What is Swathanthrya? What is Swarajya?

Swathanthrya for most Indians is an August fever.

We got freedom from the foreign rule on Aug 15th 1947. What we got is political freedom. But what it really means?  Is there a transfer of political freedom to individual freedom? What is beyond political freedom? What individual freedom means?

In India today we do not have Individual freedom largely. Rather it is not there to the extent that we had in ancient times. So what is that Individual freedom?   

People Freedom in India in the Past:

Every region is unique in India. And people in these regions have very rich natural resources. The indigenous people of that region had full freedom to utilize that in a sustainable non-polluting manner. The politics of that day gave full freedom to the communities living by those natural resources to utilize the natural resources to produce the best they could. The communities used that freedom to live happily, produce what is needed for their living and innovate. Raja Dharma protected Samaja Manava Dharma which was guided by Vedic Dharma of “Sarve Janah Sukhino Bhavathu”.

If you see we produced some of the best textile in the world. Besides the muslin cloth of Bengal, we had in each region unique variety of artistic textile produced. For example in Karnataka itself we have ilkal saree, molakalmooru saree, mysooru saree, just to name a few saree varieties only. It was all handloom and hand made.

Besides textiles, we had some of the best pearls, ruby, etc., extracted and exotic ornaments made of them. The Arabian Sea used to be called as Rathnakara. It is AAKARA of RATHNA means = Abode of Pearls.

The diamond extraction & gold ornaments were all innovations of India. Art and craft on Ivory, Animal Horns showed the artistic exuberance of an artisan. The animal leather produced some of the best musical drums to be played at temples and in concerts, besides the foot wear and bags.

The metallurgy in India was very advanced. The Darpana which means mirror used to be made out of many alloys of metals. There is one such famous mirror in a Kerala temple which even today stands testimony giving 99% perfect reflection better than some of our best glass mirrors of today. In front of Kutub Minar in Delhi there stands an iron based alloy still not rusted after several centuries of weather conditions. Look at the beautiful gold, silver ornaments decorating our Gods across the country. Look at the gold based Tanajavuru paintings staying impeccable even today after centuries in some of our people’s homes.

The politics of that day gave full freedom to the indigenous community to experiment with the resources they had to produce the best they could. There was no political compulsion to produce for export. The politics was not economy centric. But it was clearly people centric. It was people freedom centric. They could produce what they could to sustain their living. When people were given freedom to produce what they could, they always produced the best and more.

There was no uprising against slavery, the type we hear in the west during that contemporary time. The large temples, exquisite sculpture were produced by not chained & mimed slaves. But it was produced by the free willing artisans. The cultural freedom was explicit in India during those days. They were fed well by free India. Construction of such gracious temples indicate Prosperity. Its sustenance over milleniums indicate Peace.

There was no Land Acquisition bill. There are so many legislations available to read from various kingdoms, dynasties, but we don’t come across such acquisition of properties against people’s will. (There are educated & graduate Indians today who truly believe there was no Law, Legislation, Rule, Order, Justice, and Judicial system in Ancient India. There is a belief that British gifted all of this to us. But that is unfortunate of our secular education system). Some of the Tamilnadu temples like Tiruvannamalai, Srirangam, Madhurai etc., are so large, that one parikrama (circumference) is about couple of dozen kilometers. The entire city is inside the temple premise. Where was land acquisition problem? We do not hear of it in any sculpture nor ballads, writings, drama available from that era.

What is People Freedom in India Today?

Today India is ruled from one center place call New Delhi. For them India is measured by GDP & GNP. They also give first priority to some foreign agencies ranking India in economy based ease of doing business, mining, ecology clearance for a polluting industry etc., Economy is central to policy making. Not the people freedom.

For example, India is the largest exporter of Undies, Banians and variety of undergarments; It also exports, towels, carpets, T-shirts, shirts, trousers etc., The design for which comes from foreign companies who buy these clothes for consumption in their countries. All of this is produced from few thousand or lakh work force in Thirupur in Tamilnadu. That’s it. Compare it with ancient India producing top class exclusive textile which cannot be produced by anyone else in the world. Because it was Kaushala (artistry) of artesans. And how many of them? Millions, spread across India in very village, town, north south east and west.

Similarly ore export. Simply extract the ore and push it across the world. Do it in rapid & rampant way destroying forests, mountains, bloodying the rivers. Are we mad? We could have given freedom to people living there to extract and give it in small chunks for India’s consumption. Why export? In Vijayanagara era & going back to BC, that’s how the records say, Chitradurga, Tumkur, Kolar, Bellary were rich in Gold, Iron, Copper, several minerals; and extraction & processing used to happen in sustainable way as a cottage industry. With such people freedom our Cholas built formidable large ships sailed across the ocean to spread harmonious Hindu culture in far eastern countries which stand testimony even today in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand etc., .

If we give people freedom they will come up with technology even to develop world class Submarines & War ships. But with no people freedom, Ford, Toyota are coming in hordes to destroy our city living by excessive personal luxury cars production; Our rural environment also is destroyed. What are we achieving? GDP. With that what can we achieve? The ‘Haves’ will have luxury cars, the ‘Have Nots’ will lose their ancestral dwelling, land, water & migrate to city slums.

So Swathanthrya today for Middleclass educated is: eat what you like, live however you like, get any job you can get to work like a donkey and earn some money to party like hell.

For the not so privileged rest of India, Swathanthrya is a dream.

Is all Inclusive better life possible in India?

As I have understood India of the past and the present, if we become Agri based country, it is possible. It gives a lot of freedom to achieve all inclusive decent living & become a great economy too. That’s how ancient India was. 90% of India was Agri based. In agriculture, for a land owner it gives work for almost 150-200 days in an year. And for a landless agri dependent labour it gives about 90-100 days labour. It gives them enough grains to sustain themselves through the year and trade or export the grains also. Rest of the days they can use to freely explore what can be done from the resources they have around. And also to build bridges, canals, drainage, road, temples, tanks, lakes, desilting etc., That is what is Swarajya. Ruling and developing their locality and giving back to the nation. Not the way today it is happening like Central government is giving grains to people through PDS.

And entertainment can be localized to develop local culture. That’s how some of our classical languages, their literature survived for centuries. For example, in Kannada not only the colloquial ballads but some of the Raja Asthana’s classical literature like Ranna’s Gada Yuddha, Kumaravyasa Bharatha passed on from generation to generation from around 8^th century till 20^th century. It was a good pastime to recite & dramatize it in every village. Everybody was an artist. For 12 centuries it remained on people’s lips & actions. Now it is in records. Closed shut.

Can we become Agri based country at all in future? It is a dream. It requires change of education, mending the minds.

• ·         Firstly the rural people should exercise their rights over their land and water.
• ·         Then policy makers have to heed to them. Make policies to protect India, its people, its resources
• ·         The urban middle class have to understand righteous way of living.

All this is possible, by not our generation itself. It will take many generations. But in our generation we have to change our education. It should be India pride based. It should teach local culture, local history, local heroes, pride in protecting locality. It should teach a child what is freedom. How to excise it in righteous way of protecting others right to live, protect environment, strengthen society. 

India’s Glorious Past. How relevant it is today?

The recent Shashi Tharoor’s speech at right time at right place hit social media big way. It raised lot of debates and articles. I for one became a fan of it and was swept by its revelations in the aftermath. Here it is for reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7CW7S0zxv4

One offshoot of that debate is also on India’s glorious past. And how relevant it is for us today?

Did India Really have a glorious past?

India was a fascinating land. It was a dream land for the foreigners.

During Maurya, Kushana and Gupta period, it reached the zenith of its glory. Post those periods it saw many ups and downs through many invasions. But it still held its world leadership at least on the economics & trade front till the Mughal’s period. The greatest decline for India is obviously during British period. The greatest damage done by the British is to impoverish the common man economically and intellectually.

Swami Vivekananda put it neatly – That Indian civilization developed by the inner exploration and Greek civilization by exploring outer world.

During those bygone era of “Poorna Swarajya”, through inner exploration, Indian’s produced some of the best theories from Artha Shastra to Kama Shastra; from Natya Shastra to Vyakarana Shastra and many others. All of these travelled across oceans and through land to Europeans. Some of the exotic exports included motifs on Ivory, Sandalwood, Mehegony, Gold, Silver and many other alloys. These depicted fascinating creatures which were unnatural to foreigners. The lions, tigers, peacocks, elephants are some of the animals & the pepal, banyan trees were magnificient flora to fathom for foreigners. The Indians ‘had and even now have’ so much to explore within India, within a locality. The number of unique diverse species in a 100 Sq KM in Europe is equivalent to 100 Sq ft in Sahyadri ranges.

The famous spices travelled through the seas, attracting westerners by its aroma. The art, literature like Panchatantra, Jataka tales travelled through the Arabian lands to the western countries. Kavya, Meemamsa, Vedanta flourished unhindered under the royal tutelage.  

When it comes to science and mathematics, the Indians were masters at it. They explored moon, sun, the planets, comets without sending satellites. By inner exploration, through meditation itself they reached stars and understood how they worked. When Aryabhatta was calculating earth’s diameter using its shadow on Moon during Chandra Grahana (Lunar Eclipse), Europeans didn’t have scientific temper to even ponder whether earth is round or flat.

One cannot ignore the contributions from Indians for the basic Arithmetic, Algebra & Geometry. In the below interview Dr. Alok Kumar gives glimpse of European thinkers giving due credit to Indian contributions in their productions. http://aseema.net.in/ancient-sciences-and-voices-of-knowledge-an-interview-with-dr-alok-kumar/. But the later day Imperialist Europeans and the famous educators, Macaulay & Co., discarded it to suppress the Indian’s pride.  

The advancement in metallurgy and Ayurveda are depicted by live examples even today. Thanks to our freedom now, Ayurveda is being revived in a big way now.

In every aspect, India fascinated the world. When the Europeans being “outer explorers” mastered navy, they set out first to see India. There was rush to reach India. Portugese set out. Spanish set out. Dutch did not fall back. When they rocked something outside their land on ocean, they called it India and its people as Indians. That’s how the Native Americans are now called Indians!! :)

Why Then We Lost Intellectual Freedom?

We lost political freedom first. We lost it through treachery, extreme cruelty. When we were making gun powder to blast rock to construct forts and temples, Europeans invented canons by which they can use gun powder to destruct the constructions. When they used that to even kill humans; that was a cruelty the Indians had never heard or seen of. The British started their military campaign by 1700’s and within few decades they were rulers for half of India and subsequently got hold of entire India.

During the 1800’s there was debate by British on how best to loot India keeping in view of the raising nationalism of Indians. The Sepoy Mutiny they termed, they knew was not just a mutiny but a great upraising of Nationalism. The various contingents across barracks were meeting for bhajans, dharmic utsavs, chapatti utsav etc., and did this greatly coordinated upraising across the country. This shook the British very much.

They had to at least corrupt the intellectuals, village henchmen, royals to somehow rule them very well. They took away the economic freedom through various measures of loot. They enforced cash crops production only for export to England, destroyed handloom industry, etc.,

For intellectuals, they said government jobs are for those who pass English schooling. They successfully killed Indigenous education which was Inner exploratory, art, craft, language, dharma, Vedanta development. The rajahs who were patronizing these were given diktat to stop it. They corrupted the thinking of the average educated Indian, that what is important is material success. And for that it is important to become good in accountancy, tax collection. That’s it. Maths and English required for that is sufficient. No more science, maths was encouraged beyond some basics.

They couldn’t tolerate Sir M Visweswaraya eligible to head the public works department in Mumbai Government, they shunted him out. They put so many hurdles for him to start Iron & Steel factory in Bhadravathi; KRS dam would have remained dream but for his grit to take on their hegemony. Even he was of the opinion in the end that we cannot self-rule ourselves. We need dominion status. Thank god our political leaders fought for full freedom & got it.

Should we revive our Intellectual Freedom? If So Why?

We ultimately became intellectual slaves. To this day we continue teaching even our Independent sons and daughters, what British put in text books during their hay day. The lies of Aryan Invasion theory, European superiority in science, maths, engineering is still being taught. Everything we read today is through the European view only. The science of destruction, the engineering of fast exploitation of earth resources is considered as true development. Research and development in aids, flu, cancer goes on forever with billions spent and not really addressing the causes of it. The economics of stock trade, loan based banking system, is considered as ultimate developmental formula. Almost every Nobel awardee in economics is just a formula tweaker in some trading exchange. False trading is true trading!! Did it solve poverty? Contrary.

But is there a better solution?

We must revive our Intellectual freedom. The solution is to understand and accept firstly, that India had a glorious past. And not ignore or discard it. And then delve deeper into that. Understand why was it glorious? What was the education system? What was the Raja Dharma (Political system)? What was the freedom at individual level? How was the Self-rule at grass root level? Were these contributors for its glory?

The solution lies in taking our great ancient tradition and marrying it to the present day technological advancement. Firstly we must bring in education which teaches our children PRIDE in our culture, civilization, tradition & heritage. Then automatically they’ll bring glory to India and hence to the world.

May be the British designed our education to suppress India’s pride. Or May be they followed their pride in educating their children about their scientists and heroes. And since India was their colony, they passed the same heroes to us also. But since we are free now, should we not put our scientists and philosophers in our kids’ education? Would it be looked at as removal of Copernicus and introduction of Bhaskaracharya? Or would it be looked at just introduction of our scientists in our education? Did Europeans try to teach their kids whether Japanese or Indians found out early that Earth was round? Or did they just want to teach their kids who amongst their civilization found the first truth to raise pride of scientific temper in their kids?

We must recognize that we cannot isolate Science, Mathematics from that of Sociology, Politics and ultimately Spirituality. All of them are intertwined in the real sense. We must revive that thought process and induct it into our system of education and administration. Then we can claim back our world leadership without attacking other civilizations but by spreading through peaceful means.

I think International Yoga Day is also one small step in that direction!! :)

Why People Become Poor?

My son asked me this simple question recently. I answered that uneducated are poor. But I’m not convinced about that answer myself. It triggered a bit more thought.

There is enough in this world for everyone to live happily. But when we grab others livelihood they become poor. For that governance is needed to protect independence of livelihood of everyone.

People become poor because they lose their livelihood. Why they lose their livelihood? Because of two reasons: 1. Other people exploit their livelihood. 2. They don’t fight to retain their livelihood.

I had a good friend as my roommate during my college days. I used to try ending our heated argument saying, ‘ದೇವರು ನಿನ್ನ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಇಟ್ಟಿರಲಿ’ meaning ‘Let god keep you well’. He used to quip, God always keeps me well but it is you guys who make me miserable!

So the point is people only make people poor. Not the situation or god! Thats the simple truth. 

What is Livelihood?

But do all people in the world have livelihood? Yes. Human civilization developed everywhere across the globe in all continents and places. They developed indigenous way of living. They developed societies. Social life begets diverse profession making one depend upon another. For example, farmer produces grains by tilling land. For tilling the land cow, cart and tools are required. Blacksmith produces tools from metal. Miner produces metal. Herdsman grows cows. Carpenter produces cart from wood & metal. Wood cutter cuts wood. So the cycle goes on like these making professions to develop. And for each profession, unique natural resource is required. That is what their livelihood is. When they lose their livelihood they become poor.

Gandhiji famously said the world is sufficient to meet every man’s needs; But not sufficient to meet his greed.

So as the society develops through professions depending upon each other the conflicts for natural resources also arise. So to resolve conflicts, society develops rules. For governing rules, a governor is established. That is what government is.

The government should ideally balance the needs of all people of different professions and ensure livelihood is maintained for all. That is what Raja Dharma is. 

What is Poor?

This is a more fundamental question. Is poor means, one who has no money? Yes in the urban sense. Yes in the modern way of life and civilization. Money buys the people water, food, shelter, electricity, entertainment, medicine etc., which are basic survival needs. 

But in the rural parlance the money exchange is very less. They eat what they grow. Drink fresh water off streams, ponds. Their transportation is on legs or by bullock cart which are very cheap. There are several tribes which live in deep woods, atop mountains and in Andaman Islands which are untouched by modern civilization. In most cases they are even untouched by diseases and ailments. Or even if they come across diseases they have indigenous natural therapy from rich resources surrounding them. They are living happily. They are not really poor. They are rich with natural resources.

If they lose their natural resources upon which their livelihood is dependent, then they become poor. Poor means those who are deprived of food, water, shelter & security.

Are there really poor even today? Yes there are plenty. We need to look a bit on recent history then look at modern day to assess the reason behind why people are continuously becoming poor.

Why do they lose their livelihood? History:

The people lose their livelihood when people in power over exploit their natural resources depriving the people’s livelihood. Raja Dharma fails to produce security to these people & their livelihood.

In Ancient India, Raja always had a Dharma guru for advising him for social harmony. In many cases, Dharma Guru used to be of different religion than Raja. But still they followed Sarva Dharma Samanvaya. That’s how the livelihood of every profession was maintained. The conflict that arouse from over exploitation of natural resources by one profession affected another profession. And that is where Dharma preached self-control, contentment for social harmony. The self-rule was there at the village level. The Grama Swarajya was the Rama Rajya.

India was a rich country even till the Moghul period. There was independence and freedom at the grass root level. The period of over exploitation started with the British. They started governing at grass root level. They governed what farmer produced. They sanctioned farmer to produce cotton & indigo in large scale. They needed raw material for cloth industries in Manchester.

Similarly large scale mono cropping of Poppy seeds, tea, coffee, rubber was imposed. The government would procure only those. Village henchmen became their slaves and were made corrupt. Bringing in Zamindari they imposed restrictions on village independence. 

Further weavers lost their livelihood as industry produced cheap cloth got dumped on the market. Metal tool makers lost livelihood. Artisans lost their livelihood as their benefactors the Rajahs lost their kingdoms. The cycle of losing livelihood continued.

The natural need for large scale production and distribution necessitated massive transportation. It needed further iron, steel, and aluminum. For the first time India saw intruding onto the destruction of large scale mountains and forests. The tribal life was disturbed and large scale livelihood loss was ensued.

The British along with other European imperialists were on a spree during 1800s & 1900s to exploit the whole of earth. The gun point diplomacy ensured large scale amassing of wealth in arms and ammunitions. This sparked 2 world wars on large scale destruction. All the material wealth looted from India & elsewhere was drained off thus. During this time India was made to starve. Not one but 3 great famines India had to endure under the Queen’s ruling. The Plague, Bengal famine and famine across the Deccan killed more people than the world wars directly did.

The Exploitation Continues: Present day:

The era of foreign rule and foreign exploitation is ended now. But do we have self-rule? The era of foreign rule has ended, but not the exploitation. Why? Because, someone took up central ruling at India level by negotiating with the leaving foreigners and the self-rule is not transferred to the grass root level. There is no Grama Swarajya. Large scale mono cropping is still encouraged. Procurement of produce, storage, transportation and distribution is still being done by central and state governments. So the people are the mercy of the governments for basic necessities like food, clothing.

The urban clusters have become parasites on the rural environs. The metro transportation, electricity consumption, packaged food culture, bottled water, piped water, luxury & lazy life in urban culture demands very high natural resource exploitation. Tons of plastic waste produced by cities is becoming battleground in the outskirts where it is dumping ground.

Rapid and rampant migrations from rural are joining the apartments and slums in cities. The packed population has lost the sense of space. There is existential struggle in the urban space. The hygiene, water & space are necessities which have become luxury for them, making them very poor. Food somehow they do get. There is lot of wastage which gets spilled over in cities from rich to the poor.

Where Lies The Solution?

The Solution lies in governance shifting prominence from meeting urban luxury demands to rural sustenance demands. Grama Swarajya is the only solution for sustenance and poverty elevation. Yes there will be some hit on the urban living luxuries. The basic necessities like Electricity, transportation itself will become costly once the rural demands for decent living are met. So it has to be taken slowly and gradually.It will become costly but not inaccessible. 

The first and foremost is to begin protecting rural environment. For example if a River (Ganga or Thunga) is polluted, ship out the polluting factories to china or elsewhere. Or implement stringent pollution controls. Then simple products like plastic bottle, tetra pack, bulb, wire, paper, pencil will start becoming costly. Fertilizers, pesticides production will be out of the country. Consumption will become costly and will come down. Cars, bikes will become luxury only available for rich and government officials. So the reverse migration to rural for livelihood will start. The country and earth will be able to take that easily, as earth can provide plenty to man in the nature.

But we need to protect our boarders and India. Else China & Pakistan again attack and we loose our independence again. So defense equipment, nuclear technology, road, railways need to be there. The sacrifice for that will again come from rural environment. And people need to be compensated by the government. But since the human capital will be rich & independent, the government will be rich and they’ll afford to do that. Like we say in previous blogs on how Shivaji, Rana Pratap built formidable forts from the tribals and rurals. 

The Nationalism: Indian View & Western View

Interestingly the word Nationalism doesn’t incite the same fervor in Western and Indian culture.

In India Nationalism is same as Patriotism. It raises the feeling of passion for everything that is Indian. The raise of Indian nationalism is a standard subject of Independence struggle in India. Swami Vivekananda raised the nationalism feeling amongst the masses cutting across caste, creed & religion. All Indian leaders including Gandhiji followed it by uniting the masses for a common cause of Freedom from British rule.

In the western world especially in the Europe the word Nationalism brings forth antagonism & fear. It is best described by the famous French President Charles de Gaule: “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; Nationalism when hate for people other than your own comes first”. This phrase ‘own people’ is who? Is it by Language? Or culture? Or religion? Or profession?

Pride and Passion

In India, we regard all people as ‘our own people’ with a kind prayer ‘Sarve Janah Sukhino Bhavanthu’. Our nationalist leaders incited pride amongst the masses about themselves and their forefathers and their past. They understood the truth of nature and its inherent diversity. While keeping the pride about themselves and their culture, they developed passion for appreciating their neighbor’s & others philosophy, culture, diversity. That is what made Bharatha (India). They never tried to kill diversity. They found unity in the fundamental truth of diversity. This pride & passion is what is the reason for so much diversity thriving in Bharatha.

Pride and Prejudice

Pride is called Abhimana in most Indian languages. Prejudice is Durabhimana. Prejudice is feeling of superior race over all others.

In the west, the pride is prominently followed by prejudice against the ‘others’. The Nationalism is like uniting people based on something common with hatred to others uncommon to them. Who are others? That definition of ‘others’ can be based on anything. It can be based on language, culture, profession, religion etc., So for one reason or the other, people attack people & kill them mercilessly.

The tribal systems living in harmony with nature are completely wiped out. The natives of America are slaughtered. Pagan system of nature worship is eliminated. Several languages are extinct. Civilizations like Egyptians, Mayans are listless. Crusades, inquests, holocaust are the hall mark of Pride & Prejudice in the west. And they came and taught us, that India had thousands of kings quarrelling & fighting each other, they came to unite us! What an irony? And we believe it?!

The world has seen 2 recent world wars originating in Europe and sucking the entire world in itself. Why? The imperialists from this region started amassing arms and ammunition by looting rich Asian, African countries to show off their pride. Their prejudice could not be contained beyond the spark and exploded with world wars.

Same is the case with the current ongoing Middle East religious conflicts. It started slowly somewhere and rapidly sucking in all neighboring nations and people from all over European nations are joining their holy war!!

Dividing India by sowing Hatred

There are various forces working in India with short term political motives to divide India. The Dravida Kazhagam movement in Tamilnadu, Ahinda movement in Karnataka are classic examples of dividing the innocent society by instilling the fear and inciting resentment. They are made to feel that somebody within India is suppressing them. They are made to feel they are the oppressed society and there is a need to rise against the oppressors.

Added to that, there is a lot of foreign funded missionaries and NGO s working relentlessly towards inciting this feeling and dividing the society. Rajiv Malhotra’s book ‘Breaking India’ is a well-researched book on this subject. It delves deep into this subject dispassionately, leading to find who funds these organizations and why?

There are student organizations in universities, institutions raising divisions amongst the student communities on these lines. Their focus is taken away from academics in premium institutes like IIT Madras. Similar incidents of inciting hatred through student organizations are happening routinely in north Indian institutes too.

There are professors, self-proclaimed intellectuals preaching hatred and animosity towards Sanskrit, Vedas, Bhagavad Gita etc., Their presumption is that it is all Brahminical and upper cast hegemony. Opening research and studies on these is considered as imposing Brahminical culture over all. It is such a pity our students are falling prey to such propaganda. These texts are universal. Bhagavad Gita is told by Sri Krishna who was a Yadava, to Arjuna who was a Kshatriya and written by Veda Vyasa whose birth is in lower caste. So where comes Brahminical hegemony here? Dr. BR Ambedkar, the harbinger of the backward classes studied extensively the Sanskrit texts and vehemently fought to make it the National Language. Using his name his followers today are going in opposite direction. Why? Just for the sake of opposing a certain culture. This is leading to hatred. The Sanskrit language is immensely vast and has a mine of knowledge. The entire Bachelor degree studies of Ayurveda Medicine are based on Ancient Sanskrit texts. It is a pity that British created submissive intellectuals in us; they called Sanskrit as a dead language and removed it from primary education. Before them it was a common language across the length and breadth of India. It united India. British successfully broke India.

Hinduism, Hindu texts, are like Open Source technology. You take it and utilize it for individual and societal benefits. If you are not convinced about a part or a section of the text creating harmony, then discard it or interpret it for the good of the society. We have lost a lot by ignoring these magnificent texts already. We should revive it for the good of the society and not create hegemony.

Continuing the ancient tradition of India, the modern Swamiji’s, Ashrams like Shirdi Sai, Maatha Amruthananda Mayi, Ramakrishna Mission etc., are following Vedic texts to spread the love of humanity, love of god, intense faith towards your Ishta Devatha. Not all of them are Brahmins. None of them are imposing it. They are not spreading any animosity to English or international languages or local languages. Rather they are imbibing it. All are welcome. It is the pure language of love that binds people. Swami Vivekananda was not a Brahmin who said “Save Samskrutha and Save Samskruthi”.

I strongly believe those who spread pure Love and Harmony will find all Indian languages, sacred texts with equal love and embrace them, enhance and spread them for the good of the society. I wish and prey in god, that our government institutions, its heads, professors, students shun hatred and embrace pure love towards knowledge & intellect.

Let there be revival of our Golden past for our Golden future. Let there be opposition and debates with love for people & society at the core. Let there be Nationalism fervor with love for the people irrespective of their diversity at the core. 

The West Vs The East Culture

The western culture develops strong individualism and eastern culture develops group behavior. Each of it has benefits and pitfalls. It is important to understand & analyze its merits and impact.

Between these cultures however there are many other differences. But this particular one is of interest and seems significant.  

In a recent experiment, a psychologist let few westerners and easterners observe a pond filled with lots of small fishes and a large fish. His observations revealed that the westerners retold all features and movements of the big fish in the pond & knew less about the small fishes. Whereas the easterners retold more about the group movement, features of the small fishes & knew little about the big fish in the pond.

What is Individualism?

In the west, the parents develop child to be independent from the beginning. By teen age itself they are encouraged to earn their living, live independently in rented house, and take loan for car. They are encouraged to find their own life partner.

This makes them very strong individuals. They are self-made & able to stand on their own at young age. They stumble and get up on their own. They are ready to take on the world. They understand the bad competitive, ‘ready to eat each other’ world out there. They see the world as survival of the fittest and hence have to constantly outsmart others to survive.

There is a problem however. There will be a sense of shame developed if they seek any help in their life’s achievements from parents & close ones. This is a problem because it alienates them from parents from their intimacy. By the middle age they go through various life’s stress almost alone. On the outside they are high achievers but inside they feel lonely.

The broken families, single parents, old age crisis are pretty common and endemic in the west.

The Individualism is in theory very attractively depicted by Ayn Rand in her famous books – Atlas Shrugged and Fountain Head. The names of the book itself show off the ego of the individual & his capability. These are highly optimistic stories never delving deep in holistic nature of the world.  

The economists, policy makers like Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan adopted these theories very well to overrule the world through their money policies.

Group Behavior

In the east, the parental care & ‘cover’ for the child during his growing years is high. Especially in the Indian culture, the youngster is encouraged to touch feet of parents, Guroos at every important milestone & take their Ashirvada for his success. By this, the ego of the young man goes away. His success is attributed amongst his hard work and ability to god’s grace and elders aashirvada. Our culture teaches him that he is what he is because of all the people around him. A sense of belongingness, a group culture develops. He is at ease through the thick and thin of his life because of his strong family & community support around him.

There is a problem however. This will hold back his confidence to be cut throat in competition & do everything to outsmart others. He will feel the sense of carry along with others.

Just to quote an example: Once, Vijay Bhardwaj, our Indian cricketer while in Australia insists on some specifics of the vegetarian diet, his mates call him a cribber and ask him to make do with what is there. Whereas, when an Australian comes to India & insists on some specific diet, he is hailed a professional, one who knows what he wants.

So if there is a bad world out there, will an easterner compromise or attack ruthlessly? If you see the world history, except Japan and a bit of China’s aggression, all eastern countries have remained focused on their own development and sustenance. Never bothered to go all over, conquer and enslave others. Especially India has never done that.

Exchange of culture:

The east people are fast adopting west culture. Whereas the west will never adopt east culture. It is a very difficult culture to adopt. Everyone in the game from father, mother, young ones, the system, society have to change. That is impossible. Where as to adopt western culture, it is easy. The individual has to claim that he has earned all by himself and is a strong individual. That’s it.

Now-a-days the urban development itself is highly individualistic. The middleclass especially is fast adopting it due to its ease & system support. An earning individual, able to pay bills will get water, electricity, real estate everything from the system.

In rural, it is not that easy. Because there is no government system supplying job. They are mostly agriculturists. They depend upon gods for land, tilling, water, rain; they depend upon each other in a small community for transportation & trade. They cannot fire someone if he is lazy. They have to succeed as a group. So the group behavior is predominant. India being rural & Agri based for many million years adopted this culture. Also it is significantly influenced by the Dharma of the land by the rishis and muni espousing Dharma through our epics. The Rajas of the yore gave such importance to the Dharma espoused by these Rishis of the times, that India remained prosperous and had freedom at individual level with a sense of duty to each other.

Now that the urban clusters are becoming parasites of rural environs, we are fast losing rural environs necessitating rural-urban migration. This will eventually destroy the group culture and develop individualistic society. This will lead ultimately to the depiction of end of Kaliyuga in killing each other. 

Pune Travelogue – April 2015

The Pune trip was filled with history and heritage. We visited several forts, read and heard great stories of the Great Maratha Shivaji Maharaj.

It was not the best of the weather. It was summer & dry, but it wasn’t too hot to dampen our spirits. The best time to visit would be the monsoon or post monsoon.

We visited the following forts:

-          Raigad fort

-          Shivaneri fort

-          Pratapgad fort

-          Sinhagad fort

There are 100 s of forts along the Sahyadri ranges, which Shivaji Maharaj captured, constructed and ruled during his reign. His forts are mostly strategically located atop some of the most dreaded hills. He built few sea forts also in islands. He probably is the first Indian ruler to envisage the importance of building Naval force & built it. He is considered as master strategist, Yugapurush, Visionary to reinstate the Hindavi Swarajya. At a time when Vijayanagara Hindu Samrajya had a spectacular fall, Mughal Shahi ruling the north, Adil Shahi, Qutub Shahi ruling the deccan, it seems Shivaji literally rose from the ashes of the Hindu dust. The story of Shivaji is one of adrenaline rushing, roller coaster ride for someone interested. You can hold full attention of the kids telling his story of raise, fall and raise.

Raigad Fort

This was the second capital of Shivaji and this is where he died his natural death when he was around 50 years age. It is about 130Kms from Pune but takes more than 3hrs to reach by car. We have to go through some of the most scenic ghats. There is a river which makes a beautiful pearl necklace turn around a hill on the way. While returning it was full moon day and it dazzled under the moonshine in the surrounding dark hills creating a beautiful contrast. I was too wonderstruck to take a photo.

The fort is built on a flat surface of about 100 acres above the top of a hill. We have to reach the top via a rope way. The other way is by about 1500 steps. The guide tells, it was a very rich capital during those days. There is a super market street in ruins where they used to trade jewelry, exotic metals, minerals, pearls. The durbar hall is very large and they have installed a sculpture of Shivaji sitting in Veerasana on the throne. We paid respects to the great ruler there. Shivaji ruled from here in his last years for about 12 years. His throne had about 1280kg of gold. The British after winning over the Maratha kingdom looted and burnt the palace. The palace is believed to have burnt for 11 days.

Why British Looted and Burnt Down the Royal Riches of the Maratha?

Even in Sinhagad we heard the same story. That the British brought down a magnificent palace there. The loot is understandable as a barbaric loot of wealth. But why burn down the palace? Was it piercing their ego? Or was it a standing symbol of Swarajya (Self Rule) which might raise Swathanthrya (freedom) consciousness amongst the masses? Did they strategically burn it down to make them feel pitiful? Why did they not do the same in Mysuru, Bengaluru or Royal Rajasthan palaces? Was it because they were friendly & accepted their superiority & paid rich tributes?

Shivaneri Durga

Shivaji was born here. Shivai Devi temple is there atop the hill after whom he believed to be named after. Jijabai, his mother played crucial role in raising the Swathanthrya, Swarajya consciousness in the young Shivaji. He grew up under able guidance of the highly experienced aged warrior called Dadaji Kondadev here. There is a bronze statue of Young Shivaji with his mother here. We pay tribute to the great mother to have given a great son to the Swarajya. Her own story of sacrifice moves ones heart with great pride in the story of Shivaji.

We visited the Junnar Caves near by the fort. The caves are typical of the buddist style. During the later years it has become a piligrim centre for Hindus as one of the Ashta Vinayakas is installed and worshipped in one of these caves. The central hall is very large about 300ft width and 200ft depth. It is very cool inside as it is carved right in the middle of large mountain.

Pratapgad Fort

This is the fort where the real valour of Shivaji was first witnessed by the world at large by how he killed Afzalkhan. When the young Shivaji became a rebel to the Bijapur kingdom, capturing many forts and declaring Swarajya in the surrounding villages of the Sahyadris, they sent their best general to quell the rebellion. The story of killing of this ferocious general gives the glimpse of Shivaji’s tenacity, tactics, patience, ultimate bravery of taking upon directly on the barbaric general. This episode established the young Shivaji as a force to reckon with in the Deccan.

This fort is very well maintained privately by the kin of Shivaji Maharaj. This is a living fort with the guides, poojars, shop keepers living inside the fort based on tourism. The fort is in the Mahabaleshwar hills. So it is an easy visit for those visiting the exotic hill station. There are beautiful view points in the hill station. The various facets of the rugged Sahyadris is breath taking and beautiful.

The fort is built by Shivaji himself in straight 2 years in this strategic place. It is a fine example of his project management acumen. All the neo jargons of management viz., person day effort, shift based round the clock work, minimum input maximum output, sustainable product with minimal maintenance are standing examples there. You got to see it to believe it. Government has gifted one magnificent bronze mounted statue of Shivaji which is installed at the top of the fort.

Sinhagad Fort

This fort is just at the outskirts of Pune. There is NDA (National Defense Academy) out here. You get past a beautiful large lake at the base of the hill and climb one of the toughest climbs even in car. The story is that of Tanaji Malasure here. He died a martyr while winning the fort in a fiercely fought battle. The story depicts the sacrifice & great valour of the Mawal warriors of the region willing to win over the swarajya & provide unstinting support for their benefactor Shivaji Maharaj.

Lokamanya Tilak bought a house at the top inside this fort & lived here for some time. I wondered what made him take this tough decision. It is a very tough climb to reach here from Pune. It is very treacherous lonely living. The British had already made this place a hell by destroying a palace and other fortifications. Tilak is understood to have used it as his summer residence and wrote Geeta Rahasya. The trip album is here: https://plus.google.com/photos/110449838432121172507/albums/6137186002538111777 Read through the comments and captions for more information

Other places of interest we visited are:

• Lonavala – Near it we visited the Lohgad Fort & Pawna Dam
• Dhom – There is a Lakshmi Narasimha temple just behind the Dhom dam. Dhom is a small quit village off Mahabaleshwar road near Wai. The serenity of the temple with little pond with ducks, Thirtha coming from Gomukha, connects us with nature. The temple history dates back to the Pandavas period. Dhaumya maharishi’s abode is there inside temple premises.
• Siddhagiri Matha Museum or Kaneri Matha at the outskirts of Kolhapur – Exceptionally well set up Grameena Jeevana in beautiful Wax tableaux. It is very good to learn the old traditions & introduce them to the kids. It has good set of figurines of ancient Rishis and their contributions to the world of science. 

Large Vs The Small

India had a glorious past. A walk through our heritage sites, temples, forts will evidence that. The rich literary heritage, classical, colloquial also indicate the freedom the society had, how it executed its freedom with much grace & responsibility. India’s geography, its valleys, forests, the Himalayas, the Vindhyas, the Sahyadris, the Nilgiris are unique for such a large country. These give raise to mineral rich perineal & seasonal rivers. The population is generously developed with so much rich fertility of the land. And it also coexisted with equally thick animal and plant population. The bio diversity of India is one of the best and unique in the world.

With so much natural richness India today is stooped in poverty. Rural migration to urban areas is steadily increasing. More than half the population is living in unhygienic conditions. The child deaths due to malnutrition, diarrhea, malaria, cholera are indications of our poverty. Even the child trade, child labor is rampant despite legislations against it. These are not one off incidents rather regularly occurring that it is no longer news items for new papers. That means it is systemic in nature. Even if it is one off incidents in some good states & areas the root cause is the systemic failure and not by fluke.

That means with so much rich geological diversity for life to thrive have we created a system of failure for a large population? Is this poverty due to nature fury or is it all man made? Has all that rich biodiversity been privatized by the rich? Or is it all polluted? Has it all become unhygienic, unlivable? Why are the rural population driven to cities to live in slums?

The answer lies in the Large Versus the Small. In the glorious past, India had a large number of smaller kingdoms. They were completely self-reliant and independent. The population was well spread across the geography in villages. And these villages were also almost completely self-reliant and self-governed. The basic needs of food, water, shelter & clothing was taken care of by the population of a single village however small it was. All of them hard worked for their living & still had time to create great assets for India in the form of literature, art, sculpture, artecrafts, great monuments etc., They stand tall even today in a large number of villages across India.

But modern civilization assets have a life of not more than 100 years. Be it any factory, city sky scrapers, large dams, fast moving cars, high flying Airplanes. Factories will last as long as they can suck the raw materials around. Cars and Airplanes ply for not more than a decade or 2. Every cement building, edifice, dams have its life. And they all serve only the rich and few medium classes. For the poor nothing of these luxuries is available. The rulers of the country argue and believe deeply that these are the harbinger of progress, wealth, upliftment of the downtrodden. And they are able to sell that dream to all people very well. The learned people, middleclass like us also believe that this is indeed the Holy Grail. The poor and the downtrodden aspire for it.  

The funniest argument is that these will provide the daily bread, clean water, and clothing for all across India. But the hard truth is that, exactly these modern luxuries are the reason and root cause of pushing India into poverty.

But where lies the answer? The answer lies in Gram Swarajya. Every grama has to become swavalambi (self-reliant). Today the government is in the business of promising distribution of grains & water to all. The government should GIVE less and enable people to produce & live by themselves. Government should only protect their harmonious living. But government today snatches their land & water to promise them to give them clean water and food. What an irony.

Public Distribution System (PDS): Concentration of Grains for distribution to the poor

The PDS aims to serve entire India. This is one very very large system. The Punjab wheat has to come to Karnataka Villages, Andhra rice needs to go to Rajasthan villages. So it is a very complex mesh of procurement, transportation, storage & distribution of grains across India. There are a dozen central departments and a dozen state departments involved in this entire complex system. The government itself admits to about 25% pilferage in this system.

Almost none of the quality grains reach the final intended beneficiary. The best quality will be replaced by the rejected worst quality on the way. At many stages they get into private mills, malls, and food processing units, industries at pittance managed by the mighty and powerful. The intended grain for the poor finally ends up in McDonalds burgers or Star hotel plates.

PDS also pushes for large production of same thing in an area. That is called mono culture. That is if Punjab is rich in wheat production, the government procures only wheat from small farmers & nothing else. So in desire of money they grow only one grain. But for healthy living they need multi grain. So government says I’ll give through PDS procured from elsewhere. The earth also becomes weak with mono culture. The farmer also becomes slave of government procurement of his produce as well as consumer of what government gives. Independence fully lost.

Large land Farming Vs Small land farming

While this is happening in the distribution system, what happens to the society of producers & beneficiaries? Are they getting rich? Not really. The farmers suicide is an indicator. The father of Green Revolution for India M Swaminathan now advocates Small Land holding, Family Farming, multi crop farming, organic farming in this paper: http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/107/12/1970.pdf

The green revolution was launched to curb world hunger. He got recognized and rewarded for his great research enabling the rice & wheat revolution in India during 80’s. Now he is shunning his own propositions. Within his life time he realized that this had detrimental effect and increased poverty and is not sustainable. So he has presented several papers to UN in favour of small land holding and family farming which he says as ‘Ever Green Revolution’. But is government listening and caring? They still push for subsidies to chemical farming, factories, polluting air and river.

The chemical farming will lead small farmers into long term debts. Debts will lead to suicide or giving up their land for big land lords. Then become their slaves.

Big land lords want subsidies in chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The chemical factories will lobby with the government for fast and high productivity per acre through chemical farming. Politicians succumb to their lobby money. Politicians are people leaders and they know very well the problem and the solution. But still since they succumb to lobby money, they paint the picture to small farmers to get loan, take subsidy, and assure them that their government will protect them. So the vicious circle starts.

The education about organic farming is slowly but steadily growing. I hope a day comes when people will vote out a politician who promises subsidies and vote to power someone who gives them freedom from subsidies to chemical farming. And hence leading to shut down of these chemical factories.

Large Dams: Concentration of large amount of water for distribution to Arid regions

Here again Government believes in Concentration of Water Wealth of equity distribution to all. It is a myth. Whole lot of movements in India & the world has happened against the large dams. In many cases government has dropped the idea. But still in north east there are more than 100 large dams sanctioned and in various stages of implementation even now. The UPA, NDA are all same when it comes to adopting modern civilization of earth destruction and humanity destruction for the benefit of few.

Typically a large dam submerges very large fertile land, usually forest land. The benefit is for some 5 to 10 times larger area if properly executed in the plains. So cost benefit looks good & stops on paper only. Beyond this only problem, issues, destruction, arise.

Typically the dam construction is first step. But the benefit is realized only after canals, sub canals, sub-sub canals are constructed reaching every acre of the plains that is planned. But rarely that happens. Even in KRS, in one of the ambitious overhead canal they left water recently first time after its construction after so many decades. Funnily they immediately shut it because of leakage. They never attempted to leave water again in that canal. So many kilometers of cement canal, pillars are standing as mute reminder of our failure. While on way to Mysore from Bangalore you can see that overhead canal cross over the highway even today.

Recently, Deve Gowda our beloved former Prime minister was booked for not implementing Benne Hole canal after a very large sum of money was sanctioned and spent when he was PWD minister. But he successfully argued that it was constructed and got out of it. How? Because the canal needs maintenance. So he argued without maintenance mud swept over, bushes, grasses grew. So the canal vanished.

The answer lies again in small tanks construction and maintenance. The ancient system of linked tank (Kere, Kunte, Yeri, Pushkarani, etc.,) system brings up the water table. All the districts in India had linked tank system. Even in the arid plains there used to be tanks. A tank typically used to be life line for surrounding 3-4 villages. And 4-5 linked tanks used to irrigate all agriculture done by those 15-20 villagers. Some of the old & famous surviving tanks have some inscriptions of that day’s king or paleygar who commissioned it. For example, Chitradurga’s Chandravalli tank has Mayura Varma of Kadamba’s inscriptions. That means it served several generations life for almost 1500 years now. Can you compare it with our Benne Hole example!?!

Large Conglomerates: Reducing jobs, eliminating large number of small players; eliminating competition; reducing quality

During last UPA regime due to the concerted efforts of the opposition they shot down the FDI in retail. It is a good thing. We are already under so much poverty by embracing modern ways of things. To top it if we bring in foreign investment also they’ll release us only after sucking out all blood. British rule already taught us before. But we don’t seem to learn from bad experience of recent past nor from good example of ancient times.

Large conglomerates are entering simple retail industry. The large conglomerates will have the financial muscle to arm twist the government and banks to sanction large loans. Then they ensure the direct farm to shop delivery of farm products. This will give raise to large farming, contract farming & eliminate small farmers or make them slaves. Then in the procurement & transportation, there a number of small business owners who get eliminated. Then in the distribution it will eliminate the stockists and the small shop owners. The small petty shop owners will be generally all family members involved. And all of them will need to find new jobs or get enslaved. So in this entire process, the job loss will be more than 50% of the jobs originally held. The consumer hopes to get the benefit of those channels removed. But do you really see that? All the profit get pocketed handsomely by the corporate but still show losses in the books somehow for tax avoidance. So government also looses by tax collection at various stages by the small businesses.

So the net effect is whole lot of job loss and hence increasing poverty; Increasing wealth of the wealthy creating a greater divide between the rich and the poor; the government loses tax revenue.

Final Conclusion

So through these examples, it is clear that Small land farming, Small tanks, Small businesses create harmony, independence & interdependence, fosters innovation, sustenance for generations, quality. Most importantly it creates wealth, job sustenance, it eliminates poverty. It creates freedom to live. After all that’s what our forefathers fought freedom for.  Why do we give it away to another set of goons?