1.
FESTIVALS:
Holi, the full-moon day of the month of Phagun – Phalgun Poornima,
falls on March 16 this year. Traditionally, a bonfire is lit in the night
and next morning sees the play of colours. In the area of
Braj comprising Mathura, Vrindavan, Gokul
and Barsana, Holi is a two-week-long festival.
Here, the men of Nandgaon and women of Barsana play 'latthmar Holi' in
remembrance of the playful throw of colors by Krishna on 'Gopis' and their
resistance. The festival features play of colors, folk songs called
'Hori', folk dances such as Raas-Lila, and staging various aspects of
Radha and Krishna's love."
-go Top
2. Parliament is the gangotri of BHARATIYA democracy:
Pranab:
Rashtrapati Pranab Mukherjee said that Parliament is the Gangotri of
Bharatiya Democracy. Rashtrapati said that the Parliament represents the
will and the aspirations of billion plus people of Bharat and is the link
between the people and the government. He was unveiling photographs of
Presidents of Central Legislative Assembly and portraits of former
Speakers of Lok Sabha at Central Hall of Parliament House on February 10.
Pranab said if Gangotri gets
polluted, neither Ganga nor any of its tributaries can stay unpolluted. It
is incumbent upon all parliamentarians that they maintain the highest
standards of democracy and parliamentary functioning.
Rashtrapatiji said the
Parliament, like other organs of the government, is not sovereign and
“owes its origin and authority to the Constitution”. The prime function of
the Parliament is to enact legislations to empower the people on every
front - social, economic and political, to exercise control over the
Executive and making it accountable in all respects. The validity of a
law, whether Union or State, is tested by judiciary as defined in the
Constitution.
The Parliament functions
through debate, dissension and finally decision and not through
disruption. In order to strengthen the functioning of our Parliament and
other democratic institutions, it is important that all stakeholders –
government, political parties, their leaders and parliamentarians do some
introspection and follow sound parliamentary conventions and rules.
Rashtrapatiji also said that our Parliament has evolved well-developed
processes and procedures.
Upa-Rashtrapati and Chairman
Rajya Sabha, Mohammad Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and
Speaker, Lok Sabha, Meira Kumar were present on the occasion.
-go Top
3. Sarasanghachalakji attends
‘DHARMASOOYA’
yajna in Kerala:
Rashritya Swyamsevak
Sangh Sarasanghachalak Shri Mohan Bhagwat participated in ‘DHARMASOOYA’
yajna at Palakkad in Kerala on February 6. Former ISRO chief Dr G Madhavan
Nair praised Dr. Bhagwat’s leaderrship skills. ‘Bhagwat is a great
visionary of Bharat, only because of the vision and action, the
organisation which he belongs to can teach the new generation and the
society to preserve our nation.” ‘All our traditional knowledge is derived
from rishis. That consists of all the scientific and daily life knowledge.
This type of yajna and ritual will give us strength to preserve our
traditional Knowledge’ said Dr Madhavan Nair.RSS Sarsaghchalak Mohan
Bhagwat in his brief speech said, “Our rashtra needs a positive change.
For this, great efforts have to be made with selfless and pure mind. -go
Top
4. Create an Apple, a Mircosoft, a Google in Bharat:
Narendra Modi:
"Do whatever you can to make Bharat innovative and to be competitive.
Recently, Sathya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft. Most of you must be
dreaming to reach the heights of Nadella," said Narendra Modi, the BJP
prime ministerial candidate addressing the ninth convocation of SRM
University near Chennai on February 9.
"My advice to you is to
create a similar enterprise here. Create Microsoft here. Create an Apple.
Create a Google here in Bharat. And then own it and manage it," he added.
Observing that knowledge would be the biggest bridge between education and
nation building, he said it is sad that no university in Bharat has
attained top global ranking status. "What is lacking we have to identify
and work upon it." Pointing out that skill development is the need of the
hour, he said "if there is no skill, there will not be employment."
-go Top
5. Dalai Lama considers himself 'son of Bharat':
A total of 54 years I am having Bharatiya rice, chapati, tea. Now I
consider myself as the son of Bharat, son of the soil. "I am very happy,"
said the spiritual leader who was in Guwahati to inaugurate a five-day
Festival of Tibetan Art and Culture and to deliver the First LBS Founders'
commemorative lecture on 'A Human Approach to Peace and the Individual'.
He also addressed an Interfaith Conclave on Peace and Religious Harmony.
Following the invasion of Tibet by China, the Dalai Lama had passed
through Guwahati in 1959 after his escape from his country via the
Khenzimani Pass in Arunachal Pradesh with 80,000 Tibetans.
-go Top
6. Bharat Ratna CNR Rao:
Bharat's highly
regarded scientist Professor CNR Rao, on Feb 4 joined the pantheon of
three other pre-eminent people from the field of science who have been
conferred the Bharat Ratna in the past - Nobel Laureate and physicist CV
Raman who was given the same award in 1954; civil engineer M.
Visvesvarayya in 1955 and most recently aeronautical engineer APJ Abdul
Kalam in 1997. Rao is former director of the Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore, and currently works at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced
Scientific Research in Bangalore.
One of the most prolific
chemists, who at age 79 still spends several hours every day in his
laboratory and has published over 1500 research papers on materials
science, his latest craze was to work on thin films of carbon called 'graphene'.
He has been in the running for the Nobel Prize for many years. Rao gets
most animated when discussing science and says "If you are not childlike,
you cannot be a scientist."
An avid educationist, he is
responsible for unleashing the reforms seen in science education in the
last five years and was the driving force for the setting up of the new
high profile Indian Institute Science Education and Research. -go
Top
7. Local Kashmiris work to preserve beloved culture:
For 5,00,000
Kashmiri Hindus who were forced to flee their native land in 1989 and
later, preserving their culture has been quite difficult. About 4,500
families out of them call the United States home, including 70 in South
Florida.
In April 2013, Chandramukhi
Ganju and her husband Deepak Ganju formed ‘Preserve Our Heritage’, a
nonprofit based in Miami Shores doing business as Kashmiri Hindu
Foundation. Preserve Our Heritage’s mission is to promote and preserve
Kashmiri culture and heritage through music, dance, drama, art, cuisine,
literature, history and the humanities. It aims to showcase the “richness
of Kashmiri culture and interact with other cultures.”
Former North Miami mayor
Andra Pierre named the third Sunday in November, ‘Kashmiri Hindu Heritage
Day’ and the organizations holds annual events at the North Miami Public
Library. Chandramukhi Ganju said the heritage day events have three
purposes: to keep younger Kashmiris abreast of their native language and
culture, for members of different cultures in the county to represent
themselves and so the different groups can learn about each other. To
preserve her culture Ganju writes dramas as well as recipes.
A social issue Kashmiri
children, parents and grandparents have to handle in the United States is
adjusting to American culture. Chandramukhi Ganju said “We are like
cultural orphans. You don’t want your child to feel alienated but at the
same time it is important to preserve our heritage.”
-go Top
8. Yoga Has Healing Powers: Study:
In the minds of
the 20 million or so devotees in the U.S., Yoga helps people to relax,
making the heart rate go down, which is great for those with high blood
pressure. Now, by a study of yoga that used biological measures to assess
results, led by Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, professor of psychiatry and
psychology at Ohio State University, and published in the Journal of
Clinical Oncology, it has been found that meditative sun salutations and
downward dog poses can reduce inflammation, the body's way of reacting to
injury or irritation. Researchers looked at 200 breast cancer survivors
who had not practiced yoga before. Half the group continued to ignore
yoga, while the other half received twice-weekly, 90-minute classes for 12
weeks, with take-home DVDs and encouragement to practice at home. In the
study it was found that the group that had practiced yoga reported less
fatigue and higher levels of vitality three months after treatment had
ended.
The study didn't rely only
on self-reports. Kiecolt-Glaser's husband and research partner, Ronald
Glaser of the university's department of molecular virology, immunology,
and medical genetics, went for stronger laboratory proof. He examined
three cytokines, proteins in the blood that are markers for inflammation.
Blood tests before and after the trial showed that, after three months of
yoga practice, all three markers for inflammation were lower by 10 to 15
percent. That part of the study offered some rare biological evidence of
the benefits of yoga in a large trial that went beyond people's own
reports of how they feel.
-go Top
9. For UK Hindus, River Soar is their 'Ganga':
Officials in the east
Midlands city of Leicester have designated a quiet, leafy spot on the
River Soar where, instead of travelling to Bharat, members of the city’s
large community of Bharatiya origin can scatter ashes of the deceased.
Residents of Leicester say
it is often difficult for people to go to Hardwar or Varanasi to scatter
the ashes, due to the cost and travel problems faced by older family
members. -go Top
10. Open Doors:
Visa-on-arrival is great,
follow up with comprehensive measures to boost tourism -
The governments decision to
clear visa-on-arrival and electronic travel authorisation facilities for
citizens of all countries barring eight is a significant reform that
augurs well for Indias tourism industry. The move marks a welcome
departure from the principle of strict reciprocity which guided the Indian
visa regime in the past. Hitherto India offered visaon-arrival to tourists
from only 11 countries. But the new policy will dramatically extend the
facility to 180 nations. With tourism creating the maximum number of jobs
for every rupee invested, a larger influx of foreign tourists on account
of a liberalised visa regime will boost inclusive growth.
Given its diverse landscape,
rich history and myriad religious traditions, theres no doubting Indias
huge tourism potential. However, the tourism industry is hamstrung by
woeful infrastructure. In 2012, around 6.5 million foreign tourists
visited India. In comparison, a tiny country such as Thailand received
around 22.3 million visitors the same year. The latter has emerged as a
veritable Asian tourism giant on the back of concerted efforts to create a
conducive tourism ecosystem. Since the 1960s, the Thai government has
invested heavily on infrastructure, resulting in improvements in road
construction, power supply, banking, communications and other government
services that aid tourism.
In the same vein, tourism in
India requires a complete change in mindset. While measures such as tax
concessions for the tourism industry are welcome, implementing the time-honoured
philosophy of atithi devo bhava requires a comprehensive approach. Most of
Indias historical monuments and sites lie in a deplorable state of
neglect. Roping in private organisations for their refurbishment and
upkeep Aga Khan Trusts work on Humayuns Tomb is a great example can be a
solution. Similarly, dedicated tourist police units must not remain on
paper alone. Infrastructure, connectivity, safety and cleanliness are all
important if India is to monetise its natural tourism assets and bolster
its foreign exchange reserves. --
Editorial, Times of India,
10 February 2014.
-go Top
11. BRO assures trouble-free Char Dham pilgrimage:
In a meeting on
February 8, DG Lt Gen AT Parnaik ascertained Union Road Transport and
Highways Minister Oscar Fernandes and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish
Rawat that all roads leading to the pilgrimages would be operable by April
2014. The BRO (Border Roads Organization) has been entrusted with the task
of repair and reconstruction of damaged roads leading to the famous
Himalayan shrines of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri and Gangotri. “The
BRO has been asked to submit its requirements to the State Government by
February 15. The State in-turns, if it deems necessary will further
forward a formal request to the centre, if it fails to give funds from its
own resources,” said an official from the Ministry of Roads.
-go Top
12. ‘Kashmiri Kutumb Milan’-II,
a concept to
celebrate together the culture and heritage of “Kashmiri Pandit”, was
organised by KP Youths of Bangalore, on 2nd February 2014, at Bangalore.
The event was associated with a noble cause & organised in association
with KMECT (Kashmiri Medical Emergency & Charitable Trust.) to generate
funds to help the Kashmiri people in medical emergencies. It was
inaugurated with Deep Prajavalan by Pt. B.L Kaul. Children’s participation
in the program was as grand as it could be. The variety of presentations
by young children added the kashmiri spice to the program and made it
chatpatta in real sense. The audience was still enjoying the songs, dance,
shlokas, bhajans by talented kids when yet another enthralling program
“Vohrvoudh” (birthday) celebration in Koshur (kashmiri) way was presented.
Children of the community performed the birthday pooja as per the
tradition & Tahar (Yellow Rice) was prepared & served as Naveedh. Audience
was equally participative and this was highly appreciated by one & all. A
presentation on KMECT (Kashmiri Medical Emergency & Charitable Trust)
followed where Pt. Jatinder Kaw and Pt. Maharaj Pajan enumerated journey
traversed by the trust. -go
Top
13. Konsam Himalaya Singh first from NE becomes Lt. Gen
in BHARATIYA Army:
Major General Konsam Himalaya Singh of Manipur has become the first Army
officer from the North-East to become a Lieutenant General. Major General
Himalaya, who hails from Charangpat in Thoubal district, Manipur is an
alumni of Sainik School, Goalpara (Assam) and the National Defence
Academy. He was commissioned into the Second Battalion of The Rajput
Regiment (KALI CHINDI) in June 1978 and later commanded 27 RAJPUT.
The General Officer is a
graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, College of Defence
Management and the prestigious National Defence College. He was General
Officer Commanding (GOC) of 25 Infantry Division in J&K and was awarded
with 'Ati Vishisht Sewa Medal' in 2013.-go
Top
14. UNIVERSITIES TO offer courses in spoken Sanskrit:
As per a new
proposal by the University Grants Commission (UGC), universities across
the country must foster centres offering certificate courses in spoken
Sanskrit. The objective behind the introduction of this course is to
inculcate basic knowledge related to the subject among students and
teachers. Lack of awareness about Sanskrit is thought to be one of the
main reasons behind the diminishing curiosity.-go
Top
15.
SHREE VISHWA NIKETAN: Pravas:
Shri Saumitra Gokhale
samyojak Vishwa Vibhag arrived Bharat for ABPS baithak in March. Dr Ram
Vaidya sahsamyojak would reach Bharat by end February.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
All people are basically
nice. One should deal with every person by believing in his goodness.
Anger, jealousy, etc. are the offshoots of his past experiences, which
affect his behavior. Primarily every person is nice and everyone is
reliable. – Prof. Rajendra Singh (Rajju Bhaiyya), the fourth
Sarsanghchalak of RSS.
-go Top
JAI SHREE RAM
i. Dinanath Batra:Here comes the book police
In his modest office above a
school in Naraina Vihar in southwest Delhi, Dinanath Batra is wreathed in
smiles. He’s been on the phone all morning, fielding questions from
journalists. “I feel 84 years young”, he says. The reason lies on the
chequered plastic cloth of the small coffee table in front of him—a
mustard-yellow folder with the words “Penguin Book India Pvt. Ltd” printed
boldly on the front and “Delhi Police” in the top left corner.
Batra is the subject of
renewed interest because Penguin Book India chose to settle a civil suit
he filed in 2011 against the publisher and the American scholar Wendy
Doniger over The Hindus: An Alternative History, deliberately conceived
(the title makes it clear) as a response to the prevailing narrative about
Hinduism. “Part of my agenda in writing an alternative history”, Doniger
notes in her preface, “is to show how much the groups that conventional
wisdom says were oppressed and silenced and played no part in the
development of the tradition—women, Pariahs (oppressed castes, sometimes
called untouchables)—did actually contribute to Hinduism.”
This lengthy (over 700
pages), scholarly volume, more anvil than book, attracted protests in
March 2010 in New York when it was nominated for a prestigious literary
award. The protesters got in touch with Batra, he says, “to campaign to
stop the book in India”. He read the book and “felt instantly angry”.
Doniger, an academic of repute, was accused by Batra, and members of his
group the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, of having a “hateful mentality”.
A pamphlet distributed by
the group read: “On book’s jacket Lord Krishna is shown sitting on
buttocks of a naked woman surrounded by other naked women just to outrage
religious feelings of Hindus.” Doniger, 69 when she wrote the book, was
accused of being “jaundiced...her approach is that of a woman hungry for
sex”. The group is made up of volunteers: teachers, intellectuals,
parents, essentially anyone devoted to a particular ideal of a culturally
appropriate education. Batra wants to go further, to create a national
non-governmental commission to examine and approve syllabi. He has already
begun holding monthly meetings with proposed committee members.
Batra, a mild, affable man,
tall and still upright, maintaining the posture of the school headmaster
he once was, does not seem unhinged by rage now. But he is implacable in
his belief that Doniger’s book is malevolent, has no place being read or
discussed in India. In his petition to the court, The Hindus is described
as “shallow, distorted...a haphazard presentation riddled with heresies
and factual inaccuracies”.
Doniger herself is driven by
a “Christian Missionary Zeal and hidden agenda to denigrate Hindus and
show their religion in poor light”, the petition said. The Mint
February 12, 2014
-go Top
II.
Why Not Hindu India?
Germany, with its
minority religions, still calls itself Christian. Why not call India
Hindu?
BY MARIA WIRTH
Though I have lived in
India a long time, there are still issues here that I find hard to
understand. For example, why do so many educated Indians become agitated
when India is referred to as a Hindu country? The majority of Indians are
Hindus. India is special because of its ancient Hindu tradition.
Westerners are drawn to India because of Hinduism. Why then is there this
resistance by many Indians to acknowledge the Hindu roots of their
country? Why do some people even give the impression that an India which
valued those roots would be dangerous? Don’t they know better?
This attitude is strange for
two reasons. First, those educated Indians seem to have a problem only
with “Hindu” India, but not with “Muslim” or “Christian” countries.
Germany, for example, is a secular country, and only 59 percent of the
population are registered with the two big Christian churches (Protestant
and Catholic). Nevertheless, the country is bracketed under “Christian
countries” and no one objects. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, stressed
recently the Christian roots of Germany and urged the population “to go
back to Christian values.” In 2012 she postponed her trip to the G-8
summit to make a public address on Katholikentag, “Catholics Day.” Two
major political parties carry Christian in their name, including Angela
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.
Germans are not agitated
that Germany is called a Christian country, though I actually would
understand if they were. After all, the history of the Church is
appalling. The so-called success story of Christianity depended greatly on
tyranny. “Convert or die” were the options given—not only some five
hundred years ago to the indigenous population in America, but also in
Germany, 1,200 years ago, when the emperor Karl the Great ordered the
death sentence for refusal of baptism in his newly conquered realms. This
provoked his advisor Alkuin to comment: “One can force them to baptism,
but how to force them to believe?”
Those times, when one’s life
was in danger for dissenting with the dogmas of Christianity, are
thankfully over. Today many in the West do dissent and are leaving the
Church in a steady stream. They are disgusted with the less-than-holy
behavior of Church officials and they also can’t believe in the dogmas,
for example that “Jesus is the only way” and that God sends all those who
don’t accept this to hell.
The second reason why I
can’t understand the resistance to associate India with Hinduism is that
Hinduism is in a different category from the Abrahamic religions. Its
history, compared to Christianity and Islam, was undoubtedly the least
violent as it spread in ancient times by convincing arguments and not by
force. It is not a belief system that demands blind acceptance of dogmas
and the suspension of one’s intelligence. On the contrary, Hinduism
encourages using one’s intelligence to the hilt. It is an enquiry into
truth based on a refined character and intellect. It comprises a huge body
of ancient literature, not only regarding dharma and philosophy, but also
regarding music, architecture, dance, science, astronomy, economics,
politics, etc. If Germany or any other Western country had this kind of
literary treasure, it would be so proud and highlight its greatness on
every occasion. When I discovered the Upanishads, for example, I was
stunned. Here was expressed in clear terms what I intuitively had felt to
be true, but could not have expressed clearly. Brahman is not partial; it
is the invisible, indivisible essence in everything. Everyone gets again
and again a chance to discover the ultimate truth and is free to choose
his way back to it. Helpful hints are given but not imposed.
In my early days in India I
thought every Indian knew and valued his tradition. Slowly I realized I
was wrong. The British colonial masters had been successful in not only
weaning away many of the elite from their ancient tradition but even
making them despise it. It helped that the British-educated class could no
longer read the original Sanskrit texts and believed what the British told
them. This lack of knowledge and the brainwashing by the British education
may be the reason why many so-called “modern” Indians are against anything
Hindu. They don’t realize the difference between Western religions that
have to be believed (or at least professed) blindly, and which discourage,
if not forbid, their adherents to think on their own, and the
multi-layered Hindu Dharma which gives freedom and encourages using one’s
intelligence.
Many of the Indian educated
class do not realize that those who dream of imposing Christianity or
Islam on this vast country will applaud them for denigrating Hindu Dharma,
because this creates a vacuum where Western ideas can easier gain a
foothold. At the same time, many Westerners, including staunch Christians,
know the value of Hindu culture and surreptitiously appropriate insights
from the vast Indian knowledge system, drop the original Hindu source and
present it either as their own or make it look as if these insights had
already been known in the West. As the West appropriates valuable and
exclusive Hindu assets, what it leaves behind is deemed inferior.
Unwittingly, these Indians are helping what Rajiv Malhotra of Infinity
Foundation calls the digestion of Dharma civilization into Western
universalism. That which is being digested, a deer for example, in this
case Hindu Dharma, disappears whereas the digester (a tiger) becomes
stronger.
If only missionaries
denigrated Hindu Dharma, it would not be so bad, as they clearly have an
agenda which discerning Indians would detect. But sadly, Indians with
Hindu names assist them because they wrongly believe Hinduism is inferior
to Western religions. They belittle everything Hindu instead of getting
thorough knowledge. As a rule, they know little about their tradition
except what the British have told them, i.e., that the major features are
the caste system and idol worship. They don’t realize that India would
gain, not lose, if it solidly backed its profound and all-inclusive Hindu
tradition. The Dalai Lama said some time ago that, as a youth in Lhasa, he
had been deeply impressed by the richness of Indian thought. “India has
great potential to help the world,” he added. When will the Westernized
Indian elite realize it? --
MARIA WIRTH, 63, a freelance writer, has lived in India for the past 33
years.
https://www.hinduismtoday.com
-go Top
III. Give Stateless Indians Their Due
V Suryanarayan
The twelfth edition of the
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) was held in New Delhi on January 7-9.
Representatives from diverse overseas Indian communities spread worldwide
assembled in the national capital where they interacted with one another
and with the government. Prime minister Manmohan Singh, minister for
Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) Vayalar Ravi, cabinet ministers and chief
ministers from various states exhorted them to avail of investment
opportunities and be valuable partners in Bharat’s economic development.
The festival was capped with gala dinners and cultural performances by
renowned artistes.
But one section of the
overseas Bharatiyas was conspicuous by its absence. They were the
stateless people of Bharatiya origin. Most of them are descendants of the
labourers who migrated to different parts of the British Empire under the
protective umbrella of the imperialists. They provided the labour for the
development of plantations, construction of roads and ports and other
activities which laid the foundation of the British Empire. The sufferings
undergone by the Bharatiya “coolies” under British Raj are innumerable.
For example, the verdant carpet of green in the central parts of Sri
Lanka, which has made it a veritable “island paradise”, was due to the
sweat and toil of Bharatiya Tamil workers. C V Velupillai, the Indian
Tamil poet, has described the workers’ lives as follows: “Here is but a
row of tin roofed lines, the very warehouse where serfdom thrives, with a
scant space of ten by twelve, there is the hearth, home drenched in soot
and smoke, to eat and sleep, to incubate and breed, to meet the master’s
greed”.
As time went on the
Bharatiya immigrants became permanent settlers and citizens, and through
sheer hard work and perseverance moved up in life. Their descendants have
made a niche for themselves in their chosen professions. They include
Nobel laureate V S Naipaul, Shridath Ramphal, Anerood Jugnauth, Shivnarine
Chanderpaul and Muttiah Muralitharan. As former prime minister Vajpayee
put it, “Few people who entered foreign lands can claim such a testimony.”
But unfortunately, sections of them still remain stateless.
The estimated number of
members of the Bharatiya diaspora, according to the Ministry of Overseas
Indian Affairs (MOIA), is approximately 25 million. It would be simplistic
and naïve to assume that the problems these people face and what the
future holds for them are identical. Their problems are intertwined with
the nature of their migration, their social and economic status, their
educational attainments, the numerical size of the community and the
majority-minority syndrome in the countries they have settled in.
In terms of legal status,
the Bharatiya diaspora can be divided into four groups. Firstly, people
of Bharatiya origin who have taken citizenship of the countries in which
they have settled. Secondly, Bharatiya citizens, who have gone abroad for
work and retain their Bharatiya passports. They are non-resident
Bharatiyas. Thirdly, Overseas Indian citizens (OIC). The scheme was
introduced in response to the demand for “dual citizenship” from developed
countries. The scheme was launched in the PBD in Hyderabad in 2006. Under
this scheme, persons of Bharatiya origin who were citizens of Bharat on
January 26, 1950, or thereafter and have acquired citizenship of foreign
countries can apply for OIC. The OIC does not confer any political rights
in Bharat. People living in Pakistan and Bangladesh are not entitled for
OIC. Latest statistics of OICs are not available. But according to the
MOIA, as on May 31, 2013, 13.25 lakh OIC registration booklets and visa
stickers have been issued.
The fourth category is the
stateless persons of Bharatiya origin. They have not been granted
citizenship of the countries they live in nor have they taken Bharatiya
citizenship. Most of them, for example, in Myanmar and in Malaysia, are
second- or third-generation settlers and by any yardstick should have been
granted citizenship. The host governments, to say the least, are callous
and adopt a discriminatory policy towards them. What’s worse, the
government of Bharat seems to be adopting a hands-off policy towards them.
According to the Singhvi
Committee Report on the Bharatiya Diaspora, the maximum number of
stateless persons reside in Myanmar (400,000), followed by Kuwait
(2,95,000), Malaysia (50,000, Hindu Rights Action Force maintains this is
an underestimated figure), Italy (71,500) Jamaica (61,500) and lower
numbers in Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya and the Philippines.
It should be pointed out
that the problem of the stateless people vitiated Bharat-Sri Lanka
relations in the years soon after independence. The two governments later
maintained that the Sirimavo-Shastri Pact of 1964 and Sirimavo–Indira
Gandhi Pact of 1974 would solve the problem once and for all. But when the
agreements expired in October 1981, it was realised that the problem of
statelessness still continued. It is to the credit of Tamil leader
Thondaman that he was able to pressurise recalcitrant Sinhalese leaders to
grant citizenship to the stateless people of Bharatiya origin in 1988.
However, the problem of Bharatiya passport-holders and their natural
increase, yet to be repatriated to Bharat, continued. At last they were
also granted Sri Lankan citizenship by prime minister Ranil Wikramasinghe.
The stateless people of
Bharatiya origin in Myanmar deserve special mention. Most of them are rice
cultivators and continue to reside there under the work permit system.
They were retained by the Burmese government because it was keen to expand
rice production, one of the mainstays of Burmese economy. When former
Bharatiya ambassador T P Sreenivasan visited them a few years ago he found
they were “totally impoverished”. Ironically, they did not even have rice
to eat, as the procurement authorities “lifted their produce wholly”. They
had to eat low-quality rice which the state did not want to procure for
export. What were more saddening, efforts made by Sreenivasan to make
South Block take interest in the subject turned out to be a futile
exercise. Has the position of these people improved during the last few
years? South Block should issue a clarification.
Let us hope the PBD in
future devotes some time at least to analyse the problems faced by
stateless people of Bharatiya origin. It will be a welcome step if a
committee of experts is appointed to analyse the problem in depth and make
recommendations for a solution. Simultaneously, New Delhi should impress
upon the host governments the necessity to confer citizenship on stateless
people of Barratiya origin without any delay.
(Prof V Suryanarayan
is former senior professor, the Centre for South and Southeast Asian
Studies, University of Madras. The New Indian Express,
Feb 10, 2014)
-go Top
