MY MOTHERLAND ... 21

MY MOTHERLAND ... 21

The Mohammedan attacks against the Hindu rulers was not merely directed at their male warriors but against the womenfolk as well. This was the great threat and the result was the mass self-immolation of Rajput women in the fire of the Jauhar.

When Allauddin Khilji attacked Chittaur, 74500 Rajput women entered the fire of the Jauhar to save their honour. Legend has it that the beauty of Rani Padmini had so enamoured the Delhi Sultan that in his failed bid to obtain her as his queen, he laid the siege on Chittaur that eventually precipitated the mass suicide of honour by the Hindu women. Even today this crime so rings in the memory of men that it is said that whosoever opens a private letter addressed to someone else, commits the equivalent crime of the defiling of the privacy and honour of those 74500 brave Rajputanis. Thus is [74 and 1/2], signifying the 74500 self-immolated ones that day seven centuries back, written on the sealed envelope of the letter, warning the potential intruder against defiling the scared space of its sender and its receiver in wait.

In this way the Mohammedan invaders had lowered the culture of conquest in India and molested our womenfolk and carried them off to their copious harems after defeating and killing the menfolk in war. This was not the Hindu culture of war but was the import from beyond the north-western borders of India whence a savage culture swept over India in the wake of the terrible infighting and disunity among the Hindu rulers. India, long isolated from the rest of the world by self-imposition of unnecessary social restrictions and consequent complacency from remaining cocooned within geographical barriers which she considered sacrosanct and not to be transgressed, was caught unawares by the barbaric invasions of these north-western tribes and the Middle-eastern races with their aggressive instincts and uncivilised attitude towards women who the Hindus revered as embodiment of the Divine Mother. Thus was dealt the deathblow to our culture from which we are still recovering.

But the damage had been done. The motherland had been defiled as our sisters and wives and mothers and daughters were no longer safe from post-conquest tyranny which had thus far been alien in the motherland of supreme spiritual sanity. The Rajputs suffered the worst ordeal for they were the protectors of the motherland, the defenders of the dharma and the bearers of our national honour. Our Hindu rulers in conquest of the Mohammedan rulers never treated their womenfolk in any manner but that of honour. This was the essential difference between the two cultures.

Today, we are free but we need to reflect how far we have been able to live up to that glorious kshatriya tradition of eternal India which but lays down life to defend the motherland and her heritage, careless of return, for it is the dharma of the kshatriya to do so. Upon our reformation and return to roots depends the resurgence of our sublime spiritual culture which rested once not merely on brahmanical spiritual insight but on kshatriya valour as well. Ours is to revive this ancient admixture of valorous spirituality for the recovery of our nation and for leading the world to a higher plane of human evolution where the predator-prey relation among men will have given way to cooperative living along lines of truth and love and peace. India can and must show the way. The world waits on for its delivery from barbarism that has now lasted for ages.

Vande Mataram !

Written by Sugata Bose

DR. PRIYANKA REDDY -- A LIFE SNUFFED OUT EARLY

DR. PRIYANKA REDDY -- A LIFE SNUFFED OUT EARLY

এ আমাদেরই মেয়ে | ডঃ প্রিয়াঙ্কা রেড্ডি -- দীপশিখা নির্বাপিত, এক অকাল অবসান, আর, দেশজুড়ে কোনো প্রতিবাদ নেই তার ! Dr. Priyanka Reddy -- a life snuffed out early, unduly, and there is no nationwide protest.

MY MOTHERLAND ... 20

MY MOTHERLAND ... 20

Let our boys shun this debilitating affinity for soft and sentimental song and dance, theatre and cinema, poetry and perverse politics, and assume the valorous culture of the kshatriyas as evident in the erstwhile Rajput princes who preferred honour to disgrace, to have their heads severed in battle than lowered in submission to the enemy, who shed every bit of blood to preserve the freedom of their motherland and would not brook any opposition to defend the dharma against onslaught.

Let our boys grow up in this leonine tradition to become real men forged in the furnace of service and sacrifice, renunciation and regal bearing.

Let our boys learn to live and die for the motherland with head held high and heart steeled in love, strong and virile, not soft and sentimental like the caricatures of men we witness today. Only then will we be worthy of our freedom and be able to preserve it for posterity.

Upon our strength depends our future, not on the gallons of tears we shed as effeminate creatures erroneously dubbed men. Come on, young men, prove your manhood in the real kshatriya sense of the term and not in some degenerate derivative of it.

Written by Sugata Bose

MY MOTHERLAND ... 19

MY MOTHERLAND ... 19

Be not deluded by these apologists of the 'left liberals', these pretenders to omniscience who can only jibe and joke at nationalism after their wont and consider it their birthright to criticise but to be spared criticism in turn. These half-baked individuals of little learning and much vaunting, and taunting to boot, must be left to themselves by sincere patriots who spend their days and nights thinking of nothing but the good of the motherland out of heart-felt love, a cause for which these citizens in name but not in spirit have no feeling. Therefore, ours is to move on with our national reconstruction, with our garnering support for the mission we have been charged with by Swamiji, the resurrection of the grand Hindu heritage which lies low after a thousand year slavery at the hands of alien invasion, colonisation and conquest.

Ours is a 'wounded civilisation', to pilfer the epithet from Naipaul, and ours is the charge to self-heal and rise renascent with the message of eternal India as sounded in the Upanishads ages ago. Let the detractors cry hoarse in attempted sterile subversion of the national agenda, let the crooked detect disaster in this determined bid of the nation to salvage its ancient culture and rise in tune with it, let the Anglophiles read our national regeneration as a regressive reversal to barbaric times which they by Euro-American association are seemingly linked to, let a million maladies springing from thin air threaten to disrupt the course of our cultural renaissance, but be not daunted by any of them, O patriot perennial of the motherland ! Ours is to override these adversarial agencies and march on to the realm of triumph and glory. Therefore, I say, arise !

For the detractors, a word of mine. Brothers, cast off your cowardice and be men, alas, at last, not the confused mass of oscillating heterodoxy which you right now are but men with the courage of conviction and character that can lend their lives purpose and their motherland the service which your constant crooked criticisms can scarce afford to deliver. Therefore, I say unto you as well, arise !

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Maharana Pratap Singh of Mewar on his beloved horse, Chetak, at the Battle of Haldighati, 1576, against the Mughal forces of Akbar led by Raja Man Singh of Amer.

MY MOTHERLAND ... 18

MY MOTHERLAND ... 18

Only in Hinduism is the concept of the supreme non-dual Self, the Atman or the Brahman, the ultimate Reality. The Semitic religions, namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have no clue to this ultimate Truth. Yet, Christianity and Islam prodelytise in India and attempt to convert the Hindus to their fold. This is blasphemous, indeed, if anything blasphemous is.

Hinduism, much wounded, survives still on account of its inherent philosophical strength and on account of the countless sages and saints who have lent vigour to the dharma by their realisations. And Hinduism shall invincible stand if we lend it our life's labour, our love and sacrifice to keep its flag flying. In it lies the good of our nation, in it lies the good of the world.

Written by Sugata Bose

MAHARANA PRATAP SINGH, THE LION OF MEWAR

MAHARANA PRATAP SINGH, THE LION OF MEWAR

Here is the real patriot who never surrendered to the barbaric expansionist Akbar and reduced his ambitions of subordinating the spirit of Mewar to dust. Losing his capital city in the Battle of Haldighati in 1576, he, yet, recovered almost the entire mass of his lost territory in a protracted struggle lasting years and died a free man with head held high and a spirit undaunted with only his beloved Chittor beyond his imperial control.

Maharana Pratap remains the epitome of nationalism, the iconic inspirational figure who has instilled patriotism in the hearts of all subsequent nationalists who struggled to free India from Islamic and Euro-Christian colonial domination. His life after defeat at Haldighati is the stuff of legends despite it being a fact of chronicled history. His forest bearings, his feeding of the bare produce of the earth and sleeping on the ground, his relentless struggle to regain his lost kingdom and, so, preserve the freedom of his people and the continuance of their culture, all these have placed Maharana Pratap on a pedestal where patriotism alone abides, where self-dignity and honour hold supreme significance and where the corruption of convenient capitulation does not gain a footing even in conception, what to speak of concrete occurrence.

Maharana remains the idol for all of us in valour, love for the motherland, the spirit of sacrifice and service, fearlessness and fortitude, dignity and dutifulness, and above all, supreme devotion to the aspired cause of the preservation of the motherland's freedom. He is the epitome of all that the Rajputs held dear in their valorous warrior tradition and all that age-old India has held as worthy of the kshatriya, the defender of the faith. Our salutations to his memory ! Jai Mewar ! Jai Hind !

Written by Sugata Bose

THE MARCH OF THE GRANDE ARMEE ... 1

THE MARCH OF THE GRANDE ARMEE ... 1

The mind of man is the prism through which refracts the light of the unfolding universe. And in its shine man rediscovers himself each moment, the findings linking themselves to his ever-evolving knowledge of his own self and his cosmic surroundings.

From the dark of prehistoric times to the twilit consciousness of modernity, man has moved on through uncharted paths, carrying the lamp of the old unto fresh horizons that beckon as they recede, egging him on unto a distant dream of a freedom half-felt but never realised. The body trudges on as the mind hastens on the wings of poesy, the spirit leading the triumphant march. This is the Grande Armee of humanity, a la Napoleonic force, that advances through the tide of times, conquering fresh terrain as it disperses poly-chromatic stellar beams onto the screen of civilisation.

End of Part 1
To be continued ...

Written by Sugata Bose

IN INADEQUATE RESPONSE TO DEBAPRASAD BHATTACHARYA'S QUERY ABOUT THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM OF AKBAR

IN INADEQUATE RESPONSE TO Debaprasad Bhattacharya'S QUERY ABOUT THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM OF AKBAR

Akbar abolished the jaziya, entered into matrimonial alliances with the Rajputs to reduce resistance to his expansionist imperialist cause, allowed his Rajput queen Jodha Bai full religious freedom and built her a temple within the precincts of the palace, made Raja Man Singh, his brother-in-law, the Commander in Chief of his army, appointed Raja Todar Mal his Finance Minister, distributed mansabs to his Rajput vassal kings, gave them honour and position in his royal court, gave out offices to his subjects on the basis of merit irrespective of religion, did not destroy a single Hindu temple as Aurangzeb did and possibly Babur, did not persecute the Sikh Gurus as Jahangir (ref. Guru Arjan Dev) and Aurangzeb (ref. Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh) did, did not convert the Hindus to Islam by way of imperial policy, and eventually even attempted founding a new religion, Din-e-Ilahi, by assimilating the best elements of the major religions of the day so as to create harmony among his subjects which he deemed was vital to the sustenance and survival of the Mughal dynasty. However, historians are agreed upon the point that Akbar did what he did from his fundamental aim of the expansion and consolidation of his empire. His was an enlightened despotism, so the chroniclers of history say.

It does seem that this narrative is largely true for, I reckon, there are no contemporary contradictory accounts of it that would prove Akbar to have been otherwise oriented from what has been the projection of his rule as handed down to posterity from the pertinent times. However, just preceding his siege of Chittor, Akbar did order the merciless slaughter of the entire civic population of Chittor to the tune of 35000 heads to deprive Maharana Pratap sufficient manpower and resource to resist the Mughals. If this latter piece of information gathered online proves to be fake on further enquiry, the fault thereof will have been mine and the blame for presentation of such erroneous data without having gleaned sufficient corroborative evidence will lie entirely with me.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Emperor Akbar, the third in the line of the great Mughals who ruled the greater part of the Indian sub-continent between 1526 and 1707, their dynasty dwindling in imperial power thereafter till its abolition by the British in 1858 with the fall of the last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar. Although, Akbar's grandfather Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur was the founder of the Mughal dynasty, it was grandson Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar who effectively consolidated Mughal reign in India after his father Nasir-ud-Din Muhammad Humayun's defeat at the hands of the Indian Afghans led by Sher Shah Suri. Humayun had to flee Hindustan in 1540 and could return only in 1555 to reclaim his lost kingdom. A year later he died and Akbar ascended the throne to embark upon a long and successful campaign for the expansion and consolidation of the Mughal empire almost from scratch. Historians have, thus, rightly conferred on him the title of having been the real founder of the Mughal empire. His lineage, thereafter, amidst bloody fratricidal struggles, carried on the imperial glory of the Mughals for a century more before fading gradually in the political scenario of emerging new imperial powers that included the colonising countries of Europe.

MEERA BAI -- SUCH A SIMPLICITY OF THE SOUL

MEERA BAI -- SUCH A SIMPLICITY OF THE SOUL

The simplicity of the purity of Meera moves me. How easy is her movement to her divine beloved, how mellifluous its expression ! Meera remains a singular illustration in the annals of time of a consumption in the divine fire that has softened its blaze unto a glow of even delight.

A royal, refined in the exquisite tastes of the soul, she yet emerges as a messiah of the masses in her compositions of wondrous appeal that roll down the ages even unto this day, captivating hearts in their diffusive power through the souls of the pure and the simple pilgrims on earth.

A Rajput princess of immaculate upbringing, a queen of exquisite beauty and attributes, of accomplishments that have survived the erosion of time, a seminal contributor to the medieval bhakti movement, a saint of surpassing sublimity of soul and a breaker of the barriers of the time and of all time to come, Meera stands supreme among the mystics and poets of India and of the world in her manifold manifestation as a messenger of eternal India speaking to the world. Her liberation in every sphere of living blended beautifully with her liberation of the spirit as she rose to transcendental heights of spiritual vision while remaining ever rooted to fellow human beings who contacted her through her simple soulful compositions of surpassing beauty.

Meera Bai was no ordinary mystic. She was one of those rare souls who visit the earth but rarely to lead men out of the dark and set them on the track of the divine. Her compositions of universal appeal at once penetrate the depths of the heart and set it pulsating to her own love for her beloved Krishna. Alas, where in the wide world have we seen another Meera?

Written by Sugata Bose

MY MOTHERLAND ... 17

MY MOTHERLAND ... 17

We have a national tendency to clap at every pleasant thing we hear during a lecture. Even during a classical musical performance we witness this frequent clapping. This is symptomatic of the frivolous nature of the average urban Indian mind and requires amendment if ever we are to deepen perception and arrive at a more serious appreciation of the content of a lecture or performance. This shallowness pervades the polity and, thereby, we miss out on the more contentious issues involved in a talk. Why we must be so full of levity is a question that demands greater attention than is usually afforded to it and this is precisely what I shall attempt in this essay.

India has for long been what V. S. Naipaul has dubbed 'a wounded civilisation' and is still recovering from its thousand year old capitulation at the hands of Muslim invaders and European colonists. Hence, she has not yet fully recovered from her crisis of civilisation. Consequently, her children react to situations in a manner which is indicative of their confused state of mind as to what is proper and what is improper in the exhibited social context.

When a vast number of people, as diverse as India's is, recovers from a long long oppression at the hands of imposing alien civilisations, this is what happens to it -- a mass of chaotic semi-assimilation and semi-rejection of the foreign darts which more poison the indigenous system than lend life and energy to it. Then the people are rendered sterile to a large extent and a large number of such, in the vortex of such cultural defilement, lose their moorings in their own culture and start adopting indiscriminately features foreign to them. This creates a war zone in their thought system and produces frivolous behaviour owing to loss of identity and, in consequence, the loss of self-confidence and the tendency to hover in the surface consciousness of material life. This is the breeding ground for all social levity, frivolousness, loss of seriousness and lack of a sense of purpose and direction in civic life beyond the calls of mere survival and engagement in transitory pleasure.

In 1912 Rabindranath Tagore was in London reading out passages from his translation of his 'Geetanjali' to a select group of British intellectuals and poets. At the end of the reading, the group solemnly dispersed without even passing a word of appreciation or criticism. Tagore was disturbed by this strange silence and thought that his translation must have been below par for the English to savour the essence of his original compositions in Bengali. Troubled thus about his failed literary execution, Tagore passed a tense week when to his delight started pouring in letters of ecstatic appreciation of his poetry from his audience. Their delight in discovery of a new genre of Oriental poetry knew no bounds as they lavished praise on Tagore's genius. Many of them added that they had been so spellbound by the beauty of his poems on their immediate recitation and so depth-driven by them that they could not come up with any immediate response by way of appreciation or comment whatsoever. Later, in the repose of their recollection, they could assimilate what had overwhelmed them on initial encounter and only then could they articulate their artistic appraisal of those singularly beautiful works of literary expression.

When Pandit Ravi Shankar went to USA to present Hindustani classical instrumental music, he used to be initially surprised by the total silence of the audience at the end of a performance. Apprehensive of a failure to have impressed his audience, he used to enquire later for some reaction on his performance from some of his listeners. When they would be ecstatic in their appreciation, he would ask them as to why they had maintained such a stoic silence at the end of his recital and had not exhibited their appreciation by any form of applause. The questioned members would answer to the effect that they were so enraptured by the music that they did not wish to disturb the prevailing harmonic equilibrium in the auditorium by an unseemly applause. They wished the music to linger in their memory and create a lasting impression whereby they could better savour it. Panditji understood and, thus, a new chapter in audience appreciation opened up in his mind. Later, Panditji has much regretted that such an atmosphere of attentive audience was not to be found in India where there was frequent frivolous clapping after some fast phrases or the celebrated 'sawal-jawab' (musical question-answer phrase) of the sitar and the tabla or during the jhala which is the concluding fast rendition of the gat (melody). And he has expressed his dissatisfaction over it. In his opinion such frequent clapping and other verbal expressions of appreciation like 'kya baat' (bravo) greatly disturbed the musician's concentration and adversely affected his performance and was not a welcome thing at all. That the audience needed to be more disciplined, attentive and inwardly appreciative rather than outwardly and vocally so.

Owing to the proliferation of knowledge and its easy dispersal through advancing technology like the internet, the vast mass of the population of the world, unschooled in the refinements of sophisticated culture, are taking to the appreciation of the classical art forms. Consequently, classic culture is receiving what is its due at the hands of the proletariat, its inevitable aberration in execution and appreciation. This is the seed of the lowering of the standard of culture worldwide and India, the seat of grand ancient and medieval civilisations with a common thread of the Sanatan Dharma running through it as its continuing historical link, is no exception to it. Culture is plummeting here as well as progressively superficial and shallow minds become the custodians of culture with its concomitant evils among which has been cited this frivolous tendency to cheapen appreciation of the art forms. This seems to an evolutionary lot that has befallen culture globally and, so, specifically speaking in this context, in our country as well and it does not seem that there is an easy way out of it save to wait on the people to go through this phase of degradation before regaining the heights of civilisation in the future.

Unfinished and expanding ...

Written by Sugata Bose

MESSAGES GALORE ... 3

MESSAGES GALORE ... 3

1. Preach Vivekananda through the length and breadth of the country and resist conversion to Christianity and Islam.

2. When politicians excite your emotions and spur you on to an irrational course, refrain from reacting and reflect calmly to understand motives. Lose not your judgement in the heat of the moment and act unwisely. And this is dharma.

3. One is religious conversion. The other is cultural desecration. And a third one, even more violent, is capitalist exploitation. And over and above all these, the environment degrades. There is no end to the treachery of man. And who loses? Why? man himself.

4. Why is the Uniform Civil Code not being implemented in India?

5. Give up westernised thinking in an Indian garb. Imitation is dangerous, suicidal for indigenous culture.

6. Through the murky sky of material life yet shines the divine beloved.

7. A single disjointed life on earth does not seem to be a rational proposition. In reincarnation it seems lies the truth.

8. When we weakened as a nation through infighting, barbarians from abroad invaded us. Therefore, even today we must ever be vigilant. We must forge national unity.

9. Akbar, despite his religious liberalism, was a brutal expansionist in line with imperialist principles of the day.

10. Simplify your lifestyle, save the environment. The planet warms up. It is for you to cool it.

11. Denounce the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki directly in unequivocal terms without watering it down.

12. We are precariously placed with pollution threatening to snuff out life on earth. Act now. Plant trees.

13. I meet my friend every morning, at night I bid him goodbye.

14. A prayer at dawn to our men of morning memory to help raise our spirits high and clean would do our polity a world of good.

15. Your effort is not insignificant. It can but make all the difference to your life and those around you. Arise !

16. Skyscrapers have come but the huts are still there to link us to our pastoral past. Transition ever overlaps, movement reforms.

17. The Pope denounces nuclear armament as a threat to peace. Why does he not denounce Christian conversion as a like threat?

18. শুধু ব্যবহারটি ভাল হলেই হল না, আন্তরিক ভাল হওয়া চাই | নইলে, কপটতার মুখোশ খুলতে আর কতক্ষণ ?

19. This body is the temple of my beloved Lord. If I deny it light and love, I will have defiled it in so many terms.

20. The traitor Man Singh fought for the Mughals against the cause of India's freedom from the barbarians.

21. Akbar was not an Indian. He,like his father Humayun and grandfather Babur, was a foreign invader. We must not glorify him as 'great'.

22. If Aurangzeb Road was renamed in New Delhi, why not Akbar Road as well? The Mughals have their self-built memorials after all.

23. Man Singh sided with the invader Akbar against his own countrymen. Shame! But his treachery could not soil the Rajput reputation.

24. Babies are being born into this polluted environment. What will happen to them?

25. Akbar was not great. It's an attribute wrongly ascribed to an alien invader and a ruthless expansionist, an occupier of Hindustan.

26. Babur invaded India in 1526 and Humayun in 1555. Akbar,a foreigner, carried on with the conquest and was a merciless expansionist. Great?

27. Chhatrapati Shivaji the Great, Maharana Pratap the Great, Guru Gobind Singh the Great !

28. Akbar is not idolised in India, MaharanaPratap is. His exploits live on in the hearts of millions, inspiring love for the motherland.

29. Do not imitate. Stop imitating the West. My countrymen, have you forgotten Swami Vivekananda's Svadesh Mantra?

30. Let us concentrate and unite our wills for conjoined harmonic work for the nation.

31. Those who fail to realise the significance of Vivekananda quotes need self-examination and rectification thereof. Om Svadesh Mantra!

32. From Shankaracharya to Vivekananda runs the resurgence of the Sanatan Dharma and the tradition continues ad infinitum.

33. There is no comparison between the sages and saints of India and the semi-illumined ones of the rest of the world.

34. Do not listen to these materialists who by convoluted logic attempt to undermine your faith in your dharma. They have no character.

35. সনাতন ধর্মের প্রতি শ্রদ্ধাবান হোন | শাস্ত্র অধ্যয়ন করুন | তারপর গভীর ধ্যানে নিমগ্ন হয়ে অধ্যাত্ম সম্পদ আবিষ্কার করুন | পরিশেষে, মাতৃভূমিকে সর্বস্য অর্পণ করুন |

36. মাতৃভূমিকে ভালবাসতে পারল না যে, সে সমস্ত জগতকে ভালবাসবে, এটি অলীক কল্পনা |

37. Weekly indoctrination of violent precepts and daily recitation of such tend to produce fanatics more abundantly than otherwise.

38. The leftists are rarely liberals. Why call them so? Call a spade a spade.

39. Liberalism comes from expansion of the heart. The man of universal sympathies is truly a liberal. 'Left liberal'? What is that?

40. Please plant trees wherever you get the opportunity to do so. Persuade colleagues and neighbours to do likewise.

41. The rise of womanhood worldwide in its true essence is Mother's mission.

42. These western ideas of being aspirational Indians in pursuit of individual dreams are selfish. What is needed is to imbue ourselves with the spirit of service and sacrifice for the quickening of the greater life of the nation.

43. The call of duty must beckon you ahead of the call of delight. Trample desire under the heels of honour n emerge heroes among men.

44. Britain is but a province compared to vast India.And Britain's vaunted civilisation was built on Indian wealth. 45 trillion US dollars stolen!

45. Maharana Pratap, Shivaji, Guru Gobind Singh and Netaji remain our iconic symbols of national resistance to foreign domination.

46. Dr. Priyanka Reddy -- a life snuffed out early, unduly, and there is no nationwide protest.

47.

ডঃ প্রিয়াঙ্কা রেড্ডি -- দীপশিখা নির্বাপিত, এক অকাল অবসান, আর, দেশজুড়ে কোনো প্রতিবাদ নেই তার !

48.

এ আমাদেরই মেয়ে |

49. Pakistan is the hub of global terror. But who created Pakistan, Mr. Brit?

50. Alexander was not great. He was as barbaric an expansionist as the rest of his tribe.

51. The British have left but have left behind their mores n manners n we, who vaunt freedom, abjectly abide by them. Freedom indeed !

52. Anglophilia seems to be the affliction of the urban educated, and the virus spreads with proliferating commercial communication.

53. The quality of the population has to be raised, not merely by education but by purer birth and, thence, dissemination of culture.

54. Commercialisation of culture is ruining the kshatriya spirit of the country. Mere growth rate does not make a nation.

55. The perfect chastity of the Rajput women gave birth to the heroes of Rajputana.

56. Muhammad Bin Qasim attacked Sindh first in 664 CE and it still has not been freed from alien occupation after 1355 years.

57. ব্রহ্মচর্যের শক্তিতে আমাদের দেশকে জাগাতে হবে | ক্ষাত্রবীর্য ব্রহ্মচর্য ব্যতীত অসম্ভব |

58. The Rajput rejoices in tragedy. For him every moment is the celebration of death. The call of the dharma is supreme.

59. We are the universal Spirit trapped in bodies. As such we are not separate individuals but are the one undivided Being.

60. The deeper the thought, the less the following. The coarser the expression, the greater the response. Modernity indeed !

61. There must come a new light into the world, a new ray of hope for humanity. A great awakening is in the offing.

62. শক্তির উৎস ভগবান | সেই ভগবানকে ভুলে গেলে শক্তিহীন হয়ে পড়তে হবে | তাই সদা স্মরণ মনন চাই |

63. বিবেকানন্দ শুধু প্রণম্য মহাপুরুষ নন, বিবেকানন্দ মহা শক্তির আধার | তাঁর আরাধনায়, অনুধাবনে হৃদয়ে সিংহবিক্রমের সঞ্চার হয় |

64. The thoughts of the Guru are inscrutable and the disciple heavily undermines his training and development in doubting his motives.

65. Devotion to one's Guru? Alas, what a rare attribute it is!

66. Constant aggression in social parlance is a sure sign of weakness of personality.

67. ঘরে ঘরে যেদিন মহারাণা প্রতাপ সিংহের ন্যায় সন্তান জন্মাবে, সেদিন ভারতের কল্যাণ ও সুরক্ষা সুনিশ্চিত হবে |

68. The enemy attacks from the front and from behind. Beware ! And such are our country's predicaments.

69.

We have to mend our ruptured civilisation by giving birth to a million heroes and heroines who will have none of the weaknesses as taint the current lot.

Photo : Guru Tegh Bahadurji, the ninth Sikh Guru, holding audience along with son, the future tenth and last Guru of the Sikhs, Gobind Singhji, then a child.

70. আমার ভারত !

71. Never trust the enemy even once or that sole lapse will be your permanent undoing. Destruction assumes the shape of affability.

72. Evil is ever befriended to untruth.

73. Flood the land with spirituality. But spirituality is purity, vigour, strength. Continence and self-restraint are its pillars and valour its exhibition in responding to the call of duty.

74.

At Ramakrishna Math, Antpur, the birthplace of Baburam Maharaj (Swami Premananda) where on the evening of 24 December, 1886, the intimate disciples of Sri Ramakrishna took informal sannyas.

75. এত লিখি, তবু জাগে না বলবীর্য ?

76. দেশের কল্যাণের জন্য জপ-ধ্যান করুন | স্বদেশমন্ত্র সপ্রেম সঘর্ষে উচ্চারণ করুন বারংবার |

77. অনুশাসন, অনুশীলন ও অনুধ্যান -- এই তিন অনু-সহায়ে যে কোন বৃহৎ সিদ্ধি সম্ভব |

78. The intellectual battle of patriotism must be won the intellectual way. Repression cannot be the method for it will finally fail.

79. Mean what you say and act upon what you mean. Hypocrisy cannot hold a civilisation.

80. It is the will that has to be strengthened. A powerful will achieves everything within the bounds of structural possibilities.

81. Give up your conversion act on the Hindu, friend. Practice peacefully your own religion if indeed you religion allows that.

82. Conversion to Islam is welcome but conversion out of it blasphemy. What a beautiful display of fair-play!

83. Why demote a Hindu in spiritual culture by converting him? Civilisation goes backward thus.

84. Proselytising religions can never peacefully coexist. They must persecute to survive. History bears testimony to it.

85. To dominate the world you need to have a world view. Localised thinking ensures neither civilisational safety nor national security.

86. CAB নিয়ে বিক্ষোভকারীদের ঠিক সমস্যাটা কোথায় ?

87. Where exactly is CAB hurting the interests of the vandalising protesters and their protagonists in the chair?

88. Secular in tiny minority, vociferous in sizeable minority, violent in major minority and ruthlessly repressive when in majority.

89. Live a few years in Pakistan to find out how liberal they are to Hindus. Bangladesh? Let residents speak.

90. How can those who believe in God also be secular?

91. 10000 years of Hindu civilisation cannot be wiped out by imposition of foreign culture. Hinduism invincible will rise to glory.

92. God is silent because He is omniscient and does not wish to disturb our erroneous conversation that leads to self-education.

93. I am indebted to cross-cultural influence for my peripheral efflorescence but am rooted to my Hindu gene for the substance that I am.

94. Spiritual people can never be by definition secular.

95. I pay my respects to my aunt but fail to do so to my mother. Alas, that is the Indian predicament !

96. We are at the crossroads of an epochal national evolution that will direct the course of our life as a people. Whither hence?

97. It is time to develop a bit of character fibre in our so-called patriotic selves and do something worthwhile for the nation.

98. ক্ষত্রিয়ের অভিনয় কি কখনও বৈশ্য করতে পারে ? অভিনয়ই হল না, তা আবার প্রকৃত প্রকাশ !

99. বলবীর্য প্রকাশ বড় সহজ কথা নয় | পবিত্র জন্ম ও সুসংস্কারসম্পন্ন না হলে ব্রহ্মতেজ ও ক্ষাত্রবীর্য প্রকাশ অসম্ভব |

100. Love is a deep state of consciousness, of memory, of union and of bliss.