Sujit Chakraborty October 01, 2005 14:01 IST
A fresh round of peace talks between the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issac-Muivah) and the federal Group of Ministers is all set to begin in Bangkok, Thailand, in the second week of October.
Disclosing this in an exclusive interview to rediff.com, Mani Charenamei, member of Parliament and a Naga leader from Manipur, said the 'Greater Nagaland' issue will certainly be the top agenda during the discussion.
Muivah: I am not happy with India's response
Charenamei asserted that he was working as a facilitator between the government and the Naga underground outfit, headed by its General Secretary Thuingaleng Muivah and Chairman Issac Chishi Swu.
He also urged different Manipuri underground outfits to form a common platform and resume peace talks with the Centre.
The NSCN (I-M), on the other hand, is operating from South Asian territories since nearly four decades. It had entered into a ceasefire agreement with the government in 1997.
The government, on its part, has extended the ceasefire period for another six months after the earlier ceasefire agreement expired on July 31 this year.
While the NSCN insists on its one-point agenda -- the unification of Naga-inhabited areas of the northeast -- the Group of Ministers argue that since the Nagas were never under one administrative area it was not practical to reunite them, or to redraw the region's boundary.
The NSCN (I-M) and their followers want a 'Greater Nagaland' to be created by slicing off four districts from Manipur, (Chandel, Senapati, Tamenglong and Ukhrul), two from Arunachal Pradesh (Tirap and Changlang), and large parts from Assam, including the areas inhabited by the Karbi tribe.
Why talk with a banned outfit: NSCN
However, a majority of people from the three states have strongly reacted against any such move, as they feel that such an attempt would further disintegrate the region and widen the gap between the Indian mainland and the remote northeast.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi along with his counterparts Ibobi Singh and Gegong Apang, from Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh respectively, reiterated, "There can be no compromise on territorial integrity, and we will not accept any formula of sharing even an inch of our land."
Another issue the Group of Ministers is pushing forward is the unification of various Naga factions before arriving at any mutually acceptable formula to end the nearly six-decade-old Naga underground movement.
The NSCN (Khaplang) faction, mainly based in Myanmar, is yet to give its nod to the NSCN (I-M) faction's unification demand. The Khaplang faction has limited influence in the Mon, Tuensang and Makokchung districts of Nagaland.
NSCN general secretary Muivah, a Thangkhul Naga, belongs to Somdel village of Ukhrul district in Manipur. Issac Chishi Swu, the faction's chairman, is a Sema Naga from Dimapur. On the other hand, S S Khaplang is a Naga from Mynamar and his group has a good following among the Konyak, Ao, Sema and other Naga clans. This has been a major roadblock towards the unification of different Naga clans on a single platform.
In fact, Naga society is divided over the leadership issue. Ao and Angami, the two major Naga tribes of Nagaland, are not very keen on having a Thangkhul Naga of Manipur as the supreme Naga leader.
It is an irony that while the NSCN (I-M) insists on achieving a 'Greater Nagalim' by redrawing the northeast boundary, it has so far failed to achieve unity among the different Naga groups.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Friday, September 30, 2005
I was a BNP activist ... and converted to Islam
Muhammad IslamSaturday September 24, 2005The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1575810,00.html
I hated all foreigners but feared Muslims the most. Igrew up in the 1960s in Gateshead, in a predominantlywhite area; I can't remember seeing an Asian facethere. As a family we were not religious. We only wentto weddings, funerals and christenings. I was notinterested in school, either. You didn't need to stayon because you were more or less guaranteed a job inthe mines, steelworks or shipyards.When I was 16, all my friends were British NationalParty activists. It was a cool thing to do, and Ijoined in, too. I wanted to shock, to rebel. We wouldget together, drink, listen to music, chase girls andgo out Paki-bashing. That wasn't a phrase weconsidered bad or wrong.I remember my first time; it was a Saturday night andwe had been drinking. We went into an Asian area andcame across a lad of about 17. We started chanting -the usual thing, "Go back to your own country" - andthen went after him. There were about 10 of us, and wekicked and punched him. When we ran away, I remember,we were laughing. I don't know what happened to him,and at the time I wouldn't have cared: I was in agroup and we had camaraderie.By the time I was 19 I was growing out of the BNP. Imoved to London for work and stopped going tomeetings. But I still hated all foreigners, especiallyMuslims. Over the next few years I became involvedwith people who went to Muslim meetings in Hyde Park,mainly to cause trouble.Then, one day in 1989, I was walking past a secondhandbook stall by the Royal Festival Hall when a covercaught my eye: it was the most beautiful picture, inthe most gorgeous colours, of a building. I didn'tknow what the book was, but it was only 20p so Ibought it. I thought I'd buy a cheap frame and have anice picture for my wall. I had no idea until I gothome that I had bought the Qur'an.I was horrified when I found out. My initial reactionwas to throw it away. But then I got curious. Istarted reading it, thinking I would find things touse against Muslims; I thought it would be filled withcontradictions. When I was young, my mum always madeher views known and from her I acquired a love ofdebating. Now, I would regularly go and debate withMuslims at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. As I did so,I started to get a very different picture of Islam.Seeing people pray in unison was such a powerfulimage.A few years later, I returned to the north-east - I'dgot a job as a chef. When I saw a group of Muslims atan Islamic book stall in Newcastle, I thought, "Here'sanother group I can wind up; I probably know moreabout Islam than they do." But I was shocked when Iapproached them; they were very knowledgeable. I keptgoing back because I enjoyed debating with them, andafter four weeks they challenged me.They wanted me to try to disprove the Qur'an andconvince them my way of life was better. They said ifI succeeded they would become Christians, but if Ifailed I should become a Muslim. I accepted thechallenge. But after months of returning to the stalland debating, I realised I was losing and panicked. Istopped going to the stall.Three years had passed when I bumped into one of theguys from the stall. As I thought about what I wantedto do, I felt as if a big rock were crushing me, butwhen I told him I wanted to convert, I had a totalsense of peace. I made my final decision on WednesdayNovember 17 1996 and converted the following day. Ihave been close to the Hizb ut-Tahrir group eversince: I became a Muslim because of them; they werethe guys at the stall.When I told my family, my sister stopped talking tome. My father was horrified but didn't want to discussit. My mother thought it was a phase I was goingthrough and was more worried about what the neighbourswould think. She now lets me pray in the house, butrefuses to call me Muhammad (I was born John Ord).I met my wife, who is Pakistani, after converting. Welive in Birmingham, where she works as a primaryschool teacher. I have just started a degree in socialwork. When I look back, I can't believe the things Idid; it feels like a different person and a differentlife. Ironically, because of the backlash from theLondon bombings, I now fear attack, and have startedgoing out in my English clothes. In them I look like abearded, middle-aged white guy.
I hated all foreigners but feared Muslims the most. Igrew up in the 1960s in Gateshead, in a predominantlywhite area; I can't remember seeing an Asian facethere. As a family we were not religious. We only wentto weddings, funerals and christenings. I was notinterested in school, either. You didn't need to stayon because you were more or less guaranteed a job inthe mines, steelworks or shipyards.When I was 16, all my friends were British NationalParty activists. It was a cool thing to do, and Ijoined in, too. I wanted to shock, to rebel. We wouldget together, drink, listen to music, chase girls andgo out Paki-bashing. That wasn't a phrase weconsidered bad or wrong.I remember my first time; it was a Saturday night andwe had been drinking. We went into an Asian area andcame across a lad of about 17. We started chanting -the usual thing, "Go back to your own country" - andthen went after him. There were about 10 of us, and wekicked and punched him. When we ran away, I remember,we were laughing. I don't know what happened to him,and at the time I wouldn't have cared: I was in agroup and we had camaraderie.By the time I was 19 I was growing out of the BNP. Imoved to London for work and stopped going tomeetings. But I still hated all foreigners, especiallyMuslims. Over the next few years I became involvedwith people who went to Muslim meetings in Hyde Park,mainly to cause trouble.Then, one day in 1989, I was walking past a secondhandbook stall by the Royal Festival Hall when a covercaught my eye: it was the most beautiful picture, inthe most gorgeous colours, of a building. I didn'tknow what the book was, but it was only 20p so Ibought it. I thought I'd buy a cheap frame and have anice picture for my wall. I had no idea until I gothome that I had bought the Qur'an.I was horrified when I found out. My initial reactionwas to throw it away. But then I got curious. Istarted reading it, thinking I would find things touse against Muslims; I thought it would be filled withcontradictions. When I was young, my mum always madeher views known and from her I acquired a love ofdebating. Now, I would regularly go and debate withMuslims at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. As I did so,I started to get a very different picture of Islam.Seeing people pray in unison was such a powerfulimage.A few years later, I returned to the north-east - I'dgot a job as a chef. When I saw a group of Muslims atan Islamic book stall in Newcastle, I thought, "Here'sanother group I can wind up; I probably know moreabout Islam than they do." But I was shocked when Iapproached them; they were very knowledgeable. I keptgoing back because I enjoyed debating with them, andafter four weeks they challenged me.They wanted me to try to disprove the Qur'an andconvince them my way of life was better. They said ifI succeeded they would become Christians, but if Ifailed I should become a Muslim. I accepted thechallenge. But after months of returning to the stalland debating, I realised I was losing and panicked. Istopped going to the stall.Three years had passed when I bumped into one of theguys from the stall. As I thought about what I wantedto do, I felt as if a big rock were crushing me, butwhen I told him I wanted to convert, I had a totalsense of peace. I made my final decision on WednesdayNovember 17 1996 and converted the following day. Ihave been close to the Hizb ut-Tahrir group eversince: I became a Muslim because of them; they werethe guys at the stall.When I told my family, my sister stopped talking tome. My father was horrified but didn't want to discussit. My mother thought it was a phase I was goingthrough and was more worried about what the neighbourswould think. She now lets me pray in the house, butrefuses to call me Muhammad (I was born John Ord).I met my wife, who is Pakistani, after converting. Welive in Birmingham, where she works as a primaryschool teacher. I have just started a degree in socialwork. When I look back, I can't believe the things Idid; it feels like a different person and a differentlife. Ironically, because of the backlash from theLondon bombings, I now fear attack, and have startedgoing out in my English clothes. In them I look like abearded, middle-aged white guy.
Persian Ramayana, Arabic Gita preserved
http://www.deccan.com/home/homedetails.asp
Hyderabad, Sept. 24: In this age of religious bigotry,many Muslim organisations of the State are workingtirelessly to preserve rare Hindu scriptures. The117-year-old Dairatul Maarif treasures its copy of theArabic version of the Bhagawad Gita, probably the onlyone of its kind in the world. Similarly valued is thePersian Ramayana, estimated to be more than 600 yearsold, which is kept in the library-cum-research centreof the 132-year-old Jamia Nizamia.The Arabic Gita and the Persian Ramayana are merelytwo among the 200-odd rare Hindu religious manuscriptsand books preserved in various Muslim researchinstitutes including madarasas. These organisationstake great care of such manuscripts. The organisationsuse state-of-the-art methods to protect them forposterity. Several manuscripts been digitised and theCD versions are available for scholars of comparativereligion.The Arabic version of the Holy Gita, known as Al Kita,is about 100 years old. The Jamia Nizamia, a deemeduniversity with international recognition, alsopossesses a 500-year-old manuscript of the Mahabharatain Persian. Both these documents have been laminatedand preserved by Nizamia. “They are invaluable,” saidSyed Akbar Nizamuddin, chancellor of Jamia Nizamia.“The Mahabharata manuscript is in bad shape and wehave now carefully hand-laminated it. We have alsomicro-filmed and digitised the scriptures.” Al Kita was published by Dairatul Maarif in thebeginning of the last century on the request of anoble from Kolkata. Its pirated editions are availablein the Gulf countries. Another valuable possession ofthe Daira is the Arabic version of RabindranathTagore’s great Geetanjali.“There’s nothing comm-unal about knowledge,” MuftiKhaleel Ahmad, the grand mufti and vice-chancellor ofthe Nizamia, told this correspondent. “Only people arecommunal. Reading books of different religionsenha-nces one’s understanding. No religion teacheshatred,” the Mufti said.Dozens of researchers visit these libraries to studythe rare documents. The Islamic Academy of ComparativeReligion also has in its possession score of Hindureligious books, including 188 Upanishads, four Vedas,Bhagawad Gi-ta, Valmiki Ramayana, Ma-nusmriti andseveral Pura-nas. It also possesses 30 Bibles inHebrew, Arabic, Urdu, Telugu and Greek. “Luckily, our books are still in good condition,” saidM. Asifuddin, president of IACR. “We have been takinggreat care to preserve them.” Another city Muslimorganisation labouriously preserving Hindu scripturesis the Iqbal Academy. It has rare copies of the Gitaand Mahabharata. The Asafia Library and the HEH NizamTrust’s Library have several Hindu scriptures in Urdu,Persian and Arabic. “Study of different religionswill help prevent misconceptions, hatred andmistrust,” said secretary of the All-India MuslimPer-sonal Law Board Abdul Rahim Qureshi.“We can eradicate social evils by promoting religiousvalues,” Queshi said. Hafiz Shujath Hussain, aresearch scholar poring over the Al Kita, said it washeartening to see Muslim organisations preserve suchrare manuscripts. “We have to take care to keep themsafe for ever,” he said.
Hyderabad, Sept. 24: In this age of religious bigotry,many Muslim organisations of the State are workingtirelessly to preserve rare Hindu scriptures. The117-year-old Dairatul Maarif treasures its copy of theArabic version of the Bhagawad Gita, probably the onlyone of its kind in the world. Similarly valued is thePersian Ramayana, estimated to be more than 600 yearsold, which is kept in the library-cum-research centreof the 132-year-old Jamia Nizamia.The Arabic Gita and the Persian Ramayana are merelytwo among the 200-odd rare Hindu religious manuscriptsand books preserved in various Muslim researchinstitutes including madarasas. These organisationstake great care of such manuscripts. The organisationsuse state-of-the-art methods to protect them forposterity. Several manuscripts been digitised and theCD versions are available for scholars of comparativereligion.The Arabic version of the Holy Gita, known as Al Kita,is about 100 years old. The Jamia Nizamia, a deemeduniversity with international recognition, alsopossesses a 500-year-old manuscript of the Mahabharatain Persian. Both these documents have been laminatedand preserved by Nizamia. “They are invaluable,” saidSyed Akbar Nizamuddin, chancellor of Jamia Nizamia.“The Mahabharata manuscript is in bad shape and wehave now carefully hand-laminated it. We have alsomicro-filmed and digitised the scriptures.” Al Kita was published by Dairatul Maarif in thebeginning of the last century on the request of anoble from Kolkata. Its pirated editions are availablein the Gulf countries. Another valuable possession ofthe Daira is the Arabic version of RabindranathTagore’s great Geetanjali.“There’s nothing comm-unal about knowledge,” MuftiKhaleel Ahmad, the grand mufti and vice-chancellor ofthe Nizamia, told this correspondent. “Only people arecommunal. Reading books of different religionsenha-nces one’s understanding. No religion teacheshatred,” the Mufti said.Dozens of researchers visit these libraries to studythe rare documents. The Islamic Academy of ComparativeReligion also has in its possession score of Hindureligious books, including 188 Upanishads, four Vedas,Bhagawad Gi-ta, Valmiki Ramayana, Ma-nusmriti andseveral Pura-nas. It also possesses 30 Bibles inHebrew, Arabic, Urdu, Telugu and Greek. “Luckily, our books are still in good condition,” saidM. Asifuddin, president of IACR. “We have been takinggreat care to preserve them.” Another city Muslimorganisation labouriously preserving Hindu scripturesis the Iqbal Academy. It has rare copies of the Gitaand Mahabharata. The Asafia Library and the HEH NizamTrust’s Library have several Hindu scriptures in Urdu,Persian and Arabic. “Study of different religionswill help prevent misconceptions, hatred andmistrust,” said secretary of the All-India MuslimPer-sonal Law Board Abdul Rahim Qureshi.“We can eradicate social evils by promoting religiousvalues,” Queshi said. Hafiz Shujath Hussain, aresearch scholar poring over the Al Kita, said it washeartening to see Muslim organisations preserve suchrare manuscripts. “We have to take care to keep themsafe for ever,” he said.
Sake Dean Mahomed: The man who opened Britain's first curry house, nearly 200 yars ago
Martin Hickman looks at the extraordinary man who spiced up the life of an entire nation
Published: 30 September 2005
Diners tucking into beef madras in the country's curry houses tonight may not appreciate their debt to one Sake Dean Mahomed. Almost 200 years before the Indian restaurant became a fixture on the British high street, Mahomed, a Muslim soldier, founded the first curry establishment in Britain, the Hindoostane Coffee House in Portman Square, London. It gave the gentry of Georgian England their first taste of spicy dishes.
Two centuries later, the British are still in love with dishes flavoured with cumin, coriander, ginger, fenugreek, cayenne pepper and caraway. We spend an extraordinary £2.5bn in Indian restaurants every year.
Around 80 per cent of "Indian" restaurants are actually owned by Bangladeshis, and their cuisine derives not just from India but Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. And curry describes not just one dish, but a meal and the cooking of an entire subcontinent.
Increasingly, we eat curries not just in restaurants but in our own living rooms; in takeaways; from supermarkets and, on occasion, those that we have rustled up ourselves having roasted the spices and mashed them in a pestle and mortar. But it is the Indian restaurant that captures the imagination - and in particular the remarkable story of how an immigrant cuisine conquered an indigenous food in just decades.
By 1939, there were six Indian restaurants in Britain, but Indians arriving to help with the rebuilding of London after the Blitz sowed the seeds of our obsession. Initially migrant workers established cafés and canteens for their own communities, but enterprising Bangladeshis soon began to open restaurants for the natives. They catered to what they thought the British wanted: waiters in dinner jackets, red flock wallpaper and crisp white table linen.
"It was something the working man had never seen, and it was in a back street at a price that everyone could afford," says Pat Chapman, who runs the Curry Club, which has 5,000 members. "It tasted great, was cheap and was mildly addictive." By 1982 there were 3,500 Indian restaurants in Britain, and in the last 20 years their numbers have more than doubled - expanding from cities to almost every small town in the country. There are now about 8,500 Indian restaurants in the UK, and, reputedly, there more Indian chefs in London than in Delhi.
The curry has entered national consciousness to the extent that Robin Cook suggested four years ago that chicken tikka masala had become the national dish. It is certainly the best-selling curry in Indian restaurants, and is favoured by 16 per cent of diners.
As tastes have developed, so a new type of Indian restaurant has sprung up. A more entrepreneurial breed of Indian businessmen is determined to move the curry house up-market, with more regionalised menus and posher wine lists. Plush establishments such as Tamarind in Mayfair and Zaika in Kensington are far removed from the back-street curry house beloved of the post-pub brigade.
At the Cinnamon Club in Westminster, for instance, MPs and businessmen can spend £60 a head eating dishes like Rajasthani goat curry with garlic, chilli and cloves in the rarefied atmosphere of a converted Victorian library. Vivek Singh, the restaurant's executive chef, says: "People now are becoming a lot more sophisticated. There's an understanding of the more subtle use of spices."
Singh claims that the biggest challenge facing Indian restaurants is to innovate in order to see off the threat posed by other world cuisines. Indian food's very success could cause its downfall. Emboldened by our enjoyment of curry, Britons have begun to explore Thai, Mexican, Japanese and even Mongolian and Vietnamese food.
"I think [Indian food] has had its hey-day," says Singh. "Hereafter the way forward is how it's going to be established and now it's going to be driven by what kind of creativity and imagination going into it."
A survey published by Mintel in April suggested that the Indian home food market had fallen back from £500m a year in 2003 to £490m in 2005. But Pat Chapman is not convinced that the Indian food boom is ending. The number of restaurants has stabilised in the last few years, he says, but the average establishment has grown in size.
There have, though, been unwelcome headlines about the quality of food in some Indian restaurants, and in particular about the use of food dyes and flavour enhancers. An investigation by Surrey Trading Standards officers last year found that half of the restaurants they visited were using "illegal and potentially dangerous" levels of food dye in chicken tikka masala. Only 44 of the dishes they sampled from 102 restaurants were within legal limits for tartrazine (E102) and other E-numbers.
Problems with additives would not have been uppermost in the mind of Sake Dean Mahomed, the originator of the British curry house. Yesterday, the Lord Mayor of Westminster recognised the heroic culinary achievement of Mahomed and focused attention on his turbulent life and times by unveiling a plaque marking the spot where his first restaurant stood, at 102 George Street.
Like the spices that he popularised, Mahomed travelled from the Indian subcontinent to take a special - and historic - place in English society. As an 11-year-old he entered the East India Company Army in 1769, rising to the rank of captain. He became best friends with a Captain Godfrey Baker and accompanied him on his return to Ireland via Dartmouth.
In Cork, Mahomed became Captain Baker's house manager. There, he married Jane Daly, the daughter of a wealthy Irish family, and wrote The Travels of Dean Mahomed, the first book in English published by an Indian. He went on to become an assistant to Sir Basil Cochrane, a wealthy former employee, or "nabob", of the East India Company. Ever enterprising, Mahomed is reputed to have introduced shampoo to England while working working at Sir Basil's "vapour bath" in Portman Square.
In 1810, Mahomed opened his Indian restaurant, which The Epicures Almanak of the day described as a place "for the nobility and Gentry, where they might enjoy the Hookha with real Chilm tobacco and Indian dishes of the highest perfection".
Alas, Mahomed appeared to be at least a century ahead of his time. He was declared bankrupt in 1812 and was forced to advertise his services as a valet to wealthy gentlemen.
In a footnote to the curry story, he revived his career by opening special treatment baths in Brighton, where he became "shampoo surgeon" to the dandyish Prince of Wales, George IV, and then to William IV. He published another book, Shampooing or Benefits Resulting from the use of Indian Medical Vapour Bath in 1822, which became a bestseller. He died in December 1850. A tombstone in St Nicholas' churchyard in Brighton marks the last resting place of Britain's first Indian restaurateur. It reads simply: "Sake Dean Mahomed of Patna Hindoostan."
Diners tucking into beef madras in the country's curry houses tonight may not appreciate their debt to one Sake Dean Mahomed. Almost 200 years before the Indian restaurant became a fixture on the British high street, Mahomed, a Muslim soldier, founded the first curry establishment in Britain, the Hindoostane Coffee House in Portman Square, London. It gave the gentry of Georgian England their first taste of spicy dishes.
Two centuries later, the British are still in love with dishes flavoured with cumin, coriander, ginger, fenugreek, cayenne pepper and caraway. We spend an extraordinary £2.5bn in Indian restaurants every year.
Around 80 per cent of "Indian" restaurants are actually owned by Bangladeshis, and their cuisine derives not just from India but Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. And curry describes not just one dish, but a meal and the cooking of an entire subcontinent.
Increasingly, we eat curries not just in restaurants but in our own living rooms; in takeaways; from supermarkets and, on occasion, those that we have rustled up ourselves having roasted the spices and mashed them in a pestle and mortar. But it is the Indian restaurant that captures the imagination - and in particular the remarkable story of how an immigrant cuisine conquered an indigenous food in just decades.
By 1939, there were six Indian restaurants in Britain, but Indians arriving to help with the rebuilding of London after the Blitz sowed the seeds of our obsession. Initially migrant workers established cafés and canteens for their own communities, but enterprising Bangladeshis soon began to open restaurants for the natives. They catered to what they thought the British wanted: waiters in dinner jackets, red flock wallpaper and crisp white table linen.
"It was something the working man had never seen, and it was in a back street at a price that everyone could afford," says Pat Chapman, who runs the Curry Club, which has 5,000 members. "It tasted great, was cheap and was mildly addictive." By 1982 there were 3,500 Indian restaurants in Britain, and in the last 20 years their numbers have more than doubled - expanding from cities to almost every small town in the country. There are now about 8,500 Indian restaurants in the UK, and, reputedly, there more Indian chefs in London than in Delhi.
The curry has entered national consciousness to the extent that Robin Cook suggested four years ago that chicken tikka masala had become the national dish. It is certainly the best-selling curry in Indian restaurants, and is favoured by 16 per cent of diners.
As tastes have developed, so a new type of Indian restaurant has sprung up. A more entrepreneurial breed of Indian businessmen is determined to move the curry house up-market, with more regionalised menus and posher wine lists. Plush establishments such as Tamarind in Mayfair and Zaika in Kensington are far removed from the back-street curry house beloved of the post-pub brigade.
At the Cinnamon Club in Westminster, for instance, MPs and businessmen can spend £60 a head eating dishes like Rajasthani goat curry with garlic, chilli and cloves in the rarefied atmosphere of a converted Victorian library. Vivek Singh, the restaurant's executive chef, says: "People now are becoming a lot more sophisticated. There's an understanding of the more subtle use of spices."
Singh claims that the biggest challenge facing Indian restaurants is to innovate in order to see off the threat posed by other world cuisines. Indian food's very success could cause its downfall. Emboldened by our enjoyment of curry, Britons have begun to explore Thai, Mexican, Japanese and even Mongolian and Vietnamese food.
"I think [Indian food] has had its hey-day," says Singh. "Hereafter the way forward is how it's going to be established and now it's going to be driven by what kind of creativity and imagination going into it."
A survey published by Mintel in April suggested that the Indian home food market had fallen back from £500m a year in 2003 to £490m in 2005. But Pat Chapman is not convinced that the Indian food boom is ending. The number of restaurants has stabilised in the last few years, he says, but the average establishment has grown in size.
There have, though, been unwelcome headlines about the quality of food in some Indian restaurants, and in particular about the use of food dyes and flavour enhancers. An investigation by Surrey Trading Standards officers last year found that half of the restaurants they visited were using "illegal and potentially dangerous" levels of food dye in chicken tikka masala. Only 44 of the dishes they sampled from 102 restaurants were within legal limits for tartrazine (E102) and other E-numbers.
Problems with additives would not have been uppermost in the mind of Sake Dean Mahomed, the originator of the British curry house. Yesterday, the Lord Mayor of Westminster recognised the heroic culinary achievement of Mahomed and focused attention on his turbulent life and times by unveiling a plaque marking the spot where his first restaurant stood, at 102 George Street.
Like the spices that he popularised, Mahomed travelled from the Indian subcontinent to take a special - and historic - place in English society. As an 11-year-old he entered the East India Company Army in 1769, rising to the rank of captain. He became best friends with a Captain Godfrey Baker and accompanied him on his return to Ireland via Dartmouth.
In Cork, Mahomed became Captain Baker's house manager. There, he married Jane Daly, the daughter of a wealthy Irish family, and wrote The Travels of Dean Mahomed, the first book in English published by an Indian. He went on to become an assistant to Sir Basil Cochrane, a wealthy former employee, or "nabob", of the East India Company. Ever enterprising, Mahomed is reputed to have introduced shampoo to England while working working at Sir Basil's "vapour bath" in Portman Square.
In 1810, Mahomed opened his Indian restaurant, which The Epicures Almanak of the day described as a place "for the nobility and Gentry, where they might enjoy the Hookha with real Chilm tobacco and Indian dishes of the highest perfection".
Alas, Mahomed appeared to be at least a century ahead of his time. He was declared bankrupt in 1812 and was forced to advertise his services as a valet to wealthy gentlemen.
In a footnote to the curry story, he revived his career by opening special treatment baths in Brighton, where he became "shampoo surgeon" to the dandyish Prince of Wales, George IV, and then to William IV. He published another book, Shampooing or Benefits Resulting from the use of Indian Medical Vapour Bath in 1822, which became a bestseller. He died in December 1850. A tombstone in St Nicholas' churchyard in Brighton marks the last resting place of Britain's first Indian restaurateur. It reads simply: "Sake Dean Mahomed of Patna Hindoostan."
Published: 30 September 2005
Diners tucking into beef madras in the country's curry houses tonight may not appreciate their debt to one Sake Dean Mahomed. Almost 200 years before the Indian restaurant became a fixture on the British high street, Mahomed, a Muslim soldier, founded the first curry establishment in Britain, the Hindoostane Coffee House in Portman Square, London. It gave the gentry of Georgian England their first taste of spicy dishes.
Two centuries later, the British are still in love with dishes flavoured with cumin, coriander, ginger, fenugreek, cayenne pepper and caraway. We spend an extraordinary £2.5bn in Indian restaurants every year.
Around 80 per cent of "Indian" restaurants are actually owned by Bangladeshis, and their cuisine derives not just from India but Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. And curry describes not just one dish, but a meal and the cooking of an entire subcontinent.
Increasingly, we eat curries not just in restaurants but in our own living rooms; in takeaways; from supermarkets and, on occasion, those that we have rustled up ourselves having roasted the spices and mashed them in a pestle and mortar. But it is the Indian restaurant that captures the imagination - and in particular the remarkable story of how an immigrant cuisine conquered an indigenous food in just decades.
By 1939, there were six Indian restaurants in Britain, but Indians arriving to help with the rebuilding of London after the Blitz sowed the seeds of our obsession. Initially migrant workers established cafés and canteens for their own communities, but enterprising Bangladeshis soon began to open restaurants for the natives. They catered to what they thought the British wanted: waiters in dinner jackets, red flock wallpaper and crisp white table linen.
"It was something the working man had never seen, and it was in a back street at a price that everyone could afford," says Pat Chapman, who runs the Curry Club, which has 5,000 members. "It tasted great, was cheap and was mildly addictive." By 1982 there were 3,500 Indian restaurants in Britain, and in the last 20 years their numbers have more than doubled - expanding from cities to almost every small town in the country. There are now about 8,500 Indian restaurants in the UK, and, reputedly, there more Indian chefs in London than in Delhi.
The curry has entered national consciousness to the extent that Robin Cook suggested four years ago that chicken tikka masala had become the national dish. It is certainly the best-selling curry in Indian restaurants, and is favoured by 16 per cent of diners.
As tastes have developed, so a new type of Indian restaurant has sprung up. A more entrepreneurial breed of Indian businessmen is determined to move the curry house up-market, with more regionalised menus and posher wine lists. Plush establishments such as Tamarind in Mayfair and Zaika in Kensington are far removed from the back-street curry house beloved of the post-pub brigade.
At the Cinnamon Club in Westminster, for instance, MPs and businessmen can spend £60 a head eating dishes like Rajasthani goat curry with garlic, chilli and cloves in the rarefied atmosphere of a converted Victorian library. Vivek Singh, the restaurant's executive chef, says: "People now are becoming a lot more sophisticated. There's an understanding of the more subtle use of spices."
Singh claims that the biggest challenge facing Indian restaurants is to innovate in order to see off the threat posed by other world cuisines. Indian food's very success could cause its downfall. Emboldened by our enjoyment of curry, Britons have begun to explore Thai, Mexican, Japanese and even Mongolian and Vietnamese food.
"I think [Indian food] has had its hey-day," says Singh. "Hereafter the way forward is how it's going to be established and now it's going to be driven by what kind of creativity and imagination going into it."
A survey published by Mintel in April suggested that the Indian home food market had fallen back from £500m a year in 2003 to £490m in 2005. But Pat Chapman is not convinced that the Indian food boom is ending. The number of restaurants has stabilised in the last few years, he says, but the average establishment has grown in size.
There have, though, been unwelcome headlines about the quality of food in some Indian restaurants, and in particular about the use of food dyes and flavour enhancers. An investigation by Surrey Trading Standards officers last year found that half of the restaurants they visited were using "illegal and potentially dangerous" levels of food dye in chicken tikka masala. Only 44 of the dishes they sampled from 102 restaurants were within legal limits for tartrazine (E102) and other E-numbers.
Problems with additives would not have been uppermost in the mind of Sake Dean Mahomed, the originator of the British curry house. Yesterday, the Lord Mayor of Westminster recognised the heroic culinary achievement of Mahomed and focused attention on his turbulent life and times by unveiling a plaque marking the spot where his first restaurant stood, at 102 George Street.
Like the spices that he popularised, Mahomed travelled from the Indian subcontinent to take a special - and historic - place in English society. As an 11-year-old he entered the East India Company Army in 1769, rising to the rank of captain. He became best friends with a Captain Godfrey Baker and accompanied him on his return to Ireland via Dartmouth.
In Cork, Mahomed became Captain Baker's house manager. There, he married Jane Daly, the daughter of a wealthy Irish family, and wrote The Travels of Dean Mahomed, the first book in English published by an Indian. He went on to become an assistant to Sir Basil Cochrane, a wealthy former employee, or "nabob", of the East India Company. Ever enterprising, Mahomed is reputed to have introduced shampoo to England while working working at Sir Basil's "vapour bath" in Portman Square.
In 1810, Mahomed opened his Indian restaurant, which The Epicures Almanak of the day described as a place "for the nobility and Gentry, where they might enjoy the Hookha with real Chilm tobacco and Indian dishes of the highest perfection".
Alas, Mahomed appeared to be at least a century ahead of his time. He was declared bankrupt in 1812 and was forced to advertise his services as a valet to wealthy gentlemen.
In a footnote to the curry story, he revived his career by opening special treatment baths in Brighton, where he became "shampoo surgeon" to the dandyish Prince of Wales, George IV, and then to William IV. He published another book, Shampooing or Benefits Resulting from the use of Indian Medical Vapour Bath in 1822, which became a bestseller. He died in December 1850. A tombstone in St Nicholas' churchyard in Brighton marks the last resting place of Britain's first Indian restaurateur. It reads simply: "Sake Dean Mahomed of Patna Hindoostan."
Diners tucking into beef madras in the country's curry houses tonight may not appreciate their debt to one Sake Dean Mahomed. Almost 200 years before the Indian restaurant became a fixture on the British high street, Mahomed, a Muslim soldier, founded the first curry establishment in Britain, the Hindoostane Coffee House in Portman Square, London. It gave the gentry of Georgian England their first taste of spicy dishes.
Two centuries later, the British are still in love with dishes flavoured with cumin, coriander, ginger, fenugreek, cayenne pepper and caraway. We spend an extraordinary £2.5bn in Indian restaurants every year.
Around 80 per cent of "Indian" restaurants are actually owned by Bangladeshis, and their cuisine derives not just from India but Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. And curry describes not just one dish, but a meal and the cooking of an entire subcontinent.
Increasingly, we eat curries not just in restaurants but in our own living rooms; in takeaways; from supermarkets and, on occasion, those that we have rustled up ourselves having roasted the spices and mashed them in a pestle and mortar. But it is the Indian restaurant that captures the imagination - and in particular the remarkable story of how an immigrant cuisine conquered an indigenous food in just decades.
By 1939, there were six Indian restaurants in Britain, but Indians arriving to help with the rebuilding of London after the Blitz sowed the seeds of our obsession. Initially migrant workers established cafés and canteens for their own communities, but enterprising Bangladeshis soon began to open restaurants for the natives. They catered to what they thought the British wanted: waiters in dinner jackets, red flock wallpaper and crisp white table linen.
"It was something the working man had never seen, and it was in a back street at a price that everyone could afford," says Pat Chapman, who runs the Curry Club, which has 5,000 members. "It tasted great, was cheap and was mildly addictive." By 1982 there were 3,500 Indian restaurants in Britain, and in the last 20 years their numbers have more than doubled - expanding from cities to almost every small town in the country. There are now about 8,500 Indian restaurants in the UK, and, reputedly, there more Indian chefs in London than in Delhi.
The curry has entered national consciousness to the extent that Robin Cook suggested four years ago that chicken tikka masala had become the national dish. It is certainly the best-selling curry in Indian restaurants, and is favoured by 16 per cent of diners.
As tastes have developed, so a new type of Indian restaurant has sprung up. A more entrepreneurial breed of Indian businessmen is determined to move the curry house up-market, with more regionalised menus and posher wine lists. Plush establishments such as Tamarind in Mayfair and Zaika in Kensington are far removed from the back-street curry house beloved of the post-pub brigade.
At the Cinnamon Club in Westminster, for instance, MPs and businessmen can spend £60 a head eating dishes like Rajasthani goat curry with garlic, chilli and cloves in the rarefied atmosphere of a converted Victorian library. Vivek Singh, the restaurant's executive chef, says: "People now are becoming a lot more sophisticated. There's an understanding of the more subtle use of spices."
Singh claims that the biggest challenge facing Indian restaurants is to innovate in order to see off the threat posed by other world cuisines. Indian food's very success could cause its downfall. Emboldened by our enjoyment of curry, Britons have begun to explore Thai, Mexican, Japanese and even Mongolian and Vietnamese food.
"I think [Indian food] has had its hey-day," says Singh. "Hereafter the way forward is how it's going to be established and now it's going to be driven by what kind of creativity and imagination going into it."
A survey published by Mintel in April suggested that the Indian home food market had fallen back from £500m a year in 2003 to £490m in 2005. But Pat Chapman is not convinced that the Indian food boom is ending. The number of restaurants has stabilised in the last few years, he says, but the average establishment has grown in size.
There have, though, been unwelcome headlines about the quality of food in some Indian restaurants, and in particular about the use of food dyes and flavour enhancers. An investigation by Surrey Trading Standards officers last year found that half of the restaurants they visited were using "illegal and potentially dangerous" levels of food dye in chicken tikka masala. Only 44 of the dishes they sampled from 102 restaurants were within legal limits for tartrazine (E102) and other E-numbers.
Problems with additives would not have been uppermost in the mind of Sake Dean Mahomed, the originator of the British curry house. Yesterday, the Lord Mayor of Westminster recognised the heroic culinary achievement of Mahomed and focused attention on his turbulent life and times by unveiling a plaque marking the spot where his first restaurant stood, at 102 George Street.
Like the spices that he popularised, Mahomed travelled from the Indian subcontinent to take a special - and historic - place in English society. As an 11-year-old he entered the East India Company Army in 1769, rising to the rank of captain. He became best friends with a Captain Godfrey Baker and accompanied him on his return to Ireland via Dartmouth.
In Cork, Mahomed became Captain Baker's house manager. There, he married Jane Daly, the daughter of a wealthy Irish family, and wrote The Travels of Dean Mahomed, the first book in English published by an Indian. He went on to become an assistant to Sir Basil Cochrane, a wealthy former employee, or "nabob", of the East India Company. Ever enterprising, Mahomed is reputed to have introduced shampoo to England while working working at Sir Basil's "vapour bath" in Portman Square.
In 1810, Mahomed opened his Indian restaurant, which The Epicures Almanak of the day described as a place "for the nobility and Gentry, where they might enjoy the Hookha with real Chilm tobacco and Indian dishes of the highest perfection".
Alas, Mahomed appeared to be at least a century ahead of his time. He was declared bankrupt in 1812 and was forced to advertise his services as a valet to wealthy gentlemen.
In a footnote to the curry story, he revived his career by opening special treatment baths in Brighton, where he became "shampoo surgeon" to the dandyish Prince of Wales, George IV, and then to William IV. He published another book, Shampooing or Benefits Resulting from the use of Indian Medical Vapour Bath in 1822, which became a bestseller. He died in December 1850. A tombstone in St Nicholas' churchyard in Brighton marks the last resting place of Britain's first Indian restaurateur. It reads simply: "Sake Dean Mahomed of Patna Hindoostan."
11 Killed in Garo Hills Firing by Police
11 killed in Garo hills firing, MBOSE heat refuses to die
SHILLONG, Sept 30: At least 11 people were killed and several others injured when police resorted to firing to disperse mobs which defied prohibitory orders taking out rallies in Tura and Williamnagar in Garo Hills on the MBOSE issue, this morning. However, unofficial reports put the toll at 13.
Official sources said that members of the Joint Action Committee, a conglomerate of the Garo Students’ Union (GSU) and Garo Hills Citizens’ Forum (GHCF), congregated at the Chanmari playground in Tura to hold a public rally. The situation went out of control when the rallyists pelted stones to resist the police lathi charge ordered to control the unruly gathering. To contain the situation police was prompted to open fire, killing five persons on the spot and injuring more than a dozen.
The injured have been rushed to the Tura Civil Hospital. GSU president Andreas Sangma and ASP DP Marak also sustained serious injuries during the melee.
Six people died and 28 others, including police personnel were injured in a similar incident at Williamnagar this afternoon. The incident occurred when police opened fire on protesters rallying behind the GHCF marched to Rongrengre playground remonstrating the Cabinet’s decision on the MBOSE.
Meanwhile curfew has been clamped in Tura and Williamnagar, even as additional security forces have been airlifted to Tura to prevent any fallout of the situation.
Meanwhile, State Home Minister Dr Mukul Sangma said that the police opened fire only after heavy stone pelting on security personnel and the district magistrate.
It may be mentioned here that the week-long night road blockade called by the GSU began in the three districts on September 28 while normal activities resumed after the student body called off its ten-day noncooperation movement on September 27.
The student bodies of Garo hills had made some fresh demands and asked the Meghalaya Government to incorporate them in the MBOSE report. It demanded that the office of the Director (administration) must be in the headquarters besides the office of the Director (accreditation) and Comptroller of Examination, Chief Accounts Officer and Chief Academic Officer.
"There should be no ‘Regional Office, Shillong’ but only ‘MBOSE Office, Shillong’, the GSU said and stressed there was no need of having any Director in MBOSE Office at Shillong. The same may be manned by a joint director, they have been demanding.
SHILLONG, Sept 30: At least 11 people were killed and several others injured when police resorted to firing to disperse mobs which defied prohibitory orders taking out rallies in Tura and Williamnagar in Garo Hills on the MBOSE issue, this morning. However, unofficial reports put the toll at 13.
Official sources said that members of the Joint Action Committee, a conglomerate of the Garo Students’ Union (GSU) and Garo Hills Citizens’ Forum (GHCF), congregated at the Chanmari playground in Tura to hold a public rally. The situation went out of control when the rallyists pelted stones to resist the police lathi charge ordered to control the unruly gathering. To contain the situation police was prompted to open fire, killing five persons on the spot and injuring more than a dozen.
The injured have been rushed to the Tura Civil Hospital. GSU president Andreas Sangma and ASP DP Marak also sustained serious injuries during the melee.
Six people died and 28 others, including police personnel were injured in a similar incident at Williamnagar this afternoon. The incident occurred when police opened fire on protesters rallying behind the GHCF marched to Rongrengre playground remonstrating the Cabinet’s decision on the MBOSE.
Meanwhile curfew has been clamped in Tura and Williamnagar, even as additional security forces have been airlifted to Tura to prevent any fallout of the situation.
Meanwhile, State Home Minister Dr Mukul Sangma said that the police opened fire only after heavy stone pelting on security personnel and the district magistrate.
It may be mentioned here that the week-long night road blockade called by the GSU began in the three districts on September 28 while normal activities resumed after the student body called off its ten-day noncooperation movement on September 27.
The student bodies of Garo hills had made some fresh demands and asked the Meghalaya Government to incorporate them in the MBOSE report. It demanded that the office of the Director (administration) must be in the headquarters besides the office of the Director (accreditation) and Comptroller of Examination, Chief Accounts Officer and Chief Academic Officer.
"There should be no ‘Regional Office, Shillong’ but only ‘MBOSE Office, Shillong’, the GSU said and stressed there was no need of having any Director in MBOSE Office at Shillong. The same may be manned by a joint director, they have been demanding.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
THE HINDU TERRORISTS
The Hindu terrorists
By I.K. Shukla
The Milli Gazette (online edition); September 26, 2005
Besides the Hindu terrorists from the well-established training camps in India under the saffronazis, other Hindu mercenaries too are active all over from Ayodhya to Kashmir. The infamous comment made by Lal Kishenchand Advani, the ex-Home Minister of the expired BJP-led NDA government, that Bajrangis being terrorists is a joke, only spurred the brutes of Bajrang Dal in their crime spree. Dara Singh, a Bajrangi, had successfully terrorized Orissa by burning alive Pastor Graham Staines and his two sons.Advani’s clean chit to the Dal in the wake of this heinous crime made him look more an ogre than a sentient human. George Fernandes, the then Defense Minister, had called it a foreign conspiracy, not a Hindutva crime. That Hindu terrorists have been the backbone of RSS-VHP-BJP-Bajrang Dal, the communal fascist combine, has been evidenced time and time again. Its so-called “trishul-dikshas” (knife distribution) are naked and subversive paramilitary training camps for its militias. Not only are the enlistees given their arms and training but also incantatory lessons in hate and violence against minorities, who, they are told, have to be bloodily extirpated, in order for the land exclusively to belong to Hindus.This climate of sacred savagery spawned by the saffronazis has successfully spread the miasma of bigoted violence all over. The abundance of firearms freely made available to the HinduTaliban gangsters empowers the anti-socials and prods them to “action”. This is an investment towards routine training in ethnic cleansing and eventually establishing Hindu Rashtra, envisaged by Savarkar and Golwalkar, the prime mentors of assassins, arsonists, thugs and rapists “serving the cause of Hindutva”.A glimpse of the climate of Hindu crimes rampant is in order. An article, titled Gujarat 2002 Visits Gohana [Haryana] by Shamsul Islam (Milli Gazette,16-30 Sep. 05, p.8, New Delhi) lays out “Similarities with Gujarat 2002 Carnage”:
• “Dalit houses and properties were burnt by releasing gas from cylinders. Big and well constructed houses were both looted and burnt whereas smaller houses were only looted. The arsonists carried away moveable properties in carts they had brought with them to transport their booty.
• Police and law and order machinery stood as mock spectators.
• Only Dalit properties were targeted. If there happened to be a non-Dalit property, it was spared, which means the attackers had full knowledge of the identities of the home-owners. For instance, in Arya Nagar which has mixed population, only Dalit houses were blasted. Likewise, at Samta Chowk market (adjacent to Balmiki Basti), out of around 20 shops only a junk-dealer’s shop owned by a Dalit was looted and completely burnt.
• A hate campaign against Dalits preceded the actual attack on Dalits. Dalit localities were declared to be hotbeds of criminals. The local administration did nothing to discourage or check this activity.
• These were not only Hindu Dalit houses which were burnt but also those owned and inhabited by Christian Dalits were similarly looted and burnt.”But the “cause” gets served in many ways else too, unimagined by the manic mentors. Below are just a few examples.
1. Ramesh Pande. He was among the terrorists who stormed the Ayodhya temple on 5 July. The state government rewarded his family with a lakh of rupees ex- gratia. More compensation to family members is said to be under consideration.
2. Doctor S.K.Pandita, charged with sheltering militants in Kashmir, along with Pt. Dalip Kumar, arrested, for financing them. Pandita disclosed he carried messages and ammunition to the militants.
3. Sham Lal and Kirpal Singh, in Rajouri-Poonch, belong to Hizbul Mujahideen and Sanjay to Lashkar-e-Toiba, according to SP J.P.Singh.
4. In 2001, Kuldeep Singh, with seven others, killed in an encounter in Chatter Gali, Doda district. Elder brother Randeep Singh is still a commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Doda Dist.
5. Bharat Kumar, arrested in Satwari, Jammu City, with arms and ammunition. Trained for four years in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
6. Lal Chand, crossed over to POK in 1997, returned to Doda in 2001 after receiving military training there, according to the police.
7. Police arrested a noted Hindu smuggler, involved in Jammu’s Raghunath Temple attack in 2002,
8. On 9 Nov. 2004, Manoj Kumar Manhas, was one of the 47 militants who surrendered to the army. He revealed he was lured into militancy by Baldev Singh, absconding.
9. Uttam Singh, alias Saifulla, 23, a sector commander with Hizbul Kahmir,slain Aug.19 in an encounter in Jammu. Was in Pakistan five years, trained in arms.
10. Virendar Singh, 25, a Hizbul operative, supplied arms and funds to jihadi colleagues in India, captured in New Delhi.
11. Aug. 24, Hizbul militant Chattar Singh, carrying a pistol and grenades, was arrested in Doda.
12. Shakeel Wani, ex-Hizbul militant, now a fruit vendor in Srinagar, said at least 100 Hindu Kashmiri boys had fought against Muslim militants.
13. Attractive Hindu girls luring Hindu youths into terrorism. The issue of27 Aug. 05 Jagran, a Hindi daily, runs this story. Nina, 15, is said to have played an important role in making many Hindu youths terrorists. She sent them across the border for training in arms. From the Chingas area of Rajouri, living with a relative, Joginder Singh, she came in contact with Shamsuddin, the district commander of Hizbul, This discomfited Joginder who sent her away to brother Balwan Singh, but she continued her work securing food and shelter for the terrorists in Gujjar homes. From her the police found out many things.
14. Ravi Kumar, Satwari area, arrested while on his way to the border for trainin
15. Security personnel estimate that the Hindu terrorists may be 500 strong.
By I.K. Shukla
The Milli Gazette (online edition); September 26, 2005
Besides the Hindu terrorists from the well-established training camps in India under the saffronazis, other Hindu mercenaries too are active all over from Ayodhya to Kashmir. The infamous comment made by Lal Kishenchand Advani, the ex-Home Minister of the expired BJP-led NDA government, that Bajrangis being terrorists is a joke, only spurred the brutes of Bajrang Dal in their crime spree. Dara Singh, a Bajrangi, had successfully terrorized Orissa by burning alive Pastor Graham Staines and his two sons.Advani’s clean chit to the Dal in the wake of this heinous crime made him look more an ogre than a sentient human. George Fernandes, the then Defense Minister, had called it a foreign conspiracy, not a Hindutva crime. That Hindu terrorists have been the backbone of RSS-VHP-BJP-Bajrang Dal, the communal fascist combine, has been evidenced time and time again. Its so-called “trishul-dikshas” (knife distribution) are naked and subversive paramilitary training camps for its militias. Not only are the enlistees given their arms and training but also incantatory lessons in hate and violence against minorities, who, they are told, have to be bloodily extirpated, in order for the land exclusively to belong to Hindus.This climate of sacred savagery spawned by the saffronazis has successfully spread the miasma of bigoted violence all over. The abundance of firearms freely made available to the HinduTaliban gangsters empowers the anti-socials and prods them to “action”. This is an investment towards routine training in ethnic cleansing and eventually establishing Hindu Rashtra, envisaged by Savarkar and Golwalkar, the prime mentors of assassins, arsonists, thugs and rapists “serving the cause of Hindutva”.A glimpse of the climate of Hindu crimes rampant is in order. An article, titled Gujarat 2002 Visits Gohana [Haryana] by Shamsul Islam (Milli Gazette,16-30 Sep. 05, p.8, New Delhi) lays out “Similarities with Gujarat 2002 Carnage”:
• “Dalit houses and properties were burnt by releasing gas from cylinders. Big and well constructed houses were both looted and burnt whereas smaller houses were only looted. The arsonists carried away moveable properties in carts they had brought with them to transport their booty.
• Police and law and order machinery stood as mock spectators.
• Only Dalit properties were targeted. If there happened to be a non-Dalit property, it was spared, which means the attackers had full knowledge of the identities of the home-owners. For instance, in Arya Nagar which has mixed population, only Dalit houses were blasted. Likewise, at Samta Chowk market (adjacent to Balmiki Basti), out of around 20 shops only a junk-dealer’s shop owned by a Dalit was looted and completely burnt.
• A hate campaign against Dalits preceded the actual attack on Dalits. Dalit localities were declared to be hotbeds of criminals. The local administration did nothing to discourage or check this activity.
• These were not only Hindu Dalit houses which were burnt but also those owned and inhabited by Christian Dalits were similarly looted and burnt.”But the “cause” gets served in many ways else too, unimagined by the manic mentors. Below are just a few examples.
1. Ramesh Pande. He was among the terrorists who stormed the Ayodhya temple on 5 July. The state government rewarded his family with a lakh of rupees ex- gratia. More compensation to family members is said to be under consideration.
2. Doctor S.K.Pandita, charged with sheltering militants in Kashmir, along with Pt. Dalip Kumar, arrested, for financing them. Pandita disclosed he carried messages and ammunition to the militants.
3. Sham Lal and Kirpal Singh, in Rajouri-Poonch, belong to Hizbul Mujahideen and Sanjay to Lashkar-e-Toiba, according to SP J.P.Singh.
4. In 2001, Kuldeep Singh, with seven others, killed in an encounter in Chatter Gali, Doda district. Elder brother Randeep Singh is still a commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Doda Dist.
5. Bharat Kumar, arrested in Satwari, Jammu City, with arms and ammunition. Trained for four years in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
6. Lal Chand, crossed over to POK in 1997, returned to Doda in 2001 after receiving military training there, according to the police.
7. Police arrested a noted Hindu smuggler, involved in Jammu’s Raghunath Temple attack in 2002,
8. On 9 Nov. 2004, Manoj Kumar Manhas, was one of the 47 militants who surrendered to the army. He revealed he was lured into militancy by Baldev Singh, absconding.
9. Uttam Singh, alias Saifulla, 23, a sector commander with Hizbul Kahmir,slain Aug.19 in an encounter in Jammu. Was in Pakistan five years, trained in arms.
10. Virendar Singh, 25, a Hizbul operative, supplied arms and funds to jihadi colleagues in India, captured in New Delhi.
11. Aug. 24, Hizbul militant Chattar Singh, carrying a pistol and grenades, was arrested in Doda.
12. Shakeel Wani, ex-Hizbul militant, now a fruit vendor in Srinagar, said at least 100 Hindu Kashmiri boys had fought against Muslim militants.
13. Attractive Hindu girls luring Hindu youths into terrorism. The issue of27 Aug. 05 Jagran, a Hindi daily, runs this story. Nina, 15, is said to have played an important role in making many Hindu youths terrorists. She sent them across the border for training in arms. From the Chingas area of Rajouri, living with a relative, Joginder Singh, she came in contact with Shamsuddin, the district commander of Hizbul, This discomfited Joginder who sent her away to brother Balwan Singh, but she continued her work securing food and shelter for the terrorists in Gujjar homes. From her the police found out many things.
14. Ravi Kumar, Satwari area, arrested while on his way to the border for trainin
15. Security personnel estimate that the Hindu terrorists may be 500 strong.
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