INDIAN PIONEERS
Ancient Sanskrit Internet and women’s vision quest to Wales
HONORING DOCTOR FRASER
A vision led an Indian woman and her daughter to travel over 45,000 miles to a grave in North Wales. It was the first time that Tlanghmingthangi Hnamte – Christian name Jennie – and her daughter Lalthangliani Hnamte – also known as Marie – had left India. When Jennie, 69, was confined to bed by a sudden illness 10 years ago, she was told in a vision to search for the grave of Dr Peter Fraser – a Christian doctor who spent time in India as a missionary in the early 20th century. “My mother first had the vision where she heard a voice telling her to visit the grave back in 2009,” said Marie, 33. “She didn’t know who Dr Peter Fraser was when she heard the voice speaking to her, but after speaking to her father, we found out that her grandfather was a tribal elder in Mizoram and had spent a lot of time with Dr Fraser and was a devout admirer of his work.” Dr Fraser died in 1919 at the age of 59. His many achievements included abolishing the practice of selling members of the Mizo tribe as slaves to the British in Mizoram.
After a lengthy flight and a two-hour taxi ride from Manchester airport, the two women arrived in Caernarfon on 2 March 2018. “We hadn’t planned on what to do once we were here, but my mother had another vision telling her she had to go to a local church and speak to a woman in red and that everything would be fine.” On Sunday, 4 March, Jennie and Marie visited the town’s Llanbeblig Church where the first person they met was Sylvia James – who was wearing red. Ms James and other members of the congregation and local community then spent days looking for the grave by surfing the Internet and historical records, and located it in the graveyard of Llanbeblig Church. They spent hours clearing it of brambles and weeds and the Indian women cleaned and repainted the gravestone. On 7 March the community held a special service at the site. The grave was draped with garlands while the Rev Roger Donaldson said prayers and sprinkled holy water. “This means so much to us as a family,” said Marie. “We can’t thank all the volunteers enough for what they’ve done to help us. We’re just speechless.” Daily Post, 8 Mar 2018.
A HELMET ON MARS
Senior Indian politicians from the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claim that the Internet was in use during the times of the Mahabharata, the legendary Sanskrit war epic. “Internet and satellite communication had existed in the days of Mahabharata,” said Biplab Kumar Deb, chief minister of India’s northeastern Tripura state, speaking at a regional workshop on computerisation. Defending his claim, he asked: “How else could Sajaya [the charioteer of King Dhritarashtra] give a detailed account and description to the blind king about the battle of Kuruksdhetra? It means Internet was there; the satellites and that technology was there in this country at that time… My country had the technology years ago, which no country had. I am proud of that, and I think every Indian should feel proud. I want to repeat that we should accept the truth, and should not get confused.” Tathgata Roy, the BJP-appointed state governor of Tripura, endorsed Mr Deb’s claim, saying his views were accurate and “topical”.
In January, Satyapal Singh, federal minister for higher education, was criticised for demanding that Darwin’s theory of evolution be removed from school curricula because no one “ever saw an ape turning into a human being”. Mr Singh, who holds a postgraduate degree in chemistry, said he was speaking as a “man of science”.
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told an audience of doctors and scientists in Mumbai that plastic surgery, genetic science and stem-cell studies existed thousands of years ago in ancient India. He said that was how the Hindu god Ganesha’s elephant head was attached to a human body, and how the warrior god Kartikeya was born outside his mother’s womb. Since the BJP came to power four years ago, other party supporters and members have claimed that cars, aircraft and space vehicles capable of interplanetary travel existed millennia ago. Warring kings even left behind a helmet on Mars, which was discovered by Nasa scientists. Irish Times, 20 April 2018.