Whitewashing Caldwell
The bicentenary of Irish missionary Robert Caldwell will be observed on May 7 as a government function. An order to this was issued by chief minister J Jayalalithaa on May 3. It is in response to a request from the Church. The bicentenary celebrations will begin at the tomb of Caldwell at Idayankudi in Tirunelveli district. Robert Caldwell has too negative contributions to his credit. One, he depicted Nadars, as lower than Dalits. For that he was driven away from Idayankudi. His depiction kindled huge animosity among different communities among Hindus. Two, his treatise on comparative philology divided Hindus as Aryans and Dravidians based on linguistic differences. Dravidian politicians are not as alert as the Nadar community to see through the designs of the foreign priest. So Caldwell is being deified. DMK installed a statue for Caldwell in Chennai years ago. Now AIADMK Government has chosen to give him a royal celebration.
A hurdle for home comers
Home coming is the word for those from Islam or Christianity who re-embrace Hinduism. Home comers face several problems. One is the caste in which the reconverted person wants to fit himself in. That is the case of S Maharaja, a diploma-holder in ITI (Wiring). He stated that although his grandparents were Christians, his father, elder brother, younger sister and himself have been following Hindu rites and rituals since childhood and that he belongs to the Hindu Pallan Community (SC). But when he sought the community certificate the Tahsildar rejected on the grounds that there was no document to prove the conversion and three of his family members had Christian names. Aggrieved Maharaja sought a direction from the Court.
Southern source of Jihadi terror
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been trying to build a base in Sri Lanka to gain entry to India, say experts. The arrest of suspected ISI agent Sakir Hussain from Sri Lanka in Chennai is an indicator of the accuracy of this line of thinking. Col R Hariharan, a retired military intelligence specialist on South Asia, said the ISI had been trying to gain a larger foothold in Sri Lanka to execute its designs on India. Central agencies, who made the arrest, believe that Hussain, 37, was in Chennai as he had been tasked by a senior official in the Pakistan high commission in Colombo with recruiting youth from south India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, for circulation of fake currency and terror activities.
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