Is Narendra Modi ushering India back to a vedic future

Modi is a modern techie, but is he a moderniser? He cannot be as long as he and his government propagate back-to-the-scriptures science.


Shekhar Gupta @ShekharGupta

Is Narendra Modi a moderniser or a traditionalist? Is he forward-looking or trapped in the past, however glorious? Does he aspire to lead India into a brilliant new future, or bring back "sone ki chidiya" (the golden sparrow) fantasy? I know the answer to all three questions from his many followers: he is a forward-looking moderniser who wants to lead India into a great future. He loves technology, he celebrates science. He took the cue on using social media for political campaigning from Obama and improved on it greatly. He takes selfies with fellow heads of state (Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in this case) and tweets them, and when a glamorous, star-struck Bollywood leading lady, towering a foot over him, bends over his shoulder to take a selfie he looks back in debonair style to ask, "Got it?" In more ways than one he comes across as India's most modern prime minister since Rajiv Gandhi. At which point, we need to ask yet another question. Will his government reflect his own modernism or RSS nostalgia?

The two cannot go together. Modern thinking is about science, technology, curiosity to discover what hasn't been discovered yet and humility to accept that the human race has to reach new frontiers, that what we may know yet is a fraction of what we don't. The traditionalist RSS view, on the other hand, is that whatever mankind may be hoping to imagine, discover or design in the future had already been perfected in Vedic times. All you need to do in that case is a close but open-minded reading of the Vedas, Puranas and Upanishads. We had lost it because the Hindu empire and heritage suffered with the decline of the Gupta and Mauryan dynasties and with the arrival of invaders from the West, leading to subjugation by Muslims and then Christians. Modi's rise, therefore, is India's first chance in a millennium to leapfrog backwards and connect with that past. Or, to put it more rudely, set the clock and calendar back.

This is a serious issue to raise at a point when the new government seems to be settling down. A crucial Parliament session is beginning. It needs to be raised because it is a key mainstream issue and not a mere distraction from the entertaining fringe of true believers with degrees from Dina Nath Batra Vidyapeeth.

It will be delusional to dismiss Dina Nath Batra as a lone maverick and merely the slayer of Wendy Doniger's scholarship. He represents a new force in our political and intellectual discourse even if it is a force of old think. His power over the BJP's HRD ministry is now evident. This week a new precedent was set in New Delhi as German ambassador Michael Steiner called on Batra, reasoning with him to calm down on his opposition to German language classes in schools. But you can see Sanskrit winning, in spite of all his diplomatic charm. At a moment like this, a gentle intervention was needed from a modernising prime minister. Something like, why should it be Sanskrit versus German? Sanskrit is a wonderful classical language and should be made attractive to all (and liberated from its pundit ji stereotype), and why just German, Indians must have a choice of many important foreign languages, French, Spanish and even Mandarin included. This is a globalised world, a globalising India and Modi is our most outgoing prime minister since Nehru. This is no time to go back to the depths of the old trenches of cultural and linguistic insecurities. This young India wants to go out and embrace the world, just as Modi does with his global peers. (Note meanwhile that the government of Haryana has already decided to seek Batra's advice on "modernising" its education system.)

This argument is not about an individual, but about a state of mind. Where you confuse rationality with tradition, curiosity with scripture. It gets more complicated. In 2001, I was among the many senior journalists on Atal Bihari Vajpayee's entourage to Iran. And it was every bit worthwhile, particularly as we all reached Persepolis, the ancient city wrecked by Alexander the Great. As we surveyed the ruins, an eminent RSS intellectual in the group started "educating" all of us on "history". He said, see, what a terrible man Alexander was. This is precisely what he wanted to do to India. But he was defeated by a minor Hindu king, Porus, whose real name was Paurush (manhood). He was fleeing India in fright, his army disintegrated, and died a forlorn man. At which point I tried to intervene saying that history was quite different, but was ignored. My much wiser friend, and strategic affairs pundit, C Raja Mohan tapped me on the shoulder and said, don't argue with them, they confuse history with faith. His words come back to me often these days.

Because history has been a political and ideological football in India for long, you can probably understand why RSS intellectuals now want to get even with those of the Left, who reigned all these decades and brought in their own loaded, secular distortions. History can still survive robust disagreements and debate, even if it is often as irrational as arguing that the Taj Mahal was a Hindu temple. But a much bigger challenge arises when not just history, but even science is confused with faith. Which is the provocation for this week's National Interest.

Last week home minister Rajnath Singh nearly stole the headlines from Modi in Australia with his statement (in a speech on Hindi Divas) that physicist Werner Heisenberg had learnt his famed Uncertainty Principle from the Vedas. (It is a different matter that some over-enthusiastic spin master in his ministry had not heard of Heisenberg and issued a press release calling it Eisenhower's Uncertainty Principle instead.) This is a tricky pattern of thinking.

It fits in with the larger, enduring mythology that anything being discovered by the western world now had been developed in Vedic times already. Lord Ram returned with Sita and Lakshman in Pushpak Viman from Lanka to Ayodhya, so see, we had airplanes then. You talk about ICBMs with multiple warheads, Patriots which intercept incoming missiles, Strategic Defence Initiative, what were the "shakti-bans" that Ram and Ravan traded routinely in the battle for Lanka? Or Arjun with his awful Kaurava cousins? Ramanand Sagar worked so hard to remind you of this "heritage" in his endless tele-serials. Never mind that today we can't even put together a reliable assault rifle for our troops.

Nobody is denying that our scriptures (Vedas, Upanishads) and epics (Ramayana, Mahabharata) are truly ancient, and also brilliantly capacious in their imagination and wisdom. It is likely that we imagined mechanised flight much earlier while our intellectual rivals, the Greeks and Romans, were still fitting giant bird wings to human forms, from Icarus to Phoenix. Of course Aryabhata and disciples visualised, debated and documented many astronomical facts and ideas for which wise Europeans were burnt at the stake or poisoned hundreds of years later. Possibly, someone even imagined plastic surgery, animal to human organ transplants, stem cell research, surrogate motherhood. But to say we already "had" all of these is not just funny, it is dangerous. We are a country steeped in tradition and superstition. Our missile scientists perform pujas and break coconuts before test-firing a new Agni. Our space scientists take a model of Mangalyaan to Tirupati to be blessed by Lord Balaji before the launch. If you also tell them they are simply replicating, if not reverse-engineering, what we already had millennia ago, it will be dangerous. Because many of them may not even contest it.

This is Modi's big challenge going ahead. He does have a modern, even a techie mind. But he and the ideological/cultural juggernaut propelling him also have delusions of ancient grandeur. The two, scriptural mythology and quest for modern new discovery, cannot coexist. If there is one leaf Modi needs to take from Nehru's book, it is scientific rationalism.

Meanwhile in Pune, at the feet of Aryabhata: I had the privilege last week to spend a few hours with Prof Jayant Narlikar, by far the most eminent Indian astrophysicist today and co-author of the Hoyle-Narlikar theory questioning Big Bang. He had built the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) at Pune University and his central garden has large statues of the greatest of all times: Newton, Einstein, Galileo and, most certainly, Aryabhata.

Narlikar is also among India's bravest and most thick-skinned rationalists. Even at 76, his eyes light up when you mention superstition and ancient beliefs. Nothing irritates him more than people confusing his science with astrology. The Pune phone book usually lists IUCAA as a centre for astrology.

To make a point, he says, he collected a couple of hundred horoscopes of the most brilliant student achievers and mentally-challenged children and gave them to India's most eminent astrologers. None was able to pick the right ones.

Narlikar says astrology is bunkum and that to call it Vedic is a travesty. In Vedic tradition, he says, there was no astrology, no Mangal ruining marriages, no Brahaspati spreading beneficence and no Shani messing it all up unless you presented the tribute of mustard oil and cash every Saturday. All of this, he says, came from Greece. Alexander had also brought along many "wise" men with his army, some stayed back and spread astrology, to which our ancestors, Hindu or not, Porus or Paurush, took so warmly. So whatever else, let's at least not blame our Vedas for the faults in our stars.

Source: dailyo.in

AKKANNA AND MADANNA OF GOLCONDA

AKKANNA AND MADANNA OF GOLCONDA WERE VICTIMS OF HINDU HATRED By AURANGZEB

Prof Dr Colonel K Prabhakar Rao (Retired)

Akkanna and Madanna were brothers and the sons of Bhanoji Pant an official at Hanmakonda in Golconda kingdom in the bye gone days ( 16 and 17 century). There is also a dispute that they were not real brothers and also were not Telugus and had Maharashtrian origin (1). Their lives were of importance as Madanna rose to become the Hindu Prime minister of Golconda State during the reign of Last ruler Abul Hassan Kutubshah ( tanasha .. meaning good king). Madanna entered the service of Syed Muzaffar Army Chief of Golconda State and by hard work rose to the rank of Mir Jumla with a title Surya Prakash Rao. There are stories that he betrayed his master Mir jumla and these can not be believed as most of historians were Hindu haters and Muslim abettors.

There is also a story that sultan Tanasha who was much impressed by Madanna and made him the Mir jumla. As per the story, once the Sultan received a letter from Emperor Aurangzeb and when it was opened nothing was found written on the scroll and the King was much puzzled. No one could answer him. When the Sultan declared that he would reward any one who could read some thing from the letter, Madanna revealed the secret of the letter by using onion juice that produces Ammonia gas. Under the effect of Juice, black letters were found in the letter and it was read by Madanna. At request of the Sultan, Madanna wrote a letter in similar way to the emperor. The Sultan was greatly impressed and made Madanna the Mir Jumla. The story is very interesting . However it is known that Syed Muzaffar who was the Mir Jumla became arrogant and was showing insubordination to the king. In fact Syed Muzaffar played key role along with Madanna in the struggle for succession after the death of Abdullah Kutubshah the 6 th king of Golconda. As a matter of fact the eldest son in law Nizamuddin of Abdullah kutubshah made all plans to become Sultan and Syed Muzaffar soon took over control of the palace and important installations being the commander in Chief of Golconda Army (2). He ensured that Abul Hasan became the Sultan after the death of Abdullah Kutubsha. Syed Nizamuddin the eldest son in law of the late king was put to death and queens of late king were put behind bars who withered away soon. In gratitude king Abul Hasan made Syed Muzaffar as Mir Jumla. But soon he became headstrong and this forced the Sultan to ease him out of the top post and he made Madanna as Mir Jumla with title Surya Prakash Rao. Akkanna his elder brother was made as army commander (3).

Madanna proved himself as an efficient administrator and Golconda state flourished under his authority and this was very much resented by many Muslim nobles. Aurangzeb at Delhi was a Suni Muslim and he hated Shiite Kutubshahi kings and always looked for some reason to attack and annex the Deccani kingdom. Shivaji the great Maratha king also visited Hyderabad during the times of Madanna and stayed for a month as a royal guest. A treaty for mutual support and help was drafted and was signed by both the rulers and this was very much resented by the emperor. Madanna developed strong Foreign Policy and stabilized the kingdom (4).Kutubshahi kings and Adilshai kings of Bijapur realized the danger from Mughals and signed treaties of cooperation and also this was strengthened by matrimonial relations. These developments automatically angered Mughals and they always planned to attack these kingdoms. Madanna in 1677 proceeded with 20000 troops to help Bijapur sultan against Mughal invasion. However he returned after he was persuaded by Bahadurshah the Mughal commander. Madanna political adjustments and policies made Golconda a prosperous state and this was the greatest eye sore to Mughals. In Golconda too they has natural enemies who could not digest rise of Hindu nobles. It was natural in those days of Muslim rule and Hindu subjugation by the Muslims. There were pressing demands from emperor Aurangzeb to remove Akkanna and Madanna as important officials in the state and the king of Golconda was very reluctant as he knew their worth. But palace conspiracies were growing.

Madanna knew about the impending attack on Golconda and advised the Sultan to take shelter at a far off strong fort such as Konda palli or Warangal. But the sultan with his queen s and others took refuge in the Golconda fort and was soon to be trapped by the invading Mughal troops. Certain queens of past king Abdulla Kutub shah were angry that the troubles faced by the state from Mughals were the result of presence of the brothers at the helm of affairs in the kingdom. They planned for their elimination. There are also arguments that the king had hand in their elimination, But this can not be believed. Some say their elimination was with full knowledge of the Sultan. On March 16, 1686, Akkanna and Madanna were returning from the palace after seeing the king and paying respects to the goddess in Golconda fort. They had no clue that their death was waiting for them. Their guards and escorts were already bribed and bought by the conspirators. At appropriate moment the killers led by Habshi Ghulam attacked the brothers while the escort and guards looked other way. Akkanna an Madanna were dragged out of their palanquins and brutally done to death. Their bodies were dragged on the streets of Golconda and their heads were cut off and were sent to the Mughal prince who inurn sent them to the emperor who was at Ahmednagar. He was much pleased and in the presence of his troops the heads were crushed under elephant legs (5). Thus ended the glorious power of the brothers who were the only Hindu nobles who rose to such positions in a Muslim rule.( Raja kishan Prashad was the prime minister to the Nizam 6 in 20 th century at a much later date in Hyderabad state under Asifjahis rule ). Akkanna Madanna perished in very sad manner because they did not build any military support for themselves and did not have their own troops for support. They were just helpless officials depending on the security provided by the state. Their security was very easily breached by the conspirators. Once the brothers were killed the attackers fell o the homes of Hindus and killed Rustom Rao a brave commander and sister’s son of Madanna. Scores of Hindu homes were looted and burnt to ashes. Their women were carried away by attackers. Many women died jumping in wells. n hearing the news it is believed that the Sultan became very much upset and lost stability of mind for some time. Such narrations indicate that the Sultan was never a co conspirator.

Soon the Mughal forces invaded Golconda and encircled the fort. But the administration well built by the brothers took charge of the fort and could withstand for nearly a year. The defense of the fort was impregnable and the emperor was getting impatient. Famine struck the area and many troops died due to sickness and famine. Aurangzeb paid no heed to his religious advisers who were very much against the persecution of co Muslim rulers. He was very adamant. Military victory over Golconda appeared remote to Mughals. His efforts to bribe Abdul Razak Lari the Commander of Golconda forces were fruitless. But Mughals succeeded in bribing a junior commander Abdulla Pani who opened a small window in the walls of Golconda on night of 21 September 1686. Some of the selected Mughal troops entered the fort at middle of night and made their way to the main gate killing the resisting men. Soon the main gate Fateh darwaza ( Victory gate) was opened and the Mughal troops triumphatantly entered beating drums. Abdul Razak lari on hearing the commotion along with few followers rushed on horse devoid of armor and fought tooth and nail with Mughal troops. He received multiple wounds and the horse carried him away to Nageena Bagh in the fort and dropped him there before it fell dead. The unconscious hero was rescued by the Mughals and was treated by the Mughal physicians to health. The much pleased Emperor was highly impressed with Razak lari and offered him service in his court that he politely refused and preferred to live retire life. Some claim that he took service with the emperor for some time and later retired. The sultan Abul Hasan was taken captive by the Mughal commanders an was taken to the emperor with due honors. The emperor welcomed him with respect and he was sent to Daulatabad Fort in present Maharashtra where he was interned at a palace. The captive Sultan stayed in captivity and died later on. Kutub Shahi dynasty was thus extinguished. It was annexed to Mughal empire as a province. Aurangzeb died after few years of his death and victor and vanquished were buried close to each other. That is the ultimate truth. Aurangzeb destroyed south Indian kingdoms but could not take a fistful of the soil with him when he died. He died broken, worried, and with humiliation at his inability to subdue Marathas in Deccan. His policies destroyed Mughal dynasty and empire.

Akkanna and Madanna rose to the highest level by their sheer hard work and efficiency. The courtiers who were mostly Afghans, Persians and Turks could not tolerate their rise and a section of them abetted their murders. Aurangzeb could not tolerate a Hindu noble to command the position of a Prime Minister. He probably engineered their murder through the palace at Golconda. The brothers although were wise could not defend themselves became easy targets to the killers. The saddest part is that the present government has not recognized their contribution to the state and the memory of these brothers are left to winds (6) (7). There is no monument for them. Not even a street has been named after them in Hyderabad state. There are two villages Akkanna Pet and Madanna Pet around Charminar that have become part of the city. On Tank Bund scores of statues are erected. In the city on various roads and in parks numerous statues of politicians stand to day collecting dust. But there is no place for these brothers. What apathy indeed! Is it because their origins as Telugus are doubted. Or is it due to false allegations against tem by the shady and biased Muslim historians. The main allegations leveled against madanna by the pseudo Muslim historians are many. These are Corruption, Insulting army, Killing of women of harem, persecution of employees, support to Sambhaji, negligence of defense of state and betrayal of sultan etc. these are false allegations and can not stand ground. On the whole Andhrites are ungrateful to the memory of Akkanna and Madanna.