By Dinesh Wagle
Wagle Street Journal
As it is preparing for its 12th general convention next week, the Nepali Congress is witnessing intense competition among its leaders who want to lead it. Several factions have come up and no one knows who is on which side. Also unclear is who among the three contenders for the post of president commands a majority. Seems like a messy democracy in action in the oldest party of Nepal.
The oldest party of India, on the other side of the border, selected its leader last week without any signs of acrimony. Sonia Gandhi, the incumbent, was reelected president for a record fourth time. No one challenged her. Instead, there was competition among her supporters to propose her name for the post on the last day of filing nominations on Thursday. All in all 55 nomination papers were filed on her behalf.
Rival Bharatiya Janata Party was quick to point out the ‘lack of democracy’ and ‘family domination’ in the Congress organisation. The BJP earlier this year unanimously elected Nitin Gadkari its leader. That election wasn’t without criticism. It was said that the BJP didn’t elect Gadkari but he was imposed upon the party by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a cultural and religious organisation. The RSS is considered the head of a family of Hindu nationalist organisations of which the BJP is a member.
Two of the largest political parties of the largest democracy in the world may not be entirely democratic when it comes to selecting their top leadership. The domination of the Gandhi family and inheritance of leadership from one member of the family to another has been the tradition of the Congress for long. Similarly the influence of the RSS in the affairs of the BJP is no secret. But vibrant discussions do take place in their organisations and opposing views get enough space to create healthy internal debates. The most impressive part of Indian democracy can be witnessed at the moments of crisis when opposing political parties come together, thrash out differences, and move the nation forward. It is because they have realised that democracy is the biggest asset and weapon that India has to face its grave challenges. For example, in the recently concluded summer session of the parliament the government worked closely with the main opposition party, the BJP, to pass some key bills.
An angry Baba in Tirupati
It was 1 am when I reached Tirupati Balaji temple in Andhra Pradesh two weeks ago. Tired of the long journey from Mahabalipuram via Kanchipuram I was planning to get off the bus and head toward the nearest hotel. God had different plans. I was surprised to see bustling crowds of devotees at that hour of night and shocked to learn that no room was available in the whole of the temple town. I spent the rest of the night along with my co-traveler leaning against a concrete staircase inside a huge hall full of hundreds of people trying to get some sleep. When the day broke we moved towards the temple hoping to get inside for darshan. The richest temple of the world is hidden from the devotees until they pass some barriers. A glimpse of the roof of the temple could be seen from a small hilltop. Devotees wishing to go inside the temple have to pay Indian Rs. 300 so that they could stand in a queue that is supposed to have less people. But that priority queue appeared to be a couple of kilometres long, forget about the regular one that I guessed could have extended several kilometres more. We decided not to go for darshan. As we were moving out of the temple complex we met a yogi, who sported long beards and was clad in a saffron outfit like most yogis. He was furious with the temple authorities for not letting him inside. “They say I have to pay money to enter temple,” he complained. “And I have problem with these South people. I don’t understand their language.”
The yogi belonged to Haridwar in north India and spoke Hindi and English. But many people in south India don’t speak Hindi. The security guards and some vendors on the street who the yogi had tried to talk to didn’t understand English as well. That had frustrated the yogi. Plus, he found the denial of entrance particularly insulting. It took me no time to realise that the denial had hurt his yogic ego big time. “What are they trying to do here?” he asked. “Are these people running a temple or a business in the name of God? I have visited many temples in south India—Rameswaram, Meenaxi—but nobody stopped me at the gate. How can a yogi like me pay money to enter a temple?”
Without stopping a penniless yogi from entering, no temple can become the richest in the world, I thought.
Mahabalipuram
The tourism department of Tamil Nadu government has recently decided to attract more religious tourists from Nepal. V. Irai Abu, secretary at Tamil Nadu’s Tourism and Culture Department, was recently in Kathmandu to attend a workshop. He was quoted by IANS as saying that his office “wanted to use this opportunity to showcase the tourist spots of Tamil Nadu in Nepal. When we spoke to a few friends from the media, we understood that the people of Nepal know South India as a region and Tamil Nadu as a state. Tamil Nadu has around 34,000 temples, some of which are mammoth and magnificent.”
Despite the geographic and language barriers Nepalis can be spotted everywhere in TN (mostly as waiters though). If you are planning to visit south India I have a place to recommend. Three hours drive from Chennai is a small town called Mahabalipuram that has the combination of beach and rocks. Rocks are adorned with astonishing carvings. After walking on the beach explore those monolith temples. You will cherish the moment for a long time to come.
This article first appeared in today’s Kathmandu Post
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THE UGLY AND HIDDEN SIDE OF NEHRU FAMILY
*GHIYASUDDIN GHAZI (Name changed to GANGADHAR to
escape British army). His son was
MOTI LAL NEHRU
___________________________________________
* MOTILAL married and his first wife and son died
at childbirth.
* MOTILAL and his second wife THUSSU (name changed
to SWAROOP RANI) had three children.
* THUSSU with MOBARAK ALI (Motilal’s Boss) was the
first son JAWAHAR LAL NEHRU (he was circumcised).
* MOTILAL AND THUSSU had two daughters by name NAN
(also called Vijaya Lakshmi) & KRISHNA
MOTILAL had also two bastard sons out of Muslim
women by name SHEIK ABDULLA & SYED HUSSAIN
__________________________________________________
* VIJAYA LAKSHMI eloped with SYED HUSSAIN (half
brother and sister) and had a girl CHANDRALEKHA
* VIJAYALAKSHMI MARRIED R.S. PANDIT and had two
more girls NAYANTARA & RITA
* JAWAHARLAL NEHRU married KAMALA KAUL (marriage
never consummated)
* JAWAHARLAL had an affair with SHRADDHA MATA
and had a son given away to an orphanage in BANGALORE
* JAWAHARLAL had an affair with LADY MOUNTBATTEN
but no children.
* JAWAHARLAL HAD MANY AFFAIRS and in the end died
of SYPHILIS
* KAMALA KAUL had an affair with MANZUR ALI (who is
son of Mobarak Ali who fathered Nehru also) and
their daughter is INDIRA PRIYADARSINI NEHRU
* KAMALA KAUL had an affair with FEROZ KHAN (son of
Nawab Khan who supplied liquor to their house)
but no children
*INDIRA was found in the bed with her GERMAN
TEACHER at Shantiniketan
*INDIRA PRIYADARSINI nikhahed as per Islamic rites
FEROZ KHAN after converting herself to Islam. Her
new name was MAIMUNA BEGUM and both had changed
their name to fool the public of India on the
advice of Gandhiji by an affidavit in a court to
INDIRA GANDHI and FEROZ GANDHI
*INDIRA and FEROZ had one son by name RAJIV GANDHI
(as per Islamic rites he was circumcised)
*INDIRA had an affair with MOHAMMED YOUNUS and had
a second son SANJIV GANDHI (later the name
changed to SANJAY GANDHI to escape prosecution in
UK for car theft. He was circumcised as per
Islamic rites)
*FEROZ had an affair with MEHMUNA SULTANA
_______________________________________________
*RAJIV GANDHI converted to a Christian Catholic
and changed the name to ROBERTO and married the
Italian Catholic Christian by name SONIA MAINO
****(Sonia Maino was on the pay roll of KGB, the
Russian spy agency which presented her in front
of Rajiv Gandhi)*** and had one daughter and one son
by name BIANKA and RAUL. For the Indian public
these names are presented as PRIYANKA and RAHUL.
________________________________________
INTERESTING HISTORY!
At the very beginning of his book, “The Nehru Dynasty”, astrologer K.N.Rao mentions the names of Jawaharlal’s father and grandfather.
Jawahar Lal’s father was believed to be Motilal and Motilal’s father was one Gangadhar Nehru.
And we all know that Jawaharlal’s only daughter was Indira Priyadarshini Nehru; Kamala Nehru was her mother, who died in Switzerland of tuberculosis.
She was totally against Indira’s proposed marriage with Feroze.
Why? No one tells us that!
Now, who is this Feroze?
We are told by many that he was the son of the family grocer.
The grocer supplied wines,etc. to Anand Bhavan (previously known as Ishrat Manzil)
What was the family grocer’s name?
One frequently hears that Rajiv Gandhi’s grandfather was Pandit Nehru.
But then we all know that everyone has two grandfathers, the paternal and the maternal grandfathers.
In fact, the paternal grandfather is deemed to be the more important grandfather in most societies.
Why is it then, no where, we find Rajiv Gandhi’s paternal grandfather’s name?
It appears that the reason is simply this. Rajiv Gandhi’s paternal grandfather was a Muslim gentleman from the Junagadh area of Gujarat.
This Muslim grocer by the name of Nawab Khan, had married a Parsi woman after converting her to Islam.
This is the source where from the myth of Rajiv being a Parsi was derived.
Rajiv’s father Feroze, was Feroze Khan before he married Indira, against Kamala Nehru’s wishes.
Feroze’s mother’s family name was Ghandy, often associated with Parsis and this was changed to Gandhi,sometime before his wedding with Indira, by an affidavit.
The fact of the matter is that (and this fact can be found in many writings) Indira was very lonely. Chased out of the ShantiniketanUniversity by Guru Dev Rabindranath himself for misdemeanor, the lonely girl was all by herself,
while father Jawahar was busy with politics, pretty women and illicit sex;
the mother was in hospital.
Feroze Khan, the grocer’s son was then in England and he was quite sympathetic to Indira and soon enough she changed her religion, became a Muslim woman and married Feroze Khan in a London mosque.
Nehru was not happy; Kamala was dead already or dying. The news of this marriage eventually reached Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (better known as Mahatma Gandhi).
Gandhi urgently called Nehru and practically ordered him to ask the young man to change his name from Khan to Gandhi. It had nothing to do with change of religion, from Islam to Hinduism for instance.
It was just a case of a change of name by an affidavit. And so Feroze Khan became Feroze Gandhi.
The surprising thing is that the apostle of truth, the old man soon to be declared India’s Mahatma and the ‘Father of the Nation’ didn’t mention this game of his in the famous book, ‘My Experiments with Truth’. Why?
When they returned to India, a mock ‘Vedic marriage’ was instituted for public consumption.
On this subject,writes M.O. Mathai (a longtime Private Secretary of Nehru) in his renowned (but now suppressed by the GOI! ) ‘Reminiscences of the Nehru Age’ on page94, second paragraph: “For some inexplicable reason, Nehru allowed the marriage to be performed according to Vedic rites in 1942. An inter-religious and inter-caste marriage under Vedic rites at that time was not valid in law. To be legal, it had to be a civil marriage.”
It’s a known fact that after Rajiv’s birth Indira and Feroze lived separately, but they were not divorced.
Feroze used to harass Nehru frequently for money and also interfere in Nehru’s political activities. Nehru got fed up and left instructions not to allow him into the Prime Minister’s residence Trimurthi Bhavan.
Mathai writes that the death of Feroze came as a relief to Nehru and Indira. The death of Feroze in 1960 before he could consolidate his own political forces, is itself a mystery. Feroze had even planned to remarry.
Those who try to keep tabs on our leaders in spite of all the suppressions and deliberate misinformation, are aware of the fact that the second son of Indira (or Mrs.Feroze Khan) known as Sanjay Gandhi was not the son of Feroze.
He was the son of another Muslim gentleman, Mohammad Yunus.
Here, in passing, we might mention that the second son was originally named Sanjiv. It rhymed with Rajiv, the elder brother’s name.
It was changed to Sanjay when he was arrested by the British police in England and his passport impounded, for having stolen a car.
Krishna Menon was then India’s High Commissioner in London. He offered to issue another passport to the felon who changed his name to Sanjay.
Incidentally, Sanjay’s marriage with the Sikh girl Menaka(now they call her Maneka for Indira Gandhi found the name of mythological Lord Indra’s Court dancer rather offensive !!) took place quite surprisingly in Mohammad Yunus’s house in New Delhi.
And the marriage with Menaka who was a model (She had model for Bombay Dyeing wearing just a towel)was not so ordinary either.
Sanjay was notorious in getting unwed young women pregnant.
Menaka too was rendered pregnant by Sanjay.
It was then that her father,Colonel Anand, threatened Sanjay with dire consequences if he did not marry her daughter. And that did the trick.
Sanjay married Menaka. It was widely reported in Delhi at the time that Mohammad Yunus was unhappy at the marriage of Sanjay with Menaka.
Apparently he had wanted to get him married with a Muslim girl of his choice.
It was Mohammad Yunus who cried the most when Sanjay died in the plane accident.
Nehru was no less a player in producing bastards.
At least one case is very graphically described by M.O. Mathai in his “Reminiscences of the NehruAge”, page 206.
Mathai writes:
“In the autumn of 1948 a young woman from Benares arrived in New Delhi as a sanyasini named Shraddha Mata (an assumed and not a real name). She was a Sanskrit scholar well versed in the ancient Indian scriptures and mythology. People, including MPs, thronged to her to hear her discourses. One day S.D. Upadhyaya, Nehru’s old employee, brought a letter in Hindi from Shraddha Mata. Nehru gave her an interview in the PM’s house. As she departed, I noticed (Mathai is speaking here) that she was young, shapely and beautiful. Meetings of Nehru with her became rather frequent, mostly after he finished his work at night. During one of Nehru’s visits to Lucknow, Shraddha Mata turned up there and Upadhyaya brought a letter from her as usual. Nehru sent her the reply and she visited Nehru at midnight…“
Suddenly Shraddha Mata disappeared.
In November 1949 a convent in Bangalore sent a decent looking person to Delhi with a bundle of letters. He said that a young woman from northern India arrived at the convent a few months ago and gave birth to a baby boy. She refused to divulge her name or give any particulars about herself.
She left the convent as soon as she was well enough to move out but left the child behind.
She however forgot to take with her a small cloth bundle in which, among other things, several letters in Hindi were found. The Mother Superior, who was a foreigner, had the letters examined and was told they were from the Prime Minister.
The person who brought the letters surrendered them…”I (Mathai) made discreet inquiries repeatedly about the boy but failed to get a clue about his hereabouts. Convents in such matters are extremely tightlipped and secretive.
Had I succeeded in locating the boy, I would have adopted him. He must have grown up as a Catholic Christian blissfully ignorant of who his father was.”
Coming back to Rajiv Gandhi,
we all know now that he changed his so called Parsi religion to become a Catholic to marry Sania Maino of Turin, Italy.
Rajiv became Roberto.
His daughter’s name is Bianca and son’s name is Raul.
Quite cleverly the same names are presented to the people of India as Priyanka and Rahul.
What is amazing is the extent of our people’s ignorance in such matters.
The press conference that Rajiv Gandhi gave in London after taking over as Prime minister of India was very informative. In this press conference, Rajiv boasted that he was NOT a Hindu but a Parsi.
Mind you, speaking of the Parsi religion, he had no Parsi ancestor at all.
His grandmother (father’s mother) had turned Muslim after having abandoned the Parsi religion to marry Nawab Khan.
It is the western press that waged a blitz of misinformation on behalf of Rajiv. From the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, the big guns raised Rajiv to heaven.
The children’s encyclopedias recorded that Rajiv was a qualified Mechanical Engineer from the revered University of Cambridge. No doubt US kids are among the most misinformed in the world today!
The reality is that in all three years of his tenure at that University Rajiv had not passed a single exam. He had therefore to leave Cambridge without a certificate.
Sonia too had the same benevolent treatment. She was stated to be a student in Cambridge. Such a description is calculated to mislead Indians. She was a student in Cambridge all right, but not of the University of Cambridge , but of one of those fly by night language schools where foreign students come to learn English. Sonia was working as an ‘au pair’ girl in Cambridge and trying to learn English at the same time.
And surprise of surprises, Rajiv was even cremated as per Vedic rites in full view of India’s public.
This is the Nehru dynasty that India worships and now a foreigner leads a prestigious national party because of just one qualification being married into the Nehru family.
Maneka Gandhi, though Indian, herself is being accepted by the non-Congress parties not because she was a former model or an animal lover, but for her links to the Nehru family.
Saying that an Italian (or any foreigner) should not lead India will amount to narrow mindedness, but if Sania Maino (now Sonia) had served India like, say, Sister Nivedita or Annie Besant, i.e. in anyway on her own rights, then all Indians should be proud of her just as how proud we are of Sister Nivedita .
.
The point is Indians who nominate the people to stand in these elections; and the people who vote their rulers (i.e. the authorities) must know that truth eventually come out some day.
Dont allow the famous land of India (our motherland) to be looked down by others.
[…] [This entry is extracted from an article that first appeared in the Kathmandu Post recently. […]