Atrocities on Hindu Temples

Atrocities on Hindu Temples

THE TUGHLAQS

Muslim power again suffered a setback after the death of Alauddin Khalji in 1316 AD. But it was soon revived by the Tughlaqs. By now most of the famous temples over the length and breadth of the Islamic occupation in India had been demolished, except in Orissa and Rajasthan which had retained their independence. By now most of the rich treasuries had been plundered and shared between the Islamic state and its swordsmen. Firuz Shah Tughlaq led an expedition to Orissa in 1360 AD. He destroyed the temple of Jagannath at Puri, and desecrated many other Hindu shrines. According to ‘Sirat-i-Firoz Shahi’ which he himself wrote or dictated, “Allah who is the only true God and has no other emanation, endowed the king of Islam with the strength to destroy this ancient shrine on the eastern sea-coast and to plunge it into the sea, and after its destruction he ordered the image of Jagannath to be perforated, and disgraced it by casting it down on the ground. They dug out other idols which were worshipped by the polytheists in the kingdom of Jajnagar and overthrew them as they did the image of Jagannath, for being laid in front of the mosques along the path of the Sunnis and the way of the ‘musallis’ (Muslim congregation for namaz) and stretched them in front of the portals of every mosque, so that the body and sides of the images might be trampled at the time of ascent and descent, entrance and exit, by the shoes on the feet of the Muslims.”

After the sack of the temples in Orissa, Firoz Shah Tughlaq attacked an island on the seacoast where “nearly 100,000 men of Jajnagar had taken refuge with their women, children, kinsmen and relations”. The swordsmen of Islam turned “the island into a basin of blood by the massacre of the unbelievers”.

A worse fate overtook the Hindu women. Sirat-i-Firuz Shahi records: “Women with babies and pregnant ladies were haltered, manacled, fettered and enchained, and pressed as slaves into service in the house of every soldier …”

Still more horrible scenes were enacted by Firuz Shah Tughlaq at Nagarkot (Kangra) where he sacked the shrine of Jvalamukhi. Firishta records that the Sultan “broke the idols of Jvalamukhi, mixed their fragments with the flesh of cows and hung them in nose bags round the necks of Brahmins. He sent the principal idol as trophy to Medina.”

* * *

THE PROVINCIAL MUSLIM SATRAPS

In 1331 AD, the Muslims of Gujarat complained to Nasiruddin Muhammad, the Tughlaq Sultan of Delhi, that the local governor, Kurhat-ul-Mulk, was practising tolerance towards the Hindus. The Sultan immediately appointed Muzzaffar Khan as the new Governor. He became independent after the death of the Delhi Sultan and assumed the title of Muzzaffar Shah in 1392 AD. Next year he led an expidition to Somnath and sacked the temple which the Hindus had built once again. He killed many Hindus to chastise them for this “impudence,” and raised a mosque on the site of the ancient temple. The Hindus, however, restarted restoring the temple soon after. In 1401 AD Muzaffar came back with a huge army. He again killed many Hindus, demolished the temple once more, and erected another mosque.

Muzaffar was succeeded by his grandson, Ahmad Shah, in 1411 AD. Three years later Ahmad appointed a special darogah to destroy all temples throughout Gujarat. In 1415 AD Ahmad invaded Sidhpur where he destroyed the images in Rudramahalaya, and converted the grand temple into a mosque. Sidhpur was renamed Sayyadpur.

Mahmud Begrha who became the Sultan of Gujarat in 1458 AD was the worst fanatic of this dynasty. One of his vassals was the Mandalika of Junagadh who had never withheld the regular tribute. Yet in 1469 AD Mahmud invaded Junagadh. In reply to the Mandalika’s protests, Mahmud said that he was not interested in money as much as in the spread of Islam. The Mandalika was forcibly converted to Islam and Junagadh was renamed Mustafabad. In 1472 AD Mahmud attacked Dwarka, destroyed the local temples, and plundered the city … Raja Jaya Singh, the ruler of Champaner, and his minister were murdered by Mahmud in cold blood for refusing to embrace Islam after they had been defeated and their country pillaged and plundered. Champaner was renamed Mahmudabad.

Mahmud Khalji of Malwa (1436- 69 AD) also destroyed Hindu temples and built mosques on their sites. He heaped many more insults on the Hindus. Ilyas Shah of Bengal (1339-1379 AD) invaded Nepal and destroyed the temple of Svayambhunath at Kathmandu. He also invaded Orissa, demolished many temples, and plundered many places. The Bahmani sultans of Gulbarga and Bidar considered it meritorious to kill a hundred thousand Hindu men, women, and children every year. They demolished and desecrated temples all over South India.

* * *

AMIR TIMUR

The climax came during the invasion of Timur in 1399 AD. He starts by quoting the Quran in his Tuzk-i-Timuri: “O Prophet, make war upon the infidels and unbelievers, and treat them severely.”

He continues: “My great object in invading Hindustan had been to wage a religious war against the infidel Hindus … [so that] the army of Islam might gain something by plundering the wealth and valuables of the Hindus.” To start with, he stormed the fort of Kator on the border of Kashmir. He ordered his soldiers “to kill all the men, to make prisoners of women and children, and to plunder and lay waste all their property”. Next, he “directed towers to be built on the mountain of the skulls of those obstinate unbelievers”. Soon after, he laid siege to Bhatnir defended by Rajputs. They surrendered after some fight, and were pardoned. But Islam did not bind Timur to keep his word given to the “unbelievers”. His Tuzk-i-Timuri records:

“In a short space of time all the people in the fort were put to the sword, and To in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers. They set fire to the houses and reduced them to ashes, and they razed the buildings and the fort to the ground.”

At Sarsuti, the next city to be sacked, “all these infidel Hindus were slain, their wives and children were made prisoners and their property and goods became the spoil of the victors”. Timur was now moving through (modern day) Haryana, the land of the Jats. He directed his soldiers to “plunder and destroy and kill every one whom they met”. And so the soldiers “plundered every village, killed the men, and carried a number of Hindu prisoners, both male and female”.

Loni which was captured before he arrived at Delhi was predominantly a Hindu town. But some Muslim inhabitants were also taken prisoners. Timur ordered that “the Musulman prisoners should be separated and saved, but the infidels should all be dispatched to hell with the proselytizing sword”. By now Timur had captured 100,000 Hindus. As he prepared for battle against the Tughlaq army after crossing the Yamuna, his Amirs advised him “that on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolators and enemies of Islam at liberty”. Therefore, “no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword”.

Tuzk-i-Timuri continues:

“I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death. One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolators, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiruddin Umar, a counselor and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives.”

The Tughlaq army was defeated in the battle that ensued next day. Timur entered Delhi and learnt that a “great number of Hindus with their wives and children, and goods and valuables, had come into the city from all the country round”.

He directed his soldiers to seize these Hindus and their property. Tuzk-i-Timuri concludes:

“Many of them (Hindus) drew their swords and resisted … The flames of strife were thus lighted and spread through the whole city from Jahanpanah and Siri to Old Delhi, burning up all it reached. The Hindus set fire to their houses with their own hands, burned their wives and children in them and rushed into the fight and were killed … On that day, Thursday, and all the night of Friday, nearly 15,000 Turks were engaged in slaying, plundering and destroying. When morning broke on Friday, all my army … went off to the city and thought of nothing but killing, plundering and making prisoners … The following day, Saturday the 17th, all passed in the same way, and the spoil was so great.that each man secured from fifty to a hundred prisoners, men, women, and children. There was no man who took less than twenty. The other booty was immense in rubies, diamonds, garnets, pearls, and other gems and jewels; ashrafis, tankas of gold and silver of the celebrated Alai coinage: vessels of gold and silver; and brocades and silks of great value. Gold and silver ornaments of Hindu women were obtained in such quantities as to exceed all account. Excepting the quarter of the Saiyids, the Ulama and the other Musulmans, the whole city was sacked.”

Author: K S N Murthy, Former Law Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh

Source: Secularism Combat 2010 March

Original Title of this Article: Liberating Hindu Temples

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Direct Action Day and The Great Partition

Direct Action Day – an excerpt from “The Great Partition : The Making of India and Pakistan” by Yasmin Khan

(In order to terrorise the opponents of partition of India and creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan, the Muslim League lead by Mohammed Ali Jinnah gave a call to Muslims of India to take to “Direct Action” from the 16th of August 1946. On that one day in the Muslim League-ruled state of undivided Bengal, in Calcutta, its capital, 10,000 Hindus were slaughtered and then the communal civil war erupted. This frightened the Congress and Hindus led by it, to submit to the demand for division of this country. The Calcutta killings were the first state-sponsored pogrom in India. The killings of about 4000 Sikhs in Delhi, the capital of India in Oct-Nov 1984 is a comparable misdeed. What happened in the aftermath of the burning of Hindu pilgrims in rail bogies in Godhra, Gujarat pales into insignificance in comparison to the Calcutta and Delhi killings. We reproduce below an extract referring to the Calcutta killing from “The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan” by the historian Yasmin Khan.)

“The streets of Calcutta were verily empty on the morning of 16 August 1946. The Muslim League provincial government had called a public holiday to mark Direct Action Day. Three days later at least 4,000 of Calcutta’s residents lay dead and over 10,000 were injured. The streets were deserted once again. Now the scene was one of carnage, buildings reduced to rubble, rubbish uncollected from the streets, telephone and power lines severed. Schools, courts, mills and shops stayed closed. A British official groped for an analogy, describing the landscape as across between the worst of London air raids and the Great plague In the intervening days, the worst riots between Hindus and Muslims ever remembered in India broke out. What had once been violent, but almost theatrical encounters between politicised militias and activists, had burst their limits and had become targeted attacks on innocent civilians, including women, children and the elderly.

Although there had been riots in Calcutta in the past, the violence of August 1946 was distinctive in its scale and intensity. Vastly different social groups and sections of the city amassed along religious lines. Jinnah’s call for a day of direct action on which a complete hartal would be utilized to demonstrate support for Pakistan undoubtedly triggered the violence. Jinnah ratcheted, the oratory, speaking of Congress as a ‘Fascist Grand Council’. The day of direct action was clearly a strategic manoeuvre. Jinnah needed to strength his own hand of Cartesian, the unfolding dispute over the membership of the interim government which was taking place in New Delhi, and to show just how ardent the demand for Muslims representation really was. Jinnah called on his followers ‘to conduct’ themselves peacefully and in a ‘disciplined manner’ although his own usually precise and legalistic prose was vague enough to allow for violent reinterpretation.

A few days before Direct Action Day, the Calcutta district League set out its own plans; there would be a complete strike of Muslims workers in shops and factories, then numerous processions accompanied by musical bands and drums would converge from all over greater Calcutta— from Howrah, Hooghly, Matiaburz and elsewhere — ending in a mass rally. Leaguers were told to go out to the mosques,where they should tell people about the plans, hand out pamphlets and say special prayers for the freedom of m India, the Islamic world and the peoples of India and the east in general. Older networks of mullahs, mosques and pires were put to work, to spread the call for Direct Action in Bengal.

On the morning of 16 August, League supporters opened their Newspapers to find large printed advertisements inside them:

Today is Direct Action Day

Today Muslims of India dedicate their lives and all they possess to the cause of freedom

Today let every Muslim swear in the name of Allah to resist aggression

Direct Action is now their only course

Because they offered peace but they were betrayed

They claimed Liberty but were offered Thraldom

Now Might alone can secure the Right

What ‘Direct Action’ meant, though, was wide open to speculation and distortion. During the build—up, handbills and fly posters using religious language urged Muslims to act and linked the earliest Muslims with the contemporary situation announcing that, in this holy month of Ramzan, Mecca was conquered from the infidels and in this month again a Jehad for the establishment of Pakistan has been declared. This kind of Islamic populism drew on older myths and stories, reworking history and have the Mayor of Calcutta himself (a Muslim) commanded. ‘We Muslims have had the crown and have ruled. Do not lose heart, be ready and take swords. Oh Kafir Your doom is not far and the greater massacre will come.”

Author: Yasmin Khan – An excerpt from his book, “The Great Partition : The Making of India and Pakistan”

Source: Secularism Combat 2009 December

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The Meaning of Freedom of Religion

The Meaning of Freedom of Religion

- Proselytization : A Challenge to Freedom and Peace

- by Swami Nirliptananda

1. Conversion : a false concept

Freedom is an essential
characteristic of Hinduism.
Every Hindu has a freedom of
choice and freedom to worship.
This is implied by the concept
of “Ishta�? (chosen deity). No
one has the right to interfere,
condemn, or impose his own
beliefs on others. That is the
general outlook of the Indogenic
religions. That is why there is
hardly any conflict among them.

But the proselytising religions
have a history of religious wars
because the followers of each
try to impose their own system
of beliefs on the others. The
whole idea of conversion is
based on a false premise. It is
based on the perception that if
there were only one religion there
would be harmony and peace in
the world. Apart from the
proselytising creeds there are
many freethinkers who hold a
similar view, particularly in India.
Such a viewpoint still persists in
spite of glaring facts about interreligious
violence that one
witnesses every day. In fact,
inter-religious and sectarian
violence is one of the basic
threats to harmony and peace
today. In view of the
circumstances that now prevail
we have got to look seriously at
any article of faith that can be
used to incite people to hate, to
denigrate or to create situations
that can lead to conflict. Since
the declaration of the United
Nations’ bill of the freedom to
convert, the world has changed
immensely. Our world has
become like a global village.
There are large numbers of
multi-faith organisations among
the civilised nations which
believe in the principle of mutual
coexistence.

With the changed circumstances
presently, new laws are
enacted to control those who
take advantage of the old
system to commit violence.
Similarly new laws are needed
to regulate the conduct of those
who believe that they have a
fundamental right to convert and
dominate over others. It is one
of the last vestiges of
imperialistic rifle that still
remains. The idea of “global
village�? is to adopt values of
universal significance, values
that promote unity and harmony
and not values that influence
divisions and conflicts.

In the view of this, we are of
the opinion that the United
Nations’ declaration of the
freedom to convert has overlived
its existence since it
favours a concept that is linked
with conflicts and wars. Our
position is that a bill be passed
to the effect that label
conversion as a threat to peace
and is dangerous to harmonious
existence in the modern
civilisation that is armed with
powerful weapons of
destruction. A fair proposal
would be that “religious activity
in any form should not be done
with a motive to convert. If
someone is satisfied that by
adopting another religion in
which he/she would find better
spiritual satisfaction, then every
one should respect that choice�?.
Such a position would get rid of
distrust and create an

atmosphere of harmony and
peace among religions.

The violence in most
countries is connected with the
proselytising religions. We can
take the Middle East, Indonesia,
Philippines, Bosnia, Russia,
China, ‘Kashmir and
Afghanistan, etc., as examples.
But when we look at the Eastern
religions such as Hinduism,
Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism in
India and Taoism in China there
is relatively peaceful
coexistence among them
because they believe in certain
principles that are of universal
application. Both peace and
violence are inherent in human
nature. One is achieved through
knowledge and self-control and
the other because of ignorance.

2. Lifeline

It appears that conversion is
the lifeline of the proselytising
creeds and means such as
freedom of speech, logic,
dialogue and discussions to
discover the truth which can lead
to peace are not encouraged.
Such principles are replaced by
dogmas. In England for example
the number of people going to
church has drastically declined
and there were many redundant
Churches at one time that had
been converted to other usages.
This decline may be true also in
other countries.

Hence various means are
adopted to get hold of people
even by tempting them which is
contrary to their own doctrines.
If the charity work they provide
is properly scrutinised it will
reval that the motive is not
compassion but to recruit
people to fill the vacuum which
otherwise the church would not
be able to function.

3. Charity without compassion

The Churches’ claim to be
charitable cannot be sustained
because whatever they do is
done for the sake of some
favour, namely to convert. A rich
Charity in Jamshedpur (Bihar)
used to run a 44-bed hospital.
The beds were about two feet
wide with a metal base on which
was an inch thick mattress. To
lie on such a bed must have
been torturous. But beggars are
not choosers and the poor had
no alternative. If charitable work
is not motivated by compassion,
what else could be the reason?

The Bharat Sevashram
Sangha started their leprosy
project in the same area in a
hospital made of thatched roof
and mud walls. But the three feet
wide beds with three inches
thick mattresses which they
provided were quite comfortable.
Later, when they could afford,
the Sangha established proper
hospitals and the Charity’s
hospital was handed over to the
Sangha. It is an indication that
conversion happens only
because of material needs. To
take advantage of another’s
difficult situation cannot be
called charitable. The objective
of religion is to transform the
exploitative instinct of man into
the spirit of sharing and caring.

4. Temptation

To maintain their existences,
some religions use conversion
as a sort of commercial trade to
get hold of people at any cost. It
is like another kind of slave trade
practised in a more subtle form.
I was once targeted in the 1960s
while in Britain and was offered
a Parish church. I was told that I
would be a good preacher. It was
clearly a tempting offer but it was
declined because of my
understanding of both Hinduism
and Christianity.

It can hardly be denied that
temptation is one of the main
approaches used to convert
ignorant and poor people
despite the fact that temptation
is regarded as a cardinal sin.
But, for the purpose of
conversion everything seems to
be excusable and religious
ideals become perverted in the
process. Families are divided,
countries are divided, brothers
and sisters fight with one
another, and properties are
looted; all these find support
under the cover of conversion.
Some of the countries in Africa
and elsewhere still remain poor
although their populations have
been converted.

5. Conversion will not stop
by pleading

Conversion cannot be
stopped by pleading but by
duplicating the services offered
by the missionaries and
educating the Hindus about the
greatness of their culture. If the
services offered by them are
provided by the Hindus there will
be no conversion. People only
change their religion because
there is no alternative service
being provided.

During a recent discussion
with one of those who believed
in conversion I was made to
understand that there were
fundamentalists in Hinduism. I
refuted her statement and
pointed out that the people she
called fundamentalists were
reacting to conversion and if it
was stopped the reactionaries
would simply disappear. But I
was told that conversion could
not be stopped. My reply was
that she was the fundamentalist

because she thought that she
had the fundamental right to
convert others and they had no
right to convert others and they
had no right to resist.

6. proselytizers are sensitive
to conversion from
their own religion

I know of a lady who
embraced Hinduism and those
who belonged to her former faith
tried to get her back into their
fold but she refused. Finally,
twelve of them went to argue
and convince her that it was
wrong for her to leave her
religion. They are very sensitive
to conversion from their religion
but do not think that others feel
the same.

7. Conclusion

Compare the above with the
tolerant Hindu with a universal
outlook and one gets the
message. They are like pawns
in the hands of the proselytising
creeds whose hidden agenda
and motives are concealed
under the cloak of charity. The
question one may ask is: how
can one reconcile the multicultural
spirit with conversion?
The fact is that proselytizers
often use the multi-cultural
organisations and platforms to
promote themselves. Hindus
who are by nature multicultural
are easily taken in by the
pretensions of the proselytising
religions. As I mentioned earlier,
conversion is so central to the
proselytising creeds that it is
impossible for them to renounce
it without dire consequences.
Therefore, those belonging to
the non-proselytising religions
will have to work out their own
strategies to confront them.

(A talk given at the World
Congress for the preservation of
Religious Diversity held In New
Delhi, India, from Nov 15th to 17th
2001)

Author: Swami Nirliptananda

Source: Secularism Combat 2009 December

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Will Sri L K Advani talk about these truths!!

Hindus feel betrayed by BJP

On the 7th September 2009, a note on issues that Sri L K Advani as the tall leader of the BJP must educate Bharatiyas during the Bharat Yatra he planned to commence on the 15th September, was submitted. Now that yatra is restyled as “visits to States”.

These issues ought to be talked out not only by Sri Advani but by every BJP leader and party worker in the States, if they are sincerely committed to the preservation of Bharat’s integrity building upon our heritage and fashioning a prosperous, powerful, intellectual and ethical India.

Here is the text of my note:

Bharat and Sanaatana Dharma are under relentless, strident attack and so these are under peril.

 

• If BJP wants to be “secular” and out-bid Congress and the regional parties to please minorities and ignore the injustices to Hindus, then Hindus should be advised to form a Hindu Party (like the Indian Union Moslem League and Majlis Ittehadul Muslameen – MIM) and not look to BJP to protect Hindutva and Bharat.

• Can’t the BJP governments (eg. Karnataka) get out of the management of Hindu temples in their states and entrust them to Dharmacharya Sabha?

• Can’t the BJP have cells in each state to file PILs (public interest litigations) like for example against Andhra Pradesh government funding construction of churches and mosques and subsidising pilgrimage to Jerusalem and providing marriage assistance to Christians and Moslems [and not to Hindus]?

• Why can’t the BJP have TV Channels and language dailies (like DMK, AIDMK, CPM, Congress in Andhra Pradesh – (Saakshi daily)?

• Why don’t BJP governments in states start Nationalistic Universities and staff them with nationalist scholars to counter the de-Indianising Jawaharlal Nehru University (the Marxist Madrassa) and the Central Universities which are colonised by JNU-origin teachers?

• Can’t the BJP units in the states launch a movement to identify Bangladeshi infiltrators and report on them to Police? Launch Swadeshi movement to urge Hindus not to employ these illegals and boycott their employers and their shelterers and defenders?

• Can’t the BJP launch a movement to separate Jammu & Laddakh, constitute them into state(s) with the same autonomy as Kashmir and thereby save those areas from eventually becoming Moslem majority?

During your Yatra, please ask:

• Why districts like Malabar and Gurgaon are divided to carve out Muslim majority districts?

• Why 90 “Sachar-Moslem First” districts should be specially funded and developed to become Pakistans?

• A Prof. Samar Abbas wrote in December 2000 in the Economic and Political Weekly that India should be decided again to create Mogulistan comprising northern parts. Bihar & UP with a corridor to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Is this not like the Rahmatulla proposal of 1930 for Pakistan and 22nd March 1940 Lahore resolution for Pakistan?

Hindus feel betrayed by BJP. That is why they, seeing some virtues like corruption and easy money-making in the Congress, are veering round to Congress or regional, casteist, proprietorship parties like TDP, DMK/AIDMK, Trinamool, Biju Lok Dal etc.

Why talk of Hindutva when your governments do nothing for it and provoke Muslims and Christians to unite. [as in Andhra Pradesh] and contrive to divide Hindus by caste and rule over them [eg. AP: 12% Christian, 15% Moslem, 8% Adivasi and 5% dominant Reddi caste – 40% vote for Congress]. We have the christianising government using budget and temple funds, and with Moslem muscle build churches and mosques and pay the fees of all minority students from primary to graduate level.

Please think over.

Please be truthful.

Please don’t mislead Hindus into complacency and rationalisation of the creeping dhimmitude.

Dr. Tripuraneni Hanuman Chowdary
Editor of Secularism Combat and Bharatiya Pragna (monthly magazines on Indian politics)
Hyderabad, India

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