Bijapur

The pictures above: 1) Fort wall of Gagan Mahal 2) View of Golgumbad from Masjid side 3) Partial view of Jal Mandir from an arch of sath Manzil stairs 4)Pasari Kaman, a path-way leading to Asar Mahal



Bijapur in early 1960s was a small town with a population of about 50000. It is a district head quarter. Till 1956 before the reorganisation of states on linguistic basis, Bijapur was in Bombay state. Four districts—Bijapur, Belagavi, Dharwad and Uttar Karnatak—were called Bombay Karnatak. From 1956 till 1973 it was in Mysore State. The State was renamed as Karnataka in 1973.
The seat of Chalukya Dynasty was Badami and Bijapur was possibly part of the dynasty. It was a part of bahamani Kingdom. One historian writes that zafar Khan, the founder, had once been a slave of a Brahmin and hence the name Bahamani. Infact the word Bahmani comes from Persian word Bahaman, which means a nobleman. The Bahamani Kingdom broke into five Sultanates—Adil Shahi of Bijapur, Khutubshahi of Golkonda, Nizamshahi of Ahmadnagar Imad shahi of Raichur and Baridshhi of Bidar.

“The kings of Bijapur ruled from 1489 to 1688, when the kingdom was annexed by Auragzeb.Its founder, Yousuf Adilshah, is reputed to have been a son of Amurath II, and brother of Muhammad II, the Ottomon conquerer of Constatinople, who fled Persia when the brothers of the king were put to death, became a Mamluk slave at the court of Bahamani king, and finally a successful and intrepid general. ----------The ruins of Bijapur attest the greatness of that kingdom; they are of wide extent, and some of them still in great beauty. The exquisite proportions, profuse yet graceful ornament, and lace-like carvings of of the mausoleum of Ibrahim Adilshah excite the admiration of visitors familiar with the Taj and other masterpieces of Saracenic archtecture, while Sultan Mahmud reposes beneath the largest dome in the world, which crowns a suitably imposing mass of plain masonry. Archtects have fully described this wonderous work, astonished at a covered area of upwardds 18000 square feet, uninterrupted by supports. They compare it with the Pantheon, the next largest space covered by a single dome, and with St. Paul’s, with which it is contemporary. The buildings are of a widely different character, and all technicalities apart, the Bijapur dome may be described as resembling an inverted tea cup, while that of the Pantheon the form of an inverted saucer.” *




There are many monuments of Adilshahi period, famous among them are, Gol Gumbad, Jama Masjid and Ibrahim Roza. Apart from these three, there are many monuments like Malike Jahan Masjid, Mecca Masjid, Ali ka Roza Gagan Mahal, Anand, Mahal, Mehtar Maha, Asar Mahal, Jal Mandir and Taj Bowli. Collectorate, District session’s court and many offices are housed in Adilshhi palaces and the main feature of the palace is Sat Manzil. Each monument reminds you of the glory of the period.

There are many Durgahs of Sufi saints. Anniversaries known as urs take place. There is a tomb of Ganjul Uloom, said to the spiritual mentor of Kwaja Bandanawaz of Gulbarga. This tomb is desolate and unattended. Ganjul Uloom litarally means treasure of knowledge. Government boys’ high school has a huge play ground and at one end there is grave of Mulla Nasarati, considered first Urdu poet. The grave is on a huge platform and the grave is carved out of sinle granite. I always wondered why it was government girls’ high school and not government high school for girls. Similarly boys’ high school was government boys’ high school.
There was a prominantly located Laxmi temple, which was a temple of largely Brahmin community. I do not recollect seeing any Lingayat visiting that temple. I do not recollect having seen any temple of Krishna or Saraswati. During Deepavali there used to be lot of worshippers.
There was a huge Shivaling temple and here the devotees were only Lingayats. During Sankranti there used to be huge crowd of devotees. Devotees from almost all parts of District used to visit Bijapur for Pooja. The festivities would continue at least for a week. One important feature of this festival was cattle fare. Cattle were bought and sold. The main beneficiaries of this mela were the traders. Innumerable hawkers would throng the streets. The villagers used to buy their requirements from household items to toys for their children. Inspite of huge arrival of villagers no untoward activities or any mishap was reported and I believe nothing untoward really occurred. But traders did make their money. Innocence of village folk was financially exploited. The highlights of this festival were ‘bailata’ and fire works on the final day. Bailata literally means open air play. It used to start late in the evening and continue till wee hours. They were tearjerkers for the innocent villagers. There were only two cinema halls—Laxmi and Tripura Sundari. Throughout the year only Hindi films were shown but during this period both the halls showed only Kannada films. Kannada film making was in its infancy those days. I think the phenomenon called Raj Kumar was yet to arrive.


* Muhammadans in India, book prited and published by Ballanfyne, Hanson and Co. pages107-108.

Present day Muslims are original inhabitants

It is a general belief particularly among upper caste Hindus that the caste Hindus are the original inhabitants of this land. They very strongly feel that only Muslims were invaders and that they plundered India. Historically this is absolutely wrong. Except perhaps Adivasis, all are invaders and settlers. Some came 3000 years ago while some others 1000 years ago. But invaders they all are! And all conquerors plunder. There is no exception. Aryans did it. So did others.

India is a land of invaders. The first to invade this country were the central Asian tibes called aryans. They were nomads. They were swift in warfare because they rode horses. They hardly new agriculture and had no regard for ecology. The earlier inhabitants were far too advanced in agriculture and irrigation. They destroyed our city civilisations, such as Harappa and Mohonjedaro.

I qoute from the web site www.india.gov.in/knowindia . “

“By 1500 BC, the Harappan culture came to an end. Among various causes ascribed to the decay of Indus Valley Civilization are the invasion by the Aryans, the recurrent floods and other natural causes like earthquake, etc.”

One wonders why Shri Krishna and Arjuna destroyed the kandhava forest by burning it down.
I quote from Yuganta, a book by Irawati Karve. “How could Arjuna, whoprided himself on his name Bibhastu—one who does not do anything repulsive—indulge in this cruel hunt?”
They did not allow a single life to escape. If someone knows the reasons, please enlighten me.

Persians invaded around 500 B.C.Darius overran the Indus valley.the solar cult of Hindus is a Persian import.

Then came Kushans from Afghanistan, who claimed their descent from Sun or moon. They called themselves Suryavanshi and Chandravanshi respectively. They were accommodated and later assimilated as Khyatriyas. The present day Rajputs claim to be their descendents.

The next invaders were Greeks around 300 B.C. Greek invasions was a passing phenomenon.after Greeks came Sakas or synthians. Followed byParthians and Kushans around 100 A.D. One of the rulers of Kushans, Kanishka gave India a new calenderbeginning with his accenssion in 78 A.D.

history of:India
o India (in India: Central Asian rulers) The Bactrian control of Taxila was disturbed by an intrusion of the Scythians, known in Indian sources as the Sakas. They had attacked the kingdom of Bactria and subsequently moved into India. The determination of the Han rulers of China to keep the Central Asian nomadic tribes (the Hsiung-nu, Wu-sun, and Yüeh-chih) out of China forced these nomadic tribes in their search for fresh...
o India (in India: The Andhras and their successors) ...the kingdom reaching across the northern Deccan; subsequent to this the Satavahanas suffered an eclipse in the 1st century AD, when they were forced out of the northern Deccan by the Sakas and settled in Andhra. In the 2nd century AD, the Satavahanas reestablished their power in the northwestern Deccan, as evidenced by Saka coins from this region...
http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-518594/Saka
About 135 BC a loose confederation of five Central Asian nomadic tribes known as the Yuezhi wrested Bactria from the Bactrian Greeks. These tribes united under the banner of the Kushan (Kusana), one of the five tribes, and conquered the Afghan area. The zenith of Kushan power was reached in the 2nd century AD under King Kaniska (c. AD 78–144), whose empire stretched from Mathura in north-central India beyond Bactria as far as the frontiers of China in Central Asia.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-21383/Afghanistan


Also spelled Ephthalite, member of a people important in the history of India and Persia during the 5th and 6th centuries AD. According to Chinese chronicles they were originally a tribe living to the north of the Great Wall and were known as Hoa or Hoa-tun. Elsewhere they were called White Huns or Hunas. They had no cities or system of writing, lived in felt tents, and practiced polyandry.
In the 5th and 6th centuries the Hephthalites repeatedly invaded Persia and India. In the middle of the 6th century under the attacks of the Turks they ceased to exist as a separate people and were probably absorbed in the surrounding population. Nothing is known of their language.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9040081/Hephthalite
The earliest systematic description of the Huns is that given by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, writing c. 395. They were apparently primitive pastoralists who knew nothing of agriculture. They had no settled homes and no kings; each group was led by primates, as Ammianus called them. Whether or not they had a single overall leader in the 4th century is still a matter of dispute.

The Hephthalites, who invaded Iran and India in the 5th and 6th centuries, and the Hsiung-nu, known earlier to the Chinese, are sometimes called Huns, but their relationship to the invaders of Europe is uncertain.
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9041522/Hun
The invaders were accommodated because the local kings were weak and the invading armies were strong. Later they were assimilated within the Hindu hierarchy.
Then there were invasions by Afghans, Turks, Arabs and mongols. They all happened to be Muslims. But they also settled down in India like the earlier invaders.
But the subsequent invaders—British, Portigese and French—did not make India their home. They ruled here as representatives of their respective kings.
A majority of Muslims in India are converts from shudra caste or from those who were outside the four-fold Hindu society. They converted for various reasons including social and monetary considerations. Who does not want to upgrade oneself socially?
So, since majority of Indian Muslims are converts from ‘dasas, ashuras and rakshasas, they are the originnal inhabitants of India.
Does anyone say that jyoti Basu is not an Indian because he has taken to foreign ideology?

IGNORANCE

A very high percentage of Muslims consider bank interest as forbidden. Firstly they do not even try to understand the difference between interest and usury. What is forbidden is usury. Anything that accrues fron exploitative means is forbidden not just usury. Very high percentage of Muslims does not consider mutual fund investment as forbidden. Stock market is basically based on speculation. Even the Initial Public Offering is much higher than the intrinsic value of the share. Both the concepts—interest is forbidden and investment in mutual funds is ok—are based on wrong interpretation of the spirit of Quranic guidance. During the middle ages there were only money lenders, the likes of Shylock and our own mahajans. Their dealings were exploitative in nature and purpose.

Let us examine Mutual fundds that essentially deal with stock market, a speculative trade. They buy shares on behalf of the members, those who buy bonds. The most important dealing of the mutual funds is in Futures and Options. It was called Badla before it was given this respectable name. There are Dalals, who are now respectfully called Stock Brokers. Remember Dalal Street in Mumbai?

What are Futures and Options? In this trade one buys shares without investing money but financed by brokers or mutual funds at an exorbitant interest. If the share value goes up the investor apart from interest also gets a share of the increase in share value. And this so called trade is acceptable to Muslims.

Even buying of shares from the brokers directly is based on hypothesis, a respectable name for speculation or gamble. The official term for such speculation is ‘efficient market hypothesis’. So how is it that investment in mutual funds is considered permitted? Should Allah have used the words mutual funds for Muslims today to understand that it is gambling?

CASTE PREJUDICES

Talking about Hindu tolerance, I would like to qoute swami Vivekanand “ No religion on earth preaches the dignity of humanity in such a lofty strain as Hinduism, and no religion on earth treads upon the necks of the poor and the low in such a fashion as Hinduism".
Mayawati will go down in history as empowering Dalits politically. It is not a small achievement! There was a time when socially oppressed could not even exercise their franchise according to their wish. Upper caste people always try to find fault with her. It is natural. No priledged section of society wants a social change.

Caste prejudices continue, though the upper caste people keep saying that the system has almost disappeared. Atrocities on lower castes continue openly in rural India. In urban areas discrimination and prejudices are subtle and sophisticated. They have replaced the word merit for caste.
The extracts from various news reports and studies given below support my view:

Bant Singh is a Dalit who lives in Mansa village in Punjab. Born a Dalit, his is an inheritance of loss. He has a minor daughter, Baljeet Kaur, who was gangraped by upper caste men of her village in January 2002.

Many Dalit girls are raped while calling them untouchable and denying them the right to draw water from the village well and other forms of social ostracism, upper caste men do not hesitate to sexually violate them. It is a well-planned strategy of subordination.
25 Oct, 2006 0003hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi-based research organisation Cfore, which conducts an annual B-school survey for a national weekly, used RTI Act to expose the fact that SC/ST students are paid way below general category students during placements and also that the recipient of lowest salary offered is usually a Dalit.

The survey found that the average salary for a Dalit is at least 2 lakh less than the average salary at IIMs. At IIM-A, while the average salary was Rs 9.6 lakh per annual, Dalit students were offered 7.8 lakh. IIMs reserve 22.5% seats for SC/ST students.
"During the survey, we found that Scheduled Castes/Tribes students were mostly recruited by PSUs rather than MNCs.
12 Sep, 2006 0051hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK
BHOPAL: A Dalit woman sarpanch of Mahoikala village in Chattarpur district of MP was beaten up, stripped and then paraded naked by upper caste men for not paying them Rs 50,000 from the village development fund.
Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:19:58 pm TIMES NEWS NETWORKShocking allegations of intimidation of Dalit students have surfaced in the country’s premier medical institute, AIIMS. Two first-year MBBS students have submitted written complaints to the director of being subjected to casteist remarks and other forms of harassment by seniors.
12 Sep, 2006 0011hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK

HYDERABAD: Parents of SC/ST students of the Hyderabad Public School (HPS) have alleged that their children faced discrimination in the school.

Addressing mediapersons on Thursday, HPS SC/ST Parents' Committee president M Samuel said there were 1,200 SC/ST students in both the campuses of the school — in Ramantapur and Begumpet. Out of these 400 are boarders but they are not allowed to live in the boarding rooms inside the school campuses. "They were asked to live in special hostels provided by the social welfare department which are in slum areas," Samuel said.
"The issue was raised in the assembly even in April and the school education minister held a meeting of all concerned. But we came to know that it was decided that SC/ST students should not be allowed to live inside the school premises," Samuel alleged.
0158hrs IST 6 Oct, 2006 TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Pradip, a young Dalit man from a remote village in Madhya Pradesh, decided to fight back when upper caste people in his village refused him water.
Instead, the 20-year-old was beaten up and as a result, 250 Dalit families from his Chotiche village have been denied access to water.

Kalabai is a Dalit, but never before has she been so acutely conscious of her status. Her son Pradip has been missing since the incident.
The village gets its water supply from a government tubewell, but upper caste families determine how much water the Dalit families have access to.
June 23, 2006 (Khandwa) NDTV
BHUBANESWAR: Breaking a nearly 300-year-old ban, hundreds of Dalits on Thursday entered a Jagannath temple in Orissa's Kendrapada district. Prior to this, Dalits could have darshan only through the nine small holes on the walls of the temple located at Keredagada village.
15 Dec, 2006 0101hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK
BHUBANESWAR: Upper caste people on Friday responded to Dalits' entry into Jagannath temple at Keredagada by observing a bandh .

Some of the priests and upper caste people reportedly wanted to perform mahasnana , a ritual bath of the deities at the temple. The priests were trying to contact temple trust president Rabindra Narayan Bhanjadeo, a scion of the Kanika royal family.
16 Dec, 2006 0259hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK
JAIPUR, June 8: Even in the 21st century, life is not easy for dalits in the rural parts of the country. A scheduled caste community in a Rajasthan district has been ostracised for daring to seek police help to allow their grooms to ride horseback and for holding meetings to oppose atrocities of the upper castes.
Recently, in separate incidents, two Meghwal community grooms were not allowed to ride horseback in Udaipur district’s Amarpura and Nimdi villages. The marriage procession could move only after police protection was sought. The Meghwal community was ostracised in both villages for this misadventure.
Following these developments, the community called a meeting on 4 June. The community leaders there reportedly raised their voice against the atrocities of the upper castes. But Meghwals are being made to pay for this as they are facing a total boycott. Statesman--9th June,2006
Chandigarh, March 1: A group of incensed Rajput youngsters attacked and set fire to a number of dalit houses in Haryana’s Salwan village. A few policemen, who tried to stop the attackers were injured in the incident on Thursday afternoon. However, nearly 24 households in the dalit quarter of the village have been destroyed. After ransacking the homes, the mob made bonfires of the furniture and other belongings. Deccan Chronicle 2.3.2007
Despite India's bid to integrate itself into the global economy that counts more on merit than on lineage, Indian employers continue to follow age-old hiring practices that discriminate against lower castes.
This is the view of Katherine Newman, professor of sociology in Princeton University and Paul Attewell, professor of sociology at the City University of New York, who led a research study along with Surinder S Jodhka of Jawaharlal Nehru University and Sukhadeo Thorat.
"Indian employers, especially the large employers, do continue, despite their views that they do not rely on the caste factor for employment decisions, to have preconceptions or stereotypes about applicants in the labour market that reinforce caste as a source of employment discrimination," Newman said. Suman Guha Mozumdar in New York
a study was released by the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies in collaboration with Princeton University.
The study was conducted against 548 job advertisements with 4808 applicants over 66 weeks, across five metros.

It reveals that in fact a person's caste and religion could be a hindrance in getting a job, despite equal qualification.
The study says that a dalit had 60 per cent less chances of being called for an interview, and a Muslim had 30 per cent less, as against their higher caste peers.

Of job hunting and Indian caste system. Suman Guha Mozumdar in New York
November 02, 2007

Market rises and crashes

Today is 22nd of January 2008. Front-page news hedlines are on sensex crash, how much Mukesh or Anil or Mittal or how much PSUs lost during the last few weeks.

Markets or for that matter GDP do not necessariry indicate the health of a nation’s economy.


“Even as Mukesh Ambani is reported (probably inaccurately) to have become the richest man in the world, the World Hunger Index of IFPRI has ranked India 94th out of 118 countries, just above Ethiopia and worse than any country in the subcontinent save Bangladesh. The contrast between rich and poor is stark”.
(4 Nov 2007, Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar)
Now that Mukesh has become poorer by Rs 47476 crores ( front-page report of TOI) , has it made any difference to the Hunger Index? I thought his loss is merely notional unlike his gain.

"The Reagan-Bush years," Bill Clinton when he began his presidential campaign declared, "have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The Eighties ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect."

I am of the view that successive Governments Narrsimha Rao onwards have done what Clinton said of Reagan.

A Unicef report says India has the highest number of malnourished children in the world: One in three of the world's malnourished children is Indian. Of the world's 146 million malnourished children, 57 million are in India; they are 47 per cent of under-fives in the country—a TNN report.

A recently released report by the UN and Asian Development Bank points out that India is a laggard in meeting some of the millennium development goals (MDGs) identified in 2000. The MDGs include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. For a country that is growing at 9 per cent, there is no reason why India's social indicators should be embarrassingly poor even when compared to other middle-income countries. ( TOI- Disturbing diagnosis).
since Mr Aiyar used the following para in two separate articles of his own, I do not hesitate to repeat.
Even as Mukesh Ambani is reported (probably inaccurately) to have become the richest man in the world, the World Hunger Index of IFPRI has ranked India 94th out of 118 countries, just above Ethiopia and worse than any country in the subcontinent save Bangladesh. The contrast between rich and poor is stark.
(TOI- Bad marks yet first division)

“So when you talk of a nine point two per cent growth rate, it becomes a statistical abstraction: 0.2 per cent of our people are growing at 9.92 per cent per annum. But there is a very large number, I don’t know how many, whose growth rate is perhaps down to 0.2 per cent. But certainly, the number of those who are at the lower end of the growth sector is very much larger than those who are at the higher end”.

Patriotism of mercenaries

Swaminathan Iyer writes, Mangal Pandey was a mercenery. “He hired out his services to not even the British army but the east India Company. That made him a double mercenary; a mercinary soldier serving a mercenery corporation. Nor was he alone. Indians qued up to serve the British, who were reliable paymasters”

“Bengal army had a high presence of Brahmins. Lord William Bentick in 1826 was highly critical of the Bengal army, which had only a few low caste sepoys and was an inefficient and expensive army”, wrote Raja Shekhar Vundru.

Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero, a book by Rudranghsu Mukherjee has this to say: 'Nationalism creates its own myths. Mangal Pandey is part of that imagination of historians. He had no notion of patriotism or even of India. For him, mulk was a small village, Awadh.'
“Bankim Chatterjee and Ramesh Chandra Dutt glorified Hindu rebellion against Muslim rule and showed the Muslims in a correspondingly poor light. Chatterjee was positively and fiercely anti-Muslim”, wrote Nirad Choudhary.
Bankim Babu was happy to have white men as his rulers. Let me dwell on his novel ‘Anand Math’.
The novel was not anti-British, either. In the last chapter, we find a supernatural figure persuading the leader of the sanyasis, Satyananda, to stop fighting. The dialogue that follows is interesting:3
"He: Your task is accomplished. The Muslim power is destroyed. There is nothing else for you to do. No good can come of needless slaughter.
"S: The Muslim power has indeed been destroyed, but the dominion of the Hindu has not yet been established. The British still hold Calcutta.
"He: Hindu dominion will not be established now. If you remain at your work, men will be killed to no purpose. Therefore come.
"S: (greatly pained) My lord, if Hindu dominion is not going to be established, who will rule? Will the Muslim kings return?
"He: No. The English will rule."
Satyananda protests, but is persuaded to lay down the sword.
"He: Your vow is fulfilled. You have brought fortune to your Mother. You have set up a British government. Give up your fighting. Let the people take to their ploughs. Let the earth be rich with harvest and the people rich with wealth.
"S: (weeping hot tears) I will make my Mother rich with harvest in the blood of her foes.
"He: Who is the foe? There are no foes now. The English are friends as well as rulers. And no one can defeat them in battle.
"S: If that is so, I will kill myself before the image of my Mother.
"He: In ignorance? Come and know. There is a temple of the Mother in the Himalayas. I will show you her image there.
"So saying, He took Satyananda by the hand."
The above narration is from Bankim Babus novel Anand Math.
Bengali upper caste had unimaginable dislike for Muslims. Their hatred was result of the fact that the lower caste, particularly untouchables had embraced Islam and they stopped considering them as superior. The lower caste had achieved a status, which the Brahmins never gave them. Bankim Babu was a Brahmin.
From the arguments of Swaminathan and Rudranghsu Mangal Pandey was a mercenary. From their logic I proceed further. All those soldiers in the Indian army prior to independence were mercenaries and not soldiers. Cariappa, Thimmayya, Manekshaw were all in army before independence.
I do not understand why president of India salutes mercenaries on republic day.

Uranium

This news item appeared on the web.This news was also reported in The Times of India:


AUSRTALIAN

January 16, 2008
THE Rudd Government yesterday vetoed selling uranium to India while it was not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith announced the decision after talks with India's visiting nuclear envoy, Shyam Saran.

In his first face-to-face meetings with the new Government, Mr Saran wanted to clarify whether Australian uranium sales were still possible, but the answer was a polite no.

Mr Smith reiterated Labor's longstanding policy on uranium in what were described as friendly talks held in Perth.

"We went into the election with a strong policy commitment (that) we would not export uranium to nation states who are not members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," Mr Smith told reporters, adding Mr Saran was unsurprised by the decision.
After reading the news and considering the time the decision was announced, I could not help linking unpleasant Melbourn cricket episode to the decision. Have Harbahjan and Shri Pawar cost India uranium supply? I do not know the answer. May be it is a mere coincidence.
I was releived to see cartoon by Sudhir Telang, which almost covered my thinking.
Here is the cartoon: