ined for thousands of years owing to endogamy. We therefore predict that there will be an excess of recessive diseases in India, which should be possible to screen and map genetically.
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Labels Admixture, Ancestry, Caste, Clusters, Genomics, India, Indo-European, South Asia
20 comments:
Ronojoy said...
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Aryan-Dravidian-divide-a-myth-Study/articleshow/5053274.cms
``This paper rewrites history... there is no north-south divide,'' Lalji Singh, former director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and a co-author of the study, said at a press conference here on Thursday.
Senior CCMB scientist Kumarasamy Thangarajan said there was no truth to the Aryan-Dravidian theory as they came hundreds or thousands of years after the ancestral north and south Indians had settled in India.
Sorry Dienekes, this comes straight from the horses mouth.
Friday, September 25, 2009 3:57:00 AM
argiedude said...
(i) the relationship between Andaman Islanders and ASI is not particularly close
Not particularly close?? Nigerians-ASI distance is 1772, and Andaman-ASI distance is 1199. The distance is particularly gargantuan. How strange, given that Sengupta found microsatellite diversity within Indians from every corner of the subcontinent to be less varied than in Europeans.
The authors further determine that CEU and ANI form a separate clade from the non-IE speaking Adygei from the Caucasus.
Adygei is unquestionably half-way between Europe and the HGDP Pakistani samples according to FST distances. This study seems to be coming up with lots of funny results that completely contradict previous studies.
.......................
The Rosenberg 2005 study that placed the 52 HGDP populations into 7 clusters found Europeans to belong almost 100% to the European cluster, Adygei split half and half between the European/Indian cluster (but mainly European), and all Pakistanis, from the south to the north, belonged overwhelmingly to the Indian cluster.
The Sengupta 2006 study tested Indians from every corner of the Indian sub-continent (except Andamans), and found their microsatellite diversity to be lesser than Europeans, which is already low enough. Not what you'd expect from a people derived from a mixture of practically 2 different continents.
The Aryan Invasion Theory requires us to believe that a bunch of nobodies riding on horsy genetically overwhelmed the gargantuan civilization of India. A modern equivalent would be the Amazon Indians overwhelming the 200 million people of Brazil.
http://www.worldmapper.org/images/largepng/7.png
Friday, September 25, 2009 4:57:00 AM
argiedude said...
Link corrected:
Population of the world 2000 years ago
Friday, September 25, 2009 5:02:00 AM
Dienekes said...
Senior CCMB scientist Kumarasamy Thangarajan said there was no truth to the Aryan-Dravidian theory as they came hundreds or thousands of years after the ancestral north and south Indians had settled in India.
Sorry Dienekes, this comes straight from the horses mouth.
I prefer to read what they wrote in the paper in Nature, rather than what they are attributed to have said in the Times of India:
"It is tempting to assume that the population ancestral to ANI and
CEU spoke ‘Proto-Indo-European’, which has been reconstructed as
ancestral to both Sanskrit and European languages38, although we
cannot be certain without a date for ANI–ASI mixture."
No evidence whatsoever in the paper that places the ANI-ASI admixture before the arrival of the Indo-Aryans to India.
Friday, September 25, 2009 11:35:00 AM
Ronojoy said...
The study analysed 500,000 genetic markers across the genomes of 132 individuals from 25 diverse groups from 13 states. All the individuals were from six-language families and traditionally “upper” and “lower” castes and tribal groups. “The genetics proves that castes grew directly out of tribe-like organizations during the formation of the Indian society,” the study said. Thangarajan noted that it was impossible to distinguish between castes and tribes since their genetics proved they were not systematically different.
“The initial settlement took place 65,000 years ago in the Andamans and in ancient south India around the same time, which led to population growth in this part,” said Thangarajan. He added, “At a later stage, 40,000 years ago, the ancient north Indians emerged which in turn led to rise in numbers here. But at some point of time, the ancient north and the ancient south mixed, giving birth to a different set of population. And that is the population which exists now and there is a genetic relationship between the population within India.”
Friday, September 25, 2009 5:50:00 PM
Dienekes said...
Quoting the Times of India won't change anyone's mind. If the authors could date the time of the ANI-ASI admixture, or thought that ANI was unrelated to the Indo-European arrival in India, they wouldn't have written the exact opposite in the paper.
Friday, September 25, 2009 7:18:00 PM
eurologist said...
“The initial settlement took place 65,000 years ago in the Andamans and in ancient south India around the same time, which led to population growth in this part,” said Thangarajan. He added, “At a later stage, 40,000 years ago, the ancient north Indians emerged which in turn led to rise in numbers here.
Well, perhaps he said that because it is the only current model (I know of) that fits the geography and climate.
Western and much of northern India/Pakistan was a desert or at least very arid for a long time after initial settlement. Only in the mountainous north were water and lush river valleys with plenty of grazing animals available. 20K to 25K should be enough time to form distinct people - who lived in a much colder and much more seasonally varying climate.
If we make the assumption that most Europeans (outside of Semitic/ North African contributions) also derive from that population, we can see why it is so difficult to distinguish a clear signature of a more western IE genetic portion within India. And, their Figure 4 shows this relationship quite well.
I.e., there is no need for a later, overwhelming IE contribution to India.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 6:59:00 AM
terryt said...
"The initial settlement took place 65,000 years ago in the Andamans".
Have you got a reference for that? Last I heard was that the Andamans were settled relatively recently, around 35k. Of course that date is too recent for the Andamans to be at all relevant for the 'Great Southern Migration Theory' so the time may have been expanded to fit the theory regardless of the evidence.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 7:01:00 AM
terryt said...
The author seems to be relying on his own previous work:
http://www.ccmb.res.in/newccmb/andaman/mystery.html
which doesn't actually offer any evidence for the actual arrival in the Andamans. He just claims that date because it fits the theory. One of the authors at 'Gene Expression' reminds us that there are fundamentalists in India as well as in the West and in the Muslim world.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 7:29:00 AM
Dienekes said...
At a later stage, 40,000 years ago, the ancient north Indians emerged which in turn led to rise in numbers here
According to current estimates, modern Homo sapiens has been outside Asia for about 60,000 years, or, at any rate in the same order of magnitude as 40,000 years.
Thus, West and East Eurasians have accumulated genetic differences worth about 0.1 in terms of Fst in a few tens of thousands of years.
If ANI diverged from West Eurasians 40,000 years ago, which is similar to the West-East Eurasian split, then why are ANI 10 times closer to West Eurasians?
The obvious answer to this question is that ANI did not split from West Eurasians 40,000 years ago, but rather about 4,000 years ago, and represent Neolithic, Indo-Aryan, and later movements of Caucasoids from Central Asia and the Near East into Asia.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 1:35:00 PM
eurologist said...
ANI didn't diverge from West Eurasians 40K years ago - their predecessors initially were a source of them ~43K years ago. Then, for the unimaginably long period of 20,000 years, easy sustenance was available and the gene pool was larger in the vast plains and valleys between NW Pakistan/ Afghanistan and nowadays Ukraine, creating multiple migration events to both Europe and back to "India". That's why contact to "India" remained and ensured ANI/ West Eurasian continuity - broken with the onset of LGM.
So, the most remote "ANI" that we may be able to detect, genetically, are not 40K years old, but only 20K, diluted by multiple subsequent migrations from the west - of those, IE is only one, late, minor one.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 2:40:00 PM
Dienekes said...
IE is only one, late, minor one.
If IE was a late and minor migration, then how do you explain the sharp differences in genetic makeup that are both caste- and language- related. If the gene pool had already been established long before the advent of the Indo-Aryans, then why do ANI-ASI proportions vary so widely in India?
20K years is more than enough to homogenize any gene pool. Uyghurs were homogenized in less than 2K years, so how come Indian groups have anyting from 40 to 70% ANI ancestry, with individuals far exceeding that range?
The simple answer is that ANI was introduced to India fairly recently, and variation in ANI ancestry has been maintained because of (i) the caste system, (ii) the genetic differences between Indo-Aryans and native Indians, and (iii) the short period of time that has not allowed gene flow across caste lines to obliterate the differences.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 2:58:00 PM
Ponto said...
I like the study. At least it is presenting a hypothesis based on SNPs. The old Anthropologists always said that South Asians particularly the Northern ones were predominantly Caucasoid.
Indians seem to hate the Aryan invasion thing. I guess they think it a Eurocentric theory, and demeaning somehow. Europeans love the Paleolithic continuation of the population of Europe to modern times and hate the Neolithic farming demic movement, mainly as farming and civilisation originated among darkies from the Middle East region. Forget your prejudice, and go with what dna is telling us.
The Adygei are mainly a European people genetically with some South Asian admixture. They are not like most South Asians whose Caucasoid type SNPs can be located to that region. Europeans, Middle Easterners and South Asians while Caucasoid can be separated into their main regions by SNPs as can European ethnicities to their nations. The Adygei's SNPs are mostly in the "European" camp.
I think the Hawkes critique is reasonable but the study's showing South Asians to be more like European Caucasoids rather than any other group of people is undeniable whether the Caucasoid element dates from the mythohistorical Aryan Invasion or a much earlier time. One thing is certain, language and dna does connect most Europeans with most South Asians. It is interesting that nobody can decipher the symbolic language used by the Indus Valley people. Even the Semitic speaking peoples used the writing of the Sumerians and their language for many years after they conquered the Sumerians. Nothing like that happened in ancient India.
Saturday, September 26, 2009 3:33:00 PM
Maju said...
IDK but making some simple maths on what I could discern on the graph you posted (the figures are too small in many cases), I gather that the most likely scenario makes ANI being Neolithic immigrants.
I experimented with three models:
1. Making the ANI-CEU divergence being c. 50,000 years old (colonization of West Eurasia) would make the common Eurasian root way too old (c. 260,000 BP).
2. Making the ANI-CEU divergence being c. 8000 y.o. (Neolithic) makes the common Eurasian root at something older than 40,000 BP, which would be roughly coincident with the colonization of West Eurasia from India.
3. Making the ANI-CEU divergence being c. 4000 y.o. (Indoaryans) makes the common Eurasian root be only slightly older than 20,000 BP, what is too recent.
So guess that ANI can be identified with Neolithic colonists from West Asia and ASI with the pre-Neolithic native hunter-gathereres.
Sunday, September 27, 2009 8:27:00 AM
Thisis said...
The simple answer is that ANI was introduced to India fairly recently
Then how come even the tribals of Kerala (south-most part of India) have more than 40 % of ANI ancestry ?
Sunday, September 27, 2009 9:48:00 AM
Dienekes said...
which would be roughly coincident with the colonization of West Eurasia from India.
There was no "colonization of West Eurasia from India". What happened is roughly this: South and Southeast Asia were inhabited by the descendants of the Out of Africa migrants who stayed in the south. To this aboriginal population were added in the Neolithic and later Caucasoids in India and Mongoloids in Southeast Asia.
:: The simple answer is that ANI was introduced to India fairly recently
Then how come even the tribals of Kerala (south-most part of India) have more than 40 % of ANI ancestry ?
Most "Native" groups in the Americas have Caucasoid ancestry too. In India, the process of admixture has taken a much longer time, so, unlike the Americas were both pure Caucasoids and pure Natives still exist, in India the two elements have permeated all parts of society.
Sunday, September 27, 2009 10:33:00 AM
eurologist said...
There was no "colonization of West Eurasia from India"
Then where, if not from India, do the West Asians and Europeans come from? A second, later migration out of Africa? I don't think so. And, between about 70K and 45K, there was no straight way north that did not lead through hundreds of miles of desert.
Conversely, you have here DNA data that show Europeans to be close to Indians, and yet closer to a putative ancient subgroup. And, all the data that show many of the Y-DNA strains original to Europeans still reside in India.
The data don't fit a simplistic picture as Fig. 4, because there was 40,000 years of contact with West Asians, which in turn had contact with Europeans, and on top of that (but just on top) you have the IE migrations.
Sunday, September 27, 2009 11:02:00 AM
Dienekes said...
Then where, if not from India, do the West Asians and Europeans come from?
There is no reason to introduce a massive detour in the history of mankind, so that people go all the way to India and then all the way back to West Asia and Europe.
Sunday, September 27, 2009 11:07:00 AM
Maju said...
There was no "colonization of West Eurasia from India". What happened is roughly this: South and Southeast Asia were inhabited by the descendants of the Out of Africa migrants who stayed in the south. To this aboriginal population were added in the Neolithic and later Caucasoids in India and Mongoloids in Southeast Asia.
Dienekes, you surprise me a lot with that comment. All West Eurasian mtDNA (excepted a couple of minor clades like X) and Y-DNA (only E1b1b1 is exceptional in this) is much more diverse in South Asia than the West. It's fairly clear that West Eurasians are derived from the older and more diverse South Asian population, surely at a time after South and East Asians were already differentiated. I think this is almost beyond any doubt.
Reviewing by clade:
MtDNA: R is clearly of South Asian origin, N1'5 and N2 (including W) are shared between South and West Asia. Only X would seem anomalous of all Western lineages in this.
Y-DNA: all non-E1b1b1 is F, which is clearly more diverse in South Asia than anywhere else.
Additionally several technologies later used in the west, like bladelets and eventually microliths too are apparently South Asian creations and have there an older age than anywhere else.
But if you think otherwise, you'd still have to think that the ANI/ASI divide is about as old as post OOA Eurasian expansion, what should make things practically the same.
You could maybe argue that the ANI/ASI divide relates with the expansion of microlithism worldwide and that this would be a more recent phenomenon allowing for the return of ANI to be Indoaryan. But this would pose many challenges in the West, as well as demanding an explanation for what happened with the Neolithic colonists, now suddenly vanished from the genetic landscape of India.
A good idea would be to compare with an outgroup like East Asians. That would give us a better perspective but I feel quite sure that East Asians would diverge from above the ANI/ASI split.
Sunday, September 27, 2009 12:09:00 PM
Maju said...
Re. Kerala: the castes of Kerala (or anywhere nearby) are not Aryan either. There is no source from which to draw such ANI penetration. Dravidians and Aryans are partly ANI and we know that, excepting the very tiny minority that are Brahmins, there were never any Aryans in south India. Instead Neolithic could explain this flow (and its importance) very well.
There is no reason to introduce a massive detour in the history of mankind, so that people go all the way to India and then all the way back to West Asia and Europe.
There are plenty of reasons: (1) genetic, (2) archaeological and (3) some extremely strong guys known as Neanderthals.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Vivek,
The interventionist state is a direct transformation of the Christian Church. Dharma and Monotheism are, thus, only united as theism from the point of reference of the secular state. So, your claim of a symbiotic relationship between Dharma and Monotheism is made under the typical secular assumptions. Of course, it is another matter that the monotheists/seculars may end up getting acculturated by the heathens, instead of vice versa, but it cannot be claimed that Monotheism is a waystation to Dharmic sensibility. Native Americans were not culturally dispossessed as part of a symbiotic exchange.
Again, working with these categories of theism versus secular nontheism, right versus left, liberal versus conservative only serves to mask our perception of the colonial project. The diversity among the monotheisms is ideological; while among the heathens, diversity is cultural.
1857 was a failure of the missionary project in India and henceforth the Missionary efforts were confined to the peripheral “tribal areas” (Northeast), in addition to being transferred over to the Americans (Methodists, Baptists). At this point, the secular, liberal project gained currency (as a forced alternative) among the colonizer and Macaulayite education was instituted to alienate Indians from their traditions. What the missionaries could not accomplish was accomplished by the liberals/seculizers of the Empire.
If the native traditions are contextualized as ideological, if a certain community is described as the owners of the sankritic and the imposers of the culture on the basis of ideology and as the agents of historical and ideological change, then the rest will automatically be alienated from the culture. If India’s culture and the native response to colonialism is described as an instance of rightist (read bigot) ideology, then the populace will automatically lose its fervor for such an “enterprise.” The missionaries could not accomplish with umpteen convoluted argument about ‘original sin’ and the consequent need to be “saved” was accomplished by our beloved secular. The Liberals and Seculars have salted the field and the set the heathen civilization itself to wither away, merely by ‘norming’ one category of heathen against another and by describing the culture of India as ‘religious’ in the fashion of monotheism. The heathens’ response to Colonialism is thus a mere rightist and bigoted religious sentiment. The heathen concern has been trivialized by the liberal discourse as mere Religion.
That cultural diversity is a result of the imposition of ideology is the typical abrahamic claim; thus, they can deem culture itself as a manifestation of false religion and false belief!! The claim works only in the closed world of ideology but not in our real world where each being’s vyaktigatt dharma is unique!! Thus these fellows can further claim that any positive happening is due to the application of liberal principles and any untoward happening is due the absence of the same. If you are standing next to your mother and not killing her with your bare hands, it is due to your liberal principles!! They are merely redescribing a reality by christening it as an instantiation and implementation of the pet ideology!! And, in turn, these types of chimerical constructs are then used to describe the native heathen as irremediably repressive or unmindingly libertine, as the situation demands. That is Orientalism.
Said’s perspective was limited to the the modern liberal project; though he mentions KM Pannikar in the Introduction, because of conceptual constraints, he was unable to delineate the Monotheist origin of Orientalism. Islam as a colonizer in its own right thus escapes his scrutiny as well as the heathen survival narrative. In fact, the Enlightenment itself resulted as a way to cope with the inherent instability introduced into Protestantism by the “discovery” of heathens in the colonies (ghent group). This story is, of course, glossed as an internal development to Europe with the priests suddenly “wondering” about the ubiquitous pagan ruins in Greece. To admit the “heathen challenge” would automatically discredit the entire modernist movement as merely reactionary; for they blamed the Church for their plight while the native heathen was Orientalized (eg Rousseau’s Romanticist Noble Savage). The developments represented by Schopenhauer and Freud must be seen in such a light, as attempts to forestall the threat posed to the “ideology” prism itself by the heathen’s dynamic. These have been transformed into the the current appropriation of Buddhism and the Doniger type “analyses” (as described by Rajiv Malhotra). FW Engdahl even describes how the ’saffon revolution’ in “Burma” was a Western-sponsored ‘color revolution’. The same has been described by Sandhya Jain for the Maoist “People’s Revolution” in Nepal .
Of course, they managed to produce some great art as well, but the magnificence of Chartres is not the heathen’s point of dispute; only colonialism (alienation from one’s Traditions). Shelley and the like are thus not being contested.
Twain, Thoreau, Emerson do represent a true heathen thread somehow transplanted into abrahamic absolutism, IMO, but these were eclipsed by the statist Whitman. No one denies the tragedy of conversion; we must cut relations with those who were once our own. In Sindh, when the time came to convert to the “liberator’s” Islam, the jatis chose certain sections which were to continue to remain Hindus, and these were protected by their muslim caste compatriots. But where are the Hindus in that land today? The break may be distant in time but it seems mandated nonetheless by the nature of the colonialist monotheist beast we’re confronting.
The interventionist state is a direct transformation of the Christian Church. Dharma and Monotheism are, thus, only united as theism from the point of reference of the secular state. So, your claim of a symbiotic relationship between Dharma and Monotheism is made under the typical secular assumptions. Of course, it is another matter that the monotheists/seculars may end up getting acculturated by the heathens, instead of vice versa, but it cannot be claimed that Monotheism is a waystation to Dharmic sensibility. Native Americans were not culturally dispossessed as part of a symbiotic exchange.
Again, working with these categories of theism versus secular nontheism, right versus left, liberal versus conservative only serves to mask our perception of the colonial project. The diversity among the monotheisms is ideological; while among the heathens, diversity is cultural.
1857 was a failure of the missionary project in India and henceforth the Missionary efforts were confined to the peripheral “tribal areas” (Northeast), in addition to being transferred over to the Americans (Methodists, Baptists). At this point, the secular, liberal project gained currency (as a forced alternative) among the colonizer and Macaulayite education was instituted to alienate Indians from their traditions. What the missionaries could not accomplish was accomplished by the liberals/seculizers of the Empire.
If the native traditions are contextualized as ideological, if a certain community is described as the owners of the sankritic and the imposers of the culture on the basis of ideology and as the agents of historical and ideological change, then the rest will automatically be alienated from the culture. If India’s culture and the native response to colonialism is described as an instance of rightist (read bigot) ideology, then the populace will automatically lose its fervor for such an “enterprise.” The missionaries could not accomplish with umpteen convoluted argument about ‘original sin’ and the consequent need to be “saved” was accomplished by our beloved secular. The Liberals and Seculars have salted the field and the set the heathen civilization itself to wither away, merely by ‘norming’ one category of heathen against another and by describing the culture of India as ‘religious’ in the fashion of monotheism. The heathens’ response to Colonialism is thus a mere rightist and bigoted religious sentiment. The heathen concern has been trivialized by the liberal discourse as mere Religion.
That cultural diversity is a result of the imposition of ideology is the typical abrahamic claim; thus, they can deem culture itself as a manifestation of false religion and false belief!! The claim works only in the closed world of ideology but not in our real world where each being’s vyaktigatt dharma is unique!! Thus these fellows can further claim that any positive happening is due to the application of liberal principles and any untoward happening is due the absence of the same. If you are standing next to your mother and not killing her with your bare hands, it is due to your liberal principles!! They are merely redescribing a reality by christening it as an instantiation and implementation of the pet ideology!! And, in turn, these types of chimerical constructs are then used to describe the native heathen as irremediably repressive or unmindingly libertine, as the situation demands. That is Orientalism.
Said’s perspective was limited to the the modern liberal project; though he mentions KM Pannikar in the Introduction, because of conceptual constraints, he was unable to delineate the Monotheist origin of Orientalism. Islam as a colonizer in its own right thus escapes his scrutiny as well as the heathen survival narrative. In fact, the Enlightenment itself resulted as a way to cope with the inherent instability introduced into Protestantism by the “discovery” of heathens in the colonies (ghent group). This story is, of course, glossed as an internal development to Europe with the priests suddenly “wondering” about the ubiquitous pagan ruins in Greece. To admit the “heathen challenge” would automatically discredit the entire modernist movement as merely reactionary; for they blamed the Church for their plight while the native heathen was Orientalized (eg Rousseau’s Romanticist Noble Savage). The developments represented by Schopenhauer and Freud must be seen in such a light, as attempts to forestall the threat posed to the “ideology” prism itself by the heathen’s dynamic. These have been transformed into the the current appropriation of Buddhism and the Doniger type “analyses” (as described by Rajiv Malhotra). FW Engdahl even describes how the ’saffon revolution’ in “Burma” was a Western-sponsored ‘color revolution’. The same has been described by Sandhya Jain for the Maoist “People’s Revolution” in Nepal .
Of course, they managed to produce some great art as well, but the magnificence of Chartres is not the heathen’s point of dispute; only colonialism (alienation from one’s Traditions). Shelley and the like are thus not being contested.
Twain, Thoreau, Emerson do represent a true heathen thread somehow transplanted into abrahamic absolutism, IMO, but these were eclipsed by the statist Whitman. No one denies the tragedy of conversion; we must cut relations with those who were once our own. In Sindh, when the time came to convert to the “liberator’s” Islam, the jatis chose certain sections which were to continue to remain Hindus, and these were protected by their muslim caste compatriots. But where are the Hindus in that land today? The break may be distant in time but it seems mandated nonetheless by the nature of the colonialist monotheist beast we’re confronting.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Decolonising History
Alvares, Claude. 1991. Decolonising History: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West, 1492 to the Present Day. Goa: The Other India Press, India.
‘I have never found one amongst them [the orientalists] who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgment used at preparatory schools in England.’
--Minute of Lord Macaulay on the 2nd of February 1835
This obnoxious statement may incite a murderous response in a young reader today, but the fact remains that the British in particular and the West in general did denigrate the East, its culture and scientific legacy. The worst part is that quite a few Indians too believe such blatant condemnation of the Indian legacy. Western Science created hegemonic categories of science vs magic, technology vs superstition etc., which were both arbitrary and contrived. Prabably the Western model initially gained momentum of its own accord within a particular socio-cultural environment, but Alvares endeavours to show that in time it was deliberately used to betray,
exploit and demolish other systems. The nature of the Western mind was thought to be disposed to logic and consistency, while the primitive mind floated easily in contradictions and was generally more emotional and childish, and so forth. They taught that non-literate peoples in Southern countries possessed something like a "primitive mentality", that was not merely different from, but inferior to its Western counterpart.
But today a lot of new facts are coming out which show how the West plagiarized Indian traditional science and called it its own. Even the botanical taxonomy was essentially based on Ezhwa traditional knowledge, but no Western scientist ever refers to the contributions of Itty Achuden to the now famous Hortus Malabaricus. As our main concern is History of Indian Science and Technology, Claude Alvares’ book under review thus assumes great relevance. He relentlessly exposes the claims of the West of its superiority and brings out the fact that till the advent of the British in India, it was a far richer and scientifically superior a country than the West. His book is an eye opener and a must for all interested in understanding the achinations of the British in condemning our great achievements of the past.
Alvares very forcefully debunks the claims of the West that extols the virtues of the Western mind and civilization and denigrates those of the Indian and the Chinese. He quotes from the offensive claims made by Macaulay in 1835. Macaulay condemned outright the intellectual and scientific legacy of India, to introduce the Western model of education system.
Alvares explains how the West succeeded not only in denigrating the Oriental science and culture but also the self-esteem of the Indians. Alvares quotes extensively from the works of the renowned Ghandhian and historian of science, Dharampal, as to how advanced the Indian science and technology was before the advent of the British. He exposes the claims of the Western Industrial Revolution, which made its poor people poorer. The British could survive only by making its people work for 12 hours a day and by making the women and children also work in the factories. Alvares explodes the myth of the European Homo Faber. Above all, Alvares debunks the false claims of the West that the Indian mind was merely saturated with spirituality. He refutes this claim by highlighting the achievements of ancient Indian agriculture,industry and medicine etc.
Alvares goes to the extent of even accusing liberal scholars such as Karl Marx, Needham, and Peter Gayle of belittling Indian achievements in science and technology.
Rajini Kothari, the famed sociologist, pays a profound tribute to the importance of the book when he says, “It is an ambitious undertaking though not modestly carried out. A political battle that is intellectually waged.”
Countries and nations around the world during the latter half of the 20th century saw uprisings against the colonial regimes and their gradual collapse resulting in the creation of independent, sovereign states. The colonial domination had uprooted the very foundations of these nations and while they revelled in their newfound independence they realised they had a very low faith in what remained of their identity. The rapid advancement of the West allured them and they looked up to the West as a model for their own rapid advancement. Apparently, with the socialist
and communist models earlier providing alternatives to the Western model ran out of steam at a time when the new nations and peoples contemplated making quick progress. At such a time the West alone stood out as an unchallenged alternative for speedy development. In his book Claude Alvares points out that this limitation of a choice for a model on a part of the world was exploited opportunistically by the West to further its own interests. The adoption of the Western model, whatever may have been its achievements, necessitated a disregard of traditions and bypassing the socio-economic conditions peculiar to the countries that adopted the model. In time it was realised that for most of the developing countries the adoption of the Western model
was a misguided approach. India too, which had taken to the Western model, realised its mistake after its independence by its Sixth Plan, during the 1970s.
Technology and culture on the one hand influence development and on the other are themselvesaffected by development. Claude Alvares in his book explores the impact of the Western interpretation of technology and culture, and its emerging impact on the developing countries.
Rajni Kothari, an eminent Indian sociologist, in his foreword to this book says, ‘the relevance of this book goes beyond its scholastic title. It sheds light on and sets in perspective the large questions of our time, questions of both theory and human choice. It is an attempt to relate the basic anthropological concern regarding the nature of man and the predicament that faces him, the role of technology in defining this in our time, the dominant cultural paradigm underlying such a relationship between technology and human destiny, and the political processes through which this relationship and its transmission of a particular culture are sought to be legitimised and challenged in our time.’ Kothari says that most of the current debates on technology, development and international order are reflected in the analysis presented here. The ecological crisis and the role of Western technology in it are spelt out vigorously. The theme that it is not merely technology that is at fault but also the meaning and direction given to it by the cultural paradigm of the modern West is pointed out. The author is aware of the central importance of the politics of technological choices and the international and global structuring thereof. He is at the same time unsparing of the elite and intelligentsia of the Third World for their falling prey to such choices and in the process ravaging their lands and exploiting their peoples. He further says
that this book points to the necessity of rejecting the Western pretence of universalism and for non-Western cultures to seek answers to their problems ‘within’. This is a perspective that is beginning to be widely shared. Among other things, it can enable man to transcend the extreme parochialism of Western science and its so-called objectivity, a myth that the author explodes quite ably.
Claude Alvares has divided the book into seven chapters, along with an after-word. The first chapter is - A New Anthropological Model. The second and the third chapters look closely at the Indian and the Chinese Technology and Culture while the fourth discusses the English Technology and Culture. In the fifth chapter Alvares looks at the Technology, Culture and the
Empire in the Colonial Age; in the sixth chapter the renewal of the Chinese and Indian technology and culture are covered. Finally, the seventh chapter evaluates the logic of appropriate technology.
Since Alvares is concerned with the plight of the people, their cultures, communities and their development on account of the politics of the West, he introduces the subject matter under the sub-titles, The Politics of Anthropology, The Politics of Political Science, The Politics of Psychology, The Poor as scapegoats, and The Survival Engineer. The introduction part of the book is very important for it exposes the subject matter at a macro level, which is then elaborated upon in later chapters with particular examples of the Indian and Chinese situations. It may have been that the Western model initially gained momentum of its own accord within a particular socio-cultural environment, but Alvares endeavours to show that in time it was deliberately used to betray, exploit and demolish other systems.
Alvares is critical of the anthropologists and says that when they documented faithfully the ways of life of an alien community, they did it within a framework of mind that located the community at a level lower than the one on which they themselves, as a member of Western culture, stood and lived. Such a situation favoured the proliferation of comfortable myths, the most persistent one of which taught that non-literate peoples in Southern countries possessed something like a
‘primitive mentality’, that was not merely different from, but inferior to its Western counterpart.
This ‘primitive mentality’, the myth noted, was highly concrete, while the Western mind was more ‘abstract’. The former was also supposed to connect its ideas by rote association, while the latter used general relations. Further, the nature of the Western mind was thought to be disposed to logic and consistency, while the primitive mind floated easily in contradictions and was generally more emotional and childish, and so forth. By 1830, the British had acquired, in what was to become a completely European century, a flattering notion of the nature of their own
civilization, and a thoroughgoing contempt of every other. In India itself, this new attitude found expression in the infamous Minute of Lord Macaulay on the 2nd of February 1835:
‘I have never found one amongst them [the orientalists] who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgment used at preparatory schools in England.’
Macaulay advised that the Board of Public Instruction would be wasting public funds should it print books of Indian learning "which are of less value than the paper on which they are printed was while it was blank", and that the artificial ncouragement to "absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology" would end in the raising of a "breed of scholars, who live on the public while they are receiving their education, and whose education is so utterly useless to them that, when they have received it, they must either starve or live on the public all
the rest of their lives". Alvares says that little did Macaulay realize that it would be precisely the English system he introduced that would produce the "breed of scholars" so characteristic of India and the other Southern nations today - the educated unemployed. He points out that the Dutch historian, Peter Geyl, had no different view of these matters. Even Marx, we are told, seemed to hold similar views as he said that England had to fulfil a double mission in India: one
destructive, the other regenerating - the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia. Marx went on to emphasize how the British were breaking up the village community, uprooting handicraft industry, and establishing private property in land, which he termed "the great desideratum of Indian society". This in the view of Alvares was the politics of anthropology that belittled the people who were non-Western or non-European. Even Needham put this sarcastically when he said, ‘European music was music, all
other music anthropology’. The study of white men even was a separate science called
sociology; anthropology covered the rest. A hundred years later, Peter Drucker, the godfather ofthe global corporation was still theorizing along similar lines. In one of his not so well known books, The Landmarks of Tomorrow, he urged his readers to face the new reality of the collapse of the East, that is, of non-Western culture and civilization, to the point where no viable society anywhere could be built except on Western foundations.
The end of the Second World War was followed by the rise of a fresh generation of states and by the time the world had entered the fifties a growing concern with the phenomena of ‘backwardness and underdevelopment’ had come to the fore. Walt Rostow, in one of the most influential books of the decade to follow, set out to argue the credibility of the prescriptions given by the American experts for the development of the underdeveloped. Actually, as is now well known, Rostow's book The Stages of Economic Growth was not concerned at all with the ‘backwardness’ of the new states, but formed part of a tactic designed to aid Dulles against Khrushchev in competing for the allegiance of these nations, still uncommitted to either of the
two power blocks. Rostow argued that the key to successful development lay not with the Soviet Union, but with the West, it was therefore in the interests of the non-aligned nations to jump on the Western bandwagon.
It would take another fifteen years before scholars would isolate the fundamental deficiencies of Rostow's model. By the time the critique had been accomplished, the economic and industrial elements of the Western paradigm, in so far as they might have had significance for the new nations, had lost their great appeal. By then the serious flirtation on the part of the industrializing nations with the model had resulted in a powerful current of dismay, disillusion, and disappointment. Western scholars had been equally busy constructing similar, only more bizarre, models and disseminating slanted advice. The model presented by these scholars on a platter, so
to speak, was again a distinctly Western one: formal democracy in combination with a
rationalized bureaucracy. The new states should attain this goal, since it represented the ‘summit’ of political development. New states not yet incorporated within the model were to be termed ‘traditional’ or better still ‘transitional’ that is, still undergoing the throes of modernization. W.F. Wertheim exposed their political implications and pointed out that the chief exponent of the school, Daniel Lerner, was guilty of extreme ethnocentrism in identifying the traits of modernity with those of the American society. It is not difficult to prove that the godfathers of the gospel of modernization, including Lerner, S.N. Lipset, and Karl Deutsch, were influenced in their studies and policy recommendations concerning the Southern nations by categories and historical possibilities fashioned in their own context.
There is a more serious criticism Alvares levels against the modernizers, available to us in the writings of the Indian political scientist, Rajni Kothari. Kothari said that the mode of development presented under the generalized package of the ‘modernization’ process, undermined, in one continent after another, national independence in real terms, in the name of economic development. Alvares therefore says that the consequences of such an empty, context free model of modernization had indeed been disastrous. It had produced an economic, bureaucratic, and technocratic elite intimately tied to the metropolitan areas of the world, treating the vast rural hinterlands in its own countries as colonies that provided cheap food and raw
materials and surplus labour (and markets for inferior industrial products and obsolete industrial machines); an elite that had achieved high economic status at the expense of large numbers of people huddled in the ‘countryside’, and in the process lost both its independence and its social conscience. Alvares says that in the ultimate analysis, there is absolutely no reason for restricting the models of modernity and the processes and sequences of modernization to the experience of
the Western nations. If, however, we continue to do so, we are open to the charge that we are subduing vast and varied societies of the world to the totalitarianism of a single historical pattern.
History might pattern itself on the past, but there is no reason why it should pattern itself on the Western past merely because the Western nations realized urbanization and literacy before political democracy.
Alvares says that when all these theories of evolution, anthropology, political science and psychology dismally failed as prescriptions for development and confounded the Westerns as to how the miracles could have bypassed the backward nations, they obviously looked around for a scapegoat. He says it would have been glaringly impolite to put the burden on the white man and, on the other hand, it would have been quite embarrassing to accuse those governments of failing to address the issues. So the only scapegoats left were the low income groups, including
the landless labourers, the small farmers, the unemployed craftsmen and so on. And since these could be depended upon not to react or return the attack, experts and governments set about the task with a will. In literature, he says it was Gunnar Myrdal who lent some sanction to the stereotype of the poor man as being mostly passive, apathetic and inarticulate. That the tide of false perceptions did not abate says Alvares is evident in the population control measures exported to the developing countries. He puts it sarcastically that a variant of that legendary
Marie Antoinette proposal has become the order of the day: if they have no bread, let them swallow pills. The subtitle ‘the survival engineer’ is an ode to the poor, traditional and yet not modernised or perhaps Westernised human being. It is towards the cause of the insecure groups around the world that this book is written in which Alvares exposes the ominous designs of the West against the poor. The economically insecure man in the Southern nations is engaged in the task of survival, but this time, primary survival. Considering the range of odds against which he must struggle and his experience thus far in using all his wits about him to remain alive, he
comes very close to being an engineer par excellence. The technology he uses is not invented for the maximization of profit; it is, instead, a survival technology, an expression used by Dutch philosopher K wee Swan-Liat. Fully half the population of today's world are survival technicians; they do not exploit the Western echnological system. They are craftsmen of necessity.
Alvares quotes Joseph Needham in the very first chapter, which could well be taken as gist of the entire chapter. Needham said, ‘for three thousand years a dialogue has been going on between the two ends of the Old World. Greatly have they influenced each other, and very different are the cultures they have produced. We have now good reason to think that the problems of the world will never be solved so long as they are considered only from a European point of view. It is necessary to see Europe from the outside, to see European history, and European failure no
less than European achievement, through the eyes of that larger part of humanity, the peoples of Asia (and indeed also of Africa).’
Alvares begins by objecting to the use of the word Homo faber, ‘Man the maker’ in the West, which has found wide acceptance around the world. Carlyle called man a tool-using animal and Benjamin Franklin called him a tool-making animal. Alvares thinks that it all goes on to show the obsession with technology which has wrongly been suggested as a faculty that separates and distinguishes man from the whole range of animals. It seems that here Alvares is trying to challenge a very important and a fundamental assumption in relation to man. It is wrong to presume that biological development of man preceded the beginning of culture. Geertz has been
able to show with evidence based on archaeological and palaeontological records that the greater part of human cortical expansion followed, not preceded, the beginning of culture. In other words, it makes more sense to believe that ‘culture was ingredient’, and that too central1y ingredient, in the production of the human animal, rather than to think of it in terms of being added on, so to speak, to a finished or nearly finished animal. And by culture, Geertz has in mind
much more than the mere perfection of tools. It also includes the adoption of organized hunting and gathering practices, the beginnings of true family organization, the discovery of fire, and the increasing reliance upon systems of significant symbols (language, art, myth, ritual) for orientation, communication, and self-control.
The Dutch historian of technology, R. J.Forbes was one of the first historians of technology to conclude that technology was the work of mankind as a whole, and that no part of the world can claim to be more innately gifted than any other part. Yet, Alvares says that, for the past fifteen decades, particularly during the last three, the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America were told a different version of the story. They were taught, directly and indirectly, to compare their technological systems in terms of the Western production system, and to define themselves and
their cultures in relation to a particularized philosophical anthropology. Every aspect of the life of their societies was then compared, judged, or assessed in terms of what obtained in the West.
Alvares says that the wrong notion that the Western technology is the only viable model has been extensively projected in books, journals and research works which identify science and technology with the science and technology of the West. Thus, Alvares says that our preoccupation with the Western technology has resulted in more attention being paid by the new nations to transplanting elements of the Western technological system instead of updating their own indigenous ones. So in the chapter where Alvares objects to the use of the word Homo fabre, since it excludes the animals who are in many cases better creators than man, he also proposes to have a new model where Homo fabre does not only stand for the Western white man
but also includes the African Homo fabre, the Chinese and the Indian Homo fabre as well.
The second chapter looks into the Indian technology and culture. At the very beginning Alvares concedes that so great a quantity of paper and print has been devoted to Indian philosophy and art, and so pervasive is the opinion abroad that these aspects of the Indian mind have remained saturated with "spirituality" and "world-denying" tendencies, that it has seemed but natural to conclude that technology or material culture could not have been attended to in the measure
desired. To counter this Alvares studies the Indian technology under the subheads of Indian agriculture, Indian Industry, Indian medicine and lastly discusses the mind of the Indians. He cites the case of Dr. Wallick, a superintendent of the East India Company, who told the English Commons Committee that the Europeans out of India had in a great measure misunderstood the husbandry of Bengal. The Bengali husbandry, although in many respects extremely simple and primeval in its mode and form, was not so low as people generally supposed it to be. He found that very sudden improvements in them have never led to any good results. He said, “I have known, for instance of European iron ploughs introduced into Bengal with a view of superseding
the extremely tedious and superficial turning of the ground by a common Bengali plough. But what has been the result? That the soil which is extremely superficial, as I took the liberty of mentioning before, which was intended to be torn up, has generally received the admixture of the under soil, which has deteriorated it very much.” He has put on record that he was asked whether
the techniques could be improved. He had answered it in the negative.
We are told that in 1820 Colonel Alexander Walker had prepared a more comprehensive report on the agriculture of Malabar and Gujarat. Alvares quotes him extensively and says that the entire report may be found in Dharampal's Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century. Walker wrote that in a climate where the productive powers were so great, it was only necessary to put the seed a little way into the ground. It must be a strong proof that the Indian plough was not ill adapted for its purpose when it was seen arising out of the furrows it cut, for
the most abundant and luxurious crops. What could be desired more than that? The labour and expense beyond that point must have been seen as superfluous. The Indian peasant was commonly well enough informed as to his interest, and he was generally intelligent and reflecting. He was attached to his own modes, because they were easy and useful; but furnished him with instruction and means, and he would adopt them, provided they got him his profit.
Alvares cites extensive paragraphs from these reports, which go on to show the crops, farming practices and irrigation methods used by the Indian farmer.
Next to agriculture, cotton and cotton goods constituted the principal industry in the Indian subcontinent, as did the woollen industry in England. Up to 1800, no country produced a greater abundance or variety of textiles in the world than India and that too with most simple of tools.
China remained the only close rival. In 1700 itself, India was the largest exporter of textiles in the world. Here Alvares quotes Dubois:
“With such simple tools the patient Hindu, can produce specimens of work, which are often not to be distinguished from those I imported at great expense from foreign countries.”
Alvares says that the world today cannot understand production except in terms of high-energy inputs, complex machines and processes, and massive organisations. But foreign travellers to India one after the other remarked on the perfection of the manufacture and the simplicity of the tools. Alvares tells us that the loom provided the basis of the Indian industry, particularly in the eighteenth century. It provided employment to ‘hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, comprising the weaver caste’ and to ‘countless widows’ and families, who engaged themselves in the
subsidiary processes of cotton spinning. The weaving industry itself was extensive, stretching from ‘the banks of the Ganges to the Cape’. ‘On the coast of Coromandel and in the province of Bengal, when at some distance from the high road or a principal town, it is difficult to find a village in which every man, woman or child is not employed in making a piece of cloth.’
The fact is that the textile industry was highly coordinated with agriculture. It was usually when the crops were growing or had just been harvested, that one found a great number of villagers applying themselves to the loom, ‘so that more silk and cotton was manufactured in Bengal than in thrice the same extent of country throughout the empire and consequently at much cheaper rates’. In the north, the great Moghuls maintained kharkhanas (factories) for their specific needs.
Elsewhere, native princes preserved their own arrangements. And one economist has noted how this constant source of employment declined and withered as the princes fell prey to the machinations of British power. Surat, an emporium of foreign commerce, manufactured the finest Indian brocades, the richest silk stuffs of all kinds, calicoes and muslins. The woollen industry was situated in Kashmir, which produced the extraordinary cashmere shawls, whose beauty was considerably ‘enhanced by the introduction of flower work’. The wool was imported from Tibet, after which it was bleached and manufactured. As for silks, in Western India, fabrics from them were often mixed with cotton. Printed silk, culgar is still produced in the same places today as in those times, in the form of saris of artificial, printed silk or kalgers. One species of cotton and silk fabrics consisted of alachas, striped fabrics, later consciously imitated in England. The cuttanee was a satin weave; the cheapest of the mixed fabrics were called tepseils, produced for the West African trade. And for the Portuguese demand, there were silk and wool fabrics, called camboolees, produced in Sind.
Talking of the Indian industry how could one forget the mention of iron and steel produced in India. Dharampal observes, there are a number of accounts concerning the production of iron and steel in India during the Vasco da Gama epoch. There were other centres during the Iron Age where steel was produced by holding wrought iron in the charcoal of the forge until it reached white heat and then quenching it, but the resulting product did not reach Celtic standards. The latter itself, however, was not as good as the so-called Damascus steel, the only true spring steel known before the Age of Gunpowder. And this steel was made in India as early as the 5th or 6th centuries B.C. in the Hyderabad district by smiths through a process of fusion known as wootz. By the 1790s, a sample of Indian wootz had landed in England, where it roused considerable scientific and technical interest. It was examined by several experts and found it in general to match with the best steel available in England. People also found this steel excellently adapted for the purpose of fine cutlery, and particular for all edged instruments used for surgical purposes. Demand increased, so that 18 years later, one frequent user could write:
“I have at this time a liberal supply of wootz, and I intend to use it for many purposes. If a better steel is offered to me, I will gladly attend to it; but the steel of India is decidedly the best I have yet met with.”
The founder of the Indian Iron and Steel Company, J .M. Heath, soon discovered that the Indian method of wootz making lasted two hours and a half, while the processes at Sheffield required four hours.
The literature on Indian medicine is enormous, rich and various. Alvares in this book describes two of the more important medical arts of India, plastic surgery and inoculations against smallpox. Both were indigenously evolved. However Alvares concedes that he has left out a number of other technical processes used by the Indians before and, during the colonial period, including the making of paper, ice, armaments, the breeding of animals, horticultural techniques, and others. Such industries have been described in detail by Dharampal, whose Collected Works
Claude Alvares has helped to reprint.
Alvares maintains that Indian science and technology should not be construed as constituting the total interpretation of the Indian Homo faber paradigm alone. For the technology of India can be related to other aspects of an Indian philosophy, or an Indian mind and his experience of the world.
The third chapter of the book is devoted to the consideration of the Chinese technology and culture where Alvares says that the Western influence on the Chinese mind has had its effects and even Chinese scholars, educated in Western universities, have not been able to refrain from manipulating Chinese history to reinforce conclusions reached earlier by frankly ideological means. At least their activities are intelligible in the light of almost total devaluation of the role
of the intellectual in the life of modern China. Thus, the late Lin Yutang, born and raised in China, but with his spirit moulded in the United States, was ready to confess in 1937 a complete lack of confidence in the regenerative powers of his own people. He opined that China then was undeniably the most incoherent and chaotic nation on earth, the most dramatically weak and impotent, the most incapable of rising up and marching ahead, while in the West, attention was principally diverted to nature, and the natural sciences were developed earlier and further than the human sciences. In China, man formed the focus of both theory and practice. If in the West man saw himself as able to dominate nature, the Chinese refused that attitude, instead placing man not merely as central, but also as an integral part of nature.
Alvares discusses Chinese history and philosophy through Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism in the book. He says that Needham is quite fond of constantly repeating his claim that, ‘Chinese science and technology were very much more advanced than those of Europe between the third century B.C. and the fifteenth century AD Renaissance in Europe.’
The English Technology and Culture have been taken up by Alvares in the fourth chapter. He begins by maintaining that contrary to all that has been written on the subject, Europe did not produce the industrial revolution -- Britain alone did. He quotes Forbes, which is quite relevant and might come to us as a surprise for in our imagination we are prone to think that the Industrial
Revolution in England took place all of a sudden. Forbes wrote: ‘The Industrial Revolution was by no means as sudden as is often claimed or as revolutionary as some have believed. It had its roots in the important technological changes of the 16th century, although it did not gain momentum until about 1800. From a social point of view, however, the changes during the period from 1730 to 1880, dramatic in their strange medley of good and evil, often tragic in their combination of material progress and social suffering, might indeed be described as revolutionary.’
Alvares says that an agricultural revolution preceded or ran simultaneously with the industrial revolution. A more thorough scrutiny of the agricultural scene at this early date will lead to the conclusion that the word ‘revolution’, when seen from the angle of technological development, exaggerates the extent of the changes involved. It is pointed out that the ‘official’ dates demarcating the period of the revolution are 1760 and 1830. However, the most important innovations concerned resource changes, and these came much before 1760. No industrial revolution would have been possible without them. By the 1830s, the handloom weavers had been reduced to a wage of less than a penny an hour. They were able to keep alive only when
their children and wives joined in the factories. The application of steam power to looms gradually undermined their independence and their number. They did not give up easily, but they had to in the end, provoking Ashton to term the period one of the most depressing chapters in the economic history of the time. If convicts had been compelled to work a twelve-hour a day as part of their punishment, in jails, it would have provoked a humanitarian outcry. Yet the twelve-hour working day in factories had been established on commercial grounds - and not just as the norm
but also as the minimum! It was this, rather than the cruelty involved, which was the most hideous aspect of the factory system. It imprisoned men, women and children for so much of their lives. The mill-owners did not deny the cruelty. They merely found the discussion about it irrelevant. In their opinion, the factory worker was better off. He was enjoying a standard of living higher than he otherwise could have hoped for, especially if his lot were compared to a century earlier when there had been no factories. In 1834, Jean de Sismondi, though accepting the fact that machinery had vastly increased England's productive potential, and had made
fortunes for many employers enabling England to become the foremost trading nation in the world, made it known that all of it had been built up only at the expense of the worker. The Industrial Revolution brought the majority of the population of England to face a situation where the total adaptation of their lives to the rigours of a new productive system became a virtual necessity. Thus, if we have the majority poor in mind it seems that the English society had to pay for increased production of basic subsistence items by undergoing a worsening of cultural, social, and environmental conditions during at least a part of the nineteenth century. Alvares
emphasises that he has observed that people only accepted the rigours of industrial life in the hope of improving their subsistence; but in the bargain they suffered severe cultural, social, and environmental deprivation - they came to living on bread alone. Poverty in one sphere was exchanged for poverty in others. New needs sprang up because of the changed life-styles. The old methods of satisfying human needs were destroyed or rendered obsolete. There were undoubtedly many aspects of the pre-industrial way of life, which were especially satisfactory, and it was only after the disruption of this way of life that people experienced some particularly
pressing needs outside the sphere of traditional subsistence. The question is not whether, in the final analysis, pre-industrial primitive societies could not enjoy some of the goods of modern life, rather one should ask whether pre-industrial populations would have been prepared to work the long, tedious hours for these goods and services.
In the final analysis, Alvares says that it does appear from what he has observed thus far that rich societies are less rich and poor societies less poor than has been hitherto imagined. Therefore he suggests that the words ‘developed’ and ‘rich’ be dropped when describing the industrial nations, and that the adjective ‘sick’ might do a better job!
While looking into the technology, culture and empire in the colonial age in the fifth chapter, Alvares quotes historian, K.M. Panikkar who wrote that till the nineteenth century there was no large demand for European goods in any Asian country. The Empires of Asia had self-sufficient economies. Though the trade of India was large at all times, the economy of the country was not based on trade. This was true of China also, and the imperial government seems at all times to have discouraged the import of foreign goods into its territory.
Europe during the middle ages had but little to offer to the Asian economies. But a serious crisis of overproduction in the 1550s in England stressed the need for new outlets and the most hopeful prospect then seemed to be that of establishing trade with the Far East - both China and Japan.
Here Alvares embarks upon a discussion of the international trade that took shape in those days to the detriment of Indian manufactures. Besides setting up institutions for collecting revenue, the colonial government set about making institutional changes in agriculture by transforming traditionally restricted property rights into something more closely resembling the unencumbered private property so characteristic of Western agricultural systems. William Woodruff sees in this,
one of the principal ideas that signalled the application of the Western idea of progress in the non-Western world. The consequence of the half-Westernized land policy, the change from custom to contract, was the creation of one of the greatest curses ever to settle on the structure of the Indian rural economy: the rise of the power of the moneylender. Before the arrival of the colonizer, for centuries in fact, the moneylender had been nothing more than a servile adjunct to
the cultivator, socially despised as much for his trade as for his religion. The institution of property rights was specifically intended for the collection of the land tax. It established a direct legal relation between the colonial government and the peasant or landowner. This in itself led to the beginning of inheritance and thus to the problem of the division of land. Indeed the legacy of
the colonial past still pesters India and China, but China to a lesser extent as China was never a full-scale colony.
There are many such examples around the world and the question in the end Alvares asks is who is going to help bring about this shift to the necessary and desired technological development for each country. What is involved here is the issue of distribution of power, and the concentration of it in the hands of private interests and concerns. The politics of technology often reinforces the status quo, and the question remains as to who is going to impose solutions. How do we help
separate the aims of a democratic society from those of private industry, and make the former control the latter?
Having exposed the deleterious consequences of the Western model of development, Claude Alvares presses home not only the desirability of alternative development strategies, but also their feasibility and necessity.
Alvares, Claude. 1991. Decolonising History: Technology and Culture in India, China and the West, 1492 to the Present Day. Goa: The Other India Press, India.
‘I have never found one amongst them [the orientalists] who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgment used at preparatory schools in England.’
--Minute of Lord Macaulay on the 2nd of February 1835
This obnoxious statement may incite a murderous response in a young reader today, but the fact remains that the British in particular and the West in general did denigrate the East, its culture and scientific legacy. The worst part is that quite a few Indians too believe such blatant condemnation of the Indian legacy. Western Science created hegemonic categories of science vs magic, technology vs superstition etc., which were both arbitrary and contrived. Prabably the Western model initially gained momentum of its own accord within a particular socio-cultural environment, but Alvares endeavours to show that in time it was deliberately used to betray,
exploit and demolish other systems. The nature of the Western mind was thought to be disposed to logic and consistency, while the primitive mind floated easily in contradictions and was generally more emotional and childish, and so forth. They taught that non-literate peoples in Southern countries possessed something like a "primitive mentality", that was not merely different from, but inferior to its Western counterpart.
But today a lot of new facts are coming out which show how the West plagiarized Indian traditional science and called it its own. Even the botanical taxonomy was essentially based on Ezhwa traditional knowledge, but no Western scientist ever refers to the contributions of Itty Achuden to the now famous Hortus Malabaricus. As our main concern is History of Indian Science and Technology, Claude Alvares’ book under review thus assumes great relevance. He relentlessly exposes the claims of the West of its superiority and brings out the fact that till the advent of the British in India, it was a far richer and scientifically superior a country than the West. His book is an eye opener and a must for all interested in understanding the achinations of the British in condemning our great achievements of the past.
Alvares very forcefully debunks the claims of the West that extols the virtues of the Western mind and civilization and denigrates those of the Indian and the Chinese. He quotes from the offensive claims made by Macaulay in 1835. Macaulay condemned outright the intellectual and scientific legacy of India, to introduce the Western model of education system.
Alvares explains how the West succeeded not only in denigrating the Oriental science and culture but also the self-esteem of the Indians. Alvares quotes extensively from the works of the renowned Ghandhian and historian of science, Dharampal, as to how advanced the Indian science and technology was before the advent of the British. He exposes the claims of the Western Industrial Revolution, which made its poor people poorer. The British could survive only by making its people work for 12 hours a day and by making the women and children also work in the factories. Alvares explodes the myth of the European Homo Faber. Above all, Alvares debunks the false claims of the West that the Indian mind was merely saturated with spirituality. He refutes this claim by highlighting the achievements of ancient Indian agriculture,industry and medicine etc.
Alvares goes to the extent of even accusing liberal scholars such as Karl Marx, Needham, and Peter Gayle of belittling Indian achievements in science and technology.
Rajini Kothari, the famed sociologist, pays a profound tribute to the importance of the book when he says, “It is an ambitious undertaking though not modestly carried out. A political battle that is intellectually waged.”
Countries and nations around the world during the latter half of the 20th century saw uprisings against the colonial regimes and their gradual collapse resulting in the creation of independent, sovereign states. The colonial domination had uprooted the very foundations of these nations and while they revelled in their newfound independence they realised they had a very low faith in what remained of their identity. The rapid advancement of the West allured them and they looked up to the West as a model for their own rapid advancement. Apparently, with the socialist
and communist models earlier providing alternatives to the Western model ran out of steam at a time when the new nations and peoples contemplated making quick progress. At such a time the West alone stood out as an unchallenged alternative for speedy development. In his book Claude Alvares points out that this limitation of a choice for a model on a part of the world was exploited opportunistically by the West to further its own interests. The adoption of the Western model, whatever may have been its achievements, necessitated a disregard of traditions and bypassing the socio-economic conditions peculiar to the countries that adopted the model. In time it was realised that for most of the developing countries the adoption of the Western model
was a misguided approach. India too, which had taken to the Western model, realised its mistake after its independence by its Sixth Plan, during the 1970s.
Technology and culture on the one hand influence development and on the other are themselvesaffected by development. Claude Alvares in his book explores the impact of the Western interpretation of technology and culture, and its emerging impact on the developing countries.
Rajni Kothari, an eminent Indian sociologist, in his foreword to this book says, ‘the relevance of this book goes beyond its scholastic title. It sheds light on and sets in perspective the large questions of our time, questions of both theory and human choice. It is an attempt to relate the basic anthropological concern regarding the nature of man and the predicament that faces him, the role of technology in defining this in our time, the dominant cultural paradigm underlying such a relationship between technology and human destiny, and the political processes through which this relationship and its transmission of a particular culture are sought to be legitimised and challenged in our time.’ Kothari says that most of the current debates on technology, development and international order are reflected in the analysis presented here. The ecological crisis and the role of Western technology in it are spelt out vigorously. The theme that it is not merely technology that is at fault but also the meaning and direction given to it by the cultural paradigm of the modern West is pointed out. The author is aware of the central importance of the politics of technological choices and the international and global structuring thereof. He is at the same time unsparing of the elite and intelligentsia of the Third World for their falling prey to such choices and in the process ravaging their lands and exploiting their peoples. He further says
that this book points to the necessity of rejecting the Western pretence of universalism and for non-Western cultures to seek answers to their problems ‘within’. This is a perspective that is beginning to be widely shared. Among other things, it can enable man to transcend the extreme parochialism of Western science and its so-called objectivity, a myth that the author explodes quite ably.
Claude Alvares has divided the book into seven chapters, along with an after-word. The first chapter is - A New Anthropological Model. The second and the third chapters look closely at the Indian and the Chinese Technology and Culture while the fourth discusses the English Technology and Culture. In the fifth chapter Alvares looks at the Technology, Culture and the
Empire in the Colonial Age; in the sixth chapter the renewal of the Chinese and Indian technology and culture are covered. Finally, the seventh chapter evaluates the logic of appropriate technology.
Since Alvares is concerned with the plight of the people, their cultures, communities and their development on account of the politics of the West, he introduces the subject matter under the sub-titles, The Politics of Anthropology, The Politics of Political Science, The Politics of Psychology, The Poor as scapegoats, and The Survival Engineer. The introduction part of the book is very important for it exposes the subject matter at a macro level, which is then elaborated upon in later chapters with particular examples of the Indian and Chinese situations. It may have been that the Western model initially gained momentum of its own accord within a particular socio-cultural environment, but Alvares endeavours to show that in time it was deliberately used to betray, exploit and demolish other systems.
Alvares is critical of the anthropologists and says that when they documented faithfully the ways of life of an alien community, they did it within a framework of mind that located the community at a level lower than the one on which they themselves, as a member of Western culture, stood and lived. Such a situation favoured the proliferation of comfortable myths, the most persistent one of which taught that non-literate peoples in Southern countries possessed something like a
‘primitive mentality’, that was not merely different from, but inferior to its Western counterpart.
This ‘primitive mentality’, the myth noted, was highly concrete, while the Western mind was more ‘abstract’. The former was also supposed to connect its ideas by rote association, while the latter used general relations. Further, the nature of the Western mind was thought to be disposed to logic and consistency, while the primitive mind floated easily in contradictions and was generally more emotional and childish, and so forth. By 1830, the British had acquired, in what was to become a completely European century, a flattering notion of the nature of their own
civilization, and a thoroughgoing contempt of every other. In India itself, this new attitude found expression in the infamous Minute of Lord Macaulay on the 2nd of February 1835:
‘I have never found one amongst them [the orientalists] who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgment used at preparatory schools in England.’
Macaulay advised that the Board of Public Instruction would be wasting public funds should it print books of Indian learning "which are of less value than the paper on which they are printed was while it was blank", and that the artificial ncouragement to "absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology" would end in the raising of a "breed of scholars, who live on the public while they are receiving their education, and whose education is so utterly useless to them that, when they have received it, they must either starve or live on the public all
the rest of their lives". Alvares says that little did Macaulay realize that it would be precisely the English system he introduced that would produce the "breed of scholars" so characteristic of India and the other Southern nations today - the educated unemployed. He points out that the Dutch historian, Peter Geyl, had no different view of these matters. Even Marx, we are told, seemed to hold similar views as he said that England had to fulfil a double mission in India: one
destructive, the other regenerating - the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundations of Western society in Asia. Marx went on to emphasize how the British were breaking up the village community, uprooting handicraft industry, and establishing private property in land, which he termed "the great desideratum of Indian society". This in the view of Alvares was the politics of anthropology that belittled the people who were non-Western or non-European. Even Needham put this sarcastically when he said, ‘European music was music, all
other music anthropology’. The study of white men even was a separate science called
sociology; anthropology covered the rest. A hundred years later, Peter Drucker, the godfather ofthe global corporation was still theorizing along similar lines. In one of his not so well known books, The Landmarks of Tomorrow, he urged his readers to face the new reality of the collapse of the East, that is, of non-Western culture and civilization, to the point where no viable society anywhere could be built except on Western foundations.
The end of the Second World War was followed by the rise of a fresh generation of states and by the time the world had entered the fifties a growing concern with the phenomena of ‘backwardness and underdevelopment’ had come to the fore. Walt Rostow, in one of the most influential books of the decade to follow, set out to argue the credibility of the prescriptions given by the American experts for the development of the underdeveloped. Actually, as is now well known, Rostow's book The Stages of Economic Growth was not concerned at all with the ‘backwardness’ of the new states, but formed part of a tactic designed to aid Dulles against Khrushchev in competing for the allegiance of these nations, still uncommitted to either of the
two power blocks. Rostow argued that the key to successful development lay not with the Soviet Union, but with the West, it was therefore in the interests of the non-aligned nations to jump on the Western bandwagon.
It would take another fifteen years before scholars would isolate the fundamental deficiencies of Rostow's model. By the time the critique had been accomplished, the economic and industrial elements of the Western paradigm, in so far as they might have had significance for the new nations, had lost their great appeal. By then the serious flirtation on the part of the industrializing nations with the model had resulted in a powerful current of dismay, disillusion, and disappointment. Western scholars had been equally busy constructing similar, only more bizarre, models and disseminating slanted advice. The model presented by these scholars on a platter, so
to speak, was again a distinctly Western one: formal democracy in combination with a
rationalized bureaucracy. The new states should attain this goal, since it represented the ‘summit’ of political development. New states not yet incorporated within the model were to be termed ‘traditional’ or better still ‘transitional’ that is, still undergoing the throes of modernization. W.F. Wertheim exposed their political implications and pointed out that the chief exponent of the school, Daniel Lerner, was guilty of extreme ethnocentrism in identifying the traits of modernity with those of the American society. It is not difficult to prove that the godfathers of the gospel of modernization, including Lerner, S.N. Lipset, and Karl Deutsch, were influenced in their studies and policy recommendations concerning the Southern nations by categories and historical possibilities fashioned in their own context.
There is a more serious criticism Alvares levels against the modernizers, available to us in the writings of the Indian political scientist, Rajni Kothari. Kothari said that the mode of development presented under the generalized package of the ‘modernization’ process, undermined, in one continent after another, national independence in real terms, in the name of economic development. Alvares therefore says that the consequences of such an empty, context free model of modernization had indeed been disastrous. It had produced an economic, bureaucratic, and technocratic elite intimately tied to the metropolitan areas of the world, treating the vast rural hinterlands in its own countries as colonies that provided cheap food and raw
materials and surplus labour (and markets for inferior industrial products and obsolete industrial machines); an elite that had achieved high economic status at the expense of large numbers of people huddled in the ‘countryside’, and in the process lost both its independence and its social conscience. Alvares says that in the ultimate analysis, there is absolutely no reason for restricting the models of modernity and the processes and sequences of modernization to the experience of
the Western nations. If, however, we continue to do so, we are open to the charge that we are subduing vast and varied societies of the world to the totalitarianism of a single historical pattern.
History might pattern itself on the past, but there is no reason why it should pattern itself on the Western past merely because the Western nations realized urbanization and literacy before political democracy.
Alvares says that when all these theories of evolution, anthropology, political science and psychology dismally failed as prescriptions for development and confounded the Westerns as to how the miracles could have bypassed the backward nations, they obviously looked around for a scapegoat. He says it would have been glaringly impolite to put the burden on the white man and, on the other hand, it would have been quite embarrassing to accuse those governments of failing to address the issues. So the only scapegoats left were the low income groups, including
the landless labourers, the small farmers, the unemployed craftsmen and so on. And since these could be depended upon not to react or return the attack, experts and governments set about the task with a will. In literature, he says it was Gunnar Myrdal who lent some sanction to the stereotype of the poor man as being mostly passive, apathetic and inarticulate. That the tide of false perceptions did not abate says Alvares is evident in the population control measures exported to the developing countries. He puts it sarcastically that a variant of that legendary
Marie Antoinette proposal has become the order of the day: if they have no bread, let them swallow pills. The subtitle ‘the survival engineer’ is an ode to the poor, traditional and yet not modernised or perhaps Westernised human being. It is towards the cause of the insecure groups around the world that this book is written in which Alvares exposes the ominous designs of the West against the poor. The economically insecure man in the Southern nations is engaged in the task of survival, but this time, primary survival. Considering the range of odds against which he must struggle and his experience thus far in using all his wits about him to remain alive, he
comes very close to being an engineer par excellence. The technology he uses is not invented for the maximization of profit; it is, instead, a survival technology, an expression used by Dutch philosopher K wee Swan-Liat. Fully half the population of today's world are survival technicians; they do not exploit the Western echnological system. They are craftsmen of necessity.
Alvares quotes Joseph Needham in the very first chapter, which could well be taken as gist of the entire chapter. Needham said, ‘for three thousand years a dialogue has been going on between the two ends of the Old World. Greatly have they influenced each other, and very different are the cultures they have produced. We have now good reason to think that the problems of the world will never be solved so long as they are considered only from a European point of view. It is necessary to see Europe from the outside, to see European history, and European failure no
less than European achievement, through the eyes of that larger part of humanity, the peoples of Asia (and indeed also of Africa).’
Alvares begins by objecting to the use of the word Homo faber, ‘Man the maker’ in the West, which has found wide acceptance around the world. Carlyle called man a tool-using animal and Benjamin Franklin called him a tool-making animal. Alvares thinks that it all goes on to show the obsession with technology which has wrongly been suggested as a faculty that separates and distinguishes man from the whole range of animals. It seems that here Alvares is trying to challenge a very important and a fundamental assumption in relation to man. It is wrong to presume that biological development of man preceded the beginning of culture. Geertz has been
able to show with evidence based on archaeological and palaeontological records that the greater part of human cortical expansion followed, not preceded, the beginning of culture. In other words, it makes more sense to believe that ‘culture was ingredient’, and that too central1y ingredient, in the production of the human animal, rather than to think of it in terms of being added on, so to speak, to a finished or nearly finished animal. And by culture, Geertz has in mind
much more than the mere perfection of tools. It also includes the adoption of organized hunting and gathering practices, the beginnings of true family organization, the discovery of fire, and the increasing reliance upon systems of significant symbols (language, art, myth, ritual) for orientation, communication, and self-control.
The Dutch historian of technology, R. J.Forbes was one of the first historians of technology to conclude that technology was the work of mankind as a whole, and that no part of the world can claim to be more innately gifted than any other part. Yet, Alvares says that, for the past fifteen decades, particularly during the last three, the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America were told a different version of the story. They were taught, directly and indirectly, to compare their technological systems in terms of the Western production system, and to define themselves and
their cultures in relation to a particularized philosophical anthropology. Every aspect of the life of their societies was then compared, judged, or assessed in terms of what obtained in the West.
Alvares says that the wrong notion that the Western technology is the only viable model has been extensively projected in books, journals and research works which identify science and technology with the science and technology of the West. Thus, Alvares says that our preoccupation with the Western technology has resulted in more attention being paid by the new nations to transplanting elements of the Western technological system instead of updating their own indigenous ones. So in the chapter where Alvares objects to the use of the word Homo fabre, since it excludes the animals who are in many cases better creators than man, he also proposes to have a new model where Homo fabre does not only stand for the Western white man
but also includes the African Homo fabre, the Chinese and the Indian Homo fabre as well.
The second chapter looks into the Indian technology and culture. At the very beginning Alvares concedes that so great a quantity of paper and print has been devoted to Indian philosophy and art, and so pervasive is the opinion abroad that these aspects of the Indian mind have remained saturated with "spirituality" and "world-denying" tendencies, that it has seemed but natural to conclude that technology or material culture could not have been attended to in the measure
desired. To counter this Alvares studies the Indian technology under the subheads of Indian agriculture, Indian Industry, Indian medicine and lastly discusses the mind of the Indians. He cites the case of Dr. Wallick, a superintendent of the East India Company, who told the English Commons Committee that the Europeans out of India had in a great measure misunderstood the husbandry of Bengal. The Bengali husbandry, although in many respects extremely simple and primeval in its mode and form, was not so low as people generally supposed it to be. He found that very sudden improvements in them have never led to any good results. He said, “I have known, for instance of European iron ploughs introduced into Bengal with a view of superseding
the extremely tedious and superficial turning of the ground by a common Bengali plough. But what has been the result? That the soil which is extremely superficial, as I took the liberty of mentioning before, which was intended to be torn up, has generally received the admixture of the under soil, which has deteriorated it very much.” He has put on record that he was asked whether
the techniques could be improved. He had answered it in the negative.
We are told that in 1820 Colonel Alexander Walker had prepared a more comprehensive report on the agriculture of Malabar and Gujarat. Alvares quotes him extensively and says that the entire report may be found in Dharampal's Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century. Walker wrote that in a climate where the productive powers were so great, it was only necessary to put the seed a little way into the ground. It must be a strong proof that the Indian plough was not ill adapted for its purpose when it was seen arising out of the furrows it cut, for
the most abundant and luxurious crops. What could be desired more than that? The labour and expense beyond that point must have been seen as superfluous. The Indian peasant was commonly well enough informed as to his interest, and he was generally intelligent and reflecting. He was attached to his own modes, because they were easy and useful; but furnished him with instruction and means, and he would adopt them, provided they got him his profit.
Alvares cites extensive paragraphs from these reports, which go on to show the crops, farming practices and irrigation methods used by the Indian farmer.
Next to agriculture, cotton and cotton goods constituted the principal industry in the Indian subcontinent, as did the woollen industry in England. Up to 1800, no country produced a greater abundance or variety of textiles in the world than India and that too with most simple of tools.
China remained the only close rival. In 1700 itself, India was the largest exporter of textiles in the world. Here Alvares quotes Dubois:
“With such simple tools the patient Hindu, can produce specimens of work, which are often not to be distinguished from those I imported at great expense from foreign countries.”
Alvares says that the world today cannot understand production except in terms of high-energy inputs, complex machines and processes, and massive organisations. But foreign travellers to India one after the other remarked on the perfection of the manufacture and the simplicity of the tools. Alvares tells us that the loom provided the basis of the Indian industry, particularly in the eighteenth century. It provided employment to ‘hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, comprising the weaver caste’ and to ‘countless widows’ and families, who engaged themselves in the
subsidiary processes of cotton spinning. The weaving industry itself was extensive, stretching from ‘the banks of the Ganges to the Cape’. ‘On the coast of Coromandel and in the province of Bengal, when at some distance from the high road or a principal town, it is difficult to find a village in which every man, woman or child is not employed in making a piece of cloth.’
The fact is that the textile industry was highly coordinated with agriculture. It was usually when the crops were growing or had just been harvested, that one found a great number of villagers applying themselves to the loom, ‘so that more silk and cotton was manufactured in Bengal than in thrice the same extent of country throughout the empire and consequently at much cheaper rates’. In the north, the great Moghuls maintained kharkhanas (factories) for their specific needs.
Elsewhere, native princes preserved their own arrangements. And one economist has noted how this constant source of employment declined and withered as the princes fell prey to the machinations of British power. Surat, an emporium of foreign commerce, manufactured the finest Indian brocades, the richest silk stuffs of all kinds, calicoes and muslins. The woollen industry was situated in Kashmir, which produced the extraordinary cashmere shawls, whose beauty was considerably ‘enhanced by the introduction of flower work’. The wool was imported from Tibet, after which it was bleached and manufactured. As for silks, in Western India, fabrics from them were often mixed with cotton. Printed silk, culgar is still produced in the same places today as in those times, in the form of saris of artificial, printed silk or kalgers. One species of cotton and silk fabrics consisted of alachas, striped fabrics, later consciously imitated in England. The cuttanee was a satin weave; the cheapest of the mixed fabrics were called tepseils, produced for the West African trade. And for the Portuguese demand, there were silk and wool fabrics, called camboolees, produced in Sind.
Talking of the Indian industry how could one forget the mention of iron and steel produced in India. Dharampal observes, there are a number of accounts concerning the production of iron and steel in India during the Vasco da Gama epoch. There were other centres during the Iron Age where steel was produced by holding wrought iron in the charcoal of the forge until it reached white heat and then quenching it, but the resulting product did not reach Celtic standards. The latter itself, however, was not as good as the so-called Damascus steel, the only true spring steel known before the Age of Gunpowder. And this steel was made in India as early as the 5th or 6th centuries B.C. in the Hyderabad district by smiths through a process of fusion known as wootz. By the 1790s, a sample of Indian wootz had landed in England, where it roused considerable scientific and technical interest. It was examined by several experts and found it in general to match with the best steel available in England. People also found this steel excellently adapted for the purpose of fine cutlery, and particular for all edged instruments used for surgical purposes. Demand increased, so that 18 years later, one frequent user could write:
“I have at this time a liberal supply of wootz, and I intend to use it for many purposes. If a better steel is offered to me, I will gladly attend to it; but the steel of India is decidedly the best I have yet met with.”
The founder of the Indian Iron and Steel Company, J .M. Heath, soon discovered that the Indian method of wootz making lasted two hours and a half, while the processes at Sheffield required four hours.
The literature on Indian medicine is enormous, rich and various. Alvares in this book describes two of the more important medical arts of India, plastic surgery and inoculations against smallpox. Both were indigenously evolved. However Alvares concedes that he has left out a number of other technical processes used by the Indians before and, during the colonial period, including the making of paper, ice, armaments, the breeding of animals, horticultural techniques, and others. Such industries have been described in detail by Dharampal, whose Collected Works
Claude Alvares has helped to reprint.
Alvares maintains that Indian science and technology should not be construed as constituting the total interpretation of the Indian Homo faber paradigm alone. For the technology of India can be related to other aspects of an Indian philosophy, or an Indian mind and his experience of the world.
The third chapter of the book is devoted to the consideration of the Chinese technology and culture where Alvares says that the Western influence on the Chinese mind has had its effects and even Chinese scholars, educated in Western universities, have not been able to refrain from manipulating Chinese history to reinforce conclusions reached earlier by frankly ideological means. At least their activities are intelligible in the light of almost total devaluation of the role
of the intellectual in the life of modern China. Thus, the late Lin Yutang, born and raised in China, but with his spirit moulded in the United States, was ready to confess in 1937 a complete lack of confidence in the regenerative powers of his own people. He opined that China then was undeniably the most incoherent and chaotic nation on earth, the most dramatically weak and impotent, the most incapable of rising up and marching ahead, while in the West, attention was principally diverted to nature, and the natural sciences were developed earlier and further than the human sciences. In China, man formed the focus of both theory and practice. If in the West man saw himself as able to dominate nature, the Chinese refused that attitude, instead placing man not merely as central, but also as an integral part of nature.
Alvares discusses Chinese history and philosophy through Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism in the book. He says that Needham is quite fond of constantly repeating his claim that, ‘Chinese science and technology were very much more advanced than those of Europe between the third century B.C. and the fifteenth century AD Renaissance in Europe.’
The English Technology and Culture have been taken up by Alvares in the fourth chapter. He begins by maintaining that contrary to all that has been written on the subject, Europe did not produce the industrial revolution -- Britain alone did. He quotes Forbes, which is quite relevant and might come to us as a surprise for in our imagination we are prone to think that the Industrial
Revolution in England took place all of a sudden. Forbes wrote: ‘The Industrial Revolution was by no means as sudden as is often claimed or as revolutionary as some have believed. It had its roots in the important technological changes of the 16th century, although it did not gain momentum until about 1800. From a social point of view, however, the changes during the period from 1730 to 1880, dramatic in their strange medley of good and evil, often tragic in their combination of material progress and social suffering, might indeed be described as revolutionary.’
Alvares says that an agricultural revolution preceded or ran simultaneously with the industrial revolution. A more thorough scrutiny of the agricultural scene at this early date will lead to the conclusion that the word ‘revolution’, when seen from the angle of technological development, exaggerates the extent of the changes involved. It is pointed out that the ‘official’ dates demarcating the period of the revolution are 1760 and 1830. However, the most important innovations concerned resource changes, and these came much before 1760. No industrial revolution would have been possible without them. By the 1830s, the handloom weavers had been reduced to a wage of less than a penny an hour. They were able to keep alive only when
their children and wives joined in the factories. The application of steam power to looms gradually undermined their independence and their number. They did not give up easily, but they had to in the end, provoking Ashton to term the period one of the most depressing chapters in the economic history of the time. If convicts had been compelled to work a twelve-hour a day as part of their punishment, in jails, it would have provoked a humanitarian outcry. Yet the twelve-hour working day in factories had been established on commercial grounds - and not just as the norm
but also as the minimum! It was this, rather than the cruelty involved, which was the most hideous aspect of the factory system. It imprisoned men, women and children for so much of their lives. The mill-owners did not deny the cruelty. They merely found the discussion about it irrelevant. In their opinion, the factory worker was better off. He was enjoying a standard of living higher than he otherwise could have hoped for, especially if his lot were compared to a century earlier when there had been no factories. In 1834, Jean de Sismondi, though accepting the fact that machinery had vastly increased England's productive potential, and had made
fortunes for many employers enabling England to become the foremost trading nation in the world, made it known that all of it had been built up only at the expense of the worker. The Industrial Revolution brought the majority of the population of England to face a situation where the total adaptation of their lives to the rigours of a new productive system became a virtual necessity. Thus, if we have the majority poor in mind it seems that the English society had to pay for increased production of basic subsistence items by undergoing a worsening of cultural, social, and environmental conditions during at least a part of the nineteenth century. Alvares
emphasises that he has observed that people only accepted the rigours of industrial life in the hope of improving their subsistence; but in the bargain they suffered severe cultural, social, and environmental deprivation - they came to living on bread alone. Poverty in one sphere was exchanged for poverty in others. New needs sprang up because of the changed life-styles. The old methods of satisfying human needs were destroyed or rendered obsolete. There were undoubtedly many aspects of the pre-industrial way of life, which were especially satisfactory, and it was only after the disruption of this way of life that people experienced some particularly
pressing needs outside the sphere of traditional subsistence. The question is not whether, in the final analysis, pre-industrial primitive societies could not enjoy some of the goods of modern life, rather one should ask whether pre-industrial populations would have been prepared to work the long, tedious hours for these goods and services.
In the final analysis, Alvares says that it does appear from what he has observed thus far that rich societies are less rich and poor societies less poor than has been hitherto imagined. Therefore he suggests that the words ‘developed’ and ‘rich’ be dropped when describing the industrial nations, and that the adjective ‘sick’ might do a better job!
While looking into the technology, culture and empire in the colonial age in the fifth chapter, Alvares quotes historian, K.M. Panikkar who wrote that till the nineteenth century there was no large demand for European goods in any Asian country. The Empires of Asia had self-sufficient economies. Though the trade of India was large at all times, the economy of the country was not based on trade. This was true of China also, and the imperial government seems at all times to have discouraged the import of foreign goods into its territory.
Europe during the middle ages had but little to offer to the Asian economies. But a serious crisis of overproduction in the 1550s in England stressed the need for new outlets and the most hopeful prospect then seemed to be that of establishing trade with the Far East - both China and Japan.
Here Alvares embarks upon a discussion of the international trade that took shape in those days to the detriment of Indian manufactures. Besides setting up institutions for collecting revenue, the colonial government set about making institutional changes in agriculture by transforming traditionally restricted property rights into something more closely resembling the unencumbered private property so characteristic of Western agricultural systems. William Woodruff sees in this,
one of the principal ideas that signalled the application of the Western idea of progress in the non-Western world. The consequence of the half-Westernized land policy, the change from custom to contract, was the creation of one of the greatest curses ever to settle on the structure of the Indian rural economy: the rise of the power of the moneylender. Before the arrival of the colonizer, for centuries in fact, the moneylender had been nothing more than a servile adjunct to
the cultivator, socially despised as much for his trade as for his religion. The institution of property rights was specifically intended for the collection of the land tax. It established a direct legal relation between the colonial government and the peasant or landowner. This in itself led to the beginning of inheritance and thus to the problem of the division of land. Indeed the legacy of
the colonial past still pesters India and China, but China to a lesser extent as China was never a full-scale colony.
There are many such examples around the world and the question in the end Alvares asks is who is going to help bring about this shift to the necessary and desired technological development for each country. What is involved here is the issue of distribution of power, and the concentration of it in the hands of private interests and concerns. The politics of technology often reinforces the status quo, and the question remains as to who is going to impose solutions. How do we help
separate the aims of a democratic society from those of private industry, and make the former control the latter?
Having exposed the deleterious consequences of the Western model of development, Claude Alvares presses home not only the desirability of alternative development strategies, but also their feasibility and necessity.
The classical ending of the tragedy of “the Gospel” of Mark
By neilgodfrey
Mark’s penchant for ironic reversals is well-known. We run into difficulties, however, when we stop short and fail to see irony in his account of Peter, the twelve, and even the nature of the work itself as a “gospel”. Mark loves paradoxes: the cross is both a shame and a glory; life is only found through death; honour through dishonour; Peter’s confession is both the high point and low of his career; and on an on — enough to fill an entire book like Jerry Camery-Hoggatt’s Irony in Mark’s Gospel. So it need not be surprising that his gospel would, ironically, embody a tragedy.
The good news (gospel) of Jesus Christ is also the tragedy of his disciples. Jesus is “good news” for the gospeller’s audience, but the narrative is also a tragic warning to that same audience. The disciples in Mark serve the same function as the Israel (the many Israel’s really, generation after generation) in the Jewish scriptures. They are a warning and spiritual lesson to whatever the audience of the day who were to see themselves as the “new Israel”. (I have shown in an earlier post that the evidence for the historicity of the Twelve — especially as argued by John P. Meier — is so thin as to be virtually nonexistent.)
Tragedies, whether Latin, Greek, Jewish or Mesopotamian, very often had a conclusion that indicated a final horrific reversal of themes and images found in their beginnings. These conclusions could also be abrupt. Too abrupt for modern tastes.
I touched on these points in one of the first posts I ever composed for this blog — Those Strange NT Endings (Mark, John, Acts).
I was recently reminded of the thematic and literary correpondences between the Histories of the Greek historian, Herodotus, and Israel’s Primary History (Genesis to 2 Kings) and once again I could not help comparing the Gospel of Mark. It’s original ending — at 16:8 — is a perfectly coherent one when the tragic side of the gospel is recognized. (Mark 16:9-20 is not found in the earliest manuscripts or evidence for this gospel, and can be shown to be a later addition by a scribe conflating elements of the endings of Matthew and Luke.)
Note the allusions to the beginnings, and their tragic reversals . . . .
* The reference to Peter at the end (16:7) is a classic reminder of the failure of a lead character, certainly the leading disciple, in whom so much hope had once resided.
* Just as the would be victors (spiritually) had come out from Jerusalem into the wilderness to seek salvation (from a messenger of Jesus), . . .
* and just as others initially followed Jesus himself, leaving all of their old world, family and home, behind, . . .
* so at the end they come seeking near Jerusalem, now become the spiritual wilderness, in the place of tombs, Jesus. . . .
* They see, however, a messenger of Jesus — as at the beginning.
* Instead of following where Jesus is going on ahead, they instead flee in fear, thus losing their (eternal) lives.
This is exactly how we could expect the “gospel” of Mark to conclude if it is understood as a tragedy of the “old Israel”, the “old wineskins“, for the spiritual profit of the “new” people of God, Mark’s original audiences.
The Histories of Herodotus is likewise an historical tragedy. Modern studies of Herodotus have opened up the view of his Histories as a theological narrative, with its regular references to Greek relations with Apollo and the theme of hubris against a deity. The Persians are the obvious primary victim of this hubris, but more significantly, their consequent tragic sufferings and final fall is written as a philosophical or even theological lesson for the Greek audience of Herodotus. He is warning his own race against hubris, and even narrates beginning signs of this among the Athenians as they begin to emerge triumphant over the Persians.
There is probably little need to explain the Primary History as a similar tragedy.
So it is, I think, an interesting exercise to compare their endings with each other, and both with that of the Gospel of Mark. Of course these are not the only tragedies. I could also bring in some Greek plays that were well known throughout the Hellenistic and early Roman eras. But I think in this literary context, it can be less problematic to accept 16:8 as the original ending of this gospel, er, tragedy.
The Ending of Herodotus’s Histories: (Online text begins here)
1. It ends abruptly. No epilogue or similar concluding summary or comment.
2. Reference is made to the key figure at the beginning of the book, King Cyrus. The original hope of Cyrus at the beginning is brought to remembrance at the time of the tragic failure, through hubris, of the Persians.
3. As foretold by the narrator in book 7, the Persian governor of the last Persian city in Greece was crucified. This was at the exact same spot where the awe-inspiring bridge between the continents of Asia and Europe had been earlier built.
4. The Persians are forced to retreat back to Asia where they had advanced from in ignominious defeat.
Also noteworthy by way of conclusion:
* The last city of the Persians in Europe was long besieged, suffered extreme hardships, was deserted by its governor . . .
* Its governor, Artayctes, fled, was captured, returned in chains, crucified, and forced to witness the butchering of his son.
The conclusion of the Jewish Primary History: (Genesis to 2 Kings)
1. It ends abruptly. In failure.
2. Allusion is made to Joseph, a patriarchal founder of Israel, by the imprisoning of Jaehoichin, and lifting him out of prison to sit with the king.
3. The last of the Israelites return ignominiously to where they had originated — Egypt and Babylonia.
Also noteworthy
* The city of the hope of David was long besieged, sufferend extreme hardships, and was deserted by its king . . .
* Its king, Zedekiah, fled, was captured, returned in chains and was forced to witness the butchering of his sons before being blinded.
And to recap . . . .
The end of the Gospel of Mark: (16:1-8)
1. It ends abruptly. In failure.
2. Reference is made to the key figure at the beginning of the book, Peter, the one in whom rested the most hope, but who had proved himself to be ashamed of Jesus before men.
3. Just as people had come from Jerusalem to the wilderness to hear the messenger clothed in wild garments proclaim Jesus, so at the end the people in Jerusalem (the spiritual wilderness), the city of the hope of David, come to the tombs to seek Jesus, but see instead a messenger in fine garments proclaim Jesus. As the people had come out from Jerusalem to follow, and as the disciples had followed, they now flee in fear. Jesus goes on ahead, but they no longer follow as before.
And of course
* The disciples (both men and women), on facing persecution, fled from Jesus . . .
* Jesus was crucified, an event which is at least twice, maybe thrice, linked to the final destruction of Jerusalem (11:15; 13:2; 15:38)
By neilgodfrey
Mark’s penchant for ironic reversals is well-known. We run into difficulties, however, when we stop short and fail to see irony in his account of Peter, the twelve, and even the nature of the work itself as a “gospel”. Mark loves paradoxes: the cross is both a shame and a glory; life is only found through death; honour through dishonour; Peter’s confession is both the high point and low of his career; and on an on — enough to fill an entire book like Jerry Camery-Hoggatt’s Irony in Mark’s Gospel. So it need not be surprising that his gospel would, ironically, embody a tragedy.
The good news (gospel) of Jesus Christ is also the tragedy of his disciples. Jesus is “good news” for the gospeller’s audience, but the narrative is also a tragic warning to that same audience. The disciples in Mark serve the same function as the Israel (the many Israel’s really, generation after generation) in the Jewish scriptures. They are a warning and spiritual lesson to whatever the audience of the day who were to see themselves as the “new Israel”. (I have shown in an earlier post that the evidence for the historicity of the Twelve — especially as argued by John P. Meier — is so thin as to be virtually nonexistent.)
Tragedies, whether Latin, Greek, Jewish or Mesopotamian, very often had a conclusion that indicated a final horrific reversal of themes and images found in their beginnings. These conclusions could also be abrupt. Too abrupt for modern tastes.
I touched on these points in one of the first posts I ever composed for this blog — Those Strange NT Endings (Mark, John, Acts).
I was recently reminded of the thematic and literary correpondences between the Histories of the Greek historian, Herodotus, and Israel’s Primary History (Genesis to 2 Kings) and once again I could not help comparing the Gospel of Mark. It’s original ending — at 16:8 — is a perfectly coherent one when the tragic side of the gospel is recognized. (Mark 16:9-20 is not found in the earliest manuscripts or evidence for this gospel, and can be shown to be a later addition by a scribe conflating elements of the endings of Matthew and Luke.)
Note the allusions to the beginnings, and their tragic reversals . . . .
* The reference to Peter at the end (16:7) is a classic reminder of the failure of a lead character, certainly the leading disciple, in whom so much hope had once resided.
* Just as the would be victors (spiritually) had come out from Jerusalem into the wilderness to seek salvation (from a messenger of Jesus), . . .
* and just as others initially followed Jesus himself, leaving all of their old world, family and home, behind, . . .
* so at the end they come seeking near Jerusalem, now become the spiritual wilderness, in the place of tombs, Jesus. . . .
* They see, however, a messenger of Jesus — as at the beginning.
* Instead of following where Jesus is going on ahead, they instead flee in fear, thus losing their (eternal) lives.
This is exactly how we could expect the “gospel” of Mark to conclude if it is understood as a tragedy of the “old Israel”, the “old wineskins“, for the spiritual profit of the “new” people of God, Mark’s original audiences.
The Histories of Herodotus is likewise an historical tragedy. Modern studies of Herodotus have opened up the view of his Histories as a theological narrative, with its regular references to Greek relations with Apollo and the theme of hubris against a deity. The Persians are the obvious primary victim of this hubris, but more significantly, their consequent tragic sufferings and final fall is written as a philosophical or even theological lesson for the Greek audience of Herodotus. He is warning his own race against hubris, and even narrates beginning signs of this among the Athenians as they begin to emerge triumphant over the Persians.
There is probably little need to explain the Primary History as a similar tragedy.
So it is, I think, an interesting exercise to compare their endings with each other, and both with that of the Gospel of Mark. Of course these are not the only tragedies. I could also bring in some Greek plays that were well known throughout the Hellenistic and early Roman eras. But I think in this literary context, it can be less problematic to accept 16:8 as the original ending of this gospel, er, tragedy.
The Ending of Herodotus’s Histories: (Online text begins here)
1. It ends abruptly. No epilogue or similar concluding summary or comment.
2. Reference is made to the key figure at the beginning of the book, King Cyrus. The original hope of Cyrus at the beginning is brought to remembrance at the time of the tragic failure, through hubris, of the Persians.
3. As foretold by the narrator in book 7, the Persian governor of the last Persian city in Greece was crucified. This was at the exact same spot where the awe-inspiring bridge between the continents of Asia and Europe had been earlier built.
4. The Persians are forced to retreat back to Asia where they had advanced from in ignominious defeat.
Also noteworthy by way of conclusion:
* The last city of the Persians in Europe was long besieged, suffered extreme hardships, was deserted by its governor . . .
* Its governor, Artayctes, fled, was captured, returned in chains, crucified, and forced to witness the butchering of his son.
The conclusion of the Jewish Primary History: (Genesis to 2 Kings)
1. It ends abruptly. In failure.
2. Allusion is made to Joseph, a patriarchal founder of Israel, by the imprisoning of Jaehoichin, and lifting him out of prison to sit with the king.
3. The last of the Israelites return ignominiously to where they had originated — Egypt and Babylonia.
Also noteworthy
* The city of the hope of David was long besieged, sufferend extreme hardships, and was deserted by its king . . .
* Its king, Zedekiah, fled, was captured, returned in chains and was forced to witness the butchering of his sons before being blinded.
And to recap . . . .
The end of the Gospel of Mark: (16:1-8)
1. It ends abruptly. In failure.
2. Reference is made to the key figure at the beginning of the book, Peter, the one in whom rested the most hope, but who had proved himself to be ashamed of Jesus before men.
3. Just as people had come from Jerusalem to the wilderness to hear the messenger clothed in wild garments proclaim Jesus, so at the end the people in Jerusalem (the spiritual wilderness), the city of the hope of David, come to the tombs to seek Jesus, but see instead a messenger in fine garments proclaim Jesus. As the people had come out from Jerusalem to follow, and as the disciples had followed, they now flee in fear. Jesus goes on ahead, but they no longer follow as before.
And of course
* The disciples (both men and women), on facing persecution, fled from Jesus . . .
* Jesus was crucified, an event which is at least twice, maybe thrice, linked to the final destruction of Jerusalem (11:15; 13:2; 15:38)
1998 thermonuclear test was a dud: Santhanam
1998 thermonuclear test was a dud: Santhanam
IANS
First Published : 21 Sep 2009 07:19:16 PM IST
Last Updated : 21 Sep 2009 08:57:42 PM IST
NEW DELHI: Rebutting National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan's assertions, K. Santhanam, the scientist who was involved in India's nuclear tests in 1998, Monday reiterated that the thermonuclear device exploded by India had not worked according to design expectations and showed photographs of the site that had no crater.
Santhanam, along with physicist Ashok Parthasarthi, had last week written an article in The Hindu newspaper that questioned the official version that India's May 1998 nuclear tests were a success.
The NSA told a television channel in an interview that Santhanam and other scientists had ulterior motives and they were not privy to the classified information to come to that conclusion.
"He is barking up the wrong tree," responded Santhanam at a media interaction at the Indian Women's Press Corps.
He said there were "several inaccuracies in that statement".
The scientist recalled that after the tests when they visited the shaft of the thermonuclear device at Pokhran in Rajasthan, it was found "by and large undamaged".
In contrast, the fission bomb explosion at the time which had a yield of 20-25 kiloton, left behind a large crater, he said.
He noted that there was immediate reservation among some scientists "whether the thermonuclear device had actually worked to design expectations".
A classified technical study report was submitted to the government towards 1998-end.
"Thereafter, a meeting was held in which scientists from DRDO and BARC participated. Despite fairly long discussions the two agencies agreed to disagree," said Santhanam.
The chairman of that meeting had said the matter would be taken to the minister concerned, who would charter the future course, Santhanam recounted.
He was answering a query on why he chose to go public after so many years. "The impression that suddenly the jack-in-the-antique box is up, is not based on facts," he said.
The scientist also released photographs of "ground zero" of the thermonuclear device, which showed that there was no crater after the explosion. There should have been a crater of 72 metres radius if the device had been successful, he said.
"This picture tells a story that we have to do more honest homework in the direction of improving our thermonuclear design," said Santhanam.
Asked if the depth of the shaft made a difference to the crater size, he indicated that while he could not reveal the exact measurements, it was sufficient to create a substantial crater.
Santhanam said that the radio-chemical analysis of the test was classified and had not been shared with the scientists.
Former science advisor to prime minister Indira Gandhi, Ashok Parthasarthi said by questioning the results "the intention was not to denigrate the nuclear weapons programme, but to set the matter right".
"We have to have a credible nuclear weapons deterrent. We have already lost time," said Parthasarthi, who was involved in Pokhran-1 test in 1974.
India tested five nuclear devices in May 1998, including the thermonuclear device.
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Comments
The problem with India, unlike China, US or UK is that neither our politicians nor our bureaucrats can be trusted. They do not think for India and as Indians. Where else in the world can you find a foreign lady making decisions affecting the very existence of such a vast nation? Any way now no use saying all this. It is too late !
By Mathew Philip
9/22/2009 12:56:00 AM
Steroid filled Vajpayee was under the control of the CIA agent Brjesh Misra. Misra in turn was under the control of the Rome plant Sonia as Brajesh's daughter is married to an Italian. So under American pressure Vajpayee, R Chidambaram and Kalam lied about the yields as 55 kt instead of the 12 kt yield. The second stage of the two-stage fusion assembly failed to ignite as planned. As K. Santhanam, was from another department, pointed the discrepancy in his confidential memo. This reminds me of the Pakis lying like hell about the no of blasts as six, where as it was only two. From DAE no one will raise the voice as most of the scientists and engineers are from south, and most of them are yes men. For the Tamilians, DAE is an employment exchange and majority of them are duds.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 11:18:00 PM
CBI tracked Rs 6.2 crore paid as bribes to defence by Verma. CIA product A.K. Anthony’s position as defense minister is to cover up the involvement of CIA operations in India and to stem investigation linking Sonia to the Scorpion deal kickback. Manmohan is linked to ISI from his days as the RBI governor when he allowed the ISI bank BCCI was allowed to open its branch in India in 1983. Manmohan was was inducted to congress by Indira for his links to ISI. Paki bank BCCI paid Indira and Manmohan. Google BCCI AFFAIR for details. In 1966 Sonia worked for ISI operative Salman Thassir in Londonas both Manmohan and Sonia are old sleepers of ISI CIA. Indira and Sonia were on the payroll of KGB also. Being ISI sleepers Sonia and Manmohan are allowing the 3 crore illegal muslims from Bangladesh and Paki terrorists to destroy India. The very recent incident of S S Paul, a christian at the National Security Council Secretariat, who spied for CIA, using a pen drive has rattled our nation
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 11:06:00 PM
CIA penetrated the IB, the R&AW and the National Security Council Secretariat. The CIA's moles in the NSCS have passed on hundreds of pages of classified information to an American woman CIA officer posted in the US Embassy in Delhi through pen drives. Verma, the spy in the Rs 18,789-crore Scorpene submarine deal, has now been charge sheeted under sections 3 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act. As per the CBI's chargesheet, Verma was "spying on behalf of several multinational firms" and was inciting defence personnel to spy on his behalf. While navy dismissed three officers without a showcause notice or a trial, no action was taken against the civilian recipients like Sonia Gandhi who collected the kickback on the submarine deal. The KGB, had bribed communists, Indira, ministers, 30 MPs,10 newspapers in India. KGB had deposited US $2 billion or Rs 9400 Crores in a Swiss bank in 1985 for Sonia as was reported in the Swiss mag.Schweitzer Illustrierte
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 11:00:00 PM
Muslim Nehru was a traitor who stole the Gandhi surname for his family. India survived the emergency of Indira who converted to Islam to marry a muslim Feroz Khan. Khan was not a Parsee but a muslim whose kabarstan was visited by his christian grandson Rahul Gandhi. Becasuse of Nehru, we have the muslim and christian terrorism.. Nehru’s sexual escapades have resulted in his blackmailing by the missionaries for free hand in North East and it resulted in christian terrorism and christian separatism in India. Nehru gave away Indus water to Pakis and we got just 16% of the water. Nehru lost land to China and Pakistan. He refused the UN security council membership when it was offered to India. He took Kashmir issue to UN and prevented our army to take it back on the orders of his concubine, Lady Moutbatten. Christian missionaries anti India propaganda and education, has resulted in a population with no patriotism.. Christians have planted Sonia Gandhi in Nehru family.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:48:00 PM
Earlier CIA had placed an American spy as English tutor for Sikkim prince who conveniently fell in love with and married the prince later. This was to make Sikkim an independent nation. It was detected by India in time. With the support of Christian Missionaries, terrorist organizations like NLFT and NSCN are spreading terror in parts of North-East India.and their gun point conversions are going on in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Meghalaya. Church and christians with the help of CIA is trying to breakup India. Christians are a fraud and indecent group in our national politics. Look at the 30 christian MPs and the number of christian ministers, Ajit Jogi, A.K.Anthony. Pranab Muckerjee, Oomman Chandy, , Ambika Soni, Oscar Fernandes etc.who is propagating minority policies to dismember India on the instructions of the Italian plant Sonia. PM Manmohan who is from Assam came to RS, is linked to ISI and CIA from 1983 and Sonia is linked to ISI from her London days.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:38:00 PM
Banned Christian terrorist org NSCN has its own government which collects money from the local people. One third of the salaries of the government servants are taken away as Nagaland Tax before disbursement. Most of the banks in Nagaland have closed down because of the huge sums extracted by this outfit. The letterheads and stamps of this unofficial government read 'Nagaland for Christ'. In March 10, 2005 about 30 communal christian MPs from across India met NSCN over dinner at a hotel in New Delhi to offer their support for 'Nagaland for Christ' as per senior NSCN leader V.S. Atem. Never in the history of India had the Christian MPs across India done this criminal act. They came out now in the open because the Italian christian Antonia Maino alias Sonia Gandhi who is ruling India with the help of her dummy Manmohan Singh.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:30:00 PM
From 1979 onwards Assam witnessed the birth of secessionist and separatist groups. Fissiparous tendencies grew in the entire region with the christian funding for conversion activities in NE states. CIA and Paki's ISI always work in close cooperation. Christians have become a serious threat to the integrity of India. Christian terrorists kill more hindus in India than the muslim terrorists. NE is in the grip of christian separatistism and get funds from West and get weapons from church. US president Carter on 20th February 2006 along with the US Senator Barbara Boxer was calling for Nagaland to secede from India. The presence of christian bureaucrats in the GOI cadre posted in NE is also helping the terrorists.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:27:00 PM
US. Ambassador David C Mulford in a letter dated 4-10-2004, to the Chief Ministers of Assam and Nagaland, saying that their FBI will investigate their serial bomb blasts without involving the central govt, and it was a blatant intervention in India's internal affairs by the USA. CM Gogoi initially wanted to take FBI's help. However, sharp reaction across the country against US interference, he backtracked. Mulford's direct offer to Assam Chief Minister was not only an interference by the United States in the internal affairs of India, it also exposed the double standards of the USA vis-a-vis the NE states.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:24:00 PM
US.spies and diplomats visit frequentlty NE states. With the help of the CIA agent Brajesh Mishra a 10-day exercise code-named Yudh Abhyas (War Exercises), involving a platoon of the Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army and Indian Army, was held at Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) at Vairangte in Mizoram in March-April 2004. Later, exercises in unconventional operations and mock intelligence, counter-intelligence and psychological warfare in a simulated insurgency and terrorist environment was also taken up. India and the U.S. had their first joint military exercises at CIJWS in May 2002. US. Ambassador Robert Blackwill was the first foreigner to visit the strategic Nathu La in Sikkim along the India-China border on February 1, 2002. Blackwill also visited key military locations in the region, including the Headquarters of the 4 Corps of the Indian Army at Tezpur in Assam and 3 Corps at Dimapur in Nagaland responsible for guarding the border with China and Myanmar.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:22:00 PM
Declassified secret CIA reports had shown that an Indian cabinet minister, and a CIA operative, wrecked India's plan to annihilate Pakistan in 1971. CIA was involved in the case of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh incident. CIA was involved in the overthrowing of democratically elected Jacob Arbenz of Guatemala, in 1954. CIA helped “Papa Doc” Duvalier become dictator ofHaiti, in 1959. CIA assassinated Patrice Lumumba in Zaire, in 1961. Overthrown Prince Sihanouk Cambodia, in 1971 was by CIA. CIA overthrown and assassinated Salvador Allende of Chile, in 1973. Through the CIA, the U.S. has been perpetrating its hegemonic control over the world
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:20:00 PM
. USA wanted to create new nations out of India in NE. In 1978, a secret circular titled ‘Project Brahmaputra’ was sent by the United States Information Service (USIS) - which was reorganised as the United States International Communication Agency (USICA) - in New Delhi to USIS in Kolkata. The document said: "With the agreement of the State Department, the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) of the George Washington University has asked the U.S. outfits in India for help in conducting sociological research in the eastern states of India, including Sikkim as well as Bhutan. The aim of this research was to create new nations out of India. USIS wanted to mobilise its entire personnel working in the states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura along with local contract staff from students and educationalists, funded by USA. When this circular became public, it became clear that under the cover of research the US wants to dismember India to create new nations in NE.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:18:00 PM
Manmohan was taken in to Rao’s govt on the orders of CIA as per the book written by a Finance Minister of the West Bengal government. So is the case of Anthony who is a creation of CIA that funded the Kerala Vimochana Samaram through the churches against the first elected communist government. The christian Sunday school boys like Anthonyand Oomman Chandy have become leaders with CIA funding. Later the fake ISRO spy case created by CIA to delay our liquid propulsion engine development catapulled Anthony to the chief ministership of Kerala. Now the Rome planted Sonia had put him as our Defense minister to make USA our main weapons supplier, replacing Russia. Manmohan who is drawing three pensions including that from the world bank is not elected but planted as PM by USA. Traitor Manmohan is a CIA ISI asset like Sonia. Manmohan’s background much more sinister than that of AK Anthony or Sonia..Manmohan now sold our nuke programme to USA.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:07:00 PM
Santhanam should be hanged to death for anti national activities, what ever the merirs / de merits of Pokhran 2, santhanam and co have no business in voicing this in public. This is a private issue and not for the general public and the whole world, as it hugely compromises on national interests. Now the whole world knows that we do not have nuclear capability. If these scientists had been genuine they should have insisted on Pokhran 3. Death sentence to traitors like santhanam will act as an deterrent
By Krishnamachari MS
9/21/2009 9:35:00 PM
Where were you, Mr.Santhanam in 1998 and why did not you speak up then?Probably you were scared of losing a sinecure job? Now that you speak, what are you angling for?
By S.V.Ramanan
9/21/2009 9:21:00 PM
Like Pakis Vajpayee, R Chidambaram and Kalam lied. The yields was about 12 kt and not 55 kt as claimed by Vajpayee, R Chidambaram and Kalam. The second stage of the two-stage fusion assembly failed to ignite as planned. Vajpayee was a traitor. Dr. Subramanian Swamy in Dec 2001filed a Writ Petition in Delhi High Court with copies of the KGB documents sought CBI investigation and HC in May 2002 asked CBI to get from Russia the truth of bribery to Rajiv and Sonia. Minister of State for CBI, Vasundara Raje, had ordered the CBI investigation based on Dr.Swamy’s letter of 3-3-2001. Vajpayee was run by CIA agent BRAJESH MISHRA and cancelled Raje's direction to CBI. Vajpaye changed Indian law to enable Sonia to become an MP and deleted Section 5 of the original Act, of Govt to ensure reciprocity, with an amendment bill
By n Krishna
9/21/2009 8:02:00 PM
Pakis claimed that they conducted six tests to be one up on India’s five tests. But A.Q.Khan says Pakis tested only two devices in its 1998 tit for tat nuclear tests that followed India’s test. Western seismologists recorded only two signals for two and four kilotons bombs. Khan says Paki govt and military asked him to pass blue prints and equipment to China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Pakis helped China in enrichment technology in return for bomb blueprints. Pakis put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong which is 250km southwest of Xian. The Chinese gave Pakis, drawings of the nuclear weapon, 50kg of enriched uranium, 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%). UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plan. Paki's nuclear program was overlooked by the US and Paki nuclear bomb was ready in 1983. A Q Khan said that Sri Lankan Muslims based in Dubai were suppliers of nuclear material and equipments not only to Pakistan but also to Iran and Libya.
IANS
First Published : 21 Sep 2009 07:19:16 PM IST
Last Updated : 21 Sep 2009 08:57:42 PM IST
NEW DELHI: Rebutting National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan's assertions, K. Santhanam, the scientist who was involved in India's nuclear tests in 1998, Monday reiterated that the thermonuclear device exploded by India had not worked according to design expectations and showed photographs of the site that had no crater.
Santhanam, along with physicist Ashok Parthasarthi, had last week written an article in The Hindu newspaper that questioned the official version that India's May 1998 nuclear tests were a success.
The NSA told a television channel in an interview that Santhanam and other scientists had ulterior motives and they were not privy to the classified information to come to that conclusion.
"He is barking up the wrong tree," responded Santhanam at a media interaction at the Indian Women's Press Corps.
He said there were "several inaccuracies in that statement".
The scientist recalled that after the tests when they visited the shaft of the thermonuclear device at Pokhran in Rajasthan, it was found "by and large undamaged".
In contrast, the fission bomb explosion at the time which had a yield of 20-25 kiloton, left behind a large crater, he said.
He noted that there was immediate reservation among some scientists "whether the thermonuclear device had actually worked to design expectations".
A classified technical study report was submitted to the government towards 1998-end.
"Thereafter, a meeting was held in which scientists from DRDO and BARC participated. Despite fairly long discussions the two agencies agreed to disagree," said Santhanam.
The chairman of that meeting had said the matter would be taken to the minister concerned, who would charter the future course, Santhanam recounted.
He was answering a query on why he chose to go public after so many years. "The impression that suddenly the jack-in-the-antique box is up, is not based on facts," he said.
The scientist also released photographs of "ground zero" of the thermonuclear device, which showed that there was no crater after the explosion. There should have been a crater of 72 metres radius if the device had been successful, he said.
"This picture tells a story that we have to do more honest homework in the direction of improving our thermonuclear design," said Santhanam.
Asked if the depth of the shaft made a difference to the crater size, he indicated that while he could not reveal the exact measurements, it was sufficient to create a substantial crater.
Santhanam said that the radio-chemical analysis of the test was classified and had not been shared with the scientists.
Former science advisor to prime minister Indira Gandhi, Ashok Parthasarthi said by questioning the results "the intention was not to denigrate the nuclear weapons programme, but to set the matter right".
"We have to have a credible nuclear weapons deterrent. We have already lost time," said Parthasarthi, who was involved in Pokhran-1 test in 1974.
India tested five nuclear devices in May 1998, including the thermonuclear device.
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The problem with India, unlike China, US or UK is that neither our politicians nor our bureaucrats can be trusted. They do not think for India and as Indians. Where else in the world can you find a foreign lady making decisions affecting the very existence of such a vast nation? Any way now no use saying all this. It is too late !
By Mathew Philip
9/22/2009 12:56:00 AM
Steroid filled Vajpayee was under the control of the CIA agent Brjesh Misra. Misra in turn was under the control of the Rome plant Sonia as Brajesh's daughter is married to an Italian. So under American pressure Vajpayee, R Chidambaram and Kalam lied about the yields as 55 kt instead of the 12 kt yield. The second stage of the two-stage fusion assembly failed to ignite as planned. As K. Santhanam, was from another department, pointed the discrepancy in his confidential memo. This reminds me of the Pakis lying like hell about the no of blasts as six, where as it was only two. From DAE no one will raise the voice as most of the scientists and engineers are from south, and most of them are yes men. For the Tamilians, DAE is an employment exchange and majority of them are duds.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 11:18:00 PM
CBI tracked Rs 6.2 crore paid as bribes to defence by Verma. CIA product A.K. Anthony’s position as defense minister is to cover up the involvement of CIA operations in India and to stem investigation linking Sonia to the Scorpion deal kickback. Manmohan is linked to ISI from his days as the RBI governor when he allowed the ISI bank BCCI was allowed to open its branch in India in 1983. Manmohan was was inducted to congress by Indira for his links to ISI. Paki bank BCCI paid Indira and Manmohan. Google BCCI AFFAIR for details. In 1966 Sonia worked for ISI operative Salman Thassir in Londonas both Manmohan and Sonia are old sleepers of ISI CIA. Indira and Sonia were on the payroll of KGB also. Being ISI sleepers Sonia and Manmohan are allowing the 3 crore illegal muslims from Bangladesh and Paki terrorists to destroy India. The very recent incident of S S Paul, a christian at the National Security Council Secretariat, who spied for CIA, using a pen drive has rattled our nation
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 11:06:00 PM
CIA penetrated the IB, the R&AW and the National Security Council Secretariat. The CIA's moles in the NSCS have passed on hundreds of pages of classified information to an American woman CIA officer posted in the US Embassy in Delhi through pen drives. Verma, the spy in the Rs 18,789-crore Scorpene submarine deal, has now been charge sheeted under sections 3 and 9 of the Official Secrets Act. As per the CBI's chargesheet, Verma was "spying on behalf of several multinational firms" and was inciting defence personnel to spy on his behalf. While navy dismissed three officers without a showcause notice or a trial, no action was taken against the civilian recipients like Sonia Gandhi who collected the kickback on the submarine deal. The KGB, had bribed communists, Indira, ministers, 30 MPs,10 newspapers in India. KGB had deposited US $2 billion or Rs 9400 Crores in a Swiss bank in 1985 for Sonia as was reported in the Swiss mag.Schweitzer Illustrierte
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 11:00:00 PM
Muslim Nehru was a traitor who stole the Gandhi surname for his family. India survived the emergency of Indira who converted to Islam to marry a muslim Feroz Khan. Khan was not a Parsee but a muslim whose kabarstan was visited by his christian grandson Rahul Gandhi. Becasuse of Nehru, we have the muslim and christian terrorism.. Nehru’s sexual escapades have resulted in his blackmailing by the missionaries for free hand in North East and it resulted in christian terrorism and christian separatism in India. Nehru gave away Indus water to Pakis and we got just 16% of the water. Nehru lost land to China and Pakistan. He refused the UN security council membership when it was offered to India. He took Kashmir issue to UN and prevented our army to take it back on the orders of his concubine, Lady Moutbatten. Christian missionaries anti India propaganda and education, has resulted in a population with no patriotism.. Christians have planted Sonia Gandhi in Nehru family.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:48:00 PM
Earlier CIA had placed an American spy as English tutor for Sikkim prince who conveniently fell in love with and married the prince later. This was to make Sikkim an independent nation. It was detected by India in time. With the support of Christian Missionaries, terrorist organizations like NLFT and NSCN are spreading terror in parts of North-East India.and their gun point conversions are going on in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Meghalaya. Church and christians with the help of CIA is trying to breakup India. Christians are a fraud and indecent group in our national politics. Look at the 30 christian MPs and the number of christian ministers, Ajit Jogi, A.K.Anthony. Pranab Muckerjee, Oomman Chandy, , Ambika Soni, Oscar Fernandes etc.who is propagating minority policies to dismember India on the instructions of the Italian plant Sonia. PM Manmohan who is from Assam came to RS, is linked to ISI and CIA from 1983 and Sonia is linked to ISI from her London days.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:38:00 PM
Banned Christian terrorist org NSCN has its own government which collects money from the local people. One third of the salaries of the government servants are taken away as Nagaland Tax before disbursement. Most of the banks in Nagaland have closed down because of the huge sums extracted by this outfit. The letterheads and stamps of this unofficial government read 'Nagaland for Christ'. In March 10, 2005 about 30 communal christian MPs from across India met NSCN over dinner at a hotel in New Delhi to offer their support for 'Nagaland for Christ' as per senior NSCN leader V.S. Atem. Never in the history of India had the Christian MPs across India done this criminal act. They came out now in the open because the Italian christian Antonia Maino alias Sonia Gandhi who is ruling India with the help of her dummy Manmohan Singh.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:30:00 PM
From 1979 onwards Assam witnessed the birth of secessionist and separatist groups. Fissiparous tendencies grew in the entire region with the christian funding for conversion activities in NE states. CIA and Paki's ISI always work in close cooperation. Christians have become a serious threat to the integrity of India. Christian terrorists kill more hindus in India than the muslim terrorists. NE is in the grip of christian separatistism and get funds from West and get weapons from church. US president Carter on 20th February 2006 along with the US Senator Barbara Boxer was calling for Nagaland to secede from India. The presence of christian bureaucrats in the GOI cadre posted in NE is also helping the terrorists.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:27:00 PM
US. Ambassador David C Mulford in a letter dated 4-10-2004, to the Chief Ministers of Assam and Nagaland, saying that their FBI will investigate their serial bomb blasts without involving the central govt, and it was a blatant intervention in India's internal affairs by the USA. CM Gogoi initially wanted to take FBI's help. However, sharp reaction across the country against US interference, he backtracked. Mulford's direct offer to Assam Chief Minister was not only an interference by the United States in the internal affairs of India, it also exposed the double standards of the USA vis-a-vis the NE states.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:24:00 PM
US.spies and diplomats visit frequentlty NE states. With the help of the CIA agent Brajesh Mishra a 10-day exercise code-named Yudh Abhyas (War Exercises), involving a platoon of the Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army and Indian Army, was held at Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) at Vairangte in Mizoram in March-April 2004. Later, exercises in unconventional operations and mock intelligence, counter-intelligence and psychological warfare in a simulated insurgency and terrorist environment was also taken up. India and the U.S. had their first joint military exercises at CIJWS in May 2002. US. Ambassador Robert Blackwill was the first foreigner to visit the strategic Nathu La in Sikkim along the India-China border on February 1, 2002. Blackwill also visited key military locations in the region, including the Headquarters of the 4 Corps of the Indian Army at Tezpur in Assam and 3 Corps at Dimapur in Nagaland responsible for guarding the border with China and Myanmar.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:22:00 PM
Declassified secret CIA reports had shown that an Indian cabinet minister, and a CIA operative, wrecked India's plan to annihilate Pakistan in 1971. CIA was involved in the case of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh incident. CIA was involved in the overthrowing of democratically elected Jacob Arbenz of Guatemala, in 1954. CIA helped “Papa Doc” Duvalier become dictator ofHaiti, in 1959. CIA assassinated Patrice Lumumba in Zaire, in 1961. Overthrown Prince Sihanouk Cambodia, in 1971 was by CIA. CIA overthrown and assassinated Salvador Allende of Chile, in 1973. Through the CIA, the U.S. has been perpetrating its hegemonic control over the world
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:20:00 PM
. USA wanted to create new nations out of India in NE. In 1978, a secret circular titled ‘Project Brahmaputra’ was sent by the United States Information Service (USIS) - which was reorganised as the United States International Communication Agency (USICA) - in New Delhi to USIS in Kolkata. The document said: "With the agreement of the State Department, the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) of the George Washington University has asked the U.S. outfits in India for help in conducting sociological research in the eastern states of India, including Sikkim as well as Bhutan. The aim of this research was to create new nations out of India. USIS wanted to mobilise its entire personnel working in the states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura along with local contract staff from students and educationalists, funded by USA. When this circular became public, it became clear that under the cover of research the US wants to dismember India to create new nations in NE.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:18:00 PM
Manmohan was taken in to Rao’s govt on the orders of CIA as per the book written by a Finance Minister of the West Bengal government. So is the case of Anthony who is a creation of CIA that funded the Kerala Vimochana Samaram through the churches against the first elected communist government. The christian Sunday school boys like Anthonyand Oomman Chandy have become leaders with CIA funding. Later the fake ISRO spy case created by CIA to delay our liquid propulsion engine development catapulled Anthony to the chief ministership of Kerala. Now the Rome planted Sonia had put him as our Defense minister to make USA our main weapons supplier, replacing Russia. Manmohan who is drawing three pensions including that from the world bank is not elected but planted as PM by USA. Traitor Manmohan is a CIA ISI asset like Sonia. Manmohan’s background much more sinister than that of AK Anthony or Sonia..Manmohan now sold our nuke programme to USA.
By n.krishna
9/21/2009 10:07:00 PM
Santhanam should be hanged to death for anti national activities, what ever the merirs / de merits of Pokhran 2, santhanam and co have no business in voicing this in public. This is a private issue and not for the general public and the whole world, as it hugely compromises on national interests. Now the whole world knows that we do not have nuclear capability. If these scientists had been genuine they should have insisted on Pokhran 3. Death sentence to traitors like santhanam will act as an deterrent
By Krishnamachari MS
9/21/2009 9:35:00 PM
Where were you, Mr.Santhanam in 1998 and why did not you speak up then?Probably you were scared of losing a sinecure job? Now that you speak, what are you angling for?
By S.V.Ramanan
9/21/2009 9:21:00 PM
Like Pakis Vajpayee, R Chidambaram and Kalam lied. The yields was about 12 kt and not 55 kt as claimed by Vajpayee, R Chidambaram and Kalam. The second stage of the two-stage fusion assembly failed to ignite as planned. Vajpayee was a traitor. Dr. Subramanian Swamy in Dec 2001filed a Writ Petition in Delhi High Court with copies of the KGB documents sought CBI investigation and HC in May 2002 asked CBI to get from Russia the truth of bribery to Rajiv and Sonia. Minister of State for CBI, Vasundara Raje, had ordered the CBI investigation based on Dr.Swamy’s letter of 3-3-2001. Vajpayee was run by CIA agent BRAJESH MISHRA and cancelled Raje's direction to CBI. Vajpaye changed Indian law to enable Sonia to become an MP and deleted Section 5 of the original Act, of Govt to ensure reciprocity, with an amendment bill
By n Krishna
9/21/2009 8:02:00 PM
Pakis claimed that they conducted six tests to be one up on India’s five tests. But A.Q.Khan says Pakis tested only two devices in its 1998 tit for tat nuclear tests that followed India’s test. Western seismologists recorded only two signals for two and four kilotons bombs. Khan says Paki govt and military asked him to pass blue prints and equipment to China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Pakis helped China in enrichment technology in return for bomb blueprints. Pakis put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong which is 250km southwest of Xian. The Chinese gave Pakis, drawings of the nuclear weapon, 50kg of enriched uranium, 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%). UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plan. Paki's nuclear program was overlooked by the US and Paki nuclear bomb was ready in 1983. A Q Khan said that Sri Lankan Muslims based in Dubai were suppliers of nuclear material and equipments not only to Pakistan but also to Iran and Libya.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
British tried to portray the Indian decolonization and militarization movement (represented by Sikhi) as a variant of Islam, in order to control the native resurgence. Khushwant Singh is a mere casualty of that game. Seculars think they can control use Sunni threat to control the Hindus as the British did in the past.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
These comments are about: The Danger of Hindu Christian Riots in Andhra
| Srno | Comment on Current Thread |
| 4 | S. Singh at 03:31 Today : Let me explain exactly who is this jeebus.... for your benefit......... lost child.... Jesus is the alterego of the Roman Emperor Titus Flavius who destroyed the Jewish Temple in 66 AD in the First Roman Jewish War. To eliminate the Jewish Resistance, Titus Flavius donned the mantle of the Jewish Messiah and instructed his intellectual circle to produce the Gospels (written in koine Greek) in which Jesus "Predicted" the destruction of the temple by the Son of God. This "prediction" was actually "fulfilled" by Titus when he razed the Temple. Titus, as recorded in josephus, drove 2000 jewish rebels in the sea. Jesus drove 2000 swine into the sea. Titus thrashed the jews in their won temple. Jesus thrashed the Jews in their own temple and called them vipers. titus witnessed a mother mary consume her son during his seige of Jerusalem. Jesus, son of mary, offered his body to be consumed at Jerusaleam, plus he himself got sacrificed as a sacrificial lamb during the passover week. That is, the Jewish messiah, who was suppose to deliver the Jews, himself got sacrificed as a passover meal!!! Titus witnessed the crucifixion of three at Thecoe (inquiring mind) whilke jesus was crucified among three at Golgotha (Empty Skull). Jesus" and Titus" lives are mirror images!! the Gospels are the mirror images of Josephus" War of the Jews!! This is very transparent war propaganda against the Jewish subjects of the Empire. This also explains the v close congruence between western imperialism and the spiritual imperialism of Christianity. So, lost child, you should definitely give up this hoax of a "religion" called christianity. It is an effront to your brave ancestors who kept your great hindu culture alive for millenia. |
| 3 | S. Singh at 03:04 Today : hey you, do you realize that Christianity is the darkness of sin. Christianity has murdered off countless cultures pursuing an image of a hoax. Jesus is the white man"s hoax . return to your ancestral ways. don"t make yourself suffer through the jesus hoax |
| 2 | JAI LORD CHRIST at 02:17 Today : JAI CHRISTIANITY |
| 1 | Truth Speaks on Oct-23 : Very detailed information about how many Hindus are being converted into Christianity using Hindu Temple money(In AP, Hindu temple money goes to the state government, then in turn government gives free money to Jerusalem Christian pilgrimage, Churches, Haj, Imam salaries and renovation and building of new mosques). Hindus should stop donating to temples and help other Hindus in need directly. |
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