www.bhavanaustralia.org

Let noble thoughts come to us from every side - Rigv Veda, 1-89-i

Hare Krishna Bahai Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam “The whole world is but one family”

Life | Literature | Culture

August 2011 | Vol 9 No.2 | Issn 1449 - 3551 Nine Gems of Gandhi for Work-Life Balance Model Based on Principles and Qualities of Gandhi for Personal and Work Life Balance

Quality/Principle Personal Life Work Life

1. Ahimsa Harmonious Living, inner Assertive but not aggressive, calm, gentleness equanimity, temperance, cooperation, team work

2. Simplicity Frugal living, simple lifestyle Straightforwardness, refrain from politicking, guidance, open and broadmindedness

3. Character Role model for children, Leadership, incorruptibility, spiritual values reliability, moral values

4. Prayer Meditation, Self control, inner Stress buster, self control, calm, sacrifice compromise, positive vibration

5. Discipline Devotion and dedication Dedication and devotion to work, to family, self control, adhering to timelines abstinence

6. Healthy living Positivism in home life, Punctuality, regularity, positive avoiding junk food, alcohol mental attitude, increased productivity

7. Truthfulness Honesty, frankness, openness, Integrity, honesty, frankness, faithfulness accountability, courage to disagree wrong doings, whistle blowing

8. Ethics & Principles Fairness, responsible society Corporate governance, corporate member social responsibility, integrity, loyalty, responsibility, non attachment, morality, probity

9. Love and Caring, giving, sharing, Kindness, concern, helping, Compassion affection, sacrifice humanism, forgiveness, empathy, moral support

Source: Bhavan’s Journal, July 15, 2011

2 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 YouYou AreAre WhatWhat YouYou ThinkThink YouYou AreAre

The words you speak out loud, or write down, Begin with simple things such as how good it is are but echoes of the thoughts that flit through to be full of good health. Talk about the situations your head first. When you tell someone that it is a and interactions you had in the day that were beautiful day, you had the thought first and then productive and boded well for the future. To have spoken the words. Your thoughts are, therefore, a positive, vibrant life, think and talk about only behind all your expressions in words, gestures or what you desire and cherish and this process will reactions, for that matter. You cannot even make a unfasten unlimited access to all that is good in life. movement without thinking the thought first. What you must realise is that all the good things It is your thought that determines whether your that you want are raring to come into your life. But, words and actions are positive or negative. But, for that to happen, you have to first fill your mind how do you judge whether a thought is positive or only with positive thoughts that make you feel negative? It is simple. Your thoughts are positive assured and confident and banish those that make when they reflect your aspirations and what you you feel gloom-laden. That will open the doors wide cherish. Negative thoughts are those which fuel for all that you want, to rush in. Your good feelings depression and vulnerability. alone can harness the grace of Dame Fortune—the power to everything good in life. Most people think and speak only to lament their deprivations, both real and imagined, and what Remember, every day is made up of two halves, may have eluded them rather than think and talk of light and darkness. Events that make you feel about their dreams and ambitions. They exude happy and events that make you unhappy come more negativity than positivity and in so doing they in equal measure. Think only of those events are inadvertently robbing themselves of all the that have made you feel good and let that feeling good things in life. pervade all the cells of your body. You will then begin to radiate positivity. That radiation will You will observe that people of eminence think attract everything that makes you feel good and and talk about what inspires and motivates them it will flow into you in great whereas others who are struggling solely think and abundance. talk about their problems and helplessness or how life has been unfair to them. “Let noble thoughts come to us from every side.” -Rig Veda. One does not live out a year or a month. One lives day by day. You must learn to dwell on the good Surendralal G Mehta news of the day. Think and talk about only those things that went agreeably. President, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 3 For this Month

Lest we forget

Lord Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Dr Rajendra Prasad pleaded with Mahatma Gandhi, as did everybody else in the Congress, to remain in Delhi to join in the celebrations on 15 August 1947, but he politely declined. The Mahatma said his presence was needed among the suffering people of Noakhali.

On arriving in Calcutta, on his way to Noakhali he learnt that the city was once again in flames; there was recurrence of rioting and killing. He was prevailed upon to stay there for sometime and provide his proverbial healing touch. He consented on the condition that Muslims in Noakhali should guarantee the safety of Hindus in that strife-stricken district. Likewise the Hindus in Bihar had to stand as guarantors of the safety of Muslims there. Or else he would not hesitate to sacrifice his life in order to bring this about. When some Hindus told him that his sympathies lay with the Muslims, he responded with tears in his eyes: “how can you ever think like this. I am proud to be a Hindu. I have lived and will die for Hinduism. Every fibre of my being is Hindu. To say that I do not care for Hindus is the worst travesty of truth.”

The Mahatma found the fire of hate was raging everywhere and he did not know how long it would take him to extinguish it but he had to extinguish it or it would engulf both India and Pakistan. Anti-social elements had run amuck, they were destroying the very basis of civilization. Under the League Ministry Hindus were earlier massacred and then under the Congress Ministry Muslims were being done to death. The Mahatma beseeched the people of Calcutta to stop, what he called this “hot goondaism” and this senseless race of retaliation.

As the Mahatma went round the affected areas, Muslims who had been living in terror regained their confidence. Hindus responded to his call and promised to follow his advice. Shaheed Suhrawardy joined him on behalf of the League to create an atmosphere of communal harmony; Shyama Prasad Mookerjee lent his support on behalf of Hindu Mahasabha. Meanwhile in Delhi, preparations were made on a grand scale to celebrate the birth of independence.

On 15 August 1947 addressing the Constituent Assembly in its midnight session Nehru said: “On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation, who embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounds us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we, but the succeeding generations, will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength, courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.”

The Mahatma stayed in the house of his Muslim host in Calcutta on Independence Day, fasting and spinning. There was no joy in his heart though he responded to the thousands of Hindus and Muslims who came for his darshan; it was a moving spectacle of Hindu Muslim fraternity. The next day 16 August hundreds of thousands of Hindus and Muslims attended his prayer meeting. Touched by this the Mahatma said: “…..the delirious happenings remind me of the early days of the Khilafat Movement. The fraternization then burst on the public, as a new experience. Moreover, we had then Khilafat and Swaraj as our twin goals. Today, we have nothing of the kind. We have drunk the poison of mutual hatred, and so this nectar of fraternization tastes all the sweeter and so sweetness should never wear out.” He spoke more about Hindu Muslim unity than of the birth of freedom because the new dominion was infested with the agony of partition.

As the process of inter-communal harmonization was being consolidated, news came from Pakistan that Hindus were being killed and driven out of Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi and other cities. This inflamed the crowds in Calcutta and the fragile edifice of unity that the Mahatma had built during his stay began to crumble and collapse. He wrote to Patel on September 1, 1947: “I hear that conflagration has burst out at many places. What was regarded as the ‘Calcutta miracle’ has proved to be a nine days’ wonder.”

4 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Meanwhile Nehru asked him to come to Punjab where the situation had gone out of control. The Mahatma replied to Nehru at once, on 2 September 1947: “I would have started for today but for the flare-up in Calcutta. If the fury did not abate, my going to Punjab would be of no avail. I would have no self-confidence.” The Mahatma therefore stayed on in Calcutta and decided to fast unto death, hoping that what his “word in person” could not do, “my fast may do. It may touch the hearts of all the warring elements in Punjab if it does in Calcutta.”

In less than four days of his fast the attitude of people in Calcutta changed. Leaders of all political parties, religious groups, and social organisations went round the streets and asked Hindus and Muslims to give up their arms, abjure violence and pledge to restore peace. The goondas and their dadas came forward and repented for what they had done. Everyone appealed to the Mahatma to break the fast, but he said that unless mutual trust was restored he would not do so. Finally on the assurance of C Rajagopalachari who had taken over as the Governor of the province, he agreed to concede to their request if they promised him that there would never be a repetition of such a tragedy in the city. And, that they would sincerely strive for genuine change of heart and actively foster communal unity. If they were unable to give such a guarantee, the Mahatma Said he would continue fast.

In the deliberations that followed, a document pledging to work for communal unity was prepared; it was signed by all the prominent citizens; it was endorsed by the governor. The Mahatma said: “I am breaking this fast so that I might be able to do something in Punjab. I have accepted your assurance at its face value. I hope and pray I shall never have to regret it. I would certainly like to live to serve India and humanity, but I do not wish to be duped into prolonging my life.”

The transformations among Hindus and Muslims that the Mahatma brought about were indeed amazing. And that too in the face of raging violence in other parts of India and Pakistan! He was happy at the outcome because he believed that it would bring sanity among the people of not only East Bengal, but also Bihar. He proposed to take a trip to Punjab next. The League organ of Calcutta, Morning News, commented that Gandhi was ready to die so that the Muslims could live peacefully. Likewise The Times, London, wrote that what the Mahatma had achieved, several military divisions could not have accomplished. C.R., the Governor, known as Gandhi’s conscience keeper, observed, “Gandhiji has achieved many things but there has been nothing, not even independence, which is so truly wonderful, as his victory over evil in Calcutta.”

Thus having completed his mission of mercy, the greatest Apostle of Non-Violence, left for Delhi on 7 September, unaware that worse trouble awaited him in the heart of the capital of free India which he had brought into existence, by sheer grit, courage, hard work, suffering and sacrifice even if it was not in the form that he had desired.

Inspired by Late Dr Rafiq Zakaria: Gandhi and the Break-up of India, 1999 Bhavan’s Book University

According to Mahatma Gandhi fortunate people who have amassed wealth are trustees of the wealth in their possession which they must utilise for the benefit of the underprivileged people. The practice codes of the various religious scriptures also encourage keeping aside a proportion of one’s income for charitable causes.

Gambhir Watts Chairman, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 5 Contents

18 62 17

For this Month...... 4 Kautilya’s Arthashastra: Foreign Trade...... 52

Naturopath’s Advice...... 8 Pranayam: Your Mind and Brain...... 55

Swami Vivekananda Questions and Answers...... 10 Papa and Punya...... 58

Hare Krishna Movement...... 12 The Price of Partition...... 66

The Bahai Faith...... 18 Women Warriors of India’s Freedom...... 80

Festivals of the Month: India...... 20 Why India is Crazy about Cricket...... 85

Soka Gakkai International and Nichiren India’s Functioning Anarchy...... 88

Buddhism...... 32 Asia’s BRICs Hit the Wall...... 90

A Medieval Saint: Dadu...... 40 Washington and the Art of the Possible...... 92

Publisher & General Editor: Gambhir Watts Board of Directors of Bharatiya [email protected] Vidya Bhavan Australia Editorial Committee: Shanker Dhar, Parveen Dahiya, Office Bearers: Sridhar Kumar Kondepudi Chairman Gambhir Watts [email protected] President Surendralal Mehta Design: Executive Secretary The Aqua Agency - 02 9810 5831 and Director General Homi Navroji Dastur www.aquaagency.com.au Advertising: Other Directors: [email protected] Abbas Raza Alvi, Shanker Dhar, Mathoor Krishnamurti, Rozene Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia Kulkarni, Palladam Narayana Sathanagopal, Kalpana Shriram, Suite 100 / 515 Kent Street, Jagannathan Veeraraghavan, Moksha Watts, Sridhar Kumar Sydney NSW 2000 Kondepudi (Director and Company Secretary) The views of contributors to Bhavan Australia are not necessarily the views of Bhavan Australia or Patron: Her Excellency Mrs Sujatha Singh the Editor. Bhavan Australia reserves the right to High Commissioner of India in Australia edit any contributed articles and letters submitted for publication. Copyright: all advertisements and original editorial material appearing remain the property of Bhavan Australia and may not be Honorary Life Patron: His Excellency M Ganapathi, reproduced except with the written consent of the owner of the copyright. Bhavan Australia: - ISSN 1449 – 3551 aqua.2828

6 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Rabindranath Tagore’s Geetanjali

Roaming Cloud

I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn uselessly roaming in the sky, O my sun ever-glorious! Thy touch has not yet melted my vapor, making me one with thy light, and thus I count months and years separated from thee.

If this be thy wish and if this be thy play, then take this fleeting emptiness of mine, paint it with colors, gild it with gold, float it on the wanton wind and spread it in varied wonders.

And again when it shall be thy wish to end this play at night, I shall melt and vanish away in the dark, or it may be in a smile of the white morning, in a coolness of purity transparent.

Lost Time

On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands.

Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.

I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers.

Endless Time

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. There is none to count thy minutes.

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou knowest how to wait.

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.

We have no time to lose, and having no time we must scramble for a chance. We are too poor to be late.

And thus it is that time goes by while I give it to every querulous man who claims it, and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate be shut; but I find that yet there is time.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 7 relieve the gall colic. Hot Hip baths also serve the same purpose. Neutral enema shall be had to relieve the constipation, if present. Gastro-hepatic pack is a special treatment for liver disorders. Mud on abdomen, fomentation followed by mud on abdomen are also beneficial.

Diet

As malnutrition is common in cirrhosis, a healthy diet is important in all stages of the disease. Eating a lot of fruits and vegetables and staying away from fats and oils will be helpful for the liver by reducing its metabolic overload. If complication like ascites develops, a sodium/salt-restricted diet is recommended.

Naturopath’s Jamun fruit & 2-3 grams of powdered methi consumed with warm water, would tone up a sluggish liver. Eating radish in almost every meals, Advice ample volume of buttermilk and lemon/orange juice are the very effective home remedies for cirrhosis. Question & Answer However, milk and milk products, egg, fish and meat should be totally avoided. Q. I suffered from jaundice, two years back. Later on, I suffered with malaria, 5 times. Last time, I was Herbal Remedies given a drug for malaria, after that I suffered severe illness. My count of SGOT and SGPT are rapidly Extract or the dry powder of Phyllanthus amarus/ increasing. Doctors have opinion that the liver is Jar amla, Juice of Eclipta alba/bhringaraj, Ocimum damaged due to drugs. Still the problem is not clearly sanctum/thulasi and Piper nigrum/pepper are the diagnosed, but they are sure of liver damage case. herbal remedies for cirrhosis. How can 1 overcome this problem? Acupuncture -Naresh Varry, Mumbai There are specific points indicated to stimulate the A. Cirrhosis is a condition in which the liver functions of liver, gall bladder, stomach and spleen. slowly deteriorates and malfunctions due to On stimulation of those points proper digestive chronic injury. Liver is the only organ in the body function can be ensured, which says that all those that is able to regenerate but in Cirrhosis, the digestive organs functions to their optimal level. damaging agent such as virus, drug, alcohol, etc., continues to attack the liver and prevents complete Yoga regeneration thereby replacing normal, healthy liver tissue to scar tissue. The development of General yoga practice comprising a set of asana, cirrhosis indicates late stage liver disease and is pranayama and Kriyas are advised to maintain usually followed by the onset of complications. the normal metabolic function. But as there is every possibility of having portal hypertension, Many people with cirrhosis have no symptoms i.e increased pressure in vessels from stomach in the early stages of the disease. As the disease and intestines, and Ascites in cirrhosis, asanas progresses, symptoms may include weakness, and other practices creating excess abdominal fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, weight pressure should be better avoided or done under loss, abdominal pain and bloating, itching, expert guidance. and spiderlike blood vessels on the skin. On deterioration of liver function, complications Dr. D. Sathyanath, Nature Cure Physician, develop. In your case it is evident that it is an after National Institute of Naturopathy (NIN), Dept. of effect of the drug you have taken. The goals of Ayush, Ministry of Health & F.W., Govt of India, Naturopathic treatment are to stop the based at Bapu Bhavan, Tadiwala Road, Pune, progression of scar tissue in the liver and India. NIN provides multifaceted Services and prevent or treat complications. Monthly Activities including, OPD Clinic, Yoga Classes, Magazine, Weekly Lectures, Monthly Hydrotherapy Workshop, Naturopathy Diet Centre, Courses and Acupressure Clinic etc. For more details visit: Hot and cold fomentation to the abdomen, when www.punenin.org, Email: [email protected]. applied regularly will improve the circulation in the liver thereby remove the debris and improve its Source: Nisargopachar Varta, National Institute of function too. Thus further damage of the liver cells Naturopathy, Vol. 3, Issue 7, July 2011 can be withheld. Simultaneously the hot packs,

8 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011

Run after

Viruses will turn more fatal as they mutate and develop resistance to the dose of drugs used Virus today, which necessitate higher doses tomorrow, which will lead to more deaths and miseries. This The Indian Medical world has now developed a dismay has to be overcome permanently. Drugs doubt that the viruses causing present pandemic are not the solution against viruses. Only external have undergone mutation and because of that and personal hygiene are the solutions. Where the symptoms differ, which makes it difficult to there is proper hygiene, there exists no place diagnose the exact disease and start any right drug for any virus and drug. At least on experimental in right time. When is this confusion going to be basis, the State and Central Govts should make addressed permanently? Can Hippocrates open the use of the govt. Hospitals of Naturopathy to eyes of the existing medical community? He stated, convert them seasonally as fever care centres. If ‘Give me a fever; I shall cure your chronic disease’. Gandhiji and several other pioneers could prove Here we have abundance of fever patients, leaving the Naturopathic modalities successful in treating these winged termites to death or misery. even epidemics, why the modern world remains Hippocrates was a revolutionary who fought reluctant. Let us stop the misery and unwanted against the then existing irrational practices in deaths, by treating these poor victims through the name of medicine, worked as a cause to evict the sure cure system, Naturopathy. Fever or any the witches, demons and spirits from the medical acute disease is not any actual disease, but only practice, evolved the ethics of medical practice and a symptom indicating the toxicity, showing the brought back rationality in application of medicine. viruses growing in this toxicity. Through natural Medicine here does not mean any drug. Medicine ways once we are able to eliminate these toxins means, ‘Rational means to achieve perfection from through the detox measures of Naturopathy, no any diseased condition’. And he proclaimed ‘Vix virus can exist further, no fever will continue. Medicatrix Naturae’, which means “Nature Heals”. Number of cases of fever, chicken pox and other His practice mainly depended on natural remedies acute diseases are being treated successfully by with limited use of drugs. Naturopathy with no reports of deaths or misery. I personally have met Dr. K.N. Pai, who was the The simple remedies like fasting with complete No. 1 physician of Trivandrum, who had great rest and covering with a blanket, lukewarm appreciation for Naturopathy and commonly water enema, wet packs to abdomen, chest and recognised by the public, as a physician who uses forehead, will be sufficient to treat fevers. Rules of minimum drugs and advises to practice personal personal hygiene should be taught to the public. hygiene, pranayama and such other natural Need of regular exercise, use of sunlight, air and remedies. But now, to where the medical world is water, knowledge of good food and eating habits, advancing? Are we going back to pre-Hippocratic warnings on use of unhealthy food and drinks, need age? Blind, due to pseudo knowledge, false pride, to avoid bad habits like intake of alcohol, tobacco industrialisation and irresponsibility or lack of and drugs, has to be taught to them. If personal commitment to the society. hygiene is well-monitored the natural immunity will be at its top, so that the pandemics can be Is the knowledge of chance of mutation of virus, a prevented. Along with this if external new thing? Not at all, it needs only hours to change sanitation is also ensured, no need to its appearance and character. Even if it is attacked fear of these pandemics or any of the once and escapes, immediately it will change. This epidemics permanently. is how simple fever turns in to complex problems, affecting different organs of the body or become Dr. Babu Joseph, Chief Editor, a different or new type of fever. Therefore, it is Nisargopachar Varta evident that if the entire viruses are not destroyed Source: Nisargopachar Varta, Vol. 3 in one attempt, the consequence will be very bad, Issue 7 July 2011 unexpected and unknown.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 9 Q.—I should like to ask, in continuation of Professor’s question, Swami Vivekananda whether you know of any people who have made any study of the Questions and Answers principles of self-hypnotism, which they undoubtedly practised to a great extent in ancient India, and what has been recently stated and practised in Discussion1 that thing. Of course you do not have it Q.— Do all Hindus believe in caste? so much in modern India.

A.—They are forced to. They may not believe, but A.—What you call hypnotism in the West is only they have to obey. a part of the real thing. The Hindus call it self- hypnotisation. They say you are hypnotised Q.—Are these exercises in breathing and already, and that you should get out of it and de- concentration universally practised? hypnotise yourself. “There the sun cannot illume, nor the moon, nor the stars; the flash of lightning A.—Yes; only some practise only a little, just to cannot illume that; what to speak of this mortal satisfy the requirements of their religion. The fire! That shining, everything else shines.” That temples in India are not like the churches here. is not hypnotisation, but de-hypnotisation. We They may all vanish tomorrow, and will not be say that every other religion that preaches these missed. A temple is built by a man who wants to things as real is practising a form of hypnotism. go to heaven, or to get a son, or something of that It is the Advaitist alone that does not care to be sort. So he builds a large temple and employs a hypnotised. His is the only system that more or few priests to hold services there. I need not go less understands that hypnotism comes with every there at all, because all my worship is in the home. form of dualism. But the Advaitist says, throw away In every house is a special room set apart, which even the Vedas, throw away even the Personal God, is called the chapel. The first duty of the child, throw away even the universe, throw away even after his initiation is to take a bath, and then to your own body and mind, and let nothing remain, worship; and his worship consists of this breathing in order to get rid of hypnotism perfectly. “From and meditating and repeating of a certain name. where the mind comes back with speech, being And another thing is to hold the body straight. We unable to reach, knowing the Bliss of Brahman, believe that the mind has every power over the no more is fear.” That is de-hypnotisation. “I have body to keep it healthy. After one has done this, neither vice nor virtue, nor misery nor happiness; then another comes and takes his seat, and each I care neither for the Vedas nor sacrifices nor one does it in silence. Sometimes there are three ceremonies; I am neither food nor eating nor eater, or four in the same room, but each one may have a for I am Existence Absolute, Knowledge Absolute, different method. This worship is repeated at least Bliss Absolute; I am He, I am He.” We know all twice a day. about hypnotism. We have a psychology which the West is just beginning to know, but not yet Q.—This state of oneness that you speak of, is it an adequately, I am sorry to say. ideal or something actually attained? Q.—What do you call the astral body? A.—We say it is within actuality; we say we realise that state. If it were only in talk, it would be A.—The astral body is what we call the Linga nothing. The Vedas teach three things; this Self is Sharira. When this body dies, how can it come to first to be heard, then to be reasoned, and then to take another body? Force cannot remain without be meditated upon. When a man first hears it, he matter. So a little part of the fine matter remains, must reason on it, so that he does not believe it through which the internal organs make another ignorantly, but knowingly; and after reasoning what body—for each one is making his own body; it is it is, he must meditate upon it, and then realise it.’ the mind that makes the body. If I become a sage, And that is religion. Belief is no part of religion. We my brain gets changed into a sage’s brain; and the say religion is a super-conscious state. Yogis say that even in this life a Yogi can change his body into a god-body. Q.—If you ever reach that state of super- consciousness, can you ever tell about it? The Yogis show many wonderful things. One ounce of practice is worth a thousand pounds of theory. A.—No; but we know it by its fruits. An idiot, when So I have no right to say that because I have not he goes to sleep, comes out of sleep an idiot or seen this or that thing done, it is false. Their books even worse. But another man goes into the state say that with practice you can get all sorts of of meditation, and when he comes out he is a results that are most wonderful. Small results can philosopher, a sage, a great man. That shows the be obtained in a short time by regular practice; so difference between these two states. that one may know that there is no humbug about it, no charlatanism. And these Yogis explain the

10 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 very wonderful things mentioned in all scriptures A.—It is practicable, and the only thing that is in a scientific way. The question is, how these practicable in this world. We say you are a born records of miracles entered into every nation. Vedantist, each one of you. You are declaring your The man who says that they are all false, and need oneness with everything each moment you live. no explanation, is not rational. You have no right Every time that your heart goes out towards the to deny them until you can prove them false. You world, you are a true Vedantist, only you do not must prove that they are without any foundation, know it. You are moral without knowing why; and and only then have you the right to stand up and the Vedanta is the philosophy which analysed deny them. But you have not done that. On the and taught man to be moral consciously. It is the other hand, the Yogis say they are not miracles, essence of all religions. and they claim that they can do them even to-day. Many wonderful things are done in India to-day. Q.—Should you say that there is an unsocial But none of them are done by miracles. There principle in our Western people, which makes, us are many books on the subject. Again, if nothing so pluralistic, and that Eastern people are more else has been done in that line except a scientific sympathetic than we are? approach towards psychology, that credit must be given to the Yogis. A.—I think the Western people are more cruel, and the Eastern people have more mercy towards all Q.—Can you say in the concrete what the beings. But that is simply because your civilisation manifestations are, which the Yogi can show? is very much more recent. It takes time to make a thing come under the influence of mercy. You have A.—The Yogi wants no faith or belief in his science a great deal of power, and the power of control of but that which is given to any other science, just the mind has especially been very little practised. enough gentlemanly faith to come and make the It will take time to make you gentle and good. This experiment. The ideal of the Yogi is tremendous. I feeling tingles in every drop of blood in India. If I go have seen the lower things that can be done by the to the villages to teach the people politics. they will power of the mind, and therefore I have no right not understand; but if I go to teach them Vedanta, to disbelieve that the highest things can be done. they will say: “Now, Swami, you are all right.” That The ideal of the Yogi is eternal peace and love Vairagya, non-attachment, is everywhere in India, through omniscience and omnipotence. I know a even to-day. We are very much degenerated now; Yogi who was bitten by a cobra, and who fell down but kings will give up their thrones and go about on the ground. In the evening he revived again, and the country without anything. when asked what happened, he said: “A messenger came from my Beloved.” All hatred and anger and In some places the common village-girl with her jealousy have been burned out of this man. Nothing spinning-wheel says, “Do not talk to me of dualism; can make him react; he is infinite love all the time, my spinning-wheel says ‘Soham, Soham’—‘I and he is omnipotent in his power of love. That is am He, I am He.’” Go and talk to these people, the real Yogi. And this manifesting different things and ask them why it is that they speak so and is accidental, on the way. That is not what he yet kneel before that stone. They will say that wants to attain. The Yogi says, every man is a slave with you religion means dogma, but with them except the Yogi. He is a slave to food, to air, to his realisation. “I will be a Vedantist,” one of them will wife, to his children, to a dollar, slave to a nation, say, “only when all this has vanished, and I have slave to name and fame, and to a thousand things seen the reality. Until then there is no difference in this world. The man who is not controlled by any between me and the ignorant. So I am using these one of these bondages is alone a real man, a real stones and am going to temples, and so on, to Yogi. “They have conquered relative existence in come to realisation. I have heard, but I want to this life who are firm-fixed in sameness. God is pure see and realise.” “Different methods of speech, and the same to all. Therefore such are said to be different manners of explaining the methods of living in God.” the scriptures—these are only for the enjoyment of the learned, not for freedom.” (Shankara). It is Q.—Do the Yogis attach any importance to caste? realisation which leads us to that freedom.

A.—No; caste is only the training school for Swami Vivekananda undeveloped minds. Source: Swami Vivekananda’s Works Q.—Is there no connection between this idea of super-consciousness and the heat of India? 1This discussion followed the lecture on the Vedanta Philosophy delivered by the Swami at the Graduate Philosophical Society Oxford University, U.S.A., March 25, 1896, Vol. I. A.—I do not think so; because all this philosophy was thought out fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, among the Himalayas, in an almost Arctic temperature.

Q.—Is it practicable to attain success in a cold climate?

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 11 Swami Prabhupada

Hare Krishna Movement

When the sixteen names and thirty-two syllables of as it is also known, Krishna says repeatedly that He the Hare Krishna mantra are loudly vibrated, Krishna is God Himself, the source of everything. Arjuna, dances on one’s tongue. to whom Krishna is speaking, accepts Krishna’s words as true, adding that the greatest spiritual -Stava-mala-vidyabhusana-bhasya, Baladeva authorities of that time also confirm that Krishna Vidyabhusana in Bhaktisiddhanta’s Gaudiya is God. Traditions that follow in the line of these Kanthahara 17:30 authorities have carried Krishna’s teachings down to the present day. All the grievous sins are removed for one who worships Lord Sri Hari, the Lord of all lords, and The Hare Krishna Movement technically “began” chants the holy name, the Maha-mantra. about 500 years ago, its inaugurator being Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the 16th-century mystic, -Padma Purana, 3.50.6 scholar and social reformer, who is accepted by Vedic scriptural evidence to be the Supreme God ISKCON Himself incarnated on earth to preach the way of Bhakti or love of God. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), commonly known in The Movement the West as the Hare Krishna movement, is a monotheistic branch of the Gaudiya Vaishnava The essential scripture for the movement, the tradition within Hinduism that dates back to 5,000-year-old Bhagavad Gita, spoken by Lord Lord Krishna Himself—the Supreme Personality Krishna, God Himself, explains that religious of Godhead who appeared on Earth and spoke principles are revived periodically by Him or the Bhagavad Gita over five thousand years ago. His authorized representative only, the purpose ISKCON follows the teachings of Lord Krishna as remaining the same, although due to time, revealed in the sacred Vedas, including Bhagavad culture and circumstances, the details Gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana). emphasized may vary. Essential practices involve the chanting of God’s holy names—among several processes The final instruction of Lord Krishna in the Gita of devotional service—to bring about lasting is that everyone should surrender unto Him only happiness and peace in society by reviving our and make Him the ultimate goal of life. This is loving relationships with God. clearly stated and requires no “interpretation”. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the form of His own Krishna devotee established the congregational chanting of God’s holy names, sankirtana, as the easiest Krishna is the Supreme Person, the Godhead. and most sublime spiritual practice for this age. Krishna is the speaker of the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu popularized the recognized throughout the world as one of chanting of the Maha Mantra, comprised of mankind’s greatest books of wisdom. In the Gita, sacred names of God:

12 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, In 1972, Srila Prabhupada founded the publishing Hare Hare house Bhaktivedanta Book Trust (BBT), now the world’s foremost publisher of books on Krishna Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. consciousness, or Bhakti Yoga. From 1966 through 1977, Srila Prabhupada translated more Swami Prabhupada than 40 volumes of the great classics of Krishna conscious literature from Sanskrit into English, In 1965, the prominent emissary of India’s giving elaborate commentaries synthesizing the spiritual teachings, His Divine Grace A.C. realizations of previous masters along with his Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977) own. These books include Bhagavad Gita As It brought Sri Chaitanya’s movement to the West and Is, the definitive presentation of Lord Krishna’s founded ISKCON in New York City under seemingly teachings, Srimad-Bhagavatam (Bhagavata humble circumstances. Purana), the 18-volume history of Lord Krishna’s incarnations, pastimes and devotees, and Sri ISKCON History Caitanya-caritamrita, the 9-volume biography and In 1965, at the advanced age of 69, on the order teachings of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. These of his spiritual master, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami books have been published by the BBT in more Prabhupada left the holy land of Vrindavan, India, than 50 languages, with several million copies sold to spread Lord Krishna’s message in the West. and distributed by members of ISKCON to people He arrived in Boston by freight ship, carrying $7 all over the world. in change and a trunk of books about Krishna. In 1973, the Bhaktivedanta Institute was formed For the first year he struggled alone, booking to promote the teachings of the Vedas in scientific speaking engagements at yoga studios, YMCAs, and terms. Since 1974, ISKCON Food for Life has run bohemian artists’ lofts, while living in the homes karma-free vegetarian food relief programs in of people he met who sympathized with his cause disaster areas and cities around the world. In and would give him temporary residence. He would November 1977, Srila Prabhupada passed often take a small bongo drum and sit under a tree from this world. By that time, ISKCON had in a public park to chant the holy names of Krishna. established more than 108 temples, centers, Curious onlookers would gather. Some joined in the schools farm communities, with more than chanting. Some began to take an active interest in 10,000 initiated members. his mission.

By 1966 Srila Prabhupada was living in New York City, in Manhattan’s impoverished Lower East “Curious onlookers Side, and had begun regular weekly lectures on Bhagavad Gita, along with public chanting would gather. Some joined sessions, kirtan, in Tompkins Square Park. That in the chanting. Some began same year, he incorporated ISKCON in New York City, envisioning that soon there would be centers to take an active interest around the world. From 1966 to 1968, as more and more spiritual seekers became attracted to Krishna in his mission.” consciousness, he opened ISKCON temples in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Montreal, In 1989, the Hare Krishna movement came out from and Santa Fe, New Mexico. the underground in the Soviet Union, as glasnost In 1967, the first Ratha-yatra festival outside of brought an end to persecution. By 1991, more than India was held in San Francisco. Ratha-yatra is one million copies of Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad one of the oldest and largest annual religious Gita As It Is had been sold in the former Soviet festivals in the world, performed each year in the Union. In the early 1990s, various Internet web holy city of Jagannatha Puri on the East Coast of projects were launched, including Krishna.com, India. Several million people line the streets to ISKCON.com and other Hare Krishna websites. pull giant 3-story chariots carrying deity forms of Today, ISKCON has about 500 centers around Lord Krishna through the streets, accompanied the world, with a worldwide congregation in the by festive chanting of His names. This festival is hundreds of thousands—from all walks of life. now held by members of ISKCON in cities around “ISKCON,” “Krishna consciousness,” and “Krishna” the world. From 1969 to 1973, temples opened in Himself are non-sectarian and non-denominational Europe, Canada, South America, Mexico, Africa, and terms which refer to the worship of God, the India. In 1970, the Governing Body Commission, Supreme Person. Krishna consciousness refers to ISKCON’s managerial body, was established to the eternal function of the soul, Sanatana Dharma. oversee the growing society. As such, it transcends the limitations of temporary From 1970 to 1977, ISKCON built major centers material bodies and their associated designations. at the holy pilgrimage sites of Mayapur and Source: www.harekrsna.org, www.krishna.com Vrindavana, India, and a large temple in Mumbai.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 13 day Bangladesh. The division of the subcontinent caused tremendous dislocation of populations; Independence inter-communal violence cost more than 1,000,000 lives. Some 3.5 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan into India, and about 5 million Muslims migrated from India to Pakistan. In Day Punjab, where the Sikh community was cut in half, a period of terrible bloodshed followed. Overall, the demographic shift caused an initial bitterness between the two countries that was further “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world intensified by each country’s accession of a portion sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A of the princely states. moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new...India Kashmir and Hyderabad discovers herself again.” - Jawaharlal Nehru Adding to the tensions, the issue of the polities After more than two hundred years of British rule, Kashmir, Hyderabad, and the small and fragmented India finally won back its freedom on 15th August, state of Junagadh (in present-day Gujarat), remained 1947. All the patriotic hearts rejoiced at seeing unsettled at independence. Later, the Muslim India becoming a sovereign nation and the triumph ruler of Hindu-majority Junagadh agreed to join to of hundreds and thousands of martyred souls. It Pakistan, but a movement by his people, followed by was a birth of a new nation and a new beginning. Indian military action and a plebiscite (people’s vote The only fact that marred the happiness of the of self-determination), brought the state into India. fruits by the blood of martyrs was the fact that the country was divided into India and Pakistan and The Nizam of Hyderabad, also a Muslim ruler of a the violent communal riots took away a number Hindu-majority populace, tried to manoeuvre to of lives. It was on the eve of 15th of August, 1947 gain independence for his very large and populous that India tricolour flag was unfurled by Jawaharlal state, which was, however, surrounded by India. Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, on the After more than a year of fruitless negotiations, ramparts the Red Fort, Delhi. Each and every India sent its army in a police action in September patriotic soul watched with excitement and paid 1948, and Hyderabad became part of India. tribute to thousands of martyrs who sacrificed their lives for India’s freedom.

Every year, August 15 is celebrated as the “...marred the happiness Independence Day in India. The Day is a moment of delight and grandeur. On 3rd June 1947, the last of the fruits by the blood British Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten declared the separation of the British Empire in India into of martyrs was that the India and Pakistan. The announcement was made under the terms of the Indian Independence Act violent communal riots 1947. India shook off the shackles of British Rule and became free. It was a moment of celebration all took away a number over the country. of lives.” The Partition

With the decision by Britain to withdraw from The Hindu ruler of Kashmir, whose subjects were the Indian subcontinent, the Congress Party and 85 percent Muslim, decided to join India. Pakistan, Muslim League agreed in June 1947 to a partition however, questioned his right to do so, and a war of India along religious lines. Under the provisions broke out between India and Pakistan. A cease- of the Indian Independence Act, India and Pakistan fire was arranged in 1949, with the cease-fire line were established as independent dominions with creating a de facto partition of the region. The predominantly Hindu areas allocated to India and central and eastern areas of the state came under predominantly Muslim areas to Pakistan. Indian administration as Jammu and Kashmir After India’s independence on August 15, 1947, State, while the north-western quarter came under India received most of the subcontinent’s 562 Pakistani control as Azad Kashmir and the Northern widely scattered polities, or princely states, as Areas. Although a UN peacekeeping force was sent well as the majority of the British provinces, in to enforce the cease-fire, the dispute was not and parts of three of the remaining provinces. resolved. This deadlock intensified suspicion and Muslim Pakistan received the remainder. antagonism between the two countries. Pakistan consisted of a western wing, with the In 1971, Pakistan was itself sub-divided when approximate boundaries of modern Pakistan, and its eastern section broke away and formed an eastern wing, with the boundaries of present-

14 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Red Fort

Bangladesh. Border disputes continue to embitter Delhi where the Prime Minister of India unfurls Pakistani-Indian relations, as Pakistan has the Tricolour at the barricades of Red Fort which produced a series of military rulers, while India receives a salutation of 21 guns, and addresses maintained a parliamentary democracy. the nation with his speech. The Prime Minister’s speech holds major importance as it pays Significance tribute to the great souls who sacrificed their lives for nation’s independence and reveals the The significance of the Independence Day in achievements of the nation during the past year the existence of a nation is of greater value. The beside discussing significant issues and proposing day is much more than merely celebrating the steps for further growth. anniversary of India’s free statehood. 15th August 1947 symbolizes the victory of Indian patriotism. The Parade The British, who oppressed India for centuries had primarily arrived to initiate business but steadily A vibrant parade exhibiting India’s cultural captured the entire government of the nation. Men multiplicity, emblematic portrayals of the nation’s and women from all over India joined hands and developments in science and technology, a fought for India’s freedom. Many were acclaimed collaborative parade of India’s armed competencies while contribution of others went unnoticed. by the three forces and patriotic skits and dramas However, praise wasn’t what they desired for. by school children are an integral part of the It was the dream of free and autonomous India Independence Day festivities. On this day the which motivated them to walk the path of struggle skyline of the capital city gets sprinkled with unselfishly. Neither did they battle for their region innumerable multicoloured kites. People indulge nor for their natives, but for India and Indians. At in kite flying competitions and children cheer the time of growing communal and caste conflicts, aloud elevating the spirit of the Day. Buildings of it becomes significant to remind us that the people national importance are illuminated. People pay who laid the foundation of free India had always rich tributes to the freedom fighters who sacrificed dreamt of an integrated nation. It is our duty to live their lives and fought to free their motherland from and sustain their dreams, the sole reason for which the clutches of the oppressors—British who ruled Independence Day in India is observed. It is a day the country. to pay a mark of respect to our saviours because of whom we are breathing an air of freedom “Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, which does not have the elements of exploitation and now the time comes when we will redeem and repression. our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, Celebrations when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely The festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm in history, when we step out from the old to the new, all over the country. The Independence Day when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, of any country is a moment of pride and glory. long suppressed, finds utterance.... We end today Independence Day is considered as a national a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself holiday in India. The arrangement begins a again.” - Jawaharlal Nehru (Speech on Indian month before the D-day and the roads are Independence Day, 1947) embellished with ribbons and Indian flags. Flag- hoisting ceremonies are executed all over India Source: www.festivalsofindia.in, by State Governments. However, the main event festivals.tajonline.com, india.mapsofindia.com, is conducted in the capital city of India, New festivals.indobase.com

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 15 Shwetambaras: Jains who believed that monks can wear only white clothes.

Beliefs and Practices

The Jains believe in reincarnation. To free Jainism themselves of the cycle of birth and death, they practice asceticism that is stringent in nature. They Jainism is regarded as one of the oldest religion basically struggle to make their present birth the in the world. It believes in the cyclical nature of last one. Their professions are chosen carefully the universe. Jains are the followers of ‘Jinas’, and revolve around the protection of lives or which means conqueror. To conquer love and doing good deeds for others. The ethical code pleasure, hatred and pain, and thereby freeing followed by the Jains is very strict in nature and his/her vices from the karmas obscuring love, the ethics are followed with much dedication knowledge, perception, truth and ability is called and sincerity. The Jains believe in the following a Jina. Jainism is also a syncretistic religion, which principles and ethics. contains many elements similar to both Hinduism and Buddhism. Ahimsa

Origin The Jains believe in Ahimsa or non-violence. They adopt Ahimsa as a way of life. Non-violence does Origin of Jainism dates back before the Pre-historic not mean only being calm and letting others live culture. The discovery of the Indus Civilization peacefully. It means that one should be peaceful seems to have thrown a new light on the antiquity in thought as well as action. All monks are strict of Jainism. The evidence suggests that Jainism vegetarians and regard even the tiniest insect as a was known among the people of the Indus Valley sacred form of life. around 3000-3500 B.C. Figures, considered to be of Lord Rishabha, on the seals have been discovered Satya at Mohenjodaro and Harrappa. Since its existence more than 5000 years ago, Jainism has never Jains believe in speaking the Satya or truth always. compromised its core principle of non-violence. They believe that falsehood is a deterrent in the Rather it upholds non-violence as its supreme attainment of Nirvana and is not useful in one’s life. religion in the following words of Ahimsa Paramo Not speaking the truth or running away from it is Dharmah and has strictly emphasized its practice worthless and does not change the nature of truth. at all levels. Jainism presents a truly enlightened perspective of equality of souls, irrespective of Asteya differing physical forms, ranging from human beings to animals and microscopic living Jains believe in not stealing from others. They organisms. Humans, alone among living beings, are believe in being content with whatever they have. endowed with all the six senses of seeing, hearing, According to the Jains, nothing is permanent, tasting smelling, touching, and thinking; thus not even one’s body. Materialistic pleasures humans are expected to act responsibly towards only hamper spiritual growth and create only a all life by being compassionate, honest, fearless, temporary sense of satisfaction. forgiving, and rational.

The Teachings

The Jains basically follow the teachings of 24 Tirthankaras or Enlightened spiritual leaders. Lord Mahavira was the 24th and last Tirthankara. Lord Mahavira reformed Jainism and gave it more exposure. The history and origin of Jainism dates back to many centuries before Lord Mahavira was born. The Jains have influenced many cultures with their teachings and philosophies. They believe that self-control is essential for the attainment of omniscience or infinite knowledge. The realization of infinite knowledge leads to Moksha or Nirvana. The Jains are supposed to be the most educated religious community of India. Some of India’s oldest libraries are of the Jains. The Jains are essentially of two types:

Digambaras: Jains who believed that monks should Lord Mahavira not wear clothes.

16 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Brahmacarya them to be vegetarians. Some sects take these already strict vows even further. For instance, to Jains believe in being loyal to just one spouse for more perfectly fulfil the principle of nonviolence the entire life span. They believe that monogamy to any living thing, some do not eat vegetables, is the best way of life and is also a respect to the but only fruit, nuts and milk. Also on this principle, person you are spending your life with. some wear masks over their mouth and nose to avoid inadvertently harming insects or microbes by Aparigraha inhaling them.

Aparigraha means detachment from materialistic To more completely demonstrate their non- possessions. It means to possess only a few or attachment to material possessions, some sects basic required materials for a lifetime. In the life eat out of their hands rather than own a bowl. The of a monk, material pleasures have no importance disciplined life is not only for monks and nuns, but and in fact cease to be of any importance as for all people. Those who do not undertake the time goes by. monastic life take lesser vows that closely parallel the greater. They are recommended to lead life in four basic stages. The first stage is called Brahmacharya, Worship ashram which means the life of a student. The second stage is called Grihasth, ashram which Worship occurs publicly at stone temples or at means having a family or leading a family life. home at wooden shrines resembling the temple. The third stage is known as Vanaprasth, ashram Worship rituals may include chanting mantras, which means doing social services and finishing gazing at images of the gods (puja) or anointing off family responsibilities. The last and final stage such images. Although the prime focus of Jainism is of life is known as Sanyast, ashram which means self-discipline, adherents may call upon the deities abandonment of family life and adopting the life of for assistance on their journey. an ascetic or a saint. Meditation Monasticism Jain meditation (samayika) focuses on achieving An essential aspect of Jainism is the ascetic a peaceful state of mind. It usually involves the lifestyle. Monks and nuns undertake the ascetic chanting of mantras. Mantras are a significant part life full-time. Jain monks and nuns observe other of Jain worship and ritual. Five Homages (panka special practices that set them apart. They do not namaskarais) are said by most Jains every morning. eat when it is dark or in front of a layperson, they Doing so is believed to dispel evil, cure illness and do not accept food that is cooked for them, they do bring good fortune. Another mantra, the ahimsa not wear shoes, they do not stay in one place for vikas, aids in following the nonviolent path. a prolonged period of time, they do not touch any person of the opposite sex, they wear simple white Source: www.jaindharmonline.com, clothes or nothing and they do not create art or get www.religionfacts.com, involved in social matters. www.religioustolerance.org, www.religionfacts.com, www.iloveindia.com, Monks are expected to be homeless, shave their http://festivals.igiftstoindia.com heads and beg for food. The vow of ahimsa requires

Jain Temple

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 17 This privileged position did not long survive The Bahai Faith Bahaullah’s announcement of support for the message of the Bab. Engulfed in the waves of violence unleashed upon the Babis after the The Bahai Faith is the youngest of the world’s Bab’s execution Bahaullah suffered not only independent religions. It started in Iran when the loss of all his worldly endowments but was the Bab inaugurated a new era in the history subjected to imprisonment, torture, and a series of the human race. The Bahais believe that the of banishments. The first was to Baghdad where, ‘Promised One’ of all ages and peoples, Bahaullah in 1863, He announced Himself as the One revealed himself in 1863. He dispatched one of the promised by the Bab. From Baghdad, Bahaullah distinguished Bahai teachers, Jamal Effendi to India was sent to Constantinople, to Adrianople, and to spread the teachings of the Bahai faith in the finally to Acre, in the Holy Land, where he arrived years 1874-75. The Bahais believe Bahaullah as the as a prisoner in 1868. Universal Manifestation of God whose advent has been prophesied in all the Holy Scriptures. In the From Adrianople and later from Acre, Bahaullah course of a little more than 150 years, the Bahai addressed a series of letters to the rulers of his day Faith has grown from an obscure movement within that are among the most remarkable documents a minority sect of Islam into a worldwide religion. in religious history. They proclaimed the coming unification of humanity and the emergence of The Bab (1819-1850) a world civilization. The kings, emperors, and presidents of the nineteenth century were called On May 23, 1844, in Shiraz, Persia, a young man upon to reconcile their differences, curtail their known as the Bab announced the imminent armaments, and devote their energies to the appearance of the Messenger of God awaited by establishment of universal peace. all the peoples of the world. The title Bab means “the Gate.” Although Himself the bearer of an Bahaullah passed away at Bahji, just north of Acre, independent revelation from God, the Bab declared and is buried there. His teachings had already that His purpose was to prepare mankind for begun to spread beyond the confines of the Middle this advent. Swift and savage persecution at the East, and His Shrine is today the focal point of hands of the dominant Muslim clergy followed the world community which these teachings have this announcement. The Bab was arrested, brought into being. beaten, imprisoned, and finally on July 9, 1850 was executed in the public square of the city of Tabriz. Fundamental Beliefs Some 20,000 of His followers perished in a series of massacres throughout Persia. The Bahais believe in the three cardinal principles—oneness of mankind, oneness of God Bahaullah (1817-1892)—The Founder and oneness of religion. The Bahais work for the removal of prejudices based on caste, creed, Born in 1817, Bahaullah was a member of one of the religion, sex, colour, race and language. They great patrician families of Persia. The family could advocate universal education and the inculcation trace its lineage to the ruling dynasties of Persia’s of a scientific outlook among people. The Bahais imperial past, and was endowed with wealth and do not believe in superstitions, ceremonies, rituals vast estates. Turning his back on the position at and dogmas. Bahais believe that throughout court which these advantages offered him, Bahaullah history the Creator has educated humanity became known for his generosity and kindliness through a series of Divine Manifestations. These which made him deeply loved among Manifestations include: Krishna, Buddha, Abraham, his countrymen. Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus and Muhammad. They

“The Bahais believe Bahaullah as the Universal Manifestation of God whose advent has been prophesied in all the Holy Scriptures.” Bahai Garden

18 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 believe that in the present age, God has revealed Fasting Himself through Bahaullah, whose name means ‘The Glory of God’. He is regarded as their Prophet. All Bahais should fast as fasting for Bahais means The Bahais pray to the one true God, the Creator that no food and drink should be taken between of the universe. The act of praying is described as sunrise and sunset. ‘a conversation with God’. It is obligatory for every Bahai to pray and meditate on the Words of God Reading the Scriptures every day. There are prayers for all occasions and these can be offered individually or collectively. All Bahais should try to learn to read so that they can read the holy writings for themselves. Rites and Ceremonies Bahaullah has commanded the Bahais to read a part of the holy writings every morning and There are few rites and rituals in the Bahai faith. evening. The aim of reading these passages There is however a large number of practices of should be to achieve a better and deeper the Bahai community that create what may be understanding of them. A small portion read with called a Bahai culture or ethos. Although Bahai understanding is better than a great deal read communities celebrate Bahai holy days, there are with no understanding. If a person cannot read the very few set forms or rituals. Bahais are free to writings then some of them can be committed to introduce large elements of local culture—such as memory. All of the prayers and readings should be music, dance, song, and theatre—into such Bahai said in the language which the person knows best. meetings as the Nineteen-Day Feast and Holy Day Bahai writings have been translated into over 800 commemorations, as well as into social events such languages including over 50 Indian languages. as weddings or funerals. Marriage & Divorce Laws Laws, Rituals and Festivals The family is the basis of society and so The Bahai Faith does differ from Hinduism marriage is given great importance in the Bahai to a great extent in the matter of laws, rituals teachings. Each man may only have one wife and and festivals. The Bahai Faith claims to be an each woman may have only one husband. Both the independent world religion. It does not seek to man and the woman must agree to a marriage. The impose the laws and rituals of any particular parents of both sides must also agree. Divorce is previous religion on the whole world but rather allowed in the unfortunate event that the marriage it has its own. In general, however, compared to breaks down completely. But it is discouraged other religions, the Bahai Faith has very little in the and every effort is made to enable the couple to way of law and ritual laid down. be reconciled.

Prayer Source: www.allaboutreligion.org, http://contenderministries.org, Bahaullah has said that all Bahais must pray every www.patheos.com, day. He has given three prayers to the Bahais. They www.culturopedia.com, can choose which one of them to say daily. There http://bahai-library.com is a very short one that must be said between noon and sunset, a medium one which must be said three times a day, and a long one that is said once daily at any time during the day.

Lotus Temple

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 19 Janmasthami

the eighth child of his sister will take birth to kill Festivals of the Month: him. So, in turn he rushed to kill his sister. Kansa gave up the idea of killing after being assured by India Vasudev that he will hand over all his children to him. He put them in Prison. Kansa killed all Shri Krishna Janmasthami the six infants as soon as they were born. The seventh child (Balram) was saved due to divine Janmashtami or Gokulashtami is a festival full of intervention, when he was transferred from Devki’s joy and gaiety. It celebrates with great pomp and womb to that of Rohini’s (other wife of Vasudev). show, the birth of Lord Krishna who was born more Lord Krishna was born in the prison cell. He took than 5000 years ago in the 28th year of Dwapur birth in divine form. Soon after the birth, a chain of Yug. It is one of the most celebrated festivals for events astonished Vasudev, when he saw the gates Hindus not only in India but also, all over the of the cell flow open and all the guards fast asleep. world. Janmashtami is about the joy, people all He immediately thought of Nand, his close friend in over the world feel for their beloved Lord Krishna. Gokul and decided to hand over his child to him in Janmashtami festival also known as Krishna Jayanti order to save him from the clutch of Kansa. falls in the month of August-September every year. Lord Krishna is said to have been born on a rainy Yamuna and stormy night and it seems as if Lord Varun— God of rain welcomed the Lord himself. The trend The night of birth was witnessed by heavy rains continues with Janmashtami falling during the peak which led to River Yamuna being in floods. As soon of rainy season in India. Janmashtami is celebrated as the feet of Lord immersed in the river, the flow to welcome and enjoy Lord Krishna’s birth. Shri became normal and Yamuna made way for the Krishna Janmasthami 2011 falls on 22nd August. Lord. Sheshnag, the serpent formed an umbrella to save the new born baby from rain. Lord Krishna The Divine Child According to Puranas, Krishna is the incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who took birth to kill the evil king Vasudev kept his child next to fast asleep Yashoda Kansa and free the people of Mathura and other and took the baby girl lying with him back to nearby towns from his cruelty and save them from Mathura. The baby girl is believed to be the sister his evil clutches. Kansa was the maternal uncle of Lord Vishnu. On hearing the news of birth of the of Sri Krishna who was destined to be killed by eighth child of Devki and Vasudev, Kansa rushed the eighth child of his beloved sister Devki. The to the prison-cell and lifted the baby girl to kill her. main objective of Lord Krishna’s birth was to free However, instead of hitting the stone, the child flew Mother Earth from the wickedness of demons. up in the air and announced that the annihilator of Kansa had taken birth. Kansa Rituals and Customs The people of Mathura were extremely unhappy with the wicked king Kansa who put his father, Janmashtami festival witnesses many customs and king Ugrasen in prison and declared himself the rituals in various states and cities of India. These king of Mathura. It was to put an end to his evil customs and rituals are followed religiously by all ways and other demons that Lord Vishnu decided the Lord Krishna devotees year after year. to take birth on Earth in human form. According to Akashvani (heavenly voice) at the wedding of Fasting: The most common ritual observed all over his beloved sister Devki, Kansa got to know that during Janmashtami is fasting by devotees on the

20 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Rakhi Shri Krishna Jamnasthami day of the festival. Devotees fast for the entire Janmashtami festival is celebrated all around day and break it after the birth of Lord Krishna the world with lot of enthusiasm and devotion. at midnight. People prefer to have only milk and The festival has gained popularity among milk products as they were the favourite of Lord people of other nationalities as well. Indians as Krishna. Some devotees of Lord Krishna go to the well as citizens of other countries take part in extent of keeping ‘Nirjal’ fast. It involves fasting Janmashtami festivity. ISKCON has further helped without having a single drop of water. There are to spread the awareness of Lord Krishna and his other ardent followers, who keep the fast for two birth anniversary. Janmashtami preparations days in the honour of Lord Krishna. begin well in advance. Temple associations and other religious groups chart out an itinerary for Chanting: Devotees indulge in continuous chanting the day. The day is marked with Krishna chanting all day long. They chant mantras and shlokas to competitions, dance dramas, recital of verses from please the Lord. Religious atmosphere prevails ‘Bhagwad Gita’. everywhere. Devotees highlight his feats and his divine characteristics. Chanting of 108 names Raksha Bandhan of Lord Krishna is another ritual that takes place in various temples. Chanting of names is Raksha Bandhan is a festival of affection, fraternity accompanied by showering of flowers on the idol of and sublime sentiments, a ‘bond of protection’. Lord Krishna. This is an occasion to flourish love, care, affection and sacred feeling of brotherhood. Rakhi or Raksha Devotional Songs, Dances and Plays: Another Bandhan reflects the sweet and sour relationship of popular ritual is singing of songs (bhajans) in the brother and a sister. Though brothers and sisters praise of Lord Krishna. Bhajans are an important share and enjoy the bond of love between them custom of the midnight celebration during the throughout the year, but Rakhi is the day when festival. Dances are also performed by devotees they get an opportunity to express their tender depicting the various events of Lord Krishna. Plays love and feelings for each other. Rakhi also makes depicting various events and accomplishments them commemorate their loving memories, loyalty, of Lord Krishna during his lifetime are another closeness, trust and friendship that is ever lasting important customs during the festival. and pure. Raksha Bandhan is celebrated every year on ‘Shravan Purnima’ (Full Moon Day of the Hindu Celebrations month of Shravan), which generally falls in the month of August. Rakhi 2011 falls on 13th August. Janmashtami is celebrated with fervor in India. Devotees all over make sweets like Kheer, Pedhas Peace and Brotherhood during the festival to please the Lord. Euphoria for the festival is not just restricted to Mathura—the Raksha Bandhan has a much broader perspective; birth city Mathura but pervades in rest of India the festival encompasses true sense of peace too. The festivities include various rituals being and brotherhood. The values propagated by the followed religiously. Temples all over India engage occasion, if inculcated by all human beings, can in various ceremonies and prayers in honour of bring the much-needed relief from the ongoing Lord Krishna. Important and common customs violence and mistrust. Rakhi festival encompasses observed in different states include performance the warmth shared between the siblings but now of rasleelas. The ceremony of ‘Dahi Handi’ wherein it goes way beyond it. Some people tie Rakhi to enthusiastic young men break an earthen pot neighbours and close friends signifying a peaceful filled with curd, depiction of ‘Jhankis’ and other co-existence of every individual. Rakhi Utsav decorative items to show important events of Lord was first popularized by Rabindranath Tagore to Krishna’s childhood. promote the feeling of unity and a commitment to

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 21 on the Shravan Purnima. Lord Indra’s Queen Sachi also called Indrani, empowered the thread and tied it on to his hand on the decided day. The power of the sacred thread called Raksha helped the Gods to victory. The tradition of thread tying still continues. It is a gesture of goodwill.

King Bali and Goddess Laxmi

Demon King Bali was a great devotee of Lord Vishnu. Lord Vishnu had taken up the task to guard his kingdom leaving his own abode in Vaikunth. Goddess Laxmi wished to be with her Lord back in her abode. She went to Bali disguised as a Brahmin woman to seek refuge till her husband came back. During the Shravan Purnima celebrations, Laxmiji tied the sacred thread to the King. Upon being asked she revealed who she was and why she was there. The King was touched by her goodwill for his family and her purpose and requested the Lord to accompany her. He sacrificed all he had for the Lord and his devoted wife. The festival is also called Baleva that is Bali Raja’s devotion to the Lord. It is said that since then it has been a Krishna Vasudev tradition to invite sisters in Shravan Purnima for the thread tying ceremony, the Raksha Bandhan.

Yama and the Yamuna

Raksha Bandhan was a ritual followed by Lord Yama (Lord of Death) and his sister Yamuna. Yamuna tied Rakhi to Yama and bestowed immortality. Yama was so moved by the serenity of the occasion that he declared that whoever gets a Rakhi tied from his sister and promise her protection will become immortal.

Significance

Goddess Parvati Raksha Bandhan is now considered as a day to celebrate the sacred relation of a brother and a sister. The Rishis tied Rakhi to the people who all members of society to protect each other and came seeking their blessings. The Sages tied the encourage a harmonious Social life. sacred thread to themselves to safeguard them from the evil. It is by all means the ‘Papa Todak, Origin Punya Pradayak Parva’ or the day that bestows boons and ends all sins as it is mentioned in Many epics are related to the day and the origin the scriptures. of Raksha Bandhan. ‘Raksha Bandhan’ (Knot of Protection) came into origin about 6000 years back The practice of tying thread was prevalent among when Aryans created first civilization—The Indus the Rajputs. At the time of war when the brave Valley Civilization. Rajput soldiers prepared to go to the battlefield, the women folk followed the ritual of tying a Legends thread around their wrists after applying a dash of vermilion powder on their forehead. This was The festival finds a mention in most of the considered a sign of good omen and the ladies epics and its origin can be traced back to the believed that it would protect their men from the mythological Pouranik times. The legend in the enemy’s blow and bring them victory. Bhavishya Puran refers to a war between the Gods and the Demons. The demon King Brutra Rituals and Celebrations was advancing and the Gods lead by Lord Indra, were on verge of defeat. The King of Gods, Indra On the day of Rakhi, sisters prepare the Pooja approached Guru Brihaspati to find a solution to Thali with diya, roli, chawal, rakhi thread and the situation. Brihaspati asked Indra to tie a sacred sweets. The ritual begins with a prayer in front of thread on his wrist, powered by the sacred Mantras God, then the sister ties Rakhi to her brother and

22 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Lord Shiva and Parvati

wishes for his happiness and well-being. Brother significance of Teej festival lies in devotion of acknowledges the love with a promise to stand Goddess Parvati for her husband Lord Shiva. It by his sister through all the good and bad times. was on this day that the divine couple Lord Shiva Sisters tie Rakhi on the wrist of their brothers and Goddess Parvati reunited with each other amid chanting of Mantras, put roli and rice on his after hundreds of years. Even today womenfolk forehead and pray for his well-being. Brothers commemorate this mythological event by wish her a good life and pledges to take care of observing ‘Nirjara Vrat’ for the well-being and long- her. He gives her gifts. The gift symbolizes the life of their husband. Climatic Significance lies in physical acceptance of her love, reminder of their the fact that Teej celebrates the advent of monsoon togetherness and his pledge. season and thus creates a greater impact for its celebration. Taking full advantage of the beautiful Rabindra Nath Tagore started gathering of climate at this time women enjoy themselves by people like ‘Rakhi Mahotsavas’ in Shantiniketan swinging, singing and dancing in rain. to propagate the feeling of brotherhood among people. He believed that this will invoke trust and Legend feeling of peaceful coexistence. Raksha Bandhan, for them, is a way to harmonize the relationship According to Hindu mythology, in the month of of humanity. The tradition continues as people Shravan, Goddess Parvati reunited with Lord Shiva started tying rakhis to the neighbour and friends. after a penance of hundred years. Mata Parvati went through rigorous fasting and a penance of Teej 100 years. She took 108 births to be accepted by Lord Shiva in the form of His wife. Even today the Teej festival is celebrated with great enthusiasm auspicious day is celebrated to honour Goddess and devotion by the women in India. Since Teej Parvati for her true love and positive spirit. Since falls at the outbreak of the monsoons, it is also the celebration of Teej totally relates to Goddess popularly known as the ‘Sawan Festival’. Teej is Parvati, so she is also called Teej Mata. This legend celebrated in the month of July-August. Festival is said to be the basis of Teej celebrations. The of Teej is dedicated to the divine couple—Lord divine figure of Goddess Parvati is worshiped with Shiva and Goddess Parvati. There are three earnest dedication at the time of Teej. different variations of Teej, namely—Hariyali, Kajari and Hartalika Teej. All the three Teej fall in Rituals different times and are celebrated with fervour and enthusiasm by womenfolk in India. Date of At the time of Teej, certain rituals and customs Teej Festival is decided according to the arrival of are followed by women so as to be blessed by monsoon and hence it changes every year. There Goddess Parvati. It is considered very auspicious are special rituals and customs associated with for married and engaged women to receive Teej every Teej. These traditions hold great importance gifts from their parents-in-law and to be parents- for women celebrating the festival of Teej. Teej in-law. Future in-laws of engaged girls gift them 2011 falls on 31 August. ‘Shrinjhara’ (a gift pack) which consists of henna, lac bangles, a special Laheria dress and Ghewar (a Significance sweet dish). Baya is another traditional package given to women observing fast on Teej. It includes Teej festival is an important festival. Rooted deep dry fruits, mathris, new clothes, bangles and in Indian religious and cultural ethos, Teej plays jewellery. It is given by mothers of the newlywed a significant role in defining the true nature of girls on the Teej Festival day. Women keep fast and relationship between married couples. Besides, the perform other customs for long and healthy life of festival provides much needed break to womenfolk their husband. from their daily household drudgery. Religious

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 23 Celebrations

Teej becomes more auspicious and special if it rains on this day. Peacocks come out to dance while women enjoy themselves by swinging and dancing in the rain. Teej is celebrated with extreme joy and craze. A few days before the festival, the image of Goddess Parvati is repainted and beautifully decorated with fine clothes and jewellery. Teej idol is taken out from the pat (holy place where she is kept). The idol is freshly painted and bedecked with gold and other jewellery. Bright colours are used to decorate the Goddess. The idol is offered fruits, milk, chapati, nookti, ghewar and pure jal by Saints performing prayers and chanting holy Shlokas. Teej idol covered with a canopy is taken out in the procession. Performers like folk singers, dancers precedes the procession. Teej Naga Panchami festivities and its celebrations are dedicated to Goddess Parvati this is why it’s purely a festival of womenfolk. holes and keep them in covered earthen pots and Nag Panchami these snakes are fed with rats and milk. Their poison-containing fangs are not removed because Hinduism as a religion is many-sided yet bound by the people of this village believe that to hurt the a common search for Truth and to Hindus it means snakes is sacrilegious. Yet it is amazing that these a way of life and a fellowship of faiths. With the venomous cobras do not bite instead protect their advent of the Aryans, it originated as a simple form prospective worshipers. On the day of the actual of worship of the forces of Nature, drawing in its festival the people accompanied by youngsters system action in social organisations, local cults, dancing to the tune of musical band, carry the Deities’ diverse beliefs and modes of worship. Nag pots on their heads in a long procession to the Panchami is an important festival and is celebrated sacred-temple of goddess Amba and after the on the fifth day of the moonlit-fortnight in the ritual worship the snakes are taken out from the month of Shravan. (July/August). This is the time pots and set free in the temple courtyard. Then when serpents invariably come out of their holes every cobra is made to raise its head by swinging a that get inundated with rain-water to seek shelter in white-painted bowl, filled with pebbles in front. The gardens and many times in houses. Nag Panchami Pandit sprinkles haldi-kumkum and flowers on their 2011 falls on 19 August. raised heads. After the Puja they are offered plenty of milk and honey. Legend Eid ul Fitr The most popular legend is about Lord Krishna when he was just a young boy. When playing the Eid ul Fitr or the ‘festival of fast breaking’ is the game of throwing the ball with his cowherd friends, most celebratory of all Muslim festivals. The term the legend goes to tell how the ball fell into Yamuna ‘Eid’ has been derived from the Arabic word ‘oud’, River and how Krishna vanquished Kalia Serpent which means ‘the return’ and hence, signifies the and saved the people from drinking the poisonous return of the festival each year. The festival is water by forcing Kalia to go away. significant as much for its timing, as for its religious implications. It is celebrated after the long fasting It is an age-old religious belief that serpents are month of Ramadan (the ninth month of the Islamic loved and blessed by Lord Shiv. He always wears calendar), on the first day of the Shawwal month of them as ornamentation around his neck. Most of the Hijri year (Islamic calendar). Legend says that the festivals that fall in the month of Shravan are the Qur’an was revealed to Prophet Mohammed in celebrated in honour of Lord Shiv, whose blessings the last ten days of Ramadan. Eid ul Fitr 2011 falls are sought by devotees, and along with the Lord, on 30th August. snakes are also worshiped. Ramadan Celebrations The month of Ramadan is historically associated Nag Panchami is celebrated throughout India. The with two important victories of Prophet most fantastic celebrations of Nag Panchami are Muhammad—the battle of Badr and the conquest seen in the village of Baltis Shirale in Maharashtra. of Makkah. Fasting during the month of Ramadan, There people pray to live cobras that they catch according to Islamic beliefs, helps in developing on the eve of this pre-harvest festival. About a self-control and is a way of getting closer to Allah. week before this festival, dig out live snakes from The festival of Eid ul Fitr marks the beginning of

24 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Eid celebrations and merriment for a period extending the normal Zakat, which is given to purify one’s over three days. Women prepare sweets at home wealth. Holy Quran recommends giving donation and all Muslims are seen adorned with new dresses to the poor on this auspicious day, the best time on this day. Eid ul Fitr is synonymous with joy and for which is before going to the mosque in the thanksgiving. Such is the spirit of this great festival morning, to offer prayers. that even a lot of Non-Muslims participate in Eid celebrations in India. Muslims observe all Islamic Eid ul Fitr is also a festival that fosters brotherhood festivals with great religious fervour. Ramzan is and interactions, as people visit each other on the among the most important Muslim festivals. It days of festivity. Friends, relatives and loved ones acquires the character of a nationwide fair with are greeted and offered sweets. Gifts are given the Muslim areas becoming bright and lively to children, mostly in the form of money. Sisters towards the evening and remaining awake almost and daughters also receive gifts on this occasion. throughout the night. Ramadan is a special month Some Muslims also pay a visit to the graveyard, a of the year for over one billion Muslims throughout custom which is known as ziyarat-al-qubur, to pay the world. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion homage to the departed souls. Some scholars also to God, and self-control. believe that the month-long fasting is undertaken to acknowledge the superiority of the spiritual realm Significance over the physical realm. Nevertheless, the spirit of conviviality surrounds the celebrations of Eid ul Eid ul Fitr, also known as Ramadan Id, is celebrated Fitr throughout the Islamic world. by Muslims across the world, at the end of the month of Ramadan. It signifies the breaking of the Celebrations fasting period, with the sighting of new crescent moon in the evening, on the last day of Ramadan. While Eid means festivity, Fitr stands for breaking The celebration extends to a fiesta of three days the fast. Together, the term is symbolical of and is also called “Chhoti Eid’’. The significance of breaking of the fasting period. Eid ul Fitr is a three Eid ul Fitr stems from the special meaning it holds day celebration. The festive occasion is celebrated for the entire Muslim community. Legend says that with great pomp and show. Kids and adults Prophet Mohammad had laid down Eid ul Fitr and indulge in offering prayers to the Almighty, seeking Eid ul Adha as days of rejoicing and feasting for the blessing. Different parts of the world celebrate the Muslims, in the remembrance of Allah. Since then, occasion differently. Muslims fast for the complete month of Ramadan and offer spiritual devotions to the almighty Allah. -Parveen, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan It is believed that whoever fasts during Ramadan with absolute faith shall have his past sins forgiven. Source: www.krishnajanmashtami.com, www.aryabhatt.com, www.festivalsofindia.in, Another important aspect of Eid ul Fitr lies in the festivals.iloveindia.com, distribution of charity on the day. Every Muslim www.raksha-bandhan.com, www.teejfestival.org, who has some means must pay Zakt al Fitr, a www.rrtd.nic.in, www.navodaya.nic.in, sum to be donated for the month of Ramadan, to festivals.tajonline.com, www.exotiqueindia.com, impoverished Muslims. It can either be in the form www.submission.org of cash or basic foodstuff, including wheat, barley, dates, raisins etc. It is done to spare a thought to the plight of the poor and is different from

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 25 Other Minor Religions of the World

range up to 350 million. The word “traditional” is preferable to “folk” because “folk” might imply only the local, tribal customs and beliefs such as ancestor worship and nature beliefs. But “Chinese traditional religion” is meant to categorize the common religion of the majority Chinese culture: a combination of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, as well as the traditional non-scriptural/ local practices and beliefs.

Confucianism

There are about 5 million Confucianists. They are Vodoun mainly outside of China, mostly in Korea. About five million Koreans name Confucianism as their religion, and there are even some Confucian World religions like Buddhism, Christianity, schools and institutes in Korea. Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, and Zoroastrianism were a group Taoism of religions/belief systems identified in the 19th century as being foundational for most of the Fifty years ago religious Taoism was one of the world’s current populace, or historically important largest, strongest institutions in China. Since to the West. But the religious groups which don’t the Cultural Revolution and the government’s make to these world religions are almost too campaign to destroy non-Communist religion, many to count. There are the traditional tribal Taoism lost, for the most part, the main mechanism and national religions of Africa, America, Asia, and through which it remained distinct from the larger even Europe such as Navajo religion, Candomble, Chinese religious environment is its large number Chinese folk religion, Dayak religion, Eskimo of temples and Taoist clergy. religion, Meri/Cheremis religion. There are “New Religious Movements” such as Cao Dai, Ikuantao, Primal Indigenous Wicca, and Scientology. There are also the ancient Alternatively termed “tribal religionists, “ethnic mystery religions and “paganism” of Egypt, Rome, religionists,” or “animists,” estimates range from or the Levant such as Mithraism, Cybele worship, 100 million to 457 million. This total includes all Roman religion, and Hellenism. African Traditional religionists. This group also Some of Minor religions of the world are includes, but is not limited to, people whose as following: native religion is a form of shamanism or paganism (such as millions of people in traditional Siberian Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist shamanist cultures).

This is a highly disparate group and not a single African Traditional & African Diasporic Religions religion. Although atheists are a small subset of this grouping, this category is not synonymous Yoruba is probably the largest African traditional with atheism. People who specify atheism as religious/tribal complex. Yoruba was the religion of their religious preference actually make up less the vast Yoruba nation states which existed before than one-half of one percent of the population in European colonialism. Cohesive rituals, beliefs many countries. The vast majority in this and organization were spread throughout the grouping are not aligned with any kind of world of Yoruba. African Diasporic Religions are membership organization. those which have arisen, typically in the Western hemisphere, among Africans who retained much Chinese Traditional Religion of their traditional culture and beliefs but adapted to new environments. These include Santeria, In older world religion books the estimates of Candomble, Vodoun, Shango, etc. the total number of adherents of Confucianism

26 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Vodoun o The Avesta is the oldest and core part of the scriptures, which contains the Gathas. Voodoo (or “Vodoun”) is not an organized religion, The Gathas are seventeen hymns thought but a form of African traditional religion practiced to be composed by Zoroaster himself. primarily in Haiti, Cuba and Benin. Vodoun is o The Younger Avesta-commentaries to the typically classified as an Afro-Caribbean and/ older Avestan written in later years. It also or Afro-Brazilian syncretistic religion, along with contains myths, stories and details of ritual Santeria (Lukumi) and Candomble. Vodoun is observances. properly classified as a branch of African Diasporic religion, in the same way that Lutheranism is a The Parsis subset of Christianity. According to tradition, the present-day Parsis Neo-Paganism descend from a group of Iranian Zoroastrians who emigrated to Western India over 1,000 years ago Neo-Paganism is an umbrella term for modern due to persecution by the majority Muslims. The revivals of ancient ethnic traditions. These are Parsi originally emigrated from Persia. The term usually polytheistic, but many Neo-Pagans consider Parsi was used in the 13th century in European their faith pantheistic, and many other concepts text, however Indian text does not use the term of deity can be found among Neo-Pagans as well. until the 17th century, before that time Zoroastrian Subdivisions within Neo-Paganism include Wicca, or Behdin was used. Magick, Druidism, Asatru, neo-Native American religion and others. There are approximately 100,000 active Parsi today. Other countries such as Britain, USA, Zoroastrianism Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Hong Kong and Kenya have small Parsi populations mostly as a result Zoroastrianism is one of the world’s oldest of immigration. Parsi Religion is in decline today. monotheistic religions. It was founded by the The Parsi community maintain a rather peculiar Prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) in ancient Iran standing: they are Indians in terms of national approximately 3500 years ago. affiliation, language and history, but not typically Indian in culture, behaviour and religious practices. For 1000 years Zoroastrianism was one of the most The Parsis are a dying community with UNESCO powerful religions in the world. It was the official stepping in to help preserve their heritage. religion of Persia (Iran) from 600 BCE to 650 CE. It is now one of the world’s smallest religions. Spiritism Zoroastrians believe there is one God called Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord) and He created the world. Spiritism is a loose corpus of religious faiths having in common the general belief in the survival Zoroastrians Beliefs and Faiths of a spirit after death. In a stricter sense, it is • Zoroastrians are not fire-worshippers. the religion, beliefs and practices of the people • Zoroastrians believe that the elements are pure affiliated to the International Spiritist Union, and that fire represents God’s light or wisdom. which are based on the works of Allan Kardec • Ahura Mazda revealed the truth through the and others. Formed in France in the 19th Century, Prophet, Zoroaster. it soon spread to other countries, but today the • Zoroastrians traditionally pray several only country where it has a significant number of times a day. adherents is Brazil. • Zoroastrians worship communally in a Fire Temple or Agiary. Source: www.religioustolerance.org, • The Zoroastrian book of Holy Scriptures is www.adherents.com, http://en.wikipedia.org, called The Avesta. www.religious-information.com • The Avesta can be roughly split into two main sections:

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 27 Darwin festival

Festivals of the Month: Australia

The Byron Bay Writers’ Festival devastation of a natural disaster over 35 years ago. Cyclone Tracy tore through the Northern The Byron Bay Writers’ Festival had its beginnings Territory’s capital city on Christmas Eve in 1974 in 1997, when a small group of locals led by leaving behind 68 dead and 25,000 Darwin residents Chris Hanley wondered whether authors might homeless. There was talk from some of abandoning accept an invitation to spend a winter’s weekend the city site altogether but others were more in Byron Bay. They did, and an audience of two determined to rebuild. hundred locals enjoyed a gathering of fifty Australian writers. Since then, the Festival has In 1977, Northern Territory director of health Dr grown from a single venue event to fill four huge Charles Gurd suggested celebrating the town’s marquees and venues around town and sells 45,000 revival with a Festival that would draw the individual tickets. The guest list now numbers community together and reflect the optimism of more than one hundred and over the years the those who had returned to rebuild. most significant and respected contemporary Australian writers have participated through Staged in July 1978, the Bougainvillea Festival, lectures, lunches, panels, conversations, launches held on the first anniversary of the granting of and readings. self-government for the NT, was essentially a floral festival to promote the beautification of The focus of the program is firmly on Australian the city. Evidence of that first Festival can still be writing, with recognition of our physical place in seen in the form of a water pipe running along the the world through the inclusion of Indonesian and Stuart Highway that was decorated by 900 school Asian authors. The Byron Bay Writers’ Festival children. The water pipe paintings were created enjoys a close relationship with the Ubud Writers to welcome Rolf Harris who flew from London to and Readers Festival and believes that through entertain over five thousand people. words and ideas, bridges are formed that cross cultures and schisms. Fundamentally, the Festival The early years of the Festival featured such events provides a forum for intelligent discussion as the Bougainvillea Queen of Quests competition, and guests are invited to address the issues that Home Garden contests, the Grand Parade; a matter to them as writers and which necessarily floral procession with floats and decorated bikes, concern us all. It is a celebration of the vitality sporting events, a billy-cart derby, birdman rally of thought and creativity with a healthy and a Mardi Gras concert featuring local and emphasis on fun. visiting performers.

The Byron Bay Writers’ Festival is organised by the In the 1990s the Festival shifted its focus toward staff and Committee of the Northern Rivers Writers’ community arts, celebrating multicultural aspects Centre, a member based organisation receiving of the unique Darwin lifestyle, with a vision core funding from Arts NSW. Byron Bay Writers’ of becoming a cultural focus for the region. Festival 2011 falls during August 5-7. Artists were recruited to work with community organisations and schools to invigorate the Darwin Festival Grand Parade and Indigenous communities and Asia Pacific cultural groups were encouraged to Australia’s most northern and only tropical Arts have greater participation. In 1996 Darwin’s Festival was born out of the destruction and

28 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 annual celebration became known as the Festival of Darwin.

In 2003 under the direction of newly appointed Artistic Director Malcolm Blaylock, the Festival was renamed to reflect its international status in the arts. The Darwin Festival is a vibrant arts and cultural event with an eclectic and substantial program that takes advantage of Darwin’s delightful dry season weather and spectacular outdoor venues. The Darwin Festival reflects Darwin’s position at the Top End of Australia, its unique Indigenous and multicultural population and its close proximity to Asia while at the same time showcasing some of Australia’s finest arts performers.

The Darwin Festival is held over an exciting 18 days and nights, with local and touring performances and events including outdoor concerts, workshops, theatre, dance music, comedy and cabaret, film and visual arts. During the Festival, Darwin buzzes with performers, artists, locals and visitors enjoying the vibrant and colourful atmosphere and festivities such an event, was certainly not going to stand in of the Darwin Festival. Darwin Festival 2011 falls this club’s way. during August 11-28. Mount Isa Rotary Rodeo was Born Garma Festival With the help of committee members from The Annual Garma Festival is Australia’s Leading Cloncurry Merry Muster, the guidance of the Cultural Exchange event. It is held annually onsite Australian Professional Rodeo Association (APRA) at remote Gulkula, a traditional meeting ground in and the hard work and self belief of the Mount Isa Arnhem land. The Garma Festival is a nationally community, local sponsors and Mount Isa Mines, significant, intimate, spectacular celebration the rodeo became a reality. And in 1959, with some of cultural traditions and practices—dance, of the country’s top riders listed on the program, song, music, and art (including presentations, the rodeo had its maiden run. collaborations, sales)—and the annual venue for a major Key Forum on Indigenous issues. Blokes like Bonnie Young, Vic Gough, Ray Crawford, John Duncombe and Dough Flannagan As well as the Key Forum and integrated academic came for a look and they weren’t disappointed. It presentations on language and culture, Key Forum was then, at that first event, that the precedent was participants also have the opportunity to watch set. This was destined to be something great—an the daily bunggul and music performances, enjoy event revered not only throughout the country Garma art exhibitions and projects, and participate but around the globe. It was already the talk of the in evening and night activities. rodeo circuit and word spread like wild fire.

Garma is a unique combination of education, Rodeo Capital of Australia entertainment and real cultural interaction, exchange and immersion. It is indeed a privilege to The buzz had begun. It was labelled as one of experience Garma, and there are several categories the most electrifying events in the country. These of registration available for visitors. Garma Festival days, the rodeo is run as a well-oiled machine. 2011 falls during August 5-8. It is managed by a highly professional, acutely skilled team and it is a must for anyone worth Mount Isa Rodeo their salt on the APRA circuit. With up to $200,000 in prize money up for grabs, Isa Rodeo attracts A vision to put Mount Isa on the map, a passion for more than 600 nominations. This is arguably the the outback and an intrinsic sense of what could toughest, most satisfying titles to have to your be achieved—that is how the now world-renowned name. Mount Isa Rotary Rodeo 2011 event falls Isa Rodeo got its start. From one idea, grew an during August 12-14. event as rich in history as it is in prize money—the year was 1959. The idea was to create an event, a Townsville Running Festival spectacle, which would put Mount Isa on the map. For the members of the city’s first Rotary Club, it Townsville Road Runners have conducted a was time to think big. And the fact the city had no Marathon in Townsville every year since 1972, rodeo grounds, no stock and no experience with however, they have been run over a variety of

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 29 courses and in each case the distance has been individuals. With over 100 events, the program close ie. approximately 42.195k. includes inspiring exhibitions, workshops, master classes, talks, installations and tours—unpacking As a result the question was always asked, was it design, connecting people and creating meaningful the correct distance long or short? dialogue around design issues.

During the nineties fields dwindled to about 30 In all areas of design—such as product design, and questions were asked about the viability of architecture, fashion and graphic design, continuing to stage these races. practitioners everywhere are mining tradition and marrying cutting edge technology with an artisanal A similar lack of competitors was causing and human sensibility. You can see it in media, Marathons in all other regional centres to food, popular culture and the arts but nowhere suffer and eventually fold. Townsville Running is this more pronounced than in the world of Festival 2011 is to be held at the historic Tobruk design. Consumers want to connect with makers Pool on August 7. and growers and hear the voice of the average person. Don’t be mistaken, this is not about Sydney Design nostalgia—it’s a collision between design, tradition, innovation, heritage and experimentation. In lace, Sydney Design is an annual event produced by the for example, practitioners are employing a radical Powerhouse Museum in association with more reworking of traditional craft using cutting edge than 60 cultural institutions, organisations and technology and materials—exploding preconceived ideas and stereotypes. Designers everywhere are reworking, recycling, and reconfiguring everything Mount Isa Rodeo about the way we think, behave, create and consume design. At the core of this is a craving felt by designers and consumers for sincerity, honesty and fairness. Sydney Design 2011 event falls during 30th July-14th August.

Source: www.byronbaywritersfestival.com.au, www.darwinfestival.org.au, www.yyf.com.au, www.isarodeo.com.au, www.townsvilleroadrunners.com.au, www.sydneydesign.com.au

Garma festival

30 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Bhavan’s News (London Kendra) Bhavan’s Chairman Retires

Mr. Maneck Dalal receiving the citation from Justice Srikrishna

Mr. Maneck Dalal, Chairman, London Kendra retired from Bhavan after 38 years of service. A farewell event was held on May 15, 2011. Apart from supporters of the Bhavan and admirers of Mr. Dalal, some of the most successful business people and politicians from the Asian diaspora attended the event. Mr. Dalal was continuously credited as being the person who steered the Bhavan, making it the leading Indian artistic and cultural organisation in Britain. A citation was read out by the Vice President of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, worldwide, Justice Shri B.N. Srikrishna. He congratulated Mr. Dalal for his achievements as Chairman of the Bhavan, UK and the way he has been able to persuade many of his trustees, friends and others to give their time, advice and often financial help in the cause of the Bhavan.

India’s High Commissioner to the UK His Excellency Nalin Surie unveiled a portrait of Mr. Dalal, painted by Anupa Sachdev, Bhavan’s student. The High Commissioner who is a Patron of the Bhavan said that Mr. Dalal had played a vital role in strengthening the cultural dialogue between the people of India and the UK. The Mayor of Hammersmith and Fulham, where the Bhavan is based, congratulated Mr. Dalal by saying, “The work that you have done has been magnificent and is a tremendous tribute to your community”.

Sir Mota Singh QC, Vice-Chairman of the Bhavan, Dr. John Marr, Honorary General Secretary, Lord Dholakia and Mr. Paul Slawson, Bhavan’s Corpus Fund Trustee and Mr. Andew Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith and Fulham and Ashish Ray, President of the Indian Journalists’ association, paid rich tributes to Mr. Dalal.

Mr. Dalal took the audience on a trip down memory lane, talking about the challenges during the early days of the Bhavan, when the institute was a little known building in central London. He thanked the Arts Council, Millennium Commission and all the donors who have generously helped the Bhavan. The audience were treated to a special cultural programme by the Bhavan’s dance students.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 31 Soka Kyoiku Gakkai—The System of Value- Creating Pedagogy

On November 18, 1930, a relatively unknown Japanese elementary schoolteacher called Tsunesaburo Makiguchi published the first volume Soka Gakkai of The System of Value-Creating Pedagogy, which outlined the child-centered educational philosophy he had developed through his many years of International and engagement in education. The publisher was listed as the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai, and publication of the Nichiren Buddhism book is considered to mark the foundation of what later became the Soka Gakkai. Soka Gakkai International (SGI) members strive to enact daily the teachings of Nichiren Daishonin, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi was born in 1871 in a Buddhist monk who lived in thirteenth-century present-day Niigata Prefecture on the west coast Japan. Nichiren’s teachings provide a way for of Japan. When he was 13, he moved to Hokkaido. anybody to readily draw out the enlightened Working to support himself while he studied, at wisdom and energy of Buddhahood from 18 he gained entrance to the local teacher training within their lives, regardless of their individual college. Upon graduation he began working at circumstances. Each person has the power to the elementary school affiliated with the college. overcome all of life’s challenges, to live a life of He had long been interested in the teaching value and become a positive influence in their of geography, and in 1903 published his first community, society and the world. major work, The Geography of Human Life, which emphasized the vital links between human beings In Search of the Solution to Human Suffering and their natural environment. He later served as a teacher and principal in elementary schools Nichiren was born in 1222 in Japan, a time rife around Tokyo. with social unrest and natural disasters. The common people, especially, suffered enormously. In 1928, at age 57, he encountered the Buddhist Nichiren wondered why the Buddhist teachings philosophy of Nichiren (1222-82), which he began had lost their power to enable people to lead to practice. Josei Toda, a young teacher from happy, empowered lives. While a young priest, Hokkaido who had been working under Makiguchi he set out to find an answer to the suffering and since the early 1920s, also began practicing chaos that surrounded him. His intensive study of Nichiren Buddhism around this time. the Buddhist sutras convinced him that the Lotus Sutra, Shakyamuni’s essential teaching, contained Shortly after this, Makiguchi’s concept of ‘Soka’ the essence of the Buddha’s enlightenment and education was formalized in the publication of The that it held the key to transforming people’s System of Value-Creating Pedagogy. ‘Soka’ means suffering and enabling society to flourish. value creation, expressing Makiguchi’s conviction that the authentic goal of education, and of life The Essence of Buddhism itself, lies in the pursuit of happiness. He held that the key to genuine happiness is the capacity The Lotus Sutra affirms that all people, regardless to create value under even the most difficult and of gender, capacity or social standing, inherently challenging circumstances. Nichiren Buddhism, possess the qualities of a Buddha, and are which stresses the limitless potential of each therefore equally worthy of the utmost respect. individual, resonated with his humanistic approach to education and provided a practical foundation Based on his study of the sutra Nichiren for his philosophy of value creation. established the invocation (chant) of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo as a universal practice The Soka Kyoiku Gakkai (Value-Creating Education to enable people to manifest the Buddhahood Society) originally comprised reform-minded inherent in their lives and gain the strength and educators who were dissatisfied with an education wisdom to challenge and overcome any adverse system that emphasized rote learning and the circumstances. Nichiren saw the Lotus Sutra as production of obedient subjects of the state. a vehicle for people’s empowerment—stressing These teachers saw an effective alternative in that everyone can attain enlightenment and enjoy Makiguchi’s pedagogy which sought to develop happiness while they are alive. independent thinking and critical judgment. The

32 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 group’s Buddhist emphasis steadily strengthened as it developed into a movement dedicated to the reform of society through the reformation of the inner life of individuals. By the early 1940s it had a membership of some 3,000 people, meeting regularly in members’ homes.

A Gathering Storm

Japan’s militarist government was by now steadily tightening controls on thought and expression as part of the war effort. Makiguchi and Toda refused to bow to pressure from the state-controlled war machine and as a result, the meetings organized by the Soka Kyoiku Gakkai came under the surveillance of the Special Higher Police, responsible for the suppression of ‘thought crimes.’

On July 6, 1943, Makiguchi and Toda were detained on suspicion of violation of the notorious Daisaku Ukeda Peace Preservation Law and accused of showing disrespect to the emperor. A total of 21 leaders of the organization were arrested. In prison, discussion meeting, which remains at the heart of Makiguchi held fast to his beliefs, expounding the movement’s activities. On May 3, 1951, Toda, the principles of Nichiren Buddhism to his who had been general director of the organization interrogators. On November 18, 1944, Makiguchi under Makiguchi, became its second president, died of malnutrition and the privations of his announcing his determination to achieve a long imprisonment, a martyr to his convictions. membership of 750,000 households. This marked He was 73. the beginning of vigorous propagation activities in Japan, but Toda’s determination went far beyond Alone among the other leaders of the Soka Kyoiku mere numerical expansion. He declared that his Gakkai who had been arrested, Toda refused to most cherished wish was to eliminate misery from recant. While in prison, he intensively studied the the face of the Earth, with the practice of Nichiren Lotus Sutra, considered in the Mahayana Buddhist Buddhism as the means to achieve this. In this, tradition to express the essence of Shakyamuni’s he sought to awaken people to the reality that our enlightenment, and chanted its title, Nam-myoho- individual happiness is inextricably linked with renge-kyo—the practice that is the core of the happiness of others and the welfare of society Nichiren Buddhism. as a whole. This message had great appeal for Through his highly focused practice, he gained two the most disempowered strata of Japanese critical insights. One was that what is described in society, the common people who struggled with the sutras as ‘the Buddha’ is nothing other than life economic, physical and psychological distress itself. The other involved an awakening to his own in the wake of defeat. profound mission as a bodhisattva, to share the In 1951, Toda began to publish the serialized teachings of Nichiren Buddhism widely in society novel Human Revolution. The title expresses his to build the foundations for a peaceful world. conviction in the transformative power of Nichiren On July 3, 1945, Toda was released from prison. Buddhism. The concept of ‘human revolution,’ or He immediately dedicated himself to continuing inner-motivated positive change, expresses the the work of his mentor Makiguchi, rebuilding the traditional Buddhist concept of enlightenment in organization that had been effectively destroyed terms accessible to people living in the modern-day by the authorities. world. In December 1957, Toda realized his vow of Toda often spoke of the awakening he had achieving 750,000 member households. On March experienced in prison, and this, together with 16, 1958, he entrusted the future of the movement the immovable confidence he had gained in the to the youth of the organization led by Daisaku validity of Buddhism, was a driving force for the Ikeda, who later became the third president, at an postwar development of the organization. He event attended by 6,000 young people. On April 2, revived the traditional format of the small group aged 58, Toda passed away having achieved his

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 33 a whole. These experiences honed his skills in offering personal encouragement, inspiring people to transform their lives through altruistic religious practice.

Starting from 1955, Toda began encouraging members to run for public office. Toda deemed this kind of engagement necessary in light of Nichiren Buddhism’s commitment to reflecting Buddhist principles, such as respect for human dignity, in the actual practices of society and politics. He was also motivated by the wartime experience of the organization, which had been violently suppressed by an ideology that fused militarist fascism and fanatical worship of the Japanese emperor. He saw the organization’s political involvement as Gambhir Watts necessary to protect freedom of religion. Following one election campaign in Osaka in 1957, Ikeda was held responsible for the acts of a few individual goal of rebuilding the organization and Gakkai members and was charged with violation establishing a firm foundation for a people’s of election laws by the authorities. After a drawn- movement for peace. out legal proceeding, he was found innocent of all On May 3, 1960, Daisaku Ikeda was inaugurated charges in January 1962. as the third president of the Soka Gakkai. He was Under Ikeda’s leadership, the organization in Japan 32 at the time. Ikeda had encountered the Soka expanded rapidly, reaching a membership of 3 Gakkai and its second president, Josei Toda, in million households in 1962 and approximately 7.5 August 1947, at one of the organization’s discussion million in 1970. By this time, Ikeda was convinced meetings to which he had been brought by a school that the foundations for the movement had been friend. In the physical and spiritual chaos that firmly established; it was also evident to him that followed Japan’s defeat in 1945, Ikeda was very an organization of this scale could not function in consciously seeking a teaching—and, if possible, isolation from society at large. In a speech given on a teacher—to provide direction and guidance. For May 3, 1970, he proposed a series of changes that his part, Toda was actively engaged in sharing would reorient the organization and its activities. In the confidence he had gained in the validity of particular, he emphasized the function of religion Buddhism through his awakening in prison and was as a source of cultural creativity benefiting society seeking someone to whom he could entrust the as a whole. sense of mission he felt in its entirety. Education and other secular concerns were a Starting from this meeting, Toda and Ikeda forged natural focus for the Soka Gakkai given its origins a profound collaborative relationship, one that as an organization of educators seeking to promote conformed with the ideal described in Buddhism founding president Makiguchi’s philosophy of as the spiritual unity of mentor and disciple. Ikeda value-creating education. In 1967, Ikeda founded supported Toda across the full spectrum of his Soka High School in Tokyo, followed by a full range activities, eventually feeling compelled to stop of nondenominational educational institutions attending college due to the demands on his time including Soka University in 1971 and the four-year and energies. Toda instead tutored him one-on-one liberal arts college Soka University of America before the start of each workday and on weekends, in 2001. Ikeda had founded the Min-On Concert sharing with the young man his vision of a peaceful Association in 1963 and the Fuji Art Museum society realized through the promotion of Buddhist in 1973. With the full-fledged launch of peace practice and ideals. Ikeda proudly refers to these activities by the youth membership in the study sessions as ‘Toda University.’ 1970s, the three pillars of the organization’s In these early years of the Soka Gakkai movement, activities—peace, culture, education—were all Toda consistently assigned the young Ikeda the given concrete form. most challenging tasks, such as supporting local The essence of the Soka Gakkai’s practice of groups whose morale and propagation efforts Buddhist humanism under Ikeda’s leadership were languishing. Ikeda responded to his mentor’s has been the promotion of the process of belief by producing concrete outcomes that had fundamental transformation—human revolution— a transformative effect on the organization as

34 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 in each individual, with the confidence that this While firmly convinced of the universal validity has the power to change society in meaningful and of Nichiren Buddhism, the Soka Gakkai has never positive ways. dispatched missionaries to other countries. Just as the spread of the movement within Japan has On September 8, 1968, Soka Gakkai President been ‘organic’—with individuals sharing their Daisaku Ikeda issued a proposal that outlined confidence and experiences in faith with friends, concrete steps toward the normalization of families and acquaintances—the movement has Sino-Japanese relations. ‘The absolute condition developed in countries around the world through for the economic prosperity and political and the natural interconnections of people. In the social stability of Asia is the dismantling of the course of his travels, Ikeda has always found encirclement of China presently enforced by the time to encourage members in the countries he United States, and to a lesser degree, by the Soviet visited. Those locally based practitioners took Union. It is not an exaggeration to say that the responsibility for what eventually developed resolution of the China question holds the key to into national SGI organizations. This process is the resolution of the various problems facing Asia.’ described in depth in Ikeda’s ongoing serialized novel The New Human Revolution. Ikeda was one of the first major Japanese figures to call for normalization of relations with China. Today, the SGI has a membership of around 12 His call met with fierce criticism in Japan, but it million in more than 190 countries and territories also caught the attention of those, both in China with 84 constituent organizations. Each local and in Japan, who sought an easing of tensions organization develops activities independently between the two countries, including Chinese in line with the traditions of its own society and Premier Zhou Enlai. Today, Ikeda’s statement is cultural context, but they are unified in what the widely recognized as having played a catalytic role SGI Charter, adopted in 1995, describes as ‘the in the process that culminated in the restoration of fundamental aim and mission of contributing diplomatic ties between the two countries in 1972. to peace, culture and education based on the In the years after normalization, Ikeda engaged in philosophy and ideals of the Buddhism of Nichiren a form of ‘citizen diplomacy’ among the Cold War Daishonin.’ The purposes and principles listed in rivals, particularly between China and the Soviet the SGI Charter include safeguarding fundamental Union, which at times seemed on the brink of full- human rights, protection of nature and the scale conflict. During 1974 and 1975, he repeatedly environment, promotion of grassroots exchanges visited China, the USSR and the US, meeting with and dialogue among religions, social engagement Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin, Chinese Premier and contribution to society as responsible citizens. Zhou Enlai, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and other key figures. Conveying the concerns and A New Beginning aspirations of the leaders of these hostile powers, as well as the yearning for peace he had felt in The international development of the Soka Gakkai his encounters with the ordinary citizens of each as a dynamic and socially engaged movement society, Ikeda worked to defuse tensions and help led principally by lay believers presented the build the foundations for mutual understanding Nichiren Shoshu priesthood—with which the Soka and dialogue. Gakkai had been affiliated since its inception— with a choice. It could either remain committed A Global Movement to the institutional practices that had taken form centuries earlier—holding firmly to the ritual On January 26, 1975, representatives from authority traditionally wielded by priests over lay 51 countries and territories gathered on the believers in Japan—or it could fully embrace the island of Guam, where they created an umbrella open-ended vision of global peace through self- organization for the growing membership of transformation first propounded by Nichiren. Nichiren Buddhists around the world. This became the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), with Daisaku Over the years following the establishment of the Ikeda as its first president. In his address to the SGI, the Nichiren Shoshu priesthood oscillated assembled representatives, Ikeda encouraged them between these two stances. In the end, under the to dedicate themselves to altruistic action: ‘Rather leadership of Abe Nikken, the 67th high priest of than seeking to bring your own lives to bloom, the sect, the priesthood opted for an authoritarian devote yourselves to planting the seeds of peace approach, eventually severing its ties with the Soka throughout the world.’ Gakkai. On November 28, 1991, Nikken unilaterally

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 35 excommunicated some 12 million believers In Pursuit of Dialogue throughout the world—an act without precedent in the history of Buddhism. Soka Gakkai members Ikeda has long asserted that dialogue, open now commemorate this event as a momentous exchanges of ideas and perspectives, is the most turning point in their liberation from religious certain way to build the foundations of peace. ‘The authoritarianism. As Professor Jane Hurst of true value of dialogue is not to be found solely in Gallaudet University, Washington DC, has stated, ‘it the results it produces but also in the process of should be no surprise that a culturally conservative dialogue itself, as two human spirits engage with Japanese priesthood built on ideas of hierarchy, and elevate each other to a higher realm.’ ritual, and traditional custom should conflict with a global lay movement built on ideas of In 1972 and 1973, he traveled to London to meet egalitarianism, active faith, and rational adaptation with the 80-year-old British historian Arnold to the modern world.’ Toynbee to discuss a wide range of problems facing humankind. Their dialogue was published Following its separation from the priesthood, the in English in 1975 as Choose Life, and has since SGI has been engaged in a process of reevaluating been published in 28 languages. Since that time, the role of religion in the face of these tensions, Ikeda has exchanged views with representatives seeking a modern, humanistic interpretation of cultural, political, educational and artistic fields of Buddhism with a stress on its identity as from around the world. Many of these meetings a lay organization that is better equipped to have led to the publication of collaborative communicate Buddhist ideals to a wider world. It dialogues on a diverse range of topics, including has accelerated its activities to engage in cross- history, economics, peace studies, astronomy and cultural and interfaith dialogue, and has promoted the healing arts. Among the individuals with whom wide-ranging public outreach and education on Ikeda has published dialogues are former Soviet such key global issues as peace, disarmament and president Mikhail Gorbachev, Brazilian champion sustainable development. of human rights Austregésilo de Athayde, Indonesian Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid and The SGI’s activities in support of nuclear abolition Chinese literary giant Jin Yong. trace their roots back to 1957 when, at the height of the Cold War, second Soka Gakkai president The peace proposals also provide a focus for the Josei Toda made a public declaration calling for the activities of SGI members around the world, who outlawing of all nuclear weapons at a gathering of address specific themes through symposiums and 50,000 young people in Yokohama, Japan. Drawing conferences, campaigns to promote nonviolence on his conviction and insight as a Buddhist, and interfaith dialogue, to protect their local Toda asserted that all people have ‘an inviolable environment or provide humanitarian relief in right to live’ and condemned anyone who would times of crisis. jeopardize that right as ‘a devil incarnate.’ In taking such a stark moral stance and seeking to All such activities provide opportunities for SGI stigmatize nuclear weapons as an absolute evil, he members to actively engage with the pressing was articulating the idea that the indiscriminate issues of our times, developing a concrete nature and scale of destruction wrought by nuclear awareness of their responsibilities and potential weapons crossed any reasonable bounds of as global citizens. Reaching out to conduct legitimacy as a military weapon. The only way to dialogue with friends, family and neighbors protect humanity from this destructiveness was to enables individual members to exercise the eliminate them completely. qualities of courage, compassion and wisdom that embody the Buddha nature inherent in each In 1973, youth members of the Soka Gakkai in Japan individual, facilitating their own process of inner launched a petition drive for nuclear abolition; transformation while contributing to their local they gathered 10 million signatures, which were society and the global community. presented to the United Nations in January 1975. In 1997 and 1998, SGI youth in Japan and around the In addition to their regular discussion meetings world collected 13 million signatures in support and Buddhist study sessions, as different SGI of the ‘Abolition 2000’ campaign, presenting these organizations develop their own distinctive to the UN in October 1998. Working with relevant activities--be they cultural events, campaigns to UN agencies and other NGOs, the SGI has also combat school violence, reforestation programs, organized a series of antinuclear exhibitions. literacy training programs, or public education ‘Nuclear Arms: Threat to Our World’ and ‘Nuclear and awareness exhibitions--the spirit of Buddhist Arms: Threat to Humanity’ were seen by over 1.6 humanism takes root and develops in communities million people in 24 countries between 1982 and around the world, adding to a groundswell of 2002, while ‘From a Culture of Violence to a Culture empowered citizens dedicated to creating a better of Peace: Transforming the Human Spirit,’ launched world for all humankind. in 2007, has visited more than 200 cities.

36 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 International Youth Day

The United Nations’ (UN) International Youth Day The United Nations is celebrated on August 12 each year to recognize efforts of the world’s youth in enhancing global The General Assembly on 17 December 1999 in its society. It also aims to promote ways to engage resolution 54/120, endorsed the recommendation them in becoming more actively involved in making made by the World Conference of Ministers positive contributions to their communities. Responsible for Youth (Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998) International Youth Day focuses on young people that 12 August be declared International Youth all over the world. Day. The Assembly recommended that public information activities be organized to support Origin the Day as a way to promote better awareness of the World Programme of Action for Youth to the The UN defines the worlds’ youth as the age group Year 2000 and Beyond, adopted by the General between 15 and 24 years old, making up one-sixth Assembly in 1995 (resolution 50/81). of the human population. Many of these young men and women live in developing countries and their Aim numbers are expected to rise steeply. The idea for International Youth Day was proposed in 1991 The aim of International Youth Day is to endorse by young people who were gathered in Vienna, consciousness, particularly among youth. The Austria, for the first session of the UN’s World World Programme of Action for Youth started Youth Forum. The forum recommended that an before 2000. The World Programme of Action International Youth Day be declared, especially for wants achievement in 10 main fields. The 10 fields fundraising and promotional purposes, to support are starvation, poverty, education, employment, the United Nations Youth Fund in partnership with health, drug exploitation, childhood felony, youth organizations. recreation events, child and young women, environment. The International Youth Day suggests History that people in regional, countrywide and worldwide implement the Programme. In 1998 a resolution proclaiming August 12 as International Youth Day was adopted during the Activities World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth. That recommendation was later endorsed Many activities and events that take place around by the UN General Assembly in 1999. International the world on International Youth Day promote the Youth Day was first observed in 2000. One benefits that young people bring into the world. of the year’s highlights was when eight Latin Many countries participate in this global event, American and Caribbean youth and youth-related which include youth conferences on issues such organizations received United Nations World Youth as education and employment. Other activities Awards in Panama City, Panama. International include concerts promoting the world’s youth, Youth Day is the best time to commemorate as well as various sporting events, parades and the power and strength of the youth all around mobile exhibitions that showcase young people’s the globe. United Nations defined the event for achievements. highlighted awareness on the requirements of young people in the middle of 10 to 24 years. Source: www.altiusdirectory.com, www.timeanddate.com, www.un.org.au

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 37 1931 to 1948, Mother Teresa taught Geography and Catechism at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta. By 1944, she was the Principal of the same school. Her teaching was brought to an abrupt halt when she contracted tuberculosis and was sent away for a much needed rest. It was during her recuperation period that Teresa was given her second calling from God. Later, Mother described the calling. Her words were “I was to leave the convent and work with the poor, living among them. It was an Order. I knew where I belonged but I did not know how to get there.” However, the prevailing poverty in Calcutta had a deep impact on her mind and in 1948, she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. She taught poor children and learned the basics of medicine in order to treat the sick in their homes. Teresa was given the moniker Mother Teresa “Saint of the Gutters” for the work she was doing.

I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich Missionaries of Charity could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the “Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and love of God. -Mother Teresa the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do The life of one of recent history’s most admired the humble work.” women, Mother Teresa, is a life of love. Anyone questioning the meaning of love need not look After a short course with the Medical Mission further than the life and works of Mother Teresa. Sisters in Patna, she returned to Calcutta and found She taught the world the meaning of charity. The temporary lodging with the Little Sisters of the woman went on to show the world the definition Poor. She started an open-air school for homeless of compassion. Mother Teresa was one of the children. Soon she was joined by voluntary helpers, great servants of humanity. She was an Albanian and she received financial support from church Catholic nun who came to India and founded the organizations and the municipal authorities. Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. Later on Mother On October 7, 1950, Mother Teresa received Teresa attained Indian citizenship. Her selfless permission from the Vatican to start her own work among the poverty-stricken people of Kolkata Order. Vatican originally labelled the Order as the (Calcutta) is an inspiration for people all over Diocesan Congregation of the Calcutta Diocese, the world. Throughout her life, she tried to teach and it later came to be known as the “Missionaries others the love she knew so well. of Charity”. The primary task of the Missionaries of Charity was to take care of those persons who Early Life nobody was prepared to look after.

“Keep the joy of loving the poor and share this joy The Missionaries of Charity, which began as a with all you meet. Remember works of love are small Order with 12 members in Calcutta, today works of Peace. God Bless you.” has more than 4,000 nuns running orphanages, AIDS hospices, charity centres worldwide, and Mother Teresa’s original name was Agnes Gonxha caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, Bojaxhiu. She was born on August 27, 1910 in alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of Skopje, Macedonia. Agnes’ family was an affluent floods, epidemics and famine in Asia, Africa, Latin and loving one. Her father was a successful America, North America, Poland, and Australia. merchant and she was youngest of the three In 1965, by granting a Decree of Praise, Pope Paul siblings. Her parents, Nikollë and Dranafille VI granted Mother Teresa permission to expand Bojaxhiu had relocated to Yugoslavia from their her Order to other countries. The Order’s first former home in what is now Albania. Agnes was house outside India was in Venezuela. Presently, about 12 when she first knew that she belonged to the “Missionaries of Charity” has presence in more God. At the age of 12, she decided that she wanted than 100 countries. to be a missionary and spread the love of Christ. At 18 she left her parental home in Skopje and Servants of the Poorest joined the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish community of nuns with missions in India. After a few months of “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten training at the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary by everybody, I think that is a much greater in Dublin, Mother Teresa came to India. On May hunger, a much greater poverty than the person 24, 1931, she took her initial vows as a nun. From who has nothing to eat.”

38 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Some of her former students joined her and they the poor in Calcutta. Her life’s work was explained worked with people, the hospitals in the area in her own words when she accepted this high had, rejected. They obtained a room so that the honour: “To care for the hungry, the naked, the people they were helping did not have to die in homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all the gutter. The goal, as Mother Teresa described those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared it, was to offer “free service to the poor and the for throughout society.” unwanted, irrespective of caste, creed, nationality or race.” Mother Teresa turned what had formerly Mother Teresa established a hospice for AIDS been a temple in Calcutta into a Home for the victims in New York in 1985 and more of the Dying in 1952. It was called the Nirmal Hriday same were started in Atlanta and San Francisco Home for Dying Destitutes in Calcutta. Nirmal later. She was awarded the United States’ highest Hriday means “Pure Heart.” Mother Teresa was civilian award, that of the Medal of Freedom and awarded the money from prizes and that money was awarded an honorary US citizenship in 1996. was always used to advance her work. She opened Only four people before her had received that title. clinics, hospices, and homeless shelters and did Her awards from the United States were not yet everything she could to make the lives of people finished, however, and she was honoured with the more tolerable. Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Her thinking was a guiding light and source of inspiration to others. Angel of Love

“Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone “She taught poor children to call their own.” and learned the basics of Did she have a secret to such a loving and giving life? If there was one, it was rooted in the way medicine in order to treat the she regarded people. She saw Jesus in everyone. Every wound she bandaged, every hand she held, sick in their homes. Teresa and every dying soul she offered dignity to, in her mind, she was doing these things for the body of was given the moniker Christ. To many of us, the life she led seemed full of unpleasantness, but to Mother Teresa, she was “Saint of the Gutters” for living the only life that would give her pleasure and fulfilment. the work she was doing.”

Her uncomplicated and heartfelt words often gave a glimpse into her spirit, and perhaps in her words, Final Days her secret lies. “I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish” she said. And Mother Teresa suffered from heart problems for she practiced it with offering smiles wherever life’s a substantial amount of time. In 1996, she was journey led her. hospitalized for malaria and a chest infection and also underwent heart surgery. Cardiac arrest Mother Teresa lived love. It poured from her claimed the life of this remarkable woman in like a fountain. She explained it all in two quotes Calcutta on September 5, 1997. The last earthly concerning love. “There is no greater sickness in words to be uttered by her were “I can’t breathe the world today than the lack of love” and “The anymore.” On March 13, 1997, she had stepped hunger for love is much more difficult to remove down from the Head of Missionaries of Charity than the hunger for bread.” Yes, she had a secret. and died on just 9 days after her 87th birthday. Her answer was contained in that four-letter word Following Mother Teresa’s death, began the called love. process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization, or sainthood. This process Recognition requires the documentation of a miracle performed from the intercession of Mother Teresa. In 2002, Mother Teresa’s work was recognised and the Vatican recognized as a miracle the healing acclaimed throughout the world and she received a of a tumour in the abdomen of an Indian woman, number of awards and distinctions. These include Monica Besra, following the application of a locket the Pandra Shri prize for “extraordinary services” containing Teresa’s picture. Monica Besra said that in 1962, the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971), a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing Nehru Prize for Promotion of International Peace & the cancerous tumour. Mother Teresa was formally Understanding (1972), Balzan Prize (1978), Nobel beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19, 2003 Peace Prize (1979) and Bharat Ratna (1980). After with the title ‘Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’. learning of winning the Nobel Prize, Mother Teresa answered with a very humble “I am unworthy.” She Source: www.ewtn.com, www.iloveindia.com, also opted to donate the $6,000 that would have www.essortment.com been used for a ceremonial banquet to be given to

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 39 A Medieval Saint: Dadu

Medieval India witnessed an interesting pattern of religious thought and they wanted to phenomenon: she saw for the first time an examine it and see if there was anything in it they attempt—and a fairly successful attempt at that— could accept with profit. In course of time perhaps at reconciliation between Hinduism and Islam. they would have absorbed and assimilated Islam And oddly enough, this attempt was initiated not as they have done myriads of such ideas and by intellectual India but by what may roughly be ideologies through countless ages. In that case the called India of the ignorant masses. Mussalmans would have been today only another sect in the Hindu fold. Before this, Hinduism and Islam were regarded as irreconcilable. They were like two poles But this was not to be. Unfortunately yes, asunder. To the Mussalmans Hinduism was mere unfortunately—Islam strode into India with the idolatry, a mass of blind superstitions. Its ideals, sword of a political conqueror. It did not come its practices—everything was repugnant to them. purely as a religious movement. It came as an It was the very contradiction of all they held dear attack, an assault. It was an attack on the political and sacred in Islam. The Hindu reaction to Islam integrity and the religious freedom of the Hindus. was of course a bit different. The Hindus have all This fact made the whole of Islam suspect to the along been tolerant. They have been used to all Hindus. And being politically conquered they could kinds of vagaries in the religious world. Within not but feel a sting of humiliation in accepting their own fold they have seen all manner of ideals Islam. It hurt their pride. Hence, though so unlike and practices. They have not treated any with themselves, they assumed an attitude of sullen contempt. Far less have they tried to smother indifference; they would have no truck with it. And any. To them everything is welcome provided it to prevent defections they hardened the caste rules originates from a sincere and earnest quest for and made social ostracism the price of accepting the truth. And they know they must allow for Islam. Almost an unprecedented step in Hindu differences in tastes and temperaments. They do history, and how deplorable! not treat religion like a strait jacket to pin down man to fixed beliefs and dogmas. This explains Thus a barrier came to be established between why there is this amazing diversity in the Hindu the Hindus and the Mussalmans. It did not of religious thought. Moreover through all this course extend so far as to make social intercourse apparent diversity they try to seek a real unity. So impossible between the two communities. Also they were not essentially hostile to Islam. Rather it did not deter their representative theologians they were curious and interested. Here was a new from engaging now and then in healthy debates

40 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 under the auspices of Moghul courts. And true to nothing that bore any promise of what he was the Indian traditions these debates were always to be in future; he was like any other boy of characterized by an atmosphere of friendship his station. At the age of eleven he met in his and good humour. Nevertheless the barrier village Buddhan (Briddhananda), a Hindu monk remained and the idea persisted that Hinduism of Kabir’s school, and this marked the turning- and Islam were fundamentally different, nay, even point of his life. Evidently Buddhan was able to antagonistic to each other and re-conciliation see into the tremendous possibilities of the boy between them was thought impossible. and was impressed; so he singled him out from among a host of other boys and taking him aside Against this background of religious conflicts and instructed him about God. What exactly he told confusions appeared a great mystic who addressed him we do not know, nor how Dadu reacted to it. himself to the task of bridging the gulf between We do not know also how Dadu passed the next Hinduism and Islam and also partially succeeded. seven years before Buddhan visited him again. This was Dadu. Born a Mussulman he accepted Outwardly, it is possible, he simply drudged at a Hindu as his guru. By this very fact he brought his family trade as he had been doing before; but, Islam and Hinduism nearer to each other. He inwardly, it may be presumed, the seed planted practised a religion which did not answer to any by Buddhan in his heart must have been growing, rigid type. It was neither Islam nor Hinduism. It was drawing nourishment from those hidden sources something constituting the common core of both. It of which only Buddhan was aware. So that by the was the essence of religion. time Buddhan came again, he was ready in his own conscious mind to take a real plunge into spiritual It was his chief endeavour to synthesize, to life. Buddhan, too, must have been waiting for this harmonize all religious views. This he did by happy development and when he came again, he emphasizing that the contents of all religious ideals lost no time to give Dadu fuller instructions about were the same though their forms differed. To God and to introduce him to the secrets of the him ‘Hindu’ and ‘Mussalman’ were arbitrary and esoteric life according to his school. And we know artificial labels and they surely had no sanction what was Dadu’s reaction this time: as soon as from God. When accused of breaking down the Buddhan left, Dadu discovered he could not live barriers between the Hindus and the Mussalmans the life he was so long living—the life of a petty his emphatic reply was that such barriers had workman earning an honest pie and being content no right to exist, for man was the same man with it. He felt a call—an irresistible call, the same everywhere and God the same God in every to which many have succumbed, beginning with religion and there was no sense in creating barriers Buddha. This made him throw down his tools, among men which, far from helping, hindered snap all ties with the family and rush out into the their progress towards God. To him religion was big wide world in quest of truth. Roaming about intensely personal and it must vary according to ceaselessly he visited innumerable places and individual tastes and requirements. wherever he was he took care to contact sages of different cults and to study their ways. He was It was more by conduct, by his own personal like an ever thirsty traveller drinking at whatever example, than by his teachings, that he brought fountains he met on the way. about reconciliation between Hinduism and Islam. Religious disputes arise when the fundamentals of religion are forgotten. Dadu stressed as well as embodied these fundamentals. And what are they? They are: God alone matters and nothing “Born a Mussulman else. And to attain Him what is necessary is love and sincere longing of the heart. Quarrels about he accepted a Hindu creeds and dogmas are foolish; they are the idle sport of intellectual fools. Dadu himself is the best as his guru” example of all these. He is the example of a man attaining to the highest spiritual grandeur aided solely by the devotions of a longing heart. For his He was equally at home with the Hindus as well was an approach to God not through the devious as the Mohammedans, with the Shaktas as well as ways of scholarship, net through dry contentious the Vaishnavas, with the Buddhists as well as the intellectualism, but through a burning faith, Jains. He was like a sturdy plant thriving alike in through an all-devouring love. all climates. He, however, did not commit himself to any particular creed or dogma. For he had no Details about Dadu’s origin are a matter of dispute. use for any man-made institution. Nor was he to Many stories are current and it is difficult to tell be bound down by any fixed belief or custom. He which are correct and which are not. Nevertheless was a true universalist that accepted everything it is fairly established that he was born of a poor and rejected nothing. Nevertheless he believed in Mohammedan family somewhere in the forties one God-head and in the ultimate identity of the of the sixteenth century and by caste he was a individual soul with that God-head. In this he was cobbler. As a boy he showed nothing remarkable, on a par with the Vedantist.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 41 Dadu, emperor of the spiritual world, is in his ramshackle house surrounded by his admirers. A messenger from Akbar, the biggest emperor of the temporal world of the time, arrives to say that Dadu is wanted. ‘The Emperor wants me? What have I to do with him—I, a poor fakir? Excuse me, I can’t go.’ This was Dadu’s reply. No sign of elation at such an unexpected honour, no indecent hurry to oblige the emperor!

Soon the messenger comes again. This time he knows better what to say. He says the emperor wants to meet him because he wants to profit by having a religious talk with him. So will he please accept the invitation? Dadu replied he would, but he could not go and meet the emperor in Delhi. His significant excuse was that he lived in a world altogether different from the emperor’s and if he went to the emperor’s world, he would not be himself any longer. To this Akbar sent a clever reply, full of understanding, full of that nobility How Dadu acquired such broadness of outlook it of spirit of which only he was capable. He said it is difficult to say. Of course Kabir to whose school was not his intention that Dadu should go to Delhi. his guru belonged and who influenced him more He had sense enough to understand how foolish than any other single individual, held similar it would be to take him out of his environment. views. Still they were not so pronounced in their It would be like taking a piece of rock from the comprehensiveness and width of vision. It must Himalayas and trying to judge their beauty and have been Dadu’s own intuitive experience of truth grandeur from it. But it was, at the same time, coupled with wide travels and close observation Akbar’s misfortune that he was an emperor. If he that lent such catholicity to his character. He went to Dadu’s place, a whole host of ministers brought about a synthesis not only between and courtiers would then rush to the place and Hinduism and Islam but also among other warring defile its simple native beauty. So would he mind creeds of the time. coming over to Fatehpur-Sikri, that city which Akbar meant to be a seat of deep spirituality? And this he did not by a process of mere Fatehpur-Sikri suited Dadu quite well for he juxtaposition or that more grandiosely called would often go to places around it, and he eclecticism but by realizing as well as upholding readily agreed. Accordingly, the time and place that common truth underlying all the varying were fixed for the meeting. creeds and by emphasizing the organic harmony that naturally exists between them. It is a great They met in the quiet deserts outside the city and thing to do at any time and it is wonderful Dadu did they met for forty days! It was like two master it as early as the sixteenth century. minds closed in grips with each other. They discussed almost everything bearing on spiritual At the end of his long itinerary we find Dadu life and they differed and argued and fought. settled somewhere in Rajputana. He had married Together they journeyed far into the spiritual some time or other and here he lived a quiet life realm, Dadu guiding and Akbar always doubting, with his wife and children. A quiet life but not too questioning and challenging. It is well-known that quiet, for Dadu’s fame soon spread far and wide Akbar, though illiterate, was a profound student of and people began to flock to him in numbers. He philosophy and was himself a mystic of a sort. His received all with equal courtesy and tried to solve thirst for knowledge was great and he was no bigot their doubts. Some came to test and some to tease to refuse to add to his knowledge from new or even only, but Dadu was unruffled and they went away from alien sources. It is this fact that explains why tremendously impressed. Some, again, came to he felt impelled to seek an interview with Dadu, tempt or to threaten, but Dadu went on, unswayed, and to secure it he would let no false prestige stand with his teaching of the truth and guiding the in the way. genuine seekers. Hindus as well as Mohammedans came and sat at his feet and many became his In the discussions that took place Dadu must have ardent followers. Among his visitors were common been impressed by his keen intellect, his deep men as well as royalties, and among the latter there understanding as well as his wide range of vision, was Akbar the Great himself. And how interesting and he must have felt glad at heart to be able to reads the story of his interview with Akbar! It share his spiritual knowledge with him. Akbar, reveals the characteristic qualities of both the too, with his shrewd understanding of what was great souls and it is a matter fit to be recorded genuine and what was spurious, must have been in some detail. struck by the rich contents of Dadu’s spiritual

42 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 experience, his great wisdom, his catholicity and, close preserve of the learned and its wide diffusion above all, his wonderful synthesis of all seemingly among the masses became possible. In addition, antagonistic and contradictory creeds and his disciples translated many Sanskrit books into dogmas. And he drank in his words instinct with Hindi in order that common folks might derive the living experience of reality. When, in course of their benefit. It was, in short, the interest of the discussions, Dadu incidentally pointed out to him common folks that was always put in the forefront that no creed, however perfect and comprehensive, and in every sense the movement became a real can embody the full truth, ‘just as no bird can people’s movement. contain in its beak the whole of sea-water’, it must have given Akbar the shock of a new discovery Another feature of the movement was that, besides and in this perhaps lies a partial explanation of Dadu, it drew inspiration from various saints, that large-hearted toleration which characterized ancient or contemporary, and it became a sort Akbar’s treatment towards religions supposed to of common pool to which all sects of all religions be hostile to Islam. contributed their share. The idea was to help man advance in his spiritual struggles and not to create At last they parted and they parted the best of a hard crystallized sect centring round a particular friends. Each conceived great admiration for the personality or principle, so that, rather than co- other and their exchange of ideas continued from operate, it would compete with the innumerable a distance. It is difficult to say what influence Dadu sects already existing. That is why sayings of had on Akbar. Who knows if his deep indrawn saints belonging to different sects were carefully moods, his religious ecstasies and his increased collected, preserved, and read with the same abhorrence of bigotry which were all so prominent respect as Dadu’s own sayings in the monasteries a characteristic of Akbar’s last days were not the dedicated to him. outcome of his contact with Dadu? Names of Dadu’s prominent disciples are on record and they include both Hindus and Mohammedans. His own son, Garibdas, was a disciple and, after “It was his Dadu’s passing away at an approximate age of sixty, it was he who was chosen leader of the chief endeavour to movement. Some of his disciples were brilliant men, and their gifted writings greatly influenced the religious thoughts of the time. It must be said to synthesize, to harmonize the credit of Dadu’s disciples that, unlike what has happened in the case of most saints, they did not all religious views” tamper with his utterances trying to improve upon them or to suit them more to the popular taste. Not only that; they also remained loyal to their spirit Dadu founded a sect named after Brahma and and tried to live up to them. its chief articles of faith were: conquest of ego, prayer, indifference to conditions of body and As time passed, the movement gathered in volume mind, and love for all. It was a truly non-sectarian and more and more men came under its influence. sect, for it was open to all and it preached and As Dadu’s catholic ideas seeped into popular practised nothing with the least hint of narrowness minds, the old atmosphere of religious rivalry of outlook. It had on its rolls Hindus as well as disappeared and a general sense of understanding Mohammedans, and all enjoyed equal rights, and and sympathy towards religions other than one’s there was no question of change of religion on own became wide-spread and habitual with the the part of those who sought its membership. It people. Partly because of its catholicity and was not intended to replace any existing religious partly because it had fulfilled its purpose, the ideology but to supplement it, to broaden it, and to movement lost its distinctive role and eventually free it from all tendencies to collectivize everything disappeared. The services rendered by it and its stultifying the individual taste and requirement. It originator, Dadu, can never be overrated for if, did not enjoin any complex rituals and ceremonies until recent times, relations between Hindus and or anything tending to interfere with normal Mohammedans or between one sect and another, pursuits of life. It left every individual free to Hindu or Mohammedan, have been friendly and choose his own mode of approach to God, laying sympathetic, it can be safely concluded that it has down the only condition that he should not infringe been largely due to Dadu and his movement.* the articles of faith quoted above. Swami Lokeswarananda

By necessity, but one would like to believe more *Largely based on Prof. Kshiti Mohan Sen’s Dadu. by choice, Dadu did all his teaching through the popular dialect of Hindi. Among his disciples were Source: Published with Permission. men who were deep scholars of Sanskrit; still Hindi Prabuddha Bharata, Vol. L, No. 5, May 1945 continued to receive special preference and thanks to this, Dadu’s spiritual wisdom did not become a

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 43 Growth is not all

In a meeting of TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) in 8 per cent per year, there is a lot of speculation— Delhi in December, I remarked that it is silly to be and breathless discourse—on whether and when obsessed about overtaking China in the rate of India may catch up or surpass China’s over-10 growth of Gross National Product (GNP), while not percent growth rate. comparing ourselves with China in other respects, like education, basic health, or life expectancy. Despite the interest in this subject, comparable to that in the race course (the betting comes from GNP growth can, of course, be very helpful in the West as well as Asia), this is a silly focus. This advancing living standards and in battling is so not because there are so many elements of poverty, but there is little case for confusing (1) arbitrariness in any growth estimate, but also the important role of economic growth as means because the lives that people are able to lead— for achieving good things, and (2) growth of what ultimately interest people most—are only inanimate objects of convenience being taken to be indirectly and partially influenced by the rates an end in itself. of overall economic growth. Let me look at some numbers, drawing from various sources—national One does not have to “rubbish” economic growth as well as international, in particular World to recognise that it is not our ultimate objective, Development Reports of the World Bank and Human but a very useful means to achieve things that we Development Reports of the United Nations. ultimately value, including a better quality of life. Nor should my remark be taken to be a dismissal Life expectancy at birth in China is 73.5 years; of the far-reaching relevance of comparing India in India it is still 64.4 years. Infant mortality rate with China. This is a good perspective in which is 50 per thousand in India, compared with just to assess each of the two countries and a lot of 17 in China, and the under-5 mortality rate is 66 my past work—on my own and jointly with Jean for Indians and 19 for the Chinese. China’s adult Dreze—has made use of that perspective. It is of literacy rate is 94 per cent, compared with India’s some historical interest that comparing India with 65 per cent, and mean years of schooling in India is China has been the subject matter of discussion for 4.4 years, compared with 7.5 years in China. a very long time. In our effort to reverse the lack of schooling of girls, “Is there anyone, in the five parts of India, who India’s literacy rate for women between the ages of does not admire China?” asked Yi Jing (I-Tsing, in 15 and 24 has certainly risen, but it is still below 80 old spelling) in the seventh century, on returning to per cent, whereas in China it is 99 per cent. Almost China after being in India for ten years, studying at half of our children are undernourished compared the ancient university in Nalanda. with a very tiny proportion in China. Only 66 per cent of Indian children are immunised with triple He went on to write a book, in 691 AD, about vaccine (DPT), as opposed to 97 per cent in China. India, which presented, among other things, the first systematic comparatives account of medical Comparing ourselves with China in these practices and health care in these two countries really important matters would be a very good (perhaps the first such comparison between any perspective, and they can both inspire us and give two countries in the world). us illumination about what to do—and what not to do, particularly the glib art of doing nothing. He investigated what China could learn from India, and what, in turn, India could assimilate from Higher GNP in China has certainly helped it China. Comparisons of that kind—and more— to reduce various indicators of poverty and remain very relevant today, and I have discussed deprivation, and to expand different aspects of the elsewhere the illumination we can get from such quality of life. So we have every reason to want to comparisons in general, and in comparative encourage sustainable economic growth, among medical practice and health care in particular the other things we can do to augment living (“The Art of Medicine: Learning from Others,” standards today and in the future. Sustainable Lancet, January 15, 2011). economic growth is a very good thing in a way that “growth mania” is not. We need some clarity on What goes wrong in the current obsession with why we are doing what (including the values we India-China comparison is not the relevance of have about our lives and freedoms and about the comparing China with India, but the field that is environment), and getting excited about the horse chosen for comparison. Now that the Indian rate race on GNP growth with China is not a good way of economic growth seems to be hovering around of achieving that clarity.

44 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Further, we have to take note of the fact that GNP per capita is not invariably a good predictor of valuable features of our lives, for they depend also on other things that we do—or fail to do. Compare India with Bangladesh, where, as Jean Dreze pointed out in an article many years ago, “social indicators” are “improving quite rapidly”.

In terms of income, India has a huge lead over Bangladesh, with a GNP per capita of Rs. 3,250, compared with Rs. 1,550 in Bangladesh, in comparable units of purchasing power parity. India was ahead of Bangladesh earlier as well, but thanks to fast economic growth in recent years, India’s per-capita income is now comfortably more than double that of Bangladesh. How well is India’s income advantage reflected in our lead in those things that really matter? I fear not very well— indeed not well at all.

Life expectancy in Bangladesh is 66.9 years compared with India’s 64.4. The proportion of underweight children in Bangladesh (41.3 per cent) is a little lower than in India (43.5), and its fertility rate (2.3) is also lower than India’s (2.7). Mean years of schooling amount to 4.8 years in Bangladesh compared with India’s 4.4 years.

While India is ahead of Bangladesh in male literacy rate in the youthful age-group of 15-24, the female rate in Bangladesh is higher than in India. Interestingly, the female literacy rate among young Bangladeshis is actually higher than the male rate, whereas young females still do much worse than young males in India. There is much evidence to suggest that Bangladesh’s current progress has much to do with the role that liberated Bangladeshi women are beginning to play in the country.

What about health, which interests every human being as much as anything else? Under-5 mortality rate is 66 in India compared with 52 in Bangladesh. In infant mortality, Bangladesh has a similar advantage, since the rate is 50 in India and 41 in Bangladesh. Whereas 94 per cent of Bangladeshi children are immunised with DPT vaccine, only 66 per cent of Indian children are. In each of these respects, Bangladesh does better than India, despite having less than half of India’s per-capita income.

This should not, however, be interpreted to entail that Bangladesh’s living conditions will not benefit from higher economic growth—they certainly can benefit greatly, particularly if growth is used as a means of doing good things, rather than treating it as an end in itself. It is to the huge credit of Bangladesh that despite the adversity of low income it has been able to do so much so quickly, in which the activism of the NGOs as well as public policies have played their parts. But higher income, including larger public resources, will enhance, rather than reduce, Bangladesh’s ability to do good things for its people.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 45 One of the great things about economic growth conditions, its reach depends greatly on what we is that it generates resources for the government do with the fruits of growth. To be sure, there are to spend according to its priorities. In fact, public large number of people for whom growth alone resources typically grow faster than the GNP: when does just fine, since they are already privileged and the GNP increases at 7 to 9 per cent, public revenue need no social assistance. Economic growth only tends to expand at rates between 9 and 12 per cent. adds to their economic and social opportunities. Those gains are, of course, good, and there is The gross tax revenue, for example, of the nothing wrong in celebrating their better lives Government of India now is more than four times through economic growth, especially since this what it was in 1990-91, at constant prices—a bigger group of relatively privileged Indians is quite rise than GNP per head. Expenditure on “social large in absolute numbers. But the exaggerated sector” (health, education, nutrition, etc) has concentration on their lives, which the media tend certainly gone up in India, and that is a reason often to display, gives an incomplete picture of for cheer. And yet we are still well behind China what is happening to Indians in general. in many of these fields. For example, government expenditure on health care in China is nearly five This group of relatively privileged and increasingly times that in India. China does have a higher per- prosperous Indians can easily fall for the capita income than we do, but even in relative temptation to treat economic growth as an end in terms, while China spends nearly two per cent of itself, for it serves directly as the means of their its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care, opulence and improving lifestyles without further the proportion is only a little above one percent social efforts. in India. The insularity that this limited perspective One result of the relatively low allocation to generates can even take the form of ridiculing public health care in India is the development of a social activists—“jholawalas” is one description remarkable reliance of many poor people across I have frequently heard—who keep reminding the country on private doctors, many of whom others about the predicament of the larger masses have little medical training, if any. Since health is a of people who make up this great country. India typical case of “asymmetric information,” with the cannot be seen as doing splendidly if a great many patients knowing very little about what the doctors Indians—sometimes most Indians—are having very are giving them, the possibility of fraud and deceit little improvement in their deprived lives. is very large. Some critics of huge social inequalities might be upset that there is something rather uncouth and crude in the self-centred lives and inward-looking “Higher temptations of the prosperous inner sanctum.

GNP in China has Those temptations may prevent the country from doing the wonderful things it can do for Indians at helped to reduce various large. Economic growth, properly supplemented, can be a huge contributor to making things better indicators of poverty and for people, and it is extremely important to understand the relevance and role of growth with deprivation...” clarity. Courtesy: The Hindu Amartya Sen, who won the In a study conducted by the Pratichi Trust, we Nobel Prize in Economics found cases of exploitation of the poor patients’ in 1998 and was awarded ignorance of what they are being given to make the Bharat Ratna in 1999, them part with badly needed money to get is Professor of Economics treatment that they do not often get (we even and Philosophy at Harvard found cases in which patients with malaria were University. He is Founder charged comparatively large sums of money for and Chairman of the being given saline injections). Pratichi Trust, which he started with his Nobel There is very definitive evidence of a combination money. of quackery and crookery in the premature privatisation of basic health care. This is the result Source: Bhavan’s Journal not only of shameful exploitation, but ultimately March 31, 2011 of the sheer unavailability of public health care in many localities around India.

The central point to seize is that while economic growth is an important boon for enhancing living

46 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Crimes against International Students in Australia: 2005-09

A key part of the Australian Institute of This is the first major study of its kind in Australia. Criminology’s (AIC) role is to provide a capacity AIC Director, Adam Tomison, said: “This ground- to investigate new and evolving crimes and in the breaking analysis data-matched 418,294 students past two years, there has been significant interest from five source countries with police victim in determining the nature and extent to which records over the five years. The nature of the data international students studying in Australia are did not allow the AIC to engage in specific analysis victims of crime. of racial motivation. That said, there was nothing in the overall findings that lends support to the Detailed findings are provided from what is view that Indian students have been singled out the most comprehensive student victimisation primarily for racial reasons.” study ever conducted in Australia. In addition, supplementary analysis of the AIC’s National Key findings show: Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) database, • Rates of assault for Indian students were as well as the Australian component of the 2004 lower than or on par with rates for the general International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS), Australian population. are used to provide additional context to the • Rates of robbery against Indian students were AIC’s investigation. higher than average for Australians in larger states for most years. Primarily, this research was designed to provide • The proportion of robberies against Indian the best available estimation of the extent to students occurring at commercial locations was which international students have been the approximately double that recorded for students victims of crime during their time in Australia and from other countries. to determine whether international students are • Over half of robberies against Indian students more or less likely than an Australian comparison on commercial premises occurred at population to have experienced crime. service stations.

This report provides the best available estimation Robbery is an opportunistic crime. The higher of the extent to which international students rates of robbery against Indian students, compared have been the victims of crime during their time with other international students, and Australian in Australia and has enabled the rate of recorded comparison populations, appeared to be more crimes experienced by international students likely to occur because of a range of factors: in from the five largest source countries (People’s particular, differences in employment, with large Republic of China, India, Malaysia, the Republic of numbers of Indian students working in higher-risk Korea (South Korea) and the United States) to be employment (taxi driving and in convenience/fast compared with the rate for Australian reference food stores and service stations), working evening/ populations. While this research has not answered night shifts and their use of public transport. the question of whether attacks against overseas students are racially motivated, the findings from As the data did not include offender profiles, the this research do point to other factors such as AIC could not engage in specific analysis of racial employment and the use of public transport, that motivation. The fact that assault rates on Indian influence the risk or likelihood of overseas students students were either below or the same as the rates experiencing crime. This provides direction for of assault for the general Australian community crime prevention efforts to reduce the risk of suggests that race is not a primary motivation. The crime for this population. This report represents 172 page report provides a detailed analysis across the culmination of the AIC’s research into crimes jurisdictions and is available on the AIC website: against international students. www.aic.gov.au.

The Australian Government takes very seriously Jacqueline Joudo Larsen, Jason Payne, any allegations that people are being criminally Adam Tomison victimised. In 2010 the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, announced that the AIC Source: www.aic.gov.au would conduct independent research into crimes against overseas students with particular reference to crime rates against Indian students.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 47 Goswami Tulsidas Jayanti

“The Supreme Self who is the embodiment of joy was brought up by and ocean of Bliss, from which a small droplet Baba Narhari Das, fills the three worlds with happiness, He is ‘Rama’, whom Tulsi called the very home of bliss and the comforter of all his preceptor. Although Tulsidas’s childhood was the three worlds.” -Sri Goswami Tulasidas in one of poverty and suffering, he was a devout Ramacharitamanas follower of Lord Rama, and was taught by his Guru, Narhari Das during his days at Sukar-khet. Goswami Tulsidas was a legendary Indian poet, a philosopher and one of the most famous Ratnavali ancient poets. Goswami Tulsidas Jayanti or Tulsi Jayanti is celebrated in honour of Tulsidas, the Tulsidas’s wife’s name was Buddhimati (Ratnavali). Author of Ramcharitmanas, one of the greatest She was daughter of Dinabandhu Pathak. Tulsidas’s epics ever written. It is held on the seventh day son’s name was Tarak. Tulsidas was passionately after ‘Amavasi’ in the Shravan month (August). attached to his wife. He could not bear even a day’s The original Valmiki Ramayana in Sanskrit was separation from her. One day his wife went to her understood only by a few and it was Tulisdas’s father’s house without informing her husband. Ramcharitmanas in Hindi that popularized the epic Tulsidas stealthily went to see her at night at in Bharatavarsha. Ramcharitmanas was written his father-in-law’s house. This produced a sense in Awadhi, a dialect of Hindi. Goswami Tulsidas of shame in Buddhimati. She said to Tulsidas, Jayanti 2011 falls on 5th August. “My body is but a network of flesh and bones. If you would develop for Lord Rama even half the Ramcharitmanas love that you have for my filthy body, you would certainly cross the ocean of Samsara and attain The originally story related to Lord Rama immortality and eternal bliss”. These words was written by the great author Valmiki. pierced the heart of Tulsidas. He did not stay Ramcharitmanas (‘The Lake of the Deeds of Rama’), there even for a moment. He abandoned home and which contains sweet couplets in beautiful rhyme became an ascetic. He spent fourteen years visiting known as ‘Chaupai’, solely devoted to Lord Rama various sacred places of pilgrimage in his quest for is not a literal translation of Valimiki Ramayana. Lord Rama. Ayodhya was his main stay, and it was Keeping the main story intact, Tulsidas made vital here that he sighted a vision of Lord Rama who changes in the beginning and in the end and there inspired him to compose the Ramayana in Awadhi, is an emphasis on Bhakti in Tulsi Ramayana. the common language spoken by the people then.

Lord Hanuman Lord Rama

It is also believed that Tulsidas wrote Ramayana Tulsidas used to throw the water at the roots of a as per the instructions of Hanuman, who appeared tree which a spirit was occupying. The spirit was before him in a temple. It is accounted that very much pleased with Tulsidas. The spirit said, Tulsidas wrote twelve books and the most famous “O man! Get a boon from me”. Tulsidas replied, is the Ramcharitmanas. The literary work is noted “Let me have Darshan of Lord Rama”. The spirit for its rhyming couplets. Ramayan of Tulsidas is said, “Go to the Hanuman temple. There Hanuman read daily and worshipped with great reverence by comes in the guise of a leper to hear the Ramayan Hindus all over the globe. as the first hearer and leaves the place last of all. Get hold of Him. He will help you”. Thus Tulsidas Goswami Tulsidas met Hanuman, and through His grace, had Darshan of Lord Rama. Tulsidas was born in Rajpur in the Banda district of Uttar Pradesh in Samvat 1589 or 1532 AD. The Thieves and Lord Rama He was a Sarayuparina Brahmin by birth and is considered to be an incarnation of Valmiki, and Some thieves came to Tulsidas’s Ashram to take is counted among the foremost devotees of Lord away his goods. They saw a blue-complexioned Rama. His father’s name was Atmaram Shukla Dube guard, with bow and arrow in his hands, keeping and his mother’s name Hulsi. Tulsidas did not cry watch at the gate. Wherever they moved, the at the time of his birth. He was born with all the guard followed them. They were frightened. In thirty-two teeth intact. In childhood his name was the morning they asked Tulsidas, “O venerable Tulsiram or Ram Bola. His parents deserted him saint! We saw a young guard with bow and arrow because he was born under an ominous star (Mul in his hands at the gate of your residence. Who is Nakshtra). Since his parents abandoned him, he this man?” Tulsidas remained silent and wept. He

48 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Nandi came to know that Lord Rama Himself had been taking the trouble to protect his goods. He at once distributed all his wealth among the poor. a powerful and popular Mantra for Hanuman, in 40 verses. The writings of Tulsidas, especially the Nandi Ramcharitmanas are works of great literary merit, as well as being examples of an extraordinary Tulsidas lived in Ayodhya for some time and later combination of supreme devotion and pure non- shifted to Varanasi. One day a murderer came and dualistic philosophy. His works were even admired cried, “For the love of Rama give me alms. I am a by the Mughal rulers Akbar and Jahangir. Even murderer”. Tulsi called him to his house, gave him today, his writings display an amalgamation of his sacred food which had been offered to the Lord intense devotion and philosophical ideologies, and declared that the murderer was purified. The making him one of the greatest Hindi poets to ever Brahmins of Varanasi reproached Tulsidas and compose such outstanding literature. said, “How can the sin of a murderer be absolved? How could you eat with him? If the sacred bull of Tulsidas had full command of Braj and Awadhi, the Siva—Nandi—would eat from the hands of the most popular language of poetic expression in his murderer, then only we would accept that he had time. He preferred Awadhi for his Epic and Braj been purified”. Then the murderer was taken to for his lyrics, and Bhojpuri-tinged Awadhi for his the temple and the bull ate from his hands. The ‘Mangal Kavyas’. He understood the people and Brahmins were put to shame. their minds, and in the character of Lord Rama he gave them the highest human ideal that could be Lord Krishna the anchor of man’s purest thoughts in a world Tulsidas once went to Brindavan. He visited a of sorrow and sufferings. Tulsidas achieved a temple. He saw the image of Lord Krishna. He said, synthesis between various warring religious sects “How shall I describe Thy beauty, O Lord! But Tulsi and orders among the Hindus. He also struck a will bow his head only when You take up bow and compromise between the Nirgun and the Sagun arrow in Your hands”. The Lord revealed Himself modes of worship. His Ramcharitmanas is the before Tulsidas in the form of Lord Rama with bow quintessence of all scriptures and philosophy, and arrows. and his other works are equally instinct with great power. Tulsidas was a master of verbal art. The Moghul Emperor His works cover a vast range and infinite variety of sound patterns from the simplest to the most Tulsidas’s blessings brought the dead husband of complex, and from the most delicate to the most a poor woman back to life. The Moghul Emperor at tempestuous. Tulsidas played a vital role in Delhi came to know of the great miracle done by developing our National Language, Hindi. Tulsidas. He sent for Tulsidas. Tulsidas came to the Emperor’s court. The Emperor asked the Saint Celebrations to perform some miracle. Tulsidas replied, “I have no superhuman power. I know only the name of The main activity on Goswami Tulsidas Jayanti Rama”. The Emperor put Tulsi in prison and said, is the reading of Ramcharitmanas and visiting “I will release you only if you show me a miracle”. temples of Lord Ram and Hanuman. People Tulsi then prayed to Hanuman. Countless bands get up early and visit the temples of Sri Rama of powerful monkeys entered the royal court. and Sri Hanuman. Brahmins are fed. Seminars The Emperor got frightened and said, “O Saint, and symposiums are conducted on the life and forgive me. I know your greatness now”. He at once teachings of Sri Goswami Tulasidas. released Tulsi from prison. Final Journey His Writings Tulsi left his mortal coil and entered the Abode of Ramcharitmanas is Tulsidas’s magnum opus. Immortality and Eternal Bliss in 1623 AD at the age He is also the Author of several other works of 91 at Asighat in Varanasi. including Vinaya Patrika, Gitavali, Dohavali and Source: www.festivalsindia.com, Kavitavali. His other works include Baravai www.hindu-blog.com, www.devimandir.com, Ramayana, Janaki Mangal, Ramalala Nahachhu, www.mapsofindia.com, www.manavdharam.org, Ramajna Prashna, Parvati Mangal, Krishna Gitavali, www.sivanandadlshq.org, www.geocities.com, Hanuman Bahuka, Sankata Mochana and Vairagya www.hinduism.co.za, www.india-forums.com Sandipini. He is the Seer of the Hanuman Chalisa,

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 49 In the context of the mool-mantra, Gurparsaad also means that the Lord who is Saibangh is Himself Gurparsaad: the compassionate Guru. The Guru or ‘Teacher’ is He who removes the darkness of ignorance. The Lord or the Reality which is all-pervasive and ever- The Grace present in each and every thing in this universe is veiled clue to our ignorance.

Indeed, not only do we not recognize the Truth, but of the Guru we are not even aware that we are ignorant. So the all-compassionate Lord in His supreme kindness manifests Himself as the Guru to inspire us, guide us and reveal to us His true nature.

He who is the Kartaa Purakh, the one Doer, or Creator, Sustainer and Destroyer, He alone takes the form of the Guru to liberate us from the bondage of samsaara. Therefore we say, “Guru Brahmaah, Guru Vishnuh, Guru Devo Maheshwarah, Gurureva Param Brahma, Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah. Guru is the Creator, Brahma. Guru is the Sustainer, Vishnu. Guru is the Destroyer, Shiva. Guru is the Lord of the Universe. Guru alone is the Absolute Reality, the Param Brahma. Unto that noble Teacher, my humble prostrations.”

Shri Guru Nanak Dev has echoed the very same idea in the “Japji Sahib”: Gur Isar, Gur Gorakh Barmaa, Gur Parbati Ma-Ee. Guru is Isar or Lord Shiva, for He destroys the ignorance and all the evil in us. Guru is Gorakh, the protector of the cows—Shri Vishnu, who protects us, sustains our aspirations for the higher and nourishes us with noble virtues.

Guru is Brahmaa, who creates in us the desire to know the Truth and inspires us to live a divine life. Guru is Mother Parvati, who fulfills all our pure desires and feeds us with the milk of Divine Knowledge.

50 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 The Lord is the one Guru of all. In fact, He is the To surrender in devotion at His lotus feet, is the sole Giver of all knowledge. Who taught the birds to only one direct means of salvation... “Na Guroh fly and sing? Who taught them the fascinating art of Adhikam Tatvam, Na Guroh Adikham Tapah, Tatva building nests? Who taught the animals to find their Gyaanaat Param Naasti, Tasmai Shri Gurave Namah. food? He is the one Guru of all creatures. There is no reality higher than the Guru, there is no tapas or austerity greater than service to the Guru, It is the Lord alone who is the one Knower there is no knowledge higher than knowledge of and Revealer of all the sciences including the the Truth. To that Teacher who is my all, my knowledge of one’s own nature, which brings humble prostrations.” about liberation. He is the Aadi Guru, the First Guru. He alone appears again and again in the At His feet blooms the lotus of the Scriptures. He form of different Gurus to bless the seekers. He alone can expound the mysteries enshrined in the alone is our Guru. Scriptures. He is that brilliant sun in whose light and warmth the lotus flower of Knowledge blooms. What can be said about one’s Guru? What words One who has surrendered to Him and is in the can describe His Compassion and Grace, His protection of the Guru shall certainly realize Parsaad? A mere sideglance of His can transform the Truth. a sinner into a saint. The cool stream of Ganga flowing from His lotus lips destroys the evil “Achaaryavaan Purusho Veda,” declare the of ignorance, washes away the sins of countless Upanishads of the Vedas. Gurparsaad is what lifetimes and ends the burning sorrows we should seek. In other words, we should seek of samsaara. the Lord in the form of the compassionate Guru. Surrender to Him, serve Him and open our hearts His lotus feet are the one refuge in the many storms to His ever-flowing parsaad or grace. The greatest of life. They are the mighty boat which alone can service we can render to the Teacher is obedience take us across the samsaara saagara, the ocean to His instruction, for such instruction is given for of transmigration. Even the devtas, the heavenly our benefit alone. denizens, cherish the sacred dust of His feet. How can one describe or even enumerate the The Guru requires nothing for Himself, and the infinite glories of the Guru? The Vedas become greatest offering one can make to one’s Guru is silent in Their reverence, the Rishis are choked to abide in the Knowledge given by the Teacher. with emotion and the poetic saints are at a loss In this way one can fulfil the purpose of human for words. existence, which is a rare form of life attained after millions of lifetimes. Shri Kabirdaas once said, “Sub Dharti Kaagaz Karo, Lekhan Sub Ban Rai, Saat Samudra Ki Masi Karo, Yet, even after gaining the Knowledge, we fail Guru Gun Likheeya Na Ja-Ee. If the entire earth were to abide in the Truth. This is because of the turned into paper, all the trees in all the world’s impressions and habits accumulated in the past, forests into pens, and all the seven oceans into ink, and the countless agitations and dissipations still they would not suffice for me to write about of the mind, as well as our constant laziness the glories of my Guru.” and forgetfulness.

Similarly, Shri Guru Nanakji has said: “Je Hau Jaana Thus the all-compassionate Guru Nanakji Aakha Naahi, Kahna Kathan Na Ja-Ee. Even if I knew lovingly urges us... of Him and all His glories, still I would never be able to describe Him, for He is indescribable.” To be continued… The greatest Parsaad or ‘Grace’ of the Guru is that Swami Swaroopananda Supreme Knowledge which reveals to us our true infinite nature, shows us our identity with God Source: Meditations on The One Indivisible Truth, and destroys all our karmas, the bondage due to Central Chinmaya Mission Trust. the results of actions gathered through millions of lifetimes.

“The all-compassionate Lord in His supreme kindness manifests Himself as the Guru to inspire us, guide us and reveal to us His true nature.”

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 51 Kautilya’s Arthashastra: Foreign Trade

Kautilya’s Arthashastra described in detail the trade on foreign goods were roughly 20% of their value. and commerce carried on with foreign countries, Interestingly India, which had import duties often and the active interest of the Mauryan Empire to exceeding 100% till a few years ago, has now promote such trade. Goods were imported from reached the level of 20%. Similarly, tolls, road China, Ceylon, and other countries. Interestingly, cess, ferry charges and other levies were all fixed. the trade was not free from levies. Levies known Kautilya’s concept of taxation is more or less akin as a vartanam were collected on all foreign to the modern system of taxation. His overall commodities imported to the country. Levies emphasis was on equity and justice in taxation. called Dvarodaya which was paid by the concerned businessman for the import of foreign goods was in Trade as Revenue Generator addition to the ferry fees of all kinds. This helped augment the tax collection. However, the medium Trade was mostly carried out by the State and of tax payment was either in gold bars or in coins. private trade was allowed in areas other than Kautilya in his treatise elaborated on the extraction in which the State had monopoly. The revenues of metals from ores, the manufacture of metallic raised through trading went partly to finance the alloys and the minting of coins. For silver coins he army and to expand territories. has used the term karshapanas. Supervision and Control over Trading Coins of foreign origin were also in circulation in the State. Thus, for a long period of thousand In order to have effective control over trade, years or even more, India’s foreign trade was monitoring was done through 7 out of 34 of ‘surplus nature’. With a continuous inflow of departments envisaged. The head of each of gold in the form of coins or bars used by foreign the department was called adhyaksha or chief traders to purchase Indian commodities, India controller in the present-day parlance. The seven was transformed into ‘Suvarna Bhoomi’ or ‘golden departments overseeing and monitoring trade land’. Greek coins with a punch mark were in activities were: (i) State Trading, (ii) Private circulation as the official currency. Later, Roman Trading, (iii) Customs and Octroi, (iv) Ports, (v) coins especially those made of gold and silver Weights and Measures, (vi) Shipping and Ferries, were brought in by traders. Trade with the Roman and (vii) Surveyor and Time keeper. Empire flourished from first century B.C. from There being neither air cargo nor railways at that Rome, India imported chemicals, wines, high time, mention is made only of shipping and ferries. quality pottery, some metal alloys and gold and In State trading, the sale of goods over which silver in the form of coins and bars, and exported the state exercised monopoly, collection of the silk and their articles, spices, precious stones, transaction tax (vzaji) and tax on export of crown jewellery, etc. This trade was generally very commodities was the main function. In private favourable for India. trading, the controller ensured orderly marketing Kautilya, apart from being a man of wisdom and prevented traders from making excessive and perfect strategies, propounded duties— profits. He was also responsible for consumer Nitishastra—as the ideal way of living for every protection. individual of the society. His principles of foreign Further, sulka (duty) represented customs duty trade are even today taught in universities, levied on imports and exports. This duty was based as they were on the theory of comparative collected not at the frontier posts, but at the advantage. His art of diplomacy is well known gates of fortified cities, particularly, of the capital. across India and practised in the areas of defence, Kautilya points out that not only foreign goods, but strategy formation and foreign relations. also domestically produced goods which entered The land revenue was fixed at 1/6th the share of the city from the countryside were subject to sulka. the produce, and import and export duties were Likewise the goods produced in the city and sent determined on ad valorem basis. Import duties outside were also subject to duty.

52 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Thus, there was no distinction between the octroi and customs duty—perhaps due to the relatively smaller size of the area which constituted the “In private trading, country. Since sulka (duty) was levied at the gate of entry of the city, there was no need for the controller ensured government control over the sale of goods in the countryside. However, the government exercised control and prohibited sale of goods at the places orderly marketing of production such as mines, fields and gardens. Penalties were prescribed for violation of the ban and prevented traders on sale at places of production, and the penalties were quite stiff. Sale was allowed in designated from making excessive markets where the private merchants came under the control and purview of the Controller of Private Trade. The Chief Controller of Shipping profits. He was and Ferries was entrusted with a wide range of responsibilities which included, among others, also responsible for supervising maritime safety and reserve, running shipping services, hiring ships and boats with consumer protection.” or without crew, organising ferries, controlling the movements of foreign merchants, collecting revenue such as road cess, customs duty and ferry sued. Thus, the liability was always on the citizens charges and ensuring security by keeping a watch to ensure fair trade practices and better goods for over undesirable persons using the ferries. the consumers. Thus, the system provided both for an incentive to foreign trade as well as strict Imports of Goods procedures and penalties to ensure fairness. The Consistent with the policy of providing services threshold limit of profit was also indicated. Traders to the people, the sale of imported goods was were allowed profit margins of: permitted in as many places as possible so that • 5% on locally produced goods. they were readily available to the people in towns • 10% on imported goods. and the countryside. In fact, assistance was When there was an excess supply of a commodity, provided to encourage import of foreign goods the Chief Controller of State Trading would build required in the country. In other words, there was up a buffer stock by paying a price higher than no restriction on the imports of goods, in case the market price. However, when the market these were required by the people so that they did price reached its start price, the Controller was not feel oppressed for want of goods. authorised to change the price and work out Traders were given two incentives: a strategy. Further, the price was fixed taking into account the investment, the quantity to be (i) Local merchants who brought in foreign goods delivered, date, interest rate and other expenses. by caravans or by water routes enjoyed exemption from taxes, so that they could make a profit. This Exports on Government Account specifies the basic principle of management, i.e., Since there was no paper money prevailing then, to encourage entrepreneurship. Those merchants foreign trade was on barter basis. It was the who took the risk of travel to import goods were State Trading Office which determined the level encouraged through tax exemption. of expenses to be deducted for arriving at the (ii) Foreign merchants were not allowed to be sued allowable profit margin. Basically, there were two in money disputes unless they had legal status in main types of expenses, one relating to caravans the country; their local partners could, however, be which included custom duties, road cess, escort

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 53 charges, tax payable at military stations, ferry (ii) Various officers such as frontier officers and charges, daily allowances paid to merchants and governors were contacted to ensure safety of their assistants, and two, the share payable to the goods in transit. foreign king. In addition, the cost of hiring ships and boats, and provisions for the journey required, (iii) Extra precautions had to be taken in case the would also be included. caravan contained goods of high value.

Arthashastra insisted upon foreign trade resulting (iv) In the event that the caravan could not reach in a profit and discouraged trade to areas found its destination, the goods could be sold wherever it to be unprofitable. So the risk and reward system was at the time. was very much prevalent in the Kautilyan era. Nevertheless, the terms of trade was not just When goods were transported by water, seasonal dependent on economics but also on other various changes in weather had to be considered to avoid parameters. The traders had to keep in mind the damage. political or strategic advantages in exporting to or importing from a particular country. Echoes Source: Kautilya’s Arthashastra, The Way of such strategic considerations can be found of Financial Management and Economic today in the continued import of palm oil from Governance, Priyadarshni Academy and Jaico Malaysia, despite self-sufficiency in it thanks to the Publishing House, Mumbai, India Technology Mission.

With regard to trade, some precautions were (To be continued…) indicated;

(i) When goods were transported over land, the chief controller needed to ensure that no more than a quarter of the goods were of high value, presumably to prevent theft of an entire consignment of valuable goods.

Ram Katha by Pujya Sant Shri Morari Bapu Nine days of recital and discourses on The Ramayan (in Hindi)

Saturday 17th September to Sunday 25th September 2011, Whitlam Leisure centre, Liverpool, NSW

Saturday 4pm-6pm, All other days 10am to 1pm.

For more info contact: Kantibhai Gokani on (02) 9792 1422

54 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 it also rids the mind and brain of its infirmities like hatred, envy, jealousy, anger, fear, attachment etc. and thus purifies the mind. The physical effects are easily understood, but the effects on mind and brain are not so clearly and logically explained and understood. We must unravel the mysteries of this phenomenon. How does pranayam affect the working of mind and brain? For this, we must first know the functioning of brain.

Functioning of Brain

Human Brain is a very small part of the body, Pranayam weighs just 2 percent of our normal body weight, its weight being 1.4 kg only. It is very Your Mind intricate organ shaped like a Walnut (Akhrot). It has four parts: and Brain 1. Cerebellum

The effect of pranayam on physical health has Lies in the rear part of head. It controls Autonomic been well documented and well understood. Nervous System and the Involuntary Muscular Even the medical doctors now recognize this fact. System, which is related to those activities over Pranayam improves and strengthens the working which we have no control, such as heart beat, of respiratory system and the circulatory system respiration, thoughts, etc. and thereby improves the working of the whole body and makes us healthy. Deep breathing leads 2. Cerebrum to five-fold increase in the Vital Lung Capacity Lies on the left and right side of head. It is called (VLC) of lungs, thereby increasing the intake of the Upper Brain. It controls will power and the oxygen four to five times than normal, as a result activities of the Voluntary Muscular System. This of which, the blood gets fully oxygenated and system is related to all those activities which we gets purified very quickly. This implies that Red can control or manipulate, such as movement of Blood Cells are able to carry oxygen to each and hands and feet, talking, seeing, hearing, eating etc. every cell of body. Cell life gets increased and the rate of decay of cells and the rate of ageing is 3. Hypothalamus considerably decreased. This not only ensures longevity but also the quality of life. ‘Anulom It is the most important part of the body, as it gives Vilom’ also involves deep breathing, but the messages to brain and vice-versa. It controls both process of inhalation and exhalation repeatedly body and brain. The main source of our energy from alternate nostril, purifies and strengthens the and drive is Hypothalamus. It controls emotional central nervous system, the sympathetic nervous part of brain like love, attachment, fears, anger, system and the para-sympathetic nervous system. envy, jealousy, hatred, etc. It also regulates hunger, Anulom Vilom pranayam is aptly also called Nadi sex drive and procreation. Hypothalamus is like Shodhan pranayam, as it cleanses all the NADIS— the switch board of body and it co-ordinates the all channels and blood vessels of the body by activities of the nervous system and the Pituitary removing impurities in blood. Sustained practice of gland located in the centre of head. It is this Anulom Vilom not only strengthens the body but

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 55 gland which controls all activities of body like of the controlling power of the upper brain over metabolism, growth, sex, hormones etc. It regulates the lower brain. This had led to mental tensions, the activities of all other hormonal glands. It selfishness, a rise in aggressive behaviour, anger, controls body temperature, water balance of body, fear, hatred, etc. The lower brain is Mind and infections etc. in co-ordination with other glands. the upper brain is Intellect. The tremendous Hypothalamus is just 1/300 part of the brain—just scientific and economic advancement has created a like a tiny dot. It is situated deep inside the brain dichotomy or a hiatus between mind and brain. and linked to Cerebellum. Wave Patterns of Brain 4. Medulla Oblongata Recent studies have shown that there are four It carries messages from brain to whole body and wave patterns in our brain, created by the it controls breathing process also. It is situated electrical changes in the brain: between Hypothalamus and Cerebellum. 1. Beta waves, with a frequency greater than 14 Thus, Hypothalamus, Medulla Oblongata and cycles per second, which are usually associated Cerebellum together constitute the Emotional with our daily normal working life or active mind. Brain, while Cerebrum is the mathematical, logical and scientific brain. 2. Alpha waves, with a frequency of 8 to 13 cycles per second, associated with a Pleasant, Relaxed The function of the brain is to control all other and Passive states of mind when eyes are closed. parts and system of body. It consists of about 30 Billion Cells (Neurons) and about 150 to 300 billion 3. Theta waves, with a frequency of 4 to 7 cycles supporting cells (Glial Cells). All these cells work per second, are associated with anxiety, tension, independent of one another, and they are attached frustration, etc. when pleasant situation comes to to a filament like plate which coordinates the an end. activities of brain cells. 4. Delta waves, with frequency below 4 cycles per Just about 250 years ago, almost nothing was second, occur during sleep. known about the brain, as its working is extremely complex. With the development of science and These waves can be measured on EEG technology of sciences like physics, chemistry not (Electroencephalogram). During our daily waking only the working of the brain has become better life, beta waves are pre-dominant. At the end of the understood, but also, it has led to a very sharp day, when we are physically and mentally tired, development of the upper brain (Cerebrum), while we resort to addictives like wine, sex or watch the lower part of brain, linked to Hypothalamus, TV serials for diversion/entertainment i.e. for remained dormant, thereby weakening the temporary pleasures. But, when these temporary vital link between upper and lower brain. The pleasures come to an end, theta waves take over, rapid development of the logical, mathematical, leading to anxiety, frustration, etc. Hence, the analytical part by brain has led to non-development increase in suicide rates, violence, etc.

56 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Delta waves occur during sleep only. They are Pranayam involves four steps: soothing. That is why a good deep sleep is very 1) Deep Inhalation relaxing, but our sleep patterns get disturbed due 2) Holding breath after Inhalation to Theta waves. 3) Deep exhalation and

It is the Alpha waves, which are the most important 4) Holding of breath after Exhalation. These steps for Relaxation of both Body and Mind. These alpha mean control over the breathing process. waves produce a hormone called Serotonin, which has a calming Effect on mind (Hypothalamus). Thus, through sustained practice of pranayam, Pranayam and Meditation leads to production of we are able to transfer the functioning of alpha waves in abundance, thereby having a very breathing from Involuntary Muscular System, soothing effect on mind. (Hypothalamus or Mind) to the voluntary control system (Brain) or from lower brain to upper brain Pranayam leads to an establishment of control of and the higher consciousness. The brain (The upper brain over lower brain, of brain over mind. Will) thus establishes a supremacy and control It creates a balance between Cerebellum and over the mind. When this happens, emotions like Cerebrum, between right and left brain and thus fear, anger, hatred, etc. can be controlled by our releases us from shackles of everyday fear, anger, Consciousness and we can reach a continued state hatred etc. of Blissful Living, devoid of lower emotions.

Through pranayam, the functional hierarchy of Thus pranayam enables us to establish supremacy the nervous system gets reoriented and even the of the Will/Cortex/ Cerebrum/Upper brain over the Autonomic function of lower brain (Hypothalamus) Mind/Cerebellum/Lower Brain, and we do things comes under the control of the Cortex—the upper more methodically, more purposefully and more brain or the Will. scientifically and we can control the Mind. We can, thus, achieve the almost impossible task of Though breathing is controlled and regulated by controlling the Mind and Mind related functions Medulla Oblongata and Hypothalamus, through like attachment, hatred, anxiety, etc. Pranayam autonomic nervous system, we can control the (particularly Anulom Vilom) is the easiest and the breathing process through pranayam. The whole surest method of controlling the mind. purpose of pranayam is to regulate the breathing process through voluntary control. Remember, Since, almost 90 percent of the modern diseases the breathing process comes under the control of are life style, psycho-somatic diseases (which flow autonomic nervous system and thereby is under from mind), we are able to not only prevent these the control of Involuntary Muscular System. diseases, but also cure them, by sustained practice of pranayam. One hundred rounds of Anulom Vilom Normal Breathing is autonomic; we have no control pranayam daily in one or two phases can definitely over it. We normally breathe 18 times per minute, release us from all mental anxieties, stress and but when we are under stress or we are angry or physical ailment and thereby rejuvenate both Mind frustrated, the breathing rate gets shortened and and Body realizing energy for creativity. we start breathing rapidly and thus get exhausted very quickly. Pranayam does exactly the opposite. Dr. R.K. Puri The deep breathing process of pranayam reduces the breathing rate to 12, 10, 8, 6, 4 or even 2 Source: Nisargopachar Varta, National Institute of breaths per minute after sustained practice. Naturopathy, Vol. 3, Issue 1, January 2011.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 57 Papa and Punya

Krishna and Arjuna

Nobody wants to be known as a sinner, but all the The mind is never still. Apart from being unstill same we keep transgressing the bounds of morality itself, it incites the body to action. and disobeying the divine law. We wish to enjoy the fruits of virtue without being morally good and We are unable either to efface our desires or without doing anything meritorious. to cease from all action. Does it then mean that liberation is beyond us? Is there no way out of the Arjuna says to Bhagavan Krsna: “No man wants problem? Yes, there is. It is not necessary that we to commit sin. Even so, Krsna, he does evil again should altogether stop our actions in our present and again. What is it that drives him so?” The Lord immature predicament. But, instead of working for replies “It is desire. Yes, it is desire, Arjuna1.” our selfish ends, we ought to be engaged in such work as would bring benefits to the world as well We try to gain the object of our desire with no as to our inward life. The more we are involved in thought of right or wrong (dharma or adharma). such work, the less we shall be drawn by desire. Is fire put out by ghee being poured into it? No, it This will to some extent keep us away from sin and rises higher and higher. Likewise, when we gratify at the time enable us to do more meritorious work. one desire, another, much worse, crops up. Are We must learn the habit of doing work without any we to take it, then, that it would be better if our selfish motive. Work done without any desire for desires were not satisfied? No. Unfulfilled desire the fruits thereof is punya or virtuous action. causes anger, so too failure to obtain the object we hanker after. Like a rubber ball thrown against the We sin in four different ways. With our body we do wall such an unsatisfied desire comes back to us in evil; with our tongue we speak untruth; with our the form of anger and goads us into committing sin. mind we think evil; and with our money we do so Krsna speaks of such anger as being next only to much that is wicked. We must learn to turn these desire (as an evil). very four means of evil into instruments of virtue.

Only by banishing desire from our hearts may we We must serve others with our body and remain free from sin. How is it done? We cannot circumambulate the Lord and prostrate ourselves but be performing our works. Even when we are before him. In this way we earn merit. How do we physically inactive, our mind remains active. All use our tongue to add to our stock of virtue? By our mental and bodily activity revolves round muttering, by repeating, the names of the Lord. You our desires. And these desires thrust us deeper will perhaps excuse yourself saying: “All our time and deeper into sin. Is it, then, possible to remain is spent in earning our livelihood. How can we then without doing any work? Human nature being what think of God or repeat his names?” A householder it is, the answer is “No”. has a family to maintain; but is he all the time working for it? How much time does he waste in “It is difficult to quell one’s thinking nor is it gossip, in amusements, in speaking ill of others, in easy to remain without doing anything”, says reading the papers? Can’t he spare a few moments Tayumanavasvamigal. We may stop doing work to remember the Lord? He need not set apart a with the body, but how do we keep the mind quiet? particular hour of the day for his japa. He may think

58 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 of God even on the bus or the train as he goes to his office or any other place. Not a paisa is he going to take with him finally after his lifelong pursuit of money. The Lord’s name (Bhagavannama) is the only current coin in the other world.

The mind is the abode of Isvara but we make a rubbish can of it. We must cleanse it, install the Lord in it and be at peace with ourselves. We must devote at least five minutes every day to meditation and resolve to do so even if the world crashes around us. There is nothing else that will give us a helping hand when the whole cosmos is dissolved.

It is by helping the poor and by spreading the glory of the Lord that we will earn merit. Papa, sinful action, is two-pronged in its evil power. The first incites us to wrong-doing now. The second goads Candrasekharendra Saraswati us into doing evil tomorrow. For instance, if you take snuff now you suffer now. But tomorrow also you will have the yearning to take the same. This is what is called the vasana2 that comes of habit. An effort must be made not only to reduce such vasana but also to cultivate the vasana of virtue by doing good deeds.

It is bad vasana that drags us again and again into wrong-doing. Unfortunately, we do not seem to harbour any fear on that score. People like us, indeed even those known to have sinned much, have become devotees of the Lord and obtained Bhagavad Gita light and wisdom. How is Isvara qualified to be called great if He is not compassionate, and does not protect sinners also? It is because of sinners will come to our help if we have patience, if we like us that He has come to have the title of have faith in him and if we are rooted in dharma. “Patitapavana” [He who sanctifies or lifts up the fallen with His grace]. It is we who have brought The goal of all religions is to wean away man—his him such a distinction. mind, his speech and his body—from sensual pleasure and lead him towards the Lord. Great men “Come to me, your only refuge. I shall free you have appeared from time to time and established from all sins. Have no fear (sarvapapebhyo their religions with the goal of releasing people moksayisyami ma sucah)3.” The assurance that from attachment to their senses, for it is our senses Sri Krsna gives to free us from sin is absolute. So that impel us to sin. “Transitory is the joy derived let us learn to be courageous. To tie up an object from sinful action, from sensual pleasure. Bliss is you wind a string round it again and again. If it is union with the Paramatman.” Such is the teaching to be untied you will have to do the unwinding in a of all religions and their goal is to free man from similar manner. To eradicate the vasana of sinning worldly existence by leading him towards the Lord. you must develop the vasana of doing good to an equal degree. In between there ought to be neither Source: Candrasekharendra Saraswati, Hindu haste nor anger. With haste and anger the thread Dharma The Universal Way of Life, Bhavan’s you keep unwinding will get tangled again. Isvara Book University, Mumbai

Notes & References 1 Arjuna uvaca: Atha kena prayukto ‘yam papam carati purusah Anicchannapi Varsneya baladiva niyojitah? Sri Bhagavan uvaca: Kama esa krodha esa rajo-guna-samudbhavah Mahasano mahapapma viddhyenam iha vaihnam. — Bhagavadgita, 3. 36-37 2 The word “vasana” is from the root vas “to dwell in”. It means that which sticks to a cloth, for instance, a smell. There is thus the “smell” of earlier births adhering to the subtle body. Vasana is the latent memory of past experience, the impression left on the mind by past actions. 3 Sarvadharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja Aham tva sarva-papebhyo moksayisyami ma sucah. — Bhagavadgita, 18.66

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 59 Rajiv Gandhi

Rajiv Gandhi was the youngest Prime Minister of Entry into Politics India. He became Prime Minister at the age of 40. Rajiv Gandhi came from a family that had great After the death of his brother Sanjay, the senior political lineage. He was the eldest son of Indira members of the Indian National Congress party and Feroze Gandhi. Her mother Indira Gandhi and approached Rajiv Gandhi, in order to persuade grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru were Prime Ministers him joining politics. But, Rajiv was reluctant about of India. As a Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi made joining and said “no” to them. His wife, Sonia invaluable contribution in modernizing Indian Gandhi, also stood by Rajiv’s stand of not entering administration. He had the vision and foresight to into politics. But after constant request from his see that information technology will play a key role mother Indira Gandhi, he decided to contest. His in the 21 century and worked actively to develop entry was criticized by many in the press, public India’s capacity in this realm. and opposition political parties. They saw the entry of Nehru-Gandhi scion into politics as a forced- Early Life hereditary-participation. Within a few months of his election as a Member of Parliament, Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi was born on August 20, 1944 in acquired significant party influence and became an Bombay (Mumbai) in India’s most famous political important political advisor to his mother. He was family. His grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru played also elected as the general secretary of the All-India a stellar role in India’s freedom struggle and Congress Committee and subsequently became the became independent India’s first Prime Minister. president of the Youth Congress. His parents lived separately and Rajiv Gandhi was raised at his grandfather’s home where her Indira Gandhi Assassination mother lived. Rajeev Gandhi did his schooling from the elite Doon school and then studied at Following the assassination of his mother, on 31 the University of London and at Trinity College, October 1984, the Congress leaders and partisans Cambridge in Britain. At Cambridge, Rajiv Ghandi favoured Rajiv as the immediate successor to met and fell in love with an Italian student Sonia Indira Gandhi. The decision was also supported by Maino and they got married in 1969. Zail Singh, the then President of India.

Sanjay Gandhi Prime Minister

After his return from the United Kingdom, Rajiv In his initial days as Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi Gandhi exhibited least interest in the politics was immensely popular. During his tenure as and focused onto becoming a professional pilot. Prime Minister of India, he brought a certain He, later, worked for Indian Airlines, as a pilot. dynamism to the premiership, which had always Unlike Rajiv, his younger brother had developed been occupied by older people. He is credited an interest and knowledge in the subjects of with promoting the introduction of computers public administration and political developments. in India. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi began Although he had not been elected, Sanjay began leading in a direction significantly different from exercising his influence with police officers, high- Indira Gandhi’s socialism. He improved bilateral level government officers and even the Cabinet relations with the United States and expanded Ministers. Many senior ministers, as a protest economic and scientific cooperation. He increased against Sanjay Gandhi, resigned from office. Sanjay, government support for science and technology gradually promoted as a close political advisor to and associated industries, and reduced import Indira Gandhi. On June 23, 1980, Sanjay Gandhi died quotas, taxes and tariffs on technology-based in an air crash in Delhi. industries, especially computers, airlines, defence and telecommunications. He worked towards reducing the red tape in the governance and “His grandfather freeing administration from bureaucratic tangles. In 1986, Rajiv Gandhi announced a national education Jawaharlal Nehru played policy to modernize and expand higher education programs across India. a stellar role in India’s freedom struggle and became independent India’s first Prime Minister.”

60 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Achievements IPKF

As Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi endeavoured to In 1987, the Indian Peace Keeping Force was eliminate the corrupt and criminal faces within the formed to end the Sri Lankan Civil War between the Indian National Congress party. To deal with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri anti-Sikh agitation, that followed the death of his Lankan military. The acts of the military contingent mother, Rajiv Gandhi signed an accord with Akali was opposed by the Opposition parties of Sri Lanka Dal president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, on 24 and as well as LTTE. But, Rajiv Gandhi refused to July, 1985. The key points of the pact were: withdraw the IPKF. The idea also turned out to be unpopular in India, particularly in Tamil Nadu. The • Along with ex-gratia payment to those innocent IPKF operation cost over 1100 Indian soldiers lives killed in agitation or any action after 1-8-1982, and over 2000 crores. compensation for property damaged will also be paid. Death

• All citizens of the country have the right to The Bofors scandal and IPKF case rapidly eroded enroll in the Army and merit will remain the his popularity and he lost the next general criterion for selection. elections held in 1989. A coalition comprising government came to the power but it could • For all those discharged, efforts will be made to not last its full term and general elections were rehabilitate and provide gainful employment. called in 1991. While campaigning for elections in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, Rajiv Gandhi was Rajiv Gandhi brought a revolution in the field of assassinated on May 21, 1991 by a suicide bomber information technology and telecom. The idea belonging to LTTE. On that day, on his way towards helped in originating the Mahanagar Telephone the dais, Rajiv Gandhi was garlanded by many Nigam Limited, popularly known as MTNL. Rajiv Congress supporters and well wishers. At around Gandhi was the man to transcend telecom services 10 pm, the assassin greeted him and bent down to to the rural India or “India in true sense”. touch his feet. She then exploded an RDX explosive laden belt attached to her waist-belt. The act of Controversies violence was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), expressing their resentment While commenting on the anti-Sikh riots, that over the formation Indian Peace-keeping Force. followed the assassination of India Gandhi in Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi said, “When a giant tree falls, the Source: www.iloveindia.com, earth below shakes”. The statement was widely www.culturalindia.net criticized both within and outside the Congress Party. Many viewed the statement as “provocative” and demanded an apology from him. Beside, Rajiv Gandhi’s name had also surfaced in the major controversies like Bofors and the formation of Indian Peace Keeping Force.

Bofors Case

The infamous Bofors scandal that still haunts the political walls of the country was exposed during Rajiv Gandhi’s reign. A strong corruption racket involving many stalwarts of the Congress Party was unearthed in the 1980s. Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India and several others prominent leaders were accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors for winning a bid to supply India’s 155 mm field howitzer (a type of artillery piece).

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 61 Sri Aurobindo Ghose

Sri Aurobindo was a revolutionary, poet, several languages, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek philosopher, writer, and spiritual master, during and Latin. He absorbed the best that Western the course of his life. He became one of the primary culture had to offer him. leaders fighting for Indian independence, from British rule. With time, Aurobindo drifted from his He completed his schooling from St. Paul’s in political career and found a new motive in life— London. In 1890, at the age of 18, Sri Aurobindo got bringing a new spiritual consciousness amongst admission into Cambridge. Here, he distinguished people. Yoga and meditation became his primary himself as a student of European classics. concerns in life. His philosophy was based on Aurobindo had got himself immersed in his facts, experience and personal realisations and on books and was feasting on the thoughts of the having the vision of a Seer or Rishi. Aurobindo’s great. He got the Butterworth Prize for literature, spirituality was inseparably united with reason. the Bedford Prize for history and a scholarship to Cambridge. Early Life To comply with the wish of his father, Sri “I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, Aurobindo Ghose also applied for the (Indian Civil but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that Service) ICS while at Cambridge. He passed the guides my steps on the work with which I began life, Indian Civil Service Examination with great credit the beginning of its full fruition.” in 1890. But he was not meant to be an ICS officer serving British Government. He looked for a way to The date has an even greater and deeper disqualify himself from the ICS and did not appear significance. Sri Aurobindo has explained it thus: for the horse-riding test. In normal circumstances this would have been a very minor lapse but “The 15th August is the day of the Assumption of the the British Government, too, was aware of his Virgin Mary; it implies that the physical nature is political views and activities, and found this a good raised to the divine Nature...” opportunity to reject him.

And this was in a way the goal of Sri Aurobindo’s In 1893, Aurobindo returned to India, and became life. To divinise the earth, to make matter the the Vice-Principal of the State college in Baroda. Spirit’s willing bride. He was held in great respect by the Maharaja of Baroda. Aurobindo was an accomplished Scholar in Sri Aurobindo Ghose was born on August 15, Greek and Latin. From 1893 to 1906 he extensively 1872 at Calcutta now Kolkata. His father was studied Sanskrit, Bengali literature, Philosophy and Krishnadhan and his mother, Swamalata was very Political Science. In 1901, Sri Aurobindo married beautiful and gracious. She was known as the “Rose Mrinalini Devi. She had to go through all the joys of Rangpur”. Sri Aurobindo was the third among and sorrows which are the lot of one who marries a five children. The two elder brothers were Benoy genius and someone so much out of the ordinary as Bhushan and Monomohan and the younger sister Sri Aurobindo. was Sarojini followed by the youngest brother, Barindranath. Aurobindo Ghose had an impressive Freedom Struggle lineage. Raj Narayan Bose, an acknowledged leader in Bengali literature, and the grandfather of Aurobindo’s father, Dr KD Ghose was aware of Indian nationalism was Sri Aurobindo’s maternal the atrocities being committed by the British on grandfather. Aurobindo Ghose owed not only his Indians and sent paper clippings of these to him. rich spiritual nature, but even his very superior Aurobindo felt that a period of great upheaval literary capacity, to his mother’s line. When Sri for his motherland was coming in which he Aurobindo was five years old, he was sent to was destined to play a leading role. Aurobindo Loretto Convent School at Darjeeling and for sailed back to his country in 1893, at the age of higher studies to England. He developed a love for twenty-one, having spent the most important and poetry, which was to last him throughout his life. formative fourteen years of his life, in a foreign Even at that young age of eleven he contributed land. He had grown up in England but did not feel a few poems to the local “Fox” Magazine. The any attachment to it. Now India beckoned him, Headmaster at St. Paul’s in London was so pleased he wrote in his poem called “Envoi”. He began to with his mastery of Latin that he took it upon learn Bengali and joined a secret society, with the himself to teach him Greek. Sri Aurobindo plunged romantic name of ‘Lotus and Dagger’, where the into the literature of the Western world and studied members took an oath to work for India’s freedom.

62 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 He plunged headlong into the revolutionary his books and propagate his wisdom. In 1914, after movement and played a leading role in India’s four years of concentrated Yoga at Pondicherry, freedom struggle. He was one of the pioneers of Sri Aurobindo launched Arya, a monthly review. political awakening in India. The period of stay For the next six and a half years this became the in Baroda, from 1894 to 1906, was significant in vehicle for most of his most important writings, several ways for Sri Aurobindo. It was here that which appeared in serialised form. These included he started working for India’s freedom behind Essays on The Gita, The Secret of The Veda, the scenes. He perceived the need for broadening Hymns to the Mystic Fire, The Upanishads, The the base of the movement and for creating a Foundations of Indian Culture, War and Self- mass awakening. He went to Bengal and Madhya determination, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Pradesh, contacted the secret groups working in Human Unity, and The Future Poetry. this direction, and became a link between many of them. He established close contacts with Later Life & Death Lokmanya Tilak and Sister Nivedita. He arranged for the military training of Jatin Banerjee in the Though Sri Aurobindo retreated from his ashram Baroda army and then sent him to organise the life in November 1926, he spent hours replying to revolutionary work in Bengal. the letters of his disciples and followers. His letters gave him the opportunity to explain about yoga Bande Mataram and its applications. Sri Aurobindo brought relief and respite to his followers and released them from He edited the English daily ‘Bande Mataram’ and their pain, fear and anxiety. Apart from his spiritual wrote fearless and pointed editorials. He openly mission, he also took interest in the political advocated the boycott of British goods, British scenario of the world. Sri Aurobindo died on 5th courts and everything British. He asked the December 1950, refusing to undergo any surgery people to prepare themselves for passive or even healing himself on his own. He believed resistance. The famous Alipore Bomb Case proved that by leaving for the heaven abode, he would to be a turning point in Aurobindo’s life. For a year effectively continue his spiritual mission. Aurobindo was an undertrial prisoner in solitary confinement in the Alipore Central Jail. It was Sri Aurobindo Quotes in a dingy cell of the Alipore Jail that he dreamt the dream of his future life, the divine mission • Hidden nature is secret God. ordained for him by God. He utilized this period of incarceration for an intense study and practice of • India saw from the beginning, and, even in the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. Chittaranjan her ages of reason and her age of increasing Das defended Sri Aurobindo, who was acquitted ignorance, she never lost hold of the insight, after a memorable trial. that life cannot be rightly seen in the sole light, cannot be perfectly lived in the sole power of its Yoga and Meditation externalities.

During his time in prison, Aurobindo Ghosh had • India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken developed interest in yoga and meditation. After her last creative word; she lives and has still his release he started practicing Pranayama something to do for herself and the human and meditation. He migrated from Calcutta to peoples. Pondicherry in 1910. At Pondicherry, he stayed at a friend’s place. At first, he lived there with • India is the meeting place of the religions and four or five companions. Gradually the number of among these Hinduism alone is by itself a vast members increased and grew into what is today the and complex thing, not so much a religion as a Sri Aurobindo Ashram which continues to publish great diversified and yet subtly unified mass of spiritual thought, realization and aspiration.

• Metaphysical thinking will always no doubt be “Sri Aurobindo plunged a strong element in her mentality, and it is to be hoped that she will never lose her great, her into the literature of the sovereign powers in that direction.

Western world and studied • Life is life—whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat several languages, French, or a man. The idea of difference is a human Italian, Spanish, Greek conception for man’s own advantage. and Latin. He absorbed the Source: www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in, www.iloveindia.com, best that Western culture www.sriaurobindosociety.org.in, www.cosmicharmony.com, had to offer him.” www.thecolorsofindia.com

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 63 Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed Politics in war. -Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit At a very early age Vijaya Lakshmi was very much Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, sister of Pandit Jawaharlal interested in politics. At sixteen she attended her Nehru, was Indian diplomat, politician and an first political meeting, organized by her cousin active member of the Indian freedom struggle Rameshwari Nehru at Manyo Hall of Allahabad movement. She was the first female President of University to assemble women in a protest against United Nations General Assembly. She was India’s the treatment of Indian labourers in South Africa. first woman Cabinet Minister and the first woman At sixteen, she wished to join Annie Besant’s Home to lead a delegation to UN. She was the world’s Rule League but being too young, she was allowed first woman Ambassador who served three prized to enrol only as a volunteer. In her mid-thirties she Ambassadorial posts at Moscow, Washington and was elected to the Allahabad Municipal Board. She London. She considered Indian National Congress was arrested and sentenced to eighteen months as her own family as she was born into it. She imprisonment for presiding over a crowded public was instrumental in the politics of the country. meeting where the Independence pledge was taken. According to her, politics is a means of social and This was the first of her three imprisonments. economic reform, which strengthens human rights When the Indian National Congress took part in and empowers women. provincial elections she and her husband, Ranjit S. Pandit, were elected to the U.P. Assembly. Early Life Mahatma Gandhi Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was born on 18 August, 1900 at Allahabad. She was the daughter of Motilal For two continuous years she was the President Nehru and Swarup Rani Nehru. Her father had of the All-India Women’s Conference. Tragedy great admiration for the west and took the best struck her with the death of her husband after his he knew from it. According to him, “Western” last imprisonment in 1944. As he had left no will, meant discipline, rationality, a sense of adventure she was left virtually penniless, as Hindu widows and a practical approach to problems. He was had no inheritance rights. His brother claimed all a rebel who was against caste barriers and his investments and earning and made everything outdated customs. Her childhood was a period in his custody. Shaken by her grief and without of contradictions and contrasts and a period of knowledge of future and with no source of support, transition from age-old traditions and prejudices she left for Bengal to work, where cholera had to new ways of living and thinking. Motilal Nehru’s spread in the wake of famine, and to set up a Save powerful moulding influence was greatest on the Children Fund. During this time, Gandhiji Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, who, of his three children, was released from jail and he asked her to go to resembled him in her temperament, her zest for America to speak about actual conditions in India. life and her involvement with other human beings. This became possible when Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru Her own home was the centre of the contrasts (President of the Indian Council for World Affairs) present in the country. In her home, tradition and included her in an Indian delegation to the Pacific modernity co-existed harmoniously. At the age Relations Conference to be held in Virginia. She of 21 she got married to Ranjit Pandit, who was a became the member of the Constituent Assembly cultured Litterateur, Aristocrat, and Barrister from that drafted the Constitution. Kathiawar. Chandra Lekha, Nayantara and Rita Vitasta were born to her.

“She was the world’s first woman Ambassador who served three prized Ambassadorial posts at Moscow, Washington and London. She considered Indian National Congress as her own family as she was born into it.”

64 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 In the year 1937, she was elected to the provincial death as she had lived long. Her family members legislature of the United Provinces and became took her word to heart and at Sangam instead of the Minister of the Local Self Governing Body. mourning her death they celebrated her life. Her She held this position for two consecutive years. life was actually an example, which all humanity Later, in the year 1946, she was re-elected for this could follow. She had great will power; she was position. After Independence she was twice elected courageous in her agonizing situations and led to Parliament and she led India’s first Goodwill her life triumphantly. Till the end she was fully Mission to China. In the post-independence period, involved in her life. This great personality breathed she made an entry into the diplomatic services her last on 1 December, 1990 at Dehra Dun. and served as the Ambassador of India to various countries like Soviet Union, Ireland, United States Source: www.bookrags.com, www.iloveindia.com, and Mexico. From 1962 to 1964, she served as the www.indianetzone.com, www.brainyquote.com Governor of Maharashtra. Thereafter, she was elected to the Lok Sabha from Phulpur, which was the former constituency of her brother, Jawaharlal Nehru and was vacated as a result of his death. She held the post for four years till 1968.

Retirement

When Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister in the year 1966, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit took retirement from active politics. After taking voluntary retirement, she went to the peaceful Dehradun city. In the year 1979, she was chosen as the representative of India to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Thereafter, she went far away from public life. She had an interest in writing. Her writings consisted of ‘The Evolution of India’ (1958) and ‘The Scope of Happiness: A Personal Memoir’ (1979). In fact, her daughter named Nayantara Sahgal, is a wonderful novelist.

Final Days

Vijaya Lakshmi collected more than eight honorary degrees from the world universities besides those offered to her in India. She celebrated her ninetieth birthday by inviting her family members. It was a grand function and it happened to be her final farewell as she died two months later. Vijaya Lakshmi used to say that none should mourn her

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 65 The Price of Partition

Early Initiation centre of their politics; but by tact and ability, Rehman thwarted their attempts. The best tribute My salad days, to his unique leadership was paid by B.G. Kher, the When I was green in judgement. first Chief Minister (then known as the Premier) —Shakespeare of Bombay, when on his visit to the college he described it as “a miniature of the India to be”. In 1937, I came to Bombay from Poona and joined Ismail College at Jogeshwari, a suburb about Living in a city as politicised as Bombay, my twenty miles from the city. The institution was interest in politics heightened. I came into contact started by the Government in 1930. A Muslim with activists of the All-India Students’ Federation, philanthropist, Sir Mohamed Yusuf, had donated an umbrella organisation of Indian students, and to the Government eight lakh rupees for the attended many of their meetings. Though I was purpose. This was a huge amount in those days. It instinctively drawn to the Congress, I continued to lay with the Government for almost fifteen years waver because the emotional hold of the League, until Moulvi Sir Rafiuddin Ahmed, once a tutor especially on the younger generation, was intense. of Urdu to Queen Victoria and then Education Most of my friends were taken in by Jinnah’s Minister of the Bombay Presidency, decided to utterances; they pressured me that as a Muslim I utilise it by founding the college to give higher too should stand by the community. I remember education particularly to Muslims; it was to be run spending sleepless nights wondering whether by the Government. The college was named after by associating with the Congress I was doing the the donor’s father. It was open to all communities right thing by my religion. But somehow I could but because it provided special facilities for the not be moved by the separatist overtones; I felt teaching of Arabic, Persian and Urdu and since more at ease in the company of nationalists than it awarded a number of merit scholarships to communalists. Moreover the writings of Azad, Muslim students, a large number of them from all with their Islamic background, made a deep over the Bombay Presidency were attracted to impact on my mind. it. Soon it became the centre of higher education for young Muslims and acquired great prestige. I also enjoyed the intellectual duel between Its distinguished Principal, Dr. Mohammed Bazlur Iqbal, the poet-philosopher of Islam and Madani, Rehman, worked hard to generate a broad-based, the President of Jamiatul Ulama-i-Hind. Iqbal cosmopolitan environment albeit with a healthy deprecated nationalism and extolled the Muslim ambience. He was admired for his qualities universal brotherhood of Islam. He wrote: of leadership; he was immensely popular with all sections of the college community, loved by Among modern idols, the worst is nationalism. the staff and the students and respected by their Its robe is the shroud of religion. parents—both Hindu and Muslim. As the Muslim League grew more and more powerful, especially Madani asserted that in the Indian context in Bombay, the permanent home of Jinnah, its Muslims must unite with Hindus and form a united leaders tried hard to convert the college into a front against the British. Iqbal’s was a romantic

66 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 call, couched in fine poetry. Madani, the great For one who loves God theologian, quoted chapter and verse from the Takes guidance from God Quran and the Traditions of the Prophet, including And God loves all his creatures alike, the latter’s compact with the Jews and pagans Be they believers or non-believers. of Mecca, to prove that an alliance with the Congress was in conformity with Islamic tenets There is a world of difference between Iqbal’s and conventions. It was, indeed, a stimulating poetry and his politics; that was the reason he encounter between two intellectual giants which had been such a success as a poet and such a convinced me that there was no conflict between failure as a politician. Never did Jinnah take Iqbal Islam and nationalism. This, however, did not seriously; he did not include him in his Working diminish my love for Iqbal nor for his poetry. His Committee or in the League’s Parliamentary Board. poems enchanted and enthralled me. They have In my book Iqbal: The Poet and the Politician, I have a magic all their own. But I disagreed with his exploded many a myth attributed to him, including politics, although it was more pro-Muslim than anti- his support to partition. This was, in fact, true of Hindu. In fact his entire way of looking at life was most Muslim intellectuals; even the theologians different from that of Jinnah. Even so some Hindu continued to support the Congress because of its intellectuals in the Congress bracketed the two. aggressively anti-British stance. Yet, somehow This was mainly due to their ignorance of what Hindus and Muslims continued to look upon one Iqbal really stood for. True, they were disturbed by another with a certain amount of distrust. The his Presidential Address to the Allahabad Session toadies prided themselves on their loyalty to of the League in 1930, wherein he had pleaded for the British; they were given high positions and the formation of an autonomous north-western managed to exploit the communal differences to Muslim state (“A Muslim State within India”), as mislead Muslims. Among my college friends many he called it. But he never asked for partition; he were carried away by the utterances of these made this clear in his letter to the London Times. so-called champions of the Muslim cause. They Moreover, just a few months before his death in openly encouraged hostility against Hindus. They 1938 in a broadcast on All India Radio he made exploited religious differences to create fear and his position unequivocally clear: “Only one unity insecurity among not only the illiterate but also is dependable and that unity is the brotherhood the intelligentsia. The British bureaucrats played of man, which is above race, nationality, colour their game of “divide and rule” with Machiavellian or language”. As for those critics who thought tactics. In the result Muslims were made to Iqbal was anti-Hindu, his well-known Persian poem believe that they would be worse off under free stresses the brotherhood of man: India, which would be governed by the much more numerous Hindus, who had not only utter It is not right to utter a wrong word contempt and disdain for Muslims but harboured a For believers and non-believers are alike; deep-rooted animosity against them, blaming them Both are the creatures of God. for the misdeeds of their so-called ancestors. Humanity asks for respect for man; Be conscious then of the dignity of man

“Ambedkar wrote his monumental work, Thoughts on Pakistan. Though he supported the League demand the book was out and out anti-Muslim.”

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 67 I was also fortunate at this time in coming into with Kabir were most instructive. He had a liberal personal contact with Jawaharlal Nehru, who outlook on political issues and a good grasp of was then the Congress President. I met him first the communal problem. He gave me the much when, as a member of the Managing Committee needed courage at this stage to face the intellectual of my College Union I was deputed to bring him onslaught and the compelling pressure of my to our college. He had agreed to address the staff Muslim friends and colleagues. Kabir was an and students. I went to fetch him from his sister earnest patriot, endowed with a sharp, analytical Krishna Hutheesing’s home in south Bombay. We mind. He had no knowledge of Urdu, yet he travelled by car to Jogeshwari —a distance of over possessed an understanding and empathy for twenty miles. All through the journey he was warm Muslim sentiments, which was subsequently to be and affectionate. He told me that young Muslims the main link between him and Azad, who became like me should not be carried away by communal after independence, the minister of education. politics; they should develop a national outlook. Kabir had an excellent rapport with him and served His address to the college though rambling was as secretary in his ministry. Admired by the youth in the same vein and not only I but many Muslim in those days, Kabir came to Bombay to preside students were greatly inspired. In his vote of over the All-India Students’ Convention in 1939. thanks, Prof. Correia Afonso reminded Nehru that Unlike many other nationalist Muslim leaders, between Hindu and Muslim unity, there was a Kabir did not indulge in abuse of Jinnah or the hyphen, which the Christian provided. This aside Muslim League. He tried to allay the fears and pleased Nehru and the audience lustily cheered the apprehensions of his community and presented a professor for his sharp-witted comment. logical case for fostering better relations between Hindus and Muslims. He pleaded with the leaders As an offshoot of my interest in politics, I started of the Congress to adopt a sympathetic attitude writing articles in the daily press. By now, my towards the League and urged Jinnah to be more fellow-students had begun to take me seriously; conciliatory and helpful. the nationalists hailed me, the communalists denounced me. I came to know S.A. Brelvi, editor of In this respect Brelvi and Kabir thought alike, but the now defunct Bombay Chronicle. It had become while the Congress, of which Brelvi was a member, the mouthpiece of the Congress. Its editorials frowned upon him for what was considered his reflected the nationalist Muslim point of view; I “soft corner” for the League, it applauded the role read them carefully and was enlightened by what of Kabir because he was an outsider, belonging to Brelvi wrote. He had a facile pen. I wrote for his the Krishak Proja Party of Bengal, of which A.K. newspaper articles on current topics, stressing Fazlul Haq was the leader. This schizophrenia the need for joint action by Hindus and Muslims made the task of Muslims in the Congress not only against the British, Brelvi published them. I took difficult but also awkward. I often found Brelvi them personally to him and he always met me with morose; it was not easy to cope with suspicion of great affection. I also came to know Frank Moraes, those whom he admired and respected. Undeterred who was then an assistant editor of The Times of he went ahead with his sober and balanced India. Moraes encouraged me to write for his paper; editorials which helped to considerably ease the but it was too British and would not entertain tension between the Congress and the League. I articles with a nationalist point of view. So I read these with great interest; they helped me to occasionally wrote letters to the editor on current formulate my political outlook. topics which were published by the Times. Moraes took me to meet his editor (later Sir) Francis Low With my initiation in the student movement, I who was a gentleman and liked young Indians. became more active in politics. This was the period These contacts were valuable in nurturing and when students were in the forefront in the agitation furthering my interest in journalism. against the British; there was unity among various groups, socialists, Gandhians and communists Moraes also brought me in touch with Prof. formed a united front. Even Muslim students Humayun Kabir, a close friend of his. My meetings were by and large with them. Subsequently

68 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 under Jinnah’s advice they drifted away from the demand. It was a blunder which the communists mainstream, but that was much later. There was later regretted. The rift between the two groups so only one umbrella organisation, known as the All- deepened that with the passage of time two rival India Students’ Federation. It was founded in 1936; bodies, the All-India Students’ Congress and the All- it aimed at keeping itself free from sectional and India Students’ Federation indulged more in mutual communal controversies. For its inaugural session vituperations than the fight against the Raj. in Lucknow the organisers invited both Nehru and Jinnah. Among other notables who participated in Muslim students formed their own body called its deliberations was Subhas Chandra Bose. At first the All-India Muslim Students’ Federation. The after the outbreak of World War II, the communists tripartite formation gave a setback to the student and the socialists worked together but after the movement. I aligned myself with the All-India entry of the Soviet Union on the side of the Allies, Students’ Congress, whose general secretary was the communists suddenly turned loyalists. “The Dinkar Sakrikar. He was a good organiser and imperialist war” became the “peoples’ war” for worked hard to streamline its set-up. We became them. This created a deep cleavage between good friends and we kept up our contacts through them and the socialists and the Gandhians who correspondence even after I left for London in 1944. continued to oppose the British war effort. I was After the launching of the Quit India movement a silent spectator to the fight which was directed by Gandhi, most of the activists in the Students’ on the one hand by such rising youth leaders Congress went underground and the organisation among socialists as M.R. Masani, Asoka Mehta and suffered; the Students’ Federation, on the other Ram Manohar Lohia and among communists by hand, flourished as a result of active support firebrands like S.A. Dange and P.C. Joseph. The war from the government. I became more involved of words caused much confusion in the rank and in the Muslim Students’ Union which had been file of the Federation. in existence for more than three decades. It had become a major force in Bombay’s academic At the annual session of the Federation in January circles. It was quietly sympathetic to the Congress 1938 at Madras, the first open split between the two though it did not dabble in active politics. In 1943, groups took place. I felt sad at the development; it the Leaguers managed to take it over. Thereafter it did not auger well for the future. Nehru intervened became aggressively communal, propagating the and some sort of patch-up arrangement was carried demand for Pakistan. Saleem Merchant, a practising out. But it did not last and at the Nagpur session of lawyer, who had been its President and I, as the the Federation in 1940, there was almost a fist-fight General Secretary along with other like-minded between the supporters of the two groups. They friends, tried our best to prevent the take-over split thereafter. I watched the proceedings with by the League but we were out-voted and forcibly dismay; it wrenched my heart. One major outcome thrown out of the organisation. of this was the support that the communist- dominated Federation gave to the demand of Friends continued to argue with me trying to Pakistan by the Muslim League. I forcefully argued convince me that as a Muslim I had no option but with some of the young communists and even to accept Jinnah as my leader. They insisted that their mentors, Dange and Joshi, but they stuck we could not have a better advocate or greater to their stand, perhaps, more to embarrass the champion of our rights; but Jinnah’s politics failed Congress which was opposing the war effort than to impress me. His logic was at times plausible but out of any intellectual conviction. Whatever might somehow it left me cold. Muslim grievances were, have been their compulsion, the communists no doubt, genuine but was the solution Jinnah provided a valuable weapon to the feudal and offered right? I had my doubts. Jinnah tried at bourgeoisie elements in the League, who used it to first to come to some kind of understanding with influence the educated Muslim youth to support the Congress, but the response he received was the pernicious “Two-Nation” theory. The Marxist negative. In fact I was surprised at the attitude jargon proved helpful to the League leaders who that Nehru adopted at the All-India Students’ used this to intellectually justify a patently religious Convention at Lucknow which I had attended as

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 69 a delegate. He called the League a reactionary were not hostile to a Muslim minister of a Congress body and rebuffed Jinnah who was invited to government; I found that out when I organised a preside over it. He tried to win over Nehru to huge reception for Nurie in Sopara, which had a help him build bridges between the Congress and large Muslim population. Nurie was greeted with the League; but Nehru’s hostility baffled him. He tremendous enthusiasm. The Leaguers, eager to bluntly told the students that he did not recognise please ministers, greeted Nurie with open arms. any communal problem. Most of the delegates were Jinnah had begun to make his mark in the cities but disappointed at Nehru’s nonchalant treatment of he had yet to reach out to towns and villages. Jinnah, especially when Jinnah had in fact gone out of his way to be conciliatory. The organisers had Encouraged by the poor showing of the League desired that the coming together of these leaders candidates in the provincial elections, Nehru would break the ice; Nehru put cold water on their concentrated on bringing Muslims nearer the efforts at reconciliation, thus shattering their hope Congress. Earlier as president, he had already of being able to foster communal harmony. launched a Muslim mass contact movement and established a department to run it. He put Dr. After the Congress victories in the provincial K.M. Ashraf, a rising young Marxist, in charge of elections in 1937, what surprised me even more it. He was ably assisted by Z.A. Ahmad and Sajjad was the Mahatma’s reaction to a message from Zaheer. Both were intellectuals of a high order. Jinnah requesting him to bring about Hindu-Muslim But all three were active members the Communist understandirtg. Jinnah sent it through B.G. Kher, Party, which had always been an eyesore to the who was soon to take over as Congress Premier Congress High Command. Hence Muslim stalwarts in Bombay. Gandhi replied thus: “Kher has given in the Congress took no interest in their work. me your message. I wish I could do something but Azad, Syed Mahmud, Asif Ali and the other old I am utterly helpless. My faith in unity is bright as Khilafatists who had a solid base among Muslims ever; only I see no daylight.” I could not understand kept aloof. Because of their indifference, even this cynicism. Was it because of the Mahatma’s the ‘Hindu leaders of the Congress took little disappointment at the Round Table Conference interest in their activities. In fact Patel was said which he had attended as the sole representative to have remarked, “With the Communists around, of the Congress? But he wavered under pressure Nehru should forget that Muslims will ever come from the Hindu Mahasabha stalwarts, Moonje nearer the Congress.” I met Dr. Ashraf briefly in and Malaviya, who refused to concede even the Bombay; he told me frankly that the old Muslim most reasonable demands of Jinnah, who had leaders in the Congress, in their heart of hearts, come round to accepting even joint electorates. I wanted the League to succeed. He was indeed remember discussing the implications of Gandhiji’s so (disgusted with the whole lot of them that he reaction with M.Y. Nurie who had joined Kher’s wrote to Nehru in September 1938, while the latter cabinet as the Muslim minister. He told me that was on a tour of Europe: “The Congress President Kher was of the opinion that the Mahatma was sore has not even come to visit us or given us any because he had failed, despite his best efforts, to instructions whatsoever. I feel every day that I make the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha am a parasite on the AICC funds. My life is being agree to an amicable settlement. Hence his cry of wasted. Under these conditions I have decided to utter helplessness. He looked upon the Communal give up the office work in any case as soon as you Award, which Prime Minister MacDonald gave, as are back in Allahabad.” Govind Ballabh Pant, the a slap on the face of every Indian who attended the Congress Premier of U.P. remarked that there was Round Table Conference. It was because Indians no need to make any special appeal to Muslims; disagreed among themselves that the third party they would return to the Congress by themselves could impose it. Maulana Mohammed Ali often when they found that the League was pro-rich and remarked, “The British do not divide and rule. We anti-poor. And so the campaign to bring Muslims divide and they rule.” Jinnah took the Mahatma’s into the Congress ended in a fiasco; neither did indifference as a rebuff; it hardened the League’s the old, entrenched Muslim leaders care to exert attitude towards the Congress. But Muslims then themselves nor did the Hindu establishment in the

Jinnah and Gandhi

70 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Congress show any interest in them. And still the from the hostility he faced from his elders in irony was that Muslim masses were blamed for the Congress, Nehru was unfortunately out of tune having heeded Jinnah! with the changes in the Muslim “psyche”. He had developed contempt for Jinnah much earlier. As On his return from Europe, I met Nehru at early as 1930, when Gandhi had gone to London to the apartment of Brelvi who had invited some participate in the Round Table Conference, Nehru thirty nationalist Muslims to discuss the challenge in a letter to his mentor wrote: “How wonderful of the League to the Congress. At the outset Nehru you are to argue and argue and yet again argue gave us a graphic account of the horrors of Nazism with this motley crowd. If I had to listen to my and the manner in which Hitler had consolidated dear friend Mohammed Ali Jinnah talking the his hold in Germany. He said, “I see the same most unmitigated nonsense about his 14 points for parallel here, Jinnah is resorting to the same tactics any length of time, I would have to consider the (the dictatorial behaviour, the contempt for others, desirability of retiring to the South Sea Islands.” On the generation of hate)”. As Hitler had worked up subsequent occasions, when he negotiated with the Germans to hate the Jews, so was Jinnah Jinnah, he found him insufferable. making Muslims hate Hindus. Someone pointed out By the middle of 1939 war clouds had begun to gather over Europe; the British were too shaky to “...governed by the much make the right move to enlist the support of the Congress. Though Congress ministries were in the more numerous Hindus, saddle in eight out of eleven provinces, strains had begun to develop between them and the who had not only utter Viceroy. This aggravated the conflict between the Congress and the British, with Jinnah watching the contempt and disdain for deterioration with eager hope of a better prospect for the League in the future. In Bombay, Ismail College had become the nerve-centre of young Muslims but harboured Muslims; it had started attracting wide attention. I was fortunate in being elected General Secretary a deep-rooted animosity of its Union. I told my Executive Committee that I proposed to invite leaders of different political against them...” parties to speak to our students on the topic: “Whither India?” They heartily endorsed it. And that while the Germans were in an overwhelming so our Union arranged a series of talks on “The majority and the Jews a minority, the anomaly Present Political Situation in India”. The first to was not quite right. In India Muslims were in a accept our invitation was Jinnah. He gave us the minority of three to one, even if they had become date: August 5, 1939. He had by then achieved hostile to Hindus they could not eliminate them; a signal triumph at the Lucknow Session of the but the reverse was possible. Nehru replied that League in 1938 which had brought the Prime he was referring to the mentality and the attitude Ministers of two major Muslim-majority provinces, which caused havoc. It was an enlightening meeting Bengal and Punjab, A.K. Fazlul Haq and Sikander and I came back more determined to work for Hyat Khan respectively to Lucknow to pay their unity, though I did not know how. I had mentioned obeisance to him. Being pragmatic politicians, to Nehru that his Muslim mass contact movement they could not ignore Jinnah’s growing popularity had been a fiasco; Brelvi also pointed out that it did among Muslims and, therefore, vociferously not produce the necessary response. Nehru flared articulated their loyalty to the League, despite up and in a choked voice remarked, “I know there the fact that their regional parties had not been are persons in the Congress, quite important and affiliated to it. They did not disband them but big, who did not want it to succeed. They thought avowed support to Jinnah in his fight against the it would have made me more invincible”. Apart Congress. They also accepted his leadership at the

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 71 all-India level. That was more than what Jinnah had expected; it gave a boost to his bargaining capacity both with the Congress and the British. What he had lost in the elections, he gained on the political chessboard.

I went to fetch Jinnah, as previously arranged, from his small but elegant bungalow at Little Gibbs Road on Malabar Hill, we were accompanied in the car by his sister and constant companion Fatima Jinnah. All through the one-hour journey I tried to probe Jinnah’s mind but it was difficult to draw him into a conversation. Being cold and aloof, he would not Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan open up. His answers to my queries were short, precise and to the point. I was too awed by his it says nationalist, it means Hindu nationalist.” stern and awesome personality to converse freely He elaborated further: “I am forced to take that with him. Unlike Nehru who enjoyed talking to view because of the developments after the young students and listening to them, Jinnah was inauguration of Provincial Autonomy. Before the reserved by nature. He was, no doubt, polite to me elections it was my hope that the better minds but most of the time I sensed that he was lost in among Muslims and Hindus would get into the his own thoughts. I found it difficult to warm legislatures and that they would work in harmony towards him. for bringing about communal peace. The Congress answer to that was violent propaganda against On the platform when Jinnah rose to speak he the Muslim League during the elections. After was a different man. He was bold and aggressive, elections were over and the Congress formed very forthright. He acted more like a general majorities in some of the provinces, it decided giving commands, though he cushioned them to accept office. Instead of accepting the hand of with the subtle use of the forensic art of which he cooperation extended by the Muslim League, the was master. His speech was unusually harsh and Congress demanded the liquidation of the League bitterly anti-Congress; but it was, on the whole, and complete subordination to the Congress. The a brilliant performance. He began by criticising tactic of corrupting Muslim members in legislatures a statement by Mahatma Gandhi wherein he had by offering them ministerships was not becoming condemned the idea of Pakistan, which was much of a mighty organisation like the Congress. That in the air then but to which Jinnah had until then was an attitude unhelpful to Muslims, unhelpful to not responded. “Mr. Gandhi calls Pakistan a sin”, Hindus and to the country.” Jinnah concluded by recapitulated Jinnah. “Mind you, the word he thundering, “I say to the Congress, ‘Hands off the uses is sin not crime. He has damned us in both, Muslims’. Trust us and trust our honour. We do this world as well as the next.” He also ridiculed not want to be protected by you. We shall take the Mahatma for describing him as his brother: care of ourselves.” “The only trouble with this relationship”, he said, “is that while brother Gandhi has three votes, I The second lecture was to have been given by have only one.” Elaborating the role of the League Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel but at the eleventh hour in organising the Muslims into “a strong united he expressed his inability to do so due to ill-health. body” he declared that it “was essential to enable And so I invited K.M. Munshi, then Home Minister the Muslim community to take its rightful place of Bombay and one of the closest lieutenants of in the national affairs of the country. Those who the Sardar. He was also the principal advocate of took that view might be branded communalists. So “Akhand Hindustan” or “One India”. He came to our far as I am concerned, I am willing to be branded college on August 10,1939. Explaining the difference a communalist for doing my duty by Muslims. I between the old concept of a country and the was born a Muslim, I am a Muslim and I shall die a modern concept of a nation, Munshi said, “we are Muslim.” Attacking the Congress, Jinnah asked: “Is born in India, but born as Hindus and Muslims. the Congress really nationalist in character? You Speaking different languages we were still welded do not become nationalist merely by declaring that into a unity. But we are not the architects of that you are. In my opinion when the Congress speaks unity. Nor is that unity permanent. Hence we have of nationalism, it means Hindu nationalism; when to work for such a unity by becoming nationalists.

72 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Every one of us has to make a conscious effort by problem which the British exploited to their thinking, behaving and welding ourselves into a advantage. He said, “Interested parties harp on nation.” He illustrated, “Asoka and the imperial India’s domestic difficulties as being a serious Guptas, the Moghuls and the Marathas, by their impediment in the way of England’s granting armies of occupation, created a political unity complete independence to India. These difficulties but not a nation. Since then we have travelled far have been unduly emphasised. It must be realised and fast. We have millions of Indians both Hindus that they are artificial and the creation of an and Muslims—thinking, living and working in alien power. A free India will solve its domestic terms of a nation.” difficulties much more easily than a slave India can. This bogey of internal dissension, therefore, And then he replied to Jinnah in more specific and deserves to be dismissed as being unreal. We shall clear terms: “There is a school of thought in India manage our home, differences or no differences, which holds that Hindustan belongs to Hindus and better than any outsider”. He wanted, therefore, that Muslims should be driven out of India as Jews action to free the country. As he put it, “This war is are being driven out of Germany. There is a similar India’s opportunity. It is idle ethics which shudders school of thought among Muslims in India which at the thought of India exploiting the difficulties of wants to turn them into an armed camp waging England. To help an enemy, who refuses to help a perpetual war against Hindus. What are these us, is against all canons of liberation; it will only tendencies? They say that the language of Hindus tighten his hold on slaves like us”. and that of Muslims are quite distinct; that their cultures can never mix; that their education must Bose was most eloquent when he explained why necessarily be separate. Is it so in fact? Is not the the Mahatma had failed. He said, “Gandhi has failed founder of Hindi, literature, Jayasi, a Mussalman? because, while he has character, his lieutenants Are not two Mussalman converts to Hinduism two lack it. He has failed because he understands the of the greatest Goswamis of Vaisnavism? Have not hopes and aspirations of his followers but he does the cult of Ramananda and that of the disciples not understand the moves and objectives of his of Guru Nanak been influenced by Islam? Has not opponents. He has failed because while he puts all Hinduism coloured the thoughts of Islamic thinkers his cards on the table, he does not know how to in India? Have not the fields of Hindustan flowed deal with the British. He has failed because he has with the blood of both Hindus and Mussalmans not a ghost of an idea of the art of diplomacy. He fighting for the same cause? Did Hindus not has failed because he goes after false ideas of unity create Akbar’s Empire? Was not the mother of and does not grapple with the real issues. Lastly the Moghul emperor Jahangir a Rajput Hindu? he has failed because he has tried to combine two Was not Dara Shikoh a believer in the philosophy contradictory roles within himself; a revolutionary of the Upanishads? Have not Muslims like Hakim and a saint. That is why he is resented by Churchi Ajmal Khan, Dr. M.A. Ansari and Maulana Azad because he is a rebel and liked by the Quakers helped to create the magnificent structure of that because he serves as the best policeman for the great national service which we know by the British in India.” name of Congress?” The last speaker in this series of lectures was Sir The third lecture took place on September 18; it Cowasji Jehangir, the well-known liberal leader; was given by Subhas Chandra Bose, who had just he addressed the College Union on December 9. revolted against the Gandhian leadership and He was bitterly anti-Congress in his speech and resigned as Congress President, forming his All- accused its ministries in various provinces of India Forward Bloc. He aggravating the communal problem by their wrong refused to be drawn policies. He said, “The Congress has neither the into the Hindu- heart nor the mentality to solve this issue.” He Muslim could not understand Congress attacking the so- question and called communalists, they were no less patriotic dismissed than the Congressites. He observed: “This is not a it as an problem that faces India alone. All over the world, internal one of the causes of tyranny and oppression has been the treatment of minorities”. He opposed the idea of setting up a Constituent Assembly for he characterised it as “a clever device” designed

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 73 by the Congress “to drown the voice of the the atrocities that the Congress governments in minorities.” He warned that India was too multi- different provinces had committed against Muslims religious a state for its constitution to be framed and the so-called “untouchables” among Hindus. on the lines spelt out by Western textbooks. It had They hailed the departure of the ministers as “good not only to reflect the urges and aspirations of riddance to bad rubbish”. the different communities but also safeguard and protect their fears and apprehensions. Just before the meeting Jinnah’s behaviour startled me beyond comprehension. He arrived The lecture series attracted India-wide press at the specified time. He was always punctual. He coverage; for me it was a great liberal education surveyed the scene and when he could not see in formulating my political ideas. I thus enjoyed the press seated prominently in the front rows, he my work as General Secretary of the College Union lost his temper. He turned to the organisers and immensely; it gave me the opportunity to interact shouted angrily: “Where is the press?” and then in with these luminaries. Of course the turmoil it the full hearing of the public since the mike was created within me with different forces pulling me on the dais, he thundered: “Do you think I have in different directions was painful and traumatic, come to address these donkeys?” He wanted his nonetheless it was an exhilarating experience. remarks to be conveyed more to the world than to the assembled crowd. The organisers ran helter- Meanwhile the Second World War (1939-45) had skelter and finally managed to arrange chairs and broken out on September 3, 1939 which found tables near the dais for the press representatives; Britain unprepared to fight the might of Hitler’s Jinnah spoke for more than an hour in English—the Germany. Suddenly the political climate in India audience did not understand a word, but every now changed. Lord Linlithgow, taken off guard, declared and again, they chanted: “Allah o Akbar”, “Muslim India also a belligerent nation, without consulting League Zindabad” and “Quaid-i-Azam Paindabad”. the elected legislatures. The Congress reacted Ambedkar was equally bitter in his attack on the by asking its ministers to resign. Jinnah forgot all Congress ministries; he described them as tinpot about the war and mounted an onslaught on the dictators, who thrived on oppressing the poor and Congress declaring that the exit of the ministers in sucking their blood. He blamed the Mahatma for would be celebrated as a “Day of Deliverance” by all the ills that had befallen India. I came back from Muslims. Dr babasaheb Ambedkar expressed his the meeting contused and disturbed. For the first desire to join hands with Jinnah on the issue; he time it dawned on me that the Congress had more declared that the Scheduled Castes had suffered powerful enemies within it than those outside; the more under the Congress regimes than Muslims. battle of freedom would have to be fought by the The League decided to hold a mammoth public Congress on both the fronts at home. meeting in Bombay which both these leaders would address; never had I seen Mohammed A year or so later Ambedkar wrote his monumental Ali Road—the heart of the Muslim locality in work, Thoughts on Pakistan. Though he supported Bombay—present such a massive demonstration. the League demand the book was out and out I was taken aback by the unprecedented support anti-Muslim. that Jinnah had managed to garner. He and Ambedkar harangued the gathering, alleging He argued that Muslims, by the dictates of their religion and their historical past, were incapable of working in unison with Hindus. Muslims were Nehru and Gandhi intolerant, oppressive and regressive. It was better, therefore, that Hindus got rid of Muslims by giving them a separate state; otherwise they would continue to be a drag on the progress of India. Some Muslims had thought that Ambedkar, in order to spite Hindus, would embrace Islam. After reading his book I was convinced that Islam would be the last religion to which he would convert; it was, nevertheless, argued that his association with Jinnah, which proved to be of a temporary nature, would bring him into the Islamic fold. There were many Leaguers who harboured such misgivings.

74 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 They could not have been more wrong. There was enjoyed interacting with him. He even invited no common political bond between Jinnah and me once to a dinner hosted by him for Nehru. Ambedkar except their hostility to Gandhi who He was subsequently raised to the Bench. He was doing, in reality, more than any other leader also acted, for sometime, as the Vice-Chancellor for the protection and welfare of both Muslims of Bombay University. However his interest in and the “untouchables”. politics did not cease. He was genuinely worried about the destructive role of his erstwhile mentor. In Ismail College, we had also a parliament, He was unable to understand, as he told me one designed to train students in the art of day how an avowed and committed secularist parliamentary procedure; I was elected its Speaker. like Jinnah could make such an about-turn and There were also other office-bearers: Prime become a rabid communalist. He recounted to me Minister, Cabinet Ministers and leaders of the his long association with him and the successful Opposition. We held regular monthly meetings to constitutional fights Jinnah waged against the which sometimes eminent persons were invited to British inside and outside the legislature and the address. One evening M.C. Chagla was our guest. impact he had created all around by the brilliance He had worked closely with Jinnah but parted ways of his advocacy. Jinnah had, no doubt, championed when the latter became communal and started his legitimate political grievances of Muslims, but tirade against the Congress. Chagla had made a never, Chagla emphasised, at the cost of Hindu- Muslim unity. He had become bitter because in Gandhi’s Congres he felt like a fish out of water. His ego was hurt and so he decided to carve out “A free India will a place for himself; the communal platform was then devoid of leadership and Jinnah was able to solve its domestic fill it without much difficulty. He thrived on hate and he used it against the Congress with increasing difficulties much more success. Chagla had begun to develop a peculiar aversion to Muslims, because of their fanatical attachment to Jinnah; the more they were drawn easily than a slave to Jinnah the more he disliked them. Earlier he was sympathetic to their problems; but the India can.” break with Jinnah antagonised Chagla against the entire community. mark at the Bombay Bar; he was admired for his Neither he nor Jinnah were practising Muslims; courage of conviction. He had an amiable nature they had no acquaintance with the history or even and a persuasive way of speaking. He took the the traditions or culture of Islam. They were born opportunity to impress upon us that the separatist Muslims but were brought up right from a young politics of the League would bring nothing but age in a westernised atmosphere. As Indian politics disaster to Muslims. He had fought along with was then dominated by the Hindu-Muslim problem, Jinnah for the solution of Hindu-Muslim they had no option but to take an interest in it. differences; but he was clear in his mind now To talk of unity was then the fashion; but with the that a, hostile attitude towards the Congress devolution of power by the British to Indians, the would only harm Muslims. He was sorry that communal differences surfaced. At first Jinnah this was not realised by Muslims. Muslims and tried for reconciliation; but when he failed he Hindus must learn to live together, he said, and turned hostile. Chagla did not like this work for the freedom of India. transformation in Jinnah; in any case their relationship was always of an Chagla had a knack of putting his point of view impersonal nature, with little warmth across; hence his speech was listened to with or closeness. rapt attention by all of us. There was no heckling as I had feared from some troublesome students That was so even when Chagla who were involved with the League. The Times worked in Jinnah’s chamber—as of India gave a good report of the meeting and his “devil” or assistant. As soon as Chagla was pleased with the outcome of his visit. Chagla stood on his own at the Bar, He met me many times thereafter and I always he started seeing less of Jinnah whose

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 75 anti-Congress stand made Chagla distrustful of firebrand, went to see Jinnah on some urgent work his motives. The result was that Jinnah went to at his bungalow. He had not taken an appointment. one extreme of communalism, Chagla went to the It was after dusk; Jinnah was enjoying his peg of other extreme of nationalism. During this period, whisky. He called Mohani to his room and thinking Chagla had not drifted so far but I could still sense then that he was more a revolutionary than an the bitterness he felt against those Muslims who orthodox Muslim, offered him a drink. Mohani, had communalised Indian politics; unfortunately somewhat baffled, said that he wished he had as he started finding fault with Muslims alone with little fear of God as Jinnah had. Jinnah retorted: the result that he lost whatever little base he had “No, Maulana! You are wrong. I have more faith in among them. His mercy than you have.”

Chagla narrates two incidents about Jinnah at this In my desire to understand the League point of time in his autobiography, whereby he reveals the view, I met several of their leaders who were keen pseudo-Islamic character of the Quaid-i-Azam (the to convince me that Jinnah’s stand was indeed Great Leader). Both relate to Jinnah’s election to the right solution for the ills of Muslims. One of the Central Legislative Assembly from a reserved them, whom I met frequently was the soft-spoken, Muslim constituency in Bombay in the early gentle, I.I. Chundrigar, who later became Prime thirties. Chagla had accompanied Jinnah in his Minister of Pakistan. He had a good practice at the election campaign. Jinnah’s wife Rati, daughter of Bombay Bar and was highly spoken of by friends the Parsi millionaire, Sir Dinshaw Petit, brought and foes alike. I first met him when I invited him some ham sandwiches for Jinnah’s lunch one to the Ismail College Union, as one of the judges day, while he was canvassing in a Muslim locality. for the Brabourne Inter-Collegiate Elocution Jinnah was horrified and asked her whether she Competition in 1939. He asked me to his home wanted him to lose the election. Rati, not realising for dinner thereafter. He was of the view that what wrong she had done, exclaimed innocently: Muslims, particularly the younger generation, must “But, darling you love ham sandwiches!” On follow the lead given by Jinnah to ensure their another occasion during the same campaign, future. Hindus, according to him, never honoured Chagla and Jinnah were having tea and pork their commitments; Jinnah had tried hard— the sandwiches in a quiet wayside restaurant when Lucknow Pact of 1916 was an instance in point— an influential bearded Maulana walked up to but whatever agreement the League made with Jinnah. Chagla invited the guest to join them and the Congress, the latter never honoured it. That offered him the sandwiches. The Maulana not was the reason “the best ambassador of Hindu- knowing what was in them, proceeded to eat them Muslim unity” had lost faith in a united India. The with great relish. Jinnah was mortified. After the Nehru Report of 1928 shattered Jinnah, he told Maulana had gone Jinnah chided Chagla, who told me; a leader like Motilal Nehru had gone back on him: “I am sorry but I had to decide on the spur the Congress commitment to separate electorates of the moment whether I should entertain the for the Muslims. Who among the Congress leaders Maulana and send him to eternal damnation or could then be trusted, he asked. To trust them, he make you lose the election.” felt, would be suicidal; the Congress, which alone represented Hindus, had no desire to share power Another anecdote that did the rounds was when with the genuine representatives of Muslims. I Jinnah had started reorganising the League argued with him that whatever be the past, Hindus after the assembly elections in 1937; he was on and Muslims had to live together; as they did in an enticing spree. Hasrat Mohani, who was a every village, town and city. To talk of separation

Gandhi on a train

76 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 was not practicable; to do so by generating hostilities would be dangerous. Chundrigar assured me that this was a passing phase; it would disappear the moment the Congress accepted the representative charter of the League. Union could be only between equals; otherwise it would be the rule of the majority over the minority. Muslims had, therefore, to work hard for the fulfilment of their objective from a position of strength; Jinnah had provided them with a leadership which was destined to deliver the goods to them. I was amazed at the confidence he exhibited in Jinnah; he stood by his leader through thick and thin. Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, with Once Sharifuddin Pirzada, who was with me at a distinguished Government Law College, and I were walking career in fields as past Jinnah’s newly built palace-like mansion on varied as law, education, Mount Pleasant Road on Malabar Hill. Jinnah had journalism, politics and Islamic studies, was spent a fortune on it. Sharifuddin told me that active in the freedom struggle, both at home and Jinnah had personally supervised every bit of the abroad from his student days. After a successful construction which began after the passage of the legal career he was elected to the state legislature Lahore Resolution in 1940; it was completed by of Maharashtra. From 1962 he served as a cabinet the end of 1941. Reginald Coupland saw Jinnah minister in the state government for fifteen there for the first time in January 1942. Jinnah took years. In 1978 he was elected to Parliament and him round proudly showing him every part of his became deputy leader of the ruling Congress grand establishment. Coupland was wonderstruck Party in Parliament when Mrs. Indira Gandhi by its grandeur. It was an architectural marvel was its leader. He was given various important with its “beautiful rooms, lavishly furnished, and a assignments including that of Prime Minister’s most attractive curving marble terrace, with lawns Special Envoy to the Muslim world in 1984. He beneath it, sloping to a belt of trees with a gap in thrice represented India at the United Nations, it through which the sea passed”. Jinnah loved it. in 1965, 1990 and 1996. Dr. Zakaria was a Yet, why did he, a shrewd manager of his finances, scholar of international repute. He authored a build this marvellous mansion in Bombay as late dozen books, including A Study of Nehru. An as in 1941? Surely he did not expect Bombay to eminent educationist, he be a part of Pakistan. I felt somewhat comforted founded more than a dozen by the thought that he was perhaps not serious educational institutions of about partition; his demand was just a bargaining higher learning in Bombay strategy. I fondly hoped that his new acquisition and Aurangabad. Dr. which he built with such meticulous care might Zakaria passed away on well be indicative of his hidden desire for an July 9, 2005 in Mumbai. undivided India. Source: The Price of Partition, Rafiq Zakaria, Bhavan’s Book University, Mumbai, India

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 77 Twilight Glimmering and Hazy Landscape of Indian Politics

Unusual silence. Was it recollection of Gandhi or The mother also joined. Ajeet is to blame. She came an overintoxicated state of mind? At least they there and talked to Rajeev in a comer, “Do you were unaware of the ruffle among leaves outside also belong to them?” Rajeev’s tone had a sob in it. the room. Since the departure of the car, the sky ‘They do not like me. They do not like my thinking. had assumed many new facets. A pale, hazy moon Mother, I was expelled. I tried to win over Krishna was proceeding towards a gradual decline. May be but he did not bother. Where was the bravery in it was the initiation of dawn bringing distant trees driving a burning bus?’ He ate the words as his into dim focus. A gradual rising light seemed to be tears rolled in pent-up gush. ‘You see Krishna divesting them of their darkness. would not listen, I wish he would listen but, but...’ There was perceptible sobbing in the room. Silence inside the room did not continue for long. Ajeet instructed them regarding the future Krishna’s youngest sister Smita found some room course of action. He peeped into their half-dazed, for herself behind the door. Only her eyes staring intoxicated eyes and he spoke in well-arranged in the vacancy were visible. In them there was a words. ‘Sooryakant is pleased with your-co- constant flow of tears. Her eye-lashes were dipped operation. He has already paid you handsome like wings of butterfly. Her stare became constant dividends. He assures us of more money.’ at Rajeev’s dismayed face. A single flutter in her eyelids. Communication was set up between ‘Well done...Ajeet. What are we fighting for? Money. the two following a deep stirring in their sub- For us there is no other way to settle...As students conscious. Smita’s face had prominent contours of we passed our examinations through copying. I am being romantic and prosaic. A curious combination certain we can become very successful leaders. of dream and reality! Her voice was melodious What do you think? Thousands clapping and and at times resounding. The moment, two were yelling’s pierced the early dawn. ‘Everyone has electrically charged and for a while lifted them out his own way of doing things. Moreover, we don’t of their routine, settled existence. At the moment achieve anything. We have our own talents. I’ll Rajeev was in the grip of something grim and manage certificates for you. Why should we waste sorrowful. He had been a witness to the spectacle our precious time reading books? of devastation, and anguished thoughts. Ajeet was to blame. He became a convenient tool in the hands We are on a greater mission in our life. Don’t you of a defeated politician and created a clan for him. follow?’ ‘Certificates? How will you manage degrees He was about to get up from Charpoy when Smita for us?’ ‘Don’t worry. That’s for me to plan. We caught him with a meaningful grace. May be she can plan burning of a town. Managing certificates needed words of consolation from him! Why not is not difficult.’ They clapped to approve satanic to go and talk to her? For the first time, he felt shy utterances of their leader. A riotous pandemonium talking to her. Why? He was bewildered at his own expressing their intoxicated nerves was created in sensitive self-consciousness. Was it because of his the small room. Money was distributed by Ajeet. It new-born feelings for her? He questioned himself was almost performing a ritual. ‘I’m a link between like an analyst. The old man’s words in his ears. you and the leader...’ How to carry on the burden of the family? Old age is a curse. What can I do now? Krishna the only There followed a wild clapping in the smoke- bread-earner is gone for ever. His sobbings became suffocated room. They bundled their bets and left louder than his emaciated body could afford. ‘The the room before the sunlight could penetrate the Government will repair public buildings. Who will thin pall of pre-dawn darkness. Rajeev entered repair my loss?’ Krishna’s house with a lot of sorrow poised on his face. He felt guilty, depressed and trodden-upon. The old man was almost on the verge of swooning. Most of the rituals of Krishna’s cremation were ‘We’ll do something for you father.’ What will you already performed. His parents were in a state of do?’ ‘I can not tell you. It will take some time.’ He shock beyond recognition. The old man was in a intently looked at the man and left the Charpoy state of bewilderment often bewailing. “Rajeev, you to join Smita inside the room. She stood behind are like son to me. Tell me how did Krishna die? I the half-shut door. Her bright face was scarred am confounded, helpless. Who is responsible? Who by her profuse weepings. He discerned a kind of will take to us? Who?” volatile sensitivity on her face. For the first time he found some streaks of uncanny beauty on her face.

78 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Perhaps normal looks do not capture the hidden company. They were left pondering to a bootless and the essential. We form routine usual pictures of inquisitiveness. ‘Sorry to remind you of Krishna. human-beings in our routine contact. An agitation for the right cause. There was a conspiracy behind his death. Someone behind the ‘How could you neglect us for that long?’ Smita’s scene. Krishna’s death should not go unaccounted question was abrupt. Her thinking coloured her for.’ ‘We are not stuff for agitations. Who will listen face. Suddenly he found the old man attentive to to us?’ Smita expressed her doubts. ‘Agitations for him ‘Beta Rajeev, does it behove daughters to earn the right cause, for justice. How did Gandhi manage for the old father?’ He looked at the two daughters, his agitations? Did he possess some extra powers? fluttered his eyelids and focussed on Rajeev. He He was a commoner.’ Rajeev’s tone was firm. It was was in affix. Should he support the old man or his different with him. ‘He did not fight for himself. He daughters? The old man should be encouraged to fought for others. Masses supported him. Issues wash off his sense of guilt. Otherwise tension will and aims were clear.’ live in the house. ‘No, I do not agree with you.’ ‘Rajeev, Times have ‘You are Gandhi’s agitators?’ She smiled. There changed. Now agitations are taken in stride.’ Smita was a free flow of emotion between the two. Their was persistent with her argument. Rajeev was eyes held each other in a focus of happiness. The quiet and was left to a state of inner uncertainty. room was partially dark because of the slant in the A fight within and a fight without. There should be entry of the sun-rays. The roof of the room was a tuning between the two. Otherwise the balance low and did not allow a direct view of the entrant between the two is lost. Sona interposed suddenly. to the room. In this room she had her moments ‘We are more concerned with work and bread. of loneliness, cutting off from the general flow Some work, some kind of engagement to keep of humanity At times you seem to be different on going.’ from others. A queer sort! The common folk are connected with physical, tangible without an awareness. They just complete routine. Rajeev (To be Continued...) spoke to Smita. Dharam Pal ‘You talk philosophy...’ ‘That is fine...’ Smita raised Born on October 1, 1941, Prof Dharam Pal, Retd a small giggle. He enclosed her face with his palms Head, Department of English, Hindu College, and then sought her glance. She kept her eyes- Sonepat, Haryana, India has published Novels, lashes in down-cast posture. Her eyes-lids did not Short-stories in Hindi and English. These include, show any movement. Upnevesh, Mukti, Raj Ghat ki Aur, Tharav, Basti, These days lovers are so practical. There is no Avshes, Nirvastra, Ramsharnam, Twilight, The feeling between the two. She gave a slight nod to Eclipsed Serialized in Indo-Asian Literature and her head without lifting her face. And then Smita other stories. Two students suddenly lifted her face looking at Rajeev deep have been awarded MPhil and long. She seemed to be overwhelmed and bit Degrees on his Hindi Works. panting. She managed to mutter, ‘you say things His plays, stories have also after my heart, Rajeev.’ ‘Really?’ ‘You never betray been broadcast on Indian them explicitly.’ ‘A girl is supposed to keep mum.’ Radio. He has been twice ‘Why?’ ‘Should I explain woman psychology to honoured by Governor of you?’ ‘No harm.’ Haryana, India. He has won Hindi Rashtriya Shatabdi The two words echoed in his ears. Rekha and Samman, 200 and also Sona the other two sisters sauntered in quietly. Penguin Award. A flush on their faces. Smita and Rajeev gave the impression of being caught red-handed. Sona’s tone carried a bit of sarcasm. Smita must be talking books to him. They talk films. Rekha too joined conversation, crazy after films. A smart young hero singing to a beautiful girl or they singing together. Films carry beautiful girls, sights, falls, mountains and the open sky. At least on the screen. Rajeev spoke with unusual grimness. ‘I am not interested in movies, same stuff, mere artificial. Why not to start an agitation?’

Smita and her sisters were taken aback. The atmosphere hung with tension and suspicion. Rajeev threw them into enormous curiosity. ‘why? It is to demand justice for Krishna’s death.’ Suddenly a pall of dismay descended upon the

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 79 and some of them assumed leadership-role in many parts of India. Women nationalists hailed from all groups and sections of society, but they worked together for a common cause. Women of royalty rubbed shoulders with those from the middle class and the downtrodden sections, and in some cases, even the fallen ones, in their fight against the British Raj.

In the scheme of cosmic opposites, the role of men and women is complimentary and not at odds with one another. Hence the history of freedom movement cannot be seen in isolation, as the work of men alone. If man can boast of his muscular power, woman can rely on her innate patience and the ability to forbear; if he is ingenious, she has the sixth sense; if he is vociferous, she possesses the silent power of influence and suggestion. While man operates at the sensory level, she makes use of her extrasensory perception.

The ruggedness of man is contained by her purity and selflessness. Man’s strength is his weakness but woman’s weakness is her strength. She is superior to man in many ways; for example, her resistance to diseases, sufferings and shocks, is Sister Nivedita better as compared to man.

She is ‘more practical and down to earth’. Swami Vivekananda observed: ‘If woman cannot act, neither can man suffer.’ However, during Women Warriors the freedom struggle women ‘acted’ as well of India’s Freedom as ‘suffered’. The mother being ‘one of the great primordial archetypes of humanity’, the protection of 1 motherland acquired nationalistic overtones. In his novel, Ananda Matha (‘abbey of bliss’), published Women have rendered a distinct flavor to the in 1880, Bankim Chandra Chatterji (1838-1894) used Indian nationalism, with their charm and dignity, the expression Mother (goddess Kali) as a veritable infinite patience and power of endurance, and metaphor for motherland. The salutation Vande through innovative strategies, which they are Mataram (‘Mother, I bow to Thee’), which occurs capable of naturally. They participated in in the novel, became the soul-stirring slogan of political agitations and revolutionary activities Indian revolutionaries. It fostered national unity, bearing privations of all kinds. They questioned became a form of greeting, and inspired millions’ the raison d’etre of the British rule with such of countrymen to bear police atrocities without burning passion and zeal as have few parallels in demur. Revolutionaries like Madan Lal Dhingra the annals of history. (1883-1909) kissed the gallows with Vande Mataram on their lips. The intrepidity and valour of women like Bhima Bai of the Holkar dynasty, Rani Channamma (1778- After the Partition of Bengal (1905) by Lord Curzon 1829) of the princely state of Kittur (Kamataka), (1859-1925), the streets of Calcutta resounded Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, Bina Das, Kalpana with the cries of Vande Mataram and thousands Dutta, Pritilata Waddedar, Santi and Suniti of undertook the vows of Swadeshi and boycott. Bengal, Kanak Lata Barua of Assam, Rani Gaidinliu While it became the mantra of nationalists it was of North-East, Durga Bhabhi of Punjab and many the bugbear of the British bureaucracy which more, have become legendary and continue to considered sloganeering with Vande Mataram as a inspire people. Women proved that they were sign of revolt. not anatomical showpieces but could be a great support to men, float organisations, fight for rights, When Bampfyld Fuller, Lt. Governor of the newly bear police lathi-blows, undergo prison, and if need created province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, be, hold a pistol or bomb in their delicate hands. banned the shouting of the slogan, Sarojini Bose (wife of Tara Prasanna Bose) took the pledge During the course of freedom struggle, the ‘eternal in public that she would not wear gold till the feminine’ image of women acquired masculinity government withdrew its circular. Students, both

80 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 boys and girls, wore badges with Vande Mataram Much before Mahatma Gandhi popularised the inscribed on them. In organised gatherings, Vande spinning wheel; she introduced it in her school Mataram used to be sung mostly by girls, with and appointed a lady teacher (charkha-mai) for folded hands in front of the symbolic portrait the same. She mooted the idea of a national flag, of Mother India. The reverence for mother thus with the embroidered emblem of the thunderbolt metamorphosed into the religion of patriotism. (vajra) of Indra, at the annual session of the Indian National Congress held at Calcutta in 1906. She The first Indian national flag proposed by some protested against the illiberal provisions of the Indians in England and France in 1906, had saffron Universities Act passed during the viceroyalty of with eight stars across at the top, white with Vande Lord Curzon in 1904. She remained associated with Mataram in the middle, and green with moon such radical organisations as the Dawn Society and to right and sun with left, at the bottom. Vande the Anushilan Samiti, and was close to Aurobindo Mataram was the rallying cry of nationalists of Ghosh (1872-1950), extremist leader of Congress, the Ghadr Party formed in 1813 in the U.S. with and Benoy Sarkar (1887-1949), a noted economist. a view to overthrowing the British rule by force. It resounded in the Central Legislative assembly She exhorted women to worship Mother India: on April 8, 1929, when Sardar Bhagat Singh (1907- ‘Dedicate some part of every puja to this thought 1931) and Batukeshwar Dutt (1910-1965) threw a of the mother who is Swadesh. Lay a few flowers bomb to protest against the passage of the Public before her, pour out a little water in Her name’. Safety Bill and Trade Disputes Bill. Surya Sen (1894- ‘Let us realise all that our country has done for 1934), a Bengali revolutionary of the Chittagong us—how she has given us birth and food and group, proclaimed the Provisional Revolutionary friends, our beloved ones, and our faith itself. Is Government while chanting Vande Mataram. she not indeed our mother?’

The song was first sung at the annual session of Anti-colonial protests and movements in the 19th Indian National Congress (estbd. 1885) held at century were stimulated by a number of factors— Calcutta in 1896. It became controversial when the political subjugation, impoverishment of peasantry, Party came to power in six of the eleven provinces drainage of wealth, repressive land revenue of British India in 1937. After independence it settlements, destruction of indigenous industries, acquired the status of a national song. The idea racial discrimination, cultural subordination, of India (Bharatavarsha) as mother, pervaded spread of western education, the influx of the entire course of the freedom struggle and democratic, liberal and rational ideas, new means had its roots in the ancient aphorism: Janani of transport and communication, rise of new social janambhumishcha swargadapi gariyasi, which classes, socio-religious reform movements and the means that ‘Mother and Motherland are greater emergence of new political leadership. than even heaven.’ Women did not have much role to play in the pre- It received a boost when Swami Dayananda (1824- Mutiny uprisings in India—of Sannyasis of Bengal 1883), founder of the Arya Samaj (Bombay, 1875), and Bihar (1763-1800), of peasants of Rangpur asserted that foreign rule, howsoever good was (1783), of Poiligars of Carnatic (1801-5), of Killadars worse than indigenous rule, howsoever bad it of Bundelkhand (1800-12) or of Kols (1831-32), was. Both in his lectures and writings, Swami Faraizis (1838-51), Mappilas (1836-54) and Santhals Vivekananda (1863-1902) described Bharatavarsha (1855-56), which were concerned with peasant and as motherland, the punyabhumi or ‘land of virtue’, tribal issues, and were more or less localised in hallowed by saints and sages of yore. His ardent character. However, women of royal households disciple, Sister Nivedita (Margaret Elizabeth Noble) showed valour during the Rising of 1857. Both perceived India not as a congeries of states but as Maharani Lakshmi Bai (1828-1858) of Jhansi and ‘one living reality’, a motherland (matribhumi). Rani of Ramgarh (d. 1858) put a heroic fight against the British; the former died while fighting in the Sister Nivedita (1867-1911) was the first western battlefield; the latter after realising that she could woman to be initiated into an Indian monastic order. She came into contact with Swami Vivekananda in England in 1895 when she was the “Let us realise all that headmistress of the Ruskin School, member of the ‘Free Ireland’ group and Secretary of the Sesame our country has done for Club. After coming to India in January 1898, she opened a Girls’ School in Calcutta (1898), helped us—how she has given us the victims of bubonic plague (1899) and of famine and flood in East Bengal (1906), supported the birth and food and friends, Swadeshi Movement (1905) and inspired nationalist activity. When the singing of ‘Vande Mataram’ was our beloved ones, and our banned, she made the students of her school recite it as a daily prayer. faith itself. Is she not indeed our mother?”

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 81 not win against the strong might of her enemy, pierced a sword in her body to save her honour. Rani Tace Bai was deported to Monghyr (1858) and incarcerated for 12 years as she spearheaded a revolt in Mandala district (Madhya Pradesh).

Rani Jindan (1817-1863) was detained in Nepal as the British learnt about her correspondence with the Maharaja of Kashmir and others which revealed that she was secretly making plans to put up a united fight against the Raj. Begum Hazrat Mahal (1820-1879), wife of the deposed Nawab Wazid Ali Shah of Oudh, took refuge in Nepal after failing to resist the British troops. Many other women of nobility like Thakurani of Budri, Rani Digambar Koer, and Rani of Tikri offered oblations in the yajna of freedom.

The Rising of 1857 was suppressed but the embers of discontentment continued to smolder. Sir Annie Besant John Lawrence who became the first Viceroy of India in 1858 sensed the gravity of the situation and informed the Home Government: ‘Yes, India is quiet. As quiet as gun powder.’ Women participation in the annual sessions of the Indian National Congress (INC) was minimal in the beginning. They came from urban areas and attended it as visitors, observers, or wives of delegates.

At the annual Congress session of Allahabad (1888) some women gave their jewellery for party funds. At its Bombay session (1890) representatives of NGO’s like Women Christian Temperance Association, Bengali Ladies Association, Arya Mahila Samaj (Bombay) joined as delegates.

The most prominent among them were: Pandita Ramabai, a great social reformer, Swarna Kumari Devi, sister of Rabindranath Tagore, and Kadambani Ganguli, the first woman student of Medical College, Calcutta. Ganguli was officially deputed to felicitate the Congress President, Sir Gandhi and Rajkumari Amrit Kaur Pherozeshah Mehta. Elite women like Hemant Kumari Sukul, Sushila Mazumdar and Hemant Kumari Chaudharani were present on this occasion. In 1901, Swam Kumari Devi, President of the women wing of Theosophical Society, attended the Calcutta session of the Congress to understand its objectives.

The first woman delegate from North India was Miss Jessie Royce, a medical specialist from Ambala who made her presence felt at Bombay in 1890. Another lady of prominence was Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (1889-1964) who entered national politics under the guidance of Gopalkrishan Gokhale (1866-1915), a moderate Congress leader, and later served as Secretary to Mahatma Gandhi for sixteen years. Few women figure as delegates in the official records of the Congress in the pre- Gandhian period. Moreover, they did not wield much influence till Annie Besant (1847-1933), Sarojini Naidu a theosophist leader of Irish origin who made

82 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 India her second home, became the first woman President of the Congress in 1917 followed by Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) in 1925, the first Indian “Swadeshi, originally woman to hold this office.

Annie Besant claimed that she had been a Hindu thought of as merely the in her previous birth. She launched the Home Rule movement in 1916 and, like her compatriot, Bal boycott of foreign goods, Gangadhar Tilak (1856-1920) campaigned for Swaraj or self rule ‘from Village Council through district gradually acquired a and Municipal Boards and Provincial Legislative Assemblies to a National Parliament’. comprehensive meaning, She argued that it was better to have ‘bullock carts and it became the and freedom’ than ‘a train deluxe with subjection’. She preached Swaraj and Swadeshi through virtual doorway to the her lectures and writings, and launched The Commonwealth, a weekly and New India (earlier movement for Swaraj Madras Standard), a daily paper, to fulfill her mission. She believed that India had great potential in terms of men and resources, ‘far greater than or self rule.” America’ and that if granted self rule, it could be helpful in countering German militarism effectively. decade. Sarojini Naidu took an active part in Although she was an inveterate critic of the British Gandhian Satyagraha movements and underwent bureaucracy in India, and received occasional imprisonment. She supported the Gurdwara warnings, she did not intend to sever ties with Reform Movement of Akali-Sikhs in Punjab and Great Britain, and wanted the Congress to help stood for Hindu-Muslim unity. She was an official the government in implementing the Montague delegate to the second Round Table Conference Chelmsford Reforms of 1919. She dubbed the Non- (1931) in London after the signing of the Gandhi- Cooperation Movement of Mahatma Gandhi in 1920, Irwin Pact (1931). as a rebellious act, but supported the resolution on Dominion Status at the All Parties Conference, eight She visited many countries including England, years later. Her vast erudition and great ideals, South Africa, Canada and the U.S. and lectured on intense love for India and its heritage, and her role various subjects ranging from the ideals of Indian in socio-political awakening has few parallels. womanhood to the miserable plight of Indians in India and abroad. Her amiable disposition, Unlike Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu, was a eloquence, literary flights, and depth of feeling and staunch Gandhian besides being a poetess concern for the downtrodden sections of society (Kokila, ‘Nightingale’ of India), social activist, made her popular even outside Congress circles. and a defender of women rights. Inspired by Sarojini Naidu was a nationalist to the core and Margaret Cousins (1878-1954), she led a delegation considered herself ‘a loyal daughter of Bharat of fourteen women leaders to Lord Montague, Mata’. The extent of participation of women in Secretary of State for India and submitted a national movement differed from place to place and memorandum soliciting the enfranchisement of from time to time. women on an equal basis with men. Initially, the elite women in Presidency towns This was followed by a number of requisitions alone were conscious of the exploitative aspects to the Southborough Committee by women of the British Raj. Women in Bengal were the first organisations like Women Graduates Union of to condemn the Vernacular Press Act (1878) of Bombay, Women’s branch of the Home Rule Lord Lytton (1876-1880) and to express gratitude to League, Bharat Istri Mandal, Bombay Women’s his successor, Lord Ripon (1880-84) for repealing India Association, and others. The demand for it, through the platform of the Indian National enfranchisement of women was turned aside on Association established by Surendranath Bannerji the plea that Indian society was not prepared (1848-1925) with Anandmohan Bose. Enlightened for it. Sarojini Naidu and Annie Besant pleaded women like Kamini Sen and Abala Das along with the case again before the Joint Parliamentary the youth of Bethune School, Calcutta, expressed Committee in England in 1919, and tried to build public resentment against the withdrawal of the public opinion for the same with the support of Ilbert Bill (1883) which could have ensured judicial Herabai A. Tata, General Secretary of Bombay equality between Indian and European judges. Women’s India Association. When Surendranath Bannerji was sentenced In 1921, Madras became the first province to to two months imprisonment for contempt of enfranchise women though in a restricted way, court, consequent to his observations in The followed by other provinces, in less than a Bengalee (founded 1879), women consoled his

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 83 wife, Chandidasi Devi, and supported his cause. It was marked by hartals, demonstrations and There were protests and demonstrations across violent incidents, culminating in the Jallianwala Bengal, especially in northern and western parts Bagh massacre in Amritsar on April 13, of India. In times to come, even lower-middle class 1919. General Dyer with his troops had fired women came into the open to protest against the indiscriminately on men, women and children government policies, whenever an occasion arose. assembled in the Bagh, leaving 379 persons dead and 1200 wounded, according to an official Women, in many parts of India, took active part in estimate. Subsequent to this ghastly episode, the Swadeshi and boycott movements, discarding Martial Law was imposed in Punjab, and public foreign jewellery, clothes, kitchen appliances, flogging, or harassment or molestation of women glass utensils, paper, refined sugar, etc., and became common in Lahore, Gujranwala, Kasur and joined protest meetings, picketing groups and other places. This clearly revealed Great Britain’s public processions with patriotic zeal. Swadeshi, intention to rule India ‘not only by force but by originally thought of as merely the boycott of bloodshed.’ Sarla Devi (1872-1945), Sarojini Naidu foreign goods, gradually acquired a comprehensive and other enlightened women publicly condemned meaning, and it became the virtual doorway to the this ghastly act. movement for Swaraj or self rule. The emergence of Mahatma Gandhi on the political The beginning of the 20th century witnessed scene increased the level and extent of women agrarian unrest fuelled by inflationary trends, rising participation, and brought them on the national prices, famine and plague, oppression of peasantry, scene. He was convinced that women symbolised exploitation of rural resources by the government, power (shakti) but had become oblivious of it, increase in land revenue and water rates in the and allowed themselves to be exploited by men. He canal irrigated areas, and the Land Alienation Act castigated men for ill-treating women, for (1900) Amendment Bill (1907) which restricted depriving them of initiative, and of feeling of self agriculturalists to sell land without government respect. “Of all the evils for which man has made permission. S. Denzil Ibbetson, Lt. Governor himself responsible, none to me, is so degrading, of Punjab, saw in these developments, the so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better forebodings of another revolt. The establishment half of humanity, the female sex, not the weaker of an organisation, named Bharat Mata Sabha sex’, he wrote. Women were nobler than men (Lahore, 1907) by S. Ajit Singh (1881-1947) and his ‘and even today the embodiment of sacrifice, elder brother S. Kishan Singh, Sufi Amba Prasad silent suffering, humility, faith and knowledge.’ (1858-1919), Mehta Anand Kishore, Lala Pindi He regarded Sita, wife of the legendary king, Sri Das and others, clearly shows that the ‘Mother’ Ramachandra of Ayodhya as the ideal role-model principle was invoked to unite nationalists against for women. He goaded women from affluent the British Raj. When Lala Lajpat Rai (1865-1928) families to work for the amelioration of the poor, and S. Ajit Singh were deported to Mandalay (June rural and low caste women. 2, 1907), women showed resentment by registering protests till their release after about six months. Mahatma Gandhi considered women the incarnation of Ahimsa. To him Ahimsa meant The war years witnessed a number of infinite capacity for suffering. ‘Who but women, the developments which had a direct bearing on mother of men, show this capacity in the largest the Indian national movement. More than 300% measure?’ he argued. Carrying the argument increase in defense expenditure, price rise, further, he observed that women could become unemployment, heavy taxes etc., added to the ‘the leader in Satyagraha which does not require woes of people. The Home Rule league movements the learning that books give but does require the of Annie Besant (September 25, 1915) and Bal stout heart that comes from suffering and faith.’ Gangadhar Tilak (April 28, 1916), Lucknow Pact (1916) which brought about a rapprochement Mahatma Gandhi felt that women were stronger between Congress and Muslim League, Lord than men, in the finer sense of the term. ‘If by Montague’s declaration (1917) that responsible strength is meant brute strength, then indeed government would gradually dawn in India, Russian woman is less brute than man. If by strength is Revolution (1917) which ousted the Czarist regime meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably and the Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson man’s superior.’ He argued that moral persuasion (January 8, 1918) which included the right to self rather than force, was akin to the innate nature of determination for subject countries, seemed to women, and that India could spin her way to Swaraj augur well for the future. However, the inadequacy with their active support. of Montague Chelmsford Reforms led to a wave of indignation which compelled the government to (to be concluded) pass the Rowlatt Bills in the teeth of opposition from Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress. Satish K. Kapoor, an Ex British Council Scholar in History at SOAS (University of London), Local The anti-Rowlatt Act agitation in Punjab was Secretary, Dayanand Institutions, Solapur, India spurred by Mahatma Gandhi’s call for Satyagraha. Source: Bhavan’s Journal, April 30, 2011

84 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 The passion that India has for cricket is greater than any other country has for any sport

For a month-and-a-half beginning Saturday, February 19, 2011 India was obsessed, engrossed and riveted. The object of this extreme emotion was, of course, the cricket World Cup. A complex game, cricket has three mainstream formats: Why India is • Test match cricket, which lasts five days • One-day cricket, which sees teams bat 50 overs each and is sometimes called Fifty50 or F50 cricket Crazy about • A new, brash and abbreviated version that sees teams bat 20 overs each and is often called Twenty20 or T20 cricket.

Cricket Between February 19 and April 2 this year, India co-hosted the World Cup. Immediately after that staged the planet’s richest cricket tournament: the Indian Premier League, India’s flagship T20 event. At the beginning of 2011, India toured South Africa for a series of test matches. Later in the year, it will play top-line test series against England and Australia. In a country that needs few excuses not to immerse itself in cricket lore, 2011 is an extraordinary bonanza. It’s a 12-month festival of quality cricket.

They say you can never understand a society without understanding its major sport. At one point, baseball defined the Middle American dream and the idyllic self-image of the towns and cities of the vast American heartland. Today, the English Premier League is not just emblematic of English football but also of British multiculturalism—it attracts talent from all continents.

That each of the three versions of cricket has a market in India is indicative perhaps of the multiply rhythms of this land and of the many Indias that exist under that one political identity. The languid, never-ending test match could, at the end of five days, leave you with nothing but a thrilling draw.

The F50 game speaks of a broader, smaller, city India which still has limited entertainment and economic options and so can pack a stadium for an entire day. The T20 revolution, with its attendant razzmatazz, is the ideal product for the metropolitan crowd, a direct rival to the three- hour film and tailored to audiences that have more money than time and are in tune with the business and leisure principles of the developed world.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 85 Cricket Fever: Crowds support the Indian team in a match against New Zealand

Newspaper front pages on February 25, 2010, a day after Tendulkar scored a double century in a one-day match

“Cricket is the great leveller in India. It unites regions and religions, social variants and economic diversities. It is what binds the business tycoon and the shop-floor worker”

86 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 With no other international cultural product Preity Zinta cheers for Kings XI cricket still calls the shots. Seventy percent of Punjab at an IPL Match global cricket revenues are generated in India. Australia sets its cricket calendar to match India’s; England wants Indian players in its domestic tournaments to make its county games worth the while for Indian television channels and audiences; West Indies cricket authorities wait for an Indian tour to make money by selling television rights and in-stadia advertising contracts to Indian companies. Cricket is not just India’s sport; it’s India’s power trip.

The politics and the money of cricket are important no doubt, but not as compelling as the hunger and devotion of the ordinary cricket fan. India is united by cricket, curry and cinema. Listening to radio commentary, stealing a glance at the television in the middle of a busy day at office, asking the next man on the street if he knows the score, rushing home from school or work to catch a game being set up for a close finish: every Indian has many such experiences, many such confessions.

In 2008, when the first IPL was played to Which individual, which demographic and which unbelievable enthusiasm, the state of Karnataka in geography follows which type of cricket? The south India was in the midst of legislative elections. answer is a snapshot introduction to the Indian— Political parties had to end public meetings early any Indian—you’re interrogating. It’s almost as fail- because people—voters—wanted to leave and proof as a marketing survey. catch the evening’s IPL game on television. This is not an apocryphal story; it actually happened. Why is India so cricket-focussed? Modern sport is not an amateur pastime but hard commerce. Cricket is the great leveller in India. It unites A large economy—the United States, Australia— regions and religions, social variants and economic can sustain and support many sports. As such, diversities. It is what binds the business tycoon baseball, basketball, American football and golf and the shop-floor worker. Along with the film may all be lucrative in the US. India offers the industry -perhaps politics as well, in a certain kind strange case of an economy that is now big enough of way—it offers the most evocative and salient to shore up more than one sport but a society that vehicle of social mobility. In a land of faith and is still essentially a one-sport phenomenon. This spiritualism, cricket is a self-renewing religion. causes it to over-invest in cricket. Consequently, the game and its practitioners attract India, the World Cup Winner and IPL 2011 disproportionate media and spectator interest, On Sunday, April 3, 2011, the final match of the sponsorship money and advertisement revenue. ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 was played between Why is India cricket fanatic to the extent of ignoring India and Sri Lanka at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. other sports? The fact is cricket offers the rare India won the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 by 6 example of sustained good performance by Indian wickets. The crowd celebrated the victory and players and teams in any sport. Tennis has the there were some emotional scenes in the ground occasional Leander Paes or Sania Mirza, badminton in the Indian team after winning the cup in 28 years the lone world-beater in Saina Nehwal. Indian gap. Dhoni was awarded the Man of the match athletics produces the odd track and field star. for his brilliant 91 runs in 79 balls. Yuvraj Singh The hockey team wins a big tournament about with 15 wickets and 361 runs was given the Player once a decade. Individual golfers are slowly of the Tournament award. After World Cup 2011, climbing the ladder on the tour. Yet, none of IPL 2011 was declared open in Chennai at the MA th these comes close to the conveyor belt regularity Chidambaram Stadium on 8 April. of cricket stars and skills. This Article is based on Why India is Crazy About Capital breeds capital. The fact that money is Cricket by Ashok Malik, a senior columnist based poured into cricket makes it an attractive career in New Delhi with a passion for cricket, India path for young Indian sportsmen. This makes Perspectives Vol 25, No. 1, March 2011, team selection tough and, to the degree possible, www.cricket2011worldcup.com, www.iplt20.com. meritocratic. In turn, this leads to successful teams, mass interest and still more money pouring in.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 87 AWAKENING INDIA

India’s Functioning Anarchy

New Delhi—Every year, during India’s rainy season, before the House adjourned for the day, with no there is, equally predictably, a “monsoon session” item of legislative business transacted. of Parliament. And, every year, there seems to be increasing debate about which is stormier—the That, unfortunately, is often par for the course weather or the legislature. in India’s parliament, many of whose opposition members appear to believe that disrupting Consider the current session, which began on proceedings, rather than delivering a convincing August 1. The opening day was adjourned, in argument, is the most effective way to make their keeping with traditional practice, to mourn the points. Last winter, an entire five-week session death between sessions of a sitting member of was lost without a single day’s work, because the parliament. But the adjournment did not come opposition parties united to stall the House, forcing before a routine courtesy greeting to the visiting adjournments every day. There has not been a Speaker of Sri Lanka’s parliament was interrupted single session in recent years in which at least by Tamil MPs from a regional party, who rose some days were not lost to deliberate disruption. to their feet to shout demands for his expulsion because of his government’s behaviour towards It wasn’t always this way. Indian politicians that country’s Tamil minority. The errant MPs were were initially proud of the Westminster-style rapidly silenced, and the visitor received a table- parliamentary system that they adopted upon thumping welcome from the rest of the House. Independence. India’s nationalists were determined to enjoy the democracy that their colonial rulers Matters were not so swiftly resolved, however, had denied them, and convinced themselves the next day. No sooner had a newly-elected that the British system was best. When a future member taken his oath than a number of MPs British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, travelled to from the Bahujan Samaj Party, which rules India’s India as part of a constitutional commission and largest state, Uttar Pradesh, stormed into the argued the merits of a presidential system over a well of the House, shouting slogans and waving parliamentary one, his Indian interlocutors reacted placards in protest against the government’s land- with horror. “It was as if,” Attlee recalled, “I had acquisition policies. offered them margarine instead of butter.”

The Speaker attempted for a few minutes to get Many of India’s new MPs—several of whom had them to return to their seats, then gave up and been educated in England and observed British adjourned the session for an hour. When the MPs parliamentary traditions with admiration—revealed reassembled, the opposition members—now joined in the authenticity of their ways. Indian MPs still by MPs from a rival regional party—marched thump their desks, rather than clap their hands, towards the Speaker’s desk, making even more in approbation. When bills are put to a vote, an noise. After a few more ineffectual minutes of trying affirmative call is still “aye,” rather than “yes.” to be heard above the din, the Speaker adjourned An Anglophile Communist MP, Hiren Mukherjee, Parliament again. One more attempt was made boasted in the 1950’s that British Prime Minister

88 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Anthony Eden had commented to him that the Perhaps this makes sense, for it allows the Indian parliament was in every respect like opposition some space in a system in which the British one. Even to a Communist, it was party-line voting determines most legislative a proud moment. outcomes. Four decades ago, in more genteel times, an opposition legislator once ended a debate But six decades of independence have wrought whose outcome was a foregone conclusion, with significant change, as exposure to British practices the words, “We have the arguments. You have has faded and India’s natural boisterousness has the votes.” Years later, the same MP, Atal Behari reasserted itself. Some of the state assemblies Vajpayee, became Prime Minister, and took pride in in India’s federal system have already witnessed giving the opposition as much leeway as possible. scenes of furniture upended, microphones ripped out, and slippers flung by unruly legislators, not to The result is a curiously Indian institution, whose mention fistfights and garments torn in scuffles. prevailing standards of behaviour would not be tolerated in most parliamentary systems. In India’s While things have not yet gone so far in the Parliament, many members feel that the best way national legislature, the code of conduct that is to show the strength of their feelings is to disrupt imparted to all newly-elected MPs—including the lawmaking rather than debate the law. The injunctions against speaking out of turn, shouting Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who slogans, waving placards, and marching into the served under President Kennedy as US Ambassador well of the House—is routinely hounored in the to India, described the country as a “functioning breach. Equally striking is the impunity with anarchy.” We need look no further than the temple which lawmakers flout the rules that they are of Indian democracy to see it in action. sworn to uphold. Shashi Tharoor, a former Indian Minister of State There was a time when misbehaviour was dealt for External Affairs and UN Under-Secretary with firmly. One of my abiding recollections from General, is a member of India’s childhood was the photograph of a burly Parliament and the Author of Socialist parliamentarian, Raj Narain, a former several books, including, most wrestler, being bodily carried out of the House recently, Nehru: the Invention by four sergeants-at-arms for shouting out of of India (in German). turn and disobeying the Speaker’s orders to return to his seat. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010, But, over the years, standards have been allowed www.project-syndicate.org to slide, with adjournments being preferred to expulsions. Last year, five MPs in the upper house of India’s parliament were suspended for charging up to the presiding officer’s desk, wrenching his microphone and tearing up his papers. But, after a few months and some muted apologies, they were quietly reinstated.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 89 THE NEW POWER GAME

Asia’s BRICs Hit the Wall

New Delhi: India’s democratic credentials do not Rising interest rates, high inflation, and severe impress Francis Fukuyama, who two decades ago policy gridlock amid a spate of government prophesied the “end of history,” as being a catalyst corruption scandals have impeded both for the country’s economic growth. Fukuyama finds foreign and domestic investment in India, thus excessive “patronage politics and fractiousness” slowing economic growth to a level that is in India—flaws that stand in stark contrast to below its potential. An unpredictable regulatory China’s speedier, though not necessarily cleaner, environment, inadequate infrastructure, and a political system. sluggish, monsoon-dependent agricultural sector are adding to the economy’s problems. The reality is, however, somewhat different. China’s local governments have been accumulating Clearly, economic turbulence is roiling both of mountains of debt to fund their construction Asia’s major economies, the giants of the so- binges, raising serious concerns about potential called BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). defaults. Premier Wen Jiabao himself recognizes Consider inflation. On July 6, the People’s Bank of the urgent need to address the country’s China raised its benchmark interest rate for the inequitable growth, calling for means to be found fifth time since October 2010. This has generated to “share prosperity evenly,” and thus to reduce apprehension about property markets, and fear the widening gaps between “rich and poor, cities that local governments could default on part of and countryside.” their staggering debt of $1.65 trillion.

The economist Nouriel Roubini has predicted that In India, the government’s failure to contain China’s economy will most likely slow sometime rising prices, pursue structural economic reforms between 2013 and 2015, the point at which its vigorously, attract foreign direct investment, fixed-asset investments of nearly 50% of GDP advance infrastructure development, manage will demand social and monetary returns. Until expenditure, and avoid liquidity crunches now, says Roubini, China’s export-led growth underscores the many challenges it faces. has depended on “making things that the rest of Moreover, a continued standoff between the the world wants, at a price that no other country government and the opposition has weakened can match,” a consequence of cheap labor and political effectiveness, further undermining India’s economies of scale. This cost advantage is growth prospects. diminishing fast. Indeed, India’s core challenge remains political. India is facing severe difficulties as well, but of a With food prices rising sharply, the poor are different nature. For example, outward investment being hit the hardest, fueling greater poverty, by Indian companies is expanding fast. Some inequality, and resentment. But the same is true in believe that this is a natural development for China: anti-inflation protests are now roiling both a rising power, but critics view outward countries, owing mainly to rising energy, food, and investment as a reflection of the scarcity of raw-material prices, with food accounting for opportunities at home. one-third of household spending in China and around 45% in India.

90 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 The fear now in both countries is that inflation whose performance is not dependent on exports shocks could turn into a self-reinforcing price and low domestic wages. India must find other spiral. As the IMF cautions, “core inflation— drivers of economic modernization than new excluding commodities—has risen from 2% to information technologies (as welcome as these 3.75%, suggesting that inflation is broadening.” are). Workers in both countries are now demanding better living standards—a demand that even One reason that Indian prices are rising is that China’s tightly controlled political system infrastructure growth remains sluggish. Progress cannot ignore. on roads, railways, and power projects—all of which could prevent food from perishing India, for its part, needs to open up its economy prematurely, and energy and commodities from further in order to take advantage of its continuing being unnecessarily wasted—is essential to rapid population growth and the ongoing changes stabilizing prices. in the structure of the global economy. It must recommit itself to feeding its population—and thus China, meanwhile, finds itself at a critical to attaining its stated objective of a “Second Green juncture. Its leadership will change next year— Revolution” in agriculture. at a time when income inequality is on the march and the Party lacks any consensus on how to China and India have used very different political stop it. Given that less than 9% of China’s ruling models to achieve their ambitious GDP-growth communist party members are actually “workers” targets. Nonetheless, as their economies mature, nowadays, the regime’s leaders must be even both will need to embrace structural change— more uncomfortable with growing inequality. But, and to address the challenges of overdue in the absence of serious political reform, income political reforms. inequality will widen as crony capitalism sinks its roots more deeply. Jaswant Singh, a former Foreign Minister, Finance Minister, and Defence Minister of India, is a India and China both need a renewed commitment member of the opposition in to structural reform to sustain their economic India’s Parliament. He is the growth. Cheap labor and monetary management Author of Jinnah: India— will not do the trick on their own. The credibility Partition—Independence. that both governments gained after their countries avoided the worst of the global financial crisis of Copyright: Project 2008 is beginning to wear thin. For, as inflationary Syndicate, 2010, fears in the BRIC giants grow, second thoughts www.project-syndicate.org about the shift in the world economy’s center of gravity are beginning to gain currency.

What both countries need are short-term corrections and long-term structural changes. China needs to prepare itself for an economy

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 91 IN SEARCH OF DYNAMISM

Washington and the Art of the Possible

Chicago: These days, the United States media are full of ordinary Americans venting their rage at the incompetence and immaturity of their politicians. Even though the US government’s debt limit was raised in the nick of time, the process was—and remains—fraught with risk. Why, the public asks, can’t politicians sit down together like sensible adults and come up with a timely agreement that commands broad consensus? If we can balance our household budgets, they ask irately, why can’t our political leaders?

The reality, though, is that US politicians reflect the views of the American electorate—views that are fundamentally inconsistent. The absence of broad consensus is no wonder. Indeed, the last-minute agreement to raise the debt ceiling is proof that the politicians did what they were sent to Washington to do: represent their constituencies and only compromise in the interests of the country as a whole.

The key question is whether the political gridlock exposed by the debt-ceiling debate will worsen in the run-up to the 2012 presidential

92 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 and congressional elections—if not beyond. the benefits that they promised. Unless the growth That is possible, but we should not overlook of these entitlement programs is curbed now, cause for hope in what America’s politicians just today’s young will pay dearly for that mistake, in accomplished. the form of higher taxes now and lower benefits when they are old. Let’s start with why the electorate is so polarized. There are two key divisive factors: income and But the elderly are politically active and powerful. age. Income inequality has been growing in the US Not only do many defend their entitlements over the last three decades, largely because the strongly; some oppose growth in other types of labor market has increasingly demanded skills that public spending for fear that it will weaken the the education system has been unable to supply. government’s ability to pay for the benefits that The everyday consequence for the middle class they believe they are owed. is a stagnant paycheck and growing employment insecurity, as the old economy of well-paying low- These then are the roots of America fiscal impasse, skilled jobs with good benefits withers away. which has produced passionate constituencies viscerally opposed to compromise. Any political Until the financial crisis, the easy availability of deal significantly before the debt-ceiling deadline credit, especially against home equity, enabled the would have exposed politicians to charges of middle class to sustain higher consumption despite betrayal from their constituents. And, given that stagnant incomes. With the collapse of the housing President Barack Obama would ultimately be held bubble, many people lost their jobs and health responsible for a default, he needed the deal more insurance, risked losing their homes, and than the Republicans did. So he had to coerce his suddenly had little reason for economic party into accepting a deal full of spending cuts and optimism. The response from America’s devoid of tax increases. Democratic Party, which has traditionally represented this constituency, was to promise Will the deal deliver what it promises? A bipartisan affordable universal health care and more committee has to propose $1.5 trillion in deficit education spending, while also protecting reduction by the end of this year, and Congress government jobs and entitlement programs. must either accept that proposal, or see immediate, politically painful expenditure cuts, which would When added up, such spending is unaffordable, include defence spending—an area that America’s especially with current federal revenues at just Republicans care about strongly. 15% of GDP. The solution for many Democrats is to raise revenues by taxing the rich. But the rich are If this structure works as advertised, Congress not the idle rich of the past; they are the working will be forced to reach a compromise, which can rich. To balance the budget only by taxing the rich be sold once again by politicians to their polarized will require a significant increase in income taxes, constituencies as being necessary to avoid a to the point that it would lower incentives for work worse outcome. This time, Obama’s Democrats and entrepreneurial activity considerably. will be on a level playing field, because both parties will be held equally responsible for a This is not to say that taxes on the rich cannot be failure to reach a deal. increased at all; but such increases cannot be the primary way of balancing the budget. Republicans, Ultimately, the big necessary decisions on curbing trying to give voice to many working Americans’ entitlement growth and reforming the tax code will ambient uneasiness with rising government probably have to wait until after the next election, expenditures, as well as to the growing anger of giving the divided electorate an opportunity to the working rich, find it easier to defend a principle reflect on its own inconsistency and send a clearer than a particular constituency. Hence their mantra: message. In the meantime, US politicians might no additional taxes. have done just about enough to convince debt markets that America’s credit is still good. For that, The neat divide based on income is muddled by the Americans—and others around the world—should elderly. It is understandable that older Americans stop pillorying them and give them their due credit. who have few savings want to protect their Social Security and Medicare benefits. However, even Raghuram Rajan, a former Chief Economist of elderly Tea Party Republicans, who are typically the IMF, is Professor of Finance at the University against big government, defend these programs of Chicago and the Author of because they view them as a form of property right, Fault Lines: paid for when they worked. How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the In truth, rising life expectancy and growing World Economy. health-care costs mean that today’s elderly have contributed only a fraction of what they expect Copyright: to receive from Social Security and Medicare. The Project Syndicate, 2011, government made a mistake in the past by not www.project-syndicate.org raising taxes to finance these programs or reducing

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 93 reader.com

AFL India - Participating in International Cup in as well as the AFL India players to take part in a Sydney and Melbourne curtain raiser to their, Intra-school soccer final.

AFL India team had participated in the International AFL India are planning to involve the 100 plus Cup 2008 held in Melbourne which was supported schools of Bhavan’s group to start with, and by Bhavan Australia. Kolkata and Raipur have already been involved. Both of them are eager and willing to lend This year AFL India will have a team of 30 players supporting hands, to use their school premises for and 4 support staff including a coach ready for the development purposes. 2011 AFL International Cup. They have approached us for supporting the team stay in Sydney from 11 to 22 August 2011. India’s participation in this year’s International Cup is very important, to set a platform to carry the work forward. reader.com Note: We invite frank opinion from our readers. Last time Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan School in Saltlake, Kolkata invited the AFL India members

Advertise With Us!

Advertising in Bhavan Australia offers the best opportunity to brand your company and showcase your products and/or services in a cultural and ethical editorial environment.

Bhavan Australia is the platform to hold aloft the best of Indian traditions and at the same time encouraging the multiculturalism integration.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

94 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Bhavan’s Untold Stories of children King Bhoja

Greatness of Prayag This time the siddha opened his eyes and replied: ‘You are a dharmic king. Your That brahmin was born to King Suryakanta and just rule and conduct are commendable. I may say Queen Padmavati as their son who later became you have no parallel in the whole world. Is it not famous as King Bhoja. The four women too because of kings like you that we people are able became Bhoja’s queens with the names Sugandhi, to perform tapas fearlessly and unhindered? I owe Padmagandhi, Kamavati and Chandraprabha. you a duty. You, your ministers-in-waiting and the Bhoja, as you know, was a great poet, had a very soldiers with whom you have come to my place are attractive body, and was well-versed in all the arts. my guests. It is my pleasant duty to play the host to He ruled over the Lata country from his capital, you all.’ Dhara, for a long time. So saying, the siddha climbed down the tree. On Bhoja meets Sarpati his coming near, King Bhoja prostrated before him devoutly. Later Bhoja asked: ‘May I have the King Maha who was listening to this narration privilege of knowing your holy name, deva? ‘Listen, asked Sage Dattatreya in turn: “Sage! I am blessed King. Do yogis have names, places, family and other indeed to know from your sacred mouth the paraphernalia? Yet, I do not want to hide mine from greatness of Prayag. May I now request you to you. My elders used to call me Sarpati,’ replied tell me all about King Bhoja and how he ruled the the siddha. As soon as they settled down, Sarpati country?” “With great pleasure,” replied the sage closed his eyes and contemplated on the celestial and told this absorbing story. cow, Kamadhenu, whereupon large quantities of excellent food appeared before the party and all of King Bhoja ruled the country in the highest them ate it with relish till their bellies refused to traditions of the ancient rulers of this country. entertain more. There was no comfort unprovided He had mastered all the 64 arts. In fact, it is at this function. well-nigh impossible to describe adequately his accomplishments. Even as people saw him, they King Bhoja and party, spent the night under the became endowed with the faculty of lisping in banyan tree and when the day broke, started numbers. He had learnt the extraordinary science towards the capital. At that time Bhoja requested of alchemy by which all baser metals could be the siddha: ‘May I invite you, Deva, to come along transformed into gold. The life of Bhoja is as sacred with me and pay a visit to my capital?’ On this the as the life of Sri Ramachandra, His capital city, siddha replied: ‘King! Do you not know that the Dhara, provided all the amenities of life. It was a right place for tapasvins is the forest and that their beehive of poets. In the villages of Lata, Yagnas right foods are fruits, roots and bulbs? Is it then were performed daily. right for them to go to cities? ‘Sire! Is it right for you to tell that to me? Is not my abode your own? One day King Bhoja went deep into the forest in the Am I not your disciple? Please deign to accede to course of a hunting expedition. A small party of his my request and visit my place’, pleaded Bhoja. followers was with him. On the way he saw a large ‘May God bless you! I do not want to say ‘no’ to banyan tree. Its size and age made him wonder at you. I accept your invitation’, replied the siddha it. Intending to take rest, he sat for a while under and started off. King Bhoja made the siddha sit on its cool shade. While looking about him, he noticed the royal elephant, and himself rode on a pedigree- a siddha performing a terrific form of penance horse, as the party moved towards the palace. by holding himself upside down on one of the branches of this giant tree. Reaching the portals of the city, the party went in procession round the city when the women of Thought he: ‘Who could this great tapasvin the city collected in their balconies and feasted be? If I address him, may be, his tapas will be their eyes on the manly form of their king and disturbed and he may get angry. Well, why doubt sang his praise. unnecessarily? Let me call him.’ So deciding, he addressed the siddha: ‘O Mahatma! Who may you be and why do you perform this terrific To be continued… form of tapas?’ The siddha no doubt heard him V.A.K. Ayer but remained silent as though he had not heard. Bhoja addressed him again: ‘Great man! I am Bhoja Source: Untold Stories of King Bhoja, Bhavan’s addressing you. Please look at me and bless me!’ Book University, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 95 From Bhavan’s Journal July 23, 1961 Reprinted in Bhavan’s Journal July 31, 2011

does so merely with a sort of intellectual pride, Students and Prayer thinking that he is more patriotic, thinking that he -Mahatma Gandhi is something higher than those who do not call themselves by that name. A Tamil saying has always remained in my memory, and it means: “God is the Help of the helpless”. If If you are going to be a Nationalist, if you are going you would ask Him to help you, you would go to to assent to this religion of Nationalism, you must Him in all your nakedness, approach Him without do it in the religious spirit. You must remember reservations, also without fear of doubts as to how that you are the instrument of God...... He can help a fallen being like you. He who has helped millions who have approached Him, is He But certain forces which are against that religion going to desert you? are trying to crush its rising strength. It always happens when a new religion is preached, when He makes no exception whatsoever, and you God is going to be born in the people, that such will find that everyone of your prayers will be forces rise with all their weapons in their hands to answered. But prayer is no mere exercise of words crush the religion.....Nationalism is not going to be or of the ears, it is no mere repetition of empty crushed. formula. Any amount of repetition of Ramanama is futile, if it fails to stir the soul. It is better in prayer Nationalism survives in the strength of God and it to have a heart without words, than words without is not possible to crush it, whatever weapons are a heart. It must be in clear response to the spirit brought against it. which hungers for it. And even as a hungry man Nationalism is immortal; Nationalism cannot die; relishes a hearty meal, a hungry soul will relish a because it is no human thing, it is God who is heartfelt prayer. working. God cannot be killed. God cannot be sent Prayer is the greatest binding force, making for the to jail. When these things happen among you, I say solidarity and oneness of the human family. If a to you solemnly, what will you do? It is a solemn person realises his unity with God through prayer, thing; and suppose that God puts you this question, he will look upon everybody as himself. There will how will you answer it? be no high, no low, no narrow provincialisms or Have you got a real faith? Or is it merely a political petty rivalries in the matter of language between an aspiration? Andhra and Tamilian, a Kannadiga and a Malayalee. Is it merely a larger kind of selfishness? There will be no invidious distinction between a touchable and untouchable, a Hindu and a Or is it merely that you wish to be free to oppress Mussalman, a Parsi, a Christian or a Sikh. Similarly, others as you are being oppressed? Do you hold there would be no scramble for personal gain your political creed from a higher source? Is it God or power between various groups or between that is born in you? different members within a group. True prayer never goes unanswered. Have you realised that you are merely the instruments of God, that your bodies are not Who is a true Nationalist? yours? You are merely instruments of God for the work of the Almighty. Have you realised that? -Sri Aurobindo If you have realised that, then you are truly Nationalism is not a mere political programme; Nationalists; then alone will you be able to restore Nationalism is a religion that has come from God; this great nation.... Nationalism is a creed which you shall have to live. Let no man dare to call himself a Nationalist if he

< < < Flashback

96 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Charter of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia Bhavan) is a non-profit, non-religious, non- The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan ( political Non Government Organisation (NGO). Bhavan has been playing a crucial role in educational and cultural interactions in the world, holding aloft the best of Indian traditions and at the same time meeting the needs of modernity and multiculturalism. Bhavan’s ideal ‘is the whole world is but one family’ and its motto: ‘let noble thoughts come to us from all sides’.

Like Bhavan’s other centres around the world, Bhavan Australia facilitates intercultural activities and provides a forum for true understanding of Indian culture, multiculturalism and foster closer cultural ties among individuals, Governments and cultural institutions in Australia.

Bhavan Australia Charter derived from its constitution is:

• To advance the education of the public in: a) the cultures (both spiritual and temporal) of the world, b) literature, music, the dance, c) the arts, d) languages of the world, e) philosophies of the world.

• To foster awareness of the contribution of a diversity of cultures to the continuing development of multicultural society of Australia.

• To foster understanding and acceptance of the cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity of the Australian people of widely diverse heritages.

• To edit, publish and issue books, journals and periodicals, documentaries in Sanskrit, English and other languages, to promote the objects of the Bhavan or to impart or further education as authorized.

• To foster and undertake research studies in the areas of interest to Bhavan and to print and publish the results of any research which is undertaken.

www.bhavanaustralia.org

The Test of Bhavan’s Right to Exist

The test of Bhavan’s right to exist is whether those who work for it in different spheres and in different places and those who study in its many institutions can develop a sense of mission as would enable them to translate the fundamental values, even in a small measure, into their individual life.

Creative vitality of a culture consists in this: whether the ‘best’ among those who belong to it, however small their number, find self-fulfilment by living up to the fundamental values of our ageless culture.

It must be realised that the history of the world is a story of men who had faith in themselves and in their mission. When an age does not produce men of such faith, its culture is on its way to extinction. The real strength of the Bhavan, therefore, would lie not so much in the number of its buildings or institutions it conducts, nor in the volume of its assets and budgets, nor even in its growing publication, cultural and educational activities. It would lie in the character, humility, selflessness and dedicated work of its devoted workers, honorary and stipendiary. They alone can release the regenerative influences, bringing into play the invisible pressure which alone can transform human nature.

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 97 98 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011 Holy & Wise If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best kaamadhenugunaa vidyaa interest. hyakaale phaladaayinee -Franklin pravaase matrusadrushi vidyaa guptam dhanam smritam Learning has the qualities of Andrea: Unhappy the land that wish-yielding cow—kamadhenu. has no heroes!... It yields fruit at any time. Galileo: No, unhappy the land Learning is the mother when that needs heroes. one is travelling. Learning is a concealed wealth (which -Bertolt Brecht, Life of Galileo cannot be noticed and gives protection when necessary). Independence means voluntary restraints and discipline, voluntary acceptance of the rule of law. -Chanakya -Mahatma Gandhi

Kulapativani

Faith & Bread

In the days when asceticism was associated with supernatural powers, the Spirit was emphasised at the expense of material well-being. It was affirmed: “Man can live without bread, but not without faith.” Later, the social and physical sciences were not considered of absolute value, but emphasis was laid on spiritual development rather apologetically. Then it was affirmed: “Man cannot live by bread alone.”

In recent times, the emphasis has been altered. The affirmation is: “Man can live without faith.” The process of the insectification of man has grown apace. The only faith which man is asked to have in some quarters is that there should be no faith: “Man ought to live without faith.”

But I see a change coming over man. Of this change, Sri Aurobindo was the great prophet, Gandhiji the great architect. Toynbee, our greatest living historian, has recently forecast the change. The affirmation of sanity should run: “Faith without bread has no body: bread without faith has no life. By faith alone can man win bread: with bread alone can faith prosper; for both are life.”

Dr K.M. Munshi Founder, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

August 2011 | Bhavan Australia | 99 2611 BMG amcham ad:Layout 1 15/10/10 9:46 AM Page 1

comprehensive business services - concept to commissioning

BMG Group Australia provides expert comprehensive business advice, and trade services.

We pride ourselves on supplying a highly personalised, ‘one stop shop’ service.

Our services include: • Advisory services for new business startups from concept to commissioning, including coordination and follow-up with relevant government agencies in Australia; India; USA; UK; Europe and Japan • Assistance with sourcing technological and financial collaboration; joint venture partners and other forms of alliances • Business planning including financial projections, taxation planning & associated services • Appropriate and efficient business structures – domestic and offshore • Assistance with compliance, accounting and taxation needs including financial and management accounting • Comprehensive taxation advice and planning • Assistance with developing wholesome multicultural strategies for medium and large corporations and government and semi-government organizations

Suite 100, Level 4, 515 Kent Street, Sydney t. +612 9267 9255 e. [email protected] w. www.bmgw.com aqua.2611

100 | Bhavan Australia | August 2011