The Gita ‘As It Is’ - A Travesty of Caste

 

                                        The Gita ‘As It Is’ - A Travesty of Caste

It is a safe bet to say that while most might have heard about Bhagavad-Gita, hardly any would have read it (much less apprised it as can be seen here) though it contains no more than seven-hundred verses that is not counting the unnumbered opening one in its thirteenth chapter! Not only that, this, possibly, over-two-millennia-old classic could be the only epic in the world that is admired without application of mind and debunked with understandable misunderstanding as it, as it is, sanctions the inimical caste divisions in the Hindu polity as opposed to the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran that seek to inculcate unity amongst the respective communities.  

The sore point to those at the rough-end-of-the-caste-stick in the ‘in vogue’ Gita (short description of the Bhagavad-Gita) is God Krishna’s alleged owning the creation of the very discriminatory caste system thus:

chātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sruṣhṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśhaḥ
tasya kartāram api māṁ viddhyakartāram avyayam (Ch 4 v 13)

Well, the plain reading of this Sanskrit sloka indicates that based on the (human) qualities and (mundane) activates he had created the four varnas (castes), and although he was the creator of this system, he remains a non-doer and unchangeable.

However, Gita’s modern-day protagonists, mostly hailing from its pampered castes, seeking to cover up this embarrassing reality aver that the envisaged caste system is based not on one’s station of birth but on the state of his human evolution etc. Granted, but if indeed it is their conviction that caste only symbolizes an evolutionary human state then they should have been at the forefront in fighting against the birth oriented caste system. Besides, why there is no advocacy whatsoever on their part that the much evolved Shudras that abound in the intellectual arena of the day should be absorbed into the Brahmin social fold? Moreover, have not many of the twice-born, who by their unbecoming conduct, having become Shudras (as per their interpretation) are fit to be shunted out of the Brahmanical arena, but is there any move in that direction? So their lip service to the Gita-hurt Hindus    while exposing their hypocritical whitewash of the birth-centric caste system confirms that the said sloka means what it means that is in spite of their nonsectarian spin to it.

Moreover, towards the very end in Ch 18, Krishna is said to have detailed the human qualities and mundane activates of the people of the four castes as –  

Of Brahmins, at the apex of the caste pyramid - Tranquility, restraint, austerity, purity, patience, integrity, knowledge, wisdom, and belief in a hereafter (v42)

Of Kshatriyas, the second in the pecking order - Valour, strength, fortitude, skill in weaponry, resolve never to retreat from battle, large-heartedness in charity, and leadership abilities (V43)

Of Vaishyas, the third in line - Agriculture, dairy farming, and commerce are the natural works for those with the qualities of Vaishyas.

Of Shudras, at the caste base - Serving through work is the natural duty for those with the qualities of Shudras. (V44)

Note: Unlike in the case of Brahmins and Kshatriyas, the (human) qualities of Vaishyas and Shudras are not spelt out, maybe owing to the fact that all the best of them were already  bestowed upon the first two. 

Thus, it can be said that the Gita as it is unmistakably propounds the caste system and unambiguously details the caste characteristics that is besides the earmarked social occupations / obligations of its members. Hence, one should ponder - would have Krishna chosen to reduce Shudras, his own people, literarily that is as Krishna himself was a  Shudra, as menials even as Jehovah, having enabled the Jews to come out of slavery, made them his Chosen People!  

Well, one need not go beyond the Gita for the right answer. 

To begin with, vague and intelligible as ‘he remains a non-doer and unchangeable’ in the said contentious verse, elsewhere in the Gita he was unambiguous in affirming that –

Varied I made vicissitudes  
As the case with attitudes.(Ch 10 v5)

Willed I birth of progenitors all
Seven seers great ’n elders four 
Not to mention sovereign fourteen. (Ch 10, v6)

Was not the manner of proclamation of the creation of ‘four caste system’ uncharacteristic of Krishna?  

Besides, having proclaimed that –

Self-Imperishable is Brahman 
But dwells it yet there in beings   
Brings that forth is Act Supreme. (Ch 8 v3)

 
Skies in rooted wind as spreads
Dwell in Me though disperse all. (Ch 9 v6)  

In beings all ’n objects too  
Within He lies, without as well,
If one comes to grasp this well
It’s perception that’s Supreme. (Ch 13 v15)  -

would have Krishna maintained in the same vein that he was also the creator of the discriminatory four caste system?

Also, contrary to the above cited caste characteristics, elsewhere in the Gita, he affirms that:

Noble or naughty it’s thy make
Self thus thine but shapes thyself (Ch 6 v5).

That being the case, how could Krishna have branded every Brahmin as virtuous and tagged all the Kshatriyas as valourous?

More damningly, as against Krishna’s alleged creation of the four castes based on individual (human) qualities, the Gita characterizes only three human proclivities namely, virtue, passion and delusion.

Virtue, passion so too delusion  
Send I forth though all of them

Come to dwell in none of them (Ch 7 v12) 

To tie the Spirit ’n body tight
Uses Nature as its threads 
Virtue, passion as well delusion (Ch 14 v5)  

Above all is this faux pas; having belittled women folk in Ch 9 v32 thus: 

Even those who are born of sinful origin – women, Vaishyas, and also Shudras, they attain the supreme state by taking refuge in me,

Would he have glorified them as well thus -

I’m the death that devours all
As well brings forth that beings
Besides what makes woman’s glory –

in v34 of the very next chapter i.e. Ch 10?

Whatever, if as implied, Brahmin and Kshatriya women (no exemption to them as they are clubbed with Vaishyas and Shudras, men and women together) were to be born of sinful womb (actually it is paapa-yoni, sinful vulva, in the sloka), it goes without saying that their male siblings would not have been differently born, right, but the Gita declares Brahmin men as worship-worthy! Yet this nonsensical verse 32 of chapter 9 is taken as Krishna’s word by the foolish world, and what is worse, understandably the Shudras have come to grudge the Gita on that score as well.

If only Gita’s proponents read it instead of roting it, as advised therein

Scores thought over mere roting 
Betters meditation awareness too 
What helps man to find moorings
Are acts his with no axe to grind. (ch 12 v12),

and its opponents realize the true nature of godhood is -  

None I favor; slight I none 
Devout Mine all gain Me true (Ch 9 v29),

then it would be crystal clear to both how the vested interests had miscarried Krishna’s message to mankind conveyed to the world by Vyasa, also the progenitor of the latter.

So, it makes a case for them to own up the work albeit after ridding it of its inane interpolations as was done in this writer’s Bhagvad- Gita: Treatise of Self-help that’s in the public domain as free ebook from which the quotes in verses in this article are excerpted, and those in prose are from others sources.

For further perspectives on the Gita, the readers may also read on-line the writer’s Absurdity of Bhagvad-Gita’s Caste Biases, Badnām-Gita’s Spoiler Slokas, and Dichotomy Between Hindu Religiosity and Gita's Spirituality, and Mundane distortions in the Divine discourse.

 

 

 

 

Dichotomy Between Hindu Religiosity ‘n Gita's Spirituality

 

Long before the advent of the Torah, not to speak of the Bible and the Quran that followed it, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad had it that “.. since he (man) created gods who are better than he: and also because, being mortal, he created immortals, it is his higher creation. Whoever knows this, comes to be in this, his higher creation.” 

However, in the latter-day Nārāyana Upanishad, the ‘mortal man’ sought to control the ‘immortal god’ he himself had created thus:

“daiva dēnam jagat sarvam, / mantrā dēnantu daivatam,

tan mantram brāhmanādēnam, / brāhmano mama dēvata.”

 

It’s on god that hinges all / Mantras rein in that godhood

Controlled are those by Brahmans / Making them our own angels.

 

Going by the purānās, not only the Brahman rishis and maharshis maneuvered gods through yagnās ‘n yāgās but also were wont to curse them when offended.

In time though, as if god gained an upper hand in his tussle with man, Lord Krishna, in Bhagavad-Gita, popularly known as the Gita, averred that –

Those as meditate ’n worship / Them I take My wings under (Ch9, v22)

Devout be in heart and soul / Me the Supreme thou shall reach (Ch9 v34)

If thou develop faith in Me  / Take for granted I take thee (Ch 12 V8 )

If one remains to Me firm / It’s My promise I take him (Ch 18 v65)

Set all aside ’n have faith / Thus sans sin, reach Me thou. (Ch18, v66)

It is in this context that we should read Sir Edwin Arnold’s postulations in his introduction to the Gita as The Song Celestial in translation (1885) “...indeed, so striking are some of the moralities here inculcated, and so close the parallelism—ofttimes actually verbal— between its teachings and those of the New Testament, that a controversy has arisen between Pandits and Missionaries on the point whether the author borrowed from Christian sources, or the Evangelists and Apostles from him.

This raises the question of its date, which cannot be positively settled. It must have been inlaid into the ancient epic at a period later than that of the original Mahabharata, but Mr. Kasinath Telang has offered some fair arguments to prove it anterior to the Christian era. The weight of evidence, however, tends to place its composition at about the third century after Christ; and perhaps there are really echoes in this Brahmanic poem of the lessons of Galilee, and of the Syrian incarnation.”

Indeed the New Testament affirms that –

The Lord shall fight for you, and you should hold your peace. (John 14:14)

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Mathew 11:28)

That apart, psalm 115:11of the Old Testament has it that, “You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord; He is their help and their shield.”

All the same, the purpose of this article is not to ascertain whether it was plagiarism or parallel thought but, as its title suggests, is about the dichotomy between the Hindu religiosity and Gita's spirituality.

Obviously realizing that the Hindu religiosity was steeped, not in man’s surrender to god but in invoking his favours through mantras of assorted rituals, Lord Krishna proclaimed in the second chapter of the Gita thus:

Unwise use all enticing / Flowery language to further

Rituals Vedic in their scores / Not the knowledge of Vedas (V 42)
        

Eyeing heaven with mind mundane / Go for ceremonies such in hope /

Of having best of both the worlds (V 43) 

Stands as firm mind thy clear / Steer thou clear of path rituals (v53)

        That is besides cautioning man that –

        Pursue if thou wants with zeal / Instincts then would spin thy mind (v44)

But the Brahmins, in control of the Sanskrit mantras and the spiritual narrative alike, with their priestly interests to protect, so as not to let the Lord’s message sink into the Hindu consciousness, inserted into the Gita their contra narrative at the very beginning of the next chapter thus:

The Creator wanted mankind to prosper through sacrifices, which shall be the milch cow of man’s desires (v10)

Foster the gods through sacrifices (v11)

Fostered by sacrifices, gods would bestow desired enjoyments, but they are thieves who do not return anything to gods (v12) 

Who follow the above regimen would attain moksha (v16).

Owing to the all-pervading purānic narrative that is in tune with ­­the above, by and large, the Hindu religiosity has come to be steeped in propitiating the gods through assorted rituals and fervent prayers to avert adversity or for self-aggrandizement and /or both. It’s another matter though that in our materialistic time, it has further descended into a religious barter with gods, or worse, of seeking to bribe them that too only after they second man’s bidding!

Hence, the Gita’s exhortation to man to surrender to Him, the corner stone of the Semitic faiths, and alien to the Hindu ethos, invariably fails to scripturally draw the Hindus towards it, thereby rendering them skeptical to explore its sterling philosophy fashioned for their benefit. What’s worse, as brought out by the writer in his free ebook Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations and in articles, Mundane distortions in the Divine discourse, Absurdity of Bhagvad-Gita’s Caste Biases, and Badnām-Gita’s Spoiler Slokas, the majority of the Hindus are averse to this peerless philosophy owing to its discrimination of man on account of his so-called birth that anyway was the Brahmanical twist to what was essentially an egalitarian tome. It is for them to realize that in reality, the Gita was the pristine work of their progenitors, Krishna ‘n Vyasa, that in time got polluted by the others, and it is time for them to reclaim it by ridding it of its obnoxious interpolations. 

That being the case, the question that naturally arises is how come the Gita was eulogized as “the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue.…. perhaps the deepest and the loftiest thing the world has to show” by the 19^th Century Prussian philosopher William von Humboldt? And he was not alone in showering praises on it for many a Western thinker such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson were equally effusive in expressing their admiration for it! The answer could as well lay in this truism - the Semitic religious emphasis of surrendering the self to the Lord serves the faithful spiritually but yet it intellectually fails the believer when it comes to the realization of the self that is atma that the Gita enables one.

Incidentally, John Ephraim, a Telugu Christian of the day, exemplifies this aspect perhaps like none other; seeing the Gita but as an extension of the Bible to delve into the self, he not only learnt Sanskrit to be able to grasp its philosophical nuances but also by hearted all its 700+0 slokas. What is more, while taking his Christian walk on the Gita’s path, he has made it his life’s mission to induce the recalcitrant Hindus and others onto it.

What of the Hindus from the higher echelons, who keep away from the Gita for the lack of an aptitude to surrender to the god? Who were to tell them that it is not a tome of devotion but, more significantly, it deals with character building besides delving into the art of living as outlined in its chapter 12 thus –

       If thou develop faith in Me / Take for granted I take thee (v8)

       Were thee to fail develop faith / It’s not thou reached blind alley, 
       Ever Me having in thy mind / Practice lets thee turn the bend.      (v9)

       If thou feel that’s hard as well / Indulge then in deeds Me please. (v10 )

       If thou find that difficult too / Give thyself to Me Supreme 
       Act then with thy subdued mind  / With no thought for what follows. (v11)

       Scores thought over mere roting / Betters meditation awareness too 
       What helps man to find moorings / Are acts his with no axe to grind. (v12 )

So, it helps you, irrespective of your religious orientation, to pick up a copy of the Gita and begin reading it by skipping the following verses from it for better comprehension, and, if you please, my Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations is in the public domain as free ebook.

Ch. 3:  s9 –s18, s24 and s35 (12 slokas); Ch.4: s11 - s 13, s24- s32 and s34 (13 slokas); Ch.5: s18 and s27 -29 (4 slokas); Ch. 6: s10-s17 and s41 -s42 (10 slokas); Ch.7:  s20 –s23 (4 slokas); Ch.8:  s5, s9- s14 and s23-s28 ( 13 slokas); Ch.9: s7,s15-s21, s23-s25, and s32-s34 (14 slokas); Ch.11: s9- s14 and s29 (7 slokas); Ch.13:  s10, s22 and s30 (3 slokas); Ch.14: s3 -s4 and s19(3 slokas); Ch.15: s9 and s12- s15 (5 slokas ); Ch.16: s19 (1 sloka); Ch.17:  s11- s14 and  s23- 28 (10 slokas)  and Ch.18:  s12, s41-48, s56 and s61(11 slokas ).

 

 

State of the Art

                                                               State of the Art

 

The Indian legend has it that goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswathi respectively bestow wealth and learning on earth. It was the belief that both the goddesses would never bless the same soul. Such was their mythical rivalry that each would deny her munificence to the one under the other’s patronage. In the popular perception, the phenomenon of the rich merchant and the poor pundit was supposedly the manifestation of the goddesses at odds. Thus the merchant accumulated wealth nevertheless contributing to the commerce while the pundit enriched society through his knowledge, himself remaining impoverished. Nevertheless, both seemed reconciled to the enmity of their respective patrons in heaven as they got their share of recognition on earth.

This divine separation of commerce and arts that was the norm till the recent past was the source of the enrichment of the latter on the Indian soil. As there was no money to make in the pursuit of arts, it was the passionate that embraced art with passion to embellish it with devotion. Thus avoided by motivated suitors, art got wedded to talent as the Muses blessed the match and in that happy union, the former was courted by the latter to be tended with affection as a means of self-expression. However, in the process the artist got his due, feeling self-enriched by the appreciation of the knowledgeable.

Leave alone the classical arts, this art talent union manifested itself in the modern medium of the Indian cinema upon its advent as only those with passion for acting made it to the sets, braving the stigma attached to the performing arts in the prevailing cultural orthodoxy. So was the case the Indian writing in English, in its nascency for a young R. K. Narayan passionately took to writing even at the risk of being a parasite on his family. Well, the list of those artists who pursued or are pursuing art for the sake of art could be exhaustive but this piece is not about the artists but it is about the state of the art, indeed the society, in India today.

When Gandhi gave the call for freedom, those that joined the fray came prepared to forgo everything. Politics was not a paying proposition then and sacrifice was the creed of the freedom fighter. And what talent the mission attracted is reflected in the galaxy of statesmen we have had then. Nowhere in world history were so many exemplary men in a generation or two produced as in India in those years, for that could only happen when passion weds purpose. But what if expediency replaces passion in the political marriage is a public knowledge now. Though not so apparent, this is the case with the state of art as well in India today. The harbinger of wealth and the progenitor of knowledge seemed to have made up in Heaven, and ironically that occasioned the dichotomy in the arena of arts on earth.

Let us examine the literary scene to start with. When the masters rendered those classics of yore, literacy of the times was limited to the social core. Invariably that confined literature to the connoisseurs and kept it away from the crassness of the masses. However, it is the increase in the social literacy that paradoxically caused the degradation of literature! With the multitudes of the educated abounding, publishing appeared a fetching proposition to the enterprising. After all, business acumen is all about catering to what the market demands, and understandably the masses demand but ordinary stuff for easy comprehension! The induced demand for ‘time pass’ reading required customized writing. And that insensibly pushed the frontiers of literature to the doorsteps of wordsmiths. In due course though, authoring new content gave way to replicating the in vogue writing for risk-free publishing. That made Narayan lament that what was going in the name of writing was but mere documentation.

In order to penetrate the book market, the publishers came up with the stratagem of promotional campaigns by binging authors into the media fore. This insensibly glamorized authors, attracting the aliens into arena of writing. Of course, publishing the book is one thing and promoting it the author is another. How many deserving works go into oblivion without publicity, covered though they are by the book jackets of premier publishers! Not to miss out on the new openings in the book trade, some of the opportunists in the west came up with courses in creative writing for aspiring authors! So, art was put on the assembly line and successfully at that! The net result of all this literary farce is not hard to imagine what with everyone throwing his tailored manuscript into the publishing ring. However, to cope up with the author-rush that they helped create, the publishers would need an army of editors, which of course, the economies of publishing wouldn’t permit. The corollary is the need to regulate the incomings through external means.

Thus, the newfound job work opportunity in the book manufacturing created the species of literary agents. So, as the literary agents took it upon themselves to sort out the publishers’ mail, the face of book publishing acquired a new dimension. The editorial judgment of yore gave way to the phenomenon of influence peddling as the editors conceded their ground to literary agents. While the system bred laziness in the editorial department, it empowered the agent who could well boast that getting his nod is a good as being published for after all, the agents are aware of their ability to make the editors lean towards the manuscripts they canvass for. One could imagine the scope of the trade what with hundreds of thousands of manuscripts making the rounds, and it is but natural that a spurious agent would surface sooner than later to fleece the gullible writers. In spite of the individual causalities, the agent system seems to work well in the western mass publishing industry.

Let us see how things stand in the arena in Indian writing. It is possible that some of the best writing comes from the less literate areas like Orissa if we were to go by the citations of the National Sahitya Academy. No wonder since in less aware areas the absence of publicity keeps the imposters away from literary pursuits leaving the arena for the genuine for self expression. However, when it comes to the Indian Writing in English, it appears that the media’s penchant to glamorize the writers doesn’t seem to help the cause of literature for the well-intended book promotion tends to degenerate into promoting the author instead of the book so much so that it gets pushed to the backburner. So, the media focus too centers on the persona of the author without touching upon the nuances of his writings. It’s as if the book is but a launching pad to catapult the writer into the obit of fame.

Well, persona centric publicity could be the raison d’être of show business but it’s the worth of the writing that is at the core of an author’s existentialism, isn’t it? No one seems to complain though about the state of things. Thanks to the coverage in the magazines many may recognize the Indian Writers in English even in a crowd but how many would answer the call to confirm they read their books. This author as a glamour boy, or gal, phenomenon promoted by the media has made many to fancy their chances by charging into their laptops. It is the sort of documentation, to borrow from Narayan that emanates from their leisure time, which inundates the Indian publishing arena for the most part. As a logical follow-up for stardom, the rightly-connected would throw their weight around to try to jacket their labour in the book form.

The market dynamics being what they are, the publishers have for long reconciled to breakeven through safety measures. Since nothing would sell any way beyond a nominal number, why not settle for the time-tested stuff is what seems to be the Indian English publishing credo. Also, the market dynamics of ‘nothing much to win’ and ‘not so much to lose’ tend the publishers to settle for known faces instead of scouting for the unknown talent. Ironically, the limited Indian market size seems to help the literary pirates to hijack the publishing agenda to have their way into the media. What if the Indian English market is one hundred thousand for a given book to win public favour? Maybe, that is when the publishers would look beyond their friends in the hope of roping in the best seller!

It is thus, the limitations of the publishing arena seem to serve the ambitions of the aspirants. For now, the only marketing strategy of the Indian publishers seems to induce the celebrities of sorts to cook up something for a book and then resort to hype to induce the gullible public into buying the same to adorn the bookshelves. All this might help individuals to get published and become authors but that hardly helps the cause of literature, and given these constraints, the lady editors and the marketing men at the publishing houses must be finding it hard to find some publishing space for the genuine authors who come up with something original that might otherwise deserve their consideration. Arguably this women only editorial team could take away some of the objectivity in book selection, but publishers seem not to care. Wonder whether the editorial positions at the publishing houses are not lucrative enough for men to seek them or perhaps the bosses might prefer not to suffer male egos in their presence.

If the Indian literature suffers in want, then plenty afflicts the Indian cinema. The mass adoration as opposed to the ostracism of yore accords the cine-stars a preeminent position in society for the influential to make their way to the silver screen. This naturally leaves the potential thespians languishing in the shadows while the hams rule the roost in the film world. Here again in societies like Kerala, where the craze for films is less frenzied in comparison, the genuine actor has some chance to get a break. It’s no wonder that the national film honours, for the most part, go to the Kerala and the Kannada films while the cine-mad Tamils and Telugus find themselves nowhere in the picture. As it appears, it’s the fate of art to be hampered when fortune chases its practitioners. It is here the Indian painting stands apart. Paintings of M F Hussain and Tyeb Mehta might rake in millions in Christie’s auctions but the average painter would consider himself lucky if the sale would fetch him the cost of the canvas on which it is painted. Maybe that is the reason why the Indian painting hasn’t come into the domain of the fame-seekers but still radiates in the shades of genuine talent limited though it might be.

Decoding the Cynical Method in Mamata’s Political Madness

 

Ernst Röhm, the boss of Brown Shirts, whose rough shoulders carried Adolf Hitler into the German Chancellery, was keen to induct them into the Wehrmacht that was set to replace Reichswehr. However, the Fuehrer, whose vision was to develop a world-beating armed force, saw no role for Röhm’s riff-raff in its professional setup. But as the rebuffed deputy could unleash his Storm Troopers on his regime itself, the real politic constrained the Nazi numero uno to usher in the Night of the Long Knives but for which, the rights and wrongs apart, the Third Reich wouldn’t have had such a formidable army with the Panzers at its helm.    

That was in the early thirties of the last century and now in the nascent twenties of the current one, India’s West Bengal faced a Röhm moment as Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamool supremo, led her party to a resounding victory in the assembly polls, however, fouled by her personal loss at the hustings. Thus, while Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister, and Amit Shah, the Home Minister, who together led a no-holds-barred poll campaign to uproot the unruly Trinamool, have been licking their political wounds and counting their electoral losses, one would have expected Mamata Didi, who had the last laugh by remaining in the saddle to prove the Bengal electorate right that is courtesy the country’s constitution, which enabled her to take another shot in a by-election, to be conciliatory to her opponents. But then, she has to contend with her formidable support base of the aggressive Muslim constituency that she cultivated for electoral aggregation that came to perceive the Trinamool victory as a license to pursue their extremist Islamist agendas, and so began to run amuck amongst the Hindus, who sought to spoil their party by voting for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). That was the Röhm moment for Mamata, which put her in a catch- 22 situation of her own making.

Well, she could only rein in the rampaging Muslim miscreants, euphemistically called Trinamool goons by the compromised Islamapologic media, at the cost of imperiling her solid vote-bank of roughly one third of the State’s electorate. Besides, with her extreme-Muslim-appeasement governance model, she had already burnt most of her electoral bridges with the majority of the Bengali Hindus, save the supercilious Bhadralok, who seem to take pride in swimming away from the pan-Indian political mainstream. This aspect of the Bengal’s political reality was underscored by her electoral loss at Nandigram, albeit by a narrow margin, to Suvendu Adhikari, her confidante turned contestant, who meaningfully dubbed her as Begum in his election rallies.  

Thus, with her political survival inexorably linked to the formidable Muslim constituency, unceasingly buttressed by the successive pseudo-secular administrations of varied hues and cries that turned a blind eye to the hordes of Muslim intruders from the neighboring Bangladesh, she was caught in a demographic quagmire. That in her Muslim-engineered electoral triumph, the minimal contribution of the overwhelming, though fragmented, Hindu majority is a cause for her future political worries cannot be over stated. That being the case, getting tough with the Muslim miscreants out at the Hindu throats could tantamount to her denting the minority vote-bank, which would be nothing short of a political suicide in the democratic arena.  Even otherwise, there is a strange compatibility between Mamata's roguish behaviour and Muslims' aggressive mentality that make them made for each other, which fact she seems to have recognized only after coming to power in 2011 by storming into the Left citadel over the industrial ruins of Singur. Why, in 2006, she made a ruckus in the Lok Sabha over the Speaker's rejection of her adjournment motion on illegal infiltration of Bangladeshis into West Bengal!

Though she retained power in 2016, despite her lackadaisical governance, the spectacular performance of the BJP in the 2019 parliamentary polls made her rush to the poorer women with all sorts of sops to shore up her scam-ridden Trinamool in the ensuing 2021 assembly polls. Nevertheless, BJP's high pitch campaign in them made her nervous to the core, so much so that she opted to migrate from her shaky Bhowanipore constituency to the safe Muslim-profuse Nandigram, in part driven by her egotistic urge to crush Suvendu Adhikari to his political death, well, to come a cropper. However, during the month-long election regimen, what with the vexed Hindu wind seemingly turning against her and her party men, she turned to the Muslim voters with folded hands not to split their votes in favour of the other secular pretenders and that earned her a reprimand from India’s Election Commission.

However, if only she had a grasp of the Islamic psyche, there was no need for her to go to such desperate communal lengths as Muslims anyway would strive to ensure BJP's defeat, not because its rule materially hurts them as in deed their kin in Modi’s Gujarat became a prosperous lot. What is not adequately appreciated is that the Muslims, who perceive themselves as the erstwhile rulers of Hindustan, feel emotionally slighted to be ruled by it that unabashedly espouses the Hindu causes.  It was thus, aided by the Muslim hatred towards her rival and her sops for the poor, her Trinamool once again steamrolled into the corridors of Nabanna, the seat of the State power.    

Though the agenda-driven media, so as not to give any leg up to the hated Narendra Modi, downplayed her Nandigram debacle, she was so rankled by it as to make William Congreve's words ring true - heaven has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn's. Thanks to the electronic voting machines, as it was apparent that her humiliation was owing to the hostility of the Hindu voters, anyway the post-poll targets of her Islamist supporters, how does the question of their rescue arise? Her personal pique apart, there is real politik at play as well for what if the momentum of the adverse consolidation of Hindu voters that began in seventy-seven constituencies in 2021 picks up in the rest of them in the future; more in Bhowanipore from where she is all set to contest to retain her chief ministerial chair, and in 2024 parliamentary polls in which she hopes to pitch herself as the opposition’s prime ministerial candidate. So, as offense is the best form of time-tested defense, go after the Hindus, who dared to vote for the BJP, to make an example of them so that none ever dares to repeat the mistake in their living memory, seems to be the cynical method in Mamata’s political madness.  

Thus, in such a setting, as the election commission dutifully conducts future elections in West Bengal, the vulnerable Hindu voters, who are averse to Trinamool, would keep away from the polling booths thereby facilitating Mamata and / or her successor to lord over it till such a time when the Muslim minority becomes its electoral majority to be able to eventually ensconce its members in the seats of power. Why doubt that as the short-sighted Mamata is sure to open the long Bangladeshi borders to further augment her vote-bank to counter the Hindu apathy towards her, and hasn’t one of her Islamist worthies recently proclaim that once Muslims reach the thirty percent threshold in India there would be four more Pakistans? That is apart from the avowed goal of every sub-continental Musalman to turn Hindustan into Ghazwa-e-Hind. 

So, even as the colonial British dismembered India, its regional satraps such as Mamata, if not reined in, in time, could cause its further fragmentation with impunity. No denying that the Modi-sarkar can deservedly pat itself for having reined in the separatist forces in the Kashmir valley but what about the out-of-control West Bengal and the Christian surge in Andhra Pradesh, estimated to have already covered over a quarter of its population, making it a fertile ground for the Mamata model of politicking, if need be.  The tragedy of India hitherto is that all political dispensations across the board, barring the honorable exception of the BJP, have been aiming for a share in the minority vote-bank and thus were not averse to the inimical demographic alterations, be it the form of Bangladeshi Muslim infiltration into West Bengal and Assam or the local Christian conversion sprees in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu etc. Well, it may be tempting to fault the late YS Rajasekhar Reddy and his son YS Jaganmohan Reddy, chief ministers both, for systematically Christianizing the Hindu hinterland in Andhra Pradesh but Chandra Babu Naidu, who was in a political position to checkmate their evangelical moves is to be equally blamed for having turned a blind eye, eying some electoral crumbs from the High Christian table, and sadly, BJP that could have stalled the religious disorder has had no political ground there whatsoever. 

 What of now to avert further demographic distortion of Bharat that is India? To start with, BJP must begin a public awareness drive within and without West Bengal about the perils posed by the Trinamool politics to the unity and integrity of the country. It also needs to build public opinion to force the Indian media to put an end to the pseudo-secular political correctness that somehow came to rule the nation’s public discourse. It should strive to develop an intellectual climate conducive to reviewing the fact-checked demographic changes and the socio-political implications thereof. Besides, Modi-sarkar should devise methods to bring India’s substantial religious minorities into the national emotional fold resulting in the diffusion of their separatist identities, which, in turn, would dent their religious zeal to bring others onto their sectarian paths.

However, in the short-run, the onus is on the Me Lords of the Supreme Court, who have come to fancy themselves as the sole-protectors of the Indian democratic order, to nip Mamata’s political disorder by banishing her from Bengal’s electoral arena to make an example of her to dissuade others from embarking upon the dangerous course set by her, and the Indian Constitution does grant them that extraordinary power.

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Badnām-Gita’s Spoiler Slokas

 Badnām-Gita’s Spoiler Slokas

The Bhagavad-Gita was eulogized as “the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue” by the 19^th Century Prussian philosopher William von Humboldt but Vijay Mankar, the Ambedkarite of the day, avers that it is a rotten work deserving to be thrown into a dustbin for “it advocates inequality of man based on caste, stigmatizes women as an inferior kind and legitimizes violence”. Neither Humboldt was alone in praising the Gita for he had the illustrious company of many a Western thinker such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, only to name a few, nor Mankar lacked company to castigate it as a book of bigotry, for Ambedkar the Dalit intellectual, who piloted the Indian Constitution, was unsparing about it.

Whatever, these extremely divergent opinions about this antique work continue to persist to the hurt of the Hindu polity what with some perceiving it as the ‘epitome of wisdom’ even as the others avoid it treating it as a ‘Brahmanical tome’ of social oppression. Be that as it may, the irony of it all is that even its protagonists fail to benefit from this ‘book of wisdom’ owing, in part, to its very postulations that keep its skeptics away from it.

This endeavour is an ardent attempt to put the crooked record straight for the public good.       

It may be appreciated that there are no more than seven spoiler slokas (verses) in the Gita’s seven-hundred (not counting the un-numbered one in the thirteenth chapter) that rightly outrage the Mankars of the non-Brahmanical world, which the favoured varnas (castes) downplay with winding explanations that cut no logical ice though. Besides these, among the one-hundred-and-three digressive verses in the in vogue Gita, there are many that advocate the very ritualistic practices that it advises man to avoid in v42, v43 ‘n v53 of its second, and arguably its defining, chapter! Needless to say, these confuse its devout thereby failing them to grasp the art of practical living that the Gita teaches, but yet, sticking to the traditional ground, they are apathetic to any rethink of the obvious and the apparent alike. Let them be for they get what they deserve, and our concern should be for those who keep away from the Gita, on account of the seven as follows that seek to confine them to non-cerebral ways in their ghettoized existence that is besides denigrating the feminine gender as a whole.

Quote –

1) Ch 3, v35

shreyan swa-dharmo viguṇaḥ para-dharmat sv-anuṣhṭhitat

swa-dharme nidhanaṁ shreyaḥ para-dharmo bhayavahaḥ. 

It is far better to perform one’s prescribed duty (read caste duty) faultily than to perform another’s perfectly. In fact, it is preferable to die in the discharge of one’s duty, than to follow the path of another, which is fraught with danger.

2) Ch 4, v 13

chatur-varnyam maya srishtam guna-karma-vibhagashah

tasya kartaram api mam viddhyakartaram avyayam. 

The four varnas (castes) have been created by Me, based on the division of guna (nurture) and karma (action / duty). Even though I created them, know Me as the non-doer and the imperishable.

3) Ch.9, v32

maam hi paartha vyapaasritya ye 'pi syuh paapa-yonayah,

striyo vaisyaas tathaa soodraas te 'pi yaanti paraam gatim.

Surely, O Paartha, even those who are born of sinful origin – women, traders, and also labourers, they attain the supreme state by taking refuge in Me.

4) Ch18, v41

braahmana-kshatriya-visaam soodraanaam cha parantapa,

karmaani pravibhaktaani svabhaava-prabhavair gunaih.

The duties of Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, O scorcher of foes, have been classified according to the gunaas, which have born of (their) nature.

5) Ch 18, vs44

krushi-go-rakshya-vaanijyam vaisya-karma svabhaava-jam,

paricharyaatmakam karma soodrasyaapi svabhaava-jam.

Agriculture, cattle rearing and trade are natural duties of the Vaishya while service oriented actions are the natural duties of the Shudras.

6) Ch 18, v47

sreyaan sva-dharmo vigunah para-dharmaat sv-anusthitaat,

svabhaava-niyatam karma kurvan naapnoti kilbisham.

It is better to do one’s own duty, even though imperfectly, than to do another’s duty, even though perfectly. By doing one’s innate duties, a person does not incur sin.

7) Ch18, v48,

sahajam karma kaunteya sa-dosham api na tyajet,

sarvaarambhaa hi doshena dhoomenaagnir ivaavrutaah.

Natural duty (read caste duty), even though fraught with defect, should not be abandoned. For, all undertakings are covered with defect, like fire by smoke.

-Unquote.

Now the moot point is, were these indeed bhagvan uvaacha (the Lord’s utterances) as the Gita-in-circulation would have us believe?  

The key to the answer, so to say, lies in the Gita’s very own assertion – this is the quintessence of the Upanishads, Brahmasutras, and Yoga sastra – at the end of each of its eighteen chapters, which naturally leads to the counter question – had God preached man from the man-made material for Upanishads, Brahmasutras, and Yoga sastra are just that?

Well, the absurdity of its ever happening should suffice to say that as popularly acknowledged, it was Vyasa, a Shudra, who composed the Gita with Krishna, alike a Shudra, as its main protagonist, which fact puts paid to these seven spoiler verses. So, it stands to reason that it was the priestly interests that inserted these to suppress the other castes, save Kshatriyas with whom they were in cohorts, and belittle the womenfolk in general. What is no less galling, they sought to exalt their Brahmanical social standing with self-serving insertions, and gave the bhagawan uvaacha twist to Vyasa’s work to boot for better effect.

So, it is for the Shudras to realize that in reality, the Bhagvad-Gita was the pristine work of their progenitors that in time got polluted by the others, and it is time for them to reclaim it albeit by ridding it of its obnoxious insertions as was done by the author in his Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help sans 110 inane interpolations. In so far as the misconception about Gita’s advocacy of violence is concerned, as and when the interpolative issue is settled, rid of their own biases against it, its detractors would be able to appreciate that it only exhorts man to take up cudgels for justness in its fight against unjustness regardless.

All the same, the Gita eulogizers, in its present-form, must ponder over as to how these verses of inequality in the revered work jell with the much touted Hindu ethos of vasudhaika kutumbakam (world is one family). In so far as the Gita’s admirers among the Whites, it can be said that having internalized the Semitic religious ethos of the God’s alleged partiality   towards certain races and also given the prevalence of slavery in their societies, they saw nothing perverse in the inequity of the castes in the Hindu religious fold that its interpolations espoused.    

Ridden of the following 110 spoiler slokas, the Gita acquires the clarity of expression and thought required for its comprehension and contemplation.

Ch. 3:  s9 –s18, s24 and s35 (12 slokas); Ch.4: s11 - s 13, s24- s32 and s34 (13 slokas); Ch.5: s18 and s27 -29 (4 slokas) ; Ch. 6: s10-s17 and s41 -s42 (10 slokas) ; Ch.7:  s20 –s23 (4 slokas) ; ch.8:  s5, s9- s14 and s23-s28 ( 13 slokas) ; Ch.9: s7,s15-s21, s23-s25, and  s32-s34 (14 slokas) ; Ch.11: s9- s14 and s29 (7 slokas) ; Ch.13:  s10, s22 and s30 (3 slokas) ;Ch.14: s3 -s4 and s19(3 slokas) ; Ch.15: s9 and s12- s15 (5 slokas ); Ch.16: s19 (1 sloka) ; Ch.17:  s11- s14 and  s23- 28 (10 slokas)  and Ch.18:  s12, s41-48, s56 and s61(11 slokas ).

Academia.edi links to Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of Self-help–

Ebook https://www.academia.edu/21433459/Bhagvad_Gita_Treatise_of_Self_help

Audio-book https://www.academia.edu/video/jKQ34l