… and where does it say he was involved in bomb blasts … please serach again , you have been exposed 
Nothing falls flat here.
Now why is this NOT a surprise!
LTTE look towards India for support
LTTE look towards India for support
Indian sponsored Tamil terror in Sri Lanka continues unabated. In one of the biggest defeats of Indian foreign policy since it was thrown out of Sri Lanka, the Indian Intelligence services that supported the Indian based Tamil Tigers face imminent annihilation. President Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka has reasons to be optimistic. The international rules of the game have changed. India in the 80s wanted to impose a Cypriot like bifurcation of Sri Lanka an Indian beached for the Tamils which would allow India influence to extend to Colombo. Nothing less than total capitulation to New Delhi was acceptable. In 2008 China is building a port in Sri Lanka. Pakistan is supply arms to the legal government of Sri Lanka that happens to be Sinhalese. These arms have had a tremendous impact on the Sri Lankan civil war, and Pakistanis will stand on the podium along with the Sri Lankan brothers and sisters to celebrate the victory of the unification of the island and defeat of Indian imperialism.
The Indian diplomat G. Parathasarathy admitted supporting terrorism in Sri Lanka. He synically recorded his confession “We have learnt our lesson” for backing the terrorist and that “India paid it price for backing the LTTE“. India has not paid a price for the atrocities committed by the LTTE. It needs to pay the price and call the dogs of war off. India is not doing that.
a
Did u expose me or i exposed an Indian terrorist bombing activity in Pakistan! Think again!
I may have mixed up Kashmir Singh with Sarabjeet Singh.But that doesnt change anything coz an indian carried out terrorist activity in Pakistan and thats what i wanted to prove
President rejects Sarbajit Singh’s mercy plea
ISLAMABAD: President Musharraf on Tuesday rejected the mercy plea of an Indian citizen, Sarbajit Singh alias Manjit Singh, who was arrested in 1990 on the charges of espionage and terrorism and awarded death sentence by the LHC in January 2003.
Sarbajit Singh, an agent of Indian intelligence agency RAW, had admitted before the court to changing his name, sometimes as Sarbajit Singh and sometimes as Manjit Singh.
He had also admitted his involvement in bomb blasts and terrorist activities in Pakistan. The Supreme Court also upheld his death sentence. After rejection of mercy plea, his black warrants can be issued any time. staff report.
So you bascially have nothing to prove that Kashmir Singh had anything to do with terrorism ....... and your Sri Lankan story has also been exposed by the countries President ... so dig some more dirt from the internet to keep your "flock" .... you are fast losing them .. in Pakistan too !!!!!!!
keep dreaming troll and keep assuming. Assumptions are what trolls thrive on.
Shame for what. I am a citizen of that country and I am proud of it. Any indian citizen will see how frustrated you guys are. Feel pity for you guys. Honestly!
Yep! Like I said no shame. You are very 'satisfied' of all the evil work of India!!!
Re: India’s Real Face, Exposing The Hindutva Terrorists
Incredible-india-infants-thrown-off-roofs-to-thank-god
Re: India's Real Face, Exposing The Hindutva Terrorists
Even In Flood, India's `Untouchables' Last Rescued
TRIVENIGANJ, India - In the two weeks since a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks, ancient prejudices have run just as deep as the floodwaters. India's "untouchables" are the last to be rescued — if at all — from a deluge that has killed dozens and made 1.2 million homeless.
Dalits, the social outcasts at the bottom of the Hindu caste ladder, have borne the brunt of the devastation as the rampaging Kosi River swamped hundreds of square miles in northern India after it overflowed and shifted its course dozens of miles to the east.
On Sunday, one Dalit, Mohan Parwan ran up and down a half destroyed bridge that has become the headquarters for rescue operations in this town near the border with Nepal, desperately scanning arriving boats for signs of his family.
Dozens came in but each time he was disappointed.
Parwan, 43, is from a Dalit village just 2 miles away but completely cut off by a deep lake created by the swirling waters. As the village headman, he was put on the first rescue boat that came and was promised his wife, four children and the rest of the community would follow.
"It's been six days and since then no boat has come from the village," he said, tears welling in is eyes.
Dalits have long been shunned, holding a status so low they are considered outside the complex caste system that is all pervasive in India, dividing people into hundreds of groups defined by livelihood, class and ethnicity.
Even India's emergence as a global force — fuelled by it's economic growth and high-tech hubs — has failed to break down the barriers and stigmas that hold them down.
When it comes to rescue operations, it appears Dalits are at the bottom, too.
In Triveniganj, Dalits huddled together in a small group at the end of the bridge away from everyone else. They said rescuers were saving the upper castes and the rich first, leaving their people to suffer without food and clean water.
"We are 200 people on a roof for days. Two children fell in and drowned. No one is coming to help us," said Kishore Ram, 22, who got out on one of the few boats to visit his village.
"The officials don't listen to us little people. We can't offer bribes and influence, I'm just a poor student," Ram said.
Hearing about the flood, Prithvi Chand Baswan, a 38-year-old Dalit, rushed home from the neighboring state of Punjab where he works as a farm laborer, searching for his wife and six children, ages 3 to 12. Four miles from home, he was stopped by flooding.
"People from the village say they are sheltering in the temple, but I can't get to them and they won't send a boat for a Dalit village," he said, holding his head in despair.
Ravindra Prasad Singh, a state government official coordinating rescue work in Triveniganj, about 875 miles east of New Delhi, the capital, denied that Dalits were being ignored.
"It's ridiculous. They are lying," he said, but he could not explain why only a single boat of Dalits had come in during all of Sunday afternoon even though they make up more than half the region's people.
*On Monday, other government officials acknowledged there was a serious problem with Dalits being ignored, but said they were working to fix it.
*
"We are aware of these complaints," said Prataya Amrit, a top disaster management official in Bihar state, the scene of the flooding.
Amrit said greater resources were being sent to Dalit majority areas like Triveniganj and army and navy officers were now handling rescues to ensure less abuses.
The military "presence will instill a lot of confidence," he said. "In an operation of this magnitude you can't distinguish between rich and poor."
Officials also commandeered private boats in an effort to prevent richer and higher castes from monopolizing the vessels.
*India's treatment of Dalits is a long and bitter history of good intentions and little progress.
*
Caste discrimination has been outlawed for more than a half century, and a quota system was established with the aim of giving Dalits a fair share of government jobs and places in schools. But their plight remains dire.
Most Dalits, like Parwan, live in destitute villages of rickety mud and thatch huts with no electricity or running water, kept down by ancient prejudice and caste-based politics.
In much of rural India, people from lower castes are barred from using upper-caste drinking wells, kept out of temples and denied spots in village. Ignoring the prohibitions is often met with violence.
In times of calamity, their situation is no better.
"Caste hierarchy is a source of deep emotions in India. In the face of these emotions it is difficult for the law or the army to do anything," said Chandrabhan Prasad, a New Delhi-based caste expert. "The rescuers have their caste loyalty and will try rescue their own first."
Faced with indifference and even hostility from many officials, one group of Dalits gave up waiting for help and waded into the neck-deep water in search of their kin. "What can we do?" Parwan said, after being angrily shooed away by Singh for again asking to be given a boat to help his village.
"I'm just a Harijan," Parwan added, using a euphemism for Dalits coined by Indian pacifist icon Mohandas K. Gandhi. It means "child of God."
Re: India’s Real Face, Exposing The Hindutva Terrorists
BBC NEWS | South Asia | India media hails gay sex ruling
**“Congratulations to Indians, homosexuality is legalized”, as if drinking cow urine wasn’t shameful enough.
**
**India media hails gay sex ruling
**Indian newspaper front page on the court ruling on decriminalising homosexuality
The papers say that the ruling is not ‘the end of the battle’ for homosexuals
The Indian media has hailed a ruling by a court ruling decriminalising homosexuality in the country.
The ruling on Thursday overturns a 148-year-old colonial law which describes a same-sex relationship as an “unnatural offence”.
Homosexual acts were punishable by a 10-year prison sentence.
Many people in India regard same-sex relationships as illegitimate. Rights groups have long argued that the law contravened human rights.
**India’s Gay Day, headlined The Times Of India
**
“..this historic ruling could act as a catalyst, encouraging our legislators to shed their blinkers and take a more progressive view on the issue,” the newspaper said.
“In 21st century India, it is perverse to penalise adults for their sexual choices.”
**‘Giant step’
**
Describing the ruling as a “giant step towards globalisation”, the newspaper said India had become the 127th country “to take the guilt out of homosexuality”.
Gay and finally legal
Mail Today
**It’s okay to be gay, headlined Hindustan Times
**
Section 377 of the colonial Indian Penal Code, defines homosexual acts as “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” and made them illegal.
“It took 150 years for us India - and 42 years after Britain itself had made homosexuality legal- to figure out that we didn’t have a problem with same-sex relationships,” Hindustan Times said.
The newspaper said “homosexuality and heterosexuality aren’t divisive, emotive issues in Middle India - sexuality is, especially when it concerns women and their perceived behaviour in a still male-dominated, anti-woman society at large”.
Sexuality Equality, headlined The Indian Express
“Can a modern democracy intrude upon the private domain of consenting adults on the grounds of ‘moral indignation’?,” the newspaper wondered.
The newspaper said that the Delhi ruling “may not be the last word on the matter”.
Gay people celebrating the India high court ruling in Delhi
Rights groups have long campaigned for a repeal of the law
“But the government must read it for its enlightened constitutionalism”.
Writing in the same newspaper, urban policy analyst Gautam Bhan said the ruling was victory for democratic India.
“The judgement should be seen by all of us, gay or straight, no matter what we think of sexuality and homosexuality, as a victory for a secular, democratic, constitutional and free India,” he wrote.
“We should all be proud”.
Gay and Finally Legal, headlined Mail Today
“Remember that in the end this is a judicial pronouncement that should serve as law only in the absence of legislation,” the newspaper said.
“An overhaul of the law lies in the domain of the Parliament”.
DNA said that the ruling was the “first step” in a “long battle ahead”.
“.. there will be reactions against this judgment. Religious groups have protested. But while their right to a point of view is acceptable, to bring religion into this debate is wholly unnecessary - this has to be a social and legal debate.”
Sexual revolution in India headlined The Asian Age
“The symbolic significance of this judgement is beyond measure,” a writer on the newspaper said.
Re: India’s Real Face, Exposing The Hindutva Terrorists
HINDUISM’S AMAZING METHOD OF TURNING ‘USED’ WOMEN BACK INTO VIRGINS
A sexual ritual is prescribed to purify a woman who has committed sexual sins:
“A woman who has been unchaste should worship Siva in his calm aspect, Siva who is Kama. Then she should summon a Brahmin and give herself to him, thinking, ‘This is Kama who has come for the sake of sexual pleasure.’ And whatever the Brahmin wishes, the sensuous woman should do. For thirteen months she should honour in this way any Brahmin who comes to the house for the sake of sexual pleasures, and there is no immorality in this for noble ladies or prostitutes.” – Matsya Purana 70:40-60; cf. Mahabharata III:2:23.
Re: India’s Real Face, Exposing The Hindutva Terrorists
Shunned from society, widows flock to city to die
By Arwa Damon
CNN
VRINDAVAN, India (CNN) – Ostracized by society, India’s widows flock to the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die. They are found on side streets, hunched over with walking canes, their heads shaved and their pain etched by hundreds of deep wrinkles in their faces.
**These Hindu widows, the poorest of the poor, are shunned from society when their husbands die, not for religious reasons, but because of tradition – and because they’re seen as a financial drain on their families.
They cannot remarry. They must not wear jewelry. They are forced to shave their heads and typically wear white. Even their shadows are considered bad luck.
**Hindus have long believed that death in Vrindavan will free them from the cycle of life and death. For widows, they hope death will save them from being condemned to such a life again. Video Watch how some widows are rebelling »
“Does it feel good?” says 70-year-old Rada Rani Biswas. “Now I have to loiter just for a bite to eat.”
Biswas speaks with a strong voice, but her spirit is broken. When her husband of 50 years died, she was instantly ostracized by all those she thought loved her, including her son.
**"My son tells me: ‘You have grown old. Now who is going to feed you? Go away,’ " she says, her eyes filling with tears. “What do I do? My pain had no limit.”
**As she speaks, she squats in front of one of Vrindavan’s temples, her life reduced to begging for scraps of food.
**There are an estimated 40 million widows in India, the least fortunate of them shunned and stripped of the life they lived when they were married.
**It’s believed that 15,000 widows live on the streets of Vrindavan, a city of about 55,000 in northern India.
“Widows don’t have many social rights within the family,” says Ranjana Kumari with the Center for Social Research, a group that works to empower women.
The situation is much more extreme within India’s rural community. “There, it is much more tradition-bound; in urban areas, there are more chances and possibilities to live a normal life.”
But the majority of India’s 1.1 billion population is rural. “The government recognizes the problem,” Kumari says. “It can do a lot, but it’s not doing enough.”
One woman, a widow herself, is working for change. Dr. Mohini Giri has formed an organization called the Guild of Service, which helps destitute women and children.
Giri’s mother was widowed when Giri was 9 years old, and she saw what a struggle it was. Then, Giri lost her husband when she was 50, enduring the social humiliation that comes with being a widow. At times, she was asked not to attend weddings because her presence was considered bad luck.
**“Generally all widows are ostracized,” she says. “An educated woman may have money and independence, but even that is snatched away when she becomes a widow. We live in a patriarchal society. Men say that culturally as a widow you cannot do anything: You cannot grow your hair, you should not look beautiful.”
**She adds, “It’s the mind-set of society we need to change – not the women.”
Seven years ago, Giri’s organization set up a refuge called Amar Bari, or “My Home,” in Vrindavan. It has become a refuge for about 120 of India’s widows. Giri’s organization is set to open a second home, one that will house another 500 widows.
But as she says, “Mine is but a drop in the bucket.”
At Amar Bari, most widows reject traditional white outfits and grow out their hair. Along the open air corridors that link the house’s courtyard are green wooden doors, leading to dark tiny rooms, home for each widow. Photo See the widows of Vrindavan »
Bent over by osteoporosis, 85-year-old Promita Das meticulously and slowly sweeps the floor just outside her door and then carefully cleans her dishes.
“I came here when I couldn’t work anymore. I used to clean houses,” she says. “Nobody looked after me, nobody loved me. I survived on my own.”
She married at 12 and was widowed at 15. Seventy years later, she finds herself at Amar Bari. “I used to live in front of a temple, but then I came here,” she says.
She carries with her not only the pain of a life without love, but also the loss of her only child. She gave birth at 14; her baby lived a year.
Another widow, Ranu Mukherjee, wearing a bright red-patterned sari, shows off her room at the home and wants to sing for her guests. The lyrics of her song are about a lost traveler.
“When did you come here after losing your way?” she sings. “When I remember the days gone by I feel sad.”
That was not some shady hindu organization our army took on pakistan with aplomb after more than a million refugee entered India seeing pakistani army’s rape and lott and murder spree..
I asked find a hindu organization indulged in bombing anywhere in any country.. last time I che ked that indian army’s chief was chrstian and majority and it has member from all the community.. unless you are suggesting indian army is equivalent to al qaida you have no answered my question
That was not some shady hindu organization our army took on pakistan with aplomb after more than a million refugee entered India seeing pakistani army's rape and lott and murder spree..
I asked find a hindu organization indulged in bombing anywhere in any country.. last time I che ked that indian army's chief was chrstian and majority and it has member from all the community.. unless you are suggesting indian army is equivalent to al qaida you have no answered my question
You Indians have always been fomenting trouble in Paksitan. From the day of its brith in fact. Much of the problems with East Pakistan could be traced to India involvement.
Your Amry was fortunate that the circumstances favored them in 1971. Im sorry if your narrow minded view of Hisotry, prevents you from seeing that. MayBe a real education would help instead of relying on the Hindu propganda you are raised by.
As for rape, I hesitate to remind you because its become nearly futile, but your army commits such crimes regularly in KASHMIR. And Hindus are commiting terror outside of India, hint hint, in KASHMIR...
Atleast on our part we recognize the faults of our nation. You on the other hand openly support the crimes of nation. Thats why we are better then you.
Re: India’s Real Face, Exposing The Hindutva Terrorists
2 Killings Stoke Kashmiri Rage at Indian Force:
By Lydia Polgreen
Shopian, Kashmir, Saturday, August 15, 2009: On a sunny late spring afternoon, Asiya and Nilofer Jan left home to tend to their family’s apple orchard. Along the way they passed a gantlet of police camps wreathed in razor wire as they crossed the bridge over the ankle-deep Rambi River.
Little more than 12 hours later their battered bodies were found in the stream. Asiya, a 17-year-old high school student, had been badly beaten. Blood streamed from her nose and a sharp gash in her forehead. She and her 22-year-old sister-in-law, Nilofer, had been gang raped before their deaths.
The crime, and allegations of a bungled attempt by the local police to cover it up, set off months of sporadic street protests here in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. It is now the focal point for seemingly bottomless Kashmiri rage at the continuing presence of roughly 500,000 Indian security forces. The forces remain, though the violence by separatist militants whom they came here to fight in the past few years has ebbed to its lowest point in two decades.
“India says Kashmir is a free part of a free country,” said Majid Khan, a 20-year-old unemployed man who has joined the stone-throwing mobs. “If that is so, why are we being brutalized? Why are women gang raped?”
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir, and the Himalayan border region remains at the heart of the 62-year rivalry between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Settling the Kashmir dispute is crucial to unlocking the region’s tensions, something the United States hopes will eliminate Pakistan’s shadowy support for militant groups and allow its army to shift attention toward fighting Taliban militants.
Despite Kashmiri rage and the damage to India’s image, the Indian government has bridled at any outside pressure to negotiate a solution, let alone reduce its force level here. Caught in the middle are Kashmir’s 10 million people. The case of Asiya and Nilofer is only the latest abuse to strike a chord with Kashmiris, who say it is emblematic of the problems of what amounts to a full-scale occupation.
Kashmir has its own police force, but it works in close tandem with the Indian forces here and is seen by many as virtually indistinguishable from them. Four Kashmiri officers are suspected of trying to cover up the crime.
Kashmiri activists and human rights groups say that rapes by men in uniform, extrajudicial killings and a lack of redress are endemic, not least because security forces are largely shielded from prosecution by laws put in place when Indian troops were battling a once-potent insurgency here. Both local and national security forces here operate with impunity, they say.
The question for India, Kashmiris say, is whether the huge security presence is doing more harm than good.
“Maybe at some point in time when the militants were in the thousands it made sense to have so many soldiers here,” said Mehbooba Mufti, leader of a major opposition party here. “But at this point they are not helping in any way. Their mere presence has become a source of friction.”
Indian government officials point to statistics showing a decline in infiltration from Pakistan as proof that their tough methods have worked.
According to the government, 557 civilians died in 2005 in what the government calls “terrorist” violence in Jammu and Kashmir, which is India’s full name for the area. By 2008 that number had plummeted to 91. The number of militants killed has fallen by nearly two-thirds, while the deaths of security personnel in the region have been more than halved. Where tens of thousands of armed men once roamed, government officials now estimate there are as few as 500.
Analysts say that other events have also played a role in reducing militancy and infiltration. Secret talks between India and Pakistan over Kashmir made progress but broke down in 2007, when Pakistan’s president at the time, Pervez Musharraf, began losing his grip on power.
In addition, after two decades of militant separatism, in December 2008 voters ignored separatist calls for a boycott and cast ballots in huge numbers in state assembly elections. It was a hopeful sign that Kashmiris believed they could influence their destiny by peaceful means.
The election brought Omar Abdullah, the scion of Kashmir’s most famous political family, to power as chief minister of the state. He promised to roll back the laws that shielded Indian security forces in Kashmir from oversight, and to put Kashmir’s police force, rather than federal police and troops, at the forefront of securing the region. But that has not happened, and the details of the Shopian killings have fed the darkest and most personal fears of Kashmiris as the investigation into the deaths has stalled.
“Who does not see their wife in Nilofer, their daughter in Asiya?” said Abdul Rashid Dalal, who lives in Shopian.
By 9:30 PM he was frantic. He went to the police station, and along with several officers scoured their route, including the shallow bed of the Rambi River. The police called off the search at 2:30 AM, urging Mr. Ahanger to return at daybreak. After his dawn prayers, he went back to the bridge with police officials.
“Look, there is your wife,” the local police chief said to Mr. Ahanger, pointing at a body lying prone on some rocks in a dry patch in the middle of the stream.
He rushed to her, but she was dead. Her dress had been hiked up, exposing her midriff. Her body was bruised. “I knew immediately something very bad had happened to her,” Mr. Ahanger said. His sister was found a mile downstream. Their bodies were taken for autopsies, but the cause of death seemed clear to residents who have longed lived in the shadow of the security forces.
“Two girls disappear next to an armed camp,” said Abdul Hamid Deva, a member of a committee of elders set up in response to the killings. “Their bodies then mysteriously appear in a river next to the camp. It does not take much imagination to know what is likely to have happened.”
Town residents gathered at the hospital for the autopsy results. Initially a doctor said the women drowned. But the crowd rejected the conclusion; the stream was barely ankle deep. Residents pelted the hospital with stones. A second team of doctors was called in. They confirmed that the women had been raped.
“What was done to these women even animals could not have done,” the gynecologist who examined the women told the crowd, weeping as she spoke, according to witnesses.
Two men who had been at a shop near the bridge would later tell investigators they saw a police truck parked on the bridge and heard women crying for help.
Initially, the chief minister, Mr. Abdullah, also told reporters that the women had drowned. Later security officials said that advisers had misinformed him. A few days later he acknowledged that the women had come to harm and appointed a commission to investigate. But investigators say that crucial evidence has been lost and that they are no closer to finding the culprits despite the arrest of four local police officers on suspicion of a cover-up.
Kuldeep Khoda, the director general of Kashmir’s police force, admitted that his forces had made mistakes. “There is a prima facie feeling there was destruction of evidence, whether deliberate or inadvertent,” Mr. Khoda said. “The investigation is going on and the results of that investigation will come.”
Indian government officials say that the security forces here are needed to head off more insurgent violence or a Pakistani invasion. “If there would not be a war that is fought by external forces, our soldiers would not be there,” said a senior Indian intelligence official, referring to groups in Pakistan.
But residents of Shopian say the security forces are the only threat. “The only thing I can do now is hope justice will be done,” said Mr. Ahanger, Nilofer’s husband, who is struggling to care for his 2-year-old son, Suzain. “Nobody is safe in Kashmir — even a child, an elderly man, a young girl. Nobody is safe.”
Nilofer and Asiya Jan had walked to the orchard around 3:30 p.m. on Friday, May 29. When Shakeel Ahmad Ahanger, Nilofer’s husband, came home at 7:30 p.m., the two had not yet returned. He went to search for them but found no trace.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/world/asia/16kashmir.html?_r=1
Re: India’s Real Face, Exposing The Hindutva Terrorists
Sikh Genocide of 1984
Thousands of sikhs butchered in India’s Capital City
warning: graphic material
http://youtube.com/watch?search=&mode=...p;v=375VrVG3src
India’s prime minister RAJIV GANDHI’s cold justification of the lives lost “There are always tremors when a great tree falls”
Re: India’s Real Face, Exposing The Hindutva Terrorists
The legend of Satti
By Aveek Sarkar
Pilgrimage can make people, even the high-profile ones, cross borders on foot and then board four-wheelers to cross deserts like the Thar on a track in disuse for years.
Her face may not have launched a thousand ships but it nearly ended Creation. The beauty may have been compelling but it did not lead to any seizure of the realm. Yet for over a thousand years the legend of Sati has held sway.
It still does. Even in talibanized Pakistan. I accompanied the 86 pilgrims and the BJP leader Jaswant Singh to find out what it means to be an almost forgotten Hindu god in a forgotten part of the world.
This is how it all began. Sati, Shiva’s consort, ended her life by jumping into a pool of fire to protest against the humiliation of her husband by her own father. Heaven hath no fury like a god bereaved. So Shiva responded by going into the dance of destruction. But the guiles of Vishnu saved the day. The remains of Sati were cut in 51 pieces and scattered across India. The 51 places where the remains fell are known as pitha and constitute the Grand Slam of Indian pilgrimage. 49 of the 51 pithas are within India. Only two lie outside its current geographical boundary. One is in Manas in Tibet. The other, Hinglaj, is in Balochistan.
The scalp of Sati, replete with vermilion, mark of the married woman, fell in Hinglaj. On this corporeal relic grew a place of worship — somewhat in the fashion of Buddhist stupas .Thus bloomed the Hindu flower in the barren wilderness of Balochistan.
In truth the goddess at Hinglaj began her reign much earlier but as an unknown regional satrap. Once assumed in the 51-strong National Democratic Alliance of Sati her munificence stood vastly enlarged. Hinglaj, born non-Aryan, became part of the Shakti diaspora. Her humble origins were soon forgotten.
Despite the lineage Hinglaj never quite received the attention it deserved. The journey was arduous and long. The 250km trudge across an unfriendly desert was an ultimate test of faith. (Every pilgrim, says Jaswant, deserved a Victoria Cross). The entire route was and remains infested with dacoits. The visitors, mainly local Hindus from Sindh, were routinely robbed. The only other pilgrims the goddess attracted were the steady trickle of Rajputs — kings and kins — from Rajasthan and neighbouring Gujarat. Even that ebbed with partition. Outside of Rajasthan only Bengal had certain familiarity with Hinglaj. This was due to a Bengali tantric who visited the shrine before partition and wrote a harrowing account. His best-selling journal is the only modern chronicle of the pilgrimage. It later spawned a hugely successful Bengali film with Uttam Kumar as the pilgrim. Despite a fascination for Aryanized native gods, few Bengalis were willing to hazard a perilous journey. Hinglaj for them was a romantic interlude. But as a token Bengali among the yatris I was recognized as the representative of the state’s undying Shakti cult.
It would be quite wrong to blame declining interest only on bigotry. The fact is getting into Pakistan is complicated enough unless one is a cricketer. Even for those granted a visa, Balochistan falls in the forbidden zone. In the best of times Balochistan is an Allah-forsaken country. With 43 per cent of Pakistan’s land and only five per cent of its population it defines no-whereness. Hinglaj, where the goddess resides, is 110km from the nearest police station. There is no electricity or telephone or post office. Not even a tea shop. The only local population appears to be Russell vipers and Ibex goats.
And it is hardly the best of times. Balochistan is divided into tribes. Their current preoccupation is fighting among themselves, which to be fair is what they have always done. They are also fighting with Islamabad which appears to be a contemporary undertaking. Pakistan is convinced that India is behind these troubles, as much as India believes Pakistan is behind every act of arson on its soil. Balochistan houses the country’s missile testing zone making the region security sensitive. The long and largely unguarded coastline is a standing temptation for the drug traffic. The trade’s current capo, Pappu Arshad, runs his fief from the region with, it is said, the administration turning a blind eye.
Enter Jaswant Singh. The man from Jaisalmer pestered the Pakistan government into allowing him to lead a group of Indian pilgrims by road from India to Balochistan. Even for Singh, whose persuasive skills have put him in the race for the UN secretary Generalship, it was not easy. But Singh was not one to give up easily. He met the Indian Prime Minister who agreed to speak to Musharraf and only then did Islamabad relent. Singh’s trip marked the informal opening of the Rajasthan gateway to Pakistan. And Singh did it with great style. Some 86 pilgrims, mostly marwari Rajputs from the Jaisalmer region, crossed the Munabao border on foot and then boarded four-wheelers to cross the Thar on an ancient pilgrim track in disuse for years. Two of them were Rajasthan registered vehicles fitted for the occasion with special sand tyres.
Once in a while even a pilgrim needs to make his point.
Opinion remains divided as to why Singh undertook this trip. Pakistan believes that for the BJP leader it is a positioning game. The parivar factotums in the Hinglaj entourage saw no reason why opening up a Rajasthan corridor to Pakistan would impact national politics. But they readily concede that Singh will be seen as being occupied with larger issues at a time when the next generation in the party are busy sniping at each other. Singh’s detractors in the party point to the fact that the gateway to Pakistan falls conveniently in his son Manavendra’s Lok Sabha constituency. While the younger Singh has done well by his electorate, the significant Muslim population could become hazardous to his political health. The opening of the borders — the Railways will begin their service later this month — will prove a boon to the many Muslim (and some Hindu) families divided by partition, thereby earning the Singh khandaan political brownie points.
Judging by the initial reaction Singh may be heading for a home run. All across the route the Pakistanis lined up to welcome the Indian guests. In Umerkot, where the Emperor Akbar was born, flower petals were thrown on the Indian cars. This was a spontaneous act of goodwill given the fact that the parivar is unlikely to have engineered support in Pakistan and the ISI would hardly be that ingenious.
If politics is what brought Singh to Hinglaj, it was politics that gave Hinglaj its eminence. Hinglaj was one of the many small time local gods that existed all over India. They were pre-Aryan and had little or nothing to do with Hinduism as we know and practise it. Very cleverly the early Aryans imbibed them in their midst this giving birth to the politics of coalition. In contrast the latter invaders – Islam and Christianity – sought to expand through conversion. Hostile take-overs, as L.N. Mittal is learning to his chagrin, leave residual bitterness. Babri being just one consequence. Merger and acquisition bring in harmony, a sense of belonging.
The first versions of Sati’s tale were far less dramatic. The Mahabharata and the philosophical canons known collectively as The Brhamanas recount Sati’s discomfiture and eventual suicide but no mention of Shiva’s anger. Vishnu’s delightful antic, almost Bollywood in character, of splicing the body in many pieces was introduced many centuries later. But this simple extension, innocuous on the surface had much larger implications. It provided the intellectual argument and a simple but clever way for the Aryans to reach out and absorb gods and ideas native to India. Existing places of worship were identified and declared Hindu pithas. Native gods were not left in the lurch but admitted to the pantheon. In the spirit of common minimum programme the idols or the objects of worship, were left untouched while non-Aryan rituals, such as tantra, were allowed into the fold. Even the idea of corporeal relic, the leading Indian scholar on the subject, D.C.Sarkar, has argued, was merely an early attempt to regain lost territory from the Buddhists. Subsequently Buddha was declared a full avatar of Vishnu. The adaptation of the Hinglaj in the Hindu family was thus good politics. In the absence of local history it is difficult to say when all this happened. The shrine is mentioned in the medieval texts dating to around 14th to 15th century. So Hinglaj may well be a little bit older.
Little has changed in the intervening years. The early travellers used camels as means of travel. Today they use four-wheelers. But the Balochi desert remains, as ever, mildly vegetated and as uninviting. Just like Rajasthan, said Hukum Singh the Jaswant family driver who steered the Mahindra Scorpio all the way from Jaisalmer. And just like Balochistan, deserts in Rajasthan can sometimes be unfriendly. Either side of the fence the camel drivers can be enterprising: visitors to the Jaisalmer dunes, for example, often find their burden lightened if they are not too careful.
The great desert bonhomie is, thus, one of life’s enduring fictions. Those who live with nature’s hostility learn how to avail of life’s opportunity. No one would know this better than the Chief Minister of the State. Mohammad Yousaf Aliani. In he was the Jam, i.e, nawab of the region. Today he is the elected Chief Minister. While his son, a Promde Mahajan like figure who sports a rather visible Georgio Armani shirt under the Baloch tunic, is the district Nazim or head of the zilla parishad. Hinglaj is part of his charge.
The father and son team rule Quetta with an iron hand. Together with the federal government in Islamabad they have assembled a 40-strong convoy to take the yatris to the shrine. The convoy included federal troops, provincial police and the elite anti-terrorist commandos equipped to the teeth with German machine guns and American rocket launchers. The surrounding hills were “sanitized” with soldiers taking charge. The entire 250-km route from Karachi was manned by the men in black.
Even the Indian High Commission was impressed. They are not leaving things to chance said an accompanying member of the Indian Mission. Why? I asked. “They do not wish any untoward event to take place.”
It was not only the show of strength which impressed the Indians. The Balochistan government sent its ministers along with a Lexus 4x4 sports utility vehicle – the sort Amar Singh uses – at the Sindh-Balochistan border to receive the Indians. The Chief Minister himself drove a few hundred kilometres from his capital just to host a lunch at Hinglaj and even leaving his son, the Nazim, to spend the night with the yatris. “They have spent crores “, said a member of the Indian Mission “to make you feel at home. The unused bottles of the branded water are enough to fill a swimming pool”.
Such expression of goodwill did not hinder the little One Day Internationals the two foreign ministries play. Indian diplomats are rarely allowed a peep into this side of the world. The Jaswant Singh trip was, in a sense, a godsend. There was no harm in pushing our luck, reasoned the Indians and requested a ‘recce’ trip. No deal, said Islamabad. Can we at least send an officer a day in advance to Hinglaj so that he can go through the arrangement and is in situ to welcome the Indian leader of the opposition? The official tried again. Shoab Akhtar did not blink.
There is more than one reason why Pakistan is reticent about allowing Indians into Balochistan and one good reason why it is being plain silly. There is strife and allegations of an Indian involvement and there is the missile testing zone. But the Chinese have built them a spanking new port on the Arabian Sea with, it is said, a tacit approval from the Americans. The Persian Gulf is a potential tinder-box and should the occasion demand it, Washington would have one more spring-board for an operation. But such arguments are silly because satellites have made nonsense of yesterday’s idea of security.
What is food for the mullah, though, is food for the kafir. A spanking new port requires a spanking new road. So the Chinese have built one to facilitate traffic between Karachi and the new port at Gawadar. The road cutting through the spectacular Makran Coast range passes through a village called Aghore which is merely 20 odd km from the shrine. (Aghore is the place through which Alexander’s army returned after the battle with Porus). The once inaccessible goddess has thus been brought to the doorsteps ending 500 years of traveller’s nightmare. So the pilgrim progresses. But the Goddess?
At first sight She could disappoint. There is no imposing architecture or riveting sculpture. Hinglaj is not 10 Janpath but a minor coalition partner. It is tribal paganism Aryanized only at the fringe. But there is great theatre. The goddess resides in a cave sculpted by nature with wind and water in a narrow canyon. The opening of the cave would be about 30ft in height and around 60 to 70ft in breadth. A river ambles its way in the bottom of the gorge. Its placid existence — and in patches non-existence — is misleading. With the right rain its passion could be aroused and then it cuts completely the access to the Goddess.
Inside the cave there is no idol to speak of, though there is an object of worship. Part of the rock is dressed in a sari and painted with vermilion invoking awe and creating an atmosphere of reverence. Here the offerings are made. There is a U-shaped tunnel just underneath the deity. The ritual act of pradakhsheen that is going round a place of worship is done crawling in the labyrinth. The majesty of Hinglaj lies not in its details. One looks not at the snapshot of a planet but at the portrait of the Milky Way itself. The 20-km ride from the highway prepares one for the spectacle. A lazy dirt track road moving in and out of the embrace of the mountain, crawling across the river bed… the side of the mountains almost sculpted by wind from the sea…this is nature unspoilt to perfection.
Civilisation has spared Hinglaj. Barely 20,000 visit the shrine in a year and that too in the few comfortable months of the year. Then nature takes over. The angry sun of the desert and the sudden flashes of flood in the rain ensures the deity her seclusion. All that may change with progress. The new coastal highway cutting down the travelling time to a mere three hours and an improved Indo-Pakistan relationship could cost even the Mother of the Universe her privacy.
The gods, like men, can survive apathy. Can they, unlike men, survive the adulation?
The writer is editor of the Anand Bazaar Patrika, Kolkatta