Politicians From India

"To-day I am authorized to make this offer: that in the Punjab the Musalmans should have through communal electorates 49 per cent. of the entire number of seats in the whole House, and should have liberty to contest the special constituencies which it is proposed to create in that Province; so far as Bengal is concerned that Musalmans should have through communal electorates 46 percent, representation in the whole House, and should have the liberty to contest the special constituencies which it is proposed to create in that Province; in so far as the minority Provinces are concerned, the Musalmans should continue to enjoy the weightage which they have at present through separate electorates, similar weightage to be given to our Hindu brethren in Sind, and to our Hindu and Sikh brethren in the North-West Frontier Province. If at any time hereafter two-thirds of the representatives of any community in any Provincial Legislative Council or in the Central Legislative Council desire to give up communal electorates and to accept joint electorates then thereafter the system of joint electorates should come into being."

"In May 1962 the Soviet Presidium (which under Khrushchev replaced the Politburo) authorized the KGB residency in New Delhi to conduct active-measures operations designed to strengthen Menon’s position in India and enhance his personal popularity, probably in the hope that he would become Nehru’s successor... Menon’s career, however, was disrupted by the Chinese invasion of India in October 1962. Having failed to take the prospect of invasion seriously until the eve of the attack, Menon found himself made the scapegoat for India’s unpreparedness. Following the rout of Indian forces by the Chinese, Nehru reluctantly dismissed him on 31 October. A fortnight later, the Presidium authorized active measures by the Delhi residency, including secret finance for a newspaper which supported Menon, in a forlorn attempt to resuscitate his political career. Though similar active measures by the KGB in Menon’s favour before the 1967 election also had little observable effect, a secret message to Menon from the CPSU Central Committee (probably sent by its International Department) expressed appreciation for his positive attitude to the Soviet Union."

"For nearly twenty of his years in London, he was known as a close supporter of the communists. People change their minds, but Mr. Menon's recent speeches do not suggest that he has changed his. I should guess that be is one of that considerable band of people in important positions in the free world who, though not technically party members, are in fact disciplined communists. Even if this is disputed, it will be agreed that there is something anomalous in a convinced partisan of the aggressor masquerading as a neutral mediator, and contriving so regularly to serve the aggressor's purposes. I hope people will not think I am suffering from a conspiracy mania; after all, Communism is a conspiracy."

"Within Nehru’s Congress Party government the KGB set out to cultivate its leading left-wing firebrand and Nehru’s close adviser, Krishna Menon, who became Minister of Defence in 1957 after spending most of the previous decade as, successively, Indian High Commissioner in London and representative at the United Nations. To the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, ‘It was … plain that [Menon] was personally friendly to the Soviet Union. He would say to me heatedly: “You cannot imagine the hatred the Indian people felt and still feel to the colonialists, the British … The methods used by American capital to exploit the backward countries may be oblique, but they’re just as harsh.” ’"

"Madhok was a committed anti-Communist and this brought him in conflict with the more Left-leaning party leaders, who sought to form “unprincipled” alliances with the Left parties in states where this could ensure a non-Congress majority and an “opposition government” (as non-Congress governments were then called)."

"For this reason, the erstwhile Jana Sangh leader Balraj Madhok, while remaining true to the old condemnation of the Mahatma as a false Messiah, at the same time denounced the murder on political as much as on moral grounds. He wrote that the murder was ‘a very un-Hindu act’, which saved the Mahatma from ‘the dustbin of history’ for which he was headed after the creation of Pakistan, and had crowned the victory of Islamic separatism over Gandhi’s Hindu vision of trans-sectarian unity."

"The change of way of worship under duress or for other reasons has not changed their forefathers or their culture. Culture is associated with a country and not with a religion."

"On the grounds that since Muslims had become allergic to me they would not join the party."

"The strongest BJS party leader in the 1960s was undoubtedly Balraj Madhok (1921), who taught History in Delhi University."

"When I come across a temple and mosque together, then I feel it is a secular country."

"Aiyar wants the public to believe that the Kashmiri Pandits are so unintelligent that they left their comfortable homes and beautiful Valley at the instance of a pied piper called Jagmohan, and not by the militants' strategy of 'killing one and frightening one thousand'. He ignores the hard fact that eminent Kashmiri Pandits had been butchered before I took over."

"The proportion of Muslims will remain stable "bar a decimal point up or down from time to time, at 11.2 per cent" [until at least the mid-21st cen­tury]."

"No one can imagine an India without Islam and Muslims... If there is any need to sacrifice, I am also part of that. Now let’s see whose hand has more power, us or that murderer (Narendra Modi)."

"Give my word, Modi will never be PM in the 21st century, if he wants to sell tea here (AICC meet), we can arrange for it."

"The Kashmiri Pandits left the Valley in droves in 1990 because they were corralled and herded out like cattle by the cowboy-Governor of the day...."

"Mani Shankar Aiyar totally condemns one of Arun Shourie's books, and then goes on to declare that he has decided not to read it : "Shourie gave the final touches to the manuscript of his book on Islam, a work so vicious and perverted that every English speaking Muslim I know was outraged... I decided then to show my solidarity with secularism by not reading the book." (The book he refers to, is apparently Shourie's Religion in Politics, a very sane and sober look at several Scriptures in the light of reason.)"

"T have been reliably informed that a number of youths of the RSS...were able to inform Sardar Patel and Nehruji im the very nick of time of the Leaguers’ intended ‘coup’ oF September 10, 1947. whereby they had planned to assassinate all Members of Government and all Hindu officials and thou- sands of Hindu citizens on that day and plant the flag of ‘Pakistan’ on the Red Fort and then seize all Hind. “< _If these high-spirited and self-sacrificing boys had 0% given the very timely information to Nehruji and Patelji, there would have been no Government of India today, the whole country would have changed its name into Pakistan, tens ° Millions of Hindus would have been slaughtered and all the rest converted to Islam or reduced to stark slavery."

"Theosophy now needed to be carried into practice, and not to remain confined to easy-going study or even strenuous preaching of theory and doctrine."

"She (Annie Besant) was indeed a great leader in every respect, with the soul of fire, the burning eloquence that could melt stones, the imaginative vision, the great and high aspiration, the quick decision, the generous and trustful nature, the scrupulous discharge of promises made, the exceeding considerateness for juniors and subordinates, the anxious fulfilment of their hopes even casually aroused by any words of hers, and, above all else, the mystic power of magnetic personality, which inspire and attract and keep followers."

"Indians would do well to remember that A. O. Hume, the father of the Indian National Congress, was first led into work for the uplift of India, fifty years ago, by the inspiration of Theosophy."

"The only Theosophist who really stood for sarva-dharma-samabhâva came from the heartland of Indian Islam, U.P. in North India. That was Dr. Bhagwan Das. But anyone who has studied different religions in right earnest can say without any hesitation that Bhagwan Das' magnum opus, Essential Unity of All Religions, is not much more than silly and sentimental humbug. He has missed the forest for the trees in the case of all religions when he picks up stray sentences from different scriptures and strings them together without any reference to context or their real meanings beyond the literal. Rather than studying and understanding all religions he is out to foist his own pet and preconceived notions on all of them."

"Jihad is the signature tune of Islamic history. If today’s Muslim rulers are reluctant to sound that note, it is often because they are concerned about the consequences of failure."

"There is no pain in life, they say in Granada, so cruel as to be blind in Alhambra. When the Arabs of the desert conquered Spain, they said that they had reached heaven. From the ramparts of the Alhambra, sitting on a spur of the Sierra Nevada, look out and you see a paradise created by nature; look in and you see a paradise created by man."

"Narrated Abdullah bin Abi Aufa: Allah’s Messenger (May Peace Be Upon Him) said, ‘Know that Paradise is under the shade of swords’."

"While the landlords and capitalists allowed the clergy to make Pakistan a religious state, the clergy allowed the landlords guaranteed property rights and the capitalists unbridled control over the economy. Theocracy and landlordism/capitalism are the two pillars of Pakistan and Bangladesh."

"Could Syed Shahabuddin be a communalist? After all, he played a key role in the three main "Muslim communalist" issues of recent years: the Babri Masjid campaign, the Shah Bano case and the Salman Rushdie affair (it is he who got The Satanic Verses banned in September 1988). Surely, he must be India's communalist par excellence? Wrong: if you read any page of any issue of Shahabuddin's monthly Muslim India, you will find that he brandishes the notion of "secularism" as the alpha and omega of his politics, and that he directs all his attacks against Hindu "communalism". The same propensity is evident in the whole Muslim "communalist" press, e.g. the Jamaat-i Islami weekly Radiance. Moreover, on Muslim India's editorial board, you find articulate secularists like Inder Kumar Gujral, Khushwant Singh and the late P.N. Haksar."

"The 'progressive' people in this country show a remarkable eagerness to see communalism even in the most harmless observations of [Hindu] religious leaders, while overlooking such outrageously communal and provocative statements as the one made by the former government official Syed Shahabuddin, that contact with the Hindus debased the Muslim, or the one by Syed Abdullah Bukhari, the Imam of the Jama Masjid in Delhi, that the Muslims would resort to a civil war."

"Because Hindus fear the Muslims, they have fallen on the path of secularism. Each time they were conquered by Muslim soldiers, they have learnt to sink and bend like powerless blades of grass. This can be seen several times in our history."

"The Ayodhya dispute and the Rushdie affair are indeed connected. The ban on The Satanic Verses was part of a package of concessions by the Rajiv Gandhi Government to calm down Syed Shahabuddin, who had threatened a Muslim “march on Ayodhya” on the same day when the VHP would hold a rally there."

"The law protects the Babri Masjid even if it was constructed on the site of a temple after demolishing it, but in the interest of communal amity, as a one-time exception, the Muslim community is willing to make the offer, as a moral gesture, in accordance with the Shariat."

"If it is proven that the Babri Masjid has been built in forcible replacement of a Hindu temple, I will demolish it with my own hands."

"Syed Shahabuddin's Muslim India (27.3.89) declares: "They (Aryans) don't belong to India and hence, don't love India. They are foreigners, the enemy within. As Aryans, they are also India's first foreigners. If Muslims and Christians are foreigners, and must get out of India, as India's first foreigners, the Aryans are duty bound to get out first.""

"The true test of a democracy is the justice that the minority gets in the system. The majority will always get its share whatever the system."

"Meanwhile in Uttar Pradesh, chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav was playing it rough. He pre-emptively arrested all leaders of organizations involved in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. In order to prevent Kar Sevaks from going to Ayodhya, he suspended all public transport in the state, blocked roads, and imposed curfew in a number of cities. House-to-house searches for hiding Kar Sevaks were carried out, the borders were sealed, and massive numbers of Hindus (as well as a number of Muslim Kar Sevaks) were jailed. The numbers cited vary between one and eight lakhs, which is a lot more than during the Emergency or the Quit India movement in the whole country. On October 30, when according to Mulayam's boast, no bird would be able to fly into Ayodhya, thousands of Kar Sevaks broke through the police defenses thanks to their sheer numbers... Gradually, the police forces regained control and drove the Kar Sevaks out, arresting many, and killing about 10, others cite figures from 5 to 50.... On November 2, the Kar Sevaks came back. As they were sitting or standing in the narrow lanes near the Janmabhoomi site (secularists say they were slowly moving towards it), the police opened fire... The death toll is a matter of dispute, as many of the bodies have been carried off in Army vans, and unceremoniously disposed of in an unknown place... The BJP appealed to the president to depose Mulayam, and cited the figure of 168 people killed. Some days after, the VHP claimed it could substantiate a death toll of about 400, or as many as were killed by general Dyer at Jallianwala Bagh."

"What makes someone like you support people like Mulayam and Lalu Prasad? I can’t go around telling people what to do about Mulayam and Lalu. There are senior Congress leaders involved in this, and they take the decisions. It is not just the issue of support; there are lots of other things. These are tricky questions, and a lot of people ask me about this. But it doesn’t work that way, that one fine day we decide we don’t want to go along with them and that’s it. It is a complex issue, and I don’t want to go into it right now. Let’s get back to development."

"They defend rapists. Mamata di says ‘sometimes boys become naughty.’ Mulayam ji says ‘sometimes boys make mistakes’."

"I regret giving orders to shoot kar sevaks at Ayodhya. My decision to order firing at kar sevaks was to save Muslim minorities. This decision was needed to keep the faith of Muslims in this country intact.”"

"It is extremely symbolic that Advani is the heir of Nathuram Godse who, in pursuit of what he was convinced was his duty to India, shot dead the man who had chanted the name of Ram all his life till his last breath."

"First girls develop friendship with boys. They when differences occur, they level rape charges. Boys commit mistakes. Will they be hanged for rape."

"Not even a bird shall be able to enter Ayodhya. ... We will crush them."

"Waiting when Mulayam’s rape remarks will be endorsed by Azam’s secular buffaloes, then it shall be a law in his territory."

"Boys will be boys. Boys commit mistakes."

"Just as Hitler had given a frustrated Germany a target and that target was the Jew, so through the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, a frustrated country was given a target and that target was the Muslim."

"Five years after Sir Syed’s death in 1898, his successor, Viqar-ul-Mulk, wrote a letter to The Pioneer of Lucknow. He said: “We start with the firm conviction and seek to implant it in the mind of every Indian Musalman that our destiny is now bound up with the presence and permanence of British rule in this country, and that in the government of the day we have got our best and surest friend.”"

"God forbid, if the British rule disappears from India. Hindus will lord over it, and we will be in constant danger of our life, property and honour. The only way for the Muslims to escape this danger is to help in the continuance of the British rule. If the Muslims are heartily with the British, then that rule is bound to endure. Let the Muslims consider themselves as a British army ready to shed their blood and sacrifice their lives for the British Crown… Wherever you are, whether in the football field or in the tennis lawn, you have to consider yourselves as soldiers of a British regiment. You have to defend the British Empire, and to give the enemy [Hindus] a fight in doing so. If you bear it in mind and act accordingly, you will have done that and your name will be written in letters of gold in the British Indian history. The future generations will be grateful to you."

"Nawab Wiqar-ul-Mulk (1841-1917) of the Aligarh School of Muslim Politics who is generally regarded as one of the makers of modern Muslim India, was Sir Syed Ahmed’s loyal follower. He also became the Secretary of the Aligarh College. According to Tazkirah-i-Wiqar the Wiqar-ul-Mulk said: “We are numerically one-fifth of the other community. If, at any time, the British Government ceases to exist in India, we shall have to live as the subjects of the Hindus, and our lives, our property, our self-respect and our religion will all be in danger… If there is any device by which we can escape this it is by the continuance of the British Raj, and our interests can be safeguarded only if we ensure the continuance of the British Government.”"

"Democracy does not reside in speeches but in actual practices of its votaries."

"Accept only that which stands to your reason. Never accept anything merely because it is preached by some great leader. Test its truth on the touchstone of your intellectual discrimination."

"Jagmohan was reinstated as the governor in January 1990 and remained in office till May that year. He has been made the fall guy by the Congress and its ‘secular’ allies to deflect attention from their failures. Shri Jagmohan wrote in his letter to Rajiv Gandhi how he was being targeted while bringing forth the point that he had been repeatedly alerting the government about the situation in the state. Shri Jagmohan wrote:…Need I remind you that from the beginning of 1988, I had started sending “Warning Signals” to you about the gathering storm in Kashmir? But you and the power wielders around you had neither the time, nor the inclination, nor the vision, to see these signals. They were so clear, so pointed, that to ignore them was to commit sins of true historical proportions… …To recapitulate and to serve as illustrations, I would refer to a few of these signals. In August 1988, after analysing the current and undercurrents, I had summed up the position thus: “The drum-beaters of parochialism and fundamentalism are working overtime. Subversion is on the increase. The shadows of events from across the border are lengthening. Lethal weapons have come in. More may be on the way”. In April 1989 I had desperately pleaded for immediate action… …Around that point of time, when the police set-up was getting demoralised, when intelligence was fast drying up, when infiltrators in Services were bringing stories of subversive plans like TOPAC, your protégé Dr Farooq Abdullah was either going abroad or releasing 70 hardcore and highly motivated terrorists who were trained in the handling of dangerous weapons, who had contacts at the highest level in Pakistan occupied Kashmir, who knew all the devious routes of going to and returning from Pakistan and whose detention had been approved by the three-member advisory board presided over by the Chief Justice… …The truth supported by the preponderence of evidence is that before January 19, 1990, the terrorist had become the real ruler. The ground had been yielded to him to such an extent that it dominated the public mind. He could virtually swim like a fish in the sea. Would it matter if the sea was subsequently surrounded? In your attempt to hide all your sins of omission and commission in Kashmir and as a part of your small politics which cannot go beyond dividing people and creating vote banks, you took special pains to demolish all regard and respect which the Kashmiri masses, including the Muslim youth, had developed for me during my first term from April 26, 1984, to July 12, 1989. Against all facts, unassailable evidence and your own precious pronouncements, you started labelling me as anti-Muslim."

"Peace and love are possible only between equals. The real enemies of peace are those weak people, who, because of their weakness, incite the strong. If we are weak, we commit the sin of disturbing world peace. The real cause of our degradation is our mental weakness."