My dear Bapuji

Happy Birthday my dear Bapu ji,

I do not know whether next year I will be able to call you as Bapuji or we will start calling you as Grand Bapu ji. I am told that like Vascodagama discovered India, another American has discovered a new Bapu ji for our country.

But even earlier, with your stick, round glasses and a watch hanging from your waist, you looked only like a Grand Bapu ji all these days. We see that Grandparents need not be given the same respect as our parents.

My own father used to say that the name of ‘Father of the Nation’ given to you was wrong because the nation was there even before you were born. He used to say that you should have been called only a Great Son of this Bharatha matha like Chatrapathi Sivaji or Bhaghat Singh or Nethaji or many other great such sons. I do not know why then some new father was discovered now. It is confusing. I don’t know whether next year onwards we will have to study some new chapters from ‘Experiments with Truth’, by the new Bapuji. I hope that I will not get confused between both chapters and get low marks.

Because if I get low marks, my teacher will scold me and my parents. In school, we are not to give respect to our Father or mother. There only Teacher and Principal know everything. Even our father or mother are only to obey the Teacher or Principal. Even if I have doubts in the lessons, I should only go for tuition to my teacher. I should not ask my parents. They do not know anything in my books.

But Father of the Nation is to be respected. I think it is because there is no Teacher of the Nation or Principal of the Nation.

But I was told by one of my teachers that you were a bad father because your Son did not like you. The teacher also told us that you were very cruel to your wife. Then I don’t know why they called you Father of the Nation. What is the position of the newly discovered Father of the Nation, I do not know. Perhaps in the next year, the teachers will tell me about that.

I think you were very much interested in sweeping the streets. Everywhere I see your photo with a broom stick and your spectacles. But I feel you failed to make the streets clean. Might be that is why they called you ‘Father of the Nation’. In our house whenever my mother sweeps, it becomes clean. When my father sweeps, he just makes a show, as if he is helping my mother.

I see your face on all the currency notes of our Country also. I have heard people saying something about “Gandhi Account’. I do not know if this photo and the account are related. I also do not know whether your photo will be replaced by the photo of the new Father. Two or three years back I remember my father going to some bank every day to get some new rupee notes. I do not know why he was going every day. But he came back late and my mother quarreled with him saying he had not gone to bank but to some other place in the name of changing notes. I do not understand why they were quarrelling. If the photo in the notes are changed will my father have to go to banks again and my mother will start quarrelling again? I am afraid thinking about that.

For fancy dress competitions we were able to have less expense to be dressed up like you. Now if there is a new Bapu ji, I do not know if we will be able to dress up like that so easily.

What all will change, I do not know. I have been discussing this with my friends also. All of us are afraid that we will lose a holiday on which we need not come to school, because you may not be our Bapu ji any more. Even on Independence Day and Republic Day they want us to come to school. But my friends also feel that we will get that holiday on the Birthday of the new Bapu ji.

Othewise Bapu ji, we will very badly miss you.

Lovingly,
A Student of 7th Standard.

#WHOKILLEDGANDHI?

First, here are excerpts from the statement of Nathuram Godse, during the trial:

“His activities for public awakening were phenomenal in their intensity and were reinforced by the slogan of truth and non-violence, which he paraded ostentatiously before the country. No sensible or enlightened person could object to these slogans. In fact there is nothing new or original in them. They are implicit in every constitutional public movement. But it is nothing but a dream if you imagine the bulk of mankind is, or can ever become, capable of scrupulous adherence to these lofty principles in its normal life from day to day. In fact, honour, duty and love of one's own kith and kin and country might often compel us to disregard non-violence and to use force. I could never conceive that an armed resistance to an aggression is unjust........

The official date for the handing over of power was fixed for June 30, 1948, but Mountbatten with his ruthless surgery gave us a gift of vivisected India ten months in advance. This is what Gandhi had achieved after thirty years of undisputed dictatorship and this is what the Congress party calls 'freedom' and 'peaceful transfer of power'. The Hindu-Muslim unity bubble was finally burst and a theocratic state was established with the consent of Nehru and his crowd and they have called it 'freedom won by them with sacrifice' - whose sacrifice? When top leaders of Congress, with the consent of Gandhi, divided and tore the country - which we considered a deity of worship - my mind was filled with direful anger.......

He was fully aware from past experience that Jinnah was not at all perturbed or influenced by his fast and the Muslim League hardly attached any value to the inner voice of Gandhi. Gandhi is being referred to as the Father of the Nation. But if that is so, he has failed in his paternal duty in as much he has acted very treacherously to the nation by his consenting to the partitioning of it. I stoutly maintain that Gandhi has failed in his duty. He has proved to be the Father of Pakistan. His inner-voice, his spiritual power, his doctrine of non-violence of which so much is made of, all crumbled against Jinnah's iron will and proved to be powerless........

I took courage in both my hands and I did fire the shots at Gandhiji on 30th January 1948, on the prayer-grounds in Birla House. I do say that my shots were fired at the person whose policy and action had brought rack and ruin and destruction to millions of Hindus. There was no legal machinery by which such an offender could be brought to book and for this reason I fired those fatal shots. I bear no ill will towards anyone individually, but I do say that I had no respect for the present government owing to their policy, which was unfairly favourable towards the Muslims. But at the same time I could clearly see that the policy was entirely due to the presence of Gandhi.”

[Source: https://www.indiatvnews.com/news/india/nathuram-godse-defence-mahatma-gandhi-assassination-57320.html]

Now, compare the above with what the leader of Khaksars wrote to Gandhi:

“In your so-called prayer meetings which you so hypocritically begin with Koran and Gita ther is not a single utterance of yours about political matters not streaked with bitterness, perversion of truth or revenge against the Musalmans...and it is double clear now...that you are the enemy...of the entire ten crore Muslims of India.  My two months’ personal investigation of the State killings of Bihar conclusively proved that these were planted under your immediate and sole direction.”

Gandhi wrote to M.A. Abdullah from Noakhali, “When all parties become displeased with one it is generally a sure sign of one’s having done one’s duty.”

Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins have recorded in their famous work ‘Freedom at Midnight’ that Gandhi had tried to convince Nehru and Patel to have Jinnah as the Prime Minister for a united India, to avoid partition.  But they would not listen and a broken hearted Gandhi had to report to the Viceroy that he had not been able to carry his colleagues with him. (p-124). 

“Gandhi did not oppose partition simply out of some mystical devotion to Indian unity.  His years in the villages of India had given him an intuitive feeling for the soul of his country.  Partition that intuition told him, was not going to be the ‘surgical operation’ Jinnah had promised Mountbatten.  It would be a sickening slaughter that would turn friend on friend, neighbour on neighbour, stranger on stranger, in thousands of those villages he knew so well....Gandhi’s tragedy was that he had that evening no real alternative to propose beyond his instinct, the instinct those men had so often followed before.  This night, however, he was no longer a prophet.  ‘They call me a Mahatma,’ he bitterly told a friend later, ‘but I tell you I am not even treated by them as a sweeper.’ (p-149)

The authors also record that Mountbatten himself was aware of this rift. ‘I had the most curious feeling,’ Mountbatten declared, recalling that period, ‘that they were all behind me, in a way, against Gandhi.  They were encouraging me to challenge him, in a sense, on their behalf’, they record. (p-195)

And if Gandhi was to keep silent against the partition plan, it was because he felt weak, depressed and forced to accept an argument by Mountbatten that if the assemblies vote for unity, it could be established. (p-205-206).

On 26.09.1947 Gandhi records in his Diary thus:

          “There was a time when India listened to me.  To-day I am a back number.  I have been told I have no place inthe new order, where we want machines, navy, air force and what not.  I can never be a party to that.  If you can have the courage to say that you will retain freedom with the help of the same force with which you have won it, I am your man...”

On 21.10.1947 Gandhi records in his diary thus:

          “...Man has not the power to create life, hence he has no riht to take it.  Yet the Muslims murder the Hindus and Sikhs and vice versa.  When this cruel game is finished, the blood lust is bound to result in the Muslims slaughtering the Muslims, and the Hindus and Sikhs slaughtering themselves.  I hope they will never reach that savage state.  That is their fate unless both the states pull themselves together and set things right before it is too late.”

The recording dated 12.01.1948 by Gandhi in his diary:

          “...When on September 9^th I returned to Delhi from Calcutta, it was to proceed to the west of Punjab.  But that was notto be.  Gay Delhi looked a city of the dead,  As I alighted from the train I observed gloom on every face I saw.  Even the Sardar, whom humour and the joy that humour gives never desert, was no exception this time.  The cause of it I did not know.  He was on the platform to receive me.  He lost no time in giving me the sad news of the disturbances that had taken place in the Metropolis of the Union.  At once I saw that I had to be in Delhi and ‘do or die’....

I yearn for heart friendship between the Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims.  It subsisted between them the other day.  To-day it is non-existent.....I never like to feel resourceless; a satyagrahi never should. Fasting is his last resort in the place of the sword-his or other’s... My impotence has been gnawing at me of late.  It will go immediately the fast is undertaken.  I have been brooding over it for the last three days.  The final conclusion has flashed upon me and it makes me happy. No man, if he is pure, has anything more precious to give than his life.  I hope and pray that I have that purity in me to justify the step.”

How prophetic were those last words.

It was this Gandhi who had already been felled by his own comrades in arms that Godse ultimately brought down with his bullets.  And for what reasons...

On the assassination of Gandhi, Albert Einstein wrote:

“He died as the victim of his own principles, the principle of non-violence. He died because in time of disorder and general irritation in his country, he refused armed protection for himself. It was his unshakable belief that the use of force is an evil in itself, that therefore it must be avoided by those who are striving for supreme justice to his belief. With his belief in his heart and mind, he has led a great nation on to its liberation. He has demonstrated that a powerful human following can be assembled not only through the cunning game of the usual political manoeuvres and trickery but through the cogent example of a morally superior conduct of life. The admiration for Mahatma Gandhi in all countries of the world rests on that recognition.”

[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahatma_Gandhi]

          When press reporters are said to have approached Sri Ramana Maharshi on the day next to the assassination of Gandhi, Maharshi is said to have stated thus:

“ For the Mahatma’s death in this tragic manner, every person’s heart is mourning.  What is there in particular that I could say?  Who is there who is not grieved?”.

From : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahatma_Gandhi, we also gather that not only after the partition of India, but much before in 1934 also an attempt had been made on Gandhi:

“A prior, unsuccessful attempt, to assassinate Gandhi occurred on 25 June 1934 at Pune. Gandhi was in Pune along with his wife, Kasturba Gandhi, to deliver a speech at Corporation Auditorium. They were travelling in a motorcade of two cars. The car in which the couple was travelling was delayed and the first car reached the auditorium. Just when the first car arrived at the auditorium, a bomb was thrown, which exploded near the car. This caused grievous injury to the Chief Officer of the Pune Municipal Corporation, two policemen and seven others. Nevertheless, no account or records of the investigation nor arrests made can be found. Gandhi's secretary, Pyarelal Nayyar, believed that the attempt failed due to lack of planning and co-ordination” 

[Pyarelal Nayyar, Mahatma Gandhi – The Last Phase,Navajivan, (1956)]

What is wrong with Hindutva?

Identification of oneself with a particular group, clan, community, nationality, language, etc are unavoidable until one has reached a stage when one can live and think beyond these boundaries.

That indeed is a tall order and creates a lot of difficulties in ones socio-economic fronts.

So essentially, these are team building exercises to create communes with identities of mutual trust and benefit so that there is an easy route for various life transactions.

But, as long as these community building exercises remain as mere groupings for ones own survival or the economic success of the members of the group, they do not create much problem, except that others outside the group could feel envious about their success.  But no law on earth can protect those who are not able to build strong teams themselves.  Such methods are called cartelisation and work in the best interest of the group - most often a closed group.  These are primarily with economic success in mind.

The old concepts of cast, community, etc have essential the cartel concepts embedded in them.

When religious groups found themselves under threat or in minority in certain places, they also have had to take upon this exercise for their betterment or survival.

However, whenever there is one cartel formed and found to be thriving or creating problem for the others, there is a tendency for another or more number of cartels to be formed to beat them at their own game.

This game takes place in a continuum.  To find out the root cause, one has to answer whether the egg came first or the chick.

The grouping that is being attempted in India at present, particularly in the past decade with more intensity to create a Hindu identity is a reaction to the identity created in the name of Muslim and Christian religions, in this country.

The groups that have identified with the Muslim religion or the Christian religion may have their own reasons.  But, the fact that their cartelisation has been creating a social stir is undisputed.  Their tendency to give open declaration to their faith and cult, demanding the right to conversion, etc are basically against the accepted norms in this country where it is expected that one is left to be happy with his own faith and that is his or her personal affair.  But to make it into a socio-economic cult has created divides in the society.  This is accepted even in circles of non-believers or atheists.  And there are some people within those denominations also who do not accept these loud mouthed approaches.  But as usual they are not heard. And the present situation does not give much room for discussion on that too.

This polarization is being made use of by some other interests to create a counter polarization in the name of Hinduism.

But these people fail to understand that Hinduism as a concept is allergic to such an identification and is too unwieldy to be compressed into a cartel.

Any one feeling sympathy for a person with a Hindu identity, for his poverty or difficulties due to not being part of a cartel, has to essentially build mechanisms and structures to help him or give him solace. Simply calling upon them to group and form into a party or elect some one to power will not do. For that the primary thing to be done is to do away with cast discrimination. With the major dividing wall of caste, creed and wealth dispositions, there is no meaning in talking about a unity in the name of Hinduism.

The leaders who worked for the rejuvenation of the Hindu faith and who brought back dignity and self respect for those who belonged to that segment and helped the fight against alien rule, again and again stressed the need for this.

If Ambedkar and Periyar preferred the British rule to self rule, it was out of a profound understanding and fear that the change of guard would help only transfer of power into the hands of the powerful section within the Hindu community who were still feudal in mind set.

The leaders who really felt that the people of the country who did not have a system to fall back upon for their survival, engaged in building such institutions.  The Ramakrishna order, Aurovile, the Sathya Sayee trust, etc were commissioned in that direction.

However, some later organisations which also professed such ideals, have become prey to the political climate and have started chanting the mantra of Hindutva as an omniscient panacea for all evils that the society is facing today.

In the process, they fail to understand that they are only giving room for more polarization on the other side, while without caste-based discrimination being abolished, their own intended polarization would not take place at all, in real terms.

This then is going to do more harm than good for their own folks.

At least the 'folks' should understand this, before it is too late.

SRIKALAHASTHI AND THE BREAKING OF THE COCONUT

          When I had booked tickets for me and my son to go to Tirupathi, in a conducted tour, I did not know that we were to be taken to #Kalahasthi temple also.

          Only after returning from Tirupathi, some persons in the bus started talking about whether to go to Kalahasthi or to return to Coimbatore, because it was already very hot.  From the discussion only I came to know that Kalahasthi was a Siva Temple.  Somewhere during my school days, I should have read it, but had not cared to remember it for the details. 

          Then when we reached Kalahasthi, the Guide gave us a brief about the temple premises, that it was known as RaghuKethuSthala and that we should take care to note the gate through which we were entering so that we will return by the same gate to return to the bus.

          On going inside, I saw a board ‘Patala Ganapathy’.  Lord Ganesa Idol was kept in a tunnel more than 20-25 feet below ground level for which there was a window like entry.  One had to crawl through it and then take steps down.  There was a board saying that only 10 people at a time should enter.  But since there was no one around to state whether there were 10 people inside, we had to wait for the persons to come out.  On entering there, I felt even the number 10 was too much.  Because only 3 persons could stand in the place (where the deity was kept) and only one could climb up or down at a time. 

          After coming out and while standing in the queue to have darshan of the main deity, Siva or Kalathinathar, I saw a statue in a sitting posture, with a lot of decoration, to which pooja was being conducted.  I did not remember that it was a Thursday, and hence did not immediately realize it was Dhakshinamurthy, the south facing aspect of Siva.  But a painting above that idol caught my attention.  It was the painting of #kannappanayanar.  

         On seeing that painting, suddenly there were tears in my eyes.  I did not understand the reason.  This painting I have seen in many other Siva Temples also.  But there was some great emotion surging in me, which I could not understand.  When the queue started moving, I also started moving, pushing aside the emotion. 

          After worshiping at the altar of the main deity, when I came across a statue of a king like person with a Siva Linga before that, there again I felt the same surge of emotions and tears were flowing from my eyes.  I restrained myself and then came across an inscription there that it was the statue of Kannappa nayanar.  I thought that it was some king because in my mind Kannappa nayanar was only a hunter.  Then I noticed that it was also written there that it was at that place that kannappa nayanar had worshiped the Lord.  Again I became emotional.  Then I told my son that the statue was that of Kannappa nayanar.  He did not know who it was.  When I started telling him the ‘story’, he remembered it to some extent.  (His second language was Hindi).  As I described him the ‘story’, when I said, Siva came and said ‘Kannappa Stop’, my voice chocked, eyes brimmed again and I could not complete the words. 

I could not understand these emotions.  It was all purely illogical.  I have not given much thought to that ‘story’ of Kannappar.  I can never accept that one would pluck one’s own eyes, that too if a stone was seen bleeding.  Then to attempt to pluck the other one too would be pure madness.  It could not have happened.  That is how my rational mind still thinks. 

But after returning, I read the verses related to Kannappa Nayanar in the #PeriyaPuranam.  

A child called Thinnan was born to Nagan and Thathai after they worshiped Lord Muruga or Subramaniya because they did not have a child for a very long time.  Nagan was the chief of the hunter-tribe of that area.  After Thinnan took over from his father, he came across the siva linga at Kalahasthi and became very emotional and attached towards it (him).  He felt that the Lord was unprotected there from wild beasts of the forest.  So he undertook to take guard.  He found that the Lord was made to starve because there was no trace of any meat provided to him.  So Thinnan, a hunter and who primarily had meat of different animals as his food, could not understand how the Lord could be left hungry without meat.  So he went to prepare meat, ensured that they were tasty by tasting them in his own mouth first and then with water in his mouth, flowers on his tuft, bow and arrow in one hand and the tested and tasted prepared meat on a leaf in another hand, he proceeded to the Siva linga and after sweeping away the flowers decked around the linga by someone else with his chappal clad feet, spat on the linga (conducted purification with water from his mouth),  placed the meat before the linga and decked it with flowers kept in his tuft.  He stood guard throughout the night and with day break, again went for hunting and for preparation of food for his Lord.  He started preparing meat with honey also liberally showered on them so that it will be more sweet and tasty. 

   In the morning, Sivakosariyar, the Brahmin priest who used to worship the same Linga with flowers came and was aghast at seeing meat and bones strewn around his Lord. Cleaning them away, he again poured water on the Linga, worshiped him with flowers and fruits and left.

  In the meanwhile, the other hunters reported the matter of madness of Thinnan to his father.  His father and mother came and tried to take him away.  He refused and stayed back, to protect his deity.

The alternative methods of worship by both these persons continued for some time.  Sivakosariyar was very much disturbed that someone was coming and desecrating his Lord with non-vegetarian stuff.  [After all ‘saiva' meaning 'vegetarian' was itself getting derived from Siva].  So how is the Lord permitting someone to desecrate his premises with such unholy stuff?  He was very much disturbed with these events.  One night, the Lord appeared to the Brahmin in his dream and asked him to be present at the place and watch who was doing it so that he will understand.

As the Brahmin hid himself behind some trees, Thinnan came with his preparations for worship as usual. Then, he saw that one of the eyes of the Lord had started bleeding.  He thought someone had hurt the Lord.  On not being able to find anyone or anything around which could have possibly hurt the Lord, he started trying to cure the wound with some herbal medicines.  (That the Brahmin could not be traced by a hunter is a puzzle to my logical mind).  Then when the wound did not heal and blood continued flowing, he remembered that healing could be done by replacement.  (OonukkuOon).  So he scooped out his own eye with his arrow and placed it on the bleeding eye of the Lord.  The bleeding stopped and Thinnan was exported to the heaven with ecstasy.  He wept with joy and jumped between heaven and earth, that he had been able to cure the Lord’s ailment.  Then the other eye started bleeding.  Thinnan now knew the cure.  So he decided to replace that eye also with his remaining other eye.  But how will he replace it? So to identify the spot he touched the eye of the Lord with his chappal clad feet and was about to scoop out his other eye with his arrow, when the Lord caught hold of his hand saying, ‘Stop Kannappa’. 

*******

This ‘story’ I had felt, was only a treatise regarding how the Lord does not discriminate between his devotees, whether they were vegetarians or not and whatever method of worship is involved.

But the emotions that gushed through me at Srikalahasthi, have made me understand that it was ‘love’ for the Lord himself, deep and unadulterated, which is the fundamental of the so called story. 

And the coconut breaks – it may not have been a story after all.  That was the reason that the emotions were still around.  The emotion of true love - gushing out in the form of tears.

For, what logic does enable us to understand how lush green life emanates out of ‘mundane earth’?