400 years of Guru Granth Sahib

It is the 400th year of the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book. The daily times has an article about this book, which tells us about the Sikh Gurus and also why Sikhs have turbans.

It contains, besides the works of the Sikh Gurus, writings of several Hindu and Muslim sages and holy men. Altogether there are 3,384 hymns of which nearly 1,000 are attributed to non-Sikhs. Among the Muslim saints whose contribution to the Guru Granth Sahib stands out clearly is Shaikh Farid. This way Sikhism is an eclectic rather than an exclusive creed. This breadth of vision truly captures the essence of the spiritual and humanist traditions of South Asia.

The hymns included were originally composed in several languages including Punjabi, Hindi, Sanskrit and Persian but have been made accessible to the Punjabi readers in the Gurmukhi script in which the Guru Granth is written. Recently it has been rendered into the Persian or

Govt. should not impede development

During the year of American declaration of Independence, China was the biggest economy of the world, followed by India. Now with both China and India opening up their economies, Economist Clyde Prestowitz thinks that 21st century could well turn out to be the Indian century.
But then it takes political will to sustain the current growth. For the current Indian Govt. this is all the more difficult because the Congress is supported by the Communists, who are anti everything. But the Trade Minister seems to realize what needs to be done.

India’s main problem is the absence of world-class ports, cold-storage facilities and all-weather roads. “The biggest exporter complaint is the amount of time it takes to get your product from A to B,” he said. One solution would be to open India’s retail sector to foreign direct investment. Many multinational retail chains have beaten a path to Mr Nath’s door since Congress took office in May. Economists argue that foreign investment would stimulate much greater investment in cold storage facilities and transport links.

But many lobby groups would fight tooth and nail to prevent a global chain store setting up in their city. “I would not rule out permitting foreign investment, especially if it were shown it was a net generator of employment,” said Mr Nath. “My main concern would be to protect ‘mom and pop’ stores from closing.”

“We know the direction we are heading – a freer and more dynamic trading environment,” said Mr Nath. “It is just a question of filling in the details.”[Infrastructure reform high on the list for India’s new trade minister]

For a country the size of India, there is a limit to the employment that mom and pop stores can generate. Also the Govt. should not introduce artificial restrictions which will impede development. One such situation is coming up in 2005 when the Multi Fiber Agreement will end. When Indian planners began the five year plans in 1951, they were worried that the large scale expansion of cotton mills in Ahmedabad would put the small scale sector out of business. So they prevented the mills from expanding and modernizing and Indian exports could not even fill the quotas under the Multi-Fibre agreement. But in 2005, the Agreement will expire and there is fear in India that Chinese Mills will kill them in the global market. [from In Defense of Globalization]

Thiyyas are from Kyrgyzstan

Thiyya is a caste under Hinduism in the South Indian state of Kerala. Now there is a new study which explains where they came from.

The predominant Thiyya community of Malabar migrated to Kerala in 7000 BC from Kyrgyzstan in the erstwhile Soviet Union, says a fresh study revealing their disputed origins. While the people on the coast of the Black Sea were migrating to different parts of the world in BC 7000, a section who had settled in the foothills of Tian Mountains came to India.

“Thiyyas of Malabar are the descendants of this group of Kyrgyz,” asserts T. Damu in his latest Malayalam book `Lanka Parvam’. He says that the name Thiyya was derived from the name of the mountains, Tian, on the southern side of Kyrgyzstan. The Saikon community of Punjab and Saikover community of Rajasthan also have the same origin. [ Thiyyas migrated from Kyrgyzstan, says study]

So before the Indus Valley Civilization, and before all possible dates for Mahabharata, a bunch of people moved from Kyrgyzstan to Kerala. I have to read this book.

Indo-Israeli Relations

Recently one of our readers asked for more details on the co-operation between Israel and India. You can hear that from a former Jewish General in the Indian Army.

“Actually, there is a long history to what is now happening. As early as 1962, during the war between India and China, prime minister Nehru appealed to prime minister David Ben-Gurion, asking him for military aid. Already then, Israel sent military equipment, mainly 120 mm. mortar rounds. It happened again in the war against Pakistan in 1965 and in the war in 1971: Israel supplied India with mortar rounds, even 160 mm. rounds. And Israel once again proved its generosity in the military conflict with Pakistan in 1999; on that occasion, it also assisted in supplying ammunition, even bombs meant for the Mirage jets of the Indian air force.”

The General also believes that even the present Indian Govt. will maintain excellent relations with Israel, even though they have issued statements supporting the Palestinian cause.”

A victory by the Congress Party under the leadership of Sonia Ghandi in the elections to be held in India in May will not lead to any change in India’s policy toward Israel. The good relations will continue, and in certain area even grow deeper,” assesses Lieutenant General J.F.R. Jacob, a former senior Indian army officer and a Jew, who yesterday completed a five-day visit to Israel. “If I had to rank the present-day level of relations between India and Israel,” Jacob adds, “I would give them a 9 out of 10.”[The Jewish general who beat Pakistan]

Well, India and Israel are launching programs to develop nano materials and hi-tech components needed for electronic warfare. Bilateral trade between the two countries have reached $1.23 billion dollars , an increase of about 43%.
The other day Chanakya or Kautilya or Chandragupta Maurya, who runs vichaar.org asked if India has any military allies. Israel is one country who has come to India’s help all the time and India should do everything to maintain that relation.

Masters of Doublespeak

The Pakistanis are masters of double speak. Whenever any issue arises, they issue two statements. One is for the outside world and one is for internal consumption. To the outside world, the image is that of peacemaker, an ally in the war on terror etc. The internal Jihadi crowd will call this a sellout, so they need to present a macho image and rally the various oppressed nations under the banner of the Pakistani Indentity, which is just based on breaking the Kashmir valley from India.
This doublespeak was evident during the Army operations against the Baluch nationalists. And now the same doublespeak is there in the discussions that Pakistan is having with India.

Doublespeak seems to be key stone of Pakistani diplomacy. Even as Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri played to the international gallery by declaring that Islamabad was so keen on peace that it was ready to put Kashmir on the backburner, President Pervez Musharraf was busy playing to the domestic audience going ballistic on Kashmir and dismissing CBMs as futile.

While Kasuri talked of confidence building measures and long drawn negotiations on Kashmir, Musharraf declared that the Kashmir issue should be resolved at the earliest, and that CBMs alone have no value unless both India and Pakistan move ahead on the longstanding dispute.

“Kashmir (issue) cannot be sidelined and to bring peace, stability and prosperity to South Asia. The problem needs to be resolved without delay”, the Daily Times quoted the President as saying in an interview with the ARY TV channel. [Pak doublespeak stumps India’s peace efforts ]

Indians and Colonisation

While Indians are so opposed to the liberation of Iraq by the Coalition forces as it is occupation, it was interesting to read this paragraph from Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq, which describes all the colonisation activities Indians were involved in.

The men and materials provided by the subcontinent were a crucial pillar of [Britain’s] global colonial hegemony. Post-slavery, poor Indian peasants were encouraged to uproot themselves, across the ocean and work the plantations of Trinidad and Guyana; clerks were despatched to help administer East and South Africa; Sikhs and Gurkhas were used to crush the Boxer rebellion in China and turbulence elsewhere. Later, Indian troops were used to good effect in both world wars as well as in the colonisation of the Arab world during the inter-war period. The establishment of the imperial beach-heads in those days required gunboats(naval supremacy) plus Gurkhas. In 1917 the British, with the help of colonial soldiers from India took Jerusalem and Baghdad.[Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq]

Introspection in the Arab world

While religion is something which you use to attain inner peace, Islamic terrorists have hijacked it to justify their barbaric activities. Mosques are used to preach hatred as seen in Tom Friedman’s program on the Roots of 9/11. In one segment he sits through the Friday prayer at the Al-Azhar mosque in Egypt, where thousands of common people are involved in a personal communion with their God. But once the prayers are over, some people take over and start preaching hatred filled words against America and there is no one stopping them. But now with the barbaric masscre in Beslan, there has been some introspection in the Arab world.

“Most perpetrators of suicide operations in buses, schools and residential buildings around the world for the past 10 years have been Muslims,” wrote Abdul Rahman Rashed, general manager of the popular Al Arabiya television channel. In a blunt column in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al Awsat, Rashed listed attacks carried out by Muslims in Iraq, Russia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. “Our terrorist sons are an end product of our corrupted culture,” he wrote. “The picture is humiliating, painful and harsh for all of us.”

The Saudi daily Arab News blasted Putin as “a servant of state dictatorship and control,” a man who could not afford to lose his “tough-man image.” But the editorial saved its harshest condemnation for the guerrillas, “who had put themselves in a position where no one would shed tears when the punishment came. They reached a new low when they chose toddlers as bargaining chips.”

An editorial in Lebanon’s Daily Star called for “better governance systems and socioeconomic opportunities in those countries and regions, including our Middle East, that seem to generate so many terrorists.” “Terror emanates largely from despair, hopelessness and humiliation,” the editorial said. “And these are sentiments whose causes can be identified, tracked, grasped and addressed.”[Russian School Takeover Stirs Self-Criticism Among Arabs]

The reasons behind anti-Americanism

Discovery Times Channel had a program on the rising anti-American feeling in the world. The program was Thomas L. Friedman reporting from the Arab world, asking students and intellectuals why 19 young people decided to take the lives of 3000 innocent civilians in United States.
Most people said it was because of the US support for Israel and other dictators in the Arab world. According to one student, everyone was shocked when Sept 11 happened in America but it happens everyday in the Arab world. According to Friedman, Arab countries are suffering from the poverty of dignity and humiliation is a very powerful force in international relations.
Another student mentioned that Americans tend to view Arabs and Middle East with terrorism, for which Friedman replies that it was not 19 Norwegians who attacked us on Sept 11th. Also it is not as if the terrorists are illiterate and poor people. Mohammed Atta was an educated Arab, who wanted to be a town planner. He was a normal person, till he moved to Europe where he got radicalized in a mosque in Hamburg.
This brings to the question of understanding the relations of immigrants in European countries. Friedman travels to Belgium which has been in the middle of a stormy relation between Muslim immigrants and natives. The natives complain that the immigrants fail to assimilate to the society and the immigrants complain that they are humiliated by their hosts. The radical mosques in these countries take advantage of the desparation of the immigrants turn them into terrorists. It was the same way Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was released by India in Khandahar became a terrorist according to Bernard Henri Levy in Who Killed Daniel Pearl?
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