64th INDEPENDENCE DAY OF INDIA! LET'S VOW...!

Happy Independence Day!!!

 

 

India is the only country in the world that has an unending treasure of the best of education, culture, values and ethics to keep meeting the demands of all the nations in the world eternally and time has been testimony to this.

 

It is when we forget ourselves that we do things that are most likely to be remembered. The great freedom fighters of the country did the very same, making supreme sacrifices for the sake of the coveted freedom and independence of the largest democracy in the world. It’s high time; we did our bits towards restoring and reestablishing the enviable grandeur of the grand Mother India.

 

 

On this auspicious occasion, it is the fundamental duty of every Indian to vow to work towards the welfare of our mighty nation and materialize the India of our dreams. All of us 1,150,000,000 (1.15 billion) people of India can work wonders towards realizing this fervent desire that we harbor deep in our hearts; can’t we?

 

 

Namaste, sada vatsale, matra-bhoome! Twaya, Hind bhoome, sukham vardhito-hum…! Come! Let us today commit ourselves categorically to this goal…! Vande Mataram!!!

 

 

Wish all my friends the world over,

Esteemed readers and visitors to this blog,

A mighty Happy & Proud 64^th Independence Day of India!

 

JAI HIND!

JAI BHARAT!!!

WHY IS THE WORLD PROUD OF INDIA

1. INDIA is the world's largest, oldest, continuous civilization.

2. India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

3. India is the world's largest democracy.

4. Varanasi, also known as Benares, was called "the ancient city" when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 BCE and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today.

5. India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

6. The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

7. Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

8. Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans.

9. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our civilization.

10. Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development, India was the richest country on earth until the time of British invasion in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth.

11. The art of Navigation was born in the river Sindhu 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word, ‘Navgatih’. The word ‘Navy’ is also derived from the Sanskrit word, 'Nou'.

12. Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.

13. The value of ‘pi’ was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.

14. Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10**53(10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BCE during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera 10**12(10 to the power of 12).

15. IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the world scientific community that the pioneer of wireless communication was Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose and not Marconi.

16. The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

According to Saka King Rudradaman - I of 150 BCE, a beautiful lake called Sudarshana was constructed on the hills of Raivataka during Chandragupta Maurya's time.

17. Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.

18. Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago, he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and even plastic surgery and brain surgery. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 surgical equipments were used. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many texts.

19. When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established the Harappan culture in the Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization).

20. The four religions born in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are followed by 25% of the world's population.

21. The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

22. India is one of the few countries in the World, which gained independence without violence.

23. India has the second largest pool of Scientists and Engineers in the World.

24. India is the largest English speaking nation in the world.

25. India is the only country other than US and Japan, to have built a super computer indigenously.

Famous Quotes on India (by non-Indians)

1. Albert Einstein said: “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.”
   
2. Mark Twain said: “India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.”
   
3. French scholar Romaine Rolland said: “If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.”
   
4. Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA said: “India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.”

Facts to Make Every Indian Proud

Q. Who is the co-founder of Sun Microsystems?
A. Vinod Khosla.

Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of today's computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm.

Q. Who is the seventh richest man in the world?
A. According to the latest report on Forbes.com, it is Mukesh Ambani, who is the Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited, India's largest private sector company.

Mukesh Ambani

The eighth richest man in the world is Lakshmi Mittal who heads the world’s largest steel company, ‘ArcelorMittal’. 

Lakshmi Mittal

Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia.

Q. Who is the pioneer of digital technology including HDTV and MPEG4 and is the creator of program languages such as C, C++, and UNIX to name a few)?
A. Arun Netravalli. He has been the President of Bell Laboratories and Chief Scientist for Lucent Technologies. 

Arun Netravalli

Q. Who is the Director of Hewlett Packard?
A. Rajiv L. Gupta. He was also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rohm and Haas Company, a worldwide producer of specialty materials, from October 1999 to April 2009.

Rajiv L Gupta

Q. Who is the greatest batsman in the history of cricket?

A. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. No one walks out to bat taking the hopes of a billion people to score a century every game and still scores 12000 runs in tests and almost17000 runs in one days and more than 40 centuries in both forms of the game. Not to forget he peaked in his career when India had one of their weakest teams. 

Sachin Tendulkar

38% of doctors in USA are Indians.

12% scientists in USA are Indians.

36% of NASA scientists are Indians.

34% of Microsoft employees are Indians.

28% of IBM employees are Indians.

17% of INTEL scientists are Indians.

13% of XEROX employees are Indians.

Indians are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives. There are 3.22 millions of Indians in the USA (1.5% of population).

All of the above is just the tip of the iceberg, the list could be endless. But… if we don’t see even a glimpse of that great India in the India that we see today, it clearly means that we are not working up to our potential; and that if we do, we could once again be an ever shining and inspiring country setting a bright path for the rest of the world to follow. I hope you enjoyed it and would pledge to work towards the welfare of INDIA.

“Proud to be an Indian”

JAI HIND

(I took this off some forwarded mail and hence don't know who the author of this original document is ... and if the author comes across this... Jai Hind! )

FESTIVALS BRING AWARD TO THE ANDAMAN BLOG

Hi, friends!

Wish you all an exceedingly auspicious and hilarious festival season! “Shubh Navratra” and “Eid Mubarak” to all of you the world over!!! 

I have always considered myself an exceptionally fortunate soul to have born at the world renowned pilgrimage, Govardhan, the land of Lord Krishna in the Mathura District of Uttar Pradesh, and to have brought up entirely at Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the historic land of the revered martyrs of the Indian Freedom Movement, right since the time I was a baby 3 months old. 

And I very proudly swear what a truly peerless and enchanting paradigm of national integration and communal harmony this ‘Mini India’ of a society has been despite being so agonizingly far off from the Indian mainland. In fact, it’s once again thanks to the diverse penal settlement that came into being following the “British hunt for hell that discovered Andamans”. This uniquely close-knit society is the only and ironically, the most treasured positive face of the barbaric hunt. 

Well, the batches after batches of convicts, revolutionaries and freedom fighters those were deported from the Indian mainland by the British Government of India to these coral Islands where no human being had ever set foot on, included the followers of all the diverse religions and residents of diverse regions from all over the mighty un-partitioned India –

Rare picture showing convicts lined up at the Viper Island 

Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Marathas, Pathans, a huge number of mutineer freedom fighters from Bengal, Madras and from the huge Moplah uprising in the state of Travancore-Cochin (Kerala) & so on. The confluence of various cultures, languages, religions, customs and traditions from Maharashtra to Assam and Afghanistan to Kanyakumari wove a unique cultural matrix. 

Hence, right since the dawn of wisdom, I’ve lived in an India true to its rich soul. Our residence at Supply Line, Port Blair was faced auspiciously with the Police Mandir (the temple), the Police Gurudwara (for the Sikhs), and the Police Masjid (the mosque) in a row and about a couple of kilometers from there was a Church at Gol Ghar. 

Police Mosque at Supply Line, behind the historic Clock Tower at Aberdeen Bazaar, Port Blair 

My dear friends, I’m talking about the model India in the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, where Hindus & Sikhs celebrate Eid & Christmas savoring sewaiyaans (vermicelli) & hanging stars at their doors, Muslims & Christians celebrate Diwali & Baisaakhi lighting up diyaas (lamps), bursting crackers and offering prayers at Gurudwaras alike and thus cohabit the quintessential floating paradise sending out the outstandingly inspiring message of “Sarva dharma sambhaav” (communal harmony), national integration and “Vasudhaiiva Kutumbakam” (Universal Brotherhood) to their fellow countrymen in the mainland India and also to the whole world, at large. 

This reminds me of the spell-binding lyrics of a song beautifully articulated way back in the early eighties by Mr. Madan Mohan Sinha Manuj, the former Station Director of Aakashvaani (All India Radio), Port Blair and a bosom friend of my father’s. He says –

“Himshikhar jiska Himalaya hai, phool veni ke usi ke dweep hain ye… Hamaare dweep hain ye” (She (Mother India), whose headdress is snow-crowned with the Himalayas, these Islands are the flowers of her beautifully pleated long hairdo…)J 

A breathtaking view of the Brother Island in South Andaman 

Waah!!!  Kudos to Manuj ji for the lovely touching lyrics!  

Award for the Islanders’ Blog! 

Well, dear friends, this festival season has really started with a bang for me with a major, major pleasant surprise coming from my fellow blogger friend Paritosh who has conferred the coveted ‘Superior Scribbler Award’ on me for the very first time. And you know what? I’m ecstatic!!!

 

A world of thanks to you, Paritosh, for having scrutinized The Islanders’ Blog and for having conferred the prestigious award on me! I take this as a major responsibility not only to keep deserving this award but also to pass it on to the deserving fellow bloggers. 

Rules of the Award -

1. Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to five most deserving blog friends. Check.
   
2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author and the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award. Check.
   
3. Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog and link to the original post at The Scholastic Scribe which explains The Award. Check.
   
4. Each blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit the original post at The Scholastic Scribe and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who wins This Prestigious Honor. Check.
   
5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules to his/her blog. Check.

And here’s what Paritosh said -
I would like to give away the awards to:

• Shrinath Vashishtha : For his tireless blogging about the A&N Islands. His efforts has kept the little known culture and identity of the archipelago on the blog map of India.
  
• Mohammed Musthafa : A kid with the wisdom of a hundred year old. Sometimes I envy his writing and creative skills.
  
• Shilpa Sharma : For her latest post. For the first time in the history of (wo)mankind a girl has taken up the fight for the boys :D.... Seriously speaking, she has talent and needs to write more.
  
• Neeraj Shinde : For his passionate writing. He writes about a bouquet of topics and each of them is so masterly covered.

Well, Paritosh, I’m on my way to finalizing the names of the 5 blogger friends whom I’d like to pass the award on to and would soon complete that. Thanks a ton again!!! Cheers! J

KAALAPANI - THE BRITISH HUNT FOR HELL DISCOVERED ANDAMAN ISLANDS

Dear friends,

The British military doctors had admired the penal settlement unveiled by the French six years earlier on a rocky islet across Guyana. But their Devil’s Island would be far more ambitious. The doctors consulted Hindu texts and decided to create a psychological gulag based around the Hindi term ‘Kaalapani’, an epithet for “Hell”. It literally meant “black water”, but Kaalapani was also a myth, an ancient Indian story that told how the faithful were parted from their souls by crossing the sea. 

The doctors knew that “Kaalapani” would be feared across the Empire as a godless place, a journey that would strip the transported of their caste, community and creed. 

On December 11, 1857, Doctors Frederick Mouat and George Playfair reached an island chain that they knew was the ideal location. Their search for a seat of revenge against “deserters and rebels” was by now all the more pressing: British Rule was paralyzed by the Indian Mutiny. Three weeks earlier, Sir Colin Campbell had relieved the Residency at Lucknow to find that only 980 Europeans had survived a five-month siege. 

Mouat and Playfair knew, as they surveyed the terrain, that British troops were burying 2000 dead. “No one came to these islands”, the doctors noted in their logs, “but the half-drowned or truly desperate.” For nine months a year, the Andaman Islands were caught in the crosswinds of competing monsoons, and they remained uninhabited apart from pockets of “unearthly and ferocious tribes”. A better place to exile the “gigantic evil” of rebellion could not be found. 

On March 10, 1858, Dr. James Patterson Walker arrived at the Andaman Islands with the first batch of 200 “grievous political offenders” sweating in his ship’s hold. Transportation to Australia was outlawed in 1850, but there had been no furore when the doctor’s shipment had got underway from Calcutta eight days earlier.

Rare picture showing convicts unloading a ship at Chatham Island

“The jungle is so dense, and its entanglement by gigantic creepers so complete, as to render it impassable,” Dr. Walker wrote. Into the jungle he dispatched men in chains with orders to build their own shelters on Ross and Chatham islands. From Calcutta and Madras, from Karachi, Singapore and Burma (the present day Myanmar), the ships disgorged yet more prisoners, their crime and punishment carved on to wooden neck tickets, “so sick and debilitated that they cannot be now employed”.

An exotic view of Andamans

So many died on the voyage over, that Dr. Walker asked for another 10,000 to be shipped. From “sunrise to sunset”, Walker wrote in his diary, “I stood uncomplaining”. At the makeshift pier, he greeted new arrivals, “impressing on them the utter hopelessness of all attempts to escape”. And he frightened his charges by reading to them from Marco Polo’s journals an account of the indigenous tribes, dispersed across the 200 or so islands. “Every man not of their own nation,” Walker declaimed, “they can lay their hands on, they kill and eat.” 

Within four days, the newly transported were bolting. Prisoner 61, Narain, sentenced for “having excited sedition in the cantonment at Dinapore”, hanged himself. Another convict, prisoner 46, Naringun Singh, “guilty of desertion at Nuddea”, was the first to set out. He was fished from the black water, hauled up before Dr. Walker and executed on the approval of the medic’s superiors. 

By mid-April, 288 inmates, one third of those who had survived transportation to the islands, were on the run. When, on May 13, 81 of them, “driven by the murderous attacks of the savage aborigines”, limped back into Port Blair pleading for mercy and medicine, Dr. Walker hanged them all in a day. 

News of the summary executions reached Calcutta. JP Grant, President in Council, dashed off a letter deploring the result: “I cannot recognize any of his (Walker’s) considerations as justifying the executions.” But Walker escaped official censure, and on Grant’s orders every inmate capable of escaping was now locked into an iron collar, so that prisoners would never again be able to flee and “excite public attention”. 

The doctor was finally removed from the penal project on October 03, 1859, shortly after he had proposed branding the convicts’ forearms with their crime and sentence. Conditions worsened. Within four years, 3,500 out of 8,000 transportees had been killed or had died of fever, a staggering mortality rate that prompted an investigation. 

When Sir Robert Napier arrived at Port Blair, he found the scene “beyond comprehension”. An “air of depression and despondency” clung to the Andaman Islands. Why did the prisoners have no shelter, clothes or food? Only on Ross Island, where the new superintendent, Colonel RC Tytler, had settled with his wife Harriet, was there a thriving community – a European shop, turf, flowers, shrubs and a fine sandy beach.

A British ship entering the harbour at Port Blair

Eight years later, Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India, arrived at the Andaman Islands on an inspection tour. As the sun set over Mount Harriet, on February 08, 1872, and the Viceroy descended from the highest point on the island chain, he announced: “This is the loveliest place I think I ever saw. Plenty of room here to settle two million men!” But his vision was instantly cut down. Major General Donald Stewart, the Islands’ superintendent, described the scene at a subsequent inquiry. He heard the cry of “kill, kill” and then a convict “fastened like a tiger on the Viceroy’s back”. Major Byrne, Lord Mayo’s private secretary, reported to the same panel that his superior cried out, “They’ve hit me.” 

The British Government of India concluded that the killer, Sher Ali, had no known motive. They hanged him on March 11. For Irishmen who remembered Lord Mayo’s tenure as their chief secretary, Prisoner 15557 became a martyr, a member of “the warrior dead”. Any hope that the Andaman regime would mellow was throttled. 

Photos courtesy: ancestry.com; Statistics courtesy: Light of Andamans

ANDAMAN NICOBAR - INDEPENDENCE DAY & NETAJI

Happy 62nd Independence Day!!!

On this supremely auspicious & momentous day in every Indian’s life, I feel utterly proud to share with you one of the rarest pictures in the history of Indian Independence.

Following, my dear friends, is the historic picture showing none other than Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the supreme Commander of the “Aazad Hind Fauz” i.e. the Indian National Army (INA) hoisting the then form of the now Indian Tricolor Flag at the Gymkhana ground (the present day Netaji Stadium) at Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands on the 30th, December, 1943.

It’s at this Gymkhana ground at Port Blair after hoisting the Tricolor for the very first time that Netaji declared the Islands the first Indian Territory to be freed from the shackles of British Imperialism, thus heralding the complete Indian Independence. 

For more details, CLICK HERE

NELSON MANDELA - THE ANDAMAN CONNECTION

NOLITHA

In a solitary cell of the Robben Island prison, a tall, powerfully built man sat in front of his desk and gazed intently at the picture of a woman, nude except for a piece of red cloth tied round her neck. On the desk, neatly arranged, were thick books and writing materials. Behind him, on the wall were other photographs. The narrow cell had a barred door and a high ventilator typical of most colonial jails. The man has spent eighteen years in the cell. The man was Nelson Mandela.

Could there be a connection between Nelson Mandela and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands?

At the outset, it may appear preposterous. Mandela never came to the Islands. India was already a free country when he started the fight against the apartheid regime of South Africa. However, on second thought, some similarities do emerge.

Mandela, of course, was a freedom fighter of South Africa, much like the freedom fighters that were sent to the Andaman Islands. He too fought against foreign rule based on racial discrimination and exploitation of the majority by a small White minority regime. He too was exiled to the notorious Robben Island prison just as our own freedom fighters were sent to the Viper Island prison or the Cellular Jail. He too was subjected to the same kind of tortures meted out to our own freedom fighters – solitary confinement, hard labour, cruel punishment and humiliation.

But, did he, during his confinement on Robben Island, chance upon any reference to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands?

A reading of the epoch making autobiography of Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, throws up some interesting facts.

During the long years of incarceration on Robben Island, to beat the solitude and boredom, Mandela would read books, write letters, and fantasize about what he would do after his release from prison. Gazing upon the pictures of his loved ones and writing letters to them was one way of escape from solitude. In a letter to his wife Winnie, he writes:

“Your beautiful photo stands about two feet above my left shoulder as I write this note. … Nolitha stands on the table directly opposite me. How can my spirits ever be down when I enjoy the fond affection of such wonderful ladies?” - pp. 591-92

Nolitha

‘Nolitha’ was the name Mandela invented for the woman in the photo he kept on his desk. In a letter to his daughter Zindzi, Mandela writes:

“By the way, has Mom ever told you about Nolitha, the other lady in my cell from the Andaman Islands? … She regards the pygmy beauty as some sort of rival and hardly suspects that I took the picture out of the National Geographic.” P.592

Nolitha

The National Geographic referred was the July 1975 issue that carried an exclusive photo feature on the tribes of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands by the famous photographer Raghubir Singh. In one of the photos, Raghubir Singh captures a Jarawa (one of the six aboriginal tribes from the A & N Islands) belle in moment of spontaneous merriment. It was this photo that mesmerized Mandela and made him give her a name, and also a place in his cell along with the photo of his wife.

Mandela’s sudden transfer from Robben Island, his release and election as the first black president of South Africa is history. Nolitha was forgotten, till she surfaced again in 2004. Between the pages of one of the two notebooks Mandela used for drafting the letters he wrote while in Robben Island prison was found the same picture.

A prison guard on Robben Island who used to censor the letters of the prisoners took away the books and kept them with him for about 23 years before returning them. He could have sold them and made a fortune but his conscience did not permit him. Mandela recognized the books as his own and Nolitha too. When asked why he kept the picture, Mandela said he saw in the exuberance of the woman a “celebration of life”.

What could have been on Mandela’s mind when on December 26, 2004, a couple of months after the rediscovery of the photo, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands were devastated by the tsunami?