What Is Hindutva

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


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 What Is Real Hindutva

The great Hindu heritage is based not on one book, preceptor, or dogma. The Hindu heritage and culture flow from the great Vedic teachings: ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti ,Truth is One, Sages Call it by Many Names, and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam -- The Whole Universe is one Family. That is why the Hindu society has a proud and indubitable history of tolerance for other religions and their spiritual beliefs. So we find that Hindus gave refuge to many people fleeing from kinds of persecution, - Jews, Zoroastrians, Tibetan Buddhists etc.

The universal inclusion, so characteristic of the Hindus made the society so vibrant and unassailable that the successive invaders beginning with the Islamists who were the damned bloodiest in history failed to destroy  Hinduism or even contain it.

But despite such barbarism meted out to them by the hordes of Islamic invaders from Central Asia and Turkey, Hindus never paid them back in the same coin. They refused to adopt the barbarian rules by which the Islamists played. No Hindu ever tried to match the level of cruelty of even a moderate Muslim ruler.. Hindus sustained their tolerance and the adaptability to change, to evolve through all adversities.

However, the Muslim society’s inherent unwillingness to change, to adapt, abetted by the Islamic clergy never realized or considered the debt they owed to Hindus for their tolerance and lack of vengeance. Instead Hindus  were forced to divide the country and partition it, - a country that had millennia of common culture. In spite of that, "Hindu majority India continued the Hindu ideals by remaining secular.  India even gave the Muslim minority gifts such as separate personal laws, special status to the only Muslim majority state, Kashmir, and also other rights that are even unheard of." elsewhere. It is these characteristics of Hindu society and the still un-evolved Muslim psyche that remain today.

The self-appointed guardians of India, the Congress, called themselves secularists to play vote bank politics. They  feigned ignorance of the fact that it was the Hindu psyche that believed in secularism that prompted to declare India as secular  In the guise of vote-bank secularism Hindu traditions and customs were ridiculed and mocked at.as archaic and regressive to be changed to achieve modernity. They ignored the fact that  it was the Hindu thought that had inspired some of the greatest intellectuals of the world and that it was Hindus, who were the most nationalistic people in India.

The pseudo-secularism sought to relegate the majority in to mere spectators and bystanders in the game of politics. The majority then had no other go but to demand true secularism "where every religious group would be treated the same and a government that would not take Hindu sentiments for granted". .Thus Hindutva, homogeneous in history, culture and ethos, awakened to a new consciousness of a new national order leading to a new world order wherein India  had great contributions to make and will play a dominant role.

"Hindutva will not mean any Hindu theocracy or theology. However, it will mean that the guiding principles of Bharat will come from two of the great teachings of the Vedas, the ancient Hindu and Indian scriptures, which so boldly proclaimed -truth is one, sages call it by many names - and - the whole universe is one family..

The Caste Vanity

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 The Caste Vanity.

As celebrations of caste vanity and their equal resistance by opponents take central stage the so called intellectuals and thinkers should calmly ponder over whether their concern for humanity should be limited along sectarian lines.

There is nothing wrong with caste system if it is viewed as segregation of society in  line with the profession of particular sections of people who are traditionally engaged in,  and without any attribute of hierarchical gradation of inter- say superiority or inferiority of sections, as it was originally formed. In that case , people of a caste section can take genuine pride in themselves with a sense of belonging together as a homogeneous group traditionally practicing one profession.

But carrying such pride to the nefarious extent of attributing superiority or inferiority between the caste at once makes the castes antagonistic to each other. But that is precisely what happened to the Varna or caste system in later stages to which the Brahmanical hegemony was responsible to a large extent. This led to oppression of the castes, the brunt of which was born by what was regarded as the lowest.
Such a corruption set in the Varna system made those who were branded as the lowest turn their sense of belonging together in to one also of  antagonism towards their oppressors.

We see that this situation developed to  its worst during the British rule because the Britishers saw internecine caste hostility   as an instrument for their divide and rule strategy and did everything to augment it. The classical instance of one such act was the erection of an obelisk at Koregaon village in Maharashtra to commemorate the success of a small British- Indian regiment consisting a majority of Mahar caste in resisting a much larger contingent of Maratha Peshwa army for a night till dawn, when the Marathas themselves withdrew in anticipation of imminent arrival of a bigger British reinforcement, during Bhima Koregaon battle of 1818. Britishers encouraged Marvas to view the memorial as one for celebrating their victory over their oppressors, Peshwas, whose army comprised of Brahmans (among others, including Arabs). The class war victory of the oppressed over the oppressors!

Consistent with the intense caste antagonism of the times, the Marvas were inveigled easily in to celebrating the event annually at Koregaon, a practice performed recently too which led to eruption of  Maratha-Mahar confrontation which took center stage in the political controversies. A section of the so called human rightists who have their political agenda  and the Opposition jumped in to the fray taking the side of the Marvas  to make instant political capital out of the incident blowing up the flames.  If British with their divide and rule mantra have gone with the wind ,there are now these neo-liberals cohorting with the paranoiac Opposition to chant the mantra at the slightest opportunity in their strategy of polarizing the people and derive political mileage!

Triple Talq Verdict by Supreme Court a Moral Booster for BJP

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


Triple Talq Verdict by Supreme Court a Moral  Booster for BJP

When on Tuesday, the SC verdict struck down triple talaq, the struggle by Muslim women to get their Constitutional right to gender equality and dignity started by Sha Bano over three decades back was brought to fruition, albeit partly, by another Bano, Shayara Bano, the courageous woman from Uttarakhand.
The SC verdict was welcomed widely by political parties across ideological prism, social activists, jurists and Muslim scholars—a sharp contrast to the vociferous protest that had greeted the apex court verdict in 1985, entitling Shah Bano, a 62 years old mother of five, to alimony. Unlike now, Muslim groups had then hit the streets in protest, prompting the ruling Congress leaders to join the chorus. Rajiv Gandhi developed cold feet, apprehensive of the vote bank repercussions of a Hindu PM allowing reforms in Muslim personal law, and hastily moved to bring in legislation to nullify the SC verdict much against considerable opposition from within, especially the women leaders.

Diametrically opposite is the situation now signifying how much India has progressed. Union law minister Ravishankar Prasad said that India of 2017 is not that of 1987 (when Sha Bano verdict was scuttled by Congress). Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and many senior BJP leaders were quick to welcome the court ruling, terming it as a victory for gender justice and dignity. BJP leaders were at pains to explain that the SC judgment should not be linked with religion.
The BJP’s stand on triple talaq is expected to appeal to the liberal intelligentsia within the Muslim community as also to the right-wing elements who have berated the Congress for allegedly indulging in “minority appeasement”. And the party now looks forward to considerable political gain, especially in the upcoming assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

The Conundrum of Article 35A

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

The Conundrum of Article 35A.

 

 

 

 It is rather depressing to dwell on the confounding problems the nation has to confront which have been created by the premier political family of the Congress in its pursuit of votebank politics and policy of appeasement.The latest conundrum is Article 35A of the Constitution conferring discriminating rights for Jammu&Kashmir.

 The Article 35A of the constitution sticks out almost as a fraud, injurious to the interests of the state and the country, connived at and committed by the then governing dispensation which was more concerned about vote bank politics and appeasement rather than  national interests.The article was created by the backdoor method of a Presidential order in 1954 as a sub provision of Article 35. But surprisingly you will not find this Article after Article 35 in the main body of the  Constitution, as is required when a Constitutional amendment is brought about, but in the appendix!  It is surprising and also worrisome that a provision like Article 35A has received little or no academic attention until recently.

Article 35 forms part of the "Fundamental Rights" chapter, and Article 35 A having been added after this provision  becomes part of the same chapter, but ironically, in essence and substance, it curtails the fundamental rights of a vast number of  citizens of our country. Article 35A is nothing but a restricted version of the 1927 & 1932 Orders empowering the state legislature to determine who are permanent residents of the state and confer on them various special rights and privileges while imposing restrictions on others

Unfortunately, by virtue of Article 5 of the Constitution of India, all residents of Jammu and Kashmir are citizens of India enjoined with various rights but not vice versa. Consequently, a situation has arisen when no one outside of Jammu and Kashmir can (i) purchase land there, (ii) get benefit of scholarship and admission to educational institutions of the state, (iii) apply for government employment in the state. It is not just limited to people outside of Jammu and Kashmir not satisfying the permanent resident criteria; even women marrying out of the state lose out on various rights and become "non-permanent" which makes them ineligible to buy land in their home state or benefit from various welfare legislation dealing with their right to property. Although in 2002, a full bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court held that even after marriage to outsiders, such women will not lose out on their permanent resident status, their children still do not have any rights as they are not included in the permanent resident category. In fact, one of the petitions pending before the Supreme Court highlights this aspect of discrimination and it is time that this issue is settled once and for all.

There are glaring instances where Article 35A has led to discrimination, violating the principles of human rights and various provisions of the constitution, forcing lakhs of people in  the state to lead the lives of second-class citizens. About 200 Valmiki families who were brought from Punjab to Jammu and Kashmir in 1957 to be employed as Safai Karamcharis were promised "permanent resident status", but 60 years on, their status is still in limbo. Even though many  members of these families have the educational qualifications required to apply for government employment, they are not entitled to do so except as Safai Karamcahris. Another glaring instance of discrimination pertains to the refugees from West Pakistan who migrated to Jammu and  Kashmir after partition but still treated as refugees. A population of around 3,00,000 is excluded from social welfare schemes, scholarships, admission to schools run by the  state government on account of this protective shield that the state of Jammu and Kashmir enjoys on account of Article 35A.

Ironically. the provision is a self-flagellation in a way. The economic potential of the state has not been realized as Article 35A acts as a deterrent to investment from outside It is the people of the state who have been deprived of the benefits that an open economy ushers in.. So, rather than aiding the people of Jammu and Kashmir, these provisions have, over the years, impeded the growth of the state.

Also, this situation has been exploited by separatists who find it easy to enlist unemployed youth in the name of protecting the Kashmiri identity  Every time these Articles are mentioned, all political parties except for the BJP raise the banner of revolt and predict doomsday for the country if these are repealed. Currently, we are witnessing the same scenario.   To end this, Article 35A should be approached dispassionately so that the Supreme Court can take a legal view of the entire issue.

THE GHASTLY TRAGEDY AT GORAKHPUR

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 THE GHASTLY TRAGEDY AT GORAKHPUR

 Tragedies might appear as bolts from the blues, sometimes even as ordained due to wrath of heaven, but these days those of earthly reasons are  aplenty. News of one such ghastly tragedy struck us  last Friday. When reports of nearly 30 children dead in 48 hours in Gorakhpur's Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College and Hospital trickled in on Friday night, it proved to be yet another ghastly example of the government's ailing public healthcare system in India. The death of these 30 children within a span of 48 hours and 63 children in the last five days for various reasons including lack of oxygen supply at the Uttar Pradesh hospital which was stopped when the hospital failed to clear its dues of over Rs 68 lakh. A letter by the vendor — Pushpa Sales Pvt Ltd — addressed to the hospital chief suggested an outstanding payment of Rs 68,65,702 was the reason behind the disruption of the oxygen supply. After 4.30 pm on Saturday, the BRD Medical College Principal, Rajiv Mishra was suspended. A judicial inquiry has been ordered. Both the Chief Minister Yogi Adithya Nath  and the Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya assured that "whoever is found guilty in the tragic and painful incident at BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur will certainly face stringent action,". After 3.30 pm on Saturday, the Prime Minister Office tweeted that Narendra Modi was closely monitoring the situation in Uttar Pradesh and said that Union minister of state for health Anupriya Patel and Union health secretary will take stock of situation.Union health minister JP Nadda has also sought a report from the Uttar Pradesh health department on the deaths of the children.

As always, the opposition saw it as an opportunity to derive political mileage. Insincere outbursts of outrage and laments flew at the state and central govts, as if it is the first ghastly incident taking place in that state. Rahul Gandhi with alacrity reserved only for such god-send opportunities took out his familiar template of Modi bashing, filled it up and threw at the people. Sonia ostentatiously commiserated with the hapless people, while retainers like Manish Tiwari stressed the "moral responsibility". Both he and co-retainer Ghulam Nabi Azad, demanded the head of Chief Minister and Health Minister ( who was a rival spokesman for BJP). Other parties, including the always-under-illusion Maya-vathi's donated their usual babel and bedlam.

No doubt, the state government authorities are at fault. A responsible opposition should identify the culprit level at which the failure occurred and pin down it in order to be positive and effective. Any negative and irresponsible blame game will only be counterproductive. The government has made it clear that no one from the hospital had informed them about the issue of lack of oxygen. Government at ministerial level is the solution to the problem and  is not the problem unless directly responsible for the mishap at that level.

The fact of the matter is that when it comes to public spending on healthcare, India lags behind abysmally. Research by medical journal Lancet showed that India ranked 154 out of 195 countries in terms of healthcare access, far behind countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana and Liberia. That is the legacy from the family Raj.

Hamid Ansari's Swansong

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

Hamid Ansari's Swan Song.

 

After 10 years in office , the swan-song sung by former Vice President Hamid Ansari on the last day of his office, wittingly it seems, has caused him to face a barrage of brickbats. The swan, suddenly, appeared to many as particolored and some what mosaic. It shows that politicians only just cover up their spots temporarily with a veneer of white correctness till the load of propriety and rectitude demanded by their office is going to be no more a burden on them. The very fact that he chose to make that contentious statement about Muslims in India being afraid and insecure, on the last day of his office indicates that he has been dying to blurt out that view for quite some time . He could be feeling relieved now after finally letting his steam out. But that also made him depart from the lofty position he had been in for so long by a fall and thud to the ground although he may not mind it believing that the fall has also shortened his distance to his community and crassness of politics.

Ansari might be resting with peace surrounded by his folks, having delivered his simmering resentment in the form of a parting kick and thus having not failed in thanks giving to the party which had hoisted him to the lofty position ten long years before. In that case, he must be reminded of a few facts.
That statement of his is similar to what Pakistan former President General Pervez Musharraf had stated as part of his attack on India and his anti India agenda internationally. Pakistan to date has been repeating that line.That India',s Vice President in his constitutional position is bearing out Musharraf and Pakistan could be to the great diplomatic discomfiture of India. Or, was that the intention of the statement?
Does he not know that this Hindu majority nation on its own has adopted the principle of secularism in its constitution? There have been three Muslim Presidents, five Supreme Court Chief Justices besides the creditable fact that the first female judge in the Supreme court was a Muslim,- Justice Fathima Beebi. Three front ranking super stars in Bollywood are Muslims besides a host of Muslim stars and super stars of the past. No cinema goer bothers about their religion. So open and welcoming are other fields and realms of political, cultural and social life in India. A political leader might ascribe his lofty position in office to people, his supporters, but surely for a man like Ansari who has seen only Rajya Sabha to become two-time Vice President can only be through the secular sentiments in the country.
It was a disappointing anticlimax acted by Ansari who among all his contemporary Muslim dramatis personae is the top beneficiary of the secular munificence in this country.

Devils In God's Own Country

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


Devils In God's Own Country

The lush green paddy fields of Kerala bordered by emerald-blue waters of costal sealine twinkling under an azure sky will hardly evoke any thought of religious fundamentalism, If anything it should evoke peace and harmony. But people here are so inured to it that it hardly matters. What matters to them is heady politics colored with disparate hues of red, green, and of late yellow and saffron. But politics one can live with as everywhere, as a fact of life, But not so when the green is slowly being increasingly blackened by violent extremism of the deadly ISIS sway. The menace of radicalization has , it seems, hit the the northern Kerala as a bolt from the blues. One would have thought that modernity with its veneer of technology could lessen religiosity. But on the other hand we are witnessing a 21st century revival of religious fundamentalism leading to a 12 th century kind of jihad-ism. Keralites have only heard about it from history but unfortunately contacts with its inheritors from Arab countries have thrown them susceptible for a new kind of virulent jihadi contagion.

More and more young jihadists are emerging from the backwoods of Muslim radicalization graveyards destined for the 'greener' fields of Wahabism and ultimately to its nadir of evil, to the hellish innards of the wholly black ISIS. All of them know that it is an enterprise of no return, a journey to nowhere but to the land of hurrys serving wine in Muslim heaven and a luxurious heather life without having to work! At least that is what this doctored, brain-washed, indoctrinated gullible greenhorns are made to believe.
The insidious development might have started at least a decade or so, for any one watching could have but noticed the mushrooming of madrasas and mosques in northern Kerala.There was this propensity of ascribing every new such manifestations to the new affluence brought by the gulf money. It was in fact more than that. The average Muslim's wants remained the same but what he acquired was more and more mosques. Worship there was briefly, but much more that was going on might have been indoctrination and radicalization. The exhortation was to find a purer brand of Islam which was held out to be Saudi Arabian Wahabism or Salafism. The result is the trickle of a new kind of one way no-return Haj journey to the Mecca of Wahabism, the ISIS Caliphate.
And as usual our political lads come late in to the class. As the class from which the lads come we are not used to make them stand on the bench. Instead we just hear the monitor says " radicalization has nothing to do with religion - meaning: I don't want my supply of chocolates to stop.

Burhan Wani, Kashmir's Terror Blue-boy and Robinhood Combined.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 Burhan Wani, Kashmir's Terror Blue-boy and Robinhood Combined.

 The 21-year-old Burhan Wani, one of Hizbul Mujahideen’s prominent commanders, was killed in an encounter with security forces on Friday in the Kokernag area of south Kashmir. Security forces regarded him as the brains behind several attacks on them while Wani himself had threatened to target them.

This viral Facebook photo shows Burhan Wani (in the middle) and Naseer Ahmed Pandit (second row, extreme left), posing with guns and other militants. The new militant brigade in the region is embracing the power of social media and is unafraid of revealing its identity.

 The son of a school principal and a high scoring student, Wani picked up arms when he was just 15 years old, spurred by the violent treatment meted out to his elder brother, Khalid. Khalid had been beaten up by security forces based on allegations that he was recruiting militant cadre during the 2010 unrest. He was killed last year while traveling to meet Wani in a forest hideout Photographs of him in military fatigues and brandishing rifles surfaced in 2014, seemingly firing the imagination of many. Burhan Wani, became a young Robin Hood-like figure a role model for Kashmiri  youngsters like him. Naseer Ahmed Pandit, a young Jammu and Kashmir Police constable had seemed to be especially loyal to the government and army. One sudden day, Pandit disappeared and took his service weapons with him. His father realised he’d joined the ranks of terrorists after a press release issued by the Hizbul Mujahideen claimed him as a trophy.
   
The ground reality in Kashmir is changing slowly but surely and it can be gauged even from plain statistics. If in 2013, 31 local youths joined militancy, the number for 2015 (till September-end) jumped to 66, according to police records. Why are Kashmiri youth – who made way for Pakistani-trained terrorists – coming into the forefront once again? After the first rush in 1989, when insurgency took root, the locals are once again outnumbering what the security establishment refers to as ‘foreign terrorists’. According to official figures, north Kashmir has 66 local and 44 foreign terrorists and in south Kashmir, locals number 109 and foreign terrorists are a mere seven. The new strategy is to recruit locals because the Pakistan is not able to push terrorists across the line of control.

Almost 60% of the Valley’s population is below the age of 30 and we have to ensure engagement with the youth, especially with shrinking job avenues. The demographic bulge comprising the youth is hyperactive on social media which has become a fertile recruitment ground. The videos are affecting the psychology of Kashmiri youth who spend hours watching videos uploaded by local militants and by Islamic State. Their only role models are militants with guns like Burhan. A police survey found that the locality mosques were becoming congregation points in which Maulvis were holding animated discussions on the threat to Islam and Kashmiriyat. The ground beneath Kashmir’s feet is indeed slipping.

It is easy to get recruits to terror in Islam because of the belief that martyrdom in the cause of religion or Allah is not only noble but highly rewarding in one's life in the heaven and it is certain that they not only do not die but go to heaven to live a luxurious life in heaven without having to work. Burhan Wani's father says: "Yes, I do get a bit disturbed ( on the prospect of his son getting killed one day) but our Islam says that God, Quran and the Prophet are bigger than anything, even bigger and more important than our sons. It’s not the other way round. If our God is not happy with us then we don’t need our sons. Our God should be happy with us even if my son’s or my sacrifice is needed for that. Whosoever dies because of the oppression from India, or by an Indian bullet, doesn’t die. He goes from this world to the other world (as promised in the Quran); there will be no disease in that world, no oppression. This is what our Islam tells. That’s why Muslims don’t fear that".

It is very difficult to confront people who really believe that. The tragedy is that like in the past over two decades, neither Srinagar nor New Delhi is wising up to the new reality and looking beyond security perspectives

A Girl with Large Rotund Eyes with a Gleam in them

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 A Girl with Large Rotund Eyes with a Gleam in them

The other day (14may 2016) my alma mater Banaras (Varanasi) Hindu University celebrated her centenary. The occasion was graced by the presence of Honorable President of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee who inaugurated the celebrations.

The glad news set me down the golden lane of memory, paved with nostalgia, marked with proud milestones, and shaded with a whole lot of cool greenery of comradery, of a kind which we seem never to acquire later in life. Perhaps that sort of comradery can only develop among greenhorns. Many faces and events and dramatis personae scroll past as if on a screen, and suddenly there comes that moment when the scrolling stays put for a while. The screen vanishes and you are left alone with what it suggests: to take a hard look into life that looks suddenly more than life-size!

What it suggested was indeed poignantly more than life-size, if mine or most of ours, is any benchmark. It was about a face spotlighted in the dark screen,  which I knew- to give a name now-  as of Gowri (not real name). With her ever wondering rather large rotund eyes, matching face,  and glowing complexion Gowri was undoubtedly the college beauty and arguably the Miss University. She had all the naive ethnicity and charm of the then old-world Thripuniththara in Kerala she hailed from , but with a veneer of some exposure to modernity, perhaps of Convent education.  One year junior to me, she found perhaps an elder brother in me as well as among the few fellow Malayali compatriots. A beautiful girl will have more than a plain girl's share of woes and worries and unsavory situations to face, and help for her was readily forthcoming as long as some of us chivalrous gladiators were around. (Feminists may be grinding their teeth, murmuring 'patriarchy'!)  I left the University in her second year, having finished my course.

Years later, on an evening, I was standing with a friend before the Metro Cinema in Calcutta's (Kolkata's ) Chowrangee road, debating whether to make it a movie-day or just a walk-day when I saw the old Banaras hand Shenai ambling along, still very much in his characteristic gait. Although years later and with put on weight, his face had not changed and his gait too. Nothing much might have happened to my mug and person, as he readily recognized and hailed me excitedly. After the embrace - his home-made hair oil smell had gone, replaced by that of cologne Brute - we turned to nostalgia and reminiscences which included a lot of updating old guy's and girl's whereabouts. My own batch-mate,  slightly older among us -so, called secretly 'chechi' - was now professor in a college affiliated to the university. And what about, I started,... and lo! ... comes along a little in front  a couple, the lady with an ever wondering rotund face, very matronly but chaperoned by her  stern looking hubby.  Shenoy and me both cried besides ourselves and in synchronized chorus : hey beat me! isn't it good old Gowri.!! . We then stepped up in front to be seen by Gowri who just stopped in her track utterly astonished. There was still that glow in her eyes which used to be our reward in the past, but now only to be subdued suddenly as it were  by some afterthought. There came a reserved poise befitting her hubby's grimness. Both of us noted it and granted it to her, ( again the damned 'patrirchy') as natural in a girl's progress ( or is it 'regress',  feminist dears?) to housewifedom.. They are no more girls but reticent wives hailing old classmates in presence of their  Sultans, all the time putting their eye-corners to good use to watch every facial muscle on hubby's mug. Well the meet ended in preliminaries and formalities and she hurriedly bid good by, the hubby not condescending even to a formal halloo. Shenoy threw a slow contemplative remark at their back to the effect that the fellow is some CEO in a corporate, adding an apt adjective describing the man as with some  'headweight'. Well with Shenoy also free, we decided to make it a movie-day, going in to Metro Cinema, updating and reminiscing in between before he finally parted to catch his Bombay( Mumbai) flight.

Gowri never appeared anywhere around me for a long time till I heard about her.  But this time her life had turned to be a story fit enough for a novel. During one of my professional perambulations I had walked into another Govt. office to meet its head,  and there on the other side of the table sat another of my classmate, this time of both  graduate, and the  post graduate classes at Banaras. Wonder of wonders! I seem to have an uncanny knack of running in to class buddies in the most unexpected times and places.. This time our reminiscences continued well after the office time, till the watchman coughed discreetly, whereupon the venue shifted to a nearby restaurant as the buddy was staying alone with family staying back in his native place. There I heard Gowri's life story which had come a full circle from the corporate heights of Calcutta to the alluvial green land of rural Kerala, but not in any charming old-world scenario, but to a dingy one-room garret in a shaky market shop.

When we met her in the heady Chowrangee place of Calcutta, she had hidden her frustration in the cloak of a reserved poise befitting a jet set. For a long time she never let anyone know that behind that unreal facade there was a heart crying for love and care. Her husband had no time for her or children and was more to be found in Calcutta's glitzy clubs. Children were packed off to boarding houses and hostels  where they grew up in their own way. The corporate quarters went on changing and none had any sense of belonging or anchorage. All of them became another kind of urban flotsam. She craved for some love and attention either from the husband or the children which she never got. and when children became men and women they totally abandoned her, immersed in their own world. Totally alienated, she craved for some caring of any sort and her own moorings of rural simplicity of an unhurried lifestyle where people had always time for others..

Her wishes personified in the arrival of a photographer who came to her house, first summoned for covering some function and later becoming a frequent visitor, function or no function. It is not known what type of person this guy was whether an astute opportunist who could sense the crying soul in her only to be taken advantage of, or an understanding sensitive soul with humane kindness to be of use in work of redemption of the lost and depressed. Whatever be the case, it was only a matter of months before her tormented mind decided to take the plunge.  She threw her tattered life in Calcutta in to the polluted winds from the Hooghly river, forsaking everything she desperately wanted to matter to her but was never allowed to, abandoned a home which was never a home to her and eloped  with the photographer one uncertain fine or fiendish morning. A woman desperately yearning for love could do anything, even fiendish things like killing own progeny or senselessly convert to another religion, without batting an eyelid. Every woman in her heart of heart is a timeless teenager.

Together they returned to the unassuming simplicity of a small town setting where the man had his original small studio below and a one-room tenement, more of a garret, above. When My friend named the place with a sigh, I knew the place which i often used to pass by in my younger days, - a sleepy market place of a few ramshackle shops. Occasional buses, one or two stop briefly without shutting their engines, only to hurriedly move on before wasting time. What kind of meetings or functions there could be except an occasional marriage or something, for the studio to be in demand, or may be some passport photos, for sustenance.

Did she find the Shalimar of love and care she yearned for!. Or after the  initial sense and relief of liberation, did discontent of a chilly winter and a sense of irreversible doom set in!! None of us dared to find out. if she did find her Shalimar then we would be welcome; in the dreaded alternative eventuality,  a visit from one of us or of both could shatter her.

Both of us decided ultimately to rather stay with our memory of a large, ever wondering pair of rotund eyes with an endearing gleam in them and to let her leave us ever wondering. It had haunted me ever since and I had to write it down to get rid of it.

The Anti -Nationals or Non-Nationals or Media-Nationals..

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 

"The serendipitous profile of the mainstream — Hindu, urban and mofussil, upper-caste, middle-to-upper-class, mostly north Indian, mostly male, and perhaps most importantly, liberal-to-Right in ideological persuasion — matches that of the majority of persons in the legislature, bureaucracy, judiciary, police and paramilitary force, the business and trading communities, white-collar corporate employees, teachers, and, tellingly, media workers (especially in the electronic media). It is through this media that this nation of a privileged minority sees itself, and only itself, as the true nation — the true ‘India’ (or ‘Bharat’, depending on linguistic and other ideological preferences).

But the vast majority of the population of India lies outside this profile. They don’t belong to this ‘India’, this ‘Bharat’. They live in the gutters and ghettoes, the fields and forests, the roadsides and ravines, the backyards and brothels of this nation. They are the rejects and the failures, the ones who didn’t or couldn’t acquire this profile. They are India, but they will always remain outside this ‘India’, and become anti-national the moment they question their exclusion".

 They are also India, agreed. Then the question is posed: So would anyone else who questions their exclusion, or who supports them, or speaks up on their behalf stand as potential criminals in the terms of the unstated law of anti-nationalism.

The answer is: certainly not. But the mainstream India as defined above by the 'questioners' themselves, does not see or acknowledge that the latter represent the rest of India, the underprivileged. It is in fact very apparent that the 'questioners' are just another section, often highly privileged, highly politicized, highly vocal, anti-rightists, or leftists and extremists who stage a self-righteous dance drama,  ostensibly for the underprivileged, but in fact for their own enhancement. There in lies the hypocrisy, the deceit, the perfidy of the left- of- center. They are the myopic drowsy Rip Van Winkles, the neotenic Marxists and Maoists who in fact, if history is any guide, prey upon the underprivileged.

That makes it prudential for the mainstream India to pick up each of these road show creatures with a pair of forceps and  examine it for what it really looks and sounds like. And you will find that under the lens they all have distinct stripes poke marks and scarlet colors. There are political recruiters who hurriedly make a beeline for enlistment and campus selection with promise of immediate stardom and  fat remuneration. These neo-liberal political corporate entities  are a new breed of failed business CEOs desperately scouting for some political and providential manna falling from the skies to feed on.

But it is sheer drought for them and obviously and drastically harakiri staring in face.

The Art of Maligning

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

I have no hesitation to say that the current hullabaloo about the Yamuna flood plain destruction by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living World Culture Festival  is so much hogwash. The environmental activists now stalking the TV channels are a breed of glorified laymen masquerading as experts. Apart from their stereotyped verbiage, jargon  easily acquired from some pamphlets and brochures, and occasionally from some publications dealing with environment, all that they possess is disinformation wrought by naive and simplistic interpretation of this kind of warped knowledge. They are no scientists of any note, and I doubt whether the Green Tribunal has any reputed scientists who have enough credentials to sit there as experts.  If there are,  I have not heard any single scientist authentically explaining eventualities  related to the ecology of Yamuna. At present obstructionists  are mostly belonging to the tribe of activists, who are like masons  in place of engineers and  compounders or pharmacists  in place of doctors.  So I don't listen to that activist cacophony.

We should note that many great cities are built on the flood plains of great rivers.  Now those cities and towns have become part of these floodplain ecosystem as much as the original and modified biota. They are all part of its biodiversity. They are a category of riparian zones and systems. Since there is mostly a flood way as the core of the flood plains, latter is one of the easiest to restore to sustainability unlike grasslands away from water sources. Two to three year's leave-alone policy is enough to restore a flood plain, as the natural succession which is the best effective way will take over.

Wetting of the floodplain soil by rains releases an immediate surge of nutrients: those left over from the last flood, and those that result from the rapid decomposition of organic matter that has accumulated since then. Microscopic organisms thrive and larger species enter a rapid breeding cycle. Opportunistic feeders (particularly birds) move in to take advantage. The production of nutrients peaks and falls away quickly; however the surge of new growth endures for some time. This makes floodplains particularly valuable for agriculture. That is the reason civilization originated in the great flood plains of mighty rivers.

All the mumbo jumbo the differently interested activists mumble are just a smokescreen to hide their political motivation. Restoring the jamboree site  will not cost a paisa other than that for dismantling the structures after the mega event. And what was the earlier condition? Over the years the flood plains have been used as an illegal dumping ground of construction debris. 17 drains were dumping toxic waste in the Yamuna and creating a thick stench; it would be hard for anyone to stand next to the river for 3 minutes, let alone host a 3 day cultural event. Land will now be restored to a much happier and healthier condition which the activist obstructionists could never do.

That Women Are From Moon And Men Are From Mars Is No Longer True.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


  That Women Are From Moon And Men Are From Mars Is No Longer True.

  
Today is International Women's Day. The 2016 theme for International Women’s Day is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. The United Nations observance on 8 March will reflect on how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals. It will equally focus on new commitments under UN Women’s Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s human rights. Yes women's human rights are equal to those of men. Both are equal constituents of human race on this earth. It is no longer true to say that women are from  moon and men are from mars, emphasizing the difference, although the French man might still say 'viva the difference". And scientists say there  is only just less than 2 per cent difference genetically between the two, and that it has nothing to do with faculties!

The 2016 theme for International Women’s Day is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. The United Nations observance on 8 March will reflect on how to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, building momentum for the effective implementation of the new Sustainable Development Goals. It will equally focus on new commitments under UN Women’s Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality, women’s empowerment and women’s human rights - See more at: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/international-womens-day#sthash.YZ6aHuzw.dpuf

It won't be very wrong to say that the women's rights movement  began as largely a western product of the Era of Enlightenment in the European history. It then flourished more vigorously in the United States of America from which its evangelists spread the message across the elitist world. Naturally therefore, what rights are included under women's rights vary in time and cultures.

  In the States, Mary Wollstonecraft in  her 1791-92 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, now considered a classic of feminist history,  argued primarily for the rights of woman to be educated. Through education would come emancipation. The women's suffrage was fought for by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902). Her Seneca Falls (New York) Convention(1848) and

Declaration of Sentiments written byElizabethwhich was approved there, is credited with initiating the long struggle towards women's rights and woman suffrage. She was also active and effective in winning property rights for married women, equal guardianship of children, and liberalized divorce laws.  She died nearly 20 years to go before the United States granted women the right to vote.

When Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell were married(1855), they protested against laws of the time in which women lost their legal existence upon marriage and this protest was instrumental in providing legal existence and rights to women in marriage there. 

The modern women's rights movement began in the 1960s and gained momentum with the development of the scholarly field of Feminist Jurisprudence in the 1970s. In Britain women  gained equal voting rights with men only in 1928.With the end of the First World War many other countries followed – the Netherlands (1917), Austria, Azerbaijan,[132] Canada, Czechoslovakia, Georgia, Poland and Sweden (1918), Germany and Luxembourg (1919), Turkey (1934), and the United States (1920)

 Even today, there is some disagreement about what constitute women's rights. Does a woman have a right to control family size? to equality of treatment in the workplace? to equality of access to military assignments? Usually, "women's rights" refers to whether women have equality with the rights of men where women and men's capacities are the same.

In  India although Gandhiji incorporated women's movements into the Quit India movement and independent women's organizations began to emerge , it was only in post-Independent period women's right movement acquired momentum. However, Despite the progress made by Indian feminist movements, women living in modern India still face many issues of discrimination. India's patriarchal culture has made the process of gaining land-ownership rights and access to education challenging.[4] In the past two decades, there has also emerged a disturbing trend of sex-selective abortion.[5] To Indian feminists, these are seen as injustices worth struggling against

In modern context, women's rights refer to those that should govern in the economic, civil, socio-cultural, and political walks of life. The full economic rights that should accrue to them are in  matters of property rights,  profession, rights to income, in finace dealings, and for maternity leave in service. In civil rights they range in the fields of legal, marriage- diverse, family life and parenthood.  Socio-cultural rights demands are mainly in, sex and control over own body, reproduction and family size,education, religious worship, dress and moral codes, home roles. Lastly ,equal political rights.

Your Child Can't Be Anything.

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


Your Child Can't Be Anything.

 

Many Parents as well as some books say to children that " you can be anything if you put you mind to it wholeheartedly.

What could possibly be wrong with telling our kids they can be anything? Plenty.

 First, studies show that pursuing overly-ambitious goals can be harmful. When researchers study organizations that set stretch goals for employees–goals intended to motivate high performance–they find that these lofty goals often have significant negative side effects. In particular, they find that when people are focused on a goal, and failure to achieve that goal has high costs, unethical behavior increases. Many kids report feeling intense pressure to achieve in school and beyond, and many more kids say they have cheated. 

 Some attentive parents may rightly emphasize the role of imagination :"What you can achieve is limited only by your imagination!". Some may also say that more important than imagining a goal is working hard to achieve it. True, but even if the message “You can do anything!” is broadened to include hard work, it still falls short.

This is because telling kids that they can do anything—whether fueled by imagination or hard work—obscures the critical role of chance in success. Not every child who wants to be a surgeon or sports star can become one, even if they work hard at it. At the same time, in every success story there is the grace of good fortune. Our futures are shaped by many forces beyond our control, including chance, genetics, and other accidents of birth. Then too, statistically speaking, most of us will be average

 This is not to say that parents shouldn’t expect their children’s best or encourage them to work hard and persevere, just that a focus on achievement per se ultimately does kids (and ourselves) a disservice. When we create a mindset that high achievement is better than being average–that high achievers are more special or deserving–we diminish kids’ ability to value both themselves and others. 





Annotated:www.washingtonpost.com

The Modern Micro Mahishaasuras of JNU

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup


 The Modern  Micro Mahishaasuras of JNU

Those who want to hard sell JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, especially the anti-Modi -anti-BJP media lobby,  and see him as a lathi to charge the government, should  realize that the fellow  is a one-day summer sparrow  which doesn't make a profitable political summer for this media brigade.  I saw  Rajdeeep Sardesai and also the devil's advocate, Karan Thaper straining  their neck muscles hard   and turning blue in  face arguing that the learned lady judge of the Delhi High Court, Pratibha Rani,  has lesser wisdom than them and even lesser judicial acumen. How dare she depart from mundane legal jargon and write a powerful, evocative, and resounding judgment, which as another panel member in the discussion did maintain that it might well go down as one of a memorable and historic judgment that might one day become a text for the law students,  seemed to be their line!

These days the media is brain-starved of meaningful quotes, and so pitiably feed on whatever crumbs of banalities their blue boys mouth or eject as pearls of wisdom. Thus Rohit Vemula's parting lament cursing his Dalit birth as his only unwitting  crime, became instantly hailed as a pithy expression of anguish at caste-suppression. While I have every sympathy for the tender sensibilities he had which unfortunately the lad couldn't overcome, I am of opinion that Rohit should have realized that caste suppression was not a suddenly developed feature of universities or elsewhere but had centuries of history of condemnable ubiquitous practice in India. I would have been proud of him had he decided to live and fight the menace.

The latest is the hot selling quote of Kanhaiya 's "profound" revelation that, by shouting "Azaadi" amidst other references to Kashmir, and milling round and round like in an African tribal ritual, - which he must have been familiar with as the guy is said to be a  researcher in African studies, - he and his fellow leftist tribals  meant only (on second thoughts),  azaadi IN India and not from India. How sagaciously convenient!

And pray, let us know what kind of a "kaidi"( prisoner) he was when he , the son of a farm laborer earning just Rs. 3000 a month according to his own statement, could get admission to the country's prestigious Central university of JNU and also thereby getting his study expenses subsidized to the extent of over Rs. 3 lakhs per annum, with a fellowship to boot ( which he did literally)? What kind of a state prisoner he was when he could organize Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon days in the university campus, and in all probability could have got away with it scot-free but for the obnoxious slogans tantamount to biting the hands that feed him and his ilk?

Kanhaiya typifies that young impressionable generation coming from families of  poor to moderate means, and therefor harboring a deep- rooted grouse about their social strata, resenting their chick and well-off compatriots flaunting their opulence, and tit for tat desperately wanting  to overshadow the latter by taking the leftist union route. In the process they become leftist suckers rebelling indiscriminately against all that is conventional, established, prevalent and proper. Before they even realize it, their sense of patriotism becomes a casuality in that metamorphosis.