Dr.Ambedkar & RSS: Yet Another Scholarly Article by Dr.Ram Puniyani

Ambedkar and RSS

Ram Puniyani

When RSS Sarsanghchalak said that Ambedkar supported RSS ideology (16th Oct. 2005), it was not for the first time that a political movement was trying to fabricate lies to co-opt a major thinker and political leader of totally opposite views, for its’ selfish interests.

Mr. Sudarshan was trying to buttress the RSS ideology of opposition to reservations by saying that Ambedkar did not support reservations as they are for political purposes. One recalls that reservations were part of the protective affirmative clauses for the weaker sections. The only point was that as per his scheme of things reservations will be for ten years by which time the social disabilities would be overcome and reservations will not be needed.

Who could have foreseen that the machinery already in place for implementation of the government policies would partly sabotage the implementation of reservation policy in such a way so that the desired goals would not be achieved?

No society can be democratic and strive to go in egalitarian direction unless the victims of centuries old discrimination are given special protection and nobody conceptualized it better than Dr. Ambedkar.

Sudarshan’s assertion that Ambedkar drafted a Western constitution under the pressure of Congress, insults Dr. Ambedkar in a deeper way. He was not the one to buckle under pressure. He had the values and ideas of his own, and the example of this was when he resigned from the Cabinet because Hindu Code Bill drafted by him did not pass through and also because he was side tracked in other matters of policy and planning. It’s a comment which is derogatory to the thinker and leader who did all possible to ensure that he stands for his values and ideas rather than compromises for the sake of power and pelf.

At the same time Sudarshan seems to be promoting his own postulate that Indian constitution, is based on Western values and should be replaced by the one based on Hindu holy books. It is in that direction that BJP led NDA coalition appointed the constitution review committee, which of course was a dismal failure, thanks to the opposition of RSS formulation by most of the people of this country. Ambedkar did not buckle under any body’s pressure while drafting the constitution as he was committed to the democratic values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity (community), the one’s which have been enshrined in this book.

Also it was the constituent assembly, a reasonably accurate representative body of Indian people, which guided the constitution and not the Western influence. One can go on to say that the constitution itself was one of the major contributions of Babasaheb.

Sudarshan also asserts that Dr. Ambedkar stuck to Hindu culture while embracing Buddhism. Nothing could be farther from truth. By no stretch of imagination one can call all the tendencies prevailing in India as Hindu. The dominant tradition, which passes off as Hinduism is Brahmanism. Dr. Ambedkar called Hinduism as Brahminic theology and went on to say that he was born a Hindu that was not in his hands, but surely he will not die a Hindu. Buddhism is not a part of Hindu culture. The central part of dominant Hinduism is caste system, while Buddhism stands for social equality.

As per Ambedkar the clash between Braminic Hinduism and Buddhism is the major part of Indian history. In his understanding of Indian History he divides it into three parts. Part one Revolution, i.e. coming in of Buddhism to oppose Brahmanic caste and gender hierarchy. This is followed by counterrevolution, during which the Brahmanism attacks Buddhism at ideological level through Shankaracharya and at the social and political level by the onslaughts of kings like Pushmitra Shunga and Shashak. It is due to this that Buddhism, became extinct from India till Dr. Ambedkar brought it back.

• He chose this religion, while rejecting Hinduism, mainly because its values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity (Community). To present him as supporter of RSS and RSS ideology is a clever deceit, a political move, to win over sections of Dalits to RSS-Hindutva politics.
  

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Ram Puniyani is a Professor at IIT Mumbai and is associated with EKTA, Committee for Communal Amity, Mumbai .

Ram Puniyani's Scholarly Article: More Than 300 Versions of the Story of Rama?, what kind of a God or a Lord is Rama??

BJP, RSS, VHP and ABVP: Put together, these hindu fundamentalist organizations without any doubts is the grand scale MAD house of this modern world, there is no such a madhouse of fundamentalists in this entire globe like the hindus.

• Look at the entire nation of India, the amount of lawlessness and violence and ask the basic question of what is happening to India. 
• 
  
• Where is this all terrible events and tragedies come from, the straight forward answer is in the open space, most of the violence in India stems from the fundamentalists either muslim or hindus, but the hindus in the name of owning the nation in the name of hindusim is causing much more damages in the recent years than the wars of ancient times.

  These organizations attack churches, christians, muslims, Buddhists and create a chaos among dalits and they attack sikhs or whoever is raising voice against their ill conceived and pathological varna ideology, the next thing is to attack.

  These RSS people create chaos in the name of hindusism, constantly they create and maintain certain amount of barbarism in India, but yet, the Indian government cannot ban these and terroristic organizations.
  

The current ruling government is a weak, mean and useless government's of all in the history of India.

The congress cannot even understand the rampant lawlessness and fundamentalists attacks on the very freedom of India.

As long as these terrorist organizations are allowed to continue in India, chaos will multiply and one day this beautiful nation will be destroyed by these fundamentalists of hindu organizations!.

Here is a very authentic, informative and nice article about the Riddles of hindu's beliefs and how many Rama's are there in in the mythology, go read it, it is written by Ram Puniyani, a scholarly approach can be sensed while reading this article. Thanks to Ram Puniyani like genuine Indians who wants to tell this world about the truths of real India and about the hindu mafia of RSS and BJP.

Many Ramas: Many Ramayanas
There are more than 300 versions of the story of Lord Rama

The recent (Feb. 2008) rampage by ABVP activists in Delhi University protesting against the introduction of Ramanujan’s essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas”, as the reading text, was not the first such act of political vandalism around Lord Rama’s story. This essay by the much acclaimed scholar, A.K. Ramanujan is part of his “The Collected Essays of A.K.Ramanujan (Oxford1999).

Earlier in the aftermath of Babri demolition a Sahmat exhibition on different versions of Ramayana was attacked by RSS combine’s goons

. This was done on the pretext that one of the panels based on Jataka (Buddhist version) showed Ram and Sita as brother and sister, and it is an insult to their faith. Ramanujan’s essay also talks of different versions and presents five of them as an example.

Photo: Rama and Lakshmana attended by Hanuman in the forest, detail of relief inspired by the Ramayana, from Nacna Kuthara, Madhya Pradesh, 5th century CE.

It is known that there are hundreds of versions of Ramayana, Buddhist, Jain, Valmiki etc. Paula Richman in her book Many Ramayana’s (Oxford) describes several of these. And again there are different interpretations of the prevalent Valmiki Ramayana, many of which are not to the liking of those who are indulging in this hooliganism in the name of their faith. It is another matter that this intolerant attitude and aggression is done in the name of Hinduism, while asserting that Hinduism is tolerant and other religions are intolerant. It is a fascinating exercise to go through various tellings and interpretations of Ramayana’s. The RSS combine harps on the telling of Ramayana by Valmiki alone and that too its particular interpretation. Even the other renderings acceptable to this intolerant but currently dominant political force are not uniform. Valmiki, Tulsidas and later the one adopted by Rmanand Sagar for his serial Ramayana have their own subtle nuances, which are very different from each other. Ramayana has been rendered in many languages of Asia in particular. Ramanujan points out that the tellings of Ram story has been part of Balinese, Bengali, Kashmiri, Thai, Sinhala, Santhali Tamil, Tibetan and Pali amongst others. There are innumerable versions in Western languages also. The narrative in these is not matching. RSS combine takes Valmiki as the standard and others as diversions which are not acceptable to it for political reasons. The version of Ramayana it wants to impose has the caste and gender equations of pre-modern times so it is hung up upon only that version as the only one acceptable to it. Interestingly one can see the correlation between the class-caste aspirations of the narration-interpretation. In Buddhist Dasharath Jataka, Sita is projected both as sister and wife of Ram. As per this version Dashrath is King not of Ayodhya but of Varanasi. The marriage of sister and brother is part of the tradition of glorious Kshtriya clans who wanted to maintain their caste and clan purity. This Jataka tale shows Ram to be the follower of Buddha. Similarly Jain versions of Ramayana project Ram as the propagator of Jain values, especially as a follower of non-violence. What do both Buddhist and Jain versions have in common is that in these Ravan is not shown as a villain but a great spiritual soul dedicated to quest of knowledge, endowed with majestic commands over passions, a sage and a responsible ruler. Popular and prevalent “Women’s Ramayana Songs” of Telugu Brahmin Women, put together by Rangnayakamma, keep the women’s concern as the central theme. These songs present Sita as finally victorious over Ram and in these, Surpanakha succeeds in taking revenge over Ram. In Thai Ramkirti, or Ramkin (Ram’s story), there is a twist in the tale and Shurpanakh’s daughter decides to take revenge attributing her mothers mutilation primarily because of Sita. More interestingly here the focus is on Hanuman, who in this telling is neither devout nor celibate but quite a ladies man, looking into the bedrooms of Lanka. In Valmiki, Kampan and Tamil tellings Hanuman regards seeing another mans sleeping wife as a sin, but not in this Thai version. Incidentally he is a very popular Thai hero even today. Also like Jain Ramayana this Thai telling focuses on genealogy and adventures of Ravana and not of Ram. In recent times Jotiba Phule who stood more with the interests of Dalits and women, was amongst the first to interpret this mythological tale from the perspective of those subjugated by caste-varna-gender hierarchy. Phule points out that upper castes were descendents of conquering Indo-Europeans who overturned the original egalitarian society and forbade the conquered from studying texts. His mythology is woven around King Bali, who could invoke the image of peasant community. Needless to say his murder by Lord Ram from behind is condemned and is seen as an act of subjugation of lower castes by the upper castes. And Ram is seen as an avatar of Vishnu out to conquer India from the Rakshasas (those protecting their crops) for establishing the hegemony of upper caste values of caste and gender hierarchy. Dr. Ambedkar and Periyar’s commentaries are more an alternative reading of the Valmiki’s text rather then a separate version. There is a good deal of overlap in the interpretation of both. Dr. Ambedkar focuses his attention on the issues pertaining to Ram’s killing of Shambuk for violating the prevalent norm where a low caste has no right to do penance, tapasya. Like Phule he also castigates Lord Ram for murdering the popular folk king Bali. He questions Ram’s act of taking Sita’s agnipariksha, trial by fire, and his patriarchal attitude towards her. After defeating Ravan he tells Sita that he had done all this battle not to get her released for her own sake but to restore his honor, and his banishing her in response to the rumors about her chastity when she was pregnant comes for severest criticism from Ambedkar. Periyar is basically taking the same line but in his interpretation the North Indian upper caste onslaught-South Indian resistance becomes the central theme. Periyar the initiator of Self Respect Movement was the pioneer of caste and gender equality in Tamilnadu. In one of the movements, which is very less known, on the lines of Dr. Ambedkar burning Manusmriti, he planned to burn the photo of Ram, as for him Ram symbolized the imposition of upper caste norms in South India. This was a part of his campaign against caste Hinduism. Periyar also upheld Tamil identity. According to him the Ramayana story was a thinly disguised historical account of how caste ridden, Sanskritic, Upper caste North Indians led by Ram subjugated South Indians. He identifies Ravana as the monarch of ancient Dravidians, who abducted Sita, primarily to take revenge against the mutilation and insult of his sister Surpanakha. In his interpretation Ravana is practitioner of Bhakti, and is a virtuous man. The rampage by RSS combines’ ABVP can be understood also in the light of current cultural manipulation and cooption of Adivasis by Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, another RSS progeny. This organization is at the core of anti-Christian attacks in the remote areas. In most of these Hanuman, as the loyal devotee of the Lord, is being projected as the idol of Adivaisis. This is done through distribution of Hanuman lockets etc. The symbolism of upper caste with Rama, and Adiviasis with Hanuman gives a political message given by RSS combine of the relationship of upper castes with Adivais. Similarly in these areas Shabri another destitute woman is being projected as the role model for Adiviasis. One shold also note that the telling of Ramayana in the Adivasi areas of Dangs, Gujarat, where Shabri Kumbh was held, is very different from the one prevalent in other parts of the country. The version of Ramayana to be upheld and projected by RSS combine is that of ‘Maharshi’ Ramanand Sagar’s tele-serial Ramayana, which went many steps further than some of the earlier one’s in glorifying norms of caste and gender hierarchy. As an example here Sita herself is keen to be banished to jungle by her ‘Lord and master’ to ensure that people don’t talk ill of Him. And currently this is the bottom line, and any deviation from such blind obeisance comes for severe reprimand from the RSS family. This selection of Ram and this version of Ramayana have more to do with political agenda than faith per se. And so this politics being doe in the name of tolerant Hinduism, can not tolerate the Many Rams: Many Ramayanas prevalent World over! © 2007 mynews.in

>>Other articles by Ram Puniyani

Love in the time of patriotism

Does it mean anything at all to the half of Indians who struggle for the next meal and for those oppressed citizens of India, what is Republic or Independence day mean?, what is it?.
Read this following point of View, worthy of your few minutes.

Point of View
Love in the time of patriotism Saturday
January 26 2008 18:36 IST T J S George

It's long since occasions like Republic Day and Independence Day lost their original meaning as annual reminders of our proud nationhood. Today they remind us more of our vulnerability and the threats we face from within as well as from outside.

On the eve of an Independence Day not long ago, an article appeared in the friendly columns of The Guardian about India "where a baby is born every two seconds".

Along with a photograph of "a homeless crowd on a Delhi pavement waiting for food handouts", the article said: "For India the one-billion population mark is a reminder of other painful statistics; 390 million people - more than the entire population when India became independent - are too poor to summon the cash for basic foods, some 465 million cannot read, the largest population of illiterates in the world, and a disproportionate number of these are women__" Since then other statistics have come up, about the number of billionaires going up, the sensex crashing all barriers, businessmen spending 111 million dollars (yes, dollars) to "own" one cricket team in one city.

In the dazzle and razzmatazz of such glittering figures, who will notice the rising numbers of female foeticide, abuse of women in public places, a caste war breaking out near Thanjavur (not Bihar) when a Dalit's bullock won the Pongal cattle race?

On Republic Day we should not spoil the mood by referring to such things. We should only think of patriotism - which fortunately this year included the French President's love life.

Rethinking Religion in India, a platform for exchange of knowledge

GSS& H said:
Note: The following article discuss about a recent conference held in Delhi (India) on religion, caste system and Aryan invasion aspects. The details of the conference is not clear though various topic has been discussed. Are they coming out with a constructive critism or trying to sabotage the truths about the atrocious nature of hindu religion is not clear, couple authors argue that aryan theory is not true, well, as long as hindus and Indians do not agree on the true events of our past (history) and as long as they deny the caste system and it's ramifications on our society, no progress will be made in India that reaches one and all...Denial of the true Indian is a huge set back to the progress and future of good India?.

Rethinking Religion in India, a platform for exchange of knowledge
January 24th, 2008 - 9:54 pm ICT by admin - Email This Post
New Delhi, Jan.24 (ANI): The international conference "Rethinking Religion in India" held in the capital has turned out to be a major confluence of individuals who wish to observe and understand India from Indian and non-native viewpoint.
On the final day, during Parallel Paper session III on Caste system and Indian religion, three speakers Rajaram Hegde, A.Shanmukha and Dunkin Jalki from South India presented their research papers which generated deep interest and confluence at the conference.
Scholars say that there is caste system in India, it is a part of Hinduism and is based on the Vedic texts, Brahminical priesthood and Varna system. Our field work demonstrates that no such things characterize our present society, said Rajaram Hegde, representing research work of 70 villages from 20 districts of Karnataka, on Fictitious Connections: Caste system and Hinduism.
Whatever theories we have today about practice of unctouchability do not clearunderstanding about what this practice is all about. The so far available theories do not give any solution for the practice of untouchability, said A.Shanmukha, while presenting his research paper on The Practice of Untouchability and Hinduism.
Classical theory assumes as there is religion called Hinduism which generates social system called caste system which compels the people to practice untouchability. But in the field work it was not evident that people are practicing untouchabilty by following Hindu religions, Shanmukha, added.
Dunkin Jalki presented his paper on Stereotyped stories and their Action Consequences.
On Wednesday, during a Parallel Paper session II on Caste system and Indian religion, four speakersSumio Morijiri, John Zavos, Claudia Pereria and Ullo Valkpresented their research papers before the audience.
Sumio Morijiri, a visiting Professor Department of Kannada, Mangalore University, presented paper on Rethinking Animism in India and Japan, a comparative perspective. He said: “Jaati also exists in Japan, it is what me, my father and grandfather have been doing as profession from one generation to generation.”
Ullo Valk, a professor of the Department of Estonian and Comparitive Folklore, Universtiy of Tartu (Estonia) presented his paper on Caste Division in Religious Narratives of Tamil Nadu.
Having done his research in Tamil Nadu’s Athipakkam and Kalleri Villages, with the native Dr.S.Lourdusamy as research fellow who died last month, Ullo Valk informed: “We were working on the local narratives or stories/legends that are related to local deities. We observed that the topic of caste divisions and caste identities emerged in the stories. The caste system exists in the local customs, beliefs and folklores related to the local deities.”
Claudia Pereria, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University Institute for Social Sciences, Labour Studies and Technologies (Lisbon, Portugal), presented her paper on Religion and Caste: The Christian and Hindu Gaudde of Goa.
Her paper analysed the relationship between Hindus and Christians in a village of Goa and the reciprocal social and political classifications, attempting to understand their dynamics as part of plural India under transformation. Her focus was on Gaudde, who are at the bottom of the social system and who show an interesting sociological duality.
John Zavos, a lecturer in South Asian Studies in the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures at the University of Manchaster, U.K was in the Chair.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday during a separate parallel paper session, speaker Marianne Keppens, a Doctoral Researcher at Ghent University, Belgium, presented her paper on Indians are Aryans, so what?. Rajaram Hegde was present as a respondent while Martin Farek was in the chair.
Speaking on the old debate on the Aryan invasion; whether Aryans came from outside or they always existed in India, Marianne said: “There has been a long debate questioning the theory that says Sanskrit speaking Aryan people invaded India around 1500 B.C. What if the problem with the Aryan invasion theory doesn’t lie in the geographical origin of the Indo-Aryan languages or certain aspects of Indian culture but in the absence of evidence for the existence of an Aryan people and culture?.”
Marianne questioned through her paper that what would be the implications for the understanding of Indian culture if it turns out that there has been never been an Aryan people?
In the international conference on Rethinking Religion in India (January 21-24), includes overall nine Parallel Paper sessions on the four themesEvolutionary explanations of religion, Indians are Aryans, so What?, The caste system and Indian religion, Colonialism and religion in India. (ANI)

Changes to the Blog!!

GSS&H will make changes tofew of the columns in this blog. Hereafter, you will notice the videos and youtube videos are moved out to the following blogs. The images or videos will be moved out too to blogs for digital media either to: http://jaibhimbooks.blogspot.com/ or to: http://jaibhimmedia.blogspot.com/

RSS The Poisness Snake??

This is a liner from the great Indian indepence leader Vallabh Bhai Patel about the dangerous activity of RSS, unbelievably RSS was worst from those days, it gets worst and worst.

here it is from a blog:http://arvindneela.blogspot.com/2007/04/blog-post_30.html

K.R.Athiyaman said...
letter of Sardar Patel's of September 11, 1948, addressed to the RSS chief Golwalkar himself: ...----Aurangzeb RoadNew DelhiDate: 11th Sept. 1948Brother Sri Golwalkar, ...You are very well aware of my views about the RSS. ... There can be no doubt that the RSS did service to the Hindu society. In the areas where there was need for help and organisation, the young men of the RSS protected women and children and strove much for their sake. No person of understanding could have a word of objection regarding that. But the objectionable part arose when they, burning with revenge, began attacking Mussalmans. Organising the Hindus and helping them is one thing but going in for revenge for its sufferings on innocent and helpless men, women and children is quite another thing. ...All their speeches were full of communal poison. It was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthus the Hindus and organise for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of the sympathy of the Government or of the people no more remained for the RSS. In fact opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death. Under these circumstances it becamed inevitable for the Government to take action against the RSS.Yours(Sd.) Vallabh Bhai Patel
7:22 AM, April 30, 2007

Venerable Lokanatha, Buddhist who influenced Dr.B.R.Ambedkar

The Venerable Lokanatha (1897-May 25, 1966), an italian born and American educated Buddhist was one of the great influencers of our Dr.B.R.Ambedkar before his conversion to Buddhism in 1956. Venerable Lokanatha was also graduated from Columbia University and Rockefeller in US. He has obviously met Dr.B.R.Ambedkar in his house and they discussed in details about Buddhism at various occassions.

Read further

Lokanatha (Italian Buddhist Monk)

Indian Media: Cowardice at best & Arrogant at worst

http://upliftthem.blogspot.com/2007/12/aaja-nachle-scandal-indian-media.html
Read this article on upliftthem about the recent controversy on "derogatory song lines" in a hindi movie. These Indian Ambedkarites writers bring such an insight into this issue and how the Indian media covered the whole issue without much thoughts to it. Aaja Nachle Scandal & INDIAN MEDIA: Cowardice at Best and Arrogant at Worst: Read Further!? Caste Pathology infested actors, Bollywood and Indian Media whores!?:It is quite understable that there is a huge population out there in India who are infected with this untreatable non-psychiatric but worst than psychiatric illness called "caste".

Saint Guru Ghasidas & Satnami in Cahhattisgarh

Niralaji writes about

Guru Ghasidas (1756-1836) was the founder of the Satnami community in Chhattisgarh. The great saint of Chattisgarh followed simple and scientific approaches like Lord Buddha to eradicate caste system and fought against ignorance of hindus and Brahmins to uplift the from caste atrocities and pathology, a revered saint of Chattisgarh.

http://www.satyaguru.org/ghasidas.html

Guru Ghasidas (1756-1836) was the founder of the Satnami community in Chhattisgarh. He was born in the village Girodhpuri in the Raipur district. During his lifetime, the political atmosphere in India was one of exploitation. Ghasidas experienced the evils of the caste system at an early age, which helped him understand the social dynamics in a caste-ridden society and reject social inequity. To find solutions, he traveled extensively in Chhattisgarh.

SAINT TUKARAM-17th Century Great saint and scholar

I am updating the "Great Saints & Scholars List", today's addition is our great Saint "Tukaram", a 17th century poet and saint (1608-1649). Born and raised in a tiny village in the state of Maharastra was raised to the greatest of saints from a poorest family (one of the victims of the hindu's caste system), despite all the odds of those days, he shattered the Brahmins myths and iron wall and became a saint revered by Maharastrians then and today. GSS&H is only deals with the scholarly aspects of this saint, not pandering over his "cult Bhakti" and god worshipping phenomenon of his time. Though these yester year saints would have choosen other means to make changes in societies, it probably would not have made any sense at that time, when just speaking out aginst hindu varnashrama would have made them killed by the hindu terrorists, so they might have wisely choosen "In the Name of God" pathway, but would have completely involved in what they were doing. Neverthless, it is their great talents and power over the ordinary, mundane people that make them saints, not the godly worshiping or craps like that. Many of the listed saints here took that path as the hindu's were barbarians and kill at sight if any lower caste people trying to come up, but the god worshiping pathway probably saved all these saints, but eventually Tukaram was got killed, Nandanar was god killed by Brahmins and the list goes on and on.....!

Read the Biography: http://www.poemhunter.com/sant-tukaram/biography/

During his 41 years, Tukaram composed over 5,000 abhangs. Many of them speak of events in his life, which make them somewhat autobiographical. Yet, they are focused on God, Pandurang, and not Tukaram. His abhangs became very popular with the masses of common people. It was this very popularity that caused the religious establishment (the high caste Brahmins) to hate and persecute Tukaram. as, he was causing them to lose their power over the people. There are many miracles attributed to Tukaram. ..