Multi-dimensions of love

Love for Country …is…Patriotism

Love for Mother…..is…Affection

Love for Father…...is…Duty

Love for Brother…..is…Religion

Love for Sister…….is…Responsibility

And…and…Love for Wife..........is…

Lifelong & Fully Paid, Boarding & Lodging…with Endoments (Chunu… Munu… Pinky…Lovely… Bunty… Shunty…Tom... Dick... Harry... Natha Singh... Prem Singh...Bholoo... Billa...!)
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Indo-US Atomic deal - My view !

Believe it or not, but this is my view.
And for sure, I am giving a clue.

First of all I may like to mention.
That this Indo - US deal is a tedious question.

But our elected government is certainly no naive.
That in the larger national interests it will not behave.

At the moment we can simply wait and watch.
Instead of being misled by the opposition going very fast.

We should not take as gospel truth what the leftists say.
Because they will oppose the US come what may.

We need an alley to thwart Sino-Pak threat.
And to make common cause with the US is the only bet.

So we need not bother what the likes of Karat say.
Because they are fishing in India’s troubled waters 'in China way'.

What the US is doing, leads to the formation of 'World Government'.
Where there will be no Dictator, no Rogue state and no Army tent.

Only the civilian governments will exist under federal governance.
And the humanity will be free from war mongers' furnace.
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My pet 5 peeves !

My Peeve 1
When a religious person commits an ugly deed.
Trampling the preaching of his/her professed creed.
That for sure makes me outrageously peeved…

My Peeve 2
When I come to know about a Law-Maker.
Having dishonestly turned into a Law-Breaker.
I treat the phenomenon as a serious irritator…

My Peeve 3
When in violation of the traffic rules.
Law abiding road users are killed or maimed by some bloody fools.
It is absolutely certain for me to lose my cools…

My Peeve 4
When at the ‘next hearing’ of the lingering court case after many a day.
I find the judge or the defending lawyer gone away.
I am peeved, but feel afraid to have anything to say...

My Peeve 5
Despite regularly commenting on the blogs of my Bloggy Friends.
When I find them not bothering to reciprocate with similar trends.
Then I helplessly feel peeved, no ends…
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Let us make India humane !

(Sainiput)

1. Let us not throw garbage in streets, bazaars, parks, roadsides etc.
2. Let us not show off 'bravery' in red-light violations.
3. Let us not cheat on Electricity, VAT, Income Tax etc.
4. Let us not encroach upon roads, streets and bazaars in front of our shops, houses etc.
5. Let us not be ‘clever’ enough to break the queue at Hospital, Railway Station, Bus Stand, Gas Agency, Bank, Post Office, Electricity & Telephone offices etc.
6. Let us implement the 'honesty of life' in the earning of our livelihood as preached by our respective religions.
7. Let the government servants not indulge in corruption.
8. Let us help our govt. in enforcing population control & eradication of illiteracy.
9. Let us not spend lavishly on weddings and other social customs. And……
10. Let the 'Halwai' not weigh the sweets along with "Dibba".
    

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Courtesy :- Sadbhavna Manch Punjab

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Brief history of India

(Sainiput)

History in the context of a particular country or nation is the chronological record of its affairs/events through the ages. The best friends of the developing human societies on planet earth are history and science, and so in India . While history sums up the past progress along with its pitfalls, science provides where withal for further development. However, every thing said and done, both history and science in India are jinxed. The main culprit for this sorry state of affairs, is the blind faith in what is called God with a large number of religions and religious sects each striving for supremacy over others. Another contradiction is the difference between the words and deeds of those who claim to be the followers of ‘God’ and various religions.
Suffice it to say, the ancient people of this country called Hindostan through ages had made a lot of progress in various walks of life. The problem is, there was no tradition of recording history in chronological manner. As a result, the past could not be preserved. The way of recording history here was to interweave it in the folklore in verse form, which is easy to remember, but without doubt, is not dependable. The classic examples are Ramayana and Mahabharta written in verse and glorifying various characters to the extent of describing them as personifications of so-called God, which cannot be put under scrutiny without annoying the ‘believers’.
Raj Tarangini written in 12th century by Kalhan is in the Hindostani tradition of writing history in poetry. It has over 8000 Shalokas written in the tradition of a Kavya about the kings of Kashmir . To some extent it qualifies the writer as the first historian of India , though after its discovery in early 19th century the British and Indian scholars had taken full one century to debate whether it was a book of history or poetry. Raj Tarangini is composed of anecdotes. It begins with Kalhan praising the gods and seeking blessings. Then he seeks the indulgence of his readers for what he has to say, which all is essentially in accordance with the established tradition of those times. After these formalities, he gives a detailed description of the topographical layout of Kashmir ; its geological history, various rivers, lakes and mountains. Some of the information is taken from personal observations while the legends and folk-tales are the basis for the other. The kings of Kashmir are traced from Gonanda who was a contemporary of Yudhishtara of Mahabharat. Those kings who were merely mentioned in legends without any corroborative evidence are mentioned as 'lost kings'. It roundly criticizes the kings and other social elite when they are unfair to the people, do not perform their duties adequately and indulge in cheating. It also gives detailed description of intrigues, deception and many other things about kings and queens.
Otherwise, two Chinese travellers who wandered through the Hindostan of yore; Fa-hien (399 - 414 AD) and Huen-tsang (629 - 645 AD), prepared the most authentic records on its ancient culture. A British Civil Service Officer, Anderson , compiled the modern history of the country, through his diary. Widely accepted as true with exceptions here and there, the history of India , batter to call it a subcontinent rather than a country, is ‘extraordinary’ and intimately tied to its geography. A meeting ground between the East and the West, India has always been an invader’s paradise, while at the same time its natural isolation and compromising religions allowed it to adapt to and absorb, many of the peoples who penetrated it by force or otherwise. In short, India has always been simply too big, too complicated, and culturally too subtle to let any one empire dominate it for long.
True to the haphazard ambiance of India , the discovery of its most ancient civilization literally took place by accident, when British engineers in the mid-AD 1800’s, constructing a railway line between Karachi and Punjab , found kiln-baked bricks. This discovery was treated at that time as little more than a curiosity. But archaeologists later revisited the site in the 1920’s and determined that the bricks were more than 5000 years old. Soon there after, two important cities were discovered: Harappa on the river Ravi in Punjab , and Moenjo Daro on the river Indus in Sindh.
The civilization that laid the bricks, one of the world’s oldest, came to be known among historians as the Indus Valley Civilization. It had a written language and was highly sophisticated. On its zenith by the year 3000 BC, it had originated in the south and moved north, building complex, mathematically planned cities. Some of these were almost three miles in diameter and each contained as many as 30,000 residents. These ancient cities had granaries and citadels. The houses constructed with standard burnt bricks were arranged in squares, along roads intersecting at right angles. The houses varied in size but were all based on the same plan - a small courtyard surrounded by rooms with entrances in side alleys, often multistoried with no windows opening out to the street. The houses had bathrooms, and the drains flowing out were connected to covered sewers leading to soak-pits. This unique sewage system is among the most impressive achievements of the Indus people and sets them apart from all other ancient civilizations. Moenjo Daro was connected to the sea through a mile-long canal and trading ships sailed as far as Mesopotamia . At its height, this civilization stretched approximately across 1500 kilometers, from Indus river valley to Lothal in Gujarat . Though it existed at the same time as the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Sumer , it far outlasted them.
The Harappa culture in the Indus Valley declined by about 1750 BC, and the stage was set for a second and more continuous urbanization in the Ganges Valley . That was accomplished by the first known invaders of India . As per accepted history, these invaders began pouring in from the north in about 1500 BC and referred to themselves as ‘Arya’ usually anglicized as ‘Aryan’ meaning 'superior'. The Aryans brought with them strong cultural traditions that miraculously still remain in force. Though warriors and conquerors, they lived alongside Indus , introducing family based professions resulting in the caste system and establishing the basis of the Indian religions. They inhabited the northern regions for about 700 years, and moved further south and east, on the line developing iron tools and weapons. They eventually settled in the Ganges valley and built large kingdoms throughout much of northern India . They spoke and wrote a language called Sanskrit, which was used in the first documentation of Vedas. The earliest literary source that sheds light on India 's past is Rig Veda. Though it is difficult to date this work with any accuracy on the basis of tradition and ambiguous astronomical information contained in its hymns, yet the Rig Veda was most likely composed between 1,500 and 1,000 BC.
The second great invasion into India occurred around 500 BC, when the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius, pushing their empire eastward, conquered the ever-prized Indus Valley . Compared to the Aryans, the Persian influence was marginal, perhaps because they were only able to occupy the region for a relatively brief period of about 150 years. The Persians were in turn conquered by the Greeks under Alexander , who swept as far as the Beas River , where he defeated king Porus heading an army led by 200 elephants in 326 BC. The tireless, charismatic conqueror wanted to extend his empire even further eastward, but his exhausted troops refused to continue. Alexander returned home, leaving garrisons behind to keep the trade routes open.
While the Persians and Greeks subdued the Indus Valley and the northwest, Aryan-based kingdoms continued developing in the Ganges Valley where the ruler of Magadh was able to subdue sixteen other polities. Around this time Brahmanism preaching the ‘gospel’ of Vedas had spread its tentacles in the Ganges Valley , in the process putting in place the wretched caste system. Out of the resultant sufferings of the common man, Buddhism and Jainism emerged as popular protestant movements to pose a serious challenge to Brahmanic orthodoxy.
To be precise, in the 5th century BC, Siddhartha Gautama founded the religion of Buddhism, a profoundly influential work of human thought still espoused by much of the world.
As the overextended Hellenistic (Greek) sphere declined, a king known as Chander Gupt Maurya (reign - 322 - 298 B.C.) ousted the oppressive ruler of Magadh and conquered his way well into Afghanistan . This was the beginning of one of India ’s greatest dynasties, the Maurya. Under the great king Ashoka (268-231 BC), the Mauryan Empire conquered nearly the entire subcontinent, extending itself as far south as Mysore . When Ashoka conquered Orissa (then known as Kalinga), his army shed so much blood that the repentant king gave up warfare forever and converted to Buddhism. Proving to be as tireless a missionary as he had been a conqueror, Ashoka spread Buddhism to much of central Asia . His rule marked the height of the Maurya Empire, which collapsed only 100 years after his death.
After the fall of the Maurya dynasty, the regions it had conquered fragmented into a mosaic of kingdoms and smaller dynasties. For the next four hundred years, India remained politically disunited and weak. It was repeatedly raided and plundered by foreigners. The Greeks returned briefly in 150 BC and conquered the Punjab , and by this time Buddhism was becoming so influential that the Greek king Menander forsook the Hellenistic pantheon and became a Buddhist himself. The local kingdoms enjoyed relative autonomy, occasionally fighting (and often losing to) invaders from the north and China , who seemed to come and go like the monsoons. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans never made it to India , preferring to expand westwards instead.
Stability was restored in the Ganges Valley with Chander Gupt II (reign – 380 – 412 AD) finally defeating Sakas and founding the Gupta dynasty, which conquered and consolidated the entire north and extended as far south as the Vindhya Mountains. The accomplishments of Chander Gupt II in war and peace were glorious enough for him to claim the title of Vikramaditya. Fa-hien, a Chinese traveler (399 - 414 AD) has left an interesting account of India of those days. This age of peace and prosperity witnessed an unprecedented flowering of art, literature and the sciences. Kalidas, the famous Sanskrit poet and dramatist, author of Abhijnana Shankuntalam , Kumarsambhavam and Meghadutam is believed to have adorned the Gupta court. Mathematician Aryabhatta and astronomer Varahmihir lived during this period. The dazzling wall paintings of the Ajanta caves too are traced back to this era. This period also saw the beginning of Hindu temple architecture.
In the twilight of the Gupta Empire with the setting in of decay, powerful feudal governors in the provinces declared their independence. Trade and commerce suffered and social evils crept in. There was only a brief afterglow in the time of Harshavardhan (reign - 604 - 647 A.D.) - of Kannauj - who himself was an accomplished writer, and encouraged eminent dramatists like Bana. Another Chinese traveler Huen-tsang who visited India (629 - 645 AD) during the rule of Harshavardhan has given an account of the changes that had taken place in the lives of the Indian people under Gupta dynasty.
Further down south ( Deccan ), the Cholas ruled over what today are the districts of Thanjavur and Tiruchirapally. In the 2nd Century B.C. a Chola prince conquered Sri Lanka . The Pandyas ruled around present day Tirunelvelli and Madurai . A Pandyan king sent an ambassador to the court of the Roman emperor Augustus in first Century BC. The territory under the Cheras was what constitutes the present day central and northern Kerala.
Pallavas of Kanchi rose to prominence in the 4th Century AD and ruled unchallenged for about four hundred years. The Nayanar and Alvar saint poets belong to this period. The gemlike shore temples at Mahabalipuram also date back to this period.
The Cholas overthrew the Pallavas in the 9th Century AD and regained political primacy in South India . The exquisitely crafted bronze Natraja (Dancing Shiva) introduces the world to the glory of the Cholas. The tide of political fortunes turned once again in the 13th Century to make the Pandyas dominant. Their kingdom became a great centre of international trade. Art , literature and culture flourished under their patronage. The 15th Century saw the decline of the Pandyas.
When the Guptas diminished, an age of about half a dozen thriving and separate kingdoms ensued in and about the Ganges Valley , when some of the most incredible temples in India were constructed in Bhubaneshwar, Konarak, and Khajurajo. That was time of relative stability, and caste-based cultural and religious developments went on until the dawn of the Muslim era. In fact, the period following the death of Harshavardhan is known as the Rajput period. The word Rajput connotes the scion of a royal family and this royalty claimed descent from the Sun (Suryavanshi) or the Moon (Chandravanshi).
Meanwhile Arab traders had visited the western coast of India since 712 AD, but it was not until 1001 AD that the Muslim world began to make itself keenly felt. In that year, Arab armies led by Mahmud of Ghazni swept down the Khyber Pass like a storm. They raided just about every other year for 26 years straight. They returned home each time, leaving behind them ruined cities, decimated armies, and probably a very edgy native population. Then they more or less vanished behind the mountains again for nearly 150 years, and India once again went on its way.
The Rajput era was also an era of chivalry and feudalism. Family feuds and strong notions of personal pride often exacerbated conflicts. As the Rajputs weakened each other by constant fighting, Muslims all along knew that Hindostan, ‘the golden sparrow’ with all its riches was vulnerable enough to plunder. This allured them to embark on victorious campaigns using duplicity and deceit wherever military strength failed against Rajputs. One of them, Mohammad Ghori defeated Prithviraj Chauhan, the Tomar ruler of Delhi, in the battle of Tarai in 1192 and left the Indian territories in the charge of his deputy, Qutubudin (reign - 1206 - 1210), who had started life as a slave. This is the reason that the dynasty founded by him is known as the Slave Dynasty. It was he who built the towering Qutub Minar in Delhi . Raziya, the daughter of his successor AIatmash (reign - 1210 - 1236), was quite an exception for that age. She sat on the throne of Dilli for a short while (1236 - 1239). Khiljis, Tughlaqs, Sayyids and Lodhis followed in the footsteps of the 'Slaves'. This period is known as the Sultanate. Only a few rulers distinguished themselves in statecraft. Allauddin Khilji (reign - 1296 - 1316) was a distinguished commander and an able administrator. He is remembered for market reforms and price control measures. Also, he is infamous for his infatuation with Rani Padmini of Chittor. Muhammad Bin Tughlaq (reign - 1324 - 1351) was a visionary who was misunderstood by almost everyone who came in contact with him. However, judging him more sympathetically, modern historians have given due credit for the unusual 'vision' in his alleged whimsical decisions notably shifting of the imperial capital to Daulatabad in the Deccan as the site was more central to India. Lodhis were, by comparison, quite mild and are only known for the majestic Lodhi tombs set in beautifully landscaped gardens. The Sultanate introduced, in the sub continent, the Islamic concepts of society and governance, and thus prepared the ground for an encounter between two important world civilizations, thereby setting in force systematic conversions of Hindus to Islam.
Islamic India fragmented after the brutal devastation Timur Lang left in Dilli, and it was every Muslim strongman for himself. This changed in 1527, when the Mongol (corrupted to Mughal) monarch Babur came to power in Dilli. Babur was a complicated ruler from Kabul who also loved poetry, gardening, and books. He even wrote cultural treatises on the Hindus he conquered, and took notes on local flora and fauna. Afghan princes in India had asked for his help in 1526, and after conquering the Punjab he took Dilli and quickly asserted his own claim over them. This was the foundation of the Mughal Dynasty, whose six emperors stand out as the most influential of all the Muslim rulers in India .
Babur died in 1530, leaving behind a harried and ineffective son, Himayun. Himayun’s own son, Akbar , became the greatest Mughal ruler of all. Akbar was more warrior than scholar, and extended the empire as far south as the Krishna River . He tolerated local religions and married a Hindu princess, establishing a tradition of cultural acceptance that contributed greatly to the success of the Mughal rule. In 1605, Akbar ’s son Jahangir succeeded him in 1605, and passed the expanding empire on to his own son Shah Jahan in 1627.
Though, Shah Jahan spent much of his time subduing Hindu kingdoms in the south, yet he left behind the colossal monuments of the Mughal Empire, including Taj Mahal, Jama Masjid and Red Fort. Shah Jahan ’s campaigns in the south and his flare for extravagant architecture necessitated increased taxes, which distressed his subjects. Under this scenario his son Aurungzebe imprisoned him, and killing his own brothers in a cloak and dagger war of succession, grabbed the throne of Dilli in 1658.
In his bid to create a tailor-made Islamic nation out of ‘Hindostan’, Aurungzebe set forth to eradicate indigenous religious traditions, nurtured by Hinduism. The purpose was two-pronged: One, to claim the ‘heavenly benefits’ on the ‘day of judgment’ as an unflinching propagator of the religion of Hazrat Mohammad; Two, to have homogeneous Muslim ‘parja’ which could be easy to rule through ‘fatwah’ and other such Islamic gimmicks. However, his doctrine of intolerance prompted fierce local resistance. Though he expanded the Mughal Empire to include nearly the entire subcontinent, he could never totally subdue ‘Hindostan’. One notable source of opposition was the Marathas of the Deccan , who resisted him until his death in 1707. Out of the Marathas arose the legendary figure of Shivaji, a symbol of Hindu resistance and nationalism. In the land of the Punjab , Gobind Singh , the 10th Guru of ‘ Nanak Panthi ’ Sikhs, founded an army of ‘Saint Soldiers’ called ‘ Khalsa Panth ’ in 1999. Born out of the steadfast resistance of Hindus to their forcible conversion to Islam by the successive Muslim rulers of Dilli, the ‘ Khalsa Panth ’ became a force to reckon with in due course.
Aurungzebe’s three sons disputed over succession, and the downfall of Mughal Empire began, just as the Europeans were beginning to flex their own imperialistic muscles.
The contenders for political supremacy in the 17th and 18th Centuries included besides the Marathas, the Sikhs in Punjab and Hyder Ali (reign - 1721 - 1782) in Mysore . Hyder Ali 's son and successor Tipu Sultan (reign - 1782 - 1799) allied himself with the French against the British and strove to introduce the latest technical knowledge from Europe .
To perceptive Indians of Tipu's generation it was becoming clear that Medieval Indian society and polity would have to meet the challenge of Europe by casting itself in its mould. Beset by fratricidal feuds and petty bickerings, India had remained indifferent to the advent of Europeans but now the time of reckoning could not be delayed.
The Mughals were great patrons of the arts. Many emperors and princes - Akbar and Dara Shikoh (Shah Jahan's son) being the most prominent - were deeply concerned with problems of metaphysics, while some others were writers of considerable talent. Babur penned Babur Nama, a moving memoir wherein he documented the Indian scene with great objectivity. Jahangir too left behind an eminently readable memoir - Tuzuke Jahangiri . Babur and Humayun did not get enough time to undertake construction of imposing buildings but their successors displayed a great penchant for architecture. Akbar commissioned the building of Fatehpur Sikri where an exquisite blending of elements and motifs from both the Islamic and the Hindu architectural styles is seen. Jahangir was a connoisseur of paintings and gardens. The beautifully landscaped gardens, Shalimar Bagh and Nishat Bagh , in Lahore and Srinagar , stand testimony. Shah Jahan was a prolific builder as already stated.
Impressive progress was made in the spheres of music, painting and literature. The Mughal miniatures influenced and spawned schools of art in the princely states of Kota , Bundi and Kishangarh in Rajasthan and Kangra, Basoli, and Guler in Himachal Pradesh . The themes of these exquisite landscapes and portraits deal with the love of Radha and Krishna , the changing cycle of seasons and the Ragas of Indian classical music. The survival of the native genius of Barahmasa and the Ragmalika - series of paintings through the vicissitudes of political history since the days of Ajanta is evidence.
While the court chroniclers concentrated on the genre of biography, the compositions of the saint poets laid the foundation of modern Indian literature in vernacular. Poetry that was sensitive to the aspirations of the masses was penned not only in Hindi, but also in Marathi, Gujarati and Tamil. Jayasi, Namdev, Tukaram, Narsi Mehta, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu , Thyagraja are only some of the illustrious names. Many regional languages, such as Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi and Bengali had by the 17th Century, acquired a distinct identity and could boast of a large body of literature. The languages that are spoken today in most parts of India are the ones that evolved and grew to maturity during the Mughal period.
Bahadurshah Zafar - last of the Mughals - was a passionate lover of poetry and eminent Urdu poets Ghalib and Zauk graced his court. Mir preceded them by a few decades. Also a great churning of ideas during Mughal period gave rise to the Bhakti movement - a powerful social upsurge for reform - spearheaded by poet-saints. The ripples caused by verses sung by wandering minstrels carried the stimulating message across the land and engendered what can only be termed a national resurgence.
Kabir - the sharp-tongued weaver from Benaras - delighted in exposing the hypocrisy of orthodox Hindus and Muslims alike. He wrote eloquently against idolatry, caste prejudice and articulated abstract metaphysical concepts in witty, memorable poetic phrases that were easy to grasp by the man on the street. The use of folk idiom blending many dialects made him exceptionally accessible for the masses.
Tulsidas retold the story of Rama, the virtuous Prince of Ayodhya, as a moral discourse to instill ethical values in private and public life. His narrative poem Ramcharitmanas soon acquired the status of a sacred book and continues to be regarded as a useful encapsulation of traditional wisdom. Another remarkable name is that of Mira - a princess from Rajasthan who walked out of the palace to express her love for the cowherd God Krishna. She asserted the right of a woman to choose her way of life in a strait jacketed feudal society.
Raskhan was a Muslim devotee of Krishna .
Ravidas – a downtrodden – wrote in a touching satire against the inequality of humans created by the Brahmanical caste system.
The ten Sikh Gurus from Nanak to Gobind Singh (contemporaries of Mughals) created and nurtured a master piece of cosmic poetry in Guru Granth Sahib preaching equality of humankind and freedom of belief, which created ‘saint soldiers’ dedicated to justice and fair play, out of the downtrodden.
Inspired by search for a sea route under temptation of the lucrative trade in spices of Malabar, a Portuguese Vasco da Gama landed at Calicut , on the western coast of the Indian peninsula, sailing via the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 AD. This marked the beginning of the European era in Indian history and by the first decade of the 16th century the Portuguese established their colony in Goa , though their territorial and commercial hold remained limited.
Subsequently, driven by different reasons, a large number of European travellers - Italian, British, French and Dutch - visited India . Some were traders, some adventurers, and quite a few were fired by the ‘missionary zeal’ to find converts to Christianity. Among them was a French doctor Francois Bernier , who enjoyed the confidence of princes and nobles and was in a uniquely privileged position to observe the functioning of the Mughal court, whose account is a valuable source of information for historians. The travelogues of Francois Bernier and others further fired European interest in India , with Britain , France , Netherlands and Denmark floating East India Companies. Chartered as trading companies by their respective governments, their primary commercial interest was in Indian silks, cotton, indigo etc.
During the late 16th and the 17th centuries, these companies fiercely competed with each other. Through a combination of outright combat and deft alliances with local princes, the East India Company of Britain gained control of all European trade in India by 1769. The military campaigns of Robert Clive and the administrative enterprise of Warren Hastings contributed significantly to this achievement. In 1784, after financial scandals in the Company alarmed the British politicians, the Crown assumed half-control of the Company, beginning the transfer of power to royal hands, thus imposing British Raj on India .
The British administered India until 1947 and brought about many changes in the social, political and the economic life of the country. Most Indians who came in their contact could not perceive the strategic threat posed by the East India Company. The British from the beginning followed a policy of divide and rule. Beginning from Bengal , diplomacy and deceit were used to gain control of revenue collection, which gave them effective control of administration. The Marathas, the Sikhs and the rulers of Mysore could never unite to confront the foreign enemy and fell one by one. By the onset of the 19th century there was no local power that could cope with their onslaught.
Once the British had consolidated their power, commercial exploitation of the natural resources and native labour became ruthless. It is true that there were a few benevolent Governor Generals who initiated social reforms and tried to render the administration more efficient and responsive, but they were exceptions. By the middle of the 19th Century arrogant exploitation of the people had tried the patience of the Indians to the limit. To serve their own purpose, the British set up educational institutions that imparted western education and established a vast network of railroads and telegraph lines. This united the country in an unprecedented manner. The Indians, exposed to western ideas of responsible and representative government, began to yearn for liberty and equality. There were many who looked back to the nation's glorious past and strove to rekindle the sentiment of patriotism. Foremost among them were Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar . The 19th Century is often referred to as the age of national resurgence in India .
The flash point was reached in 1857 when the British introduced a new rifle and cartridge in the British Indian Army. The bullet offended the religious sentiments of both, Hindu and Muslim soldiers, as it allegedly contained pork and beef tallow, the former sacred to Hindus and the later unclean to Muslims. Protest of the soldiers at Meerut turned into a rebellion, which soon spread like wild fire all over north India with the rebels proclaiming ‘the last Mughal’ Bahadurshah Zafar as the sovereign ruler of the country as well as their leader. As the things stood for the British during those months of turmoil, with the rebellion brewing in Meerut in the north, Kanpur in the east and Jhansi in the south, a threat from the west could well have sealed their fate in Delhi . But that was not to be, and the Sikhs expounding ‘ Khalsa Panth ’ militarily helped the British to triumph crushing the yearlong rebellion. In the process, the British subdued and ‘arrested’ Bahadurshah Zafar , the leader of ‘freedom fighters’, thus gaining control of the seat of power in Delhi . That prompted the British Government to seize total control of all British interests in India in 1858, finally establishing a seamless imperialism in the name of British Raj.
Well, the question is generally asked as to why the Sikhs acted in the way they did, by siding with the British in crushing the ‘Indian Mutiny’ seen by some ‘historians’ as ‘India’s First War of Independence’. But, the fact remains that Sikhism originally began as a sect in the ‘Bhakti Movement’ of ‘Hindu India’. Its originator, Nanak , preached the freedom of belief and practice and had strong enough moral courage to openly condemn the invasion of ‘Hindostan’ by Babur , in so much as to call him a ‘tyrant’, for which Babur also imprisoned him for some time. There is also no denying the fact that Muslim invaders had come to plunder the ‘Golden Sparrow of Hindostan’ with a sword in one hand and ‘Quran’ in the other. The saga of forcible conversions of defenceless Indians to Islam by successive Muslim rulers including Babur ’s Mughal Dynasty is no fairy-tale either. Who does not know that Sikhism was born out of the dogged opposition of Hindus to their forcible conversion to Islam? The torture and killings of 5th Sikh Guru ( Arjan Dev ) in Lahore and 9th ( Tegh Bhadur ) in Chandni Chowk of Delhi by the Mughal rulers for opposing conversion to Islam are just authentic history, nobody can deny. The bricking alive of two teenaged sons of the 10th Guru (Gobind Singh) for refusing to convert, and the death of his mother in the same cause at Sarhind is the barbarity having no parallel in the history. Getting boiled alive, cutting of all body joints from fingertips onward, cutting of the scull with a cobbler’s blade, death by getting mounted on a ‘charkhari’, seeing own children being killed and receiving their body parts in the ‘jholi’ are some modes of punishment which the Sikhs underwent for opposing forcible conversions to Islam. How the heart of the infant son of Banda Singh Bahadur was taken out and thrust in Banda’s mouth while he was being tortured to death by tying him to the foot of an elephant in the streets of Delhi ? In view of all this, it was but natural for the Sikhs to burn with the desire of revenge. As such the ‘Dilli Durbar’ and its Muslim rulers had become a symbol of oppression loathed by the Sikhs, which they longed to turn into smithereens at any given opportunity. So, when the opportunity came calling, the Sikhs acted in the way they did, ensuring end of the tyrannical Muslim rule in the country. Had the Sikhs not done what they did, in getting Bahadurshah Zafar ousted from the Red Fort and his sons killed by siding with the British in 1857, there would surely have been Pakistan all over the present day Secular India instead of being confined to what now Pakistan is.
Originally claiming to be interested in trade only, the British Raj steadily expanded its influence until the Indian princes ruled in name only.
How a tiny island nation, thousands of miles away, came to administer a huge territory of 300 million people is one of history’s great spectacles. A seemingly impossible task, it was accomplished through a highly effective and organized system called ‘Raj’. Coercive treaties and agreements were signed with the native princes in an atmosphere of deceit and skulduggery called diplomacy, and the British gradually increased their role in local affairs. The Raj helped build infrastructure and trained ‘natives’ for its own military, though in theory they were for India ’s own defence.
Demise of the Raj was partially a result of its remarkable success. It had gained control of the country by viewing it as a source of profit. Infrastructure had been developed, administration established, and an entire structure of governance created. India had become a profitable venture, and the British were loath to allow the Indian population any power in a system that they viewed as their own accomplishment. The Indians didn’t appreciate this much, and as the 20th century dawned there were increasing movements towards self-rule.
Along with the desire for independence, tensions between Hindus and Muslims had also been developing over the years. The Muslims had always been the ruling class though in minority. The prospect of an exclusively Hindu government resulting from ‘one person one vote’ in free India made them wary of independence. So inclined to mistrust Hindu rule as they were to resist the Raj, Muslims’ participation in the freedom struggle was not wholehearted barring few exceptions. In 1915, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi came onto the scene, calling for unity between the two groups in an astonishing display of leadership that eventually led the country to independence.
The profound impact Gandhi had on India and his ability to gain independence through a totally non-violent mass movement made him one of the most remarkable leaders the world has ever known. He led by example, wearing homespun clothes to weaken the British textile industry and orchestrating a march to the sea, where demonstrators proceeded to make their own salt in protest against the British monopoly. Indians gave him the name Mahatma (Great Soul).
In the face of the ever-increasing resistance from the Indians, the British ultimately left India in 1947. Independence came at great cost. While Gandhi was leading a largely Hindu movement, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was fronting a Muslim one through a group called the Muslim League. Jinnah advocated the division of India into two separate states: Muslim and Hindu, and he was able to achieve his goal. When the British left, they created the separate state of Pakistan (including present Bangladesh ), and violence erupted when stranded Muslim and Hindu minorities fled in opposite directions. Within a few weeks, half a million people died in the course of the greatest migration of human beings in the world history. The aging Gandhi vowed to fast until the violence stopped, which it did when his health was seriously threatened.
India ’s history since independence has been marked by disunity and intermittent periods of virtual chaos. In 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic. Gandhi ’s right-hand man, Jawarhalal Nehru , became India ’s first Prime Minister. Nehru was a mixture of success and failure in steering the troubled nation through a period of infant democracy. His biggest blunders were the “Diplomatic sycophancy on Kashmir ” and “Chinese debacle” besides his failure to nourish a visionary leader to take his place. Also he did not nip the evil of corruption in the bud, which has developed in to an all powerful monster presently engulfing the whole nation.
However the so-called ‘peace loving’ rule of Nehru was contrasted by the rule of Lal Bahadur Shastri , who fought Pakistan after it invaded two regions of India . No doubt Shastri is credited with doing for India in as many months what Nehru could not do in equal number of years. Shastri died in 1966 after remaining only 20 months in power, and he was succeeded by Nehru ’s daughter, Indira Gandhi .
With the name Gandhi (though no relation to the Mahatma), Indira was a powerful and unchallenged leader, and opposition remained negligible until she abused her position. As her election to the Parliament was invalidated by the court for using questionable means and the rising opposition began to threaten her power, she called a state of emergency and tried to ‘reform’ the nation, by making some economic and political changes despite her dirty tactics. Her most unpopular policy was ‘forced sterilization’, and she was eventually replaced in 1977 by Morarji Desai of the Janata Party, following the stunning defeat of her party, Congress (Indira). She won back power in 1979, but was later assassinated in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards including her favourite Beant Singh . Her son Rajiv Gandhi, became Prime minister riding the sympathy wave following her killing, but ultimately failed to find favour with the teeming millions despite posing as a ‘visionary leader’ and all that. VP Singh and Chander Shekhar became Prime Ministers for short durations with Congress (I)’s support but fell to Rajiv Gandhi’s political skulduggery, before Rajiv was assassinated by LTTE in 1991 while campaigning for Lok Sabha polls. Narsimaha Rao and HD Devegauda ruled the country carrying Congress Party flag but both proved to be mere fledglings ultimately yielding to a conglomerate of 23 political parties led by Atal Behari Vajpayee of Bharti Janata Party in 1999. Vajpayee had to waste the 5-year term in appeasing the ever-demanding conglomerate and in the process abandoned the very agenda of his own party, which proved to be his Waterloo in 2004. That gave a chance to Congress Party led by Rajiv Gandhi ’s wife of Italian origin, Sonia Gandhi , to stage a come back. Sonia Gandhi formed the Government with the support of 60-strong leftist group in the Lok Sabha and installed a real visionary Sikh, Manmohan Singh , as Prime Minister.
Although India ’s political climate remains divisive, the country has attained apparent stability in recent years. No doubt, today India seems poised to realize its potential as an international economic power.

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Declaration:-- I am more or less inclined to believe this history of India as true. I have gleaned it thankfully from various sources including the ‘net’. My own brush with post-independence India while serving with a national security agency for three and a half turmoilful decades has also something to do with it. Sincere suggestions if any aimed at improving the rhetoric are welcome please.

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All Rights Reserved

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My India - A Paradox !

(Sainiput Punjabi)

Yes, I dare say! There is a paradox of a country on the face of our planet earth. Rather a Sub-Continent within Asia Sub-continent at that! It encompasses the areas from Siachin in the north to Kanya Kumari in the south, and from ArunachalPradesh in the east to Gujarat in the west. It has 7000 km coastline. With 32,87,263 sq km of area, it is the seventh largest country of the world. It has world’s second largest population, which is just over 15% of the total humanity. It has all the four seasons, nicely distributed, and rich variety of vegetation and animal life, with special types of flora and fauna.
At a point of history, when the humankind the world over lived in aboriginal tribes, this country had ‘Harrappa Civilization’ from which the modern world has taken the art of town planning. Shipping was developed here about 5000 years back. To create a reservoir for storage of water for irrigation, the first dam of the world was built in the Saurashtra region of this country. Ayurveda developed in this country was the first medical system of the world. The game of Shatranj was invented here.
The first university of the world was established at Taxla in this very country, 700 years before Christ, which taught more than 60 subjects to more than 10,000 students. Algebra, trigonometry, and calculus were invented and developed in this country. This country invented the number system and gave the concept of ‘zero’ to the world. The decimal system was invented here, 100 years before Christ. Sanskrit, the original language of this country as per Forbes magazine, is the most suitable and easy for use in computer. This country has never attacked any other country in its long history. Until 1896, this country was the only source of diamonds, the world over.
Mark Twain is said to have described this country as a land “…of dreams and romance, of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grand mother of legend, great grand mother of tradition…”
This country has a plethora of religions, sub-religions, places and objects of worship including rats, snakes and elephants, dead and alive god-men, ashrams, maths, holy families; all preaching the virtues of honesty, humility, compassion, equality of humankind, certainty of death, futility of greed, respect for elders etc. Every day of the year in this country is associated with this or that religion, religious place, or god-man. Almost all citizens of this country claim to be the followers of this or that religion, religious organisation, place of worship or god-man. Yet, in a letter to his mother written on his first visit to this country, WinstonChurchill described it as “…a God-less land of snobs and bores.”
In fact this country used to be a geographical region with many independent kingdoms, all perpetually trying to subjugate each other. That was until Islamic invaders humbled the warring kingdoms followed by the British colonial rule. The country achieved freedom after a prolonged struggle in 1947 and ushered into an era of democratic rule. Its army and civil bureaucracy are among the largest in the world. It is a nuclear power launching satellites with plans to send a spaceship to the moon. Its engineers said to be the mind power of the world are developing fifth-generation fighter aircrafts. But, the most obnoxious aspect of governance in this biggest democracy of the world is the criminal-politician-bureaucrat nexus about which less said the better. The result of this unholy nexus is all pervading corruption and double standards in public and private life.
Things are so topsy-turvy in this country that politicians are the most unethical and unprincipled players of governance: those in power and those in the opposition. While most of the ruling politicians irrespective of their party(s) remain busy in devising ways and means to amass wealth and the subsequent damage control exercises besides enacting impracticable laws, those in opposition have no motive other than blocking the government business in Parliament and the State Assemblies. The constitution of the country swears by secularism, but all political parties exploit religious sentiments of the people to the maximum to get votes. So much so, the communists theoretically opposed to the concept of religion also unashamedly participate in religious practices like ‘DurgaPuja’ in this country, just for the sake of votes. And tragically, the general public here is forgetful enough, so as to elect the same sets of unprincipled politicians and even known criminals again and again. No doubt, of late the country’s judiciary at the higher levels and the Election commission have taken up measures aimed at cleansing the polity, but ever increasing population, illiteracy and religion/caste based divisions are the main hurdles.
Next to the self-aggrandising politicians are the government employees, who flout the rules and misuse their official position to make money. Most of them come late, shirk work on various pretexts, enjoy atrociously extended lunch break, and leave for home early on routine basis, as a matter of right. That is despite the fact that they are entitled to about 200 holidays in a year. Also despite the fact that a very big chunk of them gets jobs and promotions under reservation, even being low on merit and very poor in performance. To behave in such a shameless manner, the employees are helped by numerous trade unions, whose main aim is to ensure pay and perks for them without doing any work.
Nothing happens in this country without ‘sifarish’ or bribe. If you want a ration card, a passport, or a driving licence. If you want a correction in your inflated power or telephone bill. If you want railway reservation. If you want to register the sale or purchase of property. If you want to admit your child in a school of your choice. If you want timely admission and doctor’s attention in a government hospital. Cent per cent chances are; you will have to pull strings from ‘above’ through ‘sifarish’, or cough up the befitting bribe.
In this country, the human rights organisations are only concerned about (read against) the killing of terrorists and criminals by the security forces, while they have nothing to say about (against) the killing of innocent and unarmed people including women and children by the terrorists and criminals.
In this country, the police has become an instrument of suppression in the rulers’ hands. A prime minister swearing by democracy, whose election was invalidated by the court for using unfair means, had the tenacity to remain in power by imposing ‘emergency’. In this country, the security guards including a favoured one killed a prime minister.
In this biggest democracy of the world, ‘leaders’ are only born in certain families. A number of this country’s natural citizens are loyal to the neighbouring Pakistan to the extent that they do not even tolerate the victory of this country over Pakistan on the playground. A number of this country’s citizens take out umbrellas when clouds appear in Moscow or Beijing.
A big majority of the motorists including those holding valid driving licences in this country do not have the basic knowledge (read sense) of traffic rules, besides being foolish enough so as not to recognise the rights of other road users. Most of them stop at the red light crossing only when the police is present. Besides, they are totally unaware of the purpose of ‘zebra crossings’.
In this country people throw garbage on public places, relish in extending their houses/shops etc on to the roads and streets, steal power with impunity, try to break the queue where ever possible, kill each other in the name of religion, get jobs on the force of fake degrees or bribe, and conduct pre-birth tests to abort baby girls.
In this country, industrialists, traders, vendors, shopkeepers, transporters, private practitioners, and various types of other self-employed people seem to be thriving on evasion of taxes. The moment the government attempts to streamline the tax structure, they raise an outcry.
In this country god-men live like kings, and places of worship are built on encroached lands. The defence forces are short of thousands of officers while countless educated boys and girls face unemployment. The lawyers and court officials fleece the harried people seeking ‘justice’ from the court. The pending court cases go on piling up resulting in agonising delay in dispensing of justice while a good number of judges’ posts perpetually remain vacant. Some people even born about or after the freedom-year (1947) get pension as ‘freedom fighters’ while there are many instances of real freedom fighters facing disease and starvation in old age.
In this country, drought, death and diseases are attributed to the ‘anger’ of this or that deity. Teachers engage in private tuition. Government doctors run private clinics neglecting the hospital work. Industrialists take huge bank loans and refuse to pay back under various pretexts. There are those who produce spurious drugs and other consumables endangering common man’s life. Some persons manufacture synthetic milk using chemicals like urea to mint money. The ministers and bureaucrats stash unaccounted currency notes in ‘pujarooms’. Those accused of corruption and other malpractices move about in the society without an iota of guilt on their faces. The list is long, and the tragedy is that all these people claim to be religious to the core. So much so, even those engaged in managing the affairs of various religions and religious places seem to believe that being religious and making a livelihood are two different things.
This country has three names: India, Bharat, and Hindostan, all officially valid. No short of a paradox where I live and so do all the people of this country! Believe it or not!

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I am a non-believer !

(Sainiput)

On the basis of experience down the ages, the humankind has got divided into two schools of thought; ‘Astik’ (Theist) and ‘Nastik’ (Atheist). Astik, in an over whelming majority, are those who believe in God: Believers. Nastik, in a microscopic minority, are those who do not believe in God: Non-believers. While the Astik school of thought all over the planet earth has devised various religions consisting of a plethora of rituals, the Nastik School simply believes in materialism.
Of the two; Astik and Nastik, I am an ardent supporter of the later; Nastik. Thankfully the avid writings of Gurbux Singh Preetlari and his son Navtej Singh, Khushwant Singh, Mohinder Singh Walia, Darshan Singh Maini, Sasthi Brata, Dr. Hawkins, Prof. Yash Pal and the likes have shaped my perceptions. For that matter, I do not recognise the existence of God, heaven, hell, soul, salvation, and life before birth and after death, which are only based on blind faith, and cannot be perceived. All these, I feel are mere fabrications of the crafty priests of various religions aimed at self-aggrandizement, and patronised by the ruling classes known to assume the role of God-kings from time to time.
What I recognise is the existence of atoms comprising of Electrons, Protons and Neutrons, uniting to form distinct particles in bulk, which form four basic elements namely earth, fire, water and air, of which the whole material world is composed. All bodies are the combination of these four basic elements in different proportions and the so-called soul is the quality of consciousness in each living body. As such, there dose not exist any “invisible, unchangeable and immortal soul” as claimed by the Astik school of thought. The consciousness of each living body, resulting from the combination of the four basic elements, exists with body and perishes with body itself, as it is associated solely with the body. Death comes when the coordinated functioning of various body organs is interrupted due to old age, disease, injury, hunger, dehydration, suffocation, excessive heat or cold, fatigue etc. When a person dies, the wind in him stops to circulate, the earth relapses to the earth, and the fluid to the water, while the heat ceases to exist for want of body structure. That puts an end to his consciousness in the same manner as the sparkle vanishes from the lamp. Neither is there any other world, nor does the so-called soul fly away to the so-called hell or heaven, or to be born again. With this basic knowledge, I consider the so-called reincarnation theory as meaningless. The truth is that you live only once and after death you will never come back in any living form. But your seventy odd years on the planet earth will not be without opportunities, disguised of course as obstacles. A beautiful woman (a robust man if you are a woman) who beckons you to seduce, an unpaved road that calls you to trudge it, an offer of a career that beckons you to choose it! What is required on your part is only to shun your cocoon of lethargy and comfort and take the coming obstacles (read opportunities) head on, one by one, to live a full life.
Though I am no scientist, yet as do the scientists, I recognise the human body as a biological machine, which is a highly sophisticated and complex mechanism with unique functions and substructures. It is built up of bioelectrical devices, and is self-producing, self-sustaining, self-adjusting, self-heating and fully automatic. For the proper maintenance of the body machine, the system exercises a shrewd control over the energy part of the mechanism, since it is this energy created by the metabolic process that keeps the body machine working. It keeps a definite portion of energy in the form of reserve, which it does not spend under normal circumstances. It exercises an expert control on the expendable portion of energy also. It also sees that the reserve energy remains intact and the expendable portion is always recouped. To ensure these conditions and to avoid all possible means of the dissipation of the energy, the system employs various protective devices like fatigue, giddiness, swoon, sleep etc. as required, and transports itself from the conscious state (maximum activity state) to the unconscious state (minimum activity state). During these changeovers, which occur due to illness or under conditions of malnutrition or overwork, the non-vital organs, which are the main energy dissipaters in the system, are affected. First the eye then the voice organ, next the ear, next the sense of touch, then the muscles and so on. In the condition of prostration, the entire available energy is directed only towards the maintenance of vital organs (elementary canal, heart, lungs, brain) and in fighting out the disease. In abnormal condition of a disease when there is minimum production of energy and maximum drain on the reserve energy, there is a gradual running down of the system. In case, in this fight, the system is at the point of the defeat with germs overpowering it, then as a last resort the system wages a desperate last-ditch battle with the energy. It either pours out the reserve energy in one single dose or fights a regulated pitched battle under the unconscious state (coma). If the system collapses and the vital organs fail to function one by one, the manifestation of life stops in the body. But, without doubt I feel that the human body is in a state perpetually developing for the better. I also feel that with the passage of time the man’s prostrate gland will develop into two organs; one to control urine flow and the other as sexual intercourse facilitator. Likewise, the set of 32 human teeth will be replaced by two horseshoe-like structures to crush food, without the present day dental problems. Then, there will be no tissue as well, forming that tube-shaped sac called appendix attached without any use (other than the problematic appendicitis) to our large intestine. Also, I am aware that currently scientists are concentrating their efforts on the changes that take place within the cell during the aging process and trying to find out a suitable chemical that can delay the occurrence of these changes. Already a few such chemicals are under trial. This chemical, if and when found, would be able to add more fruitful years to our life span.
The human brain, I feel, has immense capability, of which only up to about 13% has become usable so far. I also feel that the capacity of our brain under use can be sizeably increased if it is used more often. Furthermore, like Prof. Yash Pal (our renowned scientist), I have a feeling that the habit of accepting a lot of things on faith, without inquiry, can produce a mindset, in which many processing capabilities of the brain first go to sleep and then are eliminated. The brain grows through use, and the honest spirit of questioning rather than simply learning by rote is vital exercise for the brain.
The valid ‘proof’ or ‘knowledge’ for me is only what can be perceived through our five senses; hear, smell, touch, see and taste. ‘Inference’ and ‘testimony’ recognised as means of ‘proof’ or ‘knowledge’ by the Astiks are full of flaws and hence not reliable. For that matter, I totally reject the theory that some one called God has created the world. Rather I consider the material world to be the fortuitous combination of the four elements, which do not require a creator (God) to fashion them into design. Where from did come the atoms evolving into the material world, is neither known to the Nastiks nor the Astiks.
Coming to the most practical aspect of my belief, I do not recognise the traditional theory of liberation from pain. So long as the living body exists, it cannot be free from pain, because pain is an antecedent of life. Liberation from pain can be attained only on death. Anyhow minimization of pain and maximization of pleasure is possible. More over, pleasure should not be rejected because of its complicity with pain, and one should not reject the pleasure of this life upon the false notion of life beyond death.
Life wise, I am plain pleasure-seeking. I believe that pleasure is the highest need of life. Further that, so long as the human being lives, he should try for maximum enjoyment and keep the pain at its minimum possible level. In other words, people should live happily as long as they exist. But any action rendering more pain than pleasure to oneself or others is entirely unacceptable. Also, the real goal of human life is in the journey of life and not in its destination. To live a full life, one should have a high goal and strive with a single-minded devotion to achieve the same. And the beauty of the goal is not in achieving it, but how one strives to achieve it. That is because some goals may not be fully achieved. Some jobs may not end in success. Some relationships may not be longer lasting. Some hopes may not be fulfilled. Some endeavours may not be completed. Some dreams may not be realised. But when one falls short of one’s goal, one can be proud of what one found along the way. One can always count on the wonderful things, which came into one’s life because one tried to do something.
Money for me is the strongest thing on earth and the ultimate means of enjoyment. I fully support Khushwant Singh when he says that ‘the more money you have the stronger you are. You can buy all the wine you want and the most beautiful women will come running to you. With money, you can bribe witnesses to lie on oath and pervert the course of justice. With money, you can bribe judges, lawyers, politicians, preachers of religion, journalists and anyone else worth bribing to say whatever you want them to say’. But by all standards, money is to be earned by fair means. Unfair and filthy means should not to be used at all to earn money, because, these are detrimental to oneself and more so to the society. Also, the use of filthy means to earn money leads to selfishness, which in turn militates against social discipline and reduces the person concerned to the status of animals.
As amply explained by columnists Vimla Patil & Yogesh Snehi, I believe that man-woman relationship in the societies world over actually stems from the ‘subject-object’ concept. Subject is the one who ‘does’ and the object is the one on whom it is ‘done’. That comes from the sex act, which places the woman at the receiving end: with an active role for man as ‘penetrator’ and the passive role for the woman as ‘penetrated’. Other examples of this concept are: Driver-driven, Seer-seen, Worker-workshop, Seed-earth. That status of the woman has resulted in social attitudes, which have made her the object of verbally abusive terminology. It has in fact so sexualised the woman, that the abuse may be targeting anyone, but it is the woman who is ‘penetrated’ and ‘objectified’ in the form of the victim’s daughter, sister or mother. As such, the dilemma of woman is that she is in chains everywhere. In the same context, the Indian society at its deepest core thinks that the man is born to rule and the woman to be ruled. Accordingly, the right or wrong actions of the man-dominated society have chalked out the life-graphs of women through ages in India. One may like it or not, women have all along been considered the ‘property’ of men. They have been kidnapped, punished, abandoned, left to live miserable lives as widows and even sold as slaves by all-powerful men. Things are not much different today. Women suffer the same humiliations even in modern India. Therefore, playing the role subservient to the male chauvinistic pig, the Indian women have come to be divided into five types. That is as per their forbearance, bent of mind and other personality traits, as crystallized by the actions and reactions of the man-dominated societies through ages. The five types have their clear-cut role models in Indian mythology and culture and all the five of them stand out as true-to-life icons of their respective types. These role models known as ‘Panchkanyas’ are; Sita, the wife of Rama; Draupadi, the wife of five Pandava brothers; Mandodari, the wife of Ravna; Ahilya, the wife of sage Gautama and Tara, the wife of the tyrant monkey-king Bali. All of them were legendry beauties and their lustre caused kings, sages and others to covet some of them. The epics of Ramayana and Mahabharta describe the gigantic wars fought for two of them, Sita and Draupdi, whose beauty made Ravna and Duryodhana, lust after them. It appears that the life–graph of each of these legendry women is somehow replicated (like a jigsaw puzzle) in the lives of millions of Indian women even today. Suffice it to say, every Indian woman has a little or more of all the five types in her. As inheritors of the ‘Panchkanya’ concept through ages, Indian women are unique. Fittingly enough, the Indian tradition links each of the five types to five different elements; Earth, Fire, Water, Wind and Space. Accordingly, the present day Indian women have great affinity to each elemental woman by the way they look, feel or react to the world around them. Most Indian women tolerate and accept the worst kind of injustice like Sita (Earth) and remain steadfast in their duty and devotion to their husbands and families. Like Draupadi (Fire), they also hide storms of anguish, anger and revenge in their hearts. They believe that the curse of a virtuous, strong woman can ruin the most powerful of men. Like Mandodari (Water), they live a life of duality; with the turbulence of varied experiences on the surface, and a deep, silent core in their mind, where wisdom originates. They have an inherent gift of distinguishing between right and wrong. In a crisis, they know how to insist on doing what they consider right. Like Ahilya (Wind), they have a dormant power buried deep down in their psyches. They have the strength to move like the wind, and have the compassion to forgive wrongs done to them. Like Tara (Space), they seek a special lustre of their own. They are intelligent, compassionate and large-hearted with vastness of space. From this niche, they spread their compassion and tenderness.
I do not remember who said it, but also I believe that there are double standards in all aspects of life in India which one has to “live and face” from birth to death. The tragedy is that these double standards are heavily weighed against the woman as compared to man. In childhood, all aberrations on the part of a son are dismissed as mere ‘pranks of boys’ while daughters are always taught, rather pressurized, to be gentle and suave or so to say lady-like. As a result, the women down the ages have been missing the joys of life in their pursuit to become gentle and suave. The matter does not end here. While a husband indulging in infidelity is always welcomed back into the family fold, a woman who dares to take the pleasurable path is considered beyond redemption. So strange are the ways of society that woman's subjugation appears to be a conspiracy of men and in this vicious circle the artificial conditioning is passed from mother to the daughter from generation to generation. Looking back one finds that the double standards of morality for men and women were prescribed by Hindu religious texts and perpetuated by customs, conventions and traditions. For example, a man after the death of his wife was encouraged to remarry while a widow was not only not-allowed to remarry but was also expected, even forced, to commit ‘sati’. While a wife had to be physically ‘pure’ for her husband, the men were allowed to keep any number of wives and concubines. It so happened that the women's bodies became the repositories of men's honour and men had an obligation to one another to hand over their women 'pure' while giving their daughters away through marriage.
About love and sex, I agree with what the London based Pakistani Psychotherapist, Mrs. Shahrukh Hussain has to say in ‘The Virago Book Of Erotic Myths And Legends’: ‘Love is as essential to us as breathing and sexual fulfilment as vital to our sustenance and well-being as food. Yet a taboo came into being at some stage, unannounced and unexplained, which reduced this indispensable and intense energy to a vice’. Suffice it to say that sexual intercourse is actually a great stress reliever and a booster of emotional and physical energy. The hard fact is that sexual intimacy between consenting adults improves health by promoting necessary neurochemicals and hormones.
Anger, I learnt rather late, is one of the major risk factors for heart attack and paralytic stroke, because negative emotions cause narrowing of arteries supplying blood to heart and brain in the long run. According to some eminent cardiologists including Dr. K. K. Aggarwal, Executive Vice-President of Heart Care Foundation of India, ‘angry thoughts and the resultant negative emotions circulate and react with every cell in the body instructing the body to constrict the arteries, increase the pulse rate, and raise blood pressure. Repeated episodes of anger can lead to severe problems like heart attack and paralysis and sometimes even sudden death. Negative emotions like anger act as a slow poison, which kills the individual over a period. We should realise that during anger one loses the power of discrimination, so it has to be controlled much before it becomes full blown. The initial stage of the malaise is irritability and, therefore, its onset should be controlled at the earliest. It is also dangerous to run at a high speed while in a rage, as it alarms the whole nervous system, and chemicals such as adrenaline are released in large amounts in the body. Many exercises to control anger like observing silence for 20 to 30 minutes a day, speaking sweet and soft words and with every bout taking a walk or drinking cold water, doing ‘Pranayam’ and chanting of ‘Om’ for five to six minutes are suggested’.
History wise I am not the only one to propound what I have stated above. The people of my genre (Nastik) have existed through the ages. The problem is only their microscopic minority. The exponents of Astik School of thought being in majority have so organised the world that generations of people go on joining them without a murmur. So much so, despite Nastik philosophy being very old in India, no text is available on it. Finding mention in Budhist, Jain, ‘Samakhya’, and ‘Yoga’ sources, this philosophy also known as ‘Carvak’ or ‘Lokayata’ is preserved for us only in the writings, which tried to negate or criticise it.
Now something about the overwhelming Astik school of thought! There might be some good people among the Astiks, but, I have yet to find one. What I have found is that most of them follow double standards in day-to-day life, believing and deceiving their so-called God in every action. First, they are not unanimous on the forms of God and how he created the world. Then the plethora of religions and contradictory religious practices and rituals aimed at pleasing God. About various religions, less said the better. All the religions preach love for humanity, but most of their followers limit their love, only to their co-religionists. Not only that, there are sects and sub-sects within every religion, old and new, which remain in perpetual state of conflict with each other, often indulging in orgies of bloodshed. By the way, are we all not aware that religion is the single biggest cause of bloodshed in the whole world? Further down the line are the dubious means of existence in every society at individual, family, community, state, and country levels, where by hoodwinking and treachery, blatant and concealed, are in vogue. While the ruling classes all over the world justify their bad actions as politics or diplomacy, the common people call such actions as professionalism.
Concentrating on the Indian scene, we have no dearth of blatant double standards or dishonesty at all levels among the Astiks. There are our politicians swearing by the holy Constitution of India and building fortunes by misusing their Constitutional position. There are spineless bureaucrats dancing to the tunes of their political masters and making fast buck. There are reserve-category government officials getting promotions and other benefits over the heads of their general category colleagues and seniors, and doing little work. There are countless business people evading taxes, and industrialists defrauding the nation in various ways. There are judges selling ‘justice’ for a price. There are doctors of government hospitals making money through private practice. There are manufacturers of spurious drugs. There are teachers illegally giving home tuitions. There are others, who steal electricity, travel without ticket, and adulterate eatables and other consumables for easy money. There are those who print fake currency. There are those who smuggle and sell narcotics. There are those who throw garbage on public roads, parks and other open places causing stench and disease. There are those who break queue at hospital, railway station, bus stand, bank, post-office, billing office etc. There are those who encroach upon the roads and streets causing traffic bottlenecks. There are ‘halwaees’ weighing cardboard box along with ‘mithaee’. There are those who build places of worship to grab public lands for commercial use. There are those who steal money from donation boxes of religious places. There are ‘religious-minded’ government officials who misuse their official vehicles to visit places of worship. There are those who disturb others with religious functions of various kinds, day in and day out. A politician family hauled up for allegedly amassing unaccounted wealth cries ‘religion in danger’. A president of Shiromini Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee is accused of killing her daughter for marrying a boy of her choice. A chairman of Punjab Public Service Commission makes crores in jobs-for-money scam. A flying club boss at Patiala makes flying licences against illegal gratification. A ‘Baba’ running an orphanage gets arrested for ‘illegal sale’ of his dead wards’ eyes. Another ‘Baba’ misappropriates huge ‘Kaar Sewa’ funds for personal gains. An army Major stages fake encounter with Pakistani army in J&K for rewards. A politician stashes ill-gotten cash in the ‘pujaroom’ of his house. A 'DGP' is arrested for receiving illegal gratification in Maharashtra. A ‘Shankracharya’ is accused of murder. A chief Minister conspires to siphon away crores in a fodder scam. All confirmed Astiks!
A myth that Astiks blatantly propound to camouflage their misdeeds, is that everyone pays for his misdeeds. Examples are given of those who indulged in corruption and faced punishment later or suffered in some other way. But, there are countless others who go unpunished. ‘In fact’, in the words of Khushwant Singh, ‘there are many who do not suffer any pangs of guilt, remain in good health, eat well, live well, enjoy life and esteem of their fellow citizens, send their children to the best schools and colleges and see them fixed in plum jobs and married into rich families which ensure their future prospects’. Do all those bigwigs feel any guilt for squandering public money on weddings in their families? What justification do our politicians and bureaucrats have for amassing of wealth worth crores by misusing their official positions? By the way they all claim to be followers of this or that religious faith. Again in the words of Khushwant Singh, “they must be having explanations to have peace of mind, but to say that they would suffer for their sins, may be in their next lives as well, is just hoodwinking”.

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Invitation:- Guys and gals of any age having similar bent of mind are invited for friendship/chat please.

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Why to write ?

(Sainiput)

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ they say, and there is no denying the fact. I am all praise for the unknown person who coined this most appropriate statement. It has proved its efficacy in the past, and is equally applicable to the present. In fact a universal truth, it has something to do with the mental faculties of human kind, which are very slowly developing for the better.

Passing through various stages of development like homo-sapiens and all that, the human beings have since become capable of appreciating something called argument. The argument came with the human brain imbibing capability called thinking; to consider the pros and cons of any given situation before reacting to it. As such, the days when the human beings used to fight like animals to solve their disputes or to have their say are on the way out. There was a stage even during the recent centuries when the fore-bearers of certain religions carried sword to make non-believers follow their point of view. Though that kind of method is still in vogue in one form or another as some countries are still fighting, yet the general scenario has largely changed, and the negotiation is given preference over fighting. This has become possible only with the thinking power of humans giving them the power of reasoning with the help of argument.

The reasoning by argument is promoted by ideas, which in turn stem from experience. As such, the human brain is achieving more and more heights of development, with the help of experience, which has to be passed from generation to generation in the form of ideas. This process of passing on the experiences, and the resulting ideas, is called education. The education as such, deals with imparting of knowledge or so to say ideas in bulk. The human memory not yet having developed enough to assimilate the wealth of all the ideas cumulating from the past experiences, some medium is required to store the ideas in bulk, so that these can be passed on to the coming generations in the form of knowledge from time to time, to help the developing human brain. The written word is the medium as such, which records and stores the wealth of knowledge for human kind.

The written word comes into existence with the help of pen. Job of the pen is to write. The one who wields the pen (also read Keyboard) to write is the writer. The power of writing or wielding the pen to write only comes to the one who is pregnant with knowledge or the bulk of ideas resulting from experience. As such the pen representing the writer is a medium in the development of humanity for the better. It helps humankind abandon the path of violence and take to reasoning.

So, if one is making some achievements in life especially by circumventing pitfalls, one must be having many experiences, assimilating a crowd of ideas in memory. In order to help the humankind continue its march for the better, one should like to share all one’s ideas with future generations of humankind. Some of the ideas might have certainly sprouted from one’s mistakes, which if passed on to the coming generations could also help them learn from mistakes. One can store all one’s ideas for future only if one transforms them into written words. And for that, one should write.

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