On the Non-Academic essay of the non-historian Ramanujan

It was not for nothing that Iqbal wrote “Kuchh Baat Hai Ke Hasti Mit-ti Nahin Hamaari; Sadion Raha Hai Dushman Daur-e-Zamaan Hamaara”, however it is surprising that our leftist-historians still believe otherwise. I can only express my sympathies to these frustrated historians who now exist only in the ever-contracting, self-created pseudo-academic space in India despite their efforts to expand it by blatantly misusing their freedom of expression and by agitating unnecessarily for an already existing more than adequate academic space in our Indian society.

Even if we accept that Ram-Kahani is only a part of our mythology we all know that this ‘Kahani is not merely a story but a well-drafted drama that has undisputedly taught us our traditional moral values and has also helped us Indians, in inculcating respect for elders as well as in developing love for younger. Innumerable texts based on this story have successfully inspired all of us to inherit the theory of plurality in our thoughts. Undoubtedly there are more than many versions of Ramayana in our ancient texts but it is also a foregone conclusion that if you leave aside a few Ramayana that Mr. Ramanujan chose to highlight, then all others without exception have been written primarily to establish moral, family values that India is known for. And in this context Ramayana still possesses an unprecedented power to unite this part of the world.

Unfortunately forces that have no faith in the institution of marriage, and see faults in the family system, advocates individual’s freedom bereft of all duties of maintaining order in the society and bothers least about the tradition and other great Indian values have never understood any of the 300 Ramayanas that they themselves talk about. In early eighties these leftists had started believing that they were succeeding in their efforts of destroying the basic tenets and principles of this arguably one of the oldest society. However true to the words of Iqbal as quoted in the beginning, their world came crashing down as they witnessed vacant streets in this part of the world (including Pakistan and Bangladesh) when Ramanand Sagar’s ‘Ramayana’ started airing through Delhi Doordarshan in the late eighties. To have a genuine understanding of the context of the essay one has to read the introduction to the Many Ramayanas by Paula Richman where Ramanujan's essay appears. In the introduction of the book Paula Richman quotes Romila Thapar as saying that Ramanand Sagar's television serial on the Ramayana 'possessed a dangerous and unprecedented authority.'

Let me tell you that they are least concerned about any one of the 300 Ramayanas that they want us to believe that they want to teach, albeit what they want to teach us is the inappropriate, blasphemous and malicious essay written by a propagandist non-historian Ramanujan who penned his ‘singular’ (not plural!) views towards these invaluable texts. Let me challenge these historians to put all more than three hundred Ramayanas on the reading list of the undergraduate curricula and ask them not to shy away from teaching these stories to the students in the name of teaching history. For then at least the students will be appropriately exposed to the less than handful of Ramayanas that were written in some another context similar to those in which Ramanujan himself wrote his infamous essay. I would also like to add to their discomfort by making them realize that even in those few of the ignorable Ramayanas that the left-historians love to blow out of proportion, no progressive approach has been extended in order to paint Sita, Laxman and Hanuman grey. Much to their dismay ‘villains and vamps’ in these stray texts are extracted out of the ‘otherwise’ heroes by establishing that they too did not observe the same great Indian (alias ‘Hindu’) values.

Make no mistake as these historians would like us to celebrate Ram-vadha instead of Ravan-vadha since they believe that Rama has infused all wrong values in us Indians. Don’t reject this as my exaggeration as only recently JNU (known to be the den of these pseudo-historians) observed ‘Mahishasur day’ by honouring Mahishasur in the campus (read the October 25 issue of Times of India in case you have problem in believing this). And nobody needs to be educated that despite their prolonged and systematic efforts to link the Hindu majority with some community outside this country through their disputed and rotten Aryan-invasion theory they have patently failed in getting the Hindus feel detached from this piece of land, an aberration that is arguably witnessed in some other Indian community.


The ever-evolving Indian community where the evolution is primarily driven by the plurality of the religion observed by the majority (undoubtedly Hindus) has proved that what we as a nation stand for is not a singular religion but the high moral, social, cultural and great family values preached through the ‘hymns’ of Valmiki Ramayana and ‘couplets’ of Tulsi Ramcharitmanas. These handful of historians must understand that it is the teaching of Ramayana that drives nobody to argue for banning the Ramanujan’s essay in India but at least let us not allow the innocent undergraduate students to fall prey to the conspiratorial designs of these non-academic ‘historians?’ who want to force them to read the essay as part of their curricula. India must be the only country in the world where we are used to encountering an unprecedented count of mismatches in our popular perceptions/beliefs and that of the history that we are taught in the classrooms. But despite everything they must realize that we as a nation believe in marriage as a necessary institution, we believe in family system, we understand our responsibility towards our society and nation and through this we would like to make this universe as enjoyable and livable as possible.

Anti-terrorism Management

Look at the way USA reacted at a single incident of a terror attack. Let us salute them for keeping their intensity to fight against terrorism still alive and burning even after a decade. They have refused to forget the incident. They did not decide to make a Hospital or a Church-Masjid-combine structure to mark it as a place of solidarity and instead has used the place as a reminder-memorial of the same incident. It is only for this reason that nobody could stop them from crushing terrorism on their soil even if it amounted to ignoring several human rightists’ discomforts and not paying heed to their genuine displeasures. Media was never fed with the incidents of atrocities and instead showed tremendous restraint in releasing pictures mostly from the viewpoint of the terror-sufferers. The atrocities suffered by any group in the aftermath of that particular incident were hinted at by some of our own film-producers in movies like NEWYORK, KURBAAN and MY NAME IS KHAN (based on some imagined-concocted stories) instead of their own media. Governments changed but not their desire to nail and eliminate Laden. And their entire effort sums up with their success in showing the world that it never happened again in USA.
We have however mastered the art of forgetting all terror strikes. Our media is in a habit of taking pains in showcasing the fact that the life is normal in a city just on the next day of a terror-attack. We are made to believe that terror-attacks are meant only for disturbing our mirage of communal harmony of the city and as if our victory lies only in the fact that the government and the people did not allow a riot to follow the attack. We are made to remember umpteen pictures of riot-victims crying for help with folded hands by releasing them again and again but are helped in forgetting apathy of terror-victims by showing more than enough visuals to prove that life is back to normal just the next day of a terror attack. This attitude is not new to us as we have often exhibited our resilience by forgetting even some age-old (forgotten?) terror attacks on temples in Somnath, Ayodhya and Mathura etc. It is for these reasons that instead of eliminating our own Ladens we engage ourselves in finding reasons in the arguments favoring acts of the likes of Qasabs and Afzals.
Thankfully it has also not happened again in Gujarat. Though not intended to, but here again our media and some NGO-entrepreneurs has helped us in not forgetting the ugly incident of Godhra carnage as they try to remind us, time and again, of the unfortunate riots that broke after that. Though I will not like to have a choice between i) a single riot followed by a permanent peace and ii) frequent terror-strikes with no riots, but would at least prefer to preserve the memory of a terror incident in the manner US remembered it. USA could tackle terrorism without falling into the trap of rioting because the government used a free hand to crush terror with approval of its overwhelming majority. Majority sat and observed as the government acted with a clear intention/vision. On the other hand, I just wonder how one is expected to react to a sinister campaign against Modi, continuing for way to long, for wanting him to apologize (for God knows what ?) as he is still to be exposed for his involvement, if any, in the riots/fake encounters. For some strange reasons however, although not difficult to speculate, they have never demanded similar apologies from Qasabs/Afzals/Geelanis/Malliks/Mehboobas/Omars and family members of those proven terrorists who were allegedly killed in fake encounters.

Love him or hate him and one may also not approve of the alleged technique adopted by Narender Modi to stop riots and eliminate terrorism from his state but we can not ignore the fact that unlike the economic slowdown faced by USA during the last decade he has managed to put Gujarat on the map of development and has been able to place the state way ahead of others. Obviously overwhelming majority of his state must not have treated him as untouchable and must have had supported him in his effort to help the state in attaining this state as he could not have achieved that single-handedly.

Let us ask our parliamentarians

What did you all do in the last two decades after for the first time some media outside this country unveiled that kickbacks were paid in the Bofors’ deal? Who did you punish when you were told that a suitcase containing crores of rupees entered the then PM house? Who did you nail when a journalist tried to expose manipulations and money transactions in arms’ deals? Give me one politician’s name who was put behind bar for Hawala transactions. Whom did you hang for paying money for voting inside the parliament? How much of the lacs of crores that have been lost in the 2G scame have yet been recovered? What plans have been executed for recovery of the loot done during CWG preparations? When did you set a deadline to bring back the illegally deposited Indian money in Swiss bank? And for God’s sake who had stopped you to table and pass your version of Lokpal bill for all these years? And now you still need time?

Please admit that you have no face left to ask for time and no trick left to execute your age-old delaying tactics. You have already put the integrity and sanctity of parliament to shame and placed our democracy at stake. You have played with our patience. You always believed that you get a license to dictate your terms once you get elected. Do not put our patience to test. You have already tested our patience by taking turns to exploit us at your will. All these years we have been given only a choice of whom we would prefer for our own exploitation.

At this juncture please do not tell us how a law should be framed. The arrogance with which you handled the Ramdev agitation and intent that you are exhibiting while tackling the Anna movement only confirms our apprehensions that once voted to power you consider yourself as if you have joined the ranks of British Rulers. Your deeds have started shaking our confidence in democracy. It is not solely our duty to save democracy but it is also in your interest to reestablish our faith in democratic set-ups. Himalaya will not explode if a ‘non-critically analyzed’, ‘ill-prepared’ Lokpal bill is passed. Heavens will not fall if you accept the Jan Lokpal bill in the present form. There are so many rules waiting for modifications but lying unattended before you for years’ together. Can you yourself claim that all rules in its existing form are absolutely perfect and would never require a change? Please add one more to that list even if you do not agree with all the formulations of the Jan Lokpal bill. As you must realize that you only have put us at such a logjam that only this can put our faith back into democracy with some certainty and for this a 72 year old is on fast for last so many days. I would not like that the government awakes on this issue only at a point of no return when the crowd decides to pay the arrogance back to our parliamentarians. The time is surely slipping by…………

Parliament: The Dirtiest Den of Corruption

Mr. Manish Tiwari, you wanted us to accept that Anna is corrupt, but then didn’t you wish to use this only to make us accept corruption as your way of life? Mr. Digvijay wanted us to believe that Baba Ramdev has cheated us and amassed an enormous wealth but didn’t he mean to set that only as an example to justify corruption? Not that we do not know that you do not have a magic wand Mr. Prime Minister but what is hurting us more is that you do not even wish to possess one. We need no explanations as we now understand how our ‘honest’ Prime Minister wastes all his ‘honesty’ to save the culprits and we also need no clarifications from him as to why he uses his ‘honesty’ in selecting only a few who can be hanged in the name of corruption. The manner in which this government attempted to expose the source and destination of all money transactions of Ramdev in just a few days and the way it miserably failed to showcase any such result in any of the scams listed as Bofors to CWG/2G, have left us with no options but to believe in the obvious. We all understand that corruption will not end the day a bill is passed in the parliament. We all are not lawyers and that too as manipulative as you Mr. Sibbal, but we know that it will also not end by pleading helplessness in the name of growing economy or by accepting your initial contention that there was no loss of public money in the 2G scam or by using police force in the mid-night on helpless and sleeping people gathered to voice their protest against corruption. And this will also not end by forcing us in believing that the law does not permit any bill to be finalised outside the parliament.
Mr. Sibbal and his party must feel very fortunate as the issue has been taken up by the law abiding Indian civil society. Indian society has always believed in waiting till He appears in a new reincarnation and takes all the laws in His hands to wipe out the evils. We are still peacefully requesting, arguing and urging you to pass a bill in the same parliament that has been evolved as the dirtiest den of corruption. Society has still not taken law justifiably in its hands as Mr. Sibbal is wise enough to understand what is meant by this phrase. Please stop befooling everybody by showcasing cosmetic gestures in the name of tackling corruption and hanging small fries who will never be able to return back even a small percentage of the money that the scams have siphoned out of this country.
Howsoever humid the weather be but dews are formed only when a cool surface is found by the water vapour; howsoever filled up the atmosphere be with a combustible gas but it requires at least a spark to blow it up. This nation is unfortunate that no politician, across the entire spectrum of our political parties, is left with a face that can mobilise the restless mass, who have crossed their threshold limits way back, to come out on the streets and wage a war against corruption. We had to wait for an Anna for this to happen. It is pity that our parliament has turned into a dog-fighting street where political parties fight just for their turn of exploiting this country. Let me enlighten you Mr. Sibbal that those who documented provisions for making laws only in the parliament could have never dreamt of this situation where even in an independent India the parliamentarians are still engaged in looting and siphoning the smiles out of the faces of ordinary countrymen.
It is now more than obvious that our Prime Minister is not even willing to acquire the magic wand as he is rejecting a potential magic wand that is being offered to him by Anna. However we all must feel satisfied that the great puzzle - that whose clothes were snatched by Baba Ramdev when he was being beaten out of the Ramlila ground - is now solved as we witness the government standing exposed with nothing left to hide and all its modesty outraged.