Chetan Bhagat’s 4th Mistake

Has thirty years of killings in record numbers solved China corruption problem?

The 4th mistake of your life (Image source and courtesy - mouthshut.com). Click for larger images.

Killing and shooting helps

Basically, Chetan Bhagat want Hindu Shariat in India. Like Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev.

Admirer of Chinese style anti-corruption killings, darling of ‘middle-India’, Chetan Bhagat wrote on his forearm – मेरा नेता चोर है mera neta chor hai (My leader is a thief). As he cannot ‘emboss’ or ‘tattoo’ powerful politicians with this declaration.

Chetan Bhagat writes,

Contrast (India) with China where the punishment for the corrupt can be death by firing squad. Not only that, the family of the convict gets a bill for the bullets, just to emphasise the point that no one steals the nation’s money. (via Of Ravages And Kings – Times Of India).

I have a question

If bullets or swords could solve problems, Saudi Arabia would have been free of crime. And China free of corruption.

Both these miracles have not happened.

On what evidence are these ‘thought-leaders’ saying that killing and shooting is the answer? Any example where it is working? The answer is less – and even less, power to the Government.

Go for भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra.

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Don’t assume that sh0oting-and-killing is only for others. It can happen to you, too!  As Kabir Das said,

जहाँ दया तहाँ धर्म है, जहाँ लोभ तहाँ पाप ।
जहाँ क्रोध तहाँ काल है, जहाँ क्षमा तहाँ आप ॥
Generosity and justice go together, greed and sin co-exist|
Anger before destruction, and with forgiveness, You are there.

जो तोको काँटा बुवै, ताहि बोव तू फूल।
तोहि फूल को फूल है, वाको है तिरसुल॥ कबीर
Plant flowers and flowers is what you will get.
And he who plants thorns will get trishul (death).

Reality has not changed since the time of Kabir Das.

Guns & Crime

Crime Stats - Top 18 countries (Source - http://www.nationmaster.com). Click for source interactive graph.

Anglo-Saxon systems

Interestingly, UK and USA, two countries with Anglo-Saxon system of jurisprudence, have the highest crime incidence.

But the surprise element is India.

India – with the largest number of poor people. More than in sub-Saharan Africa. With also the largest arsenal of firearms outside the US. Most of these guns are unlicensed – and logically, a number of these guns are with the poor. Another newspaper reported that the cost of these illegal firearms is less than US$100 or Rs.4500.

India had the world’s second-largest civilian gun arsenal, with an estimated 46 million firearms outside law enforcement and the military, though this represented just four guns per 100 people there. China, ranked third with 40 million privately held guns, had 3 firearms per 100 people.

Germany, France, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil and Russia were next in the ranking of country’s overall civilian gun arsenals. (via U.S. most armed country with 90 guns per 100 people | Reuters).

Iceberg ahoy

India with the lowest police-to-population ratio and the highest police-to-illegal-guns ratio. Either crime levels must be high, or imprisonment levels have to be stratospheric.

Strangely, none of these ‘logical’ things are happening. Crime is at low-to-average levels, imprisonment is at a global low, police force is seriously undermanned – and firearms are common.

What gives?

Related articles

• Listing Gun Owners Might Help Criminals (economix.blogs.nytimes.com)
• The headache that is Pakistan (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• Soldiers find 88 guns in former Mexican mayor’s home (guardian.co.uk)
• Mexico wants to sue U.S. gun makers (cbsnews.com)

U.K. cops arrest people ‘just for the DNA’

More than three-quarters of young black men aged between 18 and 35 are on the system, the report said. Set up in 1995, the database contains the DNA profiles of five million citizens, eight percent of the population, making it the world’s biggest in proportion to population size. “Parliament has never formally debated the establishment of the National DNA Database and safeguards around it,” commission chairman Professor Jonathan Montgomery said in a statement.

“It has developed through amendments to laws designed to regulate the taking of fingerprints and physical evidence before DNA profiling was developed.

“It is not clear how far holding DNA profiles on a central database improves police investigations.” (via U.K. cops arrest people ‘just for the DNA’ – Europe- msnbc.com).

Big brother is definitely here

As post-WW2 European society was taking shape, one man warned the world – Big Brother Is Watching You!

George Orwell’s 1984, a simple, dark and melancholic book warned the world of the specter of a looming police state looming. The book was portrayed as warning against the ‘impending’ threat of Communism. George Orwell himself joined the British Government in its propaganda effort, against the Germans during WW2.

Would George Orwell, a confused imperialist, have imagined that Britain, the citadel of freedom, itself would becoming the Mother Of Big Brother societies – with the largest number surveillance cameras and DNA data bank and a back-breaking prison population.

I wonder!

In the land of the free

The US prison population at more than 20 lakhs (2 million) is travesty of justice and humanity. The US competes with China and the erstwhile USSR, (the largest totalitarian regimes) in the world, with its rate of incarceration.

USA, with a population of 30 crores (300 million), has a criminal population of 70 lakhs (7 million) – behind bars, on probation or on parole. US Government estimates a figure of 20 lakhs (2 million) people serving prison sentences.

A concerned editorial in New York Times newspaper summed up the situation.

More than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars. One in nine black men, ages 20 to 34, are serving time, as are 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men. Nationwide, the prison population … (of the US) surpasses all other countries for which there are reliable figures. The 50 states last year spent about $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections, up from nearly $11 billion in 1987. Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Michigan and Oregon devote as much money or more to corrections as they do to higher education.

Persuading public officials to adopt a more rational, cost-effective approach to prison policy is a daunting prospect, however, not least because building and running jailhouses has become a major industry.

… the relationship between imprisonment and crime control is murky. States that lagged behind the national average in rising incarceration rates during the 1990’s actually experienced a steeper decline in crime rates than states above the national average … (ellipsis and bracketed text mine).

Across the pond

Some time back there was another report, on the state of prisons in UK.

There are almost 10,000 Muslims in Britain’s jails— with 90 of them serving time for terror offences … they fear more and more young lags are being converted and radicalised in prison. A … source said: “You are talking about rootless young men at the bottom of society. They’re in jail and someone gives them some purpose. ”

In top-security jails such as Whitemoor, Cambs, 35 per cent of inmates are Muslim—and they have converted numerous other prisoners to Islam. (via MI5 spy chiefs are putting undercover officers into Britain’s jails | News Of The World).

Slice and dice …

Britain has an estimated 1.6 million Muslims – a 2.8% of the British population. Of this a 10,000 are in prison – which means about 0.6% of the British Muslim population is in prison. India has 16 crore Muslims – which a 100 times higher population.

What if …

The British policy of imprisonment, if India were to follow, Indian Muslims inside prisons would be in 10 lakhs (or 1 million). India’s total prison population ranges between 2.5 lakhs to 3.5 lakhs – of all peoples, of all religions, races, crimes etc.

Of course, Indian society handles crime vastly differently. Technically, India could create a legal system which would ease the ability of the police to imprison people, or better still hang them – and hide its social problems.

Freedom, imprisonment, racism, development, genocide

What is the difference between a ‘banana republic’ where people disappear – and in the Anglo-Saxon Bloc which has the world largest prison population? Maybe, my being from a backward country, stops me from understanding this great ‘progress’ that these countries seemed to have made!

The sight of the West, strutting as a protector of freedom on the global stage is a hoax. How can the West have a problem with Native American tribes (aka Red Indians) and the Aborigines – if there are none left. The West which has the highest levels of prison populations in the world – raucously reminds the world of lessons in freedom.

What is assimilation and integration

The West speaks of protecting individual freedom, whereas the calls for ‘assimilation’ integration are nothing but refurbished implementation of the ‘settled’ principle in the Desert Bloc of Cuius regio, eius religio’ (meaning whose land, his religion; CRER) – the ruler decided his people’s religion.

The West can speak from both sides of the mouth. Nicholas Sarkozy can tell Indians (i.e.Manmohan Singh) to respect foreign missionaries, who want to convert Indians to their religion – while the West can continue with this demonization of Islam. Would Sarkozy like to mention any other country where such a large minority Muslim population, has greater freedom and opportunity, than in India? Would you like to suggest France instead?

This is freedom – from both sides. For the West.

‘Our constables live worse than animals’ – The Times of India

Drawing SHRC’s attention to the sub-standard dwellings provided to lower-rung cops of the city police, advocate Sushan Kunjuraman, in his petition, stated: “Our policemen live worse than animals and we expect so much from them. A Mumbai police constable lives in a 180-sq-ft room. The housing areas are so small that most of the family sleeps in the corridor or on stairs.”

The petition further states that most constables are overworked. “They are frustrated and rude. How can we expect good policing if we can’t provide them with decent housing,” the advocate asked. (via ‘Our constables live worse than animals’ – The Times of India).

The crime scene in India

India have a low prison population, with a poor police-to-population ratio and a crime rate which is not above the average – in spite of a large civilian gun population.

All the 5 indices (below) create a bias for a lawless Indian society and rampant crime. With these five indices, going against a stable social system, how does current day India manage low-to-average crime rates.

1. India has the lowest per capita prison population in the world. (‘put more criminals behind bars’)
2. India also has the lowest police-to-population ratio in the world. (‘increase police force’)
3. India has the second highest national gun stock in the world. (‘more guns means more crime’)
4. India has the largest number of poor in the world. (‘it is poverty which the root of all crime’)
5. Capital punishment in India is again at low levels. (‘kill enough criminals to instill fear’)

Western thinking and systems of law and order predict that India should have the highest crime rate in the world – which is not true. India has low-to-average crime rate compared to the Rest of the World.

And sub-human living conditions is what police constables get!

The facts behind the story

Historically, trade in India is governed by शुभ लाभ ‘shubh labh’ – and hence Indians have not been major players in drugs proliferation (unlike Japan, the West in which traded Opium in Korea and China) or in slave trade. In modern times, though India is a power in computing industry, India is not a big player in spamming or in software virus.

Trailing the Buddha

Photographer Benoy K Behl’s pursuit of documenting ancient Indian art and the spread of Buddhism across the world does not show any signs of slowing. He is travelling to Siberia and Afghanistan to shoot art in the monasteries there, and his project will culminate in shows in London and New York, finds Anand Sankar (via Trailing the buddha).

Indian academia abdicates

Western historians trace this art form to Islamic school

This short post in Business Standard is an eye opener. It is another case of the Dysfunctional Indian academia, which is the story of abdication by the Indian academia in correcting colonial history. Western historiography, based on a colonial agenda and racial superiority is not being challenged – at least not enough.

To the lengthening line of non-specialists, who are re-writing Indian history, like Amaresh Misra (War of 1857), Anant Darwatkar (on Sambhaji Maharaj), Parag Tope (on Tatiya Tope’s role in 1857), Savitri Sawhney (on the Ghadar Party’s contribution to Indian Freedom Movement), we can now add the name of Benoy K Behl. As this article points out,

Some of Behl’s observations on the Indic vision might ruffle feathers in the academia, amongst certain ideologues. While politely saying that he “stays away from political issues”, he points out: “At some places, they are less confused than us. For example in Bali, they know that the Ramayana sets a benchmark for ethical rule. It is literature, an epic of ideas.

As Ganga descends from the heavens, it starts teeming with Nagas (fertility symbol)

Awesome Work

Capturing Indian history across more than 20 countries, Benoy K Behl has spent,

almost two decades now, … to document the spread of Buddhism; his work evident in over 30,000 unique photographs that he has taken all over the world.

He has found that

“At many of these places people may not have seen present-day Indians but they still hold Indian culture in great regard”.

Unlearning and learning

Western history in the thralldom of the Greek Miracle and a colonial agenda of minimizing and subverting Indian history, is a bad (though usual) starting point to understand Indian history. To Benoy K Behl,

“The paintings of Ajanta appeared to me as a world of compassion. An entire world is enshrined there. It had an immense effect on me. I found all the things one had believed in and wanted to believe in there. I was really taught by that art. It is a really good way to learn. Western literature did not come in the way of art and me”.

At Ajanta, Behl says he found that the popular view was that the paintings were a “flash in the pan”. And that there was no documentation of what happened before and after these. “Sheer volumes of art are waiting to be discovered and with them, a perspective will emerge. People haven’t bothered to go to these places.

Mahajanaka vaanprastha

Desert Bloc legacy

Benoy K Behl makes an interesting observation that India discovered religion in the last few centuries. Early India never had religion. Which is exactly what the 2ndlook blog has said for the last few years.

“In ancient times, there was nothing called Hindusism, Jainism or Buddhism. This is a European construct of a divided religion. The philosophy of religion was not limited by these divisions in India or in Asia even”.

If I may add – The Europeans are a part of The Desert Bloc – where religion was born and propagated.

Gajalakshmi in Varaha cave

What Benoy K Behl brings to the table

An independent and interesting perspective. A rare commodity in the best of times. For distressed Indian history, it is invaluable.

Citing an example, Behl says, one of the stories that needs to be documented in India is the contribution of Kumara Jiva, a big name in Chinese Buddhism. “He was the son of Kumara Yana, an Indian nobleman who married Princess Jiva of Kucha (in China). Jiva took her son to the Kashmir valley, where he studied for 19 years. He became the greatest translator for Buddhist scriptures in China, especially the Lotus Sutra.” The Chinese government has built a statue recognising this at the Kizil caves, on the northern Silk Route in the remote Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Behl suggests that India must also “build a statue of Kumara Jiva” in recognition of his origins.

The ancient culture of India is important in world history. European writing has perhaps undermined this.” To substantiate this he says that Ashoka is still revered everywhere from the Volga basin to Japan.

More of Benoy K Behl

The National Geographic has put together some good photographs – and I am sure there are more where these came from.

Threat to bomb Indian community centre in Belfast- Hindustan Times

The Indian Community Centre in Belfast has received a threat letter from Protestant extremists asking immigrants to leave Northern ireland or face bomb attacks.

Besides the Indian centre, the threat letter has been sent to the Belfast Islamic Centre and the Polish Association, reports from Belfast said.

The letter, threatening of racist violence, from the youth wing of the Ulster Defence Association warned: “No sympathy for foreigners, get out of our Queen’s country before our bonfire night (July 11) and parade day (July 12).”

“Other than that your building will be blown up. Keep Northern Ireland white. Northern Ireland is only for white British.” (via Threat to bomb Indian community centre in Belfast- Hindustan Times).

When the Roma Gypsies were attacked and assaulted, ‘knowing’ readers responded that it was the fault of the Roma Gypsy!

After all, how can you blame other people? Apparently, the logic why the Roma Gypsies are disliked is, because,

“people dislike a group that don’t pay taxes, don’t integrate into the community, don’t speak the language of their guest country, and are seemingly the origins of most petty crime in any area they descend upon, and yet this same group demand the community supports them, demands that specialist teachers are provided for their offspring, demand they have unfettered access to the same services as the rest of us but don’t pay their way.”

What could be more logical, when these Roma,

appear anywhere they want, set up their camps, totally dividing entire communities, demand these things, and then get … bleeding heart liberals jumping to their defence when the people (btw – they were the people you guys would have been defending 10 years ago, although,to be fair, you probably patronisingly refered to them as ‘proles’) decide to give them a message, and yet you wonder why they’re hated.

Probably, the Indians, Poles and the Muslims also have similar problems – which they themselves cannot see.

But these enlightened British souls from Northern Ireland can see more and further – then we can.

Roma Gypsies face Northern Ireland ethnic violence

A frugal Romani Gypsy Camp

Police said the racist attacks started last week, with gangs smashing house windows and attacking cars. The violence flared again on Monday when youths hurling bottles and Nazi salutes attacked an anti-racism rally called to support the migrants.

Belfast City Council press officer Mark Ashby said the majority of the victims were Roma, or Gypsies, from Romania.

Marian Mandache, from the Romanian Gypsy NGO Romani Crisis, said the Northern Ireland violence was the latest in a disturbing trend of attacks across Europe.

“Starting with Italy in 2007, there have been waves of … racist attacks against Roma,” said Mandache. “Afterwards, there were attacks in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.” (via Gypsies face Northern Ireland ethnic violence).

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.

The Romani Gypsies Sinti have been a favored European target for the last 500 years – by the Vatican, by the Protestant Church, by monarchies and by Republican Governments. In war and and in peace.

Their crime. They civilized (?) Europe. No less.

A 'campaign' to remove Roma Gypsies from camping sites in Britain

Why Europe continues to demonize and persecute the Roma

Despite the immense contribution by the Roma Gypsies to European culture and life. Is it because: –

1. They have a different lifestyle – which is migratory and frugal. They do not wish to have permanent homes, too many possessions or jobs. They prefer living in wagons, with skills and trade that they possess.
2. They have not ‘integrated’ into the White, Christian, European social system. They wish to remain ‘different’.
3. They stick out like sore thumbs – in a Europe where the Jews have been annihilated, where  descendants of the African slave populations have been exterminated and the Islamic population (past and present) is not tolerated. In such a situation, the Roma Gypsies have not only survived, but have regrown (after Hitler’s concentration camps killed them by millions).

Since when, are these qualities a crime.

Recent history

A few months ago, the Italian police started a campaign of racial profiling and persecution of the Roma – based on an isolated murder of an Italian.

This disproportionate response against a community, to a crime (I am making an assumption of guilt) by a Roma individual, smacks of persecution, racism and pogroms. After all, this is how Hitler and Mussolini too started their campaigns.

In Northern Ireland, the Roma Gypsy number less than 1000. What threat, what problem could they be to the nearly 2 million people of Northern Ireland?

In Britain,

For over twenty years Erith Borough Council continually tried to remove the gypsies from the Marshes. The Council’s eviction policy even made the National Press. In 1948 the Daily Mirror ‘Ruggles’ cartoon strip featured the plight of the Belvedere Gypsy community.

Finally, in 1956 Erith Borough Council got its way. The Council minutes for that year record that “over 700 persons and 280 ramshackle structures have been removed…The clearance could now be said to be complete” thus ending over 100 years of Gypsy history living on Belvedere Marshes.

By 1965, following a campaign led by Norman Dodds, MP for Erith and Crayford, the Government commissioned a national census survey of the Gypsy community living in Great Britain. Sadly, Norman Dodds died in 1965, but James Wellbeloved who became the MP for the same seat took up Dodds’ campaign and finally, in 1968 Parliament passed the Caravans Sites Act. This Act placed a duty on all local authorities in England and Wales to provide sites on which Gypsies could place their caravans and stay, either temporarily or permanently. However this duty was repealed by the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1995. (from Gypsies In Bexley: A Hundred Years On The Belvedere Marshes By Simon McKeon, 13/07/2006, from Untold London).

Unarmed, and a few of them!

PS

To all those who wanted to pin the blame for this wave of violence at the doorsteps of the Roma, better find a new and better story. It was reported that Indians, Muslims and the Poles were also warned. Leave Northern Ireland, or else.

Apply command responsibility!

In these days of easy communication and the existence of a clear chain of authority, ignorance cannot be an excuse. In the post World-War I era, the principle of ‘Command Responsibility’ was evolved for imputation of responsibility and criminal liability to superior officers for the actions of their subordinates. This principle was most famously used to sentence to death General Yamashita of Japan for crimes committed against civilians in the Philippines, and has been included since in a number of international law instruments, including the rules for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

In the Nuremberg trials after World War II, command responsibility was undoubtedly a consideration for affixing liability, but was not really applied because the accused German ministers and officers were found to have a direct role in the atrocities committed by the instrumentalities of the Nazi state. This is a principle that has been utilised to punish those who order the commission of crimes against humanity as also those who turn a blind eye to the commission of these crimes. As defined under the Rome Statute, it can apply to both military and civil authorities, although it has mostly been used to prosecute military commanders whose troops were found to have committed offences which were within their notice. (via Apply command responsibility- Comments & Analysis-Opinion-The Economic Times).

Interesting concept

Wonder how this can be used by the Roma Gypsies against Berlusconi for persecution by the Italian police. Or against the Hungarian and Czech Governments for their complicity and inaction against the persecution of the Roma Gypsies.

This disproportionate response against a community, to a crime (I am making an assumption of guilt) by a Roma individual, smacks of persecution, racism and pogroms. After all, this is how Hitler and Mussolini too started their campaigns.

Why does Europe continue to demonize and persecute the Roma

Despite the immense contribution by the Roma Gypsies to European culture and life. Is it because: –

1. They have a different lifestyle – which is migratory and frugal. They do not wish to have permanent homes, too many possessions or jobs. They prefer living in wagons, with skills and trade that they possess.
2. They have not ‘integrated’ into the White, Christian, European social system. They wish to remain ‘different’.
3. They stick out like sore thumbs – in a Europe where the Jews have been annihilated, where the descendants of Black slave populations have been exterminated and the Islamic population (past and present) is not tolerated. In such a situation, the Gypsies have not only survived, but have regrown (after Hitler’s concentration camps killed them by millions).

Since when, are these qualities a crime.

Long history

In Europe, kidnapping children was considered legal for most of 1500AD-1750AD. On one condition – you had to kidnap Roma Gypsy children! More than 25,000 children kidnapped. No problem. Everybody sleeps peacefully at night. Switzerland was doing this till 1973!

Roughly, between 1500 to 1750, it was legal in Europe to hunt human beings. Yes! Just like hunting for deer in India, or hunting buffalo in Africa or fox-hunting in Britain. Yes! You could hunt human beings. As long as the humans you hunted were Roma Gypsies.

Sharing the Nazi concentration camps with the Jews were a fringe European group – Roma Gypsies. 80% of the Romany Gypsy population – a greater percentage of Roma Gypsies died than the Jews.

Jewish Double Standards

On 16 September 1986, as Elie Wiesel addressed a wide range of audience in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, he stated

“I confess that I feel somewhat guilty towards our Roma friends. We have not done enough to listen to your voice of anguish. We have not done enough to make other people listen to your voice of sadness. I can promise you we shall do whatever we can from now on to listen better” (Tanner 1997).

Elie Wiesel confirms that he feels only somewhat guilty and will do his best to listen – just like Europe and the world does – once in while, listen to the Roma Gypsy and then revert back to complete indifference rest of the time.

Sarkozy lectures to Manmohan Singh

A few months ago, President Sarkozy was preaching to PM Manmohan Singh of India, about managing minorities. Can you, Shri Sarkozy, look at your own backyard. For a start, will you start with some Muslim North Africans, Mr.Sarkozy!

Mr.Sarkozy, recently, in the EU, Roma Gypsies, who are EU citizens, were profiled and expelled from Italy because of 1 incident (yes, one) where a White was murdered – allegedly by a Roma Gypsy. France and Italy both belong to an organization called the EU – which now wants to teach India about Human rights.

A few months ago, the Italian police started a campaign of racial profiling and persecution of the Roma – based on an isolated murder of an Italian. Till recently, France was head of EU. If you, Mr. Sarkozy, can preach to Manmohan Singh, can you start with your colleagues – in Italy, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

Do European prejudices include Roma Gypsy children, Sarkozy mahodai?

Law and order

an angry mob attacked a Roma gypsy camp outside of Naples … when a gypsy woman was accused of trying to steal a baby from a nearby apartment. Police arrested the woman, but a crowd then turned against all 800 gypsies living in the camp. “They have to go,” said one Italian. “They stink, they bother us, and they steal from us. That is why they have to go.” Tuesday night, a group of people torched the camp, forcing residents to flee under police protection. (from Italian police crack down on immigrants)

Now, this Italy. If the Italians are so brave and law-abiding, I would like to see the Italians torch the home of a Mafiosi! Even a small time hood! A low-level Mafiosi. After all, the Mafia is the biggest criminal organization in Italy! Where is this outrage, when it comes to the Mafia?

Let us face it – this is entirely because the Roma Gypsies have not taken to violence or arms! If I were an Italian, I would be careful. Like the British found out, we Indians are a peaceful lot … till …

Roma Gypsies are Indians

The Roma Gypsies came to Europe 1000 years ago, from India – and are till today considered outsiders. They are not allowed to lead their lifestyle – and the Gypsy community is accused of all misdeeds. It is the same Gypsies who civilized Europe with their music. Today, the West desperately hides the fact that Western classical music was derived and grew from Gypsy music. No longer slaves, the discrimination and persecution continues.

Akamai State Of Internet report

Akamai Releases Fourth Quarterly “State of the Internet

— India ranked #17 globally in terms of attack traffic, with 1.16% of observed attack traffic

During the fourth quarter of 2008, Akamai observed attack traffic originating from 193 unique countries around the world, up nearly 8% from the third quarter count of 179 countries. In the fourth quarter, the United States moved into first place for the first time in 2008, after placing second to either China or Japan throughout the year. Throughout 2008, the United States, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan were consistently among the top 10 countries that generated the highest percentages of attack traffic. (via Zee News).

High Crime rates and USA

With a population of 30 crores (300 million), the US has a criminal population of 70 lakhs (7 million) – behind bars, on probation or on parole. US Government estimates a figure of 20 lakhs (2 million) people serving prison sentences.

What is behind such high levels of crime and prison population in the US?

Contrast that with India …

The current status of Indian criminal system is a study in contrast. With a population of 110 crores (1100 million) India, has a prison population of 2 lakhs (0.2 million). The Indian National Human Rights Commission gives a figure of 3.5 lakhs as the prison population – including convicts and those who are undergoing trial. The UK Home Office survey of World Prison Population estimates Indian prison population at 2.5 lakhs.

With less than 25 people per 100,000 in prison, India has the world’s lowest imprisonment rate. Cynics may snigger at India’s ‘inefficient’ police or the slow court procedures as the cause for this low prison population. That can only mean criminals are at large and India must, therefore have the highest crime rate – which is not true.

Based on category, India has low or average crime rates. All the 5 indices (below) create a bias for lawlessness and rampant crime, in Indian society. With these five indices, namely: –

1. Police to population ratio (increase police force).
2. Prison population (put more criminals behind bars)
3. Capital punishment (kill enough criminals to instill fear)
4. Poverty (it is poverty which the root of all crime)
5. Gun ownership (more guns means more crime)

against a stable social system, how does India manage low-to-average crime rates.

How can India have such a low prison population, with a poor police-to-population ratio and a crime rate which is not above the average – in spite of a large civilian gun population.

History …

The answer goes back 4000 years back in history – to Lipit Ishtar, Hittite laws, Hammurabi et al. More than 2000 years ago, Megasthenes a Greek traveller to India wrote,

Theft is of very rare occurrence. Megasthenes says that those who were in the camp of Sandrakottos, wherein lay 400,000 men, found that the thefts reported on any one day did not exceed the value of two hundred drachmae, and this among a people who have no written laws

Historically, trade in India is governed by शुभ लाभ ‘shubh labh’ – and hence Indians have not been major players in drugs proliferation (unlike Japan, or the West, which traded Opium in Korea and China) or in slave trade. In modern times, though a power in computing industry, India is not a big player in spamming or in software virus.

Colonial imaginings?

It is also true that there was huge demobilisation of soldiers during the first half of the 19th century. Mughal rule was on its last legs and small rulers did not have the resources to maintain a regular army. Many of these men, Muslims and Hindus alike, did take to highway robberies. But thugs are a different story. Were they for real or were they just a figment of the Company Bahadur’s imagination? The question deserves an answer. (via Colonial imaginings?).

Indian history has become a two-trick pony

Produce Gandhiji or Nehru to blame or credit for anything in Indian history. That is the sum and substance of modern India’s approach to history.

The real tragedy here is not the colonial falsification of history. It is the abdication of the Indian academia in correcting colonial history. The entire Western historiography, based on a colonial agenda and racial superiority is not being challenged – at least not enough.

Amaresh Misra's War Of Civilisations: The Road To Delhi; India AD 1857 (Click for larger image).

Perplexed … Angry … Disappointed!

Sometime back, another book, on the Ghadar Party is a demonstration of how Indian Universities are letting us down.

Ghadar Party has not got its due from our historians or even from the official chroniclers of India’s freedom movement. The author, Savitri Sawhney, is the daughter of Pandurang Khankhoje, one of the co-founders of Ghadar Party.

Parag Tope’s forth coming book, Operation Red Lotus, on the life and wars of Tatiya Tope; another non-specialist book on  Chhatrapati Shri Sambhaji Maharaj by Anant Darwatkar, are all non-specialists, trying to do the job that a specialist should have done a long time ago. While on the subject of thugee and dacoits, Parag Tope’s write up on the Pindaris is worth a read.

Most impressive is the work by Amaresh Misra – a film critic and journalist, who was moved sufficiently to research for a few years, because, “Since 1957, no Indian has written a comprehensive account of the Revolt. Indian historians have done a limited work”. His work, based on some excellent research and insights, is of course, let down by his referrals, to partisan political interpretations and Western political frameworks.

The truth behind Thugee

Another book reveals how ‘Thuggee and Dacoity Department’ established with William Sleeman as Superintendent in 1835, could capture no more than 3000 highway robbers – of which only 400 were executed. In nearly a decade! In a population of possibly 25 crores.

Colonial propaganda - Artist - Illingworth, Leslie Gilbert, 1902-1979 Published - Daily Mail, 4 June 1947

Some of the most infamous, like Behram was attributed to have committed more than 900 murders – for which he never faced any trial, for murders he confessed to, even after being captured.

Most of these thugs were actually rebel peasants who were waging a war against the dispossession of the lands – like the Santhals, Bhils, Gujjars, etc.

How many innocents were killed on trumped up charges, I will not estimate!

Dysfunctional academia

Indian academicians and historians – especially in higher education, in non-technology, non -science related fields are big let down. Why are academicians (paid for doing this research) not doing this research? Why are non-specialists doing this job? My dissatisfaction is not a reflection on the non-specialists – but on the specialists.

Indian school texts have seen some basic ‘spit-and-polish’ on the colonial text and syllabus. Of course, the dominance of English language in higher education must take a major blame for this.

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