Hi All,


I am interested in under going training to become a Hindu priest.

I have basic knowledge of samskrtam and can chant mantras well.

I would like to learn how to perform rites like upakarma, marriage, seemantam, grha pravesham, sraddha etc... on my own.

Does anyone know of any place in the U.S. where I can learn all this?


Thanks.

<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>A Simple Demand for Justice</span>

<b>Satya Sarma</b>

In an interview to rediff.com, Prosecutor for Tamil Nadu, KTS Tulsi said of those who show support for the Kanchi Sri Sankaracharya: “For them, a Brahmin is above the law.”

Ignore for now the fallacy that a sanyasi is bound by varna – that is a question, I am unqualified to discuss. There is something else there that Mr. Tulsi got wrong. It is not that we claim our Dharmacharya to be above the law. It is just that the Law has sunk so low. By forsaking the solid ground of truth, the Law has slipped into a gutter where it lies unworthy of any respect or of even a second look.

After claiming to have “shocking and solid” evidence, the Law and its guardians have, time and time again, been proven outright liars. The testimony they claimed clinched the Acharya’s guilt turns out to be a litany of lies forced out under torture. They have failed to produce the purported key conspirators who link the Acharya to the crime. Not that we can believe any testimony they claim to elicit from witnesses in their custody anyway.

Mr. Tulsi himself has been caught in a lie. In open courts, Mr. Tulsi got up and said that a ‘deserted’ woman he implied was linked to the Acharya was involved in the murder, and had absconded with lakhs. This woman’s apprehension was essential to the investigation, said he.

That woman turned out to be one of the millions of the sick and destitute whom the Kanchi Sankaracharya has given help and solace to. And Mr. Tulsi turned out to be a slanderous liar.

Then, from the gutter, came the bizarre procession of new accusations, trumpeted by sensational headlines. There were cases from two years ago, and twelve years ago and twenty years ago. All from a band of lawmen who have not been able to sniff out a trail that is two months old! The Accusers promised skeletons would fall out of the Kanchi Acharya’s closet. Instead, it is the Prosecution that is parading out the ghouls.

So far, all that has been proven is that the law-enforcers are themselves liars, capable of unthinkable violence and cruelty. Frankly, they seem more likely murderers than the man they accuse. One of their witnesses came to court with a broken hand; the other described how his teeth were broken to extract false testimony.

It turns out the chief investigator has a long and documented history of such inhuman abuse. He’s even been convicted by a court of law. He disdains that court’s verdict against him. It was passed, he says, by only one biased judge, (neglecting to mention the more than eighty eye-witnesses that judge relied on). But he is quite happy submitting Sankaracharya before that very same court. And a verdict denying bail to an elderly person who has served people selflessly his entire life, that judgment could not possibly be biased, oh never!

The charges that SP Prem Kumar tortured people, intimidated witnesses and filed false cases – he claims these are scurrilous allegations raked up by supporters of the Acharya who want to derail the law. Oddly enough, the human rights magazine reporting his past record had lifted not a finger to help the Acharya. Also, they published their article on SP Prem Kumar the month before the Acharya’s surprising arrested. But why should facts get in the way of a confirmed liar like Prem Kumar?

The Chief Minister outdid them all. Having publicly pronounced the Sankaracharya guilty of murder, she gave those expected to be called as witnesses against him Five hundred thousand in currency. No doubt, this is an act of generosity never to be questioned, whereas if Sankaracharya’s organization gives a penniless woman some 5 or 10,000 rupees as charity, it is a certain sign of something illicit!

The CM’s tampering is so egregious that it eclipses the allegations by two other accused that the identification line-up was tainted, as the police openly coached witnesses.

A week or so ago, columnist S.Gurumurthy asked who was going to do the funeral for this case. It turns out the secular guardians of law are not above beating a dead horse. I asked in my last article, who are these people to judge a jagatguru? Well, now we have our answer. They are the ones with the whip hand. That is all.

They can haul anyone in, any time, for questioning. Should a journalist poke holes in their case (it’s hard not to), out comes the whip: be prepared for a grilling. If supporters should enter the mutt, out comes the whip: be prepared to be searched. If witnesses relate facts that contravene their theories, out comes the whip: they are threatened with prosecutions.

What is their reaction to anyone whose testimony indicates the Acharya’s innocence? Out with the whip! Srirangam Usha destroys their theory of misconduct with truth and the very next day we hear the police plan to arrest her on a two-year old case they never bothered to book her for in the first place! Mythili Raghavan destroys the fanciful fabrications of another accuser; lo and behold, the police tell the press they will press charges against her!

Today, the sole source of the Law’s authority is the use of force. For the Law and its guardians have conceded moral authority. The rulers of our land , who claim the Acharya is too dangerous to be given bail, persuade the courts that tainted politicians should be allowed to write the law of the land. If the people protest that the process is corrupted, the answer returns that only the corrupt can ask for an investigation into their corruption.This is how the Home Minister responded to concerned Tamil Nadu legislators.

To the guardians of law, the truth is not even an afterthought; it is irrelevant. They have lost all credibility, and we can no longer believe them.

And so, in desperation, what do they do? The same tainted policemen fabricate yet another confession. Yes, another confession that is denied flatly by the witness. This disputed ‘confession’ cannot be evidence, but they deliberately leak <b>excerpts</b> to <b>selected members</b> of the press. They do not bother to authenticate this purported confession. They do not bother to elucidate the context or the circumstances; they do not even care to disclose the entire sum of it. Nothing they disclosed would ever be stilted toward their version of events: we are to take Prem Kumar and Tulsi’s word for it! In a trial by the media, the accusers do not have to face the accused.

Excuse me, but when the Acharya himself- who for the past fifty years has been a fount of wisdom and compassion for millions- says he hasn’t confessed, and prolific liars say he has, it’s isn’t tough to choose who to believe!

Every fundamental principle of Justice has been violated when it comes to the Sankaracharya. And the violators have been the people deputed to render Justice through the Law.

The first and foremost principle of justice is the presumption of innocence. This is not a mere technicality in the law. It is a fundamental principle that has existed in every civilized human society from Hammurabi’s Babylon to the United States of America. Near Kanchipuram, in Madurai, our own ancestors have a story that teaches this principle.

Yet, from the very beginning, the Public Prosecutor of Tamil Nadu labeled the accused a criminal. In the very interview in which he accused supporters of flouting the Law, Tulsi contravened this essential principle of Justice. He publicly passed his verdict on the Sankaracharya: guilty, even before the charges were drafted! In a few days’ time, it was the Chief Minister’s turn. Before the police had bothered to complete their enquiries, she publicly declared the Acharya a murderer.

Finally, the High Court justice himself, before hearing a single witness or considering a shred of evidence, even before any date has been set for trial, announced in his public decision the judgment that there was reasonable evidence of Sankaracharya’s guilt! Without ever considering the merits of the case, he jumped to this conclusion.

In the case of any person, justice demands that the burden of proof of guilt should lie with the accuser. In the case of someone who has dedicated his life to service and charity, how much greater that burden should be! Is it just to pronounce our Dharmacharya guilty before he is even charged?

The second principle of justice is that the accused be given every opportunity to defend himself against his accusers. This, the Supreme Court of the Land has said, is so important, that bail should be the rule, denial the exception, because it holds that granted bail, a presumably innocent person is far better able to prepare his defense.

But the Acharya’s bail hearings have each dragged on for weeks. Bail has been denied, first on the flimsy charge that he might escape; then on the judgment that he was guilty before the charges were framed.

To prepare his defense, the accused must be given adequate access to counsel. Yet, the Sankaracharya was not given benefit of counsel on multiple occasions: not at the time of his arrest in Chennai, not before his remand hearing, not before his first bail application, and not during his interrogation.

To prepare his defense, the accused must be disclosed all the evidence against him. To prepare his defense, the accused must be able to question witnesses freely. How can this occur when the police are harassing any witness who might support his case? How can this occur when the Law is tampering with witnesses by buying those who are to testify for them and bullying those who would testify in favor of the accused?

Our demand, Mr. Tulsi, is a simple one: Justice!

We demand out Dharmacharya be presumed innocent. Stop smearing him with your lies and manipulations!

We demand that our Dharmacharya be given every opportunity to prepare his defense. Consent to bail for him, and ensure he has adequate assistance of counsel.

We demand you stop intimidating supporters, coaching witnesses, and manufacturing “evidence”. Stop cracking your whip at us because your lies have unraveled.

Or is it, Mr. Tulsi, that for you, a saffron-clad sanyasi is beneath Justice.

Every evidence brought forward of the Acharya’s guilt has crumbled before the world’s eyes. But the Prosecution presses on with blind fervor. Enough is enough!

Upon Sankaracharya’s arrest a month ago, a Tamil magazine proclaimed “Justice has died there.” Justice is the reason the Law exists. When Justice itself has died, why should the Law remain?

This was the principle that Kannagi invoked, when Pandiyaraaj – a ruler extolled for his fairness, executed her husband on false charges. The reputed Raaj that committed that one injustice burst into flames. This is a different era, in which ill-doers seem to flourish.

But there is a flame burning in the hearts of millions who watch this injustice continue. It is not the angry flame that burned down Madurai. It is a quiet, white-hot flame that burns away all impurity. <b>This</b> Raaj ignores it at its own peril.

If you have been following the exploits of Wendy and her children you might find this hilarious..

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivili...on/message/8753
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianCivili...n/message/47467

<!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Amiga Persecution Complex: n.</b>

The disorder suffered by a particularly egregious variety of bigot, those who believe that the marginality of their preferred machine is the result of some kind of industry-wide conspiracy (for without a conspiracy of some kind, the eminent superiority of their beloved shining jewel of a platform would obviously win over all, market pressures be damned!) Those afflicted are prone to engaging in flame wars and calling for boycotts and mailbombings. Amiga Persecution Complex is by no means limited to Amiga users; NeXT, NeWS, OS/2, Macintosh, LISP, and GNU users are also common victims. Linux users used to display symptoms very frequently before Linux started winning; some still do. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->


It is not an exaggeration if the above definition is read as


<b>C/R Persecution Complex: n. </b>

<i>The disorder suffered by a particularly egregious variety of bigot, those who believe that the marginality of their preferred machine is the result of some kind of country-wide upper-caste conspiracy (for without a conspiracy of some kind, the eminent superiority of their beloved shining jewel of pet platform would obviously win over all, reality and facts be damned!) Those afflicted are prone to engaging in flame wars and calling for boycotts and mailbombings. C/R Persecution Complex is by no means limited to usual suspects; Communists, Socialists, Professional Secularists, Media, Brown Sahib Elite, Pakistan/Bangladesh Lovers, and Tree Huggers are also common victims. Missionaries and Mullahs used to display symptoms very frequently before they started winning; and they still do. </i>


It is quite ironic that such leaders who extol the virtues of global democracy, global village, pluralism, understanding, brotherhood, universal values, multiculturalism (you get the picture) rarely put the same in practise on the home front. Rather, they gain mileage by misleading and dividing people based on "caste and/or religion" and impart <i>C/R persecution complex </i> to their beloved followers by fanning blind hatred.

For a society divided is a country divided; sane, rational and logical people would do well to eschew such politics and polemic of hate and see through their leaders' hypocrisy and work towards a united and stronger India.

This thread is meant to collect articles that highlight this complex in the so-called leaders who are actually doing a disservice to their followers, blatantly abusing them and harming the nation. This goes both ways - exposing such politics and hypocrisy, no matter who does it - Truly secular! Folks!.

Folks

I would like to collect more information on the dravidianist history.

Added Later : I recognise the possibility this thread can lead to free for all tamil bashing. Please avoid doing this. I hate to modify/delete posts . Please, please use your judgement. Thankyou..

<b>Karl Marx's smoking gun </b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->It discloses that one of the world's most famous social thinkers invested £4 as one of the original shareholders on a working class British newspaper, the Industrial, which dissolved in 1883. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Although Marx did not live to see his ideas carried out, his work had a great influence in the formation of communist regimes at the start of the 20th Century. Communism became one of the leading world ideologies before its decline in the 1980s and 1990s.

Bearing in mind such huge influence, the shareholders' certificate of an obscure London newspaper may seem an unlikely place to find his signature in 1865. On it Marx described himself as a doctor of philosophy, on a list which included a tailor, joiner, painter and shoemaker.

Curator Sue Laurence says: "All the other shareholders have occupations listed and he's the only one without. Here are all these guys investing their money in this newspaper and all have gainful employment apart from him.

"The only gainful employment he looked for was as a railway clerk and that was rejected because his handwriting was so lousy."

It wasn't a surprise to find Marx involved in this kind of enterprise, she says, given his life - financed by his friend Friedrich Engels and beyond his own means - as a bourgeois gentleman.

"Marx played the markets in the UK and the US and this was a bit like a cooperative because the other men were upper middle class and this was a small-scale enterprise." <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

If a nation needs a strategic objective, it is this: Bharat should set a goal to retrieve Manasarovar as cultural capital of Bharat.

Dhanyavaadah. Kalyanaraman

Saradapeeth, historic pilgrimage centre in PoK, in shambles :

World News > Muzaffarabad (PoK), Nov 26 : The centuries-old Sharadapeeth temple, a major pilgrimage centre for Kashmiri Pandits situated in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), is in a bad shape and needs immediate face-lift.

"The temple is not in a good condition because of continued tension on the Line of Control (LoC) and requires an immediate face-lift. Now since the tension has eased considerably, we plan to carry out the necessary works," Mufti Mansoor, Minister for Archaeology in the 'Azad Kashmir' government, told PTI here.

The Mufti, who is a legislator from the Sharadapeeth area, also said that his government was ready to facilitate the movement of Kashmiri Pandit pilgrims "once the Srinagar- Muzaffarabad bus service begins and they are allowed to come in".

He said the local government was ready to carry out renovation of the centuries-old temple.

The Kashmiri Pandits in India have been urging the Union Home Ministry as well as the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi to allow them to visit the shrine every year.

The Pandits have been pleading for quite some time that the pilgrimage be allowed in line with that of the Sikhs to Pakistan and the Pakistan-based Hindus to Indian shrines. PTI

http://www.123bharath.com/news/index.php?a...llnews&id=39343

<i>New Articles - Nov 2004</i>

Secularism as a Tool of Adharm -by Satya Sarma

The Kanchi Conundrum Ramesh Rao

The Reign Of Ramaraya And The Battle Of Talikota
Hauma Hamiddha

<span style='color:red'>Secularism as a Tool of Adharm</span>

by Satya Sarma

The basis of Bharat was the eternal dharm. I use the past tense deliberately, because in the short space of the last ten days, ironically on the day we Bharatiyas celebrate dharm’s victory over adharm, we awoke to the fact that this is no longer the case. How we got to this point, and how the path of secularism took us there is the story I want to tell here.

Let us begin then with the arrest of Kanchi Sri Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati Swamigal: an arrest the police conducted without any definitive basis in fact being provided, beyond contradictory and vague rumors disseminated in the press.

Follow that up with the dispatch of police officers to the Kanchi Mutt, to the schools it runs and to the NGOs it funds, as well as the daily harassing and interrogations of its employees.

Next, examine the delays and hurdles erected by the state in its legal deliberations - a judicial hearing ruled upon in the absence of defense counsel, a simple bail hearing unresolved for over a week, the refusal to provide any consideration for the health of the Acharya or the observance of his matt’s traditions.

When it came to an old sanyasin who has concerned himself in this life with the welfare of our society and its dharm, the secular humanists could see no humanitarian grounds to spare this guru physical pain or. When it came to the observances of a 2,500-year old Bhaaratiya tradition, they could find no reason for religious impartiality.

Swamigal could rot in a cell for all they cared, be beaten and tortured by interrogators, if that’s what it took. And if the Shiv puja could not be properly carried out, if the rituals that connect the bhakths to Bhagavan are disrupted, then why should proponents of religious freedom be concerned? If a sanyasin’s dharm must forcibly be forbidden him – so what? Do not, the libertarians cautioned, be prejudiced in favor of a defenseless old man’s liberty.

None of the human rights activists who keep their eyes peeled for even the faintest transgression against the practice of faith can spot religious persecution in India today. Such is their secularism.

“The law is the law”, they shrug their shoulders to say. What law? Our secular laws are treacherous: full of loopholes for those who harm society, but stern to punish those who work for its benefit. Professional thieves, habitual murderers, rabble-rousing rowdies, thugs and goondas – secularism allows all these to write its laws, even laws that confer them immunity. Now, when a fragile old man who has given up all possessions and all allegiances except to the path of truth is imprisoned arbitrarily, these very looters will point out to us that it is all very legal.

Look at who has custody of this law today: this secular law that prosecutes our Swamigal, who is ours because he has dedicated every breath of his life to our well-being. This selfless samaj-sevak who literally gave sight to so many thousands is accused by people who refuse to open their eyes – who deliberately blind themselves, even to the extent of wearing dark sunglasses indoors.

How do such willfully ignorant men gain custody of secular institutions? There are those in our society – or indeed any society - who by nature are debauched. They revel in misery both their own and that of others. Their predatory greed is whetted by those who seek to rule us. Malicious people feed their putrid minds with hatred. Then that fattened hatred is wielded like a cudgel.

There are those in our society or in any other who lack control over their emotions. When their anger is inflamed, they hit out in a blind rage, like children in a tantrum, breaking everything before them. Secular leaders take advantage of that blindness. They make sure this mad anger is kept alive, so that they, being shrewder, can stay in charge of the secular institutions.

Indeed, the institutions of secularism are built on a graveyard of political murders and mass riots and secular justice gropes around there blindfolded, innocently unaware of the slaughterhouse she lives in.

Who is a Balasubramaniam or an Uttamarajan to judge a jagatguru? What are their bona-fides? How clear are their minds, how clean their hearts? What good have they done in the world to show their credentials to sit in judgment of our Swamigal? They are the talking puppets of a blindfolded woman with empty scales.

And then there are the so-called journalists who are supposed to be the secular guardians of truth. In reality, they are sensationalists and rumor-mongers, who treat Sankaracharya and Veerappan as equally novel curiosities. They can barely tell the difference between them. Today, in their craving for scandal, they cannot seem to remember the deeds and words our Acharya has left behind. They cannot remember the hospitals, or the temples, or his efforts to make peace between warring factions.

Who should you rely upon? Ask yourself!

Let me tell you what I think of this secularism that strangles dharm and tolerates adharm. I say this secularism and the constitution it is based on is the death-knell of Bharat. I say tear up this constitution. I repudiate its secular basis, because this secularism takes no cognizance of the eternal dharm.

All I know – all I care to know is my dharm, my birthright bequeathed to me through the accumulated wisdom of my ancestors, and kept alive by our jagatgurus. What are the antecedents of this secularism that I should give it even a moment’s notice? Secularism was brought here by some foreign invaders, who stole from my Bharat everything that they could carry. Now those invaders are gone. Why should I put up with the refuse they have left behind on my soil? Why should I let the law take its course, when it is taking a course that demolishes the path of sat? Why should I accept the decision of a court that has no authority except in that truth-demolishing bulldozer called secularism? Why should I respect a raaj that has forgotten – worse, lost sight of – even the concept of dharm?

While secularism blindfolds Justice, our dharm urges us to open our eyes. Our dharm asks us to cleanse our own thoughts and our minds, to repel corruption of any kind. Why then should we respect these secular institutions, which are built on corruption, held up by the corrupt – in fact, corrupt through and through?

Our gurus, from Vivekananda to Shirdi ke Sai Baba have taught us all how to make our minds peaceful, how to fulfill our obligations and how to live in society in harmony with sat. The path they have shown us through the example of their existence is open to everyone, regardless of creed or status. It stops at mandirs and dargahs and gurudwaaras, runs through villages and cities. What has secularism done - this secularism that wallows in the filth of corruption?

There is a lesson in our history that many have not learnt. In Bharat, there are still Duryodhanas who clamor for adharm, Dushaashanas who drag the virtuous by their hair to ridicule and insult. There are still Shakunis – foreign-born ones – who smilingly indulge them, there are still turbaned Dhirthrashtras who stare vacantly on. Even today, there are Pandavas who hang their heads in shame, powerless against a corrupted raaj. And then there are Dronas and Kripas, who know better, but stay silent because they remain confused about where their obligations lie. And there is even a Bhishma, who watches in anguish, but fails to lift a finger. To these I say: if you watch silently now while the virtuous are humiliated, you have made your bed of arrows today. Neither society nor history will forgive you.

When Draupadi was humiliated with only Bhagavan for refuge, only a terrible war could restore dharm. What the consequence will be of today’s paap, I cannot tell. But fight we must to our dying breath, to restore dharm.

<span style='color:red'>Gandhi’s Uses</span>
 
I remember for the first and only time wearing a “Gandhi cap”. That was in 1961 when my father was posted as an Assistant Engineer in Sirsi, a small town in Karnataka. My parents were still young, they had five small children, and Sirsi was a “mofussil” town with little of the pleasures and provenance of urban 1960s India. My elder brother and I were enrolled in one of the local schools, and in celebration of Gandhi Jayanti we were all asked to wear the “Gandhi cap” to the day’s events. We were proud and a little self-conscious wearers of the cap, and the only thing that I recall in some detail of the day is getting separated from my elder brother: he was eight and I was five. But we both made it home safe, and soon we were sent away to grandparents in Mandya (my elder brother and elder sister) and Bangalore (myself) because my parents were overwhelmed minding us all in the small town. We left our Gandhi caps behind in Sirsi.

On arrival in Bangalore at my paternal grandparents’ house, I noticed that the only photograph displayed on the walls, other than that of Hindu <i>murtis</i> and gurus was that of Gandhiji – in the famous “striding with a walking-cane/Dandi march” pose. I was told that it belonged to one of my uncles. Not much talked revolved around Gandhiji at my grandparents’ house, if I recall correctly. Lower middle class in stature, my grandparents headed a household that still included two or three of my unmarried uncles, a couple of unmarried young aunts, and where everyone was busy minding the house, going to college, or struggling with their first jobs. Talk in the evenings and over weekends was mostly about domestic issues. But the photograph of Gandhiji was a statement of the household, and it is still etched in my memory.

Gandhiji of course was in all our school history books. He was the “Father of the nation”, we were told, and on a pedestal we all put him. We read about his eating goat meat and ruing the act, his sailing to England, the South African episodes, about nonviolence and “Satyagraha”, the march to Dandi, Round Table conferences, the Quit India movement, and his assassination. Later, in high school I recall reading an expurgated version of “My Experiments with Truth” that was given to all students studying at the National College in Bangalore, whose then principal Dr. Narasimhaiah was a Gandhian, and which college my elder brother attended.

Now I have an 8 ½ by 11 inch copy of an artist’s rendering of Gandhiji’s smiling visage sitting atop a book-shelf in my office. And I often wonder when I walk into my office what it is about Gandhiji that has mesmerized us all, and how we have all used him selectively for our own purposes. This introspection became even more urgent when I read that the CPI-M mouthpiece is soon going to publish a series of articles to frame the RSS for Gandhiji’s murder, and the renewed debate about the role of people like Savarkar in the assassination.

Left ideologues also assert that for Savarkar and the Sanghis the “purpose and goal of freedom was to establish Hindu rashtra”. For Gandhi, Nehru, and for the Left, they say, the “goal was to establish a modern, plural, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, democratic India”. That this is a gloss and a simplistic assertion is not lost on many Indians who prefer to ignore the ramblings of the opportunistic ideologues.

While the charge against Ghodse, Savarkar, and the RSS continues, I am really not troubled by the fact that Ghodse was indeed an RSS swayamsevak for a while, or that he continued to be in touch with the RSS at the time he assassinated Gandhiji, or even that he received encouragement from Savarkar. I am also not troubled by the fact that former RSS leaders or present day leaders have quarrels with Gandhiji. Who did not have quarrels with him? We forget the fact that Gandhiji was a politician first and whatever else later. It was not just the RSS that quarreled with him but so did Jinnah, Annie Besant, Aurobindo, Ambedkar, and a host of others. Annie Besant told Durga Das that she thought Gandhiji was leading the country to anarchy. Gandhiji’s personal peccadilloes and idiosyncrasies drove quite a few people up the wall. He was considered by many to be a “difficult person,” and why not with his insistence that those around him and the people of India follow him in his peculiarly “ascetic” ways?

Christian missionaries heaped abuse on him, and the Communists did everything possible to undermine him. That these two political chameleons now seek to paint the RSS red with the blood of Gandhiji therefore is neither surprising nor out of character. Muslims did not really consider him their leader, and that the Mahatma comes in handy to them now to beat the RSS with is no different from others’ use of him. I recall that in the U.S. a well-known Indian Muslim organization refused to use the term “Mahatma” to refer to Gandhi because, of course, Mohammed is the last prophet, and there are no great souls after him.

The Congress Party that rode to power on Gandhiji’s coat-tails (or dhoti ends) does nothing more now than pay lip service to some of the most important ideals the Mahatma tried to propagate – simple living, honesty and openness, and non-violence. The Congress is as much a party of goons, opportunists, criminals, and ignoramuses as any other political party in India. The only difference is that the Congress Party wishes to claim Gandhiji for itself and to use his good name to continue in power by demonizing the BJP and the Sangh Parivar as the Mahatma’s murderers.

Ghodse has been turned into an epitome of evil, and Gandhiji put on a pedestal. Thus, we have little opportunity to study the two as human beings. Ghodse was both an assassin and a good man: he was as much an ascetic and a lover of the Bhagavad Gita as was Gandhiji. Gandhiji was both a fascinating moral leader and a flawed politician. And Gandhiji is now etched in our memories as an extraordinary man in no small measure because he was assassinated and did not die a frustrated and bitter old man neglected by the country and Congress leaders.

Because he was assassinated we now ignore the frailties and the follies of the Mahatma. Prof. Bharat Gupt of Delhi University argues that Gandhiji’s was an Indian medieval mindset which sought personal salvation akin to the followers of the Bhakti tradition. He sought to organize society for reasons of Bhakti rather than for social reform and control that previous Indian reformers had fought for and espoused. That is why people like Ambedkar did not much care for Gandhiji’s social movement. His was a contrast from the classical Hindu vision of balance between the four stages of the individual life – <i>brahmacharya, grihastya, vanaprastha, and sannyasa (chaturashrama)</i>, and the four concerns of Hindus – <i>dharma, artha, kama and moksha (purushaarthas)</i>.  His was a mind that was fairly ignorant of the ancient systems of Indian knowledge and arts, and hence his restrictive definition and view of the Hindu self. Gupt argues that Gandhiji’s transition from the medieval to the modern without the understanding of the ancient led to his incomplete view of Indian history, culture, and mores.
 
Gandhiji defined <i>satya</i> (truth) and ahimsa (non-violence) as positivistic and absolutist respectively. In his autobiography, <i>“My Experiments with Truth”</i> factual and ethical truth is equated with ultimate truth. But in the practice of ahimsa, a mystical force of non-violence is presumed to be experienced as ultimate truth that can bring about the change of heart in the opponent.  In other words, his practice of truth or transparently right conduct acquires the mystical power of saving the self and the others.  This is the medieval <i>Vaishnava</i> practice where surrender through right conduct “saves” the devotee.  But as a political doctrine this approach does not always deliver the change of heart in the opponent, let alone oneself. Thus Gandhiji’s disappointing engagement not only with Muslims, Christians, the British, and the secular-millenarian Communists but also to a large extent with Hindu Indians too. Unless we understand clearly why Gandhiji evoked mixed responses, we will simply continue to deify him by building his statues and naming roads after him, and by ignoring him in our daily routines.

Similarly, Gandhian economics rests on sharing with the <i>bhaktas</i> the material wealth and regarding the owner as the trustee.  It also rests on the principal that frugality is essential to keep the mind free for higher activity.  The same is true of his attitude to sex. All these of course are/were neither new nor strange in ascetic and spiritual practices. But to bring them into the public sphere and to insist that all Indians follow him was both the weakness and the arrogance of Gandhiji. Individual transformation is what is emphasized in Indian/Hindu spiritual practice. The organization of society for pragmatic ends needed and needs a different approach. The utopian society that Gandhiji wanted to construct thus is not dissimilar to any other millenarian ideal, and thus fraught with the same dangers.

Gandhiji, strangely enough, was not averse to pragmatism. He wrote a lot, he traveled enough, and he put himself in the limelight often so that the world would not ignore him. Even in the modest India collection at our university there are shelves overflowing with Gandhiana. While the Catholic Church will not anoint him a saint anytime soon, he is already sainted by the world which frowns upon any criticism of him, and which then promptly ignores him.