Global Jains

As the Secretary-General of All India Jain Minority Forum, New Delhi, an ex-Member of the Mahararashtra State Minority commission and an activist for Jain minority right on par with the other national minorities such as Muslim, Christian, Sikh , Buddhist and Zoroastrians (Parsis) I welcome Mr.T.S. Subramaniam’s article in The Hindu, July 4, 2007 Metamorphosis of a Mahavira image: How a seventh century Jain sculpture became an Amman idol in rural Tamil Nadu published in the Hindu today. The Jains with a rich cultural, religious and historical heritage owe a debt of gratitude to him and Mr.K.T. Gandhirajan for discovering this precious heritage. Permit me to provide some important historical evidence on this topic as follows.

There are umpteen instances of Hindu conversion of Jain heritage.The famous Jagannatha temple is another instance. As Edward Thomas,Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, London has noted in his JAINISM OR THE EARLY FAITH OF ASOKA Lecture delivered at the Royal Asiatic Society on Feb.26, 1877, notes: "Incidentally it may be mentioned that the title of "Jagannatha is an appellation given by the modern Jainas to their Tirthankara Parswanatha in particular."Edward Thomas has quoted Dr.Stevenson how the famous Vithoba at Pandharpur in Maharashtra is a converted Jain image .As noted by Thomas:

"Dr.Stevenson, in a subsequent article (J.R.A.S. Vol.VII 7 p.5) followed up his comparison of the later images of Vithoba with the normal ideals of of the Jaina nude statues. One of his grounds for these identifications is stated in the following terms: "The want of suitable costume in the images in the images (of Vithoba and Rakhmi), as originally carved, in this agreeing exactly witgh the images the Jainas at present worship, and disagreeing with all others adored by the Hindus" - who, "with all their faults, had always sense of propriety enough to carve their images so as to represent the gods to the eye arrayed in a way not to give offence to modesty."

"The author (Dr.Stevenson) then goes on to relate how the Brahmanists of later days appropriated the sacred sites and adapted the very images of the local gods to their own purposes. His description is most graphic of the way in which the nude statues of Vithoba and Rakhami at Pandarpur, were clothed in apopropriate Hindu garments and made to do duty for the Brahmanical Krishna and Rukmini" (Pp.14-15).

In Studies in South Indian Jainism M.S. Ramaswami Ayyangar and B.Sheshagiri Rao (Madras, 1922) the authors have noted :

"The vast Jain remains in south India of mutilated statues, deserted caves and ruined temples at once recall to our mind the greatness of the religion in the days gone by and the theological rancour of the Brahmins who wiped it out of all active existence. The Jains have been forgotten: their traditions have been ignored: but the memory of theat bitter struggle between Jainism and Hinduism, characterised by bloody episodes in the South, is constantly kept alive in the series of frescoes on the wall of the Mantapam of the Golden Lily Tank of the famous Minakshi Temple of Madura. These paintings illustrate the persecution and impaling of the Jains at the instance of the arch-enemy of Jainism, Tirujnanasambandara. As though this was not sufficient to humiliate that unfortunate race , the whole tragedy is gone through at five of the twelve annual festivals at the Madura temple. It is indeed sad to reflect that, beyond the lingering legends in secluded spots and the way side statues of her saints and martyrs, Jainism in south has left little to testify to the high purposes, the comprehensive proselytizing zeal and the political influence which she inspired in her fiery votaries of old." (Pp.79-80)

The authors Studies in South Indian Jainism attribute the Jain influence in idol worship and temple buidling on a grand scale. “The essence of Brahminism was not idol worship. How came it then that the Dravidians built large temples in honour of their gods? The answer is simple. The Jains erected statues to their Tirthankaras and other spiritual leaders and worshipped them in large temples. As this method of worship was highly impressive and attractive, it was at once imitated. Especially after the advent of Appar and Sambandar, a period of miracles and piety was inaugurated and it was at this time that the whole country was studded with temples. (n.Tamilian Antiquery, No.2, p.23) It is further curious to note that, in the temples so constructed, a niche was given to each of the saints who in any way contributed to the revival of Saivism. In the great temple of Madura, as many as sixty-three Nayanars or Saiva devotees have been given a niche, each of them. One wonders if the saivaites had not borrowed this custom from the Jains who worshipped their saints in the way described , long before these Nayanars flourished. By far the most important of the Jain influnces that led either to the intellectual or moral uplift of the Dravidians was the establishment throughout South India of Matams and Patasalas to counteract the effect of Jain centres of learning and propagandism.” (Ibid. Pp.77-78)

The authors also note that the period immediately following the age of Kural is characterised by the growth of classical literature, mainly under the Jain auspices. “This age is generally called the Augustan age of Tamil literature, the period of the predomancne of the Jain in intellect and learning though not in political power. It was during this period second century A.D. that the famous Tamil epic Silappadikarm is supposed to have been written.” (p.46)

The great Tamil classic Kural by Saint Tiruvalluvar, as noted by the authors: ”Almost every religionist has claimed the author as belonging to his faith. Tamil literary tradition attributes the authorship of Kural to to Valluvar; but there are strong reasons for believing that the author was a Jain…One other evidence in favour of the Jain origin of Kural might be adduced. The commentator of Nilkesi, a Jain work, calls Kural , Emmottu our own Bible. That shows that the Jains generally believed that Valluvar was a member of their community.”

Prof. A. Chakravarti , an eminent Jain scholar and commentator on Kural has identified the author of Kural as no other than the great Jain Muni Elacharya Sri Kund Kunda, well-versed in Sanskrit and Prakrit who propagated Jainism in the in about first century A.D. Tamil land . From the Pattavalis edited by Hoernle and Klatt (Indian Antiquery,Vols. XX and XXI) the date of Kunda Kunda can be ascertained as Ist century A. D.

As regards the far-reaching influence exercised by the Jain scholars on ancient Tamil literature the authors note : “The Jains had been great students and copyists of books.

They loved literature and art for their own sake. The Jain contribution to Tamil literature forms the most precious possesion of the Tamils. The largest portion of the Sanskrit derivatives found in the Tamil language was introduced by the Jains. They altered the Sanskrit words which they borrowed in order to bring it in accordance with Tamil euphonic rules. One great pecularity of of Jain Tamil literature is that in some of the works which have become classical , Kural and Naladiyar, for example there is no mention of any God or religion. Not only Tamil literature but Canarese literature also owes a great deal to Jains. In fact they were its originators. ‘Until the middle of the the twelfth century it is exclusively Jain and Jain literature continues to be prominent for long after. It includes all the more ancient and many of the most eminent of Canarese writings’ Thus Rev.f. Kittel.” (p.76 Ibid) Not only in literature but also in vegetarian way life, idol worship and temple buidling the Jains influence in South India is evident. As noted by the authors “How far this Jain respect for the life of living beings, a respect shown in daily practice, has influenced the Vedic rites and ceremonies can be seen from the fact that animal sacrifice in certain religious functions were completely stopped, and images of beasts made of flour were substituted for the real and veritable ones required in conducting Yajnams. Tamil poets have received inspiration in this matter from the Jains and passages might be cited from Tamil literature to indicate the extreme abhorrence with which Dravidians, a large section of them at any rate, regard eating of flesh.” (Ibid.p.77)

SHANKARACHARYA & JAIN MATHAS

Even more significant is the assimilation of the Jaina motives by the Shankaracharya mathas as shown by the eminent historian K.A. Nilkanta Shastry and V. Ramasubramaniyam 'Aundy' in their article The Ascendancy and Eclipse of Bhagwan Mahavira's Cult in the Tamil Land published in the Mahavira and His Teachings (under the Chief Editorship of Dr.A.N. Upadhye, former General Editor of Moortidevi Granthamala of Bharatiya Jnanpith (assisted by Bal Patil) on the occasion of 2500th Mahavira Nirvana Anniversary, 1974). The authors state: "It is necessary at this stage to state briefly what a Sankara mutt was and how it copied the Jaina church in its technique of organization. It was a legally constituted body, Pitha, headed by a bachelor hermit (Brahmachari sanyasin) exercising absolute control over all the Hindu hermits of the entire quarter. This pontif and his local representatives, practising asceticism themselves,were to tour their respective regions supervising the religious rites (Samskaras) and daily practices (Dinacharyas) of the four varnas...But the most important and epoch-making innovation was their advice to all performers of Vedic sacrifices to substitute vegetable offerings for live animal victims. The 'Manimekhalai' one of the five great Tamil epics, tells us that some orthodox Brahmins of that age were performing sacrifices, involving the killing of many animals, including the cow. One Brahmin boy, it is said, successfuly set free a cow,an intended victim, and he was , therefore, hounded out of the locality as well as the community by other Brahmins. Where actual blood had been spilt in certain atharvanic rituals, the Sankara-mutt recommended coloured mineral water (aarati) and breaking of cocoanuts and ash-gourds. Where intoxicants such as soma juice, had been used, they substituted 'panchagavya' and 'madhuparka' . In food habits too, vegetarianism and prohibition were strictly enforced , with penalties of ex-communication for other transgressions. Ahimsa, satya, triple baths every day and free teaching of Sanskrit were rewarded with ecclesiastical honours and grants. Except for the doctrinaire difference, the pattern of the mundane aspects of the mutt was but a replica of the Jaina church." (pp.329-30)

It is pertinent to quote Edward Thomas to show the arch-influence of the Jain Mathas since pre-historic times. The deeper impact of Jainism right from the term "matha" which has a peculiar Jaina connotation is explained in his unique scholarly paper entitled JAINISM or THE EARLY FAITH OF ASOKA (Ibid. op.cit.)in which describing the etymology of the term Mathura as an ancient seat of Jainism. Edward Thomas explains" The modern version of the name of the city on the Jumna is Mathura. Babu Rajendralal has pointed out that the old Sanskrit form was Madhura (J.A.S. Bengal, 1874, p.259) ,but both transcriptions seem to have missed the true derivative meaning of Matha ("a monastery, a convent or college, a temple, etc. from the root matha ‘to dwell,’ as a hermit might abide in his cave. The southern revenue terms have preserved many of the subordinate forms, in the shape of taxes for ‘Maths’. Rajputana and the N.W. Provinces exhibit extant examples in abundance of the still conventional term, while the distant Himalayan retain the word in Joshi-Math, Bhairav-Math etc" Further Thomas states: "This said Mathura on the Jumna constituted, from the earliest period a ‘high place’ of the Jainas and its memory is preserved in the southern capital of the same name -Madura- of Ptolemy, whence the sect, in aftertimes, disseminated their treasured knowledge, under the peaceful shelter of their Matams (colleges), in aid of local learning and the reviving literature of the Peninsula." (pp.3-4) In a Note on the above E.Thomas mentions quoting Caldwell from his Grammar of the Dravidian Languages: "The period of predominance of the Jainas (a predominance of intellect and learning -rarely a predominance in political power) was the Augustan age of Tamil literature, the period when the Madura college, a celebrated literary association, appears to have flourished and when the Kural the Chintamani and the classical vocabularies and grammar were written." With such glorious heritage all that remains of Jainism in South India at present in the words of the authors: “The vast Jain remains in south India of mutilated statues, deserted caves and ruined temples at once recall to our mind the greatness of the religion in days gone by and the theological rancour of the Brahmins who wiped it out of all active existence. The Jains had been forgotten; their traditions have been ignored; but, the memory of that bitter struggle between Jainism and Hinduism, characterised by bloddy episodes in the south is constantly kept alive in the series of frescoes on the wall of the Mantapam of the Golden Lily Tank of the famous Minakshi Temple at Madura. These paintings illustrate the persecution and impaling of the Jains at the instance of the arch-enemy of Jainism, Tirujnanasambandar. As though this were not sufficient to humiliate the unfortunate race, the whole tragedy is gone through at five of the twelve festivals at the Madura temple.”(Studies in South Indian Jainism by Ramaswami Ayyangar & B.Sheshgiri Rao.p.79)

KALABHRAS (3rd Century AD) PALLAVAS (575 AD to 882 AD)

During the rule of Kalabhra kings, Jainism attained supermacy in Tamil Nadu. As followers of Jainism they prohibited animal sacrifices in rituals. Pallavas (575 AD to 882 AD)

During the Pallava period also Jainism flourished in Tamil Nadu. Kanchipuram, the capital of Pallavas was the centre of learning for all Indian religions. A part of Kancheepuram was called Jina Kanchi. Great Jaina Acharyas such as Sri Vamana~charya and Sri Pushpa~dantha Acharya were the leading lights of Jaina teachings at Kanchipuram. During this period Jains made a great impact on the northern parts of Tamil Nadu by constructing temples and educational centres. Such educational centres were called "samana pallis". Reminescent of the glorious past even today the school in Tamil is called "palli".

CHERA, CHOLA AND PANDYA RULERS

The earliest inscription about Chera kings are found in Pugalur, wherein it is learnt that the Chera kings of Sangam period ordered making of stone beds for the use of Jain monks, who as an ascetic vow sleep only on barren floor. The Tamil epic "Silap~padhi~garam" was written in this period by Illango adigal, the prince and brother of Chera king Senguttuvan. During chola rule also Jainism continued to flourish. Early Chola rulers contributed generously to the upkeep of Jain temples by gifting land and money. A university exclusively for women was established (730 AD) by Jain nuns at Vedal in Thiru~vanna~malai district. Great Tamil works on literature and grammar were authored during this period.

In Pandia kingdom also innumerable Jain cave temples, stone beds and dwellings for monks, inscriptions and stone images of worship were created, the remains of which are still seen in and around Madurai and south Tamil Nadu. During 6th and 7th century AD, religious conflicts resulted in systematic extermination of Jains and decline of Jainism in southern parts. However, in northern parts, Jainism didnot face such harsh conditions and continued to subsist.

WORLD'S RICHEST TEMPLE – THIRUMALAI - TIRUPATI - BALAJI- LORD VENKATESHWARA IS A JAIN TEMPLE OF DRAVID CIVILIZATION.

This is originally a Jain temple converted by Ramanujam/Sankaracharya around 8th century A.D onwards along with 1000s other dravid temples.

Complete idol is covered to hide its original identity. Balaji has been photographed on many occassions without Jewellary and it is found to be a Jain Standing Tirthankara Neminath which many brahmins believe and admit. Archaelogical scientists, honest historians have proved this to be a Jain temple.

Millions of people visit Balaji temple but no one know reality about this temple. It is truly a Dravid temple, which is confirmed by Archaelogical department as Jain temple. Many brahmins silently believe and agree that it is originally Jain temple converted by Ramanujam and Sankaracharya as 1000s of other dravid Jain temples converted, rechristened by Avatar philiosophy. No Historian can ever claim that there was any god by name Lord Venkateshwara.

Many historians world wide believe - any given old temple in southern part of India is originally a Jain temple. However it may have changed its name. Archaeological Senior officers (who chose not to comment much due to political dominance ) firmly believe that originally complete dravid population was Jain who were not fighters like aryans, and believers of Ahimsa, whose heritage was stolen by cunning aryans who came to India around 3500 years ago. For example Thirukural was product of dravid civilization ( written by Jain Saints) but later it was labelled as Hindu literature at the time Hinduism was not known with its present name around 1st century B.C.when sacrifice of animals and vaidic religion was in vogue.

To conclude Tirupati balaji temple is wonderful temple belonging to all devotees, it can be run the way it is going. But at least its true history and identity has to be made known.

Most of gods elsewhere in Hinduism whose abhisekham is performed in public view, same way Tirupati's rituals need to be done in open with public view. As we all believe god are not property of brahmins alone, but they belong to devotees.

Why Tirupati Lord venkateshwara's face has to be hidden. When no face of Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, Lord siva, Lord brahma, Lord Ganesha are hidden. This looks quite weird hiding face of god to mislead its real identity.We would all love to have our god let it be Brahmin or Jain , it has to be in open for everyone.

Let us ask those brahmins to perform all pooja, abhisekham openly, not to hide with curtains or by closing doors. There is absolutely no need to keep God in private if this is real .

This is one of reason only 2 % of complete structure is visible to devotees, which doesn't happen with Lord Krishna, Lord Rama, Lord Hanuman, Lord Ganesha in other parts of India. God's identy is hidden only in such temples when temple would have been converted from Jain temple and their naming is done on fabricated, non-historical avatars.

Can we request temple authorities to reveal its true identity and to see full face and posture of god Can we have real photograph without artificial projected hands, face and other parts.

From ages Dravid history has been mutilated, wrongly potrayed by so called responsbile vested interests of society, politics and even government. It is Aryans whose history, mythology and wrong facts are superimposed over dravid history, who were immigrants to India.

Dr Santhalingam, senior director of Archaelogical survey and his assistant, and ASI has unpublished researched facts which clearly state that , Every old temple in south was once jain temple, presently known with different identity created by brahmins, few such examples out of 1000s of Dravid Jain temples converted to Brahmin temples are:

1) Madurai Meenakshi temple
2) Kanchipuram kamakshi temple (Kanchipuram has more than 100 temples)
3) Varadaperumal temple ( kanchipuram)
4) Thiruvanmalai Arunachalam temple
5) Mylapore kapaliswara temple
6) Nagaraja temple nagercoil
7) Thirumala Balaji temple, ( total resemblance to Thirumalai jain temple in Arni district)

Dr. Santhalingam expressed that due to political circumstances these facts cannot be disclosed or published, but facts remain same. He also said Thiruvalluvar was a Jain saint who wrote the famous Tamil classic Thirukural He has done enough research but unable to publish same.Even Tamil was evolved from Dravid Jain civilization born out of Brahmi language. Enough evidences are avaialable from epigraphyAccording to him Aryan Brahims invaded jain temples and converted them as their source of livelihood.

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BalPatil's blog

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How BBC changed its country Profile on India by including Jainism and Buddhism in response to my complaint.

2011-01-18T00:52:00.000-08:00

How BBC changed its country Profile on India by including Jainism and Buddhism in response to my complaint.

INDIA FACTS : Profiles on the BBC for India on 30-12-2003

Population: 1 billion (UN, 2003)

Capital: New Delhi

Major languages: Hindi, English and 17 other official languages

Major religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism

Life expectancy: 63 years (men), 65 years (women) (UN)

Monetary unit: 1 Indian Rupee = 100 paise

Main exports: Agricultural products, textile goods, gems and jewelry, software services and technology, engineering goods, chemicals, leather products

Average annual income: US $460 (World Bank, 2001)

Internet domain: .in

International dialling code: +91 ______________________________________________________________________

This was the information I got on the Country Profiles, India on 30-12-2003. Following was my complaint to the BBC on the non-inclusion of Jainism & Buddhism in the major Indian religions.

“I am surprised that Jainism and Buddhism are omitted in your facts about country profiles. As you must be aware that Jainism is an ancient world religion having a significant presence even in the USA and UK. In India according to the last Census there are about four million Jains. As a Member of the Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai, representing Jain community in the Maharashtra State I request you to immediately take corrective action. I shall be happy to know your reaction.

-Mr.Bal Patil,

_______________________________________________________________________

Today (10-01-2004) when I opened the country Profiles on the BBC for India I found that Jainism & Buddhism are mentioned as major religions:

INDIA FACTS on 10-1-2004

Population: 1 billion (UN, 2003)

Capital: New Delhi

Major languages: Hindi, English and 17 other official languages

Major religions: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism

Life expectancy: 63 years (men), 65 years (women) (UN)

Monetary unit: 1 Indian Rupee = 100 paise

Main exports: Agricultural products, textile goods, gems and jewelry, software services and technology, engineering goods, chemicals, leather products

Average annual income: US $460 (World Bank, 2001)

Internet domain: .in

International dialling code: +91

___________________________________________________________

“I must thank the prompt note taken of my complaint taken by the BBC Newsservice and the correction made. The Jain community which is nearly 30,000 strong in the UK may please note this and also take up the matter for Census enumeration of Jains as a separate ethnic religious entity in the UK. I have already taken up this matter with the British Census authorities. The following are the Ethnic religious minorities figures in the British 2001 Census:

In 1991,‘non-white’ ethnic minorities made up 20% of London’s population. If all white people born outside the UK are counted, London’s ethnic minority population is 30%.

RELIGION © The 1991 census did not include a question about religion, so precise information about the size of Britain’s faith communities is not available. The estimates given below are based on extrapolations from census data on ethnic background, other sample studies, and information supplied by organisations within the religious communities themselves. Therefore, these estimates are not strictly accurate: Baha’i: 6,000 Buddhist: 130,000 Christian: 40 million Hindu: 400 – 555,000 Jain: 25 – 30,000 Jewish: 300,000 Muslim: 1 – 1.5 million Sikh: 350 – 500,000 Zoroastrian: 5 – 10,000

The British Jain community should be on its alert in the next Census operation.

Yours sincerely,

Bal Patil

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Communalism Watch: Swami Aseemanand’s Confessions: Its time for an apology - JTSA press release

2011-01-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Swami Aseemanand’s Confessions: Its time for an apology - JTSA press release

VIVEKANANDA: THE CYCLONIC SADHU

2011-01-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

Published in “The Bharat Jyoti” dt. 10^th Jan, 1965.

VIVEKANANDA: THE CYCLONIC SADHU

By Bal Patil

“Do you love your fellow-men? Where should you go to seek God? Are’nt all the poor- the miserable, the weak, God? Why not worship them first”?

So asks Vivekananda and goes on to say: “I consider that the great national sin is the neglect of the masses. And that is one of the causes of our downfall. No amount of politics will be of any avail until the masses in India are once more well-fed and well-cared for.”

We know Vivekananda as a great Vedantist, but few of us are aware that he was also a passionate humanist- a fervent champion of the underdog.

The truth of his statement is quite apparent today. Now, we are a free country; yet we are painfully conscious that political freedom is not all that matters. What matters is the economic well-being of the people. Political freedom is merely the beginning , a means to an end. The real end is to provide every person with enough food to eat and enough clothes to wear.

So, Vivekananda made it clear to his countrymen that they can hope for their salvation only through the salvation of the masses. He foresaw the futility of political reforms until and unless the people who were to enjoy them were well-fed and well-clad. His heart bled to see his brethren perpetually groaning under the yoke of poverty. Such suffering humanity he invoked by the name Daridranarayana.

Though Vivekananda felt very strongly about political reforms, he never was a politician. Politics was not his province. He was a student of religions, especially the Vedic religion. He interpreted the old scriptures in a new way that was imbued with the scientific spirit of the West. He hated the “touch-me-not-ism” of the caste-system that had outlived its purpose.

That is why he derisively says; “we are just ‘don’t touchists’. Our religion is in the kitchen, our God in the cooking-pot, and our religion, don’t touch me, I am holy.” Then he gravely adds: “If this goes on for another century, every one of us will be in a lunatic asylum.”

SHOCK

This was a very salutary shock to the Hindu mind that lay huddled in the shell of casteism and superstitions. As Nehru says in ‘Discovery of India,’ Vivekananda came to the demoralized Hindu mind like a tonic.

This ‘Cyclonic Hindu’ whizzed through the East and the West alike in the two decades of the nineteenth century. Viveknanda attended the ‘Parliament of World Religions’ held in 1893 at Chicago as a representative from India. His speeches there served to clear many prejudices about India, her people and religion.

He appealed through his eloquent talks for the unity of all the religious. The religion, he asserted, were different paths leading to one and the same goal, namely, the attainment of Truth. He considered the decadence in spirituality. A genuine religion need not blow its own trumpet.

He was impatient with sects and doctrines . The mere stamp of religion did not matter so long as spiritual realization was there. The ardent tone of his spiritual message won him the respect and admiration of the American people. They came to regard him as a cultural Ambassador from India.

He stresses again and again in his teaching the supreme need to cultivate a spirit of tolerance and brotherhood. Intolerance upsets the relations between nations as well as between individuals. We have got to recall seriously what this prophetic thinker said so emphatically; “No man, no nation can hate others and live”. The atom has brought the world to such a stage where we are forced to see the profound truth of this warning. Either we can live together or perish together.

LIBERALITY

Such wonderful liberality of mind, remarkable for the time in which he lived, allowed Vivekananda to move freely in Hindu spiritualism as well as in the rationalism of the West. He was appreciative of the scientific spirit and the dynamism of the West. He envisaged “an European society with India’s religion; … with Vedanta brain and Islam body.” He sought a synthesis between these two cultures.

Impressive as Vivekananda is because of his gigantic efforts to establish such a culture, he is more so because of the intensely human quality of his heart, which makes him an endearing personality. He had a tremendous, unshakable faith in the greatness of human soul. He fervently says; “Oh, if only you knew yourself. You are souls, you are Gods. If ever I feel like blaspheming, it is when I call you man.”

How illuminating is the utterance! It contains a world of meaning. There is a divine spark lying dormant in every soul. It is imperative that we kindle it by faith in ourselves.

This understanding of one’s self is essential for the development of one’s personality, therefore, he says; “He that is wise let him understand.” But how are we to achieve this understanding? –by casting aside fear and superstition. “Be fearless, be strong. Strength is life, weakness is death.” is the main theme of his teaching. He declares: “To preach the doctrines of Shraddha or genuine faith is the mission of my life. Let me repeat to you that this faith is one of the potent factors of humanity and of all religions.” Viveknanada was a man of faith first and last.

It is this faith that irradiates had entire teaching. It also accounts for the freshness of his appeal. It is faith that gives colour and tone to his sincere and penetrating calls. Faith Charges his words with a force that purges off any trace of fear from our minds making us feel ashamed of it.

Armed with such a faith as his, we can say with him; “Arise awake! And stop not till the goal is reached!”

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Communalism Watch: Hindutva leader to be booked for Samjhauta blast - 2 reports from Times of India

2011-01-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Hindutva leader to be booked for Samjhauta blast - 2 reports from Times of India

Communalism Watch: Bombing rehearsed at the RSS premises in Madya Pradesh

2011-01-05T18:59:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Bombing rehearsed at the RSS premises in Madya Pradesh

Communalism Watch: Shiv Sena's planned or spontaneous fury - Indian Express Editorial

2011-01-01T18:16:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Shiv Sena's planned or spontaneous fury - Indian Express Editorial

Communalism Watch: In India secularism has become a slave of religious lobbies

2010-12-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: In India secularism has become a slave of religious lobbies

Communalism Watch: Hindutva Terror Tapes that exposed nexus between military intelligence and hindutva outfits

2010-12-26T19:14:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Hindutva Terror Tapes that exposed nexus between military intelligence and hindutva outfits

2010-12-24T18:29:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Masjid blast heat on RSS top man

2010-12-22T18:20:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Masjid blast heat on RSS top man

Communalism Watch: Swami Ashimanand also involved in organising Samjhauta Train blast

2010-12-21T17:54:00.000-08:00

Communalism Watch: Swami Ashimanand also involved in organising Samjhauta Train blast

2010-12-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

2010-12-17T20:16:00.000-08:00

Mahatma Gandhi’s Secretary Was an Informer

2010-10-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

MAHATMA GANDHI’S SECRETARY WAS AN INFORMER

The Collaborators

THE SUNDAY MAIL,

Dr. Pramod Kumar

LONDON

That man is true

who taketh to his bosom

the afflicted

in such a man

Dwelleth, augustly present,

God himself,

The heart of such a man is filled abrim,

with pity, gentleness and love

He taketh the forsaken for his own

The servants in his home

He treateth as his own dear Children

No need to praise him more,

These words suffice

iIn such a man, God dwelleth.

Saint Tukaram’s above song is one among the beautiful ones that Verrier Elvin remembers Mahadev Desai singing at the evening prayers I the Sabarmati Ashram. “But I would not say,” Elvin writes, “that God was augustly present’ in Mahadev; rather one saw the spirit of man, simple, kindly, affectionate, natural. Never was a man less pompous. Never was a man less conscious of his own great powers. His heart was filled with pity, gentleness and love; his mind was dominated by a great and holy cause. There was no room for selfishness and egotism. He was too busy to be mean.”

Not only Verrier Elvin but almost all the historians of the freedom struggle and the people of India reserve the same reverence for Mahadev Desai. He was said to be Gandhi’s man serving Gandhi’s cause. But shockingly, the documents preserved at the India Office Records and Library, London, prove that he was, in fact, one of the King’s men. It is perplexing to read his following letter sent to Laithwaite the private secretary to the Viceroy of India.

My Dear Mr. Laithwaite,

As you have all along allowed me the liberty of being informal with you, I trust you will not misunderstand this note. Perhaps you do not know that some of the best and epoch making of Gandhi’s writings were done on his silent Mondays. He wrote his article for Harijan on the train yesterday which I think is most important to explain the working of his mind. And without telling him that I am doing so, I enclose a copy of that article for vour, and if H.E. has the time for his pursual. I am doing this entirely on my own, and if this is an intrusion I know you will forgive me.

Yours sincerely

Sd/-

(Mahadev Desai)

The sole objective behind sending Gandhi’s above mentioned article, along with this letter, is to expose the workings of Gandhi’s mind to the Viceroy at a crucial moment of the freedom struggle. It was sent in complete secrecy, without any knowledge of Gandhi, by none else but his own trusted, faithful and honest secretary, Mahadev Desai.

The relation between Gandhi and Mahadev Desai is well known to all. Both names are immortal in the history of our freedom movement. Mahadev Desai joined Gandhi in 1918 and remained with him till 1942 when he breathed his last, in the lap of Gandhi, in Aga Khan Palace, while in detention. Both had such an indivisible relation that they were considered two bodies with one soul.

Name of Mahadev Desai appeared for the first time at the time of Champaran Satyagrah in 1918. He was among the first batch of volunteers from the Bombay Presidency. Mahadev Desai and his wife were among the workers of a school opened by Seth Ghanshyamdas in Madhuban on January 17, 1918. He became Gandhi’s Secretary and in a very short time he found himself dealing with problems even extensive and more demanding than those of a village school worker. Mahadev remained Gandhi’s invariable and unrelenting consort until his death. He was not only a secretary but much more than that. He looked after everything concerning Gandhi and his Ashram including the guests and the correspondence. He was a most trusted insider. No letter however important could reach Gandhi nor could be dispatched without coming into his knowledge. No article written by Gandhi for the purpose of publication could reach the doors of the printing press without his notice. The article sent along with the above mentioned letter is also one of them.

Most of these letters, articles, and other documents are kept preserved in the files of the private papers of the viceroys, the secretary of states and the private secretaries to the viceroys. These articles were sent before publication by Mahadev Desai himself to the private secretary to the Viceroy for his perusal which immediately were sent telegraphically to the secretary of state. British system had a unique and foolproof procedure of controlling Indian administration from India Office, the seat of the secretary of state in London. Each and every important information from every nook and corner of Indian provinces and states was sent on daily, weekly and fortnightly basis from governors to the Viceroy, who dispatched it immediately to the India Office for information and guidance in return. Thanks to the British sense of history that even today almost all of his correspondences is kept preserved. All these documents – original private and personal letters, copies of these and telegraphic messages – reveal entirely a new dimension of the Indian history.

Mahadev Desai’s letter to Laithwaite, dated 28.9.39, is one of many preserved in the India Office Library and Records. It was the month in which World War IIwas declared, and being one of the important allies against axis powers,
Britain was in no position to face any kind of non-cooperation in India, the brightest jewel in the crown of British empire. Moreover, the Indian National Congress was bitterly divided over the issue of collaboration in the approaching months of the war. Nevertheless, the Viceroy managed to draw India, unilaterally, into the war. He had taken no leader or political party in to confidence and declared his government’s decision in a radio broadcast. Even though most of the important leaders and political parties such as Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha and the princely states were in the process of enthusiastically declaring their unconditional support for the British, it was the Congress which actually mattered to them. However, the right and the left wings of the Congress as usual were divided over the issue. The left wing was ready to exploit the situation as against the right wing’s stand of collaboration without condition. At such a crucial moment, it was really very important for both the Viceroy and the secretary of state to know before any one else, rather instantly, what exactly was going through in the unpredictable mind of the “Wily Mahatma”. The spiritual leader of Indian masses in general and of the Congress in particular. The following telegram from the secretary of state to Viceroy is sufficient to explain the importance of Gandhi’s way of thinking for the British administration:

“I was interested to hear that Gandhi was not inclined to use Conges cooperation with us in a World War as a counter for bargaining. But it then occurred to me that I was perhaps placing too favourable an interpretation upon the words which you used. Did they(?) mean that he would give us passive support without making conditions or were they intended to imply that he would withhold cooperation?”

(From Zetland to Linlithgow, dated October 11, 1938)

Similar letters were written on different occasions. It will not be inappropriate to quote another.

“I enclose for your and His Excellency’s perusal an advance copy of an important Item going into the next Harijan. I may tell you that the “reporter” in question was a correspondent of the Times of India. But you may perhaps find it of interest.. The article has been hurriedly typed by my little boy, and there is no time for revising it. Please therefore excuse mistakes if any.”

(From Mahadev Desai to Laithwaite dated January 12, 1940).

MAHATMA GANDHI’S SECRETARY WAS AN INFORMER – II

SUNDAY MAIL 11/4/93

Dr.Pramod Kumar

Text of another article by Mahatma Gandhi in Harijan of March 9^th, 1940 entitled When, was received by the Governor-General in advance from Mahadev Desai. It was sent telegraphically from the Governor- General to the Secretary of State for India on March 9,1940. The text of the telegram runs as follows:

Important, 359-G following is text (received in advance from Desai) of Gandhi’s article in Harriman of March 9^th, entitled “When?” Begins. Everybody is asking me not whether, but when, I am to call the country to civil disobedience. Some of my questioners are the most sober among coworkers. To them the Patna resolution has no other meaning than that the struggle’s coming is a question of days. It is proof that the country, or that part of it that was hitherto taken part in the struggle for freedom, is tired of the waiting and suspense, it is heartening to think that there are in the country so many persons who count no sacrifice too dear nor gaining independence.

While therefore I admire the zeal of my questioners, I must warm them against being impatient. There is nothing in the resolution to warrant the belief that the atmosphere (sic atmosphere) is suitable for declaring civil disobedience. It will be suicidal to declare it when there is so much indiscipline and violence within the Congress itself. Congressmen will make a serious mistake if they do not give full weight to my words, I cannot, will not, start mass civil disobedience so long as I am not convinced that there is enough discipline and enough non-violence in Congress ranks. The apathy about (construction of) (Constructive) programme, i.e. spinning and sale of Khadi, I take to be positive signs of the unbelief. Battle through such (? Instruments is) foredoomed to failure. Such should know that I am not their man, If there is no hope of attaining necessary measure of discipline and non-violence, it would be better to let me retire from leadership.

Let it be clearly understood that I cannot be hustled into precipitating struggle. They err grievously who think I can ever declare civil disobedience, having been driven thereto by so-called leftists. I make no such distinction between rightists and leftists. Both are my co-workers and friends. He will be a bold man who can with any measure of certainty draw the line of demarcation between leftists and rightists. Congressmen and non- Congressmen should also know that, even if the whole country were to turn against me, I must when the time comes light single handed. The others have, or may have, weapons besides non-violence. I have no choice. Being the author of the non-violence technique in the political field, I am bound to fight when I feel the urge from within.

It is inherent in the technique that I never know the time-table in advance. The call may come at any time. It need not be described as from God.

The inner urge is a current phrase easily understood. Everybody sometimes acts upon the inner urge. Such action need not always be right. But there is no other explanation possible for certain actions.

The thought often comes to me that it would be a good thing If Congress could forget me. I do sometimes feel that with my strange (? Views) of life, I am a misfit in Congress. Whatever special qualifications I may possess, and for which Congress and country may have use, can perhaps be utilized if I were wholly cut off from Congress. But I know that this severance cannot be brought about mechanically of violently. It will come in its own time. If it has to come. Only Congressmen should know my limitations and should not be surprised or grieved it they find me stiff, and unbending. I ask them to believe me when I say that I am incapable of acting without fulfillment of conditions laid down for declaring mass civil disobedience. M.K. Gandhi, Sevagram, March 5^th 1940. (Ends)

The above article of Gandhi sent in advance by Desai to the Governor – General in itself is sufficient to explain its Importance to the British administration Mahadev Desai was not only sending Gandhi’s articles in advance but was also reporting the proceedings of the confidential meetings of the Congress held at Wardha. The following letter is self-explanatory.

Segaon

Via Wardha

12/10/39.

My dear Laithwaite,

Pray pardon one more infliction.

You have, I dare say, studied the AICC’s resolution on the war crisis. I deliberately say ‘studied’, for I think it needs to be studied in order to see the care and moderation with which it has been drafted. It is entirely Pandit Jawaharlal’s draft, adopted by the Working Committee and then by the AICC without the change of a comma or a colon, by an overwhelming majority.But this is the least part of what I wanted to say to you. I intended particularly to describe to you the part played by Pandit Jawaharlal during the historical session of the committee. He took the unprecedented step of antagonizing everyone of his socialist friends and mercilessly dissected all the amendments that were moved by them. I was present throughout the proceedings and was agreeably surprised at the moderation of his speeches and the studied restraint of his argument “A Year Ago,” he said, “You condemned the British for not going to war for the Czecks, How then you now say you will oppose them when they have gone to war for a righteous cause?” “All the speeches you have made today,” he said addressing some of the fire eaters, “seems to me to sound antiquated. Two years ago they might have been all right. They are quite out of place today.” “is it fair”, he asked, “to assume that it is an imperialist war and not to give them a chance to make a declaration that it is not?” To those who made fun of the resolution as defeatist, he said: “You say this is a defeatist resolution because we have given no ultimatum and would seem to wait indefinitely. I emphatically say ‘no’. It may take a few days, but rest assured that the British are in a greater hurry to be done with this business then we ourselves. And as far the moderation of the resolution, it is in consonance with the resolution which we used to pass in 1920-21-22 when we talked little but did much.”

I wonder if you would care to show this letter to H. E.? He would like to know that Pandit Jawaharlal did not speak from a position up in the clouds but his feet firmly planted on the earth and had an overwhelming majority to support him. The resolution and the atmosphere and the spirit in which it was moved and carried through should leave no doubt that there would be a satisfactory gesture form government. They simply refused to be swept away by the intemperate tide.

Yours sincerely

Sd. Mahadev Desai

(Enclosure to the PS to the Viceroy’s letter no.5700 dated 16.10.39 to the PS to the Secretary of State for India).

There is also evidence of confidential meetings Mahadev Desai with the private secretary or the Viceroy himself in which Gandhi’s personal reactions to various official decisions were discussed and disclosed in confidence to keep them appropriately informed. The minutest detail of Gandhi’s thinking was thus passed on to the Viceroy, who kept on sending them back to the Secretary of State. It is interesting to read the following telegram from the Viceroy to the Secretary of State:

“…He (Hallett) was averse from picking up Gandhi (mentioning Satyagrah), and I made it quite clear to him that there was not the very least desire on my part or on yours to pick up Gandhi unless and until he had no alternative.

I added, indeed, that at the moment I suspected that we were causing the Mahatma some mild annoyance by picking up his various lieutenants, because they were acting on his instructions while letting him alone. There have, I think, been hints in one or two of the conversations which Laithwaite had with Desai and others, and of which you have had records, that the Mahatma may have had records, that the Mahatma may have rather hoped that we should feel ashamed of picking up the victims while ignoring the mastermind behind them.”(From Linlithgow H. E. the Viceroy to the Most Hon’ble the Marquess of Zetland, His Majesty’s Secretary of State for India, Dated January 10, 1941.

After his death a prolific amount of material poled up in his voluminous notebook was discovered in his trunk. Gandhi himself has spoken about it:

“In his (Mahadev Desai) trunk was found a memo of my talks taken down on the day previous of his final end. Probably none besides myself can today make them out, and even I do not know to what use he would have put them

MAHATMA GANDHI

“In his trunk was found a memo of my talks taken down on the day previous of his final end. Probably none beside myself can today make them out, and even I do not know to what use he would have put them.”

It was, however, strange then to Gandhi himself but not to us now to “know to what use he would have put them.” He was busy doing incessantly his job till “the day previous to his final end”.

(To be concluded)

MAHATMA GANDHI’S SECRETARY WAS AN INFORMER – III

Dr. Pramod Kumar

LONDON

The British administration found in Mahadev Desai one of the most eloquent and potent agents. Desai kept passing on information in quick succession to the British till his death. He got published his diary, and a couple of books not to confess his misdeeds but to profess his relentless devotion and submission to Mahatma Gandhi. The only purpose of such publications was, it seems, to provide a reasonable cover to his acts which led to catastrophic consequences. It was not done to copy his mentor’s, “As Experiment with Truth, “but to cloud the truth itself.

Moreover, it is wrong to say that Desai was the only one of his kind in the Congress. There were several others committing similar misdeeds. There is evidence to prove that most of them commanding respect and having responsible in the Congress and the government were indeed, the King’s men So far as Desai is concerned, he was rather a small puppet in the hands of someone who had a gameplan of his own. Desai had close links with few businessmen who provided funds to the party. As mentioned in the following letter, the interests of these business houses were closely linked with the British Empire:

“As you know, the All India Congress Committee have been sitting in Delhi during the last week. They have been very careful indeed to avoid coming down on either side of the fence over the question of cooperation in the event of war. There is, I gather, a growing disposition among Congressmen and particularly among the big businessmen who provided the funds of the Party. To realize what it would mean to India were the British Empire to go down in a war.” (To Secretary of State from the Viceroy, dated Sept. 30, 1938).

Ever since its very foundation a few big business houses remained important and integral component of the Indian National Congress. Although, their interests, as appear were diametrical to each other, but being silent partners it was the big business houses which dominated the policies and decisions of the Congress. The funds of the party came from them and the Congress in return obliged them by working in accordance with their politico economic interests. However the situation started changing after the partition of Bengal which brought growing popular support to the Congress, which in turn, of course, changed the very character of its leadership. The advent of the trumvirate of Lal, Bal and Pal and demands of Swadeshi, boycott and national education divided the Congress vertically into right and left wings. The growing popularity of the radicalism of left wing forced right wing leaders to become more and more dependent upon those big business houses whose economic and political interests had been enhanced to new heights after World War I.

At this critical stage of Indian political drama, Gandhi’s dramatic entry further altered the existing equations. He was not even an ordinary member of the Congress but had come to be its spiritual leader. He was neither in the right wing nor in the left wing but did succeed in manipulating both. Certainly, his innovative ideals and policies were not centrist but instead were far more radical for the leftists and far more conservative for the rightists. He tried to handle both the big business houses and others in his endeavour to achieve his goal. He was not even against the British, although they never felt comfortable with his unique experiments in politics, rather he proved himself far more complicated to be dealt with comfortable. Though he succeeded to some extent, he was destined to fall ultimately because of the band of the King’s men surrounding him.

The British, however, discovered their access to Mahatma’s “wily” mind in men like Mahadev Desai and others. Most of the right wing of the Congress was manipulated by the British through business houses by providing funds to the party. They proved to be so successful that even the embarrassing resolutions of the Congress Working Committee did not worry them much. The following telegram from the Viceroy to the Secretary of State has sufficient evidence to prove their confidence in dealing with such situations:

“The All India Congress Committee are at present in session at Delhi and there is little doubt that they will pass a resolution defining the attitude of the Congress towards cooperation with Great Britain in war. Perhaps they will say, that, quite apart from the merits of any particular war i.e. whether it is one of which public opinion in India approves. Indian cooperation can only be given with the consent of the people of India. A resolution of this kind will undoubtedly be embarrassing. On the other hand. I do not think it need to be taken too seriously. What will be far more important is what is said and decided upon behind the scenes. (To the Secretary of State from Viceroy, dated 23^rd September 1938).

The Viceroy, as is evident, was not at all worried about the aforesaid resolution, even if passed in the Congress Working Committee, because for him dealings going behind the scenes’ were actually for more important”. And behind the scene everything was well in control of the Viceroy and Secretary of State, because eco political interests of those business houses – the manipulators of the right wingers were closely and directly linked with the interests of the British empire. So far the unpredictable mind of Gandhi is concerned. Desai and others were there to take care of it.

There were may others like Desai either working at their own or under the command of someone else. They were all collaborators as well as informers.

The entire history of mankind is the history of heroes and traitors, and even India is no exception. Indian nationalism has remained throughout its history under the constant threat at of such traitors who were ready to destroy the very edifice of Indian nationalism. Even more than four decades of post independence institutionalized history writing have not brought to trial before public opinion the culprits of the freedom struggle. Paradoxically, most of them have managed to acquire places of pride, glory and heroism reserved for real heroes only. Is it not moral responsibility on our part to bring such people to the notice of the nation and reassess their position in the history of the freedom struggle?

(Concluded)

_____________________________________________________________--

The Little Mermaid at Copenhagen by Bal Patil

2010-10-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

SHIVAJI, BOOK BANS AND THE SHIV SENA

2010-10-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

SHIVAJI, BOOK BANS AND THE SHIV SENA

I am submitting below my Essay Shivaji ;First international Nationalist Leader which won First Prize in an essay contest announced by the Western India Film Producers’ Association in 1974. Published in Maharashtra State Government LOK RAJYA (monthly publication) SHIVAJI MAHARAJ 300^th PUNYATITHI ISSUE 1980 (Shivaji 300^th Death anniversary Issue)

http://balpatil.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/02/shivaji-first-international-nationalist-leader.htm I have also included my personal letter to a friend abroad on the ban on Laine’s book on Shivaji and also my letters published in the Economic Times in 1973: dt. Sept.25, 1973) and also in The Times of India Published in “The Times Of India” dated. 15.05.1969 Street-Corner Bullies in the aftermath of the SS riots:

By the way I am always puzzled as to why the Thackerays spell their surname in an anglicized manner as ‘Thackeray’ rather than ‘Thakare’. Also it is a mystery to me why –with my unqualified admiration for Kumar Ketkar’s uncompromisingy independent editorial standards- the news captions and regular topics are getting more and more Anglicized in Loksatta!

________________________________________________________________________

Shivaji : First International Nationalist Leader*

By Bal Patil

MYTH and legend are concomitants of greatness and glory, and it becomes a difficult task indeed for a historian to sift truth from the mist of grandeur and adulation that inevitably surrounds a heroic name and present it in its realistic contours.

Shivaji was a legend in his own lifetime. As an English factor noted: “Report hath made him an Airy Body and added Wings, or else it were impossible for him to be in so many places as he is said to be all at one time. They ascribe to him to perform more than a Herculean labour that he is become the talk of all conditions of people”.

Cosme da Guarda, the first systematic biographer of Shivaji, who wrote his Vida e accoeno do famoso e felicissima Sevagy - Life of the Celebrated Sevagy- in 1695 one year before Sabhasad’s chronicle on Shivaji was completed:, says: “ The question is still unsolved whether Sevagy substituted others for himself or he is a Magician or the Devil”.

That is the sort of strain of a charismatic appeal not unmixed with awe and fear which runs through the contemporary English, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Italian accounts about Shivaji. Shivaji’s heroic exploits, daring deeds and guerilla stratagems so impressed the European and particularly the English Company traders that we find in 1659, the year of Afzal Khan’s death, the English Factors of Rajapur writing to their superiors at Surat of “Sevagy, a great Rashpoote”.

The chief landmarks in Shivaji’s supremely confident march towards a destined place in the Indian history from the Afzal Khan episode to the critical climax reached in Agra escape and the glorious culmination of a self-made royal career in the great coronation in 1674 are too well-known and documented to need recapitulation and interpretation. What is needed is an assessment of Shivaji as an unique historical force which gave a decisive turn to the Indian history truly comparable to what Napoleon did to the European continent a century later.

SHIVAJI’S ACHIEVEMENTS

Shivaji’s achievenment was unique in that he was that rare amalgam of soldier-statesman and a visionary: a vision of Hindu unity and sovereignty- not in the religious or sectarian terms but simply of a heroic creation and consolidation of one unity against a hostile and alien unity of mainly the Moghuls. To evaluate Shivaji properly, it is essential to place him in a perspective of the historical, political and social milicu of his time.

Grant Duff, not always fair to Shivaji, was moved to sum him up succinctly in the following terms: “We view his talents with admiration and his genius with wonder. Shivaji was patient and deliberate in his plans, ardent, resolute and persevering in their execution”, and concludes by saying: “his plans raised the despised Hindus to socereignty and brought about their own accomplishment when the hand that framed them was low in the dust.”

What Shivaji did was to create a new élan among the rough and rugged brethren of the rocky terrain of Sahyadri encircled as he was by the alien Muslim regimes of Bijapur and Golkonda in the South and the mighty Moghul empire in the North and every conceivable handicap of those politically turbutent times.

Shivaji’s meteoric rise against this ominous background is so spectacular that it tempts one to describe him as a child of the revolution like Napoleon that ‘Little Carporal’ of the despised island of Corsica who came eventually to dominate the European history like a colossus and made the thrones tremble at the flourish of his invincible sword.

It was Napoleon’s boast that he saw the crown of France lying in the gutter and picked it to with his sword. Surely Shivaji did anticipate this feat because he too with his redoubtable Bhavani sword literally carved out a kingdom and a throne out of nothing and made the stern Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb despair of the ‘mountain rat’.

Shivaji has been compared with Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, but I do not think that the comparison is quite apt because though Shivaji was cast in the same heroic mould as those ancient heroes he was, moreover, distinguished from them on account of his moral qualities. As Cosme da Guarda so unreservedly puts it: “But what surprise one most is that so many moral virtues should shine in a Gentio rebel and reputed robber.”

That Shivaji should have drawn such accolades from an alien historian is truly a measure of his greatness because the 17^th century was not particularly noted for the moral quality of politics. Nor for that matter the twentieth century can pride itself on amore civilized regard for morals in the cut-throat politics of power as witnessed in the cold-blooded experimentation of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki against the best military advice that it was not necessary because Japan was already on the verge of surrender.

HIS FORTE

As Jadunath Sarkar relates in his Shjivaji and His Times Jai Singh contemplated to entrap Shivaji by a false offer of a marriage between his daughter and Jai Singh’s son and get him murdered during his journey to the Rajput general’s camp. As Sarkar comments: “This letter (from Jai Singh to Jafar Khan) throws a lurid light on the political morals of the 17^th century. When people argue that Afzal Khan could not have possibly intended to stab Shivaji during an interview, they should remember that the sanctimkonious Jai Singh was prepared to prove his loyalty by lowering his family honour and laying a fatal snare for Shivaji, a brother Hindu”.

Shivaji’s forte lay in his resourcefulness. Again and again his daring exploits prove that he was at his best when thrown on his own resources; calamities awakened his great manoeuvering skill, the most brilliant feat of which was achieved in his escape from Agra. As Orme observed: “He met every emergency…. With instant discernment and unshaken fortitude.. Respected as the guardian of the nation he had founded he moved everywhere amongst them with unsuspicious security and often alone”.

This was precisely the most sterling quality in Shivji’s character which enabled him to attain to Napoleonic heights and surprise his formidable rivals and set at nought their carefully devised stratagems. Shivaji could do it because he was a superb strategist and a clever tactician of a very high order where guerilla warfare was concerned.

As an English factor noted: “He is very nimble and active, imposing strange labour on himself that he may endure hardship, and also exercises his chiefest men that he flies to and fro with incredible dexterity”. And the English Governor of Bombay said: ”Tis well known that Sevagy is a second Sertorious and comes not short of Hannibal for stratagems”.

I am tempted to compare Shivaji again and again with Napoleon because in resourcefulness, in sheer military genius, in versatility and in prophetic perception of one’s destined historical task Shivaji is truly the Indian forerunner to this European counterpart. It is surprising how the following description of a French chronicler Guibert written ten years before the Bastille was stormed in France fits in with the historic rise of Shivaji as it did with that of Napoleon.

Guibert wrote:” A man will arise, perhaps one who hitherto was lost in the obscurity of the crowd: a man who has not made his name either by speech or writing: a man who in silence has meditated; a man who perhaps did not know his own talents, who can only become aware of them when called upon to exercise them: one who has studied very little. That man will seize hold of opinions, of opportunity, of fortune, and will say to the great men of theories what the practical architect who addressed the Athenians said to the oratorical architect: ‘ All that my rival tells you, I will carry out”.

And true to this prophetic expectation Napoleon Bonaparte arose. Of him it was said by Thomas Carlyle: “There was an eye to see in this man, a soul to dare and do. He rose naturally to be the King. All men saw that he was such”. (Heroes and Hero worship)

His precisely this prophecy and its fulfillment fits in with the career of Shivaji It is one of the great imponderables of the Indian history: Had Shivaji reached Agra on 11^th May 1666 one day before the great birthday imperial durbar of Aurangzeb at Agra was held it would have been possible to groom him in imperial etiquette and thus the entire curse of events might have taken a different turn and who knows Shivaji might have been inveigled into becoming the Viceroy of Deccan as conceived by Jai Singh. But it is extremely doubtful if the fiercely independent spirit of Shivaji would have been amenable to such imperial stratagems. In all probability he would have neatly turned the tables on the Moghul emperor.

Be that as it may, one cannot stress too highly as noted by Jadunath Sarkar that “Shivaji’s visit to Aurangzeb produced as its ultimate consequence a revolution in the destiny of the Maratha peoples. This event marks a decisive turning point in the history of India as a whole”.

SURAT EXPLOIT

Thus Sarkar who had recourse to all the known historical records on Shivaji and who has written the historical magnum opus on Aurangzeb has correctly assessed the crucial significance of the Agra escape. It is in this context very difficult to understand why Sir Jadunath should have been in two minds while assessing Shivaji’s plunder of Surat in 1664.

After reading carefully all the pros and cons of the episode, particularly regarding the alleged cruelty inflicted on the prisoners held in Shivaji’s camp at Surat, I feel that Sarkar’s judgment has been faulty because he has failed to place Shivaji’s military exploits in an historical perspective.

Sarkar is again and again critical Shivaji’s spoliations. Thus he states regarding Shivaji’s aim in Surat invasion; “But money was really his sole aim. He had to make the most of his four days’ free run at Surat and shrank from no cruelty to extort money as quickly as possible:.”

The imputations of sheer mercenary motive and unmitigated cruelty are so sweeping motive and unmitigated cruelty are so sweeping and summary in character that one wonders whether they have been made by the same eminent historian Sarkar who has showered encomiums on Shivaji for his sterling personal and moral qualities. Stranger still is his dependence on Reverend Escaliot’s hearsay evidence of a letter saying:

“His desire for money is so great that he spares no barbarous cruelty to extort confessions from his prisoners, whips them most cruelly, threatens death and often executes if they do not produce so much as he thinks they may or desires they should: at least cuts off one hand, sometimes both”.

The enormity of the charges of cruelty is such that it needs to be refuted in all historical conscience as totally out of character of Shivaji particularly in view of the worthless antecedents of this charge. I think that Surendranath Sen has given a most judicious account of Shivaji’s Surat exploit and conclusively shown the unreliability of Escaliot’s and Anthony Smith’s (the only eye-witness of the alleged atrocities in Shivaji’s camp) accounts.

As regards Jadunath Sarkar’s charge that Shivaji “ordered the prisoners to be brought before him and cut off the heads of four and the hands of 24 others from among them at his caprice, (italics mine) but spared the rest”, Sen refutes by saying that “a soldier may be excused if he molests an unoffending inhabitant when a city is taken by assault, but a general who molests his helpless prisoners can never be forgiven. Shivaji was, by common consent, free from the vices of his times, it is believed he was never guilty of unnecessary cruelty, but if Sir Jadunath’s statement is accepted we shall have to revise our opinion about the Maratha hero.” (Foreign Biographies of Shivaji, pp.xxxii-iii, Introduction).

SEN’S REJOINDER

Sen’s rejoinder to Sarkar deserves to be quoted in full in order to wipe off the slur on Shivaji’s fair reputation as a pioneer Maratha hero. Sen asserts: “It is an axiom of historical investigations that no authority, however great, is more reliable that his sources. Anything coming from Sir Jadunath naturally carries great weight, but his assertion about Shivaji’s misdeeds at Surat is no more reliable than the evidence on which he bases it. Bernier, Manaucci, Thevenot and Carre do not corroborate the charge which is apparently based on the letters of L’Escaliot and Garry, a letter addressed by the English President and Council at Surat to their masters at home and the log of the Loyal Merchant. The Dutch factors of Surat so far as we can judge from the contemporaty records now at our disposal, do not corroborate their English neighbours in this particular charge against Shivaji.

“L’Escaliot and Garry were at Surat at the time, and a number of sailors were sent from the Loyal Merchant to defend the English factory. But a casual scrutiny of these letters reveals that neither Garry nor the Captain of the Loyal Merchant, witnessed the incident to which they all testify. None of them can, there fire, be regarded as corroborating others, while they all derived their information from one common source, Mr. Anthony Smith, an English Factor, who was a prisoner for three days with the Marathas…

“…..It is evident that the Captain who was not present at the place of occurrence, heard of the murderous plot as well as the merciless mutilation of Shivaji’s prisoners from Mr. Anthony Smith. The Rev.John L’Escaliot makes no secret about the source of his information. So in the final analysis the charges brought against Shivaji by Sir Jadunath Sarkar rest upon the uncorroborated evidence of one single individual, viz. Anthony Smith. The evidence of a trust worthy person may under ordinary circumstances, be accepted without corroboration if there is nothing unusual about it and mutilation was a common enough punishment in those days. Had the statement, therefore, come from cither Sir Alexander Oxenden or the Rev.John L’Escaliot, and the accused person happened to be an officer of Shivaji about whose character nothing was known, it might be accepted as probable though not proven. But Anthony Smith happened to be a man of a very shady character and in a letter addressed from Surat to the East India Company on the 31^st March 1665, is found the following estimate of Mr. Smith’s (Foster, The English Factories in India 1663-1667, p.12):

“A more atheisticall wretch never was suffer’d to live on the earth. At the rebel Sevagy’s being here he fell into his hands, and after his releasement would (as we are credibly informed) have betray’d your house, estate and servants up to him: and this is avow’d by him that was appointed to write the letter which was intended to be sent the rebel… For these and other misdemeners too tedious to enlarge on here, we warn’d hyim home to answer to you.”

On this characterization of Smith, Sen rightly comments: “Should we be justified in accepting the unsupported evidence of an individual whom his countrymen gave such a bad character”?

JADUNATH SARKARS’VIEW

But even then Sir Jadunath Sarkar is unrepentant and insists on his interpretation as follows: “A modern writer (strangely he does not mention Surendranath Sen by name) has tried to discredit Smith’s evidence on the ground that the President of the Surat English factory reported to the company in London that Smith had injured the Company’s interests by telling some lies to the Maratha during his captivity. Evidently the charge was disproved, for we find Smith still in the service of the Compny three years after this date. (This information was traced by Sir. W. Foster among the Indian Office records, at my request.) Therefore Smith’s veracity as to what Shivaji did in his camp at the time cannot be questioned. These atrocities are inevitable in the sack of cities.” (P. 102, Shivaji and His Times.)

I am plainly unable to accept Sarkar’s judgement because it is evident that he is proceeding on preconceived notions about Shivaji’s aims of pillage: the trouble is that he has formed his opinion that : Shivaji shrank from no cruelty’ for money and then collected evidence and that too apparently rather on flimsy grounds. Sarkar conveniently forgets that if at all Shivaji was impatient and rash enough to indulge in such a “bloody reprisal” there was the strong extenuating circumstance that just before it Shivaji has foiled an attempt to murder him plotted by the Moghul Governor of Surat, Inayet Khan. So it is just conceivable that Shivaji retaliated in the white heat of a passionate reprisal.

But it would be a grievous mistake to infer from this that it was a habitually cruel trait of Shivaji to indulge in such sadistic mutilations. Moreover we must remember that Smith too was among the helpless prisoners whose right hands were ordered to be cut off but was spared as he was recognized to be an Englishman. Thus there is reason to believe that his testimony is strongly coloured by prejudice and animus against Shivji. That Smith continued in the Company’s service for there years thereafter as so hopefully pointed out by Sarkar cannot be taken as a presumption against his manifestly doubtful character.

I cannot see why Sir Jadunath Sarkar should have insisted on attributing such cruelties to Shivaji which are so out of character in view of the overwhelming contemporary evidence that Shivaji never indulged in unnecessary violence. But unfortunately it is an idée fixe with Sarkar that the main object of Shivaji’s military enterprises “was not annexation but mere plunder” which relies on Sabhasad’s stray remark that “the Maratha forces should feed themselves at the expense of foreign countries for eight months every year, and levy blackmail.”

Evidently Sarkar was not aware that insistence on this point will bring down the noble edifice of the Maratha empire with which he credits shivaji, and his own assessment of Shivaji that he regards him “as the last great constructive genius and nation-builder that the Hindu race has produced.” Though Sarkar is careful enough to qualify his assessment by saying that “whatever might be the moral quality of the means he employed, his success was a dazzling reality” he does not accomplished by Shivaji cannot carry conviction unless means too are predominantly infused with moral qualities.

Modern Day Cruelties

Whatever violence Shivaji took recourse to in the normal course of his military exploits was nothing compared to the cruelties inflicted as a matter of military necessity by such great conquerors as Alexander the Great and Caesar and to come to our own times in the atomic havoc of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the senseless slaughter Vietnam. The question of morals in war is ultimately a matter posing a great dilemma to political scientists and military historians.

As the political theorist Hobbes stated in Leviathan: “Force and Fraud , are in warre the two Cardinal virtues”. As regards military destruction the eminent military historian and military stategist who is reputed to have introducted the concept of blitzkrieg in modern warfare, Captain B.H. Liddell Hart says: “Indeed in the destruction of cities, the record of World War II exceed anything since the campaigns of Gaghia Khan and Tamerlane”. He further says that compared to the gruesome accounts of warfare in Julius Caesar’s Gaullist campaigns one is made to realize “That Hitler was quite a gentleman compared with that much praised missionary of Roman civilization who is revered by so many students of the classic.” (Why Don’t We Learn From History?)

Coming nearer to modern age Liddell Hart is frank enough to admit that “the Romans at their worst were mild compared with our own ancestor, and the ancestors of all the Western European Nations during the Dark Ages that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Pax Romana. It was the habits of the Saxons and the Franks to slay everyone in their path men, women and children and to indulge in the most reckless destruction of towns and crops.”

Such “ scorched earth” techniques are by no means a peculiar national vice: they are part of the staple of warfare, ancient and modern. Western or Eastern. Even today in the day of limited wars against the nuclear shadow there is evidence of the most brutal bombardments including napalm showers on civilian population as in Vietnam.

Noble Vision

All this compels one to see that the noble vision of the Indian sovereignty towards which Shivaji persevered with all his might could not have been conceived unless it was actuated by commensurate noble means. And that is Shivaji’s most unique achievement In the context of the times in which he lived. Shivaji was inspired by a creative vision of nationalist aspiration. In this he was far ahead of his times. I cannot help quoting here what Dr. J. Bronowski says of the ultimate importance of means in his book Science and Human Values which he wrote after seeing the ruins of Nagasaki in 1945.

Dr. Bronowski says: “ And because we know how gunpowder works, we sigh for the days before atomic bombs. But massacre is not prevented by sticking to gunpowder , the Thirty Year’s War is proof of that, Massacre is prevented by the scientist’s ethic, and the poet’s and every creator’s “ that the end for which we work exists and is judged only by the means which we use to reach it. This is the human sum of the values of science.”

But not only the moral value of the means he employed but also his winning magnetism and scrupulous tolerance of all faiths which earned Shivaji good opinion of the foreigners he came in contact with. Cosme da Guarda says: “Moreover , such was the good treatment he accorded to people and such was the honesty with which he observed the capitulations that none looked upon him without a feeling of love and confidence …No merit was left unrewarded, no offence went unpunished: and this he did with so muchcare and attention that he specially charged.” As regards the Surat Plunder he further says” “But none was in the peril of life, for it was the strict order of Sevagy that unless resistence was offered no one should be killed, and as none resisted none perished.”

In sum, Shivaji was a Grand Rebel but a gentle-hearted one to friends, foes and aliens alike. And one can truly say that his character was moulded in that classic Indian conception” vajradapi kathorani mruduni kusumadapi- more adamant than diamond but softer than flower.

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http://balpatil.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/02/shivaji-first-international-nationalist-leader.htm

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Dear Elinor,

Thanks very much for sharing with me your e-mail correspondence with Manish on the disgraceful incidence at the BORI. I wish I had an opportunity of entering your interesting and intellectually provocative dialogue earlier. I have already had a telephonic interaction with Manish when I have strongly condemned it as an inexcusable assault on freedom of expression and historic research and shared with him some confidential information re: the impugned passages in the book.

When Mahish asked me why Sonia Gandhi has not condemned it. I urged him to keep the dialogue within the parameters of the Maharashtra State and find out what the Government of Maharashtra as well as what the official Marathi Literary Conference was doing. I told him it was most regrettable that the Marathi Annual conference comprising of the important writers did not pass any Resolution condemning it, nor the political leader, Shri Pawar mention it in his inaugural speech the Conference let alone condemn it. I even told him that the action of the Maharashtra Govt. in filing a criminal case against the author James Laine and banning his book was foolish. I also urged him to read the prominent Marathi daily Loksatta edited by Shri Kumar Ketkar has condemned it editorially unreservedly. It has been compared with the destruction of the Alexandrine library in ancient times. Not only that Loksatta has started collecting a fund by the name Loksatta Jnanasamskriti Nidhi for the reconstruction of the BORI for which sizeable contributions are pouring in. Among the contributors are several prominent literary figures like Y.D. Phadke, and the notable and famous Marathi stage film actor and also a character actor, Dr.Sriram Lagoo who also is a champion of the cause of the fight against superstition and acted in a powerful play in Marathi on Socrates entitled "Soorya Pahilela Manoos" meaning 'a man who had perceived the sun' which was sponsored and staged at the initiative of my nephew Shri Abhay Patil last year, contributed Rs.50,000/-. Ever since this tragic incident took place condemnatory reactions are pouring in daily in the columns of Loksatta.

The other day rather unexpectedly the Prime Minister, Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee said in a public meeting in Mumbai that it was wrong to ban a book and that it would be better to write another book to counter unacceptable writings or sentiment in any objectionable book. This is certainly welcome.

But we must remember that Shri Vajpayee is a essentially an RSS man who is never tired of reminding that Sangha (RSS, the ideological outfit of the ruling party) is his soul and that his government has recently reconstituted the NCERT (National Council for Educational Research Training ) which has engaged in a systematic re-writing of Indian history text-books as well as the history of Indian freedom. Not only that the Government is idolising Sawarkar by displaying his portrait in the Parliament House opposite Mahatma Gandhi in whose assassination plot Sawarkar was an accused and was acquitted on a techical point of lack of corroborative evidence. This point too was set aside in a later Commission of Inquiry set by the Government of India in 1967 under Justice J.L. Kapur, Retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India, in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi. I think I had spoken to you about this last year when you were in Mumbai. At least the Congress Party with the rest of the Opposition parties boycotted the function of the inauguration of Sawarkar's portrait in the Parliament. I have attached a copy of my letter to Smt.Sonia Gandhi on this topic for your information.

Please see my Blog: Could Gandhi Be Saved: RSS Role in Gandhi Assassination:

http://www.gandhitopia.org/profiles/blogs/could-gandhi-be-saved-rss

I am also writing to Sonia Gandhi that the Congres should also not hesitate to condemn the vandalisation of the BORI and the ban of the book which is going to prove counter-productive.

On the day when I saw the spectacle of destruction and vandalism on news channels it literally brought tears to my eyes. I have a book by Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, the founder of the BORI Early History of the Dekkan: Down to the Mahomedan Conquest (first published 1895, Reprinted in 1985) which is among my most treasured possession and which I am never tired of quoting. Manish is aware of this book.

What I find most pertinent in the book is the opening paragraph when Bhandarkar says: "India has no written history. Nothing was known till within recent times of the political condition of the country, the dynasties that ruled over the different provinces which composed it, and the great religious and social revolutions that it went through. The historical curiosity of the people was satiated by legends. What we find of a historical nature in the literature of the country before the arrival of the Mahomedans comes to very little." (p.i)

I recently attended the Conference on Religions in Indic Civilisation in New Delhi from Dec.18th to 21st 2003 organised by Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in collaboration with the International Association for the History of Religions in which I presented my paper on The Rise, Decline and Renewals of Sramanic Religious Traditions within Indic Civilisation with Particular reference to the Evolution of Jain Sramanic Culture and Its Impact on the Indic Civilisation.(PS: I also read this Paper at 19th World Congress of IAHR Tokyo, 24 to 31 March 2005 The Rise, Decline And Renewals Of Sramanic Religious Traditions Within Indic CivilisationWith Particular Reference To The Evolution Of Jain Sramanic Culture And Its Impact On The Indic Civilization http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=cd769

I have particularly commented at length how historical distortions and misrepresentations have occurred in regard to the interpretation of Jain Sramanic traditions and why a new paradigmatic change in Indian history writing is necessary. I am sending the attachment by separate e-mail.

Now I shall take the liberty of commenting on one comment by Manish and that is "with James Laine's work on Shivaji, foreign scholars are being branded as anti-Hindu!" As a matter of fact the Shiv Sena (in consonance with its idolatrous devotion to Shivaji) began the anti-James Laine attack because of its alleged anti-Shivaji stance. You must remember that in Maharashtra Shivaji is treated as the icon of Maharashtrian historic glory and no politician can afford to alienate the common public-or rather Maratha-sentiment. And Marathas are the ruling community. Laine's book has raised this hornet's nest is basically due to its writing based on alleged anti-Shivaji sources rather than being anti-Hindu. It is another matter that what is anti-Shivaji is also sub-sumed into anti-Hindu for it suits the Shiv Sena ideology! Which is what leads to the "Zombie-like violence" as you have correctly noted.

By the way I am certainly puzzled as to why the SS has not yet taken note of Jadunath Sarkar’s ill-conceived and ill-founded critique of Shivaji.

This is not the first time it has happened. In 1973 another author, a Maharashtraian, was arrested and his book on Shivaji was banned. I have pasted below my letter published protesting against this in The Economic Times. Dr.Ambedkar, the great leader of the dalits and the architect of the Indian Constitution too had to face similar fate because of a chapter published in his Complete Works (brought out by the Government of Maharashtra) entitled "Riddles in Ramayana" in which there is a description how Ram and Sita enjoyed wine and tasting meaty delicacies and other profanities!. The particular edition was withdrawn and re-published by deleting it!!

For me as a Jaina, as an intellectual, as a journalist even patriotism is always a quest for truth the other side of the coin of which is non-violence. Both are inseparable. Jainism appeals to me not because I am a born Jaina but becaue it lays down an unceasing compassionate pursuit for truth and non-violence.

As regards the OUP withdrawal of the book it is a question of their business interests and survival in a hostile environment. I would very much like to read the book and find out for myself. You are also aware how in a hostile age of decline of Jainism in 8th century AD Jinasena wrote Mahapurana incorporating many of the Hindu sanskaras such as Upanayana which is quintessentially a Brahmanic Vedic ritual, unfortunately being followed by Jain community in Maharashtra to which I strongly objected.

As regards banning of books I would like to refer to a glaring instance of how a Marathi play "Mee Nathuram boltoy" (I am Nathuram Speaking) which is a disgraceful presentation of why Naturam Godse was led to murder Mahatma Gandhi which was banned but the ban was subsequently withdrawn judicially!! and the play is running now to the delight of the defenders of the Godse ideology which is not different from the Hindutva one pursued by the RSS.

It might also interest you to know that a play written on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln is prohibited in the USA.

Another case concerns Lokmanya Tilak, the fiery extremist nationalist leader of Maharashtra who filed defamation case against the book The Indian Unrest by Valentine Chirol (in 1905) in which Chirol accused Tilak of fomenting violence. Tilak lost the case. By the way, I may mention that this book was translated into Marathi by Annasaheb Latthe, an eminent Jain leader(in the first four decades of the twentieth century and a an erstwhile Diwan (Prime Minister) of the progressive ruler Chatrapati Shahu Maharaj who had spearheaded the non-Brahmin movement in the the first two decades of the 20th century and who along with Maharaja Sayajirao, ruler of the princely State of Baroda who helped Dr.Ambedkar to prosecute his studies abroad, of my native princely state of Kolhapur translated this Chirol book into Marathi a complimentary copy of which he gave to my grandfather, a close family friend. Latthe also was a historian and economist and was a Finance Minister in the first Congress government in the Bombay State in 1937 (Now Maharashtra).

I hope I have made my stand clear. If there is any misgiving I shall be happy to respond.
With best regards,

Bal Patil

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Following is my letter published in The Economic Times in 1973: Published in The Economic Times, dt. Sept.25, 1973)

THOUGHT CONTROL

By Bal Patil

Sir, You have done well to deprecate the obscurantist attitude of the Maharashtra Government for its ill advised arrest of the editor and publisher of an article critical of Shivaji as well as the author, Dr.Ranade (E.T. Sept. 20)

I hold no brief for the author and it may be that his criticism is ill-founded and yet I feel that the exhibition of an intolerant attitude is unwarranted. I yield to none in my admiration and respect for the great heroic figure of Shivaji who held the mighty Moghul empire at bay but I cannot accept that he can be belittled by a stray voice of dissent and even denigration and that it can be countered by pushing it behind the bars rather than meet it on its own ground through intellectual confrontation. The State government has not done something of which the fiery and independent spirit of Shivaji would be proud.

It is inconceivable that Shivaji who had the rare gallantry of addressing the captured daughter in law of the Kalyan Subhedar that had his mother been as beautiful he would have had the good fortune of being as handsome, would have been so shallowminded and chauvinistic as to be piqued at dissenting voice. It is a pity therefore that the State Government has not shown any estimable sense of proportion in arresting the author.

What is more disquieting is the fact that no intellectual worth the honesty of his conviction has bothered to protest against this blatant onslaught on the freedom to voice one's opinion, howsoever unpalatable it may be to the powers that be o long as it does not offend the basic canons of decency and considerations of state security. What makes this arrest particular invidious is that it was done under the plea that the article was likely to hurt the feelings of feelings of a large section of people. "That is going too far?" as you rightly said. But I am far more concerned in knowing where was this sense of urgency to feel the pulse of the people and such meticulous regard for the outrage on their sentiments when far graver things threatened to engulf Bombay and the rest of the State recently in the wake of soaring prices and acute shortage of essential commodities. The State Government. I am scandalized to say, pleaded then that it lacked sufficient powers to deal with the hoarders and other anti-social elements. Even the D.I.R. and the MESA were not enough for it to swoop down on big hoarder of 1-lakh bags of groundnuts. It had no eyes to see then that its failure to do so not only hurt the people's feelings but was an outright outrage on their belles, and still has not given evidence of administrative efficiency to mete out exemplary punishment to such perpetrators of economic crime.

The State Government's alacrity in evicting the striking doctors at midnight is another case in point. This shows that the government operates on a double criterion of the application of law, which is in total disregard of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of laws.

-BAL PATIL

Bombay, Sept,20, 1973

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READERS’ VIEWS

Published in “The Times Of India” dated.15.05.1969

Street-corner Bullies

By Bal Patil

To the Editor, The Times of India

Sir, - Characteristically Mr. BAL Thackeray has given another warning to the central leadership and even set a deadline. The ring is familiar enough, with what consequences Bombay has no reason to forget.

The lineaments of his rhetoric have not changed at ll. It is larded with the threat

that the army will have to be called in tone is amusing. But that is neither here nor there.

Mr. Thackeray complained about the “police atrocities” But did he pause to consider why the police were obliged to open fire. If he cannot visualise the loot, arson and violence let loose by his followers let him go through the affected areas and try to console the inconsolably ruined: the cavalier jaunt in his deadly utterances would at once be hushed into a shameful silence. And as Mr. Sham Lal asked it his earnest article Bombay is Not For Burning (February 13/14) “what comfort is it to those whose houses and shops have been set on fire to be told that everything is normal now?’

With what face can Mr. Thackeray comment now on paying homage to the “ martyrs” in the February riots? Martyrs to what cause and purpose? Does he know what martyrdom consists in? Martyrdom is laying down one’s life in a conscious pursuit of a noble cause when the leader is the first martyr in the true sense of the term: martyrdom at the cost of innocent bystanders is nothing but cowardice.

He quipped at the sound of firing. “These are only crackers.” If he had experienced a brush from one of the many bullets that flew in the recent riots and killed many innocent people he would not have had the heart to indulge in such pleasantries. In fact, the affected citizens who lost their all and in many instances their dear ones for no fault of their own have a right ask Mr. Thackeray whether he knows what he is talking about.

Indeed, after all that has happened in February last he has forfeited his bona fides to take up cudgels on the border issue on behalf of Maharashtra.

It is disquieting that the street corner bullies seem to be as unabated in their capers as ever. The Home Minister declared in the Raiya Sabha on February 18 that it was very difficult to resort to legal action” and that the Shiv Sena would have to be fought in the field of ideas.” But for ideas to have fruitful commerce it is necessary that they communicate in a harmonious wavelength. If it is not it has to be confronted by the idea of ruthless enforcement of law and order. We can no longer afford the confrontation on the ideological front between the Government and the street corner bullies.

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Sent date May 12, 1969 Bombay

To Hang or Not To Hang?

2010-10-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

To Hang Or Not To Hang?*

By Bal Patil*

Opinion is divided in the world over the abolition of the death penalty. In some countries this extreme punishment has been done away with, in others it exists only in the statute book, while in many it is still imposed. The author highlights the pros and cons of this controversial subject.

Four young students, all under 25, were sentenced to death recently by the additional sessions judge in the Pune murder case on a charge of entering into a criminal conspiracy and committing ten murders in cold blood.

This case once again brings into focus the question of the abolition of the death penalty. The additional sessions judge, Mr. W.N. Bapat, has in view of the cold-blooded and heinous character of the murders categorically ruled out morbid pity or any redeeming factor on account of the adolescence of the accused.

There is certainly a hint of judicial ambivalence here because the judge cannot help referring to the “clamour” in the modern world for the abolition of the death penalty. But the judgement leaves one in no doubt that the judge is clear in his mind that the extreme penalty has a definite place in the statute book and that it should continue to be so.

“Criminological Quackery”

But sometimes-judicial ambivalence and helplessness pleaded in the face of the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code assume a curious contrariness. One can take, for example, a judgement delivered by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court of India.

Justice Iyer recently attended the plenary session of the World Conference on Abolition of Death Penalty held at Stockholm under the auspices of Amnesty International where he called strongly “to liquidate life taking lex talionis” as it was utterly incongruous with all that is precious in human culture.

He said: “Terror to meet terror. Non sequitur is the scientific answer… Can two murders be equal to no murder? Homicide is heinous, so is hanging. Can two wrongs make one right save by a perverted moral?” Justice Iyer went on to condemn the death penalty as “a criminological quackery and jurisprudential philistinism”.

With all this great disgust and condemnation of capital punishment, Justice Iyer declined to diminish death penalty on a convicted murderer when he was called upon to exercise his judgement in Joseph vs Goa Damman Diu. He observed as follows to clear the confusion in the public mind about the power of the judiciary to overrule the Penal Code.

“A death sentence with all its dreadful scenario of swinging desperately out of the last breath of mortal life is an excruciating hour for the judges called upon to lend signature to this macabre stroke of the executioner’s rope. Even so, judges must enforce laws, whatever they be and decide according to the best of their lights, but the laws are not always just and the lights not always luminous. Nor, again, are judicial methods always adequate to secure justice, we are bound by the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code, by the very oath of our office.”

One can understand and even appreciate the delicate judicial dilemma Justice Iyer finds himself in, but one in constrained to say that it is nevertheless an instance of abject surrender to the prevailing judicial dogma with respect to the death penalty. One simply fails to understand why a judge who categorically denunciates the death penalty should “draw his inspiration from consecrated principles, by not yielding to spasmodic sentiments and vague unregulated benevolence” because he has to exercise “a discretion informed by tradition, methodized by analogy, disciplined by system and subordinated to the primordial necessity of order in the social life” in the words of Justice Cardozo.

Binding Precedents

As a justification Justice Iyer states in his judgement: “The guidelines laid down by this court in its precedents which bind us, tell us that if the offence has been perpetrated with attendant aggravating circumstances, if the perpetrator discloses an extremely depraved state of mind and diabolical trickery in committing the homicide, accompanied by brutal dealing with the cadaver, a court can hardly help in the present state of the death penalty when discretion has been exercised by the trial court and it is difficult to fault that court on any ground, statutory or precedential, an appellate review and even referral action become too narrow to demolish the discretionary exercise of power by the inferior court.”

The question of judicial discretion and its exercise in capital cases was given detailed consideration in Jagmohan Singh vs State of UP. In his judgement Justice Palekar of the five judge Supreme Court Bench (1973) said that the appellate counsel’s arguments against the death penalty were practically similar to those which were advanced in the US Supreme Court in the case of Furman vs State of Georgia decided on June 29,1972.

By a vote of 5 to 4, the American Supreme Court held in this case that the carrying out of the death penalty in one case of a Georgia murder conviction, one of a Georgia rape conviction, none of a Texas rape conviction would constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The English Bill of Rights, enacted on December 16, 1689, stated that “excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted”. These are the very words chosen for the Eighth Amendment of the American Constitution.

But Justice Palekar did not feel that the American decision has any relevance to India. He said: “We have grave doubts about the expediency of transplanting Western experience in our country, Social conditions are different and so also the general intellectual level.”

Thus Justice Palekar went on to confirm the Law Commission of India’s Thirty-fifth Report on Capital Punishment (1967) in its conclusion that “Having regard, how ever, to the conditions in India, to the variety of social upbringing of its inhabitants, to the disparity in the level of morality and education in the country, to the vastness of its area, to the diversity of its area, to the diversity of its population, and to the paramount need for maintaining law and order in the country at the present juncture, India cannot risk the experiment of abolition of capital punishment.”

Justice Palekar also distinguished between the position of the capital sentence with respect to capital cases before and after the amendment of Section 367 (5) of the Criminal Procedure Code. Prior to Amending Act 26 of Amending Act 26 of 1955, this section read as follows: “If the accused is convicted of an offence punishable with death and the court sentences him to any punishment other than death, the court shall, in its judgement, state the reason why the sentence of death was not passed.”

Judge Has Discretion

By the amendment this provision is deleted and, as the Code at present stands, punishment for murder is one of the two namely, death or imprisonment for life. Neither Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code nor any other Provision in the Criminal Procedure Code says in what cases the Capital punishment is to be imposed and in what others the lesser punishment.

However, the Judge noted that the policy of our criminal law as regards crimes including the crime of murder is to fix the maximum penalty- the same being intended for the worst cases, leaving a very wide discretion in the matter of punishment to the judge. Hence he thought that the exercise of judicial discretion on well-recognized principles is, in the final analysis, the safest possible safeguard for the accused, and that it will be impossible to say there would be at all any discrimination, since facts and circumstances of the case can hardly be the same as those of another.

Significantly, this judgement did not at all refer to the abolition of the death penalty in England, first experimentally in 1965 and than finally in 1970 and only selectively quoted from the Durman vs Georgia decision. In this case, in his judgement, Justice Douglas declared:

“It would seem incontestable that the death penalty inflicted on one defendant is unusual” if it discriminates against him by reason of his race, religion, wealth, social position or class, or if it is imposed under a procedure that gives room for the play of such prejudices… In ancient Hindu Law a Brahman was exempt from capital punishment and under that law punishment increased in severity as social status diminished.”

Making clear the unequal operation of the law on death penalty with regard to the Negroes, Justice Douglas observed: “A law that stated that anyone making more than 50,000 dollars would be exempt from the death penalty would plainly fall, as would a law that in terms said that blacks, those who never went beyond the fifth grade in school, those who made less than 3,000 dollars a year or those who were unpopular or unstable should be the only people executed. A law which in the overall view reaches that result in practice has no more sanctity than a law which in terms provides the same.”

While the enlightened juristic opinion in Western countries is fearlessly thinking in these terms, we in India, priding ourselves on our ancient values, civilization and culture (!), continue with scandalously iniquitous punitive practices.

What is remarkable is that the Law Commission of India was blind to the evidence in Western countries that the rate of murder and other serious crimes is rising by leaps and bounds despite rising prosperity, and that there is no correlation between poverty, illiteracy and crime on the one hand, and affluence on the other. Crime follows its on laws, it has no class creed or colour.

As noted by Sir Leon Radzionowicz, an international expert on criminology, and Joan King in their recent book, The Growth of Crime: The International Experience (1977) “when it comes to the kind of chronic peasant poverty that is almost he rule for vast numbers of mankind” we find a different picture because they are found to be usually the most honest. “It was the poor in the cities, living cheek by jowl with great wealth, who were under the greatest provocation and temptation to crime.”

The USA, which has reached the most spectacular heights of affluence, offers a glaring contradiction of the Indian Law Commission’s correlation between illiteracy, low intellectual level and morality. There is more crime and it is more violent. There are as many murders in Manhattan each year as in the whole of England and Wales.

Crime Rate Growing

From this evidence Sir Leon Redzinowicz concludes that incidence of crime has been going up in all parts of the world whatever the stage of development and among all segments of society. “No national characteristic, no political regime, no system of law, police, Justice, punishment, treatment or even terror, has rendered a country exempt from crime.”

In this context it would be useful to consider the propriety of the death penalty for dangerous and cold-blooded murderers. In the Pune murder case judgement the additional sessions judge rightly says that the accused “never saw meadows but only graves, never saw any stars but only mud”. Nor can there be any doubt that the murders were cold-blooded, deliberate and gruesome in the extreme and should be condemned as such.

But, if the accused failed to see the stars and meadows, I wonder if there can be any excuse for the criminal justice system also not seeing stars and meadows.

If we are really prepared to go to the depth of the matter, be patient enough about the judicial process as it is actually operating in capital cases, we will not fail to see that it is nothing but a ritualized and sophisticated form of the ancient Cain and Abel blood- feud. Alex Comfort has shown in his Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State how this primitive residue operates in the execution of criminals.

He notes, for example, how there was a practice in England persisting until the last century of disguising the condemned man as an animal by wrapping him up in cow-hide and making it an occasion for public festivity. Even the Medicine Hat, which the modern judge places upon his head to pronounce the sentence of death, has a long and distinguished anthropological history.

Public Execution Repulsive

But criminal laws and modes of execution have gone through a process of evolution. Public execution is no longer palatable to the modern civilized mind and so it is carried out in the seclusion of the prison cell. The Indian Law Commission on Capital Punishment came to the solemn conclusion that “an execution in public would be repulsive, and that is a sufficient argument against its introduction in the country. It a public execution is repulsive to the refined juristic sensibilities of our judicial administrators, one has a remote hope that our criminal justice system is evolving in the right direction.

Death punishment is on the retreat in the modern world. More than seventy countries have abolished it. The countries that have found it unnecessary are vary varied: large and small, industrial and agricultural of all races and continents. As one witness said to the British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment in 1953, he was puzzled why it should e supposed that Englishmen are so peculiarly brutal by nature that they need some special deterrent from murder. Now England has abolished it, but we in India seem to be labouring under the same misconception.

There is no evidence to show that presence or absence of the death penalty has any special effect on the incidence of violent crimes.

To come hearer home, in pre Independence days there was no execution for four decades in the old State of Hyderabad because the Nizam commuted every sentence. In the states of Cochin and Travancore capital punishment was not in existence of crime in those years was no higher there than in the rest of India.

The judicial reasoning in the Pune murder case is simple: cold-blooded murders have been committed: there is no room for pity and no redeeming factor either. Hence no leniency and only the death penalty will meet the ends of justice. This conforms to Lord Denning’s theory of punitive retribution. As he said before the Royal Commission:

“The Punishment inflicted for grave crimes should adequately reflect the revulsion felt by the great majority of citizens for them. There are some murders which in the percent sate of public opinion demand the most emphatic denunciation of all namely, the death penalty.”

The feelings of vengeance have primitive unconscious roots. As Arthur Koestler noted: “The desire for vengeance has deep, unconscious roots and is roused when we feel strong indignation or revulsion- whether the reasoning mind approves or not. Even abolitionists may sometimes not be proof against vindictive impulses. This does not mean that such impulses should be legally sanctioned by society, just as we do not sanction promiscuous impulses.”

Judges and the police tend to have a ritual faith in the efficacy of the death penalty. This is evident from the operation of the bloody code during the 19^th century in England. It was unique in the world inasmuch as it listed between 230 and 32 offences punishable by death from stealing of turnips, writing threatening letters, to cutting down trees, picking pockets, shoplifting, etc. the exact number of offences was not known even to legal authorities!

The philosophy of such punishment was summed up in the formula of an 18^th century judge who told the defendant that “you are to be hanged not because you have stolen a sheep but in order that others may not steal sheep”.

Is It Really A Deterrent?

“A punishment to be just,” said a pioneer Italian abolitionist of the 18^th century, “should have only that degree of severity that I necessary to deter others.” Blackstone said that it was not lawful to deter at any rate and by any means.

How far is the death penalty a deterrent? Is it really a deterrent to dangerous criminals? Evidence suggests that it is not a deterrent to murderers who commit suicide one third of all murders do. It is not a deterrent to the insane and mentally deranged, nor to those who kill in a quarrel, drunkenness or sudden passion ad provocation. This type accounts for 80 to 90 per cent of all murders. It is not a deterrent to the one who believes he will never be found out.

Thus only the professional class of criminal is left who can be said to be kept in control or deterred by the threat of death and nothing short of death. But those who favour abolition of the death penalty and those who oppose it agree that murder is not a crime of the criminal classes; it is a crime of amateurs, of first offenders, not of professionals.

As regards the rural urban ratio of violent crimes it was found that criminality was concentrated in the extremes of rural and urban areas and that the crimes committed in rural areas were generally emotional whereas those committed in urban areas were preplanned. The study also found that crime is mainly an urban affair and the highest number of offences occur among the young and in the middle-income groups. This confirms Sir Leon Redzinowicz’s findings and sets at nought the Law Commission’s opinion.

More pertinent still are the findings of the American National Commission’s Report on violent crime. It says that violent crime, its perpetrator and its victims are found most often I urban areas characterized by low income, physical deterioration, dependency, racial and ethnic concentrations, broken homes, working mothers, low levels of education and vocational skills, high unemployment, high proportion of single males, over crowded and substandard housing, high rates of tuberculosis and infant mortality, low rates of home ownership and single family dwellings, mixed land use and high population density. All these combined together create an interrelated complex of powerful criminogenic forces.

As regards violent and dangerous criminals, in a study of the case histories of more than 400 violent prisoners in a large penitentiary in Boston done by Vernon H. Mark, Director Neurourgical Services, Boston City Hospital, and Frank R. Ervin, Director, Stanley Cobb Laboratories for Psychiatric Research, it was found that these violent people usually had four characteristic symptoms which were, however, not always present at the same time:

Characteristics of Criminals

1. A history of physical assault, especially wife and child beating; (2) the symptoms of pathological intoxication that is drinking even a small amount o alcohol triggers acts of senseless brutality. (There is some evidence that in the pathological intoxication the act of drinking, rather than alcohol itself, is the stimulus for brutality.) Individuals who become violent after taking even a small amount of liquor by mouth may be injected intravenously with enough alcohol to produce clinical drunkenness without any signs of violent behaviour. (3) A history of impulsive sexual behaviour, at times including sexual assaults; (4) a history (in those who drove cars) of many traffic violations and serious automobile accidents. The authors term this set of symptoms together as the “dyscontrol syndrome”. (Violence and the Brain).

There is a theory of social hygiene which says that people who commit bestial murders should be destroyed not as a punishment but because we are better off without them. Why should they be maintained at state expense with the risk moreover that they might escape and commit another crime? Even members of the medical profession sometimes say that if a criminal has no moral sense and is a psychopath he should be regarded as human refuse, dangerous to society, deserving to be hanged.

Sir Earnest Gowers, Chairman, Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, fears that the above argument has disturbing implications. “If it is right to eliminate useless and dangerous members of the community, why should the accident of having committed a capital offence determine who should be selected. These are only a tiny proportion and not necessarily the most dangerous…. It can lead to Nazism.”

Those favouring the death penalty say that it should be retained for exceptional offenders such as Landru or Eichmann on the ground that it should be used for social monsters or for crimes against humanity. The Pune multiple murders obviously fall in this category: society would be acting in self-defence when it removes such persons as dangerous beasts.

Social Monsters

But, according to Albert Camus, in resorting to this philosophy of elimination of social monsters we would be approaching some of the worst ideas of totalitarianism or the selective racism, which the Hitler regime propounded.

But, even apart from these dangerous criminals or social monsters who, after all form a microscopic minority of the murderers, the strongest argument against capital punishment is that, like the rest of the legal system, it is manifestly unequal in its operation against the rich and the poor. It would be instructive to refer here to the opinion of the warden of the Sing Sing Prison of New York:

“Not only does capital punishment fail in its justification but no punishment could be invented with so many inherent defects. It is an unequal punishment in the way it is applied to the rich and poor. The defendant of wealth and position never goes to the electric chair or to the gallows. Juries do not intentionally favour the rich, the law is theoretically impartial but the defendant with ample means is able to have his case presented with every favourable aspect while the poor defendant often has a lawyer assigned by the court.”

That, in a nutshell, is the argument for the abolition of capital punishment in India. Finally, to quote from a recent reply to me from Prof Sir Leon Radzinowicz, Director, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University.

“…I do not know the situation in India sufficiently well to express a definite opinion on the issue which you raise, but from what I know about the subject and the varying conditions in many parts of the world, I do not see that conclusive evidence has been produced to justify capital punishment in India.”

________________________________________________________________

* Published in “The Illustrated Weekly of India, dated. 18.02.1979

TRANSPARENCY OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND MEDIA FREEDOM

2010-10-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

TRANSPARENCY OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND MEDIA FREEDOM:

"Media today has become an unpaid accomplice of the terrorist, an unpaid accomplice of arsonist, and an unpaid accomplice of disruptionist." Harish Khare, Media Advisor to the PM, Dr.Manmohan Sing

By Bal Patil

http://balpatil.sulekha.com/blog/post/2009/10/media-today-has-become-an-unpaid-accomplice-of-the.htm

I wonder if it is known what Mr.Harish Khare, Media Advisor to the PM, Dr.Manmohan Singh said about these media channels in an interview to Two circles.net:

http://elgg.indianmuslims.info/news/2008/oct/16/media_has_become_accomplice_terrorists_harish_khare.html

“Indian Media creating mob psychology

Media today suffers from credibility crisis. All it can do is to create and generate the mob psychology.

"Media today has become an unpaid accomplice of the terrorist, an unpaid accomplice of arsonist, and an unpaid accomplice of disruptionist."

He further explains that when a terrorist plants a bomb which explodes, he has done the 10 % of the job rest as he knows well will be done by the media by creating an atmosphere of panic, terror, fear, insecurity and resentment.

Electronic media greatest menace to Indian democratic system

"Electronic media in my view is the greatest menace to the Indian democratic system. The power has gone to their heads." they reflect the institutional arrogance. They think that they are very powerful so much so that they are the active players in arbitrating political battles, in determining who will become the Prime Minister and who will become the Chief Minister. “

The Hindustan Times has been splashing in a full page display A LEADERSHIP SUMMIT OF 27 LEADERS. 2 DAYS. 1 VISION showcasing a global event in a starcast from Dr.Manmohan Singh, George Bush, Pranab Mukherjee, Brajesh Mishra, to Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, when such “world leaders will discuss, debate and draw out plans for tomorrow”: VISION 2000; CHALLENGES FOR THE NEXT DECADE on Oct 30, 31 2009:

One is very much concerned to know what Mr.Harish Khare, Media Advisor to the PM, Dr.Manmohan Singh would be briefing the PM on such an earth-shaking event.

Bal Patil It is re-assuring to know that the Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh "has all the answers" as per the front page headline of the Hindustan Times. I wonder if he would confront the reckless allegation made by Vir Sanghvi, Advisory Editorial Director, Hindustan Times : "in his column, June 20, 2009 "Time for Some Transparency" "No matter how much we respect Manmohan Singh for his personal integrity, there’s little doubt that over the last five years, thousands of crores were made by crooked ministers in his government."

Link:http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d908a421-a5c2-4edf-b20d-50b6854e0205

thus putting the erstwhile UPA team of the PM in the dock. Also, the HT and Vir Sanghvi too in all journalistic conscience must pursue such a colossal scam.

Link: PM set to take on critics, says I have all the answers- Hindustan Times

Source: www.hindustantimes.com

A day after the Congress top brass backed him on the India-Pakistan joint statement, a confident Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said his government has “relevant answers” for the critics of the declaration signed by the two countries at Sharm-el Sheikh in Egypt on July 16.

Bal Patil

Link: TRANSPARENCY OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND MEDIA FREEDOM

Recently Vir Sanghvi, advisory editorial director, Hindustan Times said in one of his columns, June 20, 2009 "Time for Some Transparency" "No matter how much we respect Manmohan Singh for his personal integrity, there’s little doubt that over the last five years, thousands of crores were made by crooked ministers in his government.".

Link: http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d908a421-a5c2-4edf-b20d-50b6854e0205

If that is true it would be the primary responsibility of the media not only to make such allegations but also to probe them in depth. The connection between money and politics is intimately connected as to how the democratic elections are funded and fought.

But at the same time while he raises the issue of the accountability of the democratic government it is pertinent to recall that he declared magisterially in his acceptance speech of the Lokmanya Tilak award in Pune on Jan. 4, 2009 that “Unlike politicians...media is a power without accountability.”

^{I THINK THE FORTH ESTATE IN INDIA AS ALSO THE PRESS COUNCIL OF INDIA MUST SERIOUSLY PONDER OVER THE GRAVE IMPLICATIONS OF THESE REMARKS BY THE EDITOR OF A LEADING NEWSPAPER IN THE INTERESTS OF THE TRANSPARENCY OF THE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AS ALSO OF THE MEDIA. I AM SURE THE PRIME MINISTER, DR.MANMOHAN SINGH WHO HAS BEEN SINGLED OUT “FOR HIS PERSONAL INTEGRITY” OWES IT TO THE NATION TO SWEEP CLEAN THE ALLEGED AUGEAN STABLES OF CORRUPTION.}

^{I AM SURE, HARISH KHARE, MEDIA ADVISOR TO THE PM WOULD DO WELL TO MAKE A NOTE.}^{WHILE MR SINGHVI HAS NO JOURNALISTIC COMPUNCTION TO CONDEMN OUT OF COURT THE “CROOKED MINISTERS” MAKING “THOUSANDS OF CRORES” HE DECLARED IN HIS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH OF THE LOKMANYA TILAK AWARD IN PUNE ON 4TH JAN. 2009 WITHOUT BATTING AN EYELID THAT “MEDIA IS A POWER WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY”. ONE WOULD LIKE TO REMIND HIM TO WHAT UNMENTIONABLE LEVEL HE IS REDUCING THE MEDIA BY ASSERTING IT TO BE “A POWER WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY’ BY RECALLING HOW THE THEN PRIME MINISTER OF THE UK, STANLEY BALDWIN, ROUNDED THE FLEET STREET PRESS LORDS, BEAVERBROOK AND ROTHERMERE, IN THE 1930S AS IRRESPONSIBLE AND DANGEROUS AND FINISHED THEM OFF IN HIS FAMOUS PHRASE “POWER WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY , THE PREROGATIVE OF THE HARLOTS THROUGHOUT THE AGES”. THE PRESS LORDS WERE NEVER THE SAME AGAIN!

YET ONE CANNOT BE SURE OF MEDIA LORDS DOING AN EXERCISE OF INTROSPECTION NOR THE DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNANCE AND JUDICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY. TAKE THE CASE OF MEDIA AND ADVERTISEMENTS. IT WOULD BE USEFUL AND RELEVANT TO GIVE THE LINK:}

^{http://www.alternet.org/story/140997/the_corporate_media_state_has_deformed_american_culture_--_time_to_fight_back/}

^{The Corporate Media State Has Deformed American Culture -- Time to Fight Back}^{THIS ARTICLE EXPOSES CORPORATE FRAUD COMPOUNDED BY CORPORATE MEDIA: WHAT IT MISSES IS HOW BOTH ARE PROPELLED BY CORPORATE DEMOCRACY!. HERBERT MARCUSE SAYS IN HIS CELEBRATED BOOK ONE DIMENSIONAL MAN (1968) "THAT IN A MODERN TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY SO-CALLED "FREE" INSTITUTIONS AND "DEMOCRATIC LIBERTIES" ARE USED LIMIT FREEDOM, REPRESS INDIVIDUALITY, DISGUISE EXPLOITATION, AND LIMIT THE SCOPE OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE...THE DOMINATION OF BOSSES AND OWNERS IS SCREENED BY THEIR TRANSFIGUARATION INTO BURAUCRATS AND CORPORATIONS. CRITICS ARE EFFECTIVELY SILENCED BY CHANNELLING THEIR PROTESTS THROUGH THE HARMLESS SAFETY VALVE OF INSTITUTIONALISED DEMOCRACY.

"THE MAIN TRENDS ARE FAMILIAR: CONCENTRATION OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMY ON THE NEEDS OF BIG CORPORATIONS WITH THE GOVERNMENT AS THE STIMULATING, SOMETIMES EVEN CONTROLLING FORCE; HITCHING OF THIS ECONOMY TO A WORLD-WIDE SYSTEM OF MILITARY ALLIANCE, MONETARY ARRANGEMENTS AND THUS "OPENING OF THE BEDROOM TO THE MEDIA OF MASS COMMUNICATION".

GALBRAITH WAS INDEED A PROPHETIC ECONOMIST. HIS BOOK 'AFFLUENT SOCIETY ' PUBLISHED BY} Amazon worldwide http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12884987 bestsellers: Words of warning | The Economist Source: www.economist.com The financial crisis has revived interest in the writings of J.K. Galbraith

YET ADVERTISEMENT IS THE SOUL OF MEDIA WITHOUT WHICH IT CANNOT SURVIVE. WHAT IS A MATTER OF SERIOUS CONCERN IS THAT THE CHILDREN ARE BEING CLEVERLY AND SHAMELESSLY TARGETTED.

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA HAS HELD (5 AUGUST, 1995) IN A JUDGEMENT SETTING ASIDE THE JUDGEMENT OF THE BOMBAY HIGH COURT IN THE CASE RELATING TO 'TATA PRESS YELLOW PAGES HAS HELD THAT ' ADVERTSING IS CONSIDERED TO BE THE CORNERSTONE OF OF THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM...THE PUBLIC AT LARGE HAS A RIGHT TO RECEIVE 'COMMERCIAL SPEECH" AND THAT "APRT FROM THE LIFE LINE OF THE FREE ECONOMY OF THE COUNTRY ADVERTISING CAN BE VIEWED AS THE LIFEBLOOD OF FREE MEDIA, PAYING MOST OF THE COSTS AND MAKING THE MEDIA WIDELY AVAILABLE.

THUS, SUPREME COURT HAS HELD THAT ADVERTISING "COMMERCIAL SPEECH" IS PART OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND EXPRESSION GUARANTEED UNDER THE CONSTITUTION"IS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT. (!!!) AS A RESULT IT IS NOT SURPRISING THAT TV CHANNELS ARE ARE RECKLESSLY TARGETTING CHILDREN EG:

AND THIS IS HOW THE GLOBAL ADVISORY COUNCIL OF THE PRIME MINISTER IS CONSTITUTED:

Members of Lok Sabha, especially those from the socialist and communist parties, demanded a ban on Wednesday on cola drinks. They were reacting to the alleged presence of high-level of pesticides, insecticides and cancer-causing substances in Coca-Cola, Pepsi and 10 other soft drink brands. (August 6, 2003)

In response E Ahmed, the then chairman of the committee on food management, announced that Coca-Cola, Pepsi and 10 other soft drink brands have been banned in Parliament House. while participating in an debate in Lok Sabha.

Now Global Advisory Council of Manmohan Singh includes Indra Nooy, chief of Pepsi Cola! are among 20 global business leaders and economists of Indian origin who will advise Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on key socio-economic developmental issues facing the nation!! CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER INDEED!!!

http://www.livemint.com/2009/01/06190418/Amartya-Mittal-Nooyi-in-the.html

DNA: India: 6 years after toxic discovery, govt still to set cola norms

Source: www.dnaindia.com

The Centre has not set standards for aerated drinks even six years after such a recommendation by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) and committee of experts set up by the Centre.

_______________________________________________________________

Bal Patil

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and state anti-corruption officials to aggressively pursue “high-level corruption”. PTI http://ibnlive.in.com/news/big-fish-mustnt-escape-punishment-for-corruption-pm/99978-3.html

TRANSPARENCY OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND MEDIA FREEDOM

The CBI would do well to begin with the following newsitem in Hindustan Times:

Recently Vir Sanghvi, advisory editorial director, Hindustan Times said in one of his columns, June 20, 2009 "Time for Some Transparency" "No matter how much we respect Manmohan Singh for his personal integrity, there’s little doubt that over the last five years, thousands of crores were made by crooked ministers in his government.". http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d908a421-a5c2-4edf-b20d-50b6854e0205

Big fish mustn't escape punishment for corruption: PM

Source: ibnlive.in.com

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and state anti-corruption officials to aggressively pursue 'high-level corruption'. He also asked them to change the perception that 'big fish' esca...pe punishment and should act against everyone swiftly and without fear...Read more

Views on corruption

Pranab Mukherjee himself appears to have a clean image, but is a pragmatist. In an interview to rediff.com in 1998, he was asked about the sleaze in the Congress government, in which he was the Minister for External Affairs. He replied:

Corruption is an issue. We have dealt with it in the manifesto. But I am sorry to say that these scams are not confined to the Congress or the Congress government alone. There are so many scams. So many leaders of various political parties are involved in them. So it would be too simplistic to say that the Congress government was involved in scams.^[10]

13, Talkatora Road,New Delhi - 110 001,Tels. (011) 23737623, 23737657, (Fax) 23737658 http://www.pranabmukherjee.in/ask.php

Truthdig - Truthdig Podcast - Illuminating the Connection Between Money and Politics

Source: www.truthdig.com

2009/07/02 - In this episode, we talk with Maplight.org’s executive director, Dan Newman. Maplight, which lobbies for greater transparency in government, is a nonprofit group dedicated to illuminating the connection between money and politics. ...

Global Jains

Bhaktamar Stotra

REPRESENTATION FOR NOTIFICATION OF JAINS AS A MINORITY UNDER SECTION 2 (iii) OE THE NATIONAL MINORITY COMMISSION ACT

Communalism Watch: Indian Constitution and Hindutva - A comment by B.A. Desai

Communalism Watch: Dilip Simeon's Comment on the Graham Staines judgement of India's Supreme Court

Communalism Watch: EPW editorial on The Staines Verdict

Communalism Watch: Gujarat officially welcomed Hindutva far right HJS

Communalism Watch: Shocking remarks against Graham Staines in court ruling on Dara Singh

Communalism Watch: RSS Wary of Terrorist Tag

JAINISM IN SOUTH INDIA

Communalism Watch: Some Hindutva terror suspects had worked for India's intelligence agencies

Communalism Watch: Can secularism fourish with religion in every nook and corner and source of conflict?

Communalism Watch: BJP and RSS duck for cover over Hindutva terror links

How BBC changed its country Profile on India by including Jainism and Buddhism in response to my complaint.

The Hindu : News / National : Govt working on National Minority status for Jain community: Moily

Communalism Watch: Swami Aseemanand And Friends?

Law-in-Perspective: Bhagat Singh's definition of "revolution": Supreme Court quotes

Communalism Watch: Award for information on train blast suspects (Mail Today Cartoon)

BHONSALA MILITARY SCHOOL ABHINAV BHARAT:THE FASCIST RSS ORIGINS: SANGH PARIVAR: PATRON SAINT OF BJP : Bal Patil blogs on sulekha, General blogs, Bal Patil blog from india

Communalism Watch: Swami Aseemanand’s Confessions: Its time for an apology - JTSA press release

VIVEKANANDA: THE CYCLONIC SADHU

VIVEKANANDA: THE CYCLONIC SADHU

By Bal Patil

SHOCK

LIBERALITY

Communalism Watch: Full Text of Swami Aseemanand's confession to the Metropolitan Magistrate of Delhi

Communalism Watch: Saffron Terror Plot Links RSS (Cover story Mail Today)

Whither Globalisation? By Bal Patil

Communalism Watch: Swami Aseemanand's confession of involvement in bombings

Communalism Watch: Hindutva leader to be booked for Samjhauta blast - 2 reports from Times of India

Communalism Watch: Bombing rehearsed at the RSS premises in Madya Pradesh

Communalism Watch: Shiv Sena's planned or spontaneous fury - Indian Express Editorial

Communalism Watch: In India secularism has become a slave of religious lobbies

Communalism Watch: Hindutva Terror Tapes that exposed nexus between military intelligence and hindutva outfits

Communalism Watch: Masjid blast heat on RSS top man

Communalism Watch: Swami Ashimanand also involved in organising Samjhauta Train blast

Mahatma Gandhi’s Secretary Was an Informer

The Little Mermaid at Copenhagen by Bal Patil

SHIVAJI, BOOK BANS AND THE SHIV SENA

Shivaji : First International Nationalist Leader*

To Hang or Not To Hang?

Public Execution Repulsive

Is It Really A Deterrent?

Characteristics of Criminals

Social Monsters

TRANSPARENCY OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE AND MEDIA FREEDOM

Link:http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d908a421-a5c2-4edf-b20d-50b6854e0205 thus putting the erstwhile UPA team of the PM in the dock. Also, the HT and Vir Sanghvi too in all journalistic conscience must pursue such a colossal scam.

http://www.livemint.com/2009/01/06190418/Amartya-Mittal-Nooyi-in-the.html

Link:http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d908a421-a5c2-4edf-b20d-50b6854e0205

thus putting the erstwhile UPA team of the PM in the dock. Also, the HT and Vir Sanghvi too in all journalistic conscience must pursue such a colossal scam.