Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
To obtain this file as a WordPerfect document, download here
Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789
The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:
Articles:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.
2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.
5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.
7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.
8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.
9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.
10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.
12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.
13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.
14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.
15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.
16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.
17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26, 1789
Friday, July 17, 2009
The 300-Year Colonial Adventure is Over at Last, Which is Why Britain is in Political Crisis
Facts every Indian should know and see that it is not allowed to repeated:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/06/outsourcing-unrest/
Outsourcing Unrest
The 300-Year Colonial Adventure is Over at Last, Which is Why Britain is in Political Crisis
by George Monbiot / June 27th, 2009
Why now? It’s not as if this is the first time our representatives have been caught out. The history of governments in all countries is the history of scandal, as those who rise to the top are generally the most ambitious, ruthless and unscrupulous people politics can produce. Pushing their own interests to the limit, they teeter perennially on the brink of disgrace, except when they fly clean over the edge. So why does the current ballyhoo threaten to destroy not only the government but also our antediluvian political system?
The past 15 years have produced the cash-for-questions racket, the Hinduja and Ecclestone affairs, the lies and fabrications which led to the invasion of Iraq, the forced abandonment of the BAE corruption probe, the cash-for-honors caper and the cash-for-amendments scandal. By comparison to the outright subversion of the functions of government in some of these cases, the expenses scandal is small beer. Any one of them should have prompted the sweeping political reforms we are now debating. But they didn’t.
The expenses scandal, by contrast, could kill the Labour party. It might also force politicians of all parties to address our unjust voting system, the unelected House of Lords, the excessive power of the executive, the legalized blackmail used by the whips and a score of further anachronisms and injustices. Why is it different?
I believe that the current political crisis has little to do with the expenses scandal, still less to do with Gordon Brown’s leadership. It arises because our economic system can no longer extract wealth from other nations. For the past 300 years, the revolutions and reforms experienced by almost all other developed countries have been averted in Britain by foreign remittances.
The social unrest which might have transformed our politics was instead outsourced to our colonies and unwilling trading partners. The rebellions in Ireland, India, China, the Caribbean, Egypt, South Africa, Malaya, Kenya, Iran and other places we subjugated were the price of political peace in Britain. Following decolonization, our plunder of other nations was sustained by the banks. Now, for the first time in three centuries, they can no longer deliver, and we must at last confront our problems.
There will probably never be a full account of the robbery this country organized, but there are a few snapshots. In his book Capitalism and Colonial Production, Hamza Alavi estimates that the resource flow from India to Britain between 1793 and 1803 was in the order of £2m a year, the equivalent of many billions today. The economic drain from India, he notes, “has not only been a major factor in India’s impoverishment . . . it has also been a very significant factor in the Industrial Revolution in Britain.”(1) As Ralph Davis observes in The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade, from the 1760s onwards India’s wealth “bought the national debt back from the Dutch and others . . . leaving Britain nearly free from overseas indebtedness when it came to face the great French wars from 1793.”
In France, by contrast, as Eric Hobsbawn notes in The Age of Revolution, “the financial troubles of the monarchy brought matters to a head.” In 1788, half of France’s national expenditure was used to service its debt: “the American War and its debt broke the back of the monarchy.”
Even as the French were overthrowing the ancient regime, Britain’s landed classes were able to strengthen their economic power, seizing common property from the country’s poor by means of enclosure. Partly as a result of remittances from India and the Caribbean, the economy was booming and the state had the funds to ride out political crises. Later, after smashing India’s own industrial capacity, Britain forced that country to become a major export market for our manufactured goods, sustaining industrial employment here (and avoiding social unrest) long after our products and processes became uncompetitive.
Colonial plunder permitted the British state to balance its resource deficits as well. For some 200 years a river of food flowed into this country from places like Ireland, India and the Caribbean. In The Blood Never Dried, John Newsinger reveals that in 1748 Jamaica alone sent 17,400 tons of sugar to Britain; by 1815 this had risen to 73,800 tons. It was all produced by stolen labour.
Just as grain was sucked out of Ireland at the height of its great famine, so Britain continued to drain India of food during its catastrophic hungers. In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis shows that Indian wheat exports to the UK doubled between 1876 and 1877 as subsistence there collapsed. Several million Indians died of starvation. In the North Western provinces the famine was wholly engineered by British policy, as their surplus production was exported to offset poor English harvests in 1876 and 1877.
Britain, in other words, outsourced famine as well as social unrest. There was terrible poverty in this country in the second half of the 19th Century, but not mass starvation. The bad harvest of 1788 helped precipitate the French Revolution, but the British state avoided such hazards. Others died on our behalf.
In the late 19th Century, Davis shows, Britain’s vast deficits with the United States, Germany and its white Dominions were balanced by huge annual surpluses with India and (as a result of the opium trade) China. For a generation “the starving Indian and Chinese peasantries . . . braced the entire system of international settlements, allowing England’s continued financial supremacy to temporarily co-exist with its relative industrial decline. ”Britain’s trade surpluses with India allowed the City to become the world’s financial capital.
Its role in British colonization was not a passive one. The bankruptcy and subsequent British takeover of Egypt in 1882 was hastened by a loan from Rothschild’s bank whose execution, Newsinger records, amounted to “fraud on a massive scale.” Jardine Matheson, once the biggest narco-trafficking outfit in world history (it dominated the Chinese opium trade), later formed a major investment bank, Jardine Fleming. It was taken over by JP Morgan Chase in 2000.
We lost our colonies, but the plunder has continued by other means. As Joseph Stiglitz shows in Globalization and its Discontents, the capital liberalization forced on Asian economies by the IMF permitted northern traders to loot hundreds of billions of dollars, precipitating the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Poorer nations have also been strong-armed into a series of amazingly one-sided treaties and commitments, such as Trade Related Investment Measures, bilateral investment agreements and the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements. If you have ever wondered how a small, densely-populated country which produces very little supports itself, I would urge you to study these asymmetric arrangements.
But now, as John Lanchester demonstrates in his fascinating essay in the London Review of Books, the City could be fatally wounded. The nation which relied on financial services may take generations to recover from their collapse. The great British adventure — three centuries spent pillaging the labor, wealth and resources of other countries — is over. We cannot accept this, and seek gleeful revenge on a government which can no longer insulate us from reality.
George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books, The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain; as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper (UK). Read other articles by George, or visit George's website.
This article was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 9:00am and is filed under Colonialism, Corruption, Empire, History, United Kingdom.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/06/outsourcing-unrest/
Outsourcing Unrest
The 300-Year Colonial Adventure is Over at Last, Which is Why Britain is in Political Crisis
by George Monbiot / June 27th, 2009
Why now? It’s not as if this is the first time our representatives have been caught out. The history of governments in all countries is the history of scandal, as those who rise to the top are generally the most ambitious, ruthless and unscrupulous people politics can produce. Pushing their own interests to the limit, they teeter perennially on the brink of disgrace, except when they fly clean over the edge. So why does the current ballyhoo threaten to destroy not only the government but also our antediluvian political system?
The past 15 years have produced the cash-for-questions racket, the Hinduja and Ecclestone affairs, the lies and fabrications which led to the invasion of Iraq, the forced abandonment of the BAE corruption probe, the cash-for-honors caper and the cash-for-amendments scandal. By comparison to the outright subversion of the functions of government in some of these cases, the expenses scandal is small beer. Any one of them should have prompted the sweeping political reforms we are now debating. But they didn’t.
The expenses scandal, by contrast, could kill the Labour party. It might also force politicians of all parties to address our unjust voting system, the unelected House of Lords, the excessive power of the executive, the legalized blackmail used by the whips and a score of further anachronisms and injustices. Why is it different?
I believe that the current political crisis has little to do with the expenses scandal, still less to do with Gordon Brown’s leadership. It arises because our economic system can no longer extract wealth from other nations. For the past 300 years, the revolutions and reforms experienced by almost all other developed countries have been averted in Britain by foreign remittances.
The social unrest which might have transformed our politics was instead outsourced to our colonies and unwilling trading partners. The rebellions in Ireland, India, China, the Caribbean, Egypt, South Africa, Malaya, Kenya, Iran and other places we subjugated were the price of political peace in Britain. Following decolonization, our plunder of other nations was sustained by the banks. Now, for the first time in three centuries, they can no longer deliver, and we must at last confront our problems.
There will probably never be a full account of the robbery this country organized, but there are a few snapshots. In his book Capitalism and Colonial Production, Hamza Alavi estimates that the resource flow from India to Britain between 1793 and 1803 was in the order of £2m a year, the equivalent of many billions today. The economic drain from India, he notes, “has not only been a major factor in India’s impoverishment . . . it has also been a very significant factor in the Industrial Revolution in Britain.”(1) As Ralph Davis observes in The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade, from the 1760s onwards India’s wealth “bought the national debt back from the Dutch and others . . . leaving Britain nearly free from overseas indebtedness when it came to face the great French wars from 1793.”
In France, by contrast, as Eric Hobsbawn notes in The Age of Revolution, “the financial troubles of the monarchy brought matters to a head.” In 1788, half of France’s national expenditure was used to service its debt: “the American War and its debt broke the back of the monarchy.”
Even as the French were overthrowing the ancient regime, Britain’s landed classes were able to strengthen their economic power, seizing common property from the country’s poor by means of enclosure. Partly as a result of remittances from India and the Caribbean, the economy was booming and the state had the funds to ride out political crises. Later, after smashing India’s own industrial capacity, Britain forced that country to become a major export market for our manufactured goods, sustaining industrial employment here (and avoiding social unrest) long after our products and processes became uncompetitive.
Colonial plunder permitted the British state to balance its resource deficits as well. For some 200 years a river of food flowed into this country from places like Ireland, India and the Caribbean. In The Blood Never Dried, John Newsinger reveals that in 1748 Jamaica alone sent 17,400 tons of sugar to Britain; by 1815 this had risen to 73,800 tons. It was all produced by stolen labour.
Just as grain was sucked out of Ireland at the height of its great famine, so Britain continued to drain India of food during its catastrophic hungers. In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis shows that Indian wheat exports to the UK doubled between 1876 and 1877 as subsistence there collapsed. Several million Indians died of starvation. In the North Western provinces the famine was wholly engineered by British policy, as their surplus production was exported to offset poor English harvests in 1876 and 1877.
Britain, in other words, outsourced famine as well as social unrest. There was terrible poverty in this country in the second half of the 19th Century, but not mass starvation. The bad harvest of 1788 helped precipitate the French Revolution, but the British state avoided such hazards. Others died on our behalf.
In the late 19th Century, Davis shows, Britain’s vast deficits with the United States, Germany and its white Dominions were balanced by huge annual surpluses with India and (as a result of the opium trade) China. For a generation “the starving Indian and Chinese peasantries . . . braced the entire system of international settlements, allowing England’s continued financial supremacy to temporarily co-exist with its relative industrial decline. ”Britain’s trade surpluses with India allowed the City to become the world’s financial capital.
Its role in British colonization was not a passive one. The bankruptcy and subsequent British takeover of Egypt in 1882 was hastened by a loan from Rothschild’s bank whose execution, Newsinger records, amounted to “fraud on a massive scale.” Jardine Matheson, once the biggest narco-trafficking outfit in world history (it dominated the Chinese opium trade), later formed a major investment bank, Jardine Fleming. It was taken over by JP Morgan Chase in 2000.
We lost our colonies, but the plunder has continued by other means. As Joseph Stiglitz shows in Globalization and its Discontents, the capital liberalization forced on Asian economies by the IMF permitted northern traders to loot hundreds of billions of dollars, precipitating the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Poorer nations have also been strong-armed into a series of amazingly one-sided treaties and commitments, such as Trade Related Investment Measures, bilateral investment agreements and the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements. If you have ever wondered how a small, densely-populated country which produces very little supports itself, I would urge you to study these asymmetric arrangements.
But now, as John Lanchester demonstrates in his fascinating essay in the London Review of Books, the City could be fatally wounded. The nation which relied on financial services may take generations to recover from their collapse. The great British adventure — three centuries spent pillaging the labor, wealth and resources of other countries — is over. We cannot accept this, and seek gleeful revenge on a government which can no longer insulate us from reality.
George Monbiot is the author of the best selling books, The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain; as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian newspaper (UK). Read other articles by George, or visit George's website.
This article was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 9:00am and is filed under Colonialism, Corruption, Empire, History, United Kingdom.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Celebrating Birthdays
Celebrating Birthdays
Spiritual meaning
‘Celebrating a birthday is actually expressing gratitude to God for the opportunity to do sadhana (spiritual practice) during the past year and praying for His grace in the coming year.’
The birthday is the day to assess spiritual progress of the embodied soul: It is the “day of growth” indicating spiritual progress. For the soul to progress spiritually, purification of the subtle body and imbibing of the three components, ‘trigunas’ from Deities in appropriate proportions is necessary. The spiritual progress of an embodied soul begins at birth. Even if an individual does not undertake actual spiritual practice, due to various spiritual rituals performed on him the sattva component in him increases thus initiating his spiritual progress. Birthday is the day to take stock of the effect of spiritual rituals on his subtle body. From a spiritual perspective, birthday is the day to assess one’s spiritual progress and if there is spiritual progress then it signifies actual growth.
Birthday is the day to enhance one’s ability to imbibe chaitanya: One’s Birthday enhances the ability of an embodied soul to imbibe chaitanya (Divine Consciousness) by invoking Deities. This action raises the sattva component in the atmosphere and the embodied soul achieves stability of the inner mind.
An individual is born with a spiritual level which is carried forward from the past birth. Accordingly, that particular chakra/centre in the spiritual energy system or Kundalini is already in an activated state or a state where the journey of the spiritual energy has halted. In the ‘Satyayug’, ‘Tretayug’ and ‘Dvaparyug’ evolved individuals would be invited to bless the individual whose first birthday was being celebrated or the child would be taken to Him. The evolved soul would perform the ritual of ‘aukshan’ for the child and making a silent resolve would shower unbroken rice grains on various parts of its body thus activating the chakras of the spiritual energy system in that area, till the chakra where the spiritual journey had halted was reached. He would touch the chakra beyond the one where the spiritual energy flow was arrested with unbroken rice grains in the fingers. This would resume the further journey of the spiritual energy. The evolved soul progressed beyond 75% would know merely by looking at the embodied soul upto where his spiritual energy was activated. So, a mere glance at that chakra would restart his spiritual progress.
In the ‘Treta’ and ‘Dvaparyugs’ either the individual would visit saints or vice-versa and the saint would bestow His blessings for rapid spiritual progress. After having received blessings the embodied soul would seriously enhance his efforts to increase spiritual progress. On the subsequent birthday when the individual would go for blessings to the saint He would bless him only after assessing if his spiritual progress had occurred in the past year. Since the seeker was fully aware that his progress was a consequence of the saint’s blessing there were less chances of inflation of his ego.
Importance of celebrating the birthday as per the Hindu lunar calendar: It is advisable to celebrate the date of birth as per the Hindu lunar calendar as on that day the benefits derived are more than if celebrated on the date of birth according to the Western calendar.
The attributes of the embodied soul born on that particular day match with the frequencies present on that date as per the Hindu lunar calendar (‘tithi’).
When celebrating the birthday on this date, through the ritual of ‘aukshan’ and a prayer made unto the family deity, the chaitanya generated helps the embodied soul to combat the distressing energy attacks at various levels.
Blessings and good wishes endow maximum benefit: ‘The frequencies of the date of birth according to the Hindu lunar calendar match the individual maximally. Since the blessings and good wishes of relatives and well-wishers bring maximum benefit to the individual celebrating the birthday as per the Hindu lunar calendar is more beneficial.
One develops the strength to combat obstacles in life: Since the frequencies in the universe on the birthday as per the Hindu lunar calendar match the temperament of the person born on that date, the ‘sattvik’ and chaitanya-enriched rituals done by an individual on that day leave a deep impression on his subconscious mind. As a result, he derives spiritual prowess to combat problems in his future life.
Benefits of celebrating a birthday as per the Hindu lunar calendar (‘tithi’) as against the date of birth as per the Western calendar
Celebrating birthday as per
date by Western calendar
Celebrating birthday as per
Hindu lunar calendar
1. Body involved
Physical body only
Physical body 5% and subtle
body (desire, mind, intellect, ego bodies) 95%
2. Effects on body
Since it is related only to the
physical body the embodied
soul benefits from the ‘sattva’
frequencies negligibly. As a
result the covering of the
embodied soul by raja-tama
attributes may not get reduced
‘Sattva’ component of the
subtle body increases
3. Effects on the spiritual
energy channels (naadii)
Even after ‘aukshan’ the
‘sattva’ component in the
subtle body does not grow as
much as required; mostly the
sun channel and at times the
moon channel gets activated.
However this does not benefit
the embodied soul spiritually.
After a ‘tithi’ begins, every
moment an embodied soul
derives ‘sattvik’ frequencies
matching his subtle body,
which are necessary for
purification of the body. As a
result of aukshan the
‘Sushumna’ channel in the
embodied soul gets activated.
If the spiritual level of the
embodied soul exceeds 60%,
the ‘Sushumna’ channel
remains active throughout the
day.
4. Effects on the attitudes of
an embodied soul
As the ‘sattva’ component in
an embodied soul does not
increase, his extroverted
attitude does.
As the ‘sattva’ component in
an embodied soul grows, so
does his introverted attitude.
Method of birthday celebration: ‘There are as many temperaments as there are people and so also the corresponding number of paths of spiritual practice.’ This is one of the basic tenets in Hinduism. Based on this, the methods of performing religious rituals also vary. Though the methods vary, the benefit of the ritual is the same, which is all methods endow the Divine principle. Thus one can decide the method as per convenience. Following are the two methods for celebration of a birthday.
Method 1
A. ‘In the first year of life every month and thereafter every year on the date of birth as per the Hindu lunar calendar one should bathe after an oil massage. This should be, followed by application of tilak of kumkum (vermilion) on the forehead.
B. With the resolve ‘आयुरभिवृद्ध्यर्थं वर्ष (मास) वृद्धिकर्मं करिष्ये’ fistful of rice are placed on a wooden seat or platform in seventeen small heaps in the name of the family deity (‘kuladevata’), lunar asterism at birth (‘nakshatra’), parents, Deities Prajapati, Surya, Ganesh, Parshuraam, Raam, Hanumaan , Shasthidevata, Sages Maarkandeya, Vyaas, Krupaachaarya, Ashwathaamaa, Bali, Pralhaad and Bibhishan . The corresponding deity is invoked in each heap and their ritualistic worship with sixteen substances is performed. The Shasthidevata is offered a sacrament (‘naivedya’) of curd and rice which is later fed to a cow or any other animal. The other Deities are offered sugar cubes (‘khadisakhar’) or ‘pedhas’ (a sweetmeat) which is then distributed as holy sacrament.
C. With a prayer, a drink made from a cube of jaggery, a fistful of sesame seeds and half a cup of milk is partaken of by the one celebrating the birthday.
D. Relatives and friends are invited for a meal. Offering of food and other items should be done on this day as much as possible.
E. Avoid receiving money or gifts on this day.
Method 2
A. Bath after an oil massage: On the birthday, after an oil massage, have a bath with clothes on (bath taken in this way is symbolic of forgetting the past, with a prayer to The God for constantly remaining in the present.) When bathing the spiritual emotion should be that ‘The pure and holy water of river Ganga is purifying my body and mind’.
B. Wear new clothes after the bath.
C. Offer obeisance (‘namaskar’) to parents and elders in the family.
D. Perform the ritual of ‘abhishek’ (ablution with liquids like milk and water) or ritualistic worship of the family deity wholeheartedly.
E. Ritual of ‘aukshan’: The ritual of ‘aukshan’ is performed on the one whose birthday is being celebrated. Both, the one performing it and the one on whom the ritual is being performed, should harbour the spiritual emotion that, ‘Through our medium, God Himself is performing this ritual and bestowing His blessings on us.’ At the end of this ritual unbroken rice grains (‘akshataa’) are sprinkled on the head of the one on whom ‘aukshan’ is performed after venerating one’s family deity or deity of worship.
F. A gift is presented to the one celebrating the birthday with the following perspective. As one’s duty a child is given a gift to express appreciation. While gifting an adult, one should not have a sense of doership. When one gifts something without expectation, after a while one forgets about it. The gift given on a birthday should be such. If doership or expectations are harboured in the mind when gifting then a give and take account is created between the two. When the one receiving the gift has the attitude that it is the holy sacrament (prasad) that he is receiving with God’s grace, then a give and take account is not created.
G. Clothes worn when bathing should be given away, without any expectations. This offering should be made to one who is deserving hence it is advisable to give it to a devotee of God or to one serving in the mission of betterment of the nation and righteousness, instead of a beggar.
http://www.hindujagruti.org/hinduism/knowledge/index.php?print/id:247
--
O Hindus, protect your Dharma. Log onto www.HinduJagruti.org to learn how.
Subscribe to the monthly English Sanatan Prabhat and receive a copy at your doorstep for only Rs 90 per year (including postage). (Rates for Hindi, Gujerati, Marathi, Kannad vary). Foreign subscriptions too! Write to sanatanvoice@gmail.com. Brought out for the Unification of Seekers, Protection of Righteousness and the Nation.
--
O Hindus, protect your Dharma. Log onto www.HinduJagruti.org to learn how.
Subscribe to the monthly English Sanatan Prabhat and receive a copy at your doorstep for only Rs 90 per year (including postage). (Rates for Hindi, Gujerati, Marathi, Kannad vary). Foreign subscriptions too! Write to sanatanvoice@gmail.com. Brought out for the Unification of Seekers, Protection of Righteousness and the Nation.
Reply
Forward
Invite anu dharma to chat
Spiritual meaning
‘Celebrating a birthday is actually expressing gratitude to God for the opportunity to do sadhana (spiritual practice) during the past year and praying for His grace in the coming year.’
The birthday is the day to assess spiritual progress of the embodied soul: It is the “day of growth” indicating spiritual progress. For the soul to progress spiritually, purification of the subtle body and imbibing of the three components, ‘trigunas’ from Deities in appropriate proportions is necessary. The spiritual progress of an embodied soul begins at birth. Even if an individual does not undertake actual spiritual practice, due to various spiritual rituals performed on him the sattva component in him increases thus initiating his spiritual progress. Birthday is the day to take stock of the effect of spiritual rituals on his subtle body. From a spiritual perspective, birthday is the day to assess one’s spiritual progress and if there is spiritual progress then it signifies actual growth.
Birthday is the day to enhance one’s ability to imbibe chaitanya: One’s Birthday enhances the ability of an embodied soul to imbibe chaitanya (Divine Consciousness) by invoking Deities. This action raises the sattva component in the atmosphere and the embodied soul achieves stability of the inner mind.
An individual is born with a spiritual level which is carried forward from the past birth. Accordingly, that particular chakra/centre in the spiritual energy system or Kundalini is already in an activated state or a state where the journey of the spiritual energy has halted. In the ‘Satyayug’, ‘Tretayug’ and ‘Dvaparyug’ evolved individuals would be invited to bless the individual whose first birthday was being celebrated or the child would be taken to Him. The evolved soul would perform the ritual of ‘aukshan’ for the child and making a silent resolve would shower unbroken rice grains on various parts of its body thus activating the chakras of the spiritual energy system in that area, till the chakra where the spiritual journey had halted was reached. He would touch the chakra beyond the one where the spiritual energy flow was arrested with unbroken rice grains in the fingers. This would resume the further journey of the spiritual energy. The evolved soul progressed beyond 75% would know merely by looking at the embodied soul upto where his spiritual energy was activated. So, a mere glance at that chakra would restart his spiritual progress.
In the ‘Treta’ and ‘Dvaparyugs’ either the individual would visit saints or vice-versa and the saint would bestow His blessings for rapid spiritual progress. After having received blessings the embodied soul would seriously enhance his efforts to increase spiritual progress. On the subsequent birthday when the individual would go for blessings to the saint He would bless him only after assessing if his spiritual progress had occurred in the past year. Since the seeker was fully aware that his progress was a consequence of the saint’s blessing there were less chances of inflation of his ego.
Importance of celebrating the birthday as per the Hindu lunar calendar: It is advisable to celebrate the date of birth as per the Hindu lunar calendar as on that day the benefits derived are more than if celebrated on the date of birth according to the Western calendar.
The attributes of the embodied soul born on that particular day match with the frequencies present on that date as per the Hindu lunar calendar (‘tithi’).
When celebrating the birthday on this date, through the ritual of ‘aukshan’ and a prayer made unto the family deity, the chaitanya generated helps the embodied soul to combat the distressing energy attacks at various levels.
Blessings and good wishes endow maximum benefit: ‘The frequencies of the date of birth according to the Hindu lunar calendar match the individual maximally. Since the blessings and good wishes of relatives and well-wishers bring maximum benefit to the individual celebrating the birthday as per the Hindu lunar calendar is more beneficial.
One develops the strength to combat obstacles in life: Since the frequencies in the universe on the birthday as per the Hindu lunar calendar match the temperament of the person born on that date, the ‘sattvik’ and chaitanya-enriched rituals done by an individual on that day leave a deep impression on his subconscious mind. As a result, he derives spiritual prowess to combat problems in his future life.
Benefits of celebrating a birthday as per the Hindu lunar calendar (‘tithi’) as against the date of birth as per the Western calendar
Celebrating birthday as per
date by Western calendar
Celebrating birthday as per
Hindu lunar calendar
1. Body involved
Physical body only
Physical body 5% and subtle
body (desire, mind, intellect, ego bodies) 95%
2. Effects on body
Since it is related only to the
physical body the embodied
soul benefits from the ‘sattva’
frequencies negligibly. As a
result the covering of the
embodied soul by raja-tama
attributes may not get reduced
‘Sattva’ component of the
subtle body increases
3. Effects on the spiritual
energy channels (naadii)
Even after ‘aukshan’ the
‘sattva’ component in the
subtle body does not grow as
much as required; mostly the
sun channel and at times the
moon channel gets activated.
However this does not benefit
the embodied soul spiritually.
After a ‘tithi’ begins, every
moment an embodied soul
derives ‘sattvik’ frequencies
matching his subtle body,
which are necessary for
purification of the body. As a
result of aukshan the
‘Sushumna’ channel in the
embodied soul gets activated.
If the spiritual level of the
embodied soul exceeds 60%,
the ‘Sushumna’ channel
remains active throughout the
day.
4. Effects on the attitudes of
an embodied soul
As the ‘sattva’ component in
an embodied soul does not
increase, his extroverted
attitude does.
As the ‘sattva’ component in
an embodied soul grows, so
does his introverted attitude.
Method of birthday celebration: ‘There are as many temperaments as there are people and so also the corresponding number of paths of spiritual practice.’ This is one of the basic tenets in Hinduism. Based on this, the methods of performing religious rituals also vary. Though the methods vary, the benefit of the ritual is the same, which is all methods endow the Divine principle. Thus one can decide the method as per convenience. Following are the two methods for celebration of a birthday.
Method 1
A. ‘In the first year of life every month and thereafter every year on the date of birth as per the Hindu lunar calendar one should bathe after an oil massage. This should be, followed by application of tilak of kumkum (vermilion) on the forehead.
B. With the resolve ‘आयुरभिवृद्ध्यर्थं वर्ष (मास) वृद्धिकर्मं करिष्ये’ fistful of rice are placed on a wooden seat or platform in seventeen small heaps in the name of the family deity (‘kuladevata’), lunar asterism at birth (‘nakshatra’), parents, Deities Prajapati, Surya, Ganesh, Parshuraam, Raam, Hanumaan , Shasthidevata, Sages Maarkandeya, Vyaas, Krupaachaarya, Ashwathaamaa, Bali, Pralhaad and Bibhishan . The corresponding deity is invoked in each heap and their ritualistic worship with sixteen substances is performed. The Shasthidevata is offered a sacrament (‘naivedya’) of curd and rice which is later fed to a cow or any other animal. The other Deities are offered sugar cubes (‘khadisakhar’) or ‘pedhas’ (a sweetmeat) which is then distributed as holy sacrament.
C. With a prayer, a drink made from a cube of jaggery, a fistful of sesame seeds and half a cup of milk is partaken of by the one celebrating the birthday.
D. Relatives and friends are invited for a meal. Offering of food and other items should be done on this day as much as possible.
E. Avoid receiving money or gifts on this day.
Method 2
A. Bath after an oil massage: On the birthday, after an oil massage, have a bath with clothes on (bath taken in this way is symbolic of forgetting the past, with a prayer to The God for constantly remaining in the present.) When bathing the spiritual emotion should be that ‘The pure and holy water of river Ganga is purifying my body and mind’.
B. Wear new clothes after the bath.
C. Offer obeisance (‘namaskar’) to parents and elders in the family.
D. Perform the ritual of ‘abhishek’ (ablution with liquids like milk and water) or ritualistic worship of the family deity wholeheartedly.
E. Ritual of ‘aukshan’: The ritual of ‘aukshan’ is performed on the one whose birthday is being celebrated. Both, the one performing it and the one on whom the ritual is being performed, should harbour the spiritual emotion that, ‘Through our medium, God Himself is performing this ritual and bestowing His blessings on us.’ At the end of this ritual unbroken rice grains (‘akshataa’) are sprinkled on the head of the one on whom ‘aukshan’ is performed after venerating one’s family deity or deity of worship.
F. A gift is presented to the one celebrating the birthday with the following perspective. As one’s duty a child is given a gift to express appreciation. While gifting an adult, one should not have a sense of doership. When one gifts something without expectation, after a while one forgets about it. The gift given on a birthday should be such. If doership or expectations are harboured in the mind when gifting then a give and take account is created between the two. When the one receiving the gift has the attitude that it is the holy sacrament (prasad) that he is receiving with God’s grace, then a give and take account is not created.
G. Clothes worn when bathing should be given away, without any expectations. This offering should be made to one who is deserving hence it is advisable to give it to a devotee of God or to one serving in the mission of betterment of the nation and righteousness, instead of a beggar.
http://www.hindujagruti.org/hinduism/knowledge/index.php?print/id:247
--
O Hindus, protect your Dharma. Log onto www.HinduJagruti.org to learn how.
Subscribe to the monthly English Sanatan Prabhat and receive a copy at your doorstep for only Rs 90 per year (including postage). (Rates for Hindi, Gujerati, Marathi, Kannad vary). Foreign subscriptions too! Write to sanatanvoice@gmail.com. Brought out for the Unification of Seekers, Protection of Righteousness and the Nation.
--
O Hindus, protect your Dharma. Log onto www.HinduJagruti.org to learn how.
Subscribe to the monthly English Sanatan Prabhat and receive a copy at your doorstep for only Rs 90 per year (including postage). (Rates for Hindi, Gujerati, Marathi, Kannad vary). Foreign subscriptions too! Write to sanatanvoice@gmail.com. Brought out for the Unification of Seekers, Protection of Righteousness and the Nation.
Reply
Forward
Invite anu dharma to chat
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Keeping the Savarkar flame alive
Keep the flame alive
Savarkar's Phoney Followers
By Subhash Gatade
10 July, 2009
http://www.counterc urrents.org/ gatade100709. htm
(Politics is a game of the impossible. The Sangh Parivar, which never enjoyed a smooth relationship with Vinayak Damodar Savarkar when alive, now wants us to believe that it is the true and the only heir to his legacy. It is a different matter that even Savarkar's diehard followers do not seem amused with all their ropetricks. The manner in which RSS-BJP handled the issue of memorial for Savarkar in faraway France indicates once again the floundering of their strategy.)
I
Gopinath Munde, senior leader of BJP, was in for a great shock the other day when he realised that his move to corner the ruling dispensation at the centre on the issue of Savarkar memorial had boomranged on himself and the party as well. In fact he had discussed the issue with his close associates and had informed senior leaders of the party about his plans. He had expected that by raising an emotive issue around 'Swatantryaveer' Savarkar on the eve of elections to the Maharashtra assembly, he would be able to score a point vis-a-vis the Cong-NCP coalition.
Many newspapers had duly covered his demand when he raised it during zero hour in Lok Sabha and had also mentioned how the concerned minister 'searched for answer'.
..Gopinath Munde, BJP general secretary who hails from Savarkar's home state Maharashtra, raised the issue during zero hour and demanded "a clear government response" to the proposal for setting up a Savarkar memorial at the Marseilles in France. It said that 100 years ago on this day, Savarkar had jumped off a British ship and escaped to French coast while he was being brought to India after being arrested in London for his involvement in the freedom struggle. Savarkar swam ashore but was arrested in Marseilles.
Munde said the Mayor of Marseilles had agreed to provide land for the memorial and had sought consent of the Indian government, but the government had not responded so far. Leader of the opposition L.K.Advani asked the government to make its position clear, "if not today, then later."..
(Come Clean on Savarkar Memorial, BJP tells govt : Express News Service, July 9, 2009 )
But alas in his hurry to put the ruling dispensation on the mat, Mr Munde, the exdeputy CM of Maharashtra had forgot to note a very small detail of the correspondence between the Mayor of Marseilles and the government of India. As revealed by 'Swatantryaveer Savarkar Seva Kendra' Jean Claude, Mayor of Marseilles did send a letter to the Prime Minister expressing his willingness to address concerns of Savarkar's followers, but it had reached the Prime Minister's Office exactly 11 years back ( 8 th July 1998).It was the period when Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a Sangh volunteer from his school days, happened to be Prime Minister of the Republic. Neither Mr Vajpayee nor the Prime Minister's Office deemed it necessary to even look into the matter and they forwarded the said letter to the Ministry for External Affairs to deliberate on the matter. Any layperson can understand that it was a political decision which was the privy of the Vajpayee-Advani duo and was not
a matter to be decided by one of their juniors. Looking at the dithering on this matter at the top itself, the bureaucrats in the External Affairs ministry also decided to play it safe and as expected the said file gathered dust in the Ministry all these years. ('Ulta Pad Gaya Savarkar Smarak Par Bhajapa ka Daon', Bhaskar 9, July, 2009)
With their zeal to claim Savarkar's legacy which has become very much evident in recent times, one expected that the Sangh-BJP leadership would not have let the matter remain in limbo for these many years. One still remembers the hullaballo they created when Savarkar's quotations from Port Blair's Cellular Jail were unceremoniously removed few years back. (2004). It needs reporting that Mr Gopinath Munde had decided to take out a 'Savarkar Yatra' then to supposedly avenge the alleged insult to the 'freedom fighter'.
Interestingly when some journalist posed a question before Ms Sushma Swaraj about this serious gaffe on part of the BJP itself when in power, and why it sat on the proposal for six long years, she had no words to answer and preferred to evade the question itself. She excused herself by saying that she does not have any information regarding this and she merely wanted to bring attention of the house towards this matter as suggested by Savarkar Seva Kendra. ( Bhaskar 9, July, 2009)
One does not know how Mr Munde plans to exhibit his and his parties love for Mr Savarkar in his birth centenary year now as his plan I stands backfired.
II
Interestingly whatever exercises Sangh-BJP people have taken up to claim Savarkar's legacy, Savarkar's old followers including his own family members have always entertained serious doubts about all such attempts Few years back when the issue of removal of Savarkar's quotations from Cellular Jail had reached headlines, Mr Vikram Savarkar, Savarkar's own nephew ( Savarkar nephew hits out at BJP, August 30, 2004, Express) had accused the senior leaders of the party for 'keeping mum despite noticing the removal of his uncle's quotations from Port Blair's Cellular Jail'. According to him Ram Kapse, the then Lt. governor of Andaman and Nicobar and former M.P Ram Naik ( both BJP workers) "..did not utter a word when the plaque was removed." The report further says that ,' ..he is not surprised at BJP's lack of interest in Savarkar. "We know very well that the BJP and RSS did not appreciate his (Savarkar's) philosophy."..' ..The report further says that '
(Vikram- author) Savarkar insists BJP's sudden love for the legend is an eyewash.' "It is an effort to woo voters for the Assembly elections in Maharashtra."
Incidentally the callousness with which the 'Parivar' itself views this claims of legacy was not lost on the common people then itself when they noticed that when on the one hand the BJP-Shivsena members were making a noise about the plaque removal incident inside the parliament the spokesperson of the RSS Mr Ram Madhav was releasing a letter to the press purportedly written by Sardar Patel which while 'absolving RSS from the charges of assasination of Gandhi' had clearly stated that Mr Savarkar was involved in the conspiracy to kill Gandhi.
Even a cursory glance at the trajectory of Hindu Mahasabha under the leadership of Savarkar or the way in which RSS unfolded itself during those days makes it quite clear that the differences in priorities between the two organisations was already visible from the day Savarkar was elected president of the Hindu Mahasabha after his release from jail ( 1937).In a sympathetic study of RSS "The Brotherhood in Saffron,The RSS and The Hindu Revivalism," the authors Andersen and Damle clearly explain (Page 40, Vistaar, 1986, Delhi) that in fact Savarkar's emphasis was on turning Mahasabha into a political party in opposition to the Congress when Hedgewars' had already decided to insulate RSS from any active politics and concentrate on 'cultural work'. Hedgewar and later Golwalkar also neither wanted to be associated with a formation whose confrontational activities would place the RSS in direct opposition to the Congress. According to him there were
apprehensions regarding each other's role in the Hindu Unification Movement. The souring of relations between the two organisations is visible in a angry letter issued by Savarkar's office in 1940 advising that
"..When there is such a serious conflict at a particular locality between any of the branches of the Sangh RSS and the Hindu Sabhaites that actual preaching is carried out against the Hindu Mahasabha ..., then the Hindu Sabhaites should better leave the Sangh ...and start their own Hindu Sabha volunteer corps.( Letter from V.D.Savarkar to S.L.Mishra, 3 March 1943, Savarkar files, Bombay) "
In fact the earlier Hindu Mahasabha leaders prior to Mr Savarkar were expecting that RSS would work as a 'youth organisation' of the 'parent body'. But that plan did not materialise and then Hindu Mahasabha under Savarkar's leadership was forced to form Ram Sena in its place. Savarkar's increasing frustration with RSS's docile nature and its activities was evident in the famous statement he made in the early forties unleashing his attack on RSS without munching any words :
"The epitah for the RSS volunteer will be that he was born, he joined the RSS and died without accomplishing anything."-V. D. Savarkar
(Quoted in D.V.Kelkar, "The R.S.S." Economic Weekly ( 4 Feb 1950: 132) Page 36)
It is now history how in 1942 when the Britishers were engaged in the World War II and the Congress's call for 'Quit India' reverbated throughout India, thousands of people engaged in government jobs including police and military left their jobs to protest continuation of British regime. It is interesting that the mass upsurge of the Indian people once again could not compel both these organisations to chart a unified path. Ofcourse there was one commonality and it was their refusal to join the anti colonial mass upsurge And thus while the RSS preferred to keep itself aloof from the 'Quit India Movement' and concentrate on its 'cultural' agenda , Savarkar went one step further. At that time he preferred to tour India asking Hindu youth to join the military with a call 'Militarise the Hindus, Hinduise the nation' .
The advent of independence also could not bring about any qualitative improvement in the relationships between Savarkar and the rest of RSS led by Golwalkar. In fact the killing of Mahatma as part of a deep conspiracy hatched by the forces of Hindutva and the consequent government crackdown on RSS as well as Hindu Mahasabha and the longwinding court proceedings further soured the relations between the two. RSS's vainglorious attempts to save itself from the aftermath, Golwalkar's petitions to Sardar Patel for lifting the ban on RSS coupled with its' inaction as far as the court case against Savarkar and his other comrades was concerned proved to be the last straw.
The fifties saw the RSS's attempts to build a mass political party of its own in the form of Jan Sangh with a senior ex Hindu Mahasabha leader Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in its leading position. It was a time when both the Jan Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha contested for the same political space in an ambience which was not conducive for either of them. It was clear to even a layperson that the RSS as well as Jan Sangh were maintaining a distance from Savarkar. In fact Savarkar died a lonely man abhorred by the very people who once called him the pioneer theoretician of the project of Hindu Rashtra. It seems really ironic that these are the very people who are today engaged in an exercise to show that they are the real heirs to his legacy.
subhash.gatade@ gmail.com
Savarkar's Phoney Followers
By Subhash Gatade
10 July, 2009
http://www.counterc urrents.org/ gatade100709. htm
(Politics is a game of the impossible. The Sangh Parivar, which never enjoyed a smooth relationship with Vinayak Damodar Savarkar when alive, now wants us to believe that it is the true and the only heir to his legacy. It is a different matter that even Savarkar's diehard followers do not seem amused with all their ropetricks. The manner in which RSS-BJP handled the issue of memorial for Savarkar in faraway France indicates once again the floundering of their strategy.)
I
Gopinath Munde, senior leader of BJP, was in for a great shock the other day when he realised that his move to corner the ruling dispensation at the centre on the issue of Savarkar memorial had boomranged on himself and the party as well. In fact he had discussed the issue with his close associates and had informed senior leaders of the party about his plans. He had expected that by raising an emotive issue around 'Swatantryaveer' Savarkar on the eve of elections to the Maharashtra assembly, he would be able to score a point vis-a-vis the Cong-NCP coalition.
Many newspapers had duly covered his demand when he raised it during zero hour in Lok Sabha and had also mentioned how the concerned minister 'searched for answer'.
..Gopinath Munde, BJP general secretary who hails from Savarkar's home state Maharashtra, raised the issue during zero hour and demanded "a clear government response" to the proposal for setting up a Savarkar memorial at the Marseilles in France. It said that 100 years ago on this day, Savarkar had jumped off a British ship and escaped to French coast while he was being brought to India after being arrested in London for his involvement in the freedom struggle. Savarkar swam ashore but was arrested in Marseilles.
Munde said the Mayor of Marseilles had agreed to provide land for the memorial and had sought consent of the Indian government, but the government had not responded so far. Leader of the opposition L.K.Advani asked the government to make its position clear, "if not today, then later."..
(Come Clean on Savarkar Memorial, BJP tells govt : Express News Service, July 9, 2009 )
But alas in his hurry to put the ruling dispensation on the mat, Mr Munde, the exdeputy CM of Maharashtra had forgot to note a very small detail of the correspondence between the Mayor of Marseilles and the government of India. As revealed by 'Swatantryaveer Savarkar Seva Kendra' Jean Claude, Mayor of Marseilles did send a letter to the Prime Minister expressing his willingness to address concerns of Savarkar's followers, but it had reached the Prime Minister's Office exactly 11 years back ( 8 th July 1998).It was the period when Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a Sangh volunteer from his school days, happened to be Prime Minister of the Republic. Neither Mr Vajpayee nor the Prime Minister's Office deemed it necessary to even look into the matter and they forwarded the said letter to the Ministry for External Affairs to deliberate on the matter. Any layperson can understand that it was a political decision which was the privy of the Vajpayee-Advani duo and was not
a matter to be decided by one of their juniors. Looking at the dithering on this matter at the top itself, the bureaucrats in the External Affairs ministry also decided to play it safe and as expected the said file gathered dust in the Ministry all these years. ('Ulta Pad Gaya Savarkar Smarak Par Bhajapa ka Daon', Bhaskar 9, July, 2009)
With their zeal to claim Savarkar's legacy which has become very much evident in recent times, one expected that the Sangh-BJP leadership would not have let the matter remain in limbo for these many years. One still remembers the hullaballo they created when Savarkar's quotations from Port Blair's Cellular Jail were unceremoniously removed few years back. (2004). It needs reporting that Mr Gopinath Munde had decided to take out a 'Savarkar Yatra' then to supposedly avenge the alleged insult to the 'freedom fighter'.
Interestingly when some journalist posed a question before Ms Sushma Swaraj about this serious gaffe on part of the BJP itself when in power, and why it sat on the proposal for six long years, she had no words to answer and preferred to evade the question itself. She excused herself by saying that she does not have any information regarding this and she merely wanted to bring attention of the house towards this matter as suggested by Savarkar Seva Kendra. ( Bhaskar 9, July, 2009)
One does not know how Mr Munde plans to exhibit his and his parties love for Mr Savarkar in his birth centenary year now as his plan I stands backfired.
II
Interestingly whatever exercises Sangh-BJP people have taken up to claim Savarkar's legacy, Savarkar's old followers including his own family members have always entertained serious doubts about all such attempts Few years back when the issue of removal of Savarkar's quotations from Cellular Jail had reached headlines, Mr Vikram Savarkar, Savarkar's own nephew ( Savarkar nephew hits out at BJP, August 30, 2004, Express) had accused the senior leaders of the party for 'keeping mum despite noticing the removal of his uncle's quotations from Port Blair's Cellular Jail'. According to him Ram Kapse, the then Lt. governor of Andaman and Nicobar and former M.P Ram Naik ( both BJP workers) "..did not utter a word when the plaque was removed." The report further says that ,' ..he is not surprised at BJP's lack of interest in Savarkar. "We know very well that the BJP and RSS did not appreciate his (Savarkar's) philosophy."..' ..The report further says that '
(Vikram- author) Savarkar insists BJP's sudden love for the legend is an eyewash.' "It is an effort to woo voters for the Assembly elections in Maharashtra."
Incidentally the callousness with which the 'Parivar' itself views this claims of legacy was not lost on the common people then itself when they noticed that when on the one hand the BJP-Shivsena members were making a noise about the plaque removal incident inside the parliament the spokesperson of the RSS Mr Ram Madhav was releasing a letter to the press purportedly written by Sardar Patel which while 'absolving RSS from the charges of assasination of Gandhi' had clearly stated that Mr Savarkar was involved in the conspiracy to kill Gandhi.
Even a cursory glance at the trajectory of Hindu Mahasabha under the leadership of Savarkar or the way in which RSS unfolded itself during those days makes it quite clear that the differences in priorities between the two organisations was already visible from the day Savarkar was elected president of the Hindu Mahasabha after his release from jail ( 1937).In a sympathetic study of RSS "The Brotherhood in Saffron,The RSS and The Hindu Revivalism," the authors Andersen and Damle clearly explain (Page 40, Vistaar, 1986, Delhi) that in fact Savarkar's emphasis was on turning Mahasabha into a political party in opposition to the Congress when Hedgewars' had already decided to insulate RSS from any active politics and concentrate on 'cultural work'. Hedgewar and later Golwalkar also neither wanted to be associated with a formation whose confrontational activities would place the RSS in direct opposition to the Congress. According to him there were
apprehensions regarding each other's role in the Hindu Unification Movement. The souring of relations between the two organisations is visible in a angry letter issued by Savarkar's office in 1940 advising that
"..When there is such a serious conflict at a particular locality between any of the branches of the Sangh RSS and the Hindu Sabhaites that actual preaching is carried out against the Hindu Mahasabha ..., then the Hindu Sabhaites should better leave the Sangh ...and start their own Hindu Sabha volunteer corps.( Letter from V.D.Savarkar to S.L.Mishra, 3 March 1943, Savarkar files, Bombay) "
In fact the earlier Hindu Mahasabha leaders prior to Mr Savarkar were expecting that RSS would work as a 'youth organisation' of the 'parent body'. But that plan did not materialise and then Hindu Mahasabha under Savarkar's leadership was forced to form Ram Sena in its place. Savarkar's increasing frustration with RSS's docile nature and its activities was evident in the famous statement he made in the early forties unleashing his attack on RSS without munching any words :
"The epitah for the RSS volunteer will be that he was born, he joined the RSS and died without accomplishing anything."-V. D. Savarkar
(Quoted in D.V.Kelkar, "The R.S.S." Economic Weekly ( 4 Feb 1950: 132) Page 36)
It is now history how in 1942 when the Britishers were engaged in the World War II and the Congress's call for 'Quit India' reverbated throughout India, thousands of people engaged in government jobs including police and military left their jobs to protest continuation of British regime. It is interesting that the mass upsurge of the Indian people once again could not compel both these organisations to chart a unified path. Ofcourse there was one commonality and it was their refusal to join the anti colonial mass upsurge And thus while the RSS preferred to keep itself aloof from the 'Quit India Movement' and concentrate on its 'cultural' agenda , Savarkar went one step further. At that time he preferred to tour India asking Hindu youth to join the military with a call 'Militarise the Hindus, Hinduise the nation' .
The advent of independence also could not bring about any qualitative improvement in the relationships between Savarkar and the rest of RSS led by Golwalkar. In fact the killing of Mahatma as part of a deep conspiracy hatched by the forces of Hindutva and the consequent government crackdown on RSS as well as Hindu Mahasabha and the longwinding court proceedings further soured the relations between the two. RSS's vainglorious attempts to save itself from the aftermath, Golwalkar's petitions to Sardar Patel for lifting the ban on RSS coupled with its' inaction as far as the court case against Savarkar and his other comrades was concerned proved to be the last straw.
The fifties saw the RSS's attempts to build a mass political party of its own in the form of Jan Sangh with a senior ex Hindu Mahasabha leader Shyama Prasad Mukherjee in its leading position. It was a time when both the Jan Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha contested for the same political space in an ambience which was not conducive for either of them. It was clear to even a layperson that the RSS as well as Jan Sangh were maintaining a distance from Savarkar. In fact Savarkar died a lonely man abhorred by the very people who once called him the pioneer theoretician of the project of Hindu Rashtra. It seems really ironic that these are the very people who are today engaged in an exercise to show that they are the real heirs to his legacy.
subhash.gatade@ gmail.com
Thursday, July 09, 2009
INDIA ABROAD JUNE 19, 2009
Hindu body settles case against California textbooks
GEORGE JOSEPH
The California textbook case has finally ended in a settlement between the state Board of Education and the California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM), a Hindu organization that was set up to fight the case.
United States District Judge Frank C Damrell Jr in Sacramento, California approved the settlement to pay the Northridge-based CAPEEM $175,000. Some say it will not suffice to cover the legal fees and court charges incurred in the three years the case dragged on. (This is not true and a red herring, in the interview posted below, Arvinf Kumar clearly states that they recovered twice the costs that they incurred)
Also, crucially, though the board , will pay this amount, it will not make any curriculum concessions (this is a gross oversimplification , read the whole column). Earlier, a Sacramento Superior Court had in 2007 allowed the Washington, DC-based Hindu American Foundation $250,000 to settle its case with the board. (ED: the net of this is that the California tax payer has had to shell out 425,000 $ at a time when the state is 20,000,000,000 in deficit and is issuing IOUs to its vendors . And all because some knucklehead in the CBE decided to invite Prof Witzel to intervene in the case )
With the settlement with CAPEEM Judge Frank C Damrell entered the final judgment in the case against the State Board of Education and the state's curriculum czar. The suits by CAPEEM and HAF accused the board of portraying Hinduism wrongly in its textbooks and flouting constitutional guarantees,
CAPEEM alleged that the board discriminated against Hindus during the adoption process for sixth-grade history and social science textbooks, It also accused that the textbooks indoctrinate children with Abrahamic religions and teach biblical events as actual facts. while treating Hinduism in a derogatory manner. It said the board failed to provide equal opportunities and equal representation to every religion and culture.
Seattle attorney Venkat Balasubramani, who appeared for CAPEEEM, said it would not be true to say the Hindu group had merely won a Pyrrhic vctory,.
'The lawsuits demonstrated that when facing arbitrary, disparate and discriminatory treatment, the Hindu American community is not going to just turn the other cheek'
Suhag Shukla, executive director of the HAF, an attorney , told INDIA ABROAD
Symbolically I think both HAFs lawsuit and CAPEEM’s lawsuit were extremely valuable. To the state board the lawsuits demonstrated that when facing arbitrary, disparate and discriminatory treatment, the Hindu American community is not going to turn the other cheek. "And to the Hindu American community, they proved our intellectual capital in being able to understand the laws of this land and articulate bases for change; our courage and perseverance in taking the chance to stand up for our rights; of course, our financial strength; and most importantly, the power of a collective voice," he said.
Theresa Garcia, the new executive director of the Board of Education, told the Sacramento Bee that she doesn't see it as a no-win for CAPEEM. 'It was a good outcome for everybody” she said.
After the settlement with the HAF, the board took efforts to change much of the textbook as per the request of the Hindu organizations. “The board worked really hard to make the changes they had requested following the suit in state court. We only wanted to ensure that all religions are depicted accurately” she said.
CAPEEM and HAF filed the suits after their pleas before the Board of Education failed. the Board of Education failed. The Hindu groups appeared before the board to challenge many ideas depicted in the textbook, and proposed many changes. However some of the more liberal of the Hindu groups opposed some changes sought by the Hindutva oriented hard-line CAPEEM, leading to considerable confusion.
When the board selected the text, the HAF filed suit in the Superior Court in 2006. The suit said that the board did not take into consideration the concerns of California Hindu parents, and that the religion was portrayed mistakenly and unfairly in the social studies text.
State superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette rejected HAFs content claim, but ruled that the text book adoption process was improper and not done as per the applicable law
Following this judgment, the board published new regulations for the textbook-adoption process. As readers may recall the court ruled in favor of HAF in finding that the board had, throughout the textbook adoption process, acted arbitrarily and illegally, Shukla noted.
As a result, under court order the board had to revamp its entire textbook and instructional material adoption process last year with the addition of numerous safe¬guards for significantly greater transparency and public accountability. The court did not however grant our request for a recall of the textbooks; the court had before it advance copies of the textbooks with nearly 75 percent of the edits suggested by the Hindu community already incorporated, and accordingly the judge did not find the advance copies to be grossly inaccurate.
Though HAF then left the litigation scene, CAPEEM went to Federal court. However, the court only agreed with CAPEEM that the text book adoption violated the Constitution's equal-protection guarantee. The judge however denied other claims based on the establishment clause, which requires government neutrality towards religion, as well as its free speech and association clause. 'Believing that its points had been clearly understood by the defendants, CAPEEM opted not to prolong the litigation. The State entered into negotiations with CAPEEM and agreed to pay $175,000 in exchange for a voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit.
'CAPEEM looks forward to participating in a review process free from biases, and to work with the State to approve textbooks that do not favor or disfavor any religious doctrines; a message on the body's website says.
In terms of the CAPEEM settlement. I do not believe I am in a position to comment on the merits of the case," Shukla said. "'CAPEEM's lawsuit was organizationally and legally different from that of HAFs; CAPEEM had federal constitutional claims in federal court while HAF had pro¬cedural claims in state court.
As an attorney. I found the due process claim brought forth by CAPEEM sound, given the arbitrary actions of the board vis-a-vis California Hindus, but I also know that litigation can be a mentally and financially draining process and the reality is that over 95 percent of cases set¬tle out of court."
GEORGE JOSEPH
The most important aspect of the case was that it challenged the Biblical indoctrination in history textbooks In California under the Establishment Clause and brought the issue to the attention of Americans for the first time," said Arvind Kumar, one of the four people who would start the California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials. The others are Mayank Shekhar, Rajesh Goswami and Murali Menon. We Intend to continue opposing biblical indoctrination In textbooks through lawsuits. Kumar also disputed the contention that CAPEEM had not through the settlement, got enough to even cover its court expenses and said in fact the settlement was for double the amount the body spent on the lawsuit.
The group had retained as one of its lawyers the redoubtable Mike Newdow who hit national prominence when he filed suit asking that the words 'under God be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, and suits to remove the motto 'In God we Trust' from the Federal currency. He had also filed a case to prevent the US Supreme Court from using the words 'So help you God, In the presidential oath Barak Obama had taken at his January 21 swearing in.
Joe Barnhart, one of CAPEEM’s expert witnesses who testified on the question of biblical indoctrination in the textbooks, was one of the victims of last year's shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist . Church in Knoxville. Barnhart a retired professor of philosophy and religious studies at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas survived the attack. "The textbooks treat biblical myths as historical facts instead of treating them as religious beliefs, and even assign dates to biblical events. The chapters on Judaism and Christianity together read like Sunday School textbooks, B Kumar said. Citing examples, Kumar said the books claim that Paul had a vision of Jesus in 33 CE; Moses received the Ten Commandments from God in 1290 BCE; Constantine saw a flaming cross in the Sky, and that Jesus worked miracles when he grew to manhood. The books also assert that the Egyptians could not capture the Jews because the Lord made the wheels fall off their Chariots.
"We would like to see changes in the areas where the books indulge in religious indoctrination of children, and would like to see the books remove claims about Jesus’ miracles and his so called Resurrection as historical facts, and would like the book to teach the truth that the ‘Aryan Invasion Theory' is not only unscientific, but a byproduct of the biblical stories of Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel. The books must also teach that the field of philology is a pseudo-science that arose as an attempt to prove that every language originated in the Tower of Babel, a fact known to many scholars. Kumar says the case exposed the fact that the indoctrination in textbooks was no accident, and that the Church was involved in creating these textbooks. For example, CAPEEM uncovered an email exchange between Rae Belisle, the legal counsel of the Department of Education, and the pastor of a church, to determine the content of the disputed textbooks, in which the Legal counsel stated that the California standards require the textbooks to be consistent with New Testament. "Another email we uncovered when we issued a subpoena was a celebratory email by a Curriculum Commission member who informed a member of his church about his role in getting the textbooks to teach about the New testament version of the crucifixion of Jesus.¬
Hindu body settles case against California textbooks
GEORGE JOSEPH
The California textbook case has finally ended in a settlement between the state Board of Education and the California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM), a Hindu organization that was set up to fight the case.
United States District Judge Frank C Damrell Jr in Sacramento, California approved the settlement to pay the Northridge-based CAPEEM $175,000. Some say it will not suffice to cover the legal fees and court charges incurred in the three years the case dragged on. (This is not true and a red herring, in the interview posted below, Arvinf Kumar clearly states that they recovered twice the costs that they incurred)
Also, crucially, though the board , will pay this amount, it will not make any curriculum concessions (this is a gross oversimplification , read the whole column). Earlier, a Sacramento Superior Court had in 2007 allowed the Washington, DC-based Hindu American Foundation $250,000 to settle its case with the board. (ED: the net of this is that the California tax payer has had to shell out 425,000 $ at a time when the state is 20,000,000,000 in deficit and is issuing IOUs to its vendors . And all because some knucklehead in the CBE decided to invite Prof Witzel to intervene in the case )
With the settlement with CAPEEM Judge Frank C Damrell entered the final judgment in the case against the State Board of Education and the state's curriculum czar. The suits by CAPEEM and HAF accused the board of portraying Hinduism wrongly in its textbooks and flouting constitutional guarantees,
CAPEEM alleged that the board discriminated against Hindus during the adoption process for sixth-grade history and social science textbooks, It also accused that the textbooks indoctrinate children with Abrahamic religions and teach biblical events as actual facts. while treating Hinduism in a derogatory manner. It said the board failed to provide equal opportunities and equal representation to every religion and culture.
Seattle attorney Venkat Balasubramani, who appeared for CAPEEEM, said it would not be true to say the Hindu group had merely won a Pyrrhic vctory,.
'The lawsuits demonstrated that when facing arbitrary, disparate and discriminatory treatment, the Hindu American community is not going to just turn the other cheek'
Suhag Shukla, executive director of the HAF, an attorney , told INDIA ABROAD
Symbolically I think both HAFs lawsuit and CAPEEM’s lawsuit were extremely valuable. To the state board the lawsuits demonstrated that when facing arbitrary, disparate and discriminatory treatment, the Hindu American community is not going to turn the other cheek. "And to the Hindu American community, they proved our intellectual capital in being able to understand the laws of this land and articulate bases for change; our courage and perseverance in taking the chance to stand up for our rights; of course, our financial strength; and most importantly, the power of a collective voice," he said.
Theresa Garcia, the new executive director of the Board of Education, told the Sacramento Bee that she doesn't see it as a no-win for CAPEEM. 'It was a good outcome for everybody” she said.
After the settlement with the HAF, the board took efforts to change much of the textbook as per the request of the Hindu organizations. “The board worked really hard to make the changes they had requested following the suit in state court. We only wanted to ensure that all religions are depicted accurately” she said.
CAPEEM and HAF filed the suits after their pleas before the Board of Education failed. the Board of Education failed. The Hindu groups appeared before the board to challenge many ideas depicted in the textbook, and proposed many changes. However some of the more liberal of the Hindu groups opposed some changes sought by the Hindutva oriented hard-line CAPEEM, leading to considerable confusion.
When the board selected the text, the HAF filed suit in the Superior Court in 2006. The suit said that the board did not take into consideration the concerns of California Hindu parents, and that the religion was portrayed mistakenly and unfairly in the social studies text.
State superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette rejected HAFs content claim, but ruled that the text book adoption process was improper and not done as per the applicable law
Following this judgment, the board published new regulations for the textbook-adoption process. As readers may recall the court ruled in favor of HAF in finding that the board had, throughout the textbook adoption process, acted arbitrarily and illegally, Shukla noted.
As a result, under court order the board had to revamp its entire textbook and instructional material adoption process last year with the addition of numerous safe¬guards for significantly greater transparency and public accountability. The court did not however grant our request for a recall of the textbooks; the court had before it advance copies of the textbooks with nearly 75 percent of the edits suggested by the Hindu community already incorporated, and accordingly the judge did not find the advance copies to be grossly inaccurate.
Though HAF then left the litigation scene, CAPEEM went to Federal court. However, the court only agreed with CAPEEM that the text book adoption violated the Constitution's equal-protection guarantee. The judge however denied other claims based on the establishment clause, which requires government neutrality towards religion, as well as its free speech and association clause. 'Believing that its points had been clearly understood by the defendants, CAPEEM opted not to prolong the litigation. The State entered into negotiations with CAPEEM and agreed to pay $175,000 in exchange for a voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit.
'CAPEEM looks forward to participating in a review process free from biases, and to work with the State to approve textbooks that do not favor or disfavor any religious doctrines; a message on the body's website says.
In terms of the CAPEEM settlement. I do not believe I am in a position to comment on the merits of the case," Shukla said. "'CAPEEM's lawsuit was organizationally and legally different from that of HAFs; CAPEEM had federal constitutional claims in federal court while HAF had pro¬cedural claims in state court.
As an attorney. I found the due process claim brought forth by CAPEEM sound, given the arbitrary actions of the board vis-a-vis California Hindus, but I also know that litigation can be a mentally and financially draining process and the reality is that over 95 percent of cases set¬tle out of court."
GEORGE JOSEPH
The most important aspect of the case was that it challenged the Biblical indoctrination in history textbooks In California under the Establishment Clause and brought the issue to the attention of Americans for the first time," said Arvind Kumar, one of the four people who would start the California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials. The others are Mayank Shekhar, Rajesh Goswami and Murali Menon. We Intend to continue opposing biblical indoctrination In textbooks through lawsuits. Kumar also disputed the contention that CAPEEM had not through the settlement, got enough to even cover its court expenses and said in fact the settlement was for double the amount the body spent on the lawsuit.
The group had retained as one of its lawyers the redoubtable Mike Newdow who hit national prominence when he filed suit asking that the words 'under God be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, and suits to remove the motto 'In God we Trust' from the Federal currency. He had also filed a case to prevent the US Supreme Court from using the words 'So help you God, In the presidential oath Barak Obama had taken at his January 21 swearing in.
Joe Barnhart, one of CAPEEM’s expert witnesses who testified on the question of biblical indoctrination in the textbooks, was one of the victims of last year's shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist . Church in Knoxville. Barnhart a retired professor of philosophy and religious studies at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas survived the attack. "The textbooks treat biblical myths as historical facts instead of treating them as religious beliefs, and even assign dates to biblical events. The chapters on Judaism and Christianity together read like Sunday School textbooks, B Kumar said. Citing examples, Kumar said the books claim that Paul had a vision of Jesus in 33 CE; Moses received the Ten Commandments from God in 1290 BCE; Constantine saw a flaming cross in the Sky, and that Jesus worked miracles when he grew to manhood. The books also assert that the Egyptians could not capture the Jews because the Lord made the wheels fall off their Chariots.
"We would like to see changes in the areas where the books indulge in religious indoctrination of children, and would like to see the books remove claims about Jesus’ miracles and his so called Resurrection as historical facts, and would like the book to teach the truth that the ‘Aryan Invasion Theory' is not only unscientific, but a byproduct of the biblical stories of Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel. The books must also teach that the field of philology is a pseudo-science that arose as an attempt to prove that every language originated in the Tower of Babel, a fact known to many scholars. Kumar says the case exposed the fact that the indoctrination in textbooks was no accident, and that the Church was involved in creating these textbooks. For example, CAPEEM uncovered an email exchange between Rae Belisle, the legal counsel of the Department of Education, and the pastor of a church, to determine the content of the disputed textbooks, in which the Legal counsel stated that the California standards require the textbooks to be consistent with New Testament. "Another email we uncovered when we issued a subpoena was a celebratory email by a Curriculum Commission member who informed a member of his church about his role in getting the textbooks to teach about the New testament version of the crucifixion of Jesus.¬
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Indic Intellectual Tradition.
I will be giving a talk on The Indic Intellectual tradition at the 17th biannual TANA convention at the Rosemont convention center in Chicago during July 2 to July 4. Sheldon Pollock of Columbia University had written a paper on the History of Indic Intellectual Ideas titled " "Is there an Indian Intellectual History?" Journal of Indian Philosophy (in press) (download) . The content of the paper was relatively unremarkable, but the title was intriguing. I was astonished that the civilization with the largest literary output in the ancient era should be confronted with such a question.
In this power point presentation i will try to address the contributions of the Indics in specific areas such as The Indic Weltanschuung (Darshanas), Astronomy, and History . Th choice of the areas is restricted to those in which i have some competence to speak. I do not imply that the Indic contribution was restricted to these fields .
There are many distortions in the current version of Indic History. Nehru was only right partially when he said that the History of India is , "an ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously." (Nehru, Discovery of India, 1946, 38-39). Where he was wrong was that for the most part the history of the Indic peoples has been a continuous evolution. For example, the Buddhists never attempted to erase what was there before them and the notion of exclusive allegience to a religious dogma is entirely an Abrahamic construct that was certainly not practiced in India before India was colonized. Due to exigencies of time I will be able to address only a few of the distortions in indic History.
If you, the reader, happen to attend the convention, I will be happy to meet with you. A downlevel version of the presentation is available at scribd.com.Itis also available at Lulu.com
The Indic Intellectual Tradition (ID #7334508): http://www.lulu.com/content/hardcover-book/the-indic-intellectual-tradition/7334508, both as a download and as a hard bound book
In this power point presentation i will try to address the contributions of the Indics in specific areas such as The Indic Weltanschuung (Darshanas), Astronomy, and History . Th choice of the areas is restricted to those in which i have some competence to speak. I do not imply that the Indic contribution was restricted to these fields .
There are many distortions in the current version of Indic History. Nehru was only right partially when he said that the History of India is , "an ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously." (Nehru, Discovery of India, 1946, 38-39). Where he was wrong was that for the most part the history of the Indic peoples has been a continuous evolution. For example, the Buddhists never attempted to erase what was there before them and the notion of exclusive allegience to a religious dogma is entirely an Abrahamic construct that was certainly not practiced in India before India was colonized. Due to exigencies of time I will be able to address only a few of the distortions in indic History.
If you, the reader, happen to attend the convention, I will be happy to meet with you. A downlevel version of the presentation is available at scribd.com.Itis also available at Lulu.com
The Indic Intellectual Tradition (ID #7334508): http://www.lulu.com/content/hardcover-book/the-indic-intellectual-tradition/7334508, both as a download and as a hard bound book
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
