God on the Hill, Goddess on the Plain, and the Space In-Between: Tirupati, South India

 

జనవరి 2013 » వ్యాసాలు

రచన : Joyce B. Flueckiger

[జాయ్స్ ఫ్లూకిగర్ (Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger) అట్లాంటా లోని ఎమరీ యూనివర్సిటీ, మతధర్మశాస్త్ర విభాగంలో ఆచార్యులుగా పనిచేస్తున్నారు. బాల్యం అంతా ఇండియాలో గడిపిన ఫ్లూకిగర్, 18వ యేట అమెరికాకు తిరిగి వచ్చి, విస్కాన్సిన్ యూనివర్సిటీ నుండి దక్షిణ భారత ప్రాంత అధ్యయనంలో పిహెచ్.డీ పొందారు. మౌఖిక సాహిత్యం మీద, సమాజంలో స్త్రీల పాత్ర, జాతరలలో ప్రదర్శించే కళల పుట్టుపూర్వోత్తరాలు, తదితర అంశాల మీద పరిశోధనలు చేసి పుస్తకాలు వ్రాశారు. 2013లో ప్రచురించబడబోయే వీరి పుస్తకం When the World Becomes Female: Guises of a South Indian Goddessలో గంగమ్మ జాతర గురించి వ్రాసిన అధ్యాయం నుంచి ఈమాట ప్రత్యేక సంచికలో ప్రచురణకై ఈ వ్యాసం పంపించారు.]

V. Narayana Rao first introduced me to Tirupati in 1992, when he invited me to attend the annual jātara of the downhill grāmadevata Gangamma with him, David Shulman, and Don Handelman. I later returned several times for long- and short-term fieldwork with Gangamma and her devotees. Narayana Rao frequently suggested to me that there was a left-hand caste ethos that crossed the seemingly disparate worlds of the goddess and her sisters downhill and that of the god uphill. This essay explores some images of these connections between uphill and down.

Panoramic Tirupati mountain

The south Indian pilgrimage town of Tirupati is best-known for the wealthy temple (said to be the wealthiest religious institution in the world) and pilgrimage site of the God of the Seven Hills, Venkatesvara. His temple is nestled at the far end of a series of koṇḍas–often translated as ‘hills,’ but which visually, from the plains below, is a mountain with a dramatic rock face overlooking the town. The god draws up to 750,000 pilgrims a day[1]. Locally, the Tirumala temple complex on the mountain is most often referred to in English as ‘uphill,’ a designation that implies a relationship with ‘downhill’, the plains below (Telugu: koṇḍa mīda and koṇḍa kinda.) During the year I conducted research there, Tirupati residents often asked me if I’d gone uphill on a particular day, not “did you go to Tirumala” or “did you take darśan of the god,” or some other direct reference to the god or his temple[2].

Venkatesvara’s wife Padmavati–locally known as Alamelumanga–does not reside with him at the mountaintop, but in a temple on the plains—which the god visits every night. And so, too, Venkatesvara’s brother, Govinda Raja Swamy—his temple with its large gopuram anchors the center of the bustling pilgrimage town downhill, near the railway and bus stations. Venkatesvara is also said to be the brother of the plains-residing village goddess (grāmadevata) Gangamma, to whom he sends an auspicious gift for her annual festival. There is lots of coming and going—literal and imaginative, narratively and ritually–between mountain and plains—the most tangible of which is the footpath up the mountain that many pilgrims walk up instead of taking the more recently available buses and taxis.

Tāllapāka Gangamma

In this essay, I focus on the literal space and movement between uphill and down–as well as some of the ritual and narrative traditions that tie the two together–rather than the journey from home places that pilgrims may take[3][4]. I am also referring to a specific geographic site and the deity who takes up residence uphill in Tirumala, not the multiple temples in which Venkatesvara also resides, including in the diaspora—which is a different form of movement. (It is significant that not all deities have this kind of mobility within or outside of India, such as grāmadevatas who don’t cross the seven seas, so to speak, or even regional boundaries within India; and thus the character of the God of the Seven Hills shifts, when he is removed from the local Tirupati landscape and its constellation of deities.)

This essay draws an imaginaire of spatial, ritual, kinship, and narrative relationships between mountain and plains and their respective divine and human inhabitants—particularly for local residents who live under the shadow of the mountain. I ask what is created imaginatively and performatively by this movement between hills and plains—and what it implies about the nature of the god. That the God of the Seven Hills and his grāmadevata sister inhabit an overlapping imaginaire for Tirupati residents belies the ways in which puranic deities and grāmadevatas have often been analyzed in academic circles as discrete, bounded traditions.

The mountain as anchor

Let’s begin with the physical mountain itself. Coming into Tirupati by train or bus from the east, the land begins to swell from the paddy fields, and travelers know they’re close to the town that is anchored by the mountain range on which the great god lives. The mountain range is called Saptagiri—literally, Seven Hills–which reaches to a height of 1104 meters; god lives on the seventh range, Venkatagiri[5]. The train a pilgrim to Tirupati is riding may be one that is named after one of the ranges–Narayanadri or Venkatadri—and the mountain may have already entered his/her imagination when boarding the train in Hyderabad.

Rising dramatically from the plains, the front range of the Saptagiri anchors and gives identity to Tirupati’s physical and imaginative landscape. Its sheer rock face catches the shifting light throughout the day in a kaleidoscope of colors and shadows; the rock face changes with the seasons when it becomes a resting stop for monsoon clouds or reflects the sizzling hot season heat back onto the town. Although the god actually lives in the interior of the mountain ranges, when Tirupati residents and pilgrims look up at the rock face towering above the town, they see god—the mountain and god are synonymous. And thus the common expression to refer to Venkatesvara’s temple complex of Tirumala: uphill.

Tāllapāka Gangamma

I’ve proposed in my forthcoming book[6] on the plains grāmadevata goddess Gangamma that the mountain and its deity quite literally anchor her in place, too. She and her sisters (the Seven Sisters associated with hot season poxes and rashes) are characterized in both narrative and ritual as moving/fluid goddesses. They traditionally live on village boundaries; and even as villages and towns have expanded and grown up around them, many of these Sisters have not permitted temples to be built over them[7]. There are numerous oral accounts of efforts of worshipers of particular grāmadevatas trying to build permanent shrines that would cover their heads, and the constructions continually falling down or illnesses striking the community until efforts to enclose them were suspended. The goddesses want to be free to move. However, in Tirupati, there are several permanent temples to these Sisters (particularly the Tattāyagunta and Tāllapāka temples); perhaps the sisters permit these anchoring enclosures, in part, because of their relationship to the god on the mountain who is their brother. Conceptually, this stability has opened up devotional relationships with Gangamma that are not characteristic of her worship in surrounding villages—she’s now stable enough, in one place long enough, to permit this kind of personal relationship with her.

The mobile god, between mountain and plains

In contrast to the moving/fluid goddess Gangamma, who I suggest is stabilized in Tirupati by the mountain and its god, the presumably stable god himself also moves, outside of his temple complex and up and down between the mountain on which he lives and the plains below.

Venkatesvara is said to walk downhill every night to visit his wife Alamelumanga. She lives independently of her husband, in a temple downhill in Tiruchanur, four kilometers outside of Tirupati—a living situation that is an extremely rare, if not unique, phenomenon for consort-goddess temples[8]. (Of course, as is typical of Hindu traditions, imaginatively she is multiple: she simultaneously resides downhill and on her husband’s stone chest of his temple form, for example; so what I am talking about here is specifically her independent temple.) I heard several different explanations for this separate living arrangement[9], including Alamelumanga’s jealousy over the god letting Lakshmi (a goddess both distinct from and identified with Alamelumanga) reside along with her on his chest. Another story tells of Alamelumanga’s jealousy over Venkatesvara’s relationship with a Muslim concubine named Bibi Nanchari (said to be a reincarnation of Bhu Devi), and this is why, it is said, she refuses to live uphill with her husband. Still another oral tradition recounts Venkatesvara’s impatience with his wife after their wedding, when she kept forgetting one thing or another as he waited for her to walk with him to his residence on top of the mountain. In exasperation, he told her that he was going to spit on the ground and that she should return before the spit dried up. Insulted by this ultimatum, Alamelumanga told her husband that she was going to stay downhill, and that if he wanted to meet her, he would have to come to her[10].

Feet of the God

Whatever the reason for separate residences, it is said that it incumbent on Venkatesvara to come down to visit his wife every night, rather than her going uphill; and all the walking up and down wears out his sandals, which have to be replaced daily. At the bottom of the footpath going uphill is a temple whose main image is the feet of the god. Pilgrims here place a pair of brass sandals on their heads as they circumambulate the god’s feet, showing humility towards the god as well as embodying a reminder of the distance covered nightly by the god, as he visits his wife.

The god also has other relatives who live on the plains. Most important of these is his brother Govinda Raja Swamy, whose temple gopuram dominates the skyline of the town below. The story is told that when Venkatesvara wanted to get married, he needed to borrow money for his wedding from his brother Govinda Raja Swamy. He is still paying interest on that loan even today, and pilgrims’ gifts placed in the temple huṇḍī (cash box) are said to be applied towards interest on that loan[11]. Huṇḍī cash contents are conspicuously counted in public at the end of every day, visible to pilgrims on their way out of the temple complex after having taken darśan of the indebted god. On his part, Govinda Raja Swamy downhill is a reclining image that rests its head on a vessel he has used to measure the cash interest he’s been paid by Venkatesvara; he’s tired out from expending so much energy on this task. In contrast to his moving brother, Govinda Raja Swamy seems rather sedentary and doesn’t leave his temple.

Venkatesvara’s mother, Vakulamatha, also lives downhill (and then again up), atop a small hill facing Tirupati in Perurbanda village, 15 kilometers from Tirupati. When a devotee proposed in 2007 to fund renovation of what had become a rather dilapidated temple—and illegal quarrying was posing a threat to Vakulamata Devi Temple–the Devasthanam responsible for Tirumala (TTD) decided to build the temple closer to Tirumala, with the intention to help support building temples for Vakulamata at all sites where there is a Venkatesvara temple. Significantly, their proposal was not to build the Tirupati Vakulamatha temple uphill, but at the base of the hill, at Alipiri, where the footpath up the mountain begins. However, this proposed juxtaposition of mother to son raised problems. Tirumala priests and BJP leaders opposed this site “on the grounds that it would go against the Hindu dharma to place the mother at the feet of her son and the idea was dropped.”[12] Several Tirupati residents told me that “in the old days,” pilgrims used to (and still should) visit all Venkatesvara’s family members downhill (wife, brother, sister, and mother), even though their primary purpose is to take darśan of the God of the Seven Hills—an injunction that is being lost on many contemporary pilgrims who are rushing up and downhill under the pressures of modern-day schedules.

Gangamma in one of her jātara forms,
a coconut head (center), and Venkatesvara
in a Gangamma devotee household shrine

Locally, Venkatesvara is known to be a brother of the grāmadevata Gangamma, and he sends bride’s gifts of a sari and pasupu-kumkuma (turmeric-vermilion) to his sister downhill on the first day of her annual festival (jātara)—delivered downhill atop an elephant (protected by a large parasol) to her Tattayagunta temple. While the god himself does not attend the jātara, his gifting is another means of enacting the important links between uphill and down. The association is also performed on the domestic pūjā shelves–where both Venkatesvara and Gangamma have been installed and are worshiped daily–of the families who are key ritual actors in Gangamma’s jātara. One of these families, the Kaikalas, has the mirāsi (rights and responsibilities) to both take the perambulating veṣams (forms) of Gangamma during her jātara and to unlock the temple of Venkatesvara’s brother, Govinda Raja Swamy, every morning. The Kaikalas perform their mirāsi tasks for both Gangamma and Venkatesvara’s brother as integrated ritual systems.

Dicing scene on hillside outside
Hathi Ramji Matham uphill

We return now to other circumstances under which the god moves–when he leaves his temple to visit or give darśan to his devotees. We have two starkly contrasting examples.The first is the story of the god visiting his devotee Hathi Ramji, a north Indian devotee who built a maṭham facing the Tirumala temple. Because of Hathi Ramji’s great devotion, Venkatesvara is said to have visited the former’s maṭham to play dice with him every evening. This story is part of the dominant mythology of the temple, and an image of the two playing dice is engraved on the silver door to the garbhagṛham (inner shrine room) of Venkatesvara’s Tirumala temple. A larger-than-life-size plaster image of the two dicing friends has been built on the hillside of the maṭham that faces the temple’s outer courtyard, visible to all pilgrims standing in darśan lines (the pushing and shoving at the doorway to the garbhagṛham is such that they may well miss the image on the silver door of the garbhagṛham).

Image of prostrating devotee

A second example of the god willingly leaving his temple for the sake of his devotees is less talked about, for reasons that will become clear. In this case, the god is said to walk downhill to the base of the mountain, which, in earlier days, was the closest one of his untouchable devotees was allowed to come. (Some say this is the cobbler who daily made a new pair of sandals for the god.) Since the devotee was not allowed uphill, god himself walked down daily to give him his darśan. A poignant image has been created in cement at the base of the footpath (the image is likely much newer than the narrative)—the male devotee lying prostrate towards the mountain, covered in turmeric and vermillion. Smaller images to his right are identified as his wife and children. Many pilgrims prostrate next to this figure before they begin their journey up the footpath; those whom I asked did not know the story or identity of the prostrate figure, but thought that the image was a sign of humility that they should emulate.

A prostrating devotee

The mobile god Venkatesvara and his independently residing wife Alamelumanga provide us with traces of the cultural ethos of the rising 15th century cash economy of the region and the left-hand caste Vijayanagara kings who began the transformation of Venkatesvara’s temple into the center of ritual and economic power that it has become today[13]. Left-hand caste communities are associated with cash and mobility: traders, herders, artisans, and leather workers. Women of these castes have traditionally had more mobility and independence than women of the right-hand castes associated with the land, who are (ideally) protected by males and their mobility restricted, like the land itself[14][15][16]. Another trace of the left-hand-caste associations with the Tirumala temple is also indicated in the practice of first morning darśan of the god being given to representatives of a Golla (left-hand, herding-caste) family.

Footpath: the space between

Footpath to Tirumala

Before the car road was constructed and hundreds of buses and taxis began to transport pilgrims, they walked uphill. And today hundreds of pilgrims continue to do so, believing that to walk up the mountain brings more merit than riding a motorized conveyance[17]. The footpath begins at the base of the Seven Hills at a place called Alipiri[18]. The path is 9-11 kilometers long; I’ve walked the path several times, but had no way to mark the distance and have found conflicting information on exactly how long it is. These days a series of cement steps numbering 3350 are built into the path, having been constructed by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD); much of the path is covered by galvanized-tin roofing to provide shade and cover from rains. Depending on their health and the rituals they perform on the way, most pilgrims reach the top of the hill in three to four hours.

Pilgrims with Sandals

The start of the path is indicated by a white-washed gopuram—the first in a series that mark for the foot-travelers the beginning of each of the seven mountain ranges, all the way up to the highest Venkatagiri. Immediately in front of the first gopuram, towards the plains side, is the previously mentioned temple dedicated to Venkatesvara’s feet, the Pādāla temple. Here the story of Venkatesvara wearing out his sandals going uphill and down is visually performed when pilgrims circumambulate the feet of god three times while carrying a set of brass sandals on their heads (these sandals are available for use with a Rs. 5 donation to the temple). Wealthy devotees may bring with them an offering to the god of new brass or silver sandals. When, in 2005, a devotee presented a pair of gold sandals weighing 32 grams, it was an event marked by a ritual abhiṣekam (anointing of the feet) with 100 litres of milk and widely reported in local newspapers[19].

Pasupu-kumkuma vow ritual
on footpath going uphill

Each of the 3350 cement steps on the footpath is covered with ritual applications of turmeric and vermillion (pasupu-kumkuma), the result of individual back-breaking vows by female pilgrims[20]. The visual contrast of looking at the steps going up or going down is dramatic—the vertical portion of each step brightly colored on the way up and the horizontal portion of the steps visible on the way down a somber gray.

Cradles tied for fertility

I spoke with several women about the kinds of vows they were taking or fulfilling—and they were happy to take a break from their rigorous task to talk with me. One young woman was accompanied by her brother, who rather sheepishly looked on as his sister explained that she’d taken a vow that if he were accepted into engineering school, she would fulfill the vow of marking every step on the footpath with pasupu-kumkuma. Another woman was performing the ritual-marking vow prior to its fulfillment, asking the god for fertility. The pasupu-kumkuma-marking ritual is the most visible, common ritual along the path, but a spectrum of other vow-making rituals adhere to the path, as well—including stacking small rocks and tying ‘cradles’ (for fertility) on low-hanging tree branches. The footpath rituals provide opportunity for fulfillment of individual vows and other rituals without dependence on any intermediaries, characteristic of rituals performed in the temple precincts uphill.

Seven Sister shrine on
Tirumala footpath

The TTD has recently built along the path 10-foot images of each of the ten avatāras of Visnu; and pilgrims also pass numerous more traditional shrines, including one to the Seven Sisters in a cave on the side of the mountain where the footpath and car road intersect. There is a wildlife park fenced off along one part of the path. And of course, the periodic, welcomed tea stall, where merchants have also set up small stalls of both religious and non-religious trinkets. But finally, very few on the footpath choose to walk for the entertainment of it all or as a trek (as has become a tradition at several Himalayan pilgrimage sites); walking up the footpath is itself powerful ritual, giving devotees bodily knowledge of and intimate access to the mountain on which the god dwells.

Vignettes of intersecting worlds

Two vignettes illustrate other kinds of fluid ritual associations between the God of the Seven Hills and the plains goddess Gangamma. My fieldwork associate and I had stopped at Hathi Ramji Matham (site of the north Indian religious order of Hathi Ramji, which had earlier administered the Venkatesvara temple uphill) to ask why the maṭham was one of the three sites where, during her jātara perambulations, the tongue of Gangamma (in her form of a veṣam taken on by a Kaikala-caste male) was pierced with a tiny silver trident. Having been directed by a sadhu sitting on the maṭham verandah into a large office, we were warmly greeted by a Brahmin man whom we came to know as Srinivasan, a ’superintendent’ at the maṭham who works with legal affairs and land registration. He answered our questions about the tongue-piercing rather cryptically, and then surprised us by saying (speaking in English): “Madam, you would be interested to know that I’ve taken stri veṣam [female guise] every year for 35 years.” He was referring to the jātara ritual of male participants taking on stri veṣam (saris, braids, breasts) in fulfillment of vows they (or their mothers on their behalf) have made to the goddess.

For several years prior, I had been saying, in talks I had given on Gangamma jātara, that Brahmins do not participate in the jātara except indirectly (perhaps sending pŏṅgal or bali to the goddess through the hands of a non-Brahmin servant). But now, here was a Brahmin who had participated in the jātara for 35 years by taking stri veṣam; and he spoke of this ritual as something quite ordinary, not exceptional for him as a Brahmin. Srinivasan explained that he had been sickly as a child and that his mother had made a vow (mŏkku) to Gangamma that if he regained full strength and health, he would take stri veṣam. At the urging of his grandmother, however, he said he had kept up the tradition for many years following fulfillment of the initial mŏkku. His grandmother had told him (again, reported in English), “Taking veṣam, just once a year, you can get a corner on women’s śakti.” He lives both in the worlds of the God uphill and the closely associated maṭham and the grāmadevata sister downhill with seemingly no sense of disjuncture.

The second vignette draws upon my encounter with an elderly Mudaliar-caste widow who had entered a ritual relationship with Gangamma by exchanging wedding pendants (tālis) with the goddess. She wore a large, dark-red pasupu bŏṭṭu and had matted hair that, she explained, was a sign of the presence of the goddess. Gangamma and devotee had, she reported, argued back and forth when the woman tried to shave off the matted hair and it continued to grow back. Once, she reported, the matted hair took the form of a snake’s hood, and she asked the goddess why this shape. Gangamma replied, “This is Venkatesvara’s jaḍa [braid; matted hair].” The presence of the grāmadevata goddess was revealed through a form of the god uphill. The kinship and ritual associations between the god on the mountain and Gangamma downhill remind us of the integrated worldview in which Tirupati residents live, incorporating both puranic and village deities, narratives, and rituals.

Conclusion

A View of the Tirumala Peak

In the local Tirupati imagination, the mountain and the plains below–and the deities that inhabit them—are part of a singular landscape with relationships and rituals that intersect and connect uphill and down. While the mountain anchors the landscape and stabilizes the traditionally moving, fluid Seven Sister goddesses, the god on the mountain–whose stability is performed as he gives darśan to thousands of pilgrims daily–also moves.

There are, of course, other deities who move out of their temples or other dwellings: for example, the river goddess Ganga Devi as she moves from her site of origin up in the high Himalayas (Gangotri) through the north Indian plains (Rishikesh, Varanasi, Allahabad) to the Bay of Bengal; Siva in Kedarnath as he descends in a dramatic procession from his Himalayan mountaintop to take up residence in the valley below for the winter season[21]; and much shorter temple processions of utsava murtis (festival, moveable images) for which the god leaves his temple during annual festivals, such as Jagannath’s Rath Yatra in Orissa, London, and Atlanta. What these movements signify and create varies with the specific contexts of each moving deity. Here in Tirupati, I suggest the god’s movement both reflects and creates a left-hand caste ethos; his movement also sustains/embodies his relationship with both the goddess on the plains and his devotees who live under the shadow of his dramatic mountain.

Interestingly, while the mountain looms large over the imaginative and physical landscape of Tirupati, the great 15th century poet Annamaya who sang daily to the god uphill for many decades (composing up to 13,000 padams) rarely mentions the mountain landscape in which Venkatesvara lives, except in the poet’s choice of name of address to the god—God on the hill[22]. Most of his padams are intimate love songs that look inward, not to the external physical landscape that may invoke in other contexts stirrings of passion. But I close with one padam that is particularly evocative of the “space in-between” that is traversed to create relationship between god and lover/devotee—here imaged by distant rivers reaching the sea; we could imagine a similar padam being composed around the image of the footpath between Tirupati’s mountaintop and plain below:

Distant Rivers Reach the Sea*
Tell him this one thing.
Distant rivers always reach the sea.
Being far is just like being near.
Would I think of him if I were far?
The sun in the sky is very far from the lotus.
From a distance, friendship is intense.
Distant rivers reach the sea.
The moment he looks at me, I look back at him
My face is turned only toward him.
Clouds are in the sky, the peacock in the forest.
Longing is in the look that connects.
Distant rivers reach the sea.
To speak of desire is as good as coming close.
Haven’t I come close to him?
The god on the hill is on the hill,
And where am I?
Look, we made love.
Miracles do happen.
Distant rivers reach the sea.

*(Translated by V. Narayana Rao and David Shulman[13])

Read this and other articles at  http://eemaata.com/em/

AKKANNA AND MADANNA OF GOLCONDA

AKKANNA AND MADANNA OF GOLCONDA WERE VICTIMS OF HINDU HATRED By AURANGZEB

Prof Dr Colonel K Prabhakar Rao (Retired)

Akkanna and Madanna were brothers and the sons of Bhanoji Pant an official at Hanmakonda in Golconda kingdom in the bye gone days ( 16 and 17 century). There is also a dispute that they were not real brothers and also were not Telugus and had Maharashtrian origin (1). Their lives were of importance as Madanna rose to become the Hindu Prime minister of Golconda State during the reign of Last ruler Abul Hassan Kutubshah ( tanasha .. meaning good king). Madanna entered the service of Syed Muzaffar Army Chief of Golconda State and by hard work rose to the rank of Mir Jumla with a title Surya Prakash Rao. There are stories that he betrayed his master Mir jumla and these can not be believed as most of historians were Hindu haters and Muslim abettors.

There is also a story that sultan Tanasha who was much impressed by Madanna and made him the Mir jumla. As per the story, once the Sultan received a letter from Emperor Aurangzeb and when it was opened nothing was found written on the scroll and the King was much puzzled. No one could answer him. When the Sultan declared that he would reward any one who could read some thing from the letter, Madanna revealed the secret of the letter by using onion juice that produces Ammonia gas. Under the effect of Juice, black letters were found in the letter and it was read by Madanna. At request of the Sultan, Madanna wrote a letter in similar way to the emperor. The Sultan was greatly impressed and made Madanna the Mir Jumla. The story is very interesting . However it is known that Syed Muzaffar who was the Mir Jumla became arrogant and was showing insubordination to the king. In fact Syed Muzaffar played key role along with Madanna in the struggle for succession after the death of Abdullah Kutubshah the 6 th king of Golconda. As a matter of fact the eldest son in law Nizamuddin of Abdullah kutubshah made all plans to become Sultan and Syed Muzaffar soon took over control of the palace and important installations being the commander in Chief of Golconda Army (2). He ensured that Abul Hasan became the Sultan after the death of Abdullah Kutubsha. Syed Nizamuddin the eldest son in law of the late king was put to death and queens of late king were put behind bars who withered away soon. In gratitude king Abul Hasan made Syed Muzaffar as Mir Jumla. But soon he became headstrong and this forced the Sultan to ease him out of the top post and he made Madanna as Mir Jumla with title Surya Prakash Rao. Akkanna his elder brother was made as army commander (3).

Madanna proved himself as an efficient administrator and Golconda state flourished under his authority and this was very much resented by many Muslim nobles. Aurangzeb at Delhi was a Suni Muslim and he hated Shiite Kutubshahi kings and always looked for some reason to attack and annex the Deccani kingdom. Shivaji the great Maratha king also visited Hyderabad during the times of Madanna and stayed for a month as a royal guest. A treaty for mutual support and help was drafted and was signed by both the rulers and this was very much resented by the emperor. Madanna developed strong Foreign Policy and stabilized the kingdom (4).Kutubshahi kings and Adilshai kings of Bijapur realized the danger from Mughals and signed treaties of cooperation and also this was strengthened by matrimonial relations. These developments automatically angered Mughals and they always planned to attack these kingdoms. Madanna in 1677 proceeded with 20000 troops to help Bijapur sultan against Mughal invasion. However he returned after he was persuaded by Bahadurshah the Mughal commander. Madanna political adjustments and policies made Golconda a prosperous state and this was the greatest eye sore to Mughals. In Golconda too they has natural enemies who could not digest rise of Hindu nobles. It was natural in those days of Muslim rule and Hindu subjugation by the Muslims. There were pressing demands from emperor Aurangzeb to remove Akkanna and Madanna as important officials in the state and the king of Golconda was very reluctant as he knew their worth. But palace conspiracies were growing.

Madanna knew about the impending attack on Golconda and advised the Sultan to take shelter at a far off strong fort such as Konda palli or Warangal. But the sultan with his queen s and others took refuge in the Golconda fort and was soon to be trapped by the invading Mughal troops. Certain queens of past king Abdulla Kutub shah were angry that the troubles faced by the state from Mughals were the result of presence of the brothers at the helm of affairs in the kingdom. They planned for their elimination. There are also arguments that the king had hand in their elimination, But this can not be believed. Some say their elimination was with full knowledge of the Sultan. On March 16, 1686, Akkanna and Madanna were returning from the palace after seeing the king and paying respects to the goddess in Golconda fort. They had no clue that their death was waiting for them. Their guards and escorts were already bribed and bought by the conspirators. At appropriate moment the killers led by Habshi Ghulam attacked the brothers while the escort and guards looked other way. Akkanna an Madanna were dragged out of their palanquins and brutally done to death. Their bodies were dragged on the streets of Golconda and their heads were cut off and were sent to the Mughal prince who inurn sent them to the emperor who was at Ahmednagar. He was much pleased and in the presence of his troops the heads were crushed under elephant legs (5). Thus ended the glorious power of the brothers who were the only Hindu nobles who rose to such positions in a Muslim rule.( Raja kishan Prashad was the prime minister to the Nizam 6 in 20 th century at a much later date in Hyderabad state under Asifjahis rule ). Akkanna Madanna perished in very sad manner because they did not build any military support for themselves and did not have their own troops for support. They were just helpless officials depending on the security provided by the state. Their security was very easily breached by the conspirators. Once the brothers were killed the attackers fell o the homes of Hindus and killed Rustom Rao a brave commander and sister’s son of Madanna. Scores of Hindu homes were looted and burnt to ashes. Their women were carried away by attackers. Many women died jumping in wells. n hearing the news it is believed that the Sultan became very much upset and lost stability of mind for some time. Such narrations indicate that the Sultan was never a co conspirator.

Soon the Mughal forces invaded Golconda and encircled the fort. But the administration well built by the brothers took charge of the fort and could withstand for nearly a year. The defense of the fort was impregnable and the emperor was getting impatient. Famine struck the area and many troops died due to sickness and famine. Aurangzeb paid no heed to his religious advisers who were very much against the persecution of co Muslim rulers. He was very adamant. Military victory over Golconda appeared remote to Mughals. His efforts to bribe Abdul Razak Lari the Commander of Golconda forces were fruitless. But Mughals succeeded in bribing a junior commander Abdulla Pani who opened a small window in the walls of Golconda on night of 21 September 1686. Some of the selected Mughal troops entered the fort at middle of night and made their way to the main gate killing the resisting men. Soon the main gate Fateh darwaza ( Victory gate) was opened and the Mughal troops triumphatantly entered beating drums. Abdul Razak lari on hearing the commotion along with few followers rushed on horse devoid of armor and fought tooth and nail with Mughal troops. He received multiple wounds and the horse carried him away to Nageena Bagh in the fort and dropped him there before it fell dead. The unconscious hero was rescued by the Mughals and was treated by the Mughal physicians to health. The much pleased Emperor was highly impressed with Razak lari and offered him service in his court that he politely refused and preferred to live retire life. Some claim that he took service with the emperor for some time and later retired. The sultan Abul Hasan was taken captive by the Mughal commanders an was taken to the emperor with due honors. The emperor welcomed him with respect and he was sent to Daulatabad Fort in present Maharashtra where he was interned at a palace. The captive Sultan stayed in captivity and died later on. Kutub Shahi dynasty was thus extinguished. It was annexed to Mughal empire as a province. Aurangzeb died after few years of his death and victor and vanquished were buried close to each other. That is the ultimate truth. Aurangzeb destroyed south Indian kingdoms but could not take a fistful of the soil with him when he died. He died broken, worried, and with humiliation at his inability to subdue Marathas in Deccan. His policies destroyed Mughal dynasty and empire.

Akkanna and Madanna rose to the highest level by their sheer hard work and efficiency. The courtiers who were mostly Afghans, Persians and Turks could not tolerate their rise and a section of them abetted their murders. Aurangzeb could not tolerate a Hindu noble to command the position of a Prime Minister. He probably engineered their murder through the palace at Golconda. The brothers although were wise could not defend themselves became easy targets to the killers. The saddest part is that the present government has not recognized their contribution to the state and the memory of these brothers are left to winds (6) (7). There is no monument for them. Not even a street has been named after them in Hyderabad state. There are two villages Akkanna Pet and Madanna Pet around Charminar that have become part of the city. On Tank Bund scores of statues are erected. In the city on various roads and in parks numerous statues of politicians stand to day collecting dust. But there is no place for these brothers. What apathy indeed! Is it because their origins as Telugus are doubted. Or is it due to false allegations against tem by the shady and biased Muslim historians. The main allegations leveled against madanna by the pseudo Muslim historians are many. These are Corruption, Insulting army, Killing of women of harem, persecution of employees, support to Sambhaji, negligence of defense of state and betrayal of sultan etc. these are false allegations and can not stand ground. On the whole Andhrites are ungrateful to the memory of Akkanna and Madanna.

శ్రీ కౌముది ఫిబ్రవరి 2013

Centenary of first Andhra conference to be held in Bapatla

Members at the First Andhra Conference pose in front of the Town Hall. 

Demand for separate Andhra state on linguistic basis was first raised at the meet

The historical town is in the cusp of another milestone as it is gearing up to celebrate the centenary of the First Andhra Conference held in 1913. It was in this conference that the demand to create a separate province for Telugu speaking people on linguistic basis was first announced. The conference was held on the premises of Edward VII Coronation Memorial Town on May 26, 1913. 

The conference was attended by about 800 delegates and 3,000 visitors from the Telugu speaking districts of Madras Presidency. Eminent leaders including, Desabhakta Konda Venkatappaiah, Bogaraju Pattabhi Seetharamaiah, Mutnuri Krishnarao and Pingali Venkaiah, were present at the conference. B.N. Sarma, the then member of the Legislative Council of Madras, took the lead in organising the conference, which saw a vociferous appeal by the members to create a separate state for Telugu speaking people. Leaders like Nyayapathi Subba Rao Pantulu, M. Adinarayanaiah and Mocherla Ramachandra Rao wanted the conference to tread cautiously on the issue, but Vemavarapu Ramadas Pantulu moved a resolution at the open session in favour of a separate state. 

Emotional speeches

The emotional speeches stirred up the feelings of the members to put up a united fight to achieve the goal.

They argued that though Telugu districts accounted for 40 per cent of the people and 58 per cent of the Madras Presidency, Andhras had no effective voice in the politics of the region and were treated as second class citizens in the composite province. “With considerable effort and after going through excerpts of the struggle in various books, we managed to bring a book on the conference. We are also planning to celebrate the centenary in a big way and release a commemorative stamp to mark the occasion,’’ said convenor of Forum for Better Bapatla P.C Saibabu. 

Excerpted from The Hindu, January 29, 2013

It is very probable that the Hindu philosophy had some influence on the Stoic philosophy of the Greeks through the Alexandrians. There is some suspicion of Pythagoras' being influenced by the Samkhya thought.

Conversation at Harvard, 1896. Complete Works, 5. 298.

Kumbh Mela: The Largest Gathering on Earth

Jan 14, 2013 |

Tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims are now descending on Allahabad, India, joining an estimated 8 million already there for the Maha Kumbh Mela. Held every 12 years at one of four places in India, the Kumbh Mela lasts nearly two months and is considered to be an especially auspicious time to bathe in the holy river for purification from sin. In 2001, the last time the festival took place, more than 40 million people gathered in an area smaller than 20 sq km (7.7 sq mi). This year, the predicted number of visitors tops 100 million. Collected here are images from the preparation and first days of the Maha Kumbh Mela, with possibly more to come in the next few weeks.  

[33 photos] 

Gene flow from India to Australia about 4,000 years ago

Long before Europeans settled in Australia humans had migrated from the Indian subcontinent to Australia and mixed with Australian aborigines

This press release is available in German.

		IMAGE: Four-thousand years ago, Australia was no longer connected to the mainland as it had been during the ice age. The immigrants thus crossed the ocean, arriving by boat. Click here for more information.

Australia is thought to have remained largely isolated between its initial colonization around 40,000 years ago and the arrival of Europeans in the late 1800s. A study led by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, now finds evidence of substantial gene flow between Indian populations and Australia about 4,000 years ago. In addition, the researchers found a common origin for Australian, New Guinean and the Philippine Mamanwa populations. These populations followed an early southern migration route out of Africa, while other populations settled in the region only at a later date.
Australia holds some of the earliest archaeological evidence for the presence of modern humans outside Africa, with the earliest sites dated to at least 45,000 years ago, making Australian aboriginals one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa. It is commonly assumed that following the initial dispersal of people into Sahul (joint Australia-New Guinea landmass) and until the arrival of the Europeans late in the 18th Century, there was no contact between Australia and the rest of the world.
Researcher Irina Pugach and colleagues now analysed genetic variation from across the genome from aboriginal Australians, New Guineans, island Southeast Asians, and Indians. Their findings suggest substantial gene flow from India to Australia 4,230 years ago, i.e. during the Holocene and well before European contact. "Interestingly," says Pugach, "this date also coincides with many changes in the archaeological record of Australia, which include a sudden change in plant processing and stone tool technologies, with microliths appearing for the first time, and the first appearance of the dingo in the fossil record. Since we detect inflow of genes from India into Australia at around the same time, it is likely that these changes were related to this migration."

		IMAGE: This shows Max Planck researcher Irina Pugach at work in the laboratory. Click here for more information.

Their analyses also reveal a common origin for populations from Australia, New Guinea and the Mamanwa – a Negrito group from the Philippines – and they estimated that these groups split from each other about 36,000 years ago. Mark Stoneking says: "This finding supports the view that these populations represent the descendants of an early 'southern route' migration out of Africa, while other populations in the region arrived later by a separate dispersal." This also indicates that Australians and New Guineans diverged early in the history of Sahul, and not when the lands were separated by rising sea waters around 8,000 years ago.

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Original publication:
Irina Pugach, Frederick Delfin, Ellen Gunnarsdóttir, Manfred Kayser, Mark Stoneking Genome-wide data substantiates Holocene gene flow from India to Australia PNAS, Online Early Edition, January 2013

The Lord bless you all

So long as millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them! I call those men who strut about in their finery, having got all their money by grinding the poor, wretches, so long as they do not do anything for those two hundred millions who are no better than savages! We are poor, my brothers, we are nobodies, but such have been always the instruments of the Most High. The Lord bless you all.

From Chicago,1894. Letter to Alasinga. Complete Works, 5. 58.

2013 సంక్రాంతి శుభాకాంక్షలు

2013 సంక్రాంతి శుభాకాంక్షలు

Infinite universal individuality

To gain the infinite universal individuality, this miserable little prison-individuality must go. Then alone can death cease when I am one with life. Then alone can misery cease when I am one with happiness itself. Then alone can all errors cease when I am one with knowledge itself.... Science has proved to me that physical individuality is a delusion, that really my body is one little continuously changing body in an unbroken ocean of matter. Advaita (unity) is the necessary conclusion with my other counterpart, soul.

At the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893. Complete Works, 1. 14.

Yesterday, India celebrated National Youth Day on the occasion of Vivekananda’s birth anniversary. It was his 150th Birth Anniversary, and it’s worth wondering whether Vivekananda remains relevant to the youth of India. 

Read full article

 

India’s rape problem is also a police problem

 Posted by Max Fisher on January 7, 2013 at 7:00 am

Indian demonstrators push against a police barricade during a protest calling for better safety for women. 
(SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images)

Public outrage over the recent shocking assault and gang rape of a 23-year-old Delhi woman developed into outrage over India’s much larger sexual violence problem, which is now turning to outrage against the police. It’s not hard to see why: Three-fourths of the perpetrators of India’s 24,206 rapes in 2011 are still at large, and that’s not even including the rapes that go unreported, which are thought to be the majority of cases. The women and girls who do report being raped can sometimes face antipathy or outright hostility from police.


Indian law enforcement officials do not have a particularly strong reputation for assisting rape victims, or even for taking them seriously. When a mob of men beat and raped the young Delhi woman on a bus, later throwing her and her male friend naked into the street, police argued for 20 minutes about jurisdiction once they arrived before someone even covered the victims with a blanket, according to the friend. The friend, who was also beaten, said that police then declined to call an ambulance or even help the badly wounded young woman into her friend’s car. It was, he said, two hours before they made it to the hospital. A police spokesman disputed his account, saying officers had gotten her to a hospital in minutes. Later, the Delhi police chief, Neeraj Kumar, proposed a solution: “Women should not go out late at night.”


A few days after the Delhi incident, another young Indian woman, a teenager, was raped. According to her family, the police who arrived to help asked demeaning questions, worsening what would already be a difficult and shameful experience for many Indian women.


“The police refused to file a complaint. Instead, they asked my sister such vulgar details, it was as if she was being raped all over again,” the victim’s sister told The Washington Post’s Rama Lakshmi. “There was no lady police officer, they were all men. My sister cried in front of them and kept asking, ‘Would you still ask such questions if I were your daughter?’” It took two weeks for the police to register her complaint, and the three men she’d accused remained free until after the young victim, a full 44 days after her rape, committed suicide.


In yet another recent case, police reportedly pressured a 17-year-old victim to marry one of her rapists — or at least to reach an informal financial settlement with the men. One police officer pushed her to withdraw the case, according to a family member. She, too, committed suicide. Last spring, undercover journalists with the Indian magazine Tehelka recorded a series of conversations with police officers, one of whom told them, “In reality, the ones who complain are only those who have turned rape into a business.”

Is it any wonder that activists seem to think most rapes in India go unreported? Or that most of the rapes that are reported don’t yield an arrest? Or, for that matter, that India has such a severe problem with sexual violence? As Lakshmi and Olga Khazan explained in a recent post, part of the problem is that only a tiny fraction of police officers are women, meaning that rape survivors must discuss their ordeal with men — a daunting prospect in any society, much less one as gender-segregated as India. Still, as they note, police gender breakdowns, like the police themselves, are just part of the problem, in many ways a product of larger social attitudes toward gender and sexuality.


Leading Indian politicians have suggested, even in the face of rising public outrage, that the victims might be to blame, arguing as one did that women should not “roam in streets at midnight.” A legislator whose father also happens to be India’s president called the anti-rape demonstrators “highly dented and painted” women who go “from discos to demonstrations.” Last February, a female legislator, repeating the belief that victims of rape are actually prostitutes, suggested that a recent high-profile rape had not been rape at all but merely “a misunderstanding between two parties involved in professional dealings. Between the lady and her client.”


However deep and broad these attitudes might go in Indian society, it’s to some extent the police who ensure they will be acted upon — by shaming victims, declining to investigate or otherwise perpetuating a system in which the woman or girl is presumed to somehow carry the real blame for what happened to her. Addressing problems with law enforcement would almost certainly not fix India’s sexual assault problem on its own, but it could go a long way.


Activists talk about two different ways to improve how police in India deal with sexual assault. The first, and probably most important, calls for the daunting and probably generations-long work of changing Indian social attitudes toward sexuality and gender, which have been codified at least since Victorian-era British colonial rule. In the meantime, activists tend to focus on reforming some of the more egregious practices that help institutionalize these old ways of thinking.


Here, for example, is Human Rights Watch on the “two-finger test,” whereby a doctor’s subjective evaluation of a victim’s reproductive organs can trump all other forms of evidence:

India does not have a uniform protocol for medical treatment and examination of survivors of sexual assault, making responses ad hoc and unpredictable, and in the worst cases, degrading and counter-productive. This is reflected in the continued use of the so-called “finger test,” which Human Rights Watch documented in a 2010 report. While conducting medical examinations, many doctors record unscientific and degrading findings, which involve noting the “laxity” of the vagina or hymen, apparently to determine whether the victims are “virgins” or “habituated to sexual intercourse.” Often doctors, police, and judges look for evidence of “struggle” or “injuries,” especially hymenal injuries, in the medical examination report, discrediting those who do not report such injuries.

Ending this practice, an extension of the belief that women and girls who might be having sex are probably themselves to blame for getting raped, is not going to end the thinking behind it. But it would help, activists say, to at least edge that thinking out of mainstream police procedures, maybe making it easier to develop institutions that could better serve India’s 600 million women and girls.
India’s protesters are calling, often literally, for the blood of the Delhi rapists. India’s politicians are looking for a way out of their impasse, stuck between outraged women demanding reform and a billion-person society probably not able to change very quickly. Dealing with the police problem could be a logical place to start.

By Max Fisher and the Washington Post Foreign Staff

To the woman warrior I did not know

Monsoon Bissell

 

FOR CHANGE: As our tribute to you, we are not going to be shamed into keeping quiet and holding ourselves responsible for the violence we endure.’ Students register their protest in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. Photo: T. Vijaya Kumar 

You have given us the courage to say: Enough, no more silence.

I heard you fought to protect yourself. I heard that your fight back caused them to get more violent and brutalise you further. I heard you never gave up. I heard you said you wanted to live. 

As I write this I clench my thighs together because the torture you were subjected to could have happened to any woman. I am so sorry that our worst fear became your reality. You didn’t live but you have brought so many of us to life — apathetic bystanders of all kinds have begun to care and participate. Your presence in this world has changed all our lives forever. Yet, I am left with a sense of loss and pain that you were sacrificed at this altar so our complacent spirits could be resurrected. At 23, I am sure you had other dreams. Maybe you wanted to be remembered for what you did of your own free will rather than what was done to you. Maybe you just wanted to live simply, laugh with your male friends, wander with your girlfriends, watch TV with your family, become a medical professional who served all people regardless of how they valued women. At 23, you have come to symbolise our struggle — the collective and individual desperation we all feel. In my small way, I want to honour you by writing about breaking the silence. 

Silence = Death. This slogan was used by holocaust victims, the gay community adopted it and now we, Indian women like you, have to embrace this message. Enough. No more silence. Rape is death and let no one tell us differently. It kills a way of life. It often kills a spirit. You did not let them murder yours and all of us stood in solidarity with you. Women all over this country have risen and shouted out. Some men have joined the chorus, and now we have found a collective energy. We cannot lose this momentum, this commitment, this chance at another life. You have given a voice to those of us who feel our screams like yours in that bus have never been heard. We are the ones who have stayed in homes where we are beaten and raped by men who either gave birth to us or ones we married. We are the women who have been molested in front of a whole crowd and found not one who would bear witness. We are the ones whose teachers have taught us life lessons by betraying our trust. 

My horror

 

As our tribute to you, we are not going to be shamed into keeping quiet and holding ourselves responsible for the violence we endure. I must break my silence before I ask others to do the same. 

I was 15 years old and walking with two male friends in the lane behind my house when I was attacked by seven men. Other than with a trusted few I have spoken about it only once — at a gathering hundreds of miles from where it occurred. After 25 years, you have given me the courage to bring this home and say it out loud here. It was 9:30 at night and we wanted to take a break from studying for the board exams. I had a bounce in my step, I threw back my head as I laughed, I felt at home in my body. Maybe that is what evoked their rage. It was not desire. It was an act of aggression. Their words were mean, their actions terrifying. I was very lucky that their ring leader lost his balance as he rammed his bicycle into my abdomen for the second time. It created an opening that let me flee. The split second break in that menacing circle saved my life. I wish your bus door had swung open too. I know you would have been saved from this savagery and you would have lived. 

Family’s support

 

Your father may have been like mine. He believed in your right to be equal. He sold his land in order to educate you in a culture that only approves of land being sold for a son’s future or a daughter’s dowry. Mine too broke tradition by insisting I not stay silent and take back my power. He and my grandfather put me between them and took me out that very night looking for the perpetrators. They insisted I take this action so that I would not be afraid to walk the streets I grew up in. We never found them. I am like hundreds of women who have endured this and far worse. We have all fought our internal battles and some brave ones have taken bolder steps. Because of the men in my life who supported and celebrated me, I did not walk away feeling less than. I want every woman to live in the company of such men. Sadly, many do not. However privileged and emancipated I may feel, I am also well aware of my vulnerability — a vulnerability that makes us different from men. We live out that vulnerability every day and are constantly told to protect ourselves — stay out of harm’s way. I see that logic when we are taught to avoid playing with fire. How do we avoid sharing our world with men? How is it that they don’t get the message that their unwanted attention burns? Who is telling them that there are no excuses. None of it is acceptable — not the leering on the streets or the unsavoury office banter, not the pinching on the bus or the groping at protest rallies. It always starts in a “small” way and only escalates when the perpetrator sees his actions endorsed or excused. 

As a culture we are still preaching to our girls not to push the boundaries and protecting our boys when they overstep them — we give them a pass for making a pass. It creates a type of entitlement that is so deeply ingrained that what they cannot get they destroy. I am tired of hearing that if we as women circumscribe our lives further, kill our individuality more, suppress our natural desires, stop believing in the right to live as we choose and stay locked up, we will be safe. Imprisoning us isn’t the answer and is no longer possible. Women like you are the change that Gandhiji spoke of and this fight for independence is causing men to find beastly forms of suppression. 

The entire nation is mourning your loss — a woman we did not know. Your power is far greater than what those men expected it to be. May your passing bring with it a change that sweeps across this country and makes it a place where other women like you can ride buses and make it home alive. 

(Monsoon Bissell is a life coach and freelance writer, developing a project called “Narrative Healing.”)

People stared at us and left, but didn’t help: Delhi gang-rape victim’s friend

Zeenews Bureau

New Delhi: The male friend of the Delhi gang-rape victim - the only witness in the case - on Friday spoke for the first time in front of the nation and exclusively told Zee News that his friend was “positive” and wanted to live even after the horrific incident that took place on the night of December 16.

"I wish I could have saved her," the friend exclusively told Zee News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary.

The victim’s friend explained to Zee News in detail what exactly happened on that fateful night of December 16.

He said that no one came to their help after they were thrown off the bus by the six accused. Even after the police arrived, it took the cops over two hours to take them to hospital.

The victim’s friend said that since December 16, protests have been happening and people are on the streets. “Many things have come out in the media, but people have been interpreting it as per their convenience. I want to tell them what we faced that night. I want to tell what I faced, what my friend faced,” he told Zee News, expressing hope that people could take a lesson and save others’ lives in future.

He said that the six accused had lured them into boarding the bus on the night of December 16.

“The occupants of the bus, which had tinted windows and curtains, had laid a trap for us. They were probably involved in crimes before also. They beat us up, hit us with an iron rod, snatched our clothes and belongings and threw us off the bus on a deserted stretch.

“The bus occupants had everything planned. Apart from the driver and the helper, others behaved like they were passengers. We even paid Rs 20 as fare. They then started teasing my friend and it led to a brawl. I beat three of them up but then the rest of them brought an iron rod and hit me. Before I fell unconscious, they took my friend away.

“From where we boarded the bus, they moved around for nearly two and a half hours. We were shouting, trying to make people hear us. But they switched off the lights of the bus. We tried to resist them. Even my friend fought with them, she tried to save me. She tried to dial the police control room number 100, but the accused snatched her mobile away,” he said.

“Before throwing us off the bus, they snatched our mobiles and tore off our clothes in order to destroy any evidence of the crime,” he added.

“After throwing us off the bus, they tried to mow us down but I saved my friend by pulling her away in the nick of time. We were without clothes. We tried to stop passersby. Several auto rickshaws, cars and bikes slowed down but none stopped for about 25 minutes. Then, someone on patrolling, stopped and called the police,” he told Zee News.

The victim’s friend rued the fact that three PCR vans arrived at the scene after about 45 minutes, but wasted time in deciding under which police station’s jurisdiction the case fell.

He said nobody, including the police, gave them clothes or called an ambulance. “They were just watching us,” he said, adding that after repeated requests, someone gave him a part of a bed sheet to cover his friend.

“My friend was bleeding profusely; I was more concerned about her. But instead of taking us to a nearby hospital, they (police) took us to a hospital (Safdarjung) that was far away.”

The victim’s friend said that he carried his badly injured friend to the PCR van on his own as “the policemen didn’t help us because my friend girl was bleeding profusely and they were probably worried about their clothes”.

“Nobody from the public helped us. People were probably afraid that if they helped us, they would become witnesses to the crime and would be asked to come to the police station and court,” he told the channel.

“Even at the hospital, we were made to wait and I had to literally beg for clothes. I asked one ‘safai karamchari’ to give me some clothes or curtains and he asked me to wait. But the clothes never came. I then borrowed a stranger’s mobile and called my relatives, but just told them that I had met with an accident. My treatment started only after my relatives came,” he said.

“I was hit on the head. I was not able to walk. I was not able to move my hands for two weeks,” he said, detailing the injuries he suffered on that horrific night.

“My family wanted to take me to our native place but I decided to stay in Delhi in order to help the police. It was only after the doctors’ advice that I went back to my home and started private treatment there.”

“When I had met my friend in the hospital, she was smiling. She was able to write and was positive. I never felt that she did not want to live,” he said.

“She had told me that if I wasn’t there, she would not have filed the complaint. I had decided that I would ensure the culprits are punished,” the victim’s friend said.

He said that his friend was also worried about the cost of the treatment. “I was asked to be with her to give her strength.”

“When she gave the first statement to the lady SDM, only then I came to know what had happened with her. I couldn’t believe what they did to her. Even when animals hunt, they don’t mete out such brutality to their prey.

“She faced all of this and told the magistrate that the accused should not be hanged but burnt to death.”

“The first statement she gave to the SDM was correct. She had given that statement with a lot of effort. She was coughing and bleeding while giving the statement. She was on ventilator support. There was no pressure or interference at all. But when the SDM said that she had faced pressure, all her (friend’s) efforts went in vain. It is wrong to say that the statement was made under pressure,” the victim’s friend told Zee News.

When asked what suggestions he would like to give in order to ensure that such incidents don’t recur, the victim’s friend said, “The police should always try to ensure that the victims are taken to the hospital as early as possible and not waste precious time looking for government hospitals. Also, witnesses should not be harassed so that they come to the court to testify.”

He said that one cannot change mindsets by lighting candles. "You have to help people on the road when they need help,” he added.

“Protest and change should not only be for her but for the coming generations as well.”

The victim’s friend said that he wanted the Justice Verma committee - set up by the government to suggest measures to improve women’s security - to make the law easier for complainants.

“I would like to tell Justice JS Verma, Justice Leila Seth and Gopal Subramanium that we have a lot of laws, but the public is afraid of going to police as they wonder whether the police will register an FIR or not. You are trying to start fast-track courts for one issue, but why shouldn’t every case be fast tracked,” he said.

He further said that “only he can tell what he has gone through… what I have faced…”

He disclosed that “no one from the government has contacted me so far to ask about my treatment. I have been paying for my own treatment so far.”

When asked why people don’t want to talk about such issues in public, the victim’s friend said, “In our society, we try to hide such things. If something bad has happened with us, then we try to hide thinking what will the other person say. Also because our friends and relatives talk behind our back about such incidents, that we try to prevent them from becoming public.”

“If I had decided not to file the complaint and just call the incident an accident, this case would not have become this big.”

He rued the people’s indifference towards him and his friend when they were lying on the road. “They (the people) had cars, they could have taken us to the hospital. Every minute was important for us. But they didn’t. Who will change this attitude?” he asked.

He said his mental condition was so bad after the incident that he was not able to sleep properly. “I didn’t share this with anyone. When such a thing happens to us, we often ask ourselves: ‘Am I to blame for this? Why did I go to the mall? Why did I board that bus?’ I was not able to even speak properly for two weeks.”

He said that if his friend was “treated in a better hospital, she would have probably been alive today.” It may be noted that the gang-rape victim was first treated at the Safdarjung Hospital before being shifted to a hospital in Singapore, where she passed away.

He went on to say that one of the police officials wanted him to say that the police were doing a good job in the case.

“Why did they want to take credit for doing their duty? If everyone does their work well, nothing more needs to be said in the matter,” he said.

"We have a long battle to fight," he said further, adding, “If I didn't have lawyers in my family, I would not have been able to fight this.”

The victim’s friend also told Zee News, "I was in the police station for four days rather than being in a hospital where I would be treated. I told my friends that I had met with an accident."

"The internal judgement of the Delhi Police should prompt them to assess for themselves if they have done a good job or not," he added.

"If you can help someone, help them. If a single person had helped me that night, things would have been different. There is no need to close Metro stations and stop the public from expressing themselves. People should be allowed to have faith in the system," he went on to say.

"I never had thoughts of leaving her and running away. Even an animal would not do that. I have no regrets. But I wish I could have done something to help her."

“She has awakened us. If we can carry on this fight with her name, it would be tribute to her,” he said.

First Published: Friday, January 04, 2013, 20:53

శ్రీ కౌముది జనవరి 2013