India - The Real Melting Pot !

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India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-06-2005

we all know that India is one of the most diverse countries in the world. There has been many ethnicities/groups/tribes/communities which has sought refuge in India from time immemorial like the parsis, the kochi jews, hakka chinese , syrian christians etc. There has been many groups which first came as invaders and later became indianised like the white huns (scythians?), kushans, bactrians (greeks?) etc. there are some traders and some groups of slaves (sidhis?) who have also assimilated in india.

I have always been fascinated by the ability of india to absorb all these groups and still retain the indianness and also the ability of these groups to add and enrich the indianness.

I would like to collate articles and useful anecdotes of these groups. I was inspired by the hakka chinese-indian thread at BR.

links about them

http://www.calcuttayellowpages.com/chinese.html
QUOTE The Chinese made an entry into the city during late eighteenth century. By the mid 19th century they established themselves as skilled industrious and clean people. They are estimated to be about 20,000 in numbers. The greater parts are âHakkaâ, the traditional tanners and shoemakers, followed by the carpenters and restaurant-keepers and the dentists.

They have managed to create a little china in Indian soil with traditional temples, dragon architecture and festoons in Chinese, with the rustle of real silk and the aroma of Chinese food. The Chinese have clustered in china town in central Calcutta and Tangra in east Calcutta, which is the tannery zone.

They have ventured not only in leather industry, but also in carpentry, dentistry, hairdressing, restaurants pharmaceutical and foods making. Two Chinese dailies are regularly published from Calcutta. Festivals are celebrated with the gaiety of china town everywhere. The Chinese New Year in February, rice pudding festival, the moon festival etc. are their major festivals. The ceremonial red candles, joss sticks, the âsan chuâ or whole pig are a perfect accompaniment of festivities.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050305/asp/...ory_4453689.asp

http://cabletv.starhub.com/eng/highlight/0...,203344,00.html

http://indianchinese.org/

I would like to add the Anglo-Indians also.

Many of them have done great service to india in the fields of education and military.

Folks like Jim Corbett come to mind.

http://www.indianchild.com/anglo_indians.htm

http://www.indiaprofile.com/lifestyle/angloindians.htm

here is a list of famous anglo indians

http://www.anglo-indians.com/main.asp?menu...nuID=30&mymode=

http://www.alphalink.com.au/~agilbert/jjean1.html
QUOTEA BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-INDIANS by Dr. Gloria J. Moore

The term "Anglo-Indian" was first used by Warren Hastings in the eighteenth century to describe both the British in India and their Indian-born children. In the nineteenth century the British in India still separated themselves from coloured people but accepted fairer (and often wealthier) people of dual heritage as "Anglo-Indian". Darker (and usually poorer) people were given the name "Eurasian". Today (apart from literature still alluding to the British who have lived in India for a long time as "Anglo-Indian" the term rightly signifies a world minority who have settled in Canada, New Zealand, the United States of Americas the United Kingdom and Australia, with some 150,000 still in India and a total of well over 500,000 world-wide.

A figure of at least 300,000 Anglo-Indians living in India at independence in 1947 has been given by Frank Anthony, the present leader of the Anglo-Indians in India (and by other leaders before him). Census figures were notoriously inaccurate under the British Raj since it was a widespread practice to claim to be "British" (to escape prejudice). Anglo-Indians were of British descent and were British subjects; they were never accepted by Indians as Indian.

This world minority are descendants of Europeans and Indians, their mother tongue is English, they are Christians (mainly Catholics and Anglicans), and at independence they lived throughout India, in the tiny towns up-country and in the cities of Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, Agra, Cochin, Lucknow, and Bangalore, a great centre of Anglo-Indian life. They travelled overseas, to Burma and Ceylon, to Europe, and especially to Britain, the birthplace of their male ancestors.

The 1820s saw the rise of political activity under John Ricketts, Louis Derozio and Captain John Doveton. Schools and colleges, training ships and agricultural schemes were set up. As a result of rising prejudice, self-help and community organisation grew, creating a real Anglo-Indian community with a sense of identity that never waned. These activities, coupled with later work by Sir Henry Gidney (a famous eye specialist and political leader), led to a certain security of employment for the Anglo-Indians. They were given some public positions in government, the police, customs, merchant navies and railways. They went into business, like the famous "Grand Mogul" Palmers and the Kellners. They were defined as Anglo-Indians by Lord Hardinge in the census of 1911. In 1935 and in Article 366 (2) of the 1950 Indian Constitution, they were again defined as a distinct "Community". After independence they were guaranteed representatives in the national parliament, yet today the situation of a large number in the subcontinent is precarious. For 300 years they have challenged racial prejudice in British India.

Anglo-Indians were brought into being by the direct policies of Portuguese, Dutch and British traders and colonists. The East India Company directors in the seventeenth century paid one pagoda or gold mohur for each child born to an Indian mother and a European father, as family allowance. Children with British or European fathers and Indian mothers were called "country-born" and included those with Portuguese, Dutch or French fathers. These offspring were amalgamated into the Anglo-Indian community, forming a bulwark for the British Raj, a buffer but also a bridge between rulers and subjects.

At every point of critical importance in the development of the British Raj, Anglo-Indians were present. At the Mysore wars, at the Mahratta, Sikh, Afghan and Gurkha wars, Anglo-Indian or countryborn men fought and helped win victories, defending their fathers' interests. The great regiments of the Indian army had among them the Khyber Rifles (founder, Sir Robert Warburton), the Shekwati Brigade (founder, Colonel Henry Forster) and Skinner's Horse (founder, Colonel James Skinner). All these men were the sons of Anglo-Indian marriages, having among their ancestors Indian or Anglo-Indian women. From 1791 the Anglo-Indians were debarred from the East India Company's armies and many trained the armies of the Indian princes. The French-descended Bourbons served Bhopal; the Filoses served the Scindia maharajas of Gwalior. It is now acknowledged by biographers (as Anglo-Indians have long believed) that men like William Pitt, Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Lord Liverpool and W. M. Thackeray, who contributed eminently to political life and to literature, were of partly Indian descent.

These Westernised people, their culture inherited from their male ancestors but enriched by the spirit of India, have descended from all classes, from both Indian and European aristocrats, from missionaries and naval men, and from traders and soldiers. By 1750 they outnumbered the often transient British.

Australia had many strong links with the world of British India, and this fact is still reflected in Australian architecture. (The verandah was a gift of Anglo-India.) Administrators, army personnel, bishops, travellers and clergy moved between the two countries. Livestock from Bengal reached farms in New South Wales and horses from New South Wales were shipped to the Indian army for cavalry. The Anglican Church in Australia came under the diocese of Calcutta. There were Indian-born people (even convicts) living in the earliest colonies. Their English surnames make it hard to identify the Anglo-Indians, but one, James Sievwright, a convict clerk at the Hobart post office in 1844, was fluent in English, French, German, Bengali, Hindustani, Persian, Greek and Latin.

Colonel Light (whose mother was probably Malay) spent a brief period in India, but his life was characteristic of this group - he was refused a commission in the East India Company. Light's memorial is the city of Adelaide; his design was possibly influenced by the beauty of Regency Calcutta with its new Government House, which he remembered from his visit there in 1805. Caroline Chisholm and Lachlan Macquarie spent years in India. Some of Caroline Chisholm's students from a school she opened in Madras might have emigrated through the Bengal Australia Settlement Scheme.

A major shipment of Anglo-Indians was organised by Sir William Burton, a judge in Madras in 1844. Burton was president of the Madras East India Society and sought relief for those who "are Christians and look to England as the land of their origin". The society sent two groups from Madras to Sydney in the William Prowse (1853) and the Paltyra (1854). (A similar scheme for Albany in Western Australia ended with a shipwreck.) Those settled by Burton were surveyed by the Anglo-Indian author Henry Cornish in 1875 and the results were published in his Under the Southern Cross (republished by Penguin in 1975). Twenty-four had been compositors on Henry Parkes's newspaper, the Empire. James Spooner was at Towns and Company, Sydney; H. (Henry) Moreau was a hairdresser in New Road, Sydney; William Grogan, James Dias and John Gotting were at Cunningham's printing press in Pitt Street, Sydney, while Thomas Reynolds and James Baker had left Sydney to join the Brisbane Courier. Benjamin Franz, John Hovenden and Thomas Martin had died, and several others had returned to India. Most were satisfied with their wages and conditions. Young married couples would have made a complete success of the scheme, wrote Cornish.

The Indian mutiny of 1857, in which thousands of Anglo-Indians suffered, led to a rise in the number of Indian-born settlers in Australia, among them officers of Hodson's Horse and other regiments. Colonel Andrew Crawford (who was English) had also arrived in Tasmania; he was a former adjutant-general of the Bombay army. He began the Castra farming scheme in northern Tasmania, attracting retired Indian army officers. As early as 1825 an attempt was made to found an Indian Institution for the sons of Anglo-Indians and British men. Links with Tasmania and other areas (such as Western Australia) were strong. There were 372 Indian-born registered in Tasmania in 1881. Among them was Dr John Coverdale, born in 1814 in Kedgeree, Bengal. Coverdale was a medical practitioner at Moonah, where he lived for many years. The Anglo-Indian film star of the 1930s and 1940s, Merle Oberon (born in Calcutta), lived in an era of deception, giving her birthplace as Tasmania to evade prejudice in the American film industry, according to her biographers.

Anglo-Indians contributed en masse to the modernisation of India, as their schools (with 80-90 per cent Anglo-Indian enrolment) provided a network of European and Anglo-Indian education across the country. Anglo-Indians also had a long tradition of military service. They fought in Britain's wars from Plassey to Assaye, from Waterloo to the Crimea and the Boer War. In the First World War Victoria Crosses were won by William Leefe Robinson of the Royal Flying Corps and Reginald Alexander Warneford of the Royal Naval Air Service. Between the two World Wars the veterans faced increasing difficulties as the Indian Home-Rule movement gathered momentum. In the Second World War they flew with "the few" in the Battle of Britain (Guy Gibson of the Dam Busters), and were at Dunkirk, North Africa, Malaya and the fall of Singapore. At the end of the Second World War many chose to be demobbed in Australia or Britain.

The handover of political power in August 1947, the end of the Raj and the communal killings all engendered insecurity among many minority groups. Over 100,000 Anglo-Indians emigrated initially, mostly to Britain. While the first census after independence did not record Anglo-Indian numbers, Frank Anthony believes that almost all of the 191,979 "native speakers of English in India" were Anglo-Indians.

The late 1940s and early 1950s saw some emigration to Perth and other centres. Among those migrants were John Buckle, who had survived the atomic attack on Nagasaki while a prisoner of war; Adrian MacDermott, who came to Melbourne from Changi and the Burma Railway; Patricia Pengilley, who won a Churchill Fellowship and spent a lifetime teaching the adult deaf; Norman Oehme, who farmed in the west and left his land to Aborigines; and Basil Sellars, a director of such companies as AFP Investment Corp, Elders IXL and British Gestetner.

Noreen Lubeck, an ex-officer of the Women's Army Corps (India), moved to Victoria, where her son (like many after him) encountered teasing because of his race. One man recalls that families faced being split, the fair being accepted and the dark rejected. However, their desire to settle in a Christian country made them persevere.

The educational levels and competence in English of Anglo-Indians were of a high standard. Several graduates from St Joseph's, Northpoint, who arrived in the early years, did well. Ed. Patterson became chief engineer of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme; the Gidneys, kin of the late Sir Henry Gidney, have several doctors among their number and have settled throughout Australia. Others went from journalism to writing histories (Reginald Maher in Perth), from Dehra Dun to Duntroon (both military academies), and from the railways to mining in Western Australia.

In the 1960s thousands of Anglo-Indians who had emigrated to Britain were considering remigration with their British-born children to new countries. The relaxation in 1966 of the restrictive entry policy, and the adoption in 1973 of a policy of non-discrimination on the grounds of race, colour or nationality in the selection of migrants, resulted in a noticeable increase in the number of Anglo-lndian settlers in Australia. Between July 1969 and June 1972 Australia admitted 6,892 Indian-born of "mixed descent", of whom 39 per cent went to Victoria and 33 per cent to Western Australia. To this figure must be added the thousands who remigrated with their children to Australia from the United Kingdom or Canada. All these countries now have sizeable Anglo-lndian settler groups. Of the 41,657 Indian-born settlers recorded in the 1981 Australian census, Ken McIntyre (and leaders of the community) believe that at least 75 per cent (who are Christian) are Anglo-lndian. The largest number arrived from India in 1969. The Anglo-lndian community is less than 0.03 per cent of the total population of India. Virtually a stateless people, they face increasing difficulties in education and employment in India.

In 1947 Roland McGready became a gazetted officer, with 70,000 men under his command, in the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. He left for Melbourne in the 1960s. His son, Dr Roland McGready (a biochemist), has a successful academic research consultancy. A daughter, Kathy, toured India with an Australian women's cricket team and is writing its history. Malcolm and Bonita Prior and Peter Savedra opened factories which employ hundreds of people between them. Tony Archer and former boxing champion Peter Prince are in the insurance business. Henry Roach, Colonel Charles Campagnac and Colonel Denzil Alexander (whose family served the maharajas of Jaipur for seven generations) opened the Independent Oil Company, which plans to build its own refinery in Westernport Bay, Victoria. Kris Noble, who arrived from the United Kingdom, produces satirical television programs for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), such as The Gillies Report. Some have opened restaurants, such as the Gardners and Parkers (Melbourne), the Bretagnes (Sydney), and the deRosarios (Adelaide). Others have moved into real estate and investment, like Ivan Phillips, formerly of Northpoint. Those who arrived in 1948 could bring savings. From the 1960s, however, Indian currency restrictions meant that most arrived with $7 per person. Father Murphy of the Catholic Immigration Office in Melbourne remembers helping many adults who had sacrificed good careers for their children's future.

Anglo-Indians are stable, conscientious workers, with extended family networks and a lively social life. They remained interested in India and the East, showing concern for Anglo-Indians still in India. Their settlement has been smooth and trouble-free, and they maintain good relations with other groups. Unfortunately, some have encountered discrimination at work. Philosophical, adaptable and with a strong community spirit, they assimilate more readily than the other Indian-born such as Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. Those who have lived in the United Kingdom or Canada are now accustomed to doing their own domestic work, although all at first missed the comforts of India in this regard and their unique social life there. All prefer the climate and informality of Australian life. Opposition rarely exists to out- marriage into other groups, and Anglo-Indians are marrying increasingly often into other ethnic groups. Since they have the same language, religion and culture as the mainstream society, they may well lose their ethnic identity.

Anglo-Indians have made a significant contribution to teaching in Australia. They can be found throughout all the networks of schools, private and State, from Scotch College to Geelong Grammar, and in Australian universities, although they are under-represented in these so far. Government departments, the police, the armed forces, customs, hospitals, libraries and the arts all employ Anglo-Indians. Their children often move into the professions.

Anglo-Indians are sports-loving and were the sports stars of India. Leslie Hammond has settled in Ballarat, and the brothers Richard and Laurie Carr live in Melbourne. Gene Raymond and Dusty Millar (boxers) went to Melbourne (Raymond via the United Kingdom). The Pearces in Perth helped win Olympic victories for Australian hockey. Rudy Pacheco, Marcus Syms and Julian Maugey began the Springvale/Noble Park Hockey Club, which draws all groups and ages, as does Ken McIntyre's Australia-India Cricket Club - both in Melbourne. Kingsley Hayes-Rosario, a former Scots Guard, coaches cricket in Victoria. Dennis Fallon and Dudley Beeby coach hockey teams in Glen Waverley, Melbourne. Fund-raising charity functions are a feature in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, as they are in the United Kingdom and Canada. The Melbourne Rangers, the Australia-India Society of Victoria, the Sydney Rangers, and "old school" associations (such as those of Bishop Cotton of Bangalore and Campion-Vestry of Trichinopoly, in Melbourne), all flourish and provide scholarships for youth in India or grants to charities in Australia. The Indian Ex-Service Club of Victoria hosts visiting generals, admirals and air vice-marshals from the Indian armed forces, such as Admiral Ronald Almedia and Brigadier-General Desmond Hayde, a hero of the battle of Dograi in the India-Pakistan conflict, in September 1965.

The recently formed Australian Anglo-Indian Research Association in Melbourne aims to encourage, co-ordinate and supervise all aspects of research on Anglo-Indians - their history, settlement and welfare. To date there is little useful or valuable information on the Anglo-Indians. Attempts are now being made to change this: Gloria Moore in The Lotus and the Rose and The Anglo Indian Vision, Eric Stracey (Canberra), former inspector-general of police (Tamil Nadu), and General J. G. Henderson-Brooks, have all written histories or their autobiographies. Adrian Gilbert intends to work on postgraduate research in this field. And Christine Walker epitomises the many who continually re-educate people about Anglo-lndian life and history.

June D'Rozario held the seat of Sanderson (Darwin) in the Northern Territory Assembly for the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 1977 to 1983, and Anne Warner was elected to the Queensland parliament for the ALP in 1983. Fred Cress's brilliant art, influenced by the spirit of India, brings riches to Australian life. Others have contributed to Australian society by their unique traditions as bridge-builders between East and West, as ambassadors of both Europe and India, and of multiculturalism. Their activities include teaching English (Vivienne Wheeler, through the English Speaking Union); researching rural development projects in the subcontinent (the late Major Clarry Goff); working voluntarily for the Epilepsy Foundation (Joe D'Souza); and reading and illustrating books for the blind (Noreen Lubeck). Indira Gandhi paid a warm tribute to "The Community, the whole country admires their spirit of zest and adventure". Malcolm Fraser encouraged hockey player Leslie Claudius to emigrate to Perth.

Anglo-Indians were among India's most international, emancipated and democratic people, a Westernised minority amongst the vast Indian population. Their families are now scattered all over the Commonwealth and extend world-wide. 

I am very interested in knowing more about the Siddis etc. History buffs, please contribute.

Also, a humble request, please keep away the "aryan" nonsense and also tales of muslim invaders who refused to assimilate and were interested in only looting - like abdali, ghazni etc.

let's keep this thread an educational and informative one since many of us are not even aware of the diversity that we have.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-07-2005

Kochi jews.

http://www.outlookindia.com/diary.asp?fodn...ame=Vinod+Mehta
QUOTE A New Promised Land
To the synagogue in the old part of Kochi. Jews first came to Kerala in 73 AD after the sacking of Palestine by the Romans. The only working synagogue in India was built in 1568 and even today, though neglected and desperately short of funds, it is an inspiring place of worship. There are 14 Jewish families left in Kochi.Correction, make that 15. One came back from Israel last month. In their heyday, the Kochi Jews were models of citizenship. They contributed hugely to the making of the city. Israel, unfortunately, has not turned out to be the promised land. The chief of the synagogue tells us his son, a dentist, is experiencing "lot of difficulties and discrimination. He wants to leave". The last surviving families are ageing yet firmly rooted: they are determined to die in Kochi, a city which gave them sanctuary, respect, livelihood and the right to practise their religion unhindered. Only one thing upsets them these daysâjournalists. "They ask too many questions," says Mr Moses.

http://countrystudies.us/india/60.htm
QUOTETrade contacts between the Mediterranean region and the west coast of India probably led to the presence of small Jewish settlements in India as long ago as the early first millennium B.C. In Kerala a community of Jews tracing its origin to the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 has remained associated with the cities of Cranganore and Kochi (formerly known as Cochin) for at least 1,000 years. The Pardesi Synagogue in Kochi, rebuilt in 1568, is in the architectural style of Kerala but preserves the archaic ritual style of the Sephardic rite, with Babylonian and Yemenite influence as well. The Jews of Kochi, concentrated mostly in the old "Jew Town," were completely integrated into local culture, speaking Malayalam and taking local names while preserving their knowledge of Hebrew and contacts with Southwest Asia. A separate community of Jews, called the Bene Israel, had lived along the Konkan Coast in and around Bombay, Pune, and Ahmadabad for almost 2,000 years. Unlike the Kochi Jews, they became a village-based society and maintained little contact with other Jewish communities. They always remained within the orthodox Jewish fold, practicing the Sephardic rite without rabbis, with the synagogue as the center of religious and cultural life. A third group of Jews immigrated to India, beginning at the end of the eighteenth century, following the trade contacts established by the British Empire. These Baghdad Jews came mostly from the area of modern Iraq and settled in Bombay and Calcutta, where many of them became wealthy and participated in the economic leadership of these growing cities.

The population of the Kochi Jews, always small, had decreased from 5,000 in 1951 to about fifty in the early 1990s. During the same period, the Bene Israel decreased from about 20,000 to 5,000, while the Baghdad Jews declined from 5,000 to 250. Emigration to Australia, Israel, Britain, and North America accounts for most of this decline. According to the 1981 Indian census, there were 5,618 Jews in India, down from 5,825 in 1971. The 1991 census showed a further decline to 5,271, most of whom lived in Maharashtra and Mizoram.

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0902/40.html

QUOTEâPerhaps the most unique aspect of the Indian Jewish experience is the complete absence of discrimination by a host majority. The secret of Indiaâs tolerance is the Hindu belief which confers legitimacy on a wide diversity of cultural and religious groups even as it forbids movement from one group to anotherâ - Raphael Meyer India has, historically, been a refuge and sheltered people of all religions, creeds and beliefs - Zoroastrians, Jews, Sufis and more recently Bahais - all were granted protection and security when they sought it. They were accepted into the fold of the mainstream society, given land and equal opportunity to excel in their profession of choice - and remain Indians. Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism are religions of the land - all were born in India. The central Asian invaders brought Islam. The colonial powers brought Christianity. India remained a large hearted host to all, enriched its cultural heritage and became a truly secular nation. In the first of our series on 'Spirit of India' - we feature the story of the Jewish Community of India.

The earliest Jews cane to India two thousand years back. They were escaping persecution in Galilee. Some came after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. The Sephardic Jews came to India from west European nations such as Holland and Spain. The 16th and 17th century migrations saw Jews from Persia, Afghanistan, and Khorasan (Central Asia) settle down in northern India and Kashmir. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Jewish settlers came from the Middle East and North Africa. Jews settled in different areas - from Kashmir in the north to Kochi (Cochin) in the south, Kolkata in the east to Mumbai in the west. By the fate 18th century, Mumbai had the largest Jewish community in India (particularly in Thane). Today only a few thousands remain - most having migrated to Israel, England, USA and Australia. They have left behind them a rich legacy of synagogues, public institutions and nostalgia. Only two synagogues remain open in Kolkata for its 60 odd Jewish population. The Pardesi synagogue at Kochi, Kerala is the oldest among the surviving synagogues. It is a National Heritage.

Some Eminent Jews of India

âIsrael is in my heart but India is in my blood:' - Ezekiel Malekar, Delhi

There have been many among them who rose to national stature

(Late) Mrs Hannah Sen, President of All, India Women's Conference and also the first lady director, Lady Irwin College for Women, Delhi

(Late) Mr Ezra Kolet did pioneering work in the shipping industry.

Mr J M Benjamin, former Chief Architect to the Government of India and former secretary, Delhi Urban Arts Commission.

Mr Haffkine, after whom the famous Haffkine Institute in Mumbai was named.

The Sassoons, after whom the Sassoon docks, the Sassoon Hospital, and two of Mumbai's well known sites - the Jacob Circle and Flora Fountain have been named.

Dr E Moses who was the Mayor of Mumbai.

Maj Gen Samson who was awarded the Padma Bhushan, and a few other Jews with the Indian Armed Forces.

General Jacobs became the Governor of Goa. An erstwhile Chief of the Naval Staff was also a Jew.

Poet Nissim Ezeickel and the famous cartoonist Abu Abraham

The actress/dancer Helen, the late Hindi film actor David and the late Sulochana - the Queen of Indian Silent Films.

Dr Erulkar was the personal physician/friend of Mahatma Gandhi. His father, also a doctor, Abraham Erulkar, donated land for the synagogue in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Dr. Erulkar's daughter became the First Lady of Cyprus and was married to the President of Cyprus.

Dr Jerusha Jhirad was awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India.

Jews of India â The Kochi Jews

A street entrance of a Jewish town in Kochi reads Kochi is a city which has welcomed, befriended and protected Jews for centuries.â

Kochi is a handy name for a cluster of islands and towns sprinkled with shady lagoons, tropical forests and canals winding past houses on stilts. This is a multicultural land where, in addition to the Jewish sights, one can see Portuguese churches, Dutch architecture, mosques, Hindu temples and a British village green.

Kochi has an ancient and multifaceted Jewish community which is as old as the Diaspora. Located in the tropical state of Kerala and alternately referred to as the Venice of the East and queen of the Arabian Sea, Kochi is one of the 3 largest ports on India's west coast and one of the finest natural harbours in the world. The markets are filled with the scent of spices and the shouts of vendors; the docks are lined with merchants' houses and cargo ships. The crystal-blue sky and tropical foliage, the pastel houses, the bright raw silk of the clothes and the ever-present smiles blend into one exquisite rainbow.

History

One legend holds that the Jews first settled in India during the time of King Solomon, when there was trade in teak, ivory, spices and peacocks between the Land of Israel and the Malabar Coast, where Kochi is located. Others put their arrival at the time of the Assyrian exile in 722 BC, the Babylonian exile in 586 or after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. No reliable evidence exists, but most contemporary scholars fix the date at some time during the early Middle Ages. It is the Bible that contains the first mention of Jews in connection with India. The Book of Esther, which dates from the second century BC, cites decrees enacted by Ahasuerus relating to the Jews dispersed throughout the provinces of his empire from Hodu to Kush. Hodu is Hebrew for India: Kush is Ethiopia. Talmudic and midrashic literature also mention spices, perfumes, plants, animals, textiles, gems and crockery which either bearing names of Indian origin or are indigenous. The earliest documentation of permanent Jewish settlements is on two copper plates now stored in the main synagogue of Kochi. Engraved in the local language, they detail the privileges granted to Joseph Rabban by Bhaskara Ravi Varma, the fourth-century Hindu ruler of Malabar. According to the inscription, the ruler awarded the Jews the village of Anjuvannam, meaning âfive castes,â as the Jews were believed to be the lords of the five castes of artisans. The plates also state that Anjuvannam shall remain in the possession of the descendants of these Jews âso long as the world and moon exist.â

Twelfth-century Jewish, Christian and Muslim travelers described Jewish settlements around Kochi. The main community was in Cranganore, north of Kochi. For some time the Jews of the Malabar Coast served as a way station to the Jewish community in China. In 1167 Benjamin of Tudela wrote of 1,000 Jews on the Malabar Coast âwho are black like their neighbors and are good men, observers of the law and possess the Torah of Moses, the Prophets, and some little knowledge of the Talmud and the halakha.â

The Jews prospered in Anjuvannam for more than a thousand years after the grant of the copper plates. Then, with the extinction of the line of Rabban, dissension arose between two brothers of a noble family for the chieftanship of the principality. The neighboring princes intervened and dispossessed the Jews. In 1341 the brothers fled to Kochi with their followers and established the Kochangadi synagogue there.

In 1524, on the pretext that the Jews were tampering with the pepper trade, the Moors attacked the remaining Jews of Anjuvannam, burning their homes and synagogues. The destruction was so complete that when the Portuguese arrived a few years later they found only destitute Jews, who continued to eke out a miserable existence. Finally, the remaining Jews deserted their ancient settlement and fled to Kochi.

As the Portuguese made inroads along the coast more Jews arrived, which remained under the Indian protection. Spanish and Portuguese exiles came after the Inquisition, and others arrived fleeing persecution in the Middle East. In 1560 the Portuguese set up an office of the Inquisition in Goa, halfway between Mumbai and Kochi, and even more Jews sought the protection of Cheraman Parumal, the Raja of Kochi, soon labeled the âKing of the Jewsâ by the Portuguese authorities.

Raja Parumal of Kochi gave land next to his palace for the construction of a synagogue - just 30 yards away from his temple.

L-R: View of synagogue from the palace; the King's temple with the synagogue in the background.

The Jews could not have survived under Portuguese rule (1502-1663) had it not been for Parumal. In 1565 he gave them a strip of land next to his palace and in 1568 permitted them to build a synagogue. He appointed a hereditary mudaliar (chief) from among the Jews and invested the position with special privileges and jurisdiction in all internal matters in the Jewish community. This office continued in force under subsequent Rajas and even under Dutch and British rule. The Hallegua family, which still holds the title, continues to be influential in Kochi.

Jews of India - the Bene Israel

The Jews of India are not one singular community' but are divided into different communities. Each community has its own culture, background, origin and claims its arrival to India in different ways and it is not always clear how they really came. The three main Jewish communities of India are: Bene Israel who believe themselves to be the descendants of the original settlers who came to India as early as 2,000 years ago; Kochi Jews of southern India, who were centered in Kerala; and the Iraqi Jews, called Baghdadis, who began settling in India at the end of the 18th century. There were Ashkenazi Jews and also a community in Manipur, east India, which claims Israeli origin speculated to be one of the lost tribes - and call themselves Bne Menashe. Each group has active synagogues.

Bene Israel

The Bene Israel (âSons of Israelâ) claim to be descendants of Jews who escaped persecution in Galilee in the 2nd century BC. They settled down primarily in Mumbai, Kolkata, Old Delhi and Ahmedabad and their native language became Marathi. The Bene Israel look in appearance like the non-Jewish Maratha people, indicating intermarriage between Jews and Indians. However, the Bene Israel maintained the practices and rituals of Judaism.

The ancestors of Bene Israel were oil pressers in Galilee, who fled on a ship towards India. Close to the Indian coast their ship got wrecked but some survived the shipwreck - the present day Bene Israel are the descendants of those survivors, who swam towards the land and arrived at a village called Navgaon, where they buried the bodies of those who died in the shipwreck. There is a memorial in Navgaon to those who did not make it to the Indian shore. The survivors settled in the village and started working in agriculture and subsequently in oil producing, which later became their main profession.

They were distinguished from other caste telis (oil pressers) and called Shanivari telis, because of their observation of Sabbath on Saturdays (Shanivar). The Bene Israel community grew and became a guild of oil pressers. They left their first village, Navgaon, and dispersed to other villages and towns along the coast of Konkan, becoming the oil producers and oil pressers of their respective villages. Gradually they derived their surnames from the villages they settled down in - Rohekar; Penkar; Palkar; Ashtamkar originated from the villages of Roha, Pen, Pali or Ashtam respectively.

In the early 17th century, the Bene Israel came in contact with the Jews from Kochi who brought them into the mainstream of modem Judaism. The Bene Israel began to move to Mumbai in the late 18th century and built their first synagogue, Shaare Rahamim [Gates of Mercy], in 1796. In time, the Bene Israel in Mumbai became, demographically, a strong community. In the early 19th century, the Bene Israel numbered approximately 6,000, by 1948 their numbers had grown to 30,000 - today there are only about 5000 in India - the majority having emigrated to Israel and some to Australia and England. Many of its members were employed in government service, and a considerable number of others distinguished themselves as officers in the Indian army. In the 1950's and 1960's, when the majority of Indian Jews immigrated to Israel, a significant number of the Bene Israel remained in India. Among the well-known members of this community in modern day Mumbai is the poet Nissim Ezekiel.

Baghdadi / Iraqi Jews & Manipur Jews

The Baghdadi Jews first arrived from Iraq, Syria, and Iran sometime in 1796, fleeing persecution in their native lands and settled mainly in the port cities of Mumbai, Kolkata and Rangoon. They retained their language, Arabic, and a separate cultural identity. Mostly traders and financiers, their contribution to the industrial growth of Mumbai is well documented. The most prominent Baghdadi Jew was Sir David Sassoon who established the Indian House of Sassoon in 1832 and paved the way for the arrival of many other Iraqi Jews in India.

These communities were then set on a firm foundation by the house of David Sassoon in the second half of the nineteenth century, and by his grandson Jacob Eliyahu Sassoon in the early twentieth century.

Eminent in Mumbai - David Sassoon himself had to flee Baghdad in 1826 from the oppression of the Governor and Wali of Baghdad. Starting cautiously, the Sassoon family business gained ground and strength. With increasing wealth, the Sassoons gave huge sums to both Jewish and public institutions. The community was set on a firm foundation by the house of David Sassoon.

âThe synagogues built by the Baghdadis still survive. David Sassoon built the Magen David Synagogue in 1861 in Byculla, where the family first lived. This was then the best location in Mumbai before other areas were developed. The large synagogue was set in extensive grounds, which were to prove very valuable. Built in the spacious style of Victorian architecture, it was fronted by pillars and a clock tower. David Sassoon also built an elementary school on one side in the same large compound to provide education for the community's children in Torah. This was later expanded to a high school by his grandson Jacob Sassoon, and renamed âThe Sir Jacob Sassoon Free High Schoolâ. The synagogue and school grounds became in effect a community centre for the Jewish community of Byculla, where young and the old meet together in the evenings.â

âThe Ohel-David Synagogue was built by David Sassoon in 1863 in Poona, where he had his resort home. The synagogue is a well-known landmark in Poona, of impressive architecture in spacious grounds in a central location in Poona cantonment. David Sassoon's Poona home, where he died in 1864 much mourned by Jews and Indians alike, was across the street from the synagogue. His sons buried him in the synagogue grounds in a fine mausoleum. The synagogue and mausoleum were visited by the President of India, Dr Zakir Hussein, at a special Memorial Service on December 10, 1968, on the occasion of the Centenary celebration of the Sassoon General Hospitals in Poona established by the Sassoons.â

David Sassoon's grandson, Jacob Sassoon, built the Kneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue in the Fort in 1884, in memory of his father Eliyahoo Sassoon (founder of E.D. sassoon and Company).

The Kolkata Story

Shalon Cohen, an ambitious young merchant, was one of the first settlers to arrive in Kolkata from his native Aleppo, in 1798. Kolkata was a flourishing centre of trade and commerce. Early Jewish settlers in Kolkata were traders who established trading links from London to Shanghai - dealing in indigo, cotton, yam, silk, Veniceware, precious stones, gold leaf, ivory and coffee. The Kolkata Jewish community was set up by Shalon Cohen and consolidated by his nephew/son-in-law Moses Duck Cohen, who is remembered for his dedicated service to the community. âHe played a leading role in framing the first constitution of the community (29 August 1825) and in establishing the first formal synagogue, Neveh Shalome (Abode of Peace) in 1826, as well as first purpose built synagogue, Bethel in Pollock Street, where it still stands.â Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the wealthier members of the community began to adopt western dress and etiquette. The first generations of Calcutta Jews spoke Judeo-Arabic at home, but by the 1890s English was widely spoken. They also moved to select residential areas, South of Park Street.

The community increased from 15 in 1799 to 200 in 1825, and in 1860 they numbered 600 and rose to 2000 by the end of the century. âJapanese invasion of Burma (Myanmar) led to an influx of Jews fleeing from that country raising the Jewish population in Kolkata to an all-time high of about 5000 in early 1940.â

David Joseph Ezra is associated with some of the city's most imposing buildings - Esplanade mansions, Ezra mansions and Chowringhee mansions as well as Ezra street. David Joseph Ezra made his fortune from prime real estate.

Elia David Ezra, son of David Joseph Ezra built the city's most magnificent synagogue - the Magen David Synagogue.

DJ Cohen and Reverend E M D Cohen played a more direct part in civic work and social uplift. Under Reverend E M D Cohen's proprietorship the Hebrew newspaper Pariah had a circulation of 500 copies a week in 1880s.

Kolkata Jews left for Israel, England and the US, and today only a few remain in this bustling city.

Of the five synagogues, only two remain open for a population of about 60 Jews: Neveh Shalome Synagogue established in 1825, the first Synagogue in Kolkata and rebuilt in 1911, and the Magen David Synagogue, built by Mr Elias David Joseph Ezra to perpetuate the memory of his father, Mr. David Joseph Ezra who died in 1882. This is the largest Synagogue in the East and is magnificent in architecture and design. Each week on Erev Shabbat, prayer services are held, alternating between the Synagogues.

âThe keeper of both these synagogues, the individual who is also the keeper of the sanctum sanctorum, where the Torahs are kept, is a Muslim. Only in India will you witness such a level of spiritual neighborliness between two religions which seem to optimize violence to us, living in the West.â

Manipur Jews (Bne Menashe)

Manipur Jews or the Bne Menashe maybe one of the lost tribes.

In the states of Manipur and Mizoram exists a community which sees itself as descendants of the Menashe Tribe (one of the 10 lost tribes). These people claim that after their forefathers were exiled and enslaved by the Assyrians they somehow escaped from slavery and arrived in China. Later on they moved to the Chinese-Burmese border and much later on to the neighbouring east India. Most of the residents of Mizoram and Manipur are Christians. Among the Manipur Jews there are some who believe that all the Manipur and Mizoram residents (about 2 million people) are originally from the Menashe tribe. The Manipur Jews believe that the Christian missionaries in the 19th century forced them to abolish their Jewish identity and adopt Christianity.

1951 onwards, after a local chief, named Tchalah revealed to his people that God had told him that his people should return to their original religion and land (Judaism and Israel), there has been a movement to return to Judaism and immigration to Israel. Some of the Israeli rabbis accept their Judaism and others don't see them as original Jews. Many of the immigrating Manipuri Jews to Israel have converted to Judaism through strict Jewish laws.

Jews of India - Community Information

The central communal organisation of Jews in India is the Council of Indian Jewry, which was established in 1978 in Mumbai. It replaced the Central Jewish Board founded during World War II. The Council consists of representatives from the various synagogues and Jewish organizations. There are a variety of other organizations including the Zionist Association, B'nai Bârith, a Jewish Club in Mumbai, Bikur Cholim and two women's associations.

There are three Jewish schools in Mumbai, but over the years the percentage of Jews in their student bodies has dwindled. In the ORT school, for example, less than half the students are Jewish. There are also two small Jewish schools in Kolkata.

Jewish Community

Council of Indian Jewry c/o The Jewish Club, Jerro Bldg., 2nd floor, 137 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Mumbai 400 023 Tel. 91 22 270 461, Fax. 91 22 274 129

Embassy

3 Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi 110003. Tel. 91 11 3013 238, Fax. 91 11 3014 298 http://hsita.cjb.net/http://hsita.cjb.net/

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-07-2005

http://www.hvk.org/hvk/articles/0103/259.html

QUOTEIsraeli researcher releases book on Indian Jews

Author: Manoj Nair
Publication: Mid-Day
Date: January 17, 2003
URL: http://www.mid-day.com/news/city/2003/january/41868.htm

A new book has documented the cultural heritage of Indiaâs three Jewish communities. The book, authored by nine writers, explores in pictures and prose the rituals, architecture and contributions of the Bene Israelis, the Cochinese and the Baghdadis, miniscule communities who, while retaining their Jewish identity, absorbed the culture and customs of their adopted land.

The book, Indiaâs Jewish Heritage â Ritual, Art and Life-Cycle, published by Marg Publications, was released on Tuesday. It has been edited by anthropologist Dr Shalva Weil of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Contributors to the book include prominent Indian Jews, like Esther David and Sifra Samuel Lentin. David has written a chapter on Bene Israeli costumes and Samuel a piece on the Jewish presence in Mumbai. Samuel Hallegua, a Cochinese, has described the wedding rituals of his community, now depleted to fewer than 20 members in Kochi.

Dr Weil, who spent two years working on the book, says she has been coming to India for the last 30 years. âDuring these visits, I have interacted with Jews in India and have developed a special relationship with them,â she says.

The relationship helped during her research for the book. There is very little written history of the Bene Israelis or Cochinese before the 18th century, says Weil, who visited the vibrant Jewish community in Thane and derelict synagogues around Alibaug while working on the book.

âIn the 1980s, Jacob Circle was the centre of the Jewish community in Mumbai. Now Thane, where most of Indiaâs 4,500 Bene Israelis live, is the centre,â she says.

Weil says she ignored a fourth group, the Bnei Menashe of Mizoram, who have been claiming to be descendents of one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel. âI made a conscious decision to concentrate on the three recognised Jewish communities. The Menashe has never been recognised as Jews,â she says.

The Jews have had a presence in India for more than 2,000 years, and they will proudly tell you India is the only country in the world where they did not face anti-Semitism. Sadly, however, migration to Israel and the West is depleting their numbers in India. But the rate of emigration has slowed down recently. âThe violence in Israel is shameful. It is not a pull factor for many Indian Jews,â she says.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-07-2005

Sidhis of Janjira

Tamils would have probably read a book by chandilyan , i think it is "jala deepam" , in which the power struggles of the maratha naval force headed by Kanoji Angre and the brits, portuguese and the Sidhis form the core story.

http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2004...62_sidhis.shtml

QUOTESIDHIS
Behold these Asian Indians of African descent
By Anil Mehrotra

As the red sun sets and a silken darkness creeps in, twelve dark-skinned men with Negroid features and painted faces perform the "Jungle Dance " by the light of flickering torch fires in Zanzibar, Africa. Passing tourists might not consider this scene unusual, but it is. These performers don't just live down the street. They are Sidhi tribesmen from India who are of African descent, performing in their ancient homeland while on a world tour to honor and preserve their cultural heritage. Although their music and dance is authentic and their love of their legacy is true, they will admit that--although they respect this land of their ancestors--they are quite happy to be living in India.

As the evening stretches into night and the pounding drums cast a mesmerizing spell over the crowd, the aged among the audience become more and more attentive, straining their ears and narrowing their eyes as they attempt to recall strains of music they have almost forgotten. They have not seen or heard anything like the performance they are now witnessing since before their grandparents died. Yet, they feel it through their nerve system as if their ancestors were pounding the dust and drums themselves.

As the performance continues, the trancelike rhythms gradually charge the atmosphere with electrifying power. The crowd sways. The music intensifies. Finally, one dancer throws a freshly plucked, husked coconut high into the black cavernous sky. The crowd looks up. The coconut comes down, smashing on the head of one of the dancers with a thud, splitting and spraying the stage and the audience with its milk. The crowd is thrilled with this ecstatic climax. The show is over.

The Sidhis are a diffused community of people who came from Africa but now live throughout Southeast Asia. In India, about 30,000 Sidhis make their home in and around Junagadh, Gujarat.

These Africans first arrived in India during the twelfth century, mainly as soldiers, sailors and merchants. Some were warrior-slaves to Indian kings who valued them for their loyalty and fighting spirit.

Through the generations that followed, the Sidhis that remained in India adapted to the lifestyle , yet retained some ancient cultural practices and a few syncretic forms of worship. Today, their only link with Africa is through their music, dance and the few customs they have maintained. They speak no African languages and do not know the specific origin of their ancestors.

Sidhis of India are dedicated to a Muslim Sufi saint named "Sidi Mubarak Nobi, " who saint studied Sufism in Iraq but lived in India. Also a businessman who dealt in the sale of agates, he first visited Gujarat seeking these semiprecious stones for clients in Africa and the Middle East. Eventually he became famous for his power to heal the sick and settle disputes, and the Sidhis of India flocked to him. When he died, his body was entombed at Junagadh in Gujarat, which thereafter became an important pilgrimage destination for Indian Sidhis.

The Sidhis' stage performance consists of dancing and drumming. Eight performers dance while four play drums called mugarman and musical drone boxes called malunga. Their featured dance, called the zikr, is a riveting amalgamation of agility, strength and speed, characterized by a feverish, climatic ending.

"The general population in India thinks we are Africans, " says Yunus, a Sidhi from Jambur who speaks fluent Gujarati, but no Swahili. "We are Indians. Swahili is the language of our forefathers, and we should not forget it. Though we do use it in some of our songs, we do not know its true meaning. We enjoy going to Africa to perform the jungle dances, but we would never want to settle down there permanently."

http://www.indiansaga.info/architecture/marine_arch.html

QUOTEThink of India and one thinks of the vast, seething interior, peoples of the plains, peoples of the hill country, great events, great cities, amid a mighty landscape. And yet the coastal forts of Maharashtra, land of the daring Maratha clans, played a significant role in the later history of India. Like forts everywhere, they were entrecotes for ideas and cultures but in additions there harbours were the natural object for the vessel for all the eastward-trading nations- the Sidhis and the Abyssinians were collectively called by that name. They came as slave traders to the Deccan and dealt with the Adil Shahis of Bijapur.

In return for these concessions they provided armed escort to the pilgrim ships bound for Mecca out of Janjira, Goa, Surat and Dhabod: corsairs- Dutch or English or from Malabar- were a constant danger to merchant shipping, looting, killing and raping on the high seas from the African coast to the East Indies. The Maratha chieftain, Shivaji, first attacked Janjira during his campaigns in the Konkan area in 1659. His son Shambhuji in 1682 attempted to tunnel to the island but with signal lack of success. Each time the Marathas assaulted the fort the Sidhi and the Mughal fleet from Surat combined to bombard them from the region. Though they tried hard, neither the Marathas, nor the Mughals, nor Portugese, nor British could ever capture Janjira by force.

Janjira lies some way offshore but it is possible to hire a square-rigged dhow to visit it. The dhows ply from the port of Murud, a tiny place that was hardly moved on from the 16th century. The island is uninhabited now. Jazire Meharuba, the Moon Fort, beckons, the more beguiling since one may be sure of approaching it in a manner unchanged down the centuries. Luxuriant in a palace garden grown wild, Janjira must have been an idyllic place.

Some of the great, rusting guns of Janjira still point from their embrasures: Chavari, its muzzle carved like the jaws of some fearsome monster; Kalal Bangadi; and Landa Kasam. This was the Sidhi Surul Khan's palace; one can still patrol and admire his ramparts of blue-black granite, jointed with lead to withstand the pounding of the Arabian Sea. At the steps by the main entrance is a memorial to six battle victories - the lion of Abyssinia holding six elephants captive. It is almost impossible, though, for today's visitor to harbour thoughts of bloody bombardment into dust or a burning death at sea. This is a quiet, seductive spot to leave, with day darkening into night and blue waters turning gold in the sinking sun, the soft slap of wave on wood the only sound. 

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/...l?oneclick=true

QUOTEBeat goes on in the fight for tradition

n a side street of the sleepy Indian city of Junagadh, men take off their T-shirts, tie fresh leaves to their foreheads and paint their faces and bodies orange, yellow and white for a night of jungle dancing.

Women shake rattles and drums are thumped, as the Sidhis, an African tribe uprooted to India, battle to preserve centuries-old traditions.

"We want to keep our ancestors' dance form alive," said one Sidhi drummer, Salem Alarakha.

However, grinding poverty, the lure of the big city and the overpowering beats of Bollywood have made the fight a difficult one.

About 25,000 Sidhis, the descendants of slaves, live on the north-western coast of India. Nyabuto Thomas Isaac, a geographer at Gujarat's Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, says most of the Sidhis were brought from modern-day Tanzania to India in the 16th century by Portuguese and Arab traders. Today, about 80 per cent of India's Sidhi population work as manual labourers, either in farms or in cities.

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"We have always been poor," said Alibhai Yakub, a Sidhi in the village of Zambur. "Our great-great grandfathers were slaves, and even though we are now free, it hasn't improved our condition. We still work as labourers, sometimes earning as little as 30 rupees ($1) for a whole day's work." But asked if he would like to return to his roots in Africa, Yakub emphatically shakes his head.

For the younger generation, even the jungle dance link with Africa is fading away. In Zambur, the sounds coming from Sidhi homes are of Hindi film music.

"I'd like to wear fashionable clothes and live like people in the city," said Tofique Shaikhiyan, 15.

"We don't want to live like this," she said pointing to the poverty around her. Alongside Indian pop culture, another growing influence is Islam. The Sidhis are Muslims, and have been increasingly polarised since Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat last year in which 2000 people died.

Maulana Mohabat Kasim, the cleric of the only mosque in Zambur, believes Sidhi women should be required to wear veils in accordance with the conservative belief that women should be modest. But while some Sidhi women wear veils, most have ignored this call.

"I don't want to wear a burqa. I want to be like other girls and speak English," says Yasmin Sidhi. "I want to watch Hindi films and wear clothes of the latest fashion." But after reflection she adds: "I'd also like to retain some of my ancestors' past in Africa."

Agence France-Presse


<img src='http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1057179155293_2003/07/04/wld_sidhis0507,0.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-07-2005

Agasthiyan, cool thread.. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/rocker.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rocker.gif' />

I still remember participating in a sidhi dance in an NCC camp way back when. The other community which has really blended in the desi culture and thrived are the parsis - amazing community, have great respect for them.

I have heard there are a few armenians around delhi too.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-07-2005

rajesh, thanks.

talking about parsis, i remember a story about a famous parsi - Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata empire.

he was going to the US to invest in business there. on his way , in the ship, he met a young saint. the two chatted and the saint asked jamsetji his purpose of going to the US. jamsetji told the saint that he was going to the US to invest in business. the saint advised jamsetji to go back to india and invest there. jamsetji stopped in a port midway and came back to india and started TATA Steel, the first steel company of india and first of the many TATA companies that became the TATA empire. the city of Jamshedpur is named after jamsetji Tata.

 the saint who persuaded him to go back to india was none other than Swami Vivekananda who was on his way to address the world religion congress at chicago.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4223182

has a photo essay and also a NPR audio report.

http://www.culturopedia.com/Religions/zoroastrianism.html
QUOTEPARSIS OF INDIA

Parsi Reform Movement in India: Dababhai Naoroji, Naoroji Furdonji and others set up the Rehnumai Mazdayasan Sabha (Religious Reform Association) in 1851 to carry out campaigns against the strict orthodoxy inÂ Zoroastrianism.Â They laid special emphasis on modernising the Parsis and raising the social status of women by providing for their education.

The first Zoroastrians to enter India arrived on the Gujarat coast in the 10th century and by the 17th century, most of them had settled in Bombay. Today, there are approximately 90,000 Parsis in India and are concentrated largely in Maharashtra and Gujarat.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1213617/posts
QUOTEParsis in India are on brink of extinction
HT.com ^ | September 11, 2004 | HT.com

Posted on 09/11/2004 8:39:17 PM PDT by CarrotAndStick

NEW DELHI: Lt. Gen (Retd) A M Sethna, member, National Commission for Minorities, and president, Delhi Parsi Anjuman, is touching 80, and has an interesting story to tell about the Parsi identity crisis that dates back to the 1940s.

This was a time when the affable general was a cadet and it was mandatory to wear a badge with oneâs religion inscribed on it. âIt was part of the uniform.

For Christians, you had to even mention if you were Pros [Protestant] or RC [Roman Catholic],â Sethna remembers. âWhen I was asked what I was, I said âParsiâ, and the attending officer who was writing down my personal details said, âParsi? Never heard of it. Iâll put down RCâ.â

Which was strange, considering that the Parsis â Zoroastrians of Persian origin, who were dubbed âParsisâ in India because they hailed mostly from a region called Pars â had been around since the 10th century.

But that marginalisation is now down to a rather frightening numbers game: the 2001 Census reveals that Parsi community in India, collectively, stands at 69,601 heads (33949 males and 35652 females) â down from 76,382 in 1991.

Thereâs more bad news.

âThe 2001 Census is particularly significant, itâs been by far the most thorough Census, at least for the Parsis, because we have made it a point to include everyone,â says Sethna. The sub-text clearly is: chances are that there were probably many Parsis who didnât take part in the 1991 Census, but still the number was considerably higher. âThe 2001 figures are downright scary â if we donât do damage control rightaway, three generations down the line, we could well be extinct.â

Agrees former Tisco chairman, the 86-year-old Russi Mody: âThe number of Parsis are reducing every year, itâs a dying community.â

The two community elders are not exaggerating. According to the Delhi Parsi Anjuman, in 2003, the number of recorded Parsi births in the city was 2 while the number of deaths was 8. Worse, only 4.7 per cent Parsis fall in the 0-6 age bracket â compare that to the national average of 15.9.

Sooni Taraporevala, scriptwriter, photographer, writes in her book Zoroastrians of India: Parsis that, âBy the year 2020, India will have achieved the dubious distinction of being the most populated country on earth with 1,200 million people. At that point, Parsis who will number 23,000 or 0.0002 per cent of the population, will cease to be termed a community and will be labelled a âtribeâ, as is any ethnic group below the 30,000 count. Demographically, we are a dying community â our deaths outweigh our births.â

Why have the Parsis become an endangered species?

Most community members Hindustan Times spoketo felt there are three reasons for this: late marriages, a high incidence of intermarriages that leads to loss of faith, and a self-imposed ban on conversions.

âParsi girl are usually well-educated and they are serious about pursuing a career, so by the time they are in a position to settle down theyâre in their late 20s or, at times, well past 30 and their biological clock is already ticking away,â says 45-year-old Kemran Mehta, who runs a religious/interactive club for children in the Parsi Dharamsala on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg in Delhi. âMost times, they opt for a single kid, and many of them prefer not to go the family way.â

Inter-marriages should normally help a community grow, right? No so with the Parsis. For one, girls who marry outside their community are not considered Parsis by virtue of their new status. âItâs a patriarchial society, and when a Parsi girl marries a non-Parsi, her kids cannot be Parsis even if they want to,â

says M K Meherji, a 34-year-old event manager working in New Delhi. âIf a Parsi boy marries a non-Parsi, only then can their kids be allowed to do the Navjot [the baptism ceremony].â The wives, however, donât qualify to be Parsis.

A landmark judgement in 1902 [Davar vs Beamont] is considered to be a referral for intermarriages. The judgment laid down that non-Parsi spouses would have no legal standing in the Parsi fold. The sentence is still serving its term.

But thereâs hope yet. The Delhi Parsi Anjuman has broken out of that stranglehold, and is now permitting non-Parsi spouses to be part of the community affairs, although the Fire Temples and the Towers of Silence remain out of bounds. âThe problem is none of the other Anjumans all over the country are willing to be part of this change process,â says Sethna.

The issue of conversions is largely one of deemed superiority. One cannot adopt the Zoroastrian faith if you want to because the community forbids it.

Now hereâs the catch: this has nothing to do with the scriptures. As popular VJ Cyrus Broacha, says: âThe ban on conversions has to do with preserving the purity of the community but that was not what Zoroastrianism was all about when we came to India more than a thousand years ago.â

Television actress Tanaaz Currim, who is married to a Muslim, feels likewise: âWe can prevent the community from dying out by accepting children of mixed marriages.â

What is somewhat baffling is the straitjacket that the community has donned by choice: why are the Parsis, otherwise a progressive and visionary group of people, willingly being shackled by traditions? âItâs a conundrum,â shrugs Sethna, âone that cannot be explained rationally.â

Maybe itâs a matter of faith. But in this case, faith seems to be moving the community to extinction.
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: INDIA; IRAN; PARSI; ZOROASTRIAN
Zoroastrianism (also sometimes known as Mazdaism) was adapted from an earlier, polytheistic faith by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) in Persia between 1400 and 1200 BC (although, in the absence of written records, some scholars estimate as late as 600 BC).

Overview Zoroastrianism combines elements of monotheism and dualism. Some modern scholars believe that Zoroastrianism had a large influence on Judaism and Manichaeism, and thus indirectly influenced Christianity and Islam.

The holy book of Zoroastrianism is the Avesta. Of the Avesta only the Gathas (the hymns) are attributed to Zoroaster.

Ahura Mazda (literally: "the Wise Lord" like the Sanskrit "Asura Medha"; later transcription: Ohrmazd, Ormazd or Ormus) is revered and worshipped by Zoroastrians as the good God. Opposed to Ahura Mazda stands Ahriman (Angra Mainyu), who in some traditions is Ohrmazd's twin brother, in others the twin of Spenta Mainyu; modern Zoroastrianism considers itself monotheistic and looks upon Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu as allegorical personifications.

According to Zoroastrianism, the earth was created by Ormazd as a battlefield to fight Ahriman (where Ohrmazd is destined to win approximately 3000 years after Zoroaster, that is, circa AD 2400). Human beings have free will to choose between Ohrmazd and Ahriman, however once this choice is made it is impossible or nearly impossible to change. Those who align with Ohrmazd are believed to go directly to Heaven after death or resurrection (depending on the tradition), whereas those who align with Ahriman go to Hell for a period of time before then going on to Heaven. Unlike Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism does not associate matter with evil. On the contrary, material pursuits such as raising a family and creating wealth are considered to aid Ohrmazd. "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds" is a common slogan.

However, Zoroastrianism is not simply the purely ethical religion it may at first seem. Purification rituals are important. Indeed a religious Zoroastrian must constantly be involved in a meticulous struggle against the contamination of death (which is associated with Ahriman) and of the many other causes of defilement, and against the threat - even in sleep - of demons. Fire is an important religious symbol, and once started a ritual fire must be kept continually burning. The dead are not buried (so as to not defile the soil) or cremated (as fire is considered sacred), but left for vultures to devour in specially constructed Towers of Silence.

History By the 6th century, Zoroastrianism had spread to northern China via the Silk Road, gaining official status in a number of Chinese states. Zoroastrian temples still remained in Kaifeng and Zhenjiang as late as the 1130s, but by the 13th century the religion had faded from prominence in China.

In the 7th century, the Zoroastrian Sassanid dynasty was conquered by Muslim Arabs, and Zoroastrians were awarded the status of People of the Book by the Caliph Omar, although some practices contrary to Islam were prohibited, such as sibling marriages. Before this took place, however, many thousand of Zoroastrian priests were executed, hundreds of temples destroyed, and religious texts burnt. Further, the use of the ancient Avestan as well as Persian languages was prohibited. Islamic invaders attempted to distort the teaching of Zardusht by presenting Zoroastrianism as polytheistic cult thus facilitating the annihilation of the Iranian culture and its peoples.

Arab invasion and the subsequent repression by Islamic authorities left the deepest scar in this ancient monotheistic faith that was once dominant in a region stretching from Anatolia to Persian Gulf and Central Asia. The Persecution of Zoroastrians by Muslim rulers of theocratic Iran continued after the Arabs left; even today, however, one can find Zoroastrian communities living and practicing their faith in remote regions of the country.

In the 8th century, Zoroastrians fled to India in large numbers, where they were given refuge by Jadi Rana, a Hindu king of Sanjan (the modern-day province of Gujarat) on condition that they abstain from missionary activities and marry only in their community. Although these strictures are centuries old, Parsis of the 21st century still do not accept converts and are endogamous. The Parsis of India speak a Gujarati dialect.

The earliest English references to Zoroaster and the Zoroastrian religion occur in the writings of the encyclopaedist Sir Thomas Browne.

It is widely believed that the Three Wise Men said to have borne gifts for Jesus of Nazareth were Zoroastrian Magi. The Achaemenid Persian Kings Xerxes and Darius had previously assisted the Jews in rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem.

Adherents Small Zoroastrian communities survive in Iran and in India (where they are called Parsis or Parsees), totalling 140,000 followers. Iranian Zoroastrians are called Gabars (a name deriving from the Arabic word kaffir meaning infidel), but this is a pejorative term. Some Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kerman still speak an Iranian language distinct from Persian. They call their language Dari (not to be confused with the Dari of Afghanistan). Their language is also called Gabri or Behdinan. Sometimes their language is named for the cities in which they are spoken, Yazdi or Kermani. Other small Zoroastrian communities exist in large cities in the United States, England and Canada.

Famous Zoroastrians One of the most famous Zoroastrians is the late Freddie Mercury, the frontman of the group Queen. He was given a traditional Zoroastrian funeral after he died of AIDS on the 24th of November, 1991. Famous Indian Parsis include symphonic conductor Zubin Mehta, the Tata and Godrej industrial families

http://www.isteve.com/2002_Parsis_Success_...ns_Survival.htm

QUOTELast year, a Miami psychotherapist visited a Sydney database administrator's Web site for help in finding the girl of his dreams, who turned out to be a flight attendant based in the Persian Gulf.

Welcome to the dizzyingly cosmopolitan realm of Parsi matchmaking, where the Internet is helping one of the most culturally sophisticated ethnic groups keep alive one of the most ancient but endangered major religions.

In a world in which minorities are often violently persecuted, the collective survival of the Parsis and their Zoroastrian religion is threatened by a more paradoxical peril: lots of non-Parsis want to marry them.

The Parsis are India's remarkably well-educated and affluent followers of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster (or "Zarathustra"). The Parsis are centered in Bombay, India, but are increasingly spread thinly throughout the world. Mahatma Gandhi said of them, "In numbers, Parsis are beneath contempt, but in contribution, beyond compare." During British rule, when the Parsis became the commercial leaders of India, Parsi capitalists, such as the Tata dynasty, built much of India's heavy industry.

To explain their economic success in India and America, Rumi Engineer, the president of the Zoroastrian Association of Rocky Mountain, pointed to the Parsi tradition of intensive education. Houtoxi Contractor, head of the Zoroastrian Association of Pennsylvania, suggested to United Press International, "Parsis can't become complacent because they don't have a country of their own." She noted that her medical student daughter will soon represent the fifth straight generation of Contractors to be doctors.

(Just as many medieval Englishmen converted their occupations, such as smith and cooper, into surnames, some Parsis did the same during the British Raj. They often added the suffix "wala," which means "dealer or manufacturer." The most memorable Parsi name might be Mr. Sodabottleopenerwala)

By the way, "Parsi" is also commonly spelled "Parsee."

The Parsis originated more than 1,000 years ago when Persian Zoroastrians fled Arab-conquered Iran. They were allowed by the Hindu king of Gujarat to settle on the west coast of India. Over the millennium, Parsis began speaking their own dialect of Gujarati, in somewhat the same manner as European Jews turned German into Yiddish.

Strikingly, in over 1,000 years, the Hindus never violently harassed Parsis, though Hindu-Muslim civil strife is common in India. The Parsis remain grateful to the Hindus for refuge, just as many Jews greatly appreciate the security provided by America.

The number of Parsis has been dropping. In India, they are down from 115,000 in 1941 to perhaps 65,000 (out of 1 billion Indians) today. By 2021, they are expected to fall to a mere 21,000.

As with U.S. Jews, who are predicted by the American Jewish Committee to shrink by one-third over the next 80 years, intermarriage plays a role in the Parsis' worldwide numeric decline. (Other factors include small families and marriages postponed during the pursuit of advanced degrees). Something like 20 percent of Parsis marry outside the community, compared to as many as 52 percent of American Jews.

There are roughly 10,000 to 15,000 Parsis in North America, along with a somewhat smaller number of Zoroastrians from Iran. Like the long-separated European and Middle Eastern Jews who are slowly coming back in contact in Israel, in the diaspora the Indian Parsis and their Iranian brethren are perhaps beginning to merge again into one people, the Zarathushtis.

The Parsis face many of the same demographic problems as the Jews.

"Only we, unfortunately do not have the luxury of numbers that the Jews have," points out Roshan Rivetna, editor of the Journal of the Federation of Zoroastrian Organizations of North America (FEZANA.org). Because there are only about 1 percent as many Parsis as Jews on Earth, the survival pressure on them is more intense. Further, Parsis don't have their own country like Israel, where millions of Jews are geographically isolated from gentiles who might want to marry them.

The Parsi example raises a seldom-asked but important question: Can diversity survive tolerance? The fate of the Parsis will say much about whether Westernized religious-ethnic groups that encourage education and gender equality can maintain their ancient coherence as a people in a globalizing world.

Followers of Zoroastrianism, which arguably rivals Judaism as the oldest form of ethical monotheism, are turning to world-spanning modern technology in order to marry within their faith.

Parsis also compete with Jews for the title of best-educated diaspora group in the world. Shahrokh "Sam" Mehta, a prominent figure in the American Parsi community and a cousin of conductor Zubin Mehta, estimates that 80 percent of Indian Parsis earn college degrees, and the figure may be even higher in America.

Unlike most immigrants, Parsis do not cluster in one particular location or occupation, but instead spread out to the wealthiest cities of the English-speaking world (virtually all Parsis speak English). They go wherever there are lucrative opportunities for doctors, engineers, accountants, entrepreneurs, and computer scientists. This dispersal can make finding a Parsi mate difficult.

Like many Parsi immigrants, Bombay-born psychotherapist Framroze Sarkari, 38, fairly quickly found an American non-Parsi spouse upon arriving on this continent.

For example, the best-known Parsi in the United States is California resident Zubin Mehta, who has been the musical director of the Philharmonic orchestras of Los Angeles, New York, and (currently) Israel. He is married to former Hollywood star Barbara Kovack. Previously, Mehta had been wed to another non-Parsi, classical singer Carmen Lasky. After their divorce, she married a second Parsi, Zarin Mehta. He is the executive director of the New York Philharmonic, and is Zubin's brother.

(The other world famous Parsi musical prodigy was the late Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British rock band Queen. He was born "Farrokh Balsara" in a Parsi community in Zanzibar, off the coast of Africa. Freddie, however, who died of AIDS in 1991, was not the marrying type.)

Back home in South Asia, members of the Hindu and Muslim ruling families sometimes fall in love with Parsis. The name of the most famous political dynasty in India, Gandhi, is derived not from Mahatma Gandhi, but from a Parsi named Feroze Gandhi, who married the daughter of India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Feroze Gandhi's wife, Indira, became Prime Minister and their son, Rajiv, followed her to the top.

Similarly, Nehru's great enemy, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father of Muslim Pakistan, married a Parsi. When Jinnah's only child, his half-Parsi daughter, in turn married another Parsi, it broke his heart.

After Miami psychotherapist Sarkari's amicable divorce from his American first wife, he increasingly longed for a Zoroastrian bride. He believes that Zoroastrians -- whose lives are guided by the principle of "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds" -- are particularly rational, fun-loving, and gentle. "One reason I'd hang out with Zoroastrians in Bombay is because the other cultures in India, they would always be talking about killing somebody," he recounted, only somewhat jokingly.

But Sarkari lives in the Miami area, where -- to the best of his knowledge -- there are only 92 Zoroastrians.

Worse, Sarkari was not sure if a Zoroastrian family would have him. He has always been much more enthusiastic about the Parsi people than many of them have been about him, due to his being only half-Parsi by birth. His mother is an Indian Catholic.

Although arranged marriages are common in South Asia, Parsis almost always make love matches. Still, when he was in his early 20s in Bombay, Sarkari's early romances with Parsi girls always ended badly. "'You're not a full Zoroastrian,' they would tell me. I would be criticized all the time. I especially wouldn't be offered marriages."

In mixed marriages, Zoroastrian husbands (such as Sarkari's father) can officially pass their religion on to their children, but Zoroastrian wives cannot. (This is the mirror image of the Orthodox Jewish rule that Jewishness is passed down through the mother, not the father.) In practice, though, some Zoroastrians don't accept either kind of offspring as genuine members of the community.

While American Zoroastrians tend to be more accepting of the children of mixed marriages than their relatives in Bombay, Zoroastrian religious educator R. Karanjia spoke for much of the community when he said, "Zoroastrianism is an ethnic religion. We believe that religion is decided by birth."

The Parsis' traditional hereditary exclusiveness served them well in India. Because they neither proselytized for their faith, nor even accepted converts, the Parsis were no threat to their vastly more numerous hosts. The Hindus found the typical Parsi refusal to intermarry not standoffish, but proper. After all, the caste system split Hindus into countless little communities that wouldn't intermarry with each other.

These barriers to intermarriage on both sides made multiculturalism in India possible over the long term. Without them, over the past thousand years, the Parsis would likely have disappeared into the vast Hindu population. Today, though, Parsis remain not just culturally but physically somewhat distinct from most Indians, often fairer-skinned and taller, like their Iranian ancestors.

As with Jews, Zoroastrian religious opinions range from orthodox to reform. There is much debate within the community today over whether to discourage intermarriage by excommunicating the offspring, or welcome them into the community. Rivetna, the Parsi-American editor, suggested a compromise. Intermarriage should be "discouraged very strongly. But if it happens, the spouse and children should be made very welcome in the fold."

This parallels a dispute within the American Jewish community. Elliott Abrams, a Jewish activist now at the National Security Council, made the case against mixed marriages in 1997: "Intermarriage is both inevitable in our open society, and immensely threatening to Jewish continuity here. ... Despite the hopes of many in the Jewish community, the effect of mixed marriages on children is evident. Only 28 percent are raised as Jews, and an even smaller percentage marry Jews. ... A three-generational study of Jews in Philadelphia found that no grandchildren of mixed marriages continued to identify as Jews."

Sarkari had become resigned to marrying outside Zoroastrianism. Then his Parsi sister-in-law started sending him the URL for Zoroastrianism.com, which hosts a Zoroastrian Matrimonial Page run by Porus Havewala.

Sarkari thought, "Oh come on, no Parsi is gonna marry me." He e-mailed back to her bemusedly, "Forget about arranged marriages, now you are talking about Internet arranged marriages?'"

Havewala, a computer administrator in Australia, has helped introduced over 50 Zoroastrians couples who have gone on to marriage. He founded his Web site because, "Intermarriage was growing in our community in the 1980s and onwards. The frequent reason given was, 'I couldn't find a suitable Zoroastrian match.' Our parents and grandparents consider intermarriage to be a sin and a destroyer of the community, so the rising level of intermarriage pained me deeply."

On Feb. 11, 2001, Sarkari visited Havewala's Web site for the first time. Within 15 minutes, he was e-mailing back and forth with Parivaz Roshni, a stewardess with Gulf Air. "She didn't care that I was only half Parsi, she was only interested in finding out about the real me. Feb. 11 -- that's the most wonderful memory I've ever had."

Six weeks later, Sarkari flew to Bahrain and proposed. He then made a one-day trip to Bombay to meet his new fiancÃ©e's parents, who are Zoroastrians who immigrated to India from Iran when they were children. "A wonderful family, very warm, very understanding, the real Zoroastrians you always longed for," remembers Sarkari.

They will marry in a civil ceremony in Miami in July. The big Zoroastrian wedding, however, will be in Bombay in January.

The psychotherapist summed up his complex feelings, "For me it's so sacred. As a Zoroastrian human being, it means a lot to me to be marrying a Zoroastrian. I always wanted to belong. It's very nurturing to be among Zoroastrians. After all these years, finally it's like a miracle for me. I finally end up being among the Parsis. The acceptance now completes the cycle and makes me feel like I don't have to worry ever."

"I have talked to my fiancÃ© Parivaz about this and she laughs and laughs."

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-07-2005

Some famous Parsis not listed in the above posts
Field Marshall Sam Manekshaw
Frm. Atty Gen. Soli Sorabjee
Constitution expert Nana Palkiwhala
Frm wicket keeper Farooq Engineer
Frm Miss India(World?) Mheir Jessia

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-15-2005

Persis Khambatta, one time Miss India acted in Star trek (oneof the movie episodes). I believe she died a few years ago (1998) and lived all alone during her last years. She was both charming and beautiful ( by all accounts)

<img src='http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/9699/universe/persisk.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-15-2005

THE ARMENIANS OF INDIA
An Historical Legacy

David Zenian

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-18-2005

Armenians in India !

who would have thought?...thanks kaushal for the link.

here is some info on another community that fled to india.

the Tibetans.

it is sad that india has more or less given up their cause due to the harsh reality of geo politics. it is sad that the tibetans are becoming a minority in their own country. IMHO, the free tibet movement has the most legitimacy among all the "freedom" movements in the world and it is also the one given least attention.

i heard that many of the second generation tibetans have more or less given up any hope of going back to their homeland and are getting into the mainstream and the melting pot that is india.

an excellent news resource for indo-tibetans

http://tibetindia.danielbrett.com/
QUOTETibetans continue to flee to India for asylum
Tibetans continue to seek asylum in India, preferring to face the hazards of travelling through areas controlled by Maoist insurgents in Nepal or getting arrested rather than stay in their homeland.

On Saturday, the Nepalese security personnel arrested yet another group of Tibetan asylum seekers trying to reach Dharamshala in India, the seat of their exiled leader Dalai Lama.

The 34 people, including six women and six children, had crossed into Nepal from Humla district in the country's remote northwest and travelled down southwards through areas controlled by the Maoist insurgents.

They were caught near Accham district in far-west Nepal, a Maoist stronghold, and arrested for not possessing travel documents.

They are expected to be brought to Kathmandu and handed over to the UN High Commission for Refugees that facilitates the asylum seekers' entry into India.

However, there have been earlier incidents when the Nepalese government handed over the illegal entrants to China, sparking an international furore.

With the arrival of the new group, the number of Tibetans who have escaped to India this year crosses 1,000, according to the Tibetan Welfare Centre in Kathmandu. Last year, the number was close to 2,000.

If they are not sent back to China, the Tibetans in Nepal face the possibility of being jailed for violating immigration rules.

To be released, they need to pay a fine as well as visa fee, which is often beyond their means.

Though the UNHCR tries to raise the money, sometimes it is unable to do so immediately if it is a large group. At present, at least one Tibetan is in prison, waiting to raise the money for his release.

China refuses to acknowledge fleeing Tibetans as asylum seekers or refugees, calling them illegal immigrants.


http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destination...ckpackers_x.htm
QUOTEMountains and monasteries of India's 'Little Tibet' attract trekkers and seekers
By Elizabeth Dalziel, Associated Press
LEH, India â They are trekkers and seekers, backpackers and Buddhist followers, and they come here for both spiritual sustenance and for rugged hikes amid ancient monasteries and snowcapped mountains.
This northern region of India known as Ladakh is a cold desert plateau, a western extension of the Tibetan Plateau in the great Himalayas, on the frontier with China. Local residents include Tibetan refugees who crossed into the Indian Himalayas through what is known as "the roof of the world" and settled into an area now known as Little Tibet.


old piece, but still heart warming

http://www.tibet.ca/en/wtnarchive/2000/10/2_1.html

QUOTE1. For Tibetans, India matters more than West

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maneesh Pandey
The Times of India, Sunday 1 October 2000

NEW DELHI: Contrary to the idea that Tibetan diaspora survives on dole from
the West, it's India's invaluable support since 1959 - by way of aid and
administrative policies - that has sustained it, says Tsewang C Tethong,
Minister for Information and International Affairs in Central Tibetan
Administration.

"India's role on Tibetan issue holds no parallel," says Tsewang, who has
been a witness to it.

Tsewang had his schooling in Darjeeling and was about to start medical
studiesin Calcutta, when the mass infux of Tibetans into India started. This
altered his life. Instead of becoming a physician, he became a volunteer
tending to over 1,000 refugees in the first Tibetan camp at Missamiri Day
School, Assam.

"India's generosity starts here," says Tsewang. The camp, started by
Government of India,
sheltered 7,000 Tibetans later. In the beginning, they faced many hardships.
More than 90 per cent were unskilled, uneducated and unfamiliar with Indian
languages. They worked on the road camps in India - in Himachal and
north-eastern states, Tsewang recalls.

The death rate was high. The Tibetans were not used to the tropical heat in
India and TB was
rampant in the camp. "We were losing five to six people every day," he said.
But then, aid started pouring in from Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and
West Bengal. More came from elsewhere. "And that `acclimatised' us fully,"
he laughs.

"For the homeless, nothing is more precious than shelter, which India
provided. It meant much more than money or consolatory advises," Tsewang
says. "Today, the generosity of the West towards Tibetans is much talked
about. But compare the data: Of the 1.5 lakh Tibetan refugees scattered
worldwide, 1.3 lakh are settled in India, and just over 13,000 are living in
the West."

Tibet can't repay its debt to India. "It was India which helped us fulfil
Dalai Lama's twin wish to resettle the refugees and pursue their education
in exile. From their first agricultural settlement in Bylakuppe, near Mysore
in 1960, Tibetans today have over 35 settlements in India," says Tsewang.

About education in exile, he says, over 80 Central Tibetan Schools run by
the Indian government have made it possible for 85 to 90 per cent Tibetans
children to enroll. "Economically and socially too, we're stable.
Agriculture, agro-industries, carpet weaving and exports have become the
mainstay of our 70 per cent exile population in India," says the minister.

And even the future of Tibet depends on India, he points out. He reiterates
Dalai Lama's point that better Sino-Indian ties would heavily influence the
Tibetan cause. He urged India to take the lead in advancing the Tibetan
cause, raise it in bilateral meetings and work for a negotiable settlement.


tibetans show their gratitude in helping us in times of need

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=9402&t=1&c=1

QUOTEIndia Thank American Tibetans for Tsunami Help
Office of Tibet, New York[Saturday, March 26, 2005 08:05]
NEW YORK, March 25 - In a letter addressed to Representative Nawang Rabgyal of the Office of Tibet, the Indian Consul General in New York thanked the Tibetans in North America for their "very generous donation" to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund".

Representative Rabgyal presented a check for US$ 22,132 to the Consulate two weeks ago, following this today with another check for $2,000 from the Tibetan Community of New York and New Jersey.

While presenting the first check, Rabgyal reaffirmed the Tibetan people's solidarity with India in her time of difficulty and requested the Consulate General to "accept this small amount as a token of North American Tibetan community and our friends' gratitude to the government and people of India."

"Wherever we are, the Tibetan people will never forget the kindness and generosity of your country to our leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and to our people over the past so many years," Rabgyal said.

"Our hearts would always beat for the people of India, just as our prayers are always with you."

Rabgyal hoped for a time "when India's wisdom of tolerance and non-violence will shine throughout the world to dispel the darkness of hatred and violent strife plaguing so much of humanity today."

Speaking about the Tibetans in North America, Rabgyal said he was deeply moved by the community's selfless motivation and cooperation "in our efforts to raise funds for the Tsunami victims of India."

In 2001 also, the Tibetans responded wholeheartedly to our call for donations for the victims of Gujarat earthquake.

"At that time, we were able to raise US$23,000," Rabgyal said.



<img src='http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/budhist/71096.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Tibetan Buddhist Women Dancing in Dharmasala

the original story of his holiness the dalai lama escaping from chinese invasion of tibet

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/s...000/2788343.stm
QUOTE1959: Dalai Lama escapes to India
The spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, has crossed the border into India after an epic 15-day journey on foot from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, over the Himalayan mountains.
There had been no news of his safety or whereabouts since he left Lhasa on 17 March with an entourage of 20 men, including six Cabinet ministers.

Many thought he had been killed in the fierce Chinese crackdown that followed the Tibetan uprising earlier this month.

Travelling at night

The Dalai Lama had to cross the 500-yard wide Brahmaputra river, and endure the harsh climate and extreme heights of the Himalayas, travelling at night to avoid the Chinese sentry guards.

He finally crossed the Indian border at the Khenzimana Pass, and is now resting at the Towang Monastery, 50 miles inside the Indian border.

It is not known whether the Indian Government will offer him asylum. The government of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has been heavily criticised internationally for failing to condemn the Chinese crackdown.Â <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='unsure.gif' />Â ( my comments: WTF is BBC talking about? if it was about the self-determination of tibetans, WTF did the UK/west do about the kashmir invasion by pak?)

Dusk-to-dawn curfew

The Chinese repression of the rebellion in Lhasa is now complete. A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed, and a military commission is now ruling the city.

It is estimated that 2,000 people died during the three days of fighting between the Tibetans and the Chinese army.

In the worst single incident, four days ago, the Chinese army fired about 800 artillery shells into the Dalai Lama's Summer Palace, razing the ancient building to the ground. 

The area contained over 300 houses, and thousands of civilians died and were injured in the inferno.

Mass deportations

The tragedy marked the end of the uprising in Lhasa. All fighting-age men who had survived the revolt were deported, and those fleeing the scene reported that Chinese troops burned corpses in the city for 12 hours.

A day later, China announced in an order signed by leader Chou En-lai that a large-scale rebellion had been crushed in Lhasa, although it said the revolt was still continuing outside the capital.

It announced that the Tibetan governing body had been dissolved under martial law, and said the Dalai Lama had been replaced by the Panchen Lama, his pro-Chinese rival, as the nominal head of a committee to set up a Tibetan Autonomous Region within the Chinese People's Republic.

In Context
The Dalai Lama was offered asylum in India and settled in Dharamsala, in northern India.
He was followed into exile by about 80,000 Tibetans, most of whom settled in the same area, which has become known as "Little Lhasa" and is home to the Tibetan government-in-exile.



80,000 !!

i never knew that so many where in exile. it is so sad to think how their children are now growing up and knowing about their homeland only thru stories from their parents.

i hope we r tolerant to them as we always have and facilitate in absorbing them as our own and offer them solace. i have been to a tibetan fair in bihar where they sold blankets and sweaters..i was struck by their honesty. never had to haggle since their prices where very fair .

the dalai lama then
<img src='http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40927000/jpg/_40927521_dalailamaap238.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

and now

<img src='http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1345000/images/_1347735_apdalai_hands300.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

kaushal,

i have read some pieces, mostly from iranian sources, which say that the pallava dynasty is descended from the pahlavi dynasty of erstwhile persian empire...something like a lineage which moved east and established in a small way and gradually grew into the magnificient pallava empire.

how much truth is there in that?

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-18-2005

My father side migrated from place near Mansarovar, Tibet. We believe migrated sometime in 17th century, initially settled in Kashmir and later migrated to Punjab. We were always been Hindu. We are completely assimilated to local culture. I can say within 3 generation marrying to local familiesâand by absorbing local tradition completed transition.
Some part of family migrated to Afghanistan, Iran and POK during same period and they are converted Muslims now.

I donât see any ancestral culture or ritual of Mansoravr/Tibet in our home. What I think mothers always have influence in culture and tradition in family, so in our case it worked very well, or sadly we lost our old tradition/culture completely.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-19-2005

agasthiyan, the erstwhile Pahlavi dynasty was a very shortlived one started by the grandfather of the current (but deposed) shah. He was an adventurer/soldier , essentially an usurperwo occupied the throne and struck some lucrative deals with oil companies, especially the anglo-iranain oil company. If anybody is descended from anybody it would be the pahlavis who were descended fromt he pallavas !

It is possible however that there is a common etymology between the 2 words.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-20-2005

Mudy, thanks for the info. is there any remaining members of ur community in manasarovar area? what was the reason for the migration..am just curious..u don't have to answer.

kaushal,

see here

http://www.objectsspace.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Kambojas
QUOTEOne school of scholars including Dr V. A. Smith, Dr Joveau Dubreuil, Dr V. Venkayya, Dr B. L. Rice, G. Coedes etc is convinced that the Pallava rulers of Kanchi/Southern India were a section from the Iranian Pahlavas (cf: G. Coedes, The Indianised States of South-East Asia, 1967, p 47. See also references quoted by Coedes in the index). The Pahlavas were a tribe closely allied to the Kambojas. Thus, some adventurous families from both Pahlavas and the Kambojas who are attested as having settled in south-west India in post-Christian era (Ref Brahatasmhita of Varahamihira (14/17) may indeed have founded the Pallava dynasty of Kanchi and the Kambuja dynasty of Cambodia respectively.


i have seen some more references, mainly from iranian sources.

the pallava dynasty does have very vague origins, unlike the chola (both the early and the latter lines) or the pandyas and the cheras. even Kalki's book on the pallavas - Sivagamiyin sabatham - has only speculations on the origins ...not sure..have to read the book again.

anyways, the origins of the dynasty notwithstanding, the dynasty itself was a great one which in its glory had the whole of south india under its flag.

do u have any info on the so-called "white huns" / scythians ? are they one and the same? are there any communities living in india which have direct lineage to them?

thanks in advance.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-20-2005

agasthiyan, i need to do moe research on the Pallavas before i answer further. Here is aninterestinigarticle on numismatics (does not answer your question though)

http://72.1911encyclopedia.org/N/NU/NUMISMATICS.htm

The white huns or ephthalite huns were a particularly nasty lot and inflicted much destruction on North india at about the time of the Gupta empire.They were present in India only for about 40 years but left their imprint and paved the way for further conquests by later marauders. We have discussed these Huns somewhere in the forum to some extent. They were a branch of the Huns who finally invaded europe (Attila the HUN) and caused much devastation there also. I dont believe they are the same as the Scythians

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-20-2005

QUOTEMudy, thanks for the info. is there any remaining members of ur community in manasarovar area? what was the reason for the migration..am just curious..u don't have to answer.
Buddhist aggression according to some info. I tried to get information from Dalai Lama's records/Library. Till date zero response from Dharamsala as expected. <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />
Chinese govt. have rejected my visa application once, its diffcult to get any info anyway.

QUOTEi hope we r tolerant to them as we always have and facilitate in absorbing them as our own and offer them solace. i have been to a tibetan fair in bihar where they sold blankets and sweaters..i was struck by their honesty. never had to haggle since their prices where very fair .
Yes, India government provides free education to them, after getting education majority of them migrate to Canada, US or Europe.

Stuff they sell on streets are donated clothes(free), which they receive from all over world, majority of them are used clothes from different Churches, blankets and sweaters made in Ludhiana under different Help programme (UN etc) , which they sell on street or Jnapath market in Delhi.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-23-2005

kaushal garu,

QUOTEWe have discussed these Huns somewhere in the forum to some extent.

pl point me to them. i couldn't find it.

also, what is the deal with the syrian christians and the story of st. thomas?

was he a real person and did he indeed land in kerala or is it a myth?

here's some info on the syrian christians. apparently there were two major migrations.

http://www.indianmirror.com/religions/reli6.html

QUOTEChristianity came to India early, several centuries before it reached Europe. Today's Syrian Christians in Kerala claim to have been converted by St. Thomas and thus to follow the earliest traditions of the Apostolic Church in India. The saint is believed to have landed at Kodungallur in 52 AD and converted a few Namboodiri or Brahmin families there. As St. Thomas came from Syria, they are known as Syrian Christians. Today they are the aristocrats of Kerala. Their faith was consolidated in the 4th century when Christians from Baghdad, Jerusalem and Nineveh arrived with the merchant, Thomas of Cana.



and this interesting piece
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/oct/22ker.htm
Syrian Christians may face 'Parsi syndrome': study

this is a good site on the syrian christians

http://www.malankarachurch.org/malankara/M...karaChurch2.htm
QUOTEIntroduction

Kerala (Indian) tradition is that Apostle St. Thomas established Christianity in Malankara in AD 52; it got organized and prospered with the arrival a group of Syrian Christians (Knanaites) from Urhoy (Edessa) in AD 345.Â The leadership of these Antiochean missionaries gave the local Christian community a new life,Â the Church in Malankara (Kerala) thereon adopted the rites & liturgies of the Syrian Church of Antioch and became a part of that ancient Patriarchal See.Â Thus the early Christian converts (St.Thomas Christians) along with the new Christian settlers (Knanaites), came to be called 'the Syrian Christians'.Â The Church in Malankara continued to be under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Antioch, and his subordinate in the East, the Catholicos/Maphriyono, till the arrival of Nestorian bishops in 1490.Â Later with the coming of Portuguese in the 16th century, the Syrian Christians of Malankara came under the influence of Latin Catholics, but when they tried to forcibly introduce their teachings, the Malankara Syrian Christians revolted and finally re-organized once again under the guidance of the delegate of the Holy See of Antioch, thereby retaining the true Apostolic faith.Â In the 19th century, another split occurred in the Church when a group sided with the rich and influential European missionaries.Â Again in the early 20th century, another group defied the Holy Church to form an independent faction claiming to be of nationalistic structure, after much harassment.Â Even in the midst of such great trials and tribulations, by God's grace the ancient Syrian Orthodox Church, which in India (Malankara) also referred to as the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, continues to exist in this part of the world with its distinct identity, ardently practicing the true Apostolic faith taught by its Holy fathers.

In this page the history of the Malankara Church from its beginning is reproduced; the brief history is complied from the articles written by the famous historian and Syriac Scholar Very Rev. (Dr.) Kurien Corepiscopo Kaniamparambil, Mr. E M Philip Edavazhikkal (author of 'Indian Church History', 1906),Â Dn. P T Geevarghese (later Mar Ivanios of Syro-Malankara Church - author of 'Were Syrian Christians Nestorians'), Very.Rev.(Dr) Adai Jacob Corepiscopo' (the principal of Syrian Orthodox Theological Seminary at Udayagiri), Dr. D Babu Paul (Book-'Veni Vidi Vici'), and late Prof. Pankkal E John and late K P John ('Way to Peace').Â A more detailed history is expected to be published soon.

I.Â Establishment of Christianity in India

Like all the Christians sects of Kerala, the Syrian Orthodox Church too firmly believes that St. Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, had founded the Church in India.Â There exists a strong tradition in Malankara about the arrival of St. Thomas, his mission, death, burial and about the relics of his mortal body.Â No other country or people make such claim about St. Thomas.Â The widely accepted belief is that St. Thomas visited various places and baptized many Jews and Hindus and thus began the process of establishing the Church.Â Middle East countries and Kerala had trade relations during the early centuries and and all the evidences, acknowledged by all the historians points to the fact that the Jewish settlers existed in Cragnanore even before the Christian era.Â So it is very clear that there was a sea route to Kerala coast in those days and St. Thomas traveled to Cragnanore through this.

There is a general presumption that St. Thomas, a Jew himself by birth, may have visited India in search of Jews settled here.Â As mentioned earlier, there was a flourishing colony of Jews in Muziris (Cragnanore, Kerala).Â These Jews are said to have arrived with King Solomon's first fleet.Â Â

Anyhow as a result of the Apostle's mission, many natives other than the Jews, also accepted Christianity.Â Most of the local converts were said to be from higher castes and this helped St. Thomas to preach the Holy Gospel without much opposition in a later stage.Â The high caste Brahmin families that adorned Christianity were mainly from Pakalomattom, Shankarapuri, Kalli and Kaliangala families and members from them were ordained as priests or chieftains for the community.Â In Kerala, St. Thomas is believed to have founded Christian congregations (churches), at Maliankara, Paloor, Kottaikkavu (North Paravur), Chayal (Nilakkal), Niranam, Kollam and Gokamangalam and celebrated Holy Qurbono.Â He later went to China to spread Holy Gospel and returned to India and during his mission here, he was killed by fanatics, and was buried at Mylapore, in the state of Tamil Nadu (Madras), South India.Â In the 4th century the Syrian Christian missionaries who came to India transferred the relics of their ApostleÂ to Edessa and was installed at the St. Thomas church at Urhoy (modern Edessa/Urfa in SE Turkey).

Christianity in Kerala in the first 3 centuries

Both the Jewish as well as the local converts were in the beginning mentioned as St.Thomas Christians or 'Nazaranis' (being followers of Jesus who was a native of Nazareth).Â One of the earliest references to Christianity in India mentions the visit of Alexandriaâs leading Theologian, PANTENUS to the Indian Christians at their invitation in AD 190.Â However this visit is contradicted by Eusebius, a 3rd century Christian Historian, who says Pantenus visited the Arabian regions, which were part of greater India (India Magnum). Any how the general belief is that the Christians existed in Kerala from the second half of the 1st century itself and it was St.Thomas the Apostle who established the Christian faith in India.

In the course of time the infant Church established by St.Thomas is supposed to have been weakened.Â Â The community had to pass through many difficulties primarily because of the lack of ecclesiastical assistance from the mother Church.Â Â During the 1st, 2nd and 3rd centuries, there were no priests here and the Christian population had been like a fold without a Shepherd.Â There had been none to succeed for those who were appointed by St.Thomas.Â

World Christianity upto 4th century
The Christianity that was gaining considerable influence in the 1st three centuries among the Jews and others in the middle east, had to face the continuous wrath of Romans, probably out of fear of it loosing the powers to control the whole Empire.Â The Roman Officials persecuted many of the Christian fathers.Â Â This continued for about three centuries.Â Â By the beginning of the 4th century, with the conversion of the then Roman Emperor 'Constantine', Christianity becomes the official religion of the Empire.

In AD 325 on the request of the Church fathers, the Emperor convened a Synod of the entire Christian community at âNiceaâ and a general norm for the administration of the whole of Christianity was formulated.Â Accordingly, the entire Christian Community all over the world formed as three distinct groups and each group came under the authority of the three Patriarchates then in existence, namely Rome, Alexandria and Antioch.Â (Constantinople Patriarchate was established only in AD 381, as per the decision of the 2nd Universal Holy Synod convened by the Empire).Â As per the decision of the Synod, the Eastern hemisphere, which included Indian Sub-continent, continued to be under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Antioch.Â

A Persian bishop by name Yohannan is said to have represented India in that Synod, the veracity of which is evident from his signature in the Nicea Synod.Â But some believe that the India mentioned here was actually Greater India that extended up to the boundaries of the present North India and Malankara (Kerala) was not part of it, and none represented Kerala Christians, as the Christianity then existed here was very weak and not known to many.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Bharatvarsh - 04-23-2005

The whole St.Thomas theory is a fabrication of Syrian Christians, they were immigrants and were treated hospitably by Hindus. To read more into this subject, go to the following link:

www.hamsa.org

As for Syrian Christians going extinct as Parsis seem to be headed, it's good, the sooner they vanish the better it is for Hindus.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-28-2005

Such nonsense is not tolerated on this forum. Any further posts of this kind will be deleted without warning and the postor will be put under probation. Members kindly do not respond to this postor if continues this way. -Moderator :

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 04-28-2005

QUOTEHere's Ishwaran Sharan interviewed by Rajeev Sreenivasan:

The Swami Devananda Saraswati Interview with Rajeev Srinivasan Swami Devananda (Ishwar Sharan) interview, August 26, 2001

 1. Can you tell me a little about your background? How long have you been in India? What prompted you to become a monk?

I was brought up in the foothills of western Canada. My family was middle class and God-fearing and I was fed from birth on the strong meat of the Old. Testament prophets. But in my early teens it was discovered that I did not love Jesus and was not afraid of Jehovah. I was excommunicated from my fatherâs small Protestant church. It was a very liberating experience and I left home soon afterward.Â I began to read Buddhism and existential philosophy. Perhaps as a legacy of my early years, I retained an avid interest in Christian history. I read Gore Vidalâs book Julian about the last pagan emperor of Rome. Julian became my hero along with Alexander the Great. Julian was the great ascetic and Alexander the great king and traveler. I followed in Alexanderâs footsteps, visiting as nearly as possible every place that he bad visited.

I reached India in 1967 and immediately fell in love with Hindu civilization. It is the best civilization of the Great Mother Goddess. She is called Asherah in the Bible and the prophets are always cursing Her. As a small child I had seen Her once in a garden, and later I had read about Her in the Golden Bough. She has always cared for me, and like the great guru Shankara I believe that She is the liberator of man and the revealer of truth. I became a sannyasi because of Her. It is a sacrifice of love that I am still trying to perfect.

2. What was your objective in writing The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple? You are quite critical of the Christian establishment and their fellow travelers in the Indian media.

Most historians will tell you that St. Peter never went to Rome and did not establish a Christian church there. Yet the very authority of the papacy rests on this fiction and most educated people accept their claim. I was interested in the Indian parallel, in seeing what the historians had to say about the coming of St. Thomas to India and his establishing a church in Kerala. I soon discovered that the most reputed historians of Christianity including Eusebius, von Harnack, de Tillemont, Latourette, Winternitz and. Bishop Stephen Neill, all denied the coming of St. Thomas to India. Some denied his very existence.

In writing The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple (which I did under the âsecularâ pen name Ishwar Sharan), I also wanted to show that there was a carefully orchestrated cover-up in the Indian English-language media regarding the St. Thomas story.

Indeed, even after two editions of the book, The Indian Express and The New Indian Express remain the main purveyors of the fable through editorials and their columnists A.J. Philip and Renuka Narayanan. Little leftist magazines like The Indian Review of Books, edited by the St. Thomas advocate S. Muthiah, also put in a good word for St. Thomas when the opportunity arises. This is their unprofessional response to the exposure of a fraud that does not serve their financial interests.

Yet in writing the book and giving the source material for the legend, the 3rd century Syrian religious romance called the Acts of Thomas, my sincere hope was that Indian scholars would take up the study of the legend seriously. But this has not happened. Indian historians with their Marxist bent of mind are not willing to touch it. They are afraid for their tenures and their politically correct professional reputations. For the English-language newspaper editors, all of them brown sahibs with brown noses, the St. Thomas fable is a useful stick to bash Hindus with when the occasion arises, as the story is a vicious blood libel against the Hindu community.

3. You allege that there is, in effect, a conspiracy of silence to hide a lot of uncomfortable facts about Christianity in India. Why?

The establishment of the Christian church in India was intrinsically part of the European colonial enterprise. Its history is shocking for its violence and duplicity. Read the letters of St. Francis Xavier or the diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai.

The Indian church today is not so much different from the original 17th century church. It is very wealthy and corrupt and politically ambitious. But it has learned the propaganda value of social service and is making a great effort to disassociate itself from its colonial origins. This involves a lot of deceit, of course, and a massive cover-up of past deeds. But as the late Archbishop Arulappa of Madras would say, the end justifies the ÂmeansÂ - even if that is not exactly what Jesus taught. The Christian church uses the St. Thomas legend to claim a 1st century origin for Christianity in India.

It also claims St. Thomas to be a martyr at the hands of a wicked Hindu priest and king. Better still, Christianity becomes the âoriginalâ Indian religion, as it would be older than many of the sectarian Hindu cults practiced in the country today. The whole idea is a gross perversion of truth and a grave injustice to the Hindu community that has offered refuge to persecuted Christian refugees down through the ages. It is Hindus who have been martyred by these same Christian refugees starting in the 8th and 9th centuries when Syrian and Persian immigrants in Malabar destroyed temples to build their St. Thomas churches. It is Hindus who were martyred in Goa by Catholic inquisitors and in Madras by Jesuit, Franciscan, and Dominican priests who operated under the protection of the Portuguese. And it is Hindus who are martyred today by the Christian churches and the secular press who support them, including the BBC - all of whom have mounted a base campaign of vilification and calumny against Hindu religion and
society.

4. You make the startling revelation that the fondly believed story of St. Thomas, an apostle of Christ, coming to India and establishÂing an Indian church, is a convenient fiction. What was the original rationale for this story? Who propagated it? What has been the consequence?

The original rationale for the St. Thomas story was to give the first 4th century Christian immigrants in Malabar a local patron saint. The story also gave them caste status that was important in integrating them into Hindu society. There is nothing unusual in a refugee community creating this kind of mythology of identity and it is part of the process of getting established in a new land.

The St. Thomas legend, which they brought with them from Syria, was easy enough to adapt to India. St. Thomas was already the patron saint of âIndiaâ, âIndiaâ being not the subcontinent that we know but a synonym for Asia and all those lands that lay east of the Roman Empireâs borders. âIndiaâ even included Egypt and Ethiopia in some geographies, and China and Japan in others.

The Syrian Christian refugees had been led to India by a merchant who is known to history as Thomas of Cana, i.e. Canaan, but is also known as Thomas of Jerusalem. Over time it was natural enough for the Syrian Christian community to identify their 1st century patron saint Thomas the Apostle with their 4th century leader Thomas of Cana. As a result of this process it is now mistakenly accepted by most educated Indians that St. Thomas came to India in 52 CE and establisheda Christian church at Cranganore in Kerala.

5. The great Kapaleeswar Temple in Mylapore, Madras, was demolished, according to you, and that is where the San Thome Cathedral now stands. This is news to many people who believe temple demolition was largely a Muslim act.

The evidence for the demolition of the original Kapaleeswar Temple is according to a variety of sources including government records and archaeological reports. There is the presence of temple rubble in the San Thome Cathedral walls and in the grounds of Bishopâs House (removed since my bookâs publication). The news of the demolition of the original temple was not news to anybody of a past generation and was discussed in the Madras newspapers during British times. The origins of the present Kapaleeswar Temple are recorded and directly reflect and confirm the destruction of the original temple.Â It is true that Hindus do not associate temple breaking with Christians. That is due to the success of the historical cover-up of which the ASI and the state archaeological departments are partly responsible. But we in the West know better about Christian history and have access to a vast stock of published material that is not usually available in India. We know that every great pagan temple in Europe and the Mediterranean basin was destroyed and replaced with a church after Christianity gained political ascendancy in the Roman Empire. We also know that it is not any different in India today where Christian missionaries hold sway in remote tribal areas) because we have seen the evidence.

In Central India, Orissa, the Northeast, even Arunachal Pradesh and Nepal where missionaries cannot officially operate, village temples are demolished and sacred images broken by new converts. The video films of these âgood worksâ are then shown on TV in Europe where missionaries go to collect funds for theirevangelizing effort.

Temple breaking in India seems to have originated in the 8th or 9th century with Nestorian Christian immigrants from Persia. They built churches on the temple foundations and then attributed the temple breaking to St. Thomas himself by claiming he built the churches in the 1st century. Franciscan, Dominican, and Jesuit priests destroyed temples in Goa, Malabar, and Tamil Nadu in the 16th century. St. Francis Xavier left a fascinating written record of his temple-breaking work on the Coromandal Coast. The Portuguese entombed the Vel Ilang Kanni Amman Temple near Nagapattinam and turned it into the famous Velankanni church called Our Lady of Health Basilica. The Jesuits destroyed the Vedapuri Iswaran Temple in Pondicherry and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception now sits on the site. The list is very long. Christians were destroying temples long before the Muslims got into the act.

6. I have heard some Christians say that they believe that the Bhakti movement in Tamil lands was influenced by Christian ideas of a personal god. How do you respond?

Christian missionaries and Marxist intellectuals have a mantra: There is nothing Hindu in Hindustan and nothing Indian in India. According to them everything of value in Indian civilization came from outside, from someplace beyond the pale of Sindh. They are aware of the Hinduâs low self-esteem and seek to undermine it further.

Be that as it may. Devotion to a personal god is there in the Rig Veda itself: âOh, Agni, be easy of access to us, as a father to a son.â Dr. Pandharinath Prabhu tells us in his much-acclaimed book Hindu Social Organisation that the very term bhakti first appears in the Svetasvataropanishad. Bhakti is there in the Puranas and finds its best expression in the Bhagavad Gita; a better expression, I must say, than is found anywhere in the Bible. Tamil bhakti has its roots in the Tirumantiram, ca. 200 BCE.Â So there is no influence from Christianity at all. But even if it was true that Christianity influenced Hindu concepts of a personal god, what do Christians gain by making such a claim? Hindu bhaktas direct their love and devotion to Shiva and Murugan, Vishnu, Krishna and Rama, not to Jesus. Jesus has failed in India! And failed and failed and failed again in India!


7. There appears to be an effort on the part of certain Christian groups to âindianizeâ the church: for instance, they have created a cult of the Infant Jesus to compete with the worship of the Baby Krishna, and a cult of the Madonna to compete with the worship of the Mother Goddess. Is this a genuine effort at cultural synthesis?

The Pope has made it absolutely clear in the Vatican document called Dominus Jesus that enculturation and indigenization are the means by which the Indian heathen is to be evangelized. Enculturation is not an effort at cultural synthesis but a means of conversion. Its object is to undermine the integrity of Hindu religion and culture and subsume it into Christianity. It is a tried and true method. It is by this method that Christian missionÂaries starting with St. Paul undermined Greek and Roman religion and culture and. took it over for themselves.

Christianity is a simple personality cult with an elitist ideology. It can be insinuated into any open society. It is parasitical in nature and feeds on the spiritual and cultural body of the society it invades. In the process it destroys the invaded culture and absorbs it into itself. This is what happened in Pagan Europe.

Hindus do not understand this process because Hinduism is spiritually self-sufficient and does not require outside nourishÂment. At the same time Hindus are flattered by the attention given to their religion and culture by Christian operators and are vulnerable to their overtures. See my dialogue with Fr. Bede Giffiths in Sita Ram Goelâs book Catholic Ashrams concerning this important subject.

8. Some Christians have written to me quoting various Sanskrit texts to âproveâ that they foreshadow the arrival of Jesus Christ. What do you think of this?

Prophecy is the last refuge of the religious scoundrel and unfortunately the Indian missionary community is made up entirely of scoundrels. They can find and foreshadow whatever they like in scripture (be it Hindu, Muslim or Christian) because of scriptureâs

obscure language and context and the poetâs use of allegory and metaphor. For example, Bible scholars know that the Old Testament âprophesiesâ concerning Jesusâ birth are forced contrivances of interpretation and editing used to give Jesus divine legitimacy and.

royal linage. They know that these prophecies are false but because they appeal to the believerâs imagination and reason and help inculcate faith in Jesus, they continue to be quoted as divinely inspired and true.

In India a favorite method of foreshadowing from Vedic texts is closely related to the enculturation process. Christian preachers simply appropriate the meaning of Sanskrit terms and claim them for Jesus. They argue in a round about way that terms like Isa, Ishwara and Parameswara only ever referred to Jesus in the first place! I have got letters from Baptist converts who claim that Prajapati is really Jehovah! If Christian missionaries want to find Jesus in the Veda and Christ in India they can do so with the help of clever and amoral scholars like Fr. Raimundo Panikker. He and they should carefully consider that these âinspiredâ claims, and, indeed, the inducement to convert by means of these claims is a sin against the Holy Spirit. According to their own doctrine, there is no forgiveness for a sin against the Holy Spirit. But the real problem is not that Christian religious entrepreneurs invent prophecies and manipulate the meanÂing of Sanskrit texts, the real problem is that Hindus accept their claims at face value and do not know how to reply.

People who follow prophets invariably become idolaters of The Word. They believe that the prophetâs word is divine word, that a manâs word is Godâs word. It is the worst kind of idolatry and leads to the religious fundamentalism and violence that we are witness to today throughout the world.


9. If you criticize Christians in any way, their immediate response is. âWe are a tiny minority of two per cent of Indiaâs population, and see how much social work we are doing.â How do you respond to this?

The question of numbers of population, which for Christians is something like three per cent, is very misleading. Not long ago Indiaâs millions were ruled by a cadre of 30,000 Christian foreigners. It is not a question of numbers but of institutional wealth and influÂence, of organization, political ambition and high ideological motivation, and, especially, of undue control of institutions like education and health care that counts. And then there are the special constitutional privileges for minorities that make Hindus second-class citizens in their own land, andÂ the uncritical sympathy for all things Christian in the English-language press.

It is an absurd situation. No country in the world allows a minority community to dictate to the majority the way India does, or to allow a foreign-trained minority community to proselytize in a society that has never proselytized and cannot protect itself against the psychoÂlogical and emotional assault and material inducements that go with proselytisation. No country in the world would allow virtually unchecked the foreign money and expertise that flows into the Indian churches, much of it under the guise of social aid, when the bigoted leaders of these churches have declared over and over again that they intend the religious and spiritual annihilation of the Hindu community.

10. There is a shadowy group called Opus Dei that is supposed to be doing significant theoretical work to help spread Christianity around the world. I believe the well-known Indian-Spanish Jesuit priest Raimundo Panikker is associated with them. What do you know about them?

Opus Dei is everywhere but nobody really knows anything about them except their Vatican banker and the Pope who is their special advocate and patron. They are an authoritarian secret society with members in such places as the CIA and MI5. I am inclined to doubt that they would employ a theologian like Fr. Raimundo Panikker because he is a married priest and they are advocates of strict church discipline. Their fronts in India (and other developing countries) are scholars associations, history conferences, Hindu-Christian dialogue seminars, certain NGOs and aid agencies (all missionary outfits use NGOs and aid agencies as cover for their proselytizing activities), some Western embassies and the English-language media.

Opus Dei is especially interested in creating favorable public opinion for the Catholic Church and has infiltrated every major English-language daily. Read the op-ed page and letters column in any big city newspaper and you will probably find the handwork of Opus Dei. They want to manipulate and control public opinion. They would never employ a venomous journalist like A.J. Philip but soft columnists like Renuka Narayanan are definitely on their list of honorary lady Jesuits.

11. Arun Shourie and other scholars have detailed the on-going assault on Hinduism by Christians from British times. Do you see this clash of civilizations abating any time soon?

The clash of civilizations will continue, indeed, will become more pronounced, unless Christianity and Islam give up their religious bigotry and worid-conquering ambitions. This is very unlikely as bigotry and religious imperialism are inherent within their belief systems. These systems have to be reformed, but canÂnot be reformed because their adherents believe that they are the work of Gods of divine revelation.

As the systems cannot be changed, the adherents of the systems have to be weaned away from them. This has happened in Europe and, to a lesser extent in America where ChristÂianity has been abandoned for a rational humanism and Vedantic spirituality. But it has riot happened in the Islamic and Marxist worlds of Asia and will not happen without a war.

12. In your book Koenraad Elst quotes the fact that the place where Jesus is alleged to have been crucified was âdivinedâ by Emperor Constantineâs mother in a dream. What similar stories do you find in Christian mythology in India?

In the 4th century when Christianity gained political clout in the Roman court, the Emperorâs mother Helena âdivinedâ various sites in Palestine which, she claimed, were associated with the life and death of Jesus. These sites already had old Roman temples sitting on them. Nevertheless, in Bethlehem the Church of the Nativity was built on the ruins of a demolished Adonis temple and in Jerusalem the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built over a Venus temple that had been destroyed on Constantineâs personal order. See Joan Taylorâs book Christians and the Holy Places.Â

The parallel in India is the identification of various temple sites in Kerala with St. Thomas and the building of churches on them by Christian immiÂgrants from Persia in the 9th century. Nestorian Christian missionÂaries were active on the West Coast and up into Kashmir and Ladakh in the 9th and 10th centuries, and it is they who left crosses carved on rocks and various Christian signs and symbols that later European writers of historical fiction have associated with a life of Jesus in Kashmir.

In the 16th century the Portuguese âdivinedâ various sites in Madras at Mylapore. Saidapet, and Big Mount (now known as St. Thomas Mount) that they claimed were associated with the martyrdom and burial of St. Thomas. The temples that occupied these sites, including the original Kapaleeswar Temple referred to in the hymns of Jnanasambandar and Arunagirinathar, were demolished and churches built on their ruins.

13. There is a certain school of thought that says Jesus Christ came to India and that a lot of what he taught is based on Hindu and Buddhist ideas. Comments?

The idea that Jesus came to India as a boy and studied in a Buddhist monastery or, alternatively, came to India after the crucifixion and married a princess of Kashmir, tickles the romantic imagination of Western travelers and quite a few Indiana too. The story originates in a clever piece of fiction by the Russian forger Nicholas Notovich that was published in Paris in 1894.

It cannot possibly be true, and if it is true it destroys completely the special claims made by Christian doctrine, of the sacrifice made on the cross and the resurrection, and the vicarious salvation of the Christian believer. The Buddhist monastery where Jesus is said to have studied did not exist until the 16th century, and the Srinagar tomb where he is allegedly buried is really the tomb of a Mogul ambassador to Egypt who converted to Christianity while on tour there. The key to unraveling the tale is to study the activities of the 10th century Nestorian Christian missionaries who passed through Kashmir on their way to China and left crosses on rocks and an abundance of children with biblical names in their wake.

The Hindu and Buddhist ideas found in the New Testament books, including the Sermon on the Mount, were picked up by the gospel writers in Alexandria from Indian pundits and monks who were teaching there.

But it should be remembered that the New Testament books contain ideas quite the opposite of Hindu ideas of pluralism and tolerance. For example, there is the virulent anti-Semitism and religious bigotry of the gospels. Jesus was perhaps the first religious teacher in history to threaten his critics with eternal damnation.

14. There is another school of thought that says Jesus Christ did not actually exist and that the legends about him are a collection of stories about several other leaders and teachers of the time. Comments?

It is quite true that the New Testament books as we know them today are composite works edited and rewritten a number of times after the 4th century Council of Nicea. Christian doctrine was formalized as this council and Jesus was raised from mortal prophet to immortal God by a vote of the collected bishops.

(Two bishops from Libya voted against deification and were soon murdered by their colleagues.)Â Some years after the Council, Emperor Constantine sanctioned and financed a new edition of the Bible. As there were no original documents to work from (they had been destroyed by Emperor DiocletÂian), the bishops were free to edit, revise, and rewrite the Bible according to their own tenets. (The Old Testament books are also compiled from many sources and they are not a true history of the Jewish people.)

The result of all this 4th century religious activity is that the Pauline salvation cult that we know today as Christianity came into being. It was modeled on earlier Greek salvation cults except that Jesus replaced Apollo as the saving god. The famous Sermon on the Mount that so appealed to Mahatma Gandhi, is a later literary interpolation from a Pagan source. It may even be of Indian origin.

The Jesus of the Bible is a literary creation not a real historical person, though it is probable that his character was modeled on that of a real person, say, the Teacher of Righteousness of the Essenes of the Dead Sea. The evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated 100-200 BCE, bears out the fact that there is nothing new or true in Christianity. The Catholic Church has for decades tried to suppress the evidence of the Scrolls as they virtually prove that there was no historical Jesus as depicted in the New Testament stories.

I do not think that St. Paul believed in a historical Jesus either, which is why he preached a Christ of faith rather than a Jesus of history. The term âchristâ is a Greek title not a proper name. It can be used as an appellation for any person so deserving and there were many christs in the Roman world of the 1st century CE. St. Paul is the true founder of the Christian religion. He was a Gnostic and a very forceful character who has left his imprint on all aspects of Christianity.

Does Jesus exist? Yes, indeed, he does. He exists in the romantic imagination of every Christian believer (and not a few Hindus too). He is a dark knight of the soul, an asuric being not a human being.

15. If Jesus did not really exist, how does that affect the organized church and its shibbohths?

Christianity is not going to collapse just because it has been discovered that Jesus was not torn of a virgin mother (as a recent BBC programme declares), did not die on the cross for our sins, and did not bodily rise to heaven on the third day to sit at the right hand of God. People believe what they want to believe, and, more important, what they are taught to believe as children. The Pope or any dictator will tell you in private that there are not many people in this world who are willing or able to think for themselves, and those few who do are to be eliminated (like the courageous Giordano Bruno who we burned at the stake for teaching that the universe was infinite).

It is not a question of seeking truth, as the naÃ¯ve Hindu pilgrim seems to think, but of ideological indoctrination, of repeating the shibboleths over and over again until the believer is âsavedâ. But salvation theories aside (and Marxism is also a salvation theory), there is the more important business of Big Business. The Christian churches are Big Business. They employ hundreds of thousands of people who are otherwise unemployable. They are important cultural and political institutions. The Vatican itself is Europeâs most famous circus and the Pope her best-loved clown.

More importantly, the churches, and especially the Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Baptist varieties, are important international financial institutions. They hold all, the ready capital, not only in souls but also in dollars. They are not going to disappear just because their doctrines have been proved false and their god has been found to have feet of clay.

16. There have been recent admissions from the Vatican itself about nuns being raped and sometimes murdered by missionaries and priests. Similarly, there was a startling expose in the Kansas City Star about the rate of AIDS among Catholic priests in the US being four times the national average. Does this imply that the system of celibate nuns and monks is not quite working? 

Incidentally, these reports died quiet deaths in the Indian Press whereas they regularly jump all over allegations of misconduct by Hindu sadhus and saints.

Sodomy, incest, the abuse of nuns and the molestation of children have been endemic in the Christian church from its very origins. Read the fascinating book A Testament of Christian Civilization by the famous Jesuit-ex-Jesuit historian Joseph McCabe. He was a linguist and had access to documents that are never published in Christian histories. He records the extraordinary sexual, license among ecclesiastics from the first centuries of Christianity up to the 1950s. At the various church councils where the Christian creed was formulated, the bishops would quarrel over doctrine during the day and dancing boys during the night. More shocking than the sex was the violence and cruelty that went with it, which found its high point in the Inquisition. This institution was run by Dominican monks and was an orgy of sadism and unspeakable cruelty. It was introduced into India by St. Francis Xavier, whose tomb sits on the site of Old Goaâs most important Shiva temple. In the medieval period in Europe, convents became high-class brothels and their bishops forbade priests to live with their mothers and sisters because of the moral dangers involved. The then pope introduced a rule of chastity for priests and nuns but it was never taken very seriously.

Today there are thousands of priests involved in various kinds of sexual relationships and thousands more who seek to be relieved of their vow so that they can marry. Abuse of children in church-run institutions has become rampant and recently in Canada a major Protestant church has gone bankrupt paying the lawsuits brought against it by hundreds of victims who were sexually molested in church boarding schools. All of this is not very surprising to those who have read history and know the moral rot that has always existed within the Christian church even at its highest echelons. After all, it was not very long ago that the Pope was collecting a tax from the lepers and prostitutes who operated in St. Peterâs Square. Of course, the great irony in this sad state of affairs is that in Christian doctrine sex is a sin, indeed, it is the original sin invented by woman to bring about the downfall of man. In fact it has brought about the downfall of the Christian churches.

They have tried to deny this state of moral debasement but modern human rights and instant exposure in the Western media do not allow the deceit to continue except in India. In India the churches are protected from scandal by state authorities, minority commissions and the English-language press. If the allegedly impartial editors of our national newspapers nd news magazines spent as much time at the local convent or seminary or church-run boyâs school as they do at the ashrams of Premananda and Satya Sai Baba, they would get a story much more satisfying of their prurient interests. All of these editors are sewer inspectors at heart but they will not touch a Christian sewer with a barge pole. Such is the power of the Christian church in India and the overt bias of the national English-language press.

The Christian church in India is still an 18th century colonial church financed from abroad. It has a sophisticated international support system in place (and this is especially true of the newer American evangelical churches). It is very arrogant and corrupt, a quasi-independent state that is coddled and pampered by the Indian government and media alike. It is answerable to nobody, which is reason enough for a responsible government to order a white paper investigation into its finances and activities. Calumny and more calumny is the Churchâs current weapon of choice and all of the bad press India and Hindus get in Europe and America originates in bishopâs houses, church councils and the offices of Christian NGOs in India. Their authoritativeâ and âsecularâ views are picked up by an accommodating English-language press and broadcast abroad with alacrity.

The truth of this observation can be verified by listening to Indian editors and Christian fathers reporting from Delhi and Madras to their English masters in London on the BBCâs various religious programmes and South Asia news services in the morning. It does not enter the heads of these Indian media worthies that the BBC is a neo-colonialist radio network dedicated to the promotion of Christian culture and values and British government foreign policy, and that it does not have a kind word for Hindus or Hinduism or Hindu issues even though Hindus make up a large part of its world audience.

(It may be noted that this interview was given to Rajeev Srinivasan with the understanding that it would be published in his column on the rediff.com web site. However, the editors of this website have not published it allegedly because of my criticism of their col1eagues in the English-language media. They have unwittingly proved my point about the pusillanimity and bias of Indian editors and their inability to tolerate any kind of criticism.)

17. There seems to be a large element of land-grab in the actions of Christians in India. They buy land, get it ceded by the authorities, and then grab the hillsides by painting crosses on rocks and. claiming the area as Christian.

The Christian churches are the largest landowners in India after the government. Much of this land is alienated temple land that was given to them by the British in the 19th century. They also own large amounts of prize commercial property in the cities. This fact has become a scandal among many of the Christian faithful who do not feel that their churches should be real estate agents and owners.

However, this reservation is not true of the newer, smaller American churches like Pentecostals and Evangelicals who have mounted a caste war against the Hindus and seek to provoke the Hindu community at every opportunity. They simply grab land in the towns and districts by painting crosses and Christian slogans on stones and hillsides and then claiming the property as their own.

This activity is especially evident in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In Arunachal Pradesh where proselytizing and conversion are illegal, Christians claim whole villages and put up signboards that say âNon-Christians Not Allowedâ at their entrances. These Arunachal converts originate from Mother Teresaâs institutions in Assam where they are indoctrinated and baptized and then sent back to their villages to convert the elders.

In Tamil Nadu Christian slogans appear on Hindu pilgrim routes to Tirupati and on the route around Arunachala Hill at Tiruvannamalai that pilgrims circumambulate on full moon days. I am told that Christians plan to raise a cross on the hillâs summit when the opportunity arises. I am not at all surprised. The theoretical ground for this âgood deedâ

has been laid years ago by Catholic theologians and missionaries like Fr. Raimundo Panikker and the Benedictine monk Abhishiktananda. They have already claimed the holy hill and all of India for Christ in their writings. I myself hope that the cross-raising comes soon. Perhaps then Hindu leaders and district officials will wake up to the threat that an aggressive, proselytizing Christianity poses to Hinduismâs most ancient sacred sites.

18. There are detailed war-game scenarios on the Internet by various Christian fundamentalist groups who have identified India as a soft target for conversion.

India is a soft target for the Christian missionary for a number of reasons. Firstly, Hindu society still suffers from many social ills that the missionary can exploit; secondly, Hindu society is by nature pluralistic and accommodating of all ideological views including those that would destroy it; and thirdly, Hindu society is divided against itself and its religious and political leaders have failed it totally. These leaders with few exceptions are not willing or able to challenge the ideological forces that would destroy Hindu religion and society.Â

The result is that Christianity and its younger sister Marxism have the ideological upper hand in India today. They have an unhealthy influence on government, education, publishing, the English-language media, and some vital social services. It is a shocking situation for which Hindus themselves are to blame (even if the overall situation is a legacy of British days). The very fact that Hindu intellectuals and entrepreneurs are not able to publish a national daily newspaper and present their own point of view to the world is sad proof of Sri Aurobindoâs observation that Hindus have lost the power to think.

19. There is the decline of the church, particularly the Catholic Church, in Europe and the Americas. Hence the need to find new recruits to man the barricades in the growing clash of civilizaÂtions with Muslims.

There is the need to create nuns and priests in Kerala as they provide a lot of menial labour in European convents and monasteries. Is there a pattern? Is there an element of racial exploitation as well?

As this is the last question, I would like to make a digression before replying to it. New converts to Christianity like to tell me, a white foreigner of European descent who has lived among the white Jews of Israel, that Jesus was an Asian and by extension he was therefore an Indian. I am very much amused by this rhetoric. It is so juvenile and simplistic. There is a whole world of difference between Semitic West Asia and Hindu South Asia. To begin with, one is white and the other is brown.

But were Jesus born in Asia, Africa or Antarctica (we must assume here that be bad a human birth), he is verily the white manâs god and personifies the white manâs race and values. Look at any statue or painting of him. He has red or brown hair, blue eyes, a Roman nose, and lily-white skin. If you take a peek under his Roman toga you will find that he has been circumcised (a very un-Indian custom except among Muslims who follow a West Asian religious code).

Now, it is true that Hindu sadhus had penetrated the Egyptian desert as early as the 4th century BCE and that Brahmin pundits and Buddhist monks taught at the great university of Alexandria in the first centuries BCE-CE, but their contribution was to Jesusâ philosophy not to his ethnicity and culture. Where then is the Indian Jesus? And who is fooling whom by pretending that Israelite is synonymous with Indian? St. Thomas too had a Roman nose, blue eyes, red hair, and a lily-white skin. He too was circumcised. He was Jesusâ look-alike twin brother according to the Acts of Thomas. He wore a Roman toga and lay at table to eat and drink just like a Roman aristocrat. All of these facts require some explaining by the local Indian priest if we are to accept him as our own Indian apostle. And I am talking here only about physique and culture, not about the vexatious doctrinal problem of there being TWO only sons of God, Jesus and Judas (for St. Thomas was known as Judas Didymus).

Now to your question. Indian priests and nuns are the peasant workers of the Catholic Church. They are welcome in Europe and America to clean the toilets and scrub the floors of the empty convents and seminaries, nurse the sick and dying, present the news in funny English on Vatican Radio, write lengthy dissertaÂtions on indiginizing the church in India, and get trained as native missionaries for work in the jungles and outback.

This is the pattern and it has been followed for decades. Indian priests and nuns are numerous and expendable. They are everywhere there is dirty work to be done. They are the first victims of the white manâs most elitist institution. Casteism is rampant. They seldom if ever move up the ecclesiastical ladder if there is a European available to fill the post. There are in South India only two or three Dalit bishops and one of them is an Anglican (CSI).

Everybody knows that if a black pope were ever elected (and Indians are black people according to Europeans) the Catholic Church would lose half of its membership. It cannot be otherwise in a European feudal institution whose bishops wrote the first theoretical justification for slavery in the 16th century. After all, the Bible says (1 Peter 2:18-25); âServants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward.â

I have had more than one Dalit convert tell me that the racism andÂ caste prejudice within the Christian churches is a crime against humanÂity. I have to agree. I have to say after a lifetime of study, that the advent of Christianity and its forced establishment in the Roman Empire under the wicked Emperor Constantine is one of the great disasters in the history of mankind.

India - The Real Melting Pot ! - Guest - 11-11-2005

The Last Armenians

QUOTEMIGRANTS symbolise some wonderful traits of the human race - they move out from their homes to live elsewhere; labour hard, engage in trade and make a fortune; philanthropy records them in history and with the passage of time they get scattered, leaving behind a few monuments. As far as Chennai is concerned, apart from the English, its annals are enriched by the Jews, Portuguese and the Armenians. Of them, the Jews and the Portuguese are long forgotten. A beautiful church in a street named after them, a city bridge to their credit and few other notable legacies including a present population of three are the remains of the Armenian connection of the city today.

Michael Stephen (28), the caretaker of the Armenian Church located in the Armenian street leads a serene life with his love birds and pet dogs in the church. An ailing Mr Gregory in his eighties, former caretaker of the church, and his Anglo Indian wife are the other remaining people of this ancient clan in the city.

Armenia, a land-locked nation in West Asia was the first country to make Christianity their official religion in 301 AD. The Armenians celebrate Christmas on 6th January and not on 25th December as other Christians do. Information on Armenians in India before 1500 AD. is difficult to find. However, available records trace evidence of their trading in South India in the early part of the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a flourishing colony of Armenians in Madras was well-established in local trade as well as commerce overseas