INDIAN INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH INTO TRUE HISTORY

Newsletter No. 20 of 16 October 1991

1 News

1.1 Mr Godbole can now be contacted on the following numbers :

0234-357388 ( Home )

071-918-5377 ( Office )

1.2 Mr Godbole has now been awarded, " Diploma in Management Studies " by the Polytechnic of Central London. He can now spend more time on historical research.

1.2 During August / September 1990 Mr Godbole, with his family visited India. His wife has taken quite a few slides of Taj Mahal.

Government of India, taking advantage of the current unrest in Punjab, have closed many parts of Taj to the visitors. The so called tombs in the South East and South West are locked. The door in the western perimeter wall, south of the Baoli Burj is locked. It is therefore not possible to go on to the riverside. A barbed wire fence has been erected on that side to prevent entry from the waters of river Yamuna. The access to the riverside from outside the Eastern perimeter wall is full of filth.

Officially it is forbidden to carry cameras beyond the centre of the fountains. All the rooms around the cenotaph chamber are closed.

Mrs Godbole pointed out that the pinnacles on the domes of the so called Mosque and the so called Jawab are of Trident (trishul) type. Normally we view these buildings looking at East or West. If we go to the South or North of these buildings and look at the pinnacles on domes we do realise that they are of trident type.

1.3 Mr Gokhale of Thane arranged one lecture by Mr Godbole on 10 September 1990. It was well attended.

1.4 During the days of the Ganesh Festival of 1990, (25 August - 4 September) Shivasena of Thane prepared a large model of Taj Mahal in front of Lord Ganesh, with the caption - Taj Mahal a Shiva Temple. Eventually their workers obtained Mr Godbole's book on Taj Mahal and his slides. They arranged some slide shows. This of course upset the secularised Hindus (NOT Muslims) who complained to the Police Commissioner. Mr Godbole's slides were taken away by the Police. Shivasena workers argued that as Mr Godbole's book was not banned there can be nothing objectionable in the slides. The Police Commissioner read the book. He said that he had to take action because he was a government servant. The slides were returned to Mr Godbole on 11 September 1990.

1.5 Despite the heavy rains Mr Godbole travelled extensively for three weeks in India with his family by Indian Railways. The reservations were made from London. And he found that even at the most remote stations the Station Masters knew when the Godboles were travelling and what their compartment and seat numbers would be. All the trains arrived on time. Who says things cannot improve in India?

1.6 Dr Bedekar came to Vienna to attend the International Sanskrit Conference in September 1990. Afterwards he came to London, stayed with Mr Godbole for a week. During his stay he visited the Newspaper Library, and the libraries of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Before coming to Vienna Dr Bedekar tried to visit the Eastern European countries. Due to the demise of communism, Indians now require visas to visit these countries. Dr Bedekar found the experience of obtaining visas just as insulting as obtaining them for Western European countries like Britain. Indians are despised everywhere. One Eastern European embassy even told him - we don't allow Indians at all even as tourists! But Bedekar wanted to know about teaching of Sanskrit in those countries and had to obtain the visas.

1.7 Taj Mahal and the Great British Conspiracy

This research of Mr Godbole was published in nine parts in the Itihas Patrika of Dr Bedekar ( Sept 83 - Sept 85 ) Mr Godbole has typed it and is currently refining it. When complete, copies will be sent to some important libraries as "unpublished work."

1.8 Mr Satyanarayan, Chief of RSS in U K has now retired from service. He hopes to go back to Banglore, India. We wish him well.

1.9 Publicity

An article on Mr Godbole by Dr Nene of Baroda was published in Samna, the daily newspaper of Shivasena (Bombay) in May 1990.

2 War in the Middle East

Iraq invaded its tiny but extremely rich neighbour Kuwait, on 2 August 1990. It's a good job that this event exploded the myth that Arabs do not do this sort of things to Arabs. During the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 Kuwait supported Iraq whole-heartedly and made a huge financial contribution. And yet as soon as the war was over Iraq invaded Kuwait and declared that it was the 19th province of Iraq. They even justified it on the grounds that they never recognised the existence of Kuwait!

2.1 So called Islamic Brotherhood of Man

Kuwait had supported the Palestinians and their cause for more than 40 years. And how did they repay? They sided with the invaders! PLO leader Yasser Arafat openly supported Saddam Hussein of Iraq. And that exploded another myth. The so called Islamic Brotherhood is just a mirage. Islam, we are told does not recognise the division of the world into various nations. The world consists of only two parts : Dar-ul-Islam, where Islam holds sway and Dar-ul-Urb, where Muslims are in a minority. But an Indian ( or Pakistani or Bangladeshi ) Muslim still needs a visa to visit and work in any country in the Middle East. And once his time is up he must go back to his country. Palestinians have lived in Kuwait for decades but they have not been allowed to become naturalised Kuwaitis. They hold Jordanian passports!

2.2 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait

What did the Iraqis do in Kuwait? They looted everything valuable - gold, silver, luxury goods like freezes and washing machines, hospital equipment, even toothpastes and razor blades. Their physical brutalities were unbelievable and only came to light after the Allied Forces (American, British, and others) liberated Kuwait on 28 February 1991.

Stewart Payne of Evening Standard reported :

Brutal army of rapists

Iraqi soldiers brutally raped Kuwaiti women and children, while their menfolk were held at gunpoint. Girls as young as 14 and women in their fifties fell victim to the lust of the Iraqi invaders.

Dr Nidaa Bukhadour 30, said, " I had to treat sisters of 14 and 17. They had been raped so violently that they needed stitches. Both were virgins.

Soldiers had burst into their home. They put guns to the heads of their father and brothers and said they would kill them. The men were forced upstairs and kept under guard.

When the girls' grandmother realised what was going to happen she tried to stop the soldiers. She was hit with a rifle butt which broke her shoulder. The girls were then raped three times in front of their mother. "

Dr Sabriya-al-Langawi said, " ...The rapes occurred from the beginning of the invasion right up until the time they left.."

The two doctors both of whom work at Kuwait City's Sabah Hospital, said that soldiers of all ranks carried out the rapes. The attacks were not confined to Kuwaitis, Filipinos, Indians and some Europeans were victims as well, they said..

Dr al-Langawi said, " From my experience several women at this hospital alone died because we could not give them blood during operations. We had the blood yet we hadn't the means to administer it. They had stolen all our equipment." At a nearby maternity hospital Iraqis took away incubators ( which are essential for saving the lives of pre-mature babies.) ....

Dr Hamed said that his hospital, in a commercial district, received the bodies of 38 Kuwaiti men who had been executed by the Iraqis and dumped in the street.

" They had been shot in the head, in the neck or through the mouth. We had one woman brought in who had been hanged. The bodies had been stripped of all means of identification and very often we had no idea who the victims were. "

( Evening Standard 28 February 1991 )

Richard Dowden of Independent reported :

Horror unveiled under smoke and black rain.

....Mawaffar al-Ibrahim, a young Kuwaiti fighter, said one of his friends had been executed by Iraqi soldiers

" I hate them, I hate them. I feel no mercy for them now. In the past few days they have done anything."

A distraught Palestinian said, " I wish I was in Gaza or the West Bank now - the Israelis have never behaved like this to us. ".

...More and more people poured on to the streets waving Kuwaiti flags, the possession of which under Iraqi occupation would have meant death...

Every Kuwaiti seems to have a personal horror story - a brother, a sister or a friend killed or disappeared. Palestinians and Jordanians were treated better...Iraqi's treatment of its citizens was unreliably cruel. At the hospital we saw the corpses of seven Kuwaitis whose heads had been smashed in and one whose body was barely recognisable as human's.

According to every Kuwaiti I have spoken to, anyone suspected of being in the resistance was killed. In the past week hundreds, possibly thousands of Kuwaiti men have been abducted from the streets. Those shops which survived the original invasion have been comprehensively looted, private cars have been taken wherever they could be found and some 80 public buildings have been blasted by tank fire and burned. The Kuwaitis have much to celebrate, but their celebration is soured by grief and bitterness. (Independent 28 February 1991)

Robert Fisk of Independent reported on the same day :

Something evil has visited Kuwait city.

What kind of people would do this? That's what we kept asking ourselves in Kuwait City yesterday. Day had been turned into night, so thick was the canopy of smoke, the nation's oil wells burning gold and orange along the black-fringed horizon, courtesy of the Iraqi army.

They had even used the modern equivalent of a torture wheel. All day, Kuwaiti men young and old, approached our car with their terrible stories. " They twisted my son on a pole and broke his legs with pieces of wood, " A stopped old man said. " They thought he was in the resistance. Now they have taken him away with all the others as a human shield. "

Then there was Heather Rennison, an English woman married to a Kuwaiti. " A cousin of my mother-in-law was arrested. She was only 19 and they found two-way radios in her bedroom. Three days later they came to her to ask for clothes and blankets. So her parents thought she would be all right. Then the Iraqis hanged her and dumped her body outside her home. There were burns from electricity on her arms and legs. "

Perhaps one needed to walk the pavement of Kuwait City yesterday to understand the extent of what the Iraqis did, that it really does amount to a war crime. " I will show you the mosque where they shot 11 men on Friday, " a bearded man shouted to us from his car.

The Abdullah Othman mosque stands in the Palestinian Hawall quarter. The bearded man pointed to a yellow wall. " The Iraqi's said that all those at prayer would be taken away - kidnapped - and 11 men stayed in the mosque and refused to go. So they brought them here...and shot them in the face "..." Don't be surprised " the man said " I had two neighbours who the Iraqis thought were in the resistance. So they pushed them into drains, closed the grill, poured petrol on them and set them on fire "..

...What is one to think when one walks, as I did yesterday, through the smoking chambers of the National Museum, fired by the Iraqis on Tuesday? or the gutted interior of the parliament ? or the still burning library in the self Reception Palace. What kind of people burn museums and libraries? (Note : the answer is simple. They were Muslims)

Outside the museum, Kuwaiti's collection of historic wooden boats had been burned to cinders. The " Islamic houses " lay in ruins...The great hotels had been systematically fired...It was like a mediaeval army which conquered, looted and taken burned even on an individual level.

Boat owners found their yachts stolen or deliberately sunk in the marinas. Shopkeepers found their stores burned if they could not be looted...There were cartridge cases across the forecourt of the great museum, bullet-holes in the cracked walls of the building that once contained Kuwait's finest - and long ago looted - national treasures...

I suppose one sensed in Kuwait yesterday that something very wicked, at times evil had visited this city.

( Independent 21 February 1991 )

Stewart Payne reported for the Evening Standard -

" I see proof of Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait. "

City mortuary rows of mutilated Kuwaiti torture victims bear testimony to the inhumanity of Saddam Hussein's murders army. Their bodies are blackened by electrodes, their wrists and ankles cut by steel wires. Some have had their eyes gouged out. All have been savagely beaten, covered from head to toe in bruises, their clothing bloodstained and torn.

Before me was incontrovertible proof that the Iraqis did inflict the most brutal atrocities imaginable during their seven months of occupation. I have seen the proof and I will never forget it.

Mortuary attendant Subhi Younis pulled body after body on siding trays in the Sabah hospitals cold store...Mr Younis said that he had been dealing in this sort of death ever since the Iraqis arrived.

...Weeping relatives stood with their hands covering their faces as bodies were pulled from the trays while they looked for members of their families.

...In a different ward lies a 15 year old Kuwaiti girl. No one knows who she is, she doesn't speak, she just stares ahead of her. All the doctors know is that she was repeatedly raped by Iraqi soldiers and is now pregnant. Surgeon Mahannoud Bader, said : " Many young girls have been raped during the occupation. This girl was raped many times. She was brought in five days ago. Since then she has said nothing. It is though she has disowned herself. "

Jeremy Campbell writes from Washington : The Iraqis kept elaborate records of the atrocities they committed in Kuwait " like the Nazis in the Second World War " U S intelligence officials have revealed. They say there is evidence of between 5,000 and 7,000 cases of murder, mistreatment of civilians and prisoners of war and destruction of property. " There are photographs of prisoners before and after interrogation, of executions " officials said.

( Evening Standard 1 March 1991 )

2.3 What can Hindus learn ?

1 The falsity of Islamic brotherhood has been fully exposed and we must use this opportunity to spite the Muslims for next 200 years. The British mass-media, whenever referring to the RSS or the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, always mention assassination of Gandhi in 1948. They say that Godse was one of them.

2 We must always remember how the Iraqis raped even Kuwaiti women. If Muslims can commit such barbarities on Muslims (even Arabs on Arabs) even today, how will they treat Hindus? and how would they have treated Hindus in the past?

3 Might is still right. Kuwaitis had enormous wealth but could not defend themselves - exactly what Hindus have not learnt for centuries. Iraqis were driven out by superior military forces with uptodate, advanced, accurate destructive weapons of American and Allied Forces, and not by chanting " Ahimsa paramo dharmaha or Buddham saranam gachchhami .

4 As Savarkar pointed out on a number of occasions, in international politics, there are neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies, only marriages of convenience. A friend of today may be enemy tomorrow and vice versa. Hindus must learn who their friends and enemies are. Despite the horrors of Tinamann Square massacre President Bush has proposed to grant " most favoured nation " status to China, because the Chinese sided with the Americans during the Iraqi - Kuwait crisis.

5 From the Hindu point of view the whole episode was good and useful. Kuwaitis would have certainly wished that all Hindus should convert to Islam and would have spent their last penny on that zeal.

6 It is indeed unfortunate that so many innocent Asian women were violated by Iraqis and are now pregnant. But what does Islam say should happen to them ? We are told - " If these women are arrested, under Islamic law as it is operated in Kuwait they face a prison term with hard labour for having illicit relationships and then deportation - if it was Saudi Arabia it would be death by stoning " said Dr Mauyag Muhammad Tamano, the Phillipines ambassador. ( The Times 2 July 1991 )

Once again we must use this information and expose the barbaric attitude of Islam towards women.

7 India sided with Iraq to please Indian Muslims and satisfy the whims of Rajiv Gandhi and paid for the folly. Pakistan publicly sided with America, send its troops to liberate Kuwait, and reaped the benefits. Ahmed Rashid reported from Lahore, for the Independent on 27 March 1991 - Pakistan profits as Kuwait rebuilds.

8 Also as a reward for supporting the Allies, Britain restored diplomatic ties with Syria and Iran.

9 Western powers looked to Saddam Hussein of Iraq as a bulwark against the threat of Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran (just as they looked to Hitler to stop the spread of Bolshevism in Europe) So Saddam got away with gassing the Kurds to death. But when he overstepped the mark, he had to be put down. As soon as he invaded Kuwait, Westerners became aware of the fact that Saddam had biological, chemical and possibly nuclear weapons. But it was the Western powers themselves who supplied Iraq with all the materials and techniques as it was good business. It was the French who enabled Iraq to build a nuclear reactor. Thanks to the Israelis who destroyed it in 1981.

There were no morals, no scruples. There never are any.

10 Hindus should have supported Kuwait openly by demonstrating, writing and meeting Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian officials. They should have also pointed out that it was Indian Muslims who were shamelessly supporting the tyrant, aggressor Saddam and it was a mistake to give them any money.

11 Despite desperately needing the Allied Forces to defend their country and expel Iraqis from neighbouring Kuwait, Saudi Arabians forbade celebration of X'mas by Christian soldiers! Though this was extremely humiliating, Western powers abided by it as it was in their interest to expel the Iraqis out of Kuwait at any cost. The scenario of Iraq controlling vast oil reserves of Kuwait and possibly threatening Saudi Arabia which produces 25 % of world's oil supplies, was too frightening.

12 Saudi Arabia also insisted that the symbol of the International Red Cross + shall not be used and Red crescent shall be used instead. Once again, Western powers abided by it.

3 Behaviour of Christians and Muslims today.

3.1 Treatment of animals

" Independent " of 15 April 91 reports -

Protesters highlight fur factories

LYNX the group opposed to the fur trade, is for the first time turning to the factories where animals are bred for their pelts....

Lynx says foxes and mink are the two main animals bred for fur in Britain. Their advertisement reads :

How to turn a fox into a fur coat ( Without getting blood on your hands )

Death in a fur factory in never bloody. Nothing is allowed to spoil the valuable pelt of an animal like a fox or a mink. They are electrocuted ( clamp one high voltage electrode to its tongue. Stick the other electrode upto its rectum. Switch on ) Gassed with car exhaust fumes. Their necks are crushed between two planks. Life in a fur factory is no better. If anything worse. All six months of it spent in a cage. Wire walls, wire roof, wire floor ( It doesn't need cleaning that way ) Barely room to turn around, let alone run around. Instinct tells these wild animals to be active, inquisitive. Their cages drive them steadily mad. They develop obsessive irrational behaviour. They take to mutilating themselves.

Over thirty million animals every year live this life and die this death. If you can still wear an animal's fur, knowing how it has suffered, then there's one thing we would like to know just what kind of human being are you?

The answer is simple. Both the producers and purchasers are Christians.

3.2 Religion keeps Lisa off the school bus

Lisa Allinson an 11 year old girl has lost her place on a school bus because of her religion. Her parents attend their local United Reformed Church. But her school is Church of England. So Lisa must find her own way to Bennett Memorial School in Turnbridge Wells, Kent - seven miles from her home in Hiddenborough.

Kent County Council told the Allinsons " Pupils attending Church Schools on denominational grounds are eligible for free transport provided that they are practising members of the same denomination as the school concerned. "

Mrs Jane Allinson said, " We were told we had to pay for Lisa because she wasn't Church of England. We paid œ59 for the first term and œ75 the second. But from next term she has no place at all. "

( Daily Mail 26 March 1991 )

3.3 Stop saying Namaste

In last three to four years local radios have sprung up all over England. Southall ( West London ) has its Radio Sun Rise. They have a phone-in programme on Sundays when the listeners can express their reactions to various programmes ( quality, content, timing, bias etc ) On

8 July 1990 one Mr Khan phoned and said, " At the beginning of the programmes you say Namaste, or Sat Shree Akal. This should be stopped and you should say Salam Alekum instead.

The programmer said, " What is the meaning of the words Namaste or Sat Shree

Akal? Do they imply insult or abuse to Muslims? "

Mr Khan replied, " I do not know. But Muslims do not understand these words and you should say Salam Alekum. "

Will we ever learn how to behave with the Muslims ?

4 Truth - the expensive commodity

After all these years many people naively ask us - but why doesn't the Government of India and the Indian Historians accept your research? Let us see what is happening in the world -

4.1 BBC2 televised an eight part series entitled "Taking Liberties " (March / April 1989 ) On 11 April 89 the programme was concerned with the fate of citizens who exposed malpractices in their jobs and paid for it heavily.

Jim Cormack, a lorry driver told the police about a large scale fiddle involving Ministry of Defence diesel fuel. As a result he was sacked by his employer and no haulier in Britain would employ him.

Charles Robertson, a Chartered Accountant earning £43,000 a year was sacked by his employer Guardian Royal Exchange. He had to declare that his company had paid their full dues to the Inland Revenue. He knew that they had not and being a honest man he refused to declare otherwise. He was sacked, went to the Industrial Tribunal, who ruled that he was unfairly dismissed. But his Employer refused to reinstate him. And now nobody will employ him !

Jim Smith, an Engineer and a Senior Executive found out that his employing company was cheating the Royal Navy by falsifying time sheets and not returning excess profits as agreed by contract. He pointed this out and was sacked by his employer. He was shocked to find that despite his reputation as an Engineer he could not pursue a career as a freelance consultant due to the "stigma " of having been too honest.

Mrs Thatcher the then British Prime Minister and Mr Hurd the Home Secretary had stated that the health of the State depended on the " active citizens ". Brave words with a hollow ring.

4.2 Independent reported in April 1990 :

Whistleblowers come off worse than the guilty

The few police officers who blow the whistle on corrupt practices of their colleagues can come off worse than those they expose.

Ron Walker, a former detective in Kent who reported a number of his colleagues in 1986 for rigging detection rates, became officially " off sick ", languishing at home and ostracised by his former colleagues. Those against whom he made charges continued to serve until last September, when a disciplinary tribunal dismissed one detective and five others. A further 26 were warned about their conduct, and a superintendent, who was facing a tribunal, retired while on sick leave.

Mr Walker, after hearing that some officers objected to working alongside him again, eventually accepted early retirement. He will shortly have to leave his police house and has not yet found another job.

In an incident at Holloway, north London, it took three years and two inquiries before two constables who were part of a conspiracy to cover up an attack on a group of schoolboys broke ranks to give evidence against colleagues in return for immunity. But the careers of Constables Kevin Luxford, who moved station and Phillip Boak, who transferred to Manchester, were effectively over and they were discredited as witnesses.

In the West Midlands, Constable Adrian Dart was insulted and harassed after he told senior officers about three detectives beating up a black suspect. The detectives were eventually imprisoned; PC Dart resigned.

In some celebrated cases, officers have continued to serve for several years despite having been the subject of serious allegations. Det Chief Supt Tony Lundy, of the Metropolitan Police, carried out important investigations despite a continuing controversy over links with a criminal who had become his informer, who was later jailed for his part in cocaine smuggling. Mr Lundy retired while on sick leave and facing a disciplinary tribunal on another matter.

At the opposite end of the scale, in Nottingham Hill, West London, is a uniformed constable, David Judd, who has been the subject of a number of serious allegations in successful civil actions stemming from allegations of assault and drugs planting on young blacks. Although the cases date from 1985, he has continued on duty. Only recently has he been moved into a non-operational position and a second inquiry has been ordered into cases in which he has been involved.

A number of detectives in the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad continued to serve, gain promotion and service awards despite sporadic allegations against some of them, only a handful of which reached disciplinary tribunals, which date back to the 1970s. In no cases were officers suspended or transferred until the squad was disbanded last August.

One officer, Detective Sergeant Michael Hornby, a holder of the Queen's Police Medal, is alleged to have been among the officers who extracted confessions out of the Birmingham Six in 1974. He served throughout the intervening period and is named in a number of cases under investigation by West Yorkshire Police involving allegations of fabricated confessions.

( Independent 30 April 1990 )

5 Forgive and Forget

5.1 Massacre of Jews

800 years ago, Jews were massacred in the Hillford Tower, York. Jews held a remembrance service on 18 March 1990. We do not remember our history even 80 years ago! We hold no remembrance day for those massacred in Pakistan and Bangladesh at various times.

5.2 Wounded Knee

100 years ago, between 150 and 300 Sioux Indian men women and children were massacred by U S Federal cavalry, at Badland hills, Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The Indian group led by Big Foot, had fled there after Sioux Chief Sitting Bull was shot dead by reservation police officers. More than 400 people braved sub-zero temperatures to conduct the traditional rites at the South Dakota cemetery.

" We are here to wipe away the tears, mourn the dead, something that should have done 100 years ago " said one Indian leader, Birgil Kills Straight, during the service. " It was our intent at some point to accomplish the ceremony of wiping the tears. Today we do that. "

Mr George Mickelson, the governor of South Dakota had condemned the massacre as " one of many dark moments in American history. "

Around half the Sioux mourners had taken two weeks retracing on horseback the 220 mile journey that Chief Big Foot and his band took from Fort Yales in North Dakota to Wounded Knee in South Dakota.

( Daily Telegraph 31 December 1990 )

5.3 Albanian Gold

After the collapse of communism, Albania has been trying to establish diplomatic links with Britain. Albania's Prime Minister, Fatos Nanos, said that Albania had dropped its insistence on sorting out the issue of Albanian gold worth œ10 million held by Britain. Albania wants the gold back, but Britain has for 40 years held it as compensation for the mining of two British ships in the Corfu channel in 1946.

( Independent 14 May 1991 )

Dear oh dear! Fighting for compensation for more than 40 years ? Look at India. Pakistan owed India more than 100 crore rupees since partition in 1947, i.e œ70 million at prices of 1947. But the Nehru dynasty never recovered a single penny. No wonder the British love the Nehrus so much.

5.4 Emperor Hirohito's funeral

Emperor Hirohito of Japan died on 6 January 1989. The question immediately arose - which member of the (British) Royal family should attend Hirohito's funeral? It was to be the Duke of Edinburgh. There was a strong condemnation of the decision by former prisoners of war ( of World War II ) captured by the Japanese. They claim to have been badly treated. But that was more than 40 years ago. Should not the PoWs forgive and forget? NO. It does not apply if the affected people are British.

British press suggested that if the Duke of Edinburgh has to attend the funeral he should also visit the Commonwealth cemetery in Tokyo (which he eventually did)

" Independent " of 13 January reported on page 11 - Japanese school history avoids teaching Japanese War crimes.

Evening Standard reported - Sir Geoffrey Howe the British Foreign Secretary declared on 25 January - we have not forgiven Japan.

" The People " said on 22 January - Dame Vera Lynn does not think Prince Philip should go to Emperor Hirohito's funeral in Japan. But the former Forces sweetheart is urging ex-prisoners of war not to send back their Burma Star medals to Buckingham Palace as a protest.

She points out : " The boys won them bravely fighting the Japs. " Quite right. If anything the British lads should bombard the palace with pictures of themselves as they emerged from Jap prison camps, looking like skeletons after years of starvation and torture. It would serve as a reminder to Prince Philip that his presence at Hirohito's farewell should be more in anger than in sorrow.

The funeral eventually took place on 24 February 1990.

(Note : Indian history, as written under the Congress Raj, on the other hand, avoids atrocities of the Muslim and British rulers. When Hindus were being massacred in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) in October 1952, Indians were happily playing cricket matches with Pakistan! Hindu Mahasabha leaders, who protested, were promptly arrested by the Nehru government under the Preventive Detention Act! )

We must be careful in what we say. We should always say, " alleged Japanese atrocities. " After all the British still teach " Indian Mutiny " in schools, many still justify the Jalianwala Bagh massacre and when did the British apologise for starving to death, 4 million people in Bengal during 1942-44? So why should we take their word as true?

Moreover, what were these British soldiers doing in Burma or Singapore, thousands of miles away from their home? Did the Burmese or Malays invite the British soldiers? NO. They went to continue to enslave the local population. So why should they complain about the " alleged maltreatment ? "

5.5 Barren Japanese Islands

Mikhail Gorbachev the President of the Soviet Union, visited Japan on 16 April 1991. The purpose was to seek financial assistance. But the Japanese leaders refused to help unless and until the Soviet Union vacated four islands called " Kuril Islands " captured towards the end of World War II (i.e. in 1945) The islands are tiny and barren. But the Japanese would not yield.

And look at India. While replying to questions on Chinese aggression on the North East and North West borders, Nehru shamelessly said in 1962," True. The Chinese have occupied thousands of square miles of Indian territory, but not a blade of grass grows over there. "