ESSENCE OF INDIANISMBy Deepak Dasgupta
We, the Indians should convey the message to the world that we can convert this fighting world into a peaceful living abode. Rabindra Nath Tagore dreamt and foresaw that India will lead the world. We must wait to see the day when India will lead the world and we are sure that the day will come soon.
Indianism is a feeling of being an Indian. Irrespective of caste, creed or religion, when we feel ourselves to be the members of a single family, we feel oneness and that is Indianism. It is also part of national integration. Even those who live abroad claim that they are Indians and mainly they claim themselves as Hindu. But what qualities they should have to prove their claim? Let us discuss those factors: In India, there is unity in diversity.
There are people whose languages are different, wear dresses differently, eat with various food habits and above all, living style is also different, but all of them feel and think alike and are proud of being Indian. Even the Non-Resident-Indians (NRI) staying all around the world are proud of being Indian origin. Sometimes when they come to India or come across the people from India or gather in any Indian festival, fair, seminar or assembly, they feel like an Indian. It has been noticed that during their social rituals like marriage, upanayan (sacred thread ceremony) and sradh (post death ceremony), they want that every step be performed according to the Vedic rituals. This means, whether they stay elsewhere scattered around the world, they have not lost their identity as being Indian. We appreciate and salute them. If we want to measure the openness and broadness in Indianism, it is no doubt unparallel. About the word ‘Hindu’, it is defined as Hinan Dushayati iti Hindu, which means that the virtue by means of which the heinous or mental lowness of a person is refined to purity is called Hindu. So, by the word Indianism, it also includes Hindu culture. India is not only a geographically bounded land, it is an idea. Our seers and saints have pronounced, “Ayam nija parovti ganana laghu chetasam, Udaracharitanam tu Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”, which means ‘low minded people think that this is mine, that is of yours, but broad minded people always say that people of whole the universe are our kith and kin, our own relatives and everything on this earth is for our mutual benefit. It is also quoted, “Bhrataro manuja sarve, swadesho bhubanatrayam.” This means, all human beings are my brothers and sisters and the universe is my own country. Here we find the extent of feeling oneness with the universal traits. During tarpan, (a ritual by means of which we offer our respect or tribute to our forefathers) we pray to the almighty with the mantra, “Abrahma stamba paryantang Jagat tripyantu.” This means, let all the souls from the biggest to the smallest creations of the universe be free from any bondage, let them get salvation of body, mind and soul. Here, not only we pray for our forefathers but we also pray for all souls. This reveals the extent of broadness of our morality. In Srimad Bhagavad Gita (Ch.V, Sloka 18) Lord Krishna says that to a truly learned person, there is no difference among an educated humble Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a low profile shudra. Our saints, sages and mahatmas have taught us to think for all, to share their well and woe and pray to God to root out their sorrows and to work for all to bring prosperity in their lives. Kaamaey dookhya taptanang praninam arti nasanam,” which means that I don’t want the happiness of being a king of a kingdom, nor the heaven, nor the boon of complete salvation, but I pray for wiping out the sufferings of the poor and the destitute beings. This reveals that a truly devotee of God can not desire for earthly or heavenly happiness, even he refuses the desire of complete salvation or mokhsa or freedom from the cycle of rebirth, but he prays for all and desires that the sufferings of the multitudes be rooted out. Lord Gautam Buddha refused his kingship and preferred to work for the cause of the sufferings of all. From the above quoted versions, I have just tried to establish the truth that in Indianism there is no scope of hatred against anybody. We fight on the streets with each other or in the communities between men to men to get minor interests but we should not forget that we are the descendents of the eternal souls or Amritasya putrah. We should not act or behave in any such manner that the credit of being born as the supreme creation in the universe goes in vain. Man is supreme of all creations in this mortal world. We are born with the theological and theosophical brain and with an eternal soul. We only have the capacity to understand the difference between good and bad, between just and unjust, between right and wrong. We, the Indians should convey the message to the world that we can convert this fighting world into a peaceful living abode. Rabindra Nath Tagore dreamt and foresaw that India will lead the world. We must wait to see the day when India will lead the world and we are sure that the day will come soon. The thought of Mahatma Gandhi, which is based on Gita, has already spread all over the world. He has become a symbol of liberation in the world. He advocated not only to get rid of foreign rule but also to get rid of economic disparity between rich and the poor and administered mantra of social reforms. He taught us to win with truth over falsehood. He has become the symbol of Indianism. He sits above all international barriers showing the path of liberation to all at large. Once, when the Europeans and Americans were rushing to send missionaries to India to civilise our people and to transform them by religious conversion, Swami Vivekananda opposed this foreign idea and stopped their move by saying, “Don’t send missionaries to India, rather, send machineries to India.” At that time India was weak in technology, so we required its development and machine could do that. But from very olden days, India is rich in spiritual and philosophical thoughts and it is the seat of high moral values. At present, India is passing through a traumatic stage to identify its identity. All the people of the world should know about our identity. We should not forget that we are the Amritasya Putrah or the children of the eternal soul. Whether an Indian residing in India or abroad, whether he or she is of Indian origin, it is immaterial but who believes in Indian thought or culture will think about the above guidelines and will live life accordingly. (The writer can be contacted at 16/23 W.E.A 1st Floor, Karol Bagh, New Delhi-110 005.)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Mahrishi mahesh Yogi passes
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi DiesBy Mike Corder, Associated Press WriterThe Associated PressTuesday, February 5, 2008(02-05) 15:37 PST The Hague, Netherlands (AP) -Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles whointroduced the West to transcendental meditation,died Tuesday at his home in the Dutch town ofVlodrop, a spokesman said. He was thought to be 91years old."He died peacefully at about 7 p.m.," said BobRoth, a spokesman for the TranscendentalMeditation movement that the Maharishi founded.
Hesaid his death appeared to be due to "naturalcauses, his age."Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindupractice of mind control that Maharishi taught,called transcendental meditation, gradually gainedmedical respectability.He began teaching TM in 1955 and brought thetechnique to the United States in 1959. But themovement really took off after the Beatles visitedhis ashram in India in 1968, although he had afamous falling out with the rock stars when hediscovered them using drugs at his Himalayanretreat.With the help of celebrity endorsements, Maharishi— a Hindi-language title for Great Seer — parlayedhis interpretations of ancient scripture into amulti-million- dollar global empire.After 50 years of teaching, Maharishi turned tolarger themes, with grand designs to harness thepower of group meditation to create world peaceand to mobilize his devotees to banish povertyfrom the earth.Maharishi's roster of famous meditators ran fromThe Rolling Stones to Clint Eastwood and new agepreacher Deepak Chopra.Director David Lynch, creator of dark and violentfilms, lectured at college campuses about the"ocean of tranquility" he found in more than 30years of practicing transcendental meditation.Some 5 million people devoted 20 minutes everymorning and evening reciting a simple sound, ormantra, and delving into their consciousness.
"Don't fight darkness. Bring the light, anddarkness will disappear," Maharishi said in a 2006interview, repeating one of his own mantras.Donations and the $2,500 fee to learn TM financedthe construction of Peace Palaces, or meditationcenters, in dozens of cities around the world.
Itpaid for hundreds of new schools in India.In 1971, Maharishi founded a university inFairfield, Iowa, that taught meditation alongsidethe arts and sciences to 700 students and servedorganic vegetarian food in its cafeterias.Supporters pointed to hundreds of scientificstudies showing that meditation reduces stress,lowers blood pressure, improves concentration andraises results for students and businessmen.Skeptics ridiculed his plan to raise $10 trillionto end poverty by sponsoring organic farming inthe world's poorest countries.
They scoffed at hisnotion that meditation groups, acting like psychicshock troops, can end conflict."To resolve problems through negotiation is a verychildish approach," he said.In 1986, two groups founded by his organizationwere sued in the U.S. by former disciples whoaccused it of fraud, negligence and intentionallyinflicting emotional damage. A jury, however,refused to award punitive damages.Over the years, Maharishi also was accused offraud by former pupils who claim he failed toteach them to fly. "Yogic flying," showcased asthe ultimate level of transcendence, was neverwitnessed as anything more than TM followerssitting in the cross-legged lotus position andbouncing across spongy mats.Maharishi was born Mahesh Srivastava in centralIndia, reportedly on Jan. 12, 1917 — though herefused to confirm the date or discuss his earlylife.
He studied physics at Allahabad University beforebecoming secretary to a well known Hindu holy man.After the death of his teacher, Maharishi wentinto a nomadic two-year retreat of silence in theHimalayan foothills of northern India.
With his background in physics, he brought hismessage to the West in a language that mixed theoccult and science that became the buzz of collegecampuses. He described TM as "the unified field ofall the laws of nature."Maharishi's trademark flowing beard and long,graying hair appeared on the cover of the leadingnews magazines of the day.
But aides say Maharishi became disillusioned thatTM had become identified with the counterculture,and he spent more time at his ashram in Rishikeshin the Himalayan foothills to run his globalaffairs.In 1990 he moved onto the wooded grounds of ahistoric Franciscan monastery in the southernDutch village of Vlodrop, about 125 milessoutheast of Amsterdam.Concerned about his fragile health, he secludedhimself in two rooms of the wooden pavilion hebuilt on the compound, speaking only by video toaides around the world and even to his closestadvisers in the same building.
John Hagelin, a theoretical physicist who ran forthe U.S. presidency three times on theMaharishi-backed Natural Law Party, said that fromthe Dutch location Maharishi had daylong access tofollowers in India, Europe and the Americas."He runs several shifts of us into the ground,"said Hagelin, Maharishi's closest aid, speaking inVlodrop about his then-89-year- old mentor. "He isa fountainhead of innovation and new ideas — fartoo many than you can ever follow up."- - - Amsterdam-based Associated Press writer Arthur Maxcontributed to this report.http://www.sfgate. com/flat/ archive/2008/ 02/05/news/ archive/2008/ 02/05/internatio nal/i152501S66. html?tsp= 1Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi Om Shanti
Hesaid his death appeared to be due to "naturalcauses, his age."Once dismissed as hippie mysticism, the Hindupractice of mind control that Maharishi taught,called transcendental meditation, gradually gainedmedical respectability.He began teaching TM in 1955 and brought thetechnique to the United States in 1959. But themovement really took off after the Beatles visitedhis ashram in India in 1968, although he had afamous falling out with the rock stars when hediscovered them using drugs at his Himalayanretreat.With the help of celebrity endorsements, Maharishi— a Hindi-language title for Great Seer — parlayedhis interpretations of ancient scripture into amulti-million- dollar global empire.After 50 years of teaching, Maharishi turned tolarger themes, with grand designs to harness thepower of group meditation to create world peaceand to mobilize his devotees to banish povertyfrom the earth.Maharishi's roster of famous meditators ran fromThe Rolling Stones to Clint Eastwood and new agepreacher Deepak Chopra.Director David Lynch, creator of dark and violentfilms, lectured at college campuses about the"ocean of tranquility" he found in more than 30years of practicing transcendental meditation.Some 5 million people devoted 20 minutes everymorning and evening reciting a simple sound, ormantra, and delving into their consciousness.
"Don't fight darkness. Bring the light, anddarkness will disappear," Maharishi said in a 2006interview, repeating one of his own mantras.Donations and the $2,500 fee to learn TM financedthe construction of Peace Palaces, or meditationcenters, in dozens of cities around the world.
Itpaid for hundreds of new schools in India.In 1971, Maharishi founded a university inFairfield, Iowa, that taught meditation alongsidethe arts and sciences to 700 students and servedorganic vegetarian food in its cafeterias.Supporters pointed to hundreds of scientificstudies showing that meditation reduces stress,lowers blood pressure, improves concentration andraises results for students and businessmen.Skeptics ridiculed his plan to raise $10 trillionto end poverty by sponsoring organic farming inthe world's poorest countries.
They scoffed at hisnotion that meditation groups, acting like psychicshock troops, can end conflict."To resolve problems through negotiation is a verychildish approach," he said.In 1986, two groups founded by his organizationwere sued in the U.S. by former disciples whoaccused it of fraud, negligence and intentionallyinflicting emotional damage. A jury, however,refused to award punitive damages.Over the years, Maharishi also was accused offraud by former pupils who claim he failed toteach them to fly. "Yogic flying," showcased asthe ultimate level of transcendence, was neverwitnessed as anything more than TM followerssitting in the cross-legged lotus position andbouncing across spongy mats.Maharishi was born Mahesh Srivastava in centralIndia, reportedly on Jan. 12, 1917 — though herefused to confirm the date or discuss his earlylife.
He studied physics at Allahabad University beforebecoming secretary to a well known Hindu holy man.After the death of his teacher, Maharishi wentinto a nomadic two-year retreat of silence in theHimalayan foothills of northern India.
With his background in physics, he brought hismessage to the West in a language that mixed theoccult and science that became the buzz of collegecampuses. He described TM as "the unified field ofall the laws of nature."Maharishi's trademark flowing beard and long,graying hair appeared on the cover of the leadingnews magazines of the day.
But aides say Maharishi became disillusioned thatTM had become identified with the counterculture,and he spent more time at his ashram in Rishikeshin the Himalayan foothills to run his globalaffairs.In 1990 he moved onto the wooded grounds of ahistoric Franciscan monastery in the southernDutch village of Vlodrop, about 125 milessoutheast of Amsterdam.Concerned about his fragile health, he secludedhimself in two rooms of the wooden pavilion hebuilt on the compound, speaking only by video toaides around the world and even to his closestadvisers in the same building.
John Hagelin, a theoretical physicist who ran forthe U.S. presidency three times on theMaharishi-backed Natural Law Party, said that fromthe Dutch location Maharishi had daylong access tofollowers in India, Europe and the Americas."He runs several shifts of us into the ground,"said Hagelin, Maharishi's closest aid, speaking inVlodrop about his then-89-year- old mentor. "He isa fountainhead of innovation and new ideas — fartoo many than you can ever follow up."- - - Amsterdam-based Associated Press writer Arthur Maxcontributed to this report.http://www.sfgate. com/flat/ archive/2008/ 02/05/news/ archive/2008/ 02/05/internatio nal/i152501S66. html?tsp= 1Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi Om Shanti
India 4 th Top Holder of world currency
The world's top holders of foreign currency reserves are:
1) China - $1.5 trillion;
2) Japan - $948 billion;
3) Russia - $479.4 billion;
4) India - $279.5 billion;
5) Taiwan - $272.8 billion;
6) South Korea - $261.8billion;
7) Singapore - $163.6 billion;
8) Brazil- $163.5 billion; and
9) Hong Kong - $146.9 billion.
1) China - $1.5 trillion;
2) Japan - $948 billion;
3) Russia - $479.4 billion;
4) India - $279.5 billion;
5) Taiwan - $272.8 billion;
6) South Korea - $261.8billion;
7) Singapore - $163.6 billion;
8) Brazil- $163.5 billion; and
9) Hong Kong - $146.9 billion.
Pakistan may get Divided
February 1, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Drawn and Quartered
By SELIG S. HARRISON
Washington
WHATEVER the outcome of the Pakistani elections, now scheduled for Feb. 18, the existing multiethnic Pakistani state is not likely to survive for long unless it is radically restructured.
Given enough American pressure, a loosely united, confederated Pakistan could still be preserved by reinstating and liberalizing the defunct 1973 Constitution, which has been shelved by successive military rulers.
But as matters stand, the Punjabi-dominated regime of Pervez Musharraf is headed for a bloody confrontation with the country’s Pashtun, Baluch and Sindhi minorities that could well lead to the breakup of Pakistan into three sovereign entities.
In that event, the Pashtuns, concentrated in the northwestern tribal areas, would join with their ethnic brethren across the Afghan border (some 40 million of them combined) to form an independent “Pashtunistan.”
The Sindhis in the southeast, numbering 23 million, would unite with the six million Baluch tribesmen in the southwest to establish a federation along the Arabian Sea from India to Iran.
“Pakistan” would then be a nuclear-armed Punjabi rump state.
In historical context, such a breakup would not be surprising. There had never been a national entity encompassing the areas now constituting Pakistan, an ethnic mélange thrown together hastily by the British for strategic reasons when they partitioned the subcontinent in 1947.
For those of Pashtun, Sindhi and Baluch ethnicity, independence from colonial rule created a bitter paradox. After resisting Punjabi domination for centuries, they found themselves subjected to Punjabi-dominated military regimes that have appropriated many of the natural resources in the minority provinces — particularly the natural gas deposits in the Baluch areas — and siphoned off much of the Indus River’s waters as they flow through the Punjab.
The resulting Punjabi-Pashtun animosity helps explain why the United States is failing to get effective Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorists. The Pashtuns living along the Afghan border are happy to give sanctuary from Punjabi forces to the Taliban, which is composed primarily of fellow Pashtuns, and to its Qaeda friends.
Pashtun civilian casualties resulting from Pakistani and American air strikes on both sides of the border are breeding a potent underground Pashtun nationalist movement. Its initial objective is to unite all Pashtuns in Pakistan, now divided among political jurisdictions, into a unified province. In time, however, its leaders envisage full nationhood. After all, before the British came, the Pashtuns had been politically united under the banner of an Afghan empire that stretched eastward into the Punjabi heartland.
The Baluch people, for their part, have been waging intermittent insurgencies since their forced incorporation into Pakistan in 1947. In the current warfare Pakistani forces are widely reported to be deploying American-supplied aircraft and intelligence equipment that was intended for use in Afghan border areas. Their victims are forging military links with Sindhi nationalist groups that have been galvanized into action by the death of Benazir Bhutto, a Sindhi hero as was her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The breakup of Pakistan would be a costly and destabilizing development that can still be avoided, but only if the United States and other foreign donors use their enormous aid leverage to convince Islamabad that it should not only put the 1973 Constitution back into effect, but amend it to go beyond the limited degree of autonomy it envisaged.
Eventually, the minorities want a central government that would retain control only over defense, foreign affairs, international trade, communications and currency. It would no longer have the power to oust an elected provincial government, and would have to renegotiate royalties on resources with the provinces.
In the shorter term, the Bush administration should scrap plans to send Special Forces into border areas in pursuit of Al Qaeda, which would only strengthen Islamist links with Pashtun nationalists. It should help secular Pashtun forces to compete with the Islamists by pushing for fair representation of Pashtun areas now barred from political participation.
It is often argued that the United States must stand by Mr. Musharraf and a unitary Pakistani state to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. But the nuclear safeguards depend on the Pakistani Army as an institution, not on the president. They would not be affected by a break-up, since the nuclear weapons would remain under the control of the Punjabi rump state and its army.
The Army has built up a far-flung empire of economic enterprises in all parts of Pakistan with assets in the tens of billions, and can best protect its interests by defusing the escalating conflict with the minorities. Similarly, the minorities would profit from cooperative economic relations with the Punjab, and for this reason prefer confederal autonomy to secession. All concerned, including the United States, have a profound stake in stopping the present slide to Balkanization.
Selig S. Harrison is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy and the author of “In Afghanistan’s Shadow,” a study of Baluch nationalism.
Op-Ed Contributor
Drawn and Quartered
By SELIG S. HARRISON
Washington
WHATEVER the outcome of the Pakistani elections, now scheduled for Feb. 18, the existing multiethnic Pakistani state is not likely to survive for long unless it is radically restructured.
Given enough American pressure, a loosely united, confederated Pakistan could still be preserved by reinstating and liberalizing the defunct 1973 Constitution, which has been shelved by successive military rulers.
But as matters stand, the Punjabi-dominated regime of Pervez Musharraf is headed for a bloody confrontation with the country’s Pashtun, Baluch and Sindhi minorities that could well lead to the breakup of Pakistan into three sovereign entities.
In that event, the Pashtuns, concentrated in the northwestern tribal areas, would join with their ethnic brethren across the Afghan border (some 40 million of them combined) to form an independent “Pashtunistan.”
The Sindhis in the southeast, numbering 23 million, would unite with the six million Baluch tribesmen in the southwest to establish a federation along the Arabian Sea from India to Iran.
“Pakistan” would then be a nuclear-armed Punjabi rump state.
In historical context, such a breakup would not be surprising. There had never been a national entity encompassing the areas now constituting Pakistan, an ethnic mélange thrown together hastily by the British for strategic reasons when they partitioned the subcontinent in 1947.
For those of Pashtun, Sindhi and Baluch ethnicity, independence from colonial rule created a bitter paradox. After resisting Punjabi domination for centuries, they found themselves subjected to Punjabi-dominated military regimes that have appropriated many of the natural resources in the minority provinces — particularly the natural gas deposits in the Baluch areas — and siphoned off much of the Indus River’s waters as they flow through the Punjab.
The resulting Punjabi-Pashtun animosity helps explain why the United States is failing to get effective Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorists. The Pashtuns living along the Afghan border are happy to give sanctuary from Punjabi forces to the Taliban, which is composed primarily of fellow Pashtuns, and to its Qaeda friends.
Pashtun civilian casualties resulting from Pakistani and American air strikes on both sides of the border are breeding a potent underground Pashtun nationalist movement. Its initial objective is to unite all Pashtuns in Pakistan, now divided among political jurisdictions, into a unified province. In time, however, its leaders envisage full nationhood. After all, before the British came, the Pashtuns had been politically united under the banner of an Afghan empire that stretched eastward into the Punjabi heartland.
The Baluch people, for their part, have been waging intermittent insurgencies since their forced incorporation into Pakistan in 1947. In the current warfare Pakistani forces are widely reported to be deploying American-supplied aircraft and intelligence equipment that was intended for use in Afghan border areas. Their victims are forging military links with Sindhi nationalist groups that have been galvanized into action by the death of Benazir Bhutto, a Sindhi hero as was her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The breakup of Pakistan would be a costly and destabilizing development that can still be avoided, but only if the United States and other foreign donors use their enormous aid leverage to convince Islamabad that it should not only put the 1973 Constitution back into effect, but amend it to go beyond the limited degree of autonomy it envisaged.
Eventually, the minorities want a central government that would retain control only over defense, foreign affairs, international trade, communications and currency. It would no longer have the power to oust an elected provincial government, and would have to renegotiate royalties on resources with the provinces.
In the shorter term, the Bush administration should scrap plans to send Special Forces into border areas in pursuit of Al Qaeda, which would only strengthen Islamist links with Pashtun nationalists. It should help secular Pashtun forces to compete with the Islamists by pushing for fair representation of Pashtun areas now barred from political participation.
It is often argued that the United States must stand by Mr. Musharraf and a unitary Pakistani state to safeguard Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. But the nuclear safeguards depend on the Pakistani Army as an institution, not on the president. They would not be affected by a break-up, since the nuclear weapons would remain under the control of the Punjabi rump state and its army.
The Army has built up a far-flung empire of economic enterprises in all parts of Pakistan with assets in the tens of billions, and can best protect its interests by defusing the escalating conflict with the minorities. Similarly, the minorities would profit from cooperative economic relations with the Punjab, and for this reason prefer confederal autonomy to secession. All concerned, including the United States, have a profound stake in stopping the present slide to Balkanization.
Selig S. Harrison is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy and the author of “In Afghanistan’s Shadow,” a study of Baluch nationalism.
Friday, January 25, 2008
India's real History .Never told ,Now Just read it
Rewriting Indian Historyby Francois Gautier
http://www.indiastar.com/wallia10.htm
" Forgive -- but never forget – history "
======================================================="From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian." c.j.s. wallia=======================================================
Rewriting Indian History is a provocative new book by the French writer Francois Gautier, who currently serves as the political correspondent in India for France's top newspaper, Le Figaro, and for Switzerland's leading daily, Le Nouveau Quotidien. Having lived in India for 25 years has helped him "to see through the usual cliches and prejudices in India to which I subscribed for a long time, as most foreign (and sometimes, unfortunately, Indian) journalists, writers, and historians do."
Rewriting Indian History,the author prefaces, "might well be called an antithesis" for it questions many of the assumptions in the "standard" treatises by Euro-centered colonialist historians and their imitations by Indian Marxist writers.
Gautier focuses mainly on the Muslim period of India's history. "Let it be said right away: the massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese."
However, the British, in pursuing their policy of divide-and-rule, colluded "to whitewash" the atrocious record of the Muslims so that they could set up the Muslims as a strategic counterbalance to the Hindus. During the freedom struggle, Gandhi and Nehru went around encrusting even thicker coats of whitewash so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Muslim unity against British colonial rule. After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by their distorting ideology, repeated the big lie about the Muslim record.
Gautier cites two eminent historians who wrote free of any colonialist or ideological agendas, basing their accounts on documents by contemporary Muslim chroniclers themselves: Alain Danielou in Histoire de la Inde: "From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoilations, destructions.
It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilisations, wiped out entire races." And the well-known American historian Will Durant in The Story of Civilization: "...the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within." (From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.)
Gautier should have continued with the Will Durant quote: "The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India's boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited conquest; and at last it came.
This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life. The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry."
About Gandhi's whitewash of Muslims, Gautier observes: "Ultimately, it must be said that whatever his saintliness, his extreme and somehow rigid asceticism, Gandhi did enormous harm to India... The British must have rubbed their hands in glee: here was a man who was perfecting their policy of divide-and-rule, for ultimately no one contributed more to the partition of India, by his obsession to always give in to the Muslims; by his indulgence of Jinnah, going as far as proposing to make him the prime minister of India."
Worse yet, Gandhi's anointed disciple, Nehru, propagated false readings of Indian history in his books and speeches. Gautier quotes Nehru's "amazing eulogy" of the tyrant Mahmud Ghazni, the destroyer of Mathura's great Hindu temples, Gujarat's Somnath, and numerous other Hindu and Buddhist temples.
When Nehru, the arrant appeaser of Muslims, became India's first prime minister, he appointed a fundamentalist Muslim, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, as the first education minister. Under Nehru's pseudo-secular rule, "Hindu-bashing became a popular pastime." Moreover, Nehru "had a great sympathy for communism....
He encouraged Marxist think-tanks such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU] in New Delhi, which has bred a lot of 'Hindu-hating scholars' who are adept at negating Muslim atrocities and running to the ground the greatness of Hinduism and its institutions." These Marxist "historians," well-ensconced at JNU, have long been masterminding the politically correct textbooks of India's history used in Indian schools. No wonder, JNU is also known as "the Kremlin by the Jumna." For a long time, the Indian Marxists had been so brainwashed that whenever it rained in Moscow -- the capital of their "only true fatherland"-- they opened their umbrellas in Delhi.
To be sure, dissenting voices were raised against Gandhi's whitewash of Muslims. Before the partition of India, Aurobindo Ghosh, the great Hindu poet-philosopher, posed the question about Islam: "You can live with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live with a religion whose principle is 'I will not tolerate you'? How are you going to have unity with these people?... I am sorry they [Gandhi and Nehru] are making a fetish of Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus will have to fight Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of Hindus. Each time the mildness of the Hindus has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organise themselves and Hindu-Muslim unity will take care of itself, it will automatically solve the problem. ...I see no reason why the greatness of India's past or its spirituality should be thrown into the waste basket, in order to conciliate the Muslims who would not be conciliated by such policy." Another strong dissenter was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Seeing through Nehru's pseudo-secularism, Patel commented, "There's only one nationalist Muslim in India: Jawarharlal Nehru."
Gautier warns: "Even today, there is no doubt that Islam has never been fully able to give up its inner conviction that its own religion is the only true creed and that all others are kafirs, infidels. In India it was true 300 years ago, and it is still true today. Remember the cry of the militants in Kashmir to the Pandits: 'convert to Islam or die!' ... The Hindu-Muslim question is just plainly a Muslim obsession, their hatred of the Hindu pagans, their contempt for this polytheist religion. This obsession, this hate, is as old as the first invasion of India by the original Arabs in 650 AD. After independence, nothing has changed: the sword of Allah is still as much ready to strike the kafirs, the idolaters of many gods."
The source of Muslim's fanatical aggression, Gautier points out, is the Koran itself, from which he quotes: "Slay the infidels, wherever ye find them and prepare them for all kind of ambush"; and "Choose not thy friends among the infidels till they forsake their homes and the way of idolatory. If they return to paganism then take them whenever you find them and kill them."
In the section on Ayodhya, Gautier says that demolishing the Babri Masjid has proved that Hindus too can fight. He criticizes Nehruvian "secularism" as interpreted by the Congress party to mean "giving in to the Muslims' demands, because its leaders never could really make out if the allegiance of Indian Muslims is first to India and then to Islam or vice-versa." For many of India's Hindu journalists, this pseudo-secularism has meant "spitting on their own religion and brothers." Curiously, Gautier does not mention Arun Shourie's well-researched, lucidly articulated columns, which, in recent years, have laid bare the pretentions of Nehruvian pseudo-secularism.
From my own perspective as a secular humanist, I believe that any whitewashing of historical record is counterproductive. No matter how lofty the ideals of a current cause, any whitewash of history tempts the fates. To forget history will always be fateful; to forgive its horrendous facts can be redemptive. Forgive -- but never forget -- history. A salient example of making sure that the horrors of history are not forgotten is the contemporary German state's law prohibiting any World War II history that whitewashes the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies, and Poles. The Jews rightly insist that the world must never forget what happened to them. Where is the Hindu Holocaust Museum?
The historical record of the Muslim rule in India is soaked in blood -- just take a look at the documents left by contemporary Muslim chroniclers. Yet, as a secular humanist, I would like to make a distinction between an ideology and its adherents, especially those born into it. From my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.
In the opening chapter, Gautier briefly examines the "tainted glasses" which made Euro-centered historians expound gross "disinformations" about ancient India: the discredited Aryan invasion theory; the deliberate mistranslations of the Vedas; and the erroneous theory of the origin of the caste system.
Throughout the book, Gautier quotes Sri Aurobindo, and in the concluding chapter, "The Final Dream," pays an inspired homage to the great visionary's writings.
Like Konraad Elst's Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Francois Gautier's Rewriting Indian History contributes to the growing literature of dissent against the "standard" textbooks of India's history.
http://www.indiastar.com/wallia10.htm
" Forgive -- but never forget – history "
======================================================="From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian." c.j.s. wallia=======================================================
Rewriting Indian History is a provocative new book by the French writer Francois Gautier, who currently serves as the political correspondent in India for France's top newspaper, Le Figaro, and for Switzerland's leading daily, Le Nouveau Quotidien. Having lived in India for 25 years has helped him "to see through the usual cliches and prejudices in India to which I subscribed for a long time, as most foreign (and sometimes, unfortunately, Indian) journalists, writers, and historians do."
Rewriting Indian History,the author prefaces, "might well be called an antithesis" for it questions many of the assumptions in the "standard" treatises by Euro-centered colonialist historians and their imitations by Indian Marxist writers.
Gautier focuses mainly on the Muslim period of India's history. "Let it be said right away: the massacres perpetrated by Muslims in India are unparalleled in history, bigger than the holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis; or the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks; more extensive even than the slaughter of the South American native populations by the invading Spanish and Portuguese."
However, the British, in pursuing their policy of divide-and-rule, colluded "to whitewash" the atrocious record of the Muslims so that they could set up the Muslims as a strategic counterbalance to the Hindus. During the freedom struggle, Gandhi and Nehru went around encrusting even thicker coats of whitewash so that they could pretend a facade of Hindu-Muslim unity against British colonial rule. After independence, Marxist Indian writers, blinkered by their distorting ideology, repeated the big lie about the Muslim record.
Gautier cites two eminent historians who wrote free of any colonialist or ideological agendas, basing their accounts on documents by contemporary Muslim chroniclers themselves: Alain Danielou in Histoire de la Inde: "From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoilations, destructions.
It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilisations, wiped out entire races." And the well-known American historian Will Durant in The Story of Civilization: "...the Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious good, whose delicate complex order and freedom can at any moment be overthrown by barbarians invading from without and multiplying from within." (From my perspecive as a secular humanist, and my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.)
Gautier should have continued with the Will Durant quote: "The Hindus had allowed their strength to be wasted in internal division and war; they had adopted religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which unnerved them for the tasks of life; they had failed to organize their forces for the protection of their frontiers and their capitals, their wealth and their freedom, from the hordes of Scythians, Huns, Afghans and Turks hovering about India's boundaries and waiting for national weakness to let them in. For four hundred years (600-1000 A.D.) India invited conquest; and at last it came.
This is the secret of the political history of modern India. Weakened by division, it succumbed to invaders; impoverished by invaders, it lost all power of resistance, and took refuge in supernatural consolations; it argued that both mastery and slavery were superficial delusions, and concluded that freedom of the body or the nation was hardly worth defending in so brief a life. The bitter lesson that may be drawn from this tragedy is that eternal vigilance is the price of civilization. A nation must love peace, but keep its powder dry."
About Gandhi's whitewash of Muslims, Gautier observes: "Ultimately, it must be said that whatever his saintliness, his extreme and somehow rigid asceticism, Gandhi did enormous harm to India... The British must have rubbed their hands in glee: here was a man who was perfecting their policy of divide-and-rule, for ultimately no one contributed more to the partition of India, by his obsession to always give in to the Muslims; by his indulgence of Jinnah, going as far as proposing to make him the prime minister of India."
Worse yet, Gandhi's anointed disciple, Nehru, propagated false readings of Indian history in his books and speeches. Gautier quotes Nehru's "amazing eulogy" of the tyrant Mahmud Ghazni, the destroyer of Mathura's great Hindu temples, Gujarat's Somnath, and numerous other Hindu and Buddhist temples.
When Nehru, the arrant appeaser of Muslims, became India's first prime minister, he appointed a fundamentalist Muslim, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, as the first education minister. Under Nehru's pseudo-secular rule, "Hindu-bashing became a popular pastime." Moreover, Nehru "had a great sympathy for communism....
He encouraged Marxist think-tanks such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU] in New Delhi, which has bred a lot of 'Hindu-hating scholars' who are adept at negating Muslim atrocities and running to the ground the greatness of Hinduism and its institutions." These Marxist "historians," well-ensconced at JNU, have long been masterminding the politically correct textbooks of India's history used in Indian schools. No wonder, JNU is also known as "the Kremlin by the Jumna." For a long time, the Indian Marxists had been so brainwashed that whenever it rained in Moscow -- the capital of their "only true fatherland"-- they opened their umbrellas in Delhi.
To be sure, dissenting voices were raised against Gandhi's whitewash of Muslims. Before the partition of India, Aurobindo Ghosh, the great Hindu poet-philosopher, posed the question about Islam: "You can live with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live with a religion whose principle is 'I will not tolerate you'? How are you going to have unity with these people?... I am sorry they [Gandhi and Nehru] are making a fetish of Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus will have to fight Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of Hindus. Each time the mildness of the Hindus has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organise themselves and Hindu-Muslim unity will take care of itself, it will automatically solve the problem. ...I see no reason why the greatness of India's past or its spirituality should be thrown into the waste basket, in order to conciliate the Muslims who would not be conciliated by such policy." Another strong dissenter was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Seeing through Nehru's pseudo-secularism, Patel commented, "There's only one nationalist Muslim in India: Jawarharlal Nehru."
Gautier warns: "Even today, there is no doubt that Islam has never been fully able to give up its inner conviction that its own religion is the only true creed and that all others are kafirs, infidels. In India it was true 300 years ago, and it is still true today. Remember the cry of the militants in Kashmir to the Pandits: 'convert to Islam or die!' ... The Hindu-Muslim question is just plainly a Muslim obsession, their hatred of the Hindu pagans, their contempt for this polytheist religion. This obsession, this hate, is as old as the first invasion of India by the original Arabs in 650 AD. After independence, nothing has changed: the sword of Allah is still as much ready to strike the kafirs, the idolaters of many gods."
The source of Muslim's fanatical aggression, Gautier points out, is the Koran itself, from which he quotes: "Slay the infidels, wherever ye find them and prepare them for all kind of ambush"; and "Choose not thy friends among the infidels till they forsake their homes and the way of idolatory. If they return to paganism then take them whenever you find them and kill them."
In the section on Ayodhya, Gautier says that demolishing the Babri Masjid has proved that Hindus too can fight. He criticizes Nehruvian "secularism" as interpreted by the Congress party to mean "giving in to the Muslims' demands, because its leaders never could really make out if the allegiance of Indian Muslims is first to India and then to Islam or vice-versa." For many of India's Hindu journalists, this pseudo-secularism has meant "spitting on their own religion and brothers." Curiously, Gautier does not mention Arun Shourie's well-researched, lucidly articulated columns, which, in recent years, have laid bare the pretentions of Nehruvian pseudo-secularism.
From my own perspective as a secular humanist, I believe that any whitewashing of historical record is counterproductive. No matter how lofty the ideals of a current cause, any whitewash of history tempts the fates. To forget history will always be fateful; to forgive its horrendous facts can be redemptive. Forgive -- but never forget -- history. A salient example of making sure that the horrors of history are not forgotten is the contemporary German state's law prohibiting any World War II history that whitewashes the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews, Gypsies, and Poles. The Jews rightly insist that the world must never forget what happened to them. Where is the Hindu Holocaust Museum?
The historical record of the Muslim rule in India is soaked in blood -- just take a look at the documents left by contemporary Muslim chroniclers. Yet, as a secular humanist, I would like to make a distinction between an ideology and its adherents, especially those born into it. From my own experience, I regard a typical liberal Indian Muslim to be as good a human being as any other Indian.
In the opening chapter, Gautier briefly examines the "tainted glasses" which made Euro-centered historians expound gross "disinformations" about ancient India: the discredited Aryan invasion theory; the deliberate mistranslations of the Vedas; and the erroneous theory of the origin of the caste system.
Throughout the book, Gautier quotes Sri Aurobindo, and in the concluding chapter, "The Final Dream," pays an inspired homage to the great visionary's writings.
Like Konraad Elst's Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, Francois Gautier's Rewriting Indian History contributes to the growing literature of dissent against the "standard" textbooks of India's history.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Congress support to Jihadi families
Now, dole for jihadis' kin
Pioneer News Service New Delhi
January 24, 2008
The Centre has decided to provide a relief package to the dependents of militants killed in encounters with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
The decision, which is first of its kind in India, will cover hundreds of families whose men took up guns and led the Pakistan-backed separatist movement killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians and men of security forces.
According to a PTI report, besides a relief package for the dependents of the militants, the Government will also come out with an aid package for the Kashmir pandits.
The twin measures were finalised at a meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to evolve a "blueprint for a new future" in Jammu and Kashmir.
The agency quoting official sources said the high-level meeting also firmed up steps for easing travel between the two parts of Kashmir and decided to take up the matter with Pakistan at the earliest.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and National Security Advisor MK Narayanan were present at the meeting.
The package would be in place soon after holding consultations with other Central Ministries, including Finance Ministry, sources said.
With 2008 being the election year in militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir, an announcement of people-friendly packages is likely to be made by the Prime Minister at a later date when he is likely to travel to the border State.
Manmohan Singh reviewed the recommendations of the Standing Committee and a Monitoring Mechanism set up after the third round table on Kashmir last year for ensuring implementation of suggestions made by the working groups on Kashmir.
The Prime Minister, while setting up the two committees last year, had said that his Government was keenly working for a "blueprint for new future" for the State.
The meeting favoured increased cross-LoC movement of people and goods and said consultations with Pakistan should be held for easing the travel of people from Jammu and Kashmir.
The Prime Minister asked the officials in the militancy-hit State to reduce the amount of time taken in clearing passengers for across LoC bus travel, they said.
During the meeting, it was decided to take up the issues of promoting pilgrim tourism in either parts of Kashmir, no travel permit requirement for senior citizens and increase goods exchange with Pakistan, they said.
The important issue to resolve the problems of refugees from Pakistan, who migrated to Jammu and Kashmir in 1947, in a time-bound manner was also taken up during the meeting and all concerned Ministries were asked to make a speedy assessment before a package is finalised for them as well, sources said.
The State Chief Minister has been raising the voice for providing financial relief to the kin of militants killed in police encounters, reasoning that it was not the fault of widows and orphans if their bread-earners had taken to gun.
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Pioneer News Service New Delhi
January 24, 2008
The Centre has decided to provide a relief package to the dependents of militants killed in encounters with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
The decision, which is first of its kind in India, will cover hundreds of families whose men took up guns and led the Pakistan-backed separatist movement killing and maiming thousands of innocent civilians and men of security forces.
According to a PTI report, besides a relief package for the dependents of the militants, the Government will also come out with an aid package for the Kashmir pandits.
The twin measures were finalised at a meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to evolve a "blueprint for a new future" in Jammu and Kashmir.
The agency quoting official sources said the high-level meeting also firmed up steps for easing travel between the two parts of Kashmir and decided to take up the matter with Pakistan at the earliest.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and National Security Advisor MK Narayanan were present at the meeting.
The package would be in place soon after holding consultations with other Central Ministries, including Finance Ministry, sources said.
With 2008 being the election year in militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir, an announcement of people-friendly packages is likely to be made by the Prime Minister at a later date when he is likely to travel to the border State.
Manmohan Singh reviewed the recommendations of the Standing Committee and a Monitoring Mechanism set up after the third round table on Kashmir last year for ensuring implementation of suggestions made by the working groups on Kashmir.
The Prime Minister, while setting up the two committees last year, had said that his Government was keenly working for a "blueprint for new future" for the State.
The meeting favoured increased cross-LoC movement of people and goods and said consultations with Pakistan should be held for easing the travel of people from Jammu and Kashmir.
The Prime Minister asked the officials in the militancy-hit State to reduce the amount of time taken in clearing passengers for across LoC bus travel, they said.
During the meeting, it was decided to take up the issues of promoting pilgrim tourism in either parts of Kashmir, no travel permit requirement for senior citizens and increase goods exchange with Pakistan, they said.
The important issue to resolve the problems of refugees from Pakistan, who migrated to Jammu and Kashmir in 1947, in a time-bound manner was also taken up during the meeting and all concerned Ministries were asked to make a speedy assessment before a package is finalised for them as well, sources said.
The State Chief Minister has been raising the voice for providing financial relief to the kin of militants killed in police encounters, reasoning that it was not the fault of widows and orphans if their bread-earners had taken to gun.
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Indian politics owned by Familys now
Citizens must participate in own affairs23 Jan 2008Tarun VijayTimes of India
Are we a republic? On the eve of Republic Day, it's rather sacrilegious to ask this question, but on seeing the passive voter who has learnt to bash governance at each step and on seeing political parties being run as family fiefdoms, it's more appropriate to say we are a nation trying to emerge as a republic. What's the status of inner party democracy and how are parties commonly described?
Congress under Sonia, BSP under Mayawati, DMK and ADMK under Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa respectively, RJD under Lalu and Rabri, National Conference under the senior and junior Abdullahs and the Samajwadi Party under Mulayam Singh are some of the expressions used.
Words like elections, democratic norms, republican sentiments and acceptance of differing viewpoints are replaced with nominations, authoritarian dictates, crowd-pulling capacities and 'follow or out' norms. Still, we think at least we are doing better than Pakistan and Bangladesh and perhaps Myanmar too. Democratic values are defined not only through personal, political and economic freedoms but also through peoples' actions and strength of the non-political leadership. Those who do not necessarily seek political and public office, yet are determined to correct socio-political wrongs.
Those who volunteer to take the lead and be the first to face the bullets but do not don the mantle of rulers. If roads are dirty, temples littered rivers filthy and railway platforms stinking, it's not just the bad ruler and the incompetent bureaucrat to be blamed. The failure of inactive. self-centred people to rise and revolt is equally responsible for a failing state.
The other day, ADMK leader Jayalalithaa issued a statement against Chief Minister K. Karunanidhi over the government's attitude towards Rameshwaram temple where 15 cows had died due to negligence.
I was there a couple of weeks ago and saw the world famous temple in a pathetic state. The main door, through which devotees enter the corridor leading to the sanctum sanctorum, had a huge billboard of Karunanidhi as if a darshan of the Chief Minister, an atheist, is compulsory before Lord Shiva's darshan.
The corridor was littered with spilled prasadam, flowers and dirt. At the entrance itself, inside the temple precincts, an ugly cabin of Tamil Nadu Tourism had been erected and next to it was a cycle and scooter stand for government employees working there. On the right was a marble plaque announcing the opening of the Mandapam and unveiling of a statue of Raja Bhaskar Sethupathy on February 11, 1974. He was a protector of the Ram Sethu and belonged to a warrior clan created with the sole purpose of protecting the great bridge that Ram built.
Inside the temple area, the grandeur of the Rameshwaram pillars is a mesmerising sight – 400 in all in a 4,000-feet long corridor. It's a world heritage site built in the 12th century by the Lankan King Parakram Bahu. Later kings of Ramanathpuram and Travancore kept on adding to the structure. Swami Vivekananda visited the temple on January 27, 1897 and a stone engraving cherishes that memory; his praise of the temple priests has been inscribed in his own handwriting.
The Shiva lingam at the temple is believed to have been built by Sita with clay and is one of the 12 jyotilirlingas. Such an ancient temple and world heritage site is in utter neglect and is losing its pristine glory and charm.
The well inside the room where prasadam is prepared and the kitchen are in shambles, darkness prevails with a feeble lamp adding confusion to the smoky and darkened room. Devotees are given stale and badly cooked bhog.
Still, thousands of Hindus visit the place from across the world. They see, murmur some complaints, have a darshan and go away. The temple management is in the hands of the Tamil Nadu government led by Karunanidhi who is infamous for issuing insulting and sarcastic statements about Ram and Sita. But what about the millions of devotees living around Rameshwaram?
We have seen nationwide agitations for and against reservations but people have never demonstrated to save rivers or cleanse temples. There is an organisation in Tamil Nadu with a Hindu tag that objected to a dress worn by an actress at a public function.
They said it hurt Hindu sentiments. But these Hindus never get hurt when Sanskrit is abolished or the Hindu population declines or when poor Hindus are converted to other religions.
Hypocritical Hindus worship Durga for Shakti, Saraswati for knowledge and Lakshmi for prosperity. But the same Hindu also commits female foeticide in large numbers. And this is true for other religious communities equally. True, there are organisations opposing it and spreading awareness and this has provided positive results. But foes of the girl child abound.
In Gaumukh, the source of Ganga, pilgrims leave bindis, plastic bags, incense sticks and other non-perishable items after the puja to 'absolve' themselves of all their sins. Should we blame the government alone if the glacier is shrinking and the heavenly place defining the solitude of divinity looks as if it has been defiled by the devotees themselves?
The republic is not just about casting votes, that too at less than 50 per cent roughly along caste lines. Republic is the active participation of people in their own affairs with righteousness as the benchmark of decisions and Gandhi's talisman as a touchstone. It calls for rising above immediate self-interest. That decides the levels of happiness in a society, not bank balances and a mention in Fortune 500 lists. Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana was a great poet and benefactor of the poor and needy.
Every evening, a large number of people would visit him seeking help. He would refuse none, but always looked down while giving alms. Once a gentleman asked why do you not even glance at the person who is receiving the money? He replied: "Denhaar koi aur hai, devat hai din rain, log bharam mo pe karein, tase neeche nain ("The real giver is someone else [God], but people perceive I am the one. Hence the eyes look down in embarrassment!). It's bliss to have such humility and it is this pure heart that sanctifies a republic and raises her people's happiness level.
The republic thrives on the spirit of giving. Everyone says everything should be done by government and everyone seems to be dissatisfied with everything - municipal corporators, parliamentarians, officers, doctors and drivers.
The crowd in religious places is hardly seen to be carrying the responsibility of applying in the outside world what they obtained inside the congregation hall.
No one says hate others, yet hate spreads astonishingly. Intolerance increases intolerance and accumulation of ill-gotten wealth further whets the appetite.
This is the time when the people of the republic should seriously come together to find way for eliminating religious intolerance and hate based on ideological apartheid. Recently a step was taken in this direction with religious leaders having a global presence and appeal sharing the dais for exactly this purpose – strengthening peace and plurality and resolving conflicts.
Led by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the day-long deliberations saw Sri Sri Ravishankar, the Dalai Lama, Swami Ramdev, Deoband's Mohammad Madani, Mumbai's Archbishop Oswald Gracious and of course former President Abdul Kalam. Such efforts need peoples' support if the republic has to live its ideals. Once we saw JP movement. It failed. Gandhians have become merely sarkari jholawalas. The last hope lies in those who would unshackle themselves from burden of historical sins and write a fresh new republican order to throw off the fossilised system and its offshoots.
The new rebellious generation, already showing signs of revolt and free from the colonial mindset and obsolete ritualism, shall create a new path like Adi Sankara , with just one religion in heart - the good of humanity and elimination of the unrepentant wicked. Trust your tricolour, its going to happen before we leave the world. The author is the editor of Panchjanya, a Hindi weekly brought out by the RSS. The views expressed are his personal.
Are we a republic? On the eve of Republic Day, it's rather sacrilegious to ask this question, but on seeing the passive voter who has learnt to bash governance at each step and on seeing political parties being run as family fiefdoms, it's more appropriate to say we are a nation trying to emerge as a republic. What's the status of inner party democracy and how are parties commonly described?
Congress under Sonia, BSP under Mayawati, DMK and ADMK under Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa respectively, RJD under Lalu and Rabri, National Conference under the senior and junior Abdullahs and the Samajwadi Party under Mulayam Singh are some of the expressions used.
Words like elections, democratic norms, republican sentiments and acceptance of differing viewpoints are replaced with nominations, authoritarian dictates, crowd-pulling capacities and 'follow or out' norms. Still, we think at least we are doing better than Pakistan and Bangladesh and perhaps Myanmar too. Democratic values are defined not only through personal, political and economic freedoms but also through peoples' actions and strength of the non-political leadership. Those who do not necessarily seek political and public office, yet are determined to correct socio-political wrongs.
Those who volunteer to take the lead and be the first to face the bullets but do not don the mantle of rulers. If roads are dirty, temples littered rivers filthy and railway platforms stinking, it's not just the bad ruler and the incompetent bureaucrat to be blamed. The failure of inactive. self-centred people to rise and revolt is equally responsible for a failing state.
When political parties comprise climbers and seekers alone at the micro levels as well and peoples' organisations run after government grants and patronage, republics turn into banana republics. In spite of a spectacular urban economic growth and mushrooming religious organisations with astonishing clout, India is witnessing an abysmally low level of non-political leadership that can change the spectrum for the general good of the masses. Temples in most of the holy towns and pilgrim centres remain dirty, priests do not utter mantras correctly and take money from devotees and then we expect the government to do something about it. The government takes over temples, resulting in further deterioration.
Delhi is on the banks of the Yamuna, one of the greatest rivers of the land, yet it's impossible to take a guest for a walk along the Yamuna or use a few drops for religious chores. Yet the government is petitioned, urged, requested to do something about it. That's how the devotees of Krishna, whose life would remain incomplete without the Yamuna, continue with their daily routines.
Delhi is ruled by Hindus, so are other states where we have holy shrines. Yet not only do the Hindu rulers belonging to any which party or ideology shy away from making pilgrim centres the best managed centres of faith in the world, but even Hindu billionaires and the socially effective glitterati find the civil dharma too mean to be engaged in.
The other day, ADMK leader Jayalalithaa issued a statement against Chief Minister K. Karunanidhi over the government's attitude towards Rameshwaram temple where 15 cows had died due to negligence.
I was there a couple of weeks ago and saw the world famous temple in a pathetic state. The main door, through which devotees enter the corridor leading to the sanctum sanctorum, had a huge billboard of Karunanidhi as if a darshan of the Chief Minister, an atheist, is compulsory before Lord Shiva's darshan.
The corridor was littered with spilled prasadam, flowers and dirt. At the entrance itself, inside the temple precincts, an ugly cabin of Tamil Nadu Tourism had been erected and next to it was a cycle and scooter stand for government employees working there. On the right was a marble plaque announcing the opening of the Mandapam and unveiling of a statue of Raja Bhaskar Sethupathy on February 11, 1974. He was a protector of the Ram Sethu and belonged to a warrior clan created with the sole purpose of protecting the great bridge that Ram built.
Inside the temple area, the grandeur of the Rameshwaram pillars is a mesmerising sight – 400 in all in a 4,000-feet long corridor. It's a world heritage site built in the 12th century by the Lankan King Parakram Bahu. Later kings of Ramanathpuram and Travancore kept on adding to the structure. Swami Vivekananda visited the temple on January 27, 1897 and a stone engraving cherishes that memory; his praise of the temple priests has been inscribed in his own handwriting.
The Shiva lingam at the temple is believed to have been built by Sita with clay and is one of the 12 jyotilirlingas. Such an ancient temple and world heritage site is in utter neglect and is losing its pristine glory and charm.
The well inside the room where prasadam is prepared and the kitchen are in shambles, darkness prevails with a feeble lamp adding confusion to the smoky and darkened room. Devotees are given stale and badly cooked bhog.
Still, thousands of Hindus visit the place from across the world. They see, murmur some complaints, have a darshan and go away. The temple management is in the hands of the Tamil Nadu government led by Karunanidhi who is infamous for issuing insulting and sarcastic statements about Ram and Sita. But what about the millions of devotees living around Rameshwaram?
We have seen nationwide agitations for and against reservations but people have never demonstrated to save rivers or cleanse temples. There is an organisation in Tamil Nadu with a Hindu tag that objected to a dress worn by an actress at a public function.
They said it hurt Hindu sentiments. But these Hindus never get hurt when Sanskrit is abolished or the Hindu population declines or when poor Hindus are converted to other religions.
Hypocritical Hindus worship Durga for Shakti, Saraswati for knowledge and Lakshmi for prosperity. But the same Hindu also commits female foeticide in large numbers. And this is true for other religious communities equally. True, there are organisations opposing it and spreading awareness and this has provided positive results. But foes of the girl child abound.
In Gaumukh, the source of Ganga, pilgrims leave bindis, plastic bags, incense sticks and other non-perishable items after the puja to 'absolve' themselves of all their sins. Should we blame the government alone if the glacier is shrinking and the heavenly place defining the solitude of divinity looks as if it has been defiled by the devotees themselves?
The republic is not just about casting votes, that too at less than 50 per cent roughly along caste lines. Republic is the active participation of people in their own affairs with righteousness as the benchmark of decisions and Gandhi's talisman as a touchstone. It calls for rising above immediate self-interest. That decides the levels of happiness in a society, not bank balances and a mention in Fortune 500 lists. Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana was a great poet and benefactor of the poor and needy.
Every evening, a large number of people would visit him seeking help. He would refuse none, but always looked down while giving alms. Once a gentleman asked why do you not even glance at the person who is receiving the money? He replied: "Denhaar koi aur hai, devat hai din rain, log bharam mo pe karein, tase neeche nain ("The real giver is someone else [God], but people perceive I am the one. Hence the eyes look down in embarrassment!). It's bliss to have such humility and it is this pure heart that sanctifies a republic and raises her people's happiness level.
The republic thrives on the spirit of giving. Everyone says everything should be done by government and everyone seems to be dissatisfied with everything - municipal corporators, parliamentarians, officers, doctors and drivers.
The crowd in religious places is hardly seen to be carrying the responsibility of applying in the outside world what they obtained inside the congregation hall.
No one says hate others, yet hate spreads astonishingly. Intolerance increases intolerance and accumulation of ill-gotten wealth further whets the appetite.
This is the time when the people of the republic should seriously come together to find way for eliminating religious intolerance and hate based on ideological apartheid. Recently a step was taken in this direction with religious leaders having a global presence and appeal sharing the dais for exactly this purpose – strengthening peace and plurality and resolving conflicts.
Led by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the day-long deliberations saw Sri Sri Ravishankar, the Dalai Lama, Swami Ramdev, Deoband's Mohammad Madani, Mumbai's Archbishop Oswald Gracious and of course former President Abdul Kalam. Such efforts need peoples' support if the republic has to live its ideals. Once we saw JP movement. It failed. Gandhians have become merely sarkari jholawalas. The last hope lies in those who would unshackle themselves from burden of historical sins and write a fresh new republican order to throw off the fossilised system and its offshoots.
The new rebellious generation, already showing signs of revolt and free from the colonial mindset and obsolete ritualism, shall create a new path like Adi Sankara , with just one religion in heart - the good of humanity and elimination of the unrepentant wicked. Trust your tricolour, its going to happen before we leave the world. The author is the editor of Panchjanya, a Hindi weekly brought out by the RSS. The views expressed are his personal.
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