Dr Moonje did not want the RSS to be what it is today

‘The RSS is not run by ideology. It’s run for political benefit’ Q&A Anand Moonje Former director, Bhonsala Military School Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 12, Dated 24 Mar 2012 Rana Ayyub is Assistant Editor, Mumbai with Tehelka. rana@tehelka.com

Anand Moonje, former director of the Bhonsala Military School in Nashik tells Rana Ayyub that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is talking about building more military schools only because the Hindutva organisation has now run out of ideas. EXCERPTS FROM AN INTERVIEW

Recently, at the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Bhonsala Military School, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat spoke about the threat to the country’s internal security and about the need for starting more such military schools. Do you agree?

Can you ask Mohan Bhagwat if ideology and the idea of India matter to him? I was a part of the Sangh Parivar, was in jail during the Emergency, and was part of the Kar Seva in 1990. I was a core RSS man, still am where ideology is concerned. But the Sangh has forgotten its ideology. My grandfather Dr BS Moonje and my maternal grandfather Dr Paranjpe, founders of the Sangh, mentored KB Hedgewar. In 1947-48, while BR Ambedkar was negotiating for the Dalits and Jinnah for the Muslims, as president of the Hindu Mahasabha, my grandfather was negotiating for the cause of Hindus, but the Sangh is now marketing Hindutva for electoral gains.

So, is Bhagwat being hypocritical when he says that the Bhonsala Military School should be an inspiration?

Dr Moonje did not want the RSS to be what it is today. The RSS today is not run by ideology. It is run for political benefit. Do you know why they lost the Uttar Pradesh elections? Because the people in the state were with the BJP for Hindutva and the RSS has commercialised Hindutva. They promise Ram temple and put corrupt people in the state who have nothing to do with ideology. The purpose is not ideology, but to make money. When they have dissociated from Hedgewar, MS Golwalkar and Moonje, how long do you think they will take to dissociate themselves from Ram?

But why have you never spoken out against all this?

They have maligned my image, but I am still affiliated to the Sangh. I have my grandfather’s legacy. I was appalled, which is why I am speaking now. I wrote to Mohan Bhagwat and senior RSS members that his statues are in a dismal state in Delhi and Nagpur, but they did not bother. Hedgewarji’s biography was published during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s regime. The book said that Dr Moonje was responsible for the rift in the Hindu Mahasabha and today the same people go to the Bhonsala Military School and try to capitalise on the goodwill that he had built. How low can they stoop?

Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest

I repeat my regret that I am compelled to disappoint you. Yours sincerely, Aurobindo Ghose. To Balkrishna Shivaram Moonje. [1]. Pondicherry. Aug 30. 1920 ... 

Sri Aurobindo and the Cripps Mission to India

On 2 April, Sri Aurobindo telegraphed Dr. B. S. Moonje, a former nationalist colleague, now head of the Hindu Mahasabha, and C. Rajagopalachari, the ... 

Partition, Aurobindo, and the truth sify.com 28 Aug 2009

Duraiswami was also to meet Dr. BS Moonje, Sri Aurobindo's former colleague and a leader of the Hindu Mahasabha. The next day, Cripps ... 

The Political Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo - Google Books Result - V. P. Varma - 1990 - Philosophy - 494 pages

Aurobindo possibly sent messages to C. Rajgopalachari and Dr.-Moonje regarding the proposals of Cripps. It is said that he also sent a personal messenger to ... 

Indian critiques of Gandhi - Google Books Result - Harold G. Coward - 2003 - Biography & Autobiography - 287 pages

As he wrote B. S. Moonje, the chairman of the Reception Committee of the Indian National Congress in response to Moonje's letter requesting that Aurobindo ... 

Doctorji

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Aurobindo to develop the core philosophy of the ...He was sent to Kolkata by Dr. B. S. Moonje in 1910 to pursue his medical ... 

Call for Courage of Conviction | Shri Golwalkar Guruji

In about the year 1920, Dr. Moonje, who was in those days a great Congress ... Dr. Hedgewar, came to Madras on his way to meet Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry.  

Marketime: Sri Aurobindo spared no one, not even Gandhi for whom ... 27 May 2009 – 

That which Aurobindo saw in 1903, Hedgewar saw in 1920. On the eve of the Nagpur Congress, Dr. Hedgewar with Dr. Moonje, realizing with ...

The Lokpal Bill is very authoritarian

Swamy now targets team Anna; compare them with Naxalists Newstrack India - According to media reports, Swami has called Team Anna to behave like Naxalists and alleged them to be more serious in defaming the system and dragging the ... Team Anna behaving like Naxalites: Swamy‎ Zee News Nagpur: Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy Thursday alleged that Team Anna was behaving like "Naxalites" as they were "not keen on solutions" and instead bent on dragging the issue of corruption. "Though Anna Hazare is spreading the anti-corruption movement and wants a strong Jan Lok Pal bill to tackle the menace, his team members are behaving like Naxalites," Swamy told newsmen, here today. "Team Anna was not keen on solutions but dragging the issue and was more interested in defaming the system," he said. 

Jairam's advice: No politics for activists MSN India - ‎Mon, 12 Mar 2012 Source: India Today - Ramesh gave this advice to Popat Pawar, but the reference could well be to Anna Hazare. New Delhi:

Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh believes when social activists take a political call, it only sets them back. The reference could well be to Anna Hazare. Ramesh gave this advice to Popat Pawar, whose efforts have brought Hivre-Bazar in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district in the category of model villages, quite like Hazare's Ralegan Siddhi. "I want you not to undertake a hunger strike or wear a Gandhi cap. Please work for rural development, but keep away from politics," the minister said. But Pawar reminded Ramesh that Hazare was his source of inspiration and they were not competing.

Anupam Kher says Anna Hazare is a saviour Times of India - ‎Mar 10, 2012‎ Lata Srinivasan, TNN Mar 11, 2012

"Screen pe leader aur neta bahut ban ke dekh liya. I wanted to feel alive by being close to a real crusader. Anna Hazare is a god-sent saviour," the actor said emotionally. "The only time I felt so close to divinity was when I met Mother Teresa."

Anna Hazare is no Gandhi, says Om Puri - Mumbai - DNA By Shabana Ansari Thursday, Feb 9, 2012 MUMBAI – Om Puri has raised his voice again—this time against Hazare’s“simplicity and lack of vision”.

“Anna is an honest and simple man with a heart of gold and his contribution in waking up the masses is immense. But unfortunately, he is not Mahatma Gandhi who had the vision and the knowledge to see things through,” Puri told DNA.

Denying that he called Hazare an “uneducated man” as was reported in a section of the media recently, the thespian claimed that all he wanted to say was that the activist’s methods were too simple and impractical. “I don’t doubt Anna’s sincerity towards the cause but his capability in getting the Lokpal Bill passed. I don’t think he understands the nitty-gritty of the matter,” he said.

Puri believes that to make the movement a success it is not enough to have a handful of supporters but experts and lawyers who understand the Constitution and its complexities. “The demands should be open to debate and there should be flexibility on both sides. By being stubborn over the Lokpal Bill, Anna has now got nothing,” he said.

Caste And Politics In Regard To Anna Hazare By Gail Omvedt 31 Dec 2011 Countercurrents.org

Hazare speaks of “civil society.” But, in Marxist terms, the concept of “civil society” covers a multitude of castes, classes and genders. The civil society of the elite is very different from the civil society of the toiling people. And, with the Lokpal idea, it seems clear that this elite, tired of dealing with even the limited – but growing – form of Indian democracy – wants to escape it, go beyond Parliament, and return to its old, unquestioned rule. The Lokpal Bill in fact is very authoritarian, in putting non-elected people of high class-caste background over elected officials and government bureaucrats (but not, as people have noted, over corporations!). (1) “Pal” means “guardian,” and the proposal recalls Plato's Guardians – philosopher-kings who would rule the state. Plato, of course, believed in something like a varna system – people would be said to have special “essences,” gold for rulers, silver for warriors, bronze and iron for workers and farmers. So apparently does Anna Hazare…

Meera Nanda has called Gandhi a “prophet looking backward.” Many may question Hazare's Gandhism – at times there seems more of the RSS in him (and regardless of disclaimers, his RSS connections are clear) – but in respect to taking the self-sufficient, stable village as an ideal, they are clearly the same. Dr. Gail Omvedt is an American born Indian scholar, sociologist and human rights activist. Omvedt has been involved in Dalit and anti-caste movements, environmental, farmers' and women's movements.

Breaking free of Nehru

Royal family takes out procession in Vadodara Ahmedabad Newsline ... and that was the reason why spiritualist like Maharshi Aurobindo and modernist like Dr BR Ambedkar were attracted towards him and served the kingdom.

Claude Arpi: August 15, 1947 in Pondicherry

15 Aug 2011 – Nehru was clearly not aware of Sri Aurobindo's role in India's Freedom... Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes ...

Breaking free of Nehru: let's unleash India! - Page 242 Sanjeev Sabhlok - 2008 - 267 pages - Full view

As Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) wrote: 'We must begin by accepting nothing on trust from any source whatsoever, by questioning everything and forming our own conclusions'.24 That was also the message of Socrates and Buddha 2500 years ago.

Sri Aurobindo: a centenary tribute K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Aurobindo Ghose - 1974 - 346 pages - Snippet view

When Independence came on 15 August 1947, Sri Aurobindo had remarked that it was no mere "fortuitous accident". If Jawaharlal Nehru described the advent of Freedom as "our tryst with Destiny", Sri Aurobindo saw in the synchronisation ...

The Spirit of Modern India - Page 236 Robert A. McDermott, V. S. Naravane - 2010 - 338 pages - Preview

Nehru reminded his people of the tryst that they had made with destiny: "At the stroke of the midnight hour, ... The "larger cause of humanity," of which Nehru spoke at Delhi, was also very much the concern of Sri Aurobindo as he hailed ...

Tradition and the rhetoric of right: popular political argument in ... - Page 325 David J. Lorenzo - 1999 - 339 pages - Preview

Nehru and Indira visited the Ashram together in 1955, when both paid homage at Aurobindo's grave. ... For Savitra's account of his typical American experience, see his Auroville: Sun- Word Rising/A Trust for the Earth (Auroville: The ...

Journal of religious studies: Volume 4, Issue 1; Volume 4, Issue 1 Punjabi University. Dept. of Religious Studies, Punjabi University. Dept. of Religious Studies - 1972 - Snippet view

For India, that day marked our "tryst with destiny," as Jawaharlal Nehru, India's Prime Minister, declared before Parliament. Sri Aurobindo, however, looked upon the identification of his birthday with India's as a free nation "not as a ...

Less than 4 percentage points swing in UP

A Flawed Democracy – The Case for Proportional Representation in India: Srinivasan Ramani from Kafila Guest post by SRINIVASAN RAMANI

It has been argued that the FPTP (First Past the Post) system has run its course in India and that it is time that the country adopted PR systems that would allow for representation of minorities and smaller parties in the legislatures. However, proponents of the FPTP system argue that PR is a recipe for instability as exemplified by the current political deadlock in Nepal, a similar socially stratified country that has adopted the PR system. It is also argued that the FPTP system has not discouraged the growth of smaller parties as seen in the gradual regionalisation and federalisation of India’s polity. And that affirmative action in the form of reservation of seats for marginalised groups such as the scheduled castes and tribes as also the need to obtain support from diverse sections of the population has ensured desirable outcomes in terms of representation, without sacrificing too much on inherent stability as compared to PR systems.

But as UP shows, there are glaring cases of skewed verdicts in the FPTP system. UP has the largest state assembly and it sends the largest number of representatives to Parliament. If the electoral trends in 2007 and 2012 are repeated regularly and the larger parties remain oriented in their social outlook to a limited set of castes and communities, the clamour for a shift to the PR system will only grow. (Srinivasan Ramani is Senior Assistant Editor, Economic and Political Weekly.)

BJP posed tough challenge to two main contenders Times of India Ashish Tripathi, TNN Mar 12, 2012

The BJP won 47 seats with a vote share of 15%, down from 16.97% in 2007, came second at 55, third at 110 and fourth at 123… The BJP lost 13 seats with less than 5000 margin, of which three were lost by a margin less than 500 votes. The BJP was in direct contest with SP at 43 places, of which it won 16, and with BSP at 30 seats, of which party won 13... 

In fact, a shift of just 3% floating votes towards the SP decided the results in 106 assembly constituencies… The 3% vote swing against BSP is of floating votes comprising all castes and communities. These floating votes went to SP, resulting in 3% swing in its favour. The swing mostly has been in the Muslim votes. The Muslims largely voted for BSP in 2007 and Congress in 2009 but this time they are back with SP.  

Election results 2012: Regime change doesn't spell end of Rahul ... Economic Times - Mar 7, 2012, 02.08AM IST By Yogendra Yadav

We rush to conclude that everything the Congress tried in UP was a mistake and that it has no future. We are eager to find nothing short of a tectonic shift in Indian politics in this round of assembly elections.

Learning from cricket commentary would invite us to look at the small print behind the big banner headlines. We would notice that all the big verdicts were results of a very small shift in votes. Even Uttar Pradesh witnessed only about 4 percentage points swing away from Mayawati.

Lesson of the UP polls - To win in Uttar Pradesh, a party needs a reliable core vote MUKUL KESAVAN Calcutta Telegraph Thursday , March 8 , 2012 The Brahmins, especially, are political tourists. 

Yogendra Yadav suggested that the post-poll survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies showed that the categories pundits used to understand the politics of UP had been left behind by electoral reality. The reality was that people didn’t vote according to their identities to the same extent as they had done before. The survey’s most radical claim was that the Jatav rock on which the BSP was built had split, with a fifth of that vote going to the old enemy, the Samajwadi Party. Shekhar Gupta in The Indian Express declared that elections in contemporary India were becoming more meritocratic, that pandering to caste and community identities (as the Congress and the BJP had tried to do) didn’t pay off any more.

Party	Sahibabad	Ghaziabad	Noida	Remarks [TNM55]
BSP	124	64	50	Wins 2 seats
BJP	100	52	77	Wins 1 seat
Congress	51	37	25	3rd in 2 seats
SP	36	17	42	3rd in 1 seat

Who has the Knowledge or the Call?

Sri Aurobindo » Book controversy takes an ugly turn The Hindu‎

150 inmates of Aurobindo Ashram on 3 days dharna Zee News

Pondy ashram faces 3-day flak Deccan Chronicle

Tension at Ashram Feb 27 2012 webindia123.com

Sri Aurobindo, Heehs and the fragility of faith Hindustan Times (blog) - ‎Feb 22, 2012‎ Sri Aurobindo, Heehs and the fragility of faith by Gautam Chikermane 

BAN THE BAN — The republic of India bans books with a depressing frequency

IY Fundamentalism Religious fundamentalism in the Integral Yoga community.

Photographs of the Mother’s pre-Ashram years from Overman Foundation 

A line from Savitri constantly haunts or assails me—The Mother from Savitri: the Light of the Supreme 17 February 1962 Earth is the heroic spirit’s battlefield, ...

Birth anniversary of SriMaa celebrated at Koraput on 21st Feb-2012 Tuesday, 21 February 2012 09:10 | Written by Ch. Santakar

Birth anniversary of Sri Maa was celebrated at Sri Aurobindo Bhavan , Koraput on 21st Feb-2012 . While children and followers of Sri Maa & Sri Aurobindo offered Dhup and Flowers at the Relics, the presence of eminent Sadhaks like Anadi Bhai added more strength to the aspiration of all. 

The Unity of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo - 9:55 PM

Those who see Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as separate from each other are frankly making a huge mistake. Both of them always held that they were the same consciousness and that there was no distinction between them.

aurotruths commented on New content: Attempts to create an "Aurobindonian religion" … it must be said that just because Makarannd Paranjape thinks that They encouraged a cult, it doesn't mean that it was so. Those who opine upon and judge Sri Aurobindo and The Mother superficially are likely to derive conclusions that differ from those clearly spelled out by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother Themselves. We therefore do not need a Makarand Paranjape to tell us whether Sri Aurobindo and The Mother contradicted themselves or not.

“a book is an inanimate object”. (Whoever wrote this should be given the Nobel prize for literature and science combined.) The Nexus Between Some Ex-Students and Matriprasad

Anonymous Sep 29, 2010 12:34 AM Your comments if studied over a period of time reflect your penchant for appearing objective and fair while leaving a backdoor for escape. Essentially you go with the weather. It’s not the royalty but the wider damage done to the scholarship on Sri Aurobindo at stake.

BABUL'S WORLD: Judgement of The Mother But at present you hardly come across as one who has the Knowledge or the Call. I can imagine there is much which can be changed for the better, in Auroville, in the Ashram, in India, in the world; but where does that change begin? Nay, Their workings are far more complex, intricate, and mysterious, and "One man's perfection still can save the world…" 9 July 2008 14:00

Auro Truths

We are not suggesting that the institutions that Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have established, such as the Sri Aurobindo Ashram or Auroville, are free of problems or cannot be criticized. Everyone is free to poke their nose into the internal affairs of these institutions or criticize them to their heart’s content if it so pleases them… Lastly, we do not claim to posses the Truth, but we believe that we can help remove those obstacles that come in the way of or obfuscate Truth - especially those obstacles that are in the form of deliberate misrepresentation and distortion of facts or the creation of myths – by providing more reliable, accurate and  complete information. Administrators.

Comment on The Anti-Hindi Riot of Pondicherry by Togo Mukherjee by Anurag Banerjee from Comments for Overman Foundation by Anurag Banerjee

Many people think we are trying to establish a “new religion” or that we are against this or that religion; there are many ideas like that everywhere. But that doesn’t interest us at all! (The Mother, 27 February 1965)

Sri Aurobindo Ashram -Delhi Branch founded on 12 Feb 1956.

The Delhi Branch was officially inaugurated on 12 February, 1956, with the Blessings of the Mother. To the great joy and gratitude of spiritual seekers in Northern India, the Mother graciously granted the very first Sacred Relics of Sri Aurobindo to be enshrined here on 5 December, 1957.

Thill - February 6th, 2012 on 7:17 pm

He may have borrowed this notion from Aurobindo (I think Wilber has not acknowledged the full extent of Aurobindo’s influence on his writings). Aurobindo wrote that he was a practitioner of “mystic empiricism”, an undertaking, he believed, was empirical in just the way scientific inquiry is empirical!

But then Aurobindo never explained, although he wrote several big books, the actual process by means of which he allegedly arrived at knowledge of “occult worlds, entities, and forces”, not to mention the modus operandi of harnessing them, e.g., “Yogic force”, to allegedly cure illnesses, influence world events, etc.

Community of serious thinking people

Interview with Blogger Desh D Kapoor | The Pakistani Spectator 3 Feb 2008

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?
Drishtikone.com is my experiment in blogging where I discuss topics of varied interests – from politics to spirituality to sports to arts and science. I wanted a medium to put my interpretation of events that unfold in our lifetime.

The object behind every blog is the attainment of a state of being. Do you agree with this statement?
In a sense, yes. I look at my blog as my outlet for expression. Sharing my thoughts are important. Some may want to agree and some wont. But it helps one to interact at the level of mind as opposed to the level of personality. So, the blogosphere is melting pot of ideas, where ideas interact with ideas. Looks, faces, mannerisms, and “behaviours” become irrelevant.

What do you think is the most exciting or most innovative use of technology in politics right now?
There are many. Blogging, Citizen Journalism, Electronic Voting machines (like India used in the last elections) would be three of the top three things that will help democratic institutions in polity grow.

Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?
I think so. I think democracy is basically the voice of people. And nothing can bring that about more effectively than the blogosphere. Hitherto, only a few journalists had a voice and they could manipulate the national opinion. No more. Every one has thoughts and opinions and they can now get them across.

What are your future plans?
I want to create a community of serious thinking people. Am working on it, it will come out very soon. I will let you know. Drishtikone on February 4th, 2008

Re: [sbicitizen] Re: Fw: [GHHF] Christian Students attend Lecture on Desh D Kapoor 9 February 2012

Neeta amd Mythili: That is precisely the problem with the Indian citizenry today. They want Govinda style Bollywood trash. Anything that makes people think or work through their prejudices is a candidate for "we should steer clear of it". Such a shallow existence and unintelligent engagement with the society around you is NOT a recipe for democracy.

Please understand - a Democratic society is not a right - but a PRIVILEGE! If you cannot engage on every aspect of your society, you should book a ticket to Saudi Arabia and move there. Because such a mentality - "steer clear of uncomfortable discussion" - is only suited for those societies. Either you move there - or you and more like you will MAKE India an autocracy (which it is becoming with the Gandhi Dynasty).

Remember - a Democracy is not just of and for but also BY the people!!

As for religion - NO it is no longer a "personal issue" anymore. If you could follow the way Evangelists in the US are impacting the demography and - in future the polity of India - you will be SHOCKED. Pakistan is a very good example of how Religious money can kill a country. Wahabi money has all but Talibanized that place. Evangelist and Islamist monies in India will take it to ruin as well.....

... and people like you two - who can't understand beyond their own noses. Regards, -desh. 713.568.5133 Blog: Drishtikone

Keeping up with the times and technology

Savitri Erans can contribute a lot to serve the country The effect is so all encompassing that the very definition of ethics or corruption has been warped. Such perversions leading to plutocracy is likely to deteriorate further. Savitri Erans can contribute a lot to stop this rot. [TNM55] More results from Savitri Era

Tusar N Mohapatra: I don't subscribe to mythological stories and I'm ... 21 Jul 2011 ... Sri Aurobindo and Divine Mother followers” and Jitendra, through his blog, has extended a helping hand. As for the socio-political matters, I am ploughing a lonely furrow with much trepidation. All the best. [TNM55] 8:21 AM ...

Savitri Era Devotees: The call of the future 25 Dec 2011 by aurofrance [TNM55].

Amal Kiran (K.D. Sethna) (1904 – 2011) « The Mother's Lasso 29 Jun 2011 ... then nothing can be more absurd. Keeping up with the times and technology is a great survival technique, and if our mandarins chose to cling to Jurassic procedures, then the consequences can be catastrophic. [TNM55] ...

New content: Attempts to create an “Aurobindonian religion” | Auro ... considerable length (and of no inconsiderable significance) by Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy. A discussion on the same, however, can throw much light on this contentious topic and dispel doubts and misunderstandings. [TNM55]. Reply ...

My words will remain imprinted on your soul | Integral Yoga of Sri ... 6 Jan 2012 by Sandeep. This emphasises the role of right reading material at appropriate points in life, and hence, a sort of syllabus indicating essential reading needs to be endorsed. [TNM55]. More results from Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo & The Mother

Mirror of Tomorrow :: Integral Leadership by Anurag Banerjee 13 Jul 2011 by RY Deshpande. I'm not very well versed in matters esoteric, but by definition, harbouring confusion should be out of question for “unmediated experience” (to me, a theoretical construct), I suppose. [TNM55]. More results from Mirror of Tomorrow

Savitri Era Religious Fraternity: Motilal Roy attempted to establish ... 23 Jul 2011 Other notable blogs tended by him are rainbOwther, Musepaper, Marketime, Feel Philosophy, & Evergreen Essays. Besides, he is Advisor of Odia Maha Manch. [TNM55] The Mother's many volcanic ideas that shook ...

Savitri (1950-'51): “Republication” or RYD's personal edition ... 30 Aug 2011 by Administrator [TNM55]. Administrator says: September 13, 2011 at 4:30 pm. Dear TNM,. It is supposed that you will understand that the editing of Sri Aurobindo's poem Savitri was not a simple task. Therefore an editorial team was set up to ... More results from Mirror of Day After Tomorrow ...

Defining “Integral” (or: What Harvey Milk might say to the Integral ... 2 Aug 2011 by Joe Perez [TNM55]. Joe Perez says: August 3, 2011 at 10:38. Thanks Tusar. I'll bear that in mind when I post more on Aurobindo.

POLL: Are 90% of Indians “mentally backward”? « churumuri 15 Nov 2011 by churumuri. The fact that the thought of Sri Aurobindo is yet to appear in the dominant consciousness of the nation proves Justice Katju right beyond any doubt. And sadly, both the elite and the laity are one under this criterion. [TNM55]

Terrorist approach in the freedom struggle of India

At the outset, it seems pertinent to note that freedom struggle of India was led by leaders having different perceptions of their own. Some leaders like Ranade, Gokhale had moderate approach. Aurobindo Ghosh, M.N. Roy, Bhagat Singh, Khudiram had ‘terrorist’ approach and some others like Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal had extremist approach; Bal Gangadhar Tilak though initially had moderate mind but subsequently changed his mind to that of an extremist because he lost faith in British administration. ... He was an apostle of ‘humanist realism’. TILAK AND INDIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT : AN OVERVIEW - RITESH KUMAR, INDIAN JOURNAL OF RESEARCH(2012)6,43-46 ANVIKSHIKI 15 Nov. 2011

Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, has  published Barindra Kumar Ghose’s book The Tale of My Exile : Twelve Years in the Andamans (introduced and edited by Dr. Sachidananda Mohanty of  the Department of English, University of Hyderabad) in December 2011. Rare photographs of Barindra Kumar Ghose by overmanfoundation 

19 January 2012 At 18:30 - C. D. Deshmukh Auditorium

Three influential advocates

35 | January 3, 2012 11:18 am

citizen_q wrote:

There were three influential figures advocating for Indian independence from Britain at that time. Ghandi, who advocated a suicidal pacifism in the face of the Third Reich and more importantly for India, Imperial Japan. Subhas Chandra Bose, an Indian fascist who advocated alliance with the Axis powers against Britain, and Sri Aurobindo, who advocated Indians to fight on the British side against Japan and Germany in exchange for guarantee of independence after the war.

Sri Aurobindo is the pivotal need

On India’s darkling plain
January 4, 2012 By Jagmohan

My own long experience of dealing with political as well as bureaucratic functionaries has reinforced my belief that as long as the Indian mind is not reformed, no administrative, economic or constitutional reforms would save the country from the ever-deepening quagmire of inefficiency, corruption and malpractices.

The experience of 65 years of Independence has shown that it is not possible to build a clean and honest system of governance on a diseased mindscape in the degraded milieu which such a mindscape gives rise to. Strong laws are necessary. Well-structured and effective institutions are a must. The personnel to implement the laws and run the institutions have to be knowledgeable and trained. The overall mechanism of deterrence has to be potent. But all these are of no avail if the fundamental issues pertaining to the mind and soul of India remain neglected and if the negative and nasty values are allowed to hover around.

History tells us that every turning point in the march of civilisation has been preceded by a fundamental change in the mindscape of the people as in the case of the European renaissance in the mid-15th century. It was such inner change that was most needed in the post-1947 India, and it was this very pivotal need that was neglected by the builders of our nation.

Along with the modern Constitution and five-year plans for economic development, the leadership should have been instrumental in the formulation and implementation of a national regeneration programme, by which the country should have been rid of all the detritus that had collected during the long period of decay and degeneration. At the same time the buried treasures of her life-elevating ideals should have been dug out — the ideals which the great reformers of Indian renaissance, such as Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Sri Aurobindo talked about. The leadership should have realised that without providing inner energy, institutions created by the Constitution could not develop the animation needed to keep them clean, creative and constructive.

The writer is a former governor of J&K and a former Union minister http://www.deccanchronicle.com/editorial/dc-comment/india’s-darkling-plain-652

Sri Aurobindo during 1890-1920

Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial, 1890-1920: Resistance in Interaction
Elleke Boehmer

ABSTRACT
This book explores the political co-operations and textual connections which linked anti-colonial, nationalist, and modernist groups and individuals in the empire in the years 1890-1920. By developing the key motifs of lateral interaction and colonial interdiscursivity, this book builds a picture of the imperial world as an intricate network of surprising contacts and margin-to-margin interrelationships, and of modernism as a far more constellated cultural phenomenon than previously understood. Individual case studies consider Irish support for the Boers in 1899-1902, the path-breaking radical partnership of the Englishwoman Sister Nivedita and the Bengali extremist Aurobindo Ghose, Sol Plaatje's conflicted South African nationalism, and the cross-border, cosmopolitan involvements of W. B. Yeats, Rabindranath Tagore, and Leonard Woolf. Underlining Frantz Fanon's perception that ‘a colonized people is not alone’, the book significantly questions prevailing postcolonial paradigms of the self-defining nation, syncretism and mimicry, and dismantles still-dominant binary definitions of the colonial relationship.
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/

Debt in culture

The question of debt runs deeper than we might think. Michael Dutton writes that from the 1940s on, as the Chinese Communists began to capture cities, they conducted blood test. The objective was not medical but political: “the most urgent cases involved tracking down and eliminating those who owed the communists a ‘debt of blood’” (Dutton, 2004, 167.) The separation of populations based on blood would lead to the identification of friends and enemies of the regime. The ‘debt of blood’ became over time, a reverence for the Party: familial, patriarchal reverence was replaced by loyalty to Mao, something we see wonderfully in the song sung at Fengxia’s wedding, where they sing – “nothing compares to the Party’s benevolence/Chairman Mao is dearer than father and mother”. The traditional lineage record was reconfigured, Dutton argues, to narrate a story of liberation facilitated by Mao. It was, he claims, “a story that evoked a debt” which could only be repaid by loyalty and devotion to Mao and the Party (ibid. 171.) - witnessing mao: on zhang yimou’s “to live” - & where do all these highways go now that we are free by anirban on Nov 19, 2011 8:40 AM

David Graeber’s Debt The First Five Thousand Years is a brilliant and powerful book; and even, I would say, a crucial one. Graeber does several things. He shows how the notion of “debt” has been integral to any notion of an “economy.” He traces the history of debt, both as an economic concept and as a metaphor for other forms of social engagement, back to the Mesopotamian civilizations of thousands of years ago. He traces the changes in how debt is conceived, and how economic exchange is organized, in various Eurasian civilizations and societies since then. And he contrasts these relations of economy and debt to those that existed (and still exist to some extent) in non-state societies (the ones that anthropologists tend to study). He takes account of Braudel’s claim that markets have long existed outside of and apart from capitalism — but shows that such markets have only improved life for all, rather than enforcing vicious social stratification through the imposition and collection of debts, when they have been grounded in a cooperative ethos, rather than a harshly competitive one. And he shows that the existence of virtual currency and virtual debt is not just a recent phenomenon, but has deep historical roots — it is hard currency, rather than virtual accounting, that is the more recent (and shallower) innovation. - David Graeber on Debt - The Pinocchio Theory by Steven Shaviro on Nov 19, 2011 10:40 PM

Boita Bandana Utsav at Delhi Haat

ODIA PUA - 9th Boita Bandana Utsav at Delhi Haat
http://www.odiapua.org/invite.jpg

Boita Bandana Utsav on 10th November 2011 at India Gate

Bal Jagruti Association has been celebrating Boita Bandana Utsav in Delhi Since 2004
You would be happy to know that Bal Jagruti Association is celebrating Boita Bandana Utsav for 8th time in Delhi on 10th November 2011 at India Gate Boating Place... The sole purpose of this program is to throw lights on the rich cultural heritage of Odisha at National level.
Photoes Of Boita Bandana Utsav 2011 at India Gate http://boitabandana.com/about-us.html

Conflict between modern and postmodern

Why I stand in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement
OCTOBER 17, 2011 BY JOE PEREZ http://joe-perez.com/blog/2011/10/why-i-stand-in-solidarity-with-the-occupy-wall-street-movement/

Thus, the Occupy Wall Street movement epitomizes the postmodern consciousness with its solidarity for the oppressed and marginalized, its internalized guilt over the West’s legacy of imperialism, and a rebellion against materialism and selfishness. That the movement begins with a ritualized expression of outrage rather than a well-articulated list of demands is understandable; long have postmodern politics been impotent in American political discourse, relegated to the periphery in a two-party system with an iron clad grip on power.
View from an integral window on politics
Distinct in its vision of politics, the integral worldview understands that postmodernity follows modernity as part of a deep and complex spiral of development. The evolutionary view it shares with thinkers such as Fichte and Hegel and spiritual thinkers such as Tielhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo, though in the 21st century the most serious integral thinkers have shed the baggage of simple metaphysics in favor of a view that is arguably both “post-metaphysical” and “post-postmodern.”
Integral recognizes that postmodern political economics emerges from modern economics and is basically an elite, higher level of political consciousness. Postmodern politics is more evolved, more capable of embodying a spirit of justice and compassion, and more capable of taking appropriately worldcentric perspectives on important global problems. Both integral and postmodern political philosophies sense deeply that the days of ethnocentric social organization and independent nation-states is inadequate for coping with the complexities of today’s world.

Tribalism and organized township

Quotation of the Day… - Cafe Hayek
by Don Boudreaux on 10/09/2011 2:47 AM
… is from page 199 of Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies; here he’s talking about Plato:

"He transfigured his hatred of individual initiative, and his wish to arrest all change, into a love of justice and temperance, of a heavenly state in which the crudity of money-grabbing is replaced by laws of generosity and friendship. This dream of unity and beauty and perfection, this aestheticism and holism and collectivism, is the product as well as the symptom of the lost group spirit of tribalism. It is the expression of, and an ardent appeal to, the sentiments of those who suffer from the strain of civilization."

http://kafila.org/2011/09/08/the-utopian-instinct-aflatoon-kiran-bedi-and-nandan-nilekani-taha-mehmood/

A comparison of Utopias as Nandan Nilekani, Kiran Bedi and Plato projects in their book - Guest post by TAHA MEHMOOD

Tihar: And the rise of Kiran Bedi as a Platonic benevolent dictator
When Kiran Bedi first entered Tihar as Inspector General Prisons, she felt like ‘entering an organized township.’[i] For all we know, she may have been referring to an imaginary city state like Plato’s Magnesia. Kiran Bedi, the retired Indian Police Service officer, is universally credited for reforming the largest prison complex in Asia Pacific region- The Tihar prison. In 1999 Kiran Bedi wrote a book, It’s always possible: one woman’s transformation of Tihar Prison, about her experience of managing the Tihar prison complex as Inspector General Prisons between 1993-1995. ...

Contemporary India, in Nilekani’s view, is suffering from a crisis. Where the states are forced into action by market pressure building up. This response led strategy has made ‘chaos the rule in our crumbling cities’[xxiii].

When Nilekani offers a sweeping history of railways in India, he does it through chaos. Nilekani carefully takes out 9 words from a book by Rajan Balachandran to explain how the British officers viewed the newly constructed fortified railway stations in India around 1870’s. In one sweeping sentence, Nilekani describes the railway stations as ‘protective Edens, against which,’ and then comes words form Rajan’s book, ‘the chaos of India beats, outrageous as a sea’[xxiv]. ...
Had Plato seen Chak De, I’d assume he would be amused not because of the narrative of aspiration or because of the redemption narrative but because he suggests citizens should practice war- not in time of war but during peace. And any city magistrate, who has any sense, must provide provisions in order to summon all the youth of the city for games and competitions. City Magistrates must distribute prizes and confer honor to victors and must blame those who lost. Sports for Plato was a tool to make the citizens remember the city-state and identify with it. ...

While reading Plato I often wonder why did he dream of an ideal space in a city setting. What is it about a city that is luring policy makers in India to make a case for urbanization? Why is urbanization the preferred goal of people like Nandan Nilkekani? Surely there is nothing modern about cities. Society in Plato’s time was highly urbanized. What is Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian war if not a tale of tens of cities fighting with each other over a fear that Athens could dominate over Hellenes.

Annihilating social fascism

Makarand Paranjape argues that modernity (and even postmodernity) did not come to India as it did in its naturalised form in Britain. As opposed to Western modernity lies Indian dharma as conceptualised by Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo and Nehru, which may be investigated in the mysticism of "svaraj". - Beyond borders: A perspective of postmodernism on the issues of religion, ethnicity and identity. Theorising Religion in a Postmodern Context: Special Topic Issue of South Asian Review (Vol. 30, No. 1)
Ed. John Hawley. Pages 381. 
Price not mentioned. Reviewed by Rumina Sethi

If the chant of Vande Mataram has the power to empower civil society, it also has the power to destabilise democratic institutions that gave life to the poorest of the poor and the lower castes, particularly India’s Muslims. The high moral ground on which the Hindu middle class stands is a breeding ground for social fascism. ...
Corruption is not just economic practice; it is also cultural practice. Social fascism does not want us to see that inter-linkage, though it knows that such linkage exists. - Kancha Ilaiah is director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad From: Deccan Chronicle September 7, 2011

 
The Balance of Justice
 
The European Court of Justice is a curious and instructive institution. Europe, even while vaunting a monopoly of civilisation, cherishes and preens herself in some remarkable relics of barbarism. In mediaeval times, with the scientific thoroughness and efficiency which she shares with the Mongolian, she organised torture as the most reliable source of evidence and the ordeal of battle as the surest guide to judicial truth. Both ideas were characteristically European. A later age may seem to have got rid of these luminous methods, but it is not so in reality. In place of the rack the French have invented the investigating judge and the Americans some remarkable processes, which I think they call questioning (the old name for torture) in the first, second and up to the fifth degree if not to higher stages of excellence. The torture is sometimes of the mind not of the body; it is less intense, more lingering, but it leads to the same result in the end. When the tortured wretch, after protecting with lies for as long as may be his guilt or his innocence, escapes from his furious and pitiless persecutor by a true or false confession, preferring jail or the gallows to this prolongation of tense misery, the French call it delicately “entering into the way of avowals”. The Holy Office in Seville could not have invented a more Christian and gentlemanly euphemism. The American system, is in the fifth degree, I think, to keep the miserable accused fasting and sleepless and ply him with a ceaseless assault of torturing questions and suggestions until the brain reels, the body sinks, the heart is sick and hopeless and the man is ready to say anything his torturers believe or want to be the truth. It is a true Inquisition; the mediaeval name fits these modern refinements.
The English people have often been accused as a brutal or a stupid nation; but they have a rugged humanity when their interests are not touched and enjoy glimpses of a rough common sense. They have besides an honourable love of publicity and do not like, for themselves at least, secret police methods. They have rejected the investigating judge and torture in the fifth degree. But their courts resemble the European. Under a civilised disguise these Courts are really the mediaeval ordeal by battle; only in place of the swords and lances of military combatants we have the tongues and technicalities of lawyers and the mutually tilting imaginations of witnesses. The victory is to the skilfullest liar and the most plausible workman in falsehoods and insincerities. It is largely an elaborate pitch and toss, an exhilarating gamble, a very Monte Carlo of surprising chances. But there is skill in it, too; it satisfies the intellect as well as the sensations. One should rather call it a game of human Bridge which admirably combines luck and skill, or consider it as an intellectual gladiatorial show. In big cases the stake is worthy of the play and the excitement, a man’s property or his life. But woe to the beaten! In a criminal case, the tortures of the jail or the terrifying drop from the gallows are in prospect, and it is rather the hardihood of guilt than the trembling consciousness of innocence that shall best help him. Woe to him if he is innocent! As he stands there, — for to add to the pleasurableness of his condition, the physical ache of hours of standing is considerately added to the cruel strain on his emotions, — he looks eagerly not to the truth or falsehood of the evidence for or against him, but to the skill with which this or that counsel handles the web of skilfully mixed truth and lies and the impression he is making on the judge or the jury. A true witness breaking down under a confusing cross-examination or a false witness mended by a judicious reexamination may be of much better service to him than the Truth, which, our Scriptures tell us, shall prevail and not falsehood, — eventually perhaps and in the things of the truth, but not in the things of falsehood, not in a court of Justice, not in the witness box. There the last thing the innocent man against whom circumstances have turned, dare tell is the truth; it would either damn him completely by fatally helping the prosecution or it is so simple and innocent as to convince the infallible human reason of its pitiful falsity. The truth! Has not the Law expressly built up a hedge of technicalities to keep out the truth?
As one looks on, one begins to understand the passion of the Roman poet’s eulogy of the defence counsel, praesidium maestis reis, the bulwark of the sorrowful accused. For in this strange civilised gambling with human dice where it is so often impossible to be certain about guilt or innocence, one’s sympathies naturally go to the sufferer, the scapegoat of a callous society, who may be moving to a long period of torturing and unmerited slavery or an undeserved death on the gallows. But if one could eliminate this element of human pity, it would be a real intellectual pleasure to watch the queer barbarous battle, appraise the methods of the chief players, admire, in whatever climes, the elusiveness and fine casualness of Indian perjury or the robust manly cheery downrightness of Saxon cross-swearing. If the Courts convince us of our common humanity by making all men liars, they yet preserve a relishable unlikeness in likeness. And I think that even theology or metaphysics does not give such admirable chances for subtlety as the Law, nor even Asiatic Research or ethnology favour so much the growth of that admirable scientific faculty which deduces a whole animal out of some other animal’s bone. If the thing proved is generally wrong, it is always ingenious; and after all in all these five sciences, or are they not rather arts? — it is not the thing that is true but the thing that is desired which must be established. This is perhaps why the Europeans think the system civilised, but as a semi-civilised Oriental, one would prefer less room for subtlety and more for truth.
On the whole, if anyone were to complain that modern civilisation eliminates danger and excitement out of human life, we could well answer the morbid grumbler, “Come into our Courts and see!” Still, praise must be given where praise is due, and let the English system once more be lauded for not normally exposing the accused to the torture of savage pursuit by a prosecuting judge or the singular revival in modern dress of the ancient “question” by the American police. Where political or other passions are not roused and bribery does not enter, the poor muddled magistrate does his honest best, and where there is a system of trial by jury, the blunders, whims and passions of twelve men may decide your fate less insanely than the caprices of a Kazi, — though even that is hardly certain. At any rate, if the dice are apt to be loaded, it is, with the exceptions noted, not on one but on both sides of the gamble.
Sri Aurobindo