This year marks an historic anniversary for the Allies in north-eastern India

For five members of the Royal Australian Air Force, the city of Imphal in Manipur, India, is their final resting place.

They have been buried at the War Cemetery there for seventy years now, having fallen at the Battle of Imphal in World War II.

They were honoured at a memorial service late last month, for their role in supporting the Allied campaign during what is now known to have been a fierce and significant battle.

The First Secretary for Defence at the Australian High Commission in New Delhi, Jane Spicer, represented Australia at commemorations to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Imphal.

Dozens of Australians from the Royal Australian Air Force took part in the Battle of Imphal, which raged for five months in north-east India from March until July, 1944. The Japanese army attempted to destroy the Allied forces at Imphal, an Allied logistic base, and invade India, but were driven back into Burma.

After the Japanese conquered Burma in 1942, Imphal took on major military importance due to its geographical location west of the Burmese border. The Allied forces worked to improve the lines of communication and construct roads and airfields to transport supplies around the north of India.

Japanese intelligence, concluding that Imphal would be used as a base for a major offensive against them in Burma, decided to counter this by attacking first. Japanese Lieutenant-General Mutaguchi was ordered to prepare for ‘Operation U-Go’ – the capture of Imphal and Kohima – with 100,000 men.

Allied positions in the area became threatened and the decision was made to airlift in reinforcements and supplies.

The city of Imphal was held by the fourth corps of the British Fourteenth Army, along with four Indian Infantry Divisions, an Indian Parachute Brigade and an Indian Tank Brigade. The Indian divisions were composed of both British and Indian soldiers, including Gurkhas.

In late March, the Japanese cut off access to the road connecting Imphal and Kohima so the small number of Allied troops were forced to fight alone.

The siege of Imphal, as it is also known, continued for more than three months, and the only link the Allies had to the outside was by air.

A large part of the defence of Imphal was due to the work of the Air Force. During the siege, the Royal Air Force delivered more than 14,000,000 pounds of rations and 12,000 reinforcements.

Morale among the Allied defenders lifted substantially after the Japanese were defeated at Kohima in May 1944. In late June the troops from Kohima reached the men at Imphal, signalling the end of the siege.

Vicious battles took place surrounding the city of Imphal, including in the south along the road to Tiddim. The fighting here was so intense that it continued even after the siege had been lifted. Four Victoria Crosses (awarded for bravery) were won during this encounter.

Alongside the Battle of Kohima, the Battle of Imphal is widely regarded as the turning point of the Burma Campaign, and was one of the biggest defeats in Japanese history.

The Japanese army suffered huge losses with over 50,000 dead and missing, while the Allies sustained over 16,000 casualties.

Noted British historian Robert Lyman has said, “Kohima/Imphal was one of the four great turning-point battles in the Second World War, when the tide of war changed irreversibly and dramatically against those who initially held the upper hand”.

The Ekal movement is helping the children of rural India to overcome the barriers of inequality through the gift of education

The great Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is a great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a country”.

An educated populace can change the fabric of a nation. India as a global phenomenon is marching ahead, and shows great potential for growth and development, but even today the class divide between the rich and the poor is unassailable.

In the age of globalisation, with great advances in technology, education is a vital tool in developing access to better opportunities.

Growth has to start at the grass roots level and by making education accessible to the children in rural and tribal India, we make them instruments of change. It is with this ideology that the Ekal schools came into being.

This year, the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of Australia (EVF) is celebrating its 10^th anniversary. Founded according to the principles of the Hindu saint Swami Vivekananda, Ekal Vidhyalayas across the length and breadth of India focus on taking education to the most remote parts of the country, and shining a beacon of awareness into the lives of people who even today live in ‘dark times’.

The Ekal movement originally began with a group of young educators working with the tribes of Jharkhand in the late 1980s.

According to Swami Vivekananda, education signifies a man’s making. He said that if the people could not get to where education is available, then education must get to them.

They refined their teaching model with the premise of “Ek Shikshak, Ek Vidyalaya” – meaning “one teacher for every school”.

Ekal does not propagate the traditional schooling system, of fixed timing and rigid learning which had been the case when exporting the urban model of schooling to Indian villages. Instead, the Ekal system is tailor-made to suit the target audience and the teacher employed has a strong connection to the community. The flexible timings especially suit female children who often miss out on schooling due to being involved in other ‘chores’.
By the mid-1990s, there were over 1200 one-teacher schools operating in Jharkhand. Literacy rates improved and health workers noted a significant decrease in diseases and anti-social practices.

Ekal is different from many other organisations because the aim is not to make a difference to one child but to an entire community.

After the success of the Ekal model in Jharkhand, the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of India was established in 2000 as an umbrella organisation for various NGOs that run one-teacher schools in their communities.

The organisation has since grown in strength and is currently operational in a number of countries across the globe including Australia, the USA, Hong Kong and the UK.

The Ekal movement in Australia started 10 years ago with the sponsorship of 30 schools. Today Ekal Australia sponsors more than 700 schools.

At the original launch of EVF Australia in 2004, the organisation’s president Dr Nihal Agar said, “This movement will liberate about 80 million fellow Indians, living in remote, rural and tribal areas, from the darkness of illiteracy”.

Organisations such as Ekal strive to take education to remote areas with the sole aim of creating an educated and vibrant India, where all the parts, however inconspicuous, are relevant in making up the whole. It is this ideology behind the movement that attracts people to donate their time and money to the cause.

Education should be seen as a right and not a privilege of the select few. A strong education system is the cornerstone of any country’s growth and prosperity; it is a great equaliser of conditions and is an outlet from the throes of poverty.

Education of tribal children in India is important, not only because it is a Constitutional obligation, but because of the crucial need for the holistic development of tribal communities, woven into the fabric of the Indian society.

Ekal Australia currently sponsors 500 village schools and has supported more than 20,000 children over the past ten years.

A typical Ekal class has between 30 to 40 children from five to 14 years of age. Along with teaching basic literacy and numeracy skills, emphasis is given to health and hygiene practices. The organisation spends less than 10 per cent of the sponsorship money raised on administrative costs – everything else is contributed to the local community.

When the children of a country get the gift of education they are delivered the tools of possibility; life changes and we allow them to overcome the barriers of social inequality. Education for underprivileged children is the key, whether we are addressing healthcare, poverty, population control, unemployment or human rights issues.

It is a clichéd statement that India lives in her villages, but it is true. Basic education instils self-confidence, self-worth and makes life more meaningful and purposeful. It lifts a person’s self-esteem and makes them a worthwhile and contributing member of society.

India is in a stage of metamorphosis and is moving into a new era – an era of change, innovation and self-discovery. An educated, young population will be able to drive this movement, make it sustainable and make a visible difference. This will enable India to move into that ‘heaven’ that Tagore envisioned for us many years ago…

“Where words come from the depth of truth… Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit… Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”.

Let us all be a part of this change and vision.

Ekal Australia celebrates its 10^th anniversary on 26 July at the Bahai Centre, Silverwater. You can be part of this worthwhile movement by joining in their celebrations. For more details contact Devendra Gupta on devendra_g@hotmail.com. Visit the Ekal website www.ekal.org to learn more about the Ekal movement.

A new forum aims to facilitate effective networking, collaboration and empowerment for Hindu organisations in NSW

Using the Ekta Shankh (unity conch shell) as its symbol and relying on the motto Sanghe Sakthi Kaliyuge (organisation is strength), representatives from various Hindu cultural, spiritual and educational groups in Sydney came together recently for a first-of-its-kind HOTA (Hindu Organisations, Temples and Associations) forum.

Facilitated by Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s Australia chapter, the forum is the brainchild of Swami Vigyananda and was proposed at the third Australian National Hindu Conference held in April. The objective of the forum is to provide a common platform for institutions working in their individual capacities to together serve Hindu communities all across Australia. Currently New South Wales alone has at least 120,000 people of Hindu faith.

Sydney Shri Ayyappa Temple (SSAT) hosted the inaugural forum on the auspicious occasion of Guru Poornima. Welcoming the gathering, temple president Mohan Sundaram showcased the rich legacy of Swami Ayyappa tradition. In the coming years, the hosting of HOTA is to be rotated among all its members, with Minto Temple already volunteering to facilitate the 2015 edition.

“Through effective networking, collaboration and empowerment, our goal is to realise that there is a larger Hindu identity that transcends the sectional identities, and eventually bring all organisations together so that they can function in an improved manner,” Vishwa Hindu Parishad spokesman and forum chair, Rudra Kumar told Indian Link.

As part of HOTA, two flagship events have been planned each year – an annual networking platform in February and a combined celebration of Raksha Bandhan in August, venerating the role of women in Hindu society.

The HOTA model has already enjoyed considerable success in North America and New Zealand and the Australian chapter hopes to emulate these efforts.

“Hindus as a community are diverse in faith and philosophy, embracing the whole spectrum from atheism to polytheism harmoniously. We are each different but also have a lot in common,” Kumar said.

“In future, we will concentrate on common threads rather than differences to achieve greater good. If we are inward focused, we are bound to become stale and irrelevant and perhaps this is where HOTA could take us to next level of evolution”.

Effectively using the analogy of world wide web, Kumar aptly identified various Hindu organisations as isolated pockets of stand-alone capability. “What we lack is coordination skills and resource sharing. Through HOTA, hopefully, we can link up to effectively reach targets,” he said.

On the agenda were cross-servicing, sharing of institutional resources, centralised procurements and bonding between associations. Rather than being a mere talkfest, the day-long forum moderated by VCCA’s Divakar Harle saw various community representatives discuss challenges, learn to creatively solve problems, and identify growth opportunities.

The participants were divided into three groups – temples, associations and youth to brainstorm ideas. Some of the issues discussed included potential venues for large-scale gatherings, mentoring youth, the introduction of Sanskrit in schools, expansion of the SRE program, visa and language problems faced by temple priests, bulk procurement of pooja materials and collective lobbying.

Among the outcomes of the first HOTA forum was the development of a concrete action plan and a roadmap to realise the benefits of collective effort and collaboration to eventually enhance the capacity and capability of forum members.

Addressing the forum, Strathfield Councillor and chairman of the Deepavali Parliamentary Committee, Raj Datta declared, “Hindus are an inclusive, peace-loving community and should continue to embed this tolerance in the mainstream. Over the long course of our history, having withstood many invasions and changes, we have had the capacity to accommodate one another. Australian society is now at a critical juncture and we should strive to enrich its multicultural fabric by leaving a lasting legacy for its future to enjoy”.

Earlier in the day, VHP general secretary Akila Ramarathinam made an impassioned plea for all Hindu organisations to unite in their service to society. Clarifying that HOTA is neither a governing council or umbrella body but an information-sharing project, she extended VHP’s utmost commitment to the cause. “HOTA is a unique opportunity to exchange ideas, share knowledge and network. We need to know, trust and understand each other. After all, selfless service is our ultimate aim,” she concluded.

On the sidelines, informal resource sharing arrangements were already being worked out between temple representatives – particularly in venue, finance and priest management. “I already see HOTA as a big success and with wider participation, it will only improve the services we can offer,” she noted.

Among the organisations represented at the HOTA forum were Shiv Mandir, BAPS Swaminarayan Mandir, Karpaga Vinayagar Temple, Durga Temple, Indian Seniors Group, Vedic and Cultural Centre of Australia (VCCA), Brahma Kumaris, and Sydney Veda Pathashala. Special Religious Education group (SRE), the Deepavali committee, Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin, Hindu Youth Australia, Bala Samskar Kendra, Hindu Swayam Sevak Sangh, Jeeyar Education Trust, and Vedic Maths Foundation were also in attendance. Many other groups have also already pledged both their resources and support for the united cause.

Rishi Dutta is no pawn, but a king in the making

Every school holidays, a group of enthusiastic players compete against each other in chess tournaments organised by the Junior Chess League. Their numbers are increasing exponentially, making it one of the fastest growing mental sports in Australia and across the world. Chess not only stimulates the mind, it improves concentration and promotes high levels of forward planning and strategic thinking. While it is a stimulating pastime for most, those with grander aspirations often find that winning margins are slender and the decisions are ruthless.

One of the rising stars of the competitive chess arena is thirteen-year-old Rishi Dutta, with a rating of 1870. The rating is determined by chess organisations as an estimate of the strength of the player, based on previous performances.

Earlier this year, the gifted Baulkham Hills High student took out the Under-14 Open title at the Australian Junior Championships held at Knox Grammar. In 2012, Rishi also won the Under-12 NSW Junior Championship, while he was outright second at the national level.

The talented youngster stumbled into chess as a six-year-old, when he accompanied his parents to Rouse Hill Town Centre.

His mum Jin Tan recalls, “We would often take our boys to the library and it is there that Rishi first learned how to play chess”.

“My husband, Debashis, would teach Rishi the basics and they would regularly play against each other in the library while I read to my younger son. Within a few months, he was consistently defeating his dad and they would spend hours analysing the game afterwards,” she added proudly.

But it wasn’t until he was nine that he showed keenness for the game, she was quick to point out.

What truly sparked Rishi’s interest was a tournament at Matthew Pearce Public School, where he was enrolled in the opportunity class. Despite being a rookie, he went on to win the competition. Since then his rise has been meteoric.

Progressing rapidly, Rishi also won the NSW Junior Chess League (JCL) inter-school competition at the district level. The talented player soon joined Rooty Hill Chess Club to expand his horizons and compete against older players.

The club manager, Peter Cassetari, was instrumental in Rishi’s improvement, often staying late after club games to teach Rishi, Tan acknowledged gratefully. Likewise Debashis has constantly mentored his budding talent, advising him on strategic openings and analysing the nuances of every move.

Rishi soon began competing in junior tournaments through NSWJCL eventually winning the state Under-12 Championship in 2012.

“This win gave Rishi a lot of confidence, and we view this tournament success as a breakthrough for him,” Tan told Indian Link.

At the national championship that followed,       Rishi came a close second winning 7.5 out of nine games, after a mentally exhausting, three-hour-long decider. In the end, it was a simple error that cost him the title.

Winning the national Under-14 Championship in 2014 has consolidated his fledgling career. Leveraging his home ground advantage, Rishi’s rock-solid performance helped him win all seven games initially, beating top seeds. Rishi went on to draw the last two games to eventually claim the closely contested national title.

“Until recently, Rishi has been a solid and somewhat defensive player, but recently he has been playing more aggressively to try and beat stronger players,” Tan noted.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Rishi is already gunning for bigger goals – to become a Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) Master within the next few years and ultimately Grand Master of chess, a lifelong title.

In the interim, he has been quite busy competing in adult tournaments as well. He recently took part in the Doeberl Cup scoring an impressive five wins out of nine games, beating a player with a rating of 2192. He was also one of only five NSW juniors who took part in the Sydney International Open, managing to draw with highly rated players and eventually scoring another 5/9.

Another standout performance was his third position at the City of Sydney Championship (5.5/7).

Rishi narrowly missed out on the Under-18 title at the recently concluded NSW Junior Championships in North Ryde.

Also a proficient violinist and keen sportsman, Rishi is determined to win the national schools competition later this year.

Reach for the stars, Rishi!