Unforgettable Hill-spot: Reshi

Unforgettable Hill-spot: Reshi

If someone has been exhausted with the frets and fumes of metropolitan life, the picturesque spot of Reshi, located quite near the Himalayan hill station of Kalimpong (75 kilometres away from Siliguri), could be an exhilarating experience. Though not exactly located on the National Highway 31 A, Reshi, which is best visited between September and June, can be accessed from Kalimpong as it lies in the vicinity of Rangphu and Pedong, and if anyone is interested, Neora Valley National Park is not that far away from the spot – nor is Lava. The nearness of Sikkim adds to the attraction of the scenic spot. To add to plenty of reasons of sojourning at Reshi, the hospitality of the ex-Visva-Bharatians Mr. Norden Michael Lepcha (Mobile: 096411 91669) and Mr. Ryan Karthak Lepcha (Mobile: 098323 72070) – the courteous and gracious owners of The Reshi Retreat and Farmhouse (Reshi-Kalimpong, District: Darjeeling, West Bengal, U.R.L.: http://thereshiretreatfarmhouse.blogspot.in/) which possesses one of the better facilities of secure accommodation around, would continue to attract visitors to Reshi long after they have had left for once.

The best route for visiting Reshi would be from Kalimpong, which is approximately 37 kilometres away from the place situated on the bank of River Reshi (‘Reshi Khola’ in local terms). Tourists staying at The Reshi Retreat and Farmhouse, who would most conveniently reach there through private transport like Mahindra Boleros and Scorpios, can not only marvel at the preparations being undertaken by the owners to develop agri-eco and adventure tourism (a term preferred by Mr. Norden Lepcha) but also have a sense of expanse of the ancient Silk Route that connected India to China more than two hundred years before the birth of Christ. Reshi falls on the original Silk Route. The route passes through Jelep La via Mememcho Lake, Kuppup Lake, Nathang Valley, Zuluk, Lingtam, Rhenock, and Reshi Khola to Kalimpong. Lush green forests and sedate Himalayas would charm the adventure-seeking onlookers, and lazy angling in the khola is immensely enjoyable. From the mountainous spot, one can undertake trips to neighbouring areas like Pedong (17 kilometres away from Reshi), Kupup, Algarah (21 kilometres away from Reshi), Aritar (17 kilometres away), and Zuluk, and Mr. Norden Lepcha, on being requested, gladly oversees such short tours. The way to Menmecho Lake from Reshi is generally hailed as a road to paradise by numerous trekkers.

Even a confirmed bookworm is expected to warm up to the natural beauty of Reshi, which is 105 kilometres away from Siliguri, in the Kalimpong subdivision, and is also approachable from Rangpo via Rorathang. Numerous familiar and unfamiliar birds with their chirpings would mesmerise the sojourners. Busy people who still manage five days to spare generally stay overnight at Reshi, whose approximate elevation is 1,250 metres above sea level, after reaching the spot from Kalimpong, and leave for Pedong on the next morning. On the next day, a visit to Lava is usually undertaken, with a tour to Reshop for overnight stay. On the fifth day, Kalimpong can be travelled back. However, these are just suggestions, because tour-planning widely varies from person to person, and from group to group. Nevertheless, a visit to Reshi and a stopover at The Reshi Retreat and Farmhouse is sure to fill one with numerous unforgettable memories.

As originally published in:

Editorial Section, 17 May 2012 Thursday, p. 4, Gangtok-edition


DISTRESSED EVES: RECONSIDERING THE POSITION OF INDIAN FEMALES

13 May 2012 Sunday arrived and was over and the world celebrated ‘International Mothers’ Day’ yet once agin. Begun in 1908 in the United States of America, the second Sunday of May is being celebrated each year as a recognition of motherhood. Indirectly, the day is also a celebration of the essence of femininity. However, in the 21st century, the question has arisen to haunt us: are we really giving the females their due recognition? More importantly, do we give the women, whom we revere as mothers, the very chance to survive? If anything, they increasingly seem to be Indian Eves in dire distress – of survival, growth and development.

With his maiden episode of ‘Satyameva Jayate’ on 6 May 2012, the Indian actor Aamir Khan has touched a raw nerve in Indian societal discussions. The ‘Himalayan Mirror’ has finely covered its aftermath. Aamir Khan has not only explored but also substantiated the grievous state of female foeticide in our country. The experiences of Amisha Yagnik from Ahmedabad, Parveen Khan from Morena, and Mitu Khurana from New Delhi, who were invited on stage during the show, have something in common – they have all been physically or mentally abused for conceiving female child in opposition to their in-laws’ or husband’s wishes. We are one of the faster growing economies of the world, an electronics’ giant, a major military power, the world’s largest democracy, and yet, sixty-four years after the independence, the Indians are yet to change their attitude towards their own females. We are still an overwhelmingly-patriarchal nation. We are still killing one million female children a year, through foeticide and other means, to bring down the sex ratio to 914 in the previous year. Interestingly, females outnumber males in the whole of North American continent, most parts of South America, almost the whole of Europe, Australia, southeastern Asia, and even in more than half the countries of the impoverished Africa. Only in some of the south Asians countries – and, sadly, India is among them – the situation is exactly the opposite. These countries cannot shake off their responsibilities in bringing down the 2011 international sex ratio down to 984 females against a thousand males.

Crimes against Indian women are continuing and even increasing. As ‘National Crime Records Bureau’ estimated in 2011, India has 60 registered rapes a day. Many women are generally reticent to report ravishment, and yet the reported cases are so high. Even in the national capital of New Delhi, one girl is reportedly molested in every 14 hours. However, even more heinous than these crimes is the deplorable task of denying the female child the right to be born. In spite of several preventive measures having had been taken by both the central and state governments, biased parents and unscrupulous gynaecologists are still carrying on secret termination of pregnancies, usually of the female foetuses. Thought such incidents are gradually declining, statistics reported underneath reveal that the murderous crime is yet to be thoroughly controlled.

Not every Indian state, however, is at fault. 2011 government sources reveal that sex ratio is either encouraging or near-satisfactory at Kerala (1084 females per 1000 males), Puducherry (1038), Tamil Nadu (995), Andhra Pradesh (992), and Chhattisgarh (991). On the other hand, among the worst-hit states with a pitiable sex-ratio, are Daman and Diu (618 females per 1000 males), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (775), Chandigarh (818), and New Delhi (866). For other Indian states, the 2011 average sex-ratios were: Haryana (877), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (878), Jammu and Kashmir (883), Sikkim (889), Punjab (893), Uttar Pradesh (908), Bihar (916), Gujarat (918), Arunachal Pradesh (920), Maharastra (925), Rajasthan (926), Madhya Pradesh (930), Nagaland (931), Lakshadweep (946), West Bengal (947), Jharkhand (947), Assam (954), Tripura (961), Uttarakhand (963), Karnataka (968), Goa (968), Himachal Pradesh (974), Mizoram (975), Odisha (978), Meghalaya (986), and Manipur (987). Between 2001 and 2011, the child sex ratios have identifiably dropped in states like Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, and West Bengal. The eastern Indian states having had been culturally most protective of girls, the imbalance in sex ratios in these states has become a matter of even concern for public health activists.

In the first issue of the first volume of “International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences” (January 2006), Snehalata Tandon and Renu Sharma had given well-researched statistics regarding female foeticide and infanticides in different states of India, including Sikkim and West Bengal. In the beginning of the 21st century, both Sikkim and West Bengal fared high on anti-foeticide drives and the number of female foeticides remained nil in both the states. Three cases of infanticide in Sikkim were reported during the period, with two in West Bengal. In Maharastra, however, the reported number of female foeticides was the highest – between 41 and 45 – followed by Madhya Pradesh (between 14 and 15), Haryana (13-14) and Andhra Pradesh (8-9). The number of infanticides in these four states was respectively 20, 31, 1, and 8. Tandon and Sharma, like numerous other Indian sociologists and statisticians, agree that for foeticide and infanticide, female-children are specifically targeted. Other than counselling of and vigilance on prejudiced parents and increased reporting in media, the sociologists argue that strict enforcements of anti-foeticidal and infanticide laws with harsher penalties than ever could be effective in normalising the Indian sex-ratios. Legal measures like ‘Hindu Marriage Act – 1955’, ‘Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act – 1956’, ‘Dowry Prohibition Act – 1961; amended in 1986), ‘Immoral Traffic Prevention Act – 1986’ have already been passed to change the situation, and with the maintenance of ‘Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act – 1994’ since January 1996, the situation is expected to be hopeful with consciousness on the average Indians part. People need to understand that the female children are boons not banes. Not only they grow up into sensitive human beings, but also they often leave marks in every socio-cultural and scientific field. Parents need to celebrate the fact that they are guardians to females who would obviously make them proud through intelligence, education, beauty, and sensibilities. Thanks to documentary shows like the one Aamir Khan hosted, millions of conscious Indians are being increasingly forced to rethink their patriarchal ideologies. Only then can ‘Mothers’ Day’ be celebrated more successfully than ever.

– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat

From the original report published in:

Editorial section, 8 May 2012 Tuesday, p. 4, Gangtok edition


Remembering the Bosnian War Twenty Years After

The late-April 2012 sentencing by the ‘Sarajevo War Crimes Tribunal’ (S.W.C.T.) of Rasema Handanovic (39), a former member of the ‘Muslim Forces’ of Bosnia, to five-and-a-half-year-imprisonment because she participated in the massacre of twenty-six Croatian civilian and military-prisoners in the village of Trusina, Herzegovina, in April 1993, has received widespread media coverage, and has rekindled popular memories of the ‘Bosnian War’ twenty years after it was initiated principally with a confrontation between the Serbian forces and the Bosnian Muslim civilian population – the Bosniaks – in eastern Bosnia. The war officially continued from 5 April 1992 to 14 December 1995 in south-eastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula and concluded with the internal partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina in accordance with the ‘Dayton Agreement’. The belligerence, which was the worst in Europe since the 1939-45 Second World War, killed approximately a hundred thousand people while displacing over two million.

The Bosnian War was a complex phenomenon, initially (1992-94) marked by an uneasy alliance between the three states Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, and Croatia, which were p0itted against Republika Srpska, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia. In 1994-95 occurred a realignment between the belligerents with ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’ (N.A.T.O.)-forces joining the united armed forces of Croatia and Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to bomb Republika Srpska and A.P. Western Bosnia into submission. Whereas the First and Second World Wars have had been chronicled in millions of authentic and elucidating historical works, general readers, especially in India, scarcely have well-documented records of one of the more important internal events which tested the interrelationship among different southern European ethnic groups. The Bosnian War, which would see reported ethnic cleaning and genocides by both the Serbs and Croats in their respective territories, including the ‘Lašva Valley Ethnic Cleansing’ of Bosniak Muslim civilians by members of the Croatian Defence Council (H.V.O.) and Croatian Army (H.V.) cadres (May 1992-April 1993), and ‘Srebrenica Massacre’ of 11-22 July 1995, in which the Army of Republika Srpska (V.R.S.)-personnel under General Ratko Mladić (b. 1943) and ‘Greek Volunteer Guards’ (G.D.G.) were reported to have had summarily executed 8,373 Bosniaks, had been commemorated in different works of superior fiction, including publications by Semezdin Mehmedinović, Eve Ensler, Scott Simon, Steven Galloway, Frederick Forsyth, Jack Kersh, and Joe Sacco, among others. Zlata Filipović’s Zlata’s Diary (1993) earned her the sobriquet of ‘The Anne Frank of Sarajevo’. But no work or film can precisely capture the horrors of the approximately fifty-thousand Muslim and Catholic Christian women who were understood to have been intermittently raped after being detained at different eastern Bosnia and Grbavica camps, most notably at the ‘Karaman’s House’, Foča. The ‘Manjača Concentration Camp’ allegedly operated by the Yugoslav National Army (J.N.A.) personnel and Republika Srpska authorities between 1991 and 1995, and the Dretelj, Heliodrom, Keraterm, Omarska, Trnopolje, and Uzamnica Camps, can easily be compared to the different concentration camps the Nazis had set up for incarcerating the Jews at such places as Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Bergen-Belsen.

The principal leaders during the Bosnian belligerence were Slobodan Milošević (1941-2006) (President of Serbia), Radovan Karadžić (b. 1945) (President of Republika Srpska), Ratko Mladić (the V.R.S. Chief of Staff), Vojislav Šešelj (b. 1954) (paramilitary leader) and Fikret Abdić (b. 1939) (acting president of A.P. Western Bosnia), who were pitted against Franjo Tuđman (1922-99) (President of Croatia), Janko Bobetko (1919-2003) (Croatian Army general), Alija Izetbegović (1925-2003) (President of Bosnia and Herzegovina), Sefer Halilović (b.1952) and Enver Hadžihasanović (b. 1950) (the two chiefs of staff of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina ‘À.R.Bi.H’), Mate Boban (1940-97) (President of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia), and Milivoj Petković (b. 1949) (H.V.O. Chief of Staff). Later, Leighton Smith (b. 1939) supervised the N.A.T.O. bombing campaign against Republika Srpska.

With the 1989 dissolution of the former socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Muslim-majority-nation, achieved independence in 1991, and it was followed by the establishment of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia. The continual existence of the Yugoslavian military personnel in Bosnia and Herzegovina as V.R.S. servicemen in spite of the Yugoslavians’ official exit from the country mobilised the Croatians to form the defensive H.V.O. while the alarmed Bosniaks reorganised themselves as À.R.Bi.H. cadres. These defensive measures infuriated the Serbs, who were known to have been massacred during the Second World War by the Croat-supported Nazis, to attack the Bosniaks. During the infamous ‘Siege of Sarajevo’ – Sarajevo being the capital-city of Bosnia and Herzegovina – thirty thousand former Yugoslavian and Republika Srpska military personnel surrounded the city from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996, and in the ensuing gun-battles, approximately 6,110 Bosniak soldiers and 10,000 civilian residents of the besieged capital were estimated to have been killed, and over 56,000 city-dwellers grievously injured. On 5 February 1994, a single 120-milimetre-mortar-shell landed in the centre of a crowded Markale (market-place) killing 68 civilians and wounding 144 marketers. The war, which perplexed most of the citizens of the fighting-nations by its real objectives, could be ended only after the direct intervention of the ‘United Nations’ Protection Force’ (U.N.PRO.FOR) and N.A.T.O. troops from April 1994 onwards.

The Bosnian War, which ended with the ‘International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’ (I.C.T.Y.) trying principally the Serbian politicians and military officers, has been commemorated in several award-winning Hollywood films, latest in Angelina Jolie’s “In the Land of Blood and Honey”. Importantly, the confrontation alarmed the Indians against relying on European aid too much for many of the European countries, since the 16th century, are engaged in assaulting one another over imperialistic and allied interests. The Indian Army could also understand the destructive force of snipers in modern belligerence for Serbian snipers often wrecked havoc in the war. Twenty years passed away since the Bosnian War was declared, Europe is still seething in tension, including the uneasy relationship between the Balkan countries, and chances of the re-eruption of violence, unless the international community demonstrates utmost strictness in handling and condemning unjustified warring all over the globe, cannot be ruled out.


– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 4 May 2012.

Originally published in:

Editorial Section, page 4, 1 May 2012 Tuesday, Gangtok-edition


Re-availability of “Mein Kampf”: Reviewing Discretions

A 25 April 2012-report by Gareth Jones and Alice Baghdjian of ‘Reuters’ regarding Bavarian state government’s decision to use excerpts from Adolf Hitler’s 1925 autobiographical “Mein Kampf” (‘My Struggle’) on German school curriculum from 2016 onwards has generated controversies all over the world.

Though aware that contents of the book, which also contain Hitler’s political ideology, are easily available on internet, critics of the decision are scared that an official decision to revoke the 67-year-old ban on “Mein Kampf” would not only lead to the re-Nazification of European culture in the long run but also might attract inquisitive youngsters to the Austrian-born German military leader’s ultra-nationalistic ideas. However, both the German Jews and the English intellectuals have welcomed the move, including the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History’s preparations to publish an annotated version of the text, so that the maturing individuals could read and identify the erroneousness and perversities of the Second World War-German Führer and desist themselves from following the ‘suicidal philosophies of narrow nationalism, racism, megalomania, and xenophobia’.

In the 21st century, when history carefully remoulded and propagated by victorious Allies after the 1939-45 war has come to be re-examined, and the Allied bombing of Dresden (February 1945), Berlin (November 1943), Rome (May-July 1943), and the twin Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 1945) are being considered war crimes just like the Nazi blitzes of London (September 1940-May 1941) and Rotterdam (May 1940), this brouhaha regarding the official republication of Hitler’s autobiography is understandable. Undoubtedly, young Germans reading “Mein Kampf” would be exposed to the anti-Semitic ravings of Hitler (1889-1945), but some rather unpalatable issues regarding the conception of the German military general’s 1925 publication are bound to be rekindled as well. In India, where “Mein Kampf” is almost uninhibitedly sold in English translations, the criticism of the Bavarian government’s decision will induce in conscious readers an urge to review the years of their own domination by the English. The unalterable conclusion that Hitler and his Nazi cronies like H.W. Göring (1893-1946), J. Streicher (1885-1946), P.J. Goebbels (1897-1945), and H.L. Himmler (1900-1945) among others drew Germany to exhaustive destruction because of their erroneous expansionist and exterminatory policies notwithstanding, both the Germans, all of whom are most often censurably identified with the Nazis by readers – the Allied views having had been inculcated upon them – and the Japanese, who are almost always held responsible for initiating the Second World War with complete obliviousness being adopted to the the-then foreign policies of appeasement followed by the European leaders especially of France and England, had helped the Indians in their own ways in their struggle against the annihilatory English colonialism. Subhas Chandra Bose’s ‘Indian National Army’ personnel were strategically and tactically supported by the so-called ‘Axis’ forces against the English who would often embark upon genocidal tactics against the subaltern, and these facts require remembrance when any Indian self-guardedly approaches “Mein Kampf” for its intrinsic defects and depravities. The best scenario for Indian readers would be to dismiss the implausibility and errors of “Mein Kampf” without forgetting that when Hitler began dictating the first of the 782 pages of “Mein Kampf” to Rudolf W.R. Hess (1894-1987) at the “Landsberg Prison” in the summer of 1924, during his incarceration following the failed “Beer Hall Putsch” of Munich (8-9 November 1923), the post-Great War “Treaty of Versailles” (signed on 28 June 1919) had demanded war reparations of 132 billion Papiermarks from the vanquished Germany, it was taking 4.2 trillion Papiermarks to purchase an American dollar, millions of Germans were unemployed and helpless, and the French forces had occupied the Ruhr area of North Rhine-Westphalia because the defeated country could scarcely pay back the belligerence-damages.

Edited by Bernhard Stempfle and published by Max Amann, head of the “Franz Eher Verlag”, “Mein Kampf”, which was initially titled “Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice”, is divided into two volumes consisting respectively of twelve and fifteen chapters. Continuously and erroneously focussing on the ‘Jewish peril to the German state’, this rabidly-anti-Semitic publication, which would also partially contribute to its author’s miserable fall, debates on globalists versus continentalists, and also on intentionalists versus functionalists. Other than mentioning then necessity of the “National Socialist Movement” in a ‘decadent and suicidal’ Weimer Republic, “Mein Kampf” also discusses the problem of lebensraum for the Garman ‘Aryans’ in a ‘country infested with the Jews’ – a very dangerous point which would ultimately lead to the ‘Holocaust’, or the genocidal annihilation of approximately six and a half million Jews. So, while “Mein Kampf”, which sold over six million copies in Germany in 1940 alone, remains a dangerous propagandist publication, it also has associations of German’s post-1914-18 War miseries with its conception and sales.


– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 29 April 2012.

Originally published in:

Editorial Section, p.4, 29 April 2012 Sunday, Gangtok-edition


Launching Agni – V: Some Reflections

Like numerous other national and international dailies, the Himalayan Mirror of 20 April 2012 notified its readers about the successful test-launching of Agni-V, India’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (I.C.B.M.) that has an approximate range of 5,000 kilometres – according to announcements of officials of the Defence Research Development Organisation (D.R.D.O.) – extendible unto 8,000 kilometres or even more, as estimated by the researcher Du Wenlong of China’s People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences (P.L.A.A.M.S.) – from Odisha’s Wheeler Islands at 08:07 a.m. of 19 April 2012. With the 17.5-metre-long and 50,000-kilogram-weighing ballistic missile precisely hitting an Indian Ocean target 5,000 kilometres away after only 20 minutes of flight, India, which presently maintains the world’s largest standing volunteer army, has propelled itself into the very small and elite list of countries that have indigenously-developed missiles of over 5,000-kilometre-range: China, France, Russia, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom. While the Obama administration of the U.S.A. has adopted a neutral – or, even, congratulatory – stance regarding India’s Agni V test-launch, the state-run Chinese newspaper Global Times has lambasted the Indian defence officials for their ‘missile delusion’, and cautioned the Euro-American countries about the ‘fact’ that ‘India’s military spending has increased by over 17 percent in 2012’ and that it has ‘again’ become world’s ‘largest importer of ammunitions’. Of all the countries, China and Pakistan seem to be most concerned about the successful test-firing of the Indian I.C.B.M.

The following chart makes a comparative study of some of the more powerful postmodern I.C.B.M.s (some of which are launched from submarines) by their countries of development/deployment:

Name of the I.C.B.M./S.L.B.M. Common Name/N.A.T.O. Reporting Name Country of Development/Deployment Approximate Effective Range (in kilometres) Approximate Weight (in kilograms) Length (in metres) Diameter (in metres)
Dong Feng 31-A East Wind/ C.S.S. – 10 China 11,200 – 12,000 42,000 13 2.25
Dong Feng 41 East Wind/ C.S.S. – X – 10 China 15,000 --- --- 2
Dong Feng 5 Eurus 5 China 12,000 – 15,000 183,000 32.6 3.35
J.L. 2 Giant Wave – 2 China 12,000 – 14,000 42,000 13 2.25
M 45 M 45 France 6,000 35,000 11.05 1.93
M 51 M 51 France 10,000 52,000 12 2.3
Agni V Fire India 5,000 – 8,000 50,000 17.5 2
Jericho III Jericho Israel 4,800 – 11,000 30,000 15.5 1.56
R.S.M. 56 Bulava Russia 8,000 – 10,000 36,800 11.5 2
R.T.-2U.T.T.KhTopol-M S.S. 27 Sickle B Russia 11,000 47, 200 22.7 1.9
R.S. 24 Yars Russia 11,000 210,000 23 2
R.T.-2 P.M. Topol S.S. – 25 Sickle Russia 10,500 45,100 21.5 1.8
L.G.M. 30 Minuteman U.S.A. 8,100 35,300 18.2 1.7
L.G.M. 118 A Peacekeeper U.S.A. 9,600 87,752 21.8 2.3
U.G.M. 133 Trident II Trident D 5 S.L.B.M. U.S.A. and U.K. 11,300 58,500 13.41 2.11

India’s test-launching of Agni V comes at a significant time. Come October 2012, it would be fifty years of the Sino-Indian War, a 20 October-21 November 1962 border conflict at Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh which found approximately 12,000 Indian military personnel confronting over 80,000 People’s Liberation Army (P.L.A.) cadres, and which ended in military victory for the Chinese. Though the relationship between the two South Asian neighbours, which had nose-dived since the war, improved in the first decade of the 21st century, there have had been intermittent diplomatic unpleasantries in 2012. In February 2012, it was estimated that India will reach U.S. $ 100 billion trade with China by 2015, and yet the two countries are cautiously expanding and modernising their respective arsenals. D.R.D.O. officials are, however, maintaining that the April 2012 missile testing is neither aimed at accelerating the South Asian arms’ race nor planned against any neighbouring nation. Rather it would act as a deterrent for any country should it plan to attack India. The South Asian giant has had faced four major international conflicts since its independence from the English rule: other than the 1962 Sino-Indian War, it was involved in belligerence with Pakistan in 1947 (21 October 1947-31 December 1948), 1965 (5 August-23 September 1965), 1971 (3-16 December 1971), and 1999 (3 May-26 July 1999). Nevertheless, in spite of its possession of missiles by the 1999 Kargil War, India never used them against its enemies. The above chart, on the other hand, suggests that India is consolidating its position as a respectable power. Its missile arsenal consists of the Agnis, the Prithvis, the Dhanushses, the Brahmoses, the Sagarikas and the Shauryas, among others. Under development are the Agni VI I.C.B.M.s and the Nirbhay subsonic cruise missiles. In spite of its nuclear capabilities, stock of missiles, and superior armed troops, the world’s largest democracy is resolved to maintain international peace and harmony and strictly observes a ‘no-first-strike’ policy.

India is constantly being ravaged by international armed insurgents, and yet the country’s restraint and tactics in dealing with terrorists have earned it respect in the west. The countrymen, however, has obvious reasons to be proud of their armed forces. The world’s largest standing volunteer army consists of approximately 1.4 million active and 0.9 million reserve personnel. Indian Air Force is the fourth largest in the world. Indian Navy is world’s fifth largest naval force. Reports from the Foundation for National Security Research (F.N.S.R.) indicate that in recent years India has carefully and yet speedily consolidated strategic partnerships with Russia, the U.S.A., and France not only for modernising its troops but also to play major roles in world affairs, especially in ending international conflicts. In spite of the fact that the South Asian country, which is globally the fourth largest economic power in terms of real G.D.P. and the second-fastest growing major economy, has the third largest armed force in 21st century world, it has never sought to colonise any country, neither has it ever acted as an aggressor. The land of Mahāvīra (c. 599 B.C.-c. 527 B.C.) and Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha (c. 563 B.C.-c. 483 B.C.) and, and, later, of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), loves peace and believes in maintaining international harmony as long as possible. So if the D.R.D.O. officials have successfully test-fired a missile, it is most likely that it is for strengthening the country’s military arsenal against any unreasonable invader rather than to terrorise any nation.

- Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 22 April 2012.

Originally printed in:

Editorial Section, Gangtok edition, 19 April 2012 Thursday, p. 4.


The Sinking of the Unsinkable: Remembering R.M.S. Titanic

On 14-15 April 2012, the world commemorated the centenary of the sinking of one of the world’s more luxurious and larger passenger ships, R.M.S. Titanic, in northern Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage from the United Kingdom (Southampton) to the United States of America (New York). The centenary remembrances were observed in India too. Though none of the one thousand five hundred and fourteen people killed in the maritime disaster was Indian, the fabulous amenities of the ship, the financial expenditures associated with the building and capsizing of the passenger liner, and its perceptible pomp and glamour, alongwith the fact that it was an English ship, and India, in 1912, was an English colony, led to the understandable repercussions in India. Though R.M.S. Titanic was not the world’s largest ship, among its 1324 passengers on board were some of world’s more renowned, powerful, and wealthier dignitaries, intellectuals and business personnel, including Isidor Straus (1845-1912), William Thomas Stead (1849-1912), Helen Churchill Candee (1858-1949), John Thayer (1862-1912), Cosmo Duff Gordon (1862-1931), John Jacob Astor (1864-1912), Benjamin Guggenheim (1865-1912), Margaret ‘Molly’ Brown (1867-1932), and Jacques Futrelle (1875-1912). The usual media attention given to these individuals, the combined resources the Titanic passengers ($ 6,000,000), the tragic deaths of some of them, alongwith the spectacular success of the two English-language films Roy Ward Baker’s A Night to Remember (1958) and James Cameron’s Titanic (1997), have led to the ‘acknowledgement’ of the capsize of R.M.S. Titanic as one of the more disastrous peacetime maritime disasters in history.

Sinking of large vessels in war or by collision is as old as the period when they came to be increasingly used for business and ferrying passengers. In well-documented history, the English Tudor carrack warship Mary Rose, which capsized on 20 July 1545 during an Anglo-French naval confrontation, causing deaths of approximately 400 English naval personnel, was one of the earlier ships to sink. On the other hand, the sinking of the German cruise ship M.V. Wilhelm Gustloff by the Soviet submarine S-13 on 30 January 1945 in the Baltic Sea, which killed approximately 9400 Germans, and the capsize of the Filipino passenger-ferry M.V. Doña Paz in the Tablas Strait on 20 December 1987 after a collision with the oil-tanker M.T. Vector, in which 4375 people died, are two of the worst maritime disasters till date. Between 1707 and 2012, there have had been incidents of around 166 peacetime ship-sinking, while between 1588 and 1982, approximately 147 major battleships were lost at sea. Yet, among all these, the tragedy of R.M.S. Titanic has found the most consistent focus, with hundreds of memoirs and fiction having had been written on it to the extent of myth-making. Interestingly, in 1898 the American novelist Morgan Andrew Robertson (1861-1915), who would also predict the U.S. Pearl Harbour Bombing in his short-story “Beyond the Spectrum” (1914), published a novella named Futility which featured an enormous English liner Titan that hit an iceberg on an April night and sank in the northern Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, a stoker, John Coffey (1889-1957), inexplicably left R.M.S. Titanic at Queenstown, Ireland, later claiming to have had a ‘sense of foreboding’ about the voyage and about the fate of the White Star Line-owned 1911 passenger ship which weighed 46, 328 G.R.T., and was 269.1 metres long, 28 metres wide and 53.3 metres high (from keel to funnel-top). The ship, which left Southampton for New York on 10 April 1912, had 9 decks, lettered ‘A’ to ‘G’, and the 29 boilers and 159 coal-burning furnaces that gave R.M.S. Titanic its incredible 23 knots per hour speed, required supply of 825 tonnes of coal a day. Importantly, though there were 2223 people – passengers and crew – on board the luxury liner on its maiden voyage, there were only 20 lifeboats, which could together carry a maximum of 1178 people.

Constant research have recently had made many significant and startling statistical data regarding the so-called ‘unsinkable’ ship known to inquisitive commoners. With its official number of 131428, the ship had 2 fifteen-tonne-anchors, 3 giant propellers, 4 funnels, and approximately 10,000 light bulbs were used to light it up. In 1912, a first-class-passenger would have to pay $ 4350 for a Titanic journey from Southampton to New York; the rates for second and third class tickets were respectively $ 1750 and $ 30. The luxury liner had 4 restaurants, a 30' x 14' swimming-pool, 2 barbershops, 2 libraries, a fully equipped gymnasium, and one fully-equipped photographic darkroom. Edward John Smith (1850-1912), who captained R.M.S. Titanic and went down with it, had 43 years of experience at sea, with 26 years of travelling on the northern Atlantic Ocean, and was assisted by Henry Wilde (1872-1912) as the Chief Mate. History is silent about what caused these efficient officers to ignore warnings – which had been arriving regularly from The Caronia, The Baltic, The Californian and The Mesaba between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on 14 April 1912 – about the presence of large icebergs on their ship’s route and continue with the speed of 21.5 knots. Perhaps the wireless operators John G. Philips (1887-1912) and Harold S. Bride (1890-1956) were so busy forwarding the passenger telegrams that they could not appropriately react to the iceberg warnings. When the watching officers Reginald R. Lee (1870-1913) and Frederick Fleet (1887-1965) finally spotted a large blue iceberg directly in front of the ship at 11:39 p.m., First Officer William M. Murdoch (1873-1912) could do little about stopping the collision that occurred 37 seconds after the sighting.

R.M.S. Titanic went down into the northern Atlantic Ocean, 640 kilometres away from mainland and approximately 2000 kilometres away from her destination, at 02:20 a.m. on 15 April 1912, almost two hours before The Carpathia could arrive for rescue. In between the fateful midnight and earliest morning, hundreds of actions of bravery and cowardice were enacted on board the sinking liner. In recent times, investigative television channels like Discovery and The History Channel have minutely covered the different expeditions undertaken by scientists and historians to the wreck of the ship lying around 3700 metres below the sea-level, and they have identified an improper and poor-quality riveting to be one of the principal causes of the liner’s sinking. Whatever might have led to the disaster, the fate of R.M.S. Titanic continue to remind people of the terrible forces of nature and the dangers of pride and presumption.

– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 18 April 2012. Picture by: Sreeparna Roy (Chattopadhyay).

Silent Garners of the Past: The Museums of Dakshin Dinajpur


As originally published in:

Editorial Section, 16 April 2012, Monday, p.4, Gangtok edition

The Spaniard-American philosopher George Santayana had once predicted, “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it!” In order to avoid this forcible and often-unpalatable repetition, it is necessary to have a well-supplied and accurately-informed knowledge of the past. In the district of Dakshin Dinajpur, West Bengal, the responsibility of imparting historical knowledge to individuals rests with the District Museum of Dakshin Dinajpur and Balurghat College Museum. But lack of interest on part of the Dakshin Dinajpur residents has begun to induce an element of frustration and disillusionment among those who are in charge of these two treasure-troves. What is desperately needed in these trying times is a resurgence of enthusiasm in the glorious past ages of Bengal when chivalrous kings and their courageous soldiers clashed against the marauding foreigners and left behind relics of their times which have been diligently and cautiously collected by the two individuals associated with these museums – Narayan Choudhury, the sexagenarian curator of the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, and Achintya Krishna Goswami, the late Associate Professor of the Department of Sanskrit, Balurghat College, whose personal interest and endeavours had led to Balurghat College Museum becoming one of the more enriched museums in whole West Bengal.

A brief sojourn at the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, in which approximately one hundred and six ancient images, broken idols, statues, and other artefacts dating between 5th and 12th centuries have been carefully displayed for public-viewing, is bound to fill visitors with awe and nostalgia. The museum itself is housed in a reconstructed colonial sub-gaol built in 1910 to incarcerate primarily the armed Indian freedom fighters. Even after independence, it acted as a detention centre until 2002, when it was closed down and a new correctional home became operational near Khanpur. The district museum was inaugurated on 13 October 2004 by two of the the-then left-front ministers of the Government of West Bengal, but the credit for the establishment rests especially with Choudhury, a Balurghat-resident who personally collected almost every historical object displayed at the museum from all over Dakshin Dinajpur, including Harirampur and Gungarampur, and the two former Dakshin Dinajpur district magistrates Sushil Paul and Romit Mutsuddi, who actively supervised the reconstruction of the sub-gaol. Today the museum is a spacious construction, with cream-coloured walls, close-circuit cameras, an internal police camp, and a museology library, which has an impressive collection of approximately 450 rare books. “If funds permit, we shall provide for a light-and-sound show, secure the blackstone and sandstone idols with glass-boxes, and there are plans to inaugurate a Muslim-era-coin-display-centre on the first floor of this museum”, informs Choudhury, the retired-district-library employee and honorary curator, who is assisted in his work by Tapash Mondol (38) and Kaushik Roy (30), other than three personnel from a local security agency. Roy, who seems as interested in speaking about the artefacts as Choudhury, adds, “A catalogue regarding the displays is scheduled to be released by the Office of the District Magistrate of Dakshin Dinajpur, which is directly in charge of the museum’s affairs, very soon”.

In spite of the apparent lack of general enthusiasm in watching historical displays, times are changing, but Choudhury, who had once begun to feel desperate and disillusioned, is happy that they are for the better. “Earlier, people would simply conceal these invaluable statues and idols at their houses or sell them. They would even break the idols to see if there are treasures hidden inside. Now-a-days, we do not have to persuade them too much to hand the ancient idols over to us for display”. Are there noticeable differences in numbers of those who visit the museum as part of the tour to a district that has become famous because of the Bangarh ruins? Both Choudhury and Roy do not believe it. “We get approximately 40 to 50 visitors a day, without remarkable changes in the number other than conducted tours and occasional congregations”, they say in unison. In the register of visitors’ remarks which Choudhury proudly displays to this correspondent are appreciative notes by museologists and archaeologists from different universities of Germany, China, Japan, and the United States of America, other than several Indian dignitaries and educationists. “People should know what wealth is there in their own district! They need to visit here in larger numbers. They should come and watch history speak to them! Where other than the Andaman Islands’ Cellular Jail-National Memorial would you find a prison-house-turned-into-a-museum?” asks the curator. “Visits by officers of the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi, both aided and encouraged us, but we were scared lest these idols, many of which belong to the periods of the Pala (A.D. 750 – A.D. 1174) and the Sena dynasty rulers (A.D. 1070 – A.D. 1230), should be taken away from the district”. Both Choudhury and Roy, who are perceptively satisfied with the official aid and grants extended to the museum by both the Government of India and the state government, are waiting for the Gungarampur Museum to become fully operational in order to cater to the historical interests of the district residents and national and international intellectuals.

On our way to the Balurghat College Museum, barely a quarter of a kilometre away from the Dakshin Dinajpur District Museum, we recall that Bangarh, whose ruins are strewn around the sub-divisional town of Gungarampur, forty-five-kilometres north of Balurghat, was the capital of the ancient Koti Barsha district. During the Gupta period (A.D. 320 – A.D. 550), the whole of northern Bengal was known as ‘Punda Bardhana Pradesh’, which was subdivided into several ‘vishaya’-s (that is, districts). Koti Barsha, also earlier referred to as ‘Debikot’, was one such vishaya. Bibek Das, an assistant professor of history who is in charge of the Balurghat College Museum, discusses the historical significance of the Bangarh ruins with us. He is obviously proud that the museum is the oldest preserving-house in the district, having had been established in 1968, and collects over one hundred blackstone, sandstone, and terracotta images, idols, artefacts, and a number of catapultable-missiles – excavated by the late Professor Goswami – which were used by the military personnel of King Lakshman Sen of Bengal against the invading forces of I.U. Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji in early-13th century. The Turkic military general of Qutb-ud-din-Aybak defeated King Lakshman Sen in A.D. 1206, and started his Tibet expedition from Debikot in the same year only to be assassinated by the later-days’ independent and cruel sultan, Ali Mardan Khilji.

Contrary to the District Museum of Dakshin Dinajpur, Balurghat College Museum is not open to general public viewing. “We are waiting for further release of funds by the Directorate of Archaeology and Museum and the Department of Culture, Government of India, and thereafter we would be in a position to inaugurate the museum within two months”, informs Das. The museum in his charge houses an impressive collection of ruins, images, artefacts, coins, and other historical materials from the ages of the Mauryas (322 B.C. – 185 B.C.), the Sungas (185 B.C. – 75 B.C.), the Guptas, the Palas, the Senas, the Sultani and Mughal periods. There are some fossils, weapons, bronze statues, manuscripts, British-period silver coins and ornaments, and a (68 x 47.4) square-centimetre stone-inscription belonging to the period of reign of Nayapala (A.D. 1043-A.D.1058). Just like the images in the District Museum, the ancient idols and statues preserved at the Balurghat College Museum are principally of the Hindu gods and goddesses, particularly Shiva, Vishnu, and Durga.

Though the two ‘curators’ of the museums perceptively do not have a direct interaction, both of them are hopeful about the ultimate spread of the reputation of Dakshin Dinajpur as a region rich in historical artefacts. “We want more attention of the public to what we are doing. History is invaluable”, chants Choudhury as we bid goodbye to him in a noon swept by a languid breeze, and take photographs. Das, on the other hand, is waiting for the day when the college-museum would be one of the more important visiting-places for archaeologists and historians working in the district.

– Reported by: Pinaki Roy; Balurghat, 13 April 2012. Photographs by: Sreeparna Roy (Chattopadhyay).