Taliban: Its Story

 

In my previous blog on Afghanistan being a pawn in the power game of superpowers, I had promised to write about the Taliban, its origin and nature in my next blog. So here is the story. Though things are politically quiet as of now in Kabul, no nation so far has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate regime in Afghanistan. The UN is worried about the humanitarian plight of the ordinary Afghan people, who have not received their salaries, and are selling their goods at home to buy provisions for their families. Some of the Western countries like Germany are contemplating distributing aid to Afghan people, not through Taliban, but directly, may be through some NGOs. We are yet to see that drama unfolding.

Taliban mainly consist of Pashtun tribe, who live on both the sides of the un-demarcated border with Pakistan. The Taliban governor of Kandahar, the one-legged Mullah Mohammed Hassan Rehmani, (Hassan for short) was the founder member of Taliban. He had taken part in the war to oust Russians in 1989. He is number two to Mullah Omar, who rules from Kandahar, and refuses to shift to Kabul even after they had won it, and refuses to visit any other place or let foreign delegates visit him. Mullah Omar is one-eyed leader. Many of Taliban leaders are disabled in similar way, a reminder of 20 years of constant warfare. To fight Soviet forces USA, Saudi Arabia and some Western and Islamic countries spent around $10 billion to arm and equip the Mujahidin. CIA of USA and ISI of Pakistan kept pumping funds to Mujahidin, but without reckoning that another force was rising up in Afghanistan.

Durrani Pashtuns started to resist in Kandahar and won it after a bloody fight in 1980s. Kandahar is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul. Ahmad Shaw Durrani from Kandahar had established Durrani dynasty in 1761 and his descendants had ruled Afghanistan for 300 years. He was the one who united the Afghan territory to form the Afghanistan nation. Kandahar was famous for fruit orchards, growing grapes, melons, mulberries, figs, peaches and pomegranates, as it is an oasis town set in the desert. These fruits were exported to India and Iran.

Taliban emerged as a force to reckon with by the end of 1994. Durranis had lost Kabul, the capital and the country was divided into warlord fiefdoms, all fighting one another and switching sides, in an array of alliances, betrayals and bloodshed. Non-Pashtun leaders in Kandahar sold off everything to Pakistani traders to make money and to buy weapons. The warlords seized homes and farms, threw out the occupants and handed them over to their supporters. The Commanders abused the population of Kandahar by kidnapping young girls and boys for their sexual pleasures. The local population fled as refugees from Kandahar to Quetta in Pakistan. Mujahidin leaders from Kandahar like Mullah Omar, Hassan, etc., who had gone to Kandahar and Quetta to study in the madrassas there often discussed such misuse of their population by the bandits, the so-called leaders. Many were searching for a solution.

After much discussion these divergent groups who were deeply concerned about the country, gathered around Mullah Omar in Kandahar and formed an agenda which will become the declared aims of Taliban: to restore peace, disarm the population, enforce Sharia law, and defend the integrity and Islamic character of Afghanistan. Most of them were full or part-time students of madrassas. They chose the name Taliban for themselves. A talib is an Islamic student, one who seeks knowledge, a student. Taliban is the plural of Talib. They distanced themselves from the party politics of Mujahidin and proclaimed themselves a movement for cleansing the society rather than to grab power and rule. Many of them were born in Pakistan refugee camps, educated by the half-educated mullahs in Pakistani madrassas and learnt their fighting skills from the Mujahedin parties based in Pakistan. These young Taliban hardly knew their own history, but learnt from the madrassas the ideal Islamic society established by Prophet Mohammed in 7^th century and wanted to establish such a society in Afghanistan as an answer to its problems.

Mulla Muhammed Omar, born near Kandahar, a Pashtun, was selected as their leader. Their main aim was to save the Afghan people from the hands of Mujahidin. He functions from Kandahar which they capture in 1980 and rarely goes outside. Several secretaries take notes of his discussions and decisions and Omar dishes out Afghani notes from a tin trunk to his commanders and people in need; in another trunk he keeps US dollars. These tin trunks are the treasury of Taliban movement! This small group of Omar started to help people by releasing captured teenage girls and boys by the warlords and the public started to come to them to settle their local disputes as well. Omar said they were fighting Muslims who had gone wrong, almost like a Robin Hood, helping the poor against the rapacious commanders. He asked for no rewards or money but asked people to follow the Islamic system that he will set up.  

October 1994, some 200 Taliban from Kandahar and Pakistani madrassas attacked the garrison in Spin Baldak in the border of Pakistan and with the help of Pakistan captured a large dump of arms. They captured Kandahar by November 1994. By December 1994, their strength went up to 12,000 with Afghani and Pakistani madrassa students joining them. Some of them were as young as 14 years and 24 years old. Taliban started to implement their agenda – they closed down girl’s schools, banned women from working outside the home, smashed TV sets, forbade sports and recreational activities, and ordered all males to grow long beards. Within the next three months Mullah Omar and his army of students had taken control of 12 of Afghanistan’s 31 provinces.

 Taliban had spent most of their young lives in refugee camps in Baluchistan and NWFP of Pakistan, imbibing Koranic education given in dozens of madrassas in the borders, run by Afghan mullas or Pakistan’s Islamic fundamentalist parties. They had no formal education in mathes or science or history or geography. These boys were from a generation that had seen no peace in their country. They were what the war had thrown up in the shores of Pakistan and Afghanistan borders. They were literally orphans of the war, rootless, jobless and economically deprived. The only thing they knew was Koran and to fight. They were under an all-male brotherhood, for they knew nothing else. They had grown up without women – mothers or sisters or aunts or cousins. The boys lived rough and tough lives, and never knew the company of women. They felt threatened by women whom they have never interacted with in their conservative madrassas and subjugated them, a fundamental marker of difference between Taliban and the former Mujahidin. They fought well and were invincible; even when they lost they kept coming back till they won. Recruitment was no problem, as willing students from Pakistani madrassas kept joining them in hoards.

Haret, a major city, with non-Pashtun population, fell to the Taliban in 1995. In April 1996, Mullah Omar was nominated as the ‘Commander of the Faithful’, and the country was renamed as the Emirate of Afghanistan. Kabul fell to the Taliban in September 1996. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia switched from Mujahidin and started to fund and support Taliban. By then they controlled 22 provinces of the 31 in Afghanistan. Omar continued to rule from Kandahar and never even visited Kabul, which was the capital and had non-Pashtun population. I suppose the rest is history.

Welfare of the population was hardly a concern for Taliban. They believed that Allah will take care of them one way or the other. Either they die or live! It is all Allah’s mercy. By 2000, as Taliban was sheltering Osama Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia stopped funding them. Pakistan became its sole supporter; the only country in the whole world to help and bolster Taliban, for it was their own creation. The Taliban were born in Pakistani refugee camps, educated in Pakistani madrassas, and learnt their fighting skills from Mujahidin based in Pakistan. How could they disown them! But what is the price that Pakistan will pay for this foolhardy support of a terrorist group close to its border! Talibanization of Pakistan is the result of such a policy. Pakistan might soon face a Taliban-style Islamic revolution in their country. Afghanistan itself has become a haven for Islamic internationalism and terrorism.  Taliban has remained today internationally isolated and a pariah in the world of politics.[1]

 

 

   

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[1] Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: The Story of the Afghan Warlords, Pan Books, 2000

Afghanistan: A Pawn in the Power Struggle

Who is not troubled about the recent happenings in Afghanistan? America and its NATO allies have packed their bags and left by 30^th September 2021, after 20 years of warfare, first to defeat and drive away the terrorist organization Taliban in 2001 and then in the end to hand over the country and its administration to the very Taliban that they had thrown out. Trying to understand these macabre happenings in Afghanistan, I read some books on Afghanistan history[1] to know what made them makes them an enigma, evasive to every empire and government that tried to subdue and rule them.

Geographically Afghanistan is a land-locked country in central Asia, but being in the center of the land route connecting Central Asia, the Middle East with China and Indian subcontinent in South Asia to the countries in the West Asia and the Western Europe, it played an important role as an ancient trade route. It was also the invasion route due to its high Khybar and Bolan passes in the Himalayan mountain range, through which invaders poured into the rich alluvial plains of India. The conquering armies of Persians, Greeks, Mauryans, Huns, Mongols, Moghuls, British, Soviets and lastly Americans have all dealt with these passes. The country was at the cross roads of empires.

Persian Emperor Cyrus conquered northern Afghanistan, but he met his death fighting near Jaxartes River (in northern Afghanistan) in 530 BC. Darius I inscribed in 520 BC the territories he had inherited from Cyrus on a rock face in Behistun (in today’s Western Iran), which include Bactria (Balk), Areia (Herat), Arachosia (Kandhahar), and Gandhara, all in today’s Afghanistan. He came up to Karachi through Indus River and created a new province of Hindush, modern Sindh in modern Pakistan. Indians had fought in the war of Xerxes I against Greece in 480 BC! Here in Bactria, Alexander the Great who after conquering Persian Empire of Darius III in 331 BC, wanted to go to the ends of the worlds, got married, wishing for a progeny. He married Roxana, the beautiful daughter of Oxyartes, Bactrian king in 327 BC. Thereafter he turned to conquer India, crossing Hindu Kush passes. After a few wins, as his troops refused to move another inch, he returned to Babylon and died in 323 BC when he was just 33 years old!

Seleucus, Alexander’s general won the eastern part of the empire, Bactria, Afghanistan and Indian territories. Parthians, Scythians, Kushans, by turn over ran Afghanistan, followed by the barbaric White Hans in the 4^th century AD from central Asian steppes.  Pushtans, population presently found in between Pakistan and Afghanistan are said to be descendants of Greek and Scythian war tribes, living in remote mountains in Hindu Kush. By 7^th century AD Arabs pushed into Afghanistan and the population became Muslims gradually. Afghanistan also had given birth to empires of its own, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Durranis, Khiljivad who had sent their tentacles to India and established their rule and power over there. Even the Mughals had come from Afghanistan; Baber the founder of Mughal Empire fled from Afghanistan, having been driven out of Kabul which he was ruling from 1504 to 1526 came to India, and established his kingdom in 1526. His remains were buried in Kabul. It is also the birthplace of Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrian religion of Persia.

In 1221 AD Mongols descended into Afghanistan like a fury and laid waste the country. Tamerlane crossed into Afghanistan and then devastated Delhi of Mughal Empire in 1398 AD. The Silk Road was predominant during these times. Central Asia or India is yet to regain the wealth they had during this time. But Afghan tribes were never fully subdued, but retained their warrior culture high up in the rugged mountains. It has been said that entering Afghanistan was a simple task, but holding it is not.

A unique phenomenon of an Empire of indigenous Afghanistan rose up in 1722, with Mahmud at the helms. Next came Nadir Shah, who in 1739 swept through Afghanistan and along with the tribe of Abdalis from Afghanistan entered India though Khyber Pass and dealt a death knell to Mughal Empire. He massacred the people of Delhi and walked away with the prestigious Peacock Throne of Jahangir with its Koh-i-Noor diamond among other precious jewels. After Nadir Shah’s death, Ahmad Khan, an Abdali general built up an empire of his own in 1747 in Afghanistan and for the first time the conquered Afghanistan turned to be a conqueror. He also inherited the Koh-i-Noor diamond, a gift from Nadir Shah. This was called Durrani Empire, whose descendant Shuja Shah lost his kingdom and was installed in the throne by the British India Company in the First Afghanistan war of 1835.

As the centuries passed by and sea routes were discovered by the 15^th and 16^th century AD to India and China, the Western countries started to use the sea power to conquer nations, colonize them and be the masters of trade in the spices, silk, linen, tea, opium and other goods available especially in India and China. The land trade route lost its importance, and with it Afghanistan. In the 19^th century with the Great Russian Empire of Tsar on its north pressing down and the British Indian rulers, the East India Company in the south pushing up, Afghanistan became a buffer zone between the two great powers in their “Great Game” to world power in central Asia. British Empire collapsed in the 20^th century with most of its colonies gaining independence, especially its ‘Jewel in the Crown,’ India in 1947. The Russian Empire was dismantled after the October Revolution of the Lenin in 1917, which brought Bolsheviks to power and the institution of the Communist regime as USSR, Soviet Russia in 1922. With these, the partners of the Great Game changed; the world’s super powers Russia and the United States of America came onto the game. Soviet Russia invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 and tried to establish its communist ideology there. Fear of spread of Communism triggered USA to enter the game. In this power struggle of outside forces from 19^th century, Afghanistan became an unwilling pawn.

Afghanistan has the Hindu Kush Mountain passing in its center and has many narrow mountain passes and river valleys, but the land itself being very harsh and forbidding. It is a land that can be easily invaded but difficult to hold on. Afghanistan’s population consists mainly of tribes, living in the remote mountain regions, who are governed on a feudal basis with no respect for a central government in Kabul or elsewhere, with no sanctity for laws, excepting tribal laws. These high mountain tribes have never been conquered by any one throughout history and they had maintained their independence for thousands of years. Though there are internecine wars between the various tribes, whereby they hone their fighting skills, when their country is threatened by any foreign invaders, they unite together, descending from their mountain tops on their horses devastating the enemies.

On the flip side, a major characteristic of Afghans is that they are not reliable. One cannot depend on their word or promise or treatises neither can one depend on the continued support of their tribal fighters. Their leaders will swiftly change sides in a war, if they see the other party is winning, leaving the King or Ruler to flee, as it happened recently when President Ghani fleeing the country as the Afghans soldiers surrendered Kabul without fighting, switching over to the side of the winning Taliban. During the first Afghan-British India war of 1839-1842, the same fate happened to the then ruler, Amir Dost Mohammad. He had to flee when he saw his tribal chiefs switching sides accepting bribe money paid by the English. They will sell the country and honor to the highest bidder without scruple. The inconsistency and inconstancy of the Afghan chiefs are proverbial. An Afghan is said to have no conscience at all. It is impossible to rely on their promise, their friendship or their fidelity.

Afghan warriors could be ruthless, whether they invoke their religion Islam’s name or their own tribal loyalties. They are brutal, barbarous and merciless when they deal with their enemies. They can swear an oath on the Koran, but in absolute disregard of the oath they can do exactly the opposite of what was sworn. Their way of striking terror in the hearts of the enemy fighters was to massacre them and devastate their villages and houses. Such a massacre of Persian troops who had surrendered in Ispahan (in today’s Iran) to Afghan ruler Mir Mahmood in 1722 was ordered by him. Murder and pillage were their pastime. On his conquest Mir invited all the Persian nobles of the area to a great festival. Eager to please the new sovereign, they all came suspecting nothing. All of them were butchered by Mir’s soldiers in a treacherous act and their soldiers and relatives of several thousands were put to death. The terrible carnage lasted for a month reducing the population of Ispahan to half.

To Afghan courage is the greatest of virtues; to kill and massacre numerous human beings is courageous for them. It is bloodletting of the enemy that is appreciated by the Afghan tribes and their leaders. Not that they cared for their own women-folks. They would sell their daughters and wives to the enemy for money and if necessary sacrifice them for money or for their own pleasure of power. They could kill them if it was required. When an Afghan chief is killed the new leader and his tribal leaders share his women. Afghans fight with courage and savagery which are natural to them. As Afghans are nearly all soldiers by birth, there is no dearth in recruitment. Their state is in a permanent state of disquietude and trouble. They are the most turbulent nation in Asia and most difficult to govern.  

Well, my friends, more of this in the next blog, especially about the origin and growth of Taliban. Right now I have exceeded my self-imposed rule of not to write more than four pages in a blog!

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[1] J.P. Ferrier, “History of the Afghans,” 1858, 2^nd Impression, Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi: India, 2020

W. Dalrymple, “Return of a King: An Indian army in Afghanistan,” Bloomsbury Publishing , London,2013, New Delhi, 2014

S. Tanner, Afghanistan: A military history from Alexander the Great to the war against the Taliban, Rev. ed., Da Capo Press, 2002

 

How Bible influenced and shaped the Civil Service in India

 

It is true that East India Company which started to take up the reins of administration in India after winning the Battle of Plassey in 1757, gradually nibbled at India incorporating more and more area and princely states, until at last it was able to gobble up the Mughal Empire and the whole of India in one form or the other. India became a colony of the British, the sole rationale of her existence was to serve Britain, by exporting her raw materials to Britain, by providing job opportunities to the Europeans and the British; serving as soldiers and non-commissioned officers to win their wars in distant lands and so on. Within 50 years of the Battle of Plassey, wealth got drained from Indian States. By 1857, India tried to heave a last attempt to free herself from the stronghold of the foreign rule of the British, which was strangulating her. But the attempt failed and the rule of India passed on to the hands of the British Crown from that of the Company. Not that things improved under the direct rule of the Queen of England. The exploitative nature of the governance remained and imperialism had even stronger hold on India. By the time India got her independence from British rule in 1947, after years of struggle which gathered momentum since the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 in Amritsar, India which was rich in natural resources and was exporting to the world her textiles and spices and gems had become a net importer and a poor underdeveloped country. The British sucked the blood out of India and left her emaciated.    

How could the Christian England have done such a disservice to our nation or to any nation for that matter? Then, in what way we can say that Bible influenced and shaped the Civil Service in India? Will it not be a misnomer, an oxymoron? For this we need to know the lasting influence of the British Empire in India. It is definitely not just England’s fault that she was able to conquer India or fleece her. India was divided and politically weak, with the Mughal Empire tottering at the brink of collapse and the British who were watching the political scene with keen interest, stepped into the vacuum and grabbed the rule of Indian. None of the Indian rulers or the Empires was powerful enough to stand against them, neither the Mughals nor the Marathas nor any princely state. The major difference between the Mughal rule, who also came as conquerors and captured the rule in India in 16^th century and the British conquest in 18^th century is that the Mughals settled down in India and the wealth they made stayed in Indian soil. But the British emptied Indian wealth and carried it all to their country, Britain. It was an economic exploitation of almost two hundred years and it changes the course of Indian history. They sucked the wealth out of India and left her dry and a poor country. It is only now after 74 years of Independence we are lifting our head as the third largest economy in the world. But the British, to their credit, left us some good institutions. We became a democracy, with rule of law, before which all are considered equal, institutions like Reserve bank of India, Supreme Court of India, Comptroller and Auditor General of India and so on; also a Civil Service which connected the length and breadth of the country giving India a ‘steel frame’ to build herself upon. To this we will turn now.

The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is nothing but a continuation of the civil service of the British Raj known as the Indian Civil Service (ICS). As in the other fields in IAS also the conduct rules, recruitment rules, examination rules and the training methods reflected the deep influence of the ICS traditions. Though the political set up siphoned off the riches of India, the administrators at the rural levels and in the villages had compassion for the people of India, and administered justice in a fair manner. People of India especially the lower castes and the Dalits, who are the outcastes under the Hindu Caste system, had suffered ill treatment for millennia under the heavy hands of Brahmin and generally all the upper castes under the tyranny of Brahminical Hinduism, received much better treatment. The ICS showed compassion for such downtrodden people in the rural areas and villages. They were given justice under the British Law and were treated the same for education and employment under the State. 

Perception of Corruption:

One important area where British ICS excelled was in ethical sphere. There was very less corruption among ICS members and those who were corrupt were punished immediately and the system remained ‘incorruptible.’ This was the scenario even when I joined the Service in 1974. By the 80s, this has started to crumble, for corruption had found its way increasingly within the successor of the incorruptible civil service, the IAS. In my thesis published as a book in 2011, “Values and Influence of Religion in Public Administration,” I analyze the ‘why’ of corruption rather than the ‘how’ of the corruption that was and is still plaguing the country. It will be seen that in India, since ancient times, corruption was considered a way of life and no one thought it was wrong. It was considered natural for a government official to be corrupt, for if honey is placed in the tongue of someone, he will lick it up. It was the British who showed that corruption was morally wrong and took strict measures to see that the British ICS which originated as a corrupt and immoral service was brought under control and the Service turned out to be an ‘incorruptible’ Service.’ ICS laid emphasis to integrity, honesty and neutrality in administration. Any misconduct of these men in authority was questioned and debated in British Parliament and appropriate measures were taken. Clive who laid the foundation of British Empire was hauled up in British Parliament for the money he swindled from Indian rulers and though absolved of criminal punishment, it led to his taking his own life. Dyer who ordered shooting of unarmed civilians who had gathered at Jallianwala Bagh was enquired into and was relieved of his official charges and banned from any future employment under the Crown in India. They took action. What made them so?

Keeping aside the exploitative nature of their rule, we need to see the influences that operated in their ruling an alien country to trace the origins of such ethical conduct. This in my book I have shown was due to the influence of Christian and secular moral thought that prevailed in Britain in the 17^th century and up until the last quarter of 19^th century greatly influenced the ICS. These values were based on biblical teachings, starting from Ten Commandments and Christ’s teachings and his life. Corruption is strongly condemned in the Bible. The civil service was expected to maintain absolute integrity, devotion to duty and keep up an officer like conduct, and these could be traced directly to the Puritan influence in England. Using the position of an officer to influence in government contracts or secure employment for a member of one’s family was frowned upon. Patronage system had plagued English civil administration in the early 18^th century but they put it down with iron hand. They extended that to ICS too. Members of the IAS are not to raise funds or contributions using their official influence from the public for any cause of personal interest. Excepting flowers or fruits the officers are not to accept any gift from the people, the so called phal-phool rule! No free transport, free boarding, free lodging or any service of pecuniary advantage was to be accepted by the civil servant from the public or interested parties. It was also included that no officer will accept or demand dowry, something that plagues Indian social melee. Civil servants are not to incur debts or obtain loans or be under such obligation to anyone, but manage within their salaries. Another rule forbids bigamy or consumption of liquor or engaging in proselytizing activities. All these stem from the ICS conduct rules. Similarly work-ethics is emphasized in the Bible. All these have become the cornerstones of the ethical conduct rules of the ICS and have been passed on to the IAS. 

Equality before Law:

Bible stresses on equality before God, for all are created equal in the eyes of God. Bible says God created the humans in His image and therefore they are precious in His eyes and are all the same before Him. Unfortunately Hinduism has created a Caste system which divides the population hierarchically with the upper castes who by fortunes of birth, control and subdue the lower castes and the outcastes. This unequal social system has been prescribed in all the religious and secular literature of Hinduism such as Upanishads, Epic poems of Mahabharata and Ramayana, Bhagavat Gita, Arthasastra and Manusmriti, as I have established in my research. It was only during the British rule education was opened up to the lower castes and outcastes and employment under government was made through merit and not based on caste. The majority of the population of India consisting of these lower strata of the society were able to raise their heads mainly because of British rule in spite of their atrocities in India. Education and upliftment of the lower castes was a huge contribution by British Raj, which was influenced by Bible.

Compassion:

Compassion for the poor, needy and the downtrodden was lacking in Hinduism due to Karma theory which insisted that people are born in their present status either in upper caste or lower caste due to the accumulated karmas or deeds, they had done in previous lives, and hence it is self-made and they have to go through the sufferings as a penance so that they can be born in the next life in a better status. This faith in repeated births and deaths, the samskara, the cycle of life and death which are determined by the supposed accumulated deeds of the previous lives is so strongly rooted among Hindus, that they will not lift their little finger to make the life of a lower caste person better. After all are they not suffering due to bad deeds in the past lives? Though there is no proof for such an accumulation of karma, the Hindu religious system has drilled that into their minds for millennia.  It is the British civil servants, the Deputy Commissioners/Collectors who worked with the people at the grass root level, who saw the need of the poor to be catered too and their lives uplifted through education and employment, especially at the village level. They provided medical help to such people. Sati and female infanticide were abolished, by the British, again showing this compassion for lives. All the schemes of the Indian government after independence to uplift the poor and the downtrodden reflect this attitude of the British which was the direct result of teachings of the Bible.

British rule was a rude but necessary awakening that India much needed to awake her from feudalism to modernity and the influence of Bible on ICS and the successor IAS is undisputable.   

 

 

The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

 

The centenary of Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 was in the year 2019. I am writing this blog two years later. Still the importance of the event and its relevance to the free and democratic India are huge. We need to remind ourselves of what we had gone through as a country to get our freedom from the British rule and cherish that freedom whatever be the cost. We need to ingrain such truths in our minds through the generations, may be like the holocaust suffered by the Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II, when around six million Jews were killed or the Armenians Genocide during the First World War at the hands of Ottoman Turks, when 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed and exterminated. What descended on the people of Amritsar in Jallianwala Bagh on 13 April 1919 might not have been so enormous, but it was a significant event that led to the strengthened fight for freedom and finally to the massacre of some two million people during the partition of India, even as we got our independence. It was almost a foretaste of what was to come. V. N. Datta has written a well researched book “Jallianwala Bagh: A ground breaking history of the 1919 massacre” in 1969, which has been edited by his daughter Monica Datta and published this year. The author narrates the events that led to this terrible massacre. A movement called Ghadr founded in San Francisco in 1913 involving Sikh immigrants in USA and Canada, aiming to secure India’s freedom by force was active in Punjab in 1915; there were disturbances, raids, killing of policemen, derailment of trains, etc., in Amritsar, Lahore and Delhi. But Ghadr party was completely put down by the Government of India by the year end.

Meanwhile forced and compulsory army recruitments were made in India to support the war effects of British Empire in the First World War. The main drive was in Punjab, because of their earlier reputation, especially since the 1857 Revolt, that a Punjabi soldier was tough, courageous, had physical strength and showed absolute loyalty to the British Indian government. Punjab contributed to 5,00,000 men of all ranks to serve in the army during the First World War, which was half of the total number raised in India. But the recruiting civil agencies, throughout the period of the war, 1915-1918, applied coercion and compelled such enlistment. Families, men, women and old men were subjected to thorn, bush and bramble tortures to agree to let their youth to be enlisted, and young men were forcibly removed. Indian officials were worse in forcing the recruitment in this fashion. Punjab was exhausted by these measures and there was deep resentment among the local populace. Rioting occurred and police firing was resorted to. Thousands of these men perished in the Great War, fighting for the British Empire in far flung areas. When the war was over on 11 November 1918, the demobilized soldiers returned to their villages mainly in Punjab with no work or employment.

There was a severe famine in 1918 and prices of food grains went sky high and the local population suffered. There were food riots in Calicut, Madras, Mysore, Karnal and Pathankot.  Amidst all these sufferings, the British Indian Government increased tax in 1918 and squeezed people and many became paupers and joined the ranks of the poor. Government of India raised money from the population in this manner and contributed to almost 30 million pounds annually towards war expenses of Britain. For all these sacrifices, India was promised that post-war reforms towards local administration by the people will be brought in.  On 20 August 1917 Montagu, Secretary of State for India and Chelmsford, the Viceroy of India, declared ‘increasing association of Indians in every branch of administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions,’ treating India as an integral part of the British Empire. But once the war was over all these promises were forgotten and the leaders and people all over India felt betrayed and were bitter. Moderates and extremists, Hindus, Muslims, all united and demanded for self-government. There was tense political atmosphere in the country.

To control the situation, Government passed controversial laws, the Rowlett Laws in March 1919. Instead of rewards, people of India got these tough sedition laws, where they can have no appeal, and the police was empowered to curtail the liberty of the people, arrest or search without warrants. Country was ripe for action against the government; but G. K. Gokale had died in 1915; Dadabahai Navoroji in 1917; Tilak’s extremism did not work and he had gone to England in 1918; there were no leaders and Gandhi, newly returned from South Africa, stepped into this quagmire. He brought in Satyagraha, the non-violent warfare that he had experimented and succeeded in South Africa. Gandhi called for a hartal, a mass protest against the Rowlett rules on 6 April 1919. It was to be a total shutdown in the country and stoppage of all activities by the people, and they were to observe a fast. Almost the entire country observed hartal on 6 April 1919, a great political achievement for the leaders, and the people. It went on mostly peacefully and orderly. Still it was an open challenge to the Government. Leaders were arrested, Gandhi on 9 April 1919, near Delhi when he was on his way to Punjab to mobilize people there. In Punjab the hartal was observed more widely.

Sir O’Dwyer, ICS officer governed Punjab as Lt. Governor from 1912 on. From 1914 to 1918 he debarred eight newspapers in Punjab from publishing under Press Act. He was highly repressive. In Amritsar, Dr. Kitchlew, a lawyer and Satyapal, ex-Lt. in Indian Medical Service, together had organized many political meetings and a protest march on 10^th April 1919 against Rowlett act. RamNavami fell on 9^th April. People were crowding to celebrate and also to visit the cattle fair held in Amritsar. The Deputy Commissioner of the district Miles Irving was worried that things may go out of hand. In the morning of 10^th he got Kitchlew and Satyapal arrested and deported. A crowd of 50,000 people had gathered for a peaceful protest with no arms. When they learnt their leaders had been arrested, the crowd wanted to go and meet the district administration to lodge their complaints, but the police stopped them. They pushed the police, threw stones at them, and rushed to the offices. The police fired. Many people fell dead (twelve).  The crowd went berserk. They lynched five European officials, burnt the post office, looted a bank, and wounded a white missionary woman and left her for dead (she was immediately sheltered by a Hindu family and lived). These instances shook the administration and the civilian authorities handed over the charge to Col. R.E.H. Dyer, newly posted to as commandant Jalandar, to bring the situation under control.

Dyer took charge on 11 April 1919. Though the city Amritsar was quiet on 11^th and 12^th, Dyer planned to teach a lesson to the natives, who dared to kill five Europeans and molest an English woman. He wanted to leave a moral lesson with not only Amritsar city, but the whole of Punjab and India even, that such a thing will not go unpunished. O’Dwyer moved the Governor General to proclaim Martial Law on 13^th, which was formally proclaimed in Amritsar and Lahore only on 15^th April. Dyer issued his own proclamation that more than four persons should not assemble for any reason. But in defiance some local leaders organized a public meeting on 13^th at Jallianwala Bagh at 4 pm. There was a narrow approach road of entrance into the Bagh which was almost of the shape of an irregular squire. People assembled, not knowing what. Many were lying on the ground, relaxing. Some boys were playing; some were listening to the speeches. May be some 15,000 men and boys were there. This was not the crowd that went berserk on 10^th April. Dyer arrived in a car at the Bagh at 5 pm followed by armoured cars and a police car. He got out, took 25 Gorkhas soldiers with rifles and 25 Baluchis soldiers and entered the Bagh and ordered shooting. He kept the shooting on for a full 10 minutes. He directed the shooting to groups of men who were trying to escape. He fired 1650 rounds of ammunition and some 700 people died. Once it was over he turned around and walked out with his men. He did not allow water or medical aid to be given to the wounded and the dying. It was a terrible carnage and a cruel bloodbath. He was rightly named the Butcher of Amritsar.

Hunter Committee indicted Dyer for having used excessive force on unarmed people without warning. Later he inflicted punishments like crawling on the street where the molested missionary woman worked; confiscation, public flogging and salaaming to humiliate Indians. He was relieved of his duties and retired on 22 March 1920, as unsuitable for public office, with a condition that no further employment will be given to him in India. But he was a hero in the eyes of the British, especially women who hailed him as a savior. He died a few years later in 1927 due to arteriosclerosis and cerebral hemorrhage. In 1940 Udham Singh, an activist from Punjab shot dead O’Dwyer in London, settling scores with a man who presided over the massacre.

This event was a turning point in India’s fight for freedom. Gandhi entered the freedom struggle. Masses were awakened to the brutality of the British and the need for freedom. Freedom movement acquired a national character. The blood of the martyrs shed in Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 had not gone waste. Though it would take another 28 years to win freedom from British rule, the tide had turned. British had lost India in 1919. How do we safeguard such a freedom won by our forefathers at the cost of their lives? We chose democracy and federalism. Are these being strengthened or weakened? We need to think and take appropriate action to ensure the freedom such martyrs won for us remains robust. God bless our country.

The Fall of an Empire

 

I had always been intrigued by the fall of the mighty communist regime, USSR, the only other superpower to counterbalance the capitalist USA and the country on which India had depended heavily in the early years of her independence, copying the model of planned development of economy and for starting many heavy industries like steel. Even today we heavily lean on Russia for the requirements of our defense equipment. How did it suddenly disintegrate into its constituent states, creating tiny small republics that dot central Asia today?

Recently when I happen to get a book by Mikhail Gorbachev, “Perestroika,” my interest in the topic got rekindled and I greedily read it and followed it up by reading “The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union,” by Serhii Plokhy. I have shored up “Memoirs” by Gorbachev to round it all up. The drama that unfolded in front of me in these pages was amazing and I thought I must share with you if not the process, the major reasons that led to this fall and disintegration.

To give a background, USSR was formed on 30 December 1922 with 12 smaller autonomous states annexed to Russia. This was preceded by the Russian Revolution of 1917 where Bolshevik party under Vladimir Lenin abolished monarchy and established the communist Socialist State on the ruins of the former Russian Empire. Russian Empire had exited from 1721 to 1917, and in 1917 Bolsheviks pressurised the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to abdicate and later in 1918 assassinated the whole family of five daughters and a boy along with the Tsar and Tsarina in 1918, wiping out traces of monarchical rule from Russia. Lenin’s communist rule developed into a highly centralized country.

Russia, the main nation has a population consisting of 84% of Russians, the people of Rus, who belong to the ethnic group of Slavs. Other Slavic tribes native to Eastern Europe, like Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Poles, Czechs, Moravians are also present in USSR with varying degrees among the Russian population. Ukraine, a big Slavic state has 73% of Ukrainian Slavs and 15% Russians living mainly in Crimea, and south east of Ukraine. You would remember recently in 2014 the present Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea. Belarus is another big Slavic state with 80% of Belarusians. These three Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are important Slavic nations with a minority of others living with them.

Then come the small Baltic States Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with minority of Russians living with them. In 1940 the Baltic States Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were militarily occupied and incorporated into USSR based on the 1939 Moltov-Ribbentrop pact, which was basically a non-war pact between Nazi Germany and USSR. But this pact was broken the very next year by Nazi regime who captured these states. USSR recaptured them in 1944.

That leaves another eight republics or states, of which five are Central Asian republics Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan with Muslim majority. All of Central Asia, which was under Persian Empire and conquered by Islamic caliphates in the 9^th century and become Islamized, was gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 19^th century. By default they were passed on to USSR in the Bolshevik take over in 1922.

The other four republics are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova. Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Trans-Caucasian regions were annexed by Soviet in 1922 after the First World War. Soviet created an autonomous region of Nagorna-Karabakh with majority of Armenian population but incorporated it in Azerbaijan, in a divide and rule policy. To add to the problems Armenia, has a majority Christian population and Azerbaijan majority Muslim population. Nagora-Karabakh voted to join Armenia in 1980s which led to a major war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994, reverberations of which are heard even today, when in December 2020 this flared up. Georgia was the third Trans-Caucasian area that was annexed by Soviet in 1922. Moldova has a difficult history. It belonged to Romania which ceded it to Russian Empire in 1878 as per a pact. In World War I Romania was able to wrestle back Moldova. But in 1940 USSR took her back and it became a part of USSR in 1947 during World War II.

Though these fifteen states had on paper the right to secede and form independent states, in practice under USSR it was not possible and they were not allowed to. Now that we have seen the background history of all the fifteen republics or states that belonged to USSR, let’s see how and why these blocs separated from USSR and became independent countries. This has been our original quest too.

The main reason for the disintegration of USSR was that the communist economy was faring badly, especially when compared to the economy of the capitalist USA. Those Soviets who visited USA and its supermarkets were amazed to see the overflowing goods on the counters and that too so many different varieties of one particular item, being imported from various corners of the world. This affluence was sadly missing from the life of the Soviet Union. Wanting to bring in that type of prosperity to Soviet was the dream of the Communist leaders, especially Mikhail Gorbachev who was elected the General Secretary of the Political bureau in 1985.

The way forward as designed by Gorbachev was to liberalize the economy and introduce market economy as in the West. Like his ancestor Tsar Peter the Great in 1689s who looked to the Western Europe to reform and modernize Russia, bringing in wearing of Western clothes and trimming of bears, Gorbachev also looked to the West. To restructure the economy, he brought in Perestroika that is, restructuring economy by opening it up and introducing market economy and restructuring the society itself. He introduced elections to the municipalities and states; he liberalized media by his famous policy of Glasnost, that is, openness and removed state control over them. Politically it was a new way of thinking and it brought sudden and swift changes and a break from the controlled life under communism to democracy and the call for independence started. Once he opened up the flood gates of these reforms he could not contain them. Like Robespierre of French Revolution, who encouraged killing of thousands by the killing machine guillotine, becoming a victim of it himself, Gorbachev became the victim of his own reforms.

The fame for having extinguished the life of the Soviet Union would go also go to Yeltsin, the democratically elected President of the nation Russia, who came to power after the failed coup to displace Gorbachev in 1991. With the new found strength of democracy and the people, he gradually and surely ousted the then President and General Secretary Gorbachev from his office, by outlawing Communism in Russia, and abolishing the party posts. In his eagerness to step into the shoes of the party President, and be the boss of all the independent republics of the former Soviet Union, he became autocratic and abusive. Gorbachev had no role to play in the new system and was relegated to not even be a rubber stamp! There was no party post of General Secretary! He was forced to resign on 25^th December 1991. And that was the end of USSR, the mighty superpower of the world.

A crucial role will be played by Ukraine’s President Kravchuk, a major Slavish republic with abundant natural resources. Realizing Yeltsin’s game and not wanting to be under the rule of Russian conglomeration, he quickly declared independence of Ukraine and announced that Ukraine will secede from USSR and be independent. Once this was ratified in his parliament on 1 December 1991, things moved fast. The other Slavic republic Belarus soon followed suit and declared independence. Yeltsin now has to be satisfied only with Russia. He tried to pass orders taking over all the central offices and resources in Moscow. Gorbachev could do nothing to stop him!

With the three Slavic republics, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declaring independence, and forming a Commonwealth, the five central Asian Muslim majority republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan also joined the bandwagon, separating themselves from USSR. The three Baltic republics Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had already become independent following elections in 1990 and as encouraged by President Bush of USA (the senior Bush) and agreed by Gorbachev they became separate sovereign nations in September 1991. Soviet troops were withdrawn from these countries. Thus by December 1991, almost all the republics of the communist USSR declared independence and walked away with it. The President of USSR was left with nothing and he resigned and handed over whatever he held to Yeltsin who stepped into his shoes, but shorn of 14 republics, loosely wound around Commonwealth. American President was keener on the nuclear weapons’ activating code which was with Gorbachev. This was handed over to Yeltsin, with an assurance that whatever international treaties agreed between Bush and Gorbachev will be honored by Yeltsin.

That the great communist country USSR which stood as the other superpower to counter the power of capitalist country USA disintegrated without violence and bloodshed was a major achievement and the credit would go to Gorbachev. Though he knew that he was losing power and position, he did not try really to unleash the army or KEB on the leaders or the people. After the coup in August 1991, when Gorbachev was confined to his house in Crimea, he lost the game to Yeltsin. The army or KEB would not even listen to him, even if he had wanted them to support him and continue in position. Bush, President of America, though tried to keep him in power as long as possible and wanted Yeltsin to offer an honorable and respectful retirement to Gorbachev, when the game was over, he sided the new powerful Yeltsin and even prided announcing that he had won the cold war and overcome the Soviet competition.

Gorbachev would not have dreamt that his own policies of perestroika and glasnost, restructuring and openness, would dismantle USSR and also evict him from the position of power. His actions were crucial in ending the cold war in the world after the Second World War and bringing down the terror of igniting a nuclear war. He had served his calling and had to quit, almost like the British public who voted out Churchill, the war time hero, who was instrumental in winning the Second World War for England as the Prime Minister.

So are the Empires on earth; they come and go; they are all built on bloodshed and death of thousands of innocent people. Doesn’t that create a desire in our hearts to look for an everlasting kingdom, Kingdom of God, which will not only last forever but will be ruled in righteousness and justice? Let His kingdom come. Amen.

Crusade: An analysis and the consequences

 

Having gone in some detail the nine Crusades spanning over two centuries it is time now to assess the cause and origin of these Crusades, reasons for success or failure, and achievements in real terms. What did they really achieve? What were the repercussions to the world in its aftermath, especially to Europe and to the Near East in particular? Was there any good meaningful outcome from all these endeavors or was it all a sheer waste of human lives, labor and resources? That is what we will try and analyze in this blog.

The Crusades were solidly built up on people’s religious fervor, characteristic of the Middle Ages. God was seen to have a hand in everything and there was fear whether one is doing the right thing or the wrong and whether one will miss heavens and fall into hell. The clergy played on these fears through confessions by imposing penalties and penances to wash away the guilt or sins. Fear of excommunication always hung on their heads like a Damocles’ sword. Even Emperors or Kings or knights were not exempt from it for Pope could excommunicate them, as was in the case of King of Germany and the Holy Roman Emperor excommunicated by the then Pope, Gregory IX in the Sixth Crusade. The incentive given to the people to leave their homes and travel to an unknown place far away in Asia was that their sins would be forgiven if they participated in these wars and did their duty to the church and Christ. On death they would go straight to heaven was the promise.  People thronged. In all these, the Pope and the people forgot that salvation is a free gift from God and that one doesn’t have to work for it, for Christ has done everything needed for the salvation of humankind on the cross. The clergy, in its own interest, would not as usual reveal the complete truth to the people.

In the very beginning the idea of supporting a Christian nation, the Byzantine Empire against a common enemy, the Muslims, was played up by the Pope and his preachers. The picture painted was that Christianity in the East was in danger and their brothers in the West must take up arms to support them. This served as a great motivator, starting with the First Crusade. In addition, recapture of the Holy City of Jerusalem from Muslims formed a strong motivator throughout the Crusades. Jerusalem was conquered by the Muslims not prior to the Crusades, but long time back in 7^th century itself, in 637 to be precise, during the second wave of Islamic expansion. Still when the clergy preached picturing the release of the Holy City from enemy’s hands as a priority, Christians in the West responded.

The Eastern Byzantine Christians were the Greek Orthodox who split from Western Catholic Romans in July 1054. When they were in danger of being swamped by the Seljuk Turks, they sent urgent appeals in 1093 on to the Western Christians in spite of the doctrinal differences. May be the hope was that the two divisions could reunite and be under one catholic church in the true sense. This hope spurred the Popes to action. But that was not to be. However, having appealed for help the Byzantine Emperor, Alexios did everything within his power to make food and provisions available for the Crusaders, and arranged for guides and officers to bring them safely over to his realm and also directed the first few battles. This local support could have been the main factor in helping the First Crusade to win victories over Muslims, since they were well provided for and properly guided in the difficult and new terrain.  

The piety shown, the humility with which fasts were observed and penance performed for sins before embarking on the Crusade and even during it when they were beaten back during the Crusades were exemplary. The immediate cause of any defeat was presumed to be their sins and they undertook fast and penance to seek forgiveness from God. Though it was considered a miracle that the First Crusade won a victory against all odds, the real reasons may be the disunity and weakness among Muslims and the unity and determination due to the religious fervor of the first Crusaders. At the point of defeat when the Relic of the Cross was discovered, it redoubled their energies and they won against all odds.

What could be the reasons for the failure of all the other Crusades?

The long and arduous journey across Europe to Asia Minor and then to Levant was an excruciating experience and many died on the way itself. Finding food and water for the soldiers, horses and pack-animals became increasingly difficult as there was no support from the local rulers. The support organized by the Eastern Emperor for the First Crusade was not forth coming during the other Crusades, since these were undertaken not at the request of the Eastern Christians, but on appeals by the Frankish Christians, the French who had established Crusader States all along the border of Palestine or Levant after victory in the First Crusade. Byzantine Emperors were scared about the ambitions of these counts and knights who desired to carve out kingdoms and regimes for themselves. Without local support they floundered. Disease, hunger and thirst took thousands of lives.

The ambitions of the leaders among the Crusaders created plenty of problems. They were trying to prove their valor and claim either name and fame or carve out a regime for themselves. Coordination was a problem, for many leaders were involved and in the Third and Fifth Crusades Kings and Emperors from the Western Europe participated. Though the model of war council by the First Crusade was followed, there was no unity in purpose or in the strategy of waging the war. King Richard the Lionhearted had to turn back twice after having come close to Jerusalem because of pressure from the other leaders. His plan to attack Egypt first was not agreed to, though all the succeeding Crusades followed this plan realizing its strategic importance.  More than once, the Lords and Counts rushed into the battle by themselves, as it happened in the Third and again in the Fifth Crusade, which brought ruin to the whole endeavor. The nobles and counts and knights came from the West to help save their Christian counterparts in the Eastern Roman Empire from the onslaught of Muslims, but stayed back to establish their own Crusader States and ruled these lands. Edessa was the first Crusader State, then Antioch and Tripoli and finally Jerusalem itself, which became the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Having established Crusader States, these rulers and kings failed to create and keep a standing army to withstand the assaults of the neighboring Muslims, for whom also Jerusalem was a Holy City and they were waging a Holy War, or Jihad to recapture it. Instead, the Crusader State rulers repeatedly appealed to the Western Christians to come and help them, all of which ended in failure due to the distance and geographical problems. It was around 2000 miles from Europe to Levant. It wouldn’t have been easy for Kings from the Western Europe to leave their territories and come to war in Palestine absenting themselves from their regimes for a few years. This fact put additional pressure on the Crusaders.

The disunited Muslims became united under Ayyubid dynasty and Sultan Saladin determined to show himself a true Muslim and to unite all Muslims under his umbrella projected himself as the leader the Jihad against the infidels, the Christians, and this united the Muslims. Odds were against the Christians who were clinging to the coastal small areas of their Crusader States. Moreover Muslims were fighting from their home grounds and were able to mobilize men and material easily to fight the wars. The Latin Christians were fighting far away from their homes in an unknown territory.

Not that the Crusaders really cared for the Christians. In the Fourth Crusade they turned on Constantinople and sacked it, as if it was an enemy land. They massacred the Eastern Christians. Jews faced worse treatment in the hands of Crusaders. In the First Crusade when Jerusalem was conquered, Jews in that city were massacred. Even as they were marching towards Constantinople the People’s Crusade of the First Crusade fell on the Jewish populations on its way and killed thousands of them as enemies of Christ. Part of King Louis’ plan to raise funds for his Crusade, the Seventh one, was by throwing out all the Jews in France and confiscating their properties.

Today Jerusalem is with the Jews, the newly created State of Israel in 1948. May be that was the plan of God all along, for it was His promise to Israel that they will be restored to the city of Zion, Jerusalem. May be God did not look with favour the conduct of Christian Crusaders turning on the other Christians and the Jews, people of God? That, in my opinion, may be was one real reason for the Franks not being able to take and keep Jerusalem with them in spite of nine Crusades.  

What are the other observations?

It is interesting to learn about the Middle Age warfare, siege engines with terraces and hide covers to reach the top of the forts; catapults throwing stones and boulders on the walls of the forts and castles as if they were missiles to weaken the walls; bow and arrows, lances and spears, knights in their shining armor and so on.

The other very striking fact is people died so young! The average age seems to be only 30 or even less. Kings died, princes died due to just a few days’ fever or dysentery or malarial attack or queens in childbirth. With the ruling king or the count gone, their children being so young, may be 3 years and 5 years old, there were constant civil wars to capture the throne, which weakened the rulers even more. Compare that with the rule and age of our present British Monarch, Queen Elizabeth! She might rule till she is in her 100s and even more and her son may never get a chance to even become a king! That is how longevity has changed over centuries.

What was the legacy of the Crusades? What were the repercussions to the Near East and the world?

Jerusalem as mentioned earlier remained in Muslim hands till the end of First World War. With the fall of Ottoman Empire it became the British mandate. Commerce continued even after 1291 between Europe and Muslim Near East. Cyprus remained under Frankish rule until late 16^th century. Mainland Levant continued to be a zone of Holy Wars for a long time to come. Templers were disbanded in 1312. Hospitallers and Teutonic orders survived through the Middle Ages. Crusades led to Muslims powers uniting under jihad and it led to the rise of Mamluks as powerful rulers in Egypt.  

Trade, in its volume and importance was revolutionized in the course of 12^th and 13^th centuries due to the presence of Latin settlements in Levant. Land routes and sea routes grew as trade grew between Europe and the Frankish settlements in Levant. The power of Italian merchant cities of Venice, Pisa, and Genoa grew enormously. Europe adopted Arabic numerals around 1200, could be because of growing trade connections with the Muslims around Levant. Crusades opened a door to the Orient. In Europe itself whole kinship groups and sections of nobility disappeared and this absence of ruling class caused instability. Military Orders that were created during Crusades would survive and play a formidable role in the centuries to come.

Coming of the Reformation in 1517, followed by Renaissance and Enlightenment had changed the thinking of the Western Europe with regard to religion. The religious fervor and fanaticism had almost disappeared in the West, especially so after the secular and religious matters were separated in the modern democracies starting with America. Unfortunately this medieval religious fanaticism is still prevalent among the Islamic countries. Hence the fundamentalism in the Muslims states in the world today and the unfortunate development of terrorism.  

I hope you have enjoyed reading about the Crusades in the last few blogs. I enjoyed writing about them. God be praised who is in the throne, then and now. He is in control and He directs the history judiciously as per His will. Glory be to Him alone.  

The Sixth to the Ninth Crusade, the Final One

 

In the previous blog we read from the Second Crusade till the Fifth Crusade and saw that Jerusalem was in the hands of Muslims since 1187 and the successive Crusades were notable to recapture it. In this bog we will check on the Sixth Crusade on until the final Crusade the Ninth one and see the further developments.

Sixth Crusade: 1228-1229

This crusade with the objective of recapturing Jerusalem commenced seven years after the failure of the Fifth Crusade. Gregory IX was the Pope and the king of Germans Frederick II who had earlier promised to take the cross, but couldn’t accompany the Fifth Crusade, for he was involved in a power struggle with the Pope who refused to crown him the Holy Roman Emperor. Finally he was crowned the Emperor in 1220 by the Pope. Thereafter the King tried to take up the cross, but again delayed it and the impatient Pope excommunicated him! Frederick by that time got married to Isabella II, the heiress to the throne of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The King went ahead with the voyage despite the excommunication and set by way of sea with an army of 10,000 infantry and 4000 knights in June 1228. He reached Acre in September 1228.

Surprisingly no fighting took place, but Frederick got Jerusalem back! The Islamic Sultan of Egypt Al-Kamal, son of Saladin, was occupied with siege in Damascus, Syria by his own brother and thereafter by his nephew. Hence he was agreeable to the peace proposal of Frederick and ceded the possession of Jerusalem to the Franks, along with a narrow corridor to the sea coast. The King also received Nazareth, Sidon, Jaffa, Bethlehem and Nazareth. Muslims retained their control over the Temple Mount, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. Sultan also got a ten year no-war truce from Frederick. This treaty was signed at Jaffa in February 1229.

Frederick entered Jerusalem in March 1229; by that time, in May 1228 Isabella had died in child birth leaving the infant child Conrad. This did not prevent the King from crowning himself as the King of Jerusalem, which was disliked by the local lords and nobles and thereafter he returned to Europe in May 1229. That was the only Crusade to succeed without military intervention and papal support. It is called Frederick’s Crusade in honour of the king who accomplished this feat.

Seventh Crusade: 1248-1254

 In August 1244 Jerusalem was retaken by Khorezmians, allies of Ayyubid Dynasty, consisting of cruel nomadic tribes; they brutally murdered the Frankish Christians and desecrated the sacred sites. In October 1244 Ayyubid Muslims defeated the Franks in the battle near Gaza. Ayyubid dynasty was being ruled by al- Salih, the second son of al-Kamil, and grandson of Sultan Saladin. Except for the coastal strip of Levant, the Muslims controlled Egypt, Aleppo, Damascus, and half of Arabia.

The Latin East, the Crusader States in Levant appealed to the West for armed help. Pope Innocent IV responded and called for the Seventh Crusade. Church went preaching the crusade and many nobles, counts and knights responded; most of all King Louis of France took up the cross and led the army to the Holy Land. In a flurry to raise funds for the Crusade, tax hikes were imposed, churches contributed, Jews in France expelled, and their properties confiscated. The army left from the port of Genoa and food and provisions were stockpiled in Cyprus. Knights of Templar and Hospitaller and Teutonic knights joined them. They all added up to 18,000 men including 2500 knights and 5000 crossbowmen. The plan was to capture Damietta, then march to Cairo and having taken Egypt, thereafter to attack the Muslims in Levant and free Jerusalem.

The Egyptians had by now fortified Damietta well. Sultan Salih had the support of Mamluk regiment in Egypt, who belonging to Kipchak Turks and were kidnapped as boys from Russian steppe, and raised as warriors with strict military training and loyalty to the Sultan. Crusaders landed near Damietta and captured it easily in June 1249. If they had immediately attacked Mansourah and thereafter Cairo, they could have made it. But King Louis waited for his brother to join with his forces and it was only by November 1249, they moved against Mansourah, giving the Muslims adequate time to get prepared. The whole army with horses and provisions and tents moved slowly south and camped. An advanced party went to scout but it mounted full attack on the enemy before the other knights could join them. Further they pursued the fleeing enemy and went into the city of Mansourah where in the narrow streets and gullies they got stuck without knowing the terrain and the Muslims regrouped and attacked them and decimated them.

Louis retreated; his army was reduced greatly by disease, starvation and the attacks from the enemy and reached Damietta. There the army surrendered to the Sultan and the King himself was captured. He was ransomed at a heavy price of 400,000 livres tournoi, six times the annual income of the King of France in those days. Still the King, after his release stayed in Levant for four more years, spending the time refortifying Acre and other strongholds of Sidon, Jaffe and Caesarea. The Seventh Crusade was a great flop.

Eighth Crusade: 1270

The then international scene changed rapidly. Mongols were in the ascendency and had captured Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. They had taken Aleppo and Damascus from the Ayyubid dynasty. But they were defeated by the Mamluks under the leadership of Baybars in 1260 in Egypt. The Mamluks captured Caesarea, Arsuf and Antioch by 1268. The Latin East was at the point of obliteration and appealed to the West.

King Louis of France took up the cross again in 1267 and Pope Clement IV backed him up. A general call was made for the nobles and knights in Europe to join and help the Christians in Levant. Preachers went around preaching the crusade message and collected money for the cause. Ships were hired from Marseille and Genoa and in 1969 they boarded. The plan was to attack Egypt from North Africa and then proceed to liberate Jerusalem and the other Crusader States. Crusaders landed in Tunis in July 1270 and set camp at Carthage, but disease and lack of clean water and inadequate provisions ravaged the camp. Unfortunately for them King Louis himself died of dysentery in August 1270; so also his son John Tristan. His demoralized army returned to Europe. King Louis was made a Saint in 1297 for his religious fervo
r and leading two Crusades to free Jerusalem.

Ninth Crusade: 1271-1272

This was but an extension of the Eighth Crusade and the main actor was Lord Edward of England who took the cross in 1268. He and his army left Dover by ship in 1270. He arrived at Tunis in November 1270 with 1000 crusaders and 225 knights. There he learnt that king Louis had died and that his army had returned to Europe. However Edward opted to continue and reach the Holy Land. He arrived at Acre in May 1271. His presence made the Muslim forces to temporarily retreat. Edward made a truce with Muslims in May 1272 that they should protect the Christian held States. By that time he received news that his father, King in England had died and also his young son; so he returned immediately to England and was crowned the King of England in August 1274.

This was the last Crusade. In 1291 Acre, the last of the Crusader States, fell to Muslims and the Latin East or the Crusader States effectively came to an end. What was established as Crusader States in Levant by the European counts and nobles, mostly from France in 1095 came to an end in 1291. It can be described as the end of a major historical event with huge repercussions. Jerusalem will remain in the hands of Muslims till the Ottoman Empire disintegrated after the First World War, 1919. Mandate of Jerusalem was given to Britain and in 1948 under pressure from Zionist, and the Nation of Israel was formed as the homeland for the war-ravaged Jews. Effects of that event are still reverberating in the Middle East. 

We will see the repercussions of these Nine Crusades in the next blog.

Till then Good bye and God keep you blessed.

Pandemic of the 21st Century

 

The second wave of the pandemic that is sweeping through India, causing untold suffering to the people makes one to wonder what this pandemic is after all. Is it a once in a century event? Or is it new, peculiar only to our 21^st century? What do we do when it strikes us? How do we manage it? These questions and more drove me to read some material on it, especially two books, “The Age of Pandemics 1817-1920” by Chinmay Tumbe and “The Great Influenza,” by John Barry. Both the books touch another horrible pandemic that swept the globe much like our present pandemic, popularly known as “Spanish flu,” though it had nothing to do with Spain.

So what is a pandemic? When a disease, say for example, malaria suddenly affects many members of a community at the same time, it is called an epidemic. When that happens periodically and is localized it is considered endemic to that region. But when such an epidemic spreads across a wide geographical area, involving countries and continents, it becomes a pandemic. In north India it is called mahamaari, maari commonly referring to an epidemic; maha being big one.

In the ancient world and the middle ages, there had been at least two great outbreaks of pandemics. The plague! It ravaged at least some parts of the world once in 6^th century and again in the 14^th century. The first plague pandemic occurred during the reign of Justinian 1, the Roman Emperor of Byzantine around 540-550 AD. It originated in Egypt and spread through Alexandria to Palestine and to Constantinople, Byzantium. Then it travelled to Italy, Spain and up to British Isles. It was transmitted through rats-rat flea-human beings via flea bites. Only in 1894 it was discovered that plague was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. People died literally like fleas, thousands of people dying on a single day. This depopulation and economic devastation so weakened the Empire it was not able to stand up to Persian invasion that followed soon. The pandemic is learnt to have killed around 10 percent of the world population, the figures being higher in Europe to around 25 to 50 percent even. Its impact on Asia was marginal.

The second plague returned with a vengeance in the fourteenth century, between 1346 and 1353 AD and it devastated whole populations in Europe, Northern Africa, Western Asia, popularly known as the “Black Death.” Again mortality rates were high in Europe, where whole population was wiped off. It originated in Crimea in 1346 and reached Constantinople, then via Mediterranean reached Spain, France, British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia. It came in waves, and reached Russia in 1353. It is said to have killed up to 50 million people, with 35 to 60 % in Europe and the Mediterranean world and 10 to 20 % of the world population that time. Though Europe was devastated, the healthy population soon rose and Renaissance, Protestant Reformation as well as anti-Semitism, all followed soon and sanitation improved in those countries.

Small Pox was introduced into the New World from Europe, the Americas after 1492, decimating the local populations like Incas, Mexicans and native Americans. Edward Jenner perfected the smallpox vaccine in 1790s and the disease was controlled and finally eradicated from the world. It is of interest to know that Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses V died of smallpox! Cholera outbreak, a water-borne disease, started from 1817, having originated from India and moved over to the other parts of the world, Western Europe, Americas, Russia and Egypt. Charles Dickens’s son died out of this plague around 1850s in London. Around 20 million people died worldwide by 1920. Discovery of ORT-Oral Dehydration Therapy brought down its severity. Improved sanitation and availability of pure and uncontaminated drinking water reduced the mortality considerably. An influenza plague started in China in 1894 arrived in Bombay in 1896 via ships and killed almost 13 million people in the world, 12 million in India alone, which tapered off around 1920.  

In 1918 the world saw influenza pandemic that was much more global than the above pandemics. It lasted only for 2 years but wiped out over 40 million people. In India alone 20 million people died of this flu pandemic. Over 2% of world’s population was wiped off. It was the deadliest of all the pandemics so far. It originated in Kansas, American Midwest in 1918 and coincided with the movements of large number of soldiers recruited to fight in the World War I, which America joined towards the end. From the soldiers in the cantonment area it passed on to the civilian population. In contrast to today’s Corona virus flu the American flu killed adults aged between 20 and 40, but very young and the elderly were not touched. Within two months it will finish off in one American city and then move on to the next. From May 1918 to October 1919, it killed some 8,00,000 people in America.

Spreading outward, it killed 2 million people in Iran; spread to India, Kenya, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Mexico, Philippians, Russia, Portugal, and Spain. Though death rate was not high in Spain, because it was a neutral country during the WW I and without censorship, press openly wrote about it that it got the name Spanish flu. In India it affected mostly the rural areas where not much medical facility was available. It killed Maharaja of Bagelkhand, Venkat Raman Singh. A severe drought in 1918 had already left the people of India malnourished and the flu caused great suffering and death among them. In Europe the flu claimed the life of German sociologist Max Webber in 1920 in Munich. Crown prince of Siam died of flu in June 1920. Another notable person to die of flu was Frederick Trump, paternal grandfather of Ex-President of America, Trump. The then President of America Woodrow Wilson contracted the flu in April 1920 in Paris in the midst of negotiating peace terms at the end of WW I. He was paralyzed later and died in 1930.

The 1918 flu affected the upper respiratory tract of the lungs, killing a person within 4-5 days, sometimes within a day; it spread through the population like fire; hospitals had no adequate beds to accommodate the sick; doctors and nurses who served the patients started to die; drugs were in short supply; the dead were piled up in the morgues and corridors of the hospitals; then in the houses, as there was no other place to store them; trucks picked the bodies and as even digging individual burial places became a strain, the bodies were buried in mass graves. As importance was given to the war, the news about the flu pandemic was suppressed and not given out. During this flu pandemic, scientists thought that a bacterium caused the influenza. But decades later it will be learnt that it was caused by a virus and it was separated only in 1930. Thereafter the scientists were able to develop a vaccine by 1945 to counter the virus. It took years, almost two decades and more to develop the vaccine.

Hundred years later we encountered another viral influenza pandemic. Covid-19, the China flu, which originated in Wuhan in China, was a repeat of the 1918 flu. On 30^th December 2019 a young doctor in Wuhan Dr. Li Wenliang warned about the serious nature of this flu which resembled SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). He was silenced by the authorities and he died as a victim of the same disease on 7 February 2020. WHO named the flu as COVID-19, or corona virus disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. On 11 March 2020 WHO termed it as a pandemic. By that time it was too late and it had spread all over the world. The rest is history. Though in China itself it was stamped out by rigorous quarantine and lockdowns, in the West it ravaged. This was only the first wave. This time it affected mainly the elderly and not the youth or the young children. Then by October/December, 2020 it came as the second wave in Europe, America and England, more virulent than the first wave. The virus has mutated and had become more virulent strains in UK, South Africa and Brazil and continued to spread.

The first wave came to India by March 2020 and in the start itself the government unnecessarily shut the whole country in lockdown for 21 days, ruining the economy and making millions of migrant workers from the less developed states like Bihar and Utter Pradesh jobless and homeless; thousands started to walk home 1000s of kilometres away, as the lockdown was sudden with no arrangements for them to return home. Many died on the way. Economy shrank by 23%. The second wave came to India by February middle via England and caught us napping. By April it has caused havoc among Indians, especially in Maharashtra, Delhi, and UP and Karnataka in the south. The leaders of the country prematurely congratulated themselves that India has overcome the virus, and went ahead with election rallies and Kumbmela, when the virus incubated and burst the seams April 20^th onwards. As the government lulled the people into believing that the worst was over, people also relaxed without using mask and congregating for all sorts of purposes. The political leaders and officials relaxed and made no effort to improve the health infrastructure to face the onslaught when it would come. And today people are dying without oxygen, without drugs and even without hospital beds for the sick. Though a vaccine has been invented and India has the capacity to produce large quantities of this vaccine, being the so-called ‘factory of the world’ in pharmaceuticals, the country is facing shortage of vaccines to vaccinate her people. She was not prepared to face the emergency.   

The second wave in India was really a man-made disaster. It could have been handled efficiently if only the leaders had some humility and forethought. Had they cared about the people and not so much of winning the elections and pandering to the religious sentiments of some of the communities, it would not have boiled up to this state now.

When this pandemic hit the world, people had no memory of the 1918 flu pandemic. Science had not developed much then. So they struggled. People died. But in the 21^st century with the development of science and technology we need not have suffered so much. Vaccine was developed within a year; it took more than 25 years to develop the vaccine for the Spanish flu. The death rate and the absolute numbers are much less compared to the Spanish flu; still it could have been managed better if only the political leaders led their countries in the right path. That was not to be.

Why does the Lord permit such pandemics at all? Is it to remind humankind of our own limitations and instil in us humility and fear of God? Many had returned to the Lord during this pandemic confessing their sins, due to fear of death and fear of going to hell. Or is it that the end of the world – apocalyptic way of interpreting such events? But this is not the first time a pandemic has come, nor will it be the last time. It came in 5^th century, then in 14^th century, then in 19^th and 20^th centuries; now again in 21^st century. How do we face such emergent situations? The fear of God induced by a pandemic, won’t it disappear once the pandemic goes away? Then what is the point? Isn’t it like a sizzling cracker without fire!

We need to be god-fearing in our everyday life and lead a life as if, either our Lord Jesus Christ is returning to earth immediately or we may die before that. Either way we need to live as if it is tomorrow. Then we will be prepared when the actual ending of the world as per the time designated by God the Father happens. Till such time let’s live in the joy of the Lord, being confident that He is still on the throne.