Hindu focus

Who cares for the minor Hindu girl’s right and the society’s committment to protect her?  Is she a ‘package’ to be governed by Sharia Law too?

Would the honorable (sick-u-lar) judges have given the same judgement if their own 15yr daughter was eloped, kidnapped and forcibly married?

(Also, note the ‘objective’ reporting of our enlightened media)

Youth gets bail in elopement case Kolkata

TNN 17 December 2009, 07:04am IST

KOLKATA: Calcutta High Court on Wednesday granted the anticipatory bail plea of a 26-year-old youth from Murshidabad who had been accused of kidnapping and marrying a 15-year-old girl.

Sairul Sheikh, a resident of Bakultala in Behrampore, had been accused of kidnapping and forcibly marrying Anita Roy.

A division bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice S P Talukdar allowed Sheikh’s plea after his lawyers Joymalya Bagchi and Rajib Lochan Chakraborty submitted that the marriage was legal under Muslim Personal Law. Holding the marriage legal, the court granted Sheikh’s anticipatory bail application.

Anita’s mother Jyotsna had lodged a complaint with Behrampore PS that her daughter had been missing since October 14. On October 15, she came to know that son Sairul had “kidnapped and married” her minor daughter.

Wonder whether it would have come so easily had it not been for the assertive Hindu groups protesting and retaliating. The least that such protests have done is to develop a public awareness on ‘fraudulent conversion’.

No reason to lower the guards, though.

Church to preachers: Be more sensitive

CITHARA PAUL

New Delhi, Dec. 28: The Indian Church has asked all Christian groups to guard against aggressive evangelism or denigration of other religions in an effort to become “more sensitive” towards local cultures.

The decision came at this month’s meeting of the Christian United Forum, which includes Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists and Pentecostal groups among its members.

The resolution adopted at the meeting also asks the clergy and lay people to follow a simple lifestyle and try to be as environment-friendly as possible.

Aggressive evangelism by certain Christian groups has been earning the Church bad publicity by creating a perception that Christians are out to degrade and defame other religions, the resolution says. The “impression” that Christian groups are receiving money for every act of conversion does not help either, it adds.

The meeting, however, denied that Christians received money for conversions, or that they carried out “forcible conversions” — as alleged by the Sangh parivar, which wants a ban on conversions.

The conference has appealed to all Christian denominations to refrain, especially during preaching, from badmouthing other religious communities, their deities or the traditions they hold sacred since this violates Christ’s teaching of love, harmony and peace.

The resolution says the beauty of Christianity is tarnished when Christians denigrate others. “We have to work positively to build a harmonious relationship with people of all religions and cultures,’’ it says.

The Church leaders took the view that aggressive evangelism and attempts to denigrate other religions were partly responsible for the September 2008 communal riots in Karnataka. The National Commission for Minorities had given a similar report after the violence.

The Christian groups have also decided to set up a committee to formulate measures to end interdenominational conversions — known as “sheep stealing” — and strengthen Christian unity. They have stressed the need to have more co-ordination and dialogues among themselves.

The Church has also decided on a code of conduct for priests and seminary students, encouraging them to lead simple and austere lives. “It is time for introspection,” the resolution says.

Under the code, priests and seminarians are not expected to use expensive consumer goods but to eat and dress simply. The code asks the priests to turn down offers of luxuries.

While travelling, they should not choose high-end facilities but travel with the common people.

“The Church wants to curb lavishness of all kinds and set a model of austere and simple life,’’ said Fr Paul Thelakkat of the Catholic Bishops Council of India.

Priests have been asked to create a platform in every parish for interaction with lay people.

The laity should be educated on the importance of the environment and encouraged to turn parishes “as green as possible’’ and use solar power whenever possible.

 A church is damaged in a BJP ruled state. 

Church vandalized in north Karnataka

 November 18th, 2009 – 8:23 pm ICT by IANS  

Bangalore, Nov 18 (IANS) A church in north Karnataka has been vandalized and a cross, doors and windows have been damaged, police and church authorities said Wednesday.

Vasanthkumar, the priest at the church in Humnabad in Bidar district, about 700 km from here, told reporters that the attack must have taken place late Tuesday and the damage was noticed Wednesday. “It looks like a deliberate act of desecration as nothing has been stolen,” Vasanthkumar said. He said the cross on top the church, the main door and windows have been damaged. The police visited the church and registered a case on the complaint lodged by the priest.

In September last, more than 15 churches were vandalized in different parts of the state by pro-Hindu activists, protesting alleged conversion activity by missionaries.

The last line delivers the punch. It has to be Hindu activists by default …..

Within a month, Karnataka Police solve the case.

Oops! no Hindu Activist, but the Pastor Vasanthkumar himself arranged it ………..

Humnabad church attack: police arrest pastor

  Police say the accused hired three goons to vandalise the church

BIDAR: The Bidar district police Thursday claimed to have solved the case of an attack on a church in Humnabad town in Bidar district on November 17 with the arrest of a former pastor of the church and three hired goons who allegedly attacked the church.

Superintendent of Police Satish Kumar in a press statement said here that the main accused, Vasant, who was the pastor of the Humnabad church till June this year before his transfer to a church at Basantpur in Chincholi taluk in Gulbarga district had conspired to damage the church with the hope that the church authorities would cancel his transfer and keep him in Humnabad.

Mr. Kumar said the investigation revealed that the accused had taken the help of B. Sunil, S. Mallikarjun Swamy and S. Manjunath, all belonging to Humnabad town, to damage the church with a promise of paying them Rs. 10,000. According to Mr. Kumar, the main accused had already paid Rs. 1,000 as advance to the trio for carrying out the attack.

The attack, which had embarrassed the district administration and the police, had caused quite a stir among the Christians who wanted the Government to take immediate action against those responsible for the attack. Furniture, electrical fittings in the main prayer hall and the cross on the dome of the church were damaged. The Opposition parties such as the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) had also joined the Christians in demanding action against those responsible for the attack.

Mr. Kumar said that a special team of police officers, headed by Additional Superintendent of Police Thyagarajan and Circle Inspectors M.H. Satish, working in Humnabad police station and James Menenzis working in Raichur, was formed to solve the case. The team questioned several persons and finally the pastor. The accused revealed the names of the three people he had hired to attack the church.

Kerala HC freezes probe in Love Jihad case

VR Jayaraj | Kochi

Within ten days of the Kerala High Court’s observations that a campus-based Islamist campaign called Love Jihad or Romeo Jihad for converting non-Muslim girls into Islam through love did exist in Kerala, another judge of the same court put forward a different argument and imposed a freeze on investigations into two such cases.  

Considering a petition filed by Shehenshah and Sirajuddin, students of a Pathanamthitta college praying for cancellation of the FIRs against them, Justice Sasidharan Nambiar stayed the investigations against them till further orders. The Muslim youths had been accused of forcing their lovers, one Hindu and the other Christian, to convert into Islam forcibly.  

The judge observed that the probes had targeted a particular community and such a tendency would lead to communal tension. He asked the police to submit detailed affidavit on the matter. Justice Nambiar also froze the follow-up actions in these two cases.  

On December 9, Justice KT Sankaran of the High Court had observed that there were sufficient reasons to believe that an organized conversion campaign was operating in the State. He had also asked the Government to consider formulation of a law against forced conversion on the lines of the ones in force in certain other states. He had also rejected the bail applications submitted by Shehenshah and Sirajuddin.  

On the contrary, Justice Nambiar said that inter-community marriages could not be treated as instances of forced conversion. He said that inter-caste and inter-community marriages had been happening in the society for a long time and these could not be seen as illegal. He said those who had probed the cases seemed to be harbouring certain vested interests.  

The court unleashed scathing criticisms against the police for their assumptions on the cases, the case diary of which had come to its possession last week. The judge said that the descriptions found in the case diary had shocked his conscience. He added that the case seemed to be falsely framed by the police.  

Legal experts pointed out that Justice Nambiar’s order and observations were in total contrast with those of Justice Sankaran. Ruling that Love Jihad seemed to be real, the latter had told the State Government that it had the responsibility to check forced conversions. Justice Sankaran had also rejected a petition seeking a ban on the use of the terms Love Jihad and Romeo Jihad.  

Justice Sankaran had pointed out that the police reports had made it clear that forced conversions through love affairs as a movement had been going on in Kerala since 1996. He said that according to police reports, about 4,000 conversions had taken place through love affairs in the past four years, and 2,800 girls of other religions had been converted into Islam in this period.

He also said that 1,600 such conversions had taken place in four northern districts including Malappuram, Kerala’s Muslim-majority district. It was evident from the report submitted by the DGP that outfits like Islamist Popular Front of India (earlier NDF) and its student wing, the Campus Front, were behind the organized campus-based conversion programme , said Justice Sankaran.  

The issue came out in the open in August last, when the parents of Hindu girl Mithula and her Christian friend Bino, both MBA students, approached the High Court with habeas corpus petitions seeking presentation of heir missing daughters. The girls first said they had converted voluntarily but later admitted that they had been forced to convert in a house at Chelari in Malabar.  

So says Padmashree Rajdeep Sara-desh-hai-hai,  Editor-in-chief of CNN (Congress News Network) -IBN.

The criteria on which it is based has nothing to do with his Gandhi surname (of which he is coyly proud), or his superhero image of a fitness freak who relaxes by practicing boxing.

Neither was it based on whose picture or news items were flashed for the most time on Indian news media, of which he could have been a indisputable winner thanks to the loyal and sycophantic media, lead by Padmashree Sara-desh-hai-hai  himself.

The criteria was that no one toured India the way he had done.

One has to admit that his competitors were all relatively static – perhaps stuck with work only in their respective constituency, assembly, parliament or state – at least we are least conscious of when and where they go.

On the other hand, courtesy of the Indian media, we are made aware of each place and each incidence of his visits to different parts of the country and even his most outspoken adversary have to admit that he has travelled a lot – be it for election campaigning or for asking school kids to join politics, or for titillating Aligarh Muslim Universitity students that Muslims can be Prime Ministers. One should also remember that here is this humble, politician who leads by example in the austerity drive by travelling like common people with his pack of SPG guards in possibly vacated compartments, braving a near Panipat battle  with stone throwing children. Reportedly one of his trip to Chennai to campaign for austerity cost the Congress party Rs 1 Crore and in another he  took a train in AC chair car to Ludhiana and saved a whopping Rs 445.

Who can miss his passion to visit the  Dalit’s houses  (be it for tea or for night stay) or his untraceable visits to unknown places in Orissa or UP?

And one should not forget that his trips are not restricted to India alone – he does make trips to international places, for example to London to celebrate his birthday.

Surely, Rahul Gandhi has come a lot up in the political ladder in India from the days of his FBI encounter in Boston with his Columbian girlfriend and $200,000 in cash, to be given this honorable accolade.

 Only President Obama’s anticipatory Nobel peace prize (chosen within two weeks of Presidency) can be a comparison for this.

Rahul Gandhi named Politician of the Year

New Delhi: Year 2009 was a watershed year for Indian politics. Experts say it was a year which bid farewell to a generation of great politicians and ushered in new and promising faces. 

Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee strode on a renewed wave of popularity to signal the end of the Left era in West Bengal.

Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh rewrote the history of political consistency. 

Governance acquired a new dimension of competence in the hands of Union Home Minister P Chidambaram and Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Apart from this there is also no denial that in 2009 General Elections, voters overwhelmingly voted for the youth. 

One man, who became the symbol of this new trust and represented the generation next of Indian leaders is Rahul Gandhi.  He has become the synonymous of political credibility and social sensitivity.

“Rahul Gandhi has been chosen CNN-IBN politician of the year over many of his more experienced colleagues and rivals because no one toured India the way he has in the past 60 months.

Nobody has enunciated a vision of new India the way he has and none has understood the immediate need to bridge the city-country divide the way Rahul Gandhi has. His efforts show that hard work

pays even in the uncertain world of politics,” says CNN-IBN Editor-in-chief Rajdeep Sardesai.

Once again a ‘Muslim Victimhood” case has been debunked.

Just like in the Batla house encounter case, CBI has given clean chit to the cops who however have been already accused, humiliated and jailed for reasons that seems nothing more than ‘public demand’.

Earlier the media, journalist and even the state government were implicated in spreading falsehood, fabricating evidence, inciting street violence. Media was accused of inciting communal hatred by reporting, based on the accounts of individuals claiming to be eyewitnesses, that one victim’s forehead had been smeared with sindoor — an allegation that suggested that the rapists were Hindus.

Again the question is how can this nexus of media-journalist-politicians-minority appeasers be broken.

And how does one expect the security forces-police-military to continue working thanklessly in this hostile atmosphere, risking their life and reputation?

Accountability is virtually nonexistent and will remain so until exemplary punishments are implemented to those responsible.

CBI gives clean chit to policemen in Shopian case

Giving a clean chit to four police officials in the mysterious Shopian case, the CBI today said two women who were alleged to have been raped and murdered had actually died due to drowning, and has indicted 14 people including doctors and lawyers for allegedly fabricating evidence.

Seeking to give a quietus to the case that had led to widespread protests for 47 days in the valley during summer, CBI counsel Anil Bhan informed a division bench headed by Chief Justice Bahrin Ghosh that the women had died due to drowning in a stream.

“Rape and murder have not been established, and a report has been filed before the notified court of the CBI, that is the chief judicial magistrate of Srinagar,” Bhan said.

Life in Shopian town, 51 km from here, had come to a standstill after the bodies of 22-year-old Neelofar and 17-year-old Asiya were found in a stream. Protests were held claiming that the two had been allegedly raped and murdered.

The CBI, which has based its finding on the opinion received from experts of AIIMS, Central Forensic and Scientific Laboratory and FSL of Haryana, had told the CJM’s court on December 10 that the women were never raped and had died due to drowning.

In an embarrassment for the State government and the one-man Jan Commission appointed by it, CBI found nothing against the four policemen – superintendent of police Javed Iqbal Mattoo, deputy SP Rohit Basgotra, station house officer Shafiq Ahmed and sub-inspector Gazi Karim.

The four had spent two months in jail following orders from the high court, which had said it was convinced with the findings of the Special Investigating Team constituted by it to probe the incident that they allegedly tried to destroy the evidence.

The CBI has now filed a charge sheet against the six doctors – Nighat Shaheen, GQ Sofi, Maqbool Mir, GM Paul, Bilal Ahmed Dalal and Nazia Hassan – under Sections 167 (public servant framing an incorrect document) and section 194 (giving or fabricating evidence with intent to procure conviction of capital offence) of the Ranbir Penal Code.

The CBI alleged that the doctors did not carry out the postmortem properly, and gave a false report that the two victims had been raped before being murdered. The medicos were also charged for preparing false vaginal slides.

Ironically, five lawyers, including the former and present as well as the public prosecutor Mushtaq Ahmed Gattoo and Sheikh Mubarak respectively for allegedly conspiring and intimidating witnesses to make false submissions before a magistarte about women cries being heard from a policevan.

Besides these two lawyers, others include Abdul Majid Dar, Mohammed Yusuf Bhat and Altaf Ahmed. They all have been charged with section 194, 342 (wrongful confinement) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy).

The five lawyers have been charged with entering into a criminal conspiracy with Ali Mohammed Sheikh and Zahoor Ahmed Ahnger in pressuring two – Abdul Rashid and GM Lone – in giving false statement under oath before a magistrate that they had heard women cries coming from a police vehicle.

The CBI questioned Rashid and Lone who spilt the beans and told the agency sleuths that they had been pressurised by the lawyers through Sheikh and Ahnger. The CBI got their fresh confessional statement registered before a chief judicial magistrate.

A police constable Mohammed Yaseen Ganai has also been charge sheeted for allegedly giving false information and false charges made with an intent to injure.

The CBI took over the investigation into the case on September 17 and a team headed by deputy inspector general Satish Golcha has been camping here since then. The agency’s special director SC Sinha had also visited the place to take stock of the situation.

Ahead of the CBI investigations, the state government had appointed one-man commission headed by Justice (retd) Muzzafar Jan who, among other things, had recommended a detailed questioning of the relatives of the victims including Neelofar’s husband Shakeel and her brother Zirar Shah.

On 16th January 2005, the Times of India was too happy to publish a report, What’s next after Saraswati for ASI?,  with a conclusive statement, “So we finally know that the mythical river Saraswati doesn’t exist. After nine excavations in different parts of India, excited initial whispers of its hazy trace, and seven months into the new UPA regime, we were told, via the Rajya Sabha, that there’s no sign of Saraswati.”.

Unfortunately it has become a fight between them and us. The ‘them” is represented by the pseudo-secularists and communists along with people from the likes of the Times of India and the UPA, to whom the Vedic and Hindu glories are mythical. The “us” is always on their backfoot, fighting for the mere acknowledgement of the faith and its wisdom, occasionally finding their voices in the Pioneers.

The loser, if anybody, will be India and her Civilization.

The hope, though is “Truth always prevails”……

UPA now admits Saraswati existed

http://www.dailypioneer.com/222382/UPA-now-admits-Saraswati-existed.html

Rajesh Singh/Santanu Banerjee | New Delhi

Earlier, had refused to agree despite Govt agencies confirming existence of river

In a significant shift from its earlier stand that probes conducted so far showed no trace of the mythical river, the Union Government has recently admitted that scientists have discovered water channels indicating “beyond doubt” the existence of the “Vedic Saraswati.”

The Government’s fresh submission came in response to an unstarred question in Rajya Sabha on December 3 by Prakash Javadekar (BJP), who wanted to know whether satellite images had “established the underground track of Saraswati, and if so, why should the precious water resources not be exploited to meet growing demands.”

To this, the Union Water Resources Ministry quoted in writing the conclusion of a study jointly conducted by scientists of ISRO, Jodhpur and the Rajasthan Government’s Ground Water Department, published in the Journal of Indian Society of Remote Sensing. Besides other things, the authors had said that “clear signals of palaeo-channels on the satellite imagery in the form of a strong and powerful continuous drainage system in the North-West region and occurrence of archaeological sites of pre-Harappan, Harappan and post-Harappan ages beyond doubt indicate the existence of a mighty palaeo-drainage system of the Vedic Saraswati river in this region… The description and magnanimity of these channels also matches with the river Saraswati described in the Vedic literature.”

A leading educationist and currently chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Yash Pal, who had published in 1980 in his own words “a small paper on the existence of Saraswati river which attracted attention,” concurred with the view. “Surveys so far have brought out clearly the path the river had taken when in flow,” the national research professor told The Pioneer. He did a stint with ISRO (which has played a pivotal role in the probes so far) from 1973-1980 where he set up the Space Application Centre.

On whether the Union Government should assume a proactive role on the issue of reviving the river to tackle the water shortages, he said, “With advancement of technology more research should be conducted. The river was not lost yesterday; perhaps due to tectonic shifts it disappeared ten thousand years ago. We have to keep these issues in mind.”

All through its tenure until now, the UPA Government had denied the existence of the mystery river. Then Culture Minister Jaipal Reddy had told Parliament that excavations conducted so far at nine sites had not revealed any trace of the lost river Saraswati. He stated that the UPA Government had not extended the sanction for the project given by the NDA Government. Giving a progress report of the Saraswati River Heritage Project launched by the NDA Government, he had said that though the project report was prepared in September 2003 envisaging a cost of Rs 36.02 crore, it was later slashed to Rs 4.98 crore.

The Leftists, who commanded great influence over the first five years of the UPA regime, too, were dismissive of the evidences. Senior leaders even castigated probe agencies for ‘wasting’ time and money over the study of the mystery river. Three years ago, senior CPI(M) leader and Politburo member Sitaram Yechury slammed the ASI for its efforts. A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, which he headed in 2006, said, “The ASI has deviated in its working and has failed in spearheading a scientific discipline of archaeology. A scientific institution like the ASI did not proceed correctly in this matter.”

These assertions had come despite mounting evidence of the river collected by central agencies such as Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Geological Survey of India (GSI), Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Central Groundwater Authority (under the Water Resources Ministry). The Government had also failed to acknowledge expert opinion that the river’s revival could tackle the increasing water demands of more than 20 crore people in the North-West region of the country.

The first national impetus for research on Saraswati came during the NDA regime when the then Union Culture Minister Jagmohan in June 2002 announced excavations to trace the river’s course. He named a team of four experts – Baldeo Sahai of ISRO, Ahmedabad, archaeologist S Kalyan Raman, glaciologist Y K Puri and water consultant Madhav Chitle – for the task. But even earlier, States like Haryana had begun their study of the ‘underground river.’

Talking of the progress, SL Aggarwal, an official in Haryana Irrigation Department said, “Work on the 3.5 km stretch of river Saraswati between Jyotisar and Bibipur would be completed in one-and-a-half months and then we would be able to revive the ancient river and be able to use the water for irrigation purposes.” The Haryana Government recently sanctioned Rs 10.05 crore for the project of revival of the river, with the Oil and Natural Gas Commission carrying out geophysical and geoelectric surveys for drilling of wells in association with Kurukshetra University for exploratory purposes.

A non-government organisation (NGO), Saraswati Nadi Sodh Sansthan, has also been working for the revival of the ancient river through its entire track. Two seminars were held on this issue on October 22, 2008 and November 21, 2009 at Kurukshetra where representatives from ONGC, Geological Survey of India and Indian Space Research Organisation were invited.

Rajasthan too has been an active participant in the project. Some four decades ago the Archeological Survey of India (GSI) had conducted excavations at a village named Kalibanga in Srigananagar district of Rajasthan, unearthing a full- fledged township beneath a mound, locally called ‘Thed.’ The ASI researchers came to the conclusion that the sight belonged to the Harappan period. Subsequent studies revealed that this flourishing town was situated on the banks of the Saraswati which once flowed from this part of the Rajasthan desert.

About two decades ago, scientists at Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI) at Jodhpur launched a project to track down the traces. They concluded that the ancient channels were a dead river that could well be Saraswati. Interestingly, here, the ancient texts and the geographical history of the region were constant bases of reference of the studies.

Analyses of images earlier taken by the American satellite Landsat in the 1970’s clearly showed the presence of underground water in a definitive pattern in the Jaisalmer region. As part of the project, then, underground water researchers were asked to dig bore wells at places from where this lost river used to flow. They selected Chandan Lathi near Jaisalmer for this purpose. To the surprise of researchers, the water found after digging the bore wells at places on the course of the river was not only sweet but available in plenty. Encouraged by this discovery, they dug two dozen bore well in the area, from where the river used to flow, and in all of them they found sweet water.

A few years later Dr Vakankar, a noted historian, as part his Itihas Sanklan Yojna, visited this and other sites linked with the river. Together with another expert Moropant Pingle, he concluded that the Saraswati used to flow from this part of Rajasthan, Sirsa in Haryana, Bhatinda in Punjab and Srigangangar district in Rajasthan.

With the Government indicating a shift in its position, it remains to be seen whether the research work by central agencies that had come to a near halt, will now resume.

— With inputs from Lokpal Sethi in Jaipur and Nishu Mahajan in Chandigarh

Also read:

The shameful politics of the Saraswati river

This is interesting. No this is not a Hindu nationalist propaganda.

However, now the Indian Communists have something in their defence to justify their love for China.  And, the ‘political Dravidians’ will be disappointed. 

Ancestors of Chinese came from India: Study

 BANGALORE: The ancestors of most Asian populations, including the Chinese and southeast Asians, came from India, a new genetic study across 10 countries has revealed. The study found that humans first migrated to the Indian subcontinent from Africa some 100,000 years ago and then spread to other parts of Asia.

“When humans moved out of Africa, there was a migration to India and from India to southeast Asia and then east Asia, and finally to the Americas. So, all Asians have a genetic connection with India,” Mitali Mukerji, a scientist from the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology who was in the team, said.

The study — Mapping Human Genetic History in Asia — was conducted in 10 Asian countries including India. Apart from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research DG Samir Brahmachari, the Indian study team comprised eight members and some students from IGIB, New Delhi, anthropologist Partha Majumdar and researchers from the Centre for Genomic Applications.

The study contradicts earlier findings that humans directly went to East Asia from Africa. The study found remarkable similarities between the Dravidian population of south India and specific populations in Malaysia and Singapore. More interestingly, north Indians and Dravidians, too, were found to be genetically connected — meaning there are similarities in their gene structures.

Another mythical ‘Jodha Akbar’ on the make.

Another Arabian Night fairy tale to be legitimized.

Another batch of ignorant and gullible Hindus will seek this opportunity for personal glories.  

Kingsley to play Shah Jahan to Aishwarya’s Mumtaz

 Actor Ben Kingsley, who won an Oscar for playing Mahatma Gandhi 27 years ago, is back in India. The actor plans to play Mughal emperor Shah Jahan with Aishwarya Rai as Mumtaz Mahal in the period film Taj. Kingsley, 65, last worked with Aishwarya, 34, in The Last Legion in 2007. The actor said his wife Daniela Barbosa de Carneiro would play Shah Jahan’s first wife Kandahari Begum. Aishwarya told reporters: “During the shooting of The Last Legion, (Kingsley) had shared the idea with me. I have just received the draft of the script and now we are planning to take it forward.” Kingsley said the focus of the film would be the building of the Taj Mahal and the isolation and loneliness of the man (Shah Jahan) who built it. “All of this is held together by love and the power of love, which transcends the prison cell and even death,” Kingsley said. The actor plans to start shooting in India from the autumn of 2010. “I am looking for Indian producers and finances for the film,” he said.

Is Mr. Ben Kingsley  aware of the BBC report below?

Will the truth about Taj mahal ever come out?

Will Mr. P N Oak ever get the credit for his daring research?

Will any leader in India ever dare to expose one of the largest hoax of Indian history by opening up the hidden 4 storeys under the modified Tejo Mahalaya, known as Taj Mahal?

The Controversy Surrounding the Origins of the Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal, located near the Indian city of Agra, is one of the world’s greatest architectural treasures. The almost supernatural beauty of the Taj Mahal and its grounds transcends culture and history, and speaks with a voice of its own to visitors from all over the world of feelings that are common to all humanity.

There are two stories of how the Taj came to be.

The Taj’s Love Story

It has been called the most beautiful temple in the world, despite the fact that it was built at the cost of much human life. The Taj Mahal is a real monument of one man’s love for a woman. The story is a sad one, told many times. But it never hurts to tell it again.

In 1631, when his wife died in childbirth, the emperor Shah Jahan brought to Agra the most skilled craftsmen from all Asia and even Europe, to build the white marble mausoleum that is the Taj Mahal. He intended to build a black marble mausoleum for himself, and the link between the two was to be a silver bridge. This fantastic plan suffered a dramatic and permanent setback when the Shah himself died.

Its stunning architectural beauty is beyond description, particularly at dawn and at sunset when it seems to glow in the light. On a foggy morning, it looks as though the Taj is suspended in mid-air when viewed from across the Jamuna river.

This is, of course, an illusion. The Taj stands on a raised square platform with its four corners truncated, forming an unequal octagon. The architectural design uses the interlocking arabesque concept, in which each element stands on its own and perfectly integrates with the main structure. It uses the principles of self-replicating geometry and a symmetry of architectural elements.

If you don’t want the huge crowds to distract you from your view, try arriving just as it opens or is about to close. A few minutes alone in the perpetually echoing inner sanctum will reward you far more than several hours spent on a guided tour. Especially if your tour guide is Murbat Singh, who makes it his job to find a new comic slant on the Taj story every time he tells it.

To really do the Taj Mahal justice, you should plan to spend at least a full day in the grounds, to see this stunning piece of architecture at dawn, midday, and at dusk. The colours and atmosphere of the gardens and the Taj itself constantly change throughout the day. Under moonlight the marble glows.

The Taj’s Other Story

If you have ever visited the Taj Mahal then your guide probably told you that it was designed by Ustad Isa of Iran, and built by the Moghul Emperor, Shah Jahan, in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Indian children are taught that it was built in 22 years (1631 to 1653) by 20,000 artisans brought to India from all over the world.

This story has been challenged by Professor P.N. Oak, author of Taj Mahal: The True Story, who believes that the whole world has been duped. He claims that the Taj Mahal is not Queen Mumtaz Mahal’s tomb, but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya), worshipped by the Rajputs of Agra city.

In the course of his research, Oak discovered that the Shiva temple palace had been usurped by Shah Jahan from then Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. Shah Jahan then remodelled the palace into his wife’s memorial. In his own court chronicle, Badshahnama, Shah Jahan admits that an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra was taken from Jai Singh for Mumtaz’s burial. The ex-Maharaja of Jaipur is said to retain in his secret collection two orders from Shah Jahan for the surrender of the Taj building.

The use of captured temples and mansions as a burial place for dead courtiers and royalty was a common practice among Muslim rulers. For example, Hamayun, Akbar, Etmud-ud-Daula and Safdarjung are all buried in such mansions.

Oak’s inquiries begin with the name Taj Mahal. He says this term does not occur in any Moghul court papers or chronicles, even after Shah Jahan’s time. The term ‘Mahal’ has never been used for a building in any of the Muslim countries, from Afghanistan to Algeria.

‘The usual explanation that the term Taj Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal is illogical in at least two respects. Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani,’ he writes. ‘Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters from a woman’s name to derive the remainder as the name for the building.’

Taj Mahal is, he claims, a corrupt version of Tejo-mahalaya, or the Shiva’s Palace. Oak also says that the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy tale created by court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy archaeologists. Not a single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan’s time corroborates the love story.

Furthermore, Oak cites several documents suggesting that the Taj Mahal predates Shah Jahan’s era:

Professor Marvin Miller of New York took samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan.

European traveller Johan Albert Mandelslo, who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz’s death), describes the life of the city in his memoirs, but makes no reference to the Taj Mahal being built.

The writings of Peter Mundy, an English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz’s death, also suggest that the Taj was a noteworthy building long well before Shah Jahan’s time.

Oak also points out a number of design and architectural inconsistencies that support the belief that the Taj Mahal is a typical Hindu temple rather than a mausoleum.

Many rooms in the Taj Mahal have remained sealed since Shah Jahan’s time, and are still inaccessible to the public. Oak asserts they contain a headless statue of Shiva and other objects commonly used for worship rituals in Hindu temples.

Fearing political backlash, Indira Gandhi’s government tried to have Oak’s book withdrawn from the bookstores, and threatened the Indian publisher of the first edition with dire consequences.

The only way to really validate or discredit Oak’s research is to open the sealed rooms of the Taj Mahal, and allow international experts to investigate. 

Suggested reading:

Taj Mahal – A Hindu Temple-Palace