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By Sunita Viswanath

Much has been said and written about the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, by Hindu extremists in 1992, the waves of communal violence that have plagued India since then, and the anti-Muslim pogroms that took place in Gujarat under Narendra Modi’s watch as a new Chief Minister.

Today, I am watching in utter despair as most in my extended family and community are celebrating and venerating the Ram Temple being inaugurated in Ayodhya. This feels like the biggest leap being taken by India towards being a Hindu supremacist totalitarian state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will become the first head of state to also conduct national puja ceremonies, conflating religion and state.

As a progressive Hindu activist, my work has been to build a community and movement of Hindus who are centered on love and unity, an alternative to the path of violence and hatred offered to us by the BJP, RSS, and mainstream Hindu institutions.

Ayodhya is a city every Hindu child learns about. It is the city in the Ramayana where Rama and his siblings Lakshmana, Bharata, and Shatrughna are born; the city that Rama was exiled from for 14 years; and where he returned from exile to rule as King. It is also the city from which Lord Rama himself banished Sita Devi because she had been kidnapped by Ravana and spent time as Ravana’s captive in Lanka. Sita was made to enter fire to prove her chastity, and she emerged untouched by the flames. But Rama banished her anyway. Lord Rama’s reasons for banishing Sita Devi are complex, and we are taught to weigh and consider Lord Rama’s dharma (duty) as a ruler and his dharma as a spouse.

As an ordinary Hindu, I am empowered to make choices in life because my Gods themselves weigh the various priorities, pressures, and limitations, to arrive at difficult decisions. As a Hindu, I am allowed to disagree with some of the decisions made by the very Gods I revere. The oldest scripture, the Rig Veda, instructs us to “let noble thoughts come from all directions.” To me, this is an instruction to keep an open mind, and not fall into the trap of constrained dogmatic thinking.

My mother raised me with the teaching that there is no pure good and pure evil. If Rama was pure good, he would not have unjustly banished Sita. And if Ravana were pure evil, he would have brutalized Sita while she was his captive. We all have the capacity for good and evil, and the best we can do is to strive to be good. Lord Krishna says in the Gita that the ideal devotee is concerned with lokasangraha (wellbeing of all), and is “para dukha dukhi” (seeing the joys and sorrows of others as one’s own).

I have been raised to believe that the best Hindu devotee strives to be kind and generous, compassionate, non-violent, truthful, altruistic, open-minded, and open-hearted when it comes to ideas and people who are considered as “other.”

When the Supreme Court of India made its decision in 2019 that though they declared it a crime that Hindu extremists destroyed the Babri Masjid, the land on which it stood would be granted to Hindus for a Ram Temple anyway. My message was clear: My Ram would not want a temple on the site of such carnage.

“As an ordinary Hindu, I am empowered to make choices in life because my Gods themselves weigh the various priorities, pressures, and limitations, to arrive at difficult decisions.

I expressed support for the efforts of Ayodhya Hindu priest Yugal Kishore Shastry, Gandhian peace activist Sandeep Pandey, and Kudhai Kidmatgar’s National Coordinator Faisal Khan, to build a center for interfaith peace and harmony in Ayodhya. This center never came to be.

When I tried to travel to Ayodhya in January 2020 with Sandeep Pandey to meet Yugal Kishore Shastry to discuss this communal harmony center, we were stopped by the police and barred from entering. I asked why I could not travel to Ayodhya to pray and pay my respects to Mahant Yugal Kishore Shastry, and the police cited Section 144 of the criminal code which exists to prevent people from gathering in large numbers and causing disturbance.

A few days later, I managed to drive to Ayodhya from Varanasi without any trouble. It was our first time in Ayodhya, and we were expecting a town like any other Hindu holy place: streets lined with stores selling flowers and puja items, the sounds of prayers and bhajans, and a general air of festivity. However, we were met by a silent ghost town with armed soldiers on every corner. We needed to get permission to enter the road that led to Sastriji’s humble Ram Janki temple. His family fed us, and local Muslim and Dalit community members came to meet us. We felt menacing eyes on us as we took some photos of the fenced-off site of the demolished mosque, where construction was yet to begin.

I traveled to India again a year ago, on Hindus for Human Rights’ “Prema Yatra” (Pilgrimage of Love). Spurred by the hatred and genocidal intent that was shared by Hindu religious leaders in Haridwar in December 2021, we made this pilgrimage to ashrams throughout North and South India. We spoke to Hindu religious leaders – mahants, swamis, sadhvis – about their feelings about the country at large, but also about the Hindutva ideology that has taken over Hindu religious spaces. The more progressive and inclusive Hindu religious leaders we met were isolated and alone, rather despondent, and some spoke only on condition of anonymity. Our Prema Yatra report did not divulge their names but shared our findings.

One of the places along our Prema Yatra route was Ayodhya: the most challenging stop of all. Because we weren’t traveling with any of India’s heavily surveilled human rights defenders, we had no problem entering Ayodhya. We stayed in a new and modern hotel in the adjacent town of Faizabad. In fact, Faizabad was full of construction, clearly being readied for an influx of religious tourists from all around the world. Ayodhya itself was not the ghost town I had visited just three years before. The town was crowded, and there were bulldozers everywhere, demolishing old structures and getting ready for new constructions. We went to the old part of town where the Babri Masjid once stood, and now the Ram Mandir was being constructed. Armed police guarded the entrance to the area known as RJB Corridor. Ram Janma Bhoomi (birthplace of Lord Rama) was now an acronym with a corporate logo.

We weren’t allowed to take phones and cameras past the entrance, or into the temple. The winding, meshed-in corridor leading to the main shrine had huge advertisements all along the way, not advertisements for the temple or for anything to do with the temple. Rather, they were advertisements for all the major Indian banks. Every leg of this pathway to the inner sanctum had armed guards, many of them women, watching us silently. There was a female recorded voice telling us about the temple, its timeline, its designer, its cost, and other facts that must be impressive to most pilgrims. When we reached the main sanctum, we were greeted with the ironic truth that this whole temple, the destruction and death that paved the way here, the business and tourism venture that this temple has become, all of it, center in this inner sanctum, where Ram Lalla will reside. Ram Lalla is the name given endearingly to Baby Rama, since this site is believed to be his birthplace.

My colleague and I looked at each other in horror and disbelief. No Lord Rama we could embrace would tolerate this. And no baby, God or Human, would care about any of this. It took us some days to recover from the dystopian reality that was Ayodhya. The only saving grace was that the religious leaders we met in Ayodhya (I will not share their names, to protect them) were deeply saddened by this aberration and perversion of the Hindu faith.

Today sees the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya by Modi himself. Progressive priests and renunciants who have voiced any opinion in opposition to this temple have not been permitted to come to Ayodhya this week. Hindu religious leaders who live in Ayodhya, and have spoken in the past against this temple have all left Ayodhya this week for their own safety. Our one brave Ayodhya-based Hindu religious leader who has not left town, Mahant Yugal Kishore Shashtri, will be holding a multi-faith satsangh in his tiny Ram Janki Mandir.

At least there will be one space in Ayodhya representing my Hinduism and my Lord Rama.

Jai Siya Ram.

________________________

Sunita Viswanath is the Executive Director of Hindus for Human Rights.

21 January 2024

Source: americankahani.com

By Stephan Shaw

‘It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what I have to say.’
‘Consciences can again be seduced and obscured: even our own.’

– Primo Levi

Not This Israel, Not this Jew

For a long, long time I packed away my Jewish education and my soft spot for Jewish ethics and philosophy. It went to a dusty corner that I learned to forget. The notion of “Jewish ethics” once weighty and important, could seem quaint today, if not entirely outrageous. Jewish ethics are so plastic it seems that they now encompass and countenance genocide. It’s now obvious to all who care that Judaism has become what the theologian Martin Buber had warned of last century, a victim of the dehumanized colonization and dispossession of others. It turned long ago into nationalism and a question of sovereignty, not of God, but of land. The Atzei Chayim in the Ark of the Covenant was replaced by two hellfire missiles, and we went from sanctifying the Sabbath and thanking God for life to sanctifying our hatred and praying to God for the annihilation of the Palestinian. If there is anything positive from this moment in history in Gaza, it’s that the fig leaf cover of Israel’s viciousness is falling off.

Since I was a young boy born into a secular Jewish household, I’ve struggled in the space between professed “Jewish values” and actual Jewish politics. My grandparents came here as children, fleeing pogroms and discrimination. By the time my grandfather was forty, he was a small business owner and standing proudly on his feet. America had become a beloved home for my secular, jewish family.

I never experienced anti-semitism growing up. I wondered about that, because I was always hearing about it, told that it lurked in every corner. I was the first in my family to have a formal American, Jewish education. It’s an unusual, almost biblical story: I was essentially sold into the religious institution for my older brother’s sake. He had decided out of nowhere at the age of twelve that he wanted to be Bar Mitzvahed. The Rabbi told my parents that because he was already nearly thirteen, he couldn’t do a traditional Bar Mitzvah. However, he told my parents, if they enrolled their youngest son, he would bend the rules. And so, at the age of seven, I was enrolled in what they call in the US a Hebrew School, and my brother had his shotgun Bar Mitzvah.

In my first year, the curriculum was divided between learning to read Hebrew (not to understand it, mind you, but just to read the script so we could recite from the Torah) and “current events”. The current events class was, in retrospect, our introduction to what is called Hasbara (which can most succinctly and fairly be defined as sophistry.)  We learned that Israel was an empty desert that the Jews made bloom. We learned that though it was called the land of milk and honey in the Torah, it had lain fallow until Jewish refugees brought their hearts, minds, and labor. Oddly, the lion’s share of each class was a discussion of the Israeli military, including inventories of weaponry and histories of tactical brilliance. We were taught about the Holocaust and how, as Joe Biden would have it today, there is no safety for Jews except for Israel.  We learned to intone the phrase “never again” with complete conviction.  All this took place in my Hebrew school in Long Island, NY, which felt for me in the 70’s a very safe place for a Jewish boy with mostly Christian friends.

I was eventually Bar Mitzvahed, but as far as I was concerned, it was the end of my being Jewish. There was little in Hebrew School that spoke to me.  We were, of course, taught some of the beautiful parts of Judaism, like Tikkun Olam, the Jewish command to repair the world – but back then, in my school, Tikkun Olam boiled down to raising money to plant trees in Israel. I planted dozens. I didn’t know it then, but Israel was uprooting as many olive trees in the West Bank as we could raise money for trees somewhere else. Today, Tikkun Olam has expanded for some to include raising money to arm West Bank settlers with AK47s.

Abraham Joshual Heschel, a shining light of Jewish theology and philosophy, long bemoaned Jewish education in the United States, fearing that many Jews would fall from the faith if they were not nourished on ethics and tradition. He wrote that American Jews would do a better job than Hitler in erasing Judaism from the planet. One of the oldest Jewish commandments, he taught, was the refusal of idolatry along with the core principle that Judaism was not about place or land, but service and rejoicing in the Sabbath. My entire religious education seemed to have just two pillars: worshiping the golden calf of Israel and fearing for my safety, neither of which I wanted any part of, but as a kid it didn’t make much difference to me. I moved on.

It was only in college, when Israeli documents from the first half of the 20th century had been made public and the New Historians of Israel, like Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe, published the truth of the founding of Israel, that I fully woke from the lull instilled in me throughout Hebrew School. The reckoning of Jewish history – from the terror of European pogroms and the Holocaust, to committing outright terror, murder and appropriation in Israel – was and is not easily absorbed. That it was so flagrantly counterintuitive helps to explain how little it penetrated into Jewish spaces. It also explains the outright shock that so many Jews feel today at the genocide case before the ICJ. As Ilan Pappe wrote years ago, liberal Zionists “find themselves confused and disoriented, representing the oppressor, the colonizer and the occupier.“ There is a mental dissonance in the contemporary situation that it seems most minds cannot process; an identity crisis created by an attachment to a mythos that no longer carries any water. It is often deflected by blaming Netanyahu for all the problems, but that is like blaming all of America’s problems on Trump.

It was in 2008, when Israel had launched another “mowing of the lawn”, the sardonic and vicious euphemism for indiscriminate use of force and deliberate murder of civilians, that I, counter-intuitively, found my way back to being a Jew. In 2008 I felt one thing acutely – I could not tolerate the worst crimes in international law going down in my name. At the time my reclamation felt perverse, like it had something in common with the way Nazism forced secular Germans to be Jewish when they had only considered themselves German previously.  Primo Levi discussed how the Nazis stamped him into a Jew: ‘If it hadn’t been for the racial laws and the concentration camp, I’d probably no longer be a Jew, except for my last name … the racial laws and the concentration camp, stamped me the way you stamp a steel plate.” It was the unimaginable events of the Shoah that forced Levi to wear the insignia of Judaism.  But towards the end of his life, and certainly a factor in his suicide he began to show signs of shame and disgust. “It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what I have to say.” Elsewhere, he added, “Consciences can again be seduced and obscured: even our own.” At the end of his life, he confessed, “I retain a close sentimental tie with Israel, but not with this Israel.”

Levi committed suicide months after the first intifada. It is my sense that he could not bear the crooked timber of humanity any longer – the sense that all of us are capable and complicit in genocide. His own history of victimization was not capable of silencing the victimization of others. He did not see a path forward for himself as a human or a Jew. Today, the majority of Jews are, in Heschel’s words, accomplishing what even the Nazis could not – undermining Judaism itself. My great heritage for thousands of years was ethics – “justice shall you pursue,” Deuteronomy proclaims – but since I was a child it has only been about power and land. Half of the Ten Commandments now lie shattered at the feet of innocents in Gaza. If to kill one person is to destroy a world, we have destroyed universes.

But there is a different path forward for Jews, even now. I am a Jew of conscience, not in unending victimization and war, but in truth and reconciliation. The bombing of Gaza stamped me the way one stamps a steel plate. The way Levi was stamped. In my case, it is with the revulsion and direct knowledge that it is we who are acting out the larger share of this tragedy, and that therefore we can stop it. I’ve come to believe that louder voices have for too long told all the wrong lessons of the Holocaust. I’ve come to believe that solidarity with Palestinians is the true counter-testimony to Auschwitz and the way forward for Jewish ethics. Far from being anti-semitic, the protests I’ve been going to are philo-semitic and in the deepest interest to Jews everywhere. Think what you want about the Orthodox Jewish Neturei Karta, the visual epitome of Jewishness that have been showing up with their children at all the demonstrations in the US, but they are embraced, celebrated and loved by everyone there. It is not the same as the Israeli embrace of Christian Zionism which is shortsighted and nihilistic.

At the end of his life, Levi spoke about the Jewish future. “The center of gravity is in the Diaspora,” he wrote, “I, a diasporic Jew, much more Italian than Jewish. I would prefer that the center…of Judaism remained outside Israel.” He concluded his statement by calling all Diaspora Jews to fight against the degradation of political and ethical life in Israel.

I have never felt more Jewish than when I joined Jewish Voice for Peace at Grand Central Station on October 27th, our shirts declaring “Not in my name.” To quote Heschel again, it felt as if I was praying with my feet; it felt as if I was praying for the first time. I am as certain as I am of anything that every one of my fellow Jews in handcuffs, atheists and orthodox alike, prayed that night more deeply than at any other time in their lives. Since that day, I’ve marched and been arrested with friends from every walk of life, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Punk, chanting together that there is no safety or future in occupation and murder.

I am a Jewish man and I will not be forced to condemn Hamas as a litmus test or a catechism to be recited. At this point it feels to me an act of trivialized routine or a justification for Genocide. I am against all killing but I have a particular obligation to call out the killing by Jews. There has never been a dearth of condemnation for the actions, both wretched and noble by Palestinians. There has always been a dearth of condemnations of Israel for fear of being anti-semitic. I am with Judith Butler in asking how we might release the region from violence such as this rather than simply condemning. But I know we cannot fulfill any spiritual destiny without coming to terms with the Palestinians who languish in the way that we did once, we who were slaves in Egypt – something we are reminded of every Passover. The story of Exodus, our liberation from bondage, is the core of what it means to be a Jew. But this simple truth must be acknowledged: freedom cannot exist on the backs of other people. Too many consciences have been seduced into believing there is a Jewish exception to this rule.

Uncritical support of Israel is destroying the spiritual core of Judaism itself – a dagger in the Jewish heart. Heschel wrote that “good and evil live in promiscuity but our powers of discernment have been stupefied.”  He warned long ago, as the Vietnam War raged and the Jewish conscience refused to speak up for fear of angering American power, that we risked becoming value-blind. As I listen to the increasing calls for genocide in Israel and in the US, as I watch the grimmest images since the Shoah of the first televised genocide in history, I need no more evidence of this truth. Christians had to reckon with their deeds after the Holocaust. Jews need to do that now. Israel may have a right to exist, but not this Israel. It’s counter-intuitive and difficult to digest but conscience can be seduced and obscured: even our own.  I promised never again. Never again is now.

Stephan Shaw is a musician and Hegel scholar, activist in Jewish Voice For Peace, a proud husband of Sunita Viswanath and father of three marvelous boys.

22 January 2024

Source: forsea.co

By Michel Chossudovsky

Introductory Note

In 2014 President Obama launched a “counterterrorism campaign” allegedly directed against the Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh). The operation consisted in providing a justification for the extensive bombing of Iraq and Syria, largely targeting residential areas and civilians.

In turn, ISIS-Daesh was covertly supported and funded by the U.S. and its allies including Israel.

Israel was directly involved in President Obama’s “counterterrorism” bombing raids directed against Syria, while also supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS mercenaries out of the Golan Heights.

—Michel Chossudovsky, January 14, 2024

_______________________________________

The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.

The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism.” 

The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.

The  Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map below). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been — from a military standpoint — a rapid and expedient surgical operation.

It could not have been undertaken without the unbending support of the Western media which has upheld Obama’s initiative as a counter-terrorism operation.

Twenty Six Things

A. The Historical Origins of Al Qaeda

1. The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for almost half a century since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war.

2. CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan. In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.

“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”

3. Since the Reagan Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network.

Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades. It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.

4. Jihadist textbooks  were  published by the University of Nebraska. “The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings.”

5. Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan. He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerrilla training camp.

Al Qaeda was not behind the 9/11 Attacks. September 11, 2001 provided a justification for waging a war against Afghanistan on the grounds that Afghanistan was a state sponsor of terrorism, supportive of Al Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks were instrumental in the formulation of the “Global War on Terrorism”.

B. The Islamic State (ISIL)

7. The ISIL brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of  Bashar al Assad.

8. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011. According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in:

“a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)

9. There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.

10. Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.

“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. (CNN Report, December 9, 2012)

11. The ISIL’s practice of beheadings is part of the US-sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

12. Recruited by America’s ally, a large number of ISIL mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISIL. Saudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades.

13. Israel has supported the ISIL and Al Nusrah brigades out of the Golan Heights.

Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass tacitly acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by Israel. (See image below)

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon next to a wounded mercenary, Israeli military field hospital at the occupied Golan Heights’ border with Syria, 18 February 2014″

C. Syria and Iraq

15. US Senator John McCain has met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria.

16. The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US. Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.

17. US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.

18. The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: a Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.

D. The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)

20. U.S.-sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen.

These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc, create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.

21. Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),  Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia, among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.

22. The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.

Chinese jihadists are reported to have received “terrorist training” from the Islamic State “in order to conduct attacks in China”. The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US) is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China. (Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).

E. Homegrown Terrorists

24. The homegrown terrorist threat is a fabrication. It is promoted by Western governments and the media with a view to repealing civil liberties and installing a police state. The terror attacks by alleged jihadists and terror warnings are invariably staged events. They are used to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

In turn, the arrests, trials and sentences of “Islamic terrorists” sustain the legitimacy of America’s Homeland Security State and law enforcement apparatus, which has become increasingly militarized.

The ultimate objective is to instill in the minds of millions of Americans that the enemy is real and the U.S. Administration will protect the lives of its citizens.

25. The “counter-terrorism” campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly associated with the jihadists.

26. Anybody who dares to question the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism” is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.

The ultimate objective of the “Global War on Terrorism” is to subdue the citizens, totally depoliticize social life in America, prevent people from thinking and conceptualizing, from analyzing facts and challenging the legitimacy of the inquisitorial social order which rules America.

The Obama Administration has imposed a diabolical consensus with the support of its allies, not to mention the complicit role of the United Nations Security Council. The Western media has embraced the consensus; it has described the Islamic State as an independent entity, an outside enemy which threatens the Western World.

The Big Lie has become the Truth. 

Say no to the Big Lie. Spread the message.

The truth is ultimately a powerful weapon.

[Read this article on Global Research.]

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

18 January 2024

Source: michelchossudovsky.substack.com

By Michel Chossudovsky

[This article was first published by Global Research on November 13, 2023, updated on January 14, 2024.]

1. In Solidarity with Palestine

By Countercurrents Collective

The Israeli military has been “astonished” by the size and quality of the tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza, according to an article published in the New York Times on Tuesday.

The tunnel network was originally estimated to include 250 miles (400 km) of underground passages and bunkers. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has since revised these estimates to 350-450 miles (560-725 km) or more.

Two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there were close to 5,700 separate shafts leading into the tunnels under Gaza. None of the numbers could be independently verified.

Flooding Tunnels Have Failed

It could take “years” to disable the tunnels, one Israeli official told the New York Times. They need to be mapped, checked for Israeli captives, and “made irreparable,” he said, acknowledging that the recent attempts to destroy the tunnels by flooding them with seawater “have failed.”

Hospitals Schools Mosques

According to another official, Israel is using a “triangle” model to locate the tunnels, which assumes they will be found under any hospital, school or mosque in Gaza.

The Israeli military has underestimated the “extent and importance” of the tunnels to Hamas, which the New York Times described as an “intelligence failure.”

The IDF has not disclosed the number of soldiers killed and wounded in tunnel warfare. Officially, almost 190 soldiers have been killed and 240 or so seriously wounded in the fighting since the start of the ground campaign in Gaza.

One soldier, who spoke with the New York Times on condition of anonymity, said that he had taken part in destroying about 50 tunnels in Beit Hanoun, in the northeast of Gaza. All of them were rigged with bombs and other explosives, wired to be activated remotely.

The militant group Hamas, which maintains de facto control over Gaza, struck at nearby Israeli settlements on October 7, claiming the lives of approximately 1,200 Israelis. Another 240 were taken into the Palestinian enclave as captives. Israel responded by declaring war on Hamas and launching air and artillery strikes on Gaza, followed by ground troops in November.

Almost 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 60,000 wounded in the first 100 days of fighting, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Intensive Stage Of War Will End Soon, Says Israeli Defense Minister

A CNN report said:

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday that the “intensive maneuvering stage” of Israel’s military offensive in northern and southern Gaza will “end soon.”

The Israeli military is working to “eliminate pockets of resistance” in northern Gaza, Gallant said, adding: “We will achieve this via raids, airstrikes, special operations and additional activities.”

After the October 7 attacks, Gallant said the original plan was for the “intensive maneuvering stage” of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to last approximately three months. But, he cautioned the Israeli military adapts its operations “in accordance with the reality on the ground” and “our intelligence.”

The IDF has announced one of its army divisions had exited the Gaza Strip on Monday night, in the most significant sign yet of a shift to a new phase of fighting that some Israeli officials have been promising.

The IDF said its 36th division, which comprises armored, engineering, and infantry companies, withdrew from the Gaza Strip after 80 days.

The brigade operated in the areas of Zeitun, Shati, Shejaiya, Rimal, and the Central Camps, the Israeli military added. The IDF did not respond to CNN’s questions about whether the withdrawal was temporary, what was behind the withdrawal, or how many troops it involved.

Israel And Hamas Agree On Medicine For Hostages, Aid To Gaza

Another CNN report said:

Qatar says it has brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas that will see medicines delivered to Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for the delivery of medicine and humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.

“Medicine along with other humanitarian aid is to be delivered to civilians in the Gaza Strip, in the most affected and vulnerable areas, in exchange for delivering medication needed for Israeli captives in Gaza,” the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday in a statement posted on X.

The medications and aid will leave Doha on Wednesday and head to Egypt before being transported to Gaza, the ministry added. It is unclear when the medicines are expected to reach Gaza.

Relatives of the more than 100 remaining hostages believed to be alive in Gaza have been calling for medications to be passed on to their loved ones.

It has been more than three months since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostage. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an advocacy group for the victims’ families, say that each new day in captivity further endangers their lives and health.

At least a third of the hostages have chronic illnesses and require medications, the forum said in a report released last week, adding that “others suffer from illnesses related to the harsh captivity conditions, which include mental and physical torture.”

Severe shortages of medicines and medical supplies in Gaza have led to operations being performed on children without anesthesia, according to UNICEF and a British surgeon who led an emergency medical team at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza.

Key Broker

The Qatari announcement comes days after the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said the director of Mossad, Israel’s  spy agency, David Barnea, had reached an agreement with Qatar on the delivery of medicines to hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Qatar played a key role in brokering an agreement between Hamas and Israel that led to the brief truce in November and the release of more than 100 hostages, as well as hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which helped facilitate the release of the hostages in November, has been unable to visit the remaining captives in Gaza and does not know where they are, it told CNN.

It is unclear if the Red Cross will help pass the medication to the hostages. Over the weekend, an official familiar with the discussions told CNN that the Red Cross would not have a role in the deliveries.

The medicine is destined for more than 40 hostages thought by Israel to need it, according to the official, who also said that Hamas only agreed to the deal if more medicine was sent to hospitals and Palestinians in Gaza.

Throughout the war, Israel has allowed a limited amount of aid and medicines to enter Gaza but far more is needed, humanitarian groups say. The UN has complained that Israel has been rejecting missions to deliver supplies to northern Gaza.

An estimated 1.9 million people, or 85% of Gaza’s population, are now internally displaced, says the UN, while only 15 of the enclave’s hospitals remain operational.

More Than 10,000 Children Killed

At least 10,600 children have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health said. And the UN emergency relief chief warned Israel’s war has brought famine with “such incredible speed.”

17 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Marwan Asmar

Israel is starving the Palestinian people of Gaza while the world watches. It looks on helplessly pretending it can’t do anything while the reigns of control remain in Israeli hands.

There are presently 15,008 food and supply trucks standing on the Rafah border waiting for Israel to allow them to enter Gaza and feed the starving and hungry – hundreds of thousands – people who came to assemble these to escape Israeli missiles and bombs.

These waiting trucks are donations from countries from all over the world as well donations from ordinary people, yet they remain sitting at the border because Israel won’t allow them to enter the devastated Gaza.

Don’t believe the view that says it is up to Egypt to let them in since it controls the border. While it may do that in theory, in practice it can’t because of the big Israeli guns from the air who constantly monitor the border and fires indiscriminately at it as a means of control.

In the past 100 days israeli warplanes frequently shot at the border and the city of Rafah as part of its military campaign against its people. So in actual fact, it doesn’t control the border and its entry point in Gaza. And as proof of that is the over 15,000 trucks which would avert the starvations Gazans are experiencing and turn the horrible situation currently is under now.

These trucks generated by donations from different countries of the world and under the UN auspices and have food, medical and fuel supplies would go a long way to alleviating the deadly and critical situation of the Palestinian people in the 365-kilometer Strip. But as yet Israel says blank no.

Civilians are being collectively punished while Israelis take their time in looking for Hamas and other Palestinians fighters who can’t be found except in underground tunnels all over Gaza. But how do you catch them!

This Israelis have displaced 1.9 million Palestinians and forced them to move from one place to another, chasing them away from their destroyed homes and workplaces. The number of those killed currently stands at over 24000 not to mention the around 8000 dead under the rubble whilst the injured at around 59000. It’s havoc and catastrophe and needs a lot of aid to get it back on its feet.

Before 7 October the number of trucks daily entering the Rafah border daily was 500. After that they came to a halt and then barely trickled down. But now, these thousands of trucks lie congested on the border and nobody knows when they will be allowed to start moving again.

Dr Marwan Asmar has a PhD from the UK’s Leeds University is a contributor on Middle East affairs

17 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Andre Damon

The United States military carried out a new round of illegal attacks on Yemen Tuesday, the third set of bombings in just under a week. The latest round of strikes makes clear that the United States is escalating a broader war throughout the Middle East, with Iran and its allies as the central targets, amid the ongoing US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The US military said its strike early Tuesday targeted missile launch sites in Yemen, which the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels are using to target US warships providing logistical support for the genocide in Gaza. The latest attack follows strikes on Thursday and Friday.

Also on Tuesday, the United States reported that two Navy SEALs who were lost at sea last Thursday, and presumed dead, were on a mission to seize what the US claimed were weapons from Iran being supplied to the Houthi rebels.

The escalation of the war comes amid new and desperate warnings about the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, with the United Nations warning that “every single person” in Gaza faces hunger.

In a report published Tuesday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights warned that Gazans now make up 80 percent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger around the world, as a result of Israel’s systematic bombardment and blockade of food, water, medicine and electricity.

The report warned:

Currently, every single person in Gaza is hungry. A quarter of the population is starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent. Pregnant women are not receiving adequate nutrition and healthcare, putting their lives at risk. In addition, all children under five – 335,000 – are at high risk of severe malnutrition as the risk of famine conditions continues to increase. A whole generation is now in danger of suffering from stunting.

The UN warned that hunger and malnutrition in childhood “causes irreparable physical and cognitive impairments,” and “will undermine the learning capacity of an entire generation.”

The UN report made it clear that Israel is the responsible party for the humanitarian disaster. It stated:

Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Since October 9, Israel declared and imposed a “total siege” on Gaza, depriving 2.3 million Palestinians of water, food, fuel, medicine, and medical supplies. This is against the backdrop of a 17-year Israeli blockade, which before this war made approximately half of the people in Gaza food insecure and more than 80 percent reliant on humanitarian aid.

It concluded, “It is unprecedented to make an entire civilian population go hungry this completely and quickly. Israel is destroying Gaza’s food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people.”

In a meeting with a Biden administration official, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu allegedly declared, “There is no humanitarian disaster in Gaza,” according to news reports in the Israeli media.

Against the backdrop of last week’s hearings at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, US officials have only doubled down on their support for the genocide.

In an interview with CNBC, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked to respond to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel will continue its onslaught on Gaza in defiance of The Hague.

To this, Blinken replied, “From day one, we strongly supported Israel’s right to defend itself. We strongly supported its right to try to ensure that October 7 never happens again.”

In a separate statement in the interview, Blinken declared, “What we’re focused on is trying to make sure that October 7 never happens again. That should be the bar. That should be the measure.” He proclaimed, absurdly, that “Israel has made good progress.”

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden spoke with German Prime Minister Olaf Scholz and the two leaders “reaffirmed their support for Israel’s right to self-defense.”

The US media, meanwhile, is escalating its demands for a wider war throughout the Middle East. In an editorial titled “Iran and the Houthis Don’t Get Biden’s Message,” the Wall Street Journal declared: “Iran’s Houthi proxy militia keeps firing missiles at US ships, and two Navy SEALs are missing at sea after a mission to seize Iranian-made missile parts bound for the Houthis.”

Saying “it sure looks like the Houthis and Iran are at war with the US,” the Journal demanded an even more aggressive military response.

As of Friday, the death toll in the Gaza Strip stood at 31,497, according to the Euro-Med Monitor, including both those officially reported dead and those who have been missing for more than 14 days, most likely buried in the rubble.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that between Monday and Tuesday, 158 Palestinians were killed and another 320 people were injured. The UN noted, “On January 15, in the early morning, 20 people, the majority women and children, were reported killed when a house was struck in the Al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City.” In a separate attack the same day, “at about 19:00, 12 people were reportedly killed and another 12 injured when a house between the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah was struck.”

In a statement on Twitter, Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, declared that she “never thought we would witness mass starvation of these proportions used in the 21st century.” She continued: “Yet here it is in Gaza, after 100 days of bombing, with insufficient food, fuel, and water allowed in.” She added, “Children are dying first. Adults will follow. Before our eyes.”

Originally published in WSWS.ORG

17 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By Shamsul Islam

According to the Supreme Court of India (Ayodhya Judgment dated November 9, 2019), “The exclusion of the Muslims from worship and possession took place on the intervening night between 22/23 December 1949 when the mosque was desecrated by the installation of Hindu idols.” [Supreme Court Ayodhya Judgment, pp. 921-22] The idol of Ram Lalla (Ram as child) which was placed under the central dome of in the Babri Mosque (claimed to be the exact place where RAM took birth) was made of metal and was of nine inches tall. It was the idol which was worshipped that time onward and continued to be worshipped after demolition of the Babri Mosque on December 6, 1992 in the make-shift temple by Hindus.

However, on January 22, 2024 a 51-inch stone idol of Ram Lalla will be consecrated through a Brahmanical  ritual called as ‘pran-pratishtha’ (putting soul into an idol) ceremony ) in the newly builtRam Temple at Ayodhya.  “On January 22, 2024, PM Narendra Modi will perform the Pran Pratishtha ceremony under the guidance of Pandit Laxmikant Dixit along with other 121 Vedic Brahmins from across the country.”
[‘Ayodhya Ram Mandir: Know Pran Pratishtha Ceremony details here’, The Times of India, Delhi, January 05, 2024. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/106562761.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst]

Since, PM of a democratic-secular polity of India is conducting this ritual, not only worshippers of Ram but common Indians too have every right to ask what will happen to the deity which was worshipped as Ram. Digvijaya Singh, former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, a practising Hindus has raised the same issue by asking: “Where is the idol of Ram Lalla over which the conflict happened? Why has the old idol not been consecrated?” [‘Where is old idol of Ram Lala, asks Digvijaya, The Times of India, Delhi, December 04, 2024.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/106529546.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst]

PM Modi must take the nation in confidence about the status of already consecrated idol of Ram. Will there be two consecrated idols in the Ram Temple or old idol will be deprived of ‘pran’ or soul? Is there going to be a ‘pran aparatishtha’ (depriving the idol of soul) ritual for the discarded idol?

Swami Dayanand Saraswati on idol Consecration

RSS and PM Modi glorify founder of Arya Samaj, Swami Dayanand Saraswati as barrage of the Hindu nation. It will be pertinent to know what Swami said about idol worship and consecration of idols. All those interested must read chapter 11 of his masterpiece, Satyarth Prakash (Light of Truth). In this book dealing with this issue he raised following issues which RSS and Modi must respond:

“If as you say that the God comes into the image when invoked, why does not the idol show signs of consciousness and why does not the image also leave when the God is asked to depart? Whence does it come and here does it go? The fact of the matter is that the All-pervading Spirit can neither come into and idol, nor, leave it. If you mantras are efficacious that you can summon God, why can you not infuse life into your dead son by the force of the very same mantras? Again why can you not bide the soul depart from the body of your enemy?”

“The soul is possessed of consciousness, while idol is dead and inert. Do you mean to say that the soul should also lose its consciousness and become lifeless like the idol? Idol worship is a fraud.”

“Being All-pervading He cannot be imagined to exist in any particular object only. To hold to the contrary would be tantamount to believing that the sovereign Lord of the earth rules over a small cottage to the exclusion of His whole Empire and would be an insult to Him. In like manner, it is a blasphemy against God to imagine Him as existing in one particular object only… If as you say that the God comes into the image when invoked, why does not the idol show signs of consciousness and why does not the image also leave when the God is asked to depart? Whence does it come and here does it go? The fact of the matter is that the All-pervading Spirit can neither come into and idol, nor, leave it. If you mantras are efficacious that you can summon God, why can you not infuse life into your dead son by the force of the very same mantras? Again why can you not bide the soul depart from the body of your enemy?”

“There is not a single verse in the Vedas to sanction invocation of the Deity and vitalization of the idol, likewise there is nothing to indicate that it is right to invoke idols, to bathe them, to install them in temples and apply sandal paste to them.”

“The formless Supreme Spirit that pervades the universe can have no material representation, likeness or image.” YAJUR VEDA 32: 3.”

Destruction of Ram Temple by Muslims: A fact not known even to Goswami Tulsidas who lived during those times

It is no ordinary religious inauguration of a grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya to be slated for January 22, 2024. It has clear political and polarizing agenda attached to it. Underling this character of the inauguration PM Modi declared that “Ram Bhakts have waited for 550 years” to see it happen.

‘Celebrate Diwali across country on January 22, on the day of Ram temple ceremony: [PM Modi at Ayodhya’,  The Indian Express, Delhi, December 31, 2023, https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/celebrate-diwali-january-22-ram-temple-ceremony-pm-modi-ayodhya-9088953/#:~:text=With%20folded%20hands%2C%20I%20am,the%20evening%20of%20January%2022.%E2%80%9D]

It is not only in India but almost 60 foreign countries where Hindutva organizations are active amongst Hindus; the January 22 is to be celebrated because “After 500 years of struggle by Hindus, Bhagwan Shri Ram Mandir is being inaugurated.” The thrust of the celebration programmes is that Ram Temple at Ayodhya is finally built after being destroyed by Muslims 500 hundred years back. It has been 500 year long struggle to see it happen.

[‘Hindu Americans organise car rally in Washington suburb to celebrate Ram Mandir inauguration’. https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/members-of-hindu-american-community-organise-car-rally-in-washington-suburb-to-celebrate-ram-mandir-inauguration/cid/1987478]

Such claims by Indian PM and his Hindutva co-fellows in the world are only spreading hatred against Muslims thus contributing to the Islamophobic narrative in India and abroad. Sadly, such statements are not only are in contempt of the Supreme Court Judgment on Ayodhya but also contradict ‘Hindu’ narrative of history.

It may be interesting to note that RSS archives have no document to prove that during the British rule since its inception in 1925 ever demanded building of Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Supreme Court inn its 1039 pages long judgment did not admit that Babri Mosque was built on the ruins of any Ram Temple. It is sad that while religious poison is being spread openly the Supreme Court remain a mute spectator while its findings are being mis-reported.

So far as the ‘Hindu’ narrative is concerned there is no mention of it in the writings of the most prominent worshipper of Ram to date, Goswami Tulsidas who lived between 1511-1623. He was the person who penned the Epic, RAMCHARITMANAS (Lake of the Deeds of Ram) in Avadhi language which angered the local Brahmins as the story of Ram was not written in Sanskrit. This was the work which mesmerized Hindus of India with the story of Lord Ram and the latter became house-hold deity of every Hindu home, specially in northern India. He penned his above mentioned work during 1575-76. According to the Hindutva version Ram birth-place temple was destroyed during 1538-1539. Thus RAMCHARITMANAS written almost 37 years after the so called destruction of Ram birth-place temple should have mentioned this destruction. But it did not mention it.

Are Hindutva zealots trying to say that the greatest story-teller and worshipper of Ram and his Court (Darbar), Tulsidas did not speak truth in his historic work? Is not it an attempt to question the credibility of Goswami Tulsidas? Are the Hindutva zealots trying to say that Goswami Tulsidas kept mum on the issue of the destruction of a temple at Ram’s birth-place due to some ulterior motives?

Ramzade Versus Babarzade

The inauguration of Ram Temple is blatantly being used to denigrate Indian Muslims. The building of the Temple is the defeat of ‘Babarzade’ (children of Babar) by ‘Ramzade’ (children of Ram).  It is pertinent to know about the nature of ‘Muslim’ rule in India. The Hindutva zealots demanding Muslim-free India must know that all ‘Muslim’ rulers survived due to the Hindu high Castes joining the ‘Muslim’ rulers in running their empires. How solid this unity was can be gauged by the fact that after Akbar no Mughal emperor was born of a Muslim mother. Moreover, Hindu high Castes provided brain and muscles to the ‘Muslim’ rulers faithfully. Likewise, Mughal rule established by Babar who was invited by a section of Hindu kings to seize India was the rule of Hindu high Castes also.

Aurobindo Ghose who played prominent role in providing Hindu foundation to the Indian nationalism confessed that Mughal rule continued for over a century due to the fact that Mughal rulers gave Hindus, “positions of power and responsibility, used their brain and arm to preserve” their kingdom.

[Cited in Chand, Tara, History of the Freedom Movement in India, vol. 3, Publication Division Government of India, Delhi, 1992, p. 162.]

Renowned historian Tara Chand relying on the primary source material of the medieval period concluded that the from the end of 16^th century to the middle of 19^th century, “it may reasonably be concluded that in the whole of India, excepting the western Punjab, superior rights in land had come to vest in the hands of Hindus” most of whom happened to be Rajputs. [Chand, Tara, History of the Freedom Movement in India, vol. 1, Publication Division  Government of India, Delhi, 1961, p. 124.]

The contemporary records prove that Aurangzeb rule was also the rule of Rajputs and Kshatriyas [members of the two of the four Hindu Castes in order of precedence after Brahmins]. Aurangzeb never faced Shivaji in the battle-field. It was his commander-in-chief, a Rajput ruler of Amer (Rajasthan), Jay Singh I (1611–1667) who was sent to subjugate Shivaji (1603-1680). Jay Singh II (1681-1743), (nephew of Jay Singh I) was other prominent Rajput commander of the Mughal forces who served Aurangzeb. He was conferred the title of ‘Sawai’ [one and a quarter times superior to his contemporaries] chief by Aurangzeb in 1699 and thus came to be known as Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh. He was also given the title of Mirza Raja [a Persian title for a royal prince] by Aurangzeb. The other titles bestowed on him by other Mughal rulers were ‘Sarmad-i-Rajaha-i-Hind’ [eternal ruler of India], ‘Raj Rajeshvar’ [lord of kings] and ‘Shri Shantanu ji’ [wholesome king]. These titles are displayed by his descendants even today. This Rajput chief also gave his daughter in marriage to the son of Aurangzeb who became Mughal emperor after Aurangzeb. [https://www.indianrajputs.com/view/jaipur and https://www.indianrajputs.com/famous/Jai-Singh-II-Amber.php]

Rajput commanders fighting for Aurangzeb was no exception. Akbar’s battles against Rana Pratap were led by one of his brother-in-law, Maan Singh. Maasir al-Umara abiographical dictionary of the officers in the Mughal Empire beginning from 1556 to 1780 [Akbar to Shah Alam] is regarded as the most authentic record of the high rank officials employed by the Mughal kings. According to it Mughal rulers during this period employed around 100 (out of 365) Hindu high-ranking officials most of them being “Rajputs from Rajputana, the midlands, Bundelkhand and Maharashtra”. Brahmins followed Rajputs in manning the Mughal administration so far as the number was concerned. [Khan, Shah Nawaz, Abdul Hai, Maasir al-Umara [translated by H Beveridge as Mathir-ul-Umra], volumes 1& 2, Janaki Prakashan, Patna, 1979.] Interestingly, Kashi Nagri Pracharini Sabha [established in 1893] “committed to the cause of Hindi as official language” published Hindi translation of this book in 1931.

Another crucial fact which is consciously kept under wrap is that despite more than 500 hundreds of effective ‘Muslim’ rule which according to Hindutva historians was nothing but a project of annihilating Hindus or forcibly converting the latter to Islam, India remained a nation with an absolute Hindu majority. The British rulers held first census in 1871-72. It was the time when even ceremonial ‘Muslim’ rule was over. According to the Census report: “The population of British India is, in round numbers, divided into 140½ million [sic] of Hindoos (including Sikhs), or 73½ per cent., 40¾ millions of Mahomedans, or 21½ per cent. [Memorandum on the Census Of British India of 1871-72: Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty London, George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Her Majesty’s Stationary Office 1875, p. 16.]

A poem by Iqbal, a Babarzada eulogizing Ram

The inauguration of Ram Temple at Ayodhya is being aggressively used to declare Muslims and enemy of Ram. This kind of pervert Hindutva mind-set has little knowledge of India’s past. Mohammad Iqbal penned one of the greatest poems in praise of Ram in Urdu which was titled “Imam-e-Hind” (spiritual leader of India).

Hai Raam ke wajood pe Hindustaan ko naaz
Ahl-e-Nazar samajhte hain us ko Imam-e-Hind
(India is proud of the existence of Ram
Spiritual people consider him prelate of India)

It is quite evident that he does not believe that Ram is leader of Hindus alone, otherwise he would have used the word Ahl-e-Hind (people of India) rather than Ahl-e-Nazar (people with vision). For him, the status of Lord Ram as a spiritual leader is not limited to the Vaishnavas or Hindus only. Lord Ram lives in the ethos of India and its people.

Talwar ka dhani tha, shujaat mai fard tha
Paakeegi mai, josh-e-muhabbat mai fard that

(He was expert in sword craft, was unique in bravery
Was matchless in piety and in the enthusiasm of love)

Iqbal saw in Ram a perfect role model for the national movement. He is brave, and can fight wars against any wrong.

Iqbal, accords Ram not only the status of philosophical fountain head of India but of the world.
Sab falsafi hain khita-e-maghrib ke Ram-e-Hind
(All philosophers of the west would have acknowledged India and are fan of Ram).

Deepavali for Ram or PM Modi

Deepavali (Festival of Lights) is the most popular Hindu festival in most parts of India. Deepavli is the celebration of Ram’s return to his kingdom with wife Sita and his brother Lakshman after defeating Ravan of Lanka. It is celebrated as victory of truth over evil.

Now Deepavli for Ram has a competitor which can be named as PM Modi’s Deepavli. Modi declared this plan during a roadshow in Ayodhya on December 31, 2023. According to him , “The whole world is waiting for the historic moment. With folded hands, I am requesting 140 crore people of the country that on January 22, when the consecration of Ramlalla’s idol takes place, light the Ram Jyoti in your house and celebrate Deepawali. The entire country should sparkle with lights on the evening of January 22.”

[‘Celebrate Diwali across country on January 22, on the day of Ram temple ceremony: PM Modi at Ayodhya’, The Indian Express, Delhi, January 01, 2024

https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/celebrate-diwali-january-22-ram-temple-ceremony-pm-modi-ayodhya-9088953/]

Thus Deepavali for Ram is being substituted by Deepavali for PM Modi when he appears in the attire of a rishi or Brahmin saint to put soul into the life-less idol of Ram. Interestingly, the Hindutva zealots have taken this call very seriously by calling Hindus to celebrate January 22 as Maha-Deepavali (Great Deepavali); Deepavali for Ram and Maha-Deepavali  for PM Modi!

Whose Ram? Common people banned from participating in Consecration Ceremony

Ram is known for protecting his people; uphold righteousness, compassion and kindness. Ram is equated with common women/men. His rule is described as Ram Rajya or a rule for the benefit of common people. According to Gandhi it essentially meant, “The land of dharma and a realm of peace, harmony and happiness for young and old, high and low, all creatures and the earth itself, in recognition of a shared universal consciousness.”

However, these are common Hindus who will not be allowed to join the ceremony on January 22^nd. It was made clear by none other than PM Modi who asked common worshippers of Ram not to crowd Ayodhya on January 22. He told them to come later at their convenience because “this time the navya, bhavya, divya (new, grand, divine) temple in Ayodhya is not going anywhere and ‘darshan’ will be available for centuries”.

https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/celebrate-diwali-january-22-ram-temple-ceremony-pm-modi-ayodhya-9088953/#:~:text=With%20folded%20hands%2C%20I%20am,the%20evening%20of%20January%2022.%E2%80%9D

Sadly, PM Modi did not ask the rich, film actors, industrialists, leading sports persons to come later. In fact, 22^nd celebration participation was restricted to a galaxy of Very-Very-Very Important Persons. PM Modi overlooked the fact that the first invites should have gone to those poor worshippers of Ram who despite miserable life had contributed to the coffers of VHP for building Ram Temple. It may be relevant here to know that many of the invitees are not only meat-eaters but have been fond of beef.

Supreme Court Ayodhya judgment: Trickery over-rides justice

The Supreme Court of India has directly helped the VHP and PM Modi in becoming the only franchisees of Ayodhya Ram Temple project. The highest court of justice in India corroborated two important facts.

1. “The exclusion of the Muslims from worship and possession took place on the intervening night between 22/23 December 1949 when the mosque was desecrated by the installation of Hindu idols. The ouster of the Muslims on that occasion was not through any lawful authority but through an act which was calculated to deprive them of their place of worship.” [Supreme Court Judgment pp. 921-22]
2. “On 6 December 1992, the structure of the mosque was brought down and the mosque was destroyed. The destruction of the mosque took place in breach of the order of status quo and an assurance given to this Court. The destruction of the mosque and the obliteration of the Islamic structure was an egregious violation of the rule of law.” [Supreme Court Judgment pp. 913-14]

The Judgment also nowhere mentioned that Babri Mosque was built after destroying a Ram Temple in the past. [https://scroll.in/article/943337/no-the-supreme-court-did-not-uphold-the-claim-that-babri-masjid-was-built-by-demolishing-a-temple] Despite these findings which talked of “[The] egregious violation of the rule of law” and done not by a “lawful authority but through an act which was calculated to deprive them of their place of worship”, Supreme Court took a U turn handing over the site for Ram Temple building to the same group of Hindutva organization who had conspired in both the cases. Supreme Court to ensure that no Hindu competitor of RSS-VHP is allowed any participation in latter’s Ram Temple project disallowed claim of Nirmohi Akhada, the original claimant of Ram Temple at the site of Babri Mosque.  [Supreme Court Judgment p. 925].

It was apolitical judgment was made clear by the current Chief Justice of India, D Y Chandrachud (who was one of the Justices in the Bench which gave unanimous judgment for building Ram Temple) when he stated: “”The case has a long history of conflict, of diverse viewpoints based on the history of the nation and all those who were part of the bench decided that this will be a judgment of the court.” [‘A judgment of court’: CJI Chandrachud on why Ayodhya verdict was kept anonymous’ The Week, Delhi, January 1, 2024. https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2024/01/01/a-judgement-of-court-cji-chandrachud-on-why-ayodhya-verdict-was-kept-anonymous.html] His above statement was, in fact, re-phrasing of propaganda material by Hindutva organizations. This Judgment legitimized the criminal acts of the Hindutva zealots; what Hindutva goons could not achieve on December 22-23, 1949 and December 6, 1992 was got delivered to RSS through this Judgment!

Conclusion

Today Ayodhya is being presented as a case of perpetual war of Hindus against Muslims. There cannot be a shoddier lie than this. During India’s War of Independence 1857 Ayodhya it was the same Ayodhya where Maulvis and Mahants and common Hindu-Muslims stood united in rebelling against the British rule and kissed the hangman’s noose together. Maulana Ameer Ali was a famous Maulvi of Ayodhya and when Ayodhya’s well-known Hanuman Garhi’s (Hanuman Temple) priest Baba Ramcharan Das took lead in organizing the armed resistance to the British rule, Maulana also joined the revolutionary army. In one battle with the British and their stooges, both of them were captured and hanged together on a tamarind tree at the Kuber Teela (razed for the new temple) in Ayodhya.

This region also produced two more great friends, belonging to different religions that made life hell for the British sponsored armies. Acchhan Khan and Shambhu Prasad Shukla were two such friends who lead the army of Raja Devibaksh Singh in the district of Faizabad. Both of them were able to defeat the Firangee army in many battles, inflicting heavy losses on them. It was due to the treachery again that they were captured. In order to desist anyone from such companionships between Hindus and Muslims both these friends were publicly inflicted prolonged torture and their heads were cruelly filed off.

The Hindutva rulers of India led by PM Modi must understand that existence of Indian democratic-secular polity must not be sacrificed for securing victory for ruling India for 5 more years.

Shamsul Islam is a retired professor of Delhi University

16 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org

By M K Bhadrakumar

From the standpoint of affirming ‘solidarity’ with the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the October 7 attack, India has swung away to the far horizon and has unceremoniously dumped the US-Israeli axis, which provided beacon light to Delhi’s West Asian policies in the past few years.

From a strategic asset, the Israeli connection is becoming a liability for the Indian government. Delhi spurned Netanyahu’s repeated entreaties to brand Hamas as a terrorist organisation — by the way, India never pointed finger at Hamas for the October 7 attack. It has resumed the traditional stance of voting against Israel in the UN General Assembly resolutions on the Palestine problem. The Netanyahu-Modi pow-vows have become infrequent.

This is a far cry from the controversial gesture by PM Modi during his ‘historic’ five-day visit to Israel in 2017 to pay homage at the tomb of the founding father of Zionism Theodor Herzl in Haifa . It is doubtful if any Indian prime minister would repeat Modi’s feat in future. With reasonable certainty, it can be said that the future of Zionism in West Asia itself looks rather bleak.

Again, for reasons that remain obscure even today, India decided to be a strong votary of the ill-fated Abraham Accords that purportedly aimed at ‘integrating’ Israel into the Arab fold but, in reality, to isolate Iran in its neighbourhood. Delhi never provided a rational explanation for such a dramatic shift in the traditional policy not to take sides in the intra-regional fratricidal strife in West Asia or identify with the US hegemony in that region.

Delhi followed up by enthusiastically lining up with a surreal venture called ‘I2U2’ which brought together India and the UAE with the US and Israel as a condominium to promote the spirit of the Abraham Accords. In an extravagant gesture, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a 5-day visit to Israel to participate in ‘I2U2’.

Above all, Delhi, which hosted the G20 Summit last year and was supposedly highlighting the rise of the Global South in the world order, instead ended up arranging photo-ops for the visiting US President who hijacked the event and instead catapulted a phoney,  laughable idea as the main outcome of that historic event — the so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC).

The US apparently incentivised Delhi by planting a patently absurd thought that IMEEC would toll the death knell for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China of course retaliated by just hoisting the BRI flag high all over the Maldives (population: 515,132 in the 2022 census) on India’s soft underbelly from where it is visible all over the subcontinent day and night.

However, Indian diplomats are quick learners and course corrections come naturally to them. Delhi has understood that such absurdities in its West Asian policy will do no good and may even be counterproductive as they raise hackles in the Arab Street. Thus, Qatar ticked off India recently by ordering the 15 Indian schools in Doha that cater to the needs of the largely-Hindu 700,000-strong Indian ex-patriate community to ignore Hindu holidays, especially Diwali.

Consistent with the championing of the Global South, India should have voiced support for South Africa’s brilliant initiative to petition the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to bring Israel to justice for its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. After all, it was in South Africa that Mahatma Gandhi had finessed the concept of resistance to racialism. But, alas, India lacked the courage of conviction and the moral fibre to do so.

It is too much to expect the ICJ to put Netanyahu in a cage and try him in the Hague court for his abominable acts against humanity. But there is a strong likelihood that with tacit western support, the ICJ may issue in the coming weeks some sort of interim order for a ceasefire. And in the present atmosphere, that can prove to be a game changer.

All this makes India’s decision to stay clear of the US’ harebrained idea of disciplining Yemen’s Houthis a sensible step. The theatre of the absurd playing out in the Red Sea with the Five Eyes in the cockpit is incredibly complicated. One main vector there is about the phenomenon of the Houthi resistance as such.

An old friend and Beirut-based editor-in-chief of the Cradle, Sharmine Narwani twitted about the quagmire in the Red Sea that awaits the Anglo-American attack on Yemen today:

“I honestly question whether the US or UK have carefully considered #Yemen‘s potential responses to this act of war. Ansarallah (Houthi) is an unusual member of the region’s Axis of Resistance. It marches to its own tune and its mindset is entirely devoid of western narrative grooming. There is no guessing at the full spectrum of its retaliatory palette, but I would not want to be an American or Brit in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, or any of the neighbouring waterways right now.

“It may be that Washington misread the Russian and Chinese abstentions at the UNSC yesterday (on Red Sea). Or, perhaps Moscow and Beijing dangled that bait so the US would miscalculate this badly. The Americans are now militarily engaged, supplying, or bogged down on 5 separate fronts: Ukraine, Gaza-Israel, Yemen, Iraq, Syria. US adversaries can easily hold out until the fatigue sets in; they are nowhere near depleted.

“Bottom line is I think the entire Global South is going to be wearing Abdul Malik al-Houthi t-shirts by springtime.”

Indeed, it is such prescience that is often lacking in India’s West Asia strategy. This is not a region for one-dimensional men. It has been a strategic mistake to be aligned to the US and its allies in the Indian Ocean under the rubric of ‘maritime security’. The erstwhile colonial powers are innovating Neo-mercantile mechanisms to transfer wealth to their metropolis. Why should Indians act as ‘coolies’, as during British rule?

Most important, India should be seized of the Renaissance that is sweeping through the Muslim countries in West Asia. It is epochal in its sweep and has cultural, political and economic dimensions — and will inevitably have far-reaching geopolitical significance. That is why, it becomes imperative that Delhi stops viewing the region though Netanyahu’s Zionist eyes. It is important to terminate India’s collaboration with the US and colonial powers such as France and the UK to interfere in the region on the pretext of maritime security in the Indian Ocean.

India has no reason to have institutionalised partnerships with the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). In a conceivable future, the curtain could well be descending on the western military bases in West Asia. Delhi should grasp the reality that something fundamentally changed post-October 7 in the geopolitics of West Asia.

It is in sync with what Germans call the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) that Saudi Arabia is demanding that the security of the Red Sea is an international responsibility in cooperation with the riparian countries and UN support. Since 2018, Saudi Arabia has called for the establishment of a Council of States bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and in 2020, eight countries signed the Council’s founding charter, who include, ironically, Yemen. Saudi Arabia plans to host a summit meeting of the Council of States.

Today’s Anglo-American missile strike against Yemen should come as a rude awakening to India messaging that the very same western powers who are backing Israel are also escalating the conflict in Gaza and step by step transforming it as a regional conflict — all in the name of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. Unsurprisingly, Saudi Arabia, the regional superpower in the Red Sea, has called on the US to exercise restraint.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar served the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years. He introduces about himself thus:  “Roughly half of the 3 decades of my diplomatic career was devoted to assignments on the territories of the former Soviet Union and to Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Other overseas postings included South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, and Turkey. I write mainly on Indian foreign policy and the affairs of the Middle East, Eurasia, Central Asia, South Asia and the Asia-Pacific…”

His mail ID : indianpunchline@gmail.com

Originally published in, Indianpunchline

16 January 2024

Source: countercurrents.org