tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post4600125010290326255..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: Hindu Academics Force Destruction of "Insulting" BookRiaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-32729853378242717502022-10-20T20:16:24.295-07:002022-10-20T20:16:24.295-07:00ANI
@ANI
#WATCH | It's said there's a lot ...ANI<br />@ANI<br />#WATCH | It's said there's a lot of discussion on Jihad in Islam... Even after all efforts, if someone doesn't understand clean idea, power can be used, it's mentioned in Quran & Gita... Shri Krishna taught lessons of Jihad to Arjun in a part of Gita in Mahabharat: S Patil, ex-HM<br /><br />https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1583132551056457735?s=20&t=BUqdkBb_-4-xkSKBG5PdYg<br /><br />-------------------------<br /><br /><br />S. Patil in the tweeted video: "Krishna said he has come here not to establish peace, he has come with a sword"Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-45739470280581597452017-12-21T17:09:19.742-08:002017-12-21T17:09:19.742-08:00A Critique of
Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus, an Alt...A Critique of<br /><br />Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus, an Alternative History”<br /><br />Penguin Books (2009)<br /><br />By Vishal Agarwal<br /><br />http://hindureview.com/2014/02/20/critique-wendy-donigers-hindus-alternative-history/<br /><br />On page 67, she claims that Harappa and Mohenjodaro are the only two major cities of the civilization. This reflects the understanding till 1960s, but now we know of at least 5 major cities.<br /><br />In chapter 4, dealing with the post-Harappan period, she regurgitates a century old (and now invalidated) arguments to ‘prove’ that the Harappan culture could not have been Vedic.<br /><br />In her chapter on Dharmasastras, she claims (p. 304 sqq.) that the first Sanskrit inscription was published by the Indo-Greek King Rudraman. And then she goes on to create a pseudo-history of how the foreign ruler did this to gain legitimacy in the eyes of Hindus (p. 307) etc. One could have appreciated this remark if it were in a book written 30 years ago, but since then, at least 2 chaste Sanskrit inscriptions predating Rudraman’s inscription by almost 250 years and attributed to the Brahmin Kanva dynasty have been found in the region of Mathura.<br /><br />III. Perpetuation of Racist and Orientalist Stereotypes:<br /><br />On pages 468-469, Doniger says – “Mosques also provided a valuable contrast with temples within the landscape of India….The mosque, whose serene calligraphic and geometric contrasts with the perpetual motion of the figures depicted on the temple, makes a stand against the chaos of India, creating enforced vacuums that India cannot rush into with all its monkeys and peoples and colors and the smells of the bazaar and, at the same time, providing a flattering frame to offset that very chaos.” Doniger’s comment is quite racist and orientalist. It is simply unbelievable that even in this age, a scholar can essentialize the Hindu Main St. of sultanate India as “monkeys and peoples, colors and smells, and chaos” – just a variant of the cow, caste and curry stereotype of India and Hindus. Doniger makes it appear that the large scale displacement of temples by mosques was some kind of an architectural blessing on India. It is pertinent to ask if she has similar views on ongoing destruction of Hindu temples by Islamists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and in Kashmir (India).<br /><br />In fact, towards the beginning of the book itself (p. 40), Doniger makes the following derogatory remark against the Hindus – “If the motto of Watergate was ‘Follow the money’, the motto of the history of Hinduism could well be ‘Follow the monkey’ or, more often ‘Follow the horse’.”<br /><br />III. Trivializing Hindu Spirituality:<br /><br />Spiritual scriptures are not meant to be read literally. They abound in analogies, metaphors and symbolism that convey deeper truths. Unfortunately, Doniger debases profound scriptures like the Upanishads and gives them her own crass and often obscene spin.<br /><br />For example, while discussing Upanishadic descriptions of the journey of the soul after death, Doniger remarks (p. 175) – “The people who reach the moon in the Brihadaranyaka are eaten by the gods (as they are eaten by animals in the Other World in the Brahmanas), but the gods in the Chandogya merely eat the moon, a more direct way to account for its waning.” This is an example of Doniger understanding the mystical language of the Upanishads in a very literal way, missing their heart completely. The texts use a metaphorical and poetic language to stress that performance of good karma alone is not adequate because its results are finite. Eventually, these souls that reach the ‘moon’ due to performance of good karma also have to take a rebirth. No heaven is permanent – this is the import of these passages.<br /><br />She caricatures the Yoga philosophy of Patanjali as exercises of mind and body (p. 505). In chapter 18, dealing with Darshanas, she often sacrifices accuracy in favor of literary cutisms.<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-39974076100447323502017-03-28T09:31:08.844-07:002017-03-28T09:31:08.844-07:00#Aurangzeb Wasn't The Bigot India's Right ...#Aurangzeb Wasn't The Bigot India's Right Wingers Make Him Out To Be On Social Media http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/03/28/why-aurangzebs-reputation-as-a-tyrant-and-bigot-doesnt-stand-t_a_22013910/?ncid=fcbklnkinhpmg00000001 … #KnowAurangzeb #Mughal #history<br /><br />Aurangzeb's life, widely misrepresented by the Hindutva brigade as that of a cardboard despot's, was far more complex<br /><br />To impose on Aurangzeb the standards of the modern world is to thus make a grave historical error<br /><br />It's no big news that contemporary India is brazenly partisan about its national heroes, especially the ones who tower over the subcontinent's history. But few figures have elicited as much contempt from a section of the public as well as the political class as the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.<br /><br />Aurangzeb's legacy, in the popular imagination, is one of unmitigated tyranny — reviled as the destroyer of Hindu temples, executioner of Sikh guru Teg Bahadur, and an austere Muslim ruler, who imposed unpopular taxes and curbed expressions of liberal Islam.<br /><br />In 2015, amid a raging controversy, the ruling government acceded to an extraordinary request from the New Delhi Municipal Corporation to have the name of Aurangzeb Road in the national capital changed to APJ Abdul Kalam Road. The idea was to remove the association of evil, represented by Aurangzeb, from the name of the street and replace it with the name of the former president of India, who, presumably, embodied goodness.<br /><br />The hatred for Aurangzeb also comes through in his denunciation by the Shiv Sena and other groups that admire his arch-rival, the Maratha warrior, Shivaji. In 2004, a biography of Shivaji by James Laine was banned in Maharashtra because it had dared to raise questions deemed unseemly by his fans. In 2015, a Shiv Sena MP abused an officer on duty on camera by calling him "Aurangzeb ki aulad" (a descendant of Aurangzeb), after he razed some temples during a demolition drive sanctioned by the district collector in Aurangabad, based on high court orders.<br /><br />Historian Audrey Truschke took it upon herself to write a biography of Aurangzeb for the common reader to disabuse them of the many misconceptions around the Mughal king. At a little over 100 pages, without the paraphernalia of footnotes, it is as accessible as a complex historical narrative can get, without losing its essential core of erudition.<br /><br />Debunking The Myths<br /><br />As Truschke says in the Preface, the idea for the book, fittingly, came to her in an exchange on Twitter, a minefield for peddling divisive political agenda by interested groups and individuals. The spirit of the book, with its crisp prose and controlled polemics, hits out at the easy generalisations of social media.<br /><br />Aurangzeb's life, widely misrepresented by the Hindutva brigade as that of a cardboard despot's, was far more complex, as anyone with common sense would expect, as well as riddled with many contradictions. Those who are familiar with politics should not be surprised by the persistence of the latter either.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-46999052914220958342017-03-28T09:30:45.578-07:002017-03-28T09:30:45.578-07:00Shivaji spark
Culture police vandalism and politic...Shivaji spark<br />Culture police vandalism and politics force the Maharashtra Government to ban the biography of the Maratha warrior king.<br /><br />http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/james-wlaines-book-on-shivaji-sparks-controversy/1/196669.html<br /><br />James W. Laine wanted to redeem history from legends. What the professor of religious studies at Macalester College in Minnesota did not realize was that some Indians find legends more comforting than history.<br /><br />Laine's slim volume, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, published by Oxford University Press, is the latest victim of the culture police. Following the rage of the self-styled keepers of the Maratha heritage against Laine's blasphemy, the Government of Maharashtra has now banned the book.<br /><br />What about the lost manuscripts, though? On January 5, an angry mob calling itself the Sambhaji Brigade of the Maratha Mahasangh stormed the 87-year-old Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune, and destroyed priceless manuscripts and artifacts.<br /><br />They targeted the institute, one of the finest archival centres of the country, because it was acknowledged in the book as Laine's "scholarly home" in India during the time of his research. The loss was a piece of India's own heritage.<br /><br />A rattled Laine,who considers Pune his second home, even made an appeal that he alone, and not those who assisted him in his research, should be held responsible for the book. The Sambhaji Brigade, saying the ban is more political than official, is threatening to take the book-burning protest beyond Pune.<br /><br />What's Laine's blasphemy? By "reviewing" the narrative evolution of the legend of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the 17th century Maratha hero who defied the Mughal Empire to found an independent kingdom, he hopes to rescue the biography of "this great man"from"the grasp of those who see India as a Hindu nation at war with its Muslim neighbors".<br /><br />Today Laine's work is struggling to rescue itself from the grasp of Maratha pride because it raises some "personal" questions about the warrior king. Questions like: Did he have an unhappy family life?<br />Did he have a harem? Was he more interested in building a kingdom than liberating a nation? Was he least interested in the religion of Bhakti saints? Laine calls them "cracks" in the Shivaji narrative. <br /><br />Writing in LA Times on January 12, Laine, "always drawn to stories of heroes", defends his scholarly freedom to entertain what he calls "unthinkable thoughts". As he says in the article, "The owners of Shivaji's story had their own set of questions, delivered with a punch: who should be allowed to portray this history?<br />Should an outsider working with Brahmin English-speaking elites have a greater say in Shivaji's story than Shivaji's own community?" Defenders of the Maratha pride see an intellectual conspiracy in the cracks.<br /><br />Outraged by a reference in the book to Shivaji's "absentee father", Purushottam Khedekar, founder member and president of the Maratha Mahasangh, says, "We strongly condemn the Brahminic attitude and the heinous propaganda against Shivaji Maharaj."<br /><br />And politically too, Laine is not getting any support.Sharad Pawar, the veteran Maratha leader, has already warned that scholarship should not clash with public sentiments and faith. Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee, as usual, was an exception. He condemned the violence and upheld the importance of disagreement and debate in a democracy. <br /><br />Chief Minister S.K. Shinde, under pressure from the Maratha lobby in the NCP and his own party, the Congress, is hesitant about taking action against the violent protesters.<br /><br /><br /><br />In the time of elections, few political leaders can afford to be on the wrong side of Maratha pride, and fewer can afford to take the side of free expression.<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-28720968782147500592017-03-28T09:30:08.335-07:002017-03-28T09:30:08.335-07:00Commentary
In India, 'the Unthinkable' Is ...Commentary<br />In India, 'the Unthinkable' Is Printed at One's Peril<br />January 12, 2004|James W. Laine | James W. Laine, a professor of religious studies at Macalester College in Minnesota, is the author of "Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India" (Oxford University Press, 2003).<br /><br />http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jan/12/opinion/oe-laine12<br /><br />Growing up in Texas in the 1950s, I spent many days roaming my neighborhood wearing a coonskin cap, carrying a toy rifle and singing "Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier." I was always drawn to stories of heroes.<br /><br />In western India, not just kids have heroes. In recent years, the figure of Shivaji, a 17th century Hindu king, has attained almost divine status among the Hindu population. He had long been a regional favorite, for he founded an independent kingdom against all odds in the face of the Mughal Empire to the south and other sultans in the north. There is a way to read his story as the first chapter in a tale of Indian independence -- first from Muslim rule and then from British. His portrait is everywhere and his name is always invoked with reverence, especially among Hindu fundamentalists, in a time of polarized religious politics in India.<br /><br />In 1985, I began to translate the Shivabharata, "The Epic of Shivaji." It contained a great story about Shivaji: How, as a young prince, he was attacked in a diplomatic meeting by an arrogant general but, forewarned by a goddess to wear chain mail, he instead fatally stabbed his attacker and led his troops to victory over a much larger force. I was hooked.<br /><br />I began to realize that everyone knew these tales. Some were historical, some fictive, but they fell into a neat and commonly accepted narrative, reproduced in popular histories, school textbooks and comics. I decided to write about that narrative process, an account of three centuries of storytelling that produced a tale that lived in the minds of people celebrating Shivaji's legacy today. The book came out this summer, and even ranked up with Hillary Rodham Clinton's in the local list of English-language bestsellers in Pune, the city south of Bombay where these cultural traditions are most in evidence and where I had spent months in the library at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Back in Pune this summer, I saw a couple of bland but positive reviews in the Indian papers. I thought, "As long as they don't get to the last chapter."<br /><br />And then someone did. The last chapter is where I entertained what I called "unthinkable thoughts" -- questioning "cracks" in the Shivaji narrative. I wondered, for example, why no one considered the possibility that Shivaji's parents were estranged, given that they never lived together during the period the three were alive (1630-1664), and that the tale provided "father substitutes" for the king-to-be. Why not entertain such an idea? What made it unthinkable?<br /><br />As it turned out, the "owners" of Shivaji's story had their own set of questions, delivered with a punch: Who should be allowed to portray this history? Should an outsider, working with Brahmin English-speaking elites, have a greater say in Shivaji's story than Shivaji's own community?<br /><br />In November, in response to protests over the book, Oxford University Press stopped distributing it in India. With the book unavailable, rumors piled on rumors. Misreadings lapped the globe by e-mail. A colleague, a man mentioned in the book's preface, distanced himself by condemning its contents but was still roughed up by zealots, who smeared tar on his face. Another Pune scholar tore up his manuscript of a biography of Shivaji, proclaiming scholarship an impossibility in such a context. Horrified, I faxed letters to Indian newspapers, taking full responsibility for my book and apologizing for causing offense.<br /><br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-31679589351920446502017-02-09T19:24:00.998-08:002017-02-09T19:24:00.998-08:00Analysis: #India, #Pakistan in race to destroy you...Analysis: #India, #Pakistan in race to destroy young minds with false #history #textbooks<br />http://www.dawn.com/news/1313938/analysis-india-pakistan-in-race-to-destroy-young-minds<br /><br />Consider the latest attempt at subversion from India. According to reports on Thursday, ministers in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled (BJP) Rajasthan state have proposed that the outcome should be rewritten in the mediaeval battle of Haldighati that was fought between the forces of Mughal emperor Akbar and Rajput chieftain Rana Pratap.<br /><br />It ended in a stalemate with the latter retreating deeper into Mewar, but Hindutva historians are determined to show him as the clear victor.<br /><br />It is less widely admitted that his Rajput General Mansingh led Akbar’s 1576 campaign.<br /><br />If Hindutva historians have their way they would project even Alexander of Macedonia as an anti-India Muslim marauder.<br /><br />Cinematic versions of Alexander’s war with King Porus have already attempted this in a way, showing the foreigner speaking in Urdu, implying a Muslim language, while the vanquished Indian ruler spoke chaste Hindi, erroneously projected as a Hindu language.<br /><br />It would be equally embarrassing for Hindutva historians to admit that Maratha king Shivaji communicated with his arch-foe Emperor Aurangzeb in Persian while conducting his Maratha empire’s administration in Modhi, a less discussed precursor of Marathi.<br /><br />It is routine among Hindutva historians to claim mediaeval monuments as Hindu structures grabbed by Muslims. According to P.N. Oak, an early myth-maker in this genre, Taj Mahal was a Hindu palace as was the Asafi Imambarha of Lucknow.<br /><br />According to Oak, Christianity is Chrisn-nity, an ascription to Lord Krishna. “Christianity is in fact a popular variation of the Hindu, Sanscrit [sic] term Chrisn-neety, i.e. the way of life preached, advocated or exemplified by the Hindu incarnation Lord Chrisn, spelled variously as Crsn, Krsn, Krishn, Chrisn, Crisna or Krisna also,” Mr Oak wrote.<br /><br />To keep the spirit from flagging, even Wagner’s theory of continental drift was harnessed to claim that light-skinned Indians originally came from the border of Bihar and Orissa.<br /><br />Later, the border drifted away to form the North Pole, thus implying that Caucasian and Central Asian genes travelled from India to their current abode, not the other way round.<br /><br />As in India, rigging the chronology of history has been honed into a craft in Pakistan too, and it is difficult to say who between the two is better in conjuring myths that exhort young minds to violence.<br /><br />A recent study in Pakistan found that the country’s public school textbooks negatively portrayed religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis, as “untrustworthy, religiously inferior, and ideologically scheming”.<br /><br />The report, “Teaching Intolerance in Pakistan: Religious Bias in Public School Textbooks”, analysed 78 textbooks from all four provinces covering grades five through 10.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-23223815529613089742016-02-03T21:41:17.876-08:002016-02-03T21:41:17.876-08:00Top #Indian Scientists Say #India's #Modi Gove...Top #Indian Scientists Say #India's #Modi Government Is Becoming Increasingly Anti-science. #BJP <br /><br />http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/india-s-government-is-becoming-increasingly-antiscience/?wt.mc=SA_Twitter-Share … #science<br /><br /><br />Three murders, a suicide and a rash of political appointments at universities have thrown Indian academia into an uproar against the conservative (right-wing) government. Prominent artists, writers, historians and scientists are speaking out against an intensifying climate of religious intolerance and political interference in academic affairs.<br />“What’s going on in this country is really dangerous,” says Rajat Tandon, a number theorist at Hyderabad Central University. Tandon is one of more than 100 prominent scientists, including many heads of institutions, who signed a statement protesting “the ways in which science and reason are being eroded in the country.” The statement cites the murder of three noted rationalists — men who had dedicated their lives to countering superstition and championed scientific thought — and what they see as the government’s silent complicity.<br />Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which won the 2014 general elections in India in a landslide victory. The BJP and Modi, in particular, are aligned with the extremist right-wing group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. (This unholy alliance is comparable to the relationship between the Republican Party and the Tea Party, but the RSS is a paramilitary group with more violent overtones than the Tea Party has shown so far.) Together, the BJP and RSS promote the agenda of Hindutva, the notion that India is the homeland of Hindus and all others — the hundreds of millions of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others in this sprawling, secular democracy — are interlopers.<br />“The present government is deviating from the path of democracy, taking the country on the path to what I’d call a Hindu religious autocracy,” says Pushpa Mittra Bhargava , who founded the prestigious Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology in Hyderabad.<br />Despite his blatantly anti-secular stance, Modi’s stated goals for economic development are wildly popular, particularly among the country’s majority Hindus. But academics and intellectuals have been protesting the erosions on academic freedom almost from the start.<br />In January 2015, at the 102nd session of the Indian Science Congress, several members of the BJP government led a session on ancient Indian science and claimed that thousands of years ago, Indians had built planes that could fly not just on earth but between planets. There were other outlandish claims — that the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha is proof that Indian ancients knew the secrets of cosmetic surgery, for example. Scientists were dismayed, and some did call for the session to be canceled, but their primary response then was still ridicule, rather than outrage. <br />In February 2015, economics Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen stepped down as chancellor of Nalanda University in Bihar, protesting the “considerable government intervention” in academic decisions. That same month, gunmen attacked a left-wing politician called Govind Pansare and his wife; Pansare later died of his injuries. Then, in August, gunmen killed Malleshappa Kalburgi, a leading scholar and rationalist, at his home. “They were a threat, so they were eliminated,” says Tandon.<br />The attacks shocked the academic community and ignited protests from writers, filmmakers and historians; many returned their national awards as a symbol of their dissent.<br />Scientists were late to the table, which is not surprising, given that most of Indian science relies on government funds. Still, in October, three separate groups of scientists made statements — the total signatories now number nearly one thousand — protesting the government’s inaction against the acts of violence. (Bhargava returned his Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian awards in India, to the president.)<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-87704367960837048302015-11-07T09:06:36.575-08:002015-11-07T09:06:36.575-08:00Working to saffronize education in entire #India: ...Working to saffronize education in entire #India: #RSS ideologue Dina Nath Batra #Modi #BJP http://toi.in/0bg3AZ via @timesofindia<br /><br /> RSS ideologue and Haryana government's school and higher education consultant Dina Nath Batra says he not only wants to 'saffronize' education in the state but in the entire country. He was in Chandigarh on Friday to co-chair the first state-level consultative meeting on the new education policy for Haryana.<br /><br />Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar chaired the meeting which was attended by a range of people, from vice-chancellors of universities to teachers. Founder of the Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti also indicated that the Bhagwad Gita would be introduced as a moral education subject in schools from class VI to XII from next session. He also clarified that the existing school teachers will teach the Hindu scripture.<br /><br />"The students will be taught a compilation of two shlokas from every chapter of the Bhagwat Gita,'' he said. The government had announced in December 2014, that it planned to introduce the Gita in schools with many accusing it of trying to saffronize school education in the state. Since then, however, the subject had been in cold storage.<br /><br />Speaking to TOI later, he said that his own definition of saffornization was not related to any community or religion, but to a set of ideas which give an independent identity to a person. "Saffron is made of a mixture of red and yellow," he said. "Red is symbolic of bravery while yellow symbolizes patience and prosperity. Hence, we need this kind of education."<br /><br />Batra insisted that he was not working just in Haryana. "I am working for saffronization of education in the whole country, and I want to complete it at the earliest," he said, adding, "let us teach the world about contribution of our experts and expertise towards the global growth." Batra, however, dismissed the allegation that his strategy was part of a larger agenda of the Sangh.<br /><br />Batra also gave some insight into his vision of education in Haryana. Terming the running of colleges offering Bachelor of Education (BEd) courses as a wasteful exercise, he advocated for an integrated university for training of teachers and certifying the colleges.<br /><br />"When teachers don't even go to school, how can you expect students to go to the classroom," He asked. "I know many such people are there who have got BEd degrees while sitting at home. Such a system has to be done away with. Education of a teacher needs to be as rigorous as that of a student. We don't favour any dedicated stream. Let the child be groomed in all the streams of arts, medical, non-medical and commerce and core education standards be maintained,'' he said.<br /><br />Batra had sparked off a major controversy in when he had filed case against Amrican scholar Wendy Doniger's book 'The Hindus: An Alternative History'. The publisher, Penguin India, had decided to destroy all copies of the book.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-65031422791086355092015-10-30T10:10:28.143-07:002015-10-30T10:10:28.143-07:00Wendy Doniger on Bhagvad Geeta:
Davis notes the t...Wendy Doniger on Bhagvad Geeta:<br /><br />Davis notes the tenacity of the warrior’s Gita: “The Gita begins with Arjuna in confusion and despair, dropping his weapons; it ends with Arjuna picking up his bow, all doubts resolved and ready for battle. Once he does so, the war begins.” Krishna’s exhortation to Arjuna has the force of Henry V’s rousing speech on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt (“We few, we happy few…”). Krishna, however, is a god as well as a prince who takes part in the battle, and his most persuasive argument consists of a violent divine revelation: at Arjuna’s request, Krishna manifests his universal form, the form in which he will destroy the universe at Doomsday, the form that J. Robert Oppenheimer recalled when he saw the first explosion of an atomic bomb. Arjuna cries out to Krishna, “I see your mouths with jagged tusks, and I see all of these warriors rushing blindly into your gaping mouths, like moths rushing to their death in a blazing fire.” This is an argument for Krishna’s overwhelming power that Arjuna cannot refuse. It is the climax of the violence of the martial Gita.<br /><br />But at the end of this vision, Arjuna begs Krishna to turn back into the figure he had known before—his buddy Krishna—which the god consents to do. This intimacy is reflected elsewhere in the Mahabharata in two quite playful satires on the Gita that Davis does not mention. One comes much later, long after the battle, when Arjuna reminds Krishna of their conversation on the eve of battle and adds: “But I have lost all that you said to me in friendship, O tiger among men, for I have a forgetful mind. And yet I am curious about those things again, my lord.”<br /><br />Krishna, rather crossly, remarks that he is displeased that Arjuna failed to understand or retain the revelation, and he adds, “I cannot tell it again just like that.” But he says he will tell him “another story on the same subject.” Here the satire (on the reader’s forgetfulness, as much as on that of the nonintellectual warrior) ends, and Krishna expounds a serious philosophical discourse, known as the “after-Gita” (the anu-gita).<br /><br />The second, much longer episode may have been inspired (or, later, referenced) by the line in the Gita in which Krishna goads Arjuna by saying, “Stop acting like a kliba; stand up!” (Kliba is a catch-all derogatory term for a castrated, cross-dressing, homosexual, or impotent man, here used as a casual slur, “not a real man.”) But earlier in the Mahabharata, Arjuna has masqueraded as precisely such a person, a transvestite dance master who also serves as charioteer to an arrogant wimp of a young prince who does not realize that he is treating the greatest warrior in the world as his servant, just as Arjuna does not at first realize that he has for his charioteer a great god who has sheathed his claws. The issue of manliness will recur throughout the subsequent history of the Gita. But the playfulness in these early treatments of the martial Gita was eventually smothered under the pious reception of the philosophical Gita.<br /><br />The Nationalists and the Martial Gita<br /><br />Meanwhile, back in India, the Nationalists, culled from the same level of Indian society that had swallowed the British line that the Gita was their Book, and embarrassed by the Krishna of the Gopis, went back to the Krishna of the Gita, but this time to the martial Gita, particularly to its exhortation to the right sort of action (karma yoga). Even Vivekananda endorsed the martial Gita, insisting, “First of all, our young men must be strong. Religion will come afterwards…. You will understand the Gita better with your biceps, your muscles a little stronger.” And he cited, as a directive to Indian youth, Krishna’s exhortation to Arjuna, “Stop acting like a kliba; stand up!” which he translated, “Yield not to unmanliness.”<br /><br /><br /><br />http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/dec/04/war-and-peace-bhagavad-gita/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-23510641295549874932015-09-07T18:51:50.165-07:002015-09-07T18:51:50.165-07:00Shashank Bengali on strike at Film and Television ...Shashank Bengali on strike at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII): <br /><br />For nearly three months, the roughly 400 students here have been on strike, protesting the Indian government’s appointments of loyalists with dubious credentials – including an actor who appeared in B-grade adult movies and a maker of right-wing propaganda films – to the state-funded school’s governing body.<br /><br /> “They want to turn the institute into a factory for their political views,” says Ranjit Nair, a directing student helping lead the protests. “We totally reject that.”<br /><br />The skirmish is over not just the future of the foremost film academy in the world’s biggest movie-making nation, a breeding ground for Oscar winners, expert technicians, darlings of the international festival circuit and stalwarts of Bollywood and India’s thriving regional cinema.<br /><br /> It also represents the biggest showdown yet over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to reshape India’s cultural institutions to fit his conservative Hindu nationalist agenda.<br /><br /> During 16 months in power, Modi has packed the national censorship board with political supporters; named an obscure historian who believes in a literal reading of Hindu mythology to lead a prestigious research institute; and created a government ministry to promote yoga and traditional medicine while docking the country’s overall health budget.<br /><br /> “It’s obvious that these moves are connected,” says Jabeen Merchant, a film editor and alumna. “Every government nominates people it likes; that’s inevitable. But this particular government is doing it in such a way that nobody can miss the agenda that’s being promoted.<br /><br />The confrontation escalated early this month after a group of students refused to let the institute’s director, Prashant Pathrabe, leave his office one night. They formed a chain and blocked Pathrabe’s door in a type of civil disobedience known as a gherao, or encirclement, a favourite tactic of Indian labour activists in the 1960s.<br /><br /> Police arrived to free Pathrabe, who filed charges the next day, saying he had been subjected to “mental torture”. That night police arrested five students, who were freed on bail.<br /><br /> Supporters of the strike accused police and administrators of overreacting, while those sympathetic to Modi’s government called the students insubordinate.<br /><br /> “They are not discussing with the government; they are trying to dictate,” says Uday Shankar Pani, a 1974 graduate who was a first assistant director on Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. <br /><br /> “They’re saying, ‘We don’t want anyone connected to your party’. Hey, man, who are you talking to? The government is paying for this school.”<br /><br />At the core of the dispute is the peculiar status of the institute, which is formally a unit of India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, founded in 1960 to train skilled workers for a nascent film industry. The full-time professors are civil servants. On the campus in the bustling western city of Pune, everything is subsidised, from the US$1,100 annual tuition and fees to the cafeteria’s US$1 chicken curry.<br /><br /> New Delhi’s view of the institute as a polytechnic has long clashed with students’ creative aspirations. The school vacuums up national film awards, and its graduates include some of the leading lights of Indian film and theatre, including actor Anupam Kher, director Shyam Benegal and Resul Pookutty, who won a sound mixing Oscar in 2009 for Slumdog Millionaire. <br /><br /> “The institute has contributed immensely to the flowering of both mainstream and art house Indian cinema,” says Indranil Bhattacharya, a directing professor. “Its place in the industry is extremely crucial.”<br /><br /> It has also developed a reputation as a hotbed of protests – “‘One strike a decade’ is an unofficial institute slogan”, a professor says – although they never before spilled into national politics.<br /><br />http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1855217/students-indias-film-and-television-institute-strikeRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-74565668210957174402014-07-24T22:29:14.696-07:002014-07-24T22:29:14.696-07:00A set of booksby Dinanath Batra - who gained notor...A set of booksby Dinanath Batra - who gained notoreity when he managedto get Penguin to agree to pulp American scholar Wendy Doniger's book on Hinduism-are now going to be a part of the Gujarat primary school syllabus, says a report in the Indian Express<br /><br />The report says that on 30 June, "the state government issued a circular directing more than 42,000 primary and secondary government schools across the state to make a set of nine books by Batra, translated from Hindi to Gujarati, part of the curriculum's 'supplementary literature'."<br /><br />And the books contain some gems which highlight Dinanth Batra's 'Indian' thinking.<br /><br />For instance the report points out that in one book titled "Shikhan nu Bhartiyakaran (Indianisation of Education)" Batra writes against the celebration of birthdays with cakes and candles becauseit is a western practice. He writes, "Instead, we should follow a purely Indian culture by wearing swadeshi clothes, doing a havan and praying to ishtadev (preferred deity), reciting mantras such as Gayatri mantra, distributing new clothes to the needy, feeding cows, distributing prasad and winding up the day by playing songs produced by Vidya Bharati."<br /><br />Batra also shows that regardless of geopolitical compulsions, he does not believe that India's neighbours should be recognised as separate countries. In a book titled "Tejomay Bharat (Shining India)", Batra argues that the Indian map should include "countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Burma" as it's all a "part of Akhand Bharat." http://m.firstpost.com/living/dinananth-batra-to-saffronise-guj-syllabus-birthday-cakes-are-bad-burma-is-india-1633781.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-53154857004106485362014-04-30T08:31:43.848-07:002014-04-30T08:31:43.848-07:00Riaz ur continued hateful propoganda against india...Riaz ur continued hateful propoganda against india and hindus in particular is utterly shameful. It is the very reason why there is so much growing hatred in india against their neighbours. India as a country has problems a plenty. Similarly it is a country which has its miracles too. Such one sided biased opinions reflect poorly on u. People would take you more seriously if u gave balanced opinions than continuously posting articles and posts highlighting india's fallacies. And please get over this tame following of the western views of our region. India and pakistan r quite capable of ruling themselves without the constant exploitative politics and views of the west. USA especially is interested in our region for its own gains and is definitely not someone whose idealistic talks can be taken seriously. Cause you should do what u preach. I would advise u to use ur energy in helping ur country progress than wasting it on hating on india.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14267638548778838311noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-79776963146018259502014-02-25T09:12:35.158-08:002014-02-25T09:12:35.158-08:00@narendramodi #India textbooks: "#Japan nuked...@narendramodi #India textbooks: "#Japan nuked #USA", "Cutting trees raised CO3", "Gandhiji killed on Oct 30 1948" http://bbc.in/MTXTf2 Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-23583402386155616342014-02-20T17:38:21.490-08:002014-02-20T17:38:21.490-08:00^^HWJ: "Mir Publications..."
^^^RH: &qu...^^HWJ: "Mir Publications..."<br /><br />^^^RH: "..was not prevented by legal action through courts.."<br />-------<br /><br />The question of prevention through courts did not even arise.<br /><br />The Communist Party was BANNED in the United States and, as a consequence, any books coming from Communist Party-owned publishers was AUTOMATICALLY banned in the US. The US courts upheld these sweeping bans imposed by Congress as constitutional. <br /><br />This is FAR, FAR WORSE than taking a publisher to court.<br /><br />The US may not as supportive of "free expression" as they appear to be (and as you might think). Hopewinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885301987622998733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-76516284908803713782014-02-19T21:50:41.734-08:002014-02-19T21:50:41.734-08:00Prof Riaz ul Haq sb,
other writers have requested...Prof Riaz ul Haq sb,<br /><br /><i>other writers have requested that their own books be withdrawn and turned to pulp in protest (The Guardian). Siddharth Varadarajan and Jyotirmaya Sharma, for example, have sought this course of action in order to (in Varadarajan's words) take on "intellectual bullies" "on their own terms."</i><br /><br />Good and it is time you followed their example. Request Pak Govt to ban "Haq's Musings" in Pakiland in protest against GOP decision to ban Youtube there.<br /><br />RegardsMajumdarnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-66912250756135967182014-02-19T10:00:49.547-08:002014-02-19T10:00:49.547-08:00" If Allah/Bhagwaan is great, he should be ab..." If Allah/Bhagwaan is great, he should be able to easily withstand it."<br /><br />So should be jews ? Why do they make laws banning denial of holocaust.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-67982462005425507632014-02-19T09:25:08.234-08:002014-02-19T09:25:08.234-08:00"Neither was prevented by legal action throug..."Neither was prevented by legal action through courts."<br /><br />Every country has legal rules based on its needs. Indian Govt feels that offending religion in India can stoke unnecessary violence.<br /><br />India has section 295 applied to muslims too. After all India was the first country to ban Satanic Verses.<br /><br />Are you claiming that sec 295 is good as long as it is not applied for Hindus.<br /><br />For the record, I am all in favour of removing Sec 295. Let every book mock all religions. If Allah/Bhagwaan is great, he should be able to easily withstand it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-34742907566434376302014-02-19T07:41:22.221-08:002014-02-19T07:41:22.221-08:00HWJ and Anon: "Mir Publications...Helen Thoma...HWJ and Anon: "Mir Publications...Helen Thomas..."<br /><br />Neither was prevented by legal action through courts. Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-71515767683625092852014-02-19T07:38:43.589-08:002014-02-19T07:38:43.589-08:00In an unusual move of solidarity with Wendy Donige...In an unusual move of solidarity with Wendy Doniger, the author of The Hindus, other writers have requested that their own books be withdrawn and turned to pulp in protest (The Guardian). Siddharth Varadarajan and Jyotirmaya Sharma, for example, have sought this course of action in order to (in Varadarajan's words) take on "intellectual bullies" "on their own terms." Doniger's book was taken off the Penguin catalogue for fear that it might offend religious sentiments. The move prompted severe backlash, successfully adding the word 'pulped' to the Indian news lexicon. A few self-described "avid bibliophiles" have invoked their 'rights as readers' to denounce Penguin's decision. A statement from the group reads, "while they may both be birds, there is a world of difference between a Penguin and a chicken and the last time my clients checked, the penguin had not changed his feathers in the natural world."<br /><br />http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/19/penguin-india-protest-hindus-wendy-donigerRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-3111033442698119722014-02-19T01:11:58.875-08:002014-02-19T01:11:58.875-08:00"BTW, the US constitutional guarantee of free..."BTW, the US constitutional guarantee of free speech extends to all people and books in America regardless of who wrote them and where."<br /><br />Helen Thomas would readily agree with that :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-38767570633199787682014-02-18T23:11:45.800-08:002014-02-18T23:11:45.800-08:00^^RH: "No, I think you misunderstand HWJ.
H...^^RH: "No, I think you misunderstand HWJ. <br /><br />He is making an important point by citing earlier dire predictions made before BJP's Vajpayee's election to the office of prime minister of India. "<br />-----------<br /><br />"What has been is what will be,<br />and what has been done is what will be done,<br />for there is nothing new under the sun.<br /><br />Is there a thing of which it is said,<br />“See, this is new”?<br />It has already been <br />in the ages before us.<br /><br />There is no remembrance of former things,<br />nor will there be any remembrance<br />of later things yet to be among those who come after."<br /><br />---Ecclesiastes<br />Hopewinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885301987622998733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-77798730585959705522014-02-18T23:10:36.136-08:002014-02-18T23:10:36.136-08:00^^RH: "BTW, the US constitutional guarantee o...^^RH: "BTW, the US constitutional guarantee of free speech extends to all people and books in America regardless of who wrote them and where"<br />-------<br /><br />Have you seen any books from Mir Publications in ANY library in the US?<br /><br />If not, why do you think that is? After all, for a long time, Mir Publications was one of the LARGETS publishing houses in the world. And yet....Hopewinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885301987622998733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-57690269664916161922014-02-18T17:12:23.550-08:002014-02-18T17:12:23.550-08:00HWJ: "Correct me if I am wrong, but surely In...HWJ: "Correct me if I am wrong, but surely India's constitution only guarantees "free expression" in India to Indians. There is no such guarantee for foreigners, is there?"<br /><br />Read the whole piece...it gives examples of Indians' freedom being abridged too.<br /><br />BTW, the US constitutional guarantee of free speech extends to all people and books in America regardless of who wrote them and where. Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-44066338933539410982014-02-18T17:11:17.951-08:002014-02-18T17:11:17.951-08:00HWJ: "Correct me if I am wrong, but surely In...HWJ: "Correct me if I am wrong, but surely India's constitution only guarantees "free expression" in India to Indians. There is no such guarantee for foreigners, is there?"<br /><br />Read the whole piece...it gives examples of Indians' freedom being abridged too.<br /><br />BTW, the US constitutional guarantee of free speech extends to all people and books in America regardless of who wrote them and where. Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-34176345460930019412014-02-18T17:11:13.893-08:002014-02-18T17:11:13.893-08:00HWJ: "Correct me if I am wrong, but surely In...HWJ: "Correct me if I am wrong, but surely India's constitution only guarantees "free expression" in India to Indians. There is no such guarantee for foreigners, is there?"<br /><br />Read the whole piece...it gives examples of Indians' freedom being abridged too.<br /><br />BTW, the US constitutional guarantee of free speech extends to all people and books in America regardless of who wrote them and where. Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.com