Vedanta Resources, a UK-registered ftse -100 company wanted to mine The Niyamgiri Hills in Orissa which are sacred to  Dongria Kondhs, a protected tribal group of ‘original’ Aboriginal peoples.

According to Survival International, Mr Ramesh said Vedanta has shown a ’shocking’ and ‘blatant disregard for the rights of the tribal groups’. The Minister has also questioned the legality of the massive refinery Vedanta has already built below the hills.

I wrote about this back in May 2009 (India – Vedanta’s shame) and also for Tehelka in late 2007 (Knocked Out by Bauxite).

Here are some images from the story.

India - Orissa - Dabu Limajhi, a Dongria Kondh tribal woman in Kankasarpa village, shares a joke with friends in her house

India - Orissa - Dabu Limajhi, a Dongria Kondh tribal woman in Kankasarpa village

India - Orissa - A Dongria Kondh woman carries a pot of water on her head in front of the Vedanta plant, Lanjigargh

India - Orissa - sunset over the Niyamgiri hills. The hills are sacred to the Dongria Kondh and are worshipped as a deity

Well, not true. The war, born of a lie, born of greed and evil has been a disaster for America and for the world. There is also no end to the violence: more civilians died last month in Iraq than in Afghanistan. There is no political settlement and the Iraqi Resistance is as strong as it ever was. The Occupation hasn’t ended, it’s just been privatised. Apparently there around 10000 armed mercenaries in the country working in the State Department’s interests and the American’s want this increased (Blackwater helpfully calls this ‘the coming surge’). Of course the advantages of having cheap mercenary armies made up of contractors (notably from the Developing World) are clear: cost and (non) accountability. In any case, someone has to patrol the oil fields under (long, probably illegal) contract to the Americans and their friends joyfully raping Iraq’s natural resources.

Still, we haven’t really seen this. What we have seen is the war as viewed from the back of American and (sometimes) British armoured cars. It’s rare to see or hear Iraqi voices despite the war lasting seven years and we’ve generally had to endure the war through embedding and spin. The few cracks in the information blackout have been enlightening but as rare and as elusive as peace itself.

Iraq - Baghdad - Two women wearing chador gossip and laugh on the street

Iraq- Basra - Boys climb what is know locally as the tree of Adam at Al Qurnah near Basra. The Holy Tree, according to the legend marked the Garden of Eden, at the convergence of the Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers

Iraq- Baghdad - A man in the Oum Kalsoum cafe

Iraq - Babylon - The restored walls of the Temple complex. Babylon, an ancient city when mention in the Bible is dated at around the 24th Century BC. In 1985, Saddam Hussein started rebuilding the city on top of the old ruins (because of this, artifacts and other finds may well be buried under the city), investing in both restoration and new construction. To the dismay of archaeologists, he inscribed his name on many of the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar. One frequent inscription reads: "This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq".

Iraq - Mosul - A Yezidi priest lights a lamp in a religious service at a Yezidi temple. The Yazidis believe in God as creator of the world, which he placed under the care of seven angels the chief of whom is Melek Taus - the Peacock Angel. Speculation that worship of Melek Taus was worship of Satan (who fell) have resulted in Yezidi's being persecuted as 'devil worshippers' throughout their history and persecuted.

Iraq - Mosul - An old Yezidi woman

Iraq - Ur- A man walks past the ziggurat at Ur, supoosedly the city of the prophet Abraham's birth. Ur was a principal city of ancient Mesopotamia. The Ziggurat was dedicated to the moon and was built approximately in the 21st century BC by king Ur-Namma. In Sumerian times it was called Etemennigur.

Iraq- Basra - A shepherd boy and his flock

Iraq - Samarra - A man climbs the minaret of the Al-Mutawakkil mosque. The first mosque, built in 836, has now disappeared; it was replaced in 849-852 by a new mosque built on a grand scale, which for a long time was the largest mosque of the Islamic world. It continued to be used until the end of the 11th century.

Iraq - Basra - A boat on the River Euphrates at sunset

The poor have fallen out of the narrative of modern India. Delhi, the nation’s capital, has been transformed into a vibrant, wealthy metropolis. But where extremes of wealth tread, illness and despair follow, and Delhi is today in the grip of a mental health crisis.

An estimated 20 million Indians suffer from serious mental disorders, many of them hidden from public view by their families. Delhi is a city of migrants and every day thousands more arrive to try to escape the poverty of the village. Many will remain homeless, divorced from the traditional family structure and culture. Delhi’s army of homeless is conservatively estimated to number around 100,000 people. Mental illness in this group is treated either by violence from the rest of the community or traditional ‘quack’ or faith healers. Delhi has had a traumatic history. The city was destroyed by the British in 1857, by Partition nearly a century later and riven by anti-Sikh violence in 1984 after Indira Gandhi’s murder. It seems to me that Delhi has lost a great deal of its culture and sense of itself; a dangerous thing to lose. A psychiatrist might contend that by its rampant consumerism it is trying to ‘feed itself’ an identity.

Nimesh Desai, head of psychiatry at the New Delhi-based Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, estimates that India has fewer than 4,000 psychiatrists, and even fewer general mental health professionals. ‘The lack of psychiatrists is bad and the shortage of psychologists, social workers and councellors is even more alarming,’ Desai told me. ‘It meets about five to seven percent of the projected need.’ Desai has however attempted a solution. After eight years of intense lobbying, his team have started to conduct weekly open air surgeries for the mentally ill homeless in Old Delhi. He is accompanied by a High Court judge who assesses each patient to decide whether or not Desai can inject them with anti-psychotic drugs. On rare occasions he sections them to his mental hospital in the east of the city.

India - Delhi - A homeless mentally ill man picks up a rock to throw at passing traffic

India - Delhi - A mentally ill man kisses his wife who visits him in the secure ward

India - New Delhi - A Pir, exorcises a spirit from a mentally troubled who believes herself possessed at a dargah (shrine) in South Delhi

I’ve never worked in the Data Ganj Baksh shrine but here are some other images linked by ‘Sufism’ from my archive:

India - Delhi - Worshippers (both Hindu and Muslim) pray and make offerings over the tomb of Hazrat Nizamuddin Awlia, a famous Sufi of the Chisti Order

India - Delhi - Musicians play and sing Qawwali (Sufi devotional songs) at the Hazrat Nizamuddin Awlia Shrine

Somaliland - Hargeisa - Men perform Zikr (recitation of the name of Allah - a key Sufi practise) in secret at a house in Hargeisa, the capital of the Self Declared Independent country of Somaliland.

Albania - Tirana - A Bektashi Dervish elder in the Order's mosque. in Tirana Albania. The Bektashi's, an order of Sufi's were persecuted along with all other religions under the Communist regime

UK - London - A portrait of a young man in the Peckham Mosque who has converted to Islam in the Sufi tradition

I had been invited to Rabwah, the spiritual home of the Ahmadiyya community, a peaceful minority Islamic movement that questions the finality of the Prophet Mohammed. Pakistan is the only country to classify Ahmadiyya’s as non-Muslims.

In 1984 General Zia issued Ordinace XX supposedly to prevent “anti-Islamic activities”. It forbids Ahmadiyya’s to call themselves Muslims, call their places of worship mosques and worship publicly. It forbids them from quoting from the Koran, preaching in public, seeking converts, or producing, publishing, and disseminating their religious materials. To gain a passport, all Pakistanis must declare themselves non-Ahmadiyyas.

The repression is of course a smokescreen to hide Pakistan’s myriad social and political problems and the Ahmaidiyyas are a perfect scapegoat. This is not about religion, it’s about state power. As Tariq Ali wrote in the London Review of Books in 2007:

“Back in the heart of Pakistan the most difficult and explosive issue remains social and economic inequality. This is not unrelated to the increase in the number of madrassas. If there were a half-decent state education system, poor families might not feel the need to hand over a son or daughter to the clerics in the hope that at least one child will be clothed, fed and educated. Were there even the semblance of a health system many would be saved from illnesses contracted as a result of fatigue and poverty. No government since 1947 has done much to reduce inequality”.

On 28 May 2010, 93 Ahmaiddyas were murdered in Lahore by gunmen who attacked two of their mosques during Friday prayers.

Ali Dayan Hassan of Human Rights Watch told the BBC the worshippers were “easy targets” for militant Sunni groups who consider the Ahmadis to be infidels. The Pakistani state is in trouble however and Ahmadiyyas are not the only minority to suffer persecution. According to Minority Rights, Baluchis, Hindus, Mohhajirs, Pushtuns, Sindhis and Christians all suffer.

Today, I read with interest an opinion piece in Dawn by Moshin Hamid (an author whose Moth Smoke I read and enjoyed some time ago) called Fear and Silence from which I take the liberty of quoting from at length. I think it elegantly echoes Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous (attributed) quote “First they came for the Jews…”. Hamid says:

“Because the heart of the issue isn’t whether Ahmadis are non-Muslims or not. The heart of the issue is whether Muslims can be silenced by fear.

Because if we can be silenced when it comes to Ahmadis, then we can be silenced when it comes to Shias, we can be silenced when it comes to women, we can be silenced when it comes to dress, we can be silenced when it comes to entertainment, and we can even be silenced when it comes to sitting by ourselves, alone in a room, afraid to think what we think.

That is the point. ”

One can only hope that all people of tolerance and faith will not be silenced.

Pakistan - Rabwah - A man holds a portrait of the Ahmadiyya prophet, Ahmed. Also known as Qadiani's, the Ahmadiyyas are the followers of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani (1835-1908). According to his followers, he was the founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at and The Promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi. The Ahmadiyya (Qadiani) movement in Islam is a religious organisation with more than 30 million members worldwide. Ahmadiyyas are now banned from calling themselves Muslim in Pakistan and suffer terrible discrimination under anti-blasphemy laws and are regularly murdered for their faith.

Pakistan - Rabwah - Two Ahmadiyya men after prayers at their mosque

Pakistan - Rabwah - An Ahmadiyya imam leads his congregation

Pakistan - Rabwah - An Ahmadiyya woman weeps at the grave of her murdered child

Pakistan - Rabwah - An Ahmadiyya elder, blinded for his faith

Pakistan - Rabwah - A woman beneath a portrait of her murdered husband

Pakistan - Rabwah - Ahmadiyyas praying at their mosque

Pakistan - Rabwah - After prayers, a boy plays ball in a mosque

_____________

“What we do here is the work of God and that work is spread through our blood” says Radhakrishna Stapathy.

It is just after dawn and Stapathy squats cross-legged on a wooden block, a small hammer between his palms drawn to his forehead in prayer. In front of him, a large statue, freshly cast to which he will bring life by smoothing its metal through long hours of patient work.

Stapathy is an idol maker, a caster of statues, a master craftsman and one whose lineage can be traced backwards twenty three generations to the time that the great Chola Empire that ruled South India more than seven hundred years ago.

Swamimalai is a sleepy temple town deep in Tamil Nadu. Five hours drive from the bustling noisy city of Chennai (formerly Madras); it has a rhythm of a time that has been. Peasants winnow grain under the wheels of passing trucks and bend low in fields ankle deep in rich soil and bullock pull carts along dirt tracks.

This is the heartland of Tamil Dravidian culture and the landscape is linked organically to its religion with every field, every village, paying homage to a deity. A sacred geography links its towns where great palaces of temples provide, in the eyes of the faithful, a real home for the Gods.

The Stapathy studio, fronted by two (relatively) modern offices, is a dark and cavernous space that ironically resembles a temple itself. Men sit of the floors dressed in stained dhotis, deep in concentration, chipping and finishing statues and icons in the warm air filled with incense and the smell of the damp, cool earth under bare feet.

In the courtyard outside, three men mould clay around perfectly carved wax images that will melt on the introduction of molten metal. This ‘lost wax’ process was described by August Rodin as “the most perfect representation of rhythmic movement in art.”

The art of bronze casting can trace its origins from the Indus Valley civilization reaching its zenith during the Chola period in the Thanjavur delta during the 9th-11th centuries A.D.

At the end of the reign of Rajaraja, the greatest Chola king a magnificent temple was built in his capital, Tanjore. On its completion in 1010, the Cholas had donated 500 tons of gold, jewels and silver as well as sixty bronze images of deities to the new structure.

The temples at Tanjore, Chidambaram and Gangaikondacholisvaram are still dark, mysterious places alive with pilgrims prostrating themselves in cavernous halls before oiled black-stone images of gods and demons eerily lit by camphor lamps. They worship before the most famous incarnation of Shiva – Nataraja who elegantly dances the world into destruction and re-birth.

The Stapathy family were originally stonemasons but were called to Tanjore to learn the new art. It was discovered that that the fine silt from the nearby Kauvery River suited the moulding of the bronzes and the process has not changed since.

“Here is our culture,” says Stapathy and rows of half finished pieces peer from the shadows. All around, wax figures sit cool in great bowls of water: arms, legs, and heads like a battle hospital for Gods. Moulds of countless beings are stacked on dusty shelves around the walls. Later, at his house, across the street, Radakhrishna, now joined by his brother Srikanda, perform a puja at their family shrine honouring their ancestors. “It’s like this,” says Srikanda. “We need no training, a fish doesn’t need lessons of how to live in water: we are born for this work. And the work is good… orders are there and money is there”. Indeed, work is brisk and the brothers’ skills are in demand all across the Indian diaspora. Temples in London, California and Canada want idols crafted in the tradition of their fathers and pay handsomely for the privilege. There are other families that make idols “but” says Radhakhrishna, “none know the Sanskrit, none can make the prayers… we only are keeping the Chola king’s tradition.”

As the afternoon draws on, sweating men carefully pour molten metal into a mould held tight in the earth. Later, in a flurry of steam and almost divine heat, a statue will emerge beneath their hammers onto the workshop floor and, if the prayers have been performed properly, the process will produce an idol. Depending on its size it may take weeks to prepare for its ‘birth’ when its eyes are sculpted and its ‘Jeevan’ or life force will be breathed into it, it will, for a set time (depending on where it ‘lives’ and how faithfully it’s worshipped) become in a real sense, a God.

Dawn again, with the streets quiet, Radhakrishna pulls his skirt around him and steadies himself on his wooden seat. Still for a moment, he takes his chisel and checks his cutting line. He makes an incantation and the room is gently filled with the tap-tapping of a hammer. A noise that echoes across the room, across his family and across generations.

©Stuart Freedman 2010

In his recent book, the historian William Dalrymple devotes a chapter to the idol makers.

India - Tamil Nadu - Master craftsmen Radhakhrishna Stpathy (r) and his brorther, Srikanda mould an icon in wax in their workshop in Swamimalai, India..The current Stpathy family is the twenty third generation of bronze casters dating back to the founding of the Chola Empire. The Stapathys had been sculptors of stone idols at the time of Rajaraja 1 (AD985-1014) but were called to Tanjore to learn bronze casting. Their methods using the 'lost wax' process remains unchanged to this day..

India - Tamil Nadu - Workers sealing and covering a wax mould of an icon with clay ready to be fired in the pit at the workshop in Swamimalai, India.

India - Tamil Nadu - Master craftsman Pranava Stapathy instructs another craftsman whilst working on a large statue of Hanuman, the monkey God at the workshop of S. Devasenapathy Stapathy and Sons.

India - Tamil Nadu - A craftsman pours wax into a mould from which a statue will be cast from bronze.

India - Tamil Nadu - A worker carves a wax mould of an icon in the studio of the Stpathy family of idol makers, Swamimalai, India.

India - Tamil Nadu - Workers cast an icon in the pit at the workshop of the Stpathy family, Swamimalai

India - Tamil Nadu - Radakrishna Stpathy directs the breaking open of a icon mould at his workshop in Swamimalai

India - Tamil Nadu - A finished icon of the God Shiva shown here in the form of the dancing Nataraja.

India - Tamil Nadu - A priest by a shrine at the Murugan temple stands in front of a shrine containing a ritual idol

India - Tamil Nadu - Devotees light oil lamps in the Murugan temple

India - Tamil Nadu - Master craftsman Radhakhrishna Stpathy, works on the final touches to a statue of the dancing Nataraja at dawn in his workshop

I’ve been lucky enough to have been touched by the magic of this river often over the years. I’ve covered two Kumbh Melas (the enormous religious bathing pilgrimage that takes place four times every twelve years at the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna) and visited the extraordinary Varanasi many times. There is something touching, real and honourable about Indian’s reverence and awe at the Ganges; something that speaks about life and its transitory nature. It’s a beautiful thing to see villagers come hundreds of miles just to bathe in the river and feel its coolness at dawn as they submerge themselves. Humbling and puzzling to see the processions of corpse bearers literally running to the cremation grounds on the ghats in Varanasi to burn a body. I shall never forget my first sight of a body (suicides, children and snake bite victims are swallowed by the river whole) bloated, rolling and turning in the gentle waves of my boat one morning at dawn.

Some pictures:

India - Varanasi - A man makes an offering to the Ganges at dawn

India - Varanasi - A worker at the Burning or 'Manikarnika' Ghat tends a cremation pyre. The men are all from the same low caste called Dons - Dalit's or 'untouchable's' rendered ritually unclean by their work

India - Allahbad - Pilgrims cross one of the many pontoon bridges erected at the Kumbh Mela

India - Allahabad - Saddhus dry themselves after a ritual bath at the Kumbh Mela

India - Allahabad - Pilgrims ritually bathe at the Ardh Kumbh Mela

India - Allahabad - Saddhus in a boat at the Kumbh Mela

India - Allahabad - A pilgrim and his wife get ready to immerse themselves in the Ganges as an act of religious purification