Vol. 21 No. 11 & 12 November-December 2014/Muharram

contained in the Quran and Hadith. Hestrongly pitched for India as a suitablecountry for such a centre.Scholars, students and teachersfrom the Jamia Millia Islamia attendedthe lecture. Prominent among thosewho attended the function were Prof.Afzal Wani, Dr. Ausaf Ahmad, Dr.Khalil Ahmed, Dr. Aftab Alam, Dr.Mohd. Ashfaq Ahmed, Dr. Mohd.Mushtaq Tijarwi, Dr. Parvez Alam,Firdaus Jahan, Mohd. KamranSiddiqui, Javed Ahmed, Dr. Mariyam,Dr. Nuzhat Jahan and Dr. RehanBadar.IOS Lecture on Ghadar MovementA lecture on "Ghadar Movementand Need for its Commemoration",was organised by the Institute ofObjective Studies (IOS) here onNovember 15, 2014. Dr. Onkar Mittal,President, Civil SocietyNetwork, New Delhi, whodeliveredthelecture,pointed out that the study ofthe history of Indiannational movement wouldnot be complete till it wasunderstood in the context ofthe Ghadar and ReshmiRumal movements from1913-1915.Dr. Mittal said that while the rulingclass and the middle class remainedpassive about the freedom movement,folk participation provided it strength.He held that roots of the First WorldWar lay in the hegemony over thepeople of the Third World countries.He opined that from the First War ofIndian Independence in 1857 to thetransfer of power and the Partition ofIndia in 1947, the revolutionary forcesacross the country belonging todifferent ethnicities and religions madeceaseless struggle for liberation fromthe British Raj.Despite success of the Britishimperial power in defeating thesemovements one by one, the rebellioncontinued. After the defeat of 1857,renewed efforts began with movementagainst the partition of Bengal underLord Curzon in 1905. He said that inIndependence movement between theyears 1919-1947.Dr. Mittal explained that while themainstream national movement wasled by the Congress party and theMuslim League, the efforts ofrevolutionaries under different bannersof Hindustan Republican Army, AzadHind Fauj and Khaksar Tehrik, madeimportant contributions in developingand providing the will and impetus tothe struggle for independence. He saidthatthemainstreamIndianIndependence movement was based ona premise of accepting the Britishsuzerainty and reaching a compromisewith the British Imperialism. On thecontrary, the Ghadar Party and otherrevolutionary movements were awareof the militaristic character of Britishimperialism and wanted to wage amilitary war against this global evilforce. He insisted thatthe First World Warchanged the course ofworldhistory,theGhadar Party and therelated forces, despitetheir immediate failure,madeimmensecontribution in changingthe course of the historyof British Imperialismin India.The study of the historyDr. Mittal arguedof freedom struggle in itsthat now that the worldproper perspective wouldwas observing the 100thDr. Onkar Mittal delivering his speech; sitting L-R: Dr. Manzoor Alam, Prof. Refaqat Alilead us to conclude that theKhan and Prof. Z.M. Khananniversaryofthereal heroes who relentlesslythe First World War, the large-scalebeginning of the First World War,fought for throwing off the Britishmobilisation of Army in India wasIndia as a nation should also observeyoke died unsung. He said that thecritical to the British victory in 1918.the centenary of the Ghadar Party andseeds of discontent against the BritishThe divergent political forces realisedthe Reshmi Rumal Tehreek. AnalysingEmpire were sown in the First Worldthe anti-national character of Britishthe reason why the firing was orderedWar (1914-18) when the mobilisationRule in India and some madeby Gen. Dyer on unarmed gathering atof some 10 lakh Indians was made.exemplary efforts to militarily fightJalianwala Bagh in Punjab, he said thatThis war claimed the lives of about 1against the British.he was afraid of the repeat of an 1857lakh of them. Terming the First Worldtype situation. Gen. Dyer had told theWar as the bloodiest during the 20thHe maintained that that the GhadarSedition Committee set up in the wakecentury, he contended that out of 7Party of India established in Californiaof Jalianwala Bagh firing that as thecrore soldiers mobilised, one crorein 1913 and the concurrent Reshmipromises made by the Britishwere killed. He also pleaded that afterRumal movement were gloriousgovernment remained unfulfilled, hethe defeat of the Ottoman Empire, theexamples of these efforts. He notedfeared that it might lead to wide-spreadattitude of Indians, including thethat these struggles failed in makingdiscontent in the country.Congress, had changed and theany immediate impact, but onalDr. Mittal said that Americanmomentum with the participation ofconsciousnessandmoralandhegemony was collapsing and thecommon people.intellectual force for the IndianUnited Nations' authority was beingundermined. Greek and Spanish

economy was in bad shape. Similarly,European trade was competing withthe American trade. He lamented thatour policy was being still dictated bythe United States. He expressedconfidence that 80 percent of theproblems of the country could besolved if the leaders reached aconsensus on various issues.The Chairman of the IOS, Dr.Mohammad Manzoor Alam in hisaddress said that there were severalaspects of Ghadar and an insight intothem could unravel many hidden facts.These facts could awaken us to takelessons from the past. Referring toMaulana Abdullah Tariq's recitation ofa Quranic verse, he said that Pharaohhad ordered killing of boys and sparingof girls. It appeared that RSS slogan to"bring brides and save daughters" wason the same lines.scholars,activists.journalistsandsocialIOS Lecture on "Orientalism andEmpire Building: A Study of BritishScholar-Travellers to Arabia (20thCentury)"A lecture on "Orientalism andEmpire Building: A Study of BritishScholar-Travellers to Arabia (20thCentury)" was organised at IOSConference Hall here on November22, 2014. Delivering the lecture, Prof.Ishtiyaque Danish, Professor ofIslamic Studies, Jamia Hamdard, notedthat the Orientalists of the 19th centuryconcentrated more on art, literatureand culture, and the British travellerswho travelled to China and Arabia didthe same. In the later years, the studyof the Muslim world developed into aspecialised field. What contributed toHe quoted JusticeRajinderSachar'sobservation that those whoplayed no role in thefreedom struggle werenow ruling the country.He said that it was for usto decide which model ourcountry would like toadopt.The Vice-Chairman ofthe IOS, Prof. Refaqat AliKhan said that the Indiansfighting for freedom hadgone to Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japanand Indonesia to enlist support. TheSecretary General of the IOS, Prof. ZM Khan observed that IOS hadresolved to organise specialisedlectures, instead of conferences. Hesaid that India's freedom struggle wasunique in the sense that peopleirrespective of caste, religion and faithparticipated in it. Freedom movementwas inclusive in terms of commonpeople's participation, he concluded.Dr.NakhatHusainconducted the proceedings.NadviThe function was attended byteachers and students of Jamia MilliaIslamia and Delhi University, besidesProf. Ishtiyaque Danish delivering his lecturethe interest of the Britishers in thestudy was their thinking that they weresuperior to the Arabs. He argued thatsuch scholarship was always backedby imperial purposes. This was thereason why Britain and the West didnot view the Muslim world from arealistic angle, but treated it as aproblem, he pointed out.Prof. Danish held that prior toEdwardSaid'spioneeringwork, Orientalism,thecommonunderstanding of the term was to studythe art, literature and culture of theEast, particularly the Muslim world.But after the publication of Said'scelebrated work in 1978, it came to theknowledge of scholars that such workshad generally implied a patronisingWestern attitude towards the Muslimsocieties, their religion, culture andcivilisation that flourished in theMiddle East and North Africa. Saidproved that the West believed the East,particularly the Islamic world, wasstatic and underdeveloped which couldbe studied and analysed. Hemaintained that Said even charged thatthe West created, even fabricated, theOrient as static, traditional and miredin history, which implicitly meant thatthe West was flexible, developed,rational and consequently superior.Focusing on three scholar-travellersof the 20th century - Gertrude Bell, St.John Philby and Lawrence of Arabia(TE Lawrence) - he said that theyplayed a role in shaping the modernWest Asian nation-states. He observedthat Bell and Lawrence went to Arabiabefore World War I and Philby wassent to the region fromIndia towards the end ofthewar.BellandLawrence were agents oftheBritishEmpire,though apparently theychampioned the Arabcause. Philby, an IndianCivil Service Officer,believed in the virtue ofthe British Empire andwanted to embark on a"civilising" mission, headded.Prof. Danish opinedthat Philby clashed with his owngovernment, often bitterly criticising itfor its failures. Later on he embracedIslam. He said that it was mainlyLawrence of Arabia who damaged theArabs the most, though for years hewas celebrated as an Arab champion.He planned to divide Islam againstitself and almost succeeded in it. Prof.Danish pleaded for the study ofLawrence's legacy from a Muslimperspective as it might help inaddressing the issues facing West Asiatoday.Prof. Danish explained that Britainprovided Oriental scholarship in orderto elicit information about the Muslimworld. Britishers believed that only

sending troops there was not going toserve the purpose.from philosophy to calligraphy. Thiswas continuing even today.Issues like different tribes, theirloyalty to tribal headmen, leaders whocould be contacted and their supportsought, dominated the decision of theBritish government to send itsGenerals to the Arab world astravellers for collecting informationwhich formed the basis for devising animperial strategy. In this connection,he referred to Philby, who belonged toa respectable British family. Heremarked that it was WinstonChurchill who changed the course ofhistory of the Middle East after actingon the advice of Lawrence, adding thateven today only those ruling familieswere ruling several Arab states as wereliked by Britain. He said that Lawrencedesired that Islam be divided in orderto save Britain from any potentialthreat. This policy was pursued bydividing Islam into Turkish andArabian Islam, so that both of themcontinued to fight, leaving no scope fordanger to the British government.A verse from the holy Quran wasrecited by Maulana Abdullah Tariq tomark the beginning of the lecture. Dr.Nakhat Hussain Nadvi conducted theproceedings. Those who were presentat the lecture included: Vice-Chairmanof the IOS, Prof. Refaqat Ali Khan,Professor of Law, Gurugobind SinghIndraprastha University, Prof. AfzalWani, Dr. Aftab Alam, Mohd. Shafi,K.P. Salim Ahmad, Safi Akhtar,Bismil Arifi, Wasim Ahmad, Ms.Nilofar Khan, Anis Mansoori, PervezAshrafi and Sayed Ashraf.He said that Lawrence was amember of the Round TableConference. He maintained that thoughthe sun never set on the British Empirefor a long while, Arabia was not partof it. Since it was impossible toinclude Turkey in the colonial rule ofBritain, attempts were made to includeArabs as a brown dominion of theBritish Empire. Besides being a youngsoldier, Lawrence was a traveller whoworked as a spy in Arab countries forBritain. Winston Churchill gave himan opportunity to present his viewsbefore the Cairo Conference, so thatthe map of the Middle East could bechanged, he concluded.Earlier, introducing the topic of thelecture, the Secretary-General of theIOS, Prof. Z.M. Khan, commented thatthe issue was concerned with thehistory and image of Muslims. Heregretted that today Islamophobia wasthe global sentiment and every evilwas attributed to Muslims. Muslimscontributedpositivelytothedevelopment of civilisation and Islam'sinfluence was reflected everywhere,It is our duty to protect theConstitution: Dr M. Manzoor AlamThe Indian Constitution in itsPreamble has made it very clear thatthere is no distinction among thecitizens on the basis of religion,language or region but the SanghParivar is trying to undermine thesebasic precepts since BJP came topower, said Dr. M. Manzoor Alam, theChairman of IOS. He was addressing alargely attended meeting organized inhis honour on during November 29-30by the Muslim Association, aprominent educational and culturalNGO in the state capital. It is notsurprising as the people in power nevertook part in the country's struggle forindependence. They want to restorethe Varnashrama Dharma but in theprocess are working against Article 25of the Constitution, Dr Alamcontinued.Mr. Rajnath Singh, the UnionHome Minister says that he and Mr.Narendra Modi come from the sameorganisation and both closely associatewith Zionists as both believe in racialdiscrimination. RSS has no faith inhuman brotherhood or equality. Thecountry is slowly moving fromdemocracy to tyranny, but we have theConstitution in our defence, he said. Itis our duty to protect the Preamble,articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution.He reminded the audience that Keralawas not an island and would not beable to escape the fatal politicalchanges the Sangh Parivar wanted tointroduce."Muslims,unfortunately,aregroping in the dark. They have neithera leader to lead them to safety norladder to climb out of thispredicament. But they are acommunity with inherent energy anddynamism drawn from the holy Quranand Hadith. It is their religious duty tofight slavery and exploitation" Dr.Alam concluded.Adv. A Sharafudeen, the Secretaryof the Association, welcomed theChairman IOS and other guests. Haji KM Salih, the President, chaired thefunction.E Abubacker, former secretary ofAll India Milli Council, Prof P Koya,member of the Governing Board of theinstitute, M A Hameed, Dr O AbdulRahman, Dr Ahamed Pillai andIbrahim Moulavi also spoke.The next day the Chairman haddiscussionswithprominentGovernment officials, journalists andprofessionals. He also attended areception organised by TrivandrumEducational and Service Trust, anotherdevelopment organisation working inthe city.IOS Book Media in Our GlobalizingWorld ReleasedThe Institute of Objective Studies(IOS) organised a function at theDeputy Speaker Hall, ConstitutionClub of India Annexe, New Delhi onDecember 9, 2014 to mark the releaseof the book Media in Our GlobalizingWorld. The book, brought out by theIOS, deals with various aspects of themedia in the present context.Delivering a lecture on the theme,former Union Minister for Petroleumand Natural Gas and currently memberof the Rajya Sabha, Mr. Mani ShankarAiyar remarked, "We are in aglobalising world, but the Indianmedia is not in the globalising world".He explained it by saying that wewere unaware of what was happeningaround us. Citing the example of theSri Lankan President, Mr. MahindaRajapaksa, who ordered election of thenew President, he said that the Indianmedia could not report that thePresident was challenged by five of his

ministerialcolleagues.Similarly,Indian media was silent over ImranKhan running the "biggest show" inPakistan. He observed that the Indianmedia failed to properly report the sateof40Indianlabourers,thewhereabouts of whom in Iraq was notknown.While one witness said that theyhad been killed by ISIS, the Ministryof External Affairs still maintained thatthey were alive. "We did notdistinguish between the terms used forGulf countries", he said. He explainedthat the West called it the Middle East,but we called it West Asia and NorthAfrica. He pointed out that whilereporting in Delhi, our media failed toreport on the world outside the city.That meant that our media was notglobalising.Mr. Aiyar said that the rate ofinterest in the U.S. was 2percent as against 12percent in India. Because ofthis a lot of money (dollars)is parked in India. It wouldbe taken back if the interestrate was decreased in India.Hesaidthatsinceadvertisements contributedthe main revenue ofnewspapers the space fornews was shrinking. Thisput the readers in adisadvantageous position.He briefly referred to majorworld events that madenews, but was not reported in India.Eulogising India's role as a majorplayer in international relations, heheld that India stood by Egypt whenthe Suez Canal was nationalised. Heopined that India mattered to the worldbecause the world mattered to India.Tracing the genesis of the SecondWorld War, he said that Hitler hadbecome Chancellor of Germany in1933, leading to the country'sdismemberment in 1945. Britain andFrance were almost finished at theconclusion of the war. Describing thepitiable economic condition of Britainin the wake of the war, he said that theliving standard of Britons between1945-47 was worse than that duringthe war. Referring to the partition ofPalestine, he observed that India wasthe only non-Muslim and non-Arabcountry to support the cause ofPalestine in the wake of the war. Indiaopposed the partition of Palestine andcreation of Israel.Mr. Aiyar was critical of thereporting of Prime Minister NarendraModi's visit to the U.S. by the Indianmedia. He ridiculed the Indian mediafor describing the visit as a hugesuccess adding that the U.S. mediaignored it. He criticised Indian mediafor blacking out the news of Nepalipeople's protest against Modi's visit toJanakpur temple in Nepal. He said thatthe Nepali press had termed Modi'svisit to the temple and his advice to theNepali Constituent Assembly to draftthe new Constitution soon as aninterference in their country's internalaffairs.Former Chief Minister of Delhi,Mrs. Sheila Dikshit, who spoke as aguest of honour, said that thecredibility of written and visual wordwas at stake. She observed that visualmedia'snewsreportingwasinstantaneous and in real time, theimpact it created was far-reaching. Shereferred to the attack on World TradeCentre in New York. Emphasising theneedformaintainingmedia'scredibility, she wanted to know whythe news of rape and other crimes inthe country was being dished out bythe media. She said that so many goodthings in India and the world wereworth reporting but that made no news.She believed that what was importantwas not knowledge but the quality ofknowledge.The Chairman of the NationalCommission for Minorities, Mr.Naseem Ahmad opined that the mediacould not afford to bebiased, particularly in amulti-religious society.Heexpressedtheconfidence that thedeliberations at thefunctionwouldbepositively taken bymedia persons.Senior journalist andMember,NationalIntegration Council, Mr.John Dayal pleaded thatadvertisementswerealso necessary for anewspaper to support it. He recalledthe days when the national press wascalled "jute press" as the newspaperswere owned by jute mill barons. GroupEditor of the Rashtriya Sahara dailyand the Alami Sahara News Channel,Syed Faisal Ali said that when he cameback to India in 2011 after a gap of 22years, the media had undergonetremendous change by that time.Indian media was plagued by multipleailments and required transplant ofvital organs to survive. He pointed outthat the relationship between media,media houses and viewers had changedand it was money that ruled the roost.He was dismayed to observe that theFourth Estate had failed. He shared hisexperience in the Gulf by saying thatDr. M. Manzoor Alam, Chairman IOS being felicitated at TrivendrumHe held that barring the economicdailies and economic magazines, dailynewspapers hardly touched uponeconomic issues. He lamented that thenewspapers subsumed the interest ofthe middle class as this class was amajor consumer of goods advertisedby a minuscule section. Newspaperstoday ignored issues that concerned 77percent of the population. While asharp jump in the sensex made newsthousands of times, malnutritionamong children in rural and semiurban areas missed the headlines.While calling for introspection by themedia, he insisted that it waspremature to say that the Indian mediawas globalising.

unlike in India, the Khaleej Times,Gulf News and the Arab News carriedseparate pages for India and Pakistan.The ex-Union Minister forMinority Affairs, Mr. K. RahmanKhan, warned that the Indian mediawas diluting values and ethics ofjournalism. He said that advertisersadvertised their products at the cost ofreaders. It was aimed at inducingconsumers to buy their products. Heregretted that the media was notdischarging its duty to properly informthe people. The coverage of poorpeople in the media was scant.enslavement or exploitation of the poorand the weak. Besides, there washarmony and co-existence vs. discordand conflict, love and appreciation vs.hatre

Mohd. Ashfaq Ahmed, Dr. Mohd. Mushtaq Tijarwi, Dr. Parvez Alam, Firdaus Jahan, Mohd. Kamran Siddiqui, Javed Ahmed, Dr. Mariyam, Dr. Nuzhat Jahan and Dr. Rehan Badar. IOS Lecture on Ghadar Movement A lecture on "Ghadar Movement and Need for its Commemoration", was organised by th