Life in 140 characters

No, i never imagined it before i entered this zone. It was not 'just-another' social networking site. It beat my imagination.Yes, i am talking about Twitter and my experience in it for just over half an year. Social networking is something that i always admired for host of reasons apart from entertainment and networking.

 Twitter is the perhaps the first and the most popular site to introduce the concept of micro-blogging. The restriction of 140 characters is obviously inspired by SMS. Just over 6 years of its creation, the effect the twitter has brought about is really amazing. Every celebrity worth his salt would have an account in twitter and facebook.

 Though facebook and twitter are essentially social networking sites, there are many differences when it comes to the actual usage. Facebook is more towards entertainment but whereas twitter is more towards information. Your identity hardly matters in twitter but not so in facebook. Someone differentiated them pretty well stating "In facebook who you are is more important than what you say, but in twitter it's just the opposite". So, you can see many people with concealed identitities garnering a lot of followers because they are saying the right things despite their unknown identities.

 When any news erupts, no social media reacts as swiftly as twitter. If one has his area of interest, and knows whom to follow, he can get a hell lot of information in that field. This has been my experience so far. Even the news that main stream media blacks out for various reasons can be found in twitter. So, if you are an infomaniac, this is the place for you. You'll have a lot of like minded people and there can be great many discussions.

 One more positive i have found out of twitter is that i have found many good bloggers who are way better read and way better informed than the mainstream writers that we daily encounter in the newspapers. Through twitter, they are able to convey some important things to wider audience. Twitter has given them some considerable fan following as well. Till date, i have read many good blogs of many people. I wouldn't have known about those blogs if not for twitter. (In the near future,I intend to write about some of the good bloggers that i have encountered. So, I am not going into the details here).

 There are many other reasons to admire twitter. In my opinion it's impeding the fanatic pace of mainstream media which was/is peddling lies all the way. This is no mean task. That's why you see them cry foul in twitter that rightists (or 'Internet Hindus' as they are fondly named!) have taken control over twitter. This,all the way comfortably forgetting that the communists and pseudo-secularists have hijacked the whole nation and taking it systematically to the dogs. All these years, the main stream media had no challenges. With the advent of twitter and many other social networking sites, they no more can lie through their teeth.

I only wish social media in general & twitter in particular grows from strength to strength because mainstream media has more or less failed in carrying the responsibility of being the fourth pillar of democracy. I fervently hope twitter is here to stay and for good!

My Books Review: June '12

1) Quantum Mystery- This book is written by Rajat Chandra, a physicist and is published by National book trust of India. It is a short book of just over 100 pages which outlines the circumstances that led to the discovery of quantum physics and all the people responsible for its evolution as a subject. A random  excerpt from the book which speaks about the enormous time that has elapsed in the past: “Suppose the whole history of the universe is shrunk to one year, from midnight January 1 to midnight December 31(present). Then the solar system is born around 1st of September. The dinosaurs die out around the noon of December 30. The first direct ancestors of mankind, the hominids, appear around 9 p.m of December 31 and the recorded history of mankind begins just 10 seconds ago. “ 

The book enumerates the success and failure of classical physics in the beginning. Classical physics that’s propounded by Newton, Einstein, and Maxwell is very successful in explaining all the phenomenon of macroscopic world. But the laws of classical physics fail miserably in the microscopic world comprising atoms, molecules, electrons, atomic nuclei and light.

Many important theories that fall under quantum mechanics are briefly discussed like: Uncertainty principle, Bose-Einstein condensation, Schrödinger’s cat paradox, Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paradox and Bell’s theorem.

Quantum mechanics sometimes defies common sense the way we understand the word common sense, it defies logic. The theory of quantum mechanics has many spiritual, philosophical implications than any other theories. The theory hasn’t got complete acceptance. But, it is very much successful in accounting for the phenomenon of microscopic world. The book successfully outlines the theory of quantum mechanics.

2) Understanding Islam Through Hadis- This book of Ram Swarup briefly introduces the main ahadis (“Sayings” or”Traditions”, Singular- Hadis) to the readers. The main sources of Islam are two: Quran and Hadis. The Muslims believe Quran to be revelation of god to Muhammad and Hadis, all that he did or said. Hadis is more important than Quran as it is the most important single source of Islamic laws & practices. 

The subject matters that are discussed in Hadis are diverse. Like Iman(Faith), Salat(Prayer), taharah(purification), Al-Nikah(marrriage), Al-Talaq (divorse),Zakat(poor tax), sawm(fast), and hajj (pilgrimage), Al-Imara(government), Tauba(repentance), Munafiqin(hypocrites); also on Jihad(holy war), al-anfal(war booty), and khums(the holy fifth),on punishment, food, drink, women, slaves, ablution, toilet and many more.

The main sources from which the contents of this book are taken: Sahih Muslim, Sahih Bukhari, Sirat Rasul Allah, Tarikh Tabari ; all the sources are considered to be authentic in the Muslim world. So, there can be no question about the authenticity of the works. This book is useful for all who are interested in knowing the real concepts of Jihad, Talaq and many others. Since Islam stands on two pillars: Quran and Hadith (Sunnah also forms part of it), if you know both of them, you’ve almost known all of Islam.

3) Connect the Dots- Be it Prem Ganapathy of Dosa Plaza, or Ganesh Ram of Veta, all the entrepreneurs that are featured in this book have one factor in common: All these started their respective ventures right from the scratch and without having any professional business degrees like MBAs they made their ventures successful. This is Rashmi Bansal’s second book about successful entrepreneurs of India after ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’. While the first book is the success stories about those who had their MBAs from IIM-A, this one is about those who did not have any business degree. 

Most of the people who are featured in this book neither had any clear-cut plans for their future nor any burning desire to succeed. But still when time came, somehow they made it. They made opportunity meet the preparedness and thus got lucky. This can be an inspiring series of tales for all the would-be entrepreneurs giving them hope and delivering the message for them ‘it’s never too late’!

The three world conquerors, their doctrines

As Koenraad Elst & a few others clearly observed, there are three world conquerors that have ambitions which will be satisfied only when the world becomes theirs. The three world conquerors are Communism, Christianity and Islam. Though their ideologies and modus operandi may differ, they travel towards the same goal: total world conquest; and they will not rest until their stated goal is reached. Although one can discount the effect of communism over the world compared to the other two owing to the collapse of Soviet Union and failed states which had embraced communist ideology, it still has not died totally. Certain offshoots of communism still persist strongly especially in India. Their history and effects are too elaborate to be discussed in a book let alone a blogpost. I try to touch them at least superficially.

Communism

Though the idea of communism can’t be traced back to one particular era or one particular individual, communism found concrete shape from the theories of Marx and Engels. Though the words socialism and communism are used interchangeably, there is a difference between socialism and communism. Socialism is just a transitional phase on the road to communism. The aim of communism is to create a class-less society which is based on common ownership. Communism theory says every society has to pass through five stages of development: class-less primitive society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and communism.[1]

No nation, no master, no class: This is the stated goal of communists. There will be no classes at the culmination of communism. The power is equally distributed among the masses; so there is no master. The entire world would have embraced the idea. So, there are no divisions among the nations. Communists defined peace as the lack of opposition; thus peace could only be attained once everyone had surrendered and fallen under the control of the World-Wide Communist State. Everyone will consume according to their needs not for their greed. This is the ideal propounded by Marx.[2] Sounds pretty good! But, it’s utopian, and hence impractical.

The main aim of the communists is to seize power of the state. They never sway away from their stated goal. They plan meticulously and execute the plans with mathematical certainty. The utopian world that’s envisaged by communism has beckoned many intellectuals to embrace the ideology. So, even today most of the people who are branded as intellectuals have a tilt towards leftist ideology. Especially in India, most of the intellectual sphere is ruled by communists.

If people voluntarily take up the idea of communism, it may create a beautiful world. If it is enforced, it is nothing short of tyranny. So, naturally the states which are under the rule of communism are totalitarian. Even today, most of the human rights violations all over the world are reported from either communist countries or Islamic countries.

As far as India is concerned, communists have hijacked the intellectual, public discourse. They hold key positions so that they can twist and turn the institutions of national importance according to their whims and fancies. All the terrorist organizations like Maoists, Naxals or ULFA are all inspired from the grand idea of communism. With the fall of Soviet Union, communism has got a death blow. But still, it hasn’t perished.

Islam

The youngest of the Semitic religions, Islam was founded in 7th century in Arabia. Like Judaism and Christianity, it is also a revealed religion. In all the revealed religions, it is mandatory to believe in god as well as in his prophet to be able to get any rewards. Prophet Muhammad claimed that he was the prophet chosen by the god Allah for the benefit of the entire humanity and he received the messages of Allah through Angel Gabriel. He put himself in the line of Abraham, Jesus, Moses and the likes. But Muhammad abrogated all the previous prophets including Jesus and claimed he was the last prophet send by god for the benefit of humanity. A close study of life of Muhammad shows us how he intelligently maneuvered ignorant Arabs and built an empire of Islam.

Islam is more of a set of beliefs and political ideology masquerading as religion than a religion in the real sense. A close look at Quran and Hadith reveals the true nature of Islam. The intention is to conquer the whole world. It is similar to communism in its intention but it is with god-attached. For all the heinous acts that Muslims commit all over the world in the name of Islam there is sanction from the god. So, moral dilemmas seldom arise in them. Islam divides the whole world into Dar-al-harb(Land of war) and Dar-al-salaam (Land of peace).[3] Dar-al-harb is the place where Islam is not the official religion. So, war should never stop in those places until and unless it is completely converted to Islam. Then alone it becomes land of peace, Dar-al-salaam. And it is the duty of every Muslim to take part in this ‘holy’ mission in some way or the other. The concept of Jihad is central to the Islamic doctrine and is considered to be the most sacred.

Islam, the imperialism: The imperial nature of Islam is such that all the converts have to change their lives to fit into the Islamic mould. It places the idea of Arab, Arabic culture (Islamic culture) and Arabic language as superior to all the rest and expects all the followers to emulate.[3] It is so much of an exclusivist ideology that it intends to completely obliterate the rest. So, when the countries were conquered and converted by Islamists, their ancient culture and history are stamped out of their lives. So, they never merely conquered a country but destroyed its history and civilizations. For instance: Iran and Egypt had great civilizations going back thousands of years, but they have been totally wiped out. This is what’s happened to Afghanistan in recent times and also what the Jihadists are trying to do to Kashmir.[4]

Indian context: India being the biggest land of polytheists became their targets in as early as 10th century. It is sanctioned in Quran to destroy the places of worship of other religions and to build mosques in their places. It was faithfully implemented in India as well. Millions of people were killed, converted and temples were destroyed. Of course, our ‘eminent’ historians invent economic reasons for this plundering of temples. Although economic reasons were a part of it, the biggest reason was religious one. Nalanda, Vaishali, Sarnath, Vikramashila, Takshashila, and many more centers of learning which attracted students from all over the world were mercilessly destroyed by the Islamic bigots. But amidst all these we have to acknowledge among all the nations and civilizations that Islamists have attacked, India alone remains unconquered till date. So, they consider India as an unfinished chapter in their global Jihad expeditions.

A commentator writing by the pen name KaffirPagan wrote about the entire history of conquest of Islam in India so succinctly and beautifully in the website Jihadwatch.com of Robert Spenser.

"It has been coming at us for 1400 years in Islamic tides that have ebbed and flowed. And our boundaries are still receding.
Christian Byzantium- Syria, Jordan, Turkey have been lost to the enemy camp. Also, North Africa has been lost by Christendom.
Similarly Hindus have lost Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Buddhists lost all of Central Asia (The Central Asian republics- the Stans). Persian Zoroastrians lost their entire possession- Iran.
At least we still have India and Europe proper. But do we? The Muslims in both places continue to multiply disproportionately and encroach more ground.India had a beautiful civilization before the newly converted Turkish, Persian hoards goaded on by their Arab masters with promises of booty and women of Hindustan completely wrecked India. They raped India again, again and again for centuries.
According to the words of Islamic court chroniclers that often accompanied the Muslim warlords-- "Hindu civilization was wrecked, ground to dust, the inhabitants of Hindoostan became like atoms scattered..." This theme of wanton and cruel pillage reoccurs again and again and again from 800 AD till 1700 AD. It is a telling story of how civilization can be overwhelmed by barbarians hovering on its borders.
The Muslim barbarians appropriated not only India's riches, but also its accumulated knowledge for themselves.And no, the modern number system, the decimal, the concept of zero, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, geometry, chess, astronomy, medicine, speculative philosophy, metaphysics were not "invented" by Arabs. They were stolen from India and claimed for the Ummah. Ditto- Greek and Roman philosophies.
But at least the Europeans were aware of their own heritage and reclaimed it back. Why? Because Europe was not fully conquered, only partially ravaged till Anatolia, Iberia and the Balkans. The rest of Europe was relatively free from the scourge of Islam.But India? Not so fortunate. The entire land which was India (which consists of present day Pakistan, Afghanistan) was enslaved by the Mohammedans and that too for 800 years! The land that gave birth to the most "progressive, creative and imaginative civilization known to man," according to the words of a Western scholar, was not only physically, but also mentally yoked to Islamic slavery for 8 millenniums. No wonder that Indians are neither aware of the achievements of their ancestors, nor are proud of their heritage.
It is the same India that had the biggest universities of the world of its time like Nalanda (Bihar, India) and Taxila (present day Rawalpindi-Pakistan) where students from all over the world: China, Greece, Persia traveled to learn sciences, speculative metaphysics, philosophy, economics, mathematics. Some have said that noted Greeks like Archimedes himself came to India to study geometry. India was also been China's teacher for centuries, and in the words of a Chinese general-- "India has conquered China for a millennium without sending a single soldier over the Himalayas." This empire of ideas, of learning, of knowledge was reduced to the pitiful state of today because of a long and dark intervening period of Islamic plunder.
But the Hindus never gave in, nor gave up. They retreated into the forests and into the inaccessible Himalayan Mountains with whatever memories of their civilization they could salvage. The Hindu population in the middle ages decreased by 80 million! Many were slaughtered, many died of hunger and disease when transported over the Hindu Kush mountains (literally means "killer of Hindus") to be sold as slaves in the bazaars of Central Asia and Baghdad, many died of famine when the entire socio-economic structure of the land was shattered.
But I am mighty glad that despite all the unimaginable sufferings the collective will of our ancestors didn't sink and they did not join the enemy ranks. I am mighty glad the unassailable sword of Islam the overpowered the Persians, Byzantines, North Africans and Central Asia Turks was blunted in India.
Otherwise, today I too would be the nemesis of civilization, I too would be calling for the triumph of Islam, I too would be the enemy like the converted Albanians, Persians, Syrians and Turks."

If someone daydreams about the end of Islamic terrorism, they have to remember that Islam is fundamentally unchangeable. In the words of Geert Wilders, a controversial politician from Netherlands (controversial because of his open criticism of Islam) "There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is built on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never alter. First, there is the Quran, Allah's personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect. Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about its goal. That's a given. It's a fact"!

Christianity

Compared to the previous two, Christians operate in a softer but a very organized manner. Christians have prophet in the form of Jesus and they believe him to be the chosen one of god among all men & was sent to earth to elevate humanity. The principal founders of Christianity include Peter, James, Matthew and John who were all the disciples of Jesus. As with any other Semitic religion, Christianity is an exclusive path.

Christians sincerely believe Jesus to be the son of god and salvation can be attained only by following him. The ones that don’t follow him are doomed. So, to ‘save’ the souls from the doom, they do religious conversions. They do it zealously and they think it as a pious work. Perhaps the proverbial ‘missionary zeal’ originated from the Christian missionaries.

Theologically, Christianity had a tendency towards intolerance, but had to adopt the policy of "live and let live" because in its formative period, it was but one of the numerous sects in the pluralist Roman Empire.[5] But much unlike Islam, it seldom directly plunders civilizations but attacks very core of civilizations and over a period of time it uproots them. Christianity has contribution in destroying Inca, Mayan civilizations. The unassailable Roman Empire could not stand the incoming wave of Christianity. Though there were many reasons for the downfall of Roman Empire, Christianity was a main factor.[6] Many indigenous African cultures were destroyed when a large part of Africa was converted to Christianity. There is an African proverb which captures the pulse of that point “"When the white man first came to this land, we had the land and they had the bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them again, we had the bible and the white man had the land."”

India, a natural target: when the European invaders like Portuguese, Dutch, and British came to India, they all came with missionaries to ‘save’ millions of souls. India was the largest pagan-land and naturally attracted all the missionaries who were interested in saving souls and planting crosses everywhere they could.

Even to this day, India remains the best destination, an attractive location for ‘soul-harvesting’. The reason being a large part of non-Christian population resides in the lands of India, China and all the Islamic republics. In all the Islamic countries and communist China, the missionary activities and hence the religious conversions are completely banned. So, thus India became a natural destination and target for the soul harvesters. And they have successfully harvested many souls in North-Eastern parts of India, tribal areas, Southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

They are doing a few things covertly, a few things unabashedly. The Joshua Project,a mega-plan they have made for soul-harvesting is really telling of their evangelical activities. They have made a detailed plan for soul-harvesting across the world. They have segregated people by their religion, language, ethnicity and various other parameters.They have separate plans for each segment of people. The whole exercise looks like a huge project of some multi-national company.The project is global, well-networked, well-funded. Needless to say, the main targets in India would be tribals and backward castes.This is just a tip of the iceberg.

In November 1999, the then Pope John Paul II visited India and he did not hide any intentions when he made the statement “Just as in the first millennium the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the Third Christian Millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent” He was referring to Asia. With china out of equation, the only largest remaining country is India.

Conclusion: Even if the rest of the groups except these three get obliterated from the face of the earth, these three conquerors would still fight among themselves for supremacy. (For instance, Muslims are persecuted in communist china; communists were persecuted in Iran; historical crusades between Muslims and Christians.) As far as India is considered, all three are very much present in India. Though each one is the nemesis of the other, the common animosity towards Hinduism brings them all together. All are fervently pursuing their respective missions, and have damaged the civilization significantly but I still believe India’s soul is intact.

References

1) Marx and Engels, The German ideology

2) Karl Marx, The communist manifesto

3) Anwar Shaikh, Islam-The Arab imperialism

4) Navaratna Rajaram, An article by name Tortured souls create twisted history

5) Koenraad Elst, Negationism in India

6) Edward Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire