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by Pandit Madan LaI Gupta

According to 1991 census (1981- 1991) the population increased at the alarming rate of
23.71, Hindus increased 22.8% which is less than the national increase, Muslims
increased at the rate 32.8%. The reason cited for this increase is lack of education among
the Muslim community, which may not be true. Kerala a state dominated by Muslims has
the highest literacy rate, where the Muslim population increase is 25.41% (higher than the
Total national population increase) as compared to the Hindus, which is 12.62%.

According to the survey conducted by Organization of Research Group of Baroda in the
year 1970-1971 only 8.8% Muslim and 13.8% Hindu couples used the facility of family
planning respectively. The survey conducted in 1980-1981 reported 22.8% Muslim and
36.1% Hindu couples respectively. Among the Scheduled/backward classes the
population increase rate was 31% showing a decrease of 1.8% as com- pared to the
Muslims. It is not true that the rate of increase among the Muslims is due to lack of
education or poverty.

It is believed that the rate of population increase among the Muslims is higher than other
religions in India. If this process continued then in 2161, the population of Muslims will be
higher than the Hindus in India. The state of Kerala has 100% literacy rate, but the rate of
Muslim population increase is 25.49% as compared to Hindus, which is 12.62%. Taking
the base year 2001 into consideration and the present rate of growth of Muslim
population, the following table will definitely confirm the above fact.

Population In Crores (10 Mi1lion)

Poor India! Every time it looks as if thy head is coming above water, that at last
your are accorded some breathing space, after having suffered so much for
centuries at the hands of bloody invasions, pernicious colonisers, or secular
enemies from within, you are plunged back into darkness, by some unexpected
twist of fate, some unheralded, unnecessary, perverse, unfair setback, such as the
Sabamarti Express killings.

Poor India! At Independence you were robbed of one fifth of your territory, courtesy
her Majesty's Service; in 1962, the ever smiling, but treacherous Chinese,
humiliated you and stole another chunk of thy blessed land, thanks to Nehruās
blind hindi-chinni-bhai-bhai policy; finally, the Pakistanis, who lost all the wars they
initiated against you, understood that proxy conflicts were the cheapest, safest
(and most cowardly) way to hurt you. And indeed, your soldiers were bled in
Punjab, and they are bled today in Kashmir and the North-East, while the world
looks the other way and Amnesty International even praises the perpetrators.

Poor India!: Nobody will ever understand the harm that has been done to thy
social, religious and cultural fabric by nearly ten centuries of bloody Muslim
invasions. Muslim invaders looted thy country, they killed thy men, raped thy
women, razed thy temples, broke thy statues and enslaved thy children. This
onslaught was so intense, so bloody, so terrifying -- remember Hindu Kush - India -
that it has left a permanent scar on thy psyche: thy sons and daughters have
become - as Mahatma Gandhi aptly said -- cowards; they shy away from
confrontation, panic easily, stay indoors at the least sign of trouble, lack total civic
sense and let India's New Barbarians still defy and defile thee.

Poor India: The British made sure they fashioned a class of Indians who were
brown in skin, but white in their thoughts. They were made up to dress British, eat
British, think British and even dream British in their sleep. Today their
descendants, the journalists of the English press, are thy worse enemies. They
dress Western, eat Western, think Western and even dream Western in their
sleep. What matters to them is not what might utter India's sages, avatars, gurus,
wise men and yogis, who dress Indian, eat Indian, think Indian and even dream
Indian, but what the western media, or Amnesty International will think about India.
They are not interested at all by what the Bhagavad Gita, probably the world's most
revelatory, most comprehensive, most relevant sacred book has to say, or how Sri
Sri Ravi Shankar, India's 21st century avatar, could help. No, they would rather turn
to Gustave Thoreau, Marx or Jean-Paul Sartre, people who have even lost
relevance in he West, for a solution to thy immense problems.

Poor India ! Thy journalists are indeed thy worst enemies: they have proved it
again after the Sabamarti episode. Here you have fifty eight innocent people, thirty
of them being women and children, who are savagely murdered in the most horrific
manner, only because they are Hindus. They have killed nobody, whatever the
rightfulness or wrongfulness of their cause, they have burnt nobody; they have
insulted nobody. And yet, the whole grisly episode was turned against them:
instead of being victims of the most horrendous premeditated murder, thy
journalists made them responsible for their own deaths. Why? Because they were
"fanatics", who want to build a temple, dedicated to the most cherished of Hindu
Gods, Ram, on a site, which has been held sacred by Hindus for three thousand
years? What a terrible crime! But Spanish Christians retook the Mosques which
had been built by the invading Moors and reconverted them into churches. Turks
too grabbed the beautiful Byzantine basilicas! in Istanbul, erstwhile
Constantinople and made them into mosques - and nobody today finds anything to
say. But look how the Indian Media also keeps throwing the blame on the VHP
which is "forcing" the temple issue and "provoking" Muslims. Then, when the
rioting started and Hindu anger at the terrible manner in which their brothers and
sisters were killed, was directed at Muslims, it became "communal rioting"; and of
course, people like M.J. Akbar put the entire blame on Hindu "fundamentalism".
Yet, it is the Hindus who have always been the target of Muslim killings, whether it
is in Kashmir, Bangladesh, or Pakistan. But when they dare to hit back, they are
labelled as "fanatics", forgetting that India has been a land of refuge for centuries,
thanks to Hindu tolerance.

Poor India! When a Graham Staines is burnt alive, all of India's English press goes
overboard in condemning his killers, but when 58 Graham Staines are murdered,
they keep silent. Why? What is wrong with Indian journalists? This is plain common
sense, logic, the most basic of human intelligence: people who kill in the name of
God, can be called fundamentalists; people who ram planes full of innocent people
on buildings full of other innocent people, should be called terrorists. But why
should people who want to peacefully build a temple be also called
fundamentalists? Even those Hindus, who brought down the Babri Masjid, after
millions of temples were razed by Muslim invaders, did not kill a single soul in the
process, whether it was right or wrong to do it. Yet, Islam's vengeance, which
planted bombs in the heart of Bombay, with the help of the ISI and the tacit backing
of Saudi Arabia, and killed hundreds of innocent people, was acceptable to India's
"secular" journalist! s and was also labelled as "communal rioting". Today, Star
News' anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim bias is so gross, that it should be laughed at.
Unfortunately, it does damage by confusing India's middle and upper middle class,
who are unsure of their moorings and on top of that, it gives India such a bad
image in the eyes of the world.

Poor India! Not only thy own journalists always run thee down, but most of the
western press ignores thee, when it is not debasing thee: "a train full of Hindu
'extremists' was burnt", said an Agence France Presse dispatch dated Saturday
2d March, which went around the world. Full of Hindu "extremists"? Do they mean
to say that the forty innocent women and children who were burnt were
"extremists"? No self-respecting Government should allow such bias in foreign
reporting: in China, these press outfits would be immediately thrown out. But the
worse is that this piece was probably written by an Indian stringer - and a Hindu at
that - who wants to prove to his or her White Masters, that she is Whiter than the
White, more Secular than the Secular.

Oh, poor India. Poor India! Do thy Oxford-speaking, pipe-smoking, Scotch-
drinking journalists understand that post 11th September and December 13th,
there has been a shift in the Pakistani strategy vis a vis India. After the intense
American pressure to give-up terrorism, they have resorted to triggering a
communal war here: the Godhra killings were the first such example of this new
strategy, as reports speak of Pakistani illegally leading the mob (as well as
Congress Muslim local leaders). Foreign funds for the Islamic cause in South Asia
have also dried-up, as the United States has frozen many accounts, and part of the
new scheme is to generate local funds in India via the madrasas, by creating a
feeling of insecurity amongst the Muslim minority and then say: "look what
happened to us in Ahmedabad, we need funds to protect ourselves". Do Indian
journalists know that madrasas in UP get 33 crores from the government per year
and in Bengal 135 ? If they do, they make sure it is never publicized.

Poor India ! If we allow this to unfold, then the unrest and killings which have been
happening for the last 15 years in Kashmir, will spread to many parts of India,
wherever there are important Muslim communities and the dream of Hindu-Muslim
brotherhood will forever vanish. Arise again ļ India, in this hour of need. Let thy
sons and daughters prove again to the world that they are the worthy sons of one
of the most ancient and greatest civilisation, which has still so much to give to the
world.