Caste, Technology and Religious Conversions in India

Ref brainwashed #: 10

[How righteous your anger!]

Anger? I smile as I type my replies knowing fully well that thayolis like soysauce will hide like cockroahes under a light and true to form, idiots like you will march in where wise men fear to tread.

[Err...how about MGR? I remember he too went to the US for some treatment and Jayalalitha too. Did they not have some `real`, NOBC (Not-OBC) doctor`s around ???]

Just because I picked Annadurai and Karunanidhi doesn`t mean I exempt MGR or Jayalalitha from my contempt. Let me remind all: Respect is earned, contempt is gratis.

[The best hospitals in Tamil Nadu are the Apollos...owned by...(horrors) the Reddys...more OBCs, damn!]

Isn`t Apollo along with AIIMS the hospital that couldn`t diagnose central minister Kumaramangalam`s leukemia? ``More OBCs, damn!`` is a mild way to express your horror, I would say!

[But with your permission, I`ll write immediately to the Space Research Board chairman demanding that they not to have any dealings with Abdul Kalam. This converted fisherman caste person couldn`t possibly have any talent whatsoever, whatever degrees he holds.]

I must congratulate you on your motor skills. Obviously you are able to type faster than whatever passes for your brain can process thoughts. Can you point out where I said that Abdul Kalam is unqualified for his job? Or for that matter that any ``backward class`` person cannot or doesn`t have talent?

Anil,

The God`s name is Murugan not Murugam. Please make the appropriate correction in your article.

Kavita.

Anil,

The God`s name is Murugan not Murugam. Please make the appropriate correction in your article.

North Indians should make a conscious effort to correctly spell South Indian names.

Mahesh

Reply #: 14

harimau

Ref Glen #: 11

[The reason only 2 % indian are christian b/c you will NEVER find a muslim converting to Christianity as a rule .]

I will not let pathetic pea-brained idiots like you twist the truth on a public forum like this. Tell the world proudly that Islam prescribes death as punishment for trying to convert out of Islam and that you will be the first to enforce this religiously-prescribed punishment. Come on; tell the world the truth.

LOOK WHO IS PEA BRAINED TO BRING ISLAMIC LAW E.G. IN SECULAR DEMOCRATIC INDIA ,THE AREA IN DISCUSSION.

[By the time British reached India through East India co .India already was 37 % muslim.]

Again, you will not be allowed to lie and cheat your way out of historical truths. History records that the apostle St. Thomas arrived in India, converted Indians to Christianity and in fact died in India and is buried in Madras. So, Christianity had a great headstart on Islam and still did not reach more than 2%, even after the British arrived and literally hundreds of missionaries swarmed all over India trying to convert Hindus. The reason is simple: the British government would not allow the missionaries to give people the choice between being beheaded or becoming a convert as opposed to the Muslim sultans.

WAS MOHOMMED ALI COERCED TO CHANGE FROM CASSIUS CLAY ?WAS CAT STEVENS THREATENED INTO CHANGING TO YUSUF ISLAM?MANY THOUSAND SUCH e.G.MAGE ISLAM THE FASTEST GROWING RELIGION.WHAT CAN HINDU JELOUS LIKE YOU DO .NOTHING!

Jews landed in Kerala in 279 AD. While not engaging actively in conversion, history records that whatever slaves they purchased, they freed and made them into Jews. Thus India has native Jews known as Black Jews and immigrant Jews commonly known as White Jews. But despite the freedom from slavery given by Jews, Hindus did not convert en mass to Judaism.

JEWS IN INDIA WERE TOKEN PRESENCE LIMITED TO KERALA REGION.IM GLAD YOU INFORMED US ABOUT THERE EVIL & LESS THAN MUSLIM kINGS ,PRACTICE OF making slave of HINDU .ATLEAST MUSLIMS MADE HINDU WIFE (jodha bai )Cin C MAN SINGH ,Singer of court TAN Sane....

[As to your contention ludicurous as it is ,if even 5 % of the muslims were FORCED muslims ,there should have been drop in Muslim %

Again, your pathetic attempt to whitewash the crimes of Islamist thugs will not be allowed to pass unhindered. The mullahs knew fully well that Hindus will revert back and will be accepted back into the fold of Hinduism unless they committed an unpardonable sin. The Hindu scriptures do provide one unpardonable sin; that of eating beef. This sin cannot be washed away by any number of expiation ceremonies. Thus, the first thing forced down the throat of converts after the Kalima was beef.

YOUR ESTEEMED BRAHMIN & PUNDITS LIKE ARUN SHOURIE,KAK,KOENRAD ELSTD,F.gOUTHIER NEVER FAIL TO INFORM US THAT BEEF EATING WAS PART OF HINDUISM FROM THE TIME OF SUMIRITI !!DONT SPREAD RUMOURS ,I HAVE NEVER SEEN SHAHADA (THE OPROCESS OF EMBRACING ISLAM)AMONG HUNDREDS THAT I M WITNESSED TO IN WHICH BEEF EATING WAS EVEN MENTIONED.THIS IS TYPICAL OF HATE MONGERING OF SANGH PARIVAR THAT WE SHOUT ABOUT!!

Just about a decade ago, a very large group of people converted to Islam in a village called Meenakshipuram. A month later, they all renounced Islam. Unfortunately for you, the Sharia is not the law of the land in India now and so they are alive.

EXACTLY MY POINT .AND THE CAUSE WAS THRETENED BY HINDU SANGH PARIVAR GOVT OF LOSING THERE RESERVATION OF SHUDRA QUOTA ETC.HERE IS EXACTLY THE COERCION,HAEGONOMY & PRESSURE AGAINST FREE CONVERSION TO ISLAM PRACTICED BY YOUR OWN HINDUTVA GOVT. CALLING ITSELF SECULAR DEMOCRATIC ..HA HA HA HA

[I am sure the wretched condition most of the indian muslims are due to neglect ,]

Neglect, let me tell you, is better than the active hunting down and converting or killing, as practiced by Islamist thugs.

YOU ARE LOSING YOUR MIND .IRRELEVENT TO FLOW OF THAUGHT & DISCUSSION AS FAR AS I SEE UNRELATED .WHATS YOUR POINT

[if they were unreal or grudgingly ,muslim,why would they choose to be persecuted or Atleast accept 2nd level citizenshiop ,when they could easily call them selves Hindu ,]

No, they cannot call themselves Hindu. In the village, they know exactly who you were before you attempted to change your name from Rahim to Ram. Once a Rahim, always a Rahim. You are not the only fcukers to demand exclusive allegiance to your god; we can do it too.

``We have enough Hindus in India who acted honorably and did not forsake their religion for their personal safety or livelihood in a thousand years and there is no reason to take these cowards back into our fold.``

THERE GOES YOUR HINDUTVA PROPOGANDA OF MUSLIM OVERTAKING HINDU POPULATION.YOU YOURSELF ADMIT ENOUGH HINDU DID NOT CONVERT ,THEN WHY RAISE FALSE ALARM OF PARANOIA SO AS TO CAUSE THREATENING CROWD OF HINDUS AGAINST WEAK NEGLECTED MINORITY OF MUSLIMS OF INDIA,?

[& neither would they have to keep Roza nor peray 5 times & memorise foreign arabic sura & koran!]

Try not praying 5 times a day in Pakistan or try to eat in public during Ramzan and let us see what happens. The mullah will be right there with a mob ready to stone you to death.

yOU ARE LOSING YOUR MIND AS I SAID BEFORE .WE ARE TALKINH ABOUT VOLUNTARY EMBRACING ISLAM,MUSLIMS OF INDIA WHO DSPITE PERSECUTION & ADVERSE POLICY AGAINST THERE RELIGION CONTINUE TO PRACTICE ISLAM IN INDIA.WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT AFGHANISTAN NOR PAKISTAN .

...good work harimau...

ali1/eunuch,

worry about the misery of all pakistanis living with greater poverty and illiteracy than india....when you`ve fixed the misery in the ISLAMIC republic of pukistan, you can worry about india`s minorities...

harimau, what`s your e-mail address?

WORTH READING& SPREADING.

__________________________________________________

ON THE SUBJECT OF ``HATE SPEECH`` AND ``ANTI-SEMITISM``.

(Is Amr bil maaroof & Nihi unl Munkir becoming the order of the day---rejoice muslims,you`ve friends everywhere)

__________________________________________________

In the wake of the revelation of yet another spy scandal involving the Mossad, involving the arrests of the largest spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, and the existence of a huge system that allowed Israel to track telephone calls by media, politicians, law enforcement, indeed all Americans, as well as the means to eavesdrop on actual calls by using the wiretapping system built into the telephone system by an Israeli owned company, any and all reports of this scandal have been met with the charges of ``hate speech`` and ``anti-Semite``.

These phrases, ``hate speech`` and ``anti-Semite``, are well-worn devices to shut up a critic of Israel without having to answer the criticisms. Indeed they have been used so much that they have become red warning flags that the person using those phrases has something to hide and needs to shut down the discussion by any means possible. By screaming ``hate speech`` or ``anti-Semite``, the debate is over without actually examining the issues involved.

I`ve run this web site for over 8 years. You can check through the pre 9/11 version of What Really Happened for yourself to see if I have had any excessive preoccupation with Israel during that time. Only in recent weeks have I even mentioned Israel, and that solely because the ACTIONS of the government of Israel have called attention to Israel. In the wake of the spy arrests this is a story that people do need to know about, to know who else may be listening when that phone is picked up, if the phone tapping system was actually paid for with the money we send Israel every year, to know what intelligence service may be blackmailing our government and media, and to what purpose.

So, I`ve been getting a lot of email from people who ask ``Why do you hate the Jews``? The answer is that I don`t hate the Jews. I know a lot of Jews and count as my friends the ones who are as respectful of me as I am of them. My first wife was Jewish, which should erase once and for all that I came with any built in bias regarding the Jewish people.

What I hate are the actions of INDIVIDUALS. I hate the idea of someone spying on our nation`s citizens. I don`t like our own government to do it; why should I be any less opposed to a foreign government doing it? Why is it not reasonable to hate those who pry into our government, then use the information to coerce that government into actions contrary to the good of our own people? I hate that sort of behavior. All civilized people should. I would hate the perperators of the spy ring and the phone taping scandal if they were Russian, British, Lithuanian, Brazilian, whatever. That`s a perfectly normal response to this crime.

Hate gets a bum rap. In our politically correct society we are taught that it`s bad to hate at all, but I disagree. Hate can be a good thing. There are lots of things I hate and I am not ashamed to admit it. I hate liars. I hate thieves. I hate drug dealers. I hate corrupt politicians. I hate child molesters. These are hates that are good for the people to have. Maybe if more people allowed themselves to hate liars, thieves, druggies, and the corrupt, our nation wouldn`t be in the mess it`s in. Think about that for a while. Hate could actually save our country.

I hate those who presume to decide for us what we can and cannot see, hear, or read. I am firmly opposed to and have openly defied efforts by our own government to withhold from the people information the people need to make good decisions with. When the Israeli lobby coerces Fox News to erase the story about Israel`s spy ring, should I be less outraged at the concealment simply because the concealers are Israeli? To NOT speak out about a crime because the perpetrators are Israeli would be racist. Because this is EXACTLY what we are dealing with. Crimes. Espionage. Illegal wiretaps. Interference with investigations. Under the definitions in the USA Patriot bill, the coercion of Fox News to drop the espionage story is itself (technically) an act of terror.

Speaking of racism, the ideal held forth in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence is that no one race is superior to others; that no one race should rule by virtue of being a specific race. We even fought a civil war partly on that principle, and while the United States has not always lived up to that ideal, we have never surrendered it as our goal. So, when Arial Sharon openly bragged on October 3rd that, ``We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it``, why should I not find this statement objectionable, and anti-American? Why should I not feel something less than affection for the man who made that statement? Why should a reasonable citizen of this nation not wonder to what extent Sharon was speaking the truth, especially in light of the manner in which Fox News was forced to erase the Carl Cameron stories?

As seen in the subtitle above, the truth is ``hate speech`` only to those with something to hide. In the wake of the exposure of this latest spy scandal, the government of Israel might have expressed some public regret or shame over treating its purported friend, from whom it gets more foreign aid than is given to the entire continent of Africa, in such a shameful manner. Instead what we have seen is censorship of the American news by a foreign power, apparently with the permission of a compromised or complicit US Government, and the shrill cries of ``hate speech`` and ``anti-Semite`` hurled at anyone who dared presume to notice or comment on what Israel has been caught doing.

If you want to know why Israel is so much in the news it isn`t because of ``hate`` and it isn`t because of ``anti-Semitism``, it`s because foreign owned companies were caught bugging the phone system (including that of the White House) and foreign citizens have been arrested as part of the largest spy ring ever found in the United States. That is NEWS, no matter what nationality is involved. In the course of that reporting, it was revealed by a US official that evidence exists linking 9/11 to persons other than Muslim Arabs, but that this evidence is CLASSIFIED. That too is NEWS. Deal with it.

The good side to the Fox News incident is that for the first time, Americans got a good look at just how much power and influence over what we see and hear is being exercised. It doesn`t even matter who did it; that it was done at all is the lesson for our time.

And it is not ``hate`` to point that fact out.

Specially for anNy---others also welcome.

When will we learn to trust our 95% people who are more intelligent & smarter than us---the english-knowers?

__________________________________________________

Published on Monday, December 17, 2001 in the Toronto Sun

Is the Gun Smoking?

`Experts` Disagree on bin Laden Home Video

by Eric Margolis



WASHINGTON -- In our media age, it was inevitable we`d finally see terrorist home videos. How long, one wonders, before they come out in DVD format?

The Osama bin Laden home video released by the U.S. last Thursday gave a fascinating look at the head of a fanatical Muslim cult receiving a visiting Saudi sheik. According to the accompanying translation from Arabic to English - made by the U.S. government and checked by two U.S.-based Arabic experts - bin Laden clearly appears to voice his culpability for the suicide attacks on New York and Washington, D.C.

In the most damning admissions, a gleeful-looking bin Laden says, ``We calculated in advance the number of casualties from (sic) the enemy who would be killed based on the position of the tower.`` And, ``We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day.``

The U.S. government is delighted by the smoking gun tape, which was mysteriously ``found`` in Afghanistan a few days ago. The White House says the tape should dispel any lingering doubts bin Laden was behind the Sept. 11 mass killings.

But two other Arabic experts say the tape`s audio quality is so poor that almost nothing bin Laden says on it can be verified. To my ears, well accustomed to Arabic, half of bin Laden`s words were inaudible. The translation was sometimes out of sync with the action on screen. Bin Laden`s statements looked cut up and edited.

Cynics suggest the tape was a forgery made by Russian intelligence or the U.S. government, with incriminating statements spliced into an otherwise boring exchange of pleasantries between bin Laden and a visiting admirer. This is possible. In 1990, the U.S. used retouched satellite photos to convince the Saudis that Iraq was about to invade - which it was not.

A KGB PLANT?

The old Soviet KGB was extremely fond of planting fake documents to embarrass the West. Russia wants to keep George Bush`s crusade going because it takes heat off Moscow`s own brutal war in Chechnya, distracts the U.S., and earns cash IOUs from Americans.

But regardless of whether the tape is real or a fake, there remains little doubt that al-Qaida was behind the attacks on the U.S. But, as Prince Nayef, head of Saudi security observed last week, Osama bin Laden is largely a figurehead. Its real leaders, said the prince, echoing this column`s view, remain as yet unknown and are likely outside Afghanistan.

Two of al-Qaida`s leaders are in Afghanistan: its Egyptian CEO Ayman al-Zawahiri - known to all as ``the doctor`` - and his No. 2, Abu Zubaydah. They are still believed alive and in hiding with bin Laden. The late Mohammed Atef, a former Egyptian policeman, was considered the military leader of al-Qaida until he was killed by a U.S. bomb.

The roots of al-Qaida and other loosely linked anti-American organizations remain where they originated: in Egypt. Even though 15 of 19 of the hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudis, it`s likely the operation was planned in Egypt by members of two militant groups, Egyptian Jihad and Gamma al-Islamia, with Osama bin Laden serving as a symbolic spiritual guide.

In this sense, bin Laden was re-enacting the role of the dreaded medieval head of the cult of the Hashishins, Hassan al-Sabbah, known as Sheik al-Jebel, or Old Man of the Mountain. From his lair in the Syrian mountains, the sheik`s suicide assassins, crazed on hashish and armed with poisoned daggers, terrorized much of the Muslim world and the Crusader states of the Levant. The Mongols finally stormed the sheik`s aerie, Alamut, and put a bloody end to the Hashishins, from whom we get the term ``assassin.``

Americans need no more convincing that bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks. Washington released the self-serving tapes to convince the many doubting Abduls of the Muslim world of bin Laden`s guilt.

Some Muslims will certainly accept the tape at face value and turn with disgust against bin Laden as a fanatical mass murderer. Few Muslims accepted his wild claims or calls for jihad against the West. But one suspects many Muslims and other Third Worlders will still believe bin Laden and his henchmen gave the United States what it deserved, payback for decades of bloody meddling in their affairs - revenge, as the tape mentioned, for the ``martyrs`` of Palestine.

Third Worlders do not always accept our western view that when states kill huge numbers of innocent civilians, c`est la vie, but when private enterprise killers strike, that`s unacceptable terrorism.

To many, the fanatical Osama bin Laden will still represent the hand of retribution against the arrogant western powers and their local satraps. New avengers will follow in his footsteps. Suicide bombers are the poor man`s version of cruise missiles, helicopter gunships, B-52s, fuel-air explosives and 15,000-lb. bombs.

Copyright © 2001, Canoe Limited Partnership

###

HARIMOU

Are you happy or sad by such sentiment.

If happy then ,you succeed

If not ,then for sake of commongood ,dispell your ignorence & you will be a better man.

LIVE BROADCAST 9:00am - 10:00am Pakistan Time (+5.00 GMT) MON - SAT

http://paknews.com/live

News Flash December 23

http://paknews.com/newsflash

Hate Rally in India, Indians Burn Pakistan Flag - 2001-12-23 01:32:57

Take THAT HINDIAN HOGEMONISTS!!!!!! esp Harimiaowmiaowmiaow1

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2001-weekly/nos-23-12-2001/lit.htm#4

Separating Urdu from Sanskrit

Pakistani intellectuals have been looking for the roots of their separate identity in the remote past for the last two decades. They are not satisfied with the two-nation theory propounded by Allama Iqbal, according to which religion was the basis of nationhood and accordingly the Hindus and Muslims of the Indian sub-continent were separate nations.

They go deeper. They want to show that Pakistan and its culture has its roots in the prehistoric eras.They believe that the Indus and the Gangetic valleys have always been home to separate civilizations. Being the heir to the Indus valley civilization, Pakistan is a geographic entity whose roots go back to time immemorial.



Many intellectuals have taken pains to substantiate this theory. Professor Qudrat Ullah Fatmi, to my knowledge, was the first to write a book on it. Aenul Haq Faridkoti and Prof. Mohammad Asif followed him. However, Aitazaz Ashan`s book titled Sindh Saga carries the best and long drawn out exposition of this concept. Now Khalid Hasan Qadiri has joined this group of theoreticians. In one of his articles published in the current issue of the monthly Al-Ma `arif of Lahore under the title of `Rough notes on Urdu` he has come up with the claim that the Urdu language has nothing to do with Sanskrit and that its roots are far deeper than this language of the gods and goddesses.

Hitherto, the generally held belief has been that Urdu came into being as a result of social contacts between the Muslims who came to India during the middle ages and the native population. So the language was taken to be a cross-breed of Turko-Persian-Arabic vocables with the local dialects. This is, in a nutshell, the view held by such eminent linguists as G.A. Griesson and Sir Charles Lyall, to mention only two. This theory presupposed that these dialects themselves were based upon, or rather were a by-product of Sanskrit.

Khalid Hasan Qadiri want us to understand that the situation is not as simple or straight forward as it seems or is presented. One has to go very far back in history or rather to prehistory, and turnover many strata of periods of time.

Going back in history, he reaches the conclusion that Urdu has its roots in the languages of the Munda tribes who were the inhabitants of the Indus Valley in pre-Dravidian periods. This view is supposed to be based on the latest excavations of Amri, Nal, Roper, Rajasthan and Kathyawar.

In this way we are led to belive that the Urdu language has a very well-defined and clear-cut grammar, absolutely different from Sanskrit in every respect. The very basic philosophy governing the grammatical structure of these two languages is totally different. And by any stretch of imagination one cannot state Urdu to have emanated from the sacred language of the Hindus. Grammatically speaking Urdu owes nothing to Sanskrit. Hence it cannot be grouped with the Aryan language either. It clearly belongs to some non-Aryan group of languages. And this view is supposed to give us us some solace.

Ref 12-head #: 13

[A reddy (from.A.p.) obviously a brahmin by name irself,in silicon valley was running traffic in shudra girls from his village & used them as slaves here in U.S.A. !! Until murder of one of them lead to exposure of multi millioneer dollar ring of fraud extortion,visa missappropriations,trafficing in sex workers,building code violation,.& inhuman treatment of young shudra girls etc.etc.]

Pathetic 12-head who has misappropriated Sadna`s name by adding an `h`. You see brahmins where none exist. A Reddy is a khamma by caste not a Brahmin. Khammas are amongst the richest in Andhra, owning tens of acres of land along the Krishna and Godavari rivers and in the deltas. So, blame the Balireddy incident on a god-damn middle-level caste in India, not on the Brahmins, who doesn`t stop accumulating wealth when gets to $50 million in the US but imports underprivileged women from his native village for sexual slavery. But don`t blame him too much; he probably learnt it from the Ummah. Do you recall the Andhra Muslim girl aged 12 who was married off to a 65-year old Saudi? So, before you post about a film about devadasis, post some articles about the unlimited sexual appetites of your brethren in religion.

Back in the 50s, a doctor named Shirodkar who had had his medical training before all this affirmative action nonsense pioneered a new approach to treatment of weak uteruses and his method is still referred to in medical textbooks as Shirodkar`s procedure. [Shirodkar, V.N., 1955. A new method of operative treatment for habitual abortions in the second trimester of pregnancy. Antiseptic 52, 299­300.]

Has any one of the quota doctors produced a single advance noteworthy enough to have his name attached to his approach or to have his name mentioned in a medical textbook?

When you decide mediocrity is better than excellence, you turn a great nation into a fourth-rate one.

If you have all the money that you need, would you agree to have a close relative such as your wife, child, mother or father treated for a life-threatening illness by a quota doctor?

haimau:

``Anger? I smile as I type my replies knowing fully well that thayolis like soysauce will hide like cockroahes under a light and true to form, idiots like you will march in where wise men fear to tread``

bhaiharimau- why do you dislike all the nice indians? soyasauce and shankar are two of the insaanlike indians on chowk and you call them cockroaches. pls dont. whats a thayoli? a thaeli, bag?

Let us take a poll right here.

The reality: Forward castes amongst Hindus pay for the oppression in times past of the Dalits by being forced into a quota system that doesn`t recognize merit.

The proposition: For 1000 years of oppression of Hindus, Indian Muslims must be forced into a rigid quota system that limits their participation in professional education and government jobs to 2% of the available seats.

Everybody gets to say their say right here on Chowk. Everybody gets one vote except of course Studebaker who gets 15-18 votes depending on how many nicks he has.

The poll is open to Pakistanis too. So we can have Ali1, ylh, Urstruly, Romair, Tahmed321, etc., voting.

Let us see where your intellectual honesty (of which there is pathetic little on display here) goes when your ox is gored.

Let us watch in amusement as the hand-wringing apologetic namby-pamby limp-wristed brainwashed Hindus fall all over themselves to vote against the proposition along with all the Mughal-wannabes in Pakistan who already claim that Muslims are being discriminated against. Anil Saari Arora can vote too and get all his favorite historians to vote.

Let us get the total intellectual vacuity of all these idiots on full display here on Chowk. At least we will know who has used his god-given gift of a brain to store and regurgitate the absolute rubbish that passes for education in India and has never used the anaytic powers that such a brain may possess.

Ref Lajwanti aka 12-head #: 28

[Take THAT HINDIAN HOGEMONISTS!!!!!! esp Harimiaowmiaowmiaow1

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2001-weekly/nos-23-12-2001/lit.htm#4

Separating Urdu from Sanskrit]

More pseudo-science from Pakistan.

Sanskrit`s grammar was defined by Panini. Here is something on Panini:



Born: about 520 BC in Shalatula (near Attock), now Pakistan

Died: about 460 BC in India



Panini was born in Shalatula, a town near to Attock on the Indus river in present day Pakistan. The dates given for Panini are pure guesses. Experts give dates in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th century BC and there is also no agreement among historians about the extent of the work which he undertook. What is in little doubt is that, given the period in which he worked, he is one of the most innovative people in the whole development of knowledge. We will say a little more below about how historians have gone about trying to pinpoint the date when Panini lived.

Panini was a Sanskrit grammarian who gave a comprehensive and scientific theory of phonetics, phonology, and morphology. Sanskrit was the classical literary language of the Indian Hindus and Panini is considered the founder of the language and literature. It is interesting to note that the word ``Sanskrit`` means ``complete`` or ``perfect`` and it was thought of as the divine language, or language of the gods.

A treatise called Astadhyayi (or Astaka ) is Panini`s major work. It consists of eight chapters, each subdivided into quarter chapters. In this work Panini distinguishes between the language of sacred texts and the usual language of communication. Panini gives formal production rules and definitions to describe Sanskrit grammar. Starting with about 1700 basic elements like nouns, verbs, vowels, consonants he put them into classes. The construction of sentences, compound nouns etc. is explained as ordered rules operating on underlying structures in a manner similar to modern theory. In many ways Panini`s constructions are similar to the way that a mathematical function is defined today. Joseph writes in [2]:-

[Sanskrit`s] potential for scientific use was greatly enhanced as a result of the thorough systemisation of its grammar by Panini. ... On the basis of just under 4000 sutras [rules expressed as aphorisms], he built virtually the whole structure of the Sanskrit language, whose general `shape` hardly changed for the next two thousand years. ... An indirect consequence of Panini`s efforts to increase the linguistic facility of Sanskrit soon became apparent in the character of scientific and mathematical literature. This may be brought out by comparing the grammar of Sanskrit with the geometry of Euclid - a particularly apposite comparison since, whereas mathematics grew out of philosophy in ancient Greece, it was ... partly an outcome of linguistic developments in India.

Joseph goes on to make a convincing argument for the algebraic nature of Indian mathematics arising as a consequence of the structure of the Sanskrit language. In particular he suggests that algebraic reasoning, the Indian way of representing numbers by words, and ultimately the development of modern number systems in India, are linked through the structure of language.

Panini should be thought of as the forerunner of the modern formal language theory used to specify computer languages. The Backus Normal Form was discovered independently by John Backus in 1959, but Panini`s notation is equivalent in its power to that of Backus and has many similar properties. It is remarkable to think that concepts which are fundamental to today`s theoretical computer science should have their origin with an Indian genius around 2500 years ago.

At the beginning of this article we mentioned that certain concepts had been attributed to Panini by certain historians which others dispute. One such theory was put forward by B Indraji in 1876. He claimed that the Brahmi numerals developed out of using letters or syllables as numerals. Then he put the finishing touches to the theory by suggesting that Panini in the eighth century BC (earlier than most historians place Panini) was the first to come up with the idea of using letters of the alphabet to represent numbers.

There are a number of pieces of evidence to support Indraji`s theory that the Brahmi numerals developed from letters or syllables. However it is not totally convincing since, to quote one example, the symbols for 1, 2 and 3 clearly don`t come from letters but from one, two and three lines respectively. Even if one accepts the link between the numerals and the letters, making Panini the originator of this idea would seem to have no more behind it than knowing that Panini was one of the most innovative geniuses that world has known so it is not unreasonable to believe that he might have made this step too.

There are other works which are closely associated with the Astadhyayi which some historians attribute to Panini, others attribute to authors before Panini, others attribute to authors after Panini. This is an area where there are many theories but few, if any, hard facts.

We also promised to return to a discussion of Panini`s dates. There has been no lack of work on this topic so the fact that there are theories which span several hundreds of years is not the result of lack of effort, rather an indication of the difficulty of the topic. The usual way to date such texts would be to examine which authors are referred to and which authors refer to the work. One can use this technique and see who Panini mentions.

There are ten scholars mentioned by Panini and we must assume from the context that these ten have all contributed to the study of Sanskrit grammar. This in itself, of course, indicates that Panini was not a solitary genius but, like Newton, had ``stood on the shoulders of giants``. Now Panini must have lived later than these ten but this is absolutely no help in providing dates since we have absolutely no knowledge of when any of these ten lived.

What other internal evidence is there to use? Well of course Panini uses many phrases to illustrate his grammar any these have been examined meticulously to see if anything is contained there to indicate a date. To give an example of what we mean: if we were to pick up a text which contained as an example ``I take the train to work every day`` we would know that it had to have been written after railways became common. Let us illustrate with two actual examples from the Astadhyayi which have been the subject of much study. The first is an attempt to see whether there is evidence of Greek influence. Would it be possible to find evidence which would mean that the text had to have been written after the conquests of Alexander the Great? There is a little evidence of Greek influence, but there was Greek influence on this north east part of the Indian subcontinent before the time of Alexander. Nothing conclusive has been identified.

Another angle is to examine a reference Panini makes to nuns. now some argue that these must be Buddhist nuns and therefore the work must have been written after Buddha. A nice argument but there is a counter argument which says that there were Jaina nuns before the time of Buddha and Panini`s reference could equally well be to them. Again the evidence is inconclusive.

There are references by others to Panini. However it would appear that the Panini to whom most refer is a poet and although some argue that these are the same person, most historians agree that the linguist and the poet are two different people. Again this is inconclusive evidence.

Let us end with an evaluation of Panini`s contribution by Cardona in [1]:-

Panini`s grammar has been evaluated from various points of view. After all these different evaluations, I think that the grammar merits asserting ... that it is one of the greatest monuments of human intelligence.

[Article by: J J O`Connor and E F Robertson]

Urdu, on the other hand, is derived from the Altaic-Turkic languages spoken by the Moghul invaders. The word Urdu itself is thought to be

derived from `horde` and means `the language of the army camps`. So don`t try to build a pedigree for this b@stard language. It won`t wash.

Anil Saari Arora:

You asked me why non-resident Indians are averse to collective self-analysis. Let me give you one example of denial of reality in India. You can explain why there is this refusal to accept historical evidence.

The language Tamil has a rich poetic history. They claim to have had three distinct poetry associations named, paradoxically enough in Sanskrit, Sanghams. The total length these sanghams existed according to Tamil legends is 10,000 years! The claim is made that the last of these sanghams was already extinct two millennia ago.

There is one poem in Tamil that describes an encounter between the poet and a fisherwoman. The poet asks the fisherwoman for food and the fisherwoman refuses saying that she is an Untouchable (Dalit, in today`s terms) and cannot possibly give food to the poet.

Even if you discount the legends regarding the sanghams, this poem dates back to at least the 6th century AD. This means that Untouchability was practiced by the local Tamils even before the incursion of any Aryan/Brahmin/Hindu influence on these natives. Why would they not discuss this poem in classes in Tamil Nadu asking the students to introspect a little and figure out whether Untouchability was practiced by the noble Tamil race? Why is Karunanidhi (a native Telugu speaker) or MGR (a Malayalam speaker) allowed to parade their love of Tamil and get elected on the basis of Brahmin-bashing when the Tamil`s own poetry accuses the Tamils of practicing Untouchability? An American professor of Tamil has written an 80-page treatise on this one poem alone. Why is this being suppressed in Tamil Nadu? Political necessity?

Can that thayoli soysauce answer this? Of course, that mofo hasn`t heard of this poem because he probably went to an English-medium school and is now a code coolie.

But them bashing Hinduism and by extension brahmins gets you votes if you are a politician and a secure job at Jawaharlal Nehru University or Bharathidasan University if you are a pseudo-academic.