Fundamentalism in Hazare's campaign

[An Outbreak of Fundamentalism? Characteristics of the Fundamentalist (Richard T. Antoun, Martin E. Marty, Judith Nagata and others):

Rejection of complexity, Demand for doctrinal purity, Feelings of being threatened, Control of information, Exclusivism, Opposition to discussion, Abusive language, Rousing the masses, Atmosphere of violence, Demonizing the enemy, & Heroic role in a great cosmic drama]

Traces of fundamentalist features are creeping into the campaign led by Anna Hazare. A public stand becomes a prestige issue and stoutly defending it leads to fundamentalism. Dialogue and debate, therefore, are hallmarks of a vibrant public sphere. Priorities before the nation must be assessed keeping its long-term interests and global standing in mind. Constitutional issues are best resolved within the Committee rooms and not by brandishing brooms. [TNM]     

Proportional representation system at the Centre

The prevailing fascination of a large section of Indian public for the Hazare-Ramdev duo smacks of a feudal mindset. Swiftly jumping on the bandwagon of a charismatic person seems to be the easy option for most. The curiosity element aroused when a new product is launched in the market is also on play here. The visual media too is eager to make a killing. Such circumstances focus on the danger of a directly elected presidential system. The convoluted parliamentary form of government that we now have appears much virtuous in comparison.

Obsession with the Shining India is one of the reasons for growth of cynicism towards politics. Lack of distinct ideological content is also responsible for the absence of emotional pull that politics once had. An assembly-line and service-delivery approach to administration has dehumanized it and robbed it of the participatory sentiments. Invariable privileging of expertise has further widened the disconnect between the rulers and the commoners. Outsourcing in every field is promoting mechanicity and indifference.

Well, these might seem straight from a Marxist’s critique of Capitalism, but there is something deeper here. Democracy confronts a crisis and no definite solution is in sight. The semblance of democracy that the Corporates follow with regard to their shareholders is also a sham. Hazare-Ramdev, too, are top-down phenomena who shun elections. A proportional representation system at the Centre on the basis of State level elections, therefore, will be a more secure and fair arrangement. [TNM]     

Cow & wordbook

[Savitri Era: Blog and frog and elephant 21 Nov 2008: The beauty of a blog is in its brevity, or so we suppose who prefer to take cover under the Kautilyan dictum of keeping mum being the strength of the unwise and Chaucer's to make virtue of necessity as inspiration dries up after half a line invariably every fine morning.

On the other hand we have RY Deshpande who returns with his Mirror of Tomorrow and Savitri: the Light of the Supreme whose “endless” essays ever bewilder like the “topless” towers of Ilion. Welcome. TNM]

[Savitri Era: a-u-i 25 Mar 2009: While reading the post below I noticed that it has 3 paragraphs, each consisting of 3 sentences. The threesome, though not exactly in the thesis-antithesis-synthesis sequence, constitutes a distinct variation where the middle one leads to another aspect by way of expansion or explanation. The three, thus roughly, can be denoted by the vowels “a,” “u,” and “i” respectively. TNM 11:21 AM]

Being commanded to write an essay was, no doubt, the most formidable prospect in the school. The journey began with the unforgettable, “The cow is a four footed animal,” the overall limit being ten sentences. In a blog post too, this looks like an ideal limit within which one can fairly express his opinion on a particular subject with sufficient clarity. Even the mandatory, Introduction, Argument, Conclusion etc. can be accommodated, in a nutshell. Sonnet, it seems, is the poetic counterpart of this format. The Twitter (140 characters), of course, is more popular now which can be compared with Haiku (17 syllables).

Wordbook was an indispensable companion for learning English; its pocket size being more endearing. Once a person came to the school to sell a new wordbook which he had authored in the form of poems and recited them. Father, Mother, Brother, Sister / Aunt, Uncle, Son, Daughter / Wife, Husband, Friend, Neighbour. The fourth line, I no longer remember. [TNM]

Western inquiry must rid itself from the Christian notion of God

[naomi klein, the shock doctrine – part II from & where do all these highways go now that we are free by anirban (Continued from part one.)

Mark C Taylor’s Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World without Redemption (which I have spoken of before) is an important corrective to Naomi Klein’s book. Taylor’s book, which charts the complex interrelations of money, markets, art and theology over two centuries, ends up taking a pro-free-market position by arguing, basically, that in a postmodern world without grounding, theological certainties of the past are gone. The world without redemption is a confidence game and we have to accept that. Problems with such a thesis notwithstanding, what Taylor’s meticulous work shows is that economics is not as narrow as Klein and many others would have us believe. …

Taylor argues interestingly, that the advent of ‘complexity studies’ in the field of economics occurred at the same time that Robert Venturi published his landmark book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. …

What Taylor’s book shows quite well is the rise of a complexity-based economic system where market fundamentalism reappears in different forms – often adapting itself to the latest and most interesting philosophical and scientific trends.]

Social sciences pretended for a long time that they are independent of ontology. Clearly, that was an adolescent’s attitude and the elders within them knew that such a view of the world won’t endure. Several calamities later, some signs of maturity have surfaced. But the dominant thinking in the West is still burdened covertly by the Christian notion of God. Most secularists, rationalists, & atheists are incapable of forgetting what they learnt as children.  

Western inquiry has conquered dizzy heights in all spheres of life which is a tribute to the power of human thought. What chains it down, unfortunately, is a two millennia old mythology. The thought revolution unleashed by The Mother & Sri Aurobindo, alone, can redeem the present impasse. Savitri and The Life Divine, therefore, should be upon the desk of every intellectual. [TNM]

Countdown for Congress

The brutal eviction of Baba Ramdev’s congregation more or less matches in significance the dastardly Babri Masjid demolition. The politics and religion linkage is likely to dominate the public discourse as the rules of the game have been altered for ever. Decimation of the Left also signals a fertile ground for religion to take root.

Besides, with the blatant breach of trust (a la Italy), social capital has taken a severe beating. For, when it comes to the State, ethical imperatives acquire multiplied import.  The contrast is accentuated when the name of the Father of the Nation is invoked. Devoid of civility and compassion, governance loses legitimacy.  

Terrifying a harmless crowd in the dead of night in the heart of the capital has turned a legend. Sanjay Gandhi’s Turkman Gate episode easily comes to the mind. Rajiv Gandhi, rather, had played Western Music for Tikait. Sonia Gandhi’s Congress, in a way, has started digging its own grave. [TNM55] 

Retell & retail

[Performance artists Hindustan Times Ramachandra Guha June 06, 2011

In the Christian, Buddhist, Jain, and Sufi traditions, there is a close connection between spirituality and solitude. So too in Hinduism, and even, modern Hinduism. Fleeing the colonial police, Aurobindo retreated to the French enclave of Pondicherry where he pursued, more vigorously than it had been possible when he was a revolutionary, the spiritual life. He read, meditated, and wrote. As his search focused further inwards, he gave fewer discourses and met fewer and fewer disciples. …

Solitude and spirituality — the link between them is intimate and indissoluble. In between satyagrahas, Gandhi spent months at a stretch in Sabarmati or Sevagram, thinking, searching, spinning. Ramana and Aurobindo did not leave their ashrams for decades on end.] 

[Deaf to Sri Aurobindo 16 Dec 2010

One thing you can't accuse Ramachandra Guha of is mincing his words. ... “I found the views of Vivekananda and Aurobindo archaic and stiff,” was the reply to a variation of the question that he is asked the most about his book.] 

[sri aurobindo after gandhi 7 Jan 2008

the publication of ramachandra guha's thrilling history of india from 1947 to the present day india after gandhi was one of the highlights of indian literature in 2007. by chandrahas ... middle stage

the mother and sri aurobindo don't ...]

[wisest man, worst poet, any takers? 22 Dec 2005

We move on to Aurobindo, who, again, at times propagated ideas uncannily similar to Islam, as in the wish to return to a Golden Age where all was truth and righteousness. Then we come to Vivekananda, to this writer the most ambivalent, and hence most appealing, of the four. Ramachandra Guha The Telegraph Saturday, April 17, 2004

The swadeshi movement was, from a Moderate point of view, a negation of the entire Congress project. As a partisan of the Moderates it gives me great satisfaction that Bengal’s greatest poet, Tagore, got it exactly right and her worst, Aurobindo Ghose, got it perfectly wrong. Mukul Kesavan The Telegraph Sunday, May 29, 2005 10:12 AM]

[Sri Aurobindo’s Opposition Why the Indian establishment resisted him MANGESH V. NADKARNI Indian Express  EDITORIALS & ANALYSIS Thursday, March 21, 2002]

Ramachandra Guha has been extremely shy of Sri Aurobindo during the last 7 years. He is just one specimen of a much larger conspiracy of silence and sabotage against the greatest son of India. Sidelining of Sri Aurobindo and marginalisation of his works is one of the major factors behind sprouting of spurious spirituality in the country and mushrooming of money-spinning babas. Savitri Erans have a huge responsibility at this juncture in the sphere of educating and moulding the public opinion. The Mother & Sri Aurobindo have left behind all wherewithals for this purpose. Our task simply is in retailing them and hence let’s tighten our belts. [TNM]   

Heehs paid a heavy price for confusion of roles

[Playing fast and loose – Pratap Bhanu Mehta Indian Express, Fri, Jun 03 2011 

This confusion of roles is almost everywhere. Parts of the media cannot decide whether they want to be trustworthy institutions of record or tools of partisan, rabble-rousing demagoguery, with editors donning the mantle of revolutionaries. But the short-term gains of this activism will come at the price of long-term credibility. True change will not come from this confusion of roles; it will come from each profession discharging its responsibilities to the best. 6:54 PM] 

Letters on Himself and the Ashram arrived on Tuesday, perhaps the first post-Heehs CWSA volume. The irritating practice of identifying people as X, Y, or Z, unfortunately, continues. There is no clarification on the policy regarding disclosing names or till when the readers will have to wait.

Being the editor of such a series is perhaps the highest career one can aspire for, and Heehs was able to lap it long back. But, mischief got the better of him when he craved for accolades from University Professors. Consequently, he had to pay a heavy price for this confusion of roles. None of his friends, sadly, could rescue him from his mid-life crisis.

Heehs remains unrepentant and nurtures a confrontationist posture. That might seem to him as heroic resistance, but the probable gains are a speck of dust in comparison to what he has forfeited. Let’s hope he sees light at the end of the tunnel. [TNM]  

Anna Hazare & Baba Ramdev border on the bizarre

The appearance of Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev in the political firmament of India borders on the bizarre. That they are being actively supported by certain political parties signifies bankruptcy of ideas as well as leadership. Their modus operandi panders to the popular sentiment no doubt, but the end result is derailment of the constitutional methods.

Besides, it is highly doubtful whether they are equipped enough to understand the implications of the measures that they are demanding to be implemented. It is difficult to understand why the system of committees or commissions is being given a go by. For instance, why no one is talking about the Venkatachaliah constitutional review committee report is a mystery.

It will be a sad day for the country, if we opt for a mobocracy of Jantar Mantar or Ramlila Maidan. All right thinking people, therefore, should come forward to prevent such an eventuality. [TNM]

Jatindranath and Jawaharlal

[The Hindu : NATIONAL - NEW DELHI : in the capital today

National Book Trust: Book release of “Bagha Jatin: Life and Times of Jatindranath Mukherjee” (authored by Prithwindra Mukherjee), India International Centre, Seminar Hall 1, Gate 1, 40 Max Mueller Marg, 12 p.m.]

Released by Pranab Mukherjee on Jawaharlal Nehru's death anniversary certainly constitutes a tight rope walking on the part of the veteran Congressman. Tathagata Satpathy as one of the speakers, of course, stands for Sri Aurobindo. [TNM]

Google Yoga

From Tusar N. Mohapatra tusarnmohapatra@gmail.com date 27 May 2011 09:41 Subject Re: Sent to you by [TNM] via Google Reader: Open Practice: Can Psychopaths Be Enlightened? via ~C4Chaos

Google Reader is a great facility and over the years I have cherry picked nearly 200 feeds, not all of them equally active. Besides, Google Alert keeps on replenishing my inbox on more than a dozen topics. Then, of course, the continual scanning of Google News and conducting sundry searches, squeezing in a few You Tubes in between. All these happen in the normal course powered by sheer curiosity, and we may safely christen it as Google Yoga! [TNM]

Pavitra & Prapatti

[Re: Leaders of the Integral Yoga Posted - Thu May 26, 2011 2:23 am

But naturally one has to at least make the effort to do some kind of practice; mere book reading, visiting holy places and having a Master for the name sake is surely not enough. Dr Alok] [DEATH, DYING AND BEYOND: The Science and Spirituality of Death Alok Pandey (May 1, 2011]

More often than not, “mere book reading” is rubbished as if reading is no practice. Such anti-intellectual stance, decidedly, is impermissible in Integral Yoga. Swabhava and swadhrma are essential levers in steering one’s spatio-temporal trajectory; and, therefore, what was indispensable for Pavitra may not be appropriate for Prapatti. [TNM]

27-storey temple

[Quote, unquote - Business Standard -New Delhi - May 24, 2011

Ambani makes a lot of money from his business and he is entitled to spend it as he sees fit. Even so, there is something curiously insensitive to splurging on an over-the-top, 27-storey home that has no redeeming architectural qualities, in a country in which many Indians are homeless— even in Mumbai.]

[Indian cricket star caught out by Ferrari By Raju Bist Asia Times Oct 3, 2002

Some say that he is being too greedy, but Tendulkar is merely cashing in on a mad craze for cricket and cricket luminaries. In India, it is only film personalities and cricket stars who attract the crowds, and, by extension, the advertising big bucks.]

[If you rob the idols, you ruin the temple Stars are key to cricket’s future, don’t knock them out LOKESH SHARMA The Indian Express Thursday, August 15, 2002

A cricket star earns well, lives well and is loved by everyone if he doesn’t lose his balance along the way. These stars are the wheels of an entire economy: administration, advertisers, sports goods manufacturers, marketing agencies, broadcasters, television channels, commentators and journalists and so on. They attract audiences to the benefit of the entire industry.

Yes, cricketers can earn lakhs — a couple of crores, maybe — in match fees. So do many middle-level MNC executives. But they usually don’t set pulses racing, adrenaline flowing across the country and through the world. The cricketers do; they are the reason people support a game. 

Take away the purse of these cricketers and you stand to rob the entire cricket economy. Children are inspired seeing Sachin in a Ferrari; how will they react if he rides a motorcycle? Take away the idols and you ruin the temple. Sachin in a Ferrari November 23, 2005 12:40 PM]

Like spectacle or carnival, celebrities exercise an uncanny attraction over the mass mind. They are the living legends and walking mythologies, besides being the engines of economy. From Britain to Bhutan, royalty is a roaring reality show now. Ergo, no complain if India generates a dozen or so wannabes. [TNM]  

Empowering the Parliament

Who should run the country? Our elected representatives or the students of technical institutions? Matters of public policy are best left to the MPs. That is what the Constitution of India envisages. Street politics may be good Nukkad theatre but it can't be a substitute for the Parliament and its inclusiveness.

It's a shame to see the well-heeled medicos making a spectacle of themselves on the quota-issue. It's high time they should also learn a little bit of sociology and political science. [Posted by Tusar N Mohapatra at 9:57 PM Friday, May 26, 2006]

Nandini Satpathy served The Mother

[Why Amma is the odd one out Sify

Then, there's the Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. Some people may compare the mentoring of Aurobindo to that of MGR, but then, there are no reports of Jayalalithaa communicating telepathically with him, even in the movie roles they essayed together.]

When the spotlight is on women Chief Ministers, it is pertinent to remember Nandini Satpathy (1931 – 2006), who had a chequered political career. Although she was disliked for a while for the Emergency excesses, her stellar role in pushing the movement of The Mother & Sri Aurobindo forward in Odisha is a signal contribution. She remains a role model for women in Odisha. [TNM] 

Identity, and not fake unity, is the anchor of politics

The Congress Party survives owing to the mythology it inherits and the charisma Sonia Gandhi lends to it. Of late, it has turned thoroughly opportunistic by perfecting the art of choosing and dumping alliance partners. Policy shifts are never questioned and ambivalence is the name of the game. This is not an ideal state of affairs on the part of the largest party of the largest democracy.

Identity, and not fake unity, is the anchor of politics. If the recent election results really help a bipolar polity to evolve, then integrity, and not hypocrisy, will be needed the most. [TNM]  

Knowledge is a whip and Aspiration, the spur

Techniques of Yoga refined by various systems and schools look practical and impressive, but each psycho-physical discipline conceals a propensity for limiting and binding. Our spatio-temporal-corporal existence is susceptible to inertia and skills developed over a period of time tend to lull one into imagined progress. Moreover, once acquired, it is not easy to get rid of the past baggage.

Integral Yoga, on the contrary, constantly goads in the direction of new discoveries. The top-down approach is a powerful proposition and continuous psychological reengineering is a much potent means. “Knowledge is a whip” here and Aspiration, the spur. Savitri and The Life Divine, therefore, are essential companions in the path.

Integral Yoga, as against the popular notion, is not an amalgamation of disparate streams that come from the tradition. Nor is it a hybrid teaching in the search of results. It is an integrated system of self-culture with distinct prescriptions. Any attempt to tinker with it is hence hazardous and impudent. [TNM]    

This world's a life sentence, Yoga turns it a love affair

Keeping a diary gradually appears as if one lives to write it. Just like the observer turning a participant in the experiment.  "It isn't the man who drinks the tea, it's the tea which drinks the man," quipped Jean Baudrillard. Wrote Larval Subjects recently, “Inverting the way we commonly talk and think about domestication, the book will explore how grasses, grains, various animals such as wolves, cows, cats, goats, and microbes, as well as technologies have conspired to domesticate human beings for their own ends.”

Thus, the contingent and the contextual is always a local event hardly amenable to any generalization or universalization. Empirical observations, therefore, carry the risk of throwing up highly impaired inferences. Practice of yoga, too, is a personalized affair and no two trajectories can be identical. Once one gains an entry into the continent of Integral Yoga, a million paths open for pursuing a life long love affair or even to escape. [TNM]

Religion matters

[Assembly polls: Kerala results show religious polarization Times of India - The voting pattern displayed a communal polarization across the state, with Christians and Muslims consolidating behind Congress-led UDF, and the Hindu areas going with the CPM-led LDF in almost a repeat of the 1987 state polls. … There were a few exceptions, but broadly, the Hindus gravitated towards the Left in reaction to the UDF's aggressive wooing of Christians and Muslims.] 

The victory in Assam and West Bengal too is indebted to Muslim vote. It would be unwise to overlook this prime fault line of Indian democracy. [TNM]

Policy vs. personality

[The people have got freedom: Mamata Indian Express - ‎May 13, 2011 -At the threshold of history, all Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee could find was a mid-high footstool from which she delivered a short, emotional victory speech.]

[Jayalalithaa: Tamil Nadu's iron woman is chief minister once more Economic Times - ‎CHENNAI: Jayaram Jayalalithaa, set to be Tamil Nadu's chief minister for a third time, began life as a small-time movie actress before becoming one ofIndia's most successful woman politicians.]

Liquidation of the Left is surely a fuel for glee, but with such mercurial women returning to power, there is every reason to be cautious and feel alarmed. It is apparent that the voters have no viable alternative, and inculcating personality cult is no balm for grassroots politics. Savitri Era Party reserves its right to disagree with all dominant parties on distinct policy parameters.

The TV channels are showing the picture of jubilation in Alipore Jail from across the river. Time for us to be prayerful and wait for our day with gratitude. [TNM]

Yoga & gender

[Pierre Bourdieu - Google Books Result - Richard Jenkins - 1992 - Social Science - 190 pages

The fundamental binary division, and the model for all others, is that of gender: 'The limit par excellence, that between the sexes, will not brook transgression ...’]

['TV is no longer exciting because I have done all that I had to do' 1 May In this Idea Exchange moderated by Shubhra Gupta, Film Critic, The Indian ... 

Ektaa Kapoor: I was very clear that people must feel that my heroines are one of them. In films, you need glamour dolls because it’s a male medium. On TV, men are the glamour dolls, you want a husband like Ram Kapoor or Ronit Roy; the women have to be one of us and you aspire to be like them.]

The dynamics of aspirants of both sexes living within the same community remains an ill-lit area. The ruthlessness with which gender relations outside are examined under the microscope should be a pointer to the kind of sensitivity and transparency that is expected from exalted organizations and their theoreticians. [TNM] 

Reason & folklore

[Ebb in Tagore tide in West? Amartya scouts for clues Calcutta Telegraph

Far from being a mystic, Tagore was a man of reason, especially when compared with Gandhi. Tagore admired Gandhi enormously and insisted on calling him the “Mahatma”, stressed Sen, but he felt the latter’s ideas on sex and economics, for example, were downright dotty and even dangerous.]

[About time Indian Express - ‎May 8, 2011‎

The fifth volume of its official history series, The Congress and the Making of the Indian Nation, deals with the period between 1964 and 1984, arguably the two most complex and troubling decades in its 125-year history. Naturally, Indira Gandhi’s ambiguous legacy dominates the volume.]

[I hate thin people: Ekta Kapoor Times of India - Garima Sharma - ‎May 5, 2011‎

I used to be a human being earlier and now I am folklore because people think they know me even before they know me. You are going to throw a stone at us, or a mobile, your temper... and I am like, "Guys, there are no mandates! I'm a human being.]

Pen portraits will always be accused of misplaced perspective, and therefore, it won’t be easy to pronounce where history ends and mythology takes over. [TNM]

Human form is a hidden presence of truly mythological proportions

[Reading the paranormal writing us: an interview with Jeffrey Kripal from The Immanent Frame by Nathan Schneider

If there is anything I believe, it is that we are not who we think we are. “Mind” or “consciousness” is not some neurological froth or emergent property of the computer brain, much less some ethnic or religious ego. Rather, it is a non-spatial, non-temporal presence of proportions so vast and so fantastic that there is really no way to exaggerate it, and there is certainly no way to “explain” it with either the absolute contextualist and relativist epistemologies of the humanities or the objectivist epistemologies and naïve realisms of the sciences. Basically, I am suggesting that the human form is a hidden presence of truly mythological proportions. A recent dissertation, by Jason Kelly at the University of Ottawa, has attempted to capture my thought under my own early rubric of “mystical humanism.” I accept that. Everything religious can indeed be reduced to the human, but it turns out that the human is not at all what we thought. That is very close to “what I believe.”]

[Brahman does not stand to nature as a Creator-god does in Western religion … 17 May 2010

Beyond Natural Selection and Intelligent Design: Sri Aurobindo’s Theory of Evolution Ulrich J Mohrhoff Abstract … An outline of Sri Aurobindo’s theory of spiritual evolution is presented. Ultimate Reality relates to each world (ours need not be the only one) as the substance that constitutes it, as a consciousness that contains it, and as an infinite joy that expresses and experiences itself in it. In our world, Ultimate Reality is “playing Houdini,” enchaining itself as best it can, challenging itself to escape from self-created darkness and inertia, to rediscover its true self and powers, to affirm itself in conditions…]

[Extended Mind and Political Theory from Larval Subjects - Apr 30, 2011

Andy Clark’s central, and surprising thesis, is that mind is not what exists between the ears, but is rather the mesh of brain, body, and world itself. At the beginning of Supersizing the Mind, Clark relates an anecdote from Feynman to illustrate this idea. Charles Wiener had expressed delight in discovering a collection of Feynman’s notes and sketches, indicating how wonderful it was to have a record of Fyenman’s day-to-day work.]

The perennial philosophy crowd would not care to notice the volcanic effect of The Life Divine. The immense contribution of Sri Aurobindo to ontological speculations, therefore, is still outside popular conception. Appreciating his works, of course, needs commitment and application. But, maintaining a devotional approach is no less important. [TNM]

No more hiding for Hindi

On a couple of occasions, I remember, Mohan Joshiji might have convinced someone for purchasing Savitri at the Book Fair, and if he insists on the Hindi translation, then the search for the book would begin. But no luck. Dr. Gyanchandra used to hide the copies and was loath to recommend them. 


I'm happy, therefore, to read his eulogy for the recent Hindi transcreation by Dr. K. N. Varma in the current Karmdhara. [TNM]

Cure the rot at the root

Prafulla Mahanta came to power through popular agitation but failed to deliver. Chandrababu Naidu came through the dynasty route and was tech-savvy, but couldn’t be re-elected. The Anna campaign, thankfully, has triggered a rich discourse on the dynamics of Indian democracy, but no one is willing to cure the rot at the root level. We are perhaps not mature enough to handle a UK referendum like move on voting procedures. That’s a long way from lighting candles at India Gate. [TNM]