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pAtisAha’s diktat

Posted by Sarvesh K Tiwari on November 16, 2009

We are guilty of having put off pAtisAha’s apostasy for some time now, conveniently blaming it on the lack of time but in reality suffering from our chronic lack of discipline and the habit of suddenly losing interest in a task after initiating it.

But this is not acceptable to pAtisAha, who recently decided to haunt us, and inserted an unplanned trip to sikandarA in our recent itinerary through the region. Although we have visited before where he was buried by his fanatic murderous son, but coming here fills us every time with more ideas and insights about him. The monkeys guarding the ASI description at the place reminded us of the job that our textbooks have done with pAtisAha’s apostasy:

monkeys at the ASI's description of Akbar at sikandarA

But this was not all. Just days later, pAtisAha next encountered us in mAravADa. Wandering through the alleys of a famous temple of AdinAtha around pAlI, we were sure to have missed this inscription, had our priyadarshinI companion not asked us to translate for her what was written on this one of those hundreds of pillars. And surely, here pAtisAha was, announcing in our face a grant he had issued for the temple during the happy days of his kAfirhood in 1594, through a famous AchArya! nAgarI lines announce in the second line, ‘pAtisAhi shrI akabbara pradatta…’:

pAtisAha's inscription at rANakapura temple

But as though this was not enough. He now seemed to be furious with us for ignoring his task for too long, when right in the next week he suddenly popped before us on a plaque in ambara country, sitting in vIrAsana facing ShoDashabhujI jagadambA, angrily staring down at us, censuring us for our laziness.

a plaque at ambara

We wonder what he would do next if we still ignored him any longer…

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Anti-Apostasy Law by the State of Bhopal, 1920

Posted by Sarvesh K Tiwari on November 2, 2009

Copy of ‘Jaridah’ dated 7th July 1920, of Resolution No. 17, dated 5th July 1920:

Her Highness the Ruler of Bhopal has been pleased to order that, in pursuance of section 300 of the Shahjehani Penal Code, Rule No. 1, 1912, that is in the Compiled Penal Code of Bhopal, section 393, after section 393 A, the following be added, which after the date of publication will be in force and enforced:

Section 393A: Any person renouncing his faith after once embracing Islam shall be liable to be sentenced to punishment of either description extending to three years’ imprisonment or to fine, or both.

This order is published for general information and observance.

By Orders of Her Highness Sikander Saulat, Iftikhar ul-Mulk, Nawab Dame Sultan Kaikhusrau Jahan Begum Sahiba, Nawab Begum of Dar ul-Iqbal-i-Bhopal, GCSI, GCIE, CI, GBE, KIH.

The above order was issued by the Begum Sahiba in immediate reaction to the success of Shuddhi movement of Arya Samaj. 

In the same year when Begum Sahiba signed the above order, she was also appointed the Founding Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University, in recognition of the financial and other contributions to its founding by her state, and she remained in the honorary post till her death in 1930.  These days, she is paraded by seculars as a modernist Moslem woman of her time, and an icon of Progressivism.  All her principal relatives migrated to Pakistan after partition, except for one grand-daughter who was married to the Nawab of Pataudi, and gave birth to Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi.

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bhUShaNa: sivAjI na hoto tau sunnati hota sabakI

Posted by Sarvesh K Tiwari on October 30, 2009

देवल गिरावते फिरावते निसान अली ऐसे डूबे राव राने सबी गये लबकी
गौरागनपति आप औरन को देत ताप आप के मकान सब मारि गये दबकी
पीरा पयगम्बरा दिगम्बरा दिखाई देत सिद्ध की सिधाई गई रही बात रबकी
कासिहू ते कला जाती मथुरा मसीद होती सिवाजी न होतो तौ सुनति होत सबकी

सांच को न मानै देवीदेवता न जानै अरु ऐसी उर आनै मैं कहत बात जबकी
और पातसाहन के हुती चाह हिन्दुन की अकबर साहजहां कहै साखि तबकी
बब्बर के तिब्बर हुमायूं हद्द बान्धि गये दो मैं एक करीना कुरान बेद ढबकी
कासिहू की कला जाती मथुरा मसीद होती सिवाजी न होतो तौ सुनति होत सबकी

कुम्भकर्न असुर औतारी अवरंगज़ेब कीन्ही कत्ल मथुरा दोहाई फेरी रबकी
खोदि डारे देवी देव सहर मोहल्ला बांके लाखन तुरुक कीन्हे छूट गई तबकी
भूषण भनत भाग्यो कासीपति बिस्वनाथ और कौन गिनती मै भूली गति भव की
चारौ वर्ण धर्म छोडि कलमा नेवाज पढि सिवाजी न होतो तौ सुनति होत सबकी

When temples were demolished by those marching under nishAn-i-alI [1], rAvals-rANA-s had been tamed and every Hindu intimidated
When foresaken by gaura-gaNapatau themselves, the Hindus becoming timid were afraid even to come out from their homes
When renouncing their siddhi, siddha-s and digambara-s were happy to become pIra and paigambara, and talk was heard only of ‘raba’
kAshI was losing its kalA, mathurA becoming a masjid, and everyone was about to lose his foreskin, had shivAjI not been born!

All hearts were deluded, and faith in deities evaporated, such were the days that I speak of
Akbar the earlier pAtisAh had shown regard for the Hindus, even shAhajahAn will bear witness to it
The grandson of bAbur[2], and also humAyUn, had follwed the policy of not allowing the creed of Qoran to consume up the sacred religion of the veda-s
But now? kAshI was losing its kalA, mathurA becoming a masjid, and all were about to lose their foreskin, had shivAjI not happened!

Awrangzib, the very devil incarnated, the perpetrator of the genocide of mathurA in name of ‘Rab’
When he was uprooting abodes of devI-s and deva-s, and converting millions upon millions to mahomedanism across the cities and mohalla-s, have you forgotten that day?
bhUShana had thought that even mahAdeva, the Lord of kAshI, had fled away renouncing the world to its own, counts who else!
All four varNa-s were about to renounce dharma to read kalamA and do namAz and everyone was ready to lose his foreskin, had shivAjI not happened right then, that is!

Notes:
[1]nishAn-i-alI, also known as the nishAn-i-haydar, is today the highest award of military honour in terrorist country.
[2]bhUShaNa uses the epithet ‘babbara ke tibbara’, we think for Akbar. ‘tibbar’ can be from trivara, and might be used for ‘third one’, ‘third time’, ‘third generation’, or grandson.

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Attn. Justice Rajinder Sachar

Posted by Sarvesh K Tiwari on October 27, 2009

“It is curious how markedly for evil is the influence which conversion to even the most impure form of Mahomedanism has upon the character of the Panjab villager; how invariably it fills him with false pride and conceit,… and renders him… less well-to-do than his Hindu neighbour…

When we move through a tract inhibited by Hindus and Musalmans belonging to the same tribe, descended from the same ancestor, and living under the same conditions, we can tell the religion of its owner by the greater idleness, poverty, and pretension, which marked the Musalman, it is difficult to suggest any explanation of the fact.

It can hardly be that the Musalman branch of the village enjoyed under the Mahomedan Emperors any such material advantage over their Hindu brethren as could develop habits of pride and extravagance which should survive generations of equality. And yet, whatever the reason, the existence of the difference is beyond a doubt…”

Census Report, 1881, Punjab, vol I, pp 103-4

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vasudhaiva kuTumbakam again

Posted by Sarvesh K Tiwari on October 25, 2009

Aah! Spotted this lovely subhAShita again, this time inscribed inside the courtyard of an anglo-rAjapUta havelI in ambara country!

DSC03828

Posted in Imagery, travel | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »