Saturday 4 February 2012

What is India?


What is India?

By Justice Markandey Katju,
Chairman, Press Council of India
(Extracts of a speech delivered to N.R.I.s in California in June 2011)

            We are all Indians, but do we know what is India? I am  presenting five theses for consideration.
  (i) India is broadly a country of immigrants, like North America.  Over 92% people living in India are not the original inhabitants of India.  Their ancestors came from outside, mainly from the North West.
 (ii) Because India is a country of immigrants like North America there is tremendous diversity in India – so many religions, castes, languages, ethnic groups etc.
 (iii) Despite the tremendous diversity in India, by the interaction and intermingling of these immigrants who came into India a common culture emerged in India which can broadly be called the Sanskrit-Urdu culture.
 (iv)  Because of the tremendous diversity in India the only policy which can work and hold our country together is secularism and giving equal respect to all communities, otherwise our country cannot survive for one day.
(v)      India is passing through a transitional period, from feudal agricultural society to modern Industrial society.  This is a very painful and agonizing period in history.  If we read the history of Europe from the 17th to 19th Centuries we find that this was a horrible period in Europe.  Only after going through that fire, in which there were wars, revolutions, turmoil, intellectual ferment, chaos, social churning, etc., modern society emerged in Europe. India is presently going through that fire.  We are going through a very painful and agonizing period in our history which I think will last for around another 20 years.  I may now briefly elaborate these theses.

 (1)      India is broadly a country of immigrants, like North America.  The difference between North America and India is that North America is a country of new immigrants, where people came mainly from Europe over the last four to five hundred years, India is a country of old immigrants where  people have been coming in for 10 thousand years or so.
 Why have people been coming into India?  Very few people left India, except on two occasions namely (i) in the 19th century when under British rule Indian poor peasants were sent to Fiji, Mauritius, West Indies, etc.  as plantation labourers and (ii) the Diaspora in the last 30-40 years  or so of highly qualified engineers, scientists, doctors, etc.  Apart from this, nobody left India, everybody came into India.  Why?
  The reason is obvious.  People migrate from uncomfortable areas to comfortable areas, obviously, because everybody wants comfort.  Before the Industrial Revolution which started in Western Europe   from the 18th century and then spread all over the world there were agricultural societies everywhere. Agriculture requires level land, fertile soil, plenty of water for irrigation, etc.  All this was in abundance in the Indian sub continent from Rawalpindi to Bangladesh and to the deep South upto Kanyakumari. Why will anybody migrate from India to, say, Afghanistan which is cold, rocky and uncomfortable covered with snow for four to five months in a year.  For agricultural society India was really paradise, hence everybody kept rolling into India, mainly from the North West and to a much lesser extent from the North East.
Who were the original inhabitants of India?  At one time it was believed that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants, but now that theory has been disproved.  Now, it is believed that even the Dravidians came from outside.  There are several proofs of that, one  of which is that there is a Dravidian language called Brahui which is spoken in Western Pakistan even today by about three million people.  The original inhabitants of India, as it is believed now, were the pre-Dravidians tribals, who are called adivasis  or Scheduled Tribes in India e.g. the Bhils, the Santhals, the Gonds, the Todas, etc., that is, the speakers of the Austric, pre Dravidian languages e.g. Munda, Gondvi, etc.  They are hardly seven or eight percent of the Indian population today.  They were pushed into the forests by the immigrants and treated very badly.  Except for them all of us are descendents of immigrants who came mainly from the North West of India.  (See in this connection the article `Kalidas Ghalib Academy for Mutual Understanding’ on the website kgfindia.com.) 
(2)      Because India is a country of immigrants there is tremendous diversity in India, so many religions, castes, languages, ethnic groups, etc. Somebody is tall, somebody is short, somebody is fair, somebody is dark, somebody is brown, with all kinds of shades in between, someone has got Mongoloid features, someone has got Caucasian features, someone has got Negroid features, there are differences in food habits, dress, traditional festivals, etc.  We may compare India with China.  Our population is about 1200 million while China has about 1300 million and they have perhaps 2 ½ times our land area.  However, there is broad (though not absolute) homogeneity in China.  All Chinese have Mongoloid faces,   they have one common written script called Mandarin Chinese (although spoken dialects are different), and 95% Chinese belong to one ethnic group called the Han Chinese. So there is broad homogeneity in China.  In India, on the other hand, there is tremendous diversity, because whichever group of immigrants came into India brought in their own culture, their religion, their language etc.

(3)      Is India a nation at all, or is it just a group of hundreds of kinds of immigrants?  Is there anything common in India?  The answer is that the immigrants who came into India over the last 10 thousand years or so, by their interaction and intermingling created a common culture which can broadly be called the Sanskrit- Urdu culture which is broadly the culture of India

Now this has to be explained. How are Tamilians part of Sanskrit Urdu culture, what have the people of Nagaland got to do with Sanskrit and Urdu, etc. 
The answer is that we must first understand what is Sanskrit and what is Urdu?  The reader may see in this connection my articles  `What is Urdu’, `Great injusticeto Urdu in India’, and `Sanskrit as a Language of Science’.     Both of these languages have been misunderstood.  People think that Sanskrit is a language of chanting mantras in temples or in religious ceremonies.  However, that is only 5% of Sanskrit literature.  95% of Sanskrit literature has nothing to do with religion.  It deals with a whole range of subjects like philosophy, law, science (including mathematics, medicine and astronomy) grammar, phonetics and literature.  So we can not compare Bengali and Tamil with Sanskrit.  Bengali and Tamil have only stories, novels and moral literature (like Thirukkural) but they do not have any discussion on mathematics, law, medicine, etc. Sanskrit was the language of people with an enquiring mind, who enquired about everything, and therefore there is a whole range of subjects which have been discussed in Sanskrit.  In the paper on the website kgfindia.com `Sanskrit as a Language of Science’ all this has been discussed in detail, therefore, I am not going into it here.  I may, however, just mention two things: one is the contribution of Panini and the other is the contribution of the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy. 
What we call Sanskrit today, and what is taught in schools and colleges is really Panini’s Sanskrit, which is called classical Sanskrit or Laukik Sanskrit.  But there were earlier Sanskrits.  The earliest Sanskrit book is the Rigveda which was composed anytime between 2000 or 1500 B.C (it was subsequently passed on orally).  Now language changes with the passage of time.  For instance if we pick up a play of Shakespeare we will not be able to understand it without a good commentary because the English language has changed over these 4½ centuries since the time of Shakespeare.  Many of the words and expressions which were in vogue in Shakespeare’s time in English are not in vogue today. Similarly, Sanskrit language kept changing for about 1500 years, from  2000 B.C. to the  5th century B.C., until Panini who,  was the perhaps greatest grammarian the world has ever seen, in his book ‘Ashtadhyayi’ fixed the rules of Sanskrit in the 5th century B.C.  Thereafter no further changes in Sanskrit were permitted, except   some slight changes made by two other grammarians, one was a man called Katyayana who wrote his book “Vartika’ written about 100-200 years after Panini, and another was Patanjali who wrote his book ‘Mahabhashya’ about 200 years after Katyayana.  Except for these slight changes, what is taught in schools and colleges is really Panini’s Sanskrit. 
What Panini did was that he studied the crude Sanskrit prevailing in his time and he rationalized it and meticulously systemized it, so as to make it a powerful vehicle of expressing profound and abstract ideas. 
Science requires precision.  Panini made Sanskrit  a powerful vehicle in which scientific ideas could be  expressed with great precision  and with great clarity and it was made uniform all over India, so  that thinkers in one part of the sub-continent could interact with thinkers of another part easily.  That was his great contribution. 
I may give one small illustration, since a discussion on Astadhyayi   will take too much time.  Take for example the alphabets in the English language, from A to Z.  Now they have all been arranged in a haphazard manner.  Why is B followed by C, why is D followed by E.  There is no reason why F comes after E, why P is followed by Q or Q is followed by R. 
In Sanskrit, on the other hand what Panini did was that he arranged the alphabets in a very scientific manner.  For example, take the consonants.  There is a sequence ka, kha, ga, gha, nga (called the `ka varga’).  Now all these sounds come from the throat.  Also the second and the fourth consonants in this sequence are what are known as aspirants.  An aspirants means a consonant in which ‘ha’ is added.  For instance, ‘ka’ + ‘ha’ is  ‘kha’, ‘ga’ + ‘ha’ is ‘gha’, etc.  Similarly, the second and fourth consonants in every sequence (of 5 consonants) is an aspirant.

The sounds in the second sequence of 5 consonants (the `cha varga’)  ch, cha, ja, jha, yan all come from the middle of the tongue.  The sounds in the `ta varga’ Ta, tha, da, dha, nda come from the  roof of the mouth, the sounds in the sequence ta, tha, da, dha, na come from the tip of the tongue, the sounds in the sequence pa, pha, ba, bha, ma come from the lips.  We can see how scientifically these consonants are arranged. Thus even in such a simple thing as the arrangement of alphabets a careful and scientific study was done. 
The second contribution of Sanskrit to the development of rational and scientific thinking was the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy.  There are six classical systems of Indian philosophy, Nyaya, Vaisheshik, Sankya, Yoga, Purva Mimansa and Uttar Mimansa, and three non-classical systems, Buddhism, Jainism and Charvak.  Out of these nine systems eight of them are atheistic as there is no place for God in them.  Only the ninth one, that is Uttar Mimansa, which is also called Vedanta, has a place for God in it.  One of the classical systems is called the Nyaya system.  The Nyaya system says that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience, which is precisely the scientific approach.  Vaisheshik was the physics of ancient times (the atomic or parmanu theory).  Physics is part of science, and hence at one time Vaisheshik was part of Nyaya philosophy.  However, since physics is the most fundamental of all sciences  subsequently Vaisheshik was separated from Nyaya and made into a separate philosophy altogether. 
It was the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy which provided the scientific background and gave great encouragement to our scientists to propound their scientific theories.   People in our country were not persecuted for being scientists, unlike in Europe where scientists were burnt on the stake like Bruno for propounding their scientific theories.  Galileo was almost burnt on the stake, and he narrowly escaped by recanting his views.  As recent as in 1925 in America a teacher John Scopes was criminally prosecuted in the famous (or infamous) monkey trial for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution because it was against the Bible.  This never happened in  our country because behind science was a scientific philosophy, that is the Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy, which says that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience. 

Before discussing the scientific achievements of our ancestors it may be said that a lot of people talk non-sense that in ancient India there were atom bombs, guided missiles, etc.  We make a laughing stock of ourselves by talking like this.  Some people say that we had aeroplanes in ancient India, because in the Ramayana it is mentioned that Lord Ram brought Sita back from Lanka on a Pushpak Viman.  They conclude from this that there were aeroplanes in ancient India. Everyone, including children, know that the first aeroplane was invented by the Wright brothers in America in 1903.  So it is total nonsense to say that we had aeroplanes in ancient India.

Now it is true that in the Ramayana there is mention of PushpakViman.  But what is the Ramayana?  It is an epic poem.  A poet has what is called poetic licence.  That means that he has a right to exaggerate.  So we should not take words in a poem literally.  If there were aeroplanes in ancient India then that means there were engines.  Then why did the ancient warriors fight on chariots, horses and elephants, they should have fought in tanks?

The real great achievements of our ancestors are not known to most people and instead they talk such nonsense.

At one time we were leading the whole world in science and technology.  I may give you a few illustrations.  The ancient Romans who built a very great civilization, the civilization of Ceasar and Augustus, and were the cultural ancestors of the Europeans, felt very uncomfortable with numbers above one thousand.  This is because they expressed their numbers in alphabets.  One was I, five was V, ten was X, fifty was L, hundred was 100, five hundred was D and 1000 was M.  ‘M’ stands for millennium or one thousand.  There was nothing above ‘M’.  So if the ancient Romans wanted to write 2000 they had to write MM, if they wanted to write 3000 they wrote  MMM, etc.  To write one million they would have to write M one thousand times, as that was the only way they could express one million.  On the other hand, our ancestors had invented the concept of zero.
                

You see these numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 do not really exist, what exists is one table, two chairs, three men, etc.  These have existence in the objective universe.  One, two, three, four has no existence in the objective universe, they are pure abstractions.  And the concept of zero required a further flight of imagination which Europeans could never achieve.  The Arabs borrowed it from us and the Europeans borrowed it from the Arabs.  So we could express numbers in astronomical terms.  For example, one thousand requires 1 with three zeros, add two more zeros it becomes one Lakh, add two more zeros it becomes 1 Crore, two more zeros one Arab, two more zeros one Kharab, two more zeros one Padma, two more zeros one Neel, two more zeros one Shankh, two more zeros one Mahashankh, etc.  Each one of these large numbers have names. 


At one time the numbers in the decimal system were called Arabic numerals by the Europeans, but the Arabs called them Hindu numerals.  Are they Arab or Hindu numerals?  Now these languages Arabic, Persian and Urdu are written from right to left, but if you ask any writer of these languages to write any number randomly, say 253 or 1045, he will write it from left to right.  What does it indicate?  It indicates that these numbers were taken from a language which was written from left to right, and now it is accepted that the decimal system was invented by Indians who could conceive very high numbers unlike the Romans. 
For example, it is believed that Kaliyug in which we are living, has 4,32,000 years  according to the Vishnu Puran.  The yug (age) before Kaliyug was Dwapar yug, in which Lord Krishna lived.  That is twice as long as Kaliyug, therefore it is of 8,64,000 years.  Before that there was Treta yug in which Lord Ram lived.  It was thrice as long as Kaliyug.  And before that there was Satyug which is four times  as long as Kaliyug.  One  Kaliyug + one Dawapar Yug + one  Treta Yug + one Satyug is known as one Chaturyugi, and one Chaturyugi is hence ten times as long as  one Kaliyug (1+2+3+4=10). That means one Chaturygi is 43,20,000 years long.  72 Chaturyugis make one Manwantra. Fourteen Manwantras make one Kalp, and 12 Kalps make one day of Brahma.  Brahma is said to have lived for trillions of years. 
When our traditional Hindus do their sankalp everyday they have to mention the particular day, the yug, the chaturyugi, the Manvantara and the kalp, and the date changes daily.  For instance, it is believed that we are living in the Vaivaswsat Manwantar.  It is believed that out of the 72 Chaturyugis half have passed and we are in the second half of the Vaivaswsat Manvantar. 

We may not believe all this but look at the flight of imagination of our ancestors.  Similarly in various fields of science e.g. in Medicine we made great advances. Sushruta invented plastic surgery 2000 years ago, but Westerners invented it only 200 years back.  Thus, Indians were far ahead of Westerners in medicine.  In astronomy, the calculations which were made 2000 years ago are still the basis of predicting with great accuracy the day and time of a Surya Grahan (Solar Eclipse) or Chandra Grahan (lunar eclipse) by reading a ‘patra’.  These calculations were made 2000 years ago by our ancestors who did not have telescopes and modern instruments but by sheer observation by the naked eye and the power of intellect they predicted what is going to happen 2000 years in the future.  This was the scientific level which we had reached in the past, we were far in advance of Westerners in science and technology at that time.  Today we are far behind them, so what happened?  Why did we not have an Industrial Revolution?  Why did we lag behind?  This is known as Needham’s question or Needham’s Grand Question, first posed by Prof. Joseph Needham, a brilliant Professor in micro-biology in Cambridge University who was born in 1990.  Prof. Needham posed this question: why did India and China who were ahead of the whole world in Science and Technology at one time later fell behind and did not have an Industrial Revolution?  This question has been sought to be answered in various ways, but that discussion will have to be held some other day.  
As I was saying, Sanskrit was the language of people with an enquiring minds, of people who enquired into every aspect of life and hence in that sense it is the language of everybody who has a rational approach, because the emphasis in Sanskrit is on reason.
Coming now to Urdu, in my opinion the best poetry in modern India is in Urdu.  I have read the poetry of many countries, England, America, France, Germany, Russia etc., apart from reading some of the poetry of Indian languages e.g. Tulsidas, Surdas, Kabir, etc. Tamil poetry, Bengali poetry etc. but there is no match to Urdu because the voice of the heart which is expressed in Urdu poetry, is, in my opinion, not expressed in any language of the world. 
About Urdu there is a misconception that it is the language of Muslims and of foreigners, which is a totally false propaganda made against Urdu after 1947. 
Before 1947, all educated people in large parts of India were studying Urdu.  It was not the language of Muslims alone.  It was the language of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs everybody.  But after Partition a deliberate propaganda was made by certain vested interests that Hindi is the language of Hindus and Urdu is a language of Muslims.  This was done to make Hindus and Muslims fight each other (part of the divide and rule policy). A lot of effort was made to crush Urdu in India.  But a language which expresses the voice of the heart cannot be crushed as long as people have hearts. 
Unlike Arabic and Persian which are foreign language, Urdu is an indigenous language, and is loved by the people of India even today.  If you go to a bookstall on a railway platform in India you will find a lot of poetry  books of Mir, Ghalib, Firaq, etc. of course, nowadays  in Devanagiri script. You will not find any book there of Mahadevi Verma or Sumitra Nandan Pant, the Hindi poets.  Very few people read Hindi poetry, everybody reads Urdu poetry.
Urdu has a dual nature, it is a combination of two languages i.e. Hindustani and Persian, that is why it was at one time called Rekhta, which means hybrid.  Since it is a combination of two languages, Hindustani and Persian, the question arises:  is it a special kind of Persian or a special kind of Hindustani?  The answer is that it is a special kind of Hindustani, not a special kind of Persian.  Why?  Because the verbs in Urdu are all in Hindustani.  The language to which a sentence belongs is determined by the verbs used in it not the nouns or adjectives.    In Urdu all the verbs are in simple Hindi (which is called Hindustani or Khadi Boli).  For example Ghalib says; -  
               
               “dekho  mujhe jo  deeda-e-ibrat_nigaah ho
                  meree suno jo gosh-e-naseehat_niyosh hai”
 
 
The verbs ‘dekho’, ‘suno’,’ hai’ are all simple Hindi, though the nouns or adjectives may be Persian or Arabian.
               Urdu has a dual nature, because it is a combination of Hindustani and Persian.  Hindustani is the language of the common man, while Persian is the language of aristocrats.  
            Where did Persian come from?  Persian is the language of Persia, how did it land up in India?  To explain this it has to be noted that it often happens that the elite or upper class of a society speaks a foreign language.   For instance, in India and Pakistan the elite speaks English.  In Europe upto the end of the 19th century the European aristocrats often spoke to each other in French, though they would speak to their servants in the native language. French was the language of the elite in large parts of Europe for many centuries.  
               The elite wants to distinguish itself from the common people.  In India Persian was the language of the Court and of the elite for centuries.  Although Persian originated in Persia it later spread to much of South Asia.  This was because Persian writers like Hafiz, Firdausi, Sadi, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, etc. developed Persian as a language of sophistication, culture,  etiquette and dignity and that was adopted by large parts of  South Asia including India.  It was the Court language of India for several hundred years.   Akbar’s foreign minister Todarmal passed an order that all Court records throughout the Mughal Empire will be maintained in Persian. 
            Urdu is the combination of Hindustani and Persian, and that is why it has a dual nature.  It is the common man’s language,  ‘awaam ki zubaan’, because one part of it is Hindustani, the common man’s language. It is also the aristocrats’ language because another part of it is Persian which was the aristocrat’s language. The content of Urdu, i.e. the feelings, emotions etc. in it are of the common man.  But the form, the style, the andaaz-e-bayaan  is that of an aristocrat.  That is what gives Urdu such great power.              
            Urdu places more reliance on emotion and Sanskrit more on reason. We require both for our country’s progress.  In Europe they had two very great thinkers, Voltaire and Rousseau, Voltaire emphasizing reason and Rousseau emphasizing emotion.  These two thinkers played a major role in the creation of modern Europe.  Similarly Urdu and Sanskrit complement each other, and in fact, Sanskrit is the grand mother of Urdu because 70% of the words in Urdu are from Sanskrit.
4.        Since there is so much diversity in India the only policy which will work is the policy of secularism and giving equal respect to all communities.  Otherwise India will break up into a hundred pieces since there is so much diversity.         
            Two people can be said to be the creators of modern India.  One is the Emperor Akbar, and the other is Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru.  There was no ruler in the world like Emperor Akbar, who was far ahead of his times.  In the 16th Century Akbar proclaimed the doctrine of Suleh-e-kul which means universal toleration of all religions.  At that time Europeans were massacring each other in the name of religion, Catholics massacring Protestants, Protestants massacring Catholics and both massacring Jews. Similarly in recent times religious passions were inflamed in 1947 and people had become like animals, Hindus and Muslims butchering each other.  Pakistan had declared itself an Islamic State.  There must have been tremendous pressure at that time on Pandit Jawarhlal Nehru and his colleagues to declare India a Hindu State.  It is their greatness that they kept a cool head, and said that  India will not be a Hindu State but will be a Secular State and provided this in our Constitution.   For this reason today we have relatively more stability as compared to neighbouring countries.            
            In this connection I wish to tell you that the initial Muslim invaders who came into India no doubt broke a lot of Hindu temples, like for instance, Mahmood Ghazni who broke the Somnath temple.  However, their descendents who became local Muslim rulers in various parts of India, far from breaking temples used to give grants to temples and celebrated Hindu festivals like Holi and Diwali.  For instance, Babar was an invader but Akbar was not an invader, he was born in India and was very much an Indian.  Now the descendents of those invaders who became local Muslim rulers had a population of 80-90% Hindus.  If they broke temples there would be a revolt or turmoil which no ruler wants.   So in their own interest every one of the local Muslim rulers fostered communal harmony, they gave grants to Hindu temples, they celebrated Hindu festivals.  For instance, the Nawab of Avadh used to organize Ramleela, and celebrate Holi and Diwali.  Tipu Sultan used to give annual grants to 156 Hindu Temples, his Prime Minister was a Hindu called Punaiya his commander-in-chief, was a Hindu called Krishna Rao.  Tipu Sultan sent 30 respectful letters with grants to the Shankaracharya of Shringeri (see online ‘History in the Service of Imperialism’ which is a speech given by Prof. B. N. Pandey in  the Upper House of the Indian Parliament in 1977).  
            Now the first part, that the Muslim invaders broke temples, has been mentioned in our history books, but the second part, which is of ten times longer duration, that the descendents of these invaders, who were local rulers used to foster communal harmony, they used to give land grants for building Hindu temples, they celebrated and organized Hindu festivals, etc. has been deliberately suppressed by the British from our history books, the whole game being divide and rule.  Hindus and Muslims must be made to fight each other.  If you go on line and read the speech ‘History in the Service of Imperialism’ by Professor B. N. Pandey, you will read how the British policy was to make Hindus and Muslims inimical to each other.  For instance, Dr. Pandey has mentioned that in 1928 when he was a Professor of History in Allahabad University some students came to him with a book written by one Professor Harprasad Shastri, Professor of Sanskrit of Calcutta University in which it was mentioned that Tipu Sultan told 3000 Brahmins to convert to Islam otherwise they will be killed, and those 3000 Brahmins committed suicide rather than becoming Muslims. On reading this Professor B. N. Pandey wrote to Professor Harprasad Shastri asking him the source of his information?  Prof. Shastri wrote back that the source of information is the Mysore Gazetteer.  Then Prof.  Pandey wrote to Prof. Shrikantia, Professor of History in Mysore University asking him whether it is correct that in Mysore Gazetteer it is mentioned that Tipu Sultan told 3000 Brahmins to convert to Islam. Prof. Shrikantia  wrote back that this is totally false, he had worked  in this field and there is no such mention in the Mysore Gazetteer, rather the correct version was just the reverse, namely, that  Tipu Sultan used to give annual grants to 156 Hindu Temples, he used to send  grants to the  Shankaracharya of Shringheri, etc.     
               Now, just imagine what mischief has been done.  Deliberately our history books have been falsified so that the mind of a child at an impressionable age is poisoned so that he should start hating Muslims in India and in Pakistan he should start hating Hindus. The poison put in the mind of an impressionable age is very difficult to remove at a later age.   All our history books have been falsified in this manner.
            It is time we re-write our History books and show that in fact upto 1857 there was no communal problem at all in India.  A composite culture in India had been developing.  Hindus used to participate Eid and Muharram, and Muslims used to participate in Holi, Diwali etc.  There were some differences no doubt but they were becoming narrower. 
 In 1857 the great Mutiny took place.  Hindus and Muslims jointly fought against the British.  After suppressing that Mutiny it was decided by the British rulers that the only way to control this country to divide and rule.  In other words, Hindus and Muslims must be made to fight each other.  All communal riots start after 1857.  The English Collector would secretly call the Hindu Pandit and give him money to speak against Muslims, and similarly he would secretly call the Maulvi and give him some money to speak against Hindus.  A beautiful racket was started in this way, and this resulted ultimately in the partition of 1947.             
            Now the time has come when we must see through this game.  How long are we going to be taken for a ride? Are we fools that anybody can come and make fools out of us and make us fight each other?        
                About two months back I read in the newspapers that there was some violence in Aligarh Muslim University, and the University had to be closed for some days.  I thought that it was a Hindu Muslim issue but some friends of mine from Aligharh came to Delhi and said it was not a Hindu- Muslim issue but it was Azamgarhi versus Biharis. I said what! What nonsense! We should be united, and brothers of each other.  We should be one country, instead we are fighting on such silly matters.             
            In Maharashtra some people have proclaimed a bhumiputra theory (son of the soil theory).  They say that only Maharashtrians should be allowed to live in Mahrashtra.  South Indians, UPites, and Biharis should get out of Maharashtra.  Such people do not realize that in that case they will also have to leave Mahrashta because they also are not bhumi putras.  Bhumi putra are hardly 7 or 8 % of the people living in Maharashtra e.g. the Bheels and other adivasis (tribals).  This is a country of immigrants.    
 
5.    India is passing through transitional period, transition from feudal agricultural society to modern industrial society.  We are presently neither totally feudal nor totally modern.  We are somewhere in between. 
            The transition period is a very painful and agonizing period in history.  In my opinion the duty of all patriotic people is to help in shortening this transitional period, in reducing this pain, although we cannot totally eliminate it because there is going to be turmoil in this period since the vested interests in the old feudal order will not give up their vested interests without a fierce struggle.  We have to spread rational and scientific ideas in this period and combat casteism communalism and superstitions, in order to get over the transition period faster and with less pain.   
            Here is where the role of the Judiciary becomes very important.   In Northern India in some States e.g.  western U.P, Haryana, Rajasthan etc. (also in Pakistan) there is the phenomenon called ‘honour killing’.  If your daughter falls in love with a boy of another caste or religion, or within the same village or in the same Gotra, both are killed, and often brutally murdered.  This has been happening in a very large scale in some areas, and sometime it is organized by caste panchayats.  The problem is that the Chief Ministers are often unwilling to interfere because these caste Panchayats supply the vote banks to the politicians.  In India politics often runs on caste on religious basis.   Therefore, the Chief Minister does not want to annoy them, he will not interfere, and the District Magistrate and Superintendent of  Police  even though they know that this honour killing is going to take place (through their intelligence agencies)  will not interfere out of fear that if does so the Chief Minister will get angry with him.     
             But a Judge is not dependent on any one’s votes, and that makes him very strong, in fact, it makes him more democratic than the so called democratic bodies because he is not bothered about votes.   The Supreme Court therefore passed the order that those who do honour killing will be given mandatory death sentence and the District Magistrate and Superintendent of that area must be immediately placed under suspension.  This was a very strong judgment after which ‘honour killing’ has considerably declined.  This could not have been done by the politicians because they are dependent on the votes of these people.  So, here is where the Judiciary becomes very important, by the very fact it is undemocratic.  
            It is true that in India there is rampant corruption and this is a matter of shame.  Here is where the Judiciary is playing a little role.  Recently the Supreme Court passed strong orders in the 2G scam case.  The result was that one cabinet Minister was dismissed, and he is in jail, one Member of Parliament, daughter of a Chief Minister, was in jail, and other steps are also being taken.      
            However, Judges are not Gods, who can solve all problems. Ultimately it is the people themselves who have to solve their problems.             
            I will conclude by one couplet of Faiz Ahmed Faiz whose centenary we are celebrating this year.  The greatest Urdu poet ever was of course Ghalib but in the 20th century the greatest poet in my opinion was Faiz and I would like to quote from his famous poem;- 
               “Gulon mein rang bhare baad-e-naubahaar chale
                 Chale bhi aao ke gulshan ka kaarobaar chale” 
               
            What does this mean?  Urdu poetry often has an outer, superficial meaning and an inner, real meaning.  The outer, superficial and literal meaning of the above couplet is:
“In the flowers the colourful breeze of the new spring is blowing                                  come forward, so that the garden can function”
            However the inner real meaning of the couplet is that the objective situation in the country is ripe which invites the patriotic people now to come forward to serve the country. The word ‘gulshan’ literally means ‘garden’ but here it means the country.   So it is a call to the people of the country to come forward since our country  is in difficulties and you are required now to help it.  
Question answer 
 
Q         Tell me what went wrong in the Aurangzeb era where million of Hindus were converted into Muslims? How it changed the entire picture, what was going on? 
A.        In the article ‘History in the Service of Imperialism’ (available online) it is mentioned that Professor B.N. Pandey, former Professor of History of Allahabad University and former Governor of Orissa delivered a speech in the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Parliament, in which he said that when he was Professor of History some people brought some documents showing that Aurangzeb had given grants to Hindu Temples, he gave grants to the Someshwar Mahadev Temple in Allahabad, he gave grants to the Mahakal Temple in Ujjain, one of the biggest Shiva temples, he gave grants to the Chitrakut Temple where Lord Ram spent 12 years of His exile.  He thought these must be forgeries because Aurangzeb was said to be the destroyer of Hindu temples.  He took these documents to Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, who was a top lawyer in Allahabad High Court and also a great scholar of Persian and Urdu scholar.  Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru examined these documents very thoroughly and he found that they were genuine documents.  Now this seemed very strange, a person who was supposed to be the destroyer of Hindu temples, had given grants to many Hindu temples.  So what I am trying to tell you is please keep an open mind.   
           
I went to Bikaner about 10 years back and I went to the palace of the Maharaja of Bikaner, a part of which has been converted into a Museum.  I went to the Museum, and at one place there was a letter of Aurangzeb written to the new Maharaja of Bikaner.  His father had died and the son who was about 20 years of age became the new Maharaja.  Aurangzeb wrote in this letter, which was exhibited there in English translation, that I know what it means to lose a father, and I know how sad you must be, but do not worry I will be like a father to you, tell me anything you require I will send it to you.  It was a very kind and tender letter. 
Now, this was a different Aurangzeb.  What I am trying to say is that more research on Aurangzeb is required because he has been demonized totally.  As I said, in our history books the demonization of Muslim rulers has been done very systematically by the British, so as to generate Hindu-Muslim hatred.  But the fact that Muslim rulers used to promote communal harmony, they used to organize Hindu festivals like Ramleela and so on, they used to give grants to Hindu temples, this will not be found in any history books.  It has been very conveniently suppressed.  So about Aurangzeb also I would request you please read that speech ‘History in the Service of Imperialism’, it is online, and more research is required.  I would request that about Aurangzeb please keep an open mind.

Q.        I just want to understand your opinion on the Constitution that we created after Independence, the Indian Penal Code, Hindu Law and Islam and what impact it has had in today’s communal disharmony having those three different Laws?  Particularly, one is Hindu versus Islamic Law and monogamy versus polygamy and all these issues and about property.  Should it be abolished or should there be only one uniform law like the one in US? 
A.        Regarding this question of uniform Civil Code, my opinion is that this is for Parliament to decide, not for the judiciary to decide, because making law is the job of the Legislature not of the Judiciary.  It is for the Parliament to make one common Civil Code or not to make it.  Judges cannot legislate, legislation is the task of the legislature.  It is not proper for Judges to interfere in it.  It is a highly sensitive matter, as you know some people have been trying to promote communal hatred in our subcontinent.  Please let us not give them further ammunition for that.
Q.        The example you gave in Ireland, the contraception example, this is a similar case.  The judiciary should come in here.
A.        Listen you must realize one thing: in our country we must cater to aspirations of different people, in fact that is why we have federalism.  Federalism means catering to regional aspirations.  Thus, in Nagaland, there is a State Legislature for Nagaland and in this way the Naga people are happy, there is also a Central Government which looks after everybody.  Similarly, in the State of Tamil Nadu there is a State Legislature for them, and so on.  You have to cater to regional aspirations.  You cannot have uniformity.  Our country will break up into a hundred pieces the moment you try for uniformity.  India has such tremendous diversity, the moment you go in for uniformity, one uniform Civil Code, one this, one that, then you will have one hundred countries, you will not have one country and that will be fatal for us because modern industry requires a big market.  We must keep united.   Today in our Constitution there is a provision that trade and commerce shall be free throughout the territory of India (Article 301).  What does it mean?  It means that a factory in Tamil Nadu can sell its goods freely in UP or Punjab or anywhere.  The UP Government cannot say we will not allow entry of goods from Tamil Nadu. Article 301 ensures the economic unity of India, and political unity is based on economic unity.  
Q.        I have one comment and one question, the comment is that not many people have migrated but 180,000 Roman people (gypsies) migrated out of India.  They are called Roma people in Southern Europe and Rumania and Bulgaria, they are all from India?

A.        They are not from India.  Please use your common sense, if you wanted to go to Europe you had to go on foot in those days, there were no aeroplanes and trains.  You would have to go via Afghanistan to Russia and then to Europe.  Why should a large number of people do that?  Everybody wants comfort, why should you leave India and go to such an uncomfortable place like Afghanistan?  You have to go through Afghanistan and Russia to reach Europe.  Will you leave such a comfortable country like India and go to Afghanistan which is cold and rocky, you will have to travel through Afghanistan? Who will do it, it is against common sense.  A handful of traders or missionaries may do it, but not a large number of people? 

Q.        Firstly, thank you very much, it is a real honour to have a word with you.  I have a very simple question, there is a huge august gathering here of the Indian Diaspora.  You said that the time has come for people to actually contribute and help India to make that transition.  In your view what are the few things that you think that people here can do to sort of help India which will have the most impact in sort of helping us overcome that transition? 
A.        First of all, in the transitional period, it is absolutely essential to explain to people what is India, and that is what I have sought to do in the talk I have given today.  First of all clarification of your ideas is very important, because once you realize that this is a country of immigrants, it follows that there must be tolerance, in view of the tremendous diversity we must respect each other, we must treat everybody as equals, and in this way half the battle is won by that itself, and then our own people will solve their problems.  Once they are told not to fight each other and that we should be like brothers, we should help each other, half the problem is solved just by that.  So the first thing what everybody has to do, including all of you, is to tell the people what is India.  There was no communal problem until the British came and started sowing the seeds of hatred between Hindus and Muslims, falsifying our history deliberately, and starting all these problem.  So educating the people, that is the first step.  How many people know that India is a country of immigrants?  How many people know that we have a common culture called Sanskrit-Urdu culture?  First the educated people have to be educated, and thereafter this will filter down and our country will move forward, there is no doubt about that.
Q.        My question is why people in India do not follow traffic rules?  Is it the transition to industrialization or is it the lack of law enforcement or is there something intrinsic in our culture?
A.        No, as I told you we are passing through a transitional period between feudal agricultural society and modern industrial society, we are somewhere in between.  So a large section of our people are still not modern, they do not follow rules.  For example, just take a simple thing, when I come to America, I stay with my daughter Vandana, my job which Vandana has given me, is everyday to take the garbage from the house and take it outside and put it in a huge garbage bin.  In India you take the garbage and throw it out of the house. While traveling on a car we throw out the garbage and anything outside.  In the West it is taught in childhood to a child that littering garbage  is not proper,  the value is put in you by your parents in childhood that this is not done.  Garbage must be put it in the garbage bin.   On the other hand, in India because people are still partly feudal and backward, not completely modern, therefore these values are not there, they will come after 10-20 years when we also become industrialized.  But at present people just throw out the garbage, everywhere in India you will find a huge pile of rubbish, on every road you will find rubbish, people moving by the car just throw out the garbage, nobody cares. That mindset has to be created, it is not created in one day, it requires a whole generation to create it.
In London the whole Thames river upto the 19th century was full of sewage, people used to just dump the sewage there, today it is clean.  So it will come when we will become totally modern, that will take time.
Q.        My question is going back to the ancient times in India.  How did the caste system evolve?  Who created this caste system in India and why does it still linger on and why is it still so powerful in India?
A.        Caste system originated from a racial basis, that is, a white race, the Aryans came to India and conquered a dark coloured  race,  and the proof of   this is that even now India is a racial society,  we prefer white colour  When we advertise in newspapers we say “wanted fair colour bride”, when a child is born if the colour is fair, the grand mother is very happy.  But, having originated from a racial basis caste later on developed into the feudal occupational division of labour in society.  That means that every vocation became a caste, like for instance, carpenter ‘badhai’   became a caste, ‘lohar’, blacksmith became a caste, potter, ‘kumhar’ became a caste etc.
  This happened in Europe also, it is nothing unique in India.  Even today in England a large number of people have surnames like, Baker, Butcher, Gardener, Mason, Carpenter, Shoemaker, Smith, Potter, Goldsmith, Taylor, Barber, etc.  What does this indicate?  It indicates that their ancestors were following these professions.  In those days, there was no engineering colleges or technical institutes, the only way to learn a trade or craft was to sit with your father since childhood and see how he works.  Supposing, your father is a carpenter, you sit with him when you are 6 or 7 years of age, you see how is working and he also guides you and you pick up the trade.  So you had no right  to choose your profession, you had to follow your father’s profession because there was no other way to learn a trade or occupation. 
So caste system was in Europe also, it was on vocation basis, every vocation became a caste.  Today, the situation is totally changed. For instance if a person of the badhai (carpenter) caste comes from a village to a city he becomes a motor mechanic or electrician or clerk, he does not now do the job of carpenter which was his caste. So now people are not following their father’s profession on a very large scale.  Many of you are here, are you following your father’s profession?  Many of your fathers were lawyers, but now you are entrepreneurs.  When this happens on large scale the very basis of caste has been smashed because of the advance of technology.  Now the caste system is being propped up by certain politicians for their vote banks.  But when the foundation of a building has been smashed by the advance of technology how long can that building be artificially propped up?  In my opinion caste will last only for another 10 or 20 years.  Now people are not bothered about what is your caste.  If you go for a job in some place nobody asks what is your caste, they will see your resume, your CV, your technical achievements.

105 comments:

  1. Sir, myself a big of you ! i beg to differ with your points when you say tamil doesnt talk about science ! There is a whole lot of sceince in tamil !namely in thirumandiram by thirumoolar ! which talks about variety of things it talks about mesons (sub-atomic level ).and thiruvarutpa by ramalinga adigal which talks about a lot of things. Tamil saints such as bogar and his disciple karuvooraar where the masters of alchemy (this hasnt got many manuscripts )! Also the way you have put down your ideas in a strong and bold way always inspires me.The comment about the whole salman rushdie controversy was completely true .I saw most of the JLP and it was narrowed down to rushdie which was a shame ! When you quote bharathiar in your text I am more than happy. Keep blogging ! you are the need of the hour !

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    1. Let none claim that he knows India not even Justice M.Katju. He is getting invitations to address from America and abroad because he had said earlier " Most indians are fools" . That is the intellect Justice Katju.

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  2. I first read the transcription of 'What is India?' in Frontline and was wondering if you should take to blogging. Similar idea was expressed in Indian Express a couple of days back. Today I read in the same paper about your new blo and I couldn't resist. I hope we will benefit from your prolific writings, which sometimes, however, border on historical romanticism. But the sheer pragmatism reflected in your articles appeals equally to the young and a generation older and echo the rationality that we should be looking into society.

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  3. I would also suggest to moderate the comments so that unwarranted content may be filtered out.

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  4. Can't say that the article is a masterpiece, which it's certainly not, as a lot of topics have been intermingled in one article. But hats off.Its interesting. I happen to know the author personally as I happen to be his immediate neighbour in Alld and also happened to appear as a lawyer before him. Anyway,hope he comes out with more such stuff on a regular basis and more readable and less confusing and muddled up.

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  5. Very few people left India, except on two occasions ..... Why? -----
    ----Good article, but you left out the Roma Gypsies, who left India for the cold, snowy places. Not everyone thrives in heat and settled agriculture

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  6. Re-read where I missed yr mention of Roma - they most certainly are from India the genetic and linguistic proofs are there. I would have walked weeks, gladly, if I'd had to to get out of Tamil Nadu last August. You must not place your own weather biases in the projected minds of others. Besides, I believe Roma were forced out for various reasons

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  7. very good points; it is frustrating to see people pout and behave as though these transitions should take place overnight. ":If we read the history of Europe from the 17th to 19th Centuries we find that this was a horrible period in Europe. Only after going through that fire, in which there were wars, revolutions, turmoil, intellectual ferment, chaos, social churning, etc., modern society emerged in Europe. India is presently going through that fire.:

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  8. Hmmmm... "This never happened in our country " - no, not on the basis of science, but it certainly has happened on the basis of disputes regarding religion.

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  9. It's not true that the caste system in Europe was 'the same.' It was never based on race; there was a great deal of racial homogeneity. Unlike the Indian system, as you explained, it was solely based on occupation. And there was never violent opposition to changing yr job as can be seen every week in Indian news (cobbler tries to go to school, gets thrashed)...however, there was also no opportunity.

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  10. Roma did not leave in great number together. It was not a mass exodus. They moved in many many small bands; eventually it became great numbers. Thanks for a very good essay and much-needed one.

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  11. The "migration" of the roma is very real and for very tangible and immediately identifiable causes.

    The romas came to south eastern Europe from about the late 12th century AD. Some hundred years after the start of the turko islamic genocides in India.
    The entire area from northern India to the balkans was under turkish dominance if not turkish rule. Slave trade from India was a substantial historical event. Tens of millions of hindus were butchered in this genocide and millions were driven away over the "hindu kush / hindu killer" mountains of Afghanistan.
    There is nothing mysterious about this fact except for the "secular" holocaust negationism.

    Surely there were very great and noble men among muslims. From Aamir Khusrau to the Frontier Gandhi but quite as surely there were fiends of the most horrible order. The horrors committed by Tipu Sultan and Aurangazeb are known from a hundred sources. The immense massacres by Jinnah and the muslim league, and the nizam of hyderabad are known to all but those deliberately blinded by modern indian secularism.

    To make friends with the muslims one need not gloss over the horrors committed in the name of islam. That is not the route to friendship but to slavery and extermination.

    Secularism is the assertion of state power over that of a political theocracy. It does not mean equal respect to all faiths.

    This notion of equal respect to all faiths / traditions is an exclusively hindu idea. And the earliest parallel among the western cultures is found in the Napoleonic code of the early 19th century. Where the French Republic had become very "secular" so far as to actively discourage religion primarily Catholicism, the dominant and exclusive religion of France. Simply because Catholicism was for all time a very political religion.

    So indeed the notion of accommodating all faiths and traditions can only be understood and comprehended as a Hindu philosophy.

    We adopt the notion of equal respect to all life in fact all existence, not just all faiths. Not because it is practical in the peculiar circumstance of diversity in India. But because respect for all existence is a very spiritually intelligent way to exist.

    This is the only way to exist. All other lunatic ideas of racial / divinely ordained privilege perish sooner or later.

    India is a country of immigrants sure. Just as much as are the aborigines of Australia. About 40,000 years ago the aborigines of Australia landed there from where ever they came. The cromagnon man is postulated to have evolved in East Africa about 50 - 100 thousand years ago. And the modern human is the cromagnon man. Therefore all humans of the world are immigrants out of east africa. And therefore to call the hindus of India as immigrants is really an obvious fact. All living things constantly migrate. What is the point of this observation.

    That we must accept Islamic genocides on India as normal? So perhaps the reverse can also be accepted. Hindus butchering off muslims etc. And perhaps Hindus can also migrate to the rest of the world that has some significant natural resource and commit genocides. It would just be the repetition of the historical patterns of migration would it not?

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    1. I agree with your comments. You have thought more deeply about these issues than Justice Katju. I wish he would participate in a forum of eminent thinkers from different backgrounds and regions. This could be a televised discussion, and I think it would get outstanding ratings.

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  12. http://www.holocaustandhumanity.org/kristallnacht/cincinnati-eyewitness-testimonies/

    What happened to the jews in germany happened to hindus in pakistan. 2 million killed in about 3 weeks. More efficient than the killing camps of Nazi germany.
    Now hindus were killed like this periodically over the last thousand years. Including in my beloved Kashmir in Independent Secular India. one million expelled in one month. Only about three thousand murdered though mercifully.

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  13. Being a Judge, a few things were expected to be known in the least

    (1) the difference between being an immigrant, native and getting naturalized

    (2) sense of depth of time which makes the difference in the above. There is no trace of any immigration in the last 3,500 years, so obviously it is not immigration that is the source of diversity in India. The source of diversity and synthesis in India is its unique civilizational experience, its pluralism.

    Of course, being a negationist and an Islamic apologetic is more amply visible in this very article so he cannot be expected to be any close to truth.

    The most painful part is that a judge of all people is running after such falsities, while he is the one from whom the entire system expects a dispassionate and uncompromising truth-seeking. Justice Katju, this is disappointing to say the least.

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  14. It reads more like an essay by a school boy. Nothing enlightening

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    1. Couldn't agree more. The essay of a school boy has a lot of imagination in it and lacks clarity and knowledge on south india.

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  15. Sir, nice article. However, I have to disagree. India is not a country of immigrants. It is an indigenous nation that has been routinely invaded over centuries. And herein lies the paradox: the majority population that suffered the invasions, the hindus, now have to take care of the minority community that nearly annihlated them thru islamic and colonial rule. This is different from US where the majority community (native americans) were annihalted by the white europeans. In this scenario, communal tension is bound to be high, especially given the proselytizing nature of christianity and islamic jihad. Very few from the minority community actuall feel free to assimilate....and i hope you address that issue, rather than putting the onus on the majority...it has to be a two way street

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  16. Mr. Katju,

    Your article is a deliberate and blatant attack on soul of india. Being a chief justice of India, you should have provided the proofs for your claim.. you cannot write based on your imaginations..

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  17. The comments here serve to show how much our people are influenced by political propaganda. We revile Tipu Sultan and the Mughals for vandalising our temples and killing hundreds of Hindus, but we overlook the fact that our own rulers like Chandragupta Maurya and Asoka waged war on several provinces and conquered them to create the earliest Indian Empire in recorded history,and present countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were all part of this Empire. One needn't be reminded that lot of blood was shed in this process. It was the general notion in those days that a king is not worth ruling if he does not wage war on other states and expand his territory. Asoka is a unique case in that he was affected by the violence he inflicted and swore to a life of non-violence and converted to Buddhism.

    So the invasions by the Muslims were nothing but a display of such mentality. Even among them, Akbar was an exception in that he propagated universal tolerance for all faiths, though his descendants, notably Aurangazeb, did not share his pluralistic ideas.

    And for those who believe that Hinduism is a religion of tolerance, what explanation do they have for the Hindu revivalist movement that sought to chase the Buddhists from the country and reinforce the feudal caste system in place, as a result of the philosophy propagated by Sankaracharya?

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    1. A correction to your history knowledge.
      Quoting you 'Present countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were all part of this Empire' - To Conquer countries like Singapore, Indonesia etc., you need a Navy. Which the Mauryas or the Kalingas never had. It was the Chozhas ( read Cho-la) who conquered these countries. For this reason, even today Tamil is the national language of Singapore and there is sizeable tamil population in these South East Asian Countries. Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chola_Navy.
      Source - http://img2.findthebest.com/sites/default/files/701/media/images/Chola_Dynasty.png

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  18. “Sar Zamin-e-hind par aqwaam-e-alam ke firaq
    kafile guzarte gae Hindustan banta gaya”

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    1. Please translate for those of us not well-versed in Urdu?

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    2. means lot of people came in group and india is on way to settelment

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  19. Government should come forward with a subject specifically about 'Bharat' starting from school days (eg:- from 5th to 10th standard), in-order to preserve the uniqueness of our nation and instill more pride in the generations to come. The textbooks for the current subject 'History' itself should be rewritten. The subject 'Bharat' should give more insight into the science and mathematics that our rishis (ancient scientists) propagated. This was lost with the British rule, who through the 'divide and rule agenda' disturbed the fabric of our eternal Bharat and also with the revamped Education System. People still are fond of only Western ideology and Western imitations, and they are realizing the importance of our nation only when a foreigner speaks high about our nation. Our rishis have also advocated that a human should accept the change in his surroundings as life goes. But we only take the bad things from the change and not the good things, and also we eliminate the good things of the past and continue to follow the bad things. A person should lay efforts in training his intellect so that he/she distinguishes which is bad and good. The very essence of intellectual grooming is what our rishis propagated.

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  20. Dear Anonymous and they others who blindly disagree,

    What I understood from your replies are that you cannot keep an open mind to discussions. All that Justice Katju is trying to tell is be open minded and keep the common good of Indians in mind,before you even make a negative remarks. Just think that it is remarks like this which gets ingrained in your younger generations which will prevent them from growing up to be good human beings. Finally isn't that what really matters?

    What I understood from the blog is: we are asked to be open minded about Muslims, because a trend is seen in today's world to brand the Muslim community as terrorists. Which shouldn't be happening. Any person ingrained with a hatred for another, turns out be harmful to a society. So, taking muslims as an example, the request is to be open minded and be a better human being.

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    1. No Nimbus, we are not branding Muslims anything. That is your guilty conscience. Nobody thinks Muslims are bad. But very many people are worried about Islamist fundamentalism growing so rapidly. These are two very different subjects.
      There are more than enough historical records to show what various Muslim rulers did and did not do. We do not need Justice Katju to tell us that.
      And what history has taught us is that what really matters is the truth. Obfuscating the truth is a big problem in the long run. That's what makes bad parents and bad citizens.

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  21. Why do we still have "Republic of India" written in English and "Bharatiya Ganarajya" written in Hindi on our passports? Why can't we just write 'Republic of Bharat'in English also?
    Thanking you in advance

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    1. Um. because those our are national languages,maybe?

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    2. Just because 'Republic' and 'india' are both english words and have to be in same phrase.
      similarly, 'Bharatiya' and 'Ganrajya' are hindi words hence used together.
      Have u ever heard someone saying "please come to ghar".... either "ghar aao" OR "please come to home." :)

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  22. Sir you cannot say Tamil doesn't speak about Science. There are tonnes of writings several 1000 years back speaks about science, astrology, mathematics. Tamil & Sanskrit is the base for today's modern inventions. I'll shortly share the proof of articles from various scientists.

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    1. @Bhargav: Plz share any proofs available.I'm really eager to go through them.

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    2. @ the above Anonymous, why did you not ask the author of the blog to cite references? Just curious.

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  23. those who are totally disagree with katju's view
    your comments just reflects why communal disharmony present in india......... but i will not accept his misconceptions about tamil.....

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  24. Lets focus on the positives rather than always bashing the author and pointing out trivia, true or false it maybe, from our history. Positives being . . we are going to be a developed nation. And for those of you seeing the Hindu/Muslim divide, the gene pool of Hindus and Muslims in a region is common. Put the past behind you. We are going towards a better future.

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  25. Sir this was one of the good article ever read and such articles are truly necessary for the hour,but again as it was mentioned earlier- its the educated ones who needs to gets educated 1st, only then can INDIA rest. Even after all these years of lesson, they are still asking whether we need to forget "what Muslims did to us?" These educated ones are forgetting that - Revenge or hatred is never a harbringer of PEACE

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  26. Why are tamilians getting pissed off? He may have been wrong in making the claim that Tamil is not a scientific language, but that may be because he probably doesn't speak, understand and read tamil. He may be unaware of scientific Tamil literature. Just because he says so doesn't make it so. Also, just because he hasn't mentioned it doesn't mean that Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati and the other Indian languages aren't scientific. Chill out!!

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    1. We shouldn't be chilled out. The writer is not an ordinary citizen. He is the Chairman of the Press Council of India and an ex-Supreme Court Judge! If you said this nonsenses we'd be chilled out.

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    2. Though the writer is an eminent person but this is his personal blog not a gov.in website and he never requested you to read and agree to his points. Just keep an open mind to research further for details.
      hope u got the point.

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  27. To Hon. Justice Khusru
    Respected Sir,
    Your view about Aryan conquer of India may be the outcome of highly popularized "Aryan Invasion" myth propagated by western philosophers during the late 19th century which nowadays are denounced by modern scientific studies.
    Some well established lies are hard to go.

    References:
    1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race : Talks about the coinage of the term "Aryan Race".
    2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQZFS9Hij0M : A documentary about the ancient Indian (urban) civilization of about 10,000 years old.
    3) http://world.time.com/2011/12/15/the-aryan-race-time-to-forget-about-it/ : Refers to inference of reputed scientists of CCMB rejecting "Aryan invasion theory". The following is the link to their original article:
    http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0002929711004885/1-s2.0-S0002929711004885-main.pdf?_tid=fbea909a-32af-11e2-8bd1-00000aab0f6b&acdnat=1353374400_a5e78dbc3dd7a2bc97e7d6113dbe4292

    by Saswata Kumar Sahoo

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    1. Sorry for not addressing properly,

      It should be
      "To Hon. Justice Katju" and not "To hon. Justice Khusru"...

      ... by Saswata Kumar Sahoo

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  28. Very well written...like a true scholar that you are. I wish you could be called upon as our next chairman for NCERT- or for specifically re-drawing our history education and texts across the country's schools.

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    1. Please... spare us such a fate!

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    2. ^^ Likes :),
      Please do not spread rumors but let the actual facts on the history of the nation be known to all.

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  29. The comments are as interesting as the article, History is the story of some bygone times told to us by an individual so i see this as a possible perspective. Interestingly if you look at the 'geneographic project' of the National Geographic Society, there is a map which indicates how the different parts of the globe got populated, should make interesting reading based on scientific evidence.

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  30. Saying that people who have been living in India for thousands of years are immigrants, is like saying that because the primal parents (sons and daughters of Adam and Eve) had incestuous relationships, everybody has been born of incest!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Its the same logic propagandist were using against Muslims

      Delete
  31. What a load of nonsense. Superficial scholarship. Please do better or stop mis-educating people. You have a huge responsibilty because of your position Justice Katju.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Dear Sir,

    I am most delighted to read the article ‘what is India?’ in your blog. I felt it is this kind of understanding is needed among the other Indians who are bound with fascistic ideologies and who claim to be superior to others which is baseless in any regard.

    With all due respect I have objections to be presented before you about this article. I find certain points are factual and some others are not, especially your claim about Tamil language which itself contradicting with certain points you mentioned.

    Your theory of ‘Brahui’ the mother language of Tamil is widely accepted by many historians and scholars. But what is missing is ‘Brahui’ is a language existed in Indus Valley civilization spoken by the inhabitants (Still exists among an indigenous group living in Baluchistan with an overtone of Arabic influence) of that land who have already mastered in various subjects like art, science, engineering, politics, astronomy and of course mathematics before the arrival of ‘Aryan’ tribe in the Indian subcontinent (Ref: ‘Volga se Ganga’ by Rahul Sankrithyayan). They had measuring system, numerals, alphabets etc. The so called knowledge of ‘Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy’ should have been derived from the forefathers of the Dravidian who are immigrants from Indus region itself. Thus your theory of Sankrit Literature being the solely owner of Science, mathematics and other subjects seems unrealistic since the Sanskrit language is considered to be the language spawned by Aryans which developed equally with Tamil and other languages at the same time.

    I am not a linguist, but I have a fair idea about the Tamil language since it is my first language and I have been reading and conversing in it for more than 30 years. I also have the access of internet and other resourceful books. Tamil’s grammar has been formed and observed for more than two thousand years. Though the author of this is vaguely mentioned in any document, but the collection of this Tamil grammar mandatory is called as ‘Tholkappiam’. It will give one the complete understanding of this unique language. Also age old literatures like Agananooru, Purananooru, Thirumandhiram and texts about ‘Sidha’ medicine will help one to know Tamil’s mastery in social science, Law, science, engineering, mathematics and medicine.

    Your Opinion about Urdu poetry, that it draws you reading pleasure is purely a personal statement and that does not make the language a ‘Matchless’ one.

    I am forced to write all this in order to show no offence in any regard but to draw facts to light as they are.

    Please do reply if you find this noteworthy.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Dear Sir,

    I am most delighted to read the article ‘what is India?’ in your blog. I felt it is this kind of understanding is needed among the other Indians who are bound with fascistic ideologies and who claim to be superior to others which is baseless in any regard.

    With all due respect I have objections to be presented before you about this article. I find certain points are factual and some others are not, especially your claim about Tamil language which itself contradicting with certain points you mentioned.

    Your theory of ‘Brahui’ the mother language of Tamil is widely accepted by many historians and scholars. But what is missing is ‘Brahui’ is a language existed in Indus Valley civilization spoken by the inhabitants (Still exists among an indigenous group living in Baluchistan with an overtone of Arabic influence) of that land who have already mastered in various subjects like art, science, engineering, politics, astronomy and of course mathematics before the arrival of ‘Aryan’ tribe in the Indian subcontinent (Ref: ‘Volga se Ganga’ by Rahul Sankrithyayan). They had measuring system, numerals, alphabets etc. The so called knowledge of ‘Nyaya Vaisheshik philosophy’ should have been derived from the forefathers of the Dravidian who are immigrants from Indus region itself. Thus your theory of Sankrit Literature being the solely owner of Science, mathematics and other subjects seems unrealistic since the Sanskrit language is considered to be the language spawned by Aryans which developed equally with Tamil and other languages at the same time.

    I am not a linguist, but I have a fair idea about the Tamil language since it is my first language and I have been reading and conversing in it for more than 30 years. I also have the access of internet and other resourceful books. Tamil’s grammar has been formed and observed for more than two thousand years. Though the author of this is vaguely mentioned in any document, but the collection of this Tamil grammar mandatory is called as ‘Tholkappiam’. It will give one the complete understanding of this unique language. Also age old literatures like Agananooru, Purananooru, Thirumandhiram and texts about ‘Sidha’ medicine will help one to know Tamil’s mastery in social science, Law, science, engineering, mathematics and medicine.

    Your Opinion about Urdu poetry, that it draws you reading pleasure is purely a personal statement and that does not make the language a ‘Matchless’ one.

    I am forced to write all this in order to show no offence in any regard but to draw facts to light as they are.

    Please do reply if you find this noteworthy.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Mr Katju, as a Judge you had the respect of the people, with this blog you have lost all of it !. We have enough politicians shooting from their hips, you seem to want to join the bandwagon. Suggest you stick to your job & spare us your ridiculous statements.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suggest, you stick to your ridiculous comments and let everybody put forth their point-of-view. The only reason I can see is that something in the blog has personally hurt your ego. If it is itching you so much, go start blogging out your thoughts. Atleast have the guts to comment with your real name bro. Such a pity.

      The respect for you have increased many many folds Katju Sir. And your vision will surely come true, we young Indians will make sure that this happens.
      - Prathamesh from India.

      Delete
  35. The statement "India is broadly a country of immigrants, like North America. Over 92% people living in India are not the original inhabitants of India. Their ancestors came from outside, mainly from the North West" is quite wrong, in the following ways.

    1. Humanity originated in Africa, in that sense 100% of India (and every place outside of Africa) is "a country of immigrants".

    2. If we take the arrival time of humans in India, the ancestors of modern Indians arrived in India around 50,000 years ago, as per the latest genetic evidence. The alleged migration from the north-west (the "Aryan invasion" or "Aryan migration") that supposedly occurred 3500 years is so tiny as to not have led to any discernable genetic traces. If you read the latest works on the population genetics of India, you will find statements like, there is no significant influx of people from the Northwest from the mid-Holocene. The mid-Holocene is 6000 years ago.

    The tremendous diversity in India is simply because of the long period humans inhabited India. (Africa has the greatest genetic diversity of any continent because humans originated there and lived there the longest. In all other places, people derive most of their ancestry from a relatively small number of founders.)

    I respectfully suggest Mr. Katju catch up with the latest science and not speak about the obsolete understandings from his childhood textbooks.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Sir,
    I find your emphasis on the very basic proposition "India is broadly a country of immigrants, like North America." to be controversial in a sense of time-line. Immigrants came to India time immemorial and blended. They kept on coming and stayed on. In USA, such a history of immigration dates back to what say 400 to 500 years? So is the case in every continent and sub-continents.

    Vedic culture and Samhita granth sets Bharat on a different footing than USA. Cultural and political state boundaries kept on expanding / changing over time.

    Best regards

    ReplyDelete
  37. I share your views about the immigrant theory.....I would ponder in the same direction many a time....
    Most Tamils here have commented/disagreed the way Tamil language was put in your article...but for me this is becoming quite natural where-in every language speaker tries to glorify his/her language.....same with Kanadigas, Marathis, Telgus etc. Its just that we cannot stop this language glorifying nuisance....it is engraved in our minds since childhood.... :)
    I wish to see a time in India where language is not important but communicating is important... :)

    There is no limit to going back in time....many a times a read or saw video of the likes of Subra Swamy telling that all Muslim in India have ancestor as Hindus...quite true to a great extent....but then the question I get in mind is how far in time I can go to decide the ancestral religious practices...I will end in a time when ancestor of all religion today had not religion... :)
    The reason I mentioned this is because the choice of the time scale by any speaker is only limited to the era which proves his/her theory...thats all.....

    Personal choice -> someone here mentioned that Urdu being is beautiful language is a personal choice of Mr. Katju.....This concept of personal choice is very debatable....if we start labeling personal choices then we will end up putting every thing that we do or we do not do as personal choice...our kids would start telling their parents that what every you are asking me do to or not do it your personal choice and not mine perhaps....what is the logical end to this theory of personal choice???? Everything can be put under the umbrella of personal choice and the fact that "I am like this only".... :) This is funny at times and frustrating at another time.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "I wish to see a time in India where language is not important but communicating is important..."

      quite differed to your views, i beleive that language is most important, it brings whole culture and civilization within herself, no culture is full without its language. for example sanskrit brings whole dharmic tradition and culture with it, language cannot built in a day it takes years, in other word you said cooking is not important eating is important than eat the raw. and i feel that you have also sad about someone said about urdu personnel choice of justice katju it shows that your might fond of urdu may be your language, and it shows how false your above communication line is

      Delete
    2. As you said...its quite natural for anyone to glorify his/her language...but given with proofs one has to at least consider it rather blindly labeling it junk...

      Delete
  38. Dear Sir,
    With due respect, I beg to differ with your views.
    Please read the Books "Being different" and "Breaking India" to know about history of India.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Dr. Amarjeet Sahu21 November 2012 at 11:49

    Dear Sir,

    This is indeed a good article on "India".

    I truly loved reading it & can understand the pain which you must have taken to collect so much information about our country.

    ReplyDelete
  40. justice katju needs a "purba pakya" with Rajiv malohotra about aryan and dravidian theory, you can find him, he is a author of book 'breaking india', which breaks the theory of aryan and dravidian myth, his latest book "being different" also enlight to many who did not know much about our philosophy and purba pakhya, and aryan invasion in a myth because city dwaraka flourish before mohenjo daro and Harapaan civilisation ,saraswati civilization does exist,in arbic sea where dwaraka city drowned traces of a city found like harappan city, structure more thousand year before harappan civilization, it is scientifically proved that river saraswati flowed in indian west coast, there were vast land in the west of gujurat and rajasthan where now arbic ocean present

    I think justice katju will be a brilliant orator, but i should say one should not be "khich tanke secular bananaa" to talk about indian culture, it is ok that they are good and we are good, but out of topic discussion might be shows the innner weakness, we are different as they are also different like apple is diffent from orange, all are fruit to eat as well as all are different, we are knowledge based civilization religion is part of our civilisation but not whole, we teach science (i.e yoga, meditation etc) as part of our prayer, sanskrit is as local and "devo bhasa", it is a language which taught everything from hymn to science, it called "deva bhasa" becoz it traced no source that who invented but in our books we are told that the devtas are speaking in this language, it is lagunage of india, vast people of india speaks sanskrit till 1100 A.D., thousand of scholar comes to indian universities till 1200A.D. when nalanda flourish. now a days most muslim oppose to vande mataram song as it is in sanskrit but in those days muslim scholars are coming to india to learn, most of the books of sanskrit are written in arbic(as you talked about that hindu numbers are taken from arbic to european), the good thing of them is they did not hide the source unless greek and english, al-jabr a father of modern algebra is one of them, algebra is collection hindu mathmatics and some traces show that it is a hindu guru Brahmagupta, whose work are categoriclly solved,persin historian minhaz is a eye witness and wrote his biograpy the Bhaktiar khilij who destroyed nalanda and killed thousands of scholar actually destroyed all our history and that precious texts, he wrote that the liabrary of nalanda are so vast that the fumes(whole liabrary burned by them)are lasted for six months, and the texts are used by soldier for their cooking purpose also. so only we can find our civilisation with the traces of sanskrit, north indian and south indian both adhere sanskrit as theier ancient past, so how come dravid and aryan theory comes, mind it sansrit is a mother of most european language which european scholars found but they cleverly hide the souce and said that latin greek and sanskrit is a common indo-european language, which might be false as sanskrit is traced beyond their civilizaiton. thank u

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. FYI: I was listening to a tv program where the guy who issue fatwa against bande mataram was interviewed. The reason why they are against is not coz its sanskrit. The reason was it says vande for vandana and their point of view was they respect mother but they don't worship as for them it is allah they worship pray and bow to.

      Just wanted you know.

      Delete
    2. If you donot worship and bow to your mother, the God or Allah will not accept your prayer. no god is greater than a mother.

      Delete
  41. I wasted time in reading this.. its all plain false.. Katju, what is the point of writing this article, what is the source of these facts.. are you able to prove these..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Point is for what looking the source and the source is B.N.Pande research.

      Delete
    2. Point is for which you are looking the source and the source is our respected past Rajya Sabha member B.N.Pande research.
      So, let us come out of the biases spread by the Britishers through Divide and rule, and not allow them (biases) to rule our senses to behave in a biased manner against each other, any further.
      If reading this article is a time waste, then such life is a waste in becoming a building block in the integration of India, it might disintegrate it.

      Delete
  42. A very good article..Sir....keep enlighten (although not agree to some points but overall gud job).Thnx

    ReplyDelete
  43. क्या टीपू सुल्तान और औरंगजेब सेक्युलर थे ?

    http://agniveerfans.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/tipu-and-aurangzeb/

    ReplyDelete
  44. dei pannada neeyellam sotha thinguriya peeya thinguria. vaai iruntha enna venumnalum pesuvia. thanks for your article. :)

    ReplyDelete
  45. Justice Markandey Katju,. History does seem to be a very weak subject of yours especially when repeating outdated and debunked theories of immigrants/aryans and Dravidians.Its shameful that even after the British leaving that your education system still teaches such nonsense where even in Britain itself we are not even taught such outdated colonial theories based on race.. You need to redduate yourself with the latest research then embarrassing yourself with the above.Being a Judge you should have known better that you have to back your theories with evidence .

    ReplyDelete
  46. Justice Markandey Katju,. History does seem to be a very weak subject of yours especially when repeating outdated and debunked theories of immigrants/aryans and Dravidians.Its shameful that even after the British leaving that your education system still teaches such nonsense where even in Britain itself we are not even taught such outdated colonial theories based on race.. You need to reeducate yourself with the latest research then embarrassing yourself with the above.Being a Judge you should have known better that you have to back your theories with evidence .

    ReplyDelete
  47. Well said sir....
    your publishings are always promoting national integrity which is the need of hour.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Well said sir....
    your publishings are always promoting national integrity which is the need of hour.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Brilliant and rational information .... in between the lines

    ReplyDelete
  50. I think India's inner heart is not for Indianism and but for Worldism ... that is the ultimate aim ,but we must cross the Indianism before that.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Dear Justice Katju,
    Your article is a eye opener.I have a doubt.Sir,you have mentioned a letter sent by Aurangazeb to the Maharaja of Bikaner in which the Mughal emperor says "I know what it means to lose a father, and I know how sad you must be", but didn't Aurangazeb himself put Shah Jahan in prison, where he died.
    On the whole, your article is excellent.Carry on with your work sir.I hope a media council will be created in your tenure itself.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Read Neerad Chaudhri... He said it is false propaganda that British created tension among HIndu and Muslim after 1857. I don't remember exactly but he said in books in 1818 Even books is Bengal used bad comments.
    I talked with our old relatives and asked question, they said Muslim as individual are friends & neighbors but as society they were hated and felt outside.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Sir,

    You have stated that "Before discussing the scientific achievements of our ancestors it may be said that a lot of people talk non-sense that in ancient India there were atom bombs, guided missiles, etc. We make a laughing stock of ourselves by talking like this. Some people say that we had aeroplanes in ancient India, because in the Ramayana it is mentioned that Lord Ram brought Sita back from Lanka on a Pushpak Viman. They conclude from this that there were aeroplanes in ancient India. Everyone, including children, know that the first aeroplane was invented by the Wright brothers in America in 1903. So it is total nonsense to say that we had aeroplanes in ancient India."

    However, if you watch the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK5qG6bKLCM could you then please explain why the ruins of Mohenjadaro are highly radioactive in nature? Is it because of a nuclear fallout?

    Looking forward to hear more about this.

    ReplyDelete
  54. I do not agree that India is country of immigrants. Poem of Firak is not a Brahm Vaakya to rely upon. All urdu knowing indian intellectuals have been bias to Hindi, Sanskrit or everything which bhartiya or sanatan. So is the case with Hon'ble Justice Katju. The fact is that Hindustan or Bharat or Aryavart was already there where Karvans (Immigrants) kept on coming got accommodated and assimilated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Mr T.P.
      Actually what you thinking about Firaq's couplet quoted by excellency Mr.Katju that is Hindustaan or bharat or Aryavart....No no you are wrong Actually he is talking about the people of India who are making now a days Bharat. No doubt land of Bharat is here since the creation of earth But, are the same people who is living in India was born at the time of their creation... No....They are immigrants. Trace back your ancestory You will of that league.!!!

      Delete
  55. great article
    thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  56. He does not know that it is the Hindu secular ethos of this country that has given him the opportunity to twist history and present a very secular form of fiction that he tells us as history. True history of this country has not been taught to us. Will never be because. One oppressor left this country for good the British and they can be maligned. But the other cannot be questioned.

    ReplyDelete
  57. First, thanks for the article. Having read this long article I wish to “pat myself on back” !!

    History is always twisted, that’s is the fact. So I am not sure if sources are right or wrong and so I can’t comment on the substance, but can comment on the style and also can post questions.

    You said indigenous people are 7 – 8 % now in India and 92% are immigrants, with this you say “our ancestors”, so here the “our” is the indigenous or immigrants. Just a brainless question :-)

    I liked your optimistic-approach that India is changing and moving towards the right direction. 10-20 years the caste will be abolished, nahhhh I think it will take another 50 - 100 years for sure, this my calculation.

    Someone in the top gave a disgusting comment in Tamil, felt very bad and I feel sorry for the poor dude.

    FOR THE PEOPLE WHO COMMENT, I don’t understand how can you just bash someone who is writing in his personal blog.

    For those who ask for “proof” – This is so pathetic here, whenever someone voices any opinion, the rest of the crowd will say “ where is the proof”. When your teacher taught 1+1 = 2, did you guys ask where is the proof.

    Regarding the migration, I certainly second someone in the top who said the advanced genetic science can determine the lineage. I feel the old school has to take advantage of new studies.

    -Ravi

    http://teashoptalks.blogspot.com/
    http://filmbulb.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  58. Very informative sir. I have grown to appreciate the beauty of languages and diversity by seeing your commitment to them.

    ReplyDelete
  59. No foriegn migrations into the Indian mainstream in the last 60,000 years'' - American Journal of Science, December 2011.

    The reason why India is run by Educated Idiots is because of the Seclusion of Secularism of history. So the vast information that exist, in genetics, linguistics, archeology, evidence based on facts, not opinion, WHOLLY REFUTE THE OPINIONS OF THIS SITE.

    Unfortunately such Educated Idiots, are then given a role in Western controlled India, so people who state the opposite are then considered right wing, while people who promote their colonial opinions are considered liberal.

    So when reading this, tripe, i was first amused and then horror, at the level of ignorance within India. And to think this tripe was written by an educated secular Indian, goes to show my point.

    Secular means seclusion of the past. The reason why Babri Mosque case revealed that there was indeed a temple to rama, was because the pro national experts SIMPLY DESTROYED THE Secular, Islamic and Christian experts. In other words they did not have a clue.

    ReplyDelete
  60. The thing i would like to understand is this. If EDUCATION is meant to reflect the TRUTH, because only TRUTH can create the desire for change and progression, then does the Colonially created Western Education of India, designed to miseducate and dilute the past, its history, to the point of seclusion or secular?

    How does one of the highest Judges in Indian, form such a corrupted opinion?

    The following is just a mere glimpse of the VAST, VAST, data available, which is being denied to Indians. Why?


    ‘Researchers found that the Indian populations had more genetic diversity than Europeans and East Asians, which gives a good indicator of the age of a population” Genographic project IBM.

    Sahoo et al had actually written the following words:“The perennial concept of people, language, and agriculture arriving to India together through thenorthwest corridor does not hold up to close scrutiny.Recent claims for a linkage of haplogroups J2, L, R1a,and R2 with a contemporaneous origin for the majority of the Indian castes’ paternal lineages from outside the subcontinent are REJECTED, although our findings do support a local origin of haplogroups F* and H.” .They also rule out arrivals from Southwest Asia because West Asian haplogroups (like Y-Hg G) are not found in India.

    Kivisild’s findings (2003) too had shown that humans could not have arrived from West Asia into Indiabecause of lack of West Asian Y-hgs E, G, I, J* and J2f. Kivisild et al wrote,“When compared with European and Middle Eastern populations (Semino et al. 2000), Indians (i) share with themclades J2 and M173 derived sister groups R1b and R1a, the latter of which is particularly frequent in India; and (ii) lack or show amarginal frequency of clades E, G, I, J*, and J2f.”

    ReplyDelete
  61. Human Genetics at the University of Michigan, conducted genetic analysis of Indian-born individuals in the US. Their studies of 1,200.’We were struck both by the low level of diversity amongst people spanning such a large geographical region, and by the fact that people of the Indian sub-continent constituted a distinct group when compared to populations from other parts of the world,’ said Pragna I. Patel.

    The study analysed 500,000 genetic markers across the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 diverse groups from 13 states. All the individuals were from six-language families and traditionally upper and lower castes and tribal groups. “The genetics proves that castes grew directly out of tribe-like organizations during the formation of the Indian society.”
    “Impossible to distinguish between castes and tribes since their genetics proved they were not systematically different.”
    -”Reconstructing Indian Population History”
    - David Reich, Kumarasamy Thangaraj, Nick Patterson, Alkes L. Price & Lalji Singh
    - 2009

    Moreover, there are other DNA lineages found in good numbers in West Asia like R1*, R1b3,J*, J2f, I, G and E which are in total more than 53% population of west Asia. These arevirtually absent from India (Sahoo). Had people migrated from West Asia to India,these haplogroups would also have arrived into India. This evidence proves that J2 did notarrive from West Asia, because no lineage can ever migrate without other lineages alsomigrating along with it from the place of origin or expansion. On the other hand nearly all of the Indian male lineages like F*, L1, H (M-69), K2, C5, C*, R1a (M-17) etc. are found inWest Asia, proving a definite Indian migration to West Asia. The HIV protective gene, whichis found in West Asia, and Central Asia too, is absent from India (Majumder and Dey, 2001).Thus on no account, any migration from West Asia to India can be supported.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Sengupta (2006) showed that J2 is well distributed in Indian population.Sengupta et al (2006) found that the haplogroup J2 had a quite high variance, and hence deep time-depthin Indian tribes and castes too. Moreover the frequency is higher in the Dravidian speakingsouth Indians (19%) than the Indo-European speaking north Indians (11%). This destroys theAryan migration into India from West Asia hypothesis of Bellwood (2003 and 2005). The inference what we can derive from Sengupta and colleagues study’s data is that J2 haplogroup originated in India during Last Glacial Maximum, and migrated out of India whenclimate permitted. J2 is 18.7% in south Pakistan, the central place of Indus civilization.Lineage J2 and its derivatives are 23% in Iran and 22.2% in Turkey. (Regueiro et al.2006).But their variances are less than in India. Semino (2004) gives 18,000 ybp as the time of origin of J2. The variance was also high indicating indigenous origin of the haplogroup in India.J2 as well as its sub-clade J2b2 show a decreasing variance from India to the Balkans.

    A (2009) study headed by geneticist Swarkar Sharma, collated information for 2809 Indians (681 Brahmins, and 2128 tribals and schedule castes). The results showed “no consistent pattern of the exclusive presence and distribution of Y-haplogroups to distinguish the higher-most caste, Brahmins, from the lower-most ones, schedule castes and tribals”. Brahmins from West Bengal showed the highest frequency (72.22%) of Y-haplogroups R1a1* hinting that it may have been a founder lineage for this caste group. The authors found it significant that the Saharia tribe of Madhya Pradesh had not only 28.07% R1a1, but also 22.8% R1a*, out of 57 people, with such a high percentage of R1a* never having been found before. Based on STR variance the estimated age of R1a* in India was 18,478 years, and for R1a1 it was 13,768 years.In its conclusions the study proposed “the autochthonous origin and tribal links of Indian Brahmins” as well as “the origin of R1a1* … in the Indian subcontinent”.
    S. Sharma, argued for an Indian origin of R1a1 lineage among Brahmins, by pointing out the highest incidence of R1a*, ancestral clade to R1a1, among Kashmiri Pandits (Brahmins) and Saharias, an Indian tribe.
    - Sharma et al 2009

    The study analysed 500,000 genetic markers across the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 diverse groups from 13 states. All the individuals were from six-language families and traditionally upper and lower castes and tribal groups. “The genetics proves that castes grew directly out of tribe-like organizations during the formation of the Indian society.”
    “Impossible to distinguish between castes and tribes since their genetics proved they were not systematically different.”
    -”Reconstructing Indian Population History”
    - David Reich, Kumarasamy Thangaraj, Nick Patterson, Alkes L. Price & Lalji Singh
    - 2009

    Underhill and colleagues (2009) presented a detailed study of R1a lineages.
    They found that R1a is oldest in India. This lineage started expanding from Gujarat about 16,000years back. By 14,000 years back or earlier, it reached the Ganga Valley and Indus Valley.Then people carrying R1a genes migrated out of India, through Afghanistan and Tajikistan,reaching Central Asia. From Central Asia they entered East Europe. They inhabited the Pontic-Caspian area. Then they populated those areas which are inhabited today by Slavic and Baltic speaking people

    Team working on the same topic included Sengupta, King, Cavalli-Sforza, Underhilland colleagues. They showed that R (especially R1a1 and R2) diversity in India is indigenous in origin and does not support hypothesis of immigration from Central Asia or anywhere outside. R1a prevalence is not only high in Indo-European speaking Punjab, south Pakistan and Ganga Valley, but also in Chenchu and Koya tribes of south India (Kivisildet al.200

    ReplyDelete
  63. Oppenheimer (2003) also had supported Indian origin of R1a which is also called M17 in
    genetic circles. He wrote, “And sure enoug
    h we find highest rates and greatest diversity of the M17 line in Pakistan, north India, and eastern Iran, and low rates in the Caucasus. M17 isnot only more diverse in South Asia than in Central Asia but diversity characterizes its presence in isolated tribal groups in the south, thus undermining any theory of M17 as a marker of a ‘male Aryan Invasion of India.’ Study of the geographical distribution and the diversity of genetic branches and stems again suggests that Ruslan, along with his son M17,arose early in South Asia, somewhere near India”.


    ''NO FOREIGN GENES IN INDIA IN THE LAST 60,000YEARS''

    IBM GENOGRAPHIC PROJECT, 2011.



    __________________

    I would to invite Justice Katju to bring justice to his own opinion and comment.

    I would to invite Justice Katju to raise such issues about the quality of Colonial Western education in India, and the purpose it serves.

    Is it to serve Education based on truth, or does it serve an Abrahamic elite agenda of the last 1400years in which 80% of the world was enslaved by ONE ABRAHAMIC faith of the Middle East.

    In other words, does secular mean distortion of the past, dilution of history and then creating a NEW SOCIETY BASED on those distortion and proudly claiming to be secular, without knowing its true defination?

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  64. Mr. Katju sir,
    I really like and respect you as an Indian and agree with many remarks/claims in this blog article. However, your claim that some mythical race of people called the aryans invaded the Indian subcontinent(Aryan invasion theory) is ill conceived and has been proven wrong by geneticists....here is a useful video to disprove the aryan invasion theory....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klalJHD-e-k&list=LLD_YpbGhttLSpZ8oP4U0PFA

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  65. It is really a nice post, I read it and it gives a good information. I would like to read your next post, thanks for creating this post.

    Ansal API Lucknow

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  66. Looking forward for more. Regards.

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  67. A country where people trusts on babas and saints more than themselves. Where a man do not want to do their own job. Where people can not see the success of others. Where people only know how to vote for caste and religion & where people blame police & politicians of road accidents also.

    That is my proudy India.

    Mera Bharat Mahan.

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  68. Sir U r Awesome----i didnt know all these --thanks we indian want people like u---salute u

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  69. The Aryan migration to India did indeed leave a genetic imprint on Indian people. The R1a1a Y-DNA which is inherited by males and occurs with frequency as high as 45% in some Indian regions, is now known to be not native to India.

    Discovery of new SNPs have provided a greater resolution of the origins and subclades of R1a1a since late 2012. So no point quoting outdated 2009 genetics papers. A couple of papers which are based on extensive study of public domain genetic databases :

    "Brief Communication: New Y-Chromosome Binary Markers Improve Phylogenetic Resolution Within Haplogroup R1a1", Pamjav et al, 2012

    This paper shows that all Indian R1a1a belongs to sub-clade Z93 whereas Europe has upstream clade of M198* Z93- Z283-. So most probable origin of R1a1a is Eurasian steppes.

    "The phylogenetic and geographic structure of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a", Underhill et al, 2014

    It shows that SNP diversity in India for R1a is very low and all samples belong to downstream sub-clade of Z93. The highest SNP diversity is in the region North and South of Caucasus. So possible origin of R1a is around Caucasus.

    Not only is Indian R1a1a not SNP-diverse, but the SNP diversity decreases as one goes from North-West India to South. In contrast, Europe and Caucasus has huge SNP-diversity and contains not only the sister clades Z283 and Z93, but also the parent clades.

    http://eurogenes.blogspot.in/2013/05/south-asian-r1a-in-1000-genomes-project_15.html

    So please do not quote outdated papers of Sengupta2006, Sharma2009, or even Underhill2010.

    Science, as usual, has laid to rest the nationalist fantasies of Aryan indigeneity.

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  70. Wow, I am late to this party, but if you are reading this - anyone - please know that the Aryan Invasion Theory has been thoroughly discredited by rigorous genetic analysis performed mainly by non-Indians, but also by a few Indian teams. There was NO migration from Europe 3000-4000 years ago. There was only a migration out of Africa, 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, to India as well as Europe.

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  71. Now I have a doubt where is the place for Lucy our African mother in Rig Veda

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  74. Sir let me tell you , You are an ass hole !!!!

    Ppl are not ignorant neither we are living in dark ages !!

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