Tragedy of 20th Century

Earlier, I promised that I would write on creation of Pakistan. The purpose of this blog is not to introduce few personalities who were responsible for creation of Pakistan but show the similarities among them. If we ask a simple question to any Indian that who created Pakistan, we get the simple answer Jinnah. But he was just a mask. I will give some pointers and leave it to the readers to make their own inferences.

Huseyn Suhrawardy was 5^th Prime Minister of Pakistan. He was born in Calcutta in 1892 and was a son of Calcutta High Court Justice. He was Oxford educated lawyer. He initially joined Swaraj Party of Chittaranjan Das and became the deputy mayor of Calcutta. He along with Das opposed the division of Bengal on the basis of religious. But then he joined Muslim League (ML) and became Chief Minister of Bengal in 1946. In 1946 election, ML could form only one coalition govt. in India in Bengal with the support of Schedule Caste Federation (SCF). In 1946, govt. of Sindh province was also of ML but it had a majority by only 1 member after assignation of CM of Congress. Therefore, he was the key person for a demand of Pakistan as he passed the resolution of Pakistan in Bengal assembly in 1946. His seat in Pakistan parliament was declared as vacant through a resolution as he was unsuccessful in obtaining the citizenship of Pakistan in 6 months! He had gone to Dhaka in June 1948, but was served with an expulsion notice within 24 hours of his arrival. He was not only expelled from East Pakistan but also prevented his re-entry for another six months. He was declared as “Traitor of Pakistan” and thrown out of country. He was recalled from exile and made fifth Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1956. He was PM approximately for 1 year and was forced to resign. He lived in Beirut in exile for rest of his life. Bhutto threatened him not to return to Pakistan. He died after 3 days in Beirut hotel in suspicious way in 1963.      

Muhammad Zafarullah Khan an Ahmadi Muslim, son of a lawyer and a lawyer himself. He studied in King’s College in London. He was elected to Punjab Legislative Council in 1926. Participated in round table conference in 1930 and 32 and became the railway minister in 1935. In 1939, he represented India in League of Nation. He was part of Executive Council of Viceroy of India. The Viceroy Lord Linlithgow requested him to draft a resolution of partition of India. Since he was Ahmadi, most of the Muslims would have reject his proposal, Viceroy handed over that proposal to Jinnah. Jinnah ensure that it was passed in ML’s Conference in Lahore in 1940. It is known as Pakistan Resolution. He was made a judge of Federal Court of India. Post partition, he was made the minister of Foreign Affairs. He held that position till 1957. Sunni Muslims called for his expulsion as he was Ahmadi. He was forced to resign in 1957. Although, he enjoyed decorative positions after that but mostly stayed out of Pakistan.

Today, Pakistan is the only country in the world where Ahmadis are non-Muslim by law. Ahmadis can’t call themselves Muslim or "pose as Muslims" which is punishable offence. Today, it is mandatory condition to say that one is not a follower of Mirza Gulam Ahmed (founder of Ahmedi) to get Pakistani passport. 

Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah was Sunni Muslim and a lawyer from Sindh studied law in Mumbai. In 1921, he became a Member of Bombay Legislative Council. Sindh was then a part of Bombay state. He was a member of the Executive council of the Governor of Bombay from 1928 to 34. British govt. awarded him many titles. He represented Sindh in round table conference and convinced British to separate Sindh from Bombay state. They agreed to his demand and separated Sindh in 1937. He became the first Chief Minister of Sindh. In 1943, Sindh became the first Provincial Assembly to pass the resolution of Pakistan. Sufi person like G.M. Syed also supported this resolution. Hidayatullah became the governor of Sindh After partition. Syed was disappointed with formation of Pakistan after partition. He was labeled as traitor of Pakistan and put into jail for 33 years. He was a founder of separatist Sindudesh movement which is still strong in Sindh.

Prince Aga Khan III was a 48^th Imam of Nizari Ismaili (Shia) community across the world. It is important to know who they are. His grandfather Prince Aga Khan I was born in Iran. He had mixed relationship with Shah of Iran. To cut short the long story, their relationship worsened and he arrived in Mumbai along with his family and followers with the help of British. He was sufficiently honored by British as he helped them in wars in Afghanistan, Sindh etc. Therefore, British gave him a title of Prince, pension and protection. British also helped him to get the control over native Khoja Muslims which Khojas resisted vehemently.

Prince Aga Khan III was awarded with many titles by Queen of England and helped enrolling in Cambridge University. He was a founding member and the first President of Muslim League. He demanded a separate Muslim nation to British right from the beginning. Although, he was originator of demand of Pakistan, he never became a part of it. Today, majority Sunni Pakistanis consider Ismailis as Kafir. The recent attacked on a bus of Ismailis in Karachi is an example of it. 

Khawaja Nazimuddin was part of Dhaka’s Nawab family. He received his education from Trinity Hall Cambridge and Bar at Law from Middle Temple. He was Chief Minister of Bengal from 1943 to 45. British showered multiple honors on him. He became the second Governor General of Pakistan after death of Jinnah in 1948 and became second Prime Minister of Pakistan after Liaquat khan’s assassination in 1951.

Liaquat Ali Khan was part of Nawab family of Karnal a large estate spanning from Punjab to UP. He was a Sunni Muslim. His family helped British in 1857 independence war resulted in strong ties with British. His family made fortunes with the help of British. British arranged grants and scholarships for him. He completed his law degree from Oxford University. He returned to India in 1923. He joined ML and started his parliamentary career from 1926. He generally contested from UP and elected with heavy margins. He was finance minister of India in 1946-47. He became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan after partition. He was PM till 1951. But it was very challenging period for him as he was outsider to geography of Pakistan. His princely state had become the part of India. The most of Pakistani top leadership were from newly created India or Bengal. As Liaquat knew that he will not be able to win election in newly Pakistan, he ensured that he would remain in power without election. After Jinnah’s death, he passed Objective Resolution in 1949 and it was beginning of Pakistan becoming an Islamic state. It was necessary for people like him, the politically insecure Muslim elite, those had migrated from the Muslim minority provinces of India. Although, he was trusted right hand of Jinnah and Jinnah made him PM of Pakistan, their relationship deteriorated at the end. When Liaquat visited Jinnah in Ziarat in his last days. Jinnah told his sister Fatima, that Liaquat is here to see how long he would be alive. He was murdered in Rawalpindi rally in 1951 allegedly by US.   

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a Shia Muslim and born to trader family in 1876. His father’s partner sent him to England for studies where he became barrister from Lincoln’s college. He returned to India in 1897 and started legal practice. He was youngest, highly paid and most western mannered barrister in Mumbai. After joining Congress, he was part of moderate group of Namdar Gokhale. During his days in Congress, he was strong promoter of Hindu Muslim unity. He was against separate electorates for Muslim. He was away in London from 1930 to 34 as felt isolated in Indian politics. During his stay in London, it is believed that Muhammad Iqbal (poet of सारे जहाँ से अच्छा) convinced him to return to India and lead the Muslim community. He also convinced him that Muslim needs separate state. He often quoted Iqbal in his speeches and called him as his mentor. Nawabs of UP also requested him to return to India and lead Muslims. The front runner was Liaquat Ali. He convinced other Muslim leaders for leadership of Jinnah. Jinnah saw an opportunity of ruling Muslim state. He agreed and returned to India. He demanded sovereign Pakistan with dominion status in 1946. He was very selfish in my opinion. He dumped western dressing and adopted Muslim attire when he saw his dream is coming true. He sold his mansion in Delhi for hefty sum before partition. After partition, he demanded prime locations on beach of Karachi in lieu of properties he left in Mumbai. After partition, he became the Governor General. As indicated earlier, his relations with Liaquat deteriorated. When Jinnah arrived in Karachi from Ziarat on the last day of his life, an ambulance sent to him without fuel, which hastened his death and he died on the roads of Karachi on 11-Sept-1948!

They belonged to all faiths of Islam. They were England educated lawyers. They had taken favors from British. They were power hungry and knew that they can’t get it in united India. Mutual suspicion was a common factor. Almost everyone met with horrific death. One can ask one question. What did they get at the end!

If you think that only Muslim were responsible for partition, then it would be half-truth. Jogendra Nath Mandal, a Hindu leader (Lawyer!), of Schedule Caste Federation supported the resolution of Pakistan in Bengal’s assembly and became the first law minister of Pakistan after partition. He realized his mistake after 2 years. He returned to Calcutta and died in wilderness.

We believe that Jinnah was responsible for partition of India. Even Mountbatten said so. But the truth is far from this. Only Bengal assembly passed the resolution of Pakistan with the help of SCF. In fact, if Mandal would have not helped Suhrawardy in passing the resolution, the demand of Pakistan would have been untenable. Sind could not dare to pass it in 1946 as they had majority by only 1. Frontier Gandhi always supported Congress for united India. His party was in power in Frontier region in 1946. Baluchistan was in favor of joining India. One can make a conclusion that majority of Muslims in pre-partition India were not in favor of Pakistan. But, British never wanted to leave united India. They used their cronies like Nawab of UP and Bengal. These Nawabs always had a dream of ruling complete India and they wanted a state to realize their dream. Pakistan’s next 4 wars with India is testimony of this belief. British along with these Nawabs used Jinnah as mask and written the biggest tragedy of 20^th century and we are still receiving the brunt of it.

Urdu

It is very difficult to find out the origin of any language similar to any river. It can’t be fixed with any geographic location or timeframe. They evolves over the centuries and flow similar to any big river by changing its bank, route and width. Sometimes it is flooded and sometimes completely dehydrated. Something similar happens to many languages. Urdu is one of them.

Urdu immediately reminds us sher and shayari. Rhyme in Urdu makes it very pleasant to listen. Decorative, ornamental words makes it very rich language. Therefore, no other language can compete with Urdu in Sher and Gazal. One theory says that she was born in Deccan plateau. This theory is convenient to me. Therefore, I want to believe in it. Urdu has adopted Persian script and has many words from Persian and Arabic. It is essentially Indo-Persian language. But interestingly, Persian language itself is an Indo-European language. Urdu has both Arabic and Turkey words but they are in Persian form. Around 99% Urdu verbs have root in Sanskrit and Prakrit. Therefore, Urdu is essentially an Indian language.

In my previous blog, I shared my experience with Pakistani Pathan driver while coming to Riyadh airport. He was talking to me in Urdu and I was talking to him in Hindi. Both are the same language and earlier called as “Hindustani”. British divided it into two, Urdu for Muslims and Hindi for Hindus. Although any language can’t be property of any religion, British intentionally did this sin and we Indians are still continuing with it.

After the partition of India, Urdu became the sole national language of Pakistan. I asked that Pathani driver which part of Pakistan speak Urdu as their mother tongue. He was completely confused with my question and started murmuring Sindh speak Sindhi, Punjab speak Punjabi, Frontier speaks Pashtun. I am adding one more. East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh) speaks Bangla! As an innocent person, he started wondering why Urdu is their National Language when it is not mother tongue of any region of Pakistan! This question still haunts many Pakistanis.

It is an interesting story of creation of Pakistan. But I will write about it sometime later. After partition, Pakistan declared Urdu as sole National Language and it sow the seeds of partition of it. Bengalis felt that it was they who created Pakistan for Jinnah and he is imposing Urdu on them! Bengalis were 44 million out of total population of 69 million of entire Pakistan. Pakistan’s Public Service Commission removed Bangla from the list of approved subjects. It ignited demonstrations in Dhaka University in 1948. Jinnah arrived in Dhaka in March 1948 in the middle of agitation. He declared Urdu and only Urdu would be sole National Language of Pakistan during one public meeting. Although language dispute resolved in 1956. But by then Urdu became the sole cause of partition of Pakistan!

Indians started distancing from Urdu as soon as it became the national language of Pakistan. Although it is still official language of 6 states of India, but it has decorative status and not being used as official language of any government communication except J&K. Aligarh Muslim University and Osmania University used Urdu as medium of education. Both of them have already dropped it as medium of education. Non-Urdu speaking Pakistanis finding it difficult to learn and it became the language of only elite people. Long political unrest in Pakistan took a huge toll on Urdu literacy. Bollywood movies patronized Urdu for long. So many Urdu shayars entertained us with wonderful shayari. Lot of movies were made in Urdu in past. But now, I have not heard any Urdu movie made in Bollywood in recent past. Urdu shayars are also on decline in India.

It is very sad to see that Urdu, which has seen glorious days in past, is going to the path of decline. This is, in my opinion, just because it was attributed as Muslim’s language. Insha’Allah, it will one day free herself from the clutches of religion and achieve its past glory!!

Bofors

President Pranav Mukharjee has started his official visit to Sweden from today. On this occasion, he had given an interview to Dagens Nyheter (Amitabh Bachchan won the defamation case against them in Bofors scandal), a Swedish daily, made some off the record comments on Bofors scandal and ghost of Bofors arise once again.  Over 27 years have passed but the ghost of Bofors is still hovering over India and its polity. Bofors became the synonym to the corruption in India. I have been reading on Bofors last few months. I thought, this is the perfect time to put down something on it.

It is very important give the sequence of events and main actors in this scandal so that readers can understand and connect the dots on their own.

India had floated a tender for procuring guns for its Military in 1984. Bofors of Sweden and Sofma of France submitted bid for it. Military’s requirement was 30 KM of firing range. Sofma gun’s range was 29.1 KM and 21 KM that of Bofors. In spite of objections from military, tender conditions were changed clandestinely and order of 1.3 Billion $ (~1800 Crore Rupees) was given to Bofors on 24-Mar-1986 by Rajiv Gandhi’s Govt.

Swedish authorities were investigating Bofors’ shoddy business with Oman, Vietnam and other east European countries. They stumbled upon few unaccounted transactions to Swiss bank account related to Indian deal. Swedish National Radio on April 16, 1987 reported that kickbacks were given in Indian deal.

Win Chadha’s Svenska was official agent of Bofors in India since 1978. Their legal contract was changed in 1985-86 and their commission was inexplicably reduced from 6% to 3.2%.  AE services of Ottavio Quattrocchi, very close friend of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi, signed a contract with Bofors in Nov’85 and terminated in Mar'86. The company came into the picture out of the blue, chipped into commissions of Win Chadha and promised Bofors that the contract would be inked within a prescribed period, failing which it need not be paid. Quattrocchi was a very powerful name during those days. He came to India in ’60 as an agent of Italian firm Snamprogetti. During his 30 years stay in India, he won contracts of over 60 fertilizer plants! He was so powerful that Cabinet Ministers of Mrs. Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi used to stand up whenever he entered into their cabin.

Chitra Subramaniam, then reporter of The Hindu in Geneva, first reported this scandal in India. Bomb shell fell on Rajiv Gandhi’s Government. Massive cover up operation started immediately. In his book, Bhupatray Oza, then ambassador to Sweden writes, under pressure from Swedish and Indian media and with the threat of a cancellation of the contract hanging over them, Bofors sent its top executives to India with the one-point task of giving out the names. Nobody of any consequence received them including Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv Gandhi’s close friend Arun Singh protested, resigned from the government and went into exile till date. Arun Singh once said that it is happening to protect only one person!

One whistleblower provided Swedish investigation documents including a personal diary of Martin Ardbo, then Chairman on Bofors, to Chitra Subramaniam. He revealed his identity 25 years later. His name is Sten Lindstrom who was Chief Investigation Officer in Bofors case in Sweden. He revealed that Indian Investigation Team met him only once. 25 years later, he clearly says that there was no evidence of money paid to Rajiv Gandhi and no involvement of Amitabh Bachchan!

In July 1993, the Swiss courts had permitted naming the account and Quattrocchi had been officially named. At this point, CBI sought a permission to impound his passport. However, just before Quattrocchi could be detained, on the night of 29–30 July 1993, he left Delhi for Kuala Lumpur.

During Atalji’s Govt. after 12 years, the first charge sheet was filed against Quattrocchi, Win Chadha, Rajiv Gandhi, etc. on 22 October 1999. Delhi High Court quashed the charges of bribery against Rajiv Gandhi and others on 31 May 2005 during Manmohan Singh’s government. Subsequently, accounts of Quattrocchi were unfrozen and Interpol’s red corner notice on him had been withdrawn.

But Bofors says kickbacks were given, Swiss bank has given the name of account holder. Then where did those 64 crores have gone? This question is still unanswered. By going through above events, readers can connect various dots and infer what might have happened in Bofors scandal.

The official kickback amount is Rs. 64 crores (~3%). But these 64 crores made a lasting impact on Indian politics and it is continuing till today. 1987 onwards Bofors became the political story. The political alignment formed and unformed. Rajiv Gandhi sacked V.P. Singh as a defense minister and it began a long political instability in India.

All socialist groups supported V. P. Singh’s front and formed Janata Dal. The entire opposition united together to oppose Rajiv Gandhi. Janata Dal received the simple majority in 1989 general election. BJP and Communist supported this Government from outside. V.P. Singh became PM in 1989 with the expectation that he would punish the culprits of Bofors. He remained PM till Nov’90. His only contribution to Bofors investigation was falsely framing Amitabh Bachchan in the scandal. He resigned as PM after Mandal agitations. After him, Chandra Shekhar became PM with the support from Rajiv Gandhi. Congress withdrew their support in 8 months and fresh general election was called. Post this untimely and sad assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Narsimha Rao became PM of India in June 1991.

Since 1987 our defense preparedness is impacted. Armed forces lack latest equipment, be it guns, war plans, navy ships. No major arms deals are signed since then. Bureaucrats, politician, defense became extra cautious in any defense deals.

Why did India’s Bofors story took so prominence when Bofors’ other deals were very shoddy? Who wanted political instability in India? Who wanted India’s weak military preparedness? Who was Sten Lindstrom? Why did he give documents to only Chitra Subramaniam and not to others? Who wanted this scandal to become so big? Who got benefited from this scandal? Was it France who wanted a political revenge as Sweden took away their rightful contract? Is there any Soviet Union’s angle to it? They were exclusive military shop for India. Did they not want India to go to any other defense suppliers? It is interesting to note that there hasn't been a single scandal in defense deals with Soviet and now with Russia. But defense deals with any other countries such as France, Italy and Germany had gone through troubles. Or was is USA?

Many actors in Bofors case are died. CBI has already stopped the investigation. All court cases are closed. But truth of Bofors has not come out. Readers can understand that many are still alive who know the truth. But nobody wants truth to come out. Congress has its own reasons not to tell the truth. But opposition parties (especially BJP) are equally not interested in telling the truth. It helps them in showing Congress as a corrupt party.

As long as the ghost of Bofors is alive, it will impact on India’s military preparedness. It will keep on bringing political unrest. If India wants to progress, bring peace, political stability and become a strong nation, then the ghost of Bofors must rest in peace! Truth should prevail and I am waiting for that day!

Thugs

We very commonly use terms such as Scheduled Caste, Schedule Tribes, Nomadic and denotified tribes. We rarely bother to find out the origin of these words. When we say denotified tribes mean what? Who had freed them, why and from what? There is a long history behind it and every patriotic Indian must read it.

Maratha Empire ended in 1818. But many patriotic Indians refused to accept British Raj and continued their struggle against them. It began with Pendharis who fought for 4-5 years. They were not a caste or tribe but group of people who helped Maratha army in many wars. They were from Maratha tribes, Muslims and even Jats. Pendhari’s arms struggle was secretly supported by Marathas. They were large in numbers. Therefore, British cornered them from all the sides with large army and finished them in 1820. It is a coincidence that Pendharis were finished and Thugs were born. There were many communities in India who were expert in trickery and used it for spying and espionage. They were paid employees of Indian rulers. Once British rule started, they were unemployed. They used their skills and troubled British a lot by robbing their convoy and killing them. Both of them have similar constituents i.e. both Hindus and Muslims. Since there was no community as Thugs, I strongly believe that British created it. Whatever information on Thugs I came across is British account. Therefore, one can sense that it was written as per their convenience. British were so troubled by Thugs that they formed a separate police force called Thuggee and Decoity Department in 1835. Unlike Pendharis, Thugs were very small group and no Indian rulers supported them. Thugs gave British very long fight. They even participated in 1857 freedom struggle. British could destroy them by 1871. As many as 3000 Thugs were hanged with no account whatsoever!

British were very cunning rulers. They knew that such arms struggle is not going to end. Therefore, they brought new act called Criminal Tribes Act in 1871. British put forward an astonishing theory. It says criminal behavior is hereditary rather than habitual! The tribes who fought against British were branded as Criminal tribes and were included into this act. In Maharashtra, Umaji Naik’s Ramoshi community raised arms struggle against British and hence Ramoshi, Paradhi, Kaikadi tribes were added into this act. They kept on revising this act and included new tribes into it. The final shape of this act came into place in 1924. As many as 198 tribes were added into this act. Such communities were forced live outside of towns and villages. Restrictions were imposed on their movement. They had to appear before police on weekly basis. Helping them would definitely become a crime and therefore mainstream communities started alienating from them. Decades of alienation resulted mainstream, patriotic, worrier tribes into completely isolated, poor, illiterate communities who had eventually taken crime as their profession for survival!

Nehru condemned this law before independence. Therefore, it was expected that it would be completely abolished post-independence and all these tribes would be brought into mainstream. On the contrary, in 1952 new government renamed it as Habitual Offender Act (HOA) by denotifying those tribes. Therefore, they are called as denotified tribes (विमुक्त जमाती (VJ)) as if new government had freed them from their old crimes.  Because of HOA social stigma on these communities continued. After 67 years of independence, these communities are still experiencing social alienation. Police atrocities are still continuing. Many of them are not provided with the benefits of reservations. Many social workers are demanding complete abolition of HOA because Indian Penal Code is sufficient enough. I personally feel that its abolition would be a nationalist act. Therefore, when Modi’s government asked citizen for suggestions, I submitted a request on mygov.in to abolish HOA. If you agree with me, request you to do the same!  

Abid Hasan

Few days back, I was watching “The Forgotten Hero” movie on Netaji Subhashchandra Bose. As title suggests, he is really forgotten in his own country in less than a century. The history of India’s freedom fight has been reduced to history of only one party and rest of the freedom fighters are already forgotten or marginalized. While watching the movie, the character played by Rajit Kapur stuck to my conscious. I felt this person must be very cheerful, modern, highly patriotic and very sophisticated. Therefore, I started collecting more information about him. His name is Abid Hasan.

Abid was born in a very influencing and resourceful family in Hyderabad. His father was collector in Nizam state. His mother was Iranian. In those days, Nizam bureaucrats used to send their children abroad for education. Since his mother was against British, she sent her kids to Germany. Abid had taken admission in Engineering college. History tells that Subhashbabu went to Germany in 1941 for seeking help from Germans for raising arm struggle against British for liberating India. He also realized that Netaji’s way is the only way to liberate India from British. He was Netaji’s German interpreter. He negotiated with Indian POW laying in German camps to join Indian Legion.

When Netaji met with Hitler, Abid did not want to follow German salutation. Therefore, he saluted Hitler by saying “Jay Hind”! Netaji was very much impressed by this salutation and made the salutation of Azad Hind Fauz. Pandit Nehru also like this salutation and kept it as salutation of Indian army after the independence. In short, he is the originator of this salutation.

He was very brave and patriotic person. He accompanied Netaji during his journey from Germany to Japan by submarine in hostile water. One can only imagine their courage and love for mother India that they had taken such a dangerous journey in those days.

After taking over Azad Hind Fauz from Rashbehari Bose, Netaji made Abid his personal secretary and Major in Azad Hind Fauz. Once, members of Azad Hind Fauz were discussing the flag of free India. Hindu soldiers were insisting on saffron color in the flag. But after intense negotiations they dropped their demand. Abid was highly impressed by this gesture. To respect this decision, he added Saffroni at the end of his name and became “Abid Hasan Saffroni”.

After Japan’s defeat in World War II and mysterious death of Netaji, British capture Azad Hind Fauz and tried them in military court. He was imprisoned in Singapore. After his release and returned to India, he joined Indian National Congress for brief period. But he was disappointed with the politics. He then joined newly formed Indian Foreign Services. He worked in many countries in Middle East and Europe. He was also India’s ambassador to Denmark and Germany. He settled in his native place Hyderabad after his retirement.  

People, who worked with him during his diplomatic career, described him as very sophisticated person. He can became Middle Easterner in Middle East. He can behave as European in Europe and still very Indian at his heart. He never spoke about his association with Netaji and INA during his diplomatic career. He is really a jewel of India. I can only salute him “Jay Hind”!

Gypsy

As days are passing, I wonder whether we really grew up or we just became older. But this is a journey which everyone has to take and hence I am also on this journey. We build our notions, beliefs, habits, behavior, personality, etc. based on surrounding such as family, friends, community, religion, locality, school, etc. In addition to this, my association with RSS also made the great impact and developed some of the notions for myself. Hindu religion, Indian languages, culture is the greatest in the world, Indian society is the most cultured society in the world, Institution of family and marriage is the greatest in the world, Indians are most brilliant people in the world so and so forth. In short, I also started thinking the way most right wing minded person thinks. There is nothing wrong in it. However, there is always a danger and pitfall in such strong believes. Such self-praise and self-proficiency sometimes makes one inert, blind and narrow minded person. Visiting various places, meeting people and talking to them keeps one away from such pitfall and makes one open minded.

One such opportunity came to me in year 1994 when I visited Islamic Republic of Iran. No wonder I was travelling with thick right wing bias. India then had recently experienced Babari Masjid demolition and aftermath of it. I never expected that Iranians will ask me direct questions on it. But they did! Initially, I started reacting very sharply and told them that I am here for work and not for discussing politics. But my manager used to give them very tactical answer. It gave me completely different perceptive of that incident.

Initially, I was scared of walking on the streets of Gazvin because of notion which was developed about Iran over a period of time. People used to greet me (Are you from Hind? They call India as Hind) while walking the lanes of Gazvin. But I used to take it as an offensive remark. After few days, I started understanding their Persian language. Interestingly, Persian is Indo-European language and has lot of Sanskrit words in it. Once I started understanding Persian, I realized that Iranian are very fond of India because of many political, historical background and progress India has shown without any support from West (read US) and they believe that they are intelligent people next to Indian! 

The local company appointed one driver for me. Mohammad Begi Baktiyar was school dropout and was forced to fight a war with Iraq after few days of his marriage. He did not understand English and I did not understand Persian! The company had instructed him to show me historical places surrounding Gazvin during the weekends. I immediately realized that his all weekends have gone. I told him, he could take his family, if he wishes. Immediately, his official duty became company paid family vacation. He took me to such places where normal tourist will not go. One of thing I learnt there that common citizen are essentially good and then just don’t care for political, religious or ethnic divides.

Mohammad Begi’s wife could speak and understand English a bit. She liked Hindi movies especially of Big B. They call him Vijay (because Vijay is his name in many of his movies). She memorized complete song of Sholey. Practically every Iranian had seen Sangam, Awara etc. She told me that Iranian National Television once telecasted Shakti (Amitabh, Dilipkumar starrer). The complete nation was halted in front of TV set. They also compelled authorities to relay it once again on the following week. This is a wonderful example of how arts can bring the people together.

Once we were visiting Ali Sadr Caves (largest and longest Caverns in the world). Begi’s wife and sister-in-law removed their scarf and asked me to take a photograph. Begi was very furious as it big social taboo in any Islamic country. But they didn’t give any heed to him. I was also very hesitant knowing the culture there. But they insisted! I obliged and took the photograph. I tried to pacify him. Begi’s statement was very thought provoking. He said, “You are my good friend and I trust you. But you do not know the society here. Highly dangerous and explosive mixture has been created here by mixing religion and politics. I am worried about your and my wife’s safety.” The point is that the most common, under educated person understands the human liberty and freedom and do not accept any oppressive restrictions by any religious authority. Practically all religions use fear and threat to implement their policies and principles. This incidence also brought very interesting perspective. You go anywhere in the world you will find woman rules man!!

There were lot of engineers from other local companies working with me. Many of them were educated from various US Universities including MIT. They were very fluent in English and expert in their work. Once I became friendly with them, they started telling me history of Persia. It was completely other side of story what we hear here. They told me fascinating stories of Islamic revolution in Iran, Iran-Iraq war etc. It reinforced my earlier belief that British rule has done enormous damage to the world’s civilization by drawing the lines on this earth! I also realized our Government would feed us only those stories which they want us to know and media would share only those news which are convenient to some interest groups or Government. This was the first time, I understood the definition of History that it is a story of infighting among the civilization written by a victor! I told myself that god has given a wonderful item on your shoulder and I must use it before coming to any conclusion!