THE DEITY AND THE RIVER HAVE HUMAN RIGHTS

A New Zealand River is a Legal Person

With the landmark verdict on Padmanabhaswamy temple, the Supreme Court has recognized the privileges of a deity in India; this verdict will have a far-reaching impact, since in the Sabarimala case, the Supreme Court had denied the rights to the deity. The current verdict can even reverse that verdict when the review petitions are finally heard.

The Travancore covenant signed by the Government of India was with Lord Padmanabhaswamy. This was made clear by the then ruler Chithira Thirunal to V.P. Menon and Sardar Patel that he was only acting on behalf of the Deity as His servant, Padmanabha Dasa.

The rights and privileges of all such rulers including the Ruler of all Rulers, Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity was protected in our Constitution by the Constituent Assembly, as advised by Sardar Patel in his address to the Constituent Assembly.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple

The Supreme Court, in the famous Privy Purse judgement in 1971 interpreting the Constitutional guarantees given to rulers held that “The Rulers who were before integration of their States aliens qua the Dominion Government are now citizens.”

Even though the 26th Amendment to the Constitution removed the privileges and rights due to all rulers in an immoral act, the Supreme Court in a 1993 judgement upheld the 26th Amendment of the Constitution, approving the statement of objects of the amendment as “The distinction between the erstwhile Rulers and the citizenry of India has to be put an end to so as to have a common brotherhood.”

Prior to the 26th amendment of the Constitution, only Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity, who was the ruler of the Travancore State, became Citizen as per the ratio of the Privy Purse judgement, by virtue of the 26th Amendment of the Constitution.

The SC judgement ratio upholding the conversion of Ruler to Citizen of Anantha Padmanabhaswamy under Article 14 of the Constitution is to create a common brotherhood. From this decision, all temple deities should now be considered as citizens, as there cannot be a distinction between one Hindu deity and another in our Constitution under Article 14.

In the Citizenship Act of 1955, Section 2(f) reads as follows: “‘person’ does not include any company or association or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not”.

In Section 2(31) of the Income Tax Act of 1961 “person” was defined including “artificial juridical persons” and the SC held in a 1969 judgement that Hindu deities can be taxed as per this definition.

In view of the above, since Section 2(f) of the Citizenship Act of 1955 did not bar Hindu deities as juristic persons from the definition of the term “person”, clearly there is no bar for the Central government to register Hindu deities as citizens under Section 5(a).

In view of the fact that the Central government granted citizenship to Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity as Ruler when the Travancore kingdom was integrated, as held by the SC in its 1971 judgement, and due to the 26th Amendment of the Constitution and the ratio of the SC judgement of 1993 upholding the same under Article 14, it is now duty bound to register all Hindu deities as citizens under Section 5(a) of the Citizenship Act.

The Union Government should apply the same rule as that of the Rivers Ganga and Yamuna and register all the temple deities as citizens so that many issues can get resolved with this one stroke.

A river is a legal person

A New Zealand river, Whanganui, revered by the Maori has been recognised by Parliament as a “legal person”, in a move believed to be the world’s first. The river has been granted the same legal rights as a human being.

“The Great River flows from the mountains to the sea. I am the River, the River is me.”

With these words, the Maori tribes of Whanganui, New Zealand, declare their inseverable connection to their ancestral river. The river rises in the snowfields of a trio of volcanoes in central North Island. The tribes say that a teardrop from the eye of the Sky Father fell at the foot of the tallest of these mountains, lonely Ruapehu, and the river was born.

Swelled by myriad tributaries, it twists like an eel through a mountainous country—part of it a national park—on its 180-mile journey to the sea. Travel the precipitous River Road, and far below you will see canoeists drifting down the placid reaches, at one with the current and its cargo of flotsam and foam, then digging their paddles deep to hurtle through a rapid.

This is the river that for more than 700 years the Whanganui tribes controlled, cared for, and depended on. It is their awa tupuna—their river of sacred power. But when European settlers arrived in the mid-1800s, the tribes' traditional authority was undermined—and finally extinguished by government decree.

The local Maori tribe of Whanganui in the North Island has fought for the recognition of their river—the third-largest in New Zealand—as an ancestor for 140 years. Hundreds of tribal representatives wept with joy when their bid to have their kin awarded legal status as a living entity was made into law.

This legislation was passed on 15 March 2017. The legislation passed combines Western legal precedent with Maori mysticism.

"[It] will have its own legal identity with all the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person," Attorney-General Chris Finlayson said.

"The approach of granting legal personality to a river is unique."

The river, known by Maori as Te Awa Tupua, is the third longest in New Zealand.

Finlayson said the local Maori iwi, or tribe, had been fighting to assert their rights over the river since the 1870s, in New Zealand's longest-running legal dispute.

"This legislation recognises the deep spiritual connection between the Whanganui iwi and its ancestral river," he said.

It deems the river a single living being "from the mountains to the sea, incorporating its tributaries and all its physical and metaphysical elements".

In practical terms, it means the river can be represented at legal proceedings with two lawyers protecting its interests, one from the iwi and the other from the government.

The iwi also received an NZ$80m ($56m) settlement from the government after their marathon legal battle, as well as NZ$30m to improve the river's health.

Based on the Whanganui precedent, 820 square miles of forests, lakes, and rivers—a former national park known as Te Urewera—also gained legal personhood. Soon a mountain, Taranaki, became the third person.

In recent years, New Zealand’s primary industries—the country’s economic backbone—have come in for close scrutiny and mounting criticism over their negative environmental impacts on waterways. Severe weather events connected to a warming climate—here torrential rain in the middle section of the Whanganui River, in an area of plantation forestry of Monterey pine—exacerbate those impacts, sending tons of soil and debris into the river.

In February 2017, voters in Toledo, Ohio, voted to grant legal standing to Lake Erie. In the wake of these initiatives, the question uppermost in many minds is whether such legislative devices will prove to have teeth in the courtroom.

Since 1975, a commission of inquiry, the Waitangi Tribunal, has been steadily investigating, reporting, and recommending ways the Crown can resolve grievances brought by the more than a hundred tribes of Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The treaty guaranteed Maori the paramount authority they had exercised for time immemorial over their lands, habitations, and all that they treasured. Without question, the Whanganui chiefs who signed the treaty in 1840 would have considered the river a treasure—a treasure beyond price. It was their food basket, their medicine cabinet, their highway, and their defensive moat. It was their healer, their priest, and their parent. It was the source of their prestige and the core of their being. It was, as the Waitangi Tribunal explained in its report on the Whanganui River treaty claim, the central bloodline of their one heart.

In the new legislation, the Crown issues an apology for its historical wrong-doing, acknowledging that it breached the treaty, undermined the ability of Whanganui tribes to exercise their customary rights and responsibilities in respect of the river, and compromised their physical, cultural, and spiritual well-being.

Whanganui River

The Crown says it “seeks to atone for its past wrongs and begin the process of healing.” The Te Awa Tupua Act, it says, represents “the beginning of a renewed and enduring relationship,” with the river at its centre.

It’s a humbling statement for a government to make. But it doesn’t restore ownership of the river to the Whanganui tribes. Politically, that remains a bridge too far, even for a country that believes its future lies in a genuine “treaty partnership” between Maori and non-Maori.

Ganga has legal rights

In India, the Ganga River, considered sacred by more than 1 billion Indians, has become the first non-human entity in India to be granted the same legal rights as people. A court in Uttarakhand ordered that the Ganga and its main tributary, the Yamuna, should be accorded the status of living human entities. The decision, which was welcomed by environmentalists, means that polluting or damaging the rivers will be legally equivalent to harming a person. The judges cited the example of the Whanganui River in this context. It was on 20 March 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared that the Ganga and Yamuna would be legally treated as “living people,” and enjoy “all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person”. The order was stayed by the Supreme Court in July of that year because it “raised several legal questions and administrative issues”.

In the Ayodhya case, the Ram Lalla deity has been recognized as a juristic person. A juristic person, as opposed to a “natural person” (that is, a human being), is an entity whom the law vests with a personality. In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000), the Supreme Court said: “The very words Juristic Person connote recognition of an entity to be in law a person which otherwise it is not. In other words, it is not an individual natural person but an artificially created person which is to be recognised to be in law as such.” Gods, corporations, rivers, and animals, have all been treated as juristic persons by courts.

The treatment of deities as juristic persons started under the British. Temples owned huge land and resources, and British administrators held that the legal owner of the wealth was the deity, with a shebait or manager acting as trustee.

In 1887, the Bombay High Court held in the Dakor Temple case: “Hindu idol is a juridical subject and the pious idea that it embodies is given the status of a legal person.” This was reinforced in the 1921 order in Vidya Varuthi Thirtha vs Balusami Ayyar, where the court said, “under the Hindu law, the image of a deity… (is) a ‘juristic entity’, vested with the capacity of receiving gifts and holding property”.

This idea is now established in Indian law.

However, not every deity is a legal person. This status is given to an idol only after its public consecration, or pran pratishtha. In Yogendra Nath Naskar vs Commissioner Of Income-Tax (1969), the Supreme Court ruled: “It is not all idols that will qualify for being ‘juristic person’ but only when it is consecrated and installed at a public place for the public at large.”

Apart from owning property, paying taxes, suing, and being sued, what else do deities as ‘legal persons' do?

In the Sabarimala case (Indian Young Lawyers Association & Ors. vs The State of Kerala & Ors, 2018), one of the arguments presented against allowing women of menstruating age entry into the temple was that this would violate the right to privacy of the Lord Ayyappa, who is eternally celibate.

A lawyer who worked on the Sabarimala case said: “Deities have property rights, but not fundamental rights or other constitutional rights.” This was upheld by Justice D Y Chandrachud in the Sabarimala judgment: “Merely because a deity has been granted limited rights as juristic persons under statutory law does not mean that the deity necessarily has constitutional rights.”

Generally, the shebait is the temple priest, or the trust or individuals managing the temple. In the 2010 Allahabad HC judgment in the Ayodhya title suit, Justice D V Sharma had said: “As in the case of minor a guardian is appointed, so in the case of the idol, a Shebait or manager is appointed to act on its behalf.”

What if some parties feel that the shebait is not acting in the interest of the deity? In Bishwanath And Anr vs Shri Thakur Radhaballabhji & Ors (1967), the Supreme Court allowed a “suit filed by the idol represented by a worshipper” in a case where the shebait was found “alienating the idol’s property”. The court held that if a shebait does not discharge their duties properly, a devotee can move court as a “friend of the deity”. 

Shebait

In the Padmanabhasway temple case, the Supreme Court upheld the Shebait (കാരായ്‌മ) rights of the Travancore royal family in the administration. Shebait is a person who serves a Hindu deity and manages the temple. The court said as per custom, Shebaiship survived the death of the ruler and his death didn’t result in escheat in favour of state government despite the 26th amendment to the Constitution that abolished privy purse paid to former rulers of princely states which were incorporated into the Indian Republic after Independence. Allowing the appeal filed by the Travancore Royal Family Maharaja, the top court accepted the Shebaitship of the royal family over one of the richest Hindu temples in India. The Supreme Court’s verdict effectively means the “Ruler” under the Instrument of Accession signed by the Princely state ruler with the Government of India at the time of independence is “Ruler” by succession and will not end with the death of the ruler who signed the instrument of accession.

In this verdict, the court defines 'Shebait' thus: "The expression 'Shebait' is derived from 'Sewa' which means service, and in the literal sense, means one who renders 'sewa' to the idol or a deity. Every ruler of Travancore would call himself 'Padmanabhadasa', ie, one who is engaged in the service of Padmanabhaswamy."

In the law dictionary, Shebaitship, property dedicated to an idol vests in it in an ideal sense only; ex necessitats, the possession and management has to be entrusted to some human agent. Such an agent of the idol is known as shebait in Northern India. The legal character of a shebait cannot be defined with precision and exactitude. Broadly described, he is the human ministrant and custodian of the idol, its earthly spokesman, its authorised representative entitled to deal with all its temporal affairs and to manage its property. As regards the administration of the debutter, his position is analogous to that of a trustee; yet, he is not precisely in the position of a trustee in the English sense, because under Hindu Law, property absolutely dedicated to an idol, vests in the idol, and not in the shebait. Although the debutter never vests in the shebait, yet, peculiarly enough, almost in every case, the shebait has a right to a part of the usufruct, the mode of enjoyment; and the amount of the usufruct depending again on usage and custom, if not devised by the founder. Shebaitship being property, it devolves like any other species of heritable property. It follows that, where the founder does not dispose of the shebaiti rights in the endowment created by him, the shebaitship devolves on the heirs of the founder according to Hindu Law, if no usage or custom of a different nature is shown to exist, Profulla Chrone Requitte v. Satya Chorone Requitte, AIR 1979 SC 1682 (1686): (1979) 3 SCC 409: (1979) 3 SCR 431.

(ii) Shebaitship is in the nature of immovable property heritable by the widow of the last male holder unless there is a usage or custom of a different nature in cases where the founder has not disposed of the shebaiti right in the endowment created by him. Shebaitship is a property which is heritable. The devolution of the office of shebait depends on the terms of the deed or the Will or on the endowment or the act by which the deity was installed and properly consecrated or given to the deity.

The Travancore Kowdiar Palace

A mosque has never been held as a juristic person, because it’s a place where people gather to worship; it is not an object of worship itself. Neither has a church.

In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000), the SC ruled that the “Guru Granth Sahib… cannot be equated with other sacred books… Guru Granth Sahib is revered like a Guru… (and) is the very heart and spirit of gurudwara. The reverence of Guru Granth on the one hand and other sacred books, on the other hand, is based on different conceptual faith, belief and application.”

However, the court clarified that “every Guru Granth Sahib cannot be a juristic person unless it takes juristic role through its installation in a gurudwara or at such other recognised public place.”

In May 2019, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that the “entire animal kingdom” has a “distinct legal persona with corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities of a living person”. On March 20, 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared that the Ganga and Yamuna would be legally treated as “living people,” and enjoy “all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person”. The order was stayed by the Supreme Court in July of that year because it “raised several legal questions and administrative issues”.

Albert Einstein wrote in 1950 that the presumption that humans are separate from nature is “an optical delusion of consciousness,” and something of a cultural prison. “Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison,” he wrote, “by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

© Ramachandran 

A NEPAL GOD BORN IN KERALA

He Was Found By Fishermen of Kerala!

The God in a famous Nepal Temple was born in Travancore;or,the God,when he was a baby was swallowed by a fish in the Bay of Bengal and later found in Travancore.This legend is recorded by the Italisan orientalist,Giuseppe Tucci.

Hyangu (red) Macchindranath temple ( the Temple of Bunga: Dyaa: as it resides in Bungamati and also in Patan ), also known as the Rato Macchindranath Temple, of Kathmandu in Nepal,is one of the oldest Matsyendranath temples, dating back from the 16th century. It lies in the southern part of the Patan Durbar Square.

Giuseppe Tucci (1894 –  1984) was an Italian Orientalist, Indologist and scholar of East Asian studies, specialised in Tibetan culture and history of Buddhism. During its zenith, Tucci was a supporter of Italian Fascism, and he used idealized portrayals of Asian traditions to support Italian ideological campaigns. Tucci was fluent in several European languages, Sanskrit, Bengali, Pali, Prakrit, Chinese and Tibetan and he taught at the University of Rome La Sapienza until his death. He is considered one of the founders of the field of Buddhist Studies.

Matsyendra, Matsyendranātha, Macchindranāth or Mīnanātha (early 10th century) was a saint and yogi in a number of Buddhist and Hindu traditions. He is traditionally considered the founder of hatha yoga as well as the author of some of its earliest texts. He is also seen as the founder of the natha sampradaya, having received the teachings from Shiva.He is especially associated with kaula shaivism. He is also one of the eighty-four mahasiddhas and considered the guru of Gorakshanath, another important figure in early hatha yoga. He is revered by both Hindus and Buddhists and is sometimes regarded as an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara.

Little is known about the life of Matsyendra: his son is Minanatha and he is also associated with Lui-Pa, all of whose names translate as 'Lord of the Fishes'. Legends vary in describing his birthplace. Giuseppe Tucci states, on the authority of two Tibetan works - the Siddha (Wylie: grub thob) and Taranatha's "Possessing the Seven Transmissions" (Wylie: bka' babs bdun ldan) - that Matsyendranāth, who is seen in Tibet as an avatar of Avalokiteśvara, was a fisherman from Kamarupa ( Assam); he was found to fishermen community opposite Trikkannad Tryambakeshwara Temple Kerala.*

Trikkanad Trayambakeshwara Temple overlooks the Arabian sea,at Kasaragod in Kerala.It is on the side of national highway between Kanhangad and Kasaragod. In Malabar, this is the only Siva Temple facing  the west. The temples in old Moonnuthara (Uduma, Chemmanad and Pallikkara) are  participants in the festival of Thrikkannad Temple. The deities and the believers of each temple join  the procession of the Thrikkannad Temple festival.Together  they will go through the seashore in a big procession.The Velichappadu or orcale of Palakkunnu Temple accompany it. Everyone except the oracle will enter the temple.He will  stand near the main steps,as a guard.

Thrikkannad Temple

Other sources give his birthplace as North Bengal.According to inscriptions found in Nepal in the ancient Newari colony of Bungmati, the home of Machhindranath Chariot Jatra, his shrine was brought from Assam in India. He is mentioned in the Sabaratantra as one of the twenty-four Kapalika Siddhas.

Legends tell that Matsyendra was born under an inauspicious star. This warranted his parents to throw the baby into the ocean. It was there that the baby was swallowed by a fish where he lived for many years. The fish swam to the bottom of the ocean where Shiva was imparting the secrets of yoga to his consort, Parvati. Upon overhearing the secrets of yoga, Matsyendra began to practice yoga sadhana inside the fish's belly. After twelve years he finally emerged as an enlightened Siddha. This is often given as the origin of his name 'Lord of the Fishes' or 'He Whose Lord is the Lord of the Fishes'. Other versions of the legend exist, including one in which Matsyendra was born as a fish and turned into a Siddha by Shiva. Tibetan renditions of the story tell of a fisherman-turned-Siddha named Mina, who is eaten by a fish while working in the Bay of Bengal.

Another legend says that, when Gorakshanath visited Patan, in Nepal, he captured all the rain-showering serpents of Patan and started to meditate after he was disappointed by the locals as they did not grant him any alms on his request. As a result, Patan faced drought for a long time. The king of Patan, on the advice of his advisers, invited Matsyendranath, Gorakshanath's guru, to Patan. When Gorakshanath learned that his teacher was in Patan, he released all the rain showering serpents and went to see him. As soon as the rain-showering serpents were set free, Patan again got plenty of rainfall every year. After that day, the locals of Patan worshiped Matsyendranath as the god of rain.

Yet another legend says, the Virya or Sperm of Brahma is responsible for birth of various saints and prophets on earth. The Brahma Virya is unlike human beings. It was said to fertilise any living form and carried within it the utmost principles and moral values. It fell on various parts of earth at the advent of Kali Yuga (i.e. age of machines in Hindu scriptures). It was decided so to spread moral values on earth by the Supreme Godhead, Brahma. The Virya fell into the mouth of a fish and it became pregnant. The fish and egg inside reached to a secluded spot where Lord Shankar was teaching the principles of creation to Mother Parvati. When Parvati asked Shankara, "What is the base of all Illusionary Creation", an answer came from the Egg, "Brahma Tatva" or "God Element". Stumped by the right answer, Lord Shankara started looking into the river, and he saw the child inside the egg. He immediately recognised the child as "Kavi Narayan", the poetic Avatar of Lord Krishna or Hari. He then blessed the child and told him that he would give him the benediction once he was 12 years old. In due course, the fish was washed ashore on the banks of a sea in Maharashtra. A fisherman couple who had no child saw the egg being pecked by storks.

Giuseppe Tucci

As soon as the egg cracked the baby came out crying loudly. The fisher man then realised this miracle and with compassion in his mind, took the baby home. The baby was named Machhindranath – Macch (meaning) fish, Indra meaning (God Indra) Nath (meaning) Lord – thus lord of the Sea Fish. Machhindranath grew up to be compassionate, aloof from material things. His fisherman foster father insulted him once over throwing caught fish back into water. He said to him that he would become a beggar if he didn't know how to make a living. The enlightened child judged it better to beg and eat sinless food then to make a sinful living in killing. After that Machhindranath ran away from home and went to Badrinath and meditated there living on fruits and water for 12 years continuously. What remained out of him was his skin sucked-up to his skeleton. Then he was greeted by Lord Datta and Lord Shiva (Rudra) and taught all mysteries of warfare and miracles which he used for uplifting mankind and saving them from evil that Kali Purusha has spread. From then on, Machhindranath became a Siddha who could see from the beginning of time till its end.

Matsyendra is credited with composing Hatha and Tantric works such as the Kaulajñānanirnāya ("Discussion of the Knowledge Pertaining to the Kaula Tradition"), the Matsyendrasamhita and "Akula-Viratantra", some of the earliest texts on hatha yoga in Sanskrit in the eleventh century. James Mallinson, Alexis Sanderson, David Gordon White and others theorize that many works were attributed to him posthumously.

Matsyendranath is typically listed as having eight disciples. The list of his disciples varies between different temples and lineages, but commonly includes Gorakshanath, Jalandharnath, Kanifnath (Kanhoba), Gahininath, Bhartri Nath, Revan Nath, Charpatinath and Naganath. Along with Matsyendranath, they are called the Navnath. While Gorkshanath is generally considered a direct disciple of Matsyendranath, it is likely they lived hundreds of years apart.

Rato Macchindranath Temple

Each of the four well-crafted wooden doors of this temple is guarded by two lion figures while the four corners of the temple are guarded by khyah, a yeti-like figure.The murti of Rato Macchindranath (Matsyendranath) spends six months of the year in this temple. The village of Bungamati, regarded in Nepal as the birthplace of Matsyendranath, is a traditional Newar town located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from downtown Kathmandu. The temple of Rato Macchindranath is located in the heart of this village and it is known as his second home.After the chariot festival, Rato Macchindranath spends the next six months in this temple.

Toyu (white) Macchindranath temple also known as JanaBaha: Dyaa: as it resides in JanaBaha: in Kathmandu in another important Macchindranath temple in Nepal. White Machhindranath(Matsyendranath) is also known as Jana-baha Dyo since the temple is located at Jana Baha(Bahal).

Giuseppe Tucci was born to a middle-class Italian family in Macerata, Marche, and thrived academically. He taught himself Hebrew, Chinese and Sanskrit before even going to university and in 1911, aged only 18, he published a collection of Latin inscriptions in the prestigious Zeitschrift des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. He completed his studies at the University of Rome in 1919, where his studies were repeatedly interrupted as a result of World War I.

After graduating, he travelled to India and settled down at the Visva-Bharati University, founded by the Bengali poet and Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. There he studied Buddhism, Tibetan and Bengali, and also taught Italian and Chinese. He also studied and taught at Dhaka University, the University of Benares and Calcutta University. He remained in India until 1931, when he returned to Italy.

He was Italy's foremost scholar of the East, with such diverse research interests ranging from ancient Iranian religion to Indian and Chinese philosophy. He taught primarily at the University of Rome but was a visiting scholar at institutions throughout Europe and Asia. In 1931, the University of Naples "L'Orientale" made him its first Chair of Chinese Language and Literature. In 1933 he promoted the foundation the Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East  - IsMEO (Istituto italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente), based in Rome. The IsMEO was established as a "Moral body directly depending on Mussolini".Until 1945, when the IsMEO was closed, Gentile was its President and Tucci was its Managing Vice-President and, later, Director of the courses of languages.

Tucci officially visited Japan for the first time in November 1936, and remained there for over two months until January 1937, when he attended at the opening of the Italian-Japanese Institute (Istituto Italo-nipponico) in Tokyo.Tucci traveled all over Japan giving lectures on Tibet and "racial purity".

He organised several pioneering archaeological digs throughout Asia, such as in Swat in Pakistan, Ghazni in Afghanistan, Persepolis in Iran and in the Himalayas. He was also the promoter of the National Museum of Oriental Art. In 1978 he received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding, in 1979 the Balzan Prize for History (ex aequo with Ernest Labrousse). During the course of his life, he wrote over 360 books and articles.

Tucci was a supporter of Italian Fascism and Benito Mussolini. His activity under Il Duce started with Giovanni Gentile, at the time Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Rome and already close friend and collaborator of Mussolini, when Tucci was studying at the university of Rome, and went on until Gentile killing, and the compulsory administration of IsMEO for over two years until 1947.In November 1936 - January 1937 he was the representative of Mussolini in Japan, where he was sent to improve the diplomatic relations between Italy and Japan and to make Fascist propaganda. On 27 April 1937 he gave a speech on the radio in Japanese on Mussolini's behalf. In this country his strong and tireless action paved the way to the inclusion of Italy to the Anti-Comintern Pact (6 November 1937). He wrote popular articles for the Italian state that decried the rationalism of industrialized 1930s-1940s Europe and yearned for an authentic existence in touch with nature, that he claimed could be found in Asia. According to Tibetologist Donald S. Lopez, "For Tucci, Tibet was an ecological paradise and timeless utopia into which industrialized Europe figuratively could escape and find peace, a cure for western ills, and from which Europe could find its own pristine past to which to return.

Tucci, played by Marcel Iureș appears as a character in Francis Ford Coppola's 2007 film Youth Without Youth.Tucci died in San Polo dei Cavalieri, near Rome, in 1984.

Matseyendranath Temples in India

Shri Kshetra Machindranath Samadhi mandir maymba Sawargaon,pathardi, Dist Ahmadnagar
Macchindranath temple in kille-Machhindragad Tal: Walwa (Islampur) Dist: Sangli, Maharashtra
Vishwayogi Swami Machindranath Mandir, Mitmita: Aurangabad
Macchindranath temple ,UJJAIN, Madhya Pradesh
Machhindra Nath Mandir, Inside Ambagate, Amravati
Machindra Nath Tapobhumi,Devacho Dongar, Kudal, Maharashtra, Dist Sindhudurg.(This Holy place is mentioned in the 6th Chapter of Navnath Grantha)
Macchendranath Guru Peeth in Sri Guru Parashakthi Kshethra: Madyar: Mangalore, Dakshina Kannada district.

Nairs and Newars of Nepal

Some anthropologists have pointed out that Newars of Nepal closely resemble the Nairs of Kerala.The Newars living in the adjacent areas in Nepal share many Nair customs including matriarchy. The architecture of Newars closely resembles Naalukettu while the temple architecture  closely resembles Newa architecture. Kathakali resembles closely the dance drama of the Newars,the slightly Mongoloid appearance and yellowish skin of Nairs may be coming from their Nepalese homeland where the Indo-Scythians Nairis who might have been originally settled down after the Saka invasion.

Nairi people of Armenia were called Naharin by the ancient Egyptians (3000 BC).These Nairis are ethnically same people as Nagas of India who propbably came with the Indo Aryans prior to 1500 BC to India.The Nairis and Indian Nagas worshipped snake,Naga. Later the Nairis formed kingdom at Mittany (Turkey). In a later period in the first millenium BC the invading Scythians from the east made Nairis a sub clan of the Scythians.The Scythians ruled whole of Central and West asia (Scythia) The Scythians or Saka people who were originally from southern Siberia who were ruthless warriors,Slave keepers.The Scythian hordes who were living in the Central asia were uncivilised and were considered Barbarians (Mlechas)by the Indo Aryans as well as the Iranian Aryans.Matriarchy was practised by Scythians.The Saka(Scythians)s who were living in the present day Kazhakstan,Azerbaijan and Afghanistan invaded India in the second century BC. The Scythian Nairis invaded India possibly in the same period ie 200 BC.

As mentioned in Keralolpathi, the Karnataka inscriptions  mention that Kadamba king Mayuravarma who might have been of Brahmin descent, who ruled the Banavasi, Shimoga area in Karnataka, invited the Brahmins from Uttarpradesh to Karnataka in the year 345 ad. The Bunts of Karnataka and Nairs of Kerala could be the bodyguards recruited by the Namboothiris from the Sudra ranks.Nayara and Menavas are subcastes of the Bunts community of Karnataka  indicating Nairs are nothing but a sub clan of Bunts. (Bunt means bonded or enslaved or hired mercenaries).Matriarchy is practised by bunts, called Alia Santhana. The Tulunadu records such as Barkur inscriptions and Gramapadathi attest to the existence of Nairs in Tulunadu prior to 800 AD while Kerala does not have any records.The ancestral place of the Nambootiris are said to be Ram Nagar in Bareilly,UP.

__________________________

*Asiatic Society (Calcutta, India)". Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. XXVI (1): 133–141. 1930.
Suhas Chatterjee (1998), Indian Civilization and Culture, P.441

© Ramachandran 

DELHI 2000:OLGA,SEX AND CHINESE SILK

More Than 40 Customs Officers Corrupt

The Swapna Suresh case in Kerala,reminds one of the Olga case in which over 40 officers of the Customs were booked for aiding smuggling in exchange for sexual favours and bribes.

On 28 August 2000, Olga Kozireva, an Uzbek, arrived at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport from Bishkek by Kyrgyzstan Airlines flight No K2-545.The arrival of a woman from a former Soviet republic was not a rarity, but, Olga stood out. She was 26, fluent in Russian with a little English to get by, and she had a diploma in medicine from the Red Cross Society in Tashkent. Her grainy passport photograph suggested a look that was to become famous a decade later with the release of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. And her effrontery at the airport actually seemed to belong in fiction. She had the temerity to walk through the green channel with 27 bags weighing a total of 2,200 kg ( it weighed more than 4000 kg) registered on her air ticket.

In that year alone, between January and August, she had travelled to India 68 times, often with even bigger consignments. But something finally went wrong that day. After four years of letting Olga and several other Uzbek women walk past with little or no scrutiny, a Customs officer decided to act.He was Y Rama Murthy,who caught the 30 kg gold in the UAE diplomatic baggage,in Kerala,later.

Since 1997, Olga and her accomplices had been brazenly walking through the airport’s green channel—for those with nothing to declare—with tonnes of baggage. The day she was caught, the consignment had Chinese silk being flown in from Uzbekistan, a prohibited item that had done great damage to India’s domestic industry. In 2000 alone, there were 23 instances of similar consignments of Chinese silk being cleared with only nominal penalties. Officials on duty, had deliberately noted only small quantities of Chinese silk in their records, charged minor penalties and let huge consignments into the country.

Of the 84 trips she made just through IGI Airport in Delhi since 1997, Customs officials on 42 occasions did not even log a description of the goods she was carrying. On 35 occasions, her flight number was not recorded. During this time that she was flying into India from Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, no one has any idea what she had brought in, apart from Chinese silk. At least one news report at the time states that in October 1999 and June 2000, her accomplices brought in bullet-proof jackets.These were not meant for Indian security forces, so the implications of this are disturbing.

An official involved revealed to Customs investigators that apart from the Uzbek women provided to them for sex, a bribe of roughly $500 was paid on every bag brought in.

On the day she was caught, Olga had 27 bags, and an estimated Rs 5 lakh had been arranged as a bribe to evade Customs duty of around Rs 50 lakh. Taking into account the number of times Olga had visited India since 1997, this roughly adds up to Rs 5 crore in bribes to ensure duty evasion of Rs 50 crore. Considering the fact that she was one among several Uzbek women making similar trips, the racket has meant Customs losses of hundreds of crore in a period when the rupee was worth much more.

The racket began on a modest scale in 1997 when some Indian Group B officers of the rank of superintendent and inspector were first approached. As Olga and her accomplices grew confident of getting material past Customs, the scale of their operation increased to the point that by 2000, Olga herself was walking in through immigration and Customs at IGI airport once every two or three days. The frequency of her visits alone should have triggered an alarm among security officials at immigration, but their failure to act has never been examined.

According to Olga, the man behind the scandal was an Afghan named Mamoor Khan who had left India shortly before her arrest. The arrangement with the officers was simple: even before the consignment was loaded—in Pakistan, Uzbekistan or Kyrgyzstan—the staff on duty at IGI were contacted, and they in turn would indicate which shift would be appropriate for getting the contraband through.

The network was vast and included staff at some airports where the material was loaded. The investigation found that ‘the staff of [Kyrgyzstan Airlines] at Bishkek and other places were hand in glove with offender passengers to suppress weight of excess baggage carried by them without recording the actual weight of the goods [in lieu] of illegal gratification from the offending passengers.'The airline, which was later fined, informed DRI officials that, ‘this matter has been investigated and [the] services of staff responsible including that of Mr Dusheev, Head of Manas Airport, [have] been suspended.’

In Delhi, as the flight would be about to arrive, traders from Chandni Chowk—a locality in old Delhi—would already have turned up at the airport with delivery trucks to pick up the consignment. They would pay the officials the pre-arranged bribe, and wait for the flight to land. The payment ranged from $400 to $700 a bag, depending on its size. One of the officials later admitted having received sexual favours, too, from Uzbek women.

M K Zutshi

The contraband, usually transported in large sacks, would then be taken out and loaded on the waiting vehicles. None of this could have been possible without the involvement of the senior staff at Customs clearance. The material was not hidden from anyone’s view, nor could it be hauled off surreptitiously. Moreover, in several cases, a nominal weight had been recorded for a much larger consignment, an assessment that could only have been made by the shift in-charge, usually a Group A official of the rank of deputy commissioner or above.

Olga’s arrest had thus exposed an airport smuggling racket unprecedented in its scope and gumption. The financial losses, while large, were not as significant as the possible threat to national security.It was to be expected that investigations would commence speedily, and end in action against the officials involved. But what has followed since is even more incredible.

The passengers - usually women - would alight with loads of baggage, sail through customs and disappear into the bylanes of Paharganj, a congested but flourishing locality adjoining the New Delhi railway station.

It worked smoothly even after the arrest on 28 August, 2000, of Olga Kozireva, the 27-year-old Uzbek who seemed to spend more time in India than in Uzbekistan. The raids on the residences of 48 officials posted at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on March 31, 2001, coincided with the raid on the house of their chief, B.P. Verma. But this exercise should have taken place at least seven months earlier, soon after Olga's arrest.

Apartments in Delhi, Noida and Kolkata. Stray investments worth Rs 40 lakh. Jewellery worth Rs 24 lakh. Loose change of about Rs 3.5 lakh; in many currencies. Few had heard of him before his arrest on 2cApril 2012.

Yet when B.P. Verma, chairman of the Central Board of Excise and Customs and the country's top revenue officer, was taken into custody for graft, criminal conspiracy and possession of assets far in excess of known sources of income, he evoked the voyeur in every Indian who had ever suffered the tyranny of the minor babu.

Verma ran a government agency 80,000-strong. He made a career of transferring people and exploiting discretionary powers.

He also lost his job, and India the taste in its mouth.

Olga, by her own admission, was a frequent visitor since 1997. Often, she would board the flight to Karachi or Lahore in Pakistan on the same day that she arrived in Delhi, and the CBI - the agency investigating the case now - is wondering whether she carried more than just textiles. Says a CBI official: "We cannot rule out the possibility of her carrying drugs or even weapons."

Two different kinds of offences were involved: one related to the criminal conduct of the officials , a case that was handed over to the CBI, and another related to smuggling that dealt with Customs and was investigated by the Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).

The problem became clear at the very beginning. The DRI at the time was headed by MK Zutshi, whose wife Vijaya Zutshi was commissioner at the airport till mid-2000. Moreover, DD Ingty, then additional director of the DRI, had been additional commissioner at the airport from 1997 to 1999. This may in some measure explain why the DRI took the otherwise inexplicable decision to restrict its investigation only to the year 2000.

When the case finally did come up before the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), this tribunal began its conclusions and findings by stating, ‘It is shocking to read para 557 of impugned order. Learned Adjudicating Authority noticed that Ms Olga K admitted in her statement that she along with her associates was coming to India right from the year 1997. But show cause notice was issued to different persons to deal with the illegal clearances made mainly [during] the year 2000, even though extended portion was invokable (sic) for a period of 5 years…’

Uzbeks arrested on charges of smuggling fake drugs operated from hotels like Yes Please in Delhi.

B P Verma

Her links in Delhi are also suspect. Inquiries reveal that she was working in tandem with two Afghan nationals who waited outside the airport in trucks to ferry the loot. The CBI now says that there was a three-way nexus between her, the Afghans and the customs officials.

All their cell phones would begin ringing incessantly the moment Olga got off the plane, and records show that they were calling each other on the given dates.
It wasn’t surprising that no Group A officers—that is, officers of the rank of deputy commissioner who supervise shifts and their seniors—serving at the airport were part of the probe.

They were not the only ones kept out; the appellate tribunal in its judgment noted that ‘RN Zutshi (an inspector not related to the then DRI chief whose confession formed the initial basis for the investigation) has deposed unequivocally that 60 per cent of the bribe money used to go to the Preventive Department of the Airport which also manned the exit gates of the Airport. Superfluous investigations were conducted and blame was put entirely on the officers involved in baggage clearance keeping the Preventive Wing completely out of the scope of investigation, making sketchy, superficial, deliberately flawed and incomplete adjudication proposals.’

The appellate tribunal judgment, pronounced in 2011, was the result of an appeal filed against the decision of the airports commissioner who had, based on these ‘sketchy’ DRI investigations, decided to fine seven Customs officials of the rank of superintendent and below. The cumulative fines ranged roughly from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 15 lakh.

The appellate tribunal imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on 14 other Custom officials who had been spared by the commissioner. These officials filed an appeal to the High Court, which sent the matter back to the appellate authority because the case against each had not been dealt with individually but been clubbed together. In what seemed a controversial move, CBI in August 2014 withdrew prosecution against five senior officers of Indian Customs and Central Excise.The five senior officers wre VK Singh Kushwaha, HR Bhima Shankar, Rajiv Gupta, Virender Kumar Choudhary and Upendra Gupta who still held senior positions and have gone on to become Joint Commissioners. 27 other junior Customs officers of Group B and C level, who were also charged by the CBI, were also off the hook.Top CBI officials pointed out that former Finance Secretary RS Gujral has written to then CBI Director AP Singh on 1 March  2012 with the approval of the then Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee,asking the agency to apply to the trial judge for a closure of the case against the five top officers. Then AG, GE Vahanvati, gave such a legal opinion as well, CBI said.

The case was repeatedly listed before a bench that did not pass the original order, even though the original bench of DN Panda and Rakesh Kumar continued to sit and he

ar other matters on a regular basis. The Revenue Department, which operates under the Union Finance Ministry, has direct control over the appellate tribunal, but it failed to take any action in this case.

The case was taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in March 2001. This agency asked the Finance Ministry for its sanction to prosecute nine group A officers and 35 Group B and C officers through the Director General (Vigilance). The Ministry finally granted this sanction in March 2006, but only against 27 officers and just five of the nine Group A officers.

The five Group A officers are VK Singh Kushwaha, then additional commissioner at the airport, apart from HR Bhima Shankar, Rajiv Gupta, Virender Kumar Choudhary and Upendra Gupta, who were all deputy commissioners.

After the framing of charges, the actual trial began only in 2011, long after the case had faded from public memory.

In a startling development since, Finance Secretary RS Gujral wrote to CBI Director AP Singh asking the agency to apply to the judge for a closure of the case against the five officers.

The letter stated that the cases were referred to the attorney general, who, after examining the charges and departmental enquiries, recommended the withdrawal: ‘It has been decided by the competent authority that the case [before the special judge, Tis Hazari] is fit for withdrawal of prosecution.’

Departmental inquiries were too closed. Deepak Garg, Deputy Commissioner (Preventive), head of the same preventive wing that came in for so much flak from the appellate authority, became a member of the DRI and was among the select few to join the Tax Research Unit in the Revenue Department, the body responsible for framing the Union Budget.

Agha,Olga's help

Olga Kozireva served a two-year sentence before she was granted bail, which she jumped and made her way back to Uzbekistan. Only one inspector of the department, the one who admitted to sleeping with Uzbek women, was dismissed from service.

The Olga case happened when B P Verma was the head of Central Board of Excise and Customs, now known as Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs – a top policy-making body of the customs department, the officials said.

Verma, it seems, was presiding over a corrupt empire, for the Customs Department even moved the high court to try and scuttle the Olga investigation. Finally, N. Raja, director, vigilance, customs and central excise, had to put down the facts of the case in a letter to CBI Chief K. Raghavan.

The extent to which the customs officials helped Olga is quite brazen. Often, she would just walk out of the green channel, and on rare occasions, pay for part of the goods, when she should have been booked for unauthorised import of textiles. On the day of her arrest-she fell into the net because the shift had changed - the manifested cargo weight was 2,200 kg but on being weighed again it was found to be 4,375 kg.

Verma was later removed as CBEC chief for allegedly receiving illegal gratification from a Chennai-based exporter.

A P Singh

In a blatant attempt to hush up the case, the Customs Department approached the high court after a judge hearing her bail application in the additional sessions court observed that Olga had a dubious link with the customs officials and recommended a CBI investigation.

It sought to expunge the remarks made against them and stall the CBI inquiry. The high court granted the request.

The respite, however, was short lived. The matter came up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha towards the end of November and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha ordered a two-pronged inquiry: from the vigilance and smuggling angles.

The probe did indeed find the officers guilty of aiding smuggling from the CIS countries and ordered the suspension of 42 of them. It didn’t happen, perhaps because of Verma’s indulgence.

The department was guilty of many more improprieties. An enterprising first secretary, Uma Suryan Arayan Mishra, posted at the Indian Embassy in Tashkent had provided detailed information on how Uzbeks and citizens of other CIS countries made frequent trips to India, carrying items like diamond powder, gold and tungsten wire.

They returned with fake medicines supplied to them at Paharganj hotels. This information was gathered from visa applicants. Records also showed that the Uzbek travellers who were being given six-month multi-entry visas were making as many as 20 trips during the period.

The Olga case was clearly only the tip of the iceberg; eight other Uzbek women were arrested on charges of smuggling and prostitution. They obviously spread their net wide, as according to the CBI, 20-40 young women were coming in on each flight from that region.

Delhi Police conducted raids on Hotel Saini International and subsequently on a banquet hall in Rajinder Nagar – a west Delhi locality-and busted a fake medicine racket. Eight quintals of medicines were recovered with wrappers printed in both Russian and Uzbek.

The medicines, Mishra pointed out, were being sold with Russian markings to pass them off as real but the authorities in Uzbekistan had woken up to the truth. Severe restrictions were imposed at Tashkent airport against import of Indian pharmaceutical products. “These activities should be monitored and controlled before they get out of hand,” the diplomat wrote in May 2000.

The government – the Home Ministry and Intelligence Bureau – too was warned about the Uzbek women, but the letters apparently remained relegated to the files. Copies of the letters from Tashkent were also forwarded to the Customs Department and, predictably, ignored.

In some cases, they were conveniently back dated. A memo sent to V.K. Singh Kushwah, additional commissioner, customs and excise, in February this year-following the internal investigation – points to this.

According to the memo, no circular or alert was issued following the Tashkent letters and worse, the alerts were “fudged” and put out only after Olga’s arrest. Kushwah was also asked to explain his decision regarding the clearing of seven bulletproof jackets brought by another CIS national, Louri Lokhov, on June 10, 2000, which the memo says “is most likely to fall in the hands of antisocial/anti – national elements”.

The scandal also highlighted another serious lapse: the Afghans- Mamoor Khan and Del Agha – are absconding. The CBI is also investigating the possibility of the customs officials having tipped them off about Olga’s arrest.

Afghas Khan

Says a CBI official: “She operated under the belief that she wouldn’t be touched.” Some CIS nationals even stayed for as long as a month at a stretch. Says Vinod Kumar, owner of Hotel Yes Please, a favourite with Olga: “Till her arrest, CIS nationals accounted for 60 per cent of my hotel’s occupancy.”

Hotel rooms in Paharganj come cheap, costing between Rs 150 and Rs 450 a night and are patronised by visiting Uzbeks and other CIS nationals. This corroborates reports from Tashkent that young girls, especially from the fields of entertainment and fashion designing, made as many as 30 trips in six months. This alludes to a well-organised prostitution racket in and around Delhi.

Visa applicants also revealed that they picked up jobs as agents for Herbalife, a brand name that markets food supplements. One of them, claiming to be a Herbalife consultant, had an identity card issued by the company. Photographs of Uzbek women partying and drinking have been recovered during the raids, pointing to the “hospitality” showered by the Uzbeks on the right people.

Questions are being asked about why the Government took eight months to wake up to a scandal that involved national security. Also, why was Raja chosen to head the investigation when he had himself been a commissioner, customs, in 1997 – about the time the CIS operations began?

Similarly, doubts were also raised about the competence of Revenue Intelligence chief M.K. Zutshi participated in the investigations since his wife had been the commissioner at the airport till June 2000.

A P Singh,the CBI Director,who closed the case was arrested by CBI,on 20 February 2017,after he retired,in a graft case along with controversial meat exporter Moin Akhtar Qureshi.Qureshi,according to IT and ED,was operating as middle man for several public servants,including A P Singh.He headed the CBI in 2010-2012,during the UPA government.He was instrumental in the arrest of A Raja of 2G,Suresh Kalmadi of CWG scam.He finalized the Arushi -Hemraj double murder case. Upon his retirement,it was revealed in an IT evasion probe against Qureshi that the two regularly inter acted on daily basis,on Blackberry Messenger platform.Transcripts of conversations from Qureshi's BlackBerry Messenger revealed that not only Singh,former Directors Ranjit Sinha,Alok Verma and and Joint Director Rakesh Asthana had a had a meaty Qureshi angle to their bumpy careers.

"It is revealed that he (Moin Qureshi) has been indulging as a middleman for certain public servants," wrote Karnal Singh, the then ED director, on 31 August, 2016.

The letter annexed full transcripts of messages Qureshi and several other individuals had allegedly exchanged on their BlackBerry Messenger during the UPA era.

Moin Qureshi

"I am also preponing my trip. Just to the homework now. And wait then we will see how to tackle it in the meantime just see who all he listens to," read a message from Qureshi to AP Singh, a former CBI director, on September 24, 2013. "May be AP or K. Nath, or someone else, also any of your friends who know him well," he added.The messages were purportedly intercepted by the Income Tax department and shared by the ED with the CBI.The Enforcement Directorate's warning, however, nowhere established the identity of individuals Qureshi wrote about. But the initials and surnames -- such as "K. Nath" and "AP" -- had a striking resemblance to some of the key figures in the then ruling United Progressive Alliance.

At the same time, the transcripts do indicate the meat trader remained in touch with AP Singh of the CBI for suspect deals in 2013.

In his response, Singh advised Quershi to get in touch with one Shinde. It's not proven whether the former CBI chief was recommending the name of then home minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, in his reply.

"Ok let me know when you are coming back, you may need to go through Shinde," the ex-CBI director wrote.

© Ramachandran 

MOSSAD AND THE BODY IN DIPLOMATIC BAGGAGE

He Was Smuggled as Diplomatic Baggage

The smuggling of 30 Kgs of gold in an UAE diplomatic baggage in Kerala yesterday,revives memory of the kidnap of a former Nigerian minister from London in a diplomatic baggage.

In July 1984, Umaru Dikko, a former Nigerian minister living in exile after a military coup, was kidnapped outside his London estate, packed in a shipping crate and driven to Stansted Airport, to be flown back to Lagos, where he stood accused of embezzlement and other crimes.

Alhaji Umaru Abdurrahaman Dikko was born on 31December 1936 in the small village of Wamba, close to Zaria in Kaduna State. As a young man Dikko worked for the BBC’s Hausa service. He has been at the vanguard of northern Nigerian politics since the 1960s when, then as a promising young politician he was instrumental in mobilising northern public opinion against Nigeria’s first military government headed by Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, and he was also secretary of the committee of northern politicians that toured the north to build support for the creation of states across the federation in 1966. By the time civilian democratic rule was restored in 1979, Dikko had matured into a wily and experienced politician.

The crate used for kidnap and Dikko

The early 1980s were marked by abundant government corruption. Since there was more money around, the asking price for kickbacks rose correspondingly and the corruption became unashamedly brazen. It was claimed that over $16 billion in oil revenues were lost between 1979 and 1983 during the reign of first elected President Shehu Shagari. Government ministry buildings would mysteriously burst into flames just before audits, making it impossible to discover written evidence of corruption. Shagari later claimed that he pleaded with his ministers to stop embezzling state funds but was simply ignored. Shagari said he simply gave up and prayed over the matter. 

No politician symbolised the graft and avarice under Shagari’s government more than the combative Transport Minister Umaru Dikko. Stories regarding Dikko’s corruption are legion. One such instance arises in the biography of an American contractorJerry Funk who had a contract with the Nigerian government. When the government was not performing its obligations under the contract, Funk took his complaint directly to Dikko. After listening to the contractor’s complaints, Dikko went into an adjacent room and emerged moments later with a suitcase full of money which the contractor estimated at approximately half a million US dollars. Dikko then said words to the effect that if the deal could be done a little “differently” ,life would be easier for both of them. Realising that he would be in Dikko’s pocket forever if he accepted, the contractor wisely refused the offer (Life Is an Excellent Adventure: An Irreverent Personal Odyssey, by Jerry Funk).

Apart from being the Transport Minister, Dikko also headed a notorious presidential task force charged with alleviating food shortages by distributing imported rice. The task force was accused of hoarding rice to artificially exacerbate existing food shortages in order to drive prices up further, and of issuing import licenses to businessmen with connections to the ruling NPN party. Dikko’s name became synonymous with corruption. In many ways Dikko became the 1980s answer to first republic Finance Minister Festus Okotie-Eboh who was similarly disliked by army officers,leading to his assassination during a military coup in 1966.  Dikko perhaps thought himself untouchable because he was President Shagari’s brother-in-law and had the President’s ear. 

Dikko had a way of rubbing people the wrong way. At a time of soaring inflation, scarce commodities and falling oil prices, Dikko’s contribution to a debate about poverty in Nigeria was to remark that things were not so bad, since after all Nigerians were not yet eating out of dustbins. He managed to antagonise even his colleagues in the ruling NPN. The NPN had an elaborate zoning system for the distribution of government portfolios - including the presidency. Since the presidency had been zoned to President Shagari (from the north), the multi-billionaire businessman, Moshood Abiola hoped he would benefit from the NPN’s zoning system. Abiola assumed that when President Shagari’s term of office expired, the NPN would “zone” the presidency to the south, and he would be allowed to run for President. When Abiola articulated his presidential ambition, he was rebuffed by Dikko who told him that “the presidency is not for sale to the highest bidder”. Abiola “retired” from politics soon after – totally exasperated with the NPN. Abiola was to remerge from the shadows to play a key role in Nigeria’s political history.

Shehu Shagari

Dikko made himself unpopular  also with military officers. Dikko knew that if a military coup occurred, he would be a marked man. He kept tabs on senior military officers by ordering covert surveillance on them. Dikko was playing a dangerous game given that the senior echelons of the armed forces officer corps were highly politicised and loaded with officers with significant coup plotting or military regime experience. Among such officers included the Director of Staff Duties and Plans Major-General Ibrahim Babangida, the GOC of the 3 armoured Division,Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, and brigade commander Brigadier Ibrahim Bako. There was political experience among the service chiefs too. Chief of Defence Staff Lt-General Gibson Jalo was a former SMC member, Chief of Army Staff Lt-General Mohammed Wushishi was the former Minister of Trade and Industries and Chief of Naval Staff Akin Aduwo was a former Military Governor. Babangida, Buhari, Jalo, Wushishi and Aduwo all served together under the military regime of General Obasanjo. Buhari complained to President Shagari that Dikko had ordered his movements to be monitored. Dikko had woken a sleeping tiger.

In October 1983 President Shagari was re-elected for his second and final term of office in an election that was marred by accusations of electoral malpractice. His campaign was managed by Dikko. 

Around 2:30 am on New Year's Day 1984, armed troops moved to strategic locations, set up roadblocks and took over the radio and television stations in Lagos. Communication lines were cut and airports, border crossings and ports were closed. In Abuja more troops moved to seal off the President's residence. At 7:00 am, normal programming was interrupted by martial music interspersed with the broadcast by a hitherto unknown army officer.

It was the monotone voice of Brigadier Sani Abacha, the commander of the 9th mechanised brigade in Ikeja.On the last day of 1983, President  Shagari was overthrown in an almost bloodless military coup as the army abandoned the barracks once again in order to “save this nation from imminent collapse”. The only casualty of the coup was Brigadier Ibrahim Bako who was shot while trying to arrest President Shagari in Abuja. The coup was financed by an extremely wealthy southern businessman that Dikko had upset earlier. The new military Head of State was the officer that Dikko had so antagonised earlier: Major-General Muhammadu Buhari. 

The new military regime suspended several parts of the constitution (primarily those relating to freedom of assembly, association and political activity), banned party politics, declared all borders closed, and began to arrest and detain ministers and officials from Shagari’s government on charges of corruption and embezzlement. The new Head of State Major-General Buhari’s first broadcast to the nation made it clear that the new regime would target corruption and corrupt former ministers.

 That placed Dikko squarely in the cross-hairs of the new regime. Armed soldiers went looking for him at his official quarters in Ikoyi, Lagosand ransacked it. Dikko claimed his family, son and elderly family were also harassed by the military authorities. With the assistance of friends and a fistful of raw cash, Dikko drove to Nigeria’s Seme border with the Republic of Benin. Bribing his way through the border he travelled to Togo’s capital Lome, and from there boarded a KLM flight to Londonvia Amsterdam. Contrary to popular belief, Dikko denies fleeing in disguise as a woman, and claims he was dressed in traditional male northern attire.

Muhammadu Buhari

In London Dikko joined a host of other distinguished Nigerian fugitives from justice. They included former ministers in Shagari’s government such as Adisa Akinloye (national chairman of the NPN), Joseph Wayas (former Senate President) and Richard Akinjide (former Attorney-General and Justice Minister).Dikko set himself up as an outspoken critic of the new military regime and launched continual verbal attacks upon it. He appeared on British TV, and granted interviews which condemned the Buhari regime. He quickly became number one name on Nigeria’s most wanted list.

Mossad Steps In

Nigeria supplied more than 50% of Israel’s crude oil in exchange for military hardware. From Israel’s perspective the continuation of the oil flow from a country with a high Muslim population was strategically important. The continuation of that flow was cast into doubt on 1 January 1984 when news of the coup reached Israel, and Israel became aware that Nigeria’s new military regime would be led by another Muslim,Buhari. Israel unsuccessfully tried to make contact with the new military regime.In his book on Mossad entitled Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, Gordon Thomas claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was concerned that the new regime might interrupt Israel’s oil supply from Nigeria. Israel saw an opening to gain favour with the new regime when Nigeria began to arrest leading politicians from the former government for corruption. With Dikko still at large and the regime unaware of his whereabouts, Israel offered to track Dikko down using its formidable intelligence agency Mossad.The new Nigerian regime may have solicited Mossad’s intervention. Several senior officers in the Nigerian army had long standing associations with Israeli businessmen and security agents.

Mossad’s Director Nahum Admoni travelled to Nigeria’s then capital Lagoson a Canadian passport to meet with  Buhari.Admoni offered to find Dikko and repatriate him to Nigeria to face justice.Buhari wanted not just physical custody of Dikko, but the location of the offshore accounts where Dikko had deposited the loot he embezzled from Nigeria, an undertaking by Israel to cooperate with Nigeria’s National Security Organisation (NSO), and for Israel to take no credit when Dikko was eventually captured. Admoni agreed and put his formidable resources within Mossad to work.The same modus operandi used in the capture of Adolf Eichmann,one of the major organizers of Holocaust,would be used in the planned capture of Dikko.Mossad put its extensive network of Sayanim to work. The Sayanim are non-Israeli Jews living outside Israel who assist Mossad. 

Info given to the Customs

 Sayanim across Europe were put on alert and memorised Dikko’s image and physical description. Doctors were told to look out in case Dikko came in for plastic surgery to change his appearance. Lookouts were posted at his favourite hotels, and clerks at car rental companies and airlines were on the lookout in case he rented a car or bought a plane ticket. Tailors were given his measurements and shoemakers were given his shoe size and details of his customised shoes. Publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell was tapped and asked to explore his high level contacts for news of Dikko’s whereabouts,according to Gordon Thomas.

Some Mossad agents set up base in London along with Nigerian Major (retired) Mohammed Ahmadu Jarfa Yusufu, a 40 year old former army officer. After the military coup that overthrew Shagari he was transferred to the Nigerian Ministry of External Affairs and posted to Nigeria’s High Commission in the UK in May 1984. Although Yusufu entered the UK on a diplomatic passport, the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office was not notified that he was a member of the Nigerian diplomatic mission.He had been planted for the specific purpose of taking part in the Dikko operation.

Two separate groups of undercover agents worked underground among London’s Nigerian community. The search was narrowed to west London where many Nigerian officials had opulent residences purchased with embezzled Nigerian state funds. The Dikko trail seemed to be running cold until a chance encounter during the summer of 1984. On 30 June 1984 a Mossad agent spotted a man fitting Dikko’s description in London’s wealthy Bayswater neighbourhood. The agent surreptitiously followed Dikko on foot to a house at number 49 Porchester Terrace. For several days the house was continuously watched by the agents, and Dikko’s routine and movements were noted.

The plans for Dikko’s capture were assembled by a small team. It involved making arrangements to capture, anaesthetise, and then transport Dikko out of the UK to Nigeria to face trial. Dr Levi-Arie Shapiro was a 43 year old Israeli national, a consultant and director of the intensive care unit at Hasharon hospital in Tel Aviv. “Lou” Shapiro was also a reserve Major in the Israeli army. Shapiro was recruited into the plot by a 27 year old Mossad field officer named Alexander Barak who gave him money to purchase anaesthetics which would be used to stupefy Dikko. Barak was from the Israeli coastal town of Netanya and came from a family of diamond dealers. Another Mossad field officer named Felix Abithol (31 years old) arrived in London on July 2, 1984 and checked into the Russell Square hotel. Meanwhile Major Yusufu hired a van which would be used to convey Dikko once he had been captured. Strangely, Yusufu’s men opted to hire a bright conspicuous canary yellow van.

Nahum Admoni

On 4 July 1984 a Nigerian Airways Boeing 707 cargo plane flew in with no cargo from Lagos and landed at Stansted airport. The UK authorities were informed that the plane had come in to collect diplomatic baggage from the Nigerian High Commission in London. Several Nigerian security officers were onboard the plane and had orders not to leave the airport.

The next day Major Yusufu drove the van he had rented from Notting Hill Gate in west London and parked outside Dikko’s house on Porchester Terrace. With Yusufu in the van were Dr Shapiro, Barak and Abithol.Back at Stansted airport the Captain of the Nigerian Airways plan that landed the day before filed a departure time of 3pm and claimed that on its way back to Nigeria, the plane would be carrying “documentation” for the Nigerian Ministry of External Affairs. Diplomatic immunity was claimed for the “documentation”.

Just before lunchtime Dikko emerged from the house in Porchester Terrace for a midday interview with a Ghanaian journalist named Elizabeth Akua Ohene. Ohene was then the editor of Talking Drum magazine but later became a Minister of State in Ghana’s Ministry of Education. As Dikko walked, two men burst out from the yellow van parked outside his house, grabbed him and forced him into the back of the van. Within seconds the van doors had closed and the van sped away at break-neck speed. Quick, surgical and precise, it was a typical Mossad operation. Inside the van Dikko was dumped on his back and handcuffed. After traversing through London’s busy streets the van eventually came to a halt. Dikko was initially relieved and thought his kidnappers had been stopped by the police.They had simply stopped to refuel. Dikko was told to keep quiet as his captors refuelled. At a predetermined rendezvous point near Regent’s Park, Dikko was transferred to a waiting lorry. Dr Shapiro went to work and injected Dikko in the arm and buttock with a powerful anaesthetic. Dikko lost consciousness.

Dikko,final years

Through a window Dikko’s secretary Elizabeth Hayes witnessed Dikko being bundled into the van. The astonished secretary managed to compose herself enough to quickly dial 999,the UK’s emergency services number, and alerted the authorities of the incredible incident she just witnessed. Given Dikko’s profile as a former Nigerian government minister, the call was quickly escalated and within minutes police arrived at the scene, closely followed by officers from Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad. The Foreign Office and the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were also alerted. All customs officials at airports, ports and border crossings were told to be extra vigilant with regard to Nigeria bound vessels.

There was a second hitch. When subsequently interviewed by Israel’s biggest selling newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, Alexander Barak said "In retrospect, I found out that the main culprit had been Group Captain Banfa, formerly head of the Nigerian air force and now CEO of Air Nigeria. This guy was supposed, according to the plan, to meet at 9:00 am with Yusufu and Dr. Shapiro at the apartment in London and give them the right documents and join us, to supervise the loading of the diplomatic crates at Stanstead Airport. But at the last minute Banfa got cold feet." The absence of the correct diplomatic documents would come back to haunt the kidnappers.

By mid-afternoon on 5 July 1984 Dikko had been anaesthetised into unconsciousness by Dr Shapiro, locked into a crate and taken to Stansted airport. However at Stansted there was no visible sign of Dikko, Shapiro, Abithol or Barak. Instead a lorry ferried two crates to the airport. The lorry was escorted by two black Mercedes Benz cars bearing Nigerian diplomatic licence plates. Shortly before 3 pm two crates labelled "diplomatic baggage" and addressed to the Nigerian Ministry of External Affairs in Lagos were being loaded onto the Nigerian Airways plane. The crates were 1.2 meters in height, 1.2 meters in depth and 1.5 meters in width. They were accompanied by Major Yusufu and a member of the Nigerian High Commission in London named Okon Edet. Having been warned by the security forces to be wary, customs officers were unusually inquisitive and vigilant.

Elizabeth Akua Ohene

A customs officer named Charles Morrow noticed an unusual medical smell,probably the powerful medical anaesthetic sodium pentathol,and a noise emanating from one of the crates. Although the 707 was minutes away from take off, this gave Morrow an excuse to use red tape to get a closer look at the crates. On the pretext that the crates did not have the correct official seal, Morrow insisted on having a closer look at them. Major Yusufu protested furiously that the crates were protected by diplomatic immunity and could not be searched. His vehement protests were dismissed and the customs officers opened the crates with a crowbar.

 In the first case was a bound and unconscious Dikko with his torso bare. Dikko’s captors had shoved an endo-tracheal tube in his throat to prevent him from choking on his own vomit when he was out cold, but he was still alive. They wanted him brought to Nigeria alive rather than dead. Beside him was Dr Shapiro brandishing syringes and a supply of additional anaesthetics with which to administer replenishments to Dikko. Dr Shapiro asked the customs officers “Well gentlemen, what do we do now?”. Abithol and Barak were found in the second crate. Dikko was rushed to Hertfordshire and Essex Hospital in Bishops Stortford. He regained consciousness at midday the following day having been unconscious for 36 hours. He awoke totally oblivious to the ensuing drama and his dramatic rescue, and received treatment at the hospital under heavy police guard. Barak later blamed Nigerian air force officer Bernard Banfa for the plan’s failure.

The governments of Nigeria and Israel denied involvement in the crime. Immediately after the abduction, Britain detained airliners bound for Nigeria and vice versa, and relations between Britain and Nigeria, its former colony, were seriously chilled.

Of the original 17 suspects, 4 were tried:Barak, Shapiro, Abithol and Yusufu. The legendary defence barrister George Carman QC represented the defendants. Sticking to the traditional Mossad response of denying involvement, the defendants argued that they were mercenaries acting on behalf of Nigerian businessmen. The judge did not believe them and was convinced that Mossad was involved. The judge told the jury that “The finger of involvement almost certainly points to Mossad”. Even Carman’s famed legal skills could not prevent the defendants’ conviction:

Alexander Barak - 14 years
Mohammed Yusufu – 12 years
Levi-Arie Shapiro - 10 years
Felix Abithol – 10 years

After recovering, Dikko remained in London for another 12 years. He was confined at home under police guard for a year. In exile he fulfilled a childhood ambition by qualifying as a barrister. Dikko was eventually invited back to Nigeria in 1995 by the military regime of General Sani Abacha,who was a member of the government which tried to kidnap and forcefully repatriate him in 1984. On his return he formed a political party called the United Democratic Party (UDP).Dikko died on 1 July 2014 in London, where he was said to be receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness. 

Dikko’s survivors include a son, Dr. Bello Dikko, and a brother, Lamido Dikko. The Daily Independent of Lagos had said in its obituary that Dikko “left behind two wives, 11 children and many grandchildren.”

© Ramachandran