“Idea of India” has become a very loaded political statement of our times. It is loaded, as everyone in political space tries to push his or her own agenda in the garb of “idea of India”. Leftist philosophy in the garb of socialism & their subtle control on the collective consciousness of the political & […]
POST RETIREMENT: “POST TRUTH”
Today I complete one year of my superannuation from POWERGRID (it was 29th February last year, to be precise) – an organization that stands out in the field of power transmission sector. It is an organization that has created a niche for itself in power sector & much more. An organization that has a vision & has also created for itself a set of operational rules that are sacrosanct. The vision & the rules are so built into the structure & psyche of the organization that they are mutually inclusive & help to undertake a gradual but steady leap forward. They do not act as an albatross, as is usually perceived, around the neck of the decision makers. One of the several positive results is that you can adopt technology to leverage it to your advantage. This I say so as I have come across ‘n’ number of organizations in the Government, even today, where buying a desk top computer or upgrading an old one is an impossibility – unimaginable in 2017.
This I speak with the advantage of hindsight, having been out of POWERGRID for last one year, having had time long enough to ponder over the world outside & compare it with the system & traditions of POWERGRID.
Without doubt, POWERGRIDians should feel proud of the organization they are working in. Small hiccups could always be there but that is what makes it colourful otherwise it would always have been ‘black & white’ & hence drab.
POWERGRID also has a woman Executive Director heading a Region – NR1. It is a first achievement of its kind. Hearty congratulations to Ms. Seema Gupta. This is a major achievement for her in particular & POWERGRID in general. Not a small one in any case. In the words of the PM of India ‘it is not about development of women but about women leading the development’.
Last one year for me passed off faster than I had thought. Well, earlier 60 years too seemed to have travelled at a much faster speed. So, what can one say of this 61st year which has a weightage of only one in the river of one’s life?
On the positive side, I do not feel any different today. It is same as it was on my 60th or may be on 59th or 55th year too. God has been grateful. I have continued with my 5 kms morning run on tread mill which I generally complete in 41 minutes. I would actually have loved running in the open air, closer to the nature, but living in an area where road construction activity is in progress I thought it prudent to take advantage of the indoor facilities. Dumbbells help me to keep my upper limbs in order, which otherwise were losing flexibility. It takes me around one hour through this regimen.
Subsequently it is transmission lines, face book, twitter & WhatsApp that keep me busy. Of course books too provide me company. Photography on holidays is another hobby that I enjoy. Writing too is a pastime. Browsing too much on social networking sites is not a good idea – this I have felt lately. This impacts your individuality. However I was able to foresee victory of Donald Trump as US President after going through these sites & keeping a track of Washington Post & New York Times too. Sometimes I feel surprised that by gleaning through these newspapers & social networking sites I could draw a conclusion about the US Presidential elections but these very papers & our revered journalists could not.
I do not watch TV anymore. This has helped me to stay away from the programmes that feature Barkha Dutt. In any case she has left NDTV anyway. I consider her to be the epitome of untruthfulness & dishonesty (nothing personal, but she singularly represents these attributes of many news channels) in as far as our mainstream news media is concerned. Quite often she takes recourse to not reporting an event only to hide her fallacies. Not an easy remark to make especially as our generation saw the rise of TV network in India as no other generation will. For us NDTV & Barkha Dutt used to be the perfect & unbiased source of news & information other than BBC, but then those subtleties were eventually thrown to the winds. The result, even Barkha Dutt, for all her proficiency in the field of TV reporting, could neither see the rise of Trump (for good or bad, I am not saying) or that of NaMo. This is because these people lost contact with the ground & were too busy with their own perceived realities. There could not have been a better exposure of her than at the Jaipur Literature festival recently where she had to battle it out with Suhel Seth & Swapan Dasgupta among others where she was anchoring a panel discussion on ‘POST TRUTH’, the newly invented cliché by the media, after they failed to see the rise of Donald Trump. Barkha Dutt was dashed to the ground by the brilliant arguments of the duo. Even the audience would have done the same had she not hidden behind the fig leaf of being an anchor.
And well, our daughter got a job as an Asst. Professor during this one year & teaches in Jammu. She is an excellent teacher who regularly innovates to keep her students abreast with the subject that she teaches. It has been a unique experience for her too. Living, studying & then teaching in Chandigarh was a very different experience – it was progressive. Jammu has been entirely different. My wife is doing well too, though health sometimes is an issue. She has anchored us well & does it more proficiently than ever before.
All in all God has been benevolent to us & good wishes of our friends & family have always been a source of comfort.
May God bless everyone who continues to be source of our strength & provide purpose to our lives to be in this world – for “WE ARE, BECAUSE YOU ARE’.
Here I would also like to thank Dr. Bashir Khan from Srinagar who has always been a help whenever contacted for any issue. Mohammad Amin, who has always been such a support, is a fabulous person & they are a wonderful family.
Nonetheless it would not be improper to remember the school where I studied & passed my Higher Secondary from: the CMS Tyndale Biscoe School of Srinagar, Kashmir. It was this school that prepared me for the world thereafter. The motto of the school, “IN ALL THINGS BE MEN”, drove me & my life all these years – human failings notwithstanding. For me it was the period after that that could be construed as “POST TRUTH” (for the foundations of the world around us are built on many fallacies) & not what Barkha Dutt perceives as the time after which NaMo & Trump won their respective elections in their respective countries.
‘PRALAYA – THE DELUGE’
It was a boat on the rough seas with angry waves lapping it up, down & sideways. It seemed as if all hell had broken loose. The entire planet earth seemed to have been sucked in by a vast ocean.
This boat had no mechanical equipment to row it with, no diesel motors no engines, no pumps to drain water out of it. Huge unruly waves of the sea had almost filled it up with water & it seemed to engulf it at any moment. It had neither GPS nor any modern navigational gadgets. Heavy winds were blowing from all directions & the dark clouds overhead were pouring sheets of water as if they would not get a second chance. Intermittent lightening & thunder of the clouds was frightening.
The occupants could see hundreds of dead bodies of humans, animals & birds afloat on the horrifying sea. Houses had been washed away, trees uprooted & there seemed to be nothing left on this earth. They saw no life anywhere except on this boat. Frightened & exhausted men, animals & birds were keeping company on this boat. Some of the occupants were emptying the boat of water with whatever they could lay their hand on.
The occupants of the boat were exhausted & tired. Still they were trying hard to keep it on course with whatever means they had at their disposal, but on course to which place for there was water everywhere. In fact they were trying just to keep it afloat. They did not know where to look for land that could provide them relief & shelter. There were around nine people on board with a large number of animals & birds of all kinds. They were also carrying with them seeds of different type of plants & grains which they had painstakingly stacked in a safe section of the boat for use if they could ever find a patch of land somewhere. You could see fatigue & stress on the faces of the occupants. Stress & worry was visible on the faces of the animals & the birds too. They too had not eaten or drunk anything for days on end. Their stocks of eatables had almost finished on the boat. The men & probably the animals & birds too were praying to God for end of this misery & for their redemption.
One of the occupants of the boat, through the smoggy environment & eyes blinded by the pouring rain, saw a silhouette of something big moving in their direction in the unruly sea. He brushed his wet long hair aside & cleared his eyes to have a closer look at what it was that was coming on to them but was not able to comprehend it. He had never seen a fish or an animal of this size in his life though he too had lived on sea side all his life in the “Dravid” Kingdom. This kingdom was once flourishing in all walks of life but over a period of time had become victim of vice & treachery. Subjects of this kingdom had forgotten the values of life & were ever ready to fleece the poor & sing paeans to the rich & the powerful. The poor were becoming poorer & the rich were becoming richer. Social system of the society had almost collapsed. This calamity, people in the boat thought, was the nature’s way of correcting the wrongdoings.
In fact one of the persons on board this boat was foretold about the calamity that was going to befall on this kingdom. It was on the basis of this information that they constructed this boat & made a promise to each other that they shall stay together & if given a chance shall continue to follow the path of righteousness. These were the righteous people of the kingdom they had left behind.
On seeing this big beast swimming in the direction of their boat at a ferocious speed & create huge water waves, further endangering the lives of the occupants, this person alerted the other occupants. Through the pouring rain & hazy eyes they could see a big fish with a horn on its forehead dashing on to their boat. Occupants of the boat were horrified. Some of them started murmuring & others started praying to Him at the top of their voice for His mercy. Excepting for the prayers & the name of God they had nothing with them with which they could have defended themselves. However, to their amazement, when the fish started nearing the boat it reduced its speed & turned parallel to the boat. Its overtures were friendly. It seemed to understand the distress of the occupants of the boat. Slowly but surely it came nearer to the boat as if conveying some message to the occupants. On seeing the friendly overtures of the giant fish the occupants were bewildered & started watching its movements carefully. This was the first sign of life witnessed by the occupants of the boat since the rain started pouring ferociously drowning everything on this earth. There was a large snake coiled to the horn of the fish as if unaware of the deluge. As soon as the fish positioned itself parallel to the boat the snake hurled its tail on to the hull of the boat & tied itself up on to whatever came its way. The occupants of the boat were horrified. Till now they were controlling the boat, so to say, but now they were being towed at merciless speed through the rough turbulent seas, lightening & thunder & pouring rain to an unknown destination. They tried to break their boat loose of the grip of the huge snake but it would not let the boat go of its vice like grip. In desperation they again started praying to God & ultimately left their fate to His mercy.
They did not know when they had dozed off but when they woke up they found themselves anchored on to the side of a large island amidst the huge sea. The island was full of tall & majestic green trees the kind of which they had never seen in their lives. The ground underneath the trees was full of green grass & wild flowers. The big fish & the snake had vanished. They looked around but there was no life around. The rain also was slowing down & there was a glimmer of hope that the weather may open up & things might change.
The people aboard the boat, Manu, his wife & “Saptrishis” were mesmerized by the happenings over last few weeks. With an effort they brought the boat nearer to the island & one by one got down from it & stepped on to the island, hungry & thirsty. From their perch they could see huge unruly ocean, there was nothing alive. It was water, water & water all over. Not a bird or an animal could be seen. It was “Pralaya”.
Far away they could see some beautiful snow-capped mountains.
The Manu who got down from the boat was Vaivasvata Manu (also called Shraddhadeva or Satyavrata), the seventh one & who was to begin a new eon. Human race got its name ‘manav’ after the sage Manu. After him, as per Hindu tradition, seven more Manu’s are slated to come. On disembarking on to the island all the occupants of the boat prayed to God. They prayed to Him for mercy. They touched the land on which they had stepped on with their forehead & anchored their boat. Manu was back to work along with his companions after some rest. One by one they brought down all the animals & birds from the boat & set them free in the forest. Surprisingly for them the seeds of plants & vegetables that they had brought with them had also survived the journey.
Manu & his wife, their companions the ‘Saptrishis’, birds, animals & the seeds they had brought with them had to start a life, anew, once again.
And a new life did begin.
Water of the ‘pralaya’ started receding. Land started appearing once again & there was hope all around, hope of a new future. With the passage of time the ‘people of the boat’ built their huts, started tilling the fields, sowed seed for producing grains, pulses & vegetables. Manu had ten children. Amongst them were Ikshwaku & Ila who became progenitors of Surya & Chandra ‘vansh’ respectively. Into ‘Surya vansh’ was born Shri Ram at a very later stage & into ‘Chandra Vansha’ was born Shri Krishan.
Slowly but steadily evolution of a new society started. The society that evolved over the years & centuries started gathering knowledge through experiments, observations & discourses that resulted in enrichment of its philosophy, tradition & culture. It enriched individuals too. Strides were made in the fields of agriculture, science (as of those times), astrology & astronomy. There was no distinction between men & women nor between people on the basis of work did they perform. People were free to choose their profession & all professions were given equal respect & people were honoured. They had ‘gurukuls’ where children & adolescents were taught various aspects of life. With the passage of time they had kings & village councils that would take decisions at local levels. The basic concept of decision making was welfare of the people at large. Slowly populations started growing & people started dispersing. Villages & small towns started coming up. The further these people went they started inventing new ways of life based upon the general environments of these places.
As long as the society was homogeneous, the issues were negligible. As the population & dissimilarities started growing issues of bread, butter & socio-economics started cropping up.
ADVENT OF KAUN(SI)HAYA KUMAR:
One day Manu was having siesta after ‘falahar – lunch comprising of fruits’ when he heard some commotion. Being half asleep he could not make out the cause of the noise. He could hear shouting, sloganeering, cheering which seemed to be coming closer. Manu got up & tried to see through the vegetation surrounding his nicely laid out hut but he could not see anything. He called the ‘Saptrishis’ but they too were not sure about what was the noise about. He called some of his companions & asked them to find out as to what was happening. This sort of noise was unusual for the community that had sprung up in this area after the great deluge. The noise was continuous & seemed to be coming closer to where Manu, ‘Saptrishis’ & others were seated.
Meanwhile one of the associates of Manu brought the news that a large group of young boys & girls wanted to meet him. These youngsters were shouting slogans against Manu.
Manu had seen the worst of times in this world & was modest in nature. He said he had no hesitation in meeting them. When the group started coming closer, Manu could hear the slogans distinctly….’hum ko kya chahiye .. aazadi, Cheen ke lenge … aazadi …’. Manu … murdabad, Manuvad …. murdabad.
Manu was shocked at the sight of this unruly mob pouring into his compound. The crowd of the youngsters continued to shout slogans, clapping, cheering & jeering. Manu was surprised at tenacity & lung power of these boys & girls. Some people of the commune tried to reason with the slogan shouting mob but they were in no mood to listen. Security people came in but they too could not control them. Manu was told that the young, short, stout & loud mouthed person was the leader of the group & his name was Kaun(si)haya Kumar. He was also informed that he was from the JNU, a famous ‘gurukul’ & had been continuing his studies there for quite some time.
After a while the slogan shouting stopped & Manu, finding a chance to speak addressed this gathering & asked them to explain as to what their problem was.
Kaun(si)haya Kumar rose up to speak amidst loud cheers & slogan shouting. He addressed Manu contemptuously & held him responsible for the continuing ills of the country that is India. He accused him of being responsible for the ‘varanashram dharam’ because of which the high castes of the society were sucking the blood of the lower castes & those living on the fringes of the society, like leeches. He also told him that because of his philosophy the country was going to the dogs & is destined to remain a poor country.
He added that with the new Government in place in the country since 2014 the problems had increased manifold. He told him that the ‘Brahmanical’ order was destroying the nation as they always refer to his book called ‘Manu Smriti’ & impose its tenets on the religion they call Hinduism.
As soon as ‘Manu Smriti’ was mentioned by Kaun(si)haya Kumar all hell broke loose & members of the team took out copies of the book & amidst high pitched slogan shouting, clapping & jeering made a bonfire of them. They started dancing, clapping, shouting & singing songs against Manu while dancing around the bonfire. Manu saw that a large group of other people had also surrounded this unruly group of youngsters & holding some equipment in their hands & were directing it on to them. Some were also operating equipment from tripod stands & speaking into some equipment that he later was informed was microphone. Other equipment held by them, Manu was told, were the mobiles into which the members of the new group would speak almost continuously. He wondered how far the world had come after the ‘pralaya’. He also noticed that the group under Kaun(si)haya Kumar had become more unruly, vociferous & loud after the arrival of this new team. A prominent face in the new arrivals was said to be that of ‘BD’. Manu noticed that ‘BD’ was very well known to the unruly crowd & was giving orders to her group of new arrivals. He noted that she was boisterous too. Manu was told that the new arrivals were in fact TV journalists & their technical staff who were beaming all this ‘tamasha’ to their viewers.
Manu could not understand the words ‘TV’ & ‘beaming’ etc. but soon realized that this was 2016 & thought that science might have invented something similar to what ‘Sanjay’ used for narrating running commentary on the war between ‘Kauravas’ & ‘Pandvas’ at ‘Kurukheshtra’ to ‘Dhratrashtra’ while sitting in the palace at ‘Indraprasth’.
It became unbearable for Manu. He was not prone to lose patience, though; he thought whether it was for this that he & his colleagues had taken so much pain & trouble after ‘pralaya’ so that the earth could become inhabitable once again. His mind raced through those devastating times, thousands of years back. The efforts, they had to put in to ensure survival of human & animal race also passed through his mind like a flash of light. The big fish that set them ashore on a completely unknown place that was full of forests. Forests so dense that even rays of the sun would not penetrate their foliage. There was nothing to eat or drink & he & his companions had to go through unimaginable suffering to create even basic facilities required by humans. They had to shudder through intense cold during the winter months.
He also remembered the young boy, Kanhaya Kumar, similar to the one in front of him now & almost of the same age, very humble & polite & his colleagues, boys & girls, who had come visiting him. They discussed various issues facing the communities that were under the process of evolution & the herculean task these young boys & girls were undertaking to succeed. They spoke about the way they would get under the skin of the problems of the society in order to resolve them. Constructing huts, putting their efforts in improving agriculture were other areas of their work. Education was under a very nascent stage of development. Resolution of social issues was another area of importance. Overall things were moving in a planned, orderly & efficient manner.
Kanhaya Kumar raised the issue of unemployment amongst the youth of the society that was evolving. He said that because of undefined job description tensions would sometimes flare up between individuals & also amongst groups. Manu thought over the issue & after some time said that there were only four types of jobs that he could think of for the society & as such the inhabitants of the communities could take up any of these jobs as per their choice, liking & aptitude. He defined the jobs very precisely & said that it was defence & security of the upcoming communities, quality education for children & teenagers, agriculture, business & trade & finally the services sector for the community. Kanhaya Kumar & his colleagues tried to understand what Manu had said. After deliberations over the subject over a few months they came to the conclusion that under the circumstances this was the best option.
Soon the word spread. There was a complex & total churning in the society. Men & women started looking for new avenues for themselves. It was important for them to fit into any one of the cultural divisions & obviously the jobs defined by Manu so that they could live a life of recognition in the society. They would also crave, later, for recognition in the field of their expertise. The going was good, as they thought, for everyone & there was respect for whatever each one of them was doing. Everyone was contributing to the advancement & welfare of the fast developing society. Unknown to them these ‘MANAVS’ of ‘MANU’ had started a process the impact of which would continue to last for thousands of years & bedevil humanity in India. Manu had never thought that economic condition & social status of the ‘MANAVS’ would start getting defined & limited, over a period of time, initially, by the work they would perform & eventually the work chosen by them would also define their caste. He wouldn’t have visualised that this division of society, which essentially was division of labour, would result in water & airtight compartments which, over the centuries, would define status of people & their social & economic order. He had never thought that the order that he was creating, at that point in time, will become so much contentious that even after thousands of years he will be cursed for it.
Manu was pulled out of his thoughts by the resumption of sloganeering by Kaun(si)haya Kumar & his team. Manu asked them to calm down & tell him about their problems. Kaun(si)haya Kumar told him that they were distressed by the rules framed by him that later on came to be called Manu Smriti & its impact on the Indian society. He told him that he will continue to burn copies of his books as long as the discrimination in the society was not rooted out. Manu asked Kaun(si)haya Kumar to calm down & listen. He told him that thousands of years ago he had devised this method to mitigate the problems of that particular ‘kaal’ – time & he had no intention of dividing the society permanently on the lines of the work people performed. He said that every work was important for the society & there was nothing like respectable or unrespectable job as long as it was for the benefit of the ‘Manavs’. Manu also told him that the people came to be called ‘manavs’ only after his name – Manu. He told Kaun(si)haya Kumar that individuals were always respected, during the old times of his, irrespective of what work they did. He said that he only propagated ‘Manav Dharam’ & this ‘Dharama’ was always non-discriminatory. Over a period of time this ‘Dharma’ came to be called Hinduism.
He asked Kaun(si)haya Kumar as to what was he achieving by burning books? He told him that burning of books might give him space in prime time of TV channels of ‘BD’ & TRP to those who cover it but it changes nothing. The change has to come from within. It is for the Hindus of the Hindu religion to sit down & discuss the issues arising out of the caste system that has been a drag on it over hundreds of centuries, has impacted it negatively & they should come up with a solution. Manu also told ‘Kaun(si)haya Kumar that the situation was changing slowly & was visible to a discerning eye. He told him that inter-caste marriages, for example, were taking place during Ramayana, Mahabharata & Vedic times & same is happening with more frequency even now & such changes are going to break down the barriers that existed earlier. He also told him that during the present times most of the Hindus are performing jobs that do not conform to the division of work enunciated earlier & it does not make them higher or lower caste. Today a large number of Hindus are working in service sector & does that make them any different from those working in other sectors. He asked Kaun(si)haya Kumar & his friends as to what locus-standi did they have in such matters when they are basically communists & as such issues of Hinduism should be left to Hindus to resolve. He asked his Muslim friends in the team to clarify first as to whether they were Muslims or Communists. Manu told them that they better take care of their own Religion first before talking of Hinduism. He enquired of them as to how can a Muslim be a Muslim & a Communist too. A Muslim who is also a Communist has basically gone ‘astray’ which is against the first chapter of the Holy Book of the Muslims.
He also asked him that since caste divisions were a bane then why they have also percolated & seeped into other religions, functionally, that propagate that they have more equality & fraternity within their ranks. For example why do you have Dalit Christians & Dalit Muslims too? They certainly are not my creation, he said, as these religions came on earth much later than ‘Manav Dharam’ or Hinduism as it is being now called. He looked out for ‘BD’, the TV journalist, & asked her, as to why the issues arising out of caste divisions within Islam & Christianity, which are peculiar to India alone, are not discussed on her TV channel. She was also asked as to why she does not write columns in newspapers about the caste practices being followed in these religions. ‘BD’ tried to argue agitatedly but Manu stopped her. He told her bluntly that she was discriminatory in targeting Hindus on her TV channel. He asked her that when she takes ‘wazwan’ in a Kashmiri Muslim marriage party does she allow her driver, ‘safai walla’ & her cook to partake food in the same ‘trami’. If she doesn’t then is she also not discriminating with them on the basis of their profession or may be ‘caste’.
He gave her another example of her biased reporting. He asked her as to if she has ever entered the sanctum sanctorum of ‘Dargah, Hazratbal’ in Srinagar, where she is a regular visitor. She said that that area is traditionally out of bounds for women & tried to brazen it out with Manu, but he had already been worked up because of her attitude. He asked her if traditionally that place is out of bound for women then why she tries to pick holes in such traditions of Hinduism alone & make them issues of individual & women freedom. Entry of women to all Hindu temples should be allowed, of course, but why discriminatory reporting. Why she considers tradition of one religion ‘good’ & similar tradition of other religion ‘bad’. Of course Hinduism needs to reform on such issues.
Meanwhile Kaun(si)haya Kumar was feeling unattended as the discourse had shifted between Manu & ‘BD’. He & his cohorts restarted shouting ‘hum ko kya chahiye aazadi…….’. Manu stopped them & asked them as to what they meant by aazadi? He asked them as to what more ‘aazadi’ they were aspiring or looking for? He told them that they already had more ‘aazadi’ than it is available in any other part of the world. Here they could shout, abuse, cast aspersions on individuals & groups without any proof or reason & still could get scot free. Kaun(si)haya Kumar tried to wriggle out of the situation & said that it was not him but some Kashmiri outsiders who had raised these slogans. Manu sternly asked him not to hide behind a smoke screen. He told him to be a man & admit what had actually transpired. He reminded him that such nefarious designs had already resulted in mayhem & bloodshed in 1947 & Kaun(si)haya Kumar should desist from siding with such elements.
Manu told Kaun(si)haya Kumar that reform of Hinduism, which is 80% of India’s population is possible only from within & not by burning books & raising slogans that harm the interests of the Indian nation. He told him that by raising slogans & resorting to other gimmicks he might become a political leader with a certain shelf life, but not a reformer & as time passes the fate of the down trodden will still remain unchanged even if he becomes the Prime Minister of the country.
To ‘BD’ he had a message. He told her that unbiased reporting is good for the Nation & the society, but when you are biased you lose your credibility & this is what has already happened with her.
He narrated an example from one of her interviews with Shri Jaggi Vasudev where she said that ‘Dalits have no Devtas’. Manu told her that though he does not subscribe to today’s idiom of ‘Dalits & Mahadalits’ & upper castes or ‘swarans’ as they were Manavs that he created & not today’s subdivisions based on one’s pedigree & divisiveness brought about by politics, but the ‘Devtas’ in Hinduism came to be known to a wider section of population through the works of none other than ‘Dalits’ like Saint Valmiki. Rama & Ramayan became life & soul of Hinduism because of Saint Valmiki. Ved Vyas, one of the most important pillars of Hinduism was born of Prashar Rishi & ‘Matasyagandha’- a fisherwoman. He systemized the four Vedas & authored Mahabharata. Ved Vyas wrote 18 ‘Puranas’ & ‘Brahama Sutras’ which are important texts of Hindu Religion. The holy book of Hindus, the Bhagwad Gita is a part of the Mahabharata written by Ved Vyasa. As such the ‘Devtas & Devis’ popularized by him are revered by every Hindu & not just by one section. So how can one say that there are no ‘Devtas’ for ‘Shudras’? Rishi Kamban, Matang & Vidur had pedigree that was not ‘swaran’, but they were the shining stars of Hinduism & contributed to its rich literature & religious traditions. The ‘Bhakti’ movement produced such saints like Chokhamela, Nandanar, Harichand Thakur, Guru Ravi Das, & many others who were revered & followed by every Hindu irrespective of his or her caste. He asked ‘BD’ that if the ‘Devtas & Devis’ of Hinduism were popularized by ‘Dalits’ than where is the question of them having separate ‘Devtas or Devis’. ‘Devtas & Devis’ in Hinduism are ‘Devtas & Devis’ for everyone in this creed. Manu asked ‘BD’ whether this question was as a result of her ignorance or a deliberate mischief to show Hinduism in bad light.
Manu’s message was clear: this country will attain greater heights only if Hinduism, that constitutes 80% of its population, is reformed & the cowebs that have chocked its interiors & blurred its exteriors are thoroughly dusted. Hinduism, otherwise, is a Religion that preaches pluralism, inclusiveness & has unmatched treasure of philosophy, culture & tradition to its credit. It is a religion that teaches ‘karuna & daya’ & does not preach conquests for spreading or imposing its thoughts over others. In the words of Shri Jaggi Vasudev, India has been a Nation of seekers & not followers through the ages & it is for this reason that they have not been conquerors. Hinduism has to & must reinvent itself for the 21st century & beyond.
Dear Ms. Barkha,
Sub: Barkha Dutt – Arnab Goswami & the stuff in between.
It was interesting to read your post regarding your recent standoff with Arnab Goswami. I am not as good an ‘English man’ as ‘English women’ you are for my English is poor but I am taking this liberty of writing an open letter to you under the ‘right to write freely’ . However there is one point from your post that struck me.
This one I quote directly from your post:
“This is about our fundamental right to report freely and honestly without being conveniently misrepresented as terror sympathizers or enemies of the Indian Army”.
And herein lies the rub.
What is it, Barkha, that today you & many more of your ilk are not considered to be a group of unbiased reporters / commentators / anchors of the media by a vast number of Indians?
Keep Arnab Goswami aside for a moment.
It is because your stories on militancy, militants & the role of security forces operating under the most difficult & trying circumstances is seen to be laced with an ideology & narrative that brinks on anti-Indianism & pro subversion. This is because you are seen & heard narrating only one side of the story. And when you talk of the ‘other side’ you again interpret the ‘others’ point of view conveniently to fan your own perceptions, agenda & ideology. Here you take up the role of a judge, lawyer & litigant & close the programme accordingly. Many a times keen watchers of your shows have noticed that you brusquely cut out a person who tries to narrate a story that is not in line with your own line of thinking or out of sync with ‘editorial policy’ of your TV channel. No problems on that either!!
The other part is about your narrative when it comes to atrocities on members of different communities in the country. I for one am against atrocities against anyone irrespective of his or her religion, caste, culture, sex, nationality or belief. I am against atrocities of every kind be they by the state / non-state actors, individuals or communities. Sight of children with pellets in their face & bodies in Kashmir are very uncomfortable for any human & especially for me as I lived substantial part of my life among them & these pictures make my soul churn for them. I can’t figure out as how to reach out to them or to their kith & kin & console them. This is the tragedy of Kashmir & such things happen in cycles & quite often, unfortunately.
I do not even know how to reach out to the security forces either whose personnel brave it day in & day out to keep this country safe. These people who are posted in Kashmir could be from “Punjab, Sindh, Gujrat, Marathwada, Dravid, Utkal, Banga, Vindhya ranges, Himachal & from the villages & cities on the banks of Yamuna & Ganga & from states that are located on the shores of the ocean”. They could be natives of J&K & North East too. They are there for no fault of theirs. They, their families & friends & all of us are suffering today because of non-foresighted decisions of the Indian leadership in 1947. Jinnah knew his mind & his goal & he achieved it without any major hiccups.
Though I did not have the ‘good fortune’ of studying at the Saint Stephens College, Delhi but I studied in one of the equally prestigious Christian Missionary Schools in Srinagar where I picked up the fundamental principles of equality & fraternity & imbibed the values of honesty, fair play & forthrightness. The foundation that was laid in this school turned me to be an “IN ALL THINGS BE MEN” individual & my basic tenet was & shall always remain to respect all humans irrespective of what denomination of the society they came from & who they were.
But even for a person like me who watched you & heard you on TV over so many years a feeling creeps in that your reporting of events is largely one sided & not fair.
My take, Barkha, is that whenever there are atrocities on Muslims or women or whosoever, report it honestly by all means but do not close your eyes when atrocities are committed on Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis & all other denominations who do not have the tact & wherewithal to handle you & the media you promote. When atrocities are committed in BJP ruled states on Muslims or ‘free thinkers’, liberals, believers or non-believers or anyone else of the like, report them honestly & without fear & hold as many ‘Buck Stops Here’ as possible but do the same when such acts are committed in states that are not ruled by BJP & its allies. If atrocities are committed against Muslims in any part of the country report them with whatever force that is available with you, but do not turn your eyes & TV cameras other way when same is happening with others. Atrocities on minority community or on majority community are abhor-able irrespective of their political or religious beliefs. To say that atrocities are not committed on majority community by people who matter is the biggest lie perpetuated by the media. Majority also suffers at the hands of the minority many a times & it goes unreported or not adequately reported. Not reporting of these issues is not fair play on the part of media
These are the honest feelings of a person who is a ‘common man’ & who has grown old seeing you on TV since the day you started your career in the media & at times watched you with a lot of admiration.
Smriti Irani was not off the mark when she asked of you in her interview to you in Amethi that why was the case of the rape victim of Kerala not raised with same intensity by you as you normally would have done had this incident happened in a BJP ruled state. And remember this young woman who died after the atrocious incident was from the most down trodden background & lived on the poorest of the poor conditions on the fringes of the society. Was she forgotten because reporting & orchestrating of the incident was not politically expedient & correct to you or your ‘well-wishers’ at that point in time.
Staying with Smiriti Irani. You did not answer her question directly when she asked you why the chopping off of the hands of the RSS worker in Kerala was not taken up seriously by media. RSS workers are Indians too though they may be thinking differently from you on many issues that relate to the philosophy & idea of India. How do you justify spending hours of your prime time deliberating on thugs & thieves of India & about lost buffaloes, that too repeatedly, but you do not have time to mention atrocities committed on an Indian with the ideology of whom you are not comfortable.
Recently Daya Shankar Singh abused Ms. Mayawati in the filthiest of languages for which he should of course be punished severely & brought to book. As a human being I felt ashamed of what he said. There was outcry & commotion & rightly so in the media & otherwise. In the Parliament Arun Jaitly had to ask Ms. Mayawati for pardon & forgiveness. However when the BSP leaders abused the wife & daughter of Daya Shankar Singh in the most inappropriate & shameful language did you stand up for the aggrieved women? Neither you (who calls herself a champion of women liberties, their rights & feminist) nor your media took any notice of such a shameful outburst by the BSP representative. Do you remember how you were questioning Smiriti Irani about her ‘failure’ to stand up for women when they were in distress or were being trolled? Where was your activism for these two hapless women. What was their fault if Daya Shankar Singh used filthy language?
You have covered Kashmir all your professional life & Kashmir has bestowed you with name, fame & prestige. May God bless you with more of name, fame & prestige. But have you never come across clusters of dilapidated houses, many of them turning into a heap, in village after village & town after town that were abandoned by Kashmiri Pandits during those tumults times of 1989/90 & thereafter. Have you never noticed their crumbling façade & pulled out doors & windows through which have grown trees & plants of various varieties & hues. Have you never thought of the fact that once upon a time they must have been inhabited by happy, merry & content living human beings? Have you never imagined that once upon a time they must have been throbbing households inhabited by families, elderly people, men & women & laughing & giggling children? Have you never come across crumbling door frames of these houses on the sidewalls of which are prints of faded palm marks of the bride & the bridegroom with flowery sketches, usually in white colour, gaily announcing ‘Ramesh weds Nancy’ or ‘Ashok weds Sarla’ with a WELCOME sign on top.
Did you ever ask yourself a question as to where these people have gone? Did you ever care to listen to the footsteps of the people on the crumbling & stinking staircases of these damaged & sometimes half burnt houses who must have enjoyed their springs, summers, autumn & winters in these places. People who must have shared their joys & sorrows together in these houses.
Did you ever ‘honestly & fearlessly’ prepare a TV programme exploring as to what happened to this proud & ancient ethnic community that vanished from the tracts of the Valley so suddenly. You certainly did some programmes on these unfortunate people but they were so shabbily made that it was clearly evident that they carried your biased mindset. You also tried to put Muslims against Kashmiri Pandits subtly but surely through your twisted & skewed narration & logic. The programmes were made shabbily, not because of your incompetence, but because you did not put in your heart & soul in them as you do for other programmes where you use intensely flamboyant part of your personality to make them real life experiences. These programmes were, to say the least, lip service / fill in the blanks & nothing else.
Having lived in Delhi for last few years I tried to make sure that I should witness the rallies that are so frequently held in Delhi on one issue or the other.This was my way of understanding India more closely. I attended AAP rallies (where my purse was pick pocketed), Anna Hazare rallies, earlier on, from which were born Kejriwal, Sisodia, Gen. V.K.Singh & Kiran Bedi (later two in their political ‘avtar’). I also witnessed the rally by Anupam Kher against people who thought that tolerance was their copy right. The experience about the media in this rally was startling. It seemed that the main stream English media had already made up their mind that they would prick holes in the sails of Anupam Kher’s rally. They had no intention of covering the rally but were engaged in infuriating the participants by their irrelevant & out of place & sometimes out of mind questions. When some of the participants complained about the migration from the Valley they were told that there was nothing so dangerous happening in the Valley (in 1989/90) that could have prompted them to flee. When the participants persisted with their narration they were told that we know it better than you do. The participants protested & tried to reason with the reporters that it is they who had lost their home & hearth & how come these 20 some age reporters are telling them that they know more than what the sufferers do. Instead of listening to them (forget sympathizing) the journalists were in fact negating what these people had gone through. Here the problem started & turned to full blown discussion with tempers rising on both the sides. By the time I reached home there was a fully blown up debate on TV channels about how the participants of Anupam Kher’s rally had abused & harassed the journalists. Come on guys & then you say you are holy cows!!!
So what Arnab Goswami is saying today is basically the voice of so many. Why do you feel surprised? It is not about gagging the media but about who is playing in whose hands & whose reportage is helping whom. It is also about knowing & trying to understand what actually the endgame is. And do not tell me that media & media men & women are all pious saints. They also are commercial entities after all.
You must remember that you have the unfettered freedom of reporting on anything, saying anything you like & are able to do so in this country of ours. At the cost of repeting I am again saying that this is our country, our country of close to 1.3 billion people. You are also free to report the way you want & practice what you like because of this country, called India & that too as it exists today. This freedom also comes to you naturally, as well as to all its inhabitants, because Hindus, whom you so much detest because of their ‘fault lines’, are in a majority. And in saying so I have no hesitation. Barkha, kindly think of a situation if this was not the case. Under those conditions you would have ended up like Tasleema Nasreen.
PS: And by the way Barkha you have still not forgotten Arnab Goswami for snatching the ‘exclusive’ interview of Rahul Gandhi from you & your channel way back in 2014 that was promised to you ‘voluntarily’ by Priyanka Nehru Gandhi Vadra!!!
You are pretty shrewd & intelligent; Madam & you need not be reminded that Nehru also promised plebiscite to Kashmiris ‘voluntarily’ as they were not actually looking for it at that moment in history. Plebiscite was never held*.
Hilarious, isn’t it Barkha!!! These are called the fault lines of Indian Media.Only the names change: Nehru to Priyanka Nehru Gandhi Vadra.
JAI HIND
*Obviously how do you hold it now?!
It was Oct 2006 when Shafat Ahmed copied to my computer a composition sung by Ustad Nusarat Fateh Ali Khan titled ‘Gorakhdhanda’. While doing so he cautioned me that this rendition could work either way. Turn me into an atheist or anchor me further in the belief of God.
This was half an hour of mystic romance. Subsequent charm and sense of exhilaration, surrender to the Almighty, which follows such renditions makes you feel closer to Him. The situation was ecstatic as the feeling of His overpowering presence was there but you could neither see Him nor touch Him. As has been very aptly described in the rendition, God is what He is only till the time there is feeling of His presence & He is beyond anyone’s reach for if you succeed in touching Him, He is no longer God but an idol. His Holiness & Greatness lies in our yearning for Him, more you yearn to come closer to Him further you are inclined to stay away from Him.
The words of Nusarat Fateh Ali Khan, their rendition, the magic of a smooth and seamless transition from one stratum of understanding and perception to another and references from where he has drawn his logic for making his point, very eloquently, left me and my family enthralled and consolidated our belief in God, thankfully.
It also brought me closer to the same old paradox as to how close we people are to each other in thought and in belief and yet how vehemently we deny this closeness. After all the Power that created this universe is One and absolute. This universe is one. The planets revolve around the same sun and in the same orbit. Our belief and point of view does not change the orbit of the moon on which it revolves around the earth. We are the inheritors of the same flora and fauna, rivers, lakes and oceans, mountains and forests and deserts, bequeathed to us by the same Universal Power, the God. We may name the Power differently but the Universal facts do not change. In our quest for the natural we normally resort to an uncharted un-natural path. And that is why the turmoil, dissatisfaction, trauma, rivalry and one-up- man ship comes to the fore.
Those who were able to understand the Universal Truth were normally men of peace and satisfaction was the natural outcome. They carried no material burden, neither for themselves nor for their ‘generation next’ but ultimately left an indelible mark on the society and the world at large. They were the saviours whom the world granted recognition subsequently and belatedly.
Isn’t it a paradox, referring to a couplet from ‘Gorakhdhanda’ that Messiah, who granted life to innumerable people had to die on a cross with God looking on the executioners without any immediate retribution? Grandchildren of the Prophet had to die in Karbala while God showed no signs of immediate mercy. And Lord Ram had to forgo coronation at Ayodhya and traverse the jungles of Bharat for fourteen long years facing insurmountable hardships and retribution. All these individuals are revered because they sought no material gains but stood by a philosophy and a principle. ‘Good’ was unqualified ‘good’ for them and ‘bad’ was an equally unqualified ‘bad’ for them.
As mentioned earlier, the ‘copying’ of ‘Gorakhdhanda’ on my computer by Shafat forced me to a quest of my own. A very minuscule step, but a step nonetheless.
I came across a composition called ‘Shiv Tandav Astotram’ written by none other than Ravana. Mention of Ravna does not arouse any feeling of surrender to God for he was the one who was considered to be the embodiment of all that was nefarious and evil. Ravana was highly educated and an intellectual in his own right knew all the four Vedas and was a staunch devotee of lord Mahadev. Shiv Tandav Astotram is a very valuable window into the mind of the person that he was.
Umpteen number of times, throughout the ‘astotra’, he has invoked the name of Lord Mahadev for providing him the material benefits of life. He implores Him to multiply his holdings and give stability to the possessions obtained by him – through means foul or fair. He ends the ‘astotram’ with the qualification that whoever recites this ‘astotram’ in the evening every day, he will be replenished with all worldly possessions of his time. Since chariots, horses, elephants and the like were the symbols of the elite of the time of Ravana he concluded that their number would increase manifold as well as his fixed assets will not only be protected but also enhanced with the blessings of Lord Mahadev.
However two stanzas stand apart from the rest. In these two stanzas a demon like Ravana also puts his hands up and surrenders to the Lord and wants to attain oneness with Him. Their translation, from Sanskrit – to the best of my ability, is reproduced here:
O’ Lord Mahadev, Give me strength and the insight:
Enabling me not to discriminate:
Between a rock on which I may have to sleep; or the royal bedding of my palace;
Between friends and foes; between kings and paupers;
Between valuable pearls and a pack of mud;
Between a snake and a necklace of precious stones;
(They should all be same to me;)
O’ Lord, my mind should stop these worldly discrimination while I am on my path to seek You.
O’ Lord Mahadev,
How I wish to forsake my perverted and negative thoughts; and come to a ‘nikunj’ (beautifully laid out & maintained gardens) on the banks of River Ganga;
With my hands folded over my head; with tearful & infatuated eyes seeking your ‘darshan’;
And pray Shiv Mantra so that I am able to achieve Bliss.
In the final analysis even Ravana was looking for peace and bliss. A paradox, considering that he had all bounties of life at his disposal, power to conquer people and nations at will as also a Palace, made up of gold, in Sri Lanka. Peace still evaded him.
Compare this with translation of a stanza from ‘Devya-Apradh-Khyamapan Astotram’ by Shankracharya:
O’ Mother; Graceful as the Moon;
Neither am I interested in Salvation, nor in the materialism of this world;
Science does not interest me; nor do I desire comfort;
Only request I have, and that may please be granted, is;
My life should pass with thy name on my lips – always.
Shankracharya did seek for anything for himself but was still at peace with himself. In fact he continued to propagate the new doctrine enunciated by Adi Shankracharya.
As already mentioned Ravana was a mighty king and had all comforts of his life but peace eluded him & on the other hand Shankracharya was a sanyasi, with no material possessions but even in his prayers he did not seek any material gains for himself. He was comfortable & satisfied with whatever he had.
This world is a mystery and more one tries to unravel it the more complicated it gets. It also brings us to the same initial point as to how this universe maintains its equilibrium and what is the Power that keeps it going day in and day out. How are we judged by the Power that is in our entire daily chore? How are we judged throughout 24x365xlife span days? There are no easy answers.
However, Mahatama Vashisth has summarized it very aptly. He summarized it to Bharat, the younger brother of Lord Rama, when he returned to Ayodhya from his maternal grandparent’s house to find that King Dashrath was no more and Sita, Ram & Lakshaman had already left for the jungles for fourteen years exile. Bharat and Shatrughan were inconsolable.
What Vashisth told Bharat, translated from Goswami Tulsi Das’s Ramayana is something like this:
“Listen O’ Bharat; Destiny has the final say and I am saying this with a very heavy heart; (very heavy heart because Ayodhya was in mourning after the death of King Dashrath & exile to Lord Ram, his wife Sita & Lakhshman);
Loss, Gain, life or death: fame or infamy is one’s own destiny – all in the hands God.”
These words from a saint, who only some time earlier had finalized an auspicious day for the coronation of Rama to the throne of Ayodhaya, laid bare the facts about the realm of the unknown.
Though lord Krishana, subsequently, modified it further and laid emphasis on the need and culture of good work for the betterment of ourselves as individuals and the society in general. He said that result of such work should be left to God for individuals don’t have any control on the outcome of an effort. For example: who would have been the victor if it had not rained at Waterloo during that famous battle?
Qawalli by Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan emphasizes this paradox time and again. He refers to quest for the Ultimate Truth by people who gave up everything earthly for this quest and yet were not able to access the Reality or realize it. They found Him to be omnipresent but available only to those who could fine tune their body and soul. He is benevolent and is so large that He occupies all the space in the universe, yet is available in the smallest corner of the heart of the poor, meek and the downtrodden. He is also available in the corners of the dwellings of the people who have been rejected and persecuted by the materialistic world. He is there in your own heart if you are capable of listening to Him carefully.
It is again a paradox that this universe with forests, mountains and skies as also oceans, deserts and rivers as also flora and fauna, fruits, vegetables and corn as also herbs, shrubs and multitude of people has been created by Him to make His presence felt but He is still invisible and remains shrouded in mystery and stays aloof. Human being has been created by Him as a deputy of His own, in his own image, but when it comes to matters of execution of decisions of us the humans; it is His Will that ultimately prevails.
Hence a ‘Gorakhdhanda’
Shri Shankracharya in his composition ‘Shiv Panchakhsharya Astotram’ refers to Lord Shiva as a ‘Digambar’ meaning thereby that He is shrouded by the infinite limits of the universe. These are the limits that cannot be accessed or reached. I find this definition to be very interesting. This is such a unique shroud that can be stretched further & further based upon enlightenment one achieves. The boundaries are infinite. The closer one comes to the boundary, the further it extends.
These boundaries pose a challenge to the humans to understanding the Truth. We look at the earth, sky and the sun and the planets & galaxies and try to make an effort to understand the omnipresence of God & it is again a paradox that though we are looking for Him elsewhere He is available always with you – in your very heart.
However, ultimate surrender to Him and His will is the best and the only way to realize Him. That is the solution to the problems of this world as well as individuals. That is why I am bent on my knees with folded hands and eyes cleansed with tears & am pleading to Him to remove this thin veil that is keeping us apart. I beseech Him to remove this veil for not too long but only for an infinitesimal fraction of a second so that ‘Darshan’ / ‘Didar’ is possible and minuscule possible communication is established.
Thanks, Shafat, for providing ‘Gorakhdhanda’ to me.
We lived in Srinagar.
For us the Bund, Polo ground & Emporium gardens were like our own back yard. I learnt walking in Polo Ground & the Emporium Gardens. So did our daughter. Emporium gardens, with the backdrop of Shankracharya hill, especially during the spring time would be fascinating, with Chinar trees providing cover from the skies above. Natural growth of innumerable white daisy flowers on the grounds of this garden would always overawe me, as they do even today.
My parents, brother & sister, neighbours & guests would often visit these parks whenever the weather in Kashmir would get hot, by Kashmir standards, in summer. Cool breeze of these magnificent & open places would provide the much needed relief. Today all these places are cramped.
As I grew up, one of my fascinating hobbies was to walk on the bund from Abi Guzar to the Zero Bridge & back. River Jehlum provided an exhilarating backdrop to my walks. Bund was much more spacious & well maintained then. The small Shia mosque on the bund was always fascinating which during those days was an open wooden platform under a canopy of Chinar trees protruding onto the river side. Ahdoos Hotel, Pestonji Building (now a huge mall) along with the white wooden horse & the Lloyd’s bank (now J&K Bank) were the other remarkable land marks. The forecourt of Capt. Prakash’s dental clinic & the Srinagar Club, which again had a wooden jetty extending on to the river side, were other fascinating places.
From the Lloyd’s bank you could take a ‘shikara’ ride & cross the river Jehlum to reach the other side right in front of the Convent School.
During my lonely walks or walks with friends & later with my wife & subsequently with our daughter too (in a pram of course) we came across a poor ‘Gujjar’ gentleman, who would make his living by asking alms in the name of Allah from the passers-by. He had very sharp & distinct feature. He would sit in front of the Lloyd’s bank on a worn out jute mat looking for alms. This person was not a Kashmiri & to my understanding was either from Rajouri or Poonch. Every time we passed by him he would ask for one rupee as ‘bakshish’ from us. We too got habitual of him & would normally give him one rupee whenever we passed by. He was a pleasing personality with longish beard & trimmed moustaches in Muslim Gujjar style & would wear a white “pugri (turban)” tied in a circular shape on to his head. As time passed he also started keeping an account of our absence from walks, which was not very often & on subsequent dates he would ask us for the ‘arrears too’ saying that he had not received one rupee on a particular Thursday or Saturday or may be a Sunday. We also thought it better to keep him happy & would dispense with whatever calculations & amount he would ask for. So, our world on the bund was happy & mesmerizing & his world too seemed to be happy as he would always greet us with a very broad smile, ask us about our welfare, and then extend out his hand expecting a rupee. Occasionally, the convent school going girls, passers-by or shikarawallas would also drop a few coins into his extended hand.
And then the things started changing. Unknown to anyone, Kashmir was changing and tragically was not going to be the same again. Militancy started raising its head & knocking on the doors of the Kashmiris. Rapidly it became a movement, right or wrong, I leave it for the future historians to judge. Till date, however, it has caused mayhem & much of the blood has been shed of poor & innocent people. At the same time a lot many people have made it a thriving ‘business’. The death, the tragedy, the mayhem & the ‘business’ are all visible to a discerning eye, an eye that has seen various phases of Kashmir politics, the happy ones & the tragic ones too . Innumerable people have died & many more have lost their home & hearth. So many people have been crippled.
Kashmir is a unique place in the world where scars of militancy & economic development have more or less kept pace with each other.
Soon things started getting scary. Large scale violence, killings, firing, blasts, massive protests, shut downs & curfews became an everyday affair. Nights became scarier with loudspeakers from practically all mosques in the Valley simultaneously exhorting people to rise & join in the ‘struggle’. For them their ‘deliverance’ was expected to be the ‘very next day’. Every section of Kashmiri society was impacted. Our walks on the bund became infrequent. We preferred to stay home & that too in some corner where ‘nobody’ would ‘find us’. And one particular day, when I did venture out alone, I found that our acquaintance of such a long time had vanished from the bund, leaving his torn out jute mat behind. I was worried & not sure as to what had happened to him. This was early 1990.
Time passed, unprecedented things happened in Kashmir over a period of time & we found ourselves in Jammu.
This was 1992.
Summer had started making its presence felt. Me, my brother in law & one of our friends got down from matador bus near Vivekananda Chowk in Jammu on our way to Residency Road. We walked past the bifurcation point of the road that leads to Raghu Nath Temple & another in the direction of Kum Kum Sharma’s pathological lab. There was heavy rush of traffic. ‘Durbar’ was still in Jammu & there was a huge rush of people. People from every ethnicity of J&K together with ‘migrants’, those had arrived from Kashmir, could be seen on this stretch of the road. Some ‘migrants’ from Kashmir could be heard bemoaning their plight & others drying their forehead with handkerchiefs & towels. And mind you summer had not actually arrived in Jammu yet. One of the common discourse of the ‘migrants’ those days was that they owned multi-storeyed houses in Kashmir with orchards or beautifully laid out lawns where as in Jammu they were living like beggars in torn out tents provided by the Government. They would talk about it, which actually was true, without bothering if anyone was listening to them or not. You could hear this talk while travelling in buses, while shopping in market place or where ever you would find a group of people discussing something. I thought this was their way of telling people that they were from well to do backgrounds & were not always like this. This was their way of asserting their identity. This was something like a child, who got admission to a new school, telling his classmates that he was a brilliant & friendly person with so many credentials to his credit.
We too were feeling uncomfortable with the heat & dust of Jammu & that too walking up the slope of this road.
From a distance, sitting under the shade of one of the buildings I saw a familiar figure. I tried to figure out who this was. He saw me too. He got up, came running towards me, stretched his hand out to shake mine & flung his arms to embrace me. It was unbelievable, we were in total embrace. My friend & brother-in-law were bewildered at the sight of a beggar embracing me & me responding too in an equal measure. For them it was an unkempt & untidy beggar embracing me but for two of us we were long lost friends of the Bund Srinagar. They could neither understand it , comprehend it, or believe it. Some passers-by also gathered around us for some moments as if trying to be a witness to the scene.
The same ‘Gujjar’ gentleman, with whom we had developed some sort of friendship while taking walks on the Bund, Srinagar was in total embrace with me & we were hugging each other. Tears swelled in his eyes. He was wearing the same ‘pugri’, wearing the same beard & moustaches & had similar worn out jute mat under his feet. He had same twinkle in his eyes. He enquired about the welfare of my wife & daughter & all other family members. He was pleased to know that all was fine with us & praised Allah several times for his mercy. I asked about him & his family. He had no family.
He told me that during one of the very violent demonstrations in the Srinagar city, during the month of January, he was lucky to have escaped from his perch on the Bund. There was firing somewhere & all hell broke loose. He had to run for his life. He had to walk several kilometres to reach the other side of Jawahar Tunnel to safety. From Banihal he could find a bus that brought him to Jammu. While escaping the Valley he had to pass through or sometimes alongside the demonstrators & many a times walk on the roads that were completely empty because of curfew restrictions. He was thoroughly frisked by security forces at several places & non availability of an identity card did not make things easy for him. He also heard sound of gun shots & blasts at several places during his journey to Banihal. In some places he was able to get a lift in auto or pickup van from some kind hearted people for short distances. Some policemen too gave him a lift in their jeep for short hauls.
After narrating his story he squatted on to his torn out jute mat once again, extended his hand out & once again started asking for ‘bakshish’ in the name of Allah!!! How could have I disappointed him. How could I have disappointed him, this ‘Gujjar’ friend of mine, my old acquaintance & well-wisher from the Bund, Srinagar.
Amarnath cave is one of those serene places where you can feel the presence of God. This place detaches you from the world & makes you feel at peace with nature. It was an exhilarating experience when we (me, my wife & our daughter) went there on a pilgrimage in 1998. The cave is located at around 12700 feet in the Kashmir Valley. This cave finds mention in the Rajtarangni, by Kalhan, the great book on the history of Kashmir. Amarnath cave has two routes, one via Pahalgam & the other via Baltal. Route from Baltal is shorter & you can go up to the cave & come down to the base camp on the same day with enough time to spare at the cave & witnessing the wonders of nature en-route. On the day of our visit the ‘Snow Shiva Lingam’ was fully formed & you could practically feel the footfalls of the ‘yogis’ who might have travelled to this place over thousands of years in search of peace & tranquillity. Swami Vivekananda is also understood to have come to this cave.
In 2008 this cave & the yatra became a political issue in the Valley as the ‘Amarnath Shrine Board’ that looks after the management of Amarnath yatra was denied a plot of land for constructing temporary dwellings for the pilgrims who travel to this place from all over India for ‘darshan’ of the Holy Cave & ‘Shiva Lingam’. J&K State was on the boil for considerable period of time.
These were tumults times, which are not a rarity in J&K.
It was during this period that a colleague of mine called me up in Jammu from Srinagar to meet a renowned environmentalist of the Valley, in Jammu, with a request to help our organization in getting environmental clearances for a newly up-coming transmission line in the Valley. The gentleman is no longer in this world & as such I am not disclosing his identity.
I reached the house of the environmentalist in Jammu & as the luck would have it he had just arrived from New Delhi & was shuffling into his house with his baggage. It was a hot day & the gentleman, an elderly person, was not in a good mood partly because of the summer heat of Jammu & partly because of my unannounced visit to his residence. I introduced myself to him & he seemed not particularly happy with my name nor with the organization was I working for. This I came to realize later that he presumed that I was an outsider, person not from J&K state, working with the power sector utility that did not belong to J&K State. However, I must add here, to put the record straight that this was my first & last encounter of this kind in J&K state to which I actually belong.
At the outset he rubbed me on the wrong side by telling me that I was talking about environmental clearances for my project but was not even bothered about the environmental degradation taking place in the Sindh Valley & right up to the Amarnath cave because of Amarnath Yatra. I tried to reason with him but he was in no mood to listen.
I thought that my case for environmental clearance for my project is probably now entangled to the Amarnath Yatra row & I may not get anything out of this meeting & in fact it might prove to be counterproductive.
But then the environmentalist also started speaking in rather ‘tough language’ against the agitation launched in Jammu region of J&K for non-provision of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board Trust in the Valley for housing the pilgrims. He also spoke about the intransigent attitude of the Hindus from Jammu & rest of the country in this context. I was taken aback. I was not prepared for this diatribe. I knew J&K state & Kashmir Valley very well & I thought that this issue would also blow off over a period of time.
In my heart I also started wondering as to why religion eventually becomes a reason for division between humanity & communities. All religions of the world speak of one God, however when it comes to the crunch every one speaks about a competitive God, Who is deemed to be their own personal property with intransigent copyrights on that. In the lay man’s language, as per this philosophy, Hindus should be having their own God with similar claims by Christians & Muslims on a God of their own. And imagine if every religion had its own God really than what would happen if the Gods of different religions started claiming proprietary rights on the resources of the universe. As an example, Hindu God initiates a claim on the sun or the moon & the other Gods belonging to different religions start initiating claims on Venus, Mercury, Moon, Jupiter etc. Does it really happen? Sun, moon & the stars shine for everyone alike irrespective of whether they are from one religion or the other. Trees give fruits to everyone & rivers do not ask for the religion of a person for providing water for irrigation of fields. Hinduism, as a philosophy, does not say that their God is the greatest. It, in fact, says that there is only one God though the paths for reaching Him could be different. It is for this reason that you have highly acclaimed saints in Hinduism, Islam & Christianity as well as all other similar denominations of the world. These people realized God by following a path of their own choosing, not through any kind of competition.
Coming back to my discussions with the environmentalist in Jammu who was still not happy with my presence in his house & who was trying to give environmental issue a religious twist I requested him to provide me a piece of paper & a pencil. I requested him to sit down. I placed the piece of paper on a table located in between us & drew two points on this sheet of paper, separated from each other by about three inches. In between these two points I drew a balloon. The environmentalist sat intently looking at my drawing, a very simple one he murmured. I told him that the point on the left represented the time of birth of a person in this world & the point on the right represented the time of his departure to his ‘heavenly abode’. Before the time of the birth of an individual & after his death no one till date has come up with a scientific clue as to what was there for him before his birth & what was going to happen to him after his death. The balloon in the drawing represented the only ‘quality time’ an individual had in this world to prove himself, in whatever field he wanted to. I told him that from the time of the birth of an individual he is brought up with a perception of this world & the world beyond (before his birth & also about the world after his death) based upon the religion into which he is born, in the selection of which he has no role. It is a pure accident or an incident, if you like, that a person is born in a family that is Hindu, Muslim, Christian or any other denomination.
So for a Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or Jain it is ‘Karma’ of his previous birth & incremental good or bad things he does in the existing life that defines his destiny. For a Muslim, Jew or a Christian birth is a fact of life. For the religions that were born in India a person may find his place in hell or heaven depending upon how he spends his life on this earth during the period he lived here & may also find a place alongside God & may never be reborn if the sum total of his good deeds crosses a certain benchmark determined by God. For religions that were born in the Middle East it is the philosophy of ‘dooms day’ or the ‘day of judgement’ when ‘it is presumed’ that all the dead would rise again & will be assessed on the basis of their deeds in the world & then dispatched to heaven or hell as per the judgement of the Angels Hafaza.
I told the environmentalist that all these philosophies are based upon the perceptions that a man or woman gathers during his life in the ‘balloon’ between the two points of birth & death. All good deeds or bad are performed during the period between these two points. It is your choice alone to choose the kind of life you want to lead. Lord Rama, Lord Krishana, Jesus Christ, Guru Nanak, Guru Gobind Singh, The Prophet & Buddha chose a life that had a profound impact upon the human society & in many ways elevated it to a new high as per the bench mark of the times in which they lived. They were such great people that millions upon millions of people still follow the path shown by them even after thousands of years of their passing away. I believe that we are not even a speck of dust of their feet to make any comment on these people.
But then why do we bring in competition between these great souls. Who are we to say that who is great & whose God is greater than that of the other when primarily there is only one God? The environmentalist was not impressed.
Sensing this I told him that, finally, I had a very mundane question for him. I asked him that if during the period of the ‘quality life’ that a man spends on this earth a Hindu decides to convert to Islam & than what is the end going to be for him? Would he be reborn, as he was a Hindu by birth or will he wait for the day of judgement for his final deliverance? Similarly if a Muslim converts to Hinduism (the chances of which are very remote) during the course of his life on this earth, will his deliverance be subject to the principle of the ‘day of judgement’ or will he be reborn as per Hindu philosophy as per the law of ‘karma’? And I told him that whatever perception we might have, but there is no way of confirming the future of the departed as he never comes back to tell his part of the story. He protested & said that a Muslim, a convert or naturally born, shall face the day of judgement. I said it is a perception that Muslims are taught & they grow up with. Similarly Hindus too grow up with a perception that they have been taught & eventually grow up with. That perception is the theory of ‘Karma’.
There was total silence in the room in which we were sitting. I thought that the temperature of the room & Jammu city had risen alarmingly.
I picked up my papers, bade the gentleman a goodbye, the response was almost cold & I left for my office, thinking that the environmental clearance for my project is almost doomed.
After a few months this gentleman called me up. Somehow he seemed to have retained my visiting card. I was surprised beyond belief when he informed me that the environmental clearance for our project had been granted. Today when I remember him I do salute him from the core of my heart.
When you are 60+ years & retire from “active life”, so to say, you notice that you have so much to share from your reminiscences. Well, some say that no one is willing to listen to an old man. I am not sure about that yet.
From my memory, I recall two incidents in my life when I was confronted on Hindu religion & its beliefs. Not that I was only confronted twice, but these two were challenges in which I could have faced a checkmate. That would not have been a happy situation for me & for the religion in which I was born, which I follow in my own liberal manner & of which I am very proud. In any case liberalism is the core of Hinduism. Hinduism does not believe in a regimented society. There is nothing like going to prayers, in Hinduism, let us say, on every Tuesday. Concept of One God is the core of the religion but you are free to worship any of its formations & creations. That is why the phrase “Aatma is Paramatma”
Coming back to the reminiscences of the two incidents, the first one was in Kullu & the second one was in Jammu.
Here I will conclude my first incident & follow it up with a second one later.
I was posted in Kullu for closer to a year with the assignment of acquiring land for an electric substation so that evacuation of power from Parbati projects was enabled. It was not an easy task as for the past three years or so; no one from our organization was allowed to inspect or visit the land, by a very vociferous section of villagers. Land was to be acquired through a process called ‘land acquisition’ under a legal frame work. In this process the Deputy Commissioner, Additional Commissioner & staff of his office were involved. As such regular interaction with them was a part of my job.
One day a meeting was fixed by the Collectors office & I reached the office at the scheduled time. I did not find the Collector in his office however the Additional DC & his staff were already there. I walked into the chamber of the Additional Commissioner where some people were already seated. I asked about the availability of the Collector & I was told that he shall be available in a few minutes. In a continued process of ‘dissipation of information’ the Additional DC told me that the Collector was a God fearing man & he would go to a particular temple before coming to the office. In the same breath he told me that he himself did not believe in idol worship & also ‘inferred loudly’ that me being a ‘Brahmin’ too I would also be an idol worshiper. The gentleman himself was a Hindu.
All of a sudden the environment took a very different turn & I was in a fix. I was not expecting a question like this at the office of the collector in my wildest dreams. I was also in a fix as to whether I should reply him or leave the issue & confine myself to the ‘higher goal’ of ‘land acquisition’ sheepishly. Since the statement was made in public, to the amusement of many, I thought it prudent to make my point. I told the Additional Collector that since the forum in which we were sitting was not an appropriate one to discuss this issue so I would reserve my right to reply & would reply to his ‘loud thinking’ surely & certainly.
Soon after the DC came & the meeting started & the ADC was told by the DC to visit the site where we intended to construct the substation.
The ADC told me to join him in his car & no sooner did I take my seat beside him he asked me to spell out what was on my mind about ‘idol worship’& the question he had asked me in his office.
My mind immediately scanned Hinduism for a while. I was not sure as to what should he be told as the ADC’s annoyance could jeopardise my project as he was a very critical link in the ‘acquisition process of land’ for the substation. This is, generally, how Hindus start thinking once faced with a tricky situation. I told him that I was a ‘Brahmin’ by birth but not actually a ‘Brahmin’ in the actual sense of the word as my job profile had nothing ‘Brahmanical’ about it. I told him that the same was true of every other Hindu in the world today. However, I asked him as to how he considered Hinduism to be rooted in such a narrow & restricted concept that worshiping an idol or not would be considered as a pass or fail test for Hindus, or how this could be considered to be a touchstone of faith for a practising Hindus.
My mind raced over millions of humans who call themselves Hindus in a very broad sense of the word & yet follow their own path to realize the Ultimate without wearing any visible sign of Hinduism on them. They may wear a holy thread or not, may keep a ‘choti’ or not, wear a ‘tilak’ in so many varied designs & colours or may not, may wear a ‘pugri (turban)’, cap (both of varied designs) or not or may generally remain bare headed, may wear a beard & moustache or not, could be vegetarians or meat eaters or may be vegetarian on certain days & non vegetarian on others, burn their dead or may be bury them. They could worship nature, trees, plants, animals, rivers, oceans, mountains, clouds or any other creation of God. They could even worship humans in whom they would find similarities with God, as conceptualized by them over a period of time, since their birth. They could pray to God with their eyes closed or may be open, squatting on floor, sitting in a chair, dancing joyously or in any other way which they thought fit for accessing the Ultimate. Obviously they worship idols & some of them don’t. These concepts might have taken root from the stories they might have heard from their parents, grand-parents and friends or by simply reading books & probably, in recent times, watching serials on TV channels & information provided by inter net & social networking sites. They might even worship every human as His manifestation without batting an eyelid.
They are Hindus, still, irrespective of whether they go to temples, mosques, ‘dargahs’, ‘peer babas’, gurudwaras or churches. Today you see more Hindu’s in attendance at the ‘mazars’ of ‘peer babas’ on every Thursday than Muslims, for example. They would go to all these religious places with the same reverence as they would go to their own Hindu temples. However they would stick to the basic precepts of Hinduism.
And all of them are Hindus.
All these ideas were racing through my mind & than a thought of Lord Shiva, Shankar Mahadev, electrified my mind. Lord Shiva is one of those concepts of Hinduism which portrays Him to be so easy to please & at the same time so much full of anger. He is angry when he feels that something has been vitiating the peaceful atmosphere & the environment. Happiness & anger for him are like ‘1’ & ‘0’, binaries, of the modern digital age. The Lord in His pristine glory has been visualized by the poets, painters, dancers & scholars, both Vedic & present, as a figure with long knotty dishevelled hair, with Ganga falling from the skies on to His head. He stands with his feet firmly apart & body fully balanced & anchored to the ground to be able to bear the thrust of a huge column of water falling on His head. He is in rapt attention. He has poisonous snakes entwined to His neck & other parts of the body, a garland made up of ‘Rudraksh beads’, a new moon resting comfortably on His head as if unaware of the happenings. He has scorpions & leeches wandering around Him, but He is unmindful of all these. They are His playthings.
His throat is blue from the effect of the poison He drank to save mankind while the ‘oceans were being churned’ for their goodies. Under these stressful conditions His companion, the ‘Nandi Gan’, stands firmly with Him & does not want to leave the side of His Master. Lord Mahadev holds His trident in His one Hand & in the other is the “kamandal”, the signs of not taking things lying down & ‘tyag’ – foregoing everything that is worldly.
Well, is Lord Mahadeva, a physical form or manifestation of the Himalayas that provide & sustain life in the country called India? There doesn’t seem to be a dividing line & if at all there is one it is obscure & un-discernable. The Himalayas carry the Ganges through the knotted growth of mighty trees, plants, foliage, herbs, shrubs & flora. Thousands of species of animal & plant life thrive on this creation of nature. Nandi, the bull, companion of the Lord, lives in the same jungles though it is one of the most vulnerable species of the forest. If these jungles were not there the eroded soil from the mountains because of Ganga & innumerable streams & rivers would have filled up the plains of India further down & converted them to virtual desert. Thus this creation of nature further impacts & controls the lives of people in a positive way that live in the plains of India. Moon, full or in any other phases of its periodic appearance, is most beautiful when viewed in the backdrop of the mighty Himalayas. It is unimaginable as to what India would have looked like if Himalayas were not there.
Hence, for Hindus, there is no distinction between the Himalayas & Lord Shankar Mahadev. Thus, how does it matter whether one prays to His image or to this mighty creation of Mother Nature? Both are splendid. That is why millions of Hindus throng the Himalayas, year after year, for having a ‘darshan’ of Lord Shiva at Amarnath, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri, Yamanotri & Kailash-Mansarovar. They carry water, in bottles or any other vessel at their disposal, from the Holy Ganga flowing through Gangotri, Varanasi, Haridwar & Allahabad to Rameshwaram, thousands of kilometres away, to be poured over the Shiva Lingam consecrated & installed by Lord Ram thousands of years ago.
This narrative to the ADC sitting beside me was enthralling. I told him that with this vastness & depth of the philosophy of Hinduism where does the question of praying to idols or not arise. It is a religion that comes very naturally to humans. There is an overwhelming overlap between Hinduism & nature, the creation of God.
I narrated to him a story of Kagbhushandi from the Ramayana.
Ramayana has a character named Kagbhushandi, a crow. He is considered to be narrating Ramayana to the animal world in the same way as Lord Shiva is narrating it to Parvati & Yagyavalik to a congregation of saints. Kagbhushandi was a naughty boy, in an earlier birth under the tutelage of a renowned & well-read teacher. The teacher was a ‘gyani’ in his own right. Kagbhushandi was very intelligent, but always thought that he had better understanding of scriptures & religion than the old & renowned teacher. He had, over a period of time developed contempt for his own ‘guru’.
One day Kagbhushandi was praying to Lord Shiva in a temple & was sitting in front of a Shiva Lingam when his teacher also entered this temple. Kagbhushandi, proud of his own self, did not greet the guru & in fact showed signs of contempt for him. Lord Shankar was annoyed. He was so furious that He repudiated Kagbhushandi to the hearing of the ‘guru’ & asked him as to what was the reason of his pride. How come, He said, you show such contempt for such a renowned & humble scholar who has all the love for you in spite of your misbehaviour. He cursed him that since you continued to sit like a cobra while your teacher entered the temple you should turn into a cobra for all your life.
On hearing the curse from Lord Shiva to his favourite, but naughty & haughty disciple, the ‘guru’ was shaken. He thought that the punishment handed over to Kagbhushandi was far in excess of his misdeed. But what could the guru do? He sat down with his folded hands, in the temple, in front of Shiva Lingam, an idol & went into deep prayers. He requested the Lord that the punishment be waived off from his pupil & the prayer came to be called ‘Rudrashtkam’.
Through this prayer the ‘guru’ beseeches Lord Shiva to excuse his student. Sitting in front of the ‘shiv lingam’, an idol in the temple, he prays that O Lord, who is omnipresent, the root cause of the universe, beyond comprehension & shapeless, without an alternative, all knowing, creator & destroyer kindly pardon the mistakes of my ‘shishya’.
What must be noted here is that the ‘guru’ is sitting in front of ‘shiva lingam’, an idol, but in his prayer speaks about the vastness & shapelessness of God, the omnipresent one. This is the greatness of Hinduism. This is the philosophy. It is surprising that we get into an unnecessary debate about idol worship or not. Unfortunately we get into so many other debates about Hinduism without really understanding it.
The prayer of the ‘guru’ is accepted by Lord Shiva & He says that the curse cannot be reversed, however Kagbhushandi shall have the choice of timing as to when he wants to forsake the existing form of his body & take whichever new shape he wanted with all knowledge of the previous births intact.
It is with this prayer that I closed my discussion with the ADC.
He stayed to be pretty helpful in my official duties & the land of the substation was eventually handed over to us after the due process of law.
JAGMOHAN SHARMA 