Aurangazeb and the molestation of Rani by Kashi temple priests

B.N. Pande, working chairman of the Gandhi Darshan Samiti and former Governor of Orissa writes:

 “The story regarding demolition of Vishvanath temple is that while Aurangzeb was passing near Varanasi on his way to Bengal, the Hindu Rajas in his retinue requested that if the halt was made for a day, their Ranis may go to Varanasi, have a dip in the Ganges and pay their homage to Lord Vishwanath.  Aurangzeb readily agreed.  Army pickets were posted on the five mile route to Varanasi.  The Ranis made a journey on the Palkis.  They took their dip in the Ganges and went to the Vishwanath temple to pay their homage.  After offering Puja all the Ranis returned except one, the Maharani of Kutch.  A thorough search was made of the temple precincts but the Rani was to be found nowhere.  When Aurangzeb came to know of it, he was very much enraged.  He sent his senior officers to search for the Rani.  Ultimately, they found that the statue of Ganesh which was fixed in the wall was a moveable one.  When the statue was moved, they saw a flight of stairs that led to the basement.  To their horror, they found the missing Rani dishonored and crying, deprived of all her ornaments.  The basement was just beneath Lord Vishwanath’s seat.  The Rajas expressed their vociferous protests.  As the crime was heinous, the Rajas demanded exemplary action.  Aurangzeb ordered that as the sacred precincts have been despoiled, Lord Vishvanath may be moved to some other place, the temple be razed to the ground and the Mahant be arrested and punished.”


Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya, in his famous prison diary, the book 'The Feathers and the Stones':

“There is a popular belief that Aurangazeb was a bigot in religion.  This, however, is combated by a certain school.  His bigotry is illustrated by one or two instances.  The building of a mosque over the site of the original Kasi Visveswara Temple is one such.  A like mosque in Mathura is another.  The revival of jazia is a third but of a different order.  A story is told in extenuation of the first event.  In the height of his glory, Aurangazeb like any foreign king in a country, had in his entourage a number of Hindu nobles.  They all set out one day to see the sacred temple of Benares.  Amongst them was a Ranee of Cutch.  When the party returned after visiting the Temple, the Ranee of Cutch was missing.  They searched for her in and out, East, North, West and South but no trace of her was noticeable.  At last, a more diligent search revealed a Tah Khana or an underground story of the temple which to all appearances had only two storys.  When the passage to it was found barred, they broke open the doors and found inside the pale shadow of the Ranee bereft of her jewellery.  It turned out that the Mahants were in the habit of picking out wealthy and be-jewelled pilgrims and in guiding them to see the temple, decoying them to the underground cellar and robbing them of their jewellery.  What exactly would have happened to their life one did not know.  Anyhow in this case, there was no time for mischief as the search was diligent and prompt.  On discovering the wickedness of the priests, Aurangazeb declared that such a scene of robbery could not be the House of God and ordered it to be forthwith demolished.  And the ruins were left there.  But the Ranee who was thus saved insisted on a Musjid being built on the ruin and to please her, one was subsequently built.  That is how a Musjid has come to exist by the side of the Kasi Visweswar temple which is no temple in the real sense of the term but a humble cottage in which the marble Siva Linga is housed.  Nothing is known about the Mathura Temple.  This story of the Benares Masjid was given in a rare manuscript in Lucknow which was in the possession of a respected Mulla who had read it in the Ms. and who though he promised to look it up and give the Ms. to a friend, to whom he had narrated the story, died without fulfilling his promise.  The story is little known and the prejudice, we are told, against Aurangazeb persists.”

Chanakya and Aurangazeb

Aurangazeb was not all-perfect, as every ruler was. But, as a ruler, he had been compassionate mostly and had helped the society to have a just order. He saw to it that the judges were honest and trustworthy. Mr. Arvind Kejriwal who does not have even the basic knowledge about the evils of Chaturvarna system in India and who has chosen to replace the name of Aurangazeb from the road of Delhi and to replace it with the name of Abdul Kaalm, must know that the first political terrorist of the world, Chanakya had indulged in genocide of thousands of persons, to capture political power. He was a cut-throat cannibal who used even prostitutes to finish off those who opposed chaturvarna. He created dissension among Non-Brhamins, the way the saffron brigade is doing now a days, and set one against the other, just for the easy life of Brahmins. His character had been criticised even by Banabatta of Kadambari. If the Delhi government could have the embassy enclave named after this diabolical terrorist Chanakya, as Chanakyapuri, why not the name of Aurangazeb continue, for all the good deeds done by him. The Non-Brahmins would never forget Aurangazeb for the great deed done by him in having rescued a Rani who had been molested by the Brahmin priests inside the Kashi temple, When the negative as well as positive side of Auragazeb are evaluated together, as is ought to be, he was really a good ruler.

New Light on the Early History of Tamil Nadu - Prof. V.T. Chellam

A scholarly book, very important for every scholar on Tamil History (1981 Edition):

Imphal Free Press Editorial on migration !

The following is the Editorial from the newspaper Imphal Free Press published on 08.08.2015, on the issue of large scale migration of people from one state to another within India. A well-reasoned, objective and thought-provoking Editorial, the essence of which applies to all the States in the  South India too.

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Room for naturalisation

One of the most magnanimous gifts that a society blessed with a sense of confident and of security is generosity of spirit. Peace would prevail in such a society too. From all indices, Manipur at one point in its history seemed such a society. One of these indices is the demographic makeup of Manipur. The place does not have a homogenous population, but all owe allegiance to their common homeland. But to go away from the larger canvas of the whole state, even amongst any single community, for instance the majority Meiteis, as we had suggested before in these same columns, if a genome study were to be done, it would be discovered how varied the ancestry of this same ethnic group are. Even during recorded historical time, we know this has been the case, and the kings have always encouraged naturalisation and assimilation of settlers, and within a few generations they would be indigenised. In King Khagemba’s time the story of the Pangal (Muslim) invasion from East Bengal in 1606 is well known. The defeated Muslim army was allowed to settle, take local wives and given Meitei surnames to ultimately indigenise. The leniency of course had also to do with the new agricultural and fishing skills the Pangals brought in, falling in the broad pattern of the general outlook of Zomia in matters of skill acquisition that Yale professor, James Scott picturized. Similarly, in the early 18th century, the Brahmins missionaries (Bamon) also were absorbed into the Meitei society. Predetermined by its geography, the Imphal valley would have been a melting pot of ethnicities. The Meiteis themselves, as we know, were formed by the assimilation of seven ethnicities (clans). But the assimilation process did not end there. We also know how many Meitei surnames are distant relations of different hill tribes too. And no doubt about it the society is all the richer for this.

If immigration is controlled and regulated to the extent the society can absorb without detriment to itself, there should be no objection to it. And as we also again already observed in an earlier editorial, those campaigning for the introduction of a regulatory mechanism should keep this in mind, and classify immigrants into two broad categories. In the first category are those who would end up as colonisers becoming the masters of the place’s resources and displacing the original populations. In the other would be those who would assimilate and be part of the collective milieu of the place, unreservedly placing their loyalties to the place of their settlement. The pleas of the local Telis and local Nepalis etc, must therefore not fall on deaf ears. We can also look at how societies which have had similar policy outlooks progressed phenomenally. The story of Singapore which completed half a century of independence earlier this year, is a case in point. Its founder president, Lee Kwan Yew, actively encouraged immigrants, especially those who were skilled, to be assimilated into the Singapore society, and undertook social engineering projects to ensure peaceful, productive co-existence. This generosity of spirit, as Singapore has demonstrated, is not just a matter of ethics and morality, but also of prudent visionary economics and politics. The other case would be America of the 20th Century, and the immigration policy of the time. We are not of course talking of the White colonisation of the earlier centuries and the genocide of the Native Americans. In fact, there have been volumes written how the 20th Century is considered the American century precisely because of its immigration policy. Behind a good majority of the business and scientific innovations of the century that America boast of today, including the Atom bomb, were naturalised immigrants.

The ILP or an equivalent is necessary, but there must be qualifications. It must not be about shutting all doors and windows, but of regulation to ensure the indigenous societies can accommodate settlers to their benefit. It is a fine line that must be drawn, and provided the existential logic behind such a line is well argued out, there is no reason why the state as well as the Union governments would not agree to the proposal. What the society must also be wary of is that it cannot always be swimming against the tides of the time, and therefore must be resilient enough to adopt and flow with the epochal currents. In a discussion, a Naga gentleman many in Manipur are familiar with, Niketu Iralu, who has been places, including New Zealand to study the issues of indigenous peoples, said there is only one pure blooded Maori left in this world today and he met him. But the Maori identity is still alive and vibrant, and no one dares tell those calling themselves Maoris today, be they blue eyed or fair skinned, they are not Maori. Identity is also about believing in being owned by an identity, and not just about genes.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

8-Aug-2015 / IFP Editorials

http://ifp.co.in/page/items/27848/room-for-naturalisation

Sanskrit learning is "useless", involved in "Sophistry" : G.H. Deshmukh.

Gopal Hari Deshmukh was born in Pune in the year 1823.  He was a Chitpavan Brahmin.

When he grew up, the “eternal topic of discussion among the upper classes was whether British rule would last forever or the Peshwa’s good times would return. … Gopal Hari was a product of the new learning of the West. He was a bright student of the new Government school at Poona and acquired proficiency in the language and history. 

He studied law while serving in the office of the Agent to the Deccan Chiefs and Sardars and became a Munsif in 1852. From 1856 to 1861, he worked as Assistant Commissioner on the Inam Commission. 

Later on, he worked as judge in Ahmedabad and Nasik. He was invited to the Delhi Durbar in 1876, was appointed a Fellow of the University in 1878 and, in 1880, was made a member of the Governor’s Council. In 1884, for about a year, he worked as Dewan of Ratlam State”.

He used to write articles from 1848.  “His object was to rouse his people from their slumber. He exhorted them to turn to the new learning and solve the country’s problems. His articles were provocative and were widely read. In 1877, he wrote a book entitled Jathibheda, condemning caste. In 1878, he published Gitatattva and Subhashita  to popularize the teachings of Gita. In 1880, he brought out Swadhyaya and Ashvalayana Griha-Sutra to explain the religious rites of the Hindus in a critical way. He wrote under the pen-name Lokahitawadi. 

He was of the view that our social decline was due to our neglect of the sciences and learning.

He blamed Sanskrit learning. "Sanskrit learning”, according to him, “is useless and confusing. It is involved in sophistry. It makes a man idle and devoted to fruitless pursuits. It does not contain knowledge essential for the modern age”. He asked his countrymen “to welcome the learning by means of which the English had triumphed over their Indian opponents”.(Page 272 – Vol. 3 – History of freedom movement in India – Tarachand – Publications Division).  

Play on Godse Vs. Poster of Bhindranwale = Rights of the Brahmins Vs. Rights of the Sikhs

The unnecessary chaos in Kashmir due to the protest of the Sikhs and the loss of life at Ranibagh due to police shoot out are simply avoidable. 

All this is only because of the saffron mentality of the bureaucrats.

One does not find anything wrong in the display of posters of Sant Jarnail Singh Bindharanwale, when one recalls how the government of Maharashtra had, long back, granted permission to stage the play, “Me Nathuram Godse Bolsthoy” that glorified and justified Godse and his assassination of Mahathma Gandhi. Even the self-styled “national newspaper” The Hindu editorially supported the play on Godse in the name of freedom of expression.

There is, therefore, no justification in the action of the government bureaucrats in removing the posters of Bhindranwale. The Sangh Parivar is simply surviving only on propaganda and they are adepts at showing anyone as villain and anyone as hero as they pleased. Unless and until the RAW and IB are extricated from the clutches of one single Varna people who use that position and power to enforce their own law based on Manu neethi and Arthasastra, there will be no equality and equity in public life in India. 

Godse was a real criminal who wanted Chaturvarna concept to rule the nation so that the apartheid perpetuated in Hindu religion continues forever and the three lower Varnas remain slaves to the Brahmins.

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Kushwant Singh's article on Operation Bluestar in the Indian Express in 1984

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The Indian Express had published the news item “Huge quantity of heroin found in Golden Temple” on 15.6.1984 in its first page of course, laying so much importance on the issue. The excerpts:“Intelligence sources said heroin and smack worth millions of dollars in international market and smuggled in from North – West Frontier Province in Pakistan was found in rooms occupied by supporters of militant Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale adjacent to Akal Takht.”

Thus the intelligence sources had been discharging their duty by spreading canards, consciously.

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Now the facts. 

Excerpts from the article by Mr. Khushwant Singh in the Indian Express, Sunday, October 21,1984:

“First reports, all issued by government agencies, admitted the death s of 13 women and some children. The same agencies denied that any woman or children had died. When faced with the contradiction, a third version was floated, viz., the women and children hand been killed by a grenade thrown by Bhindranwale‟s men”

“It was put out (by government agencies) that a large number of women, including prostitutes and European hippies, were found in the Temple complex. Some women were pregnant – others presumably were able to avoid pregnancy because of the large numbers of condoms found in the debris” 

“This was followed by yet another canard that quantities of opium, heroin and hashish were unearthed by the troops. The story made the front page of all newspapers. Two days later an amended statement was issued to the effect that the narcotics were discovered in a house outside the Temple complex. This was published on inside pages where it passed unnoticed by the majority of readers who only read headlines”

“Attempts to further blacken the reputation of Bhindranwale were even clumsier. It was first suggested that he had committed suicide. Then M.K.Dhar of the Hindustan Times had it from “most reliable sources” (almost certainly No.1. Safdarjang Road) that he had been slain by his own comrades. This made banner headlines on the front page of his paper. When the post-mortem report revealed that Bhindranwale‟s body was riddled with bullets from head to foot, no more was heard of his taking his own life, or being murdered by his men”

“Since no self-respecting Sikhs could be found to give the government a clean chit, frightened rusties were hauled before TV cameras and made to repeat statements prepared by officials to the effect that the army action had brought peace to the Punjab. This was obvious when the hapless Kripal Singh, Jathedar of the Akal Takht was shown nervously reading from a slip of paper placed in his hand”The sustained propaganda of falsehood yielded dividends. It came to be generally accepted that those who accepted the government point of view were patriots: those who did not were communally biased,supporters of Bhindranwale, Khalistanis and traitors”

“Three months after “Operation Bluestar”, no one really knew exactly how many people had lost their lives in the fighting in the Golden Temple and 40 other gurdwaras invaded by the army, or had been killed on the roads and fields trying to get to Amritsar. By their own admission the government spokesmen conceded that the figures cited in the White Paper (on Punjab released by the government) were grossly underestimated. The White Paper gave the number of soldiers and officers killed as 92: Rajiv Gandhi later stated that upwards of 700 army personnel had been slain. There can be little doubt that if a zero were added to the official figure of 516 of civilian terrorist casualties, we would be closer to the actual number of lives lost- it was certainly in the vicinity of 5000 dead”Before the action started many homes adjoining the Golden Temple were ordered to be evacuated and occupied by soldiers. When the owners were allowed to return, their TV sets, radios, fridges, clocks- almost everything movable- had disappeared.”

“In the temple complex itself there are over a dozen shrines, each with its golak (metal pitcher) – for offerings made in cash. It would be safe to estimate that at any time these golaks would contain over Rs. One lakh in cash. Besides these, there were the offices of the SGPC, the Akali Dal and the Istri Akali Dal, each with liquid cash for day-to-day requirements. The SGPC disburses over a lakh of rupees a day towards its guru ka langar and for sundry services rendered by hundreds of sewadars and hired labourers. After the army action, not a counterfeit coin was found in the golaks or in the offices of these organizations”

“Indeed, it is pretty certain that in order to cover up the traces of such plunder, the offices of SGPC were deliberately set on fire to destroy to destroy their account books. It is also more than likely that the archives housing handwritten copies of the Granth Sahib and the hukumnamas were likewise set alight under the impression that they were account books too. Contrary to the assertion of the White Paper that these buildings caught fire during the exchange of fire, we have the statement of the activist, Devinder Singh Duggal,who was in his office during the fighting, that the archives were set on fire after the action was over”