Shahaji-I – a Prolific Music Composer

Shahaji I (1684 - 1712).

Shahaji’s compositions don’t figure in music concerts, a lesson worth learning for all who seek to create a culture. Great music, created by him and his royal successors, died with the short-sighted abolishment of the Devadasi community in the early 20th century. They never thought of popularising their music to a larger group nor did their descendants fund musicians to learn it. Among a constellation of royal composers, Shahaji I stands unsurpassed. His magnificent operas and padams that focus on the heroine seeking merger with the lord are soaked in metaphor and elegance, and must have had very creative deployment of the ragas. Sadly, all of this is relegated to dusty corners of the Thanjavur library in palm leaves that are rarely touched today. We have one tantalising glimpse of the music in an opera the king wrote, to be danced in his favourite temple for Siva as Tyagaraja in Tiruvarur. For this we need to thank that redoubtable musicologist Prof. P Sambamoorthy. (via The Hindu : FEATURES / SUNDAY MAGAZINE : Songs of a forgotten genius.).

Not in my dreams

In all my life, I was not prepared for Shahaji-I being a music composer.  A Maratha king, who composed poetry and music in Telugu and Tamil! I am still not quite able to accept this magnitude of achievement.

But then Shivaji’s dynasty, though short-lived were possibly the last great Indic rulers. Can anyone point out one palace that Shivaji or his immediate successors built. Or the erudition or learning displayed by Sambhaji or Shahaji! Instead look at the opulent palaces of the Holkars, Scindias, Gaikwads – who finally divided Shivaji’s legacy amongst themselves.

Another writer a lawyer-admirer, Anant Darwatkar is writing a book on  Chhatrapati Shri Sambhaji Maharaj, a job that a specialist should have done a long time ago. Shahaji-I’s descendant,

Sambhaji even wrote books— Boodhbhushanam in Sanskrit and Saatshatak, Nakshika and Nayika Bhed in Hindi. “While Boodhbhushanam talks about politics, governance and defence strategies, Nakshika and Nayika Bhed are based on how women have been perceived and idolised over the centuries. Unfortunately, even these authentic works have never been translated,” mentions Darwatkar.

I wonder why is it that Indian history does not bring out this part of forgotten history.

Escape to the West @Indian Taxpayers’ cost

An intimate connection with the country: Nehru with Kamala Nehru (to his right) and Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and other family members. Photo: The HIndu Photo Library

An incident towards the end of his life illustrates the strength of his involvement. The family was at the breakfast table at Teen Murti House. A visiting nephew said the country was in a mess, its problems would never be solved and he, for one, was getting out to settle abroad. Nehru who had remained silent suddenly spoke in a rage, ‘Go where you like, but if I am born a thousand times, a thousand times I will be born an Indian.’ (via The Hindu : FEATURES / SUNDAY MAGAZINE : The family perspective).

Chickens come home to roost

After pushing English language, Western Socialism, Soviet Style-Economic Planning, American Technology, what else could have happened in the Nehru household.

For many decades now, the ruling elite in India has created ways and means to ensure that they have ‘passport’ to the West – so that they could ‘escape to the West.’

The elite has captured to system - and are making the poor pay for their 'needs'!

 

Not that it matters

It is not the loss of these people to the West that hurts. It is the blatant abuse of tax-payer money to create a system that churns out products that are acceptable to the West. Not the needs of the people who pay for the system.

What rankles is when the NRIs and the RNIs (Resident Non-Indians) when they gang up to exploit the ‘desis’ – and then turn around and condemn and envy the same desis who have supported them, lauded their success – without envy and toiled for their own success.

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How was Churchill different from Hitler …

How was Churchill different from Hitler? A mercenary mass-media and a ‘captive’ academia distort the picture!

Churchill blamed Indians for the Great Bengal Famine - After all, why did Indians have to breed like rabbits ...? he asked. Click for larger image.

Decades of planning

Emerging nations (India is, hopefully, re-emerging), at some point, will confront militant and aggressive powers, who have used major massacres to secure their ends. Apart from well documented and known military massacres , there are equally effective massacres – the Bengal Famine of 1943 being a prime example.

Like much of Western history, the British (Lord Willingdon, Neville Chamberlain, Montagu Norman, Winston Churchill – as the Chancellor of the Exchequer) executed a scorched earth policy in India from 1920-1945 – culminating in the The Great Bengal Famine.

After all what is a brown life worth?

A propaganda victory

Some three million Indians died in the famine of 1943. The majority of the deaths were in Bengal. In a shocking new book, Churchill’s Secret War, journalist Madhusree Mukherjee blames Mr Churchill’s policies for being largely responsible for one of the worst famines in India’s history. It is a gripping and scholarly investigation into what must count as one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the Empire.

The scarcity, Mukherjee writes, was caused by large-scale exports of food from India for use in the war theatres and consumption in Britain – India exported more than 70,000 tonnes of rice between January and July 1943, even as the famine set in. This would have kept nearly 400,000 people alive for a full year. Mr Churchill turned down fervent pleas to export food to India citing a shortage of ships – this when shiploads of Australian wheat, for example, would pass by India to be stored for future consumption in Europe. As imports dropped, prices shot up and hoarders made a killing. Mr Churchill also pushed a scorched earth policy – which went by the sinister name of Denial Policy – in coastal Bengal where the colonisers feared the Japanese would land. So authorities removed boats (the lifeline of the region) and the police destroyed and seized rice stocks. (via How Churchill ‘starved’ India.).

Pictures of the hungry and dying in Bengal during the famine. Click for larger image.

Systematic Britons

They implemented a series of economic and administrative measures that killed millions in the Bengal Famine, would impoverish India – and sustain the empire. Between 1920-1945, the British manipulated exchange rates and trade to impoverish the Indians. Food grain prices rose sharply on supply disruptions during WW2. Indians had no financial reserves. 40 lakhs Indians died in the resultant Bengal Famine.

Savage response

After the fall of Singapore, and the rapid Japanese advance, with Subhash Chandra Bose in the vicinity, a revolt by Bengal would have had catastrophic effect on the colonial administration. Howard Fast, in his novel ‘The Pledge’ speculated that the Bengal Famine was a deliberate creation – possibly to weaken the local population. Subsequent research has confirmed that this ‘theory’ of  deliberate famine.

No bodies ... no famine ... What famine ... ? The British efficiently disposed of the bodies in Kolktta. (Picture by life.com; courtesy - oldindianphotos.blogspot.com.). Click for larger image

Caught in a pincer movement, between Subhash Bose’s trained and armed soldiers and Gandhiji’s unarmed force, the British Raj responded savagely. With massive additions to the Indian police force.

The British were better …

Under dubious licences and restrictions, the British Raj turned Bengal into a huge concentration camp. Like the Spanish had done in Cuba, nearly 80 years ago. General Valeriano Weyler, “The Butcher,” was sent from Spain to stamp out the independence movement in Cuba. He created modern history’s first concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of men women and children were put into concentration camps. In Havana city alone, 52,000 people died.

Afraid that Bengal would fall to Subhash Bose, Burma’s rice crop was barricaded from Bengal. To cut Bengal from Burmese rice, Indian traders in Burma were hounded out. Grain trucks were not allowed to move into Bengal. Without Burmese rice, on which Bengal depended, an estimated 40-50 lakh people in Bengal died.

All that was left of Indians - Skin and bones. Why did Indians have to breed like rabbits? asked Churchill. (Picture by life.com; courtesy - oldindianphotos.blogspot.com.). Click for larger image

The Bengal Burma link of the ages was broken. Chettiar money lenders were thrown out of Burma. From being a granary of Asia, Burma started declining – and there was no rice for exports. Result – The Bengal Famine of 1943. Tally – 40-50 lakh deaths. As Gideon Polya has pointed out, Australian sheep have lower mortality rates.

Dignity of death

In his study (Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation By Amartya Sen) about The Great Bengal Famine, Amartya Sen highlights that “…for every dead woman there were nearly two dead men …” Sir Charles Elliot Famine Commissioner in Mysore in 1876 the general belief about Indian famines that “all authorities seem agreed that women succumb to famine less easily than men.”

The end of extraction

After WW2, Churchill very much wanted the option of squeezing the Brown man at least a little more. Whatever little there was left of the Brown man after the Great Bengal Famine of 1943.

A womans collects fallen grains of food from the road. (Picture by life.com; courtesy - oldindianphotos.blogspot.com.). Click for larger image

Clement Attlee pointed out that there was nothing left to squeeze. Attlee thought that the cost of squeezing was greater than the value of the extract. After Montagu Norman, Churchill, Lord Willingdon, Neville Chamberlain had finished with the Great Bullion Scam against India from 1925-1945. After the war was over and the Brown man was used in Africa and Europe. They let us go – and allowed us to rule ourselves.

How can we ever repay this debt?

Hitler was never alone

Hitler’s biggest mistake – he lost the war.

The genocide with which his regime was charged with was also carried out against the Native Americans in the USA, the Australian aborigines, in Congo by the Belgians.

Post colonial Governments in Kenya and India have ignored the cover-up of the millions killed by the colonial rulers – in the Mau Mau operations in Kenya or the 1857 War in India.

Bodies were disposed as efficiently as food was denied in Bengal. ((Picture by life.com; courtesy - oldindianphotos.blogspot.com.). Click for larger image.

While Hitler killed millions (some 5-6 millions) in his concentration camps, Britain killed a similar number in  Bengal. Britain wreaked havoc in India by creating The Great Bengal Famine. Some 40-50 lakh Indians died. Hitler rained the Holocaust on the Jews. Some 50-60 lakh Jews died.

Same difference.

What’s the difference

How were German concentration camps different from Bengal-as-a-concentration camp? There was one significant difference.

The British were kind enough not to use Zyklon gas – which would have killed Indians faster. Instead Indians died, slow, horrible deaths, over a period of 2 years. Unlike Jews, who were killed quickly.  The British were without doubt the more humane murderers – compared to the Germans.

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Related Articles

• Churchill’s Secret War, By Madhusree Mukerjee (independent.co.uk)
• Not his finest hour: The dark side of Winston Churchill (independent.co.uk)
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• Churchill’s Cherwell and the 1943 Famines (flyingpenguin.com)
• You: INDIA: CHURCHILL DENIED RELIEF TO BENGAL FAMINE VICTIMS, BOOK SAYS (menafn.com)
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• WWII Propaganda: 70 years later (quicktake.wordpress.com)
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• Snapshot of Bengal Partition (quicktake.wordpress.com)
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Deoband talks of Kashmir

Maybe the the fighting is more important than the cause ... (Cartoon courtesy - The Banglaore Mirror; Posted On Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 07:03:08 PM)

This is the first time JuH has taken up the Kashmir issue. The resolution stressed, “We don’t consider interests of the Kashmiri people to be separate from the interests of Indian Muslims.” It also called all like-minded people and organisations to campaign for peace and justice in Kashmir and “thwart enemy forces bent upon disintegration of Kashmir”.

When asked why were they silent so long, All India Muslim Personal Law Board’s Kamal Farooqui said, “Muslims were not comfortable talking about Kashmir for fear of getting branded and harassment by police and intelligence agencies.”

Asked about the prospect of resolution of the Kashmir issue, he said, “The country is in a reconciliatory mood, be it on J&K or Ayodhya. So, reconciliation within the Indian Constitution is the way out. An overwhelming section of Kashmiris want it, too. Which stupid person would want to go with Pakistan?” (Via : Jammu & Kashmir’s future with India: Deoband – The Times of India).

Deoband on Kashmir.

Deoband speaks out for Kashmiri Muslims – a part of the larger set of Indian Muslims. The Deobandis think that only a ‘stupid person would want to go with Pakistan’.

India needs to be clear headed. Religion is at home; you are an Indian everywhere. Problems with this? You know what to do ... (Cartoon by Kirtish Bhatt; Published on September 15, 2010; courtesy - http://bamulahija.wordpress.com)

Deoband is also tasking the Indian State with the removal of AFSPA, human rights abuses and compensation for those killed in Kashmiri violence.

Is this Deobandi approach cutting ice with the secessionist-azaadi fighters? The TOI report does not think so?

Without my tongue getting cut-off

This discussion provokes some really basic questions from Kashmiri secessionist-azaadi fighters.

Freedom from what? The economic burden of India on Kashmir? Can Kashmiri secessionist-azaadi fighters prove how India ‘burdens’ Kashmir? Right now, Rest of India subsidizes Kashmir. Is it forced conversions from Islam by a ‘Hindu’ Indian State?

Are there attempts to change the demographic profile of Kashmir by ‘Hindu’ migration into Kashmir? Self-rule to do what? How is Kashmiri secessionist-azaadi fighters rule going to be different from the past and the present?

What will you do

If Kashmir  indeed ‘suffered’ from rigged elections, has the Kashmiri secessionist-azaadi fighters polity been a part of the solution? Or do they think that it is the responsibility of a ‘Hindu’ India to deliver ‘perfection’ to the Kashmiris? Is it that Kashmiris have a right to make ‘demands’ and it is the job of the ‘Hindu’ Indian State to ‘meet’ these demands?

Immi-grunts

This is a lot like many ‘desi‘ Indians who migrate, believing that they can expect ‘superior’ systems in the West? All that these ‘desi‘  ‘immi-grunts’ have to then do is take ‘advantage’ of opportunities in the West! Is it surprising that these ‘desi‘ Indian  ‘immi-grunts’ hit ‘glass-ceilings’, encounter ‘racism’?

Nation-building is a tough job – and someone’s gotta to do it! You can’t ‘escape from backward’ India to the ‘forward’ West. Not without becoming second-class citizens. The Indian ‘immi-grunt’ has seen some level of acceptance – after India itself achieved some modicum of success.

Probably the Kashmir problem has been aggravated by Pakistan to coincide with Obama's visit! (cartoon courtesy - ahram.org).

Worth their weight in salt

If Kashmiri terrorists believe they are capable administrators, let them win an election, and prove their administrative capacity. Let them demonstrate that it is Rest of India which is hobbling Kashmir?

Do the ‘freedom’ fighters’ of Kashmir believe that by shouting azaadi they will get ‘freedom’! Freedom to impose their Wahabbi-Sunni-Shariat ‘vision’ on Indians?

Some 75 years ago, Indians could prove to the British rulers and to the world, that the British Empire was a burden on Indians.

While Indians were engaged in this epic struggle, some Indian Muslims could also make out a case (to the British) for a separate Indian Muslim Homeland. They called it Pakistan. Maybe Pakistan needs these ‘superior’ Kashmiris. Why not prove your superiority?

The template of terrorism was first used to break up the Ottoman Empire. (Cartoon - TN Ninan; Courtesy - Mumbai Mirror; Posted On Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 07:27:00 PM).

Options and futures

Maybe it is time that India offered some real simple choices to these Kashmiri secessionist-azaadi  leaders. No more demands. No more negotiations.

One – Simply integrate into India. Fight and win elections. Work with the Indian Election Commission to ensure a clean election. Make a difference in Kashmir.

Two – Many decades ago, Kashmiris thought that an ideal location for a base for their freedom ‘struggle’ was the UK. May be they can live in PoK, or Pakistan. Why ever not in Saudi Arabia? Or, they can live in ‘Yumm-rika’ – like Ajmal Kasab wants! I say, anyone who will have them. It may be time for these leaders to see the world.

Three – If not two of the above choices, these leaders must get the third option – Indian jails await you. It is the worst of the three options for everyone – including the Indian State.

Related Articles

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‘Honest’ Broker – United States Foreign Policy!

The Buddhist Jataka that travelled to Victorian England!

India and Honest Brokers

There is this Buddhist Jataka story which we have all heard.

Two cats go to a monkey for help in dividing some eatable equally. End result – the monkey gets everything. The cats, nothing. ‘Honest’ brokers are the monkey which leaves nothing for the cats.

Hillary Clinton assured a nervous gathering of Foreign Policy analysts that the world is counting on the USA today as it has in the past. When old adversaries need an honest broker or fundamental freedoms need a champion, people turn to us. When the earth shakes or rivers overflow their banks, when pandemics rage or simmering tensions burst into violence, the world looks to us. (via Remarks on United States Foreign Policy).

In real life

What is left of Pakistan after US finished with brokering Pakistan’s future? After the West carved up the Ottoman Empire, and divided the Turkish possessions among their puppets, what is left of the Middle East? With oil, Big Oil, oil politics, oil-dollar, oil prices at stake, can the US be a honest broker.

Tell that to the birds.

With oil at stake, how 'honest' a broker can the US be? (Cartoon by Pat Oliphant). Click for larger image.

Can there be a ‘honest’ broker?

This idea that there cannot be ‘honest’ brokers, made Buddhism so popular all over the world. Not pretty statues and musical chants. In the last 200 years, भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra has gone into regression. But, in this period, the world has also learnt more about the limitations of the Desert Bloc ideology.

People get ready!

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Europe sweeps all Top 10 Pickpocket Cities positions

Crime across Europe

A recent report that gained some level of exposure was on the global pickpocket scene. This report showed that Europe was the global leader in pickpocketing.

Europe takes Top 10 positions on pickpocket stats (Chart courtesy - livemint.com).

Europe takes Top 10 positions on pickpocket stats (Chart courtesy – livemint.com). A new study by the travel review site TripAdvisor shows the top 10 places its members tend to encounter the thieves. While pickpockets can strike anywhere, TripAdvisor found the most frequently reported places to be European cities with grand outdoor attractions. (via Top 10 Pickpocket Cities: Watch Your Wallet and Avoid Thieves When Traveling to These Destinations – ABC News).

Another report points out

The index is far from scientific – TripAdvisor, a leading travel booking and information site, culled the data by calculating the number of times travelers used the term “pickpocket” in TripAdvisor.com reviews over the past 12 months.

But the findings do suggest that theft seems to be on the rise in the cities on the list. Paris jumped from No. 5 in 2009 to No. 3 this year, while Athens went from ninth in ‘09 to fifth this year. And Madrid, Costa Brava, Lisbon, Tenerife, and London weren’t on the Top 10 last year.

Poster of Jamaica Inn (1939) Starring - Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, Director: Alfred Hitchcock

When the State commissions crimes!

Behind every great fortune there is a crime – Honoré de Balzac.

For many centuries, piracy, slavery, were encouraged, licenced by European States. Balzac’s statement only be understood with that background.

A 1936 novel by Daphne Du Maurier’s was set in the Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, based on and named after the real Jamaica Inn, a Bolventor pub, that evolved from a coaching inn in 1750, and went onto become famous as a smugglers’ base. Her other book, was the The Frenchman’s Creek (1942), was based on the life of a pirate. Before du Maurier’s romanticization of crime, in the best Anglo Saxon propaganda tradition, books to ‘white wash’ slavery and piracy – like Mr.Midshipman Easy, by Captain Frederick Marryat (Retd. Royal Navy) in 1836, were published.

Coppola’s Apocalypse Now was inspired by Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. A book examines this phenomenon tangentially – when a ‘licenced’ fighter goes ‘private’! In Asia. Like Britons did in India.

Remember O’Dyer and O’Dwyer!

Crime in The Great Recession

Some rather interesting crime stories have come out from the West in the last 2 years. Last year, January, saw a spate of bank robberies in New York – with 5 bank robberies in one day really giving the police some anxious weeks. July this year saw another report on the changing narcotics scenario in Europe. This latest report on Europe having high levels of petty crime are a part of that trend.

The vestigal remains of Bharat-tantra have ensured that India has low crime, small police force and low crime.

Ayodhya verdict treats Muslims like 2nd-class citizens, say some

Instead of vague resentment, Indian Muslims must compare relative positions to get a clearer idea.

Post-Ayodhya verdict

Two things-after the Ayodhya-Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.

One – How little I knew about this entire issue in terms of detail. Hence, I never said much about this issue.

Two. The reaction of the non-fundamentalist Muslims is worth noting. This post is about the second point.

In the non-fundamentalist narrative, (like Najib Mubarki) there are no suggestions for Muslims leadership – ever, anywhere. The burden of action, implementation is always others. Muslim leadership is always the innocent bystanders in this narrative. Objective – induce guilt.

Muslims as 2ndclass citizens

For instance take the following new report

But others are a bit more forthcoming. Shabnam Hashmi, well-known social activist who heads Sahmat, says the verdict made her feel like a “second-class citizen”. “We will not stop the struggle against irrationality and hatred but we can no longer promise to hand over a secular, democratic nation to you,” says Hashmi, in her “message to the next generation”. (via ‘Verdict makes me feel like a 2nd-class citizen’ – The Times of India).

Are we making the same mistake again? Jinnah acted pricey with the support of half a per cent (0.5%) of India's Muslim population - and the might of the British Raj behind him! (Cartoon - Artist - Low; David (1891-1963) Published - Evening Standard, 04 Sep 1946). Click for larger image.

To all those who believe that Muslims are (treated as) 2ndclass citizens in India, there are three points which merit attention.

1. Hindus are like that only – This was Jinnah’s point of view. Some of Indian Muslims who agreed with Jinnah went to Pakistan. To whomsoever, the realization came late, can take that option now.

After thousands of years of culture and history, the Hindus are not going to change – quickly and easily. You know that Indian and foreign Islāmic rulers tried to change Hindus for 600 years (1200-1800). British rulers tried for some 150 years (1797-1947). It may be easier and quicker to just go to Pakistan, which was created so that Indian Muslims are NOT treated like 2ndclass citizens.

2. You can compare – Does the Middle East treat Indian Muslims better than India? Are Muslims likely to be treated better in EU – in countries like France (no hijab), UK (with massive imprisonment of Muslims) or Switzerland (no mosques with minarets). Maybe, you can consider USA, where a Muslim surname is enough justification for law-enforcement authorities to treat you ‘differently’. The British have an estimated one of out every 40 adult Muslim male is (who is not old) in their prison. The French feel let down because “immigrants were supposed to blend harmoniously into society and not exist in separate communities” – and the Muslims did not.

Post 9-11, hundreds of Sardarjis of Indian origin were attacked, after being mistaken for Arabs. Or Australia where a computer game was themed as How many Muslims Can You Kill became popular. You could think of Denmark, where the Government rewarded Muslims to move out of Denmark.

The so-called ‘persecuted’ people in India are in a majority (the dalits), or their populations are growing faster than the ‘oppressors’ (dalits and Muslims). So, this bit about suppression, persecution, racism in India, is a red-herring. Complete ignorance – if it is not trickery.

The Indian Muslim must pioneer a broader identity of Muslim+ identity! Click for larger image.

So, stop trying to hold India and Indians to some impossible ideal, which cannot be compared, measured, evaluated or defined.

Instead, do look at data – comparative data and take a call. You have choices of immigration to Pakistan, Middle East, Europe, USA, Australia.

The whole wide world.

3. Make it work – Nation-building is a tough job. It needs everyone to join in. Big, small, powerful, powerless, loud or voiceless. Everyone. You (and hence others, too) can see yourself as 2ndclass, a victim. 2ndclass is as 2ndclass does. No one in India sees APJ Kalam as a 2ndclass citizen. The Deoband Seminary explicit believes that Muslims enjoy the highest degree freedom in India. Bar none.

This post suffers from using easy, prominent examples. Maybe the problem cannot be addressed by these examples. For that Muslim leadership must take charge. Not necessarily political or religious leadership. And that mater has been addressed in other posts.

Indian Muslims must take a global leadership of the Islamic world (Cartoon By Yusuf, courtesy - TwoCircles.net.).

Comparing India

Equating India with the Desert Bloc (believers in monotheism) is without basis in fact, reality or history.

This is one thing, that we in India must understand, discover, find out, investigate – and then, after that, believe, that we are different.

Even Indian Muslims.

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Related Articles

• Ayodhya verdict: disputed site to be split between Hindus and Muslims (telegraph.co.uk)
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• Ayodhya verdict: live updates (guardian.co.uk)