04-06-2009, 05:52 PM
brihaspati wrote:
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RayC wrote
To feel that the Mahatma the closing year of his Ahmisa application was doubtful is debatable.
This is what I actually stated But the closing years of the "ahimsa" doctrine is really very doubtful. We have plenty of debates about MKG's own feelings, as well as possible reasons for the British to consider handing over power to a regime that would be more sympathetic or dependent on the British compared to others if the indpendence movement was allowed to carry on under British occupation. Since as you claim, you are in a much better position to know everything about India, please do care to find out the "white paper" on the 1942 movement published by the British Gov. of India in 1943 and look specifically for reports about the discussions in the CWC as well as MKG's communications.
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Indeed, Nathuram Godse also displayed similar opinion!
Should I also so superficially twist your words around to suggest that Harsha of Kashmir also had such liberal views as you ?
Harsha ruled Kashmir for 21 years. He wrote poems and provided many facilities for literature. He reorganised the Army and the administration and introduced reservation in the Army and the administration on the basis of caste. According to Kalhana, Harsha prepared a list of Muslims and reorganised the Army on a different pattern. Each group of 100 soldiers was kept under the command of a Muslim officer so that it would be impossible for soldiers to revolt or flee from their country. Or how about the witnesses from Somnath temple hierarchy, and local "Hindu" dignitaries who stood watched and gave their support to the dedication of the "Pattan" mosque - a dedication with two versions - one in Sanskrit that recognizes the authority of liberal supporters and the other in Arabic which fervently hopes for "Islam" and the home-sultan of the dedicator Muslim trader from Hormuz to triumph over "these" heathen lands.
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It is obvious that Ahimsa alone did not accelerate the British departure from India, but to believe that it was not the primary force behind the departure would be flawed. If it were not so, then the British should have also quit Ceylon and her other colonies. They did not, while they quit India.
Ceylon at that the time had not shown any rebellious tendency from the native component of the military forces. Surely with your military background you know what happened with the naval mutineers and how the "oh so glorious" Congress nationalist leadership practically collaborated with the British to coax the native naval component to "give up". Any knowledge of how they were subsequently treated? I guess like the INA returnees, they were to be cast into the garbage heap of Indian history where all credit has to be piled up at the feet of JLN and MKG.
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Which population divided, demoralised and defeated that you speak of?
If you kindly read my post again, this was in the context of the initial "rousing" of the masses in the post WWI period when MKG was brought over by the aging stalwarts of the then Congress from SA. This was a defeated mass, with the last popular revolts against the British being over by the end of the 19th century, and the initial "armed insurrectionists" safely put away or hung.
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On the issue that Ahimsa was dangerous to the Congress and the British, I would politely disagree.
Again, this is what I wrote : The reconstruction of the entire "Hindu" as necessarily Ahimsa and forever Ahimsa was born out of the potential dangers to both the Congress as well as British interests.
Here I am clearly stating that the "Hindu" had to be reconstructed as totally "Ahimsa" so that the "Hindu" dared not think of "himsa" to be used against the British as well as the minority elite from northern and western India who were trying to gain overall power of the future Indian state. Where did you read "Ahimsa" itself "as dangerous"?
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It is fashionable to digress and divert with allusion to the elite knowing nothing but their drawing room, Havana cigar and French wines! That is the best way to force an issue to suit one's line of thought and increase the bandwagon! By indicating that one is but the humble farmer like Deve Gowda (who actually was a CPWD contractor for tubewells or so I am told, but then popular image with Gobbel like repetition makes him a humble farmer!) does not mean that the person alluding to the elite to suit his line of thought has his feet firmly planted on the ground!
RayCji, I would only humbly request that you desist from using such expressions that tend on describing personal rather than group attributes. If you reread carefully these lines detachedly - you could discover that they may also apply to you. In this case you would be applying the category of "elite" to those who are "overseas". No I have not been formally a farmer, but I would be able to do "farming" in the region I spent my early years. Incidentally I have not claimed anything like that. It is best perhaps not to assume the background experiences of a person. I have lived with many "marginal" communities and survived on what they survive. Please let us stay away from all that here in this forum.
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Since you are an overseas India, you maybe suffering from this elitist western fashioned idea of the émigré that English speaking means elite in India!
Have I ever defined elite to be only English-speaking?
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Good life is not only coming to the urban professional but also to the rural folks, the majority of whom now don't have to spend a day to go to the nearest market in a town to sell their product but can do so in half a day. How? They have conveyance beyond the bullock cart and they also have tarmac roads. I had gone to Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh six months back and was astonished to see the fine roads and quite a few Combined Harvesters towering over us as we drove on!
Therefore, please visit us and see for yourself!
Please visit North Bihar, Orissa-Bihar border, North East Orissa, Eastern MP, northern AP, Eastern Maharashtra, even Himachal Pradesh, and please move away from the highway and go into the interior. Try and search out the rural labour encampments, tribal villages, and "marginal" people with little or no access to the means of production. Anyway what makes you so sure that I do not have regular personal experience of these places?
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I fail to see how the Hindus or Hindu ideals and the Hindu religion can be destroyed by anyone.
That is, unless you feel that Hindu ideology and religion should be taken as the sole inheritors of India and all other accept a second class citizenship!
Something as is being done in Pakistan!
Probably not a new sentiment. I am quite positive this is how Siddharaja Jaisimha of Gujarat thought who allowed Islamic theologians to flourish and prepare the grounds for the final onslaught of Ulugh Khan. Or for that matter, King Sehdev of Kashmir, who employed Muslims in the highest administrative posts of his kingdom and who overpoered him and embarked on forced violent conversions - Sehdev escaped with his personal safety leaving his subjects to their fate.
Quote:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->You may have no confidence and faith in the Hindus of India, but then they have faith in themselves. If Hinduism could survive Ghori, Ghazni, Aurangzeb, a few Kasabs are but as significant as a mosquito bite. They attacked Mumbai and elsewhere. Has India crumbled or are Indian wallowing with grief? We have picked up the threads and forced the govt to gird up its loins!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No comments here. This is a statement of faith. On the otherhand I do have faith in the "Hindus" of India, and I have faith in their ability to shake off "maya" - especially of the type that believes in a semi-magical thinking that if they can start thinking "nothing is wrong", in the world too "nothing will be wrong".