Saket Suryesh's Blog, page 7

The Rift in Judiciary- A Citizen's View

“May you live in interesting times.” – Thus goes a Chinese wish from the ancient times. Thanks to the surprise thrown by the electorate, on the unsuspecting and entitled cosy club of the Congress in 2014 assembly election, catapulting Narendra Modi to the throne of Prime Minister of India, much to the dismay of puzzled Pundits; we have been living in absolutely interesting times since them as Congress keeps struggling to claw back to what it believes is their divine right to rule. Anything short of absolute power of the dynastic despot over the unwashed masses of India is for the Congress, a threat to democracy. With multiple avatars failing and multiple take-offs nose-diving into the dust, the ecosystem was put to task of getting the legitimate heir (if we can use the term in a democracy) back into the power.
                From the crafty designs of caste conflicts, failed attempts at engineering riots, Global shaming of the country on account of the fake narrative of growing intolerance, Congress has possibly played its last hand with the mutiny in the highest judiciary.
                For the first time in the history of Independent India has the judiciary come out in public as a disjointed structure. Well, if we ignore the resignation of Justice Hans Raj Khanna , on being superseded for the appointment as Chief Justice of India, by Congress PM, Mrs Indira Gandhi, also famous for imposing Emergency on our proud democracy in which entire opposition was thrown into the prisons.  Since I mention, Justice HR Khanna, I think it is important to briefly tell that story, since the currently four musketeers are being positioned as defenders of democracy by the media and Congress, which if it has not scripted the whole sordid affair, is at least blatantly trying to the gain most out of the unfortunate affair.
                Justice HR Khanna was a Judge in Supreme Court from 1971 to 1977. During the Emergency, in a bench of five Judges, he was the lone dissenting voice opposing the view of Four judges who agreed with the Government’s view that the right to life and liberty stand suppressed during emergency. He contended that the Constitutional Right to Life and Liberty is not dependent on the Executive Decree. Justice Khanna was also the part of judgment defining the Basic Structure Doctrine which defines portions of Constitution as unalterable (primarily related to fundamental rights) in the Kesavanand Bharati vs. State of Kerala . Congress today wants to ride on the discontent among the Supreme Court Judges, inherent or cultivated, calling the current situation a danger to democracy. The submission of the judiciary in the aftermath of Emergency, in front of a vindictive government, with Justice Khanna as lone crusader speaks volumes about Congress’ own record in terms of judicial freedom. When we today mock Pakistan’s human right records on missing citizens, we must remember that we were saved from the dictatorial designs of Congress Prime Minister and Rahul Gandhi’s Grandmother, by a lone judge who stood tall. The New York Times in those dark days of Indian democracy, wrote on 30th of April, 1976 titled, Fading Hope in India (Link)
“If India ever finds its way back to freedom and democracy that were proud hallmarks of its first Eighteen Years as an independent nation, someone will surely erect a monument to Justice HR Khanna of Supreme Court.”
The article further added:
“..Indian democrats are likely to remember only infamy the four judges who obediently overturned the decisions of a half-a-dozen lower courts scattered across India, which had ruled in defiance of the Government that the right of Habeas Corpus could not be suspended, even during the emergency that Mrs. Gandhi declared last June.”
Justice HR Khanna was the lone judge who stood his ground insisting that the Government had no right to imprison the citizens without legal recourse being made available to them. I was a child then, but I was a young student in early Nineties, and I am so glad today that we had a judge like Justice Khanna once. Even if his voice was lonely; it was firm, fearless and unforgiving, when he responded to his colleagues’ contention that the Government had right to arrest people without giving them opportunity to defend themselves, under the laws of Emergency with memorable-
“In a purely formal sense, even the organized mass murders of the Nazi regime qualify as law.”
The same article further lamented the fall of judiciary under the Fascist Congress Government stating-
“The submission of an independent judiciary to absolutist government is virtually the last step in the destruction of a democratic society; and Indian Supreme Court’s decision appears close to surrender.”
From the hallowed ivory towers, today’s political commentators are somehow trying to implicate the government in what they call is never-before act of defiance by conscientious judges, but then they just need to go back some four decades in Indian history to find the real voice of democratic guardianship. And Justice Khanna did not call a press-conference. He respected his right as well the rights of his colleagues, even when they had, as per the quoted article, chose submission over uprightness. He silently resigned. He did not want a particular case assigned to himself, nor did he on record, distrusted his colleague, let alone the CJI. We as citizens do not care how CJI is appointed, we know, this CJI was not appointed through skewed preferences of the Government. Therefore, I would say, he stands for the nation which has no say in his appointment.
However, it is important to consider what Congress did to the Judge who defended the democratic right of freedom. Since the two judgements went against the Mrs. Gandhi’s plan to cripple and stifle democracy, her government superseded Judge HR Khanna when the time came. Justice Khanna was eventually superseded by Justice Beg when the time for his appointment came by a vengeful Congress Government of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. We must not cast aspersions on other judges like Congress spokespersons of today who are demanding heads of earlier CAG, Mr. Vinod Rai and now of CJI, Mr. Deepak Misra , but the fact remains that Mr. PN Bhagawati, one of the judges on the bench did make a statement which came as close to an apology as possible on the said judgement.
                The hallowed corridors of judiciary, in which anachronistic fashion and language prevails has always been hidden away from the commoner’s sight, tucked away nicely in its own myth and mystery, what with almost family-enterprise structure of the higher courts, which has escaped democratization of appointments for such a long time. We have suffered strange judgements like banning of festivals, questioning of the History and matter such in silence. In a democracy, being independence is as important as appearance of independence and neutrality. We have seen what was happening, and we suffered in silence to keep the hope of democracy alive. India survives on that solemn hope of the society in which the last man, in his humbled existence keeps the faith in men he elects and sends to the parliament, and keeps immovable trust in the men he never gets to elect, but watches from a distance getting appointed in the Judiciary as guardians to his civil rights.
                For a Citizen, Judiciary is not a person. It is not the Chief Justice of India, nor is it the Senior and Junior Judges. For her, the Senior and Junior judges are trustworthy, equally and without any difference. When four judges come out and claim they are coming to the People’s court because sensitive cases are given not to them but to junior judges. And don’t get me wrong, junior judges mentioned here are not inexperienced apprentices. One wonder if one should not have trust in the judicial ability and probity of the judges who fall lower in rank to the four senior Judges. The Judges must introspect and put this sorry episode behind themselves for the good of the nation. When you go to so-called People’s Court, you validate the mob. You cannot then escape its wrath. There is nothing more damaging to a nation than the people whose trust has been broken. Opposition parties jump into this water muddied by the ambition of the senior judges who are at war, at once with both, those above and below them, in action and in implication. We do not hate your hallowed chambers, toga and wigged glory, even when we toil in our own destitute existence. We love stating at you like the Gods, but we do want you to stay true to our respect which borders on worship. I borrow from Dr. Seuss -
“ I know, up on top you
Are seeing great sights;
But down here at the bottom, we, too,
Should have Rights.”
The letter of judges refers to Anglo-Saxon Jurisprudence. For a rule of law to prevail, it is important that the judges ought to be respected and the respect ought to be absolute. But if that were the principle, let me remind people who call themselves reporters and are baying for the blood of Chief Justice, that He too is as much as a Judge as the Four judges who came out to the so-called Public Court. The four judges have, in my opinion, as a citizen hit above their weight. They have struck at the idea of justice in a democracy. They have also in an implied manner offered the man in the market a glimpse into the mechanization of the courts and the sight is not good. As for Congress, thanks to your unease with being out of power, we have had enough of interesting things for the year already. Please settle down in those damn Forty-four seats of Parliament you could cobble. Don't lean on the short memory of the people. People can remember Justice Khanna, if they are pushed enough.

Caste and Dynasty - My Take

           

     The Bard am I, my father, a healer;                 My mother grinds Corn in the quern.                 Striving for wealth, with varied plans,                 We follow desires like a herd of Cows.
                                                (RigVeda, Mandala 9, Hymn 112)
The above Hymn from Rigveda, which is not intentionally a social commentary of the times to which it belong, explains how men (as early as 3000 BC) would move in one direction or other, as they deemed fit, making their career choices, unhindered by their parentage and birth. 
The Congress scion Rahul Gandhi came up with eloquent response when asked about dynasty in politics during his US tour. He brazened out, brushed the charge aside and claimed that dynasty is the way things are done in India.
After his travel to the US, which was much celebrated by the media, such blatant nonsense notwithstanding, he jumped into the Gujarat electoral campaign, with a newly found love for Hinduism. Having presided over Congress’ rout in both Gujarat and Himachal, thereby making two more states free of Congress rule, and in some convoluted manner, gaining what he calls a moral victory; Rahul Gandhi is not trying to resurrect himself as some kind of Dalit icon. The man who suddenly became a devout Hindu, demonstrates his ignorance about Hinduism so blatantly that it is hard not to notice it, unless one is paid to not notice it. He is the same man who advocated and justified dynasty, which is nothing but right to a position by virtue of birth. Today, he has propelled his rudderless associates as some kind of revolutionaries fighting Casteism.
Casteism is nothing but dynasty gone brazen, broadbased and viral. When one person claims that he or she has a right to certain role or profession in the society, it is dynasty. When a group of people claim to have dynastic rights, it is casteism.
Caste is not a Hindu term. Varna in Hinduism was never a rigid construct. The Vedic society was humanity just settling out of the caves and jungles. It was important that those who knew the skills pertinent to one particular profession stuck to it, further developing and honing those skills. A society which was largely democratic, and non-aristocratic, did not classify the work as lower class or upper. Iron-smiths, for instance, on account of an important role in the society, were much respected lot.
Brahmana denoted awareness and referred to people who went after spiritual and philosophical knowledge. Once they gained the knowledge, being educated, they were considered to be reborn. With these two births- one animalistic, and second spiritual- they were called Dwij (Twice-Born). Vishwamitra, a Kshatriya by birth, a non-Brahmin became a Maharishi – a great Sage.  The beloved daughter of Manu the First Monarch, Devahuti, would get married to a non-warrior, Sage Kadarma, and write Hymns for Rig Veda.
Someone like Rahul Gandhi cannot understand a world, thousands of years back, when a King Dustaritu was expelled by his citizens for his wayward rule (Satapatha Brahmana). Even in those days of Monarchies, Monarchies were not despotic and dynasty was not guarantee to continuance of the king in power. Once we negate dynasty, only then can we truly negate caste.
Dynasty is a principle which goes against the basic essence of equal-opportunity. Equal opportunity is equal opportunity to compete on equal platform. Equal opportunity does not refer to benefits defined by birth. Modern day anti-caste politics based on continued reservations therefore, runs contrary to the principles of equal opportunity. A big argument in favor of reservations bases itself on the past wrongs. Just as the goodwill earned by the parents cannot be passed on to the progeny, similarly the sins of the past cannot be taken into account to punish the current generations.
                While it is important for the state to offer equal standards of education to create men and women equally ready to handle the future challenges, softening the challenges for one particular community on account of the sufferings of those who had suffered at the hands of others, a thousand years back, is unjust to my mind. Caste-based reservation is nothing but a form of reverse-discrimination. A positive politics is not based on hatred. The social engineering which forms the part of modern Indian politics is based on hatred. It bases itself not on coming to terms with the wrongs of the past, rather in negating the past. It aims to create rootless people with no sense of History. Also reservations continued beyond the first generation of beneficiary hurts the cause of other members of the community left on the margins. The family or caste which benefits by reservation strengthens itself and keeps on cornering benefits which ought to have flown deeper. This create a new caste system within the downtrodden masses wronged in the history.

                If we are intent on clearing ourselves of the dark shadows of casteism of the past, we need to first remove the signs of dynasty. The fluid Vernas gave way to rigid Castes in Hindu societies when learned Brahmins who had spent their lives gathering spiritual, scientific and philosophical knowledge, began to insist that their hard-earned positions be passed on to undeserving progeny on account of their birth. This caused us harm in two ways. It broke the society into the masses and entitled elites; at the same time resources available to the non-elites dried up, while the descendants of the elites grew lazier by the day, not interested in reading, learning and growing with a guaranteed future on account of their privileged births. Brahmin scion of the Congress is not different from those undeserving Brahmins. You want to fight Casteism, first clear the society of dynasty, in polity and in everyday lives. Plucking people out of their historical heritage is not a way of fighting. That is a nefarious design to conquer a civilization. Let us all remember it on both the sides of Dalit and non-Dalit divide created by the forces intent on breaking India, in order to bring the undeserving dynastic despot with stupid faith in his divine right to rule, back into power.
Let us remember that Hinduism is not about castes. It is a story created by the dynastic parents who wanted to protect the future for their undeserving offspring. Caste-system was created by those who believed in dynasty and was used by those who were stupid and lazy. Forces are in play trying to malign Hinduism on the basis of greed of people. Hinduism has no space for Caste. In SrimadBhagvatGita Lord Sri Krishna , without any ambiguity, ruling out any division based on birth, says- 
चातुर्वर्ण्यं मया सृष्टं गुणकर्मविभागश:| तस्य कर्तारमपि मां विद्यकर्तारमव्ययम || 
The four Varnas are based on the character and actions of Human beings, and even I as creator of Men have no knowledge of that. (Chapter 4, Shloka 14) Hindu-bashing is a political tool for the so-called liberals running a different agenda. Their agenda is political and is based on civilization struggle. Their success in making us be resentful, apologetic and embarrassed about our past. It is only in our learning, we can win over their nefarious designs. Mahabharata in Sabha parva clearly advises the King to treat all the citizens alike in a just manner. Let us not allow ourselves to be deceived. Hinduism does not hate Dalits, on the contrary, it has no space for dynasty. 

Thalaivar Arrives- What I believe Rajinikanth's Arrival means

                 Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth are two giants of Tamil Cinema, who have the Tamil Nadu politics split across the centre. A theatre of absurd has been playing down south for a very, very long time. A state, a people, living on the recipe of hatred is bound to self-destruct. Unfortunately, Tamil leaders, beginning with Periyar did their best to build their empires of negative politics for a very long time. Their success was never in subtlety. They succeeded with islolationist politics, built upon the hatred towards the mother nation.
                The whole of dravidian Politics, DMK and AIDMK thrived on an anger based on some Anti-Aryan theory, much promoted by the British. British entry into India, as elsewhere was not purely political. It was the conniving communion of the interest of the Church and Commerce which pushed the British into this whole business of colonialism.  The Church hated the deep rooted spiritualism across India. The South needed more attention, since the Hindu spiritualism remained purest there, away from brash and brutal attacks of Islamic invaders from the North-West which inflicted deep wounds on the civilization, mutating, converting and transforming it into a form beyond recognition. This was only place in India which had managed to escape the fury of fanatic faithful across the centuries. Attention of the Church is what the South got aplenty under the British rule. The human migration from 6000 to 7000 Years back became a big Aryan invasion and a rallying point. Based on imaginary history, a fictional politics was erected, appealing to the fake theory of dravidian discrimination. In no time, the same Tamil Nadu, which was welcoming the Christianity some 1500 years and Islam for some 1000 Years, was antagonistic to the way of life which it had made its own some 7000 Years back.
                Suddenly Hinduism became some recent imperialistic mission to be fought against. Anger blinds men and transforms men into the mob. The shared history and heritage became a victim to maniacal anger, as the people stamped with tutored anger over their own past. When the decibels rise, the truth is the first casualty. Grand words are used to hide small but critical facts. Any politics, as we have seen since the fall of Roman Empire, which becomes a hostage to the narrative of personality Cult, is doomed. The first thing it does is to remove the concept of accountability which is the foundation of a healthy democracy. Demagogues are never good for democracy, for they hide more than they tell. An ascetic gets married to a girl, more than three decades his junior and then explains that it is only to protect the assets of ascetics after his passing away. The noise and blind worship makes sure that no one notices the inconsistency between the word Ascetic and his assets which he was claiming to be trying to protect from falling into wrong hands after him.
                Truth, though limps, as per Jonathan Swift, it surely does catch up with the nimble-footed lie. The only answer then is to raise the rhetoric, increase the decibels. As the churn of Indian conscience happens with the Right-Wing politics in ascendency, the leftist propaganda comes undone. We find that Sage Agastya, in Vedic times had reached Tamil Nadu. We learn that Sage Agastya (yes, that Northie) sat on a mountain dividing Tamil Nadu and Kerala and created Tamil Language, under the guidance of Lord Shiva (yes, that dude from Kailasa Manasarovar in the North) rescuing probably what was left of their language with the migrants who came in from Balochistan and settled in the southern tip of the nation which as per Vishnu Purana spread between the Mountains on the North and the ocean in the South. We learn that the Pandav Prince Sahdev went down to the South to make the Tamil Nadu a part of the Kingdom of Indraprastha , some 5000 to 6000 Years back. As truth comes unravelling, political leaders raise themselves upwards, so that the questions do not reach them. Politicians are usually the last to note what goes into the minds of the people.
                For long the Tamil Politics was being played between AIADMK and DMK, with the Islamists, Church and Communists lurking on the background. Both weak on morality and strong on the politics of frenzy, which did great job in drowning voices of discontent. Corruption was rampant, blatant and institutionalized. While there was a race among politicians to claim the dynastic role after J. Jayalalitha, no one paused to even ponder over the fact that had she been alive, she would have been occupying the cell next to Sasikala. In a bleak political scenario which had that episode of imprisonment of Shankaracharya, no one has time to think clearly. But people, I would think have grown wiser, as they reel under mis-governance braving Tsunamis and cyclones. The people of Tamil Nadu, I would hope, have now seen through the hollowness of fake history created by Dravidian politicians and want to belong. I would presume Tamil Nadu is ready to reclaim its heritage of belonging.                 This is why I look at Rajinikanth joining Politics with great hope. This is why I hope that Subramaniam Swamy would take a vow of silence for a while. In the cynical world of today, we do not need less of brain and more of heart. Rajinikanth spoke of return to the politics which is “ Honest, transparent, secular and Spiritual .” Unlike a Kamal Haasan who has been somewhat like a Kejriwal with a ready word for every occasion; Rajinikant’s walk into the world of politics has largely been taciturn. He has not been speaking as much. Words of a man who does not speak much carry much value, for he means what he utters most of the time. I am charmed by the terms he chose to describe the politics he intends to embrace. All these words collectively merge into one word, if they are sincere. That word is Dharma ; that word is Hindu .
Secondly, he ended his first address as a politician out in open with the words- Jai Hind . With that JD-S Convert of a Congressi, Siddaramaiah on the other side of the border, whipping the fanatical frenzy of Kannada pride, while celebrating Tippy Jayanti; this ‘Jai Hind’ feels like a fresh breeze of change in southern politics. The old-styled Tamil politicians and observers claim that Rajinikanth being a Maharashtrian from Karnataka as a Tamil Politician will be his weakness. I say that it would be his strength, and would be his appeal to people who have long lost their true identity behind divisive parochial politics which did nothing but cut them from their own past and history. At a personal level, Rajinikanth is known for a very middle-class ethos and humble lifestyle. Amid all the polygamist leaders; Monogamist Rajinikath , in a stark contrast represents a heartwarming old-fashioned Hindu morality. We can always downplay the personal morality aspect of a politician on account of political correctness. But then, the electorate watches their leaders very closely.  
Some may say I am being too imaginative and hopeful. But then, in times of despair, all that one needs is a little bit of hope, and that is what Rajinikanth represents to me. He represents a hope and a promise. He represents a long-lost connect of our southern brothers with the Nation which has been waiting for them, standing with them in Jallikattu protests even when it could not pronounce the word properly. Politicians might have missed the pulse of the people of Tamil Nadu, which I think, now beats in unison with the rest of the nation. Rajinikanth might mean Ghar-Waapsi of the state of Tamil Nadu. A very young Rajinikanth fan on NewsX said that we must not evaluate the meaning of Rajinikanth’s entry to Tamil Nadu politics; we must consider what it means for Indian politics . This statement from a young Tamil boy carries multiple meanings of hope which I talk about here.  I may be dreaming. But it seems like a good dream to dream about. For the moment.  

In the Memory of A Little Girl

"Thus Nature spake- The work was done How soon my Lucy's race was run! She died and left to me This heath, this calm and quiet scene; The memory of what has been, And never more will be. "- Three Years She Grew, William Wordsworth
Death always comes with a bit of spirituality. Still, some sorrows are so close to the soul that wisdom can not wash them away. Post-funeral, no matter how much water we pour over our body, there is a bitter taste of ash and sand which remains at the tip of the tongue. 
I had first seen her when Nonu, my kid was in junior school, Five years back. That was the age when all kids look similar, similar miniature-esque walk of toy soldiers, similar eyes with bewildered happiness, running aimlessly around in the manicured school lawns, amid the quacking ducks. She was her classmate and older by few months. 
Quite soon she was regular at our place, her house situated close to ours. She was exceptionally talented in pencil sketches. She draw with the neatness way beyond her age. A Muslim girl, of happy countenance, she loved coming to our place every Holi and Deepavali . She would sit with us through the  Lakshmi Puja every Deepavali. I would always wonder how they two, she and my kid, best friends, would grow up together. As she grew, her arrival and her departure to my place always resembled some turbulent tempest which was localized at my place. While Nonu will always be hesitant with the firecracker, she would always be the braver one, often so foolishly brave that she needed to be restrained. 
As is the wont of human mind, when things are well, we believe them to be eternal. But then, death arrive, dressed as innocent interruption in the business as usual. It was detected to be dengue. But then, it went bad; and later it went worse. She landed in the ICU of a prominent Private Hospital in the city. For nearly a month, she fought, always a brave soul. On the ventilator, she kept holding on to the thin thread of life. Till the day when she could not hold any longer. 
India, a country of a 100-billion plus souls, a population in churn, in eternal movement. Who notices a little heart which stopped beating? With dreams, undreamt; songs, unsung, she departed. The dejected father who would try to save his daughter from dust and dirt, buried her, his own hands throwing mud at the body, no longer her. I did hug him and wept in company. I did. I do not know why. Few weeks back, she had asked for Nonu to be allowed to go to her place for her Birthday. 12th of December, she would have turned Ten. 
Nonu remembered her and wept. I remembered the school sports day last week. A month back, she would have been planning for the event, always athletic and enthusiastic. And a month hence, she was not anywhere. On her birthday, Nonu wept. Then she was suddenly happy. I asked her why? She says- She had asked her what she wanted on her birthday? A frock, a shiny, stylish one- was what she wanted. Nonu says, now that her friend was in God's place, she could have any frock as there would be an endless supply of clothes. Nonu thinks her friend must be happy in the heaven and suddenly she is happy. My heart broke, thinking of the day, she will grow up and realize that death is a descent into darkness, into nothingness, from being to un-being. For now She is happy in the knowledge that her friend is happy with the God, and must be watching her from a distance. I tell her that death is the reason, we must value life more. We must value relationships more. We walk a thin tight rope and death is one miscalculated step. A thud, and darkness and then nothingness. 
I think of Nonu's friend, Suhani and I think of Rudi Steiner from The Book Thief . Only she did not have the hair the color of lemons. But she had the same zeal for life, and she also did not know as Rudi did not, as Death says in the book that- he was a month away from his death. I am sure, it Death was a person as in the Book Thief, he would have been as heart-broken at picking Suhani from our midst as he was while picking Rudi Steiner, A giver of bread and Teddy bear, a Hitler Triple Athletic Youth Champion.  I can still almost hear Death whispering in my years, the words from Rudi's death, and I believe He must be repeating the same words, at this moment-
" I carried (him) softly through the broken street..With him I tried a little harder at comforting. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name Jesse Owens as he ran through an imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in the bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry." 
I am sure death would have cried this time too. I mutter the lines I wrote.
"The devastating dice of death rolls in, From the deep darkness of the night.  The cruel, cursed, cunning fate  crushed a child spirit,  After a valiant and lonely fight. ..
A father's unbending frame, in a moment,  bends, breaks and crashes, As a tiny body is lowered into the Earth And he returns,  Dust unto dust and Ashes to Ashes.                                         (7th Of November, 2017)
(The Government tweaks the statistics on Dengue deaths in Delhi, but as we know the epidemic touches our lives, it is nothing but the worst form of lie).

Miss Laila, Armed And Dangerous - By Manu Joseph: Book Review

There are books no meant for Right-wingers like me, some would say. On the face of it, Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous is one such book. But then, a question kept coming back to me again and again while I read this book- How often does it happen that you do not agree (even detest) many things the author writes but still are unable to put the book down on account of an unmitigated charm of brilliantly written words which do not let you go?
     This work of fiction is not a fiction too far away from the real world. It draws characters from real, contemporary world, name them differently (only slightly, so as the resemblance to the person living and dead is pronounced and hard-to-miss). The writer's journalistic prejudices come in clear view when he writes about Damodarbhai , the Miss Laila equivalent of the Prime Minister Narendra Damodarbhai Modi, or when he writes about Sangh (he calls it that, plainly and simply). Damodarbhai never actually steps into the story, but keeps hovering over it. As Mr. Joseph had confessed in his interview to Tishani Doshi which appeared in The Hindu,
"I couldn't get Modi out of my head as a literary character. This guy is meant for fiction. And not just an easy lampooning. There is complexity about him- not internally, but the perception of him. The way he is projected as a hologram of half-a-billion people, and everyone has added something of themselves to it."
While Manu Joseph mentions that everyone has added something of themselves into the perception of Modi; it is not to say that he himself has not done that. His views of Modi and the Sangh (He calls it that, plain and simple, without guise) are not laudatory. Not even when he writes about the coming to power of Damodarbhai - 
"How weird, between the Pope and Damodarbhai, two virgins rule half the world."
In the very next paragraph, he scoffs at the lack of evidence implicating Modi in Gujarat riots of 2002, which was the soul occupation of the media for a long time. He writes about there being no evidence against Modi and to make sure that you don't miss, he follows it up saying- "In sarcasm one says the exact opposite of what one means." 
This he writes, ignoring the judgment of Supreme Court of India, ignoring the fact that Army was called quickly once neighboring Congress-ruled states refused to send additional forces, and that this is probably one riot in which large number of men from majority community were killed by the Government forces trying to control the situation. I know it for I remember sitting in the outskirts of Ahmadabad, watching the Television screaming- "Riots continue in Gujarat, two injured in stabbing incident" followed by a whispering - "12 dead in a violent scuffle among two groups in Bihar". I find Mr. Joseph's sarcasm on this fifteen years later amusing, but I respect his right to write the fiction. And he is really funny when he writes it. 
The story is loosely based on Ishrat Jahaan encounter, in which a young Mumbai girl was found dead in a police encounter. Police claimed the girl to be a part of dreaded Islamist terror group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (this was immediately owned by the terror-group website), while the media, co-opted by the Congress, which was then in power, went hammer and tongs after Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat Chief Minister, to arrest his ascent on the national scene; claiming Ishrat to be innocent, encounter to be staged. No one could explain the presence of a Mumbai girl in Gujarat, or the immediate appearance of condolence on the terror organization's website. No one bothered as Congress was in rule and was the dynasty was supposed to continue forever. Once the power changed hands, the cookie started crumbling, witnesses from Central intelligence started coming forward explaining statements taken under duress to frame Modi,the formidable, elusive and omnipresent Damodarbhai of Manu Joseph. Ishrat is Miss Laila, who Mr. Joseph insists on presenting as wronged girl. I suppose, we must grant him that on account of his journalistic antecedents. 
While the novel is named after Miss Laila , the heroine of this story, the strongest character is Akhila Iyer, who is nothing but I would think, Manu Joseph in disguise. She shines over every other character in the story, over Mukundan a conscientious sleuth, the mild-mannered-Malayali who gets some interesting lines, but cannot prevail over the charm of Akhila. She is unforgiving, funny and charming. She has made fun of Sangh before. But she is equally brutal to the left. She is the mad man of Neitzsche running about with a lantern in the broad sunlight. She interviews Rajan, a left-liberal-feminist and demolishes him like anything. This is a beautiful excerpt- 
[Excerpt: 
'This jerk said during a panel discussion that he has to just read a short-story submission without knowing who the author is and he would be able to tell if the writer is a woman. Don't these guys ever stop? how many imbeciles are there in the academic and literary world?' 'Did he say, Mr Rajan, what makes him identify a female writer so easily?' Rajan is surprised by the question. 'No. These guys are never that specific.' 'Maybe what he meant was that when a short story is deep and brilliant and without gimmicks the author is usually a woman.' 'That's not what he meant, I am sure.' 'The fact, Mr Rajan, that he can identify the author of a work as a woman also means, by default, he can tell if the author is a man. Why aren't men pissed?' Rajan throws a quick look at the camera. 'My dear girl,' he says,'his statement has a specific meaning. There is a context to it. And there is history. There is a tacit insult in this sort of view. And every woman knows what he means.' 'Every woman?' 'Every woman.' 'Three billion women must be a single collective organism.' ]
And we know that Akhila Iyer is none other than Manu Joseph. Manu takes us to the childhood of Akhila and explains the failure of Communism form a child's innocent eyes which selfish grown-up eyes miss. He writes about Akhila's dad's brief brush with militant communist (is there other kind?). 
[Excerpt:  ...When the police captured tham and started massaging their balls, they called their papas, who couriered the bribes, and that was pretty much the end of their revolution. They surrendered to the new money and made it more money.  .... Now they laugh.  Thousands of students who followed their lead, who had no rich daddies to call when they were captured, don't laugh because they do not exist.]
Akhila's Ma however, continues pursuing the Naxal movement in the dense forests of Chattisgarh, dropping by occassionally. A confused little girl, she asks -
[Excerpt:  'What is a Maoist?' 'Her boss is Mr Mao. He is Chinese. That's all you need to know.' ... The girl begins to read about Mr Mao. In the first five minutes she  is excited. He is dead. Mother's boss has been long dead. She runs to Father and says,'Does Ma know?' Mother knows. The girl is confused, dejected. She had thought if the news of Mr Mao's death is broken to Ma, she might shut shop and return. But Ma knows. She works for a dead Chinese man. Right. The girl reads more about Mr Mao. She is even more confused. She figures that Mr Mao actually wanted farmers, at least most of them, to become factory workers. And he took away so much of grain from the farmers in China that millions of them starved to death. He seemed to have been a very cruel man. She runs to Pa. 
'Mao was not a Maoist,'She says. 'Does Ma know?'
... Ma thinks she can make Mr Mao work better in India than Mr Mao could make himself work in China.]
We won't find many adults having the understanding which dawns on Akhila in the above paragraphs. We also won't find many Right-wing writers writing that splendidly about Communism and its failures. That is why I love Akhila and Manu Joseph. They don't hate only the Right (though, I could not find the Cow vigilante chapter adding anything to the value of the story, wonder if  Rajdeep Sardesai stole Manu Joseph's manuscript and sneaked a chapter in), he hates and mocks left as well. That makes him an equal-opportunity hater and that makes this book a great read. Besides Manu Joseph is brilliant with his words. 
My recommendation: Put your prejudices aside, as a rightist and leftist, and Do read. And also because, Right Wing is not a cabal which gangs up to gag dissenting voice. While Manu Joseph obliquely indicates some sort of curbing of freedom with the coming into power of Damodarbhai, or Narendra Modi, the fact that the book was written, published and is well-marketed all across, demonstrates that the narrative of right-wing fascism is nothing but fake; and the fact that a right-wing writer reads it, likes it and reviews it, breaks the myth of right-wing intolerance.  
Amazon Link : Click Here

Nausea - By Jean -Paul Sartre : Book Review

There are some books which take time to grow on you. Some books will never hold you long enough to be able to impact you unless you are, well, their 'type'. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre is one such book. I, fortunately or unfortunately, am of the type. I remember finding in a moment of serendipity, Thus Spoke Zarathustra by  Nietzsche   one night in the shared rented house, left by the landlord gathering dust in a shelf, and staying up till the dawn reading it. I found myself a changed man after reading that. I read Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground much later and the philosophy lingered for a very long time. Those were the books from the aftermath of which my modest intellect could barely survive.
A philosophical Novel, which is more of a study in existential philosophy than a Novel with a story-line, places Sartre in the list of greatest existentialist writers in the history. It is a matter of sheer coincidence that I read Nausea and The Fall by Albert Camus in a gap of not more than a month. The both are so similar in the treatment of almost identical subject. It was years after reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra that I came to know that the thunderbolt that had hit me that night when I read Zarathustra  is called as Existentialist literature.  I am not a literary expert, but if the question- How do you know what you are reading is a example of  existential literature? - is ever hurled at me; I would only say that if the structure is indefinite and the unease that is causes to the soul, expands into formlessness, like some kind of headless amoeba which threatens to engulf not only the reader, rather the world around him- it would qualify. In existentialist literature, the writer is not bothered about absurdity and the meaning rises from the insane hopeless of absurdity.  Existential literature in essence, is in search for the meaning of existence, and in the end declares that there is none to be found. Thus it is an exercise in futility. Characters in existential literature are invariably broken, worried, saddened and depressed by usually a sudden discovery of the meaninglessness of their very existence. They are usually in their middle-ages, as this is the time when we begin to cede our space in the social structure even in our minds. The strength, the abilities are on a decline and the years behind us depresses us more than the hope that the years ahead of us promise. With an exasperated sense of loss, the narrator of Notes from the Underground says,  "To live longer than Forty years is bad manners, is vulgar, immoral." 
We search meaning of our existence in something lasting- a piece of literature, a work of art and if nothing lofty as Art, possibly, in an act of kindness. The man in the story is always caught in a monotonous life, living as they say a life of Quiet desperation. Through a period of futile search for higher meaning, a realization that the existence itself is the meaning of the existence. The setup is dim, the clouds are heavy and lights are dying. The protagonist is trying to find a justification for continued existence, as the higher reason loses its relevance. Antoine Roquentine unlike Dostoevsky's isn't failed in the worldly way; He is a successful lawyer, has been in love, but has run away from it all haunted by the meaningless of his own existence. 
Where this book moves away from Dostoevsky's masterpiece is that if progresses through vagueness and in portions, it loses interest in the plot. Vladimir  Nabokov absolutely hated this book, most likely on this account. The book stands tall on the philosophical point but reader's attention hangs on a fledgling story-line. Although I would still empathize with Sartre, when the idea, the philosophy of the story is so strong and the writer is so in love with the philosophy, often the story suffers. It is very rare for a philosophy-heavy book to shine with enough warmth to hold the attention of the reader on a cold, winter night. There are some accidental surprises we have like Thus Spoke Zarathustra where the power of poetry lifts the language so high that it levitates in all its glory over a non-existent story, where a man keeps moving with a lamp in broad sunlight. Then we have some exceptional books like The Red and the Black by Stendhal or The Waves by Virginia Woof both not existential novels but still deep in philosophy, backed by exceptionally great story-telling. Even on the side of existential literature, we have great work of Dostoevsky who creates an exceptionally engaging story through which his philosophy progresses in successful novels like Notes from the Underground and Crime and Punishment . 

Balancing story-telling with strong philosophy is a delicate affair. Nabokov is scathing in his 1949 review. He notices (inescapable shadow there) Dostoevsky. He writes, "Somewhere behind looms Dostoevsky at his worst" 
and summarizes dismissively towards the end -  "to make it exist as a work of art was beyond Sartre's powers." 
I think it particularly unjust and peevish of Nabokov. His quarrel with Sartre begins on structure of the novel itself, which is structured like the diary pages of Antoine Roquentin. I find this unfair. There are still excellent prose in the book which leaps at you in all their splendor. There are sentences which speak to you in your own voice. For instance, see below:
'I wanted the moments of my life to follow one another in an orderly fashion like those of a life remembered. You might as well try to catch time by the tail."
Such a search of orderliness in one's life will ring a bell to every individual. However, the novel flows in sudden spurts. Albert Camus, the next big name in the worthy existentialists, reviewed Nausea in 1938 more kindly and confessed that the novel became 'a part of him'. He called this novel "nothing but philosophy expressed in images."Camus further celebrates the greatness of Sartre's writing, as he writes-  'Each chapter of the novel reaches a kind of perfection in bitterness and truth.'
He however acknowledges the problem with the flow when he says - ' The shift of pages from one to the other is too rapid, too unmotivated, to evoke in the reader the deep conviction that makes art of of the novel' He adds-  "Some indefinable obstacle prevents the reader from participating and holds him back when he is on the very threshold of consent." 
This is where Dostoevsky gloriously succeeds. This is a point where Camus himself did not do too well in his similarly themed novel The Fall. Sometimes, knowing does not help. Sometimes, the power of philosophy is so strong and captivating that the writer has to helplessly give in. Success is to give in as Neitzsche and allowed it to be what his book insisted on becoming- a philosophical work, a poetry in prose. In spite of all its failings, once you are in a right frame of mind for philosophy, do go for reading it. It is an enlightening experience. It is beyond ordinary reading. 

My Take on Padmavati Controversy

Hand prints stamped by Brave Rajput Women who committed Jouhar, ending their lives to avoid falling in the hands of debauch marauders
It doesn't take long for the mob to appropriate the ownership of the anger of common men and women. Before one could even take note, a rightful fury fades in the surging, unruly waves of voices calling for violence. What begins as a worthy protest, quickly descends into dark, disgusting and dirty depths of fanatic fury. 
In no time, we becomes them and once the faces are wrapped into the color of the blood, it is impossible to identify the one from the other. We have seen this earlier and at times dropped our heads in disgust, turned our noses upwards in annoyance when voices rose and " Satanic Verses " - a novel by one excellent writer, Salman Rushdie was withdrawn. When there were rioting men out on the streets for a Facebook post, we laughed at the those highly-inflammable sensitivity of men with allegiance to intolerant middle-eastern minds of the people, stilling stuck in the middle-ages. Whenever debates happened on the growing intolerance among the Hindus vis-a-vis Islamic fundamentalism, Charlie Hebdo was the last word in the argument. 
Then came Padmavati. Rumors were out that the Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie had some dream sequence of the revered brave Hindu Queen Padmavati with the Muslim marauder, Alauddin Khilji.  This was however denied by Bhansali. So the dream sequence which was never their was the cause of the first wave of protests. One must think why?The second wave of protests come right before the release of the film. The film has not yet been shown to the censor board and certification agency. Interestingly, after few days went into the protests as the noises got shriller and the debates got uglier, it emerges now that those who are angry have never seen the movie and are outraged on hearsay, and those who have seen the movie (rumor has it that a set of secular journalists have and on which, the chief of Censor Board, who technically should be first outside the unit to watch, have already registered protest), have done nothing to calm the tumultuous world around us. 
Two of the most outrageous and if I may say, non-Hinduistic voices came from political end. Those very people who should be calming down the outraged nerves of Rajput Hindus, were the one leading the ugliness which seeped into this dissenting tornado. There was an Islamist-sounding threat came from Samajwadi Party leader, Thakur Abhishek Som , who runs an outfit named Kshatriya Sena, while all this while had his Rajput pride bowing to the Yadav Chieftain Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was affectionately called Mullah Mulayam for his blatant Muslim appeasement policies which included shooting down unarmed protesters who wanted to have a Ram Mandir at Lord Ram's birthplace in Ayodhya. The man was however promptly arrested by the UP Government of Yogi Adityanath, much maligned by the media for being blatantly Hindu, without any trace of Dhimmi apology in his being (Contrast this with the Mamata Government's response to the threat of killing of Hindus by a Maulana in West Bengal in a protest rally in support of Rohingyas). Another came from Karni Sena Chief Mahipal Singh Makrana (said to be AAP leader), who said Deepika Padukone will have her nose chopped off, later he claimed he meant it metaphorically, snubbing the nose or something of the sort. The protests are primarily on the grounds of a dance in which Deepika as Rajput Queen takes part, and the costume which does not match the time period. If these two are the only points of Rajputs feeling insulted, than I can only say, that it is pretty sad to oppose any poorly researched movie with the threat of violence. 
There are various valid points of objection, which one cannot deny. The descendants of those portrayed can surely object to a derogatory depiction. The manner of Ghoomer can be objected if not in line with the tradition. Still there is a fine balance which needs to be struck between the objection for the purpose of creating nuisance based on deification and objection to oppose objectively definable denigration and venerable figure from History. Devdutt Patnaik, writer who writes on Hindu mythology, jumping into the fray, leading the leftist-liberal brigade has muddled the water further. Although I must thank him for his tweets. In a Social media environment, where Hinduism has begun, sadly at times, looking like absolutist religion of the Book, accepting no difference of opinion, no divergence of thought, many handles almost screaming the question- Who is the Hinduest of them all?, it is difficult to take a position or write. Mr. Patnaik's totally absurd position made me eventually write this piece and I knew after days of confusion, where I stood on the matter. 
A matter like Padmavati cuts too close for someone like me who is both a proud Hindu and proud Indian at once, without hating any competing religion. It is hard to take a position, when I feel, the silence on the gaps in academic history which runs into the lives of upcoming generations, every single day of their lives as they get educated on falsehood, makes it very difficult for me to consider this noise on Padmavati anything but disproportionate. Even if  we consider the deification of Padmavati on account her extra-ordinary courage under a situation of absolute desperation for her honor to explain an outrage which still think is disproportionate for a dance not meeting the factual details; the fact remains that Padmavati, though brave and exceptional, was a human person, real or fictional. Much unlike Goddess Durga who is venerated by all Hindus as way beyond an ordinary human. The outrage on Her representation as a sex-worker was totally muted even when it was passed as alternate reading from news anchors on Public platform. The deity in question was much bigger for Hindus and the insult was much worse than a 3 minute dance sequence. The difference in responses then and now makes it more believable that the current outrage is not only disproportionate, rather it is political and I would even hazard a guess, doctored. One cannot be going to the streets threatening violence because a film-maker has based his movie on poor research. Did we have an Akbar wearing Lungi- vest in Jodha Akbar? No Rajput pride ever sought removal of the inscription of Amer fort by "Mirza" Man Singh, the Rajput King of Jaipur, thanking Emperor Akbar. 
Liberal outrage, supposedly as a response to the right-wing response is also weird and baffling. Patnaik decided to determine for the 16000 Women how they ought to have responded to a life as sex-slaves to the debauch and cruel invader staring them in their eyes. For Hindu kings of India, even wars had a defined morality. The invaders from the West, who had seen the cruel killing of even the Prophet's family had no such compunctions or moral scruples. Another liberal condemned Jauhar comparing it with Sati. He used this opportunity to attack Hinduism considering Sati as a Hindu practice (That Sati isn't a vedic Hindu practice, I have earlier explained in my other post which you can read Here- Women in Vedas ).
The story of Padmavati is not the story of Hindu evil of Sati. It is the story of courage of a Queen in the face of defeat; it is the story of morality and goodness when it loses the battle against evil. Padmavati is a story of immense and infinite sadness, which is too holy to be even commented upon. It is one such sad moment in the life of our nation, a life one of the most ancient in human history, which requires us to sit down in sadness contemplating the horrors which prompts not one woman, but thousands other into ending their life. One does not comment on what she did. Mr. Patnaik or anyone from our times cannot comment on what Padmavati ought to have done. To some extent only Yezidi women who have faced the cruelty of ISIS can understand the plight of Padmavati to some extent. No man is equipped enough to understand the plight of a cornered woman when a future as an animal without a choice of her own stares at her, even if that man be a writer of best-sellers. The print of hands which Rajput women committing Jouhar is a reminder of the horrors which plague the humanity when we fail, it is a reminder of the epoch when some men became animals. Let us not use it to teach women, how they should react to impeding future as a sex-slave when attacked by an animal army? Let us use it Mr. Patnaik to teach men how not to be an animal (I would stretch the argument and ask Mr. Patnaik to send the print of these immortal prints of hands of brave Rajput women to the communists who tried killing the story implicating leftist men in #MeToo backdrop). Jouhar is a sacrifice too deep for a commercial, communist vanity to comprehend. Another left-liberal response is the claim that Padmavati never existed. Her existence itself is fictional story written by Malik Muhammad Jayasi. I would only say, that the print of hands on the Rajput forts is real, even if Padmavati was not. That the women were driven to kill themselves to escape the horrors men without morals brought to them, is real. As for Historicity of Padmavati is concerned, I would say, she puts face to those nameless and faceless hand-imprints of women escaping a hopeless life in death, and quote Julian Barnes (The Sense of An Ending)- 

"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation."
Padmavati is the story of an evil king who brought into India something as deplorable as Bachhabazi (Middle-eastern practice where young good-looking boys are made to dance and even sexually exploited). Malik Kafoor was one such lover of Alauddin Khilji. Akbar created a mountain of slain heads in Chittor after a massacre which went half day long. No murmur of voice rose objecting glorification of Akbar in the movie- Jodha-Akbar. He still remains Akbar, the Great in our school books. Deliberate attempts to take liberty with the history of our great nation must be fought. But that fight to preserve Indian heritage must be fought while ensuring that even our fights does not lose our very Indian character and does not become Talibanisque. The movie will come and go and touch the life of only those who chose to watch it for three hours. A school curriculum however, intrudes in the life of every impressionable young man and woman, every day of their lives, insisting memorization of what is written in it, whether true or lie, year after year, until you believe in it. Every generation grows up with lesser faith in our roots and past than the preceding one. That is an important fight to be taken up and we are doing precious little about it. The past which we teach our children every day defines our future, not some silly movie which possibly creates controversy as a tool of marketing.  

Let us chose our battles wisely!

India, That is Bharat-5: The Making of BharatVarsha

The Making of Bharatउत्तरम यत्समुद्रस्य, हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम। वर्ष तद्वारातम नाम भारती सन्तति। - विष्णु पुराण 
"The land which lies north of the Oceans, and on the South of the Snow-peaked Mountains, there live the descendants of Bharat, after whom the land shall be named." – Vishnu Purana
There has been an agenda in the Independent India to prove that India did not exist as an entity before the British or the Mughals landed, depending on whether the Historian owes allegiance to  Madarassa or to Macaulay. There are facts and references spread out and people like us who spend large part of our non-entitled lives chasing the middle-class dream of career and life, depend on their interpretation and inference to learn our history. Once we know our History, we understand our unifying and common origin. It then becomes difficult for those wanting to draw wedge between us, to do that. It also makes them difficult to continue their intellectual hegemony over the people who have discovered their shared, historic pride. While we admit that History is all about interpretation of facts by the Historian who is writing it. Still, there is a point beyond which interpretation becomes lie and lies become propaganda.

                Let us look at facts, understand them, before political thinkers posing as historians throw them out, calling them Hindutva agenda. Once they sit on the Pulpit and wag their accusing fingers at our unsure steps into the abandoned study of glorious past of our nation; we, oftentimes, humiliated, shrink to our dull, un-glamorous corners, ceding the space to them for their uninterrupted agenda. Therefore we must learn. We must learn that even when there was various kings, they all ruled almost like a federal structure under the unifying name of Sanatana . The shloka mentioned above is from Vishnu Purana . There are varied thoughts of the time when Vishnu Purana was written. Like most ancient literature of India, Puranas too passed across generations as a part of oral tradition. This makes the assessment of Chronology difficult. Also Historians lament the lack of dates and names in Indian ancient history. That is because it dates back to a time when individuals were not as important as the ideas they represented. When Swayambhu Manu, the first monarch of the Aryans divided his kingdom in Seven Parts, even as absolute rulers of their realms, they were tied into one under the same faith, practices and laws of Manu.  
                  Let us not let this deter us. Still in various mythological works from centuries before the Christ have enough indications which can help us reconstruct the history, if we have interest and integrity to rebuild our past honestly. Considering the above references to India in Vishnu Purana, let us look at the historic timeline. British Civil Servant from the Initial days of Indian Colonization, Vincent Arthur Smith places the time of compilation of Vishnu Purana somewhere between 400 to 300 BC. The earliest date attributed to the composition of Vishnu Purana is 800 BC and the latest date seems to come from Wendy Doniger who pegs it at 450 AD. Even if we take it as Doniger's 450 AD, let us accept that it was before Prophet Mohammad and Advent of Islam. That it was composed much before RSS came into being is anyways settled. The dates further prove that this was not written with a view of creating a Hindutva view of one India from the mighty Himalayas to the Oceans in the south to counter the Muslim view, British view or Periyar view.  
           While the hymn above explains the expanse of India, Vishnu Purana also explains the naming of the country. We often believe it to be named after Bharat, who was son of Dushyant the Kuru king. However, that Bharat came much later in the chronology, and he ruled one of the kingdoms under BharatVarsha (Modern day equivalent to India extending way up in North and West, where Uttara Kuru and Kekeya Kingdoms came into being). I would even hazard a guess that it went beyond Persia as Vishnu Purana refers to Yavans (The Greeks) on the Western Borders and it also explains the central location of Mount Sumeru (in modern day Garhwal)  in the overall expanse of Aryavrata over which Manu ruled. 
Priyavrata, the son of Swayambhu Manu, assigned Jambudweep (Southern Asia) to his eldest son, Agnidhra. Agnidhra gave the area south of Himalaya, Himvarsha to the eldest son Nabhi. Rishabhdev (also the first Jain Tirthankar) ruled over Himvarsha and later chose his eldest son, Bharat as his successor. Bharat, the great king, expanded the kingdom unto the oceans. This part of land was then called Bharat Varsha (even when we had independent kingdoms in Kashi, Magadha, Anga, Kuru, Kaushala,  Vaideha and Kalinga). Under the flag of Vedas, it had extended relationships to Tibet (Kimpurushvarsha- between Sumeru and Dhaval (Dhaulagiri) Mountain), Kekeya and Uttara Kuru (The son of Drum, king of Kimpurusha did attend the coronation of Yudhishtira in another ancient book of Mahabharata, also how one book from the vedic literature connects with another, authenticates the history written in these books). There is a clear consistency in description. I have verified between Rigveda, Mahabharatsa and VishnuPurana; Sir Alexander Cunningham's The Ancient Geography of India further includes Vayu Puran, Matsaya Purana, Markandaya Purana and Brahmanda Purana, each naming identical kingdoms and places and dividing India in Nine parts.  
Vishu Purana mentions the naming of Bharata
 ततश्च भारतम  वर्षमे तल्लो केषु  गीयते   भरताय  यत :    पित्र ा  दत्तं  प्रतिष्ठता  वनम। 
"When retiring to the Vanaprastha (Vedic practice of retiring to the pursuit of knowledge in the old age, away from the material world), Rishabh Dev, the father, annointed Bharat as his successor, so the kingdom came to be known as BharatVarsha)"
नव योजनसहस्त्र ो  विस्तारोस्य  महामुने  कर्मभुमिरियं  स्वर्गांपवर्ग  च  गच्छताम। 
Bharat has an expanse of 9000 Yojana, this land is the arena of all the action, and this is heaven. (1 Yojana= 9.09 Miles or 14.63 Kms). 
Bharat had seven principle mountains. We have some idea of these mountains as either the name of the mountain itself or the rivers originating from them carries to this day making the inferences possible. The mountains described are Mahendra, Malaya, Sahya, Shaktiman, Riksh, Vindhya, Pariyatra. Mahendra is in the East, at Bhagalpur (in modern day Bihar). We are able to identify these mountains from the rivers originating from them. Here are the rivers mentioned in the Vishnu Purana. 
शतदृचंद्रभागा  हिमवत्पादनिर्गता  वेदस्मृतिमुखाद्याश्च  पारियात्रो द्ध वा। 
"River Shatadru (Satluj) Chandrabhaga (Chenab) flows from the Himalaya, Periyatra Mountain (named Sanapada by Krishna, now called Western Satpura) source of Veda and Smriti...
नर्मदा सुरसाद्याश्च  नद्यो  विन्ध्यादिनिर्गता : तपिपयोष्ण ी निरविन्ध्यप्रमुखा  ऋक्षसंभवा : 
"River Narmada and Sursa (disappeared), originates from Vindhya, Tapi and Payoshni  (now Purna) emerges from Riksh (East Satpura), 
गोदावरी , भीमरथी कृष्णवेण्यादिकास्तथा  सह्यपदोध्वा  नद्य : स्मृता : पापभयपयहया। 
"From the Sahya (Sahyadri on Western Ghats -Mahabaleshwar) Mountains arise the holy rivers of Godavari, Bhimrathi and Krishnaveni." 
कृतमाला ताम्रपर्णीप्रमुखा मालयोद्वा  त्रिसामा चार्यकुल्याद्या महेन्द्रप्रभावा: स्मृता:  ।   
"River Kritmala (Now disappeared but traced near Madurai, Kiruthumal river, originating from Nagamalai Hills) and Tamraparni (originating from Pothigai Hills also known as Agastya Malai),  Trisama (Now Tribhanga) and Aryakulya (Now Rushikulya originating from Daringbadi hills) arising from MahendraGiri (in Odisha), 
This here covers the mountains of Eastern Ghat, Western Ghat and even down south at Madurai. Thus we understand the vast expanse of Bharatvarsha. Malay Parvat that we locate in the south is where Vedic sage Agastya wrote the first Tamil Grammar, at the source of river Tamraparni, where he went expanding Vedic wisdom.  Agastyamalai standing between TamilNadu and Kerala, must have extended to Madurai and finds reference in Mahabharata too. 
Political expediency has pushed people to manufacture history which divides us. Therefore, we need to go back to the time when the current political expediency did not exist. Let us remember once again, the India, that is one; India, That is Bharat. 

The Quiet American - By Graham Greene- Book Review

Writer: Graham GreeneGenre: Fiction, ClassisRating: Must ReadEvery writer has a story to tell. It is all about a story which finds its way to the paper. We all tell stories. What makes a story well-told and great, to my mind, is the connect the writer establishes between the story and the environment which sets the context of the story. Once we understand the world in which the story unravels, we are immediately hooked to it. In a subtle view, the writer sets the context which helps the reader learn the micro as well as macro contexts of the story. A great story like Stendhal' s Red and Black is not only the story of the protagonist, but it also narrates the French revolution, the sudden absence of Napoleon from the french world within which the protagonist falls in love and out of it. 
The Quiet American by Graham Greene is one such exceptionally told story which contextualizes the murder of an idealist, tentatively a propagandist, American, Alden Pyle in Vietnam, struggling between an absolutist communist and a fierce democratic ideology struggling for space in Vietnam. The story does not float in the dark, unknown skies like floating candle with no connect with the Earth over which it hovers, rather it settles down with its weight in the marshy farms of Vietnam, where amid physical violence of the war, also plays the ideological war of the Americans. The young diplomat, Alden Pyle, supposedly working to create a middle-path arrives in the war-torn Vietnam and befriends the narrator, middle-aged and cynical war-correspondent Thomas Fowler . Here is Fowler describing the naive, plush wide-eyed idealistic admiration for someone like York Harding-
"I was to learn later that he had enormous respect for what he called serious writers. That term excluded Novelists, poets and dramatists unless they had what he called a contemporary theme." 

 A young, rich and well-connected Pyle wins over the native girl, Phuong with the false promise of marriage and a great life in America. Pyle, a fan and admirer of York Harding, an ideologue and writer, eventually turns out to be an under-cover operative getting weapons and explosive into Vietnam. The story ends with the murder of Pyle. 
Through the wonderfully told story, full of aphorism and words of wisdom, we find the conspiracy of media and politics unraveling. We understand how those reporting the news grow too big for themselves and begin to believe themselves to be the News. While we may not be in a physical war now, there are multiple wars unfolding, numerous battlefields in operation, and it is a great book to understand how media, at times, work not only as a tool to the politics; many a times, it tries to use politics as its tool. Fowler calls it out when angered and frustrated ( suddenly I was angry; I was tired of the whole pack of them with their private stores of Coca-Cola and their portable hospitals and their too wide cars) at the loss of young life of Pyle, he tells the Economic Attach`e referring to Pyle- 

Yes, they killed him because he was too innocent to live. He was young and ignorant and silly and he got involved. He had no more of a notion than any of you what the whole affair's about, and you gave him money and York Harding's book on East and said, "Go ahead, win the East for Democracy. He never saw anything he hadn't heard in a lecture-hall, and his writers and his lecturers made a fool of him." 
When I read this, I think of JNU, when I read of York Harding, I think of Chomsky, writing open letters based on fake, manipulative news articles. And I think of numerous Indian journalists and media personalities when I read Fowler deliberating on his own- 

" He's a superior sort of journalist- they call them diplomatic Correspondents. He gets hold of an idea hold of an idea and then alters every situation to fit the idea." 

Women in Vedas - The Fake Story of Sati Pratha

Goddess Gayatri Biggest problem which Hinduism faces when it is being evaluated through the western prism of Abrahamic faith . I was watching a speech by Sadhguru where he mentioned a very critical defining feature of Hinduism. He says, unlike Western faiths, Hinduism did not place anyone at a pedestal where questions would not reach. Forget the Prophets and Masters, even Gods were received with affection and a list of questions. Nothing was ever beyond debate in Hinduism, not even Gods. This very nature of Hinduism has often been cause of concern and confusion for Western thinkers, troubled by a religion, which is seeped so deep into our culture of exploration of truth through investigation and examination. When the western scholars approach the Vedic Indian wisdom, oftentimes their approach itself is based on the assumption that they are approaching a civilization, a religion which is inferior to theirs. This makes it hard for them to accept a society which was an intellectually flourishing society of emancipated souls, thousands of years before the time when even dark ages descended on Europe. We have been enslaved for years, unfortunately, and the biggest loss for us has been the loss of History.
Our lack of knowledge of our own history, offers the vested interests an opportunity to create a sense of inferiority in our own heritage, and thus by implication, creates a sense of supremacy for the western scholars as compared to the Indians. Feminism is one of their favorite subject. The commitment, trust and faith in Hinduism of the followers confounds them. Without the fear of punishment in this life and afterlife, having faced the worst of persecution of Muslim rulers, centuries after centuries, Hindus of this country remain committed to their faith. This has confounded the west. The left, the Islamists, the westernists come together as an odd union, to bad-mouth Hinduism, trying to corrode the faith, which remained unblemished through the hostilities of the centuries. Their whole scheme and plan rests on one singular assumption- That Lord Macaulay has already left the land ready for them to rule over, that we as Hindus and Indians, would not know anything about our own history, so complete would be the wipe out earlier by the British and later by the Leftists.
A Vedic society is considered to a patriarchal society. Communists use the term Manu-vadi and Patriarchal interchangeably. Do we even know, Manu  ( India that is Bharat-IV ) ruled over the Vedic Indian world in 3000 BC (Thousands of years before Virginia Woolf in England wrote lamenting how Libraries of Oxford remained closed to the women)? This man, the grand Patriot of Hindu world, Manu , who formulated the societal rules for the Vedic world, had two sons- Priyavrata and Uttanpada and three daughters- Akuti, Devahuti and Prasuti . This man, much-maligned by the leftist feminists, educated his daughters well. Devahuti, one of the daughters of the Great Manu-  in language, literature and Philosophy, at the time when Man, as a species was barely crawling out of the caves. When I close my eyes, I can visualize the first Monarch of human race, sitting on the banks of river Sarasvati , affectionately watching over his daughter as she pens the most ancient hymns in the most ancient book of spiritual and philosophical thoughts- Rig-Veda . Later we find him, watching over his daughter, shunning all the riches and getting married to the ascetic thinker, Kardama . He tells the great Sage, not that I am looking for a groom for my daughter. The language is telling. Says Manu- “ My daughter, who is the sister of Priyavrata and Uttanapada is seeking a suitable husband in terms of age, character and good qualities.”
The Sage responded- “Since your daughter has not married and has not given her word to anyone, our marriage according to Vedic system can happen.”
 (Implication being that had she given her heart to someone, it was impossible to marry her, a woman to another). 
The founder of Hindu socio-legal system, thus got his Daughter married to a non-warrior man, as was her desire, and Devahuti, eventually would give birth to the great sage Kapila who would stand opposing the rituals of Vedic religious process. What is even more interesting in a world where Intellectuals laugh of at the young men and women as upstart, Sage Kardama and Devahuti , took Sage Kapila as their teacher and learned spiritual lessons from their own Son. Annoyed Aryans did not expunge their writings from the Rigveda and they remained as resepected as they were. This is how intellectually liberal was the Vedic India.
Gargi Vachaknavi - Learned lady, Gargi, named after her father, Sage Vachaknu (Yes, you got that right, do not always believe when Western ‘indologists’ claim that Indian daughters went deprived of the illustrious names of their Manu-vadi fathers), was one great thinker of somewhere around 700 BC.  When Yagyavalka is considered as the most learned of the thinkers and awarded with Cows by the King Janaka in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad , his claim is challenged by many other sages. He defeats all of them in debate and then Gargi appears with the most metaphorical of her questions, requesting Yagyavalka to define the Space and the Self. There is a volley of questions which move to and fro. When Yagyavalka says that the world is woven back and fro on air, she questions – 
“On what then is air woven back and froth?”
Sage Ghosha - was another woman seer who contributed in the Rig Veda, where she composed hymns in the honor of Ashvini Kumars, the twin Gods, and the ancient doctors. It is said that Sage Ghosha suffered with leprosy and was cured by Ashvini Kumar.
Sage Lopamudra , who was the wife of great sage, Agastya, was another of Twenty-Seven learned woman sages, poetesses and intellectuals who contributed to the Vedas. Lopamudra was senior by few centuries to Gargi and Sage Ghosha (latter were almost contemporary) and wrote sometime around 2000 BC. Here Lopamudra calls her husband, sage Agastya for some intimacy, because time, but is fleeting.  She writes (Mandala I, Hymn 179)
“Through many autumns have I toiled and labored, at night and morn, through age- inducing dawning. Old age impairs the beauty of our bodies. Let husbands come near unto their spouses."
She says those who have been assigned great tasks, who are working and have not yet accomplished, they must come to their wives. She is not a servile woman without her wants and desires. She is a woman awaken. And then we also find a woman whose love transcends the bodily desires. 
There is Sage Maitreyi . Maitreyi was the wife of Sage Yagyavalka and has contributed the verses to Rigveda . Born sometime in 800 BC, she is named after her father. Whether she was a real woman and wife or was she a soul-companion to sage Yagyavalka is debatable, since Mahabharata considers her as an unmarried philosopher. Her love, is for the soul, as she composes brilliantly-
“Lo, verily, not for the love of a husband is a husband dear, but for the love of the soul a husband is dear. Not for the love of the wife is a wife dear, but for the love of the soul a wife is dear.”  
– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad .
These references settle beyond doubt that Women not only participated in the intellectual world of Vedic India, this participation was more than welcomed and encouraged. Women were encouraged not because of some external influence, rather because it was inherent in the Hindu philosophy.  Ancient Aryans were more spiritual than martially inclined, as nature was kind, lands were aplenty, unlike deserts where every square feet of the land needs to be bled for and every drop of water has to be contested. India was a world which offered an environment of emancipation to its women for a long time, until it was run over by desert races who considered women as bounty and political tool.
Coming to the Sati , the ritual with which the left and the West loves to beat the Hindus with, an ancient world although looked with affection with an end of life together, thought never did it mandated the same. The love for Sati was much a romantic notion, primarily arising from a deep belief that the death was never an end, rather a step into after-life- the part of a continuous cycle. Popular fascination was more like the fascination of people at the later date with Romeo and Juliet. During the period of humiliating slavery, being ruled by people who considered women as wealth and bounty to be looted and settled, much like cattle (we see that in ISIS even today), many opted to surrender to a death in honor than living as a slave and concubine, a sex-object. Still, those were temporary responses to temporary terror and times of turbulence. Religion is an opium for masses, particularly when the pain is unbearable. It is easy to judge from a distance, but in all possibility justifications for deaths were invented from scriptures to explain the sudden end of life merely because the monarch was getting replaced. Later, it became a stigma, but it never had a real religious sanction. It was challenged and removed from the social scheme in early 18th century itself. It is a surprise that the stick is still held firmly by vested interests to beat Hinduism. They, sure of the fact, that Hindus would not have read their own scripture, show the verses from our own books selectively. So following verse from Atharva Veda is often shared:
“Choosing her husband’s world,  O man, this woman lays herself Down beside thy lifeless body. Preserving faithfully the ancient custom.  Bestow upon here both wealth and offspring.”
This is where they end the hymn. However, in truth, this is metaphorical. The wife goes and lies besides the husband. Thus she accompanies right until the boundary which separate the life from the death. Right until then and no further. This is where the next verse comes, which quite cunningly, our leftists and Abrahamanic brother’s ignore. We, who have been fed for centuries on Macaulay’s curriculum, are not even aware of the verse which follows and changes the whole thing. It says (while it comes from Hymn 3, of the Book 18 of Atharva Veda , the Hymn itself is borrowed in Atharva Veda from Rigveda, so it is not an afterthought of 900 BC, it comes from 3000 BC)-
“Rise, come into the world of life, O woman: come he is lifeless By whose side thou liest. Wifehood with this thy husband was thy portion who took Thy hand and wooed thee as a lover. I looked and saw the youthful dame escorted, the living to the dead: I saw them, bear her. When she with blinding darkness was enveloped, then did I turn her back And lead her homeward. Knowing the world of the living beings, Aghnya! Treading the path.”
So the spiritual and metaphoric company ends here, and as the husband’s body is put to the cremation-fire, wife, the one who cannot be harmed (Aghnya) is led homeward. Read my fellow countrymen, read. Don't let their agenda use your ignorance. Our being born Indians is a matter of accident. But it is still a matter of pride. We are fortunate and let us not be apologetic about it.