THE EVIL THAT WAS THE RAJ ... 3

The non-violence of Gandhi would have died a natural death had it not been for Hilter's violence that broke the backbone of the British and then the INA-Japanese combined assault on imperial Britain that did the damage. So was Gandhi raised to the status of being the liberator of India which he never was in its final outcome for which the entire credit must go to Netaji. Netaji, indeed, was the true liberator of our motherland from British hands. Gandhi contributed by his appeasement of the Muslim League towards the Partition for sure. There he and his political protege, Nehru, played a seminal role, only surpassed by the perfidious Jinnah and the Crown. Had Gandhi been that effective in his non-violence and truth-force (ahimsa and satyagraha) as tools potent enough to free India from the British yoke, he would have, for sure, been capable of defending the territorial integrity of the motherland as well, but in real terms he could not which in itself is a vindication of my proposition that the Gandhian mode did not liberate India and that it was Netaji's revolutionary armed struggle and its armed aftermath in the form of the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny at Bombay, the revolt by the British Indian Army at Jabalpore and the Royal Air Force Mutiny at Karachi, Kanpur and Singapore that did it. It astounds me to reflect on the gullibility of Indians who even today entertain such nostalgia about everything that went weak and debilitating in our freedom struggle, and so conveniently let our valorous revolutionaries who were tortured, deported and hanged for their bid for freedom, to sink into historical oblivion through the self-inflicted amnesia that seems to typify the generation of the day. It is time to manifest manhood yet again even as the extreme revolutionaries did in those dark days of the Raj when the looming clouds above never lifted for a nation of semi-slaves to ever see the sunshine of freedom even in basic human terms. Time indeed it is, O youth of India, for you to assiduously study the history of your forefathers when they battled virile on the plains and the hills and in the very depths of the ocean to set their motherland free. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!

WHERE ALL STREAMS FLOW INTO THE OCEAN DIVINE

Let everybody understand this very clearly that I never write to contradict any but only do what I do to keep the discussion and the debate alive so that amnesia does not set in concerning these seminal issues of our national life, our culture and our heritage. I am too insignificant a person to even contemplate combat in any forum, much less this one where my friends and well-wishers abound, for I believe in the union of wills as being beneficial to the evolution of our national life and not undue carping criticism of compatriots and colleagues, pilgrims in the same journey unto the selfsame ocean of bliss and consciousness and existence absolute. If at times, on account of my writing of various essays pertinent to a point under debate and discussion in our particular forum, I appear to be on the aggressive front, in a supposedly combative mood and in confrontation to expressed opinions of others, know it for certain that I have no malefic intent towards any nor the desire to dominate a discussion or even stifle it by ill-worded arguments against the propositions under scrutiny. My only desire is to see my country flower in every possible way and intellectual intersections are no exception to this general aspiration I hold to be dear for my motherland. All of you are dear to me as the children of our common mother and so are we siblings in fraternal bond, ever vigorous in individual difference, never so profane as to viciously diverge. Let our lineage unite us, let our aspirations hold us in close company and let our resolves integrate us into a gigantic storehouse of power whose expending shall see the nation rise from her befallen state to the zenith of her future glory. Come ye sisters, come ye brothers, let us march on to the vanguard of this, the advancing tide of national life. Vande Mataram! Jai Hind!

ABHISHEK KUMAR JHA, WHAT A WRITER!

Thank you so much for providing the link. I went through your excellent essay 'Rammohan to Ramakrishna by F. Max Muller -- Lest We Forget', courtesy your gift of the link. The book, however, is unavailable for purchase at this moment and I must hang on in patient expectancy for it. Thank you once again, Abhishek Kumar Jha. And what a delightful read it was! Indeed, you have mastered the art of lucidity of literary representation and your words flow in lyrical cadences, soft and smooth, blossoming fragrant with every phrase even as they uncover the subject with a felicity redolent of the fertile flow of the Ganga, of the scented breeze of the high Himalayas and of the oceanic tranquillity so characteristic of our Indian ethos. I feel inspired to have befriended you and look forward to delightful conversations ahead to enrich myself from the profundity of your being and your rich store of the knowledge of our ancient culture.

WHEN THE GODS CALL AND THE HEAVENS THUNDER, I COME MOTHER, I COME

Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have not given us something new at all. They have rather taken us back to our Vedic roots which are as diverse as they are universal in that they embrace within their fold the multiplicity of sectarian movement as so many streams leading unto the same ocean of truth and light and freedom infinite, beyond the senses and the mind. The Vedas have not been reinterpreted by them. Rather, they have reemphasised its cardinal points, its catholic principles in the light of the Upanishads and given utterance to them in language modern and in context contemporary, never failing in such exercise, though, to retain their Vedic roots whence spring the apparent divergences of faiths and beliefs as manifest in the post-Vedic Puranic Age and thereafter in the wide world. Their singular contribution to the world of spiritual endeavour has been, though, Ramakrishna's experimental validation of the major world religions including Islam and Christianity, and in its wake the co-validation of all spiritual paths, and even more, in the case of Vivekananda, of all secular paths as well, as being avenues to perfection so long as the essential principles of renunciation and obliteration of the ego are given primacy in such disciplines.

Ramakrishna had lived the gamut of human spiritual experience of the last two thousand years, so said Romain Rolland, and this I state by way of mere reference to a savant's estimation of the spiritual genius of the genial Indian pilgrim and not by way of imposition of authority to validate a point for it is an exercise in futility, being a positing of personality to prove a principle or a proposition. However, the fact remains that neither Ramakrishna nor his volcanic apostle, Vivekananda, strayed a bit beyond the bounds of boundless Hinduism, or to put it right, the Sanatan Dharma or the Perennial Philosophy in the words of Aldous Huxley. They were neither reformists nor revisionists nor revivalists in the narrow sense of the term but included these all in their broadest connotation as their wings spanned the limits of human consciousness and flew beyond to the terrain transcendental whence they brought tidings of the Divine to slake the thirst of parched humanity.

Ramakrishna often said, "Ekhaankaar bhaab Ved Vedanter paar." (The moods of this personality of Ramakrishna have transcended the bounds of the Vedas and the Vedanta.) It is then puerile to limit the illimitable personality of Ramakrishna about whom Vivekananda went into raptures when he said, "Ramakrishna is the embodiment of infinite spiritual ideas capable of development in infinite ways. Even if one can find a limit to the knowledge of Brahman, one cannot measure the unfathomable depths of our Master's mind." To pigeon-hole Ramakrishna-Vivekananda within the bounds of terms intellectual is an attempt to contain human hope within the confines of Pandora's Box. But alas! can such an endeavour ever come to fruition? I rest my case here.

If digressions have happened in the course of this defence and I have strayed from the reference point of discussion, I lay the blame wholly on myself and I have a due reason for such departure. I must confess that Ramakrishna sends me to raptures as well and Vivekananda to a vehemence that opens vision. And it is this overpowering emotion sweeping through that supplants dry reason with the sublimity of ecstatic expression whence digressions ensue but ever within the bounds of my boundless love for the master and his disciple.

And one more have I given my love to. It is their spiritual protege, Subhas, our Netaji, our beloved leader who has left us, never to return, but who held the divine duo, through the turbulence and the tranquillity of his battle-scarred life, as his sole guiding star, for he, like Nivedita, perceived Ramakrishna-Vivekananda to be the complementary aspects of a single divine personality. And with these words let me draw the curtain on my dissertation, lest I be charged of meandering beyond measure on a matter long modified. Jai Ramakrishna! Jai Vivekananda! Jai Netaji! Jai Hind!

THE EVIL THAT WAS THE RAJ ... 2

I feel inspired by his words, uttered in those early days of the freedom struggle when he set the agenda for all future revolutionary work to free India. His was the giant mind the British could not tackle and, if ever words did significant damage to the Empire, this was it. He was the poet-philosopher-revolutionary all rolled into one and I feel thrilled even to reflect on his tranquil form setting afire the hearts of men into revolutionary activity even as his pen became the mighty sword that he wielded to tear apart the veil of Maya the British had donned to obscure their malefic intent in our motherland. Aurobindo Ghosh was a volcano that never erupted in the face of the British the way it could have for such was the will of the Mother. His later life and work and message must make far greater revolutionary changes in the ages to come, so his devotees say.

THE EVIL THAT WAS THE RAJ ... 1

When I reflect on the torture the British inflicted on our incarcerated freedom fighters, I cannot restrain myself from denouncing the absolute evil that the British Raj was for all its surface pretensions about it being a civilising force among the less civilised races of the world. How our boys and girls were tormented physically and psychologically by the British passes the bounds of my imagination and I wonder how we, Indians, have conveniently forgotten these episodes of our national history when no other nation on earth does so.

The Chinese have not forgotten Japanese atrocity on their people and have not forgiven Japan ever for it. The British keep talking of the Black Hole Tragedy and had raised a memorial monument in erstwhile Calcutta which still remains and has not been razed to the ground by independent India as Mountbatten did to the INA Memorial in Singapore. The Jews will never forget the systematic extermination of their people by Nazi Germany in an attempt to wipe out the race from the face of this earth. Then why do we, Indians, so blissfully forget the perfidies of the British on us?

Under Winston's Churchill's specific orders five million Bengalees were allowed to die of starvation after British wartime policy created an artificial famine in Bengal in 1943. Netaji's offer of a shipload of rice grains was rejected by the British Indian Government. Rice was exported to the war zones abroad for the British soldiers for whom even a buffer stock was created as hapless Bengalees died for want of even a bit of starch that was not there for their bellies to fill. Britain won the war but at whose cost and at what cost paid by India? O Indians, have you forgotten these totally?
  

WHEN WE MEET AND WE GREET, SAY, JAI HIND

This should be the national greeting, not merely in principle but in practice as well. For what is there in a morning, however good, that is not there in the victory of the motherland every moment? Moments strung together form the morn. So, let India rise and may we greet each other 'Jai Hind'.

An objection may be raised that the practice of greeting each other by 'Jai Hind' will stifle individualism by the imposition of nationalism. But no enforcement is being advocated here. It remains a free choice for all how they will conduct themselves in civic life in accordance with the freedom enshrined in the Constitution of India. Our fundamental rights are not to be infringed in any way by enforcement of any set of words and, if so, we have recourse to the Right to Constitutional Remedies to redress the situation, restore to ourselves our lost freedom. However, one has to stretch one's imagination fairly far to detect any possibility of a loss of individual freedom and a disruption of the harmony between the individual and the State by the citizens of this land adopting this greeting which is so very symbolic of national integration, and it is most meet that we do so now at a time of petty provincialism and secessionist tendencies when the call for national cohesion assumes an importance more than oftentimes in the past.

Netaji, in alliance with his adjutant Abid Hassan Safrani, had coined this greeting in wartime Germany for all Indians to feel a strong sense of national identity overriding all other forms of religious, class, caste, linguistic and racial divergences that threatened to tear India apart and which, indeed, since the heady days of the war when this formulation took place, have torn India apart. Netaji had envisioned the threat to national stability then and thereafter, and had, therefore, sought to strike this verbal affirmation of positive nationalism by way of thwarting all fissiparous tendencies.

Now it is up to us how we honour our greatest freedom fighter, our liberator from British tyranny, our prophet of nationalism, prince among patriots, our residual hope of a renascent India amidst the degeneration of the times. Will we stand up as a nation and send out the clarion call 'Jai Hind' or will we sink into a cacophony of provincialism and its other aberrations? For my own self I have volunteered in bliss to be on the side of our beloved Netaji and so do I with a thunderous sound send to you all my greetings, Jai Hind!

BHAABBAAR BISHOY ... 2

Abhyash o bairagyoi abhishtasiddhir bijnansammato poth. Geetamukhe amra tai shunte pai Bhagaban Sri Krishna Arjunke bolchhen,"Abhyasena tu kaunteya vairagyena cha grihyatey." Pratyaha adhyatmik nityakarma sampadan, jop, dhyan, paathh o seba, ei chaturkarma anushthhaner dwara Ishtasiddhi aboshyombhabi. Ashun sokoley mile ei bhaabe nijeder toiri kori o swadeshpremey udbuddho hoye deshsebay broti hoi. Tobei ey jaatir abhyuththaan hobe abar o amra jagatsabhay gauraber ashon alankrita korte saksham hawbo.

BHAABIBAAR BISHOY ... 1

Daaridra durikoron sobar agey aboshyok aar tar jonyo chai janashiksha, bohulo prochar Bharater adhyatmik aitihyo, sanskriti o adhunik bijnan shikshar. Ved Vedanta Bharater bhittibhumi aar tar opor e sangathito hobe natun Bharat taar samonyoer sur ti akshunno rekhe.

MEN CHANGE THROUGH EXPERIENCE AND CHANGE WHEN HURT

And through such change they hold on to the changeless ideal of life, Self-realisation and its national corollary, patriotism, even as Netaji held on to. His love of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda and the motherland remained as complementary features of his spiritual life, a constant note running through the variations, the meanderings of his tempestuous career that carried him across continents to seek a destination so close to home. Bruised and battered by the perfidies of the times, betrayed at home and befriended abroad, Subhas Chandra remained true to his motherland and to all who stabbed him from across and behind, even unto that last brutal blow that felled the hero at the base of the altar of freedom whence he fled to foreign lands to seek succour, for it was the fundamental note of the harmony he heard, freedom, freedom, freedom in the midst of the myriad melodic divergences, freedom amidst the cataclysms of a war that left him not an inch-space where to stand upon, not a man among his former friends to bank upon, yet, a freedom changeless and divine, beating in every pulse of his hero's heart, in every throb of his soul, as unvanquished in defeat he proclaimed, "There is no power on earth that can keep India enslaved. India shall be free and before long. Jai Hind."

KOTHA BHROMITECHHO SOB?

Kotha bhromitechho sob?

Aashio phire,

Ei goshthhire
Rakhiyo ghire,
Aashio ebar,
Aashio phire.
Shara nahi karo,
Prashanta oti,
Aashio phire,
Jabe chole goti.
Sangha kemone
Toma beeney aaj
Cholibe balo?
Hobe je kshoti.
Kanchan bhaya,
Dyakha diyo kaaya,
Nohile je maya,
Ujawlero chhaya,
Dhakibe sob e,
Rakhibe na kichhu.
Ujjwalatamo
Shei shumahan,
Chiroswatantra
Shawttvaa mor,
Daakichhe tomarey
Khuli baahudor.
Aaji basanta,
Esho, esho bhai,
Dujonay mile
Krira kore jai.
Kshaniker khyela,
Bhashey jawthaa bhyalaa,
Meghdoot samo
Bohi lobe mawmo
Barota amar
Pnohuchhibe kachhe
Preyoshee jethaa
Utshuk achhe.
Ey khyalay bhai
Tumio aashio,
Hridayer prem
Saliley bhashiyo.
Bihangosamo
Bipul aakaashey,
Uddin hawbo
Kon chidakaashey?
Shaktiro sroat
Mastakey uthhi,
Hajar sarashi phutibe.
Aaji ekhono acchi
Byashtitey bnadhaa,
Rohibona sheshey,
Bujhe nao dhnaadhaa.
Surjye chandrey
Milibe ta jeno,
Utholibe prem,
Ekathaati meno.
Kanchan majhe
Boshibe je moni,
Hridayapadme
Shei hobe dhoni.
Ar kawto likhi?
Bawlo tobe shawkhey,
Charanero shesh
Charaney di Ma ke.

KE AMI?

Ke ami? sob e Tini.
Ami nei konokhane,
Achhen Prabhu sarbajawney, 
Bokshohote Brahmapathey,
Sarbaloke biraj koren,
Aar toh kichhu nai.
Abhaagaa khnujish Tnarey
Kon duarey?
Hethay Krishna Rai.
Aar keu toh kotha nai.

WHEN INDIA ALMOST BECAME FREE

India, Hiren Mukerjee says, would have achieved liberation during the First World War had Bagha Jatin and his comrades successfully carried out their programme of the planned armed insurrection against the British with German arms assistance, and he argues that it was a very likely outcome given the British weakness at the time and the precarious global situation in which Great Britain was heavily compromised. Remember, the British had been hit hard, so hard by the Bengal revolutionaries that, far from succeeding in partitioning Bengal which got reunited in 1911, the British were forced to shift capital from Calcutta to New Delhi and this itself proves the admission of British weakness and capitulation at the hands of the extreme revolutionaries of Bengal. How on earth could they have faced up to the might of an insurrection by Bagha Jatin and his German-armed revolutionary army if intelligence failure had not helped the British foil the revolution? The Czechs did the damage and so India's chains remained unbroken even as fresh links to it were forged by the perfidious British, this time along communal lines.

A like thing happened when Bhagat Ram Talwar, code-named 'Silver' by the British, Kirti Kisan Party member and a close associate of Netaji during his great escape from India, who was, unknown to the unsuspecting Netaji, a double agent working for the British, leaked vital information given him in complete trust by Netaji on his triumphant return with the INA to Burma, to the British who, thus, having advance knowledge of the future movements of the INA, could foil its successful invasion of British India. When a country has nationalism of so many shades and hues that differ in their intent as the affiliated parties within the Congress did at the time of the World Wars, it is small wonder that seminal souls like Netaji and Bagha Jatin face such insurmountable opposition in extricating the enemy from the motherland.

A nation united in patriotic fervour and not one divided by ideology that gains precedence over national interest, achieves its liberation the way it serves the national interest best. And when such unity of interest is not achieved and party ideology rules the roost, then a nation falls to ruins as India did. Annihilated in her hopes and aspirations, she got amputated in obtaining freedom, one for which none of her freedom fighters had fought save the betrayers in Jinnah and his cronies who had fought the alternative battle for secession from the mainland and the founding of an Islamic State.

Since the battle at Balasore where our aspirations for freedom the valorous way perished with the death of Bagha Jatin and his comrades, history meandered along a different route for India with Gandhian effeminacy supplanting the manhood of the Bengal revolutionaries.

SHOTOBORSHO PORE

Hey beer, hey beerangona, tomra swadeshpreme ranjito hawo, aajo gorje othho shei shatobarsho purber singhanaadey. Jnara gechhen astaachole shedin, tnara aajo apekshomaan nabaprabhater arunodoy laagi, nabajaubaney abhishikta nutan projonmer kachhe tnader asha aajo purnataar prekshapotey protikshomaan. Hey Bharat, jaago, hey Ma, aaj purnaabhishek kawro tomar beer santaan santotider, tomar itihaas uddhaarkalpey broti jara, tomar charaney arpito sreshthho arghya shei shatobarsha purbekaar shaadhonshoniter maan rakhbe jara aaj, tader tumi jayojukta kawro ei maha deshnirmaankolpey. Aar ashirbaad kawro Ma, amra jeno na bhule jai tnader, jnara bholenni amader shei kshawney jokhon aashini amra ei dhoratole. Bande Mataram!

KANCHAN GHOSH, POET-PATRIOT

This is what, Kanchan, makes the group so special. What a variety of views of what variant hues! Thou art our poet nonpareil, lyrical beyond bounds when you do pen those rhythms for us. Aesthetics is as much a part of philosophy as the principles of the latter themselves and what expresses the beauty that abides in every soul so well as literature and its essence, music.

True, indeed, that Netaji was a multifaceted genius with a prophetic vision and an equal artist with words, arresting and ardent, replete with the sublime sensations of the heart that felt for the motherland even as a new-born babe feels for its mother, a la Vivekananda in his last cry for the Mother before he flew to his divine destination.

ARISE INDIA 37 ... SERVICE AND SACRIFICE, THE TWIN MOTTOES FOR NATIONAL REGENERATION

We have to live golden lives of service and sacrifice if we are to offer our truest homage to these 'choice and master spirits of the age'. Else, all our verbal effusions will belie the hopes of these heroes of the freedom movement in us, their future generations, their successors, the carriers of their charge unto the resurrection of our motherland from her blighted benighted state.

PRAHLAD, EPITOME OF DEVOTION, IN THE MODERN CONTEXT

He was the son of the demon king Hiranyakashipu and was a great devotee of Shree Vishnu. His father wanted him to worship him but the boy held on to his chosen deity. A terrible clash ensued, of persecution on one side and silent suffering on the other, eventually resulting in the Lord appearing in his terrible Nrisingha form, emanating from a pillar of the royal court to slay the offending evil king. Prahlad is considered to be the epitome of devotion in the Indian Puranic tradition.

                                                    

May our hearts be filled with such resolute loving devotion for God which nothing can thwart and may we be filled with the fervour that calls on the divine in man which shall be our only object of worship so long as even a dog suffers on earth, as Swami Vivekananda famously uttered in agony at the plight of his countrymen under the octopus-hold of British tyranny! May our motherland be exalted in our purified vision to be the universal motherhood congealed and condensed into her beautiful form in sprightly dance with arms outstretched, as if calling on her other children scattered everywhere to come running into her loving embrace!

                           

Where shall we draw our boundaries of love, where the borders of our motherland? O, it stretches across the ends of the earth and beyond to the remotest corners of space-time and deep within the human heart to the innermost recesses where ‘sadaa janaanaang hridaye sannivishtaha’ resides the Lord and dispenses the fruits of action, Himself the doer of all such in His triple phenomenal mode, sattva, rajas and tamas. This, then, is the India I invoke you to love with your heart’s ardour, with a profusion of tears rendered sublime in your soulful sufferance for the motherland’s cause, in the sacrificial living for the welfare of the many, for the good of all, ‘bahujana sukhayacha, bahujana hitayacha’. Jai Hind!  

IN RESPONSE TO BHASKAR MUKHERJEE'S UNDILUTED APPRECIATION OF A PROFESSORIAL TALK ON ROMAIN ROLLAND AND DILIP KUMAR ROY

But I thought he was slightly devoid of substance as to content of talk and was merely harping on personalities with his subject matter adrift on a sea of affected emotions intent on impressing the audience but invariably, in the process, failing to create any lasting impression even for much more than a while. Affectation and aggrandisement inevitably diminish the power to influence which, ironically, is the whole purpose of such exercise. However, this is purely a personal opinion and is in no way an indictment on the speaker from my side but is merely a serious observation. I believe humility to be the hallmark of effective self-expression which carries the audience and in this respect the speaker was sadly, nay, badly deficient. In final analysis I wish to say that such a musical personality as Dilip Kumar Roy needs a melodic speaker who does not jar the sound with excessive dramatisation not in keeping with the sweetness of the personality of the subject. A little less ostentation in expression would have suited the occasion better and would have truly been homage rendered to both the French maestro and his Indian counterpart which sadly could not in real terms be achieved on account of the speaker's pompousness. This is my humble submission, not a diatribe against someone who I intently listened to and learnt from for nearly an absorbing hour. Jai Hind!

IN THE HEARTLAND OF HEARTLESSNESS, JUKTA BASU MALLIK

I am muted by the monstrosity of our negligence of our very own flesh and blood. Gives a new purpose to my living, a new vision for the implementation of Swamiji's programme of national development as enunciated copiously in his lectures and letters. You are a dynamic young woman who has by the will of Thakur been located in the heartland where he himself suffers the most in his myriad guises. Know it for certain that it is his will that beckons you to serve him and this is also his grace on you. May you be humbled by the effort which is your service, your adoration of the divinity in the human form and may the least tinge of selfishness not mar this exercise in sublimity! May all grace of the trinity of Thakur-Ma-Swamiji ever attend on you is my earnest prayer at their hallowed feet and may I audaciously add on my heartfelt good wishes for you along with such divine company!
P.S. The way itself reveals the light and the light then reveals the way in turn. Thus, the saga goes on through alternate shifts till the truth unfolds in all its finality. Glory unto you that you have been chosen to be the instrument of this divine dispensation for social good and justice long over-due for these hapless children of the motherland. Remember, it is not everybody's good fortune to be afforded the privilege of serving one's brethren in circumstances as tragic as this where the slightest work done brings forth richest dividend for the doer and the done upon. Herein lies the perfect setting for the practice of Vedanta in real terms, for the exercise of the best principles of Karma Yoga, for out there in the field where the sun scorches the soul of man, there is neither substance nor solace for the children of the Lord and the only hope they have is born of fortitude evolved through the sufferance of thousands of years of tyranny, of misery unending with every day challenging the very essence of one's existence and failing to snuff out yet the fire which holds these valorous ones battling out their daily survival for countless aeons. Heaven indeed, dear Jukta, that hell is at hand when human sympathy reaches its lowest ebb, when the viciousness of a consumerist society forgets basic humanity towards those who consume baked grass for bread and yet know no bitterness for all the ills that have been visited upon them by the decadence of the spirit in man, for such are the times when the erosion of all human values quickens the souls of intelligent ones like you and lights up the fire of a new social adjustment, of a new human order based on equality and justice, and of an enlightenment that surges humanity ahead in the tide of times. May your labour be of love, your service sanctified by sacrifice and your ardour full of the fire of the undying Atman that animates all of existence! May success be yours at every step in this mission of fulfilment of the hopes and aspirations of the hapless ones who, may be, are looking at you with longing eyes for the stray straw that will help them stay afloat in this ocean of unequal existence! It breaks my heart to pen these words thus, for I know their very utterance is an insult in exposure of the indignities our brethren bear, a denuding of their selves before the glare of the world they are unfamiliar with and a humiliation in hindered habitat owing to the encroachment of heartless humans intent solely upon offering lip-service to the afflicted and the suffering. And it is here that you are such a refreshing change for them, such a source of sustenance, both in material terms and in human terms, for I know the enormous good the Tatas do in the field of social development and I also know the level of involvement you have for this cause from the core of your being. May all good attend on you as you battle to bring about healthy social changes that may set these impoverished ones on the royal avenue of national life en route to eventual enlightenment! Jai Hind!

REUNIFICATION OF INDIA ... 2

Photo : courtesy Dr. Suvam Chatterjee

We bleed for the Bengal martyrs as we do for those from the rest of India, for India is one and indivisible. Unfortunately, the freedom won was partitioned and such partitioning is antithetical to the spirit of independence which is ever integrated and suffused with the consciousness of oneness, threaded as the differences are by a common love born out of a common culture that runs like the sutratma through the dissent and the divergences, binding the nation into an organic whole whose amputation leads to decay and death and is not the saving act to avert gangrene. India bled together, died a daily death in British occupancy, fought together to achieve freedom but the forces that be, perverted our freedom. United we suffered and separated we shall die. We must unite. But how? Only time will tell but the destiny of our motherland lies in a united uprising against the dark forces of the world to save civilisation. Pakistan and Bangladesh will be extinct in the tide of times unless they are reabsorbed into the vast body of the motherland. They are but provinces of our ancient country and must in due course of time integrate with the mainland of the Mother. Jai Hind!

CHATTAGRAM ASTRAAGAAR LUNTHHAN

Chirodeen ki eibhabe thakibe? Ami bhalo kapor poribo, bhalo ahaar koribo, hashibo, nachibo, jato rokom shukh bhog koribo, ey moner abosthake unnati bole na. Aajkaal amader desher meyeder jeebon ei sankeerno o oti heyo akaar dharon koriyachhe. Tumi eishob chharya dao, amar songe esho. Jagatey je kaaj koritey ashiachhi, shei kaaj arombho kori. ... Masterda Surya Sen to his wife Pushpo in a letter from Presidency Jail in 1925 as depicted in the film Chattagram Astraagaar Lunthhan.

Will you pass your days forever this way? I shall bedeck myself with finery, feed myself with delicacies, laugh, dance and enjoy all the pleasures of life --- such a state of mind does not betoken uplift. Our women these days have allowed their lives to flow along such a narrow and despicable channel. Leave all these and come along with me. The work which I have come to accomplish in this world, let me initiate it. ... Masterda Surya Sen to his wife Pushpo in a letter from Presidency Jail in 1925 as depicted in the film 'Chattagram Astraagaar Lunthhan'.

Translated by Sugata Bose

BENEDICTION

Blessed you are that you breathe the air our martyrs breathed, blessed indeed that the same blood runs in your veins, courses through your arteries. What a fire we must have to be the rightful heirs of these heroes who emptied themselves that we may be full, full of the fulfilment of life and freedom!

MUKTIRO MANDIRO SOPANOTOLE (TRANSLATED FROM BENGALI)

MUKTIRO MANDIRO SOPANOTOLE
(1948), Sur O Shilpi --- Krishna Chandra Dey, Katha --- Mohini Chowdhury

মুক্তির মন্দির সোপান তলে, 

কত প্রাণ হলো বলিদান,
লেখা আছে অশ্রুজলে৷

কত বিপ্লবি বন্ধুর রক্তে রাঙা,
বন্দীশালার ওই শিকল ভাঙা
তাঁরা কি ফিরিবে আর
তাঁরা কি ফিরিবে আজ সুপ্রভাতে,
যত তরুণ অরুণ গেছে অস্তাচলে৷

মুক্তির মন্দির সোপান তলে,
কত প্রাণ হলো বলিদান,
লেখা আছে অশ্রুজলে৷

যারা স্বর্গগত তারা এখনো জানে,
স্বর্গের চেয়ে প্রিয় জন্মভূমি
এসো স্বদেশ ব্রতের মহা দীক্ষা লভি,
সেই মৃত্যুঞ্জয়ীদের চরণ চুমি

যারা জীর্ণ জাতির বুকে জাগালো আশা,
মৌন মলিনমুখে জাগালো ভাষা
আজ রক্তকমলে গাঁথা,
আজ রক্তকমলে গাঁথা মাল্যখানি,
বিজয়লক্ষী দেবে তাঁদেরি গলে

মুক্তির মন্দির সোপান তলে,
কত প্রাণ হলো বলিদান,
লেখা আছে অশ্রুজলে৷

MUKTIRO MANDIRO SOPANOTOLE (TRANSLATED BY SUGATA BOSE)
(1948), composed and sung by Krishna Chandra Dey, lyrics by Mohini Chowdhury.

At the base of the stairway of the temple of freedom
How many souls were sacrificed,
O, they are writ, writ in teardrops.

How reddened by the blood of our rebel friends,
The fetters lie broken in their prison cells.
Will they return today?
Will they return this auspicious morn,
Those stellar youths that have set alas?

At the base of the stairway of the temple of freedom
How many souls were sacrificed,
O, they are writ, writ in teardrops.

The heavenward bound, even now they know
Dearer than heaven is the motherland.
Come ye, let us receive grand initiation in the patriot's vow,
Those vanquishers of death, let us kiss their feet.

They who kindled hope in the heart of a worn race,
Gave utterance to the muted voice of a pallid face,
This day the red lotuses strung,
This garland strung of red lotuses today,
The goddess of victory will throw over their necks.

At the base of the stairway of the temple of freedom
How many souls were sacrificed,
O, they are writ, writ in teardrops.

Translated by Sugata Bose

WILL WE UNITE, INDIA, PAKISTAN, BANGLADESH, EVER AGAIN?

In practical terms, yes, there seems to be no chance of a union now. But the course of history is tortuous and opportunities arise when nations separated for a brief interregnum do unite where cultural bonds are strong and permanently indissoluble. In such cases a politically divided people with a common aspiration unite to realise their shared destiny. To part and to join is in the scheme of things, the dual syndrome of life, but there is a higher force at work through it all which seeks to forge bonds, never force it, for 'the Divine may lead but does not drive' (Sri Aurobindo). Centuries hence, religion as it is prevalent now in its pernicious mode carrying with it the inertia of the ages, will cease to be the dominant player in human lives and humankind will have evolved into a democratically conscious species, rational and reasonable, with higher objectives than territorial expansion or ideological conquest. Then nations will sing in unison a common anthem, that of peace and fraternity in the real spiritual way and not in any narrow, coarse ideological way, be they 'secular' or 'sacred'. Who knows what may chance then, when history reshapes forces along harmonic lines running down from antiquity unto the then present?

To us who have been separated at source from our Gangetic delta and from our roots in Sindh about which we daily sing in glorification in our national anthem, to us who have been thwarted of our roots in Sikhism as Nankana Sahib lies in Pakistan that pays scant respect to the religion of Nanak's followers, to us who daily suffer the pangs of the Partition even after seven decades of our truncated independence, is it small wonder that we yet aspire to be together, a united nation despite the mutilation of the millions that paid for the luxury of the Mahatma's experiments with truth, his fad for non-violence? But history does not take heed of emotions alone. Inexorable is the law of karma and the incongruities of the past will have to be accounted for before a harmonic resolution is possible. Ignorance stands in the way, ignorance of the essential oneness of us as a people, an ignorance forged by invasion of our motherland and her culture from Arabia whose final act of division was the perpetration of Pakistan. Now it is a long walk home and we have to raise our nation to pristine heights and beyond before we can reclaim lost territory both geographically and humanly for only in such a soul-sustained oneness may furtherance of our common good be.

THEY SPILLED THEIR BLOOD NOT IN VAIN

Upon the blood of 14 year old lads do we enjoy our freedom today. Shame on those who merely intellectualise the freedom movement and give Gandhi all the credit. Shame! The Chittagong Armoury Raid, despite being dubbed in history as revolutionary terrorism, nonetheless, succeeded in liberating Chittagong for three days from the British Raj and was, in that sense, the precursor to the final thrust of the INA against the barbarous British who had no right under the sun to be in our land for any conceivable reason save those of pilferage, pillaging and plundering our wealth in the name of high-sounding civilisation, a loot that built Britain's much-vaunted civilisation and a plunder that was redolent of their savage past when their forefathers painted themselves in blue and lived in forests like brutes. 

Masterda Surya Sen and his comrades-in-arms should be nationally acclaimed as heroes if this nation wishes to ever rise to self-consciousness and a pride in its true heritage of the freedom struggle. An emasculate nation fed on falsities and fabrications, historical half-truths dished out by hired historians and heartless intellectuals who feel not for the spilled blood of the martyrs, of the cries of the molested girls in British-India jails and of the silent tears shed by bereaved wives and mothers whose every drop reacted as terrible curse on the British Raj to evict them from our soil. In the womb of afflicted Indian motherhood were born the heroes who finally threw off the British yoke only to be relegated to the back pages of history in a final act of perfidy by liberated India, an instance unparalleled in the history of nations from time immemorial. Let us redress the balance and set the records straight. So help me friends, so help me O God of India's destiny, Bharatabhagyavidhata! Jai Hind!

MUST WE SIT IDLE?

No, we must not. We must propagate the Word, the good news as the Christians call it, that Thakur-Ma-Swamiji have arrived to raise us unto freedom. There is hope for all, love for all, salvation for all, for all are divine and are already free, just a nudge necessary and the deed is done. Glory unto humanity! 'Aitad atmiyamidam sarvam tatsatyam sa atma tatvamasi Shvetaketu.'

KALI THE MOTHER ... 2

This worship of the terrible is what Netaji did and which Gandhiji, constitutionally incapable of comprehending, ever opposed. Netaji followed Swamiji in his mission of the worship of the terrible when he shook hands with the 'Devil', so to say, and, going against all mild moderation of the Mahatma, liberated the motherland, himself undergoing torment then and thereafter from his cowardly compatriots in the Congress and a nation in amnesia to boot.

KALI THE MOTHER ... 1

Kali in all Her terrible power, creating, preserving, annihilating Her offspring. Rudra being propitiated by the offering of one's head and not being appeased to avoid destruction. In Srinagar, the site of the composition of the poem, in the houseboat where Swamiji perchance witnessed what he wrote, he fell unconscious at the end of his composition. Perhaps, the Mother had visited him in real as he penned down the last lines. What a soul! What a stupendous receptacle that he could hold such a vision! What a hero!

'And every shaking step
Destroys a world forever.'

FOR THOSE THAT CARE FOR OUR MOTHER EARTH ... 1

Let us unite our forces of goodness to bring about healthy changes within us and, so, effect changes in our environs. Let us spread our concerns for our environment and ourselves take initiatives to plant trees so that we may leave behind to posterity a healthier environment to inhabit. The earth is in fever and we must be doctors to the case attending on us.

PROPHECY OF PARTITION

However, the freedom we got was not what Netaji had intended it to be, although, he full well knew that should the INA fail to achieve independence for India before the war ended, the British would partition India and there would be no way to prevent it. This Netaji said to his ministers while in office and it clearly gives us his idea in advance as to the real reason behind the Partition that was to be in such an eventuality, that is, the British intention to divide India despite the later facade of Attlee's government that the British wished for a united India and that it was Jinnah's intransigence on the issue that did the act of amputation of India. Netaji was of the opinion that it was British politics that would do it and he was prophetically proved correct when the actual events unfolded. Jinnah or Gandhi or, for that matter, Nehru did not wield power over the provisions so much as the real power-wielders, the British did. So, it is the British who bear the responsibility for this treacherous act more than anybody else and this was so well articulated in his cabinet meeting by Netaji way before history had been actually enacted. Jai Hind!

THE OLD MAN AND HIS MUSIC

He does Susanta. Seated in the cavity of the heart, he listens not only to the prayers and the supplications of his devotees but to the music of the spheres within and without. He is the source and inspiration of it all and he is the ocean where it all subsides in harmonic flow. Ramakrishna was the epitome of divine music, its embodiment in flesh and form, its very essence in earthly encasement. How may I describe him who is past all circumscription, all depiction in colour or contour, whose blithe spirit unfolds its wings to take to flights of fancy in the limpid spaces transcending the world of mundane motivations, whose fluid soul ever remains at the interface of the realms of the relative and the absolute, O pray, how may I, enfeebled as I am with a million maladies, ever hope to enter the secret chambers of his heart who is the throb of all sentience? He is the eternal Om permeating the cosmos, springing life into things, attuning the diverse elements of this vast symphony to a concord of consciousness that unites all, a melody marvellous that meanders through the myriad meadows of Maya. His being is of a light supernal, his form congealed in love and his spirit soars to the ends of an endless stretch encompassing all in its enfolded embrace. Such, Susanta, is the Old Man (Ramakrishna) who entered the form of the youth (Narendranath) in a moment of supreme giving and transformed him into the prophet of our times. What music, what symphony, what a delight displayed, here on forsaken earth, that life itself has become an eternal springtime and heaven no more a distant dream! Jai Ramakrishna!

KINDRED SPIRITS ACROSS THE SEAS

The Irish National Flag has a strange resemblance to the Indian National Flag. There is a 90 degree clockwise rotation of the colours in the Irish flag vis-a-vis those in the the Indian flag and the Chakra at the centre of the latter is missing in the former, that is all. The Irish independence movement had greatly inspired our revolutionaries including Netaji and the resemblance of the national flags are as if in consonance with the commingling spirits of the revolutionaries across the continents.

THE LAST VICEROY

The man who ordered the blowing up of the INA Memorial at Singapore was himself blown off by the IRA. The man who oversaw the bloody Partition of India had to pay the price of all of its subsequent horrors in a cruel twist of destiny at quite another front. In the evening of his life, in the twilit hours of his passage to the other world, Lord Louis Mountbatten had to make his karmic balance alright before he could leave the shores of this world. The cry of a million souls, torn and tormented, ravaged and raped, pillaged and plundered, despoiled and desecrated, sought vengeance across the pages of history. Was he responsible for it all, even in part? That is for historians to objectively analyse, for philosophers to deliberate, but the price is paid by individuals and by the masses who are the scapegoats of history. Or, perhaps not. There must be higher computations, finer calculations in the arithmetic of karma where destinies are dealt with amidst the soft murmurings of daily labour and the cataclysms of revolution. It is all a haze but suffices it to remember that the law of karma is inexorable and must visit each one, be it a Jinnah or a Churchill or a Stalin or whosoever it be. There hangs the sword of work, the karmic reward and the karmic retribution which none can escape. History will be avenged, hang on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0H2SCdnKtE

THE MAHATMA OF THE MASSES ... 2

Gandhi's appeal lay in his simplicity of living, with his wearing the apparel of the masses, his practice of 'continence', his outer religiosity, his simplified formula of mass participation for the freedom struggle by means of the spinning wheel and his obvious mass contact and undeniable sympathy for the people at large. He identified in his outer self with the peasant, sharing their sorrows and sufferings in his heart while in his inner self he remained the politician perfected who could face up to the might of the British Crown single-handed, without arms save his own and that too held in abeyance when it came to actively using it in combat against an aggressive enemy. The masses simply obeyed him, such was his magic and herein lies the mystique of the Mahatma despite his apparent failings, his follies and his foibles, his idiosyncrasies of nature and his perverse sense of righteousness et al.