This was published today. The kind folks at the Pioneer have edited the piece a bit but it retains the message of the original that I had sent them.
Comments/criticism are welcome as usual.
Remember the Hindu Holocaust
Sandeep B
Islam’s jihad against Hindustan is a gory record of burnt temples, libraries and entire cities. Millions have been killed over the ages simply because they were Hindus
In the light of Mr Kanchan Gupta’s scathing column on the defenders of the fidayeen who attacked Mumbai (“Mumbai’s Butcher and human rightsâ€, December 17, 2008) and Ms Sandhya Jain’s warning in her article (“Dark shadow of jihad, December 23, 2008), it is worth recalling yet again that this jihad against India is neither new nor will it stop. It is also imperative to trace what this jihad has historically cost India in general and Hindus specifically.
In general, India was forcibly split into two countries. When we examine the specifics, we can with little doubt say that Islamic jihad has carried out a virtual Hindu Holocaust.
Some years ago, French journalist Francois Gautier had posed the same question (“Where’s India’s holocaust museum?â€, October 21, 2003). Mr Gautier asserted that based on available historical evidence, it is sufficient to conclude that a Hindu Holocaust has occurred.
The Holocaust evokes horrific images and is associated typically with a specific event. As we shall see, we can safely apply it to the Islamic conquest of Hindu India.
The Oxford English Dictionary first used the word to describe Hitler’s treatment of Jews in as early as 1942. With time the term has come to be equated with the Nazi genocide of Jews in conventional parlance. The Holocaust elicits horror mostly due to these important reasons:
- Colossal scale of killings
- Its short time span
- Assembly-line like method
- Ideology that motivated it
The Holocaust is a fairly recent event, and thanks to the efforts of the Jews, its memory has been kept alive. A few generations in future, it will at most evoke pity sans the intensity of experience. The chill of experiencing horror first hand doesn’t have the same shock value 100 years later.
Barring the sheer numbers of Jews exterminated in a specific historical period, the other defining features of the Holocaust apply equally to the Hindu genocide. Indeed, ‘holocaust’ is a rather apt term because the root meaning of holocaust is ‘burn’. Islam’s violent history in India is a bloody record of burnt idols, temples, libraries, and entire cities. There’s yet another crucial differentiator: Hindu genocide was at least three-fold. On the purely physical plane, millions of Hindus were killed because they were Hindus. On the socio-cultural plane, those who were not killed were spared because they agreed to convert to Islam, a good instance of cultural genocide. Finally, on the economic plane, those that were allowed to live as Hindus were subject to the unjust jizya, a tax system, forcing them into perpetual penury, an instance of economic genocide.
In his Growth of Muslim Population in India, Prof KS Lal estimates that the Hindu population decreased by 80 million between 1000 AD and 1525 AD, an extermination unparalleled in world history. This number is overwhelming but then the Hindu genocide, unlike the Jewish Holocaust, happened in painfully-regular installments.
‘Hindu Kush’ is a good example of one such instalment. The conquest of Afghanistan in 1000 AD saw the annihilation of its entire Hindu population. Even today, this region is known as the ‘Hindu Kush’, which literally means ‘Hindu slaughter’, named after that massacre. In 1399, Taimur killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day, and the Bahamani Sultans made it a sacred duty to kill 1,00,000 Hindus every year.
In our own times, we see the systematic murder of Hindus by Islamists in both Pakistan and Bangladesh after Partition. On our own soil, thanks to anarchic policies and abject neglect, an estimated 4,00,000 Kashmiri Pandits are refugees in their own country. Understandably, few voices speak out against this modern ethnic cleansing.
The unremitting flood of terror attacks against India ever since the UPA took over is thus a protraction of that centuries-old jihad. Only, in changed times, the intent of cultural genocide is manufactured in the offices of the ISI and Pakistani terror camps remain intact. Its perpetrators know how to express that intent with alarming regularity.
It is tragic that thousands of educated and intelligent Indians seek to negate the Hindu Holocaust —— mostly unwittingly. That is partly the result of reading fabricated history right from childhood, and partly of being politically correct. No nation can be built on a foundation of half truths and outright lies about its own history. It leads to mistrust within its own people, as is evident today. Our own perverse political parlance sustains these falsehoods and its attendant consequences. When our Prime Minister says Muslims have the first claim on resources, is the underlying message any different from Aurangzeb’s diktat that all Muslims were exempt from tax?
Tags: Commentary, Communal Politics, Hindu History, Hindu Holocaust, History, India, Indian Politics, Islamic Conquest of India, My Op-ed in The Pioneer, Politics, Pseudosecularism Hall of Shame, Society & Culture
A Lost Cause
Sandeep,
you said: “It is also imperative to trace what this jihad has historically cost India in general and Hindus specifically….In general, India was forcibly split into two countries”.
In reality it was not simply two countries of todays map that Jehad had so far claimed from Hindu-s. I believe what you had in mind was 1947, but looking a bit farther back, as you did in the horizon of your article, it must be Afghanistan first that was broken away from India and founded as an Islamic state since birth, quite before Pakistan of 1947 or thenceforth Bangladesh in 1971.
But like the character of Hindi movie Ghajini, Hindu soceity keeps forgetting the events of past and due to the loss of that painful memory, keeps suffering from the Jehad unabated.
Who remembers that Balochistan, Saindhava, West Punjab, Swat (suvAstu), etc., were once core constituent limbs of the Hindu motherland a mere 60 years ago? Hindu-s seem to have so forgotten the pattern of events, and are therefore failing to recognize the exact same demon resurfacing yet again to claim its next pound of flesh from the Hindu nation…
and just like the character of Ghajini movie, Enemy seems to have tried its best to obliterate all records he had tried to keep of past agony.
nice article.
Sarvesh,
I agree but there’s such a thing called word count when I’m writing for a newspaper
Tragic.
There will be blood. There will be consequences. I do not see the the enemies of the peaceable Indic way of life go quitely into the dark. They will have to be despatched kicking and screaming into hellfire. Sri Krishna uttered Kalki’s promise:
Paritranaaya saadhunaam, vinaashaaya chatishkrita
Dharma sansthaapnaarthaaya, Sambhavaani yuge yuge
While I agree on the need to recognise and teach the correct version of history – I have a minor correction to offer. The term Hindu Kush was not named after a specific massacre, as is told to us by Francois Gautier.
The word Kush, according to one reading, is derived from the Persian Kuh (or mountain). Hence Hindu Kush meant literally – the “Mountain of the Hindus” (i.e. signifying that the land beyond was Hindustan).
Ibn Battuta shows us another meaning – he said the origins of the term “Hindu Kush” was that Hindu slaves (after the Islamic conquest) who were being transported across to the Islamic world would die in large numbers while making the journey. Hence the mountain was called the slayer of the Hindu (Kush being derived from the Persian word Kushtan i.e. to kill)
Probably the meaning that Batuta put on it is the correct one. But either way – the name is not relevant to a specific battle or massacre.
@Ghostwriter said: “Kush … is derived from the Persian Kuh (or mountain). Hence Hindu Kush meant literally – the “Mountain of the Hindus†”
This “reading” is flat absurd. Reason being that if Kush is derived etymologically from Persian ‘Kuh’/'Koh’, then such derivation should happen consistently for all usage of that term in Afghanistan area. But in reality, there are dozens of mountain peaks that are consistantly called ‘-Kuh’/'-Koh’, without anyone becoming ‘-Kush’. Examples include some of the well known mountain ranges all around Afghanistan such as: ‘Safed Koh’, ‘Pase Koh’, ‘Cukre Koh’, ‘Khwaja-Do-Koh’, ‘Koh-i-Sim Koh’… and many more. But linguistically we have absolutely no example of ‘Kuh’/'Koh’ becoming ‘Kush’ in Afghanistan.
The reasoning: “Hindu Kush meant literally – the Mountain of the Hindus” is equally absurd. In that case, all the mountains of contemporary Afghanistan were Mountains of Hindus. Why this particular range was called so?
While I am sympathetic to your proposal that the name might not be associated to one single event, there is no doubt about massive massacres of the Hindu-Bauddhas in Afghanistan at the hands of the Moslem marauders, and that “Hindu Kush” is indeed a reminder of the Hindu genocides.
Nice op-ed Sandeep. I have started a blog that focusses precisely on the Islamic theology that underlies these genocides against Hindus over the centuries. It is dharmaveerDOTblogspotDOTcom. I was wondering if you would be so kind as to publish some of the articles there on your esteemed blog. I would appreciate it. I also invite all readers of Sandeep’s blog to visit mine. I bring to the blog almost a decade of studying Islamic theology.
Amazing!
Here is a mind boggling historical & factual subject of Hindu Holocaust, massacre & conversions of your forefathers and you nincompoops, morons & dimwitted, blithering,self appointed linguists & illiterate grammarians want to correct “Kush” & Gajini & 1947 & not ’71!
Grow up, gentlemen. Maybe a little meditation will help you focus on the subject rather than symantics & then do something about it.
Anup
Dear Indian fellows
Any answer to this video where Talat Hussain Rips apart Indian allegations ?
http://pkpolitics.com/2009/01/16/live-with-talat-16-january-2009/
Oooooh i am a victim, muslim invaders and hindus pillaged my rich hindu country, blah blah blah. Just as will durant said
“A civilization is not conquered from without until it is destroyed from within.”
Accept the fact, stop whining.
Dear Sandeep,
Could I reproduce your article (with a link ofcourse) on my blog?
http://mibodeguitadelmedio.blogspot.com
My blog started out as a normal personal blog, but since 2008 I have become more involved in taking up the Indian cause on my blog.
Munib the problem with pakistan is that the basis of country is based on denial. Denial of the fact that all south asians have some common culturak ties. Denial that pakistan is breading terrorist like flies. majority of act of terror has links in pakistan. Denial that the country’s ruling elite has left the land lawless. the state has no control over military and it in turn has no control over its affiliated organisations. The list goes on and on. I saw the clip and to be honest the anchor appears to be more of paid ISI employee than a serious journalist
Desigyrl,
Please write me an email offline. I’ll answer your queries. My contact information is on the right sidebar, under the “Contact” section.
Thanks!
Sandeep
Please see one Indian’s brave fight against racism
http://www.simplymalayalees.com/evaartha/newsletter.asp?article=29
[...] historians to give us a figure like 2634581 instead of saying 2 million? I’ll recount what I had quoted in an earlier opinion piece on the same subject: In his Growth of Muslim Population in India, Prof KS Lal estimates that the [...]
[...] expect historians to give us a figure like 2634581 instead of saying 2 million? I’ll recount what I had quoted in an earlier opinion piece on the same subject: In his Growth of Muslim Population in India, Prof KS Lal estimates that the [...]
commies and other morons..who still want to just debate and argue about meaning of Hindu-kush…can look into a persia dictionary for etymology of word.. khud-kushee…this is most frequently and it means ..khud (self) kushee (killing)…and even a kid knows that khud kushee means suicide…time for commies and anti-India forces to accept facts and change their ways or commit suicide.
@n,
who said we didnt rot from inside..our fore fathers who took bribes to open fort gates for the enemies, converted to dumb political cults which are an insult to human common sense just for the sake of wine, women & wealth or due to fear, hatred or jealousy for some group, sect or practice were indeed the rotten rot. I think i last 2000 years India has lost a lot of real estate but its civilizational fundamentals are still not weak and only thing Indians should do now is to keep the rot in check and weed out the legacy left behind by the old rot. I think Sandeep is seriously doing the same in this blog. Stop rhetoric and accept the fact that truth is not like wine ..the longer it is kept buried..more bitter and unpleasant it becomes.