1
The British Empire’s long list of crimes against Bharat includes slavery, racism, religious intolerance, plunder, & more. But did you know that the British systematically forced 1000s of Indian women to become sex slaves under the guise of “prostitution” for their soldiers?
2
In 1898, Elizabeth W. Andrew & Katharine C. Bushnell wrote “The Queen's Daughters in India”, revealing unforgettable details about how the British devised a system of prostitution & official brothels to use Indian women as sex slaves for soldiers of the British Military.
3
When the British first took control of Bharat, they built “Cantonments”, as separate mini towns for the residences of British soldiers & officers. Cantonments were not governed by the civil laws of India, but separate British laws allowing them to abuse the rights of Indians.
4
Over 100 cantonments were established to “protect” soldiers from rebellion & provide for their needs. The Cantonment Acts of 1864 regulated & structured prostitution in them. Official brothels called "Chaklas" were created for "poor women to gain economic independence."
5
Horrifyingly, an entire regiment of 1000 soldiers was serviced by just 12-15 Indian women. The British justified prostitution as safeguards against the “perversion” of homosexuality. The real reason was to reinforce racial dominance through sexual control of Indian women.
6
Over 30% of sick British soldiers had STDs due to their promiscuity. In contrast, Indian soldiers had very low infection rates. The British medical journal, Lancet tried to dismiss this discrepancy by claiming that Indians were immune from childhood due to hereditary syphilis!
7
British medical officers blamed “a warm climate & a country of lax native morals” for tempting soldiers. They justified their promiscuity & reinforced racial superiority, by asserting that tropical diseases were “more virulent” than European & that Indians had lower morals.
8
In 1864, “The Contagious Diseases Acts” mandated testing of any Indian woman suspected of STDs at “Lock Hospitals”. They were forced to go for weekly medical exams to check for STDs, so that soldiers could continue using "prostitutes" without risk of infection.
9
The compulsory examination was like a surgical rape. Any infected woman was confined & forcibly treated with medicines containing arsenic until symptoms subsided to resume providing sex again. Unlucky ones with advanced disease were thrown out on the streets to suffer & die.
10
But British soldiers were not subject to any such exams for signs of STDs. The excuse was that soldiers would feel “brutalized & violated” by such exams. Yet it was fine for them to brutalize, violate & infect helpless Indian victims forced into the Chakla brothels.
11
The women in Chaklas had no other choice as they were very poor. Their “fees” was fixed by the British military. It was so low, that the British enlisted new recruits by advertising how sex in India was almost free & assurances that sexual diseases were fully treated
12
When the soldiers travelled to camp for military activities, tents were set up for the women at the back part of the encampment. As the soldiers marched, the women were carried like cattle in guarded carts or trains to the destination of the regiment.
13
Many girls were tortured, abused & savaged by the soldiers. They were beaten, cut, forced into unnatural acts, and even burnt or strangled by drunk soldiers. Such violent crimes were hidden from the outside world as Indian women had practically no rights.
14
On June 17, 1886, a military order, known as the “Infamous Circular Memorandum,” was sent out to all Cantonments of India by General Chapman, in the name of the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts. Its contents were shocking.
15
The order specified an urgent need to find methods to acquire many more attractive & younger Indian women as soldiers’ demands for “prostitutes” were very high & Indian women were not willing to be prostitutes. The British soldiers were desperate for fresh flesh.
16
But the British didn’t just want indian sex slaves, they wanted them as attractive & young as possible, since younger women had a lower chance of being infected with STDs. It was a clinical selection of sexual prey to minimize disease & maximize pleasure for soldiers.
17
Many strategies were devised to trap innocent Indian women. Policemen would observe girls & if they talked to any men, they were accused of being prostitutes. They would then be captured, taken to the Cantonment & forced to register as Chakla prostitutes.
18
British officers sent out Indian Sepoys to forcibly capture at least 12-15 of the best looking girls as young as 14 from every village. Once the Colonel approved them, they were forced into service & old “prostitutes” with sexual diseases were thrown out.
19
The British justified this disgusting practice with the blatant lie that Hindu women in the Chakla system belonged to a “prostitute” class or caste. But prostitutes were never treated as outcastes by Hindus Such a caste never existed & was created to malign Hindu society.
20
Shockingly, many Anglo Indian kids born of these encounters were especially victimized. Many were raised till teenager-hood & used as fresh slaves, because of their European features. It was the British who created their own sub class of mixed blood progeny as prostitutes.
21
Imagine such a cruel system which continuously preyed upon fresh, young & beautiful sex slaves & mercilessly culled those with STDs to protect the soldiers who molested & infected them in the 1st place. This was how British Christian colonizers “civilized” heathen Hindoos.
22. In 1886, the Acts were finally repealed due to increasing awareness & protests by feminists led by Josephine Butler. But it was only after WW1 & the abolitionist movements had weakened imperial power that prostitution was abolished by the British in the 1930s
23
History books often gloss over this horrific fact that the British brutalized & violated thousands of Bharatiya women to satisfy their insatiable lust. How ironic when these same British claim to have saved Hindu women from the falsified myths of Sati & Child marriage!
24
These heart rending facts show us how the racist British Empire institutionalized sexual slavery of Indian women. Forgetting such heinous crimes would be a grave injustice to the souls of those innumerable Bharatiya women who suffered indescribable humiliation & torment.
25. Sources:
Levine, Philippa, “Gender and Empire”, 2004
Elizabeth W. Andrew & Katharine C. Bushnell, The Queen's Daughters in India, 1898
Talk about a nasty bag full of distortions and outright lies. That Shree Rama existed centuries before Buddha was even born is attested directly by authentic Buddhist sources themselves. I will methodically dissect and disprove every deceptive claim by fact checking it against authoritative and authentic sources. Please read all parts of the entire thread to the end including the screenshots which provide crucial evidence. 🧵
Claim # 1:
Ram is a mythological character, whereas Buddha was a real historical figure—there’s simply no comparison.
Fact: False. This claim is disproven by the oldest & most authoritative Buddhist biography of Buddha’s life itself - Aśvaghoṣa’s (2nd c.) Buddhacharita. The Buddhacharita documents that Buddha belonged to the same Suryavanshi Ikshvaku dynasty as Rama; it pays homage to Valmiki as the Adikavi and mentions Janaka too. After he renounces his family, Buddha’s father sends a wise advisor to the forest to try & convince him to return back home. The advisor tries to persuade him to return by mentioning Rama as an example - as someone from older times, who returned after penance in forests to protect his kingdom against evil. In response Buddha himself says he cannot do what Rama did & refuses to return. This clearly proves that Rama was already revered as an ancient historical personality to be emulated in Buddha’s times.
Claim # 2: Buddha was not a descendant of Ram because Ram never existed in reality.
Fact: False. Disproved by the very first chapter on Buddha’s Birth in the authoritative biography Buddhacharita which records that Buddha was a descendant of the Suryavanshi Ikshvaku dynasty - from the same lineage to which Rama belonged millennia before him. An even older account of Buddha’s ancestral family tree is found in the Buddhist text Mahāvastu, a composite multi-life hagiography of the Buddha (2nd c. BCE) which details how the sons of Ikshvaku built Kapilavastu and were the forefathers of the Shakyas - the clan of the Buddha.
Claim #3: In fact, Buddha lived long before the Valmiki Ramayana was compiled.
Fact: False. We already know that Rama lived many millennia before Buddha from irrefutable evidence in the Ramayana itself & many other Hindu texts.Authoritative Buddhist texts like Mahavamsa also clearly record the Shakya clan as part of Suryavanshi Ikshvaku dynasty with the line of succession from Rishi Sagara to Dasharatha & Rama who lived many generations before Suddhodana (Buddha’s father). Moreover Princeton historian, Robert Goldman's comprehensive comparative analysis of the Ramayana proves that the descriptions of history & geography of Kosala in the Ramayana clearly reflect an era BEFORE the Buddha thus dating it prior to 5th c. BCE (time of Buddha) even by Western standards. His work is considered the most comprehensive & authoritative Western analysis of Ramayana’s historicity. As mentioned before the Buddhacharita also testifies to Valmiki already being revered as the ancient Adi Kavi during Buddha's era.
Kamal Khan explaining Mughal history is like a chihuahua barking - ear-splittingly irritating, wildly off-key, but you can’t help but watch the spectacle.
Of course the Mughals didn't "harm any community", they just built Minars out of Kafir skulls to show how much they cared for all communities and considered all Indians equal.
These "loving community building" exercises started with Timur's first entry into Hindustan, when he attacked the Hindu kingdom of Kator extending from Kashmir to Kabul. In his autobiography “Tuzak-I-Timuri” Timur describes building tall towers of skulls of “obstinate unbelievers” after raping & enslaving women & kids & plundering towns to dust (May, 1398 CE). The Zafarnama of Sharafuddin Ali Yazdi (Iran, 1425 CE) has a painting which shows how Timur took tribute from soldiers, while an Islamic Minar built out of dead Kafir’s heads looms behind him.
His Mughal descendants like Babur, Akbar, Shah Jahan kept up this grand tradition and built their own towers of Kafir skulls to show their caring loving hearts.
Read the full thread to know more.🧵
The next Mughal, Babur, practically salivated with delight at the prospect of killing Hindus & scattering them like “teased wool & broken bubbles on wine”. He built several Minars out of Hindu heads, during battles in the Doab, near Agra & Chanderi to name a few. So overjoyed was Babur with his bloody crimes that he waxed eloquent poetry about killing Kafirs in praise of God. After creating Minars out of their heads, he proudly declared himself a “Ghazi” as his official imperial title - a term which means “Victorious over the enemies of Islam”
You mention Birbal from the court of the Great “secular” Akbar, who occupied Delhi & Agra in true Mughal tradition by building towers of Hindu heads. He did the same in his conquest of Ahmedabad. He rewarded his commander Khan-i-Khanan (Bairam Khan), for building “8 sky high Minarets of Hindu heads” in Bengal. A painting in the illustrated Akbarnama shows Akbar at the 2nd battle of Panipat, in 1556 CE, where Bairam Khan & Akbar colluded to treacherously behead Hemu. It depicts “Ghazi” Akbar & his army stacking up heads of Hemu's soldiers into a tower/Minar of victory over Islam’s enemies.
Niccolao Manucci an Italian doctor who worked in Shah Jahan's Mughal court described his "lovin'" ways in his memoirs. He revealed that lover boy Shah Jahan shared his bed with 1000s of women besides Mumtaz, many of whom were his own courtier's wives!
Read to the end 🧵
2
Shah Jahan's courtiers Ja'far Khan & Khalil Khan's wives were his favorites. Ja'far Khan's wife was called Shah Jahan's "breakfast" & Khalil Khan's wife his "lunch". Ja'far's wife was Shah Jahan's sister-in-law & Khali's wife was his niece through marriage to Mumtaz. Ja'far's wife had to beg for her husband's life
3
Asaf Khan was Mumtaz Mahal's father. Ja'far Khan was Mumtaz's aunt's son & his wife was her sister-in-law, while Khalil Khan was married to Asaf Khan's granddaughter who was Mumtaz's niece. One can imagine how much love Shah Jahan had for Mumtaz that he molested her own family.
As requested by some of you, I have compiled all the 9 + 1 digital images of Devi Ma which I created for Navaratri along with their descriptions for easy reference. You may use the images as you wish, provided you retain my watermark, treat Devi's image with respect and don't distort the images. Enjoy. 🙏
#Navratri #Dusshera2024 #VijayaDasami
वन्दे वाञ्छितलाभाय चन्द्रार्ध कृतशेखराम् ।
वृषारूढाम् शूलधराम् शैलपुत्रीम् यशस्विनीम् ॥
Day 1 of Sharadiya Navaratri is ruled by Devi Shailaputri, daughter of the Mountain lord, the pure, serene one who blesses devotees with self-restraint, patience, victory over difficulties & peace of mind.
वन्दे वाञ्छितलाभाय चन्द्रार्धकृतशेखराम्।
जपमाला कमण्डलु धरा ब्रह्मचारिणी शुभाम्॥
Day 2 of Sharadiya Navaratri is ruled by Devi Brahmacharini, the epitome of penance, who blesses devotees with purity, freedom from all disturbances and the radiance of wisdom attained by Tapas.
🧵
Hidden deep inside the recesses of the Chhota Sona mosque located in Chapai Nawabganj district of Bangladesh, lie four walled up ancient Murtis of our Hindu divinities Varaha, Bhawani, Brahmani and Shivani. No one knows how ancient they are - likely more than a thousand years old. They are silent witnesses to the desecration of a grand ancient Hindu temple razed over and brutally reused to “build” the mosque. The location is in what used to be the Bengali kingdom of Gaur invaded by Bakhtiyar Khalji in the 13th ce. The advent of Islam after Khalji marked the beginning of a cultural holocaust of Bihar & Bengal where innumerable temples were razed, their broken portions brutally usurped to create incongruous “mosques” as markers of conquering Islamic fanaticism.
In 1786, a British amateur explorer Henry Creighton visited the ruins of Gaur & made drawings to document them. In 1817, his description & drawings were published in a short book “The ruins of Gour described and represented in eighteen views”. He described the Chhoti Sona mosque as one of the most beautiful monuments in the area & ascribed its construction in the 15th c. to Wali Muhammad under the reign of Allauddin Husain Shah. It is within the walls of the interior mosque that Creighton discovered these grand Murtis carved on large blocks of stone. Islamic decorations were deliberately carved on the reverse side of the Murti stones. The stones were purposely placed with the Murti facing inwards, blocked forever into the walls, never to be seen again.
Creighton’s drawings show a grand Varaha carving which closely resembles an awe inspiring Varaha Murti from Pala dynasty in 9th century CE., excavated from Nadiya, West Bengal - now on display at National Museum New Delhi. The stylistic rendering of the Varaha sculpture indicates that the temple destroyed to build the Chhota Sona mosque was likely from the same era of 9th c. CE.
Two other drawings of hidden Murtis embedded within the walls of the chhota sona mosque are labelled as that of the Devi consorts of the gods, Brahmani & Bhawani. Creighton's drawing of Brahmani also closely resembles another 9th c. Pala era sculpture of Brahmani. He also describes the image as Shiva in the form of Bhawani. It is an unusual & interesting depiction showing the deity riding atop a lion which is crushing a demon that is supported by an elephant. Creighton observed that the Murtis still had traces of being gilded with gold just like the roof of the structure, which is what gave the mosque the name of chhota sona mosque. The gilded golden roof must have made the temple an extremely attractive target for destruction to the Islamic attackers.
The last image which Creighton documents is labelled Shivani by him, although it does not look like a typical depiction of Shivani. It appears more likely to be some form of Brahma as the iconography depicts the Vedas & a Mala, while the deity with a fairly rotund belly is seated on a lotus.
Today the chhoto sona mosque is a major tourist attraction in Bangladesh & photographs on the internet still reveal remnants of its Hindu past through stray glimpses of Hindu motifs like kalash, & niches where Hindu murtis were chiseled out. Of course this means we will never be able to unearth, photograph, or see those grand ancient Murtis or remnants of the desecrated temple that it was built upon ever again. We will never even know how ancient it was or the full story of that sacred space.
As promised here is my graphic novel for inspiring Hindu readers of all ages. I dedicate my first creation to the fearless unnamed Hindu hero who avenged Somnath & taught Mahmud Ghazni a lesson he would never forget. This story is based on actual historical events. References from Islamic texts are provided at end of thread. Please read entire thread for whole story. Future comics will be available for purchase at a website to be announced soon.
All images & text for this graphic novel were created by me @mumukshusavitri & should not be reproduced without permission.