As Ram Worships Bhagwan Shankar ....

The only good thing about the lockdown is the replaying of Ramayana and Mahabharat on Doordarshan. The kids are watching both the serials and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Unlike kids, I can’t watch all the episodes. But on & off I get to watch some episodes or parts thereof. Despite having watched and read different re-creations of Ramayana and Mahabharat, there is always something new to learn every time you watch or read Ramayana or Mahabharat.

For instance, this morning’s episode of Ramayana showed the tactics and strategies adopted by Ram and Ravana in preparation of war. As the final act of preparation, Bhagwan Ram, an incarnation of Vishnu, worshiped his आराध्य देवता, Bhagwan Shankar, to seek his blessings for success.

In the British era there was a lot of animosity between Shaivas and Vishnavas. Historically there has been no ill-will between Bhagwan Shankar & Bhagwan Vishnu, and no ill-will between those who primarily worshipped Bhagwan Shankar and those who prime diety was Bhagwan Vishnu. These divisions and the animosity were created and cultivated by the British to divide Indians.

Similarly the division between so-called Aryans & Dravidians were created by the British, and sustained by pseudo-intellectuals of independent India, who have been more British than Indian in their outlook. Peoples of this land united by Adi Shankaracharya’s travels from Kaladi in Kerala to Kandahar, to Kashmir, to Kamakhya (in today’s Assam), and back to Kanyakumari are all one as Indians/Hindus, and every other identity that we may have is inconsequential in comparison.

The story around imposition of Emergency by Indira Gandhi on 25th June 1975

On 28th September 1942, British government arrested Raj Narain and logged him in jail, where he would remain detained until 1945. Raj Narain was a social worker, and a freedom fighter. He was born in 1917 in a village near Varanasi. In 1934, he became member of Congress Socialist Party. When he was arrested by the British he was the president of Student Congress and was leading protests in and around Varanasi during 1942 Quit India movement.



After independence, Raj Narain joined the Socialist Party led by Acharya Narendra Deva, Jayprakash Narayan and Dr Rammanohar Lohia. Dr. Lohia described him as "a person who has heart of a Lion and practices of Gandhi". Dr. Lohia even said, "if in India there could be just three or four persons like him, dictatorship can never shadow the democracy".

In 1971 Lok Sabha elections Raj Narain contested against Indira Gandhi from Rae Bareli constituency. After Indira Gandhi won the election by fraudulent means, Raj Narain filed a petition in Allahabad High Court alleging that Indira Gandhi used bribery, government machinery and resources to gain an unfair advantage in the election. Narain specifically charged Indira Gandhi of using government employees as election agents and of organising campaign activities in the constituency while still on the payroll of the government.

During the course of the trail, Indira Gandhi attained the dubious distinction of becoming the first India Prime Minister to be cross-examined as an accused in a High Court. On 12 June 1975, Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha found Indira Gandhi guilty of electoral malpractices. Sinha declared the outcome of election in Rae Bareilly constituency "null and void", and barred Indira from holding elected office for six years. He had found Indira guilty of misusing government machinery. The court order gave the Congress party twenty days to make arrangements to replace Indira Gandhi in her official posts. Indira Gandhi challenged the High Court's decision in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court delivered the verdict on 24 June 1975, upholding the High Court judgement and ordering that all privileges Indira Gandhi received as an MP be stopped, and that she be debarred from voting.

Indira Gandhi then asked the President of India, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, to declare emergency, and state of Internal Emergency was declared on the next day, 25th June 1975. The reason cited was that political disorder was a threat to national security. Raj Narain was arrested and put in jail, along with other opposition party leaders like Jayprakash Narayan, Vajpayee, and Advani. Using sweeping powers granted by the emergency decree, thousands of opposition leaders and activists were arrested, press censorship was introduced and elections were postponed. During this period, Congress party amended the Indian Constitution and overwrote the law that Indira Gandhi had been found guilty of violating. As the constitution requires, Indira Gandhi advised continuation of Emergency over every six-month period and the compliant President Fakruddin Ahmed approved it every time.

In Januray 1977 Indira Gandhi decided to hold elections. Voting was conducted between 16th and 19th March. Counting of votes was done on 20th March. The Congress party faced a historic defeat, with its seats tally coming down from 350 in 1971 to 153 in 1977. The Janata Party alliance won a landslide majority with 345 seats, winning close to 52% of total votes polled. Raj Narian contested again from Rae Bareli constituency against Indira Gandhi, and defeated Indira Gandhi by more than 55,000 votes. Emergency was officially ended the next day, 21st March 1977.

Historic Ayodhya Verdict - time to construct and move on

Yesterday's historic verdict by Allahabad High Court on the Ramjanmabhoomi case should pave way for a process of reconciliation and construction of a temple on the birthplace of Lord Ram. Some Hindus might be disappointed by the decree to give away a third of the Ramjanmabhoomi land to Muslims. However, it would suit Hindus to be magnanimous at this point, and accept the verdict with an intent at rapprochement.

The verdict gives a feeling of justice being done to the case to the extent that it accepts the garbhgriha as the true birthplace of Lord Ram. It also asserts that the ASI research findings from the site conclusively prove that the disputed structure was built on top of a demolished Hindu temple.

Here are the key excerpts from the Ayodya verdict from the BBC website.

Here's how Ramjanmabhoomi will be divided:

Akbar's harem

While browsing the internet, I came across an article that said that Akbar had about 5,000 wives! After my initial surprise, I did some research on internet, which led to the conclusion that this was probably true. The wikipedia article on Akbar (with a disclaimer stating "the neutrality of this article is disputed") mentions that Akbar had a harem, but does not mention its size. Most other websites agree that the number is around 5,000.

I don't remember my history textbook mentioning this fact about Akbar's life. That's quite understandable as Indian government is notorious for purporting bogus history, and glorifying those who committed atrocities against Hindus. Akbar was one such tyrant, who is fallaciously glorified in government published history text books.

Here's an article on Akbar, that you should read, and re-evaluate your beliefs about him. Here's another article that discusses Akbar's life and ends with the question: Why don't the Indian school texts give these details of Akbar, and what else are they hiding?

The Amazing History of the Battle of Pratapgad!

It's a long time since a great movie like Gladiator has been released. I love to watch the battle of Germania scene from Gladiator. It watched it a few times today. Then I watched this interesting re-creation of the battle of Stirling Bridge. The battle of Stirling Bridge is one of the most memorable battles in first war of Scottish independence. On September 11, 1297, Scottish forces led by William Wallace trounced the English, although the Scots were outnumbered 1:4!

The history of battle of Stirling Bridge, reminded me of a slide show on the battle of Pratapgad prepared by a retired school teacher in Mahabaleshwar. The slide show was one of the most interesting experiences on my pilgrimage to Pratapgad in 2001. Like the Scots, Shivaji's forces were heavily outnumbered by Afzal Khan's strong army. The slide show narrated the incredible rout of Afzal Khan's army at the hands of Shivaji's Mavalas. Here's a brief excerpt of the story of Pratapgad from wikipedia:

Battle
After starting from Bijapur, Afzal Khan began by destroying the temple of Bhavani at Tuljapur. He moved on to the Vittal temple at Pandharpur. He was trying to entice Shivaji out of the mountainous areas he occupied and onto the plains.
Hand to hand combat of the forces
Maratha troops commanded by Shivaji's captain Kanhoji Jedhe, swept down on Afzal Khan's 1,500 musketeers; resulting in a complete rout of the musketeers at the foothills of the fort. Then in a rapid march, a section of Adilshahi forces commanded by Musekhan was attacked. Musekhan, Afzal Khan's lieutenant, was wounded and subsequently fled the field.

Meanwhile, Moropant led the Maratha infantry toward the left flank of Adilshahi troops. The suddenness of this attack on Afzal Khan's artillery at close quarters made them ineffective in providing artillery cover for the main portion of their troops. And as a result of this the rest of their troops rapidly succumbed to an all out Maratha attack. Simultaneously Shivaji's Sardar (captain), Ragho Atre's cavalry units swooped down and attacked the large but unprepared Adilshahi cavalry before they were able to be fully geared up for battle and succeeded in completely routing them in short order.

The Maratha cavalry under Netaji Palkar pursued the retreating Adilshahi forces, who were attempting to join up with the part of their reserve forces stationed in the nearby village of Wai. They were engaged in battle before they could regroup and were defeated prior to reaching Wai. The Adilshahi forces not withstanding the onslaught of the Marathas started retreating towards Bijapur. The Maratha army chased the retreating army and on their way captured 23 Adilshahi forts. In fact, the Adilshahi Killedar of the Kolhapur fort himself handed over the keys to the Marathas.
Aftermath
Adilshahi forces lost their artillery, 65 elephants, 4000 horses, 1200 camels, jewels worth 300,000 Rupees, 1,000,000 Rupees, heaps of precious cloths, tents to the Marathas. They also lost their money and grain stored at Wai. 5,000 Adilshahi soldiers were killed and almost as many were wounded. 3,000 soldiers were imprisoned, and the remainder were allowed to go home in defeat.

The battle of Pratapgad took place on November 10, 1659. It marked the beginning of the end for Adilshahi and laid the foundation of benign rule of Shivaji, and eventual independence of our nation from tyrannical foreign rulers.

Sri Lanka to promote Ramayana sites

Sri Lanka to promote Ramayana sites. Interesting!!

What happened under Aurangzeb?

"Aurangzeb ordered all Hindu temples to be destroyed. The number of temples destroyed by Aurangzeb is counted in four figures. Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded because he objected to Aurangzeb's forced conversions. Nehru might have known about them, but chose to keep quiet and instructed his historians to downplay Aurangzeb's destructive drive and instead praise him as a benefactor of arts. Since then Indian historians have done the same and betrayed their allegiance to truth. Aurangzeb was the Hitler, the asura of medieval India. No street is named after Hitler in the West, yet in New Delhi we have Aurangzeb Road.

People might say: 'OK, this is all true, Aurangzeb was indeed a monster, but why rake up the past, when we have tensions between Muslims and Hindus today?' The first is that no nation can move forward unless its children are taught to look squarely at their own history, the good and the bad, the evil and the pure. The argument that looking at one's history will pit a community against the other does not hold either.

Today the Shariat has been voted in Kashmir, a state of democratic, secular India, UP's Muslims have applauded, and the entire Indian media which went up in flames when the government wanted Vande Mataram to be sung, kept quiet. The spirit of Aurangzeb seems to triumph."

These are some excerpts from Francois Gautier's splendid article on Aurangzeb and our outlook towards our history.

Sanskrit

Our President Dr Abdul Kalam on the importance of Sanskrit.

Surya Siddhanta

I have written only 25 posts in 2006 (of which 4 are still in draft state), compared to 179 posts I wrote in 2004-05. It is not because I was too busy last year or because I have lost interest in blogging (after getting married, as you would be tempted to add). It's because I didn't have internet at home last year. But now I do have internet connection at home, so I think there will be more frequent entries on this blog than in near past. And hopefully most of those entries won't be links to articles from newspapers and other sources.

Having said that, I am too tempted to refer you to this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Standard_Time#History

An excerpt:
"One of the earliest descriptions of standard time in India appeared in the 4th century CE (i.e. AD) astronomical treatise Surya Siddhanta. Postulating a spherical earth, the book defined the prime meridian, or zero longitude, as passing through Avanti, the ancient name for the historic city of Ujjain (23°11′N 75°45′E), and Rohitaka, the ancient name for Rohtak (28°54′N 76°38′E), a city near the historic battle-field of Kurukshetra."

Unfortunately, you will never read this in any history book in India. Because the government-published history of India begins with the Mughals and ends on 15th August 1947 (while remaining silent on all the atrocities commited on the people by Muslim rulers in this period). But our great nation existed before the the marauders conquered it and has great stories to tell of that era. We have to read about it and tell it to all. In my own insignificant way I continue to do that here.

Who was Bhai Taru Singh?