India's Revolutionary Icons who followed the paths of The Buddha

India's Revolutionary Icons who followed the paths of  The Buddha
It all began with Buddha... and these are some of the great Torch Bearer's of Buddha's Dhamma.... This Blog is a Scholarly Blog created to provide insights into the life, services and Social contributions of some of the Greatest of Indian Scholars, Humanitarians, Saints and social activists about whom the vested interests and Rotten Indian media do not write. Nor there is a State or center policies to restore and protect the stunning stories of these great men and woman...let me walk you through the greatness..!!

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Father of Nation of India Dr.Bheemarao Ambedkar

The first Law Minister of India and the Father of Indian Constitution Bheemrao Ramji Ambedkar (Dr.B.R.Ambedkar)spoke, wrote and demonstrated quite extensively and comprehensively than any other known living or dead humans of India as to how treacherous, dangerous this so called Indian hindu society and it's deadly cultures that spread discrimination and bigotry between each of thousands of heterogeneous groups. To find a way to bring them all these "heterogeneous mess of India", and to put them in single order to lead a happy, free and prosperous life, to make them behave like humans and to treat fellow humans DrAmbedkar crafted this finest of the fine Constitution that even Americans refer to it when they are in crisis. Ofcourse, Dr.Ambedkar was an American Scholar and Columbia Doctorate, he did learn lots about humanity and freedom while he was in America, but he also studied American Constitution, so a well learned scholar and genius DrAmbedkar fathered the Indian constitution in real sense, he is the Father of Modern India, while SakyaMuni Buddha was the Father of ancient and all time Father of India. Here is the dedication to the Father of India: http://fatherofnationi.blogspot.com/

Friday, January 12, 2007

Dr.Ambedkar- The Great Scholar & Humanitarian

For Writers:
Knowingly or unknowingly, deliberately or by careless usage of words, writers at times make a wrong interpretation of a person, event, a book or activities. Jack Stephenson, a graduate student from a US university and an aspiring writer on Dalit/Shudra issues in India, in his recent article he has mentioned "a militant Ambedkar"?. I wrote to him to correct the word because I did not agree with him to use this word about Dr.Ambedkar. He did not understand why I was against it or felt aversive to this word"militant". The following is my response to him, this can be very well to all the writers of today who otherwise might misinterpret certain services of Great Ambedkar.

This is my Explanation & Reasons:
Saint said...
Hello Jack & Bhupinder,
I wish you had an opportunity to read my comments carefully, because the answer for your question is already embedded in it. Neverthless, I am glad to clarify it for you here, so that it might be of some help for all concerned to draw a fruitful interpretation of Dr.Ambedkar's contributions to this world. Dr.Ambedkar was one of the finest Humanitarian and intellect. I realy cannot think of an alternative or an equivalent person like Dr.Ambedkar in the last 100 hundred years or so?. His humanitarian way of dealing with this world predominates even today than his myraid of other superlatives he acquired or possessed or encapsulated in him.

It is very important for us to look at his early years to see why militancy was not part of his life but the humanitrain and scholarly approach was!!.

Let us look at the early years of Dr.Ambedkar:

a].In the school days, he was humiliated and tortured by isolation and he was made to sit in a corner like some street dogs?.
b].His classmates used to keep their lunch boxes behind the black board or somewhere in that vicinity. The class teacher asked the students in the class to go to the board to write or explain subjects, one day when the teacher had asked Ambedkar to come forward to the black board. There was an immediate chaos among boys in the classroom, the whole class was opposed Ambedkar reaching to the board, infact they all rushed to move their lunch boxes far away from Ambedkar. These are young boys, these are kids we are talking about. Even the kids those era had the most maligned heads and thoughts about another human, they called the poor section of the society as impure, these day to day class activity is worst than slaughtering of a person. Because they were actually slaughtering the thoughts of Ambedkar and other untouchable boys, such a very young and tender brains cannot withstand tormenting environments as was imposed upon the dalits those days by lunatic caste people. But Ambedkar made it through, there was not a single incident of he beeing a militant or attacking the other boys in the class...?.
c]. When, Bhimrao was thursty and tried to drink water in a public tap, he was physically kicked out of water tap, and abused for touching the water tap, the hearts should bleed in any human to watch or to undergo such social crimes. But such barbarism continued......the remains of barbaric hindu culture is killing dalits even today.
d] Elsewhere, water was poured on his hands for him to drink, from several feet above his hand, he has to hold both the hands like a begging posture to fetch some stray water from some upper castes persons pot and he was made to drink like this?.
e].When Bhimarao and his brother or cousin brother were travelling in a man pulled cart, somewhere halfway the cartman was told about the boys that they were untouchables, immmediately the cartman twisted the cart and these kids were thrown out of the cart savagely by the bloody cartman.
f] so many events like this would normally torment the thought processes and ability to behave as normal human, it will make a person ill to an extent that he or she will turn into taking arms, guns or something to become a militant or at the least a voilent person. Which is the height of beeing a militant, I would have appreciated such militantancy in him if had followed that path, butDr.Ambedkar did the opposite, even in such circumstances Dr.Ambedkar was showing his most humane side of it or he was humane beyond the human qualities we see in our society. The atrocity against him was like a crucification that he went through? I would have enjoyed even if Dr.Ambedkar had turned as a rebel (which is also a militant behavior), but Ambedkar did not turned into any of those, no he did not turned into a rebel or some murderer of some sorts!.

On the contrary, Dr.Ambedkar galvanized all his internal and external resources and strenghts to deal with this inhumane conditions head on, he educated himself despite all this shortcomings, after basic education, he uplifted himself into an intellect. This way his endeavors were to face the trillions of hindu tabos and the pathology of castes in the hindu society. Only intellecutalism in him empowered Dr.Ambedkar to fight with this whole barbaric hindu system and he did not use the militancy in him.

Remember one thing, Brahmins and the Hindu society is so badly fu...d up, the only thing in the world that can defeat the hard wired pathology of hindu and varna social anarchy is intellecualism. We have seen militants after militants, the good, the ugly and the bad militants who have failed to succeed using militancy approach. However, ONE SCHOLAR with great intellectualism was able to defeat, crush and destroy those brahminical monarchy of Indian society. That was and is Dr.Ambedkar, ......why and how would you refer such nobel qualities as militant approach?. I realy love to see a militant approach to throw out the damn caste virus, but it did happen by militant way.

The strategy that helped Dr.Ambedkar is the existence of enormous human integrity in Dr.Ambedkar as a human at a time period where human rights did not exist. in Indisa, ofcourse human rights are quite alien to Indian society even at present.

It was a time an untouchable might have been crushed like an insect, at that age Dr.Ambedkar did not sway away from good thoughts and good deeds to himself and to the society, as a matter of fact good deeds to the whole nation. So imagine, if Dr.Ambedkar is alive today and if he happens to hear this "militant" word, he might say oh good lord Buddha whatever happened this people, am I a militant? or have I used militancy in my approach?.

Jack, your examples and reasons are compelling and good ones as to why you have used the term, neverthless, I wish you will find some sense in my explanations.

Though some of Bhimarao's writings or thoughts would have had inclination towards Marxism and some such ideals, though his speeches and writings were fiery and like a wild fire but he stood beyond the militant approach, he would have easily became a gun holding militant if not a pen holding militant or for that matter a militant with pen and blood inside the pen. But, he was not?.

Furthermore, an english word such as militant has about half a dozen meaning, if you try to go through all those actual meaning of those words, it would be hard for me or anyone to be convinced if we can realy refer Bhimarao with that term, besides one of the meaning for this word is that "one who is not accepted widely or who's ideas are not accepted widely??". This is another good reason why this term is not right to use as does not fit Dr.Ambedkar, his work and principles are most widely accepted and used then and used widely now. As a matter of fact, though there were Hindu's against Dr.Ambedkar's upraisal and his social activities at that time, majority of Indians subtly appreciated his great service and nobel touch on the Indian society and on India.

Jack, you are a scholar, you are bestowed with great writing asset in you, sometime a little care or appropriate way of saying it will strengthen your creativity and the truth. Sorry if I offended you by saying savior of dalits, so what? I did say and mean in a way that one can become a DALIT SAVIOR, ask why not?. A true human of any color or country or society can come forward and clean up a filth like hindu society & filthy hinduism.
Because hindu's are incapable of any human qualities and human realization, whereas foreigners are better equipped with human qualities in them, time and again we have seen this, we had Mother Theresa, but who has to come from outside India and became such a great angel and savior of poor and needy. We had Beverely Nicholls to write about Gandhi was the most dangerous person to the dalits and to majority of sections of Indians as this naked pakri Gandhi was a traitor of the society and especially the downtrodden society, a shame to great human qualities. We had and have these NGOs from US and Europe who came to India to uplift the dalits, never or hardly there were any hindu's who pureheartedly determined and worked to clean up caste pathology that is true then and true now even after 5000 years, not a single Hindu so called upper caste person worth mentioning for this cause, so what this indicates is a foriegner might be better option for dalits in addition to their own dalit intellectuals and activists and messiah's to eliminate the caste. The dalits themselves are relentlessly fighting to cure the society. Therefore, I believe... it is just possible by a Human only by a Human. Not a hindu animals. Though dalits are the best to uplift their society themselves than others, it is not a pre-requisite, what is a pre-requisite here is to change and uplift the society by someone with great human quality, by someone who has the passion, love and care for fellow humans. After all, the truth prevails, the truth triumphs, not the filthy social system. And the best examples for this is Dr.Ambedkar, there are millions of his followers are the other good examples.

It is nice to see people like you and Bhupinder are coming forthcoming to talk and write about dalits, and thanks for beeing so thoughtful. Your service will shed some light on the darkest nation on earth, the Hindu India. The darkest and dirtiest and poorest nation on earth, the Hindu India.

What India needs now is a Humane India, where all men are equal. We do not want Hinduism which teaches there are pure men and there are impure men, it teaches saying there are warriors and there are outcastes, such bullshits need to be eliminated from the face of the earth, not only from India, but from Nepal, but from Pakistan, but from UK and from all over the world where dalits are mistreated. Only then, this barbaric Indians can claim any nationhood for India let alone claiming it as a powerful nation!.

Saint

WESTERN BUDDHISTS TO LEARN FROM AMERICAN JEWS By PPLakshmanJi

I read with great interest "A Challenge to Buddhism" by Ven.Bhikkhu Bodhi that I was fortunate to read on the internet. 
We all know and revere Bhikkhu Bodhi. His talks and writings are always inspiring and  provocative. His distress evident in the above-mentioned article will be shared by all those who read it.
Of late we have been hearing a lot about the expression  "Engaged Buddhism". I find the expression mostly among the Mahayanists rather than among the Therawadis in the Western world. Mahayanists also use the expression "Humanistic Buddhism". To everyone who is not a Buddhist, it simply means Applied Buddhism or practical Budhism.
There has been  challenges to Buddhism in all eras. To my mind, there is no greater solution, no enduring remedy to the challenges in any era than the creation of Buddha's disciples known as Arhants who would advice and give lead to people to solve their problems as and when they arise, regardless of color, race, creed or nation. Whatever the problems - social problems like injustice or natural catastrophies like earthquake or global problems like climate change 
-  the cutting edges of weapons in Buddhist armory to counter them always lay in individuals in the first instance, and subsequently in their organizations, with or without the support of governments. Therawada Buddhism which I am more familiar with has had a monastic order in place since Buddha'.s time where trained monks are turned out in large numbers, year after year, in Therawada countries -  Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia.  Many of the trained monastics become bodhisatvas (seekers of enlightenment), few if any become fully enlightened worthy ones known as arhants who are worthy to advice and lead. Finding arhants is like mining for diamonds.
Many of the social service organizations, Buddhist or other,  fail because of the absence of arhants, the fully enlightened ones, to lead them. The fully enlightened arhants emerge out of the multitudes of monks, worthy to advice and worthy to lead..  
 
There have been a plethora of institutions with long histories of social service like the CARE, the American Peace Core, Red Cross, YMCAs, and many others. Bhikkhu Bodhi has mentioned American Jewish World Service (AJWS) which is relatively a new organization like the Islamic Relief USA and others, all of which "aiming to alleviate suffering, hunger, illiteracy and disease, worldwide". On the other hand,  organizations with limited goals also take birth like the Armenian Relief Society with its limited goal of serving the humanitarian needs of the Armenian people worldwide, who still suffer from the effects of its underreported holocaust of early 20th century. I wonder what make AJWS exceptional. 

Has AJWS  tested its declared objective of social service on the soils of Israel's next door neighbors or in the  Arab sector inside Israel itself?  Some material on the internet gave me the impression that AJWS perhaps took birth out of cognitive dissonance among American Jews suffering from psychological conflicts between incompatible beliefs and attitudes.  
The highly efficient style of working of organizations like AJWS backed by media support can make favourable impression of them even if they do not have enlightened leaders and violate one or more of the five precepts that the Buddhists always practise in all their endeavours.
Social service is the objective of most organizations, but they have besides social service something which make them distinct. For instance, the U.S. after taking thousands of lives in Japan with their nuclear armory seek to create a better image of the U.S.with its Peace Core volunteers, YMCAs seek to spread Christian messages behind their altruism,  what if AJWS seeks to show Jewish presence in world service, no matter that the Jews are only 0.2 percent of a world population of 7 billion.   
 
I wish to draw the attention of my readers to an organization which I had in  mind when I wrote earlier in this piece about arhants and searching for them like mining for diamonds. 
The organization is called Fo Guang Shan (FGS), which means literally "Buddha's Light Mountain", and its organizer is Master Venerable Hsing Yun, born in mainland China in 1927. Master Venrable Hsing Yun founded FGS in 1967 in a remote quiet area in the hills of  Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. It is a Mahayana Buddhist order promoting Humanistic Budddhism, a modern Chinese philosophy. Humanistic Buddhism aims to make Buddhism relevant in the world and in the people's lives and hearts. It is a monastic order and not a theoretical school of thought per se.
In May 1997, Hsing Yun got the gates of FGS closed to the general public in order to give a cloistered atmosphere to the temple residents.
But, following the plea of the public headed by the President of Taiwan, FGS reopened the gates in December 2000. In the last 40 years since its inception, FGS has been remarkably successful in extending its services beyond Taiwan,  setting up temples and organizations in 173 countries and encompassing more than 3,500 monastics. FGS also created an affiliate in 1992, Buddha's  Light International Association (BLIA),  
which has now over 100 chapters in the world.  The monastic order represented by Fo Guang Shan and Buddha's Light International Association has now over a milliom followers worldwide. It has been said  "In Master Venerable Hsing Yun, Buddhism has found a reformer, an innovator and an educator. Under his strong  leadership, Buddhism has extended beyond traditional temple life to integrate and further enrich the modern city dwellers."
 
 P.P.Lakshman
December 18, 2008
 
 

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