SELF-HELP IS MANHOOD AND THE ONE WAY AHEAD
Tuesday 31 May 2022
BE CREATIVE OR BE NOTHING
BE CREATIVE OR BE NOTHING
Be creative or be nothing. Stop imitating others, repeating those typical slogans set up in the public sphere by some creative person which have through lack of originality now become the common property of all. Form your own slogans, your own chant, your own sect within the body politic of the nation, even of vaster humanity.
In uttering verbal instances of others there is no expression of individuality. One must be creative. One must discover principles for oneself instead of aligning sheep-like with others, all led by the Piper of Hamelin town unto the sea of drowning death.
There is no glory in copying others, one of the reasons why organisations of regimented learning but little originality suffer inevitable decay and death.
Culture it is that survives shocks and sustains civilisation. Creativity engenders culture. Hence, creativity, originality, individual genius foster, enliven and strengthen civilisation. This original impetus deriving from the being must always be nurtured and the individual allowed to flourish within the social structure, never limiting and ever fostering the fertilisation of ideas unto mature fruition whence human evolution leaps ahead through the uncharted terrain of time and space.
So it is that I reiterate -- "Be creative or be nothing."
Written by Sugata Bose
Monday 30 May 2022
DARA SHUKOH IN WHOSE DEBT INDIA FOREVER SHALL BE
DARA SHUKOH IN WHOSE DEBT INDIA FOREVER SHALL BE
Dara Shukoh should be honoured by the Government of India for his seminal contribution in getting the Upanishads translated into Persian from which it later got translated into European languages and its message got disseminated among the Western intelligentsia. The German philosopher Schopenhauer was inspired and influenced greatly by the Upanishads for which the credit after the Vedic sages must go to this one great prince of Mughal India whose life was snuffed out by his barbarous brother Aurangzeb.
The Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi ought to have been rightfully named Dara Shukoh Road instead of A.P.J.Abdul Kalam Road whose personality-stature does not quite match up to that of Aurangzeb Alamgir and, so, the renaming suffers greatly from disproportionate incongruity. Dara Shukoh Road would have served the cause of redressing both this imbalance and the historical heresy involved in naming the road after Aurangzeb in the first place.
Anyhow, time it is, indeed, in these days of rewriting the other version of Indian history from the nationalist perspective, to honour this friend of the Hindus, this erudite, enlightened Mughal prince, heir-apparent to Emperor Shah Jahan, one whose head that had absorbed and assimilated such liberal, harmonising Vedantic thoughts, was severed from body by his dastardly brother and presented before the ailing, imprisoned monarch at the Agra Fort -- time it is, indeed, to restore him to gracious national memory for rendering yeoman service to India and to humanity at large in letting out the sacred mantras of the Upanishads to the wide world and, so, ushering in the age of Indological research in Germany and the rest of the West.
The Hindus hate Aurangzeb but love Dara Shukoh for his love of the Sanatan Dharma and his service unto it. It is time for the Indian Muslims as well to alter allegiance from that embodiment of religious bigotry to this enlightened prince who was far ahead of his times, far wiser than his bigoted co-religionists.
Dara Shukoh was then denied his due and is now being denied it as well. This ought to be corrected forthwith. The sooner the better for peace and amity in a world fractured by adherence to archaic absolutism going in the name of religion. Honouring Dara Shukoh would be the first step towards changing this fanatical orientation of the ignorant masses lying horribly bound within the confines of their narrow scriptural dictates. đ
Written by Sugata Bose
WHEN PREACHERS OF THE SANATAN DHARMA GO CONFIDENTLY WRONG
WHEN PREACHERS OF THE SANATAN DHARMA GO CONFIDENTLY WRONG
Jainism and Buddhism are derived from the Sanatan Dharma, true, but in their rejection of the infallibility of the Vedas they have been called 'Avaidic Dharma' (non-Vedic religions). Hence, though in the wider sense of origin and derivation, and core content of karma, transmigration of the embodied soul, and eventual mukti/moksha/nirvana on illumination these Indic dharma traditions are inseparable in spiritual essence from the Sanatan Dharma, in the strictest philosophical sense from the rigid grammatical standpoint Jainism and Buddhism are non-Vedic religions and, hence, outside the ambit of the Sanatan Dharma. But today we need to form a united front of all Indic dharma traditions in combating the aggression of the Semitic religions, Islam and Christianity. This is our existential necessity and must be achieved. Each one of you lend your helping hand in achieving it.
In this video there are certain factual errors such as the six streams of the Sanatan Dharma having been enumerated as Bauddha, Jain, Sikh, Vaishnav, Shaiva and Shakta, the last three having been collectively called Hindu. This is erroneous. The six streams of the Sanatan Dharma are Sankhya, Yoga, Vaisheshik, Nyaya, Purva Mimaangsa (Karma Kanda of the Vedas) and Uttar Mimaangsa (Jnana Kanda of the Vedas, that is, the Vedanta). The speaker has seemingly mixed up the Shrutis with the Smritis too and presented the twain apparently as forming the body politic of philosophical and practical Hinduism which is alright but in including the Jain and the Buddhist traditions as also part of the Sanatan Dharma has erred in puritanical terms, though not in view of the vaster Indic context. This is why scholarship among Hindu preachers is so very necessary. Otherwise, as it so often happens, these preachers will be blown off their feet by erudite adversaries who may be Christians or Muslims in debate. Such a mess needs to be avoided by our preachers, especially when they refer to the Sanatan Dharma with a superior air of assumption. Certainly their fight for the survival of the Sanatan Dharma will be better fought when they are armed to the teeth with correct data of both the Indic dharma traditions and the Semitic faiths of Abrahamic origin.
Written by Sugata Bose
WHEN HINDU PATRIOTS ARE CONTENT WITH MERE ONLINE QUESTIONING AS TO WHY F.I.R. IS NOT BEING LODGED AGAINST CERTAIN CAUSTIC CRITICS OF SHREE RAM AND BHAGAVAN BUDDHA, BOTH OF WHOM HAVE BEEN DUBBED 'MISOGYNIST' BY THEM -- MY RESPONSE
WHEN HINDU PATRIOTS ARE CONTENT WITH MERE ONLINE QUESTIONING AS TO WHY F.I.R. IS NOT BEING LODGED AGAINST CERTAIN CAUSTIC CRITICS OF SHREE RAM AND BHAGAVAN BUDDHA, BOTH OF WHOM HAVE BEEN DUBBED 'MISOGYNIST' BY THEM -- MY RESPONSE
Because questioning thus, as you are doing, is not quite filing the F.I.R. Everybody expects the other person to do the job while keeping oneself safe. Also, on what charge will you file the F.I.R.? They do not file F.I.R.s. They simply take to the streets and start rampaging. What is needed is effective battling the adversaries on the ideological plane and reducing their arguments and influence to cipher.
Hindus do not generally practise their spiritual disciplines. Hence, they lack in discipline itself and, in consequence, cohesion and strength despite their enormous numbers. Introspection would do a great service to our community following which we must practise what we so eloquently preach. Then and then alone will this mass chirping of no consequence stop and be replaced by robust self-building which is the sine qua non for the community should it sincerely desire to defeat the adversarial forces arrayed against it.
The Muslims are united, not so the Hindus. Apart from innumerable sectarian divisions within us, there are organisational and individual selective posturing done which are superficially harmonic in intent but go to weakening Hindu solidarity by confounding the masses. These pretentious people, institutions and organisations are doing wholesale damage to the cause of awakening of the Hindus as to their real enemies. The enemy is sharp, focussed and ideologically indoctrinated to perverse perfection. But Hindu superficial universality of sorts, in precept but not in practice despite the tallest of pretensions, is ruining the cause of Hindu awakening. This has earlier caused the motherland's dismemberment in 1947, the exodus of 500,000 Kashmiri Hindus in 1990, and as yet threatens the Hindus in provincial pockets of India. Yet, the century-old slumber of Hindus continues, thanks to opportunistic stances of 'harmony of religions' adopted by concerned organisations. The educated, characterless, spineless, syophantic, appeasing middle class among the Hindus is also doing the motherland grave disservice.
The knowledge of the fundamental tenets of the Sanatan Dharma is abysmally low in the average Hindu. Here work needs to be done. Sanskrit must be popularised to the level practically possible and the work must go on till the entire mass of the educated Hindus are gradually literate in the language that holds the treasury of scriptural knowledge of the Sanatan Dharma.
Second, empty prattling comes to no effect. What is needed is the practice of virility instead of jellyfish-like living, to quote Swamiji. Let the youth study Vivekananda as in the early days of the Bengal revolution for freedom when the daring ones were fired up by the words of the 'cyclonic monk' unto sacrificing their all for the motherland.
What is wanted is character and it is character that is missing in monk and man today, in the pretentious preachers and their foolish following. Let 'purity, patience and perseverance', the three virtues enunciated by Swamiji that make an individual great and a nation great, be each Hindu's adornment. Then see what a lightning change comes into the body politic of the Hindus!
Finally, this corrupt commercial culture, this degenerate greed that fuels business activity, the frothy advertising means and modes that have emasculated the upper and the middle classes -- this treacherous triumvirate is eating into the vitals of the Hindu race. This must resisted.
Go back to Ramakrishna-Vivekananda and start afresh from the montessori of spiritual life. Purity must provide power, and power will combat the demonic forces (asuric shakti) that threaten the Hindus with segmented annihilation till the Hindus are no more a visible force in this world. Unite and manifest strength! Save the Sanatan Dharma and its adherents from impending annihilation at the hands of a fast-multiplying adversarial creed with inimical intentions. You do your bit and encourage others to do the same with fellow-feeling, friendship and infinite unalloyed love, for we are all one -- HINDUS. đ
COMMENTS GALORE ... 10
COMMENTS GALORE ... 10
Sugata Bose @Satyanand Bhattacharjee : Society is changing. The economic imperatives of the times are forcing these adjustments and amendments. But social change is slow as ideas percolate into the human psyche over a protracted period of time. The economic exploitation of the masses under the heels of capitalism itself is a great evil but the alternative system has not been found practicable owing to lack of humanity in the very practitioners of such socioeconomic change and the unscientific nature of the so-called scientific socialism which has unleashed brutality the world over in its apparent bid to usher in humanity. Undiluted materialism is a flawed philosophy in a world where Matter and the Spirit cohabit to create conditions. Undue rigidity in adherence to material centralisation of political and economic forces as Marxism espouses has caused untold human suffering and rendered humans into veritable beasts. No less is capitalism evil with its blood-sucking cruel machinery sapping the vitality of the masses. There is evil all around. No system has been found perfect as yet as man strives for the elusive earthly perfection of the social order.
Our forefathers classified society into the fundamental four varnas. This was done on the basis of the discovery of the fundamental four combinations of gunas (characteristics/attributes/qualities of the mind) that make up man. Later, owing to expanding society and its associated activity, sub-classificatoons came into being. These were called jatis, a la guild of medieval European society. Today the same classification abounds in the world as specialised vocations that contribute to work efficiency in an evolving complex human society. These jatis were initially and for long after fluid with interchangeability normal. But rigidities set in over the lapse of centuries, even millenia, as sociopolitical conditions changed, especially during India's protracted subjugation under Islamic rule. The Islamic invasions resulted in widespread forced conversion of the Hindus who out of existential necessity became more rigid in their living leading to self-imposition of undue social strictures which made the jati system inflexible. This saved the Hindus from total annihilation at the hands of proselytising Islam whose doctrinaire intent is the destruction of so-called polytheistic, idolatrous Hinduism. The social rigidity saved the Hindus against external aggression largely but degenerated them from within whose widespread effects we are witnessing even today.
But a race is on the rise and instead of all the time criticising it for its flaws the duty of every conscientious Hindu must be to rectify the evils abounding as far as possible. But, as stated above, it is a time-consuming affair and sudden changes, violent and misdirected, will do greater damage than good to the social fabric of the Hindus. Here Vivekananda is the guide and not Marx.
P.S. I do not find in any of my comments thus far any criticism of your remarks which you have alluded to but find corroboration to some extent of them and explanatory elaboration thereof about my personal perspective. Rather I find your comments straying off-course from the content of the post proper barring your first foray.
Sugata Bose @Bijoy Nag : Because Sri Aurobindo quit battle thereby compromising his co-revolutionaries to the gallows and to incarceration in that veritable hell of a prison in the Andamans. Surya Sen has been included in a photograph along with others. Gandhiji is missing and needs to be included. So must Sardar Patel be. There are others as well but you cannot keep adding photos within the limited space allowed. Sri Aurobindo even called Netaji traitor to the motherland for his Japanese association and allied assault on British India. The reason he cited was that should the British have been defeated by the INA-Nippon combine, India for ages would have been enslaved to Japan. Sri Aurobindo also sent a token sum of Rs 500 to the British Indian Government by way of express solidarity for the Anglo-American war effort against the fascist enemies of civilisation. Sri Aurobindo also claimed to have ushered in the unusually heavy monsoon of 1944 to help destroy the asuric forces, here the INA-Japan combine. Such outlandish theories as his entire philosophical output is replete with hardly assigns him an honoured place among the seers of our country, much less among the all-sacrificing patriots of our motherland.
Sugata Bose @Goutam Ghosh : Why can't people use the word 'Islamists' straight instead of roundabout verbal implication to the same effect?
Sugata Bose @YouTube NDTV Uniform Civil Code: Why is Mr. Kamaal Farooqi not allowing the other participants to have their free share of the presentation time? Why is the moderator allowing it? Whither civility? Whither fair play?
Sugata Bose @YouTube Global citizen : You answering thus is unwarranted and extraneous to a civil discourse where appreciation is always welcome and even worthier than undue disparagement as you are engaging in.
Sugata Bose @Abhijit Mandal : Read this passage to the last line, Abhijit, and you will come to that observation on aesthetics that we had talked about in connection with Thakur's recently installed statue at Vedanta Society, Chicago, which I had respectfully criticised for being disproportionately incongruous.
Sugata Bose @Diganta Sengupta: Good decision. But this boycott must continue for a long stretch of time rather than just the initial hour when memory of KK haunts. Artiste-awakening must show up in terms of persistent refusal for years to come to stage shows in Kolkata rather than the hot hour post mortem of the musical martyr at mercenary hands.
Sugata Bose @Shiban Safaya : A displaced Kashmiri Hindu girl drawing attention to the current Kashmir killings by Islamists.
Sugata Bose @Shiban Safaya : She is not blaming the Modi Government. She is entreating, exhorting the GOI to act in defence of the Kashmiri Hindus, to provide them protection from persecution at the hands of Islamic jihadis.
Sugata Bose @Shiban Safaya : I well appreciate your concern for the image of the Modi Government but choose to give the benefit of the doubt to this young lady who seems to be sincere in her articulated anguish about the safety and security of the Kashmiri Hindus.
Sugata Bose @Nilanjana Chakraborty : Well written. This is seemingly the situation. Dark days ahead. Hindus being reduced to subservience in their homeland by alien imposition once again. The thirteen hundred year old slavery is returning. What are we to do about it? I ask.
Sugata Bose @Abhijit Mandal : No, no, Abhijit. You are a wonderful person. I just wanted to draw your attention now to the exact quotation from Thakur because at the earlier instance I had quoted merely from memory. You are too much of a gentleman to hurt anybody, much less an elder like me. May Thakur bless you!
P.S. : And what a beautifully crafted comment this is! Simply inspired writing flowing through your fingers like water flowing through the illumined one's palm as Thakur himself had at Dakshineshwar experienced, a la galitahasta!
Sugata Bose @Tufail Chaturvedi : Defence of the Sanatan Dharma is necessary by way of standing up for it against all adversarial elements as a powerful united front.
Sugata Bose @Rohini Jalan : Rohini, everyone goes through 'hard times' (quote, courtesy, Charles Dickens). But such trials do not last forever. They pass with time and the sun shines again. So, take heart and gather your forces. Better says are coming. Do not lose hope. I for myself am sometimes heartbroken as well with the way my work in every phase of my life goes on. Then I decide to detach myself completely from the goings-on of the world, remaining for the rest of my life a silent spectator. But the old mood of jollity invariably returns and I am the same old fool again. The cycle intermittently endless repeats. Such is the course of our labour of love in a life that forever remains a maze to us and draws us on to its cipher-centre where released we are from all affliction.
Sugata Bose @Wasim Ahmed : Zakir Naik was ill-learned in the Sanatan Dharma and made most provocative remarks with a counterfeit smile on his face which attempted to hide his Islamist intentions but failed to do so, he being a poor actor at that. His apparent civility hardly justifies his evil intent of undermining Hinduism and his attempt to convert Hindus to Islam.
Sugata Bose @Mohammed Irfan Ali : They do not have to caricature. They doctrinally denounce all other religions.
Sugata Bose @Wasim Ahmed : The said religion is all about, though, now as also historically since inception.
Sugata Bose @Susilkumar Das : Correct. Amir Khan and company would not dare attack Islam the way they did Hinduism. But we, Hindus, are an enlightened people and take it in our stride, even enjoy the episode in cinematic terms. Imagine how the world would have been set alight by his co-religionists should he have depicted his own faith in a like fashion. He didn't dare and it was wise of him that he did so. The very tolerance of Hinduism, its universality and catholicity of approach to the existential questions clearly proves its philosophical superiority over all other world religions including Islam whose philosophical foundation is cipher and it is only based on arbitrary assertions which it is binding on its adherents to blindly submit to and unquestioningly follow.
Sugata Bose @Mohammed Irfan Ali : Also see the video of Sri Sri Ravishankar that he made thereafter in which he admonished this proselytising preacher by name Zakir Naik for his 'kutarka' (ill-founded arguments). See what Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev also has to say about Naik and his noxious posturing in preaching perfidiously against Hindu interests.
Sugata Bose@Mohammed Irfan Ali : Should Sadhguru encourage an antinational like Zakir Naik that he should enter into debate with him? Sri Sri Ravishankar went out of his way to meet Naik out of his own folly which he must have later regretted when he was unceremoniously treated by this sweet-mouthed, ill-intended, fanatical quack which was quite unlike our age-old tradition of Hindu hospitality to which we are all accustomed. Anyhow, it was indiscreet of Sri Sri to have accepted the invitation from such a politically perverted person as Naik with his agenda of toxic treatment of others at his door. Such people as Naik are a shame unto India and are better off in fearful self-exile than rotting in a home prison for traitorous activity.
Sugata Bose @Shaikh Shaukat : Mind your language. It is utterly distasteful and full of hate. First practise love for all including BJP and then preach. Remember, we, Hindus, are a patient lot, most civilised and totally universal in our approach as opposed to the adherents of Abrahamic religions who give tall talk of ethics and humanity while submitting to the scriptural mandate of hating unto destruction of the infidel (kafir).
Sugata Bose @YouTube : Jaggi Vasudev speaks a whole lot of gibberish in the name of spirituality. Such deft playing with words is not indicative, though, of genuine spirituality for which holiness is necessary which he evidently lacks. He is totally out of sorts with Javed Akhtar whose pointed observations pin him down. Yoga in the hands of such charlatans, as Vasudev is, is compromising the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, and it is most meet that stiff resistance to such rogues be put up for the safety and security of the potential victims of these fake Gurus who essentially are intent on fleecing the public for their pecuniary ends.
Sugata Bose @YouTube : Verbosity is not spirituality. Jaggi Vasudev is a fraud.
Sugata Bose @Prabir Banerjee : In a quandary, I guess, as to which course to take. After all commerce is all that matters to these channels, not ideals, ideology, truth or justice.
Sugata Bose @Chandra Kumar Bose : Where do you find bigotry in articulation of fact recorded in the Qur'an, the Hadith and the Sira, the foundational Islamic scriptural texts? No Islamic scholar anywhere in the world has been able to counter the stated facts as they are all there in their scriptures. Only hue and cry are being raised to confound understanding and to pursue the perfidious age-old intent that is intrinsic to the ideology. Read the Qur'an at least once before rubbishing others' observations on the basis of presumptions and consequent ill-formed ideas. But I well know that ignorance articulates easier than fact-based reflection, although to little consequence. Read Swami Vivekananda on these issues. If you wish I can provide you the relevant portions from his Complete Works as I have duly done on your posts in the past which I fear you chose not to read and reflect on but found it more profitable to continue with your casual carping.
Sugata Bose @Runa Sikdar : This is a man-made God. So, He requires protection from His creator who is masking in sportive pastime as his follower.
Sugata Bose @Saswat Panigrahi : Capitulation before Islamic pressure will now reduce our space for free criticism of personalities if even based on facts as Nupur Sharma did. The millennium-old Islamic agenda of creating ceaseless pressure on the kafir to reduce his freedom till he for sheer breathing space converts to the creed is on. Each and every instance of supposed blasphemy is used by Islamists to further the cause of Islam, the conquest of the whole world to its fold till a monotheistic death in doomsday is delivered unto them for delirious delight in heaven thereafter. It is a shame that we are cowering under pressure and are allowing increasing space to application of the Indian variant of the blasphemy law which is inevitably going to crush free expression, so very necessary for a functioning democracy. This blasphemy bit of the law that imposes reasonable restrictions on free expression may be necessary for maintaining peace and harmony in a multireligious diverse polity like ours but its exercise in throttling fair, fact-based criticism of a seminal personality simply because vast numbers of his following take easy offence to it and resort to vandalism, arson, mayhem, murder, call it what you will, is unacceptable. Yet, such is the scenario today when a fanatical cult chooses to utilise constitutional characteristics to further their cause corrosively. The nation suffers as the Hindus suffer its consequences. Where are we living? In Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, where?
Sugata Bose @Anand Ranganathan : Brilliant piece. The wake-up call. All strength to our combined, collective effort to save our culture, our civilisaltion. Do not lose hope. Your seminal work is raising heroes, as yet unseen, but they are growing in strength till they will be manifest in visible terms. đ
Sugata Bose @Soumyajit Roy : Hindutva is the armoury of Hinduism, its political aspect. As such it is the defence of much-persecuted Hindus for close to fourteen hundred years ever since the first sporadic raids on Hindustan by Arab invaders. To me Hindutva and Hinduism are essentially identical, although in aspect at apparent variance. Hinduism is the religio-philosophical system and Hindutva is its applied form in practical life and in resistance against alien attack.
Sugata Bose @Subhasis Jha : Language, please. The gentleman has left his comment unfinished and, so, a trifle ambiguous. Hence, the difficulty in understanding its implication.
Sugata Bose @Dipanwita Dutta : I am not related to Netaji. Why are you abusing me from behind locked profile? Give up this arrogance.
Sugata Bose @Hamza Hussainy Syed : What about 'Halala'? What about the eventual goal of life? Infinite material pleasure in heaven or perfect spiritual union in absolute consciousness? Actual instances scripturaly ordained and practised worldwide or misinterpretation of purest, sublime spiritual state beyond common carnal comprehension as in the case of Madhur Bhava of Vrindavan Gopis and Gopinath Shree Krishna? Considering woman to be intrinsically of inferior intelligence, half in worth of a man's, or revering woman as embodiment of Divinity (Divine Mother), as the source of all strength and knowledge despite practical aberration in application in instances?
Sugata Bose @Hamza Hussainy Syed : What about 'Halala'? What about the eventual goal of life? Infinite material pleasure in heaven or perfect spiritual union in absolute consciousness? Actual instances scripturaly ordained and practised worldwide or misinterpretation of purest, sublime spiritual state beyond common carnal comprehension as in the case of Madhur Bhava of Vrindavan Gopis and Gopinath Shree Krishna? Considering woman to be intrinsically of inferior intelligence, half in worth of a man's, or revering woman as embodiment of Divinity (Divine Mother), as the source of all strength and knowledge despite practical aberration in application in instances? Holding the female capture of the right arm as property enslaved for sexual pleasure or honouring women of all religions, nay, of all humanity as divinities? Keeping women under patriarchal thraldom scripturally mandated, beating wife for disobedience, or holding woman as equal partner in life's great mission of conjoint advance to the spiritual goal of blissful union in the Divine? There are some basic differences on the basis of scriptural sanction, although aberration in practice abounds everywhere, in all religions. But the fundamental flawed philosophy or attitude matters, the inviolability of the 'Divine Word' which keeps half of humanity suppressed and their honour violated thereof both in principle and in proliferating practice.
Sugata Bose @Hamza Hussainy Syed : Seeta Mata is the highest idealisation of womanhood ever manifested anywhere in the world whose sublimity to understand and feel needs far more than carnal comprehension of the commoner. She is the veritable manifestation of the Divine Mother which shall remain the ideal to be approached and approximated ever by the best of womanhood the world over. Offering argument in puerile defence of the Deen is an exercise in futility. Better reform or reject medieval so-called inviolable principles that have harmed and continue to harm womanhood the world over.
Sugata Bose @OpIndia English -- YouTube : Lovely interview. Full support to Nupur Sharma for her intrepid stance in the teeth of terrible persecution worldwide. But there are her countless supporters as well whose conjoined might will see her through these terrible times. Excellent interview.
Sugata Bose @Utpal Chakrabarty : Stop joking. Be serious. Our existential threat this is. Partition could not teach the lesson? Thousand year slavery could not either?
Sugata Bose @Chandan Bhattacharjee : The Indian dharma traditions are the true paths to liberation of the embodied being from the shackles of Maya. The Abrahamic religions are exclusive cults with no concept of Nirguna Brahman, the Law of Karma, transmigration of the soul and eventual Mukti/Moksha/Nirvana. Christianity is on the wane in Europe and Islam is desperately holding on to survival in a scientific world that it is perceiving as increasingly hostile to its archaic, irrational tenets. Hence, its days on earth as a major force are numbered as well. Hinduism will naturally be called upon to fill up the vacuum which is what you have rightly reckoned.
Sugata Bose @Henry D'Almeida : Wishful thinking does not unite, strong resistance against subversive forces does.
Sugata Bose @A.b. Siddique : Why are Muslims feeling hurt? Do they not agree with what has been recorded in Sahih Bukhari? Can they say categorically that Sahih Bukhari is not sahih (valid) and the relevant hadith is an interpolation? Let Islamic scholars round the world declare the said hadith as false then. Ought statement of fact to be deemed insulting?
Sugata Bose @Deep Kumar Dey : To know the adversary's designs, his evil intent of destroying the polytheist idolatrous kafir so that adequate defence against such onslaught be possible. It is a civilisational war that is being waged against the Hindus, Ghazwa-e-Hind as mandated by the founder of Islam.
Sugata Bose @Saurav Ghosh : I am doing my bit and so are you doing. Strength be yours in this service to the dharma and to the motherland.
Sugata Bose @Henry D'Almeida : In diversity we unite but not along divine dictate. Diversity is natural to the Hindu conception of things, not to monotheistic understanding of Abrahamic cults.
Sugata Bose @Hamza Hussainy Syed : Don't waste time arguing. There are deeper spiritual things to be realised in life. Dive deep inside your soul and try to discover your transcendental Self, the Atman which is your existential basis, your consciousness absolute and your supraphysical bliss perennial. May Sri Ramakrishna bless you in your endeavour! Read Ramakrishna-Vivekananda.
Sugata Bose @Dipanwita Dutta : Ramakrishna-Vivekananda are beyond your intellect too. Come, let us sharpen our intellects through discrimination between the real and the unreal so that we may better apprehend the divine duo.
Sugata Bose @Dipanwita Dutta : Ramakrishna-Vivekananda are beyond your intellect too. Come, let us sharpen our intellects through discrimination between the real and the unreal so that we may better apprehend the divine duo.
Sugata Bose @Indranil Khaire : Do your bit instead of critical micro analysis now. Show your solidarity with the Hindus instead of empowering the enemy further.
Friday 27 May 2022
'THE KASHMIR FILES' ? A FAKE VERSION ON YOUTUBE ?
'THE KASHMIR FILES' ? A FAKE VERSION ON YOUTUBE ?
At last I saw a fake version of 'The Kashmir Files' on YouTube. The fake film carries no name so as to cash in on people's ignorance while maintaining a safe distance from the real film to avoid litigation. This is a conspiracy hatched in vain, perhaps, against the actual film to woo people away from the movie hall and, thus, reduce the success of the movie.
This fake one is an amateurish depiction of the tragedy, unilinear and lacking in depth, but a plagiarised service, nonetheless, to the displaced Kashmiri Pandits who have suffered a great delay in being delivered due justice for the genocide they endured. The storyline is weak, details missing, poor research done, camera-work slipshod -- worse than amateurish, slackening tension throughout the film with hardly any build-up of suspense, and poor finish in every cinematic sense. These are the technical and textual faults. However, the film in its own small way is an eye-opener for many and has thrown the searchlight on this horrendous genocide of Hindus by Islamic fundamentalists albeit in a petty, puerile fashion. The casting of actors leaves much to be desired and the direction is simply terrible. But the enterprise of the producer and the director in condemnable plagiarising has, nonetheless, highlighted this ghastly episode of recent Indian history. A quality script-writer and an accomplished director could have made a parallel film of superior merit without requiring to resort to plagiarising the name 'The Kashmir Files' by intent. To that creative productive end there was no bar. But some people simply like to scavenge upon the work of others and this is one such instance.
The criticism that I make is purely from the cinematic angle and is in no way by way of exhibiting a lack of empathy for my suffering brethren in Kashmir whose lives were either snuffed out or scarred forever as they were molested, looted, gutted, murdered and forced into exodus one noxious night in 1990. Hence, let none nurse misgivings on account of my voicing critical remarks regarding the technical aspects and the storytelling of this fake film, leave aside its very immoral make. It is out of due regard and reverence, unalloyed love and feeling for the felled ones by the foul practitioners of this pernicious political philosophy masquerading as religion that I have voiced my characteristic criticism from a sense of cinematic and moral disappointment and no more. The true version of 'The Kashmir Files' I have not seen as yet but judging from its record return at the box-office I can only guess that it must be a masterfully made graphic depiction of the genocide of 1990. This fake film, though, would have been served better by standing on its own feet instead of resorting to plagiarism. It ought to have been more cinematically efficient and eloquent with greater data input giving the narrative due depth. But the film, despite its poor portrayal, stirs our imagination for the while and allows us the freedom to each one becoming a director in his own mind in giving the film its missing due finish.
Written by Sugata Bose
Thursday 26 May 2022
PUNCTUATION, PLEASE
PUNCTUATION, PLEASE
I think Facebook readers deserve better punctuation from writers. Inaccuracy and imperfection seem to have become endemic in our national culture. This is shameful, especially when it comes from men of eminence daily making improperly punctuated posts that draw a thousand 'likes' from their strong national following. One wonders whether the nation can really march ahead when movers of men have such unpunctuated minds that find expression in their erroneous literary output every day. Time, indeed, for course-correction.
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Swami Madhavananda, the epitome of excellence, the exemplar of perfection.
Wednesday 25 May 2022
AURANGZEB ALAMGIR, THE PIOUS PERSECUTOR ... 1
AURANGZEB ALAMGIR, THE PIOUS PERSECUTOR ... 1
When people criticise Aurangzeb for being an intolerant ruler, one who persecuted the 'polytheistic' Hindu and his false idolatrous, 'polytheistic' religion which included the imposition of the jaziya, mass conversion by force and inducement, the destruction of hundreds of temples including the major Hindu shrines at Mathura and Varanasi, the brutal execution of Guru Tegh Bahadurji for his refusal to convert to Islam, the burying alive of two minor sons of Guru Gobind Singhji and the treacherous assassination of the tenth Sikh Guru himself, why do they not understand that through the perpetraton of all these dastardly deeds he was all along only being a committed, true Muslim, one who was following the precepts of Islam as enshrined in the Qur'an, the Hadith and the Sira with fidelity and precision? People should remember Aurangzeb as the exemplar of the real Islam which mandates the conversion of the kafir (infidel in the eyes of Islam) or the penalty of death should he refuse, the destruction of worshipped idols, the houses of such worship (Hindu temples in this case), plunder and molestation of the infidel, the taxation of the Jew and the Christian in dar-ul-Islam (the realm of Islam) and by default that of the Hindus in Hindustan to facilitate their easy subjugation in the cause of Islam. Aurangzeb killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Hindus as per the mandate of his divine scripture. So, how can you label him as the originator of the dastardly destruction of the kafir? As a devout Muslim he was merely carrying out the scriptural injunctions that bound him theologically.
Seek the source-cause of this Hindu genocide in India at the hands of Islamic invaders and rulers instead of superficially attempting to understand its causes which will only hide the core content of the doctrine that impelled it and continues to do so till date. Study the source books and you will get to realise why Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan, Jahangir, Akbar, Babur, the Lodhis, the Sayeeds, the Tughlaqs, the Khilijis, the Slave rulers and generals like Qutub-ud-Din Aibak and Bakhtiyar Khilji, their plundering, persecuting, murderous predecessors in Muhammad Ghori, Mahmud of Ghazni, Taimur Lung (Tamer Lane) and Muhammad Bin Qasim, and their latter-day successors like Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah Abdali, Tipu Sultan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Hussein Shah Suhrawardy and others of this brutal brigade behaved the way they did. Why blame Aurangzeb alone? Blame the whole lot but forget not the source-cause that fuelled it. Study Sir Jadunath Sarkar and you will stand aghast and illumined as to what for 1300 years your forefathers had to undergo at the hands of these barbarians and their intolerant exclusive philosophy of life and death which had all but snuffed out the life of Hindu civilisation but for its intrinsic inner strength. Aurangzeb was but the climactic culprit in this serial oppression of Hindus that lasted 1300 years and continues to plague them even today all over the Indian subcontinent wherever they are a minority.
Seek not the superficial solution to this pernicious problem in the symptom but seek it in depth right at the source. It is a doctrinaire disease and it cannot be solved by superficial treatment. The symptoms are but the effects of the underlying source-cause that goes unheeded owing to political considerations. So, the disease persists and continues to plague humanity still. Aurangzebs are yet arising in a different garb owing to mass subscription to this intolerant philosophy. Here lies the ideological battle, the war of words, the titanic struggle to reorient brainwashed humanity to rational, humanistic existence where Man displaces a divisive God of unforgiving disposition.
All is not lost. If tribal populations historically initiated tribal cults, civilised people can in course of time duly replace them. It may take a bit of time, perhaps a few more generations but progress in that direction is the evolutionary imperative. If Hindus have suffered between 80 and 100 million deaths at the edge of the sword of Islam, it will be the Hindus who will deluge the world with the lofty spirituality of the Vedas. History will exact its vengeance on behalf of the Hindus as the Sanatan Dharma eventually replaces all irrational, dated, intolerant cults and unites the world in a common bond of universal oneness. đ
Written by Sugata Bose
RASH BEHARI BOSE -- A FORGOTTEN REVOLUTIONARY ... 1
RASH BEHARI BOSE -- A FORGOTTEN REVOLUTIONARY ... 1
Rash Behari Bose founded the Japan chapter of the Hindu Mahasabha which is why my love and reverence flows for him all the more. Even Sachindranath Sanyal, an associate of Rash Behari, was a dedicated Hindu to the core. These two revolutionaries understood the implications of freedom in its comprehensive sweep that entailed not only the liberation of India from European colonial shackles but also from the thousand year domination by the Islamic invaders and rulers with all their desecration of Hindu civilisation and culture, the very ruination of the age-old indigenous life issuing from the Vedas.
The clear head of Rash Behari Bose despite paltry formal education baffles one. In my considered estimation he was preeminent among all the freedom fighters, being head and shoulders above the rest. My assessment is based purely on the fact that he was the only one who attempted the revolutionary overthrow of the British Government in India during the turbulence of two World Wars. The first one was aborted at the last minute owing to Kripal Singh's betrayal but the second one succeeded with the INA precipitating events which made the British hurry home while yet here was time to avoid getting butchered by the angry Indian masses then raised to a fever-pitch of patriotic zeal following the INA Red Fort Trials and the RIN Mutiny. Rash Behari Bose's revolutionary career thus spanned the entire first half of the twentieth century, a span of time few freedom fighters could likewise match.
Rash Behari Bose learnt bomb-making but did not throw it at just any offending senior police officer or malicious magistrate but hurled it right on the Viceroy of British India, Lord Hardinge, which severely injured him, incapacitated him for several months and shook the British Empire to its very foul foundations.
On the birthday of this greatest of patriots, 25 May, 2022, this is my humble offering at his lotus feet. Where will we find another Rash Behari Bose on whom reams may be written but who today remains in official India a neglected and a forgotten character? We will never rise as a nation till the likes of Rash Behari Bose are resurrected in the public eye. Government of India, wake up. People of India, wake up, too.
Written by Sugata Bose
NEVER FEAR TO CRITICISE BUT DO SO OUT OF SINCERE LOVE FOR THE NATION
NEVER FEAR TO CRITICISE BUT DO SO OUT OF SINCERE LOVE FOR THE NATION
Criticise to your heart's content whatever you feel incongruous in the life of our nation. Do not be afraid to displease authority or institution, monk or man, politician or priest, cleric or corrupt collaborators in our nation's destruction. But do so with abounding love for the nation, not for the sake of self-seeking. Be bold but be sincere in your reproaches. Do criticise but do so with a heart that feels limitlessly for the people as if they are your own selves which they truly are. Do not humour organisations or people of power just because others are doing so. Are you a carbon-copy of the rest or are you yourself with a creative individual identity of your own? Why follow the herd? Lead your own self and follow your own self. Be your own leader. Be your own follower. Stop patronising weakness or wickedness either way. Do not have to hang by the sleeves of organisation, by the arms of the able, but be a help unto humanity on your own terms, always clinging to the ideal and never running antithetical to the civilisational interests of India which no organisation ought to dare claim as their exclusive domain. My friend, be a man. Feel firm your foothold in life and be a benediction unto the masses peopling this beloved motherland of ours, the ancient Aryavarta.
Written by Sugata Bose
Tuesday 24 May 2022
RETURN TO ROOTS ... 1
RETURN TO ROOTS ... 1
The worst feature of modern western education implanted into India is that, despite its undeniable blessings of science and technology, it has infiltrated the Indian mind with what in Sanskrit is termed 'ashraddhaa' or a lack of reverence for the nobler pursuits of spirituality that is intrinsic to our culture. Sensuality has replaced spirituality, greed and lust have supplanted dharma or righteousness, and self-seeking has displaced serving for the common good of all. We need to return to our spiritual roots and for that we cannot afford to be jumping up and down like immature school children but need to brood on our spiritual imperatives with maturity. Swamiji's solution is the dual programme of western science and Hindu spirituality that must form our curriculum now and in times ahead as we venture forth into the unknown in our bid to rebuild our much-wounded motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
WHERE MYTHOLOGY REVEALS HISTORY
WHERE MYTHOLOGY REVEALS HISTORY
Indian mythology is not a concoction or a figment of soaring imagination. It is reality clothed in beauteous narrative form, history articulated in delectable story-form for easy access into the nervous system of the nation, unhindered absorption and assimilation by the consciousness of the masses for their cultured upbringing from spiritual infancy unto the maturity of realisation. Our mythology embodies our motherland's history and is the beautiful blend of philosophy and real events, a bridge between man and God, a seamless movement between the temporal and the spiritual. Neglect not Indian mythology as so much fabrication by minds untutored in the sciences and physical reality. These authors were sages of the highest intellectual and spiritual attainments. Their literary works embody the best of Indian culture and civilisation, arts and literature, ethics and philosophy, grammar and linguistics, law and life. Study the Puranas with shraddhaa (reverence) and you will understand their import. India lies encapsulated in these Puranas. One only needs to study and unlock thee vaults carrying ancient treasures that are ours by rightful inheritance. Heritage and history lie embedded in these grand mythologies of the Sanatan Dharma.
Written by Sugata Bose
HOME OF HARMONY ? WHOSE HOME ? WHERE ? IN THE BIBLE-BELT OF MID-WEST USA ? IN THE VATICAN CITY ? OR IS IT IN SAUDI ARABIA, IRAN, IRAQ, LEBANON, MOROCCO, EGYPT, LYBIA, SYRIA, NIGERIA, MALAYSIA, PAKISTAN, BANGLADESH, AFGHANISTAN OR IN ANY OF THE SHARIA-RULED STATES ? COME ON, BE HONEST FOR TRUTH'S SAKE.
HOME OF HARMONY ? WHOSE HOME ? WHERE ? IN THE BIBLE-BELT OF MID-WEST USA ? IN THE VATICAN CITY ? OR IS IT IN SAUDI ARABIA, IRAN, IRAQ, LEBANON, MOROCCO, EGYPT, LYBIA, SYRIA, NIGERIA, MALAYSIA, PAKISTAN, BANGLADESH, AFGHANISTAN OR IN ANY OF THE SHARIA-RULED STATES ? COME ON, BE HONEST FOR TRUTH'S SAKE.
Harmony of faiths cannot be a one-sided effort by the Hindus. Let Islam and Christianity first accept Hinduism as true and stop converting Hindus to their fold before this hypocritical harmony of faiths be attempted by organisations feigning shallow understanding of history and the intent of these proselytising cults. Dharma cannot harmonise with adharma. Those that are attempting it are bound to miserably fail for it goes against the grain of these two Semitic faiths to accept any religion but themselves as true.
Pretence cannot be the basis for peace and harmony; facing facts and overcoming fundamental obstacles by calling a spade a spade can. The Hindus have lost territorial influence in subscribing to this unnecessary call by Hindu organisations to harmonise with fanatical faiths that are scripturally commanded to destroy polytheistic Hinduism. Much blood has flown from the arteries of Hindus, at least 80 to 100 million Hindus having been slaughtered by the sword of Islam and hundreds of thousands more by Christian conquerors, most viciously so by the Portuguese colonists. The motherland has been dismembered and Hindus and Hinduism have been and are being wiped out of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the quasi-Islamic country of Bangladesh. Let us leave Afghanistan aside. That country which was originally Hindu Gandhaar has shown to Hindus the real nature of Islam, its unalloyed original form where persecution of the kafir (infidel in the eyes of Islam) is at its worst. Even in Hindu-majority India Hindus are suffering persecution at the hands of fanatical Muslims. Kashmir, West Bengal and Kerala are but three provincial instances. And in the North-east the Christian missionaries are doing everything to woo or force Hindus into converting to Christianity. Hindu organisations are regularly heckled, obstructed in their operation and the locals raised against them to violent action. And all this has an international network backing it. It is a big conspiracy hatched against the solidarity and integration of India.
So, must we continue to pretend that everything is alright with these faiths that call for the destruction of Hinduism and fuel secessionist forces in India, and proceed with our foolish inter-faith meets whose consequence for sure will be the confounding of Hindus further, or shall we expose the historical injustices Islam and Christianity have done to Hindus and continue to do till date so that Hindus will wake up to the necessity of defending their dharma and culture which all along Swamiji wanted?
Written by Sugata Bose
P.S. One only hopes that the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago carries on courses on Islam where its fanatical doctrines are clearly spelled out before students and through online broadcasts so that the world is warned better about its scriptural content and intent. So must they reveal in unequivocal terms the bloody history of carnage that Christianity and Islam have engaged in throughout the world with the purpose of propagating their fanatical doctrines and converting all else to their fold. Will the monastic and the lay members of the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago have the courage of conviction, the strength of character and the adherence to undiluted truth to do so? Or, will it be yet another misadventure that will confound matters worse for Hindus and other persecuted communities at the hands of proselytising Islam and Christianity the world over? Inmates of the Home of Harmony, reflect on this. Ponder deep before you superficially preach peace that may humour your ego but which will necessarily fail to address the violently intolerant core scriptural issues of Islam and Christianity whose fanatical votaries will forever lie outside the ambit of your superficial influence.
Monday 23 May 2022
POESY āĻĒāĻ˛ā§েāĻ° āĻĒূāĻ°্āĻŦাāĻাāĻ¸
āĻĒāĻ˛ā§েāĻ° āĻĒূāĻ°্āĻŦাāĻাāĻ¸
------------------
āĻ°āĻĢāĻ˛া āĻ¤ুāĻŽি āĻĒāĻĻāĻ্āĻ¯ুāĻ¤,
āĻ¤োāĻŽাāĻ° āĻĒā§োāĻāĻ¨ āĻ¨াāĻ |
āĻĒāĻĨāĻŽ āĻĒāĻĨāĻŽ āĻāĻˇ্āĻ āĻĒাāĻŦে,
āĻļেāĻˇে āĻ¸ā§ে āĻ¯াāĻŦে āĻ¤াāĻ |
āĻĒāĻ¤িāĻŦেāĻĻāĻ : āĻ¸ুāĻāĻ¤ āĻŦāĻ¸ু (Sugata Bose)
'āĻ¸āĻŦাāĻ° āĻāĻĒāĻ° āĻŽাāĻ¨ুāĻˇ āĻ¸āĻ¤্āĻ¯, āĻ¤াāĻšাāĻ° āĻāĻĒāĻ° āĻ¨াāĻ' MAN IS ABOVE ALL ELSE, NONE IS ABOVE MAN
'āĻ¸āĻŦাāĻ° āĻāĻĒāĻ° āĻŽাāĻ¨ুāĻˇ āĻ¸āĻ¤্āĻ¯, āĻ¤াāĻšাāĻ° āĻāĻĒāĻ° āĻ¨াāĻ'
MAN IS ABOVE ALL ELSE, NONE IS ABOVE MAN
đ Man is greater than the religion he follows, than the God he adores, than all the traditions that trap him. But man is not body nor mind nor soul but is the essence of existence that lies at the very basis of all of phenomena including his own earthly self. This is how he has been hailed by the Vaishnav seer-poet as the preeminent among all that is, above whom there is none. This must be understood. However, bodily man misinterprets this profound statement of the seer and drags it down to his sensate level. This must not be. The ideal soars high above the least touch of matter, no less above all carnal contamination, however poetically exalted or casually quoted in modern material terms. Man is the Atman and as Atman stands tall, far above all else. đ
Written by Sugata Bose
Sunday 22 May 2022
THE RETURN OF RAMAKRISHNA ... 2
THE RETURN OF RAMAKRISHNA ... 2
However much the present dispensation may talk of the Mission lasting a full fifteen hundred years in glory, the Lord is either here or will soon be here as per His prophecy last time despite the Mission's pious protestations to the contrary citing cherry-picked passages while failing to cite certain others. Sri Ramakrishna had prophesied his reincarnation after a hundred years. And so shall it come to pass, for decadence has infiltrated the rank and file of human society, even the spiritual organisations and their monastic and lay affiliates. What is going on in the name of spirituality is architectural abundance with scant consideration for the plight of the general people for whose genuine uplift funds could have been more judiciously spent. Alas! Swamiji's warning to abstain from hanging by the sleeves of the rich has not been lent the ears with the corrosive consequence on character having been its inescapable end. Would it were otherwise!
Written by Sugata Bose
RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY IN RETROSPECT AT 250 YEARS (22 MAY, 1772 -- 22 MAY, 2022) -- THE FATHER OF THE BENGAL RENAISSANCE
RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY IN RETROSPECT AT 250 YEARS (22 MAY, 1772 -- 22 MAY, 2022) -- THE FATHER OF THE BENGAL RENAISSANCE
1757. Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah was humbled in the Battle of Plassey by the East India Company and India's freedom-sun sank. Fifteen years later the first resistance arose against this Western infiltration into India and its concomitant evil of Christian proselytisation. At Radhanagar in Bengal was born the babe that was to usher in the modern age in India. Rammohan Roy appeared on the firmament of India on 22 May, 1772. Today we celebrate the 250th birth anniversary of the Prophet of Modern India.
Rammohan Roy ushered in the modern age in India. Recalling his seminal contributions to the nation Rabindranath Tagore hailed him as 'āĻাāĻ°āĻ¤āĻĒāĻĨিāĻ āĻ°াāĻŽāĻŽোāĻšāĻ¨' (The Pathfinder of India). He was India's first modern man of the modern age who in the words of Tagore held the East and the West on either side of him, absorbed and synthesised the best elements of each but was never overwhelmed by either. And out of this synthesis was born the crucible in which modern India in its earliest phase came into being. Successive generations thereafter built the edifice of modern India upon the first foundation that Rammohan laid.
An erudite linguist who studied the Qur'an and the other Islamic scriptures in Arabic and allied literature in Persian, the Bible in Hebrew, the Vedas, the Puranas and the Tantras in Sanskrit, the Principia Mathematica Philosophia Naturalis in Latin, Aristotle, Plato and Greek philosophy in Greek, Buddhist scriptures from Lamas in Tibet which he visited at age sixteen years, one who learnt English at the late age of twenty-four and mastered the language, Rammohan was a multidimensional genius, a polymath of a rare breed indeed. This thirst for source-learning characterised Rammohan as he sped to the fountainhead of each academic discipline and gathered his knowledge before he critically examined, assimilated and rejected relevant portions of such en route to formulating his superstructure of philosophical thought which eventually gained expression in his founding of the grand universal church of the Brahmo Samaj where people of all denominations were wholeheartedly welcome to gather and worship the One true, immutable, formless Brahman, the author and preserver of the universe, no intermediary between Him and His devotee being the bar to divine union.
Born of a Vaishnava father and a Shaivite mother into an aristocratic family, Rammohan early on exhibited a regal bearing that made him rebel against prevalent malpractices in Hindu society. A keen thinker with a sharp original mind and bred early on in the Islamic academic tradition of the madrassa at Patna, then a seat of learning, which was followed by a protracted period at a Gurukul in Varanasi where he became well-versed in Sanskrit studies, Rammohan developed the othersidedness of perspective on religio-social issues which brought him into sharp conflict with his father and Hindu orthodoxy in general. It is said that in his adolescence he was horrified to behold the enforced burning on the funeral pyre of his live sister-in-law along with her dead husband, a tragedy that shook him so, that he launched a lifelong crusade against this evil aberration of the spiritual-social culture of Bengal and with the help of the English East India Company succeeded in getting it outlawed in 1829 just four years before his death in faraway Bristol. Lord William Bentinck, the then Governor General, was persuaded by Roy to pass the Anti-Sati Act of 1829 which saved these helpless widows from the fire.
Rammohan brooded on the fate of his immolated sister-in-law and came to the conclusion that the sickening superstitious customs that held Hindu society down were to be traced to the evil of idol worship that was prevalent all around, a practice that was to his mind not specified in the Vedas nor historically corroborated as existent among the Hindus prior to the advent of Mahayana Buddhism. His Vedic studies in Varanasi and Islamic studies in Patna had laid monotheistic seeds in his maturing mind early on and his further research into the origin and practice of idol worship and Sati (the co-cremation of Hindu widows) convinced him that these practices were not in consonance with the precepts of classical Hinduism. He, thus, began his crusade against idol worship and Sati which ran him headlong into conflict with his father who disowned him. Rammohan, who would not cower and compromise before authority, was now entirely on his own, having left hearth and home to embark on a career of bold adventure with an unremitting zeal to discovering the way to India's recovery as a nation. Remember, this was a hundred years before Vivekananda set upon the same task of discovering the soul of enslaved India.
Rammohan Roy did the bania's (moneylender's) job, then secured employment with the British as a consultant pandit (scholar) on Hindu Law and finally as an employee in the revenue department of the English East India Company. He amassed a great deal of wealth which he liberally spent on social and academic causes. In 1817 he collaborated with David Hare in founding the Hindu College (now Presidency University). Roy donated incognito Rupees 100,000 for the founding of the Hindu College. He feared that a public donation on his part as an anti-orthodoxy crusader would keep away orthodox Hindus from participating and contributing to the cause and would instead antagonise them against the proposed academic institution. Five years later in 1822 Roy founded the Anglo-Hindu school and four years thence in 1826 he set up the Vedanta College for the teaching of his monotheistic Vedanta doctrine along with modern Western academic curriculum. Finally, in 1830 he vacated land owned by the Brahmo Samaj to help Rev. Alexander Duff found the General Assembly's Institution (now, Scottish Church College).
Rammohan Roy authored in Persian 'Tuhfat-al-Muwahhidin' (A Gift to Deists) in 1803, adding an introduction to his work in Arabic. It was a diatribe against prevalent Hindu idolatry and its ritualistic malpractices that was holding Hindu society down. Based on reason Roy launched into a verbal tirade against regressive ritualism and sickening superstitions that plagued Hindu society then. These were early days and Roy was only thirty-one. But he denounced all unreasonable affirmations going by the name of orthodox Hinduism and overthrew all intermediaries to the Divine, holding nothing that was opposed to reason or humanity as sacrosanct, be it prophet, priest, scripture or tradition. Rammohan was universal in his theological affirmations in the 'Tuhfat-al-Muwahhidin' and had sown early on the seeds of his more mature monotheism that was to manifest in his founding of the Atmiya Saha in 1815 followed by his life's climactic work, the founding of the Brahmo Samaj at Chitpur Road in Calcutta in 1828.
In 1824 Roy published 'The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness' where he examined in detail the four Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible and gave his critique of the same in his bid to uphold the supremacy of his affirmed monotheistic Vedantic convictions over the Trinitarian conception of orthodox Christianity. This publication brought him into sharp dissension with the Christian Trinitarians but befriended for him the Christian Unitarians. Following this early fraternity of his with the Unitarians, even today a close bond exists between the Brahmo Samaj and the Unitarian Church.
Rammohan Roy was the father of Bengali prose. His was the first translation of the Upanishads into Bengali. He authored several text books in Bengali on different subjects for students as Bengali being not yet an official language then, there was a dearth of text books in that language. Rammohan's prose was manly, his poetry virile and his writings in the vernacular surcharged with power. Endowed as he was with enlightened rationality, a deep feeling heart and a catholicity of approach with universal sympathies, Rammohan's writings were a blend of lofty idealism and earthy practicality with courage of conviction and power born of lived principles percolating through his words at every step. The manly personality and the large heart of Rammohan shone through his articulated observations that gave Bengali a firm foundation for future writers to build their literary edifice. His English was equally emphatic, his arguments powered by rational rigour and his affirmations potent in their persuasiveness.
Rammohan was way ahead of his times. A complex personality, he stood at the junction of the ancient, the medieval and the modern in every aspect of his dynamic multifaceted being. A rationinalist trained in Greek logic and philosophical thinking who then assimilated the gamut of classical Hindu thinking, a scholar versed in multiple linguistic traditions with their respective national and continental culture, a purist and a progressive person, a scientific and a spiritual man, a man of reason and a man of intuitive wisdom, a nationalist and an internationalist in a wondrous web of a singular being, a seer who drank deep of the fountain of the eternal Vedas and who could yet look through the advancing tide of times into the unborn future, Rammohan stood at the very heart-centre of every national and global thought-pulse of his times, of times gone by and of times yet to arrive, absorbing, holding, assimilating it all, then refashoning them into a grand harmony that bore the brunt of his being, the core of his consciousness and the sum and substance of his personality. And from the mergence and mingling of these meandering streams of thought punctuated by the pertinence of the perverse times was born the Brahmo Samaj as the bulwark against pernicious proselytising Christianity, the saviour of Hinduism for the time.
When Rammohan studied the Bible and proceeded to write 'The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness', he was vilified by both the Trinitarian Christians and the orthodox Hindus. Some of the latter ones even labelled him a Christian convert to which he could only respond thus with a smile, "āĻĻেāĻ, āĻŦেāĻ°াāĻĻাāĻ°, āĻāĻ°া āĻāĻŽাā§ āĻ্āĻ°ীāĻˇ্āĻাāĻ¨ āĻŦāĻ˛ে | āĻিāĻ¨্āĻ¤ু, āĻŦেāĻ°াāĻĻাāĻ°, āĻāĻŽি āĻি āĻোāĻŽাংāĻ¸ āĻাāĻ ?" ("Look, brother, these people call me a Christian. But, brother, do I eat beef?") While the Christians who patronised Roy with a view to seeing to his eventual conversion and becoming their Oriental Apostle of modern times that would set the seal on their proselytising programme in India were bitterly disappointed when they beheld Roy's steadfast adherence to his ancestral Vedic Dharma, the decadent orthodox sections of the Hindus eyed him with increasing suspicion and distrust and went into the offensive mode, scarce realising that here was the Prophet of Modern India born to save the Sanatan Dharma from decadence within and destruction without. Here was the fulfilment of the epic words of the Bhagavad Geeta that the Lord would ever appear to save the Dharma whenever perilous times threatened its very survival. Rammohan was a Hindu in the pre-Puranic monotheistic mode who had no faith in the Avatarvaad (the theory of the Divine Incarnation) but, nonetheless, he himself embodied the best of features that would have earned him the epithet of being one had he subscribed to such a concept. As it happened, he remained an ununderstood, a misunderstood, a maligned person among his own men, the Hindus, while the foreigners stood at an embittered distance from him on account of their failure to woo him to their Christian fold. Only a handful of friends, among them the unforgettable David Hare, stood by him in lasting friendship as he embarked on the final phase of his epic journey through life, a life turbulent and tormenting that consumed him early in distant England.
When Rammohan formed the 'Atmiya Sabha' (The Society of Spiritual Kith and Kin) in 1815 in Calcutta, he had given birth to his future spiritual fraternity in seed form that was to sprout and fructify as the Brahmo Samaj.
The Brahmo Samaj came into being in 1828, a year before the passing of the Anti-Sati Act. It was a fraternity of monotheists worshipping the formless, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Brahman having infinite good attributes, the One without a second who is the author and preserver of the universe and all that exists. It was a universal church open to all who subscribed to this fundamental doctrine, and it sought to revive the pure Sanatan Dharma in this specific monotheistic, formless aspect of the Upanishadic Brahman, eschewing the later idolatrous accretion and ritualistic corruptions that it viewed as the cause of its current fallen state. The Brahmo Samaj also rejected Shankaracharya's Advaita Mayavaad and affirmed a theistic, dualistic view of the Vedanta.
The Brahmo Samaj of Rammohan Roy was not yet a distinct sect as Devendranath Tagore later sought to make it and did make it in his formulation of its basic tenets in 1850 but was merely an association of like-minded Hindus who practised its pristine monotheistic form. In rejecting the infallibility of the Vedas much like the Buddhists and the Jains did ages ago, Devendranath effectively took the Brahmo Samaj out of the definitive fold of the Sanatan Dharma and thereby created a new religious derivative of sorts with almost total overlapping of it with the Sanatan Dharma barring this core point of Vedic infallibility which it rejected.
Today, the Brahmos are trying hard to obtain 'minority status' for Brahmoism in order to secure its educational institutions from undue nefarious political interference, much like the Ramakrishna Mission unsuccessfully did in the 1980s and 90s. But as of now in the eyes of the Constitution of India Brahmoism is but another sect of the vast body of the Sanatan Dharma.
Returning to Rammohan again. Roy now entered the last phase of his illustrious career that had seen him as a champion of women's rights, the voice for freedom of the press, a crusader against caste oppression and co-cremation of widows, and an educationist who fought with the British to supplant their intended classical Sanskrit curriculum for the Hindus with modern scientific European education in the English language that proved momentous in the emerging nation's development. We owe everything to Roy for our emergence as a modern nation. What we are today in our positive aspects of national development, we owe it entirely unto him as our first path-finder. His unerring vision of the future of the world inspired him to influence the highest echelons of the British administration to introduce English education on a large scale instead of the classical Sanskrit education. Had Rammohan not prevailed in his persuasions we would have found ourselves as a nation much worse off today. His forevision for sure helped us achieve political independence much earlier than would have been the case were he to be less progressive in his outlook and less of a visionary man. Indeed, Rammohan Roy fathered the Bengal Renaissance which then spread throughout the nation, enlivening and invigorating it unto ushering in a brighter day.
The anti-Sati crusader found his ally in Governor General Lord William Bentinck who he prevailed upon to get the Anti-Sati Act passed in 1829 amidst dreadful opposition. Orthodoxy was overruled and modernity prevailed but the defeated factions were not to stay idle. They appealed to the Privy Council in London to get the Act repealed. Rammohan now set sail for England to prevent such a possible regressive repealing. The Mughal Emperor Akbar II conferred on him the honorific 'Raja' and furnished the expenses for his trip to England with the errand to seek increase in allowances for the Mughal Crown. Roy successfully pleaded on behalf of the Mughal Emperor and managed a sizeable increase in his allowances. He also prevented by his presence and pleading the repealing of the Anti-Sati Act by the Privy Council.
Written by Sugata Bose
Comments :
@Brajakishor Khamaru : Sorry, brother, you are mistaken. I am not a descendant of Netaji or of any of his extended family. I am quite another Sugata Bose, distinct from the one you mistake me to be, he being my namesake. I hope your 'genius' epithet now survives this revelation. If it does, your appreciation has been truly based on the literary worth of the article, if any. Else, I should say, it has been more an expression of adulation for Netaji's family than on my person or creative output which, alas, is a rather regrettable feature and must be left alone. However, if in any way the content of the essay has moved you, leave my person aside and attend on the subject of it, the pathfinder of modern India, Raja Rammohan Roy, whose 250th birth anniversary should call for our diligent study of his life and attainments, ideas and ideals, message and manners, than idle attachment to descendants of seminal personalities of the past. Our great men and women deserve more than infatuated adulation of their descendants. If any such descendant deserves any, let him or her do so as an independent personality on the basis of pure merit that is devoid of any infatuating association with a predecessor mightily great. The nation will be a truer democracy only when such feudal glorification of lineage and line is replaced by sincere appreciation of individual achievement and worth. Thank you, nonetheless, for bearing patience with my essay and observation. May Sri Ramakrishna bless you and yours ever and ever!
HINDUISM IS IN MORTAL DANGER FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT
HINDUISM IS IN MORTAL DANGER FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT
Remember, Hinduism is the soul of India, its source and sustenance, its very life. Should Hinduism die, India will die with it. Serve the cause of Hinduism. Stop this secular anti-Hindu talk. This is neither secularism nor liberalism. It is patently anti-Hindu violence. Stop it and return to roots. Christianity and Islam are rampantly converting the Hindus under many a guise. Recognise these proselytising evils and duly respond in defence of the Sanatan Dharma.
HARMONY OF RELIGIONS ?
Harmony of religions is a falsity, a political ploy by so-called apolitical religious organisations to win accolades from western nations and secure organisational foothold and ease of operation in affluent Christian countries while terribly compromising the very security of Hinduism everywhere. This so-called harmony of light and darkness, of truth and falsity, of virtue and vice, of universality and sectarianism, of acceptance and rejection, of welcome accommodation and bigoted proselytisation, of forgiveness and persecution, in short, of all the diametrically opposed incompatibles of life is the bane of Hinduism as falsely taught by these compromised 'universal' organisations and are dealing the death-blow to the very vitality, life and survival possibility of Hinduism. This is by no means 'dharma raksha' (the protection of the dharma) but is its very antithesis. This must stop. Good and evil cannot be harmonized. Evil must be eliminated for good to survive.
THE BORDER CHRISTIAN BELT
The North-east of India has been Christianised. When Prime Minister Morarji Desai wanted to table the Anti-conversion Bill in Parliament, Mother Teresa pleaded him with a letter to revoke the decision as it would take away the liberty of people to choose their religion. The bill was never passed. Mother Teresa's stand was vindicated. The North-east got a fresh lease of Christian life. The same Mother Teresa, though, had no qualms in converting thousands of Hindus to the Catholic (Christian) fold. She who was only too happy to save the Hindu souls through conversion to Christianity was vexed if a single Christian converted to Hinduism.
THE VEDANTIC CHRIST ?
Christ, Christ and more Christ. In the discourses at the Vedanta Societies of USA, to propitiate the Christian devotee Gods, Christ and the Vedantic import of his 'Sermon on the Mount' must be invariably mentioned. Otherwise, reckon the Ramakrishna Swamis, those poor souls will not take to the Vedanta. And, yet, this is a far-fetched similarity being drawn between the clear-cut enunciation of the doctrine of the Brahman in the Upanishads and the clouded, remote references in the New Testament of the Bible which may be perforce drawn into the Vedantic mould. The same Vedantic Christ is bodily resurrecting and ascending to a high material heaven through the material sky instead of dissolving spiritually into the Kingdom of Heaven within. Harmony of faiths indeed!
CALL THE CROCODILES IN AND BLINDFOLD THE PROSPECTIVE VICTIMS
For two thousand years and thirteen hundred years respectively Hindus are accommodating these two Semitic faiths, Christianity and Islam, on their soil to subvert them from their dharma. Is there a worse madness than this? Why does the Vatican not allow Hindu temples in the Vatican itself and allow open Hindu proselytising there? Why is Saudi Arabia or any Shariah-ruled Islamic State not thrown open to Hindu proselytising? Do that please, priests and clerics of Christianity and Islam, before demanding rights in Hindu India. At any rate India has already sold herself to her pseudo-liberal stance with its pronounced anti-Hindu attitude in terms of banning Hindu spiritual education in government-aided schools and institutions. Generations of Hindus are coming up with zero knowledge of their grand religious heritage, something that is unthinkable on the part of Indian Muslims and Christians in whose schools rigorous training is given to students in the respective religions. There lies the difference and the cause of the impending demise that is looming large on the horizon of the Hindus.
Written by Sugata Bose
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)