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Indian Holocaust, Indian Independence,
Pakistan Floods And Climate Genocide

By Dr Gideon Polya

14 August, 2010
Countercurrents.org

Both Pakistan and India are marking their respective Independence Days (14 August and 15 August, respectively). Pakistan is experiencing its worst ever floods at the same time as the evil, cowardly, Zionist–backed  American Empire is ramping up war with robot drones in NW Pakistan. America, one of the world's worst per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters,  is also contributing to massive climate change-linked disasters such as the Pakistan floods while simultaneously devastating  NW Pakistan in 2009 by high technology robot bombing (generating 2.5 million Pashtun refugees in NW Pakistan in 2009: http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2009/06/11/pakistan-risks-ethnic-strife/ ). South Asians and the  civilized world in general must call a halt to the dual obscenity of Zionist-backed US imperialism and Zionist-backed pollution of the planet by remorseless US capitalist greed.    

Meteorologists and climate scientists say that one cannot attribute individual extreme weather events to man-made global warming. Nevertheless they also say that  man-made global warming has increased the probability of extreme events such as the deadly Russian heat wave and the disastrous Pakistani floods. However the subtlety of the distinction will be lost on the millions of victims.

Several years ago Professor John Holdren (Harvard University, President Obama's chief science adviser, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's biggest  general scientific organization and publisher of the top scientific  journal Science) gave an important lecture entitled “The Science of Climatic Disruption” (see: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf ) in which he set out the evidence for the climate disruption that has already happened due to man-made global warming. Of acute relevance to the Russian forest fires is the global warming-linked circa 5-fold increase in the area burnt by forest fires in the Western United States in the 21st century as compared to the 1960s and 1970s. Of acute relevance to the Pakistani floods is the huge increase in flooding around the world (e.g. drought in North China and  floods in South China mimicked by drought in Southern Australia and huge floods in Northern Australia ).  

Flood–devastated Pakistan marks Pakistan Independence Day on 14 August. On 15 August Pakistan 's sister country India marks India 's Independence Day. Pakistan , India and Bangladesh have a common history as constituents of the brilliant Mughal Empire and thence enslavement and an Indian Holocaust under the brutal British Raj. However both nations face a huge common threat of Climate Genocide due to North American, European and Australasian refusal to address man-made global warming and its disastrous consequences seen now in the Pakistani floods.

It is estimated that 1.8 billion Indians died avoidably from dire deprivation under the British, notable atrocities including 10 million Indians butchered in reprisals for the 1857 uprising  (see Amaresh Misra's book “ “War of Civilizations: India AD 1857” –(Volume I -The Road to Delhi; & Volume II- The Long Revolution) ” : http://warofcivilisations.blogspot.com/  ), the Great Bengal Famine of 1769-1779 (that killed 10 million Bengalis, 1/3 of the population), 2 centuries  of British-imposed famines that killed scores of millions, most notably in the latter half of the 19th century  and culminating  in the 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust,  the man-made atrocity in which 6-7 million Indians in Bihar, Bengal, Assam and Orissa were deliberately starved to death by the British in the  World War 2 Bengal Famine (see the transcript of the BBC broadcast “Bengal Famine” involving me, Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and other scholars: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ; see also Gideon Polya's book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British  History”: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2005/07/jane-austen-and-black-hole-of-british.html ).

The annual death rate in British India in 1947 was a genocidal 3.7% per annum (3.7 deaths  per hundred of population per year).  While the annual death rate has now fallen to 0.83%, 0.85% and 0.96%, respectively, for post-Independence Bangladesh , India and Pakistan , this is expected now to rise due to the effects of unaddressed Western-imposed global warming.

Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (famous for the Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming – noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis (see Gideon Polya, “Climate racism, climate injustice & climate genocide – Australia, US and EU sabotage Copenhagen COP15”: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19422 ) .

Western culpability in this worsening Climate Genocide is clear from its huge past carbon pollution debt arising from the start of the Industrial Revolution 2 centuries ago. European First World countries are responsible for about 73% of historical carbon pollution of the atmosphere from 1751-2006,with India, Japan and China contributing 2.5%, 3.9% and 8.2%, respectively (see Letter to PM Rudd by Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies): http://www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Hansen2008LetterToKevinRudd_000.pdf ) .

Collective, national responsibility for this already commenced Climate Holocaust is in direct proportion to per capita national pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases (GHGs). Indeed, f undamental to any international agreement on national rights to pollute our common atmosphere and oceans should be the belief that “all men are created equal” . However reality is otherwise: “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO 2 -equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), less than 3 (many African and Island countries), 3.2 (the Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (the Developed World), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia's huge Exported CO 2 pollution is included) (see “List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita  and  “Climate justice & climate injustice: Australia wants a 2020 per capita GHG pollution 15 times greater than Developing World's”: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-justice ) .

War criminal, climate criminal and egregiously racist Apartheid Australia is a notable example of Western inaction. Australia is entering the last week of a Federal election campaign in which the major parties, the pro-war, pro-coal, pro-Zionist, human rights-abusing  Liberal-National Party Coalition (Opposition) and the pro-war, pro-coal, pro-Zionist, human rights-abusing Labor Party (Government) (aka the Lib-Labs) are agreed on inaction on climate change by Australia, the world's worst greenhouse gas polluter. They are also agreed on continuing support for the genocidal US war in Afghanistan (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 4.5 million) (see “Afghan, Holocaust, Afghan  Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ ) and for the continuing War on Terror that has been associated so far this century with about 8 million violent deaths and non-violent excess deaths from deprivation, overwhelmingly in the Muslim World (for the shocking details see “Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ).

The most astonishing thing in the Australian election campaign is that the Mainstream politicians and media  evidently have a policy of “Don't mention the war” (see “ABC FOS: Questions Q&A won't ask of pro-war, pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-Zionist Australian PM Julia Gillard”, Bellaciao: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20100   ) just as Australian history textbooks ignore the horrendous realities of the Indian Holocaust under the British Raj and about 85%  of Australian voters (except for those supporting the anti-war, pro-environment Greens) ignore the worsening, Australia-complicit  Climate Genocide that will kill 2 to 3  billion  South Asians this century.

The Australian greed, politically correct racism (PC racism) and denial  is but a small part of that of the  genocidal US Alliance.  South Asians, Bangladeshis, Pakistani and Indians must peacefully unite in the face of the huge threat posed to them by US and Western greed and racism. South Asians united peacefully and successfully with Sanctions and Boycotts against US- , UK- , Apartheid Australia- and Apartheid Israel-backed Apartheid South Africa when it denied equal rights to Indians, Africans and non-Europeans – and they should do likewise today in the face of worsening Climate Genocide of which the disastrous Pakistan floods are a manifestation.       

A simple and powerful message for Pakistani-Indian  amity and unity at this dreadful time is surely provided by  the Bollywood movie “Veer-Zaara” (2004). Indian Air Force Squadron Leader Veer Pratap Singh, and a Pakistani woman hailing from a rich political family of Lahore , Zaara Haayat Khan, meet when Zaara, travelling to India with the ashes of her Sikh governess Bebe, is involved in a bus accident. Veer rescues Zaara and shows her his family and village. Just before she is to board the train back to Pakistan , Veer confesses his love and then watches as Zaara boards the train with her fiancé Raza. Zaara tells her mother that she has fallen in love with Veer. Zaara's maid and friend Shabbo calls Veer, tells him how Zaara longs for him and persuades  him to come to Pakistan and take Zaara back to India . Veer quits the Indian Air Force and goes to Pakistan to bring Zaara back with him to India . Zaara's mother, Mariam Hayaat Khan  begs Veer to leave Zaara as Zaara's father, Jahangir Hayaat Khan,  is an important politician whose reputation and health will be ruined by the scandal.  Veer respects this request and leaves for India but is arrested at the bus station as an Indian spy Rajesh Rathod. Raza visits Veer in prison and says that he must accept imprisonment and silence or Zaara's life will be made an utter misery. Veer accepts for the sake of Zaara's happiness and is imprisoned for about 20 years. Saamiya Siddiqui, a beautiful Pakistani lawyer,  finds Veer in prison, and on visiting India to gather evidence for the case discovers Zaara living in Veer's family home, she having been divorced by Raza. Confronted with the evidence, the Pakistani judge acquits Veer and then asks him if he has anything to say.  

This is what Veer Pratap Singh says that is of profound importance for South Asian amity: “ I, Prisoner Number 786, look through the bars of my cell / I see days, months, years change to eons, / From the soil of this land I can smell my Bauji's fields / The burning sun reminds me of my Maati's cool buttermilk / The rains come with the swings of many seasons / The winter fills me with the warmth of the Lodi fires / They say this isn't your country, then why does it feel like mine? / They say that I do not look like him, then why does he look like me? / I, Prisoner Number 786, look through the bars of my cell / I see an angel who has come down from heaven / She calls herself Saamiya, and she calls me Veer / She's a complete stranger, but she treats me as her family / Hearing her truthful words, I feel alive once again / Hearing her promises and vow, I want to do something more / They say she isn't related, then why does she fight the world for me? / They say I'm not like her, then why does she look like me? / I, Prisoner Number 786, look through the bars of my cell / I see my Zaara wrapped in the colours of my village / In making my dreams come true, she has forgotten her own / In serving my people, she has left behind her own / Now I want to fill her heart with joy / I feel I could live another lifetime for her / They say my country is not hers, then why does she stay in my home? / They say I'm not like her, then why does she look like me? / I, Prisoner Number 786, look through the bars of my cell.”

Well might all South Asians say of war criminal, climate criminal, racist and genocidal US hegemony: “ I, Prisoner Number 786, look through the bars of my cell”. Sister countries Pakistan , India and Bangladesh (“ then why does she look like me? ” ) must unite for resolute, peaceful action to meet the worsening threat to South Asia , Humanity and the Biosphere from Western-imposed Climate Genocide.

Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/
bengalfamine_programme.html
). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .