New Delhi: The historic 17th century Red Fort was declared a World Heritage Site today by Unesco - the third in the capital after Qutub Minar and Humayun Tomb. "The Red Fort is considered to represent the zenith of Mughal creativity, which, under the Emperor Shah Jahan was brought to a new level of refinement," a Unesco statement said. The World Heritage Committee added four cultural sites to the Unesco list today. The other three are the Sydney Opera House (Australia), the Iwami Ginzan Silver Mine and its Cultural Landscape (Japan) and the Parthian Fortresses of Nisa (Turkmenistan). The World Heritage List has over 830 sites, of which 27 are in India. "The Red Fort's innovative planning and architectural style, including its garden design, strongly influenced later buildings and gardens in Rajasthan, Delhi, Agra and further afield," Unesco said. "Through its fabric, the complex reflects all phases of Indian history from the Mughal period to independence." The Red Fort complex was built as the palace cum fort of Shahjahanabad - the new capital of the fifth Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. It gets its name from its massive enclosing walls of red sandstone. The private apartments have a row of pavilions connected by a continuous water channel, known as the Nahr-i-Behisht, or the Stream of Paradise. The palace was designed as an imitation of paradise as described in the Koran. A couplet inscribed in a palace wall reads, "If there be a paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here". The planning of the palace is based on Islamic prototypes, but each pavilion reveals architectural elements typical of Mughal buildings, reflecting a fusion of Persian, Timurid and Hindu traditions, Unesco underlined. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is in charge of the preservation and maintenance of the monument, said the listing of the Red Fort was a welcome move and would help the cultural heritage to get a wider audience across the globe. "Though the standing of the Red Fort cannot be challenged, its inclusion in the World Heritage list will force people to talk more about it. More tourists from across the globe would now be eager to pay a visit to the magnificent monument," an ASI official said. The Red Fort would have been included in the World Heritage Sites list, but Unesco did not want to include a historic monument that housed Indian soldiers at that time. It has been included now that the army has vacated the fort and handed over its management to the ASI.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The man Who inspired the mahatma
Atma-Siddhi: In Search of the Soul; Translated by Chandrika: Vakils, Feffer and Simons, Mumbai; pp 347, Rs 340.00
If there is one man about whom millions of words were written both in his own life time and after he was no more, it surely is Mahatma Gandhi. Practically every aspect of his spiritual, intellectual, moral, political and philosophical life has been discussed, dissected and analysed and one would think that his millions of fans and admirers know everything that is to be known about him. His life has been open and yet something crops up that gives his search for spirituality a new dimension.
The general impression one gets from reading some of his early works is that he was greatly influenced by Ruskin, an Englishman and Leo Tolstoy, a Russian. Nobody questions that. But now fresh evidence is available that when Gandhi was in his late twenties he was tremendously influenced by a man of whom so little is known even in India. That man is Raichandbhai Ravajibhai Mehta, born in a Gujarat village in 1867 and was later to be known as Srimad Rajchandra or more often as Srimadji.
Gandhi was born in 1869 and was just two years younger than Srimadji. Like Christ who died in his early thirties, Srimadji passed away when he was hardly thirty four. But by then he had made his mark. Gandhi apparently was close to Srimadji for some time. Talking about the men who influenced him at some time or other, Gandhi was once to say: “Srimadji was an embodiment of non-attachment and renunciation. I have since met many a religious leader or teacher…and I must say that no one else has ever made on me the impression that he did. His words went straight home to me. His intellect compelled as great a regard from me as his moral earnestness. Whoever will read his teachings and follow them may speed up his march to self-liberation.”
When Gandhi was in South Africa, he heard of Srimadji’s passing away at the young age of thirty four. Srimadji had taken samadhi. Wrote Gandhi feelingly: “I loved him dearly…so I mourn out of selfishness.” Had Srimadji lived long, perhaps he would have been better known. His contemporaries were, by any account, some of the greatest spiritual leaders the country had ever known, men like Dayananda Saraswati (1824-1883), Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836-1886), Shirdi Sai Baba (1838-1918), Sri Narayana Guru (1856-1928), Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950), Ramana Mahrashi (1879-1950) Swami Ramdas (1884-1963) and Sadhu Vaswani (1879-1966). That he should have passed away so early in life made India that much poorer.
Srimadji was born to a devout Vaishnavite father and his mother had been brought up in an equally devout Jain tradition. Right from his childhood he was influenced by the bhakti bhava of Hinduism and the ascetic nature of Jainism. It is said that when he was a young lad he was greatly moved by the death of an elderly neighbour and fell into a trance when he had an intense recollection of his past births—what the Jains called Jati Smarana Jnana—and he was never to be the same again. His talent was recognised right from his childhood. At the tender age of eight he had begun to write and in one year he had written five thousand stanzas. He was considered in some awe as the very incarnation of the Goddess of Learning, Saraswati.
When he was hardly sixteen he wrote a book on women’s emancipation called Stree Niti Bodhika. This was followed by Mokshamala, extolling the need for the liberation of the soul. As a complement to Mokhshamala he wrote Bhavana Bodh to be followed by a 5,000 verse long work Namiraja and two more works Shurvir Sanman and Mool Marg. But of all his works Atma Siddhi—In Search of the Soul—that takes pride of place and it is this which Chandrika has painstakingly translated into English and deserves high attention.
It is not a long piece. It hardly consists of 142 verses but such is their caliber as to daunt even the sternest reader. It is easily divided into ten parts, each handling one predominant theme like, The Necessity of Self-knowledge, The qualities of a Good Teacher, The Duties of a True Pupil, etc. but the propositions that form the crux of the book are six-fold, namely, that the soul exists, that it is eternal, that it is the doer of karma, that it enjoys the fruits of karma, that there is liberation and finally that there are means to liberation.
In the concluding part Srimadji asserts that self-realisation is meant for every individual, irrespective of caste, creed, gender or nation and that while pitfalls and pains are inevitable in life’s long journey, the efforts to seek liberation makes up for everything.
What the author has done is first to reproduce the original verse in Gujarati as Srimadji had written, then give a translated version in Hindi and end with a translation of the same verse in English to win over a larger audience. Then this is followed by a brief commentary, of course in English which gives the work a rare distinction in its totality.
When Gandhi first met Srimadji, he was a briefless barrister. The two obviously met often enough to the point that Gandhi could say: “In my moments of spiritual crisis, he was my refuge…I have drunk to my heart’s content the nectar of religion that was offered to me by Srimadji. He hated the spread of irreligion in the name of religion and he condemned lies, hypocrisy and such other vices.” When Gandhi was once filled with doubts about religion and was tempted to convert to Christianity, he had written to Srimadji who wrote back to him, saying: “On a dispassionate view of the question I am convinced that no other religion has the subtle and profound thought of Hinduism, its vision of the soul or its charity.” It removed Gandhi’s doubts and he stuck to the religion of his birth.
Chandrika has done a splendid job both in the translation of Srimadji’s verses as much as in her commentaries enlivened with stories that have their own morals to convey. In her work she was helped by her friend Nijhavan, himself a deeply committed searcher for spirituality. The result is a book of outstanding merit.
Rightly did Gandhi say that while he held Tolstoy and Ruskin in the “highest category”, “ in terms of spiritual experience, Srimadji was far ahead of them.”
This book is a vindication of that sincere observation. Every commentary is limited to just one page which is what makes reading even more attractive. This is a book to read, relish and ponder over. Gandhi knew his man. And how we are introduced to him.
Nehru' nationalism
NEHRU was not sure.
“Merely by being born in India does not make you an Indian,” he says. Then what makes you an Indian? “To be an Indian, in the real sense of the term,” he says, “you have to lay claim on your inheritance.” In this country, only the Hindu claims the Indian inheritance.
Nehru himself was a great admirer of his Indian inheritance. Naturally, he was a true Indian—a true Indian nationalist.
Muslims make no claims on their Indian inheritance. Except on the land. They say they are different from the Hindus. Which is why they called for Partition. Do they, then, deserve to be called Indians? By the logic of Nehru, they do not.
Nehru recalls how proud the Greeks and Italians were (and are) of their past, although they are Christians today. But why are Indian minorities (Christians and Muslims) not proud of India’s past? This is a complex issue. Let me explain.
Sheikh Abdullah writes: “Nehru used to call himself an agnostic. But he was also a great admirer of the past of India and the Hindu spirit of India.” But who inspired him? He was inspired by the “same revivalist spirit as seen in Dayanand Saraswati and K.M.Munshi”, Sheikh says. (Atish-e-Chinar)
It is clear Abdullah did not like India’s past. Obviously, he was no nationalist. Dr. Akbar Ahmed says that Muslims of the Indian sub-continent have failed to explain their past, present and future. More so the past.
Here is another example. In 1948, Nehru was addressing the Aligarh Muslim University convocation. He asked the assembled Muslims—the cream of Muslim society—whether they admired the past of India. There was deafening silence. But let me explain this in some detail. He told them: “I am proud of our inheritance and our ancestors, who gave an intellectual and cultural pre-eminence to India. How do you feel about this past?” (Only a nationalist could have asked such a question.) Not one Muslim got up to answer Nehru’s question. But it calls for an answer. The Muslims cannot ignore it.
To Nehru, nationalism was more an emotional attachment to the motherland, to its fauna and flora, to its mountains and rivers, to its people, to its past. But “to the average Indian,” he says, “the whole of India was a kind a punya bhoomi”(holy land).
What is more, says Nehru, “In moments of crisis, a country calls up its traditions to raise a high pitch of effort and sacrifice.” This was the case when India had to fight the British empire. Only a people with a past can call up their past.
India is no holy land to Christians and Muslims. That is the difference between the nationalist Hindus and the minorities. For us, Hindus, India is holy. She is the “mother.” For them, India is a piece of territory. Jerusalem is holy to them. Mecca is holy to them. Not India.
That is precisely why we Hindus have a greater stake in the destiny of this land. “The fate of India is largely tied up with the Hindu outlook,” says Nehru in a letter written on November 17, 1953 to K.N. Katju, his Home Minister.
Is the fate of India tied up with the Muslim outlook?
To this he has a highly significant reply. He says: “The Muslim outlook may be and, I think, is often worse. But it does not make much difference to the future of India.”
Can you believe that this was written by Nehru, the man with a soft heart for the Muslims? But it is true. How is one to explain it?
By 1953 Nehru was a changed man. His faith in Muslims was shattered after Sheikh Abdullah betrayed him. Thus the nationalist in him came out in full force when he wrote his Last Will and Testament.
It was Nehru’s hope that his secularism would provide for Hindus and Muslims a framework within which they could bring about the necessary adjustments. But it was a false hope.
Nehru was no great thinker. He made many many mistakes. But he was a great lover of his country. And he could express his love in most beautiful words.
The iron pillar in Delhi: A miracle
The iron pillar next to the Qutab Minar in Delhi has been the centre of attraction for metallurgists from all over the world. For nearly 1600 years, it has been standing undaunted under the open skies, during all type of weather conditions. In so many years, it has not rusted; this has been a matter of surprise for the world.
As far as the question of it history is concerned, it was made in the 4th century. According to the Sanskrit inscription on it, it was set up as a flag post in front of the temple of Lord Vishnu on the Vishnu mountain in Mathura by Chandra Raj. It may have been made to place Garuda on top of it. That is why it is also called the Garuda pillar. It was brought to Delhi in 1050 by Anang Pal, the founder of Delhi.
The pillar is 735.5 cms tall, of which 50 cms is below the earth and 45 cms is in the stone platform around it. It has a circumference of 41.6 cms at the base, and 30.4 cms above. It might once have a statue of Garuda on top of it. The total weight of the pillar is 6096 kg. A chemical examination in 1961 showed that the pillar is made of surprisingly good quality steel and contains much less carbon in comparison to the steel of today. Dr. B.B.Lal, the chief chemist of Indian Archaeological Survey has conclude that the pillar is made by joining 20-30 kgs of hot iron pieces. It is believed to have been manufactured in 15 days by 120 workers. The fact that 1600 years ago the technique of joining pieces of hot iron, was known to us, is a matter of amazement by itself because not a single joint can be seen in the whole pillar. The fact that despite remaining in the open, and weathering it out for 16 centuries, it has not rusted, has amazed expert scientists. It has more of phosphorous and less of sulphur and manganese. Large quantities of slug by itself or collectively increases resistance to rust. Besides this, a 50-600 micron (1 micron=1000th part of 1mm) thick layer of oxide also protects the pillar from rusting.
3. Mercury— Until the 17th century, the Europeans did not know what mercury was. Hence in documents of the French Government, it was called quick silver—another kind of silver because it shone and could move from one place to another. The government also made a law that those Indian medicines which contained mercury, could be used only by specialists.
In India, people not only knew about mercury, they were using it on a large-scale in pharmaceuticals also for thousands of years. Al Baruni was the first foreigner who stayed for a long time in India in the 11th century. He had, written in detail, in his book, about how to manufacture mercury and how to use it, and acquainted the world with it. We shall discuss how to purify mercury when we discuss chemistry, but it is believed that Nagarjuna, who was born in 1000 AD, knew how to make gold with mercury. What is surprising is that he chose mercury, and not any other metal, to convert it into gold. Modern science says that a metal is produced on the basis of the number of protons in an atom of a metal and it is amazing that while there are 80 protons and electrons in Mercury, in gold there are 79 protons and electrons.
4. Gold-Silver— A. Delmar, in his book A History of Precious Metals—1902, New York, says that there are two islands named Chryse an Agyre at the origin of the River Sindhu, where particles of gold and silver can be found in the soil of the entire land.
The 7th mantra of the 61st sookta of the 6th division of the Rigveda names the Saraswati and Sindhu (Indus) as Hiranyavartani, that is gold.
Gold and silver are mentioned in the scriptures like Ramayana, Mahabharata, Srimad Bhagwat Gita, Raghuvansh, Kumar Sambhava, etc. The tradition of using, gold ash, for medicinal purpose has been prevalent in India for centuries.
Similarly, we find references of the use of gold, copper and lead in the Atharvaveda, Rasa Tarangini, Rasayan saar, Skukra Neeti, Aashwalayan grihyasootra, and Manusmriti. In the Rasaratnsamuchhay Granth, the process of making the ash of many metals and using them to cure various diseases, is given in detail. This shows that metallurgy had developed in India in ancient times and used in various ways for the welfare of man.
Kerala’s Dhatu Darpan
When Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi went to a place called Aaranmuda, in Pattanam Titta district of Kerala, he found that the families there knew the technique of preparing mirrors from metal by hand. When he showed these to his friends in the science committee, they could not believe that they could have been made by hand and not by machine, and that for ages, they were being exported from India. We never tell our students that such a technique is present in India, and despite the fact that these people live in poverty, they are not prepared to leave it for fear that this traditional art might vanish. The country must take care of such people.
Aeronautics
It is generally believed today that man’s dream of flying like birds was fulfilled when the Wright Brothers made the aeroplane on December 17, 1903 and that aeronautics is the west’s gift to the world. There is no doubt that this knowledge has made tremendous progress but during the Mahabharata period, and even before that, it had been developed in India too. Not just aeroplanes, cities too had been created in space. A number of references to this have been found in the Indian texts. In explaining the meaning, of the 1st mantra of the 36th sookta of the Rigveda, Vidyavachaspati Pandit Madhusudan Saraswati in his book, Indra Vijay says that the Ribhus had made a three-wheeled chariot, which could fly in space. In the Puranas, the various Gods, and Goddesses, the Yakshas, etc. travelled by air. The Tripurasur, that is the three demon brothers had constructed three invincible cities in space. They could commute between earth, water and sky. They were destroyed by Shiva. The Ramayana has reference to the Pushpak Viman. In the Mahabharata, the plains of Sri Krishna and Jaraasandh are mentioned. Bhagwat also refers to Sage Kardam, who because of his penance, could not pay attention to his wife. When he realised it, he took her in his aircraft and showed her the entire universe.
When today’s experimenting and logical person reads or hears this, he naturally thinks that they are all fantasies and imaginations to entertain human beings. It is natural to get such thoughts because no books or ancients remnants have been found to prove the fact that these planes were present in ancient times and that people knew the technique of building them.
India : On the quest of its destiny
Twice, in our long history, India was almost overwhelmed. Once by Islam. And then by Christianity. But India’s heritage has within it an inexhaustible power for self-renewal. It rises like a phoenix.
What has the future in store for India? I am not sure. The future is still hidden from us.
But is there a purpose in the life of nations, in the life of the universe? On this, we know even less. But a universe without a purpose makes everything meaningless. Today, we come to the end of our life without knowing why we have lived!
There is, however, one consolation: That we are only at the morn of human history. True, we have gained greater control over nature, but not over ourselves. When we see the great contrast between what science has been able to achieve and the crudeness, cruelty and vulgarity of our lives, as we live them, we are driven to despair. Carl Gustav Jung warns: Misguided development of the soul must lead to psychic mass destruction.”
Today, men face multiple threats—of climate change, pollution and a new flood. If we escape these calamities, we are threatened by another—the slow cooling of the planet.
Is mankind then doomed? It is still too early to say. The earth is no more than a place of sojourn in most religions. The Hindu says: We are here for a short stay and that we are to go back to where they came from—only to start a new cycle of birth and death. We Hindus are happier. Others fry in hell for eternity.
But there are other views. Darwin says: Life is evolving into higher and higher forms. The appearance of life, mind and consciousness, one after the other, has been the greatest miracle of nature. Many more such miracles are awaited. Man has a long long way to go.
Man is not final, says Sri Aurobindo, the great Indian mystic. Man is a transitional being, he says. Beyond him awaits the “divine race, the superman”, with super-consciousness. Aurobindo sees a progressive divination of the human race.
We are actors in this cosmic drama that is unfolding before us, not mere onlookers. The Gita says: Ceaseless action is the lot of man!
But the ways of the world differ. Europe has chosen one way, we Hindus have chosen another and the Muslims have their own way. Each has its merits. They must be left free to seek their different ends. We must not force on the world one way as the Christians and Muslims are trying to do. Why? Because their way is not perfect. They are full of absurdity.
Prof. Max Mueller, an authority on ancient India, says: “I do not deny that the manly vigour, the public spirit and the private virtue of the citizens of European states represent one side of the human destiny.” But surely, he says, “there is another side to our nature and possibly another destiny open to man.” And he points towards India—leading the meditative, reflective way.
The two ways are not hostile to each other. They are in fact complementary.
Life in India may be dreamy, unreal, impractical, Max Mueller concedes, but, he asserts, India may look upon European notions of life as short-sighted, fussy and in the end most impractical because it involves a sacrifice of life for the sake of life.
The most distinguishing feature of the Indian character is transcendence. The Indian mind is intuitive, bent on transcending the limits of empirical knowledge.
But not all is right with the way the West has chosen. Aurobindo calls the commercial civilisation of the West “monstrous and asuric” (demonic). That the way to the morsel will take us to fulfillment is a misplaced hope. An insatiable desire for increasing satisfaction is at the root of this tragedy, the very thing the Buddha identified as the root of human misery. But is this tragedy inexorable? Not necessarily. Because we all can be guided by reason.
Say Dr Radhakrishnan: “It is the good fortune of India that every time there is great spiritual confusion, exponents of authentic religious thought spring up to remind us Hindus of the fundamental truth of Indian culture.” Such was the case with Vivekananda and Mahatma Gandhi.
Twice, in our long history, India was almost overwhelmed. Once by Islam. And then by Christianity. But India’s heritage has within it an inexhaustible power for self-renewal. It rises like a phoenix.
And its people, for long in their slumber, are wide awake today. In about sixty years, India has come to be recognised as a great power. It may even occupy the third place among the great powers in the not too distant future. But are we preparing for this day?
India That is Bharat
By power, for power, of power
MY dear Jaspal Bhatti, Satiricus salutes you. Satiricus is sure you will feel good to learn that Satiricus feels good since he read about your ‘Feel Good Party’. In fact, he felt better and better as he went on reading about the noble aim of the party and the classic constitutional principles on which you have based it. While launching the FGP you reportedly made it clear that all you wanted was to grab power at any cost.
Now, could there be a nobler purpose? Surely not. Unfortunately, since Gandhiji floated that fad called moral politics, there are some mealy-mouthed politicians who talk of coming to power on the strength of moral principles. Of course, they know better. They know that they can never come to power unless they grab power, and they also know that they cannot grab power unless they palm off petty policies as pretty principles. Then again, as you have so perceptively put it, the ideal of grabbing power cannot be attained unless and until this idealism is backed by one indomitable determination to pay any price.
Fortunately enough, all political parties in India, that is blessed Bharat, possess this determination in full measure and have already been paying any price required for grabbing (and clinging to) power. For instance, one party, after cutting up the country for Muslims wanting Pakistan, declared that the Muslim League remaining in Baqistan was a secular party, while another party which came to the political centre stage chanting Rama nama later declared with a straight face that Rama was not on the national agenda.
This should assure you, Jaspal Bhattiji, that the technique you teach is already being practised by professional politicians. More to the point, Satiricus is really happy to see that your party's pristinely patriotic purpose is backed by a couple of sound constitutional safeguards. Very rightly you have laid down that the posts of Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers are reserved for the Bhatti family. In particular, the Prime Minister's post is exclusively reserved for you, but if you are not well, it will go to your son, but if he is not well, it will go to your grandson, and so on and on. Now had Satiricus been an ignoramus, he would have charged you with nepotism here, but you have made it clear that no nephews or cousins would be allowed to become ministers, much less the Prime Minister, and if nephews are kept out, there cannot be nepotism, right?
Anyway, from the party's noble ideal of grabbing power and careful constitutional means to achieve it, you have rightly proceeded to the business of a party in power—the business of what is fashionably called governance. How will your government go about governance? Satiricus was thrilled with Prime Minister Jaspal Bhatti's answer—“My Finance Minister will circulate certificates stating ‘you are feeling good today’ across the country. People can look at these certificates and feel great?” What a great idea? And, of course, only a great man like you can think of such a great idea. Satiricus would certainly welcome “feeling good today”—and tomorrow, and the day after, and so would everybody else. So no wonder “there is a constant demand for membership forms to join the FGP,” as you say.
You add, “I have asked people to get forms printed themselves; I will happily sign.” Satiricus is happy to know that you will be happy to sign him up as a member of the party. Actually, after a lifetime of failure as a pen-pusher, Satiricus had only recently realised that the only way to feel good rather than good for nothing was to leave the illiterate profession of journalism for the ignorant profession of politics, become a minister, and rule over the country. So naturally it was tremendous for him to see that now he has the sure means to achieve that ambition. At the same time he would like to clear up a couple of minor points before signing a membership form. To start with, the printing press near his residence actually expects to be paid for printing Satiricus's form, which, as you will agree, is most unreasonable. Secondly, Satiricus would like to be assured that his primary membership would be of primary importance to the party. In fact, as you know, Gandhiji was not even a primary member of the Congress, but look at the influence he wielded. And as all good Indians are expected to follow in the Mahatma's footsteps, why can't Satiricus follow him, at least in respect of not paying the membership fee? Then again, like all politicians, including your illustrious self, Satiricus is as keen to grab power as you are, but how is that possible when his surname is not Bhatti or at least Bhatti as a precious prefix attached to some other name? You have expressly laid down in your party constitution that you alone will be the Prime Minister and a Bhatti alone will be a minister, but, significantly enough, you have left out the post of the Deputy Prime Minister. So how about it? With Jaspal Bhatti as PM and Satiricus as Deputy PM, there could be a fabulous coalition government with as many as fifty-one-member parties as members. And Satiricus can assure you that a common minimum programme will be no problem, because all parties joining the coalition will have one common programme—to stick to power. Finally, an important suggestion for your kind consideration—how about importing someone to head the party after we both head the government? As you are well aware, we now live in an age of globalisation, and globalised India is importing everything from carcasses of dead animals to presidents of political parties. So think about it. Finally, Jaspal Bhatti, Satiricus will conclude with a compliment that you will appreciate—Jas jaisa koi nahin!
We now live in an age of globalisation, and globalised India is importing everything from carcasses of dead animals to presidents of political parties. So think about it.
150 years of 1857
Did Moscow play fraud on Marx?–IV
Marx welcomed British conquest of India
By Devendra Swarup
QUITE naturally, with this adverse view of India’s social and religious systems, Marx was ready to welcome any effort to overthrow them and he saw the British conquest of India in that light. In his view England was “causing a social revolution in Hindustan, …..Whatever may have been the crime of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution” (Historical Writings, p. 597). He was happy that “these small stereotype form of social organism have been to the greater part dissolved…” and in his view the dissolution of “these small semi-barbarian, semi-civilised communities, by blowing up their economic basis” has “produced the greatest, and, to speak the truth, the only social revolution ever heard of in Asia.” (ibid, p. 596). He was overjoyed to see that “England has broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstruction yet appearing. This loss of his old world, with no gain of a new one, imparts of particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindu and separates Hindustan ruled by Britain from all its earlier traditions, and from the whole of its past history.” (ibid, pp. 592-93).
Quoting a poem of German poet Goethe, Marx expresses his conviction that any crumbling of an ancient world must be accompanied by some torture and bloodshed. (p. 597).
Marx does not see in the British conquest of India a catastrophe or an act of imperialist exploitation, rather he welcomes it for two reasons. One, it is India’s destiny to be invaded and conquered. Marx is convinced that “…the whole of her past history, if it be anything, is the history of successive conquests she has undergone. Indian society has no history at all, at least, no known history. What we call its history is but the history of successive intruders, who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society, (ibid, p. 598). And for these foreign invasions and conquests, India has to blame herself not the invaders because, Marx believes, “A country not only, divided between the Mohammedan and Hindu, but between tribe and tribe, between caste and caste, a society whose framework was based on a sort of equilibrium, resulting from a general repulsion and constitutional exclusiveness between all its members. Such a country and such a society, were they not the predestined prey of conquest?” (ibid, p. 598).
For Marx, “the question, therefore, is not whether the English had a right to conquer India but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Britain.” (p. 598). And, of course, Marx stands for conquest by Britain, because, he says, “Arabs, Turks, Tartars, Moghuls, who had successively overrun India, soon became Hinduised, the barbarian conquerors being, by an eternal law of history, conquered themselves by the superior civilization of their subjects.” (ibid, p. 599) (Here Marx is contradicting himself because earlier he had painted a very degenerate, stagnant picture of the Hindu society.) Exhibiting his Euro-centric approach Marx says: “The British were the first conquerors superior, and therefore, inaccessible to the Hindu civilization. They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and elevated in the native society.” (ibid, p. 599).
In fact, in Marx’s view, “England has to fulfill a double mission in India, one destructive, and the other regenerating—the annihilation of old Asiatic society and laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.” (ibid, p. 599). For him, the introduction of steam had brought India into regular and rapid communication with Europe… and ‘the day is not far distant when … that once fabulous country will thus be actually annexed to the Western world.” (p. 600)
Marx gives us a list of works of regeneration begun by the British rulers in India. They are:
a. political unity—“Unity imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric telegraph.” (p. 599)
b. creation of the native army
c. the free press
d. introduction of steam and railway, and above all,
e. emergence of an English educated class of Indians.
Describing this class, Marx writes: “From the Indian natives, reluctantly and sparingly, educated at Calcutta, under English superintendence, a fresh class is springing up endowed with the requirements for government and imbued with European science (p. 600). Here, Macaulay is speaking through Marx. Sometimes it is difficult to separate an Europhile imperialist from a ‘revolutionary’ Marx. When Marx says: “The introduction of rail roads… will afford the means of diminishing the amount and the cost of the military establishments.” (ibid, p. 601) is he not supporting the military rule of Britain?
Perhaps, out of his intense hatred for Indian civilization and pride for Western civilisation, we find Marx—the ‘rational’ and ‘revolutionary’—speaking the language of a Christian missionary. Castigating the British government for not propagating Christianity in India, Marx says: “While they combated the French Revolution under the pretext of defending ‘our holy religion’, did they not forbid, at the same time, Christianity to be propagated in India and did they not, in order to make money out of the pilgrims streaming into the temples of Orissa and Bengal, take up the trade in the murder and prostitution perpetrated in the temple of Juggernaut? These are the men of Property, Order, Family and Religion!” (ibid, p. 604).
Marx believed that “the railway system will… become in India, truly, the fore runner of modern industry. (ibid, p. 602) and “Modern industry resulting from the railway system, will dissolve the hereditary divisions of labour, upon which rests the Indian castes, those decisive impediments to Indian progress and Indian power” (p. 602). Again, time has proved Marx a false prophet, because expansion of railway network all over the country during the last one-and-a-half century, has instead of obliterating the institution of caste, only strengthened it.
To sum up, Marx’s perception of India in 1853, just before the 1857 Revolt, was:
* India’s social, economic and religious institutions based on village communities and caste are stagnant, semi-barbaric and decadent. They ought to be destroyed completely.
* India’s economic system resting on agriculture and cottage industry should be dissolved and give way to modern large-side industrialization.
* Inferior Asiatic civilization must be supplanted with the superior Western civilization. India should be annexed to the Western world.
* British conquest of India is a blessing for India. Britain has double mission to fulfill, one, to destroy the old and second, to build new.
* Britain has started the process of regeneration by giving India (a) political unity (b) free press (c) introducing steam, electric telegraph and railway (d) building a native army, and finally (e) by creating a new English educated class imbued with Western science and administrative acumen. The process of regeneration has just begun, it should be carried further and not reversed.
WHAT exactly happened in India in 1857?
WHAT exactly happened in India in 1857? Was it a “Sepoy Mutiny” as some British historians, contemptuous of India, would have us believe? The usual explanation given by the British was that the ‘Sipahis’ were unhappy with the introduction, in 1857, of the new Infield rifle, with its distinct ammunition, which required the bullet to be bitten before loading. Rumours were that the grease used on the bullets was either from the fat of cattle or pigs and that was an attack on Hindu and Muslim religious sentiments.
There are many historians who doubt this thesis. The primary cause of the revolt was the imperialist exploitation of the Indian people. The population of Dacca—renowned throughout the world for the fine quality of Muslims they produced, decreased from 150, 000 in 1827 to 20,000 in just ten years. The peasants fully supported the rebels and did not stand apart. Indeed, the peasants were on the side of the rebellion in areas where the cowardly talukdars remained loyal to the British. It was not an elitist war as some would like us to believe. It had roots deep in the hearts of the people, though, in Punjab, the Sikhs sided with the British not because they had any love for the foreigner but because they had enough of tyranny from the Mughal dynasty.
And it is well to remember—as Savarkar himself has pointed out—the 1857 movement continued even after the British Governor -General issued a proclamation to withdraw the offending grease cartridges. A British writer, Charles Ball put the case in proper perspective when he wrote: “The Meerut Sepoys in a moment found a leader, a flag and a cause. The mutiny was transformed into a revolutionary war”. Another British writer, Justin McCarthy wrote: “The fact was that throughout the greater part of northern and northwestern provinces of the Indian peninsula there was a rebellion of the native races against the English power. It was not the sepoy alone who rose in revolt. It was not by any means a merely military mutiny. It was a combination of military grievance, national hatred and religious fanaticism against the English occupation of India. The Mohammedans and the Hindu forgot their old religious antipathies to join against the Christian….”
Still another Britisher, Charles Ball wrote: “At length the torrent overflowed the banks and saturated the moral soil of India. The movement now assumed a more important aspect. It became a rebellion of a whole people incited to outrage by resentment for imaginary wrongs and sustained their delusions by hatred and fanaticism”. And P.C.Joshi, in a volume he edited on 1857 quotes Sir W.Russell, the London Times correspondent as writing: “Here we had not only a servile war, but we had a war of religion, a war of race and a war of revenge, of hope, of national determination to shake off the yoke of a stranger and to re-establish the full power of the notice chiefs and the full away of native religion.”
It is significant that almost for the first time, Hindu and Muslims joined hands. They were both opposed to attempts by the new rulers to establish Christianity in India. P.C.Joshi quotes the Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India Company as saying in the House of Commons: Providence has entrusted the extensive empire of Hindustan to England in order that the banner of Christ should waive triumphant from one end of India to the other. Everyone must exert all his strength that there may be no dilatoriness on account in continuing in the country the grand work of making India Christian”. Joshi also quotes one Rev Kennedy as saying: “Whatever misfortunes come on us as long as our empire in India continues, so long let us not forget that our chief work is the propagation of Christianity in the land. Until Hindustan from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas embrace the religion of Christ and until it condemns the Hindu and Muslim religions, our efforts must continue persistently”.
The Christian missionary propaganda was not only violently aggressive and widespread, writes Joshi; it was also supported by the government agency. Joshi quotes Syed Ahmad Khan as saying: “In some districts, the missionaries were actually attended by policemen from the station.
And then the missionaries did not confine themselves to explain the doctrines of their own books. In violent and unmeasured language they attacked the followers and the holy palaces of other creeds, annoying and insulting beyond expression the feelings of those who listen to them. In this way, too, the seeds of discontent were sown deep into the hearts of the people”. And imagine what Macaulay wrote, to his mother on October 12, 1836: “It is my firm belief that if our plan of education is followed up, there would not be a single idolater in Bengal thirty years hence”. The British were not only greedy for money and for land. They wanted to Christianise and de-nationalise India. And that is the Truth. Religious India, of course, retaliated with vigour and vengefulness. Every act of conversion, every act of brutality, was repaid in equal brutality. The story of 1857 was one of revenge. When the British realised the full vigour of Indian anger, they fought back in ample measure.
The poet Ghalib is quoted as saying: After the British re-occupation of Delhi. “The victors advanced through the passage in front of the Kashmir Gate which leads to the market and killed whomsoever they could find on the road. Not one among the gentry and the sober but barred the entrance to his house”. Ghalib noticed that “there were gallows on every side”. When James Neill with the Madras Fusiliers marched from Banaras to Allahabad, he systematically executed 6,000 Indians who were termed “niggers”.
According to Kaushik Roy writing in Economic and Political Weekly (May12) “the number of civilians and Indian soldiers killed exceeded one lakh (1,00,000). There was not a tree in some places which did not see a dead Indian hanging from the branches. In comparison just about 2,034 British soldiers died in action another 8,978 died form disease. British terrorism did not frighten Indians. The EPW quotes a British lady residing in Lucknow noting in her journal on May 16, 1857: “You can only rule these Asiatics by fear; if they are not afraid, they snap their fingers at you”.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Stills/Wallpapers from a new movie called, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.
Stills/Wallpapers from a new movie called, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.
Starring:
Bobby Deol as Steve Singh
Abhishek Bachchcan as Rikki Tukhral
Preity Zinta as Alvira Khan
Lara Dutta as Anaida Raza
Music = Jhoom Barabar Jhoom Sountrack
Songs Inlude:
- Jhoom
- Ticket To Hollywood
- JBJ
- Bol Na Halke Halke
- Kiss Of Love
- Jhoom Barabar Jhoom
- Jhoom Jam
You Can Listen To These Songs On:
www.bollywoodmusic.com OR
www.desi-radio.com
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Presentation about India - Incredible India - Best rated
This presentation named as "Incredible India" is about how India is been evolved from past. The movie is also filled with more patriotic feelings .... YOU see everything you want to know about India (History, culture, Technology, Festivals, Economy and all).
India, always warm and inviting, is a place of infinite variety - one that favors you with a different facet of its fascination every time you comeon a visit.
PLEASE BE PATIENT TILL THE END!!!!!!!!! ENJOY THE SHOW.
Be proud to be an Indian.
VANDE MATHARAM, VANDE MATHARAM
Incredible India !!
"We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made."
-ALBERT EINSTEIN
Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have been made in Europe were infact made in India centuries ago.
-GRANT DUFF, British Historian of India
Kalaripayat from Kerala was transmitted to China by a sage named Boddhidharma in the 5th century. The Chinese called him Po-ti-tama. He taught this art in a temple. This temple is today known as the Shaolin temple. Thus JUDO, KARATE, KUNG FU and other similar marshal arts which are today identified with the far-east actually originated from India.
-From scientific research.
"India Conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border."
-HU SHIH, former ambassador of China to USA
In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth. but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing.
-APOLLONIUS TYANAEUS, Greek Thinker and Traveller 1st Century AD
If I am asked which nation had been advanced
in the ancient world in respect of education and
culture then I would say it was - India.
-MAX MULLER German Indologist
In religion, India is the only millionaire .... The One land that all men desire to see and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.
-MARK TWAIN American Author
Indian cities are prosperous and stretch far and wide. There are many guest houses for travellers. There are hospitals providing free medical service for the poor. The viharas and temples are majestic. People are free to choose their occupations. There are no restrictions on the movement of the people. Government officials and soldiers are paid their salaries regularly. People are not addicted to drinks. They shun violence. The administration provided by the Gupta rulers is fair and just.
- FA HIEN, Chinese traveller during the reign of Chandragupta II (375-413/15 CE)
Indians have in general "superior endowments in reading, writing and arithmetic than the people of any nation in Europe."
-WARREN HASTINGS, 1813
"Nearly all the philosophical and mathematical doctrines attributed to Pythagoras are derived from India"
-LUDWIG VON SCHRODER
"There are some parts of the world that, once visited, get into your heart and won't go. For me, India is such a place. When I first visited, I was stunned by the richness of the land, by its lush beauty and exotic architecture, by its ability to overload the senses with the pure, concentrated intensity of its colors, smells, tastes, and sounds... I had been seeing the world in black & white and, when brought face-to-face with India, experienced everything re-rendered in brilliant technicolor."
-KEITH BELLOWS, VP - National Geographic Society
"India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grandmother of tradition."
-MARK TWAIN
"If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is INDIA."
-ROMAIN ROLLAND, French Scholar
"India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
-WILL DURANT
"Not until we see the richness of the Hindu mind and its essential spirituality can we understand India"
-LYN YUTANG, Chinese prolific writer
"It is India that gave us the ingenuous method of expressing all numbers by the means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position, as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit, but its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest minds produced by antiquity."
-PIERRE SIMON LAPLACE, French mathematician 1749 - 1827)
One of the many India's gifts to the world "THE NUMBER SYSTEM" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_...
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Festivals of india
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| Yugaadi | Sri Rama Navami |
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| Mahaveera Jayanti | Buddha Jayanti |
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| Hindu Samrajya Dinotsava | Sri Guru Pooja |
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| Raksha Bandhan | Sri Krishnaashtami |
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| Vijaya Dashami | Deepavali |
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| Guru Govind Singh Jayanti | Sankranhti/Makara Sankramana/Pongal |
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| Holi | Ganesh Chaturthi |
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