http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu05...00.htm#Contents

Science, hegemony and violence

Table of Contents

A Requiem for Modernity

Edited by

ASHIS NANDY

THE UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY
TOKYO, JAPAN

DELHI
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS
1988

The United Nations University's Programme on Peace and Global Transformation was a major world-wide project whose purpose was to develop new insights about the interlinkages between questions of peace, conflict resolution, and the process of transformation. The research in this project, under six major themes, was co-ordinated by a 12-member core group in different regions of the world: East Asia, South-East Asia (including the Pacific), South Asia, the Arab region' Africa, western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, and Latin America. The themes covered were: Conflicts over Natural Resources; Security, Vulnerability, and Violence; Human Rights and Cultural Survival in a Changing Pluralistic World; The Role of Science and Technology in Peace and Transformation; The Role of the State in Peace and Global Transformation; and Global Economic Crisis. The project also included a special project on Peace and Regional Security.

Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP

The United Nations University
Toho Seimei Building, 15-1 Shibuya 2-chome
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150, Japan

© The United Nations University, 1988

Printed in India by P. K. Ghosh at Eastend Printers, 3 Dr Suresh Sarkar Road, Calcutta 700014 and published by S. K. Mookerjee, Oxford University Press YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110001

Contents

Preface

1. Introduction: Science as a reason of state

Notes

2. Francis Bacon, the first philosopher of modern science: A non-western view

Notes

3. Science, colonialism and violence: A luddite view

Notes

4. Atomic physics: The career of an imagination

Notes

5. Violence in modern medicine

Notes

6. Science and violence in popular fiction: Four novels of Ira Levin

Notes

7. Reductionist science as epistemological violence

Notes

8. On the annals of the laboratory state

Notes

Contributors



1. Introduction: Science as a reason of state

Notes

ASHIS NANDY

The thinking person cannot but notice that since the Second World War, two new reasons of state have been added to the traditional one of national security. These are science and development. In the name of science and development one can today demand enormous sacrifices from, and inflict immense sufferings on, the ordinary citizen. That these are often willingly borne by the citizen is itself a part of the syndrome; for this willingness is an extension of the problem which national security has posed over the centuries.

Defying protests by (and to the mortification of) pacifists and anti-militarists, a significant proportion of ordinary citizens in virtually every country have consistently and willingly died for king and country. There are already signs that at least as large a proportion of citizens is equally willing to lay down their lives heroically for the sake of science and development. In 1985, one Japanese doctor praised the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for the indirect benefits they have brought to Japan. In an election held soon after the gas tragedy in 1984, the affected citizenry of Bhopal returned the same regime to power that shared the responsibility for the disaster. Likewise, demands for new steel mills and large dams often come from the very regions and sectors in the third world which are most likely to be the first victims of industrialization.

What are the sources of such commitment to the development of science, and the science of development? Can one identify and challenge the philosophical and ideological framework within which the commitment is located? Can one not go beyond shedding tears copiously over the misuse of modern science by wicked politicians, militarists and multinational corporations, and scrutinize the popular culture and philosophy of modern science? May the sources of violence not lie partly in the nature of science itself? Is there something in modern science itself which makes it a human enterprise particularly open to co-optation by the powerful and the wealthy?

These questions have been with us ever since Archimedes devised new weapons for his city state with the hope that they would remain the monopoly of his country and not also become the property of the ungodly. But the questions had a different ring for a long, long time. From the halcyon days of Archimedes to the heady days of early colonialism, science was primarily an instrument, not an end; certainly not the end of any nation or state. Even the states which drew the most handsome economic dividends from the discoveries of modern science and technology, or justified global dominance by referring to their scientific and technological power - I have in mind the nineteenth century colonial powers - did not see science as a reason of state. The reader may remember popular anecdotes about colonial adventurers, or scientifically-minded explorers who sometimes scared off or impressed the natives of Asia and Africa with new forms of black magic based on the discoveries of modern science. The civilizing mission of colonialism thrived on this folklore of encounter between western science and savage superstitions. But in each such instance, it was science that was put to the use of the colonial state; the state was not put to the use of science.

The nature of science has since then changed, and so has the nature of human violence. We are concerned in this volume with these changes and their interrelationships. It is the contention of the essays put together here that these changes can be understood with reference to the mediatory role played by the modern nation-state, the invitation which the culture of modern science extends to state power to use scientific knowledge outside the reaches of the democratic process and, above all, the growth of institutionalized violence in place of the personalized, face-to-face, impassioned violence associated with traditional concepts of sacrifice and feuds.1

Ivan Illich has traced the contemporary idea of development to a speech President Harry S. Truman made in 1945.2 Till then, the word 'development' had had other associations which had very little connection with what we understand by development today. But such was the latent social need for a concept akin to development that, once Truman gave it a new meaning, not only did it quickly acquire wide currency, it was also retrospectively applied to the history of social change in Europe during the previous three hundred odd years.

In a similar way, we can trace the idea of science as a reason of state to a speech made by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. The speech declared one of America's major national goals to be the scientific feat of putting a man on the moon. Though mega-science had already become an important concern of the state during the Second World War, science was, for the first time, projected in Kennedy's speech as a goal of a state and, one might add, as a substitute for conventional politics. A state for the first time on that occasion sought to out-rival another state not in the political or military arena, nor in sports, but in science redefined as dramatic technology. The formulation might have been older and might have been tried out haphazardly earlier but never had it been made so directly a part of the mainstream idiom of politics as in Kennedy's speech. Perhaps Kennedy was reacting to the Russian claim that the Sputniks showed the superiority of the socialist system and, especially, that of 'scientific socialism'. Perhaps he was trying to strengthen his political image as a leader who could help American society to cope with the scientific age. Whatever the reason, for the first time Kennedy's speech showed that a wide enough political base had been built in a major developed society for the successful use of science as a goal of state and, perhaps, as a means of populist political mobilization. Spectacular science could be now used as a political plank within the United States in the ideological battle against ungodly communism.

Kennedy's speech had another implication. The boundary between science and technology had been softening for about two hundred years. The histories of science and technology could at one time be written separately. But since the early years of the Royal Society, modern scientists had intermittently been seeking legitimacy not only from the philosophical implications of their theories but also from the practical pay-offs of science. The process reached its symbolic culmination in Kennedy's concept of science - a concept which not merely incorporated technology; it gave spectacular technology the central place in science. The speech in fact anticipated the vision which occupies so much space in the popular culture of our day, namely, the image of a science which, by the beginning of the twenty-first century, will be coterminous with technology. By the mid-1980s the proportion of pure scientists to all scientists in the world had fallen to less than five per cent, and the proportion is reportedly falling at a faster rate now. The pure scientist today is an even rarer species than the scientist who does not participate in military research and development.

Yet, at the same time, we can be reasonably sure that the concept of pure science and the conceptual difference between science and technology will be carefully retained. It will be retained not because of the demands of the philosophers of science but because it is only by distinguishing between science and technology that all social criticism of science can continue to be deflected away from science towards technology. A shadowy, ethereal concept of science that has little to do with the real-life endeavours of practicing scientists can then be politically defended as the pursuit of truth uncontaminated by human greed, violence and search for power.

The studies assembled in this volume have these two basic issues - science as a new justificatory principle, and science as technological intervention - as their points of theoretical departure. However, these issues also intersect with a cultural dimension: all the studies are by Indian scholars and have primarily the Indian experience as their backdrop. This is only partly due to the accident of having an Indian editor for this volume. I shall argue that things could hardly have been otherwise.

India has been a remarkable example of an open society in which, since the early years of independence, the political élites have deliberately chosen to see science as the responsibility of the state and have, at the same time, treated it as a sphere of knowledge which should be free from the constraints of day-today politics. Every society decides what content to give to its politics and what to keep out of politics. The Indian state, representing the wishes of a powerful section of the nationalist movement and being led in the early years of independence by Jawaharlal Nehru, a gentleman Fabian steeped in the nineteenth-century vision of human liberation through science, decided to keep the practice of science outside politics but ensured that the scientific estate had a direct, privileged access to the state. It was as a part of this 'double vision' that Nehru, the modern élites which gathered around him, and the Indian state began to build science as a major source of justification for the Indian state as well as for their political dominance. That the formula did not keep science out of politics but only introduced another kind of politics into science is one of those paradoxes which lie at the heart of the distinctive relationship between science and society in contemporary India.

Thus, to mention a sector which enters the pages of this book often enough, the powers and freedoms that were given to nuclear scientists in India since the days of Homi Bhabha, India's first nuclear boss, were near-total. Firstly, nuclear scientists were freed from all financial constraints. The budget of the nuclear programme - the entire budget, not the budget devoted to research and development - was routinely pushed through parliament without any scrutiny whatsoever. And the expenditures - the entire expenditure, not only the expenditure on laboratories - were never publicly audited. All data on performance - this often boiled down to data on performance failures, unsafe technology and insufficient regard for human rights - were protected by law from the public gaze. And all enquiries made from outside the nuclear establishment were pre-empted with the help of a special act which made it impossible to mount any informed, focused, data-based criticism of India's nuclear programme.3

Secondly, nuclear scientists were given enormous scope for research if they moved out of the universities into special research institutions. While universities were starved of funds and allowed to decay, research institutions were richly funded. This might not have been a matter of deliberate policy but it certainly set a context to India's nuclear policy, because what scientists gained in research opportunities in the new institutions, they lost in personal political freedom. As I have already said, the specialized institutions set up by the state were strictly guided by the requirements of secrecy and political 'clearance'; they were expected to be professional, not academic. In other words, a systematic split between political and intellectual freedoms was institutionalized in this area right from the beginning and every young nuclear scientist was forced to choose between the two kinds of freedom.

Thirdly, once some of the finer minds of India were netted by the state in this manner and some of the less scrupulous among them were given access to power, the Indian nuclear programme could be safely handed over to the civilians; the army or the defence ministry did not need to be in the picture at all. The nuclear scientists could be their unofficial proxies. Thus, India's first nuclear explosion in 1974 was a civilian enterprise, with the army only playing second fiddle. Civilian scientists planned, initiated and executed the programme; the army and defence scientists played a peripheral role, providing organizational back-up, on-site security, and control or management of the villagers to be uprooted.

In fact, contrary to popular stereotypes, modern science or scientists in India have not been used by blood-thirsty generals, scheming politicians, and greedy businessmen. Rather, the science establishment, on its own initiative, has taken advantage of the anxieties about national security and the developmental aspirations of a new nation to gain access to power and resources. Not surprisingly, the record of mainstream scientists in India has been particularly poor in the matter of protecting democratic rights in the country. In fact, in recent years the privileged among Indian scientists have often been the most vigorous critics of civil rights groups struggling for protection against the hazards of a callous nuclear establishment.

I give the example of the Indian nuclear establishment not to make a scapegoat out of it but to draw attention to the manner in which the link between science and violence in India has been strengthened by forces within the culture of Indian science, forces which in other cultures of science in some other parts of the world have been either less visible or less powerful.

The curious case of the nuclearization of India has not one but three morals to it. First, as modern science gets more and more incorporated into technology, it necessarily has to be increasingly justified in terms of technology. The frequent exhortations to have a more 'scientific temper' (exhortations to which all Indians, but particularly the 'less civilized' traditional Indians, are subjected by the scientific and political establishments) and the repeated references to the scientific worldview as a philosophical venture in learned seminars in India are not taken seriously by 'normal' scientists (who do 'normal' science à la Thomas Kuhn), or by their political patrons and their admirers. For both, the slogan of the 'scientific temper' is a means of legitimizing their new-found status in Indian society. Both like to define the 'temper' as the spirit of technology and the instrumentalism which is an inescapable part of that spirit. The invocation of the 'temper' almost invariably goes with a negative reading of India's traditional cultures and ways of life, seen as impediments to a modern technological order, and with the search for uncritical legitimacy for all forms of technology - seen as an undifferentiated mass of knowledge, institutions and persons.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I want Gujarat to compete with China: Modi

Sheela Bhatt in New Delhi | November 01, 2006 17:30 IST

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi commenced a significant 6-day business tour to China on Wednesday accompanied by a high-level delegation of 35 Gujarat-based industrialists and top bureaucrats.

Almost side-stepping the feverish, and often acrimonious, debate involving Congress President Sonia Gandhi and most Indian chief ministers over the pros and cons of having Special Economic Zones in the country, Modi has already put in place the infrastructure to build 11 SEZs spread all over Gujarat.

He has a prospective plan for a total of 23 SEZs in Gujarat. He has also invited the Japanese to develop the SEZs on commercial terms suitable for international investors.

Modi's agenda during the visit to China is two-fold. He wants to study the functioning of the SEZ in China and, possibly, invite them to help Gujarat build China-style SEZs.

Second, he will also seek Chinese investment in Gujarat in the power sector.

Modi is keen that Chinese experts are involved in building and operating the SEZ.

In a bid to project himself as the champion of privatisation and globalization, Modi has toured Israel, Hong Kong and Australia in this connection in the last two years.

During his foreign tours, Modi keeps himself well-equipped with PowerPoint presentations, slide shows and printed publicity material.

In Singapore, he called on Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong on October 30. He also attended Global Entrepolis Conference where he pleaded his case forcefully to attract fresh investments into Gujarat.

In China, apart from Beijing, Modi will visit several centers that showcase modern China's phenomenal progress in recent years, including Shanghai, Schenzen, Deren, Pudong and Jurong.

A Gujarat government spokesman said that Modi would focus on the working of Chinese SEZ in sectors like gems and jewellery, electronics, fashion apparel.

Modi is projecting himself as an effective salesman of Gujarat's factors of advantage and intends to highlight the investor-friendly climate of economic development.

In Singapore he said, "Gujarat has a unique combination of a strategic geographic location, state-of-the-art infrastructure, multi-lingual workforce and concentration of corporate and financial resources and a world-class pro-business environment."

He hopes to attract Chinese investment into sectors like chemicals and pharmaceuticals, gas and oil, tourism and medical tourism.

Singapore dailies quoted Modi as saying that he proposed to come out with an "integrated township policy" for Gujarat and that his government would shortly come out with an exclusive 'Petroleum SEZ' "for servicing oil rigs and (to offer) other exploration and development services."

Noting that Gujarat encouraged private participation in port development, he said, "Our concept is to have port-based SEZs with backward linkages with warehouses, cold storage and transportation network."

Senior functionaries of Singapore government assured Modi that they would be taking part in the global investment summit to be organised early next year in Gujarat.

The denial of visa by the US authorities has obviously not deterred Modi from taking seriously the imperatives of 'globalisation.' Like yet another 'native' Indian political leader, Sharad Pawar, Nationalist Congress Party boss from Maharashtra, Modi too has taken pains to improve his command over the English language. In Singapore, Modi made it a point to deliver his lecture in English before a packed 800-strong audience.

Modi has planned China trip with a clear strategy to increase Gujarat's trade ties with China. Gujarat is one of the largest producers of cotton in India. Out of 440 million bales of cotton produced last year, China imported almost 330 million of bales from Gujarat.

Modi wants to set up exclusive SEZ if possible with the help of Chinese investors for 'value addition' to turn cotton into fabric and fashionable garments for exports.

Modi government enjoys excellent equations with some of India's prominent houses.

Essar Group chairman Shashi Ruia, Torrent Pharma chairman Sudhir Mehta, Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, and Nirma chairman Karsanbhai Patel are among the industrialists accompanying Modi.

Prior to his departure on the current tour, Modi told a select gathering in Ahmedabad that "Gujarat is not competing with other states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. We may surpass them. I want Gujarat to compete with China, Germany and Japan."

Gujarat is among the fastest growing states in India. Against the national growth rate of around 7 per cent, Gujarat is galloping at over 12.5 per cent growth rate. Modi pointed out to his audience in Singapore that while India is struggling to achieve a 4 per cent farm sector growth rate, Gujarat's agriculture output was expanding by 11.2 per cent.

Curiously, the Sardar Sarovar Dam controversy will also echo in Modi's itinerary in China. He hopes to visit the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric power dam, which has generated as much as controversy in China as the Sardar Sarovar Dam has in India.

Modi will be the second prominent figure of the Sangh Parivar to tour China in the run-up to the visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to India in November. Ram Madhav, spokesman of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, had earlier paid a week-long visit to China in September.

http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/nov/01modi.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Hi Everybody,
I'm curious to know how much in modern India do people consider the status of others, for example, modern Indians living in the city still select the future Wife/Husband in relation to his/her appartenance to the same varna?
I know for the Jatee it's another discussion, probably easier.
Altough the constitution has delated with laws casta's differences, in the habits is this virtual division still alive?
For rurals I suppose it still is the same, but for the other Bharati?

Waiting for kind answers... <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Here you go again - Moron Singh And Queen's government logic at its best.

<b>Centre adds fuel to fatwa fire, defends Shariat courts</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
Amidst raging debate over ‘fatwas’ issued by Shariat courts, the Centre has defended the Muslims’ right to have such courts saying it was part of their fundamental right to freedom of religion guaranteed under the Constitution.

“The functioning of Dar-ul-Qaza would be protected under the fundamental rights enshrined in Article 25 and 26(b) of the Constitution,” the Centre said in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court in response to a PIL seeking ban on Shariat courts.

Article 25 guarantees freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion while under Article 26(b) every religious denomination enjoys freedom to manage its own affairs in matters of religion.

The petition filed by one Vishwa Lohan Madan last year sought direction to the Centre and other authorities to ban ‘Shariat Courts’ for running a “parallel judicial system” in the country.

But the Centre said, <b>“Freedom guaranteed by Article 26 to every religious denomination or every section thereof to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes and to manage its own affairs in the matters of religion would include the freedom to establish Darul-Qaza/Nizam-ul-Qaza to settle disputes between two persons professing Islam, according to Sharia.”</b>
The Government emphasized that <b>“it is not a parallel judicial system” as the Qazis or Darul-Qaza/Nizam-e-Qaza did not prevent Muslims to report matters to the Judicial Machinery set up under the law of the land</b>.

<b>“Those who do not resort to Darul-Qaza/Nizam-e-Qaza are at liberty and fully entitled to resort to the court of law. </b>

There is no question of compelling anyone not to report matters to the judicial machinery<b>,” the affidavit filed by the Ministry of Law and Justice said. It also sought to dispel the impression that it created confusion in the minds of “uneducated multitude of Indian Muslim citizenry”.</b>

On the controversial issue of ‘fatwa’ issued by the ‘Shariat Courts’, the Centre said ‘fatwa’ meant “opinion” and even the seeker of opinion was not bound to follow it.

It submitted that <b>“the Mufti has no authority or powers to impose his opinion and enforce his ‘fatwa’ on anyone either by imposing any penalty as a fine or send him to jail.”</b>
Howver, it termed as “few bad examples” the ‘fatwas’ issued in cases relating to Imraana, Jyotsna Ara and Asoobi.

Justifying their role of ‘Shariat Courts’ in the Muslim society, the Centre said they “are conciliatory and/or mediatory for a, which strive to settle disputes outside the courts expeditiously in an amicable and inexpensive manner and have no real power or authority to enforce its orders.”

Terming the system of Islamic courts as a form of Alternative Disputes Redressal Forum, <b>the Government said, “it mainly performs conciliatory role without any enforcement powers.” </b>

The Centre said that in a number of cases Courts of Law have accepted the decision of Darul-Qaza and made them rule of the Court and passed decrees accordingly.

<b>“It is also in vogue in many non-Islamic countries, for example, in England,, which has a population of about 15 lakh Muslims, unofficial Sharia Panchayat are functioning.”</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Attack on Sonia brings out worst in Congress </b>
Pioneer.com
Deepak Kumar Jha | New Delhi
BJP members in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) came closed to being thrashed by Congress councillors on Thursday for taking their party president's name. They were commenting on Sonia Gandhi's "indifference" on the sealing and demolition issue exercising thousands in the Capital.

The BJP members who are in a miniscule minority at Town Hall were attacked with paper missiles, water bottles, audio systems and later roundly abused by senior Congress members, so much so that the House called to discuss the burning sealing issue had to be adjourned.

The incident occurred in the afternoon, minutes after BJP corporators trooped into the House after participating with traders in true Gandhigiri style outside the Town Hall. <b>The protesters had gathered outside the MCD Headquarters in Chandni Chowk, where they placed colourful bouquets and cards with 'Get Well Soon' messages before the civic authorities and the State Government, in sharp contrast to the violence that had marred their bandh last month</b>.

Unfortunately, discussions within the <b>MCD House turned ugly when BJP councillor Ram Kishen Singhal indulged in Sonia bashing, encouraging his partymen to chant, 'Sonia Hai Hai' and 'Sonia -murdabad'. This led to, as some councillors put it, 'Sanjay Gandhigiri' type of reaction from the Congress benches who enjoys a brute majority in the House</b>. Mayor Farhad Suri had to adjourn the meeting four times.

Worse was to come as Congress councillors attacked Singhal led by Congress member Prem Kumar and Ajit Chaudhary. Members from both parties exchanged abusive words in the presence of their female colleagues.

It all started when Congress councillor from Seelampur, <b>Zamir Ahmed in his address mentioned that they did not take to the streets in Seelampur as "hamein upar se aadesh tha,". </b>This was enough for the BJP members led by Leader of Opposition Subash Arya and Standing Committee member <b>Vijender Gupta to ask Ahmed whether the "aadesh" was from none other than Sonia Gandhi and allege that the Congress wanted the sealing and demolition to continue in the Capital</b>. They were joined by other members from their side.

<b>"The Congress party and the so-called Personal Assistant (PA) of Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have a secret agenda and that is why they have not been responding to the problems of Delhiites the way they had in Maharashtra,"</b> alleged Gupta. This led to uproarious scenes with Congress councillors jumping to their feet and literarily pouncing on their BJP counterparts demanding they withdraw their Sonia-centric comments.

The BJP benches steadfastly stood their ground refusing to withdraw or express regret as they claimed there was "nothing unparliamentary about the comment" leading to uproarious scene and final adjournment.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Please collect articles on caste system in Islam.

<img src='http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/24/images/2006102412060501.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

Mughals strained every nerve to take it

T.V. Sivanandan



BAD STATE: The main entrance of Wagengera fort in Surpur town of Gulbarga district

GULBARGA: The Wagengera fort, which witnessed a historic struggle between the Bedar kings and the Mughals, led by Aurangazeb to establish supremacy in Surpur town in Gulbarga district in the 18th century, is in ruins.

The Archaeological Survey of India and also the State Archaeology Department appear to have done precious little to protect the fort.

A plaque embedded on the wall to the entrance of the fort reads in Persian: "By command of the emperor, defender of faith Mohammed Mohi-u-din Aurangazeb king, conqueror of universe, may god preserve his country for ever," signifying the fall of the fort in 1705.

The Wagengera fort is situated on top of two hillocks and surrounded by rocky patches. The Bedar kings shifted here after losing their fort at Sagar, now in Shahpur taluk, to the Mughals in 1667. From the day they shifted to Wagengera fort, the Bedars were a thorn in the flesh of the Mughals.

The fort built in the shape of a pentagon with seven bastions is now in a shambles. The two huge gates on the east and west of the fort are in a state of collapse, but the outer wall constructed with big boulders and mortar is in good condition.

Many, particularly the younger generation, are not aware of the valiant struggle of the Bedar kings who zealously defended the fort. So fierce was their resistance that finally Aurangazeb himself had to lead the attack to capture the fort.

Although a well-trained army like the Mughals could have breached the fort easily, it was the warring skills of the Bedars that kept the enemy at bay for a long time.

The unfortunate thing is that so far the Government has not made any effort to convert this into a tourist spot. Besides Wagengera fort, Surpur can boast of many other historical monuments including the beautiful palace of the Surpur kings.

<!--QuoteBegin-rajesh_g+Oct 15 2006, 04:02 AM-->QUOTE(rajesh_g @ Oct 15 2006, 04:02 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->We have really deviated from the purpose of this thread. This thread almost looks like the Gandhi ideology thread. The purpose of this thread is to discuss the impact of assasination of MKG rather then MKG himself.

Having said that here are some writings from some of the men that we admire..

Swami Vivekananda..

<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It has been for the good of India that religious preaching in the West has been and will be done. It has ever been my conviction that we shall not be able to rise unless the Western people come to our help. In this country, no appreciation of merit can yet be found, no financial strength, and what is most lamentable of all, there is not a bit, of practicality...I have experienced even in my insignificant life that good motives, sincerity, and infinite love can conquer the world. One single soul possessed of these virtues can destroy the dark designs of millions of hypocrites and brutes...I only want to show that our wellbeing is impossible without men and money coming from the West.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Rabindranath Tagore..

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Our country having lost its links with the inmost truths of its being, struggled under a crushing load of unreason, in abject slavery to circumstances. In social usage, in politics, in the realm of religion and art, we had entered the zone of uncreative habit, a decadent tradition, and ceased to exercise our humanity.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Rammohun Roy types were worse. This was the environment and the leaders were definitely the product of their times.

---------------

PS : Guys read the Dharampal thread and his books.
[right][snapback]59117[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


Why they both were right, especially Vivekananda !!


"It has ever been my conviction that we shall not be able to rise unless the Western people come to our help."

>> TRUE. Thats the sole benifit of the colonial presence in india btw. That they delivered us from islamic darkness. Today our everything from democracy to law to civil servants to science labs to railway lines are of western creation.



"In this country, no appreciation of merit can yet be found, no financial strength, and what is most lamentable of all, there is not a bit, of practicality."

>> SPOT ON. especially the last part where he mentions the indian lack of practicality. Its for precisely that reason (ie. we are not a practical people) that we invent precious little and cant innovate/discover, despite being a very smart people.
After 1000 years of muslim hammering, the India had no financial strength left indeed - not in hindu hands except for some kings like the Wodeyar of Mysore etc.


"I only want to show that our wellbeing is impossible without men and money coming from the West."

>>> true. We could not have had a progressive society if we were still under the muslims. Even to this day the parts of india which are the most backward are the ones which are the most Islamised and/or least Westernised.




TAGORE -

Our country having lost its links with the inmost truths of its being, struggled under a crushing load of unreason, in abject slavery to circumstances. In social usage, in politics, in the realm of religion and art, we had entered the zone of uncreative habit, a decadent tradition, and ceased to exercise our humanity.

>>>

Whoa !! That sums up indian histry under the muslims beautifully.

India till this day hasn't yet recovered her links with her hindu past.
"crushing load of unreason.. abject slavery " - TRUE again. Hindu holocaust was bloodier than Amerindian genocide and more hindu slaves were exported to the middle east (via the aptly named "hindu kush") than were blacks to usa.

in politics, ==

We had lost all touch with our own style of governance and were governed by nababs, mughals, and their appointed "zamindars" and "zagirdars".


in the realm of religion and art =====

We, the most prolific of all ancient civilizations, had produced horseshit in the field of religion, art or science ever since the muslims had the country in their grip.


we had entered the zone of uncreative habit, a decadent tradition, and ceased to exercise our humanity. =====

SPOT ON. We are still in that zone to a great extent.





As for Rammohon Roy, he was the first <b>post-islamic </b> Indian who saw the socio-cultural-religious mess that india was in the 1800's (not very different from Europe in the "dark ages") for what it was and tried to lift the darkness. Its precisely the parts of india which have not in the least been influenced by european enlightment where we still find astronomical population growth, dowry, witch/dalit burning, child marriage and other mediaval crap.

I had started a thread long back here called "what does india owe to the west" and had concluded there that their sole legacy was to pull us out of Islamic darkness (on social, cultural, scientific, political and other fronts) - all that at the cost of being reduced to utter poverty by colonialisation.

I stand by that.

Folks,
A short report by my friend Vijendra Rao has been rejected by his editor for fear that the paper will be considered pro-RSS. My father told me that there has been a huge debate in the Kannada newspaper "Vijaya Karnataka" on Tipu Sultan, with Girish Karnad and his ilk arrayed on one side, and the very well known Kannada writer and philosophy professor S. L. Bhyrappa and others on the other.

I believe it is time for a good/authentic book on Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. I have just begun reading Abraham Eraly's books on the Mughals. A similar major effort must be made to write about Tipu to bring out the warts and all.


Ramesh


Did Tipu massacre 700 Iyengar men, women & kids?
Deepavali, the festival of lights, is observed as Dark Day even now by their descendants

PM Vijendra Rao

Less than three weeks from now will occur Naraka Chaturdashi, the famous festival of lights, but Mandyam Iyengars don't celebrate it; they observe it as a Dark Day. It was on this day over 200 years ago that Tipu Sultan herded nearly 700 men and women belonging to this community and put them to a cruel death, according to two Mysore-based scholars who have more than academic interest in this particular aspect of history.

Dr MA Jayashree and MA Narasimhan, whose close relation with the Wadiyars of Mysore goes back to more than 150 years, have brought out this fact in a paper they jointly presented at a seminar of significance at Dhvanyaloka, Mysore, not too long ago. Their all-important observations went unrecorded in the main due to poor media coverage of the seminar what was essentially academic in character. The ongoing animated debate on Tipu, set off by Minister Shankara Murthy, who has since apologised for what he said, provides an opportunity to highlight what the two scholars describe as "the forgotten chapter in the history of Mysore".

In their detailed account of the event, the couple says that the mass killing of Mandyam Iyengars, related to Tirumaliengar, the Pradhan of Mysore (referred to by the British as Tirumala Row) and living between Mandya and Srirangapatna, is very much a fact of history, not fiction created by the enemies of Tipu. Iyengars who belong to to Bharadwaja gotra, the lineage of the Pradhan, stay away from Deepavali celebrations because it was on the same day that Tipu Sultan killed their ancestors. Every child of those families is told about the bloody event that day, the paper points out.

The heroic role that dowager queen Rani Lakshammanni and her relentless battle for the restoration of the throne during the period of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, is not adequately mentioned (except in the three-volume History of Mysore by Hayavadana Rao). "It is a pity that her persistent effort and courage despite being confined behind the curtains of the royal palace and constantly thratened by the mercurial temper of Tipu Sultan in bringing about the promise that she had made to her husband Immadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar, finds scant mention by the historians. We do not even have an authentic biography of this grand dame of Mysore who lived most of her life under house arrest," it says.

Historians have not done justice to the pradhans of Mysore either, Dr Jayashree and Nrasimhan complain, adding that Without Tirumalaiengar and his brother Narayan Row, Lakshmmanni could not have achieved her cheirshed goal. "The history of the pradhans is all the more endearing to us for we belong to Tirumalaiengar's family.

What was the provocation for Tipu to put the 700 members of this family to sword? Though Lakshammanni begins her quest for the restoration of the throne from the ascension of Hyder Ali to the throne, she started negotiating with the British in the 1760's withthe help of Tirumala Row and Narayana Row. She had assured the two brothers of the pradhanship of Mysore and one-tenth of the income of the state as their salary in perpetuity, should they succeed in their endeavour. On coming to know of this, Hyder imprisoned all their relatives.

It was in 1790's that Tipu Sultan, on coming to know of the agreement between Gen. Harris, the then Governor of Madras, and Tirumaliyengar, herded the latter's relatives for decimation. "There is no mention of this in any history book, but 200 years after the horror, the Mandyam Iyengars do not celebrate the festival. This itself is a strong indication how true the event is and how strongly they feel about the cruel end their ancestors met with for no fault of theirs," the couple points out.

Narasimhan, who is the superintendent of Jaganmohan Art Gallery, and his wife Jayashree identify themselves a a "group of people who are trying to set down the norms for re-writing of the hisotry of India with an Indian perspective" as from the Moghul historians downwards to the historians of the colonial and modern period, there seems to be a gradual polarisation of presentation, which is "glaringly biased".

"It somehow slips in to a mode where the conquerors are heaped with all the encomiums and the vanquished is made to shouler all the opprobrium the histoirans see and create," the couple says. Questioning the stand of noted historian Romilla Thapar that history has to be read in between the lines (of inscriptions), it depcrecates the tendency to brush aside folklore and tradition, "the backbone of Indian history".

Pls use this topic to discuss technology, costs, methodologies, prospects, copyrights issues, infrastructure etc for digitizing manuscripts..

=============

<!--QuoteBegin-Ashok Kumar+Oct 20 2006, 10:38 AM-->QUOTE(Ashok Kumar @ Oct 20 2006, 10:38 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bodhi,

The situation is that many of the technical people who are fighting the battle right now are doing it on their spare time.  Their full time jobs are something else.  Even with this they have made a dent.  Such people working full-time should be able to turn the tide.

All the Indic research in IITs/IISC etc is still a labour of love rather than a full time pursuit.

It is still not rewarding enough in India for bright young folk to consider making this a career.

It is such a shame that even a century after original publication many of the original sanskrit works on astronomy, maths, tantra etc remain untranslated. 

I remember reading history of maths where greeks were worshipped and even credited with "inventing" calculus because Archemedes had a limit procedure for getting area of a  circle by summing up areas of small triangles.  It was specifically mentioned, that there was no evidence that India ever thought of even most basic elements of calculus.

Now we know that it is fair to say that Calculus was invented in India by Madhava, Nilakantha etc.  Taylor series, power series, idea of derivatives etc has been around in India for 100s of years before Newton & Leibnitz supposedly "invented" calculus. This realization dawned after a few Indians spent some time poring over Kerala maths texts. 

Even now there is no systematic translation of these texts.  You can't even buy them anywhere.  They are tucked away in some old university libraries.  When I check out many such old texts from a university library, I notice in most cases that I am the only person in the last 70-80 or even 100 years who has done that!

This is the conditions of sanskrit texts which actually got published.  There are scores of manuscripts that haven't even been touched.

Recently I was trying to study a process in Samavedic texts called "Chala-prakriya", in which a letter (akshara) called chalAkShara is used as a error correction mechanism.  For a R^icha there is a chalAkShara, same witha sAman, or even pada-pAtha.  This error-correcting mechanism is much better than simple checksum and pretty ingenious.  There have been sparse comments about it in few hard to get books.  But it is too hard to get the original texts, because those manuscripts never got published.  They are hiding in manuscript collections in England, or various locations in India.  For one two page manuscript copy, the British Library London charged me 18 pounds!  I see names of many manuscripts dealing with chalAkSharas in manuscript catalogues but have to put the effort and money to acquire them.

This is the state of affairs after half a century of independence, when leftist/marxist fatcats in JNU get paid handsomely to tarnish India, but no government agency would take upon itself to publish and translate these texts.  NDA govt at least started the National Manuscripts Mission to preserve the scattered manuscripts.  It took the bone-heads in the government this long to decide on even preserving the manuscripts.
[right][snapback]59418[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


What are the copyright and property rights associated with this ?