Former nun tells of sex and suffering inside Indian convent

Catholic Church stung by autobiography recounting harassment and abuse

Taken from The Independent, UK, 20 February 2009
By Andrew Buncombe


A former nun's tell-all story which details illicit relationships, sexual harassment and bullying in the convent where she spent three decades is causing ructions in the Catholic Church in the south Indian state of Kerala.

In Amen – an autobiography of a nun, Sister Jesme says when she became a nun she discovered priests were forcing novices to have sex with them. There were also secret homosexual relationships among the nuns and at one point she was forced into such a relationship by another nun who told her she preferred this kind of arrangement as it ruled out the possibility of pregnancy.




"I did not want to make this book controversial. I want to express my feelings and to explain what happened to me... I want people to know how I have suffered," she told The Independent last night, speaking from the town of Kozhikode. "People say that everything is OK, but I was in the convent and I want them to know what goes on. I have concerns for others."

Sister Jesme, who quit last year as the principal of a Catholic college in Thrissur, alleges senior nuns tried to have her committed to a mental institution after she spoke out against them.

In her book, she says that while travelling through Bangalore, she was once directed to stay with a purportedly pious priest who took her to a garden "and showed me several pairs cuddling behind trees. He also gave me a sermon on the necessity of physical love and described the illicit affairs that certain bishops and priests had". The priest took her to his home, stripped off his clothes and ordered her to do the same.

She also alleges that while senior staff turned a blind eye to the actions of more experienced nuns, novices were strongly punished, even for minor transgressions. She was not allowed to go home after she learnt her father had died. "I was able to see [the body of] my father barely 15 minutes before the funeral," she writes. "The [response] of the superiors was that the then senior sisters were not even lucky enough to see the bodies of their parents."

When she resigned as a college principal, she claimed convents had become "houses of torture", saying: "The mental torture was unbearable. When I questioned the church's stand on self-financing colleges and certain other issues, they accused me of having mental problems. They have even sent me to a psychiatrist. There are many nuns undergoing ill-treatment from the order, but they are afraid of challenging it. The church is a formidable fortress."

The allegations are not the only controversy to rock the Catholic Church in Kerala. Last summer, a 23-year-old novice committed suicide and left a note saying she had been harassed by her Mother Superior. Reports suggest there have been a number of similar suicides. And in November, police in Kerala arrested two priests and a nun in connection with the killing of Sister Abhaya in a notorious 1992 murder.

Last night, a spokesman for the Syro-Malabar order of the Catholic Church, Dr Paul Thelakkat, dismissed Sister Jesme's allegations as a "book of trivialities". "It's her experiences, but these are things that might creep into a society of communal living," he said. Asked if the church would be shocked by the allegations, he replied: "Absolutely not. The church knows about these things."

Mumbai gunman goes on TV to justify terror attacks

Taken from Sydney morning Herald, Australia
November 27, 2008

One of the gunmen involved in terrorist blasts in Mumbai told a television channel he belonged to an Indian Islamist group seeking an end to the persecution of Indian Muslims.

Identifying himself as a member of a group calling itself Deccan Mujahedeen, the gunman, who was holed up in the Oberoi Trident Hotel, called for the release of all fellow Islamic militants detained in India.



"Muslims in India should not be persecuted. We love this as our country but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" he told the India TV channel by phone from inside the hotel, which is surrounded by army commandos.

Up to 100 people were killed and about 100 more wounded in the attacks, Indian media reported.

The luxury Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident hotels and eight other locations across Mumbai, including the train station, a hospital and an up-market restaurant were hit in precisely-timed assaults by small groups of gunmen who lobbed grenades into crowds and opened fire with AK-47s on people as they fled.

Maharashtra Director General of Police A N Roy was quoted by the Press Trust of India as saying that about 100 people were dead.

The NDTV news channel put the death toll at 100, with 110 injured in the ongoing violence. The IBN Live channel said at least 87 people were dead. The Times of India was reporting up to 900 injured.

Two Australians - Katie Anstee, 24, and her boyfriend David Coker, 23 - were among the injured as they dineed at Cafe Leopold, and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament today the number of Australian casualties could rise.

Australia's Islamic leaders have condemned the attacks.

President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils Ikebal Adam Patel said he learned of the atrocity with shock and dismay and condemned the Mumbai attacks as abhorrent, despicable and outrageous.

He said attacks against innocent people were abhorrent to all peaceful people and to all faiths. He stressed that Islam does not preach acts of terrorism and rightly condemns those who do, even if they are Muslims.

Witnesses said the gunmen had specifically chosen US and British citizens to take hostage, and some foreign tourists are reported to be among the dead, including one Japanese man. A Briton who was dining at the Oberoi hotel also said the gunmen there singled out Britons and Americans.

"They were talking about British and Americans specifically,'' Alex Chamberlain told Sky News. One of 12 members of a 20-strong NSW trade delegation is unaccounted for and other members of the delegation are trapped in hotel rooms with gunmen taking hostages outside.

Officials were checking with local authorities and hotel owners to determine exactly how many Australians had been caught up in the incidents, he said.

One terrified Australian is former Neighbours actress Brooke Satchwell, who is trapped with her boyfriend.

Rabbi taken hostage
A Jewish rabbi and his family have been taken hostage, India's Jewish Federation said. "The name of the place is Chabad house in South Mumbai. I hear commandos are storming the apartment block, which is a four-storey building. A rabbi is in there with his family," Indian Jewish Federation chairman Jonathan Solomon said.

"I don't know the number of gunmen in there. I don't know how many family members are in there," he added.

Meanwhile, as mainstream media outlets struggled to contend with the enormity of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, citizen journalists were already on the scene filing a constant stream of reports and images from the ground.

Every moment of the attacks has been documented in harrowing detail on Twitter, with new messages published from mobile phones every second as people described the scenes around them.

A little-known Islamic group, the Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility for serial blasts last month in India's northeast state of Assam that claimed nearly 80 lives.

Six weeks earlier, the capital New Delhi had been hit by a series of bombs in crowded markets that left more than 20 dead. Those blasts were claimed by a group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen.

India shocked by discovery of first Hindu terror cell

At least 10 people, including monk and army officer, held over bombings initially blamed on Islamists

Taken from The Independent, UK,
By Andrew Buncombe in DelhiSunday, 23 November 2008

India is in something of a state of shock after learning from official sources that its first Hindu terror cell may have carried out a series of deadly bombings that were initially blamed on militant Muslims. The revelation is forcing the country to consider some difficult questions.

At least 10 people have been arrested in connection with several bomb blasts in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra in September, which left six people dead. But reports suggest that police believe the cell may also have carried out a number of previous attacks, including last year's notorious bombing of a cross-border train en route to Pakistan, which killed 68 people. Among the alleged members of the cell are a serving army officer and a Hindu monk.

Bomb attacks are not uncommon in India – there has been a flurry in recent months – but police usually blame them on Muslim extremists, often said to have links to militant groups based in either Pakistan or Bangladesh. As a result, the recent cracking of the alleged Hindu cell has forced India to face some difficult issues. A country that prides itself on purported religious and cultural toleration – an ambition that in reality often falls short – has been made to ask itself how this cell could operate for so long. India's military, which prides itself on its professionalism, has been forced to order an embarrassing inquiry.

The near-daily drip of revelations from police has also caused red faces for India's main political opposition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), ahead of state polls and a general election scheduled for early next year. The BJP and its prime ministerial candidate, Lal Krishna Advani, have long accused the Congress Party-led government of being soft on terrorism that involved Muslims. However, the BJP has refused to call for a clampdown on Hindu groups, and last week Mr Advani even criticised the police over the way they questioned one of the alleged cell members, a woman called Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur.

The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, phoned his rival to ask him not to politicise the issue or the investigation. "There is a strong case so let the police do their job," he told Mr Advani. While some commentators have expressed surprise about the discovery of the alleged cell, others have pointed out that there has been growing concern about the possible threat from Hindu extremists. In the summer, two members of a right-wing Hindu group were killed while putting together a bomb, and two other suspected members of the same group died in similar circumstances in 2006.

Meanwhile, senior right-wing leaders have made no secret of their wish that Hindus should form suicide squads to protect themselves against Muslim extremists. Bal Thackeray, leader of a group called the Shiv Sena, which has been responsible for communal and regional violence in Mumbai, wrote recently in the party's magazine: "The threat of Islamic terror in India is rising.

It is time to counter the same with Hindu terror. Hindu suicide squads should be readied to ensure the existence of Hindu society and to protect the nation."

Observers say the fact that the police have arrested the alleged cell members amid considerable political pressure suggests the growing professionalism of its security forces. "It's the first Hindu cell and it's the first time Hindus have been shackled and taken to jail," said Professor Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist at Delhi's Jawarlahal Nehru University. "I'm quite pleased with the way the police have done their jobs."

Holy war strikes India

35 Christians killed and 50,000 forced from their homes by Hindu mobs enraged at Swami's murder

Taken from The Independent, UK
By Andrew Buncombe in Phulbani, Orissa, Thursday, 9 October 2008

As she recalled her awful story, Puspanjali Panda made no attempt to halt the tears flooding down her face.

Holding her daughter close, she told how a baying Hindu mob dragged her husband – a Christian pastor – from his bed, beat him to death with stones and iron rods and then threw him into a river. She found his corpse two days later, washed up on the bank. When she went to the police, they told her to go away.

Mrs Panda and thousands of others like her are victims of the worst communal violence between Hindus and Christians that India has seen for decades. For a country that boasts of its mutual religious tolerance, the long-simmering tension that has erupted in the Kandhamal district of the state of Orissa – a nun being raped, churches being burned, at least 35 people killed and thousands forced from their villages – is both a belated wake-up call and a mounting embarrassment. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, called it a "national disgrace".

But for Mrs Panda, sheltering in a wretched relief camp in the state capital, Bhubaneswar, it is much worse than that. The 38-year-old said she had no idea what would now happen to her and her bewildered-looking child, Mona Lisa. "I do not want to go back. They have destroyed my home," she wailed.

The journey to the heart of the violence follows a bone-shaking road east from Bhubaneswar to the district capital, Phulbani. It was here in late August that thousands of Hindus armed with swords, sticks and primitive guns began taking matters into their own hands after the murder of an elderly religious leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati.

The swami, a senior member of a right-wing Hindu organisation known as the Vishswa Hindu Parishad (VHP), had reportedly been working to prevent low-caste Hindus converting to Christianity. His followers claimed he had been murdered by local Christians, though police said there was no evidence of that. Either way, in the days that followed, groups of Hindus wrought a terrible revenge on Christian families whom they had lived alongside for decades. In addition to the deaths, 140 churches and prayer halls were attacked and up to 50,000 people forced to flee.

In instances the violence appears staggering in its cruelty. Rabindranath Pradhan, now a refugee, had to watch helplessly while a 300-strong mob doused his disabled brother with petrol and set him alight. "He was shouting 'Help me, Help me.' I could not help – there were so many of them," he said.

Local people are now forced to fly saffron-coloured flags outside their homes to identity themselves as Hindus and prevent attack. In the village of Pabinga a Catholic church lies in ruins, the cross pushed from the roof and the interior of the building badly damaged. Christian leaders say that families forced to flee have been told they can only return if they re-convert to Hinduism.

Raphael Cheenath, the Archbishop of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, traced the violence to the anger of upper-caste Hindus at the number of Dalits or so-called untouchables converting to Christianity. Previously, he said, the lower castes had lived the lives of slaves and now – liberated and better-educated – they represented a challenge. "It incites the upper castes," he said.

While conversion has been an issue, the conflict here is more complex than a religious disagreement. Many activists believe the fight is an economic dispute between two of India's poorest groups, complicated by the issue of caste and ethnicity. For decades there has been conflict over land and resources between the two groups at the bottom of India's complex social system – the indigenous people of the region officially listed as scheduled tribes (ST) and non-indigenous poor known as scheduled castes (SC).

While the ST are Hindu, increasing numbers of SC have converted to Christianity to escape the misery of the caste system, for perceived economic benefit and because of the efforts of missionaries. Many politicians have accused right-wing Hindu groups of agitating tension for political reasons.

Somewhat surprisingly given the number of churches that have been destroyed, the ST of Kandhamal also say their conflict with the SC communities is not a religious dispute. They too say the battle is over land and resources.

Lambahdhar Kanhari, a tribal leader, says he has received death-threats from Christians. At his house near Phulbani a guard with a pump-action shotgun stands outside. Mr Kanhari did not deny that tribal people were responsible for the flurry of attacks but said that while the recent violence had been triggered by the killing of Swami Saraswati, its roots went back decades.

"These SC came from outside the area. They are criminal by nature. They have taken our land, our crops, everything," he said. "When the Swami was killed by the Christians some of his followers went after the killers and some of our people have been involved in the fighting."

The authorities say 11 relief camps have been set up to help more than 23,000 people. The Indian government has belatedly dispatched hundreds of police and paramilitaries to Kandhamal to calm the situation. In Phulbani, there is now a 6pm-8am curfew.

On a recent evening, the curfew had just been called as Asis Mishra was chaining shut the gate in front of his home. One of a tiny number of Christians in Phulbani still daring to live in their homes, Mr Mishra had good reason to take special safety precautions.

During the worst of the violence his family had fled their home and lived in a guesthouse, provided with food and money by Hindu families. Mr Mishra explained that he was not a recent convert, his family having been Christians for five generations. He said he hoped the fact he was well known within the community would protect him. He tapped on his chest and said: "We have been here a long time, but there is still some fear... It is always here."

Religious intolerance: The flashpoint state
* Orissa, on the Bay of Bengal, is India's ninth-largest state. It is less densely populated than its coastal neighbours but it is still home to 36 million people.
* Hindus make up 94 per cent of the population; 2 per cent are Christians. Tensions mounted in 1999, when an Australian missionary and his sons were burnt alive by a Hindu mob.
* The state has one-fifth of India's coal reserves and a third of its bauxite, but many people live in chronic poverty.

Nun dies after Hindu hardliners torch Christian churches and an orphanage

Taken from Daily Mail, UK, 25th August 2008

A nun has been killed and a priest seriously injured after Hindu hardliners set fire to an orphanage run by Christian missionaries.

The attack occurred in the village of Khuntapali, in India’s Orissa state, during protests against the murder of a Hindu religious leader on Saturday.

Police say tensions between the two groups have been growing in recent weeks, with some Hindu groups accusing the missionaries of bribing villagers to convert to Christianity.

Yesterday the religious fanatics converged on the orphanage and asked nearly 20 residents to leave the complex.

They then set the orphanage on fire with the nun and the priest locked inside.

The priest suffered extensive burns and was last night in a serious condition in hospital.

Although India’s constitution is secular, 84 per cent of its 1.2billion population is Hindu.

Around 2.5 per cent of Indians are Christians.

In the past Hindu extremists in Orissa state have attacked other Christian missionaries.

In 1999 an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two sons were killed by a Hindu mob that set their car on fire.

Churches have denied that residents have been pressured or bribed to change their religious beliefs.

Indian law accepts missionaries but bars forced conversions. Nevertheless, any missionary activity generally provokes controversy.

For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Whilst America is waiting on the outcome of the "R Kelly videotape" trial - where the R&B artist is charged with 14 counts of videotaping, producing and soliciting child pornography - there is a disturbing story from India where girls as young as 13 are being sold into prostitution.

Taken from The Telegraph, UK, 18/04/2008

By Sue Ryan

Thirty miles west of the Taj Mahal, on the road to the pink city of Jaipur, tourists on buses pass a sight that the guide books rarely mention.

A mile beyond the town of Bharatpur in Rajasthan, where the highway is being widened to four lanes, traffic slows down for roadworks. But the workmen who lounge by their bulldozers have their eyes on something else - a cluster of makeshift shelters where girls, several under 18 and at least two younger than 15, can be seen strolling or sitting, in view of the dusty carriageway.

Tonight, one girl in particular is attracting attention as she sits on a stool by a fire so that she can be seen by passing vehicles. Her heavily made-up, striking face and beautiful pink sari make her look as if she were on her way to a party. But the truth is different. Suli, 14, is a virgin and a bidding war is being held for the right to be the first to sleep with her.

The collection of shelters where she lives houses 59 families, all members of the Bedia tribe, which has a long tradition of caste-based prostitution. Girls born here become prostitutes in a rite of passage into "adulthood" as routine as marriage is to the rest of Indian society.

The "first time" is a valued commodity for which the middle-class businessmen who pass this way are prepared to pay a premium.

The normal rate is 100 rupees (£1.30) but a virgin is sold to the highest bidder for anything over 20,000 rupees. If she is very pretty, the community would hope to get up to 40,000 rupees. For this, the man can have access to the girl for as long as he likes - several hours, days, or even weeks. When he tires of her, there is a celebration. Because it is considered unlucky for a girl to keep the money from her first time, it is spent instead on an extravagant party. Jewellery is bought for her and for her relatives, goats are slaughtered and alcohol runs freely. There is dancing, and offerings are made to the gods.

Once a girl has lost her virginity she cannot marry. The choice has been made and the community celebrates it - this is her non-wedding night.

Suli said she was happy to enter the trade. "I chose it," she said, though she admitted being "a little" frightened. "I do not know how it is going to be. I know other girls who are in the trade but I have not asked them how it is."

She claimed it did not matter what the man looked like. "I will go with whoever pays the highest price," she said, before running off as her mother called her for supper.

Nita, a virgin in the hut next door, has four sisters, all prostitutes. She wears jeans and a skimpy top, and giggles a lot. One sister boasts that as Nita is particularly pretty, they hope to get 40,000 rupees (£600). "We have been offered 25,000, but it is not enough."

Nita is only 13 but has opted to follow her sisters into the trade. It is her own "choice", because, she giggled, "I won't have to do any housework."

But in avoiding making chapatis, Nita has signed up to a life in which she will deal with 20 to 30 clients per day, until she reaches her forties. After that, when she is no longer considered desirable, she will depend on any children she may have for support.

Two of her sisters, Ritu, 35, and Manju, 25, have built one of the few stone houses in their village, for which they paid the equivalent of £14,600, and are proud of their success. "There was a lot of poverty, we had nothing to eat," said Manju. "What you see now has come with hard work." They support 50 family members - 35 children and 15 adults.

Elsewhere in India, the birth of a boy is celebrated with dowries paid by the bride's family, one of the reasons given for the high abortion rate for female foetuses. But in the villages around Bharatpur there is a shortage of girls to marry, and the custom is for the boy's family to pay the girl's family a large lump sum before the wedding can take place.

Possibly because the money comes from prostitution, and because any granddaughters will be destined for the trade, the sums are high.

Ritu and Manju paid for four of their five brothers to marry, and now support their sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews.

They earn between 1,000 and 1,500 rupees a day. It was more before the government knocked down their shelters to make room for the highway.

"We need a shelter by the road," they said. "Tell the government to build us somewhere we can work. We used to have 25 or 30 clients a day, now the average is 10 or 15." They said they were able to keep their rates up because they could provide a nice room and running water for their clients, who are mostly married businessmen from Agra.

The prevalence of caste-based prostitution in certain tribes in the region - the Bawaria, Nuts, Bedias, Kanjars and Sansis - came to light after a raid on a brothel in Delhi. Now an attempt is being made to break the cycle by which the girls of each generation enter the trade.

Dr KK Mukerjee, a social work professor at the University of Delhi, who was commissioned by the government to research the scope of prostitution, has founded a group, known as GNK. Supported by Plan International, a child-centred community development agency, the organisation has set up a hostel to look after prostitutes' children.

Many of the women said they did not wish their daughters to follow them into the trade. Ritu and Manju each have a daughter, whose fathers were clients. "My daughter will get educated, and not enter this profession," said Ritu. "I have seen what it is like. I don't want it for her."

A young boy at the hostel told proudly how he had persuaded his grandmother not to push his aunt into prostitution. "My grandmother said that she would kill herself if my aunt did not go into the trade and earn money," he said. "But I persuaded her, and my aunt got married."

Thatcher honours Commonwealth war dead

Today is Remembrance Sunday - when we read about the second world war, we usually hear about how Britain stood up and fought against Nazi Germany (and quite rightly so) and how after a while the Yanks would join in to save the butts of the British. We never get to read anything about the volunteers from other countries (such as India & Pakistan) who made great contibution in the fight against the Nazis in the media let alone from the British Monarch or her Government - so I was surprised to read this in the times online...

Taken from the Times, UK, November 9, 2007
By Jack Malvern

Baroness Thatcher attended a wreath-laying ceremony today to honour Commonwealth soldiers killed fighting for Britain.

Lady Thatcher was a guest alongside the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres and foreign dignitaries at the event held ahead of Remembrance Sunday at the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill, London.




The Gates were completed five years ago, in remembrance of the five million volunteers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Africa and the Caribbean, who fought and died in the two world wars.



Dr Chartres and Lord Bilimoria, the chairman of the Memorial Gates Commemorative Trust, spoke to the assembled crowd of dignitaries and veterans before a two-minute silence.

The Bishop said: “This morning we particularly remember the men of the Commonwealth, and we remember and give thanks to those who spent themselves defending others.”

Baroness Thatcher, who helped raise money to build the Memorial Gates, did not make a speech at the event, but she laid a wreath of poppies at the foot of the gates.

Lord Bilimoria said: “Lady Thatcher played an instrumental role in helping to raise the money for these gates. To have her backing and for her to be here is just so special, I could see she was genuinely moved by the ceremony.”

Children from Westminster School were invited to watch the event, and organisers were keen to encourage younger people to learn about the events of the first and second world wars.

Peter Cleminson, national chairman of the Royal British Legion, said: “I think inevitably the public sometimes forgets the role that volunteers from other countries played. But we do our best to remind them, and an occasion like this helps to remind people of the great contribution made by the Sikhs, the the Nepalese, the Ghurkas, the Indian army and by Africans and Caribbeans in both world wars.”

Meanwhile, the insurers Lloyd’s of London held its annual wreath-laying ceremony this morning in the underwriting room of its City of London offices.

John Stuttard, the Lord Mayor of London and representatives from the Admiralty and the British Legion took part in the event, which included a two-minute silence and the annual ringing of the Lutine Bell, which is only otherwise tolled to mark disasters.

Gujarat riots a genocide; Modi sanctioned it: Tehelka

Taken from rediff.com, October 25, 2007 21:19 IST
By Onkar Singh in New Delhi

Investigative weekly Tehelka on Thursday claimed to have unravelled the truth behind the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Tehelka claimed it had 'irrefutable' evidence that the killings of Muslims post-Godhra train carnage in Gujarat was 'not a spontaneous swell of anger but a genocide' planned and executed by top functionaries of the Sangh Parivar and state authorities 'with the sanction' of Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Tehelka Editor-in-Chief Tarun Tejpal claimed that the magazine had carried out a sting operation over the last six months by talking to a number of Sangh Parivar leaders, including Godhra BJP MLA Haresh Bhatt, Shiv Sena leader Babu Bajrangi, who was earlier in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and VHP leaders Anil Patel and Dhawal Jayanti Patel, to bring out the truth.

"We have evidence that bombs were being made in the VHP office premises," Harinder Baweja, Editor (Investigations), told rediff.com.

"In Tehelka's ground breaking investigations, for the first time, hear the truth of the genocidal killings from the men who actually did it. In shocking disclosures, Chief Minister Narendra Modi came and patted the back of criminals, and told them that they had done a good job," Baweja said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has reacted sharply to the magazine's report stating that Tehelka was acting as CIA (Congress Investigating Agency) and it was a collusive sting, which could hardly be called investigative journalism.

Party spokesman Prakash Javedekar said the 'dirty tricks department' of the Congress was at work again in view of the assembly elections in Gujarat.

None of the leaders caught on camera in the expose was available for comments, except Gujarat VHP leader Dhawal Jayanti Patel who said Bajrangi had not talked to him during the riots and that he had not seen the sting operation.

Bhatt was purportedly caught on tape saying he was present in a meeting in which Modi allegedly gave him three days time 'to do whatever they wanted.'

"After three days, he (Modi) asked to stop and everything came to a halt," Bhatt said, adding that the chief minister thanked them after the Naroda Patiya masssacre.

The magazine claimed that Dhawal Jayanti Patel told its undercover reporter that the VHP activists made lots of bombs in a factory owned by him. A BJP MLA was shown as saying they even made rocket launchers, which were used in the pogrom.

It also claimed that it has exposed 'a trail of lies and coercions' that establishes the fire in coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express in Godhra on February 27, 2002 was a case of spontaneous mob fury and not a pre-meditated conspiracy as stated by the Gujarat government.

Additional Reportage: PTI

Partitioning India Over Lunch (And Another Fine Mess!)

Today is the 60th Anniversary of India and Pakistan's Independence from the British Rule. Whilst people all over the world celebrate with joy, this news piece shows what happened during the last period of the British Rule and why so many innocent people died and why there are still problems in that region...

Taken from the BBC, Friday, 10 August 2007

Memoirs of a British civil servant never seen in public until now show how much the partition of India was decided by just two men, the BBC's Alastair Lawson reports.

In a quiet village in the northern English county of Yorkshire, Robert Beaumont rifles through his father's archives.

The various and somewhat tatty pieces of paper he unearths are no ordinary collection of paternal memoirs.

They are the thoughts and reflections of his father, Christopher Beaumont, who played a central role in the partition of India in 1947, which resulted in arguably the largest mass migration of peoples the world has ever seen.


Christopher Beaumont was not an admirer of Mountbatten

After the death in 1989 of Mountbatten's Private Secretary, Sir George Abell, Beaumont was probably not exaggerating when he claimed to be the only person left who "knew the truth about partition".

'Bending the border'

It is estimated that around 14.5 million people moved to Pakistan from India or travelled in the opposite direction from Pakistan to India.

In 1947, Beaumont was private secretary to the senior British judge, Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who was chairman of the Indo-Pakistan Boundary Commission.

Radcliffe was responsible for dividing the vast territories of British India into India and Pakistan, separating 400 million people along religious lines.


It was a time of mass migration, uncertainty and bloodshed

The family documents show that Beaumont had a stark assessment of the role played by Britain in the last days of the Raj.

"The viceroy, Mountbatten, must take the blame - though not the sole blame - for the massacres in the Punjab in which between 500,000 to a million men, women and children perished," he writes.

"The handover of power was done too quickly."

The central theme ever present in Beaumont's historic paperwork is that Mountbatten not only bent the rules when it came to partition - he also bent the border in India's favour.

The documents repeatedly allege that Mountbatten put pressure on Radcliffe to alter the boundary in India's favour.

On one occasion, he complains that he was "deftly excluded" from a lunch between the pair in which a substantial tract of Muslim-majority territory - which should have gone to Pakistan - was instead ceded to India.

Beaumont's papers say that the incident brought "grave discredit on both men".

Punjab 'disaster'

But Beaumont - who later in life was a circuit judge in the UK - is most scathing about how partition affected the Punjab, which was split between India and Pakistan.

"The Punjab partition was a disaster," he writes.

"Geography, canals, railways and roads all argued against dismemberment.

"The trouble was that Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were an integrated population so that it was impossible to make a frontier without widespread dislocation.

"Thousands of people died or were uprooted from their homes in what was in effect a civil war.
"By the end of 1947 there were virtually no Hindus or Sikhs living in west Punjab - now part of Pakistan - and no Muslims in the Indian east.

"The British government and Mountbatten must bear a large part of the blame for this tragedy."

Personality clash

Beaumont goes on to argue that it was "irresponsible" of Lord Mountbatten to insist that Beaumont complete the boundary within a six-week deadline - despite his protests.

On Kashmir, Beaumont argues that it would have been "far more sensible" to have made the flash-point territory a separate country.

According to Beaumont, the "formidably intelligent" Radcliffe "did not get on well" with Mountbatten.

"They could not have been more different," he writes.

British Viceroy Louis Mountbatten read a message from King George VI on the eve of India's independence on the 14th August 1947.

Mountbatten's address (Real Player)

"Mountbatten was very good-looking and had a well-deserved history of personal bravery but, to put it mildly, he had few literary tastes.

"Radcliffe... was very quietly civilised. It was a relationship so like chalk and cheese that Lady Mountbatten had to use all her adroitness to keep conversation between them on an even keel."
Beaumont died in 2002 - his son Robert remembers him with great affection.

"He was also a man of supreme honesty, who spoke out on numerous occasions against the official British version of events surrounding partition without in any way being disloyal to his country," Robert Beaumont recalls.