Philosophy

Behind the Gujjar-Meena fracas

The Kautilyan Perspective The 1857 uprising, though for a short time, unnerved the British. After the event, to ensure that this never occurred again, Britons began commencing a series of real politick measures. The Bengal army which had shown alarming camaraderie during the mutiny was disbanded. Calumny against the Brahmins, for having presented the ideological leaven for the revolt along with constituting an all India framework for the movement, was doubled. The unity of Hindus and Muslims, which was unmistakably extraordinary during the revolt, was a major budding threat for the empire in India and provision were made to dissuade it.

Divide et Impera was the old Roman motto,’ wrote Lord Elphinstone, then Governor of Bombay ‘and it should be ours.’ Sir John Strachey was of no dissimilar view. ‘The existence, side by side, of hostile creeds among the Indian people, is one of the strong points in our political position in India.’ he stated. Read More…

We shall live to the end of times, for we have done no wrong

By U. Mahesh Prabhu

I am not a celebrity writer and hence the kind of responses I receive to my articles, which are mostly on Hindutva, National or International issues are very few, nothing more than 20-30 mails, on average, per day. But many of the mails I receive have a common question to pose. It’s ‘What do you feel is the future of Hindus.’ The question, initially, I thought, considering my low response rate, was inquisitive to few. But with each passing day I am forced to believe that many, especially the youth of this nation, are eager to know as to what do Right-Wing writers like us have to say in this regard.

‘Will we survive the subjugation, would we be united against the oppressive political forces that which is keen to divide the Hindus for vote bank politics?’ I was asked by a student at a recently concluded NSS’ National Integration Camp at Moodubidri, where I had been to deliver a lecture, rather too pryingly. The answer was not readily available to me either, and I had to apologize to that young and enthusiastic looking lad.

Of all the things, the debt which the world owes to our culture, now rightly called as Hindu, is immense. Taking country with country, I bet, there is not one race on this earth to which the world owes so much as to Hindu, who is mostly patient and mild. ‘The mild Hindu’ sometimes is used as an expression of reproach; but if ever a reproach concealed a wonderful truth, it is in the term, ‘the mild Hindu’, who has always been the ‘blessed child of God’, as said by Swami Vivekananda in his maiden speech at Colombo after returning from the US, where he had attended the Parliament of Religions.

Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world too. In ancient and in modern times, great ideas have emanated from strong and great races, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another. In times, ancient and modern, seeds of great truth and power have been cast abroad by the advancing tides of national life; but mark you, my friends; it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and with the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood. Each idea had to wade through the blood of millions of our fellow beings. Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. These, in the main, other nations have taught; but India has for thousands of years peacefully existed.

There was activity in this land when even Greece did not exist, when Rome was not thought of, when the very fathers of modern Europeans lived in the forests and painted themselves in blue. Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from then until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We of all nations of the world have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live.

Let us seldom forget those times when at the sound of the march of big Greek battalions the earth trembled. Vanished from off the face of the earth, with not even a tale left behind to tell, gone is that ancient land of Greeks.

There was, also, a time when the Roman Eagle floated over everything worth having in this world; everywhere Rome’s power was felt and pressed on the head of humanity; the earth trembled at the very naming of ‘Rome’. But the Capitoline Hill is a mass of ruins; the spider weaves its web where Caesars ruled.

There have been other nations equally glorious that have come and gone, living a few hours of exultant and exuberant dominance and of a wicked national life, and then vanishing like ripples on the face of the waters. Thus have these nations made their mark on the face of humanity.

But we continue to live, and if Manu came back today he would not be bewildered, and would not find himself in a foreign land. The same laws are here, laws adjusted and through thousands and thousands of years; customs, the outcome of the acumen of ages and the experience of centuries, that seem to be eternal; and as the days go by, as blow after blow of misfortune has been delivered upon them, such blows seem to have served one purpose only, that of making them stronger and more constant.

Let us also not forget, that we Hindus have never preached our thoughts with fire and sword. If there is one word in English language to represent the gift of India to the world, if there is one word in English language to express the effect which the literature of India produces upon mankind, it is this one word, ‘fascination’. It is the opposite of anything that takes you suddenly; it throws on you, as if, a charm imperceptibly.

To many, Hindu thought, Hindu manners, Hindu customs, Hindu Philosophy, Hindu Literature are repulsive at the first sight; but let them persevere, let them read, let them become familiar with the great principles underlying these ideas, and it is ninety-nine to one that the charm will come over them, and fascination will be the result. Slow and silent, unseen and unheard yet producing the most tremendous result, has been the work of this calm, patient, all-suffering, spiritual race upon the world of thought.

So I can say it with conviction that we Hindus shall continue to live without fear of being perished from the facet of the earth, should only we get organized. For we have all the moral right, as well as reason, to live to the end of the world. The organization of the Hindus is being done, thanks to the wonderful people at the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh. We need conviction and need to stay united against the evil forces that is committed to spark mutual collision, in the name of conversion, liberation, reservation and many.

The old proverb ‘United we stand divided we fall’, is very apt in this regard. Let us continue to bear it on the top of our thoughts.

Author is the Editor-In-Chief of Aseemaa: Journal for National Resurgence | indiamahesh@gmail.com | February 24, 2008

Unholy ways of 'Holy' Missionaries

MissionariesOn December 25th when the whole world was celebrating the birth of the Jesus Christ, churches were burning in Orissa. As per confirmed estimates 11 churches had been burnt. On December 27th Religious leaders in the national capital expressed their anguish over the continuing attacks on the churches in Orissa, saying violence in any form is unacceptable. But something that which really bothered me was one of the statements, by Swami Shantatmanand – Secretary of Ramakrishna Mission in New Delhi – published in Indian Express, that which read ‘Hinduism teaches us to respect and acknowledge the validity of all other religion.’ I am yet to understand as to why was he saying so? Or what made him to make that statement? Is he trying to portray that some Hindus had did those deeds? But how can you say without investigation is complete and report is out? Read More…

Does Karunanidhi’s faith have a Scientific basis?

M KarunanidhiThere might not be anything as complex as and dirtier than Indian Politics. The current controversy over ‘Ram-Sethu‘ and ‘Existence of Ram‘ might just be one testimony to the fact.

When Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) filed an affidavit in the court stating ‘there isn’t scientific evidence to prove the existence of Ram…‘, it created a deep sense of unrest, not just among the people in the Sangh Parivar but also among those Hindus for whom Ram is the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
There was a great deal of dissatisfaction against the move by the Congress led UPA Government for almost twenty-four hours after which the Congress made a complete ‘U’ Turn to reinstate Ram in the Indian Pantheon. All the spot lights were then on Sonia Gandhi and was presented as a ‘Champion of a Hindu cause‘ by our media. But was she? Certainly not! Though she took the cognisance of Hindu feelings, she did nothing to stop the destruction of Ram-Sethu. It was, to be frank, a smart move by the Congress to devour BJP of its core agenda – Ram. This they did at the time when there were, and is, too much of uncertainties over the Party’s leadership in the next Loksabha elections.
ASI, which had filed the affidavit, is a part of Cultural Ministry headed by Congress’s leader Ambika Soni, who is a Christian by faith and not Hindu as many assume. Some rumours, it seems were spread by the party itself, that Soni had fallen apart with Sonia. H R Bharadwaj’s, union law minister’s, statement in clarification to the Congress’s stand on the whole issue indirectly suggested that ‘it was‘ perhaps ‘a ploy by a piqued loyalist to show the boss by embarrassing the government.
But could it be? Given the fact that ‘Soni is not going to leave the party’; the assumption of her challenging Sonia falls flat. So did Sonia and Congress’s win? Yes, certainly! But for a very short time! Thanks to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s (MK) statement they were bailed out, almost instantaneously.
Some say there was a person over 17 lakh years ago. His name was Ramar. Do not touch the bridge (Ram Sethu) constructed by him, they are saying. But then, from which engineering college had he graduated? Is there a proof for this?‘ said Karunanidhi, an atheist himself, in a public rally. The statement was enough for the Hindutva brigade to make the charge and demand from him an apology. But MK was reluctant and forged further on his remarks to add ‘…neither Valmiki nor Ram is here now (to touch for claims of Ram’s existence). There is only a group of people that think of people as fools. They will be proved wrong.‘ This won him a deep friendship with the Communist who offered him their full support, isolating the congress almost completely.
I dare him to challenge the heads of other faith‘ said BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad. But that was not to catch anyone’s attention, let alone MK’s. There was further drama when Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s (VHP) leader, and former Bharatiya Janata Party MP, Ramvilas Vendanti issued a death sentence, what media dubbed with Islamic ‘Fatwa‘, against Karunanidhi on September 21.

The media got their favourite whipping boy, VHP, and diverted their total concentration on them. VHP were perhaps ‘forced‘ to take such extreme steps when MK went on records to say that ‘Ram was drunkard according to Valmiki…’ For people to whom Ram ‘had set the highest example of righteousness, as a obedient son, caring husband, great citizen, king and a warrior par excellence‘ the statement was no less than blasphemous an ‘intentional effort to hurt their religious sentiment‘. Their patience was perhaps tested to the extreme by now, for no wrong reason of theirs. Writes, in this regard, noted Hindutva writer Tarun Vijay: ‘One Diwali our Shankaracharya was arrested and then Muslims were given reservations in job and educational institutions. No one ever, not even once, has shown concern for Kashmiri Hindu Refugees; rather Illegal Migrants Detention Act was brought and when Supreme Court struck it down was brought through the back door.
But while there was so much of coverage, in detail, on the whole episode starting from Ram Sethu to the existence of Ram himself, the media failed to find the reason as to Why is Karunanidhi questioning the existence of Ram? It was not an instantaneous response from the aging leader. It has a deep root in the history of Tamil Nadu and dates back to 1914 when Dr. C. Nadesan Mudaliar started the Dravida Association with objective of ‘helping Dravidian People in the south‘.
The association was inherent in its doctrine ‘for the separation of the Aryan North and Dravidian South; and the destruction of the southern Brahmins were necessary because they were the true agents of the Aryan North.‘ In Tamil Nadu Ravana is seen as a South Indian prince and his defeat by Rama is interpreted by the Tamils as the ‘subjugation of a nationalist‘, not the downfall of a demon. Perhaps this was the reason why Ramayana was burnt in this part of the world once. What MK is doing, or better put trying to do, is to revoke the past, of which he was one of the champions.
He and his party Dravida Munnetara Kazagham (DMK), is based on its uncanny belief on the ‘Aryan Invasion Theory‘ propounded by a few European Historians, then, in order to prove the supremacy of Christianity, and to serve the purpose: ‘Divide and Conquer the Hindus‘. After the departure of British, Communist Historians like Romila Thapar, Satish Chandra, K M Pannicker, R S Sharma, D N Jha and Irfan Habib spread and advocated this myth with insane insights and misinterpretations. Thanks, also, to the lunacy of our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, this thought was even hailed by him in his book ‘Discovery of India‘ because of which this myth was further forged.
Dravidian pride or nationalism need not depend upon the Aryan Invasion Theory or denigrating the culture of North India. The, so called, Dravidians have long been one of the most important peoples of India and have been the preservers of Vedic Culture itself. The best Vedic Sanskrit, rituals and traditions can be found only in the Indian South.
Importantly the word ‘Arya‘ in Sanskrit was never a racial term, but a title for respect. Even Dravidian king, for MK’s information, named themselves Aryan. Hence to place Aryans against Dravidians as a term is a misuse of language, being done by MK’s party for over decades now.
Be that as it may, the Aryan and Dravidian divide by itself has failed to prove itself. Then it is certainly a good question to ask Karunanidhi: as to why is he still hanging on to his Dravidian thoughts? That too when the belief by itself has no basis? Given the fact ‘Biologically both Aryans and Dravidians are of the same Caucasian type, only when closer to equator the skin gets darker.‘ is a strong evidence for MK to come out of his lunatic Dravidian thoughts and legacy. But will he ever disown it? I think he should, along with his communist friends, after all, all that they need is a scientific proof. Are you listening Mr. MK? Are you there Mr. Prakash Karat? Hello!

U Mahesh Prabhu | 23 September 2007 | indiamahesh@gmail.com

Towards God…?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

‘The whole world is moving towards God, would Your Excellency not wish to join? said Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a letter to his American counterpart – George Bush. This kind of a letter, for your information, is not new and is simply a continuance of tradition instituted by Prophet Muhammad.

In 625 AD, after having consolidated his position in Medina and having established a secured power base for Islam Prophet dictated three letters: to Khosrow Parviz, the Persian ‘King of Kings‘, a Zoroastrian; and to Emperor Heraclius of Byzantium and the Ethiopian monarch Negus, who were Christians by faith. The Prophet’s offer to the three recipients of his letters was: ‘Convert to Islam and secure a place in paradise or cling to your beliefs and face the sword of Islam.

The Persian monarch, apparently angered that Muhammad had put his own name before that of the ‘King of King‘, ordered his security services to find the ‘insolent letter writer‘ and bring him to the court in Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian Empire at the time. According to Islamic folklore Muhammad escaped capture by the King of Kings‘ agents only because, soon after the incident, Khosrow Parviz was murdered by his son and designated heir. Within a decade of this incident the Persian Empire had disintegrated with most of its territory falling to the armies of ‘Islam’.<!–[endif]–>

Ayathollah Khomeini’s letter came with a similar response to a message sent by Gorbachev through his ambassador Vladimir Vingradov, offering the Islamic Republic a strategic partnership with the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Mikhail Gorbachev wanted the Islamic Republic to help him prevent the victory of the US-backed Islamist Mujahedin in Afghanistan. In exchange, Gorbachev would support the Islamic Republic in the face of mounting American pressure. Khomeini, however, was not interested in that kind of deal-making. As a good Muslim leader he would not be satisfied with having ’something’. He, perhaps, wanted everything. Thus he composed a letter inviting Gorbachev to convert to Islam before he could receive help in Afghanistan or anywhere else. Needless to say the Soviet leader ‘politely’ declined.

Despite it’s many spelling and grammatical errors, written with naive undergraduate style, Ahmadinejad’s letter contained a crucial message that: the present regime in Iran is the enemy of the current international system and is, certainly, determined to undermine and, if at all possible, destroy it. It has now been confirmed that ‘Ahmadinejad believes that hidden Imam is about to return and that it is the duty of the Islamic Republic to provoke a ‘clash of civilizations‘ to hasten that return. As he asserts in his letter, Ahmadinejad also believes that ‘the liberal democratic model of market-based capitalist societies has failed and is rejected even in its traditional homeland’.

Ahmadinejad has been impressed by the extent of recent riots in France in which the extreme Left provided the leadership while the Muslim sub-proletariat offered much of the muscle in the streets. All this, and more, makes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a subject of hate to majority in the ‘civilized‘ society.

Apart from that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated his well-known intent to ‘erase’ Israel from the map last Friday with a new twist: ‘Israel is a rotten, dried tree that will be annihilated in one storm.‘ The history at times takes weird twists and turn. During the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the current regime was not considered problematic by Israelis. At that time, Jerusalem saw Teheran as its strategic ally against Baghdad, then under the Saddam’s regime. The situation has reversed because of the fact that Ahmadinejad is a political no voice with a streak of ultra-nationalist tendencies – all poised to make situation for Iran worse.

Writes M J Akbar:

The Manmohan Singh government wants to bind India into a strategic relationship with the United States, specifically targeted against Iran (in writing) for starters but developing into a larger axis of the kind that America once had with Pakistan through the Baghdad pact. This was sweetened by much talk of nuclear energy on rather salty terms, intrusive, expensive and imbalanced’

But is there a better way to confine the Iranians? I think that’s the issue we aren’t really debating. Muslims still find themselves aligned with the Iranians. Non-Muslims, should they like it or not, have to align in such cases with the Americans whose President, it seems, prefers to let the weapons do the talking, even when he claims to be engaging in diplomacy. Sadly, there is hardly any much difference between the two Presidents. Both are fanatics in their own aspects.

By denying the Holocaust and Suffering of Jewish people Ahmadinejad has endeared himself to Muslims. By his diplomatic and hawkish posturing, has managed to earn more enemies for Iran during the past year and a half than the leaders of Islamic Republic have over the past quarter century or so.

With inputs from frontlines it looks as if Americans have already made up their mind to attack Iran. It’s now only a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’. According to Oxford Research Group up to 10,000 people would die immediately if the US bombed Iran’s nuclear site. If the US uses nuclear weapons, such as earth penetrating bunker buster bombs, radio active fallout would become even more disastrous.

Says Aijaz Zaka Syed of Khaleej Times:

Although Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons – at least not yet – to stave off aggression, it has other options of retaliating. It boasts a standing army of 450,000 troops as well as long range missiles that could hit Israel an even Europe. More importantly, a desperate Iran can play a havoc with the global economy by blocking strait of Hormuz through which much of the world oil supply is routed.

I don’t know as to whether the world is moving towards God. But these two leaders are certain to push to world to brink of disaster. We are on our way to war and not God, which is for sure.

U. Mahesh Prabhu | September 22, 2007 | indiamahesh@gmail.com

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