fearless Lions, Peaceful Warriors and Firm Believers in the Guru Granth Sahib. They believe in and live by the peaceful wise words of Guru Nanak Dev Ji - “Before becoming a Muslim, a Sikh, a Hindu or a Christian let’s become a Human first”. It is not hard to make a decision when you know what your “True” values are!!
The Global Chairman Group President of The World Homeland Security/Smartechno Group of Companies. www.worldhomelandsecurity.one
The reason that Urdu proliferated and got promoted was owing to its secular character and a universal base in India and abroad. Today it happens to be one of the most popular of all international languages
Badi ashrafiat hei zabaan mein. Nawabi ka maza deti hai Urdu faqiri mein (The Urdu language is so aristocratic that it makes even a pauper feel like a king).”
Urdu, an Indo-Aryan language, is renowned for its candour and timelessness. It goes without saying that since time immemorial, Urdu had been the lingua franca of Sindh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, undivided Bengal, Punjab, Doaba and so on, besides being the language of the heart and soul, as emphasised by the Hindi littérateur-cum-Education Minister of India, Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, at the inauguration of a two-day webinar titled, The role and responsibility of Urdu writers in the age of electronic and social media.
Speaking during the webinar organised by the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), Pokhriyal emphasised that Urdu is a language of not only a composite culture, syncretism and interfaith bonds but also of humaneness.
Thankfully, Urdu has kept up with the times and become a techno-savvy language with soft copies of hundreds of books being available on apps. However, as social and electronic media is the biggest platform for the dissemination of information these days, it is the responsibility of all connoisseurs and littérateurs to ensure that Urdu makes its presence felt there.
According to eminent Urdu professor Zaman Azurdah, writers, poets and authors are the eyes of the entire social, religious and political system and they have a huge responsibility towards lovers of language and literature. Hence, they have to be positive and shed all negativity. And as the most powerful source of information is the social and electronic media, like the authors, poets and journalists of other languages, Urdu writers, too, must toe the line of the internet. Fortunately, many of them are already connecting globally via smartphones and computers and taking the language to the masses.
Even before the advent of Muslims in India, the country was connected historically, culturally, politically and commercially via Arabic, Persian and Turkish influences to the Middle East and other countries, including Iran, Sudan and Turkey. After Muslims settled in India, the conglomeration of people of various cultures speaking a variety of languages like Rekhta, Hindavi and ultimately, Urdu, came into being.
This intermingling was also known as lashkar (group). The purpose of all the Indian and international languages is to achieve the fraternal spirit. Urdu is a beautiful language born out of the conglomeration of Hindu, Muslim and even English cultural backgrounds.
Dr Humra Parveen, Department of Mass Communication, AMU, says that Urdu happens to be the language of the conglomerate tradition and culture of India that, after being acquired by the Khanqahs, educational institutions and the official world, also became the language of commerce. During the times of Mohammed Shah and Quli Qutub Shah, it became the Government’s language. At that time, it was, in fact, the most popular language and owing to its poetic exuberance and ease of learning (which it is even today), Urdu replaced Persian.
The cultural and artistic tone and tenor of Urdu has been depicted generously in multifarious forms, including the Mushaira (poetic gathering), Marsiahkhwani (elegy) Ghazal (poetry recitation), Qawwali (chorus), Dastangoi (storytelling), Chahar Bait (poetry competition) and so on, besides other art forms like drama.
The reason that Urdu proliferated and got promoted was owing to its secular character and a universal base in India and abroad. Today it happens to be one of the most popular of all international languages. Not only that, Urdu is the voice of the sub-continent and has become an important link language for South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
In India alone, as per Government records, Urdu is the mother tongue of more than 70 million people. However, an equal number of Urdu-knowing people are spread all over the nation. In the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir, Urdu is the first language while in other States like Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, it has been recognised as the second language.
Nevertheless, there are some other areas where people have recorded Urdu to be their mother tongue, like Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Rajasthan. So far as the linguistic link of Urdu is concerned, its family includes Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic and Dravidian languages like Telugu and Kannada.
Owing to its historicity, linguistic appeal, cultural multiplicity and literary taste, it doesn’t have any religion or region. Connoisseurs of Urdu are found around the world. Besides, another salient feature of Urdu has been its linkage to the dialects. Writers, especially from Punjab, Kashmir, Maharashtra, Telangana and Karnataka, have also glorified the language globally.
All languages are beautiful and have their own charm and distinct persona, but Urdu, in particular, is sweet and poetic and at the same time, very adaptable. If a language can be developed through a combination of seven languages, what can be more flexible and welcoming? Many foreigners ask to hear Urdu, and when they do, their first reaction is: It is so soft and easy on the ears.
Phonologically, Urdu sounds are the same as those of Hindi except for slight variations in short vowel allophones. Urdu also retains a complete set of aspirated stops (sounds pronounced with a sudden release with an audible breath), a characteristic of Indo-Aryan, as well as retroflex stops.
It does not retain the complete range of Perso-Arabic consonants, despite its heavy borrowing from that tradition. From the grammatical point of view, there is not much difference between Hindi and Urdu. One distinction is that Urdu uses more Perso-Arabic prefixes and suffixes than Hindi.
Another interesting aspect of Urdu is that it has incorporated in itself the idioms and clichés of other Indian languages like Punjabi, Hindi, Marathi, Sindhi, Hindi, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Pushto, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Kashmiri, Telugu and Kannada. In fact, the inner spirit of Urdu is Sanskrit and it has been connected to it. Same is the case with many foreign languages, like Arabic, Persian, Turkish, English, Uzbek and Nepali that have gelled quite well with Urdu. It is assured that if a language has viable connects with the other tongues, the result is a very pleasant one, basically indicating an intermingling of and respect for cultures. In this regard, it is pertinent to mention that Urdu is a window to the cultural heritage of India. It makes us introspect as it is a language of a composite culture and joins broken hearts.
The NCPUL has been promoting Urdu on a pan-India basis by conducting seminars, workshops on calligraphy, graphic designing, e-books, Urdu media and other topics, besides teaching of Urdu, Persian and Arabic to people from all cross-sections of society and bringing out of Urdu magazines. Till such organisations are there and the language uses technology to propagate itself on social and electronic media, Urdu will live on in the hearts and minds of people.
(The writer is the Chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University and grandnephew of Bharat Ratna Maulana Azad)
FREE Download
OPINION EXPRESS MAGAZINE
Offer of the Month