Diganta Sengupta
No, in terms of the degree of acceptance of India's ideals and in terms of greatness of soul, mass influence and the genius of original thinking and creative excellence. It is a rating on the conjoint basis of all these considerations. The aim is to trigger thinking among the polity regarding these seminal personalities and to induce research on them. Perhaps, a fruitless, futile and foolish exercise on my part but, nonetheless, a foray into the frivolous in that case, a venture -- even a misadventure, you might say, -- into the vanity of ignorance that remains intrepid in such numeral enlistment. Because to my mind Gandhiji was far greater in the resolved sense of multiple factors that came into consideration, as I have mentioned.
Difficult to keep writing so much by way of explanation in the comment box. Suffice it to say by way of a condensed offering that great savants like Einstein and Rolland are standing testimonies to Gandhiji's supreme greatness and these luminaries were naturally no fools.
To quote Shakespeare, 'Men may construe things after their fashion...The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings."
@Aaryan Roy : I did not include Aurobindo Ghosh because he relinquished his responsibilities towards the revolutionary cause of India's freedom after initiating many young eagles into the fray and then left them midstream to either die or suffer terrible incarceration in the dreaded Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands. At his behest or under his influence and inspiration, young lads were martyred, shining exemplars of which were Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram. Kanailal and Satyen sacrificed their lives to save Aurobindo from the hangman's noose. And then Aurobindo conveniently quit the scene to let the revolutionary movement for freedom languish and die while he, in the safe haven of Pondicherry, took to his easier reclusive life as a contemplative and writer while cutting distant comments on what others ought to do to further the cause of the freedom movement. Not once did he speak against the French occupation of Pondicherry itself for he was their guest by self-invitation. At the end of the Alipore Bomb Case Barin Ghosh, no doubt at his leader Aurobindo Ghosh's commandment, unveiled the whole plot of revolutionary action which they had hatched to attempt the overthrow of the British Government, at least in principle if not in its most unlikely outcome that would necessarily be on account of the paucity of means and preparedness for such a massive overhauling of the system. This singular act was a betrayal, a terrible treason from the Indian patriotic point of view, and can never absolve Aurobindo for all his convoluted arguments in self-defence. Hence, Aurobindo was a natural exclusion from the list and for many other reasons of later accretion in his succeeding 'saintly' life.
@Meherban Irani : Raja Rammohan Roy considered himself a Hindu throughout his life. It was Maharshi Devendranath Tagore who later formally declared Brahmoism as a new religion distinct from the orthodox Sanatan Dharma. By then Rammohan Roy had passed away. So, Rammohan remained a Hindu throughout his life by self-admission.
That is bigotry of sorts, however enlightened a cover it may don for itself. Moreover, this is a list of modern India's historical personalities and not ancient or medieval India's mythical ones or otherwise.
Maharaj, you ever excel in your caustic humour and it makes your observations all the more juicy and digestible. From the perspective of the palate and the medical perspective as well it makes for better nutrition. After all, as per Shankaracharya, fruitful thoughts are food for the mind and no less nutritious than the fruits of the trees. So, please continue to thus humour us in your own inimitable way.
I gave him up because of his regressive stance towards the 'Age of Consent Bill' for the determination of the minimum age limit for the marriage of girls when he had vehemently opposed the progressive bill.
মায়ের নাম প্রথমে দিয়েও কেটে দিয়েছি কারণ অনেক সময়ই মানুষ অশালীন মন্তব্য করেন ফেসবুকে যা আমার পক্ষে পীড়াদায়ক হত যদি মা এই তালিকায় থাকতেন । এটি আমার ব্যক্তিগত রক্ষণশীলতা মাকে নিয়ে ।
This list does not follow the chronological order but observes my placement in terms of their compounded greatness and influence, achieved and as yet potential to my reckoning.
Because he was one of the greatest of modern Indian's seminal personalities who have shaped the destiny of a nation and whose influence stretches beyond our national borders to the remotest corners of the world, inspiring men unto the higher ideals if life including that of striving for social justice and freedom. Gandhiji is one of the greatest human beings to have trodden this beloved earth of ours. Read what Einstein said about him on his demise. "Generations to come shall scarce believe that such a one in flesh and blood ever walked upon the face of this earth."
You will find your thesis untenable in historical light and impossible to prove, beyond your assertion, with pertinent facts that can stand the test of rational rigour adopted.
I thought J.C.Bose was more versatile. He was a physicist, a biologist, an inventor and an author. Hence.
Pertinent point. But then the Bengal greats of the renaissance were such towering figures of such seminal influence that shaped the future of our motherland that barring Gandhiji I could not accommodate anybody else in this super-short list. Remember a whole galaxy of freedom fighters of stupendous sacrifice for the nation had to be omitted to make for as short as list as this is.
I need your pity a lot. It's been ages someone has genuinely pitied me, that is, showered his fraternal sympathy on me. Thank you, brother, for your generosity.
@Shirshendu Pandit : Why so? I had originally thought of putting him right at the top but then desisted because both Ramakrishna and Vivekananda are of a plane and pedestal superior to Gandhiji altogether. They are divine incarnations, to my mind. Hence, I could only place Gandhiji third in the list from the top.
This remains a blemish in the Mahatma's character for which adequate explanation has never sufficed. Gandhiji, though, held it to be his experiments in continence which in his eyes were ethically sound and in accordance with dharma. When Sardar Patel had reproached him on his said experiments and mildly admonished him for they being unethical, Gandhiji retorted in his marvellously pleasant manner that they were indeed in accordance with dharma. His experiments in continence with women, however, remain the pertinent of discussion, especially among his critics, who thus run him down on grounds of immorality. As far as I am concerned, I have to go with the accounts of contemporaries and my personal experience of him as a profound influence in positioning him where I have done. But the taint afflicts him and will continue to do so till kingdom come.
@Gautam Biswas : Lovely compliment for both of us, unworthy though I am to rank alongside the greatest Indian of the twentieth century, I mean, Mahatma Gandhi. Keep worshipping the great man in this inimical way and you will end up appropriating some of the grand attributes of the Mahatma and be saved, for such is the grace of the great one who will as yet shape the future of humanity in the coming centuries in line with the teachings of his great inspirational mentor, the Swami Vivekananda.
Gandhiji was much influenced by Swami Vivekananda's teachings and writings as he himself admitted famously. In an address to the assembled people at Belur Math in 1921 on Swami Vivekananda's birthday, Gandhiji, who was on a visit to the hallowed monastery, said, "I have come here [Belur Math] to pay my homage and respect to the revered memory of Swami Vivekananda whose birthday is being celebrated today [6 February, 1921]. I have gone through his works very thoroughly and, after having gone through them, the love that I had for my country became a thousandfold. I ask you, young men, not to go away empty-handed without imbibing something of the spirit of the place where Swami Vivekananda lived and died."
True but it proves a point about reader receptivity and a marked point at that. It is a pointer to the state of our current culture as well.
Ah, it stinks ! and I have to make my existence fragrant by my own odour. That in a way is my self-sufficiency in a society that fails to give fragrant company. But independence thus is worth more for it entails the 'bliss of solitude' which Wordsworth so valued. The beauty of the 'solitary reaper' amidst a sea of people makes for the harmony of the individual and the aggregate, and is at the core of organic life, the dot donning the line in the mind's subliminal stream, the particle by its peripheral motion composing the solidity of hollow matter and the centre regulating all flow about its super-still silence while the whirl of plural life in all its dynamic complexity goes about its immobile axis, its unaltered and unalterable dot core. So, mud sticks to flower but cannot taint the fragrance even as flora adorns the air and the water, its dual habitat and spread its aroma around. Harmony amidst incongruity, beauty amidst fractured form, life eternal amidst the procession of the ephemeral makes for this wondrous jigsaw we call Maya.
Then I am the least popular and glory unto God that I have stood a close second behind Him in this for He is singularly unpopular, seen from any angle or perspective of one's fancy. And misconstrue it not as vanity for it is admission of the endearing proximity one feels of the loving Lord in this sea of sorrowful dreams where sympathy is little, unconcern a lot and fruitless intersections tending to nought a galore even as life passes away chasing fantasies and phantasms and death embraces in its sinking sand of oblivion. But philosophy apart and to the more pertinent point in this specific post. True it is that in a polity of fast declining culture -- a trend dating back close to at least a century, though, -- post-popularity and post-quality are inversely related, and it is regrettably but naturally so. Here we have a job at hand, that is, those of us who are well-intentioned in this regard and are intent on improving audience receptivity to refined culture. We must develop the taste of the populace and approximate it as far as possible to good culture, the refinements of great art, music and literature, great thought in all its diverse manifestations. That, indeed, would be contributing to the ushering in of the golden age of truth and light which Swamiji has hailed as the 'Satya Yuga' post the advent of the Avatar of the Age.
নামের বর্ণগত ও পদার্থগত সাদৃশ্য । ভাবগত বৈষম্যও বটে । রবি - শশী ; ঠাকুর - ঠরূর ।
কেন ভাই আবার প্রাদেশিক আক্ষা দিলেন ? ভৌগলিক সীমায় ফেললেন না তো ? অবশ্য 'সীমার মাঝে অসীম' হলে ক্ষতি নেই ।
তাহলে প্রত্যেকের জন্মদিনে দেখছি আমার তরফ থেকে online অভিধানগুলোর সব সূত্রগুলি উপহারস্বরূপ দিতে হবে এবার থেকে ।
Read 'Jnana Yoga', Vol. 2, Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. It will be evident. Matchless lectures on the Vedanta delivered primarily in London. Also, read for the sake of gaining knowledge and hopefully realisation rather than bothering your fine brain in countering my claim which ought not to consume your attention and energy so much. Let your study be out of a genuine interest in the subject rather in quest of refutation of my statement. Life is too precious for such wastage in online disputation.
Not quite. Tagore himself pronounced his name Tagore in English but Ray pronounced it as রায় as is evident in his Oscar insistence for the correct pronunciation of his surname. There lies the significant difference.
But while we cannot prevent anglicising of Indian names by the English-speaking peoples, we, Indians, can surely strive to perfect the pronunciation of our indigenous names.
@TheMe Phobia : You have caught me napping.
@TheMe Phobia : In that case must I say, 'the final nap'?
Just imagine where typographical errors lead one. I was glorifying Ghori ! Thanks for reducing the gory one from glory unto where he belongs - ghor (ঘোর, intense) evil, Ghori.
From Monsieur Keypad inebriated with the cyclonic rain and walking wobbly a little.
The inability to apprehend the import of a post prompts one to write such an elaborate rebuttal of such. But men may have their own ways based on their preconceptions and predilections, and they are welcome to such and their articulate expressions of such as well.
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