tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74429328278133965682024-02-19T19:14:18.027+05:30Unplugged - Anything Anywhere!!Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.comBlogger293125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-34863786410559348712024-02-15T20:56:00.003+05:302024-02-15T21:44:44.978+05:30The Reluctant Physicist: Sudipto Das in conversation with Debanjan Chakrabarti at the AKLF 2024.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy_U5dvlWQ4-tfJLQc8PfpP4tmWydv1FxhoUPZgKQ41K9hKq-I4caW5Byf6pUKBsTe6SuNXP2n6QToWsr0wF7c5IWEx1r5e8-PaV_CWP7lZ7WPMonXB2PMs4tkyH7qD05E0s3rp33hTh5YzRlgFQ2-xdhY56MIcHhbxkbU0n5V2QwOHOUuxzfhNYGFggo/s2559/Screenshot%202024-02-14%20at%208.00.56%E2%80%AFAM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1442" data-original-width="2559" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy_U5dvlWQ4-tfJLQc8PfpP4tmWydv1FxhoUPZgKQ41K9hKq-I4caW5Byf6pUKBsTe6SuNXP2n6QToWsr0wF7c5IWEx1r5e8-PaV_CWP7lZ7WPMonXB2PMs4tkyH7qD05E0s3rp33hTh5YzRlgFQ2-xdhY56MIcHhbxkbU0n5V2QwOHOUuxzfhNYGFggo/w640-h360/Screenshot%202024-02-14%20at%208.00.56%E2%80%AFAM.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Jagadish Chandra Bose’s <a href="https://www.amazon.in/dp/9389136997" target="_blank">new biography</a> demystifies the Bosean myth.</p><p>Dr Debanjan Chakrabarti is the Director of the British Council, East and Northeast India. He has over 20 years of experience in leading education, development and cultural collaboration programmes in the UK-India corridor and internationally. A triple gold medallist in English literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, Debanjan was awarded the prestigious Felix Scholarship from India for his PhD - in literature and media studies - from the University of Reading, UK. In his substantive role as the Area Director for East and Northeast India, he leads all of the British Council's education and cultural relations work in East and Northeast India, covering 13 states and Bhutan. Debanjan is a trustee of the International Language and Development Conference and sits on the education and heritage committees of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry.</p><p>[Debanjan] Namaskar. Good evening. Thank you for being here with us this evening for a fascinating conversation, I hope, [about] one of the doyens of Indian science and much more. I have with me Sudipto, Sudipto Das. Sudipto is the writer of four books. Three of them are fiction before this. This is his first non-fiction. The previous ones were fiction, <i>The Ekkos Clan</i>, <i>The Aryabhata Clan</i>, and <i>The Broken Amoretti</i>. And this, his latest book, is a brilliant biography of Jagdish Chandra Bose. And it's got a very intriguing subtitle – <i>The Reluctant Physicist.</i> </p><p>Sudipto and I went to the same school. The first two schools and colleges were the same. But the similarity ends right there, and he went on to do many more exciting things. As you heard, he is a doyen of India's semiconductor industry. He is a brilliant musician, and he has harnessed the power of tech for good for those who are socio-economically marginalised, particularly during the pandemic.</p><p>Sudipto, if I may just kick things off: First, a huge thanks for this fantastic biography you wrote. I think it brings out the nuances of the kind of polymath of a personality JC Bose was. He lived in the best of times and the worst of times in some ways. Could you tell us a little bit about the very interesting cusp of history when Jagdish Chandra Bose started his fantastic career?</p><p>[Sudipto] Jagdish Chandra Bose lived for almost 80 years, from 1858 to 1937. But the two decades of his life, mainly the 1890s and 1900s that I have covered extensively in my book, truly symbolise "the best of times and the worst of times" in many ways. They stand at a crucial juncture in the history of humanity, ushering in not only a new century but an altogether new era. We can call it the era of science and technology. Perhaps, the most critical aspect of these 20 years was the invention of wireless and electricity. That was doubtless the most significant thing since the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th century when the steam engine was invented. After that, the entire geopolitics of the world, from imperial security to warfare, was somehow related to wireless and electricity.</p><p>There were also ominous signs during these two decades of the tectonic changes that would shape the next two centuries. It was imminent that a World War was not far off. England fought the Dutch (Boer War, 1899-1902, Ref. page 227) and the French (Fashoda Incident, 1898) in Africa. They were also confronting the Russians in Afghanistan, in what was called the Great Game (stretching till the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907).</p><p>More importantly, the extractive and non-inclusive practices of the colonial rulers across the world had attained such an oppressive level that it was undeniable that there would soon be a tipping point. Consequently, India gained independence in 1947, and most of the erstwhile European colonies were freed by the 50s. The ominous signs of the last leg of India's struggle for freedom were visible between 1890 and 1910 in the form of the Swadeshi Movement.</p><p>[Debanjan] The great thing about Sudipto's biography of Jagdish Bose is that he brilliantly weaves this grand historical background into the narrative. Just staying on that historical question, Sudipto, you know, Jagdish Bose also represents, within the flow of Indian history and Bengal's history, almost the pinnacle of Bengal's Renaissance, one which starts with Raja Rammohun Roy and carries on right through Rabindranath. And Rabindranath and Jagadish Bose were contemporaries. Would you like to throw some light on this and how Jagadish Bose was also a product of this Bengal Renaissance and not just a scientist?</p><p>[Sudipto] The period between 1890 and 1910 saw the confluence of many a luminary and their incredible acts. Swami Vivekananda reinvigorated a modern Indian nation through his epoch-creating speech in Chicago in 1893. Rabindranath Tagore became more than a poet; his social activism and entrepreneurship finally led to India's self-reliance movement. And Jagadish Chandra Bose resurrected Indian Science.</p><p>Today, science or science education is taken for granted in India. But the British government, very consciously, had kept higher education in science out of reach for the Indians. Jagadish Bose was the first Indian scientist in modern India. He was also the first Indian science professor. Before him, only the whites could teach science in the Presidency College. </p><p>Bose realised quite early that India would never attain self-reliance without science and innovation. He wanted India to gain its position in science, which it had in ancient times, but not being exclusive of the West. At a time when Indians were not even allowed to do science, he envisaged that Western and Indian science should go hand in hand. That was, indeed, the pinnacle of Renaissance, which is all about rebirth, reinventing the past, and using that as a unifying force to create a modern nation out of diverse sets of people of various creeds, colours and cultures sharing a common ancestry and cultural and civilisational heritage.</p><p>Bose wanted to unite India on a cultural basis. The unique poetry collection <i>Katha</i> (The Fables, 1900, Ref. page 207), dedicated to Jagadish Chandra Bose, was a collaboration between the poet and the scientist. That was the first time such a literary work had been created, binding the vast expanse of India with a cultural thread. <i>Katha</i> had inspiring stories of love, sacrifice, and dharma curated from history, mythologies, and folklore around the Buddha, Shivaji, the Sikh Gurus, Kabir, and many others, uniting the Marathas with Rajputana, the Punjab with the ancient Magadha of the Buddha's time, comprising the present-day Bihar and West Bengal, the East with the West, the North with the South. It created a sphere where the entire India could be united.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lYSy4oBpB4g" width="481" youtube-src-id="lYSy4oBpB4g"></iframe></div><p>[Debanjan] This is not a very well-known facet – the collaboration of Rabindranath Thakur and Jagdish Chandra Bose on such an essential book of pedagogy, almost nationalist pedagogy. In one of your recent Instagram reels, you have also spoken about Jagdish Chandra Bose's house and Jagadish Chandra Bose's institute, Bose Institute, incorporating elements of Indian design or Buddhist design, etcetera…</p><p>[Sudipto] Jagadish Bose organised the world's first exhibition of the Ajanta paintings at his Circular Road home in Calcutta. The world did not know about the Ajanta paintings until an English woman took the pain of leading an expedition to Ajanta (December 1909, Ref. page 351) with many young and enthusiastic painters. Nandalal Bose was part of that group, camping there for a few months and painstakingly recreating the paintings. Jagdish Chandra Bose was there, too, for a few weeks with Sister Nivedita. When the paintings were brought back to Calcutta, he organised the exhibition at his home, inviting the Viceroy's wife. These are the different facets that define Jagadish Bose – a scientist but, at the same time, a very nationalistic art aficionado who wanted to revive the ancient Indian art form. Doubtless, the inspiration came from Sister Nivedita, the mother of the modern Indian School of Art. The Bose Institute looks like an Art Museum, with all its artefacts, motifs, and symbols, especially the Vajra, the institute's logo, a typical Buddhist motif.</p><p>[Debanjan] We will dive into Bose the Scientist in a moment… In one of your previous interviews, you have mentioned that Sunil Ganguli's <i>Prothom Alo</i> (First Light) and <i>Shei Samay</i> (Those Days) were sort of influences or inspirations behind your approach to Jagadish Bose's biography, and I think it shows in the exquisite research that you have done on this book. Tell us a little bit more about the literary influences that have inspired you.</p><p>[Sudipto] From the beginning, I wanted to write a biography that would read like <i>Prothom Alo </i>or <i>Shei Samay</i>. I didn't want to write a typical academic biography, many of which are already available. I wanted to write a biography, which would read like a story and would be for the non-scientific audience, too, but not do away with the references to science. Sunil Gangopadhyay has very nicely shown the way to do that.</p><p>The more challenging part of that is the background research. Prothom Alo reads so lovely because you actually visualise the background: the minutest detail of the setting, the food, the clothes, the music, etc. All the small, insignificant things around us, like what we have heard about the fragrance and food in the previous session, make a narrative enjoyable…</p><p>[Debanjan] I call it the <i>Downton Abbey</i> effect.</p><p>[Sudipto] Yeah!</p><p>[Debanjan] Because <i>Downton Abbey</i>, those of you who are Downton Abbey fans will realise the enormous amount of background details on cars, on food. Everything changes as the decades change. So again, it's a plus for Sudipto's book. It's beautifully written. It's a compelling read. You never get bored for a minute, and, I think, the way it flips back and forth between time, it's almost a novelistic-fictional device rather than kind of a straightforward chronological biography. So that's absolutely brilliantly done. Tell us a little bit about the very intriguing subtitle of your book: Reluctant Physicist. Why do you think Bose was a reluctant physicist? Was he a reluctant scientist, too?</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2UygOofTjfrghnhC5UBCNTvMegnILZ_2-pxBpS5JpMhhSEEr9ZJwj6obD-LFtW0weGo22UtQBaKK2iedaYda7Kavb_Vzm3PC9U6m6eKU2KhTkCklfeAm4-91IYDXDoFxxQDlGZPVB8cGZiDP5NxZCATOO8h1kXtjEv-x-8XwgPW-fNRS0DWN2oglu-1s/s1600/PHOTO-2023-12-27-15-05-57.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2UygOofTjfrghnhC5UBCNTvMegnILZ_2-pxBpS5JpMhhSEEr9ZJwj6obD-LFtW0weGo22UtQBaKK2iedaYda7Kavb_Vzm3PC9U6m6eKU2KhTkCklfeAm4-91IYDXDoFxxQDlGZPVB8cGZiDP5NxZCATOO8h1kXtjEv-x-8XwgPW-fNRS0DWN2oglu-1s/w640-h640/PHOTO-2023-12-27-15-05-57.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>[Sudipto] He was not a reluctant scientist, but he was indeed a reluctant physicist. He researched physics only for four years, from 1896 to 1900, dedicating the rest of his life to plants. He is the father of Plant Neurobiology and Plant Cognition. Lately, mainstream research has accepted that plants also have some form of nervous system. Non-human intelligence, which we now call Artificial Intelligence, has been gaining ground in recent years. Anything non-human is generally termed artificial. Almost 120 years back, Bose talked about plant intelligence as a form of non-human intelligence, which is not artificial but natural. The emergence of Artificial Intelligence in the past few decades has brought some focus on Plant Cognition.</p><p>Bose researched plants for more than thirty years. That's unsurprising because he had been a naturalist since childhood. He loved plants, animals, and rivers. He was a horse rider (Ref. page 31). He was a rower (Ref. page 48). He rowed in the Ganga and also in the deep sea in England. He was a hunter. He was a person who loved nature. He was introduced to physics in St. Xavier's when he came under the tutelage of Father Lafont, another amazing personality that Calcutta should be proud of (Ref. page 45). Father Lafont was a physics enthusiast. He influenced Jagdish Bose to take up physics.</p><p>As fate would have it, Bose went to England to study medicine, not physics. But as he had kala azar, the scent of chloroform on the dissection table troubled him a lot. He couldn't continue with medicine. Reluctantly, he went to Cambridge and took up the Natural Science Tripos, which included physics and botany. And there, too, he came across someone like Father Lafont – Lord Rayleigh, his physics teacher, who took the young, adventurous boy from rural Bengal under his tutelage (Ref. page 53). He studied physics there and worked in one of the best laboratories in the world. But he was a naturalist by heart. His heart and soul were in plants, animals and rivers. So, I think fate brought him back to the plants and animals…</p><p>[Debanjan] But, I think, for many Bengalis, many Indians, there is this feeling that Jagadish Chandra Bose was almost duped of the credit of having invented wireless or the radio. To what extent does your research throw light on it? Was it a myth? Or there is an element of truth in that.</p><p>[Sudipto] Marconi is no longer considered the inventor of the radio. The academic world has acknowledged that Nikola Tesla and Jagadish Bose are co-inventors of radio, along with Marconi and many others. Marconi's claim to fame was the first trans-Atlantic wireless transmission in 1901. After a detailed examination and forensic investigation in the 1990s, it was proved beyond doubt that Marconi had used Jagadish Bose's receiver and Nikola Tesla's transmitter in the trans-Atlantic feat. So, it is no longer a myth. </p><p>Moreover, it has been widely acknowledged that the gigahertz frequency used in 5G communication, and for which we use something called the millimetre waves, which is nothing but the electromagnetic or radio waves a few millimetres in length, was first used by Jagadish Bose in the 1890s. So, the genesis of the wireless communication you see in 5G goes back to Jagadish Bose. These are well-known facts. But I feel the Bengalis, too, who are proud of their heritage, might not know about these facts.</p><p>[Debanjan] Before I open it out to the audience, I'm sure there are many questions bubbling away. A question that I really want to put to you is again going back to your very meticulous research… Our culture is not very focused on the preservation of documents or even… our buildings and monuments. We have a particular challenge. I mean, I'm not making a value statement. It's how some cultures are. Western culture places enormous value on written records and preserving buildings and monuments. We probably don't. From an academic researcher's perspective, did you face any challenges in collecting or locating materials, sourcing materials, and getting everything lined up?</p><p>[Sudipto] The only challenge was accessing old Indian newspapers. I don't know where to get the first edition of Times of India from 1838 or the first editions of Jugantar and Ananda Bazar Patrika. But I have access to all the editions of the New York Times, Times London, or any insignificant, small tabloid paper from Scotland. Yes, getting archival access to Indian newspapers is an unsurmountable problem.</p><p>[Debanjan] Yes, this is a really interesting thing you touch upon because during my PhD research, a lot of it is on 1930s newspapers in Britain, and everything is available at the click of a button. I mean, all of it, from, as you said, very insignificant journals to the Times, everything, it's searchable, and that's the beauty of it. So, there is something for us to consider here in Kolkata in a literature festival. I would like to invite questions. I'm sure the number of hands has gone up, so starting in the front row, we will take two quick questions: the lady in red and then the gentleman. Thank you.</p><p>[Audience 1] This was a very engaging session. I had read that Jagdish Chandra Bose was very interested in science fiction. He used to collect science fiction, and he tried writing some. Apparently, this was an interest encouraged by his Cambridge supervisor as well, so if you could throw some light on it.</p><p>[Sudipto] Jagdish Chandra Bose was also a mountaineer. He was a trekker. Apart from science fiction, he wrote the world's first Himalayan travelogue in any language. The travelogue was about a trek to the Pindari Glacier, the origin of the Pindar River, which, like Alakananda, Mandakini and Bhagirathi, is one of the channels that flows into the Ganges River. In Bangla, it's called Bhagirathir Utsa Sandhane (In Quest of the Ganges' Source, 1895, Ref. page 109). The next Himalayan travelogue in English (perhaps Francis Younghusband's "The Heart of a Continent," 1896) came at least a year later than this.</p><p>He also wrote one of the first science fiction in any Indian language. I tried discovering if that could be India's first science fiction. There are a few other contenders: one in Bangla (Hemlal Dutta, 1882) and one in Hindi (Pandit Ambika Dutt Vyas, 1884). </p><p>[Audience 2] Your book is very interesting indeed, and I really enjoyed reading it. My question is also something that this discussion started with, which is the subtitle of "Reluctant Physicist." He transcended the narrow confines within which different disciplines used to be constrained, and he had an inter-disciplinary mind. And, as someone now recognised as one of the pioneering biophysicists and who taught physics in Presidency College throughout his professional life, would it then be correct to call him a reluctant physicist?</p><p>[Sudipto] Bose wrote his last paper on physics in 1902 (On Electromotive Wave accompanying Mechanical Disturbance in Metals in Contact with Electrolyte). After that, all his papers submitted to the Royal Society were in Botany. Sub-fields like Plant Neurobiology, Plant Cognition, and Biophysics were unknown, so he had to submit his papers under "Botany." But he was more interested in biophysics rather than botany. He totally dismissed the divisions between biology, botany, and physics. He researched plants but with instruments which used a lot of physics. He invented those intricate instruments, which were unheard of in botany. Yes, he taught physics because that was his vocation. He had to, for a living. He couldn't have got a lectureship in botany. But in Presidency College, too, his research from 1902 till he retired was all on plants.</p><p>[Audience 3] As a physics lover myself, I really liked the discussion. You have mentioned a lot of contemporaries, like Nikola Tesla and others. Was he in correspondence with these people or, for example, Tesla, Niels Bohr, Einstein? If you can share some stories, that would be amazing. Thank you.</p><p>[Sudipto] Bose didn't collaborate or communicate with Nikola Tesla. However, there is a very important link between the two: Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda and Tesla did meet (first in Chicago in 1893). Going through Swamiji's letters written after meeting Tesla, there's a subtle change in his, Swamiji's, perspective of science. He talks about Prana and Akasha: Prana is the universal energy in Indian philosophy, and Akasha is the matter. </p><p>Swamiji writes in 1896 (Letter to E. T. Sturdy, 13 Feb), almost a decade before Einstein would publish the Special Theory of Relativity and the E = MC2 equation, that Tesla was very excited after hearing about Akasha and Prana. Swamiji then adds that Tesla had claimed, "I can prove mathematically that matter and energy are convertible." Incredibly, Swami Vivekananda is discussing with Nikola Tesla something that Einstein would do a decade later.</p><p>Vivekananda was very closely associated with Bose, too. Bose had read Nikola Tesla's books. (Ref. page 86). I haven't found any proof that Tesla and Jagadish Bose had interacted with each other. But Jagdish Bose would have learnt quite a bit about Tesla from Vivekananda.</p><p>Einstein did meet Jagadish Bose in 1926. Both Einstein and Jagdish Bose were members of a committee under the League of Nations. The committee, called the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, later became UNESCO. Jagadish Bose's co-members in the committee were Einstein, Mary Curie, Hendrik Lorentz, and the French philosopher Henri Bergson, all Nobel laureates. When Bose first went to Geneva in 1926 to attend the committee's meeting, he was so extremely popular that Einstein had to jostle for a seat in a lecture that Bose gave there. Bose spoke about the unity of life in plants, animals and human beings. Einstein was so excited that he told the newspapers that only for this research should Dr. Bose have his statue built in every European university (Ref. page 22).</p><p>[Debanjan] What a brilliant way to end this session. Everyone here, this is a brilliantly researched book, and as you can make out, Sudipto doesn't make any claim in the book that is not verifiable through data and, evidence and research. So, thank you, Sudipto, for presenting us with this brilliant book, making us all very proud as Indians and as Bangalis. So, thank you very much, and, as always, it is a great pleasure speaking to you; a big thanks to Apeejay Kolkata Literary Meet [AKLF], and a big thanks to Anjum for having us here.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEDag-tOInX_z2LtNEXPPBtMwtmiXC9xtAbCkGNw7pA_sYmKoCmhBsxe1sdtFQDIe8npPixnQJPS1sd5aRNBplYUX-hqVMhLhLc4l7oqnOxaWlQOTkjDy6msGfsPRBrZ_ccnX4oydFUSwHoulEqE28WxoBrYY6YJMLil24nMn46MF5I1ABcCwVxzhzJ6w/s4500/11%20Feb_The%20Reluctant%20Physicist.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4500" data-original-width="4500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEDag-tOInX_z2LtNEXPPBtMwtmiXC9xtAbCkGNw7pA_sYmKoCmhBsxe1sdtFQDIe8npPixnQJPS1sd5aRNBplYUX-hqVMhLhLc4l7oqnOxaWlQOTkjDy6msGfsPRBrZ_ccnX4oydFUSwHoulEqE28WxoBrYY6YJMLil24nMn46MF5I1ABcCwVxzhzJ6w/w640-h640/11%20Feb_The%20Reluctant%20Physicist.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-5811514542777765372024-02-14T09:29:00.017+05:302024-02-15T21:42:19.832+05:30Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival (AKLF) 2024 - Transcript of "The Reluctant Physicist"<div style="background-color: white;"><div class="xjkvuk6 xuyqlj2 x1odjw0f" style="max-height: 300px; overflow-y: auto; padding-bottom: 4px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs xlh3980 xvmahel x1n0sxbx x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x x4zkp8e x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: block; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs" style="margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="color: #1c1e21;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lYSy4oBpB4g" width="470" youtube-src-id="lYSy4oBpB4g"></iframe></div><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">Jagadish Chandra Bose’s </span><a href="https://www.amazon.in/dp/9389136997" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">new biography</a><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: inherit;">demystifies the Bosean myth. Author Sudipto Das in conversation with Debanjan Chakrabarti.</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dr Debanjan Chakrabarti is the Director, British Council, East and Northeast India. He has over 20 years of experience in leading education, development and cultural collaboration programmes in the UK-India corridor and internationally. A triple gold medallist in English literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, Debanjan was awarded the prestigious Felix Scholarship from India for his PhD - in literature and media studies - from the University of Reading, UK. In his substantive role as the Area Director for East and Northeast India, he leads all of British Council's education and cultural relations work in East and Northeast India, covering 13 states and Bhutan. Debanjan is a trustee of the International Language and Development Conference and sits on the education and heritage committees of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] Namaskar. Good evening. Thank you for being here with us, this evening, for a fascinating conversation, I hope, [about] one of the doyens of Indian science and much more. I have with me Sudipto, Sudipto Das. Sudipto is a writer of four books. Three of them are fictions, before this. This is his first non-fiction. The previous ones were fictions, <i>The Ekkos Clan</i>, <i>The Aryabhata Clan</i>, and <i>The Broken Amoretti.</i> And this, his latest book, is a brilliant biography of Jagdish Chandra Bose. And it’s got a very intriguing subtitle – <i>The Reluctant Physicist</i>. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOthqEbgotob2wfQsapemDN_C8AizfNwtfRMfpluxgitdJTQVWvF8jr3pHH2Y8Fu6YaTgiHPi3pMNv5ndKIKkVlmGJFZj-7Tx0P5IzxN4YCAUwZAqPibDR5DpVK0iASJvG6RMaWycJVdGwTvx5e7bdqT0UWPkLkVVWC_VgyOfsa3IifLqjTOCRO6gm9Hg/s2559/Screenshot%202024-02-14%20at%208.00.56%E2%80%AFAM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1442" data-original-width="2559" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOthqEbgotob2wfQsapemDN_C8AizfNwtfRMfpluxgitdJTQVWvF8jr3pHH2Y8Fu6YaTgiHPi3pMNv5ndKIKkVlmGJFZj-7Tx0P5IzxN4YCAUwZAqPibDR5DpVK0iASJvG6RMaWycJVdGwTvx5e7bdqT0UWPkLkVVWC_VgyOfsa3IifLqjTOCRO6gm9Hg/w640-h360/Screenshot%202024-02-14%20at%208.00.56%E2%80%AFAM.png" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>Sudipto and I went to the same school. The first two schools and colleges were the same. But the similarity ends right there, and he went on to do many more interesting things. As you heard, he is a doyen of India’s semiconductor industry. He is a brilliant musician and he has harnessed the power of tech for good, for those who are socio-economically marginalised, particularly during the pandemic. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sudipto, if I may just kick things off: first a very big thanks for this absolutely fantastic biography that you have written and I think it brings out the nuances of the kind of polymath of a personality that JC Bose was. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">He lived in the best of times and the worst of times in some ways. Could you tell us a little bit about the very interesting cusp of history when Jagdish Chandra Bose started out on his fantastic career?</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] Jagdish Chandra Bose lived a very long life, almost 80 years. But the time period which I’ve covered, mainly 1890s till 1910, these two decades, I would say, in some way, symbolise a lot of things. First of all, I believe, the most important thing that happened during these 20 years was that wireless and electricity were invented. And, I believe, after the industrial revolution of the late 18th century, when the steam engine was invented, this was the biggest thing: wireless and electricity. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you see, after that, the entire geopolitics of the world was somehow related to wireless and electricity. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you just look back, everything that has happened in the world in the last 120 years, somehow, they are related to electricity or wireless. So, from that point of view, the second industrial revolution happened during this time.</span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also, there were ominous signs during these two decades of several big events, which happened over the next 100 years. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like, the signs were very apparent that World War was going to happen because England was fighting with the Dutch (Boer War, 1899-1902, Ref. page 227) and the French (Fashoda Incident, 1898) in Africa. They were fighting with the Russians in Afghanistan, which is known as the Great Game (till the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907). And, I believe, there are other ominous signs that the world is not going in the right direction, meaning, there would be some multinational warfare, which eventually happened in 13-14 years, which is World War One (1914-1918).</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And more importantly, also, across the world, the extractive and the non-inclusive colonial rules, that were happening across the world, had peaked up. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Meaning, the extraction and the non-inclusiveness of all the colonial rules across the world [had] attained a certain level that it was very obvious that something was going to happen. And it happened. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like, India got independence. And, between the 40s and 50s, almost all the countries which were ruled by the European colonies were freed. The ominous signs of this revolution, or this freedom, was also visible – in India, between 1890 and 1910, we saw signs that the Swadeshi movement would happen. And it did happen…</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] The great thing about Sudipto’s biography of Jagdish Bose is, he weaves in this grand historical background brilliantly into the narrative. Just staying on that historical question, Sudipto, you know, Jagdish Bose also represents, within the flow of Indian history and Bengal’s history, almost the pinnacle of Bengal’s Renaissance, one which starts with Raja Rammohun Roy and carries on right through Rabindranath. And Rabindranath and Jagadish Bose were contemporaries. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Would you like to throw some light on this, and how Jagadish Bose was also a product of this Bengal Renaissance and not just a scientist?</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] This [period of] 20 years (1890-1910): </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was also a sort of the confluence of so many people – Swami Vivekananda going to Chicago in 1893, and Rabindranath Tagore also coming out as more than a poet, his social activism, his social entrepreneurship, [and a] lot of things, which finally lead to the self-reliance movement for India, and also, most importantly, Science.</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Today science education is a lot, sort of, [taken for] granted. I mean, we cannot imagine our education system without science. But we don’t even know that the British government, very consciously, kept the higher education in science out of reach for Indians. Jagadish Bose was the first Indian scientist of modern India. He was also the first Indian science professor. Before him, the Presidency College had only non-Indian and white people, who could teach science. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">And he [Bose] was the first person, who had realised that self-reliance cannot come only through warfare and independence: self-reliance comes through science and innovation. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">During the 1880s or 1890s when, I believe, the first thing in people’s mind was how India can become independent, during that time, a person is thinking that science and technology is also important and, also, not in a way, which is exclusive of the West!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The most important thing about Jagdish Bose, and where the Renaissance effect comes into picture: he wanted to reinvent and look back. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">He wanted India to gain its position in science, which it had in ancient times, but not being exclusive of the West. He wanted the West and the Indian science to go hand in hand. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the time when Indians were not allowed to do science a person was thinking that Indians and the West should go hand in hand in science! I believe, of course, it was the epitome of the Renaissance because, you know, the Renaissance is all about rebirth, reinventing the past and also using that as a binding force to create modern nations – one of the impacts of the Renaissance is that we have the birth of nations, and, that (the aspect of the birth of modern Indian nation) was there. He [Bose] not only wanted to re-invent [Indian] science, he also wanted to unite the entire India on some cultural basis. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A lot of us might not know that the amazing poetry collection, <i>Katha</i> (The Fables, 1900, Ref. page 207), which was dedicated to Jagadish Chandra Bose, was a collaboration between Rabindranath Tagore and Jagadish Bose. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, in my opinion – I mean, in whatever little I have studied, I have researched – that was the first time any literary work was created, which united the entire vast expanse of India from east to West and from north to South on a cultural basis. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, you had stories from Shivaji, from [Guru] Teg Bahadur, a lot of Buddhist stories, and, also, you had a story from Chitrangada from Manipur, during that time, uniting Maharashtra with Manipur, with Punjab, and also stories from the South…, creating a sphere, where the entire India can be united. So, that’s what Jagdish Chandra Bose did…</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] This is not a very well-known facet – the collaboration of Rabindranath Thakur and Jagdish Chandra Bose on such an important book of pedagogy, almost nationalist pedagogy. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">In one of your recent Instagram reels you have also spoken about Jagdish Chandra Bose’s house and Jagadish Chandra Bose’s institute, Bose Institute, incorporating elements of Indian design or Buddhist design etcetera…</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] The [world’s] first exhibition of the Ajanta paintings happened in Jagdish Bose’s home. In fact, the paintings of the Ajanta caves were not known. I mean, sometime around 1908 (December 1909, Ref. page 351), an English woman took the pain of doing a sort of expedition to Ajanta. Nandalal Bose was part of that group, who actually went there, stayed there for a few months, and painstakingly recreated the paintings. And then, Jagdish Chandra Bose was also there for a few weeks with Sister Nivedita. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">When the paintings were brought back to Calcutta, the first exhibition happened in his home and the Viceroy’s wife was also invited. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, I believe, these are the things which, sort of, define Jagadish Bose – a scientist but also, at the same time, a very nationalistic art aficionado, who wanted to revive the ancient Indian art form, where obviously the inspiration comes from Sister Nivedita, who, I would say, is the mother of the modern Indian School of Art. The Bose Institute, if you go and see now, it looks like an Art Museum: from the artefacts, from the motifs, from the symbols, the Vajra. The symbol of the Bose Institute is Vajra, which is a very typical Buddhist motif. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, I think, scientist is one of his identities. But apart from that there are a lot of other things, especially art and literature…</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] We will dive into Bose the Scientist in a moment… In one of your previous interviews, you have mentioned that Sunil Ganguli’s especially <i>Prothom Alo</i> (First Light) and <i>Shei Samay</i> (Those Days) were sort of influences or inspirations behind your approach to Jagadish Bose’s biography and I think it shows in the exquisite research that you have done on this book. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tell us a little bit more about the literary influences that have inspired [you].</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] Yes, absolutely. I think, from the very beginning, I wanted to write a biography which would read like <i>Prothom Alo</i> or <i>Shei Samay</i>, because I didn’t want to write a very academic form of biography, which was already available. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">I mean, there are some very technical, very academic biographies, but I wanted to write a biography, which would read like a story, and [would be] for the non-scientific audience. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Though it is a biography of a scientist, and there would be some references to science, I think, Sunil Gangopadhyay has shown the way very nicely that you can write about anything yet it can be very lucid, it would read like a story. So, one was that (the style). But the tougher part of that is the background research. People, who have read <i>Prothom Alo</i>, it reads so nice because you actually visualise the background: what is happening in 1820s and 30s, what’s happening in Calcutta, what food they are eating, what type of cloth they are wearing, and what type of music they are listening to. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">All these very small insignificant things that happen around us, like [what] we heard about the history of fragrance and food in the previous session, those are the things, which make a thing appear very interesting…</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] I call it the <i>Downton Abbey</i> effect.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] Yeah!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] Because <i>Downton Abbey</i>, those of you who are <i>Downton Abbey</i> fans will realise the enormous amount of background details on cars, on food. Everything changes as the decades change. So again, it’s a plus for Sudipto’s book. It’s beautifully written. It’s a compelling read. You never get bored for a minute, and, I think, the way it flips back and forth between time, it’s almost a novelistic-fictional device rather than kind of a straightforward chronological biography. So that's absolutely brilliantly done. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tell us a little bit about the very intriguing subtitle of your book: Reluctant Physicist. Why do you think Bose was a reluctant physicist? Was he a reluctant scientist, too?</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0yQu_UUEe_u7HvrIBH4Dmcn-B2Lf8GCnZICJnQQ143FYpbnYpmmML0e3wAhbupq4OsDEL7wLOd5hBEQgGaL5ri8DPCn8QzSWoJZRn9d_U6Ei9f6c2QvW7ulYN5nkbKIkcESrj-9QcRqpiNRoCq_N2eCDxnsbNbwlYtO_n_CmsE1PySSwz9C9zuVh1SRE/s1600/PHOTO-2023-12-27-16-32-49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="899" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0yQu_UUEe_u7HvrIBH4Dmcn-B2Lf8GCnZICJnQQ143FYpbnYpmmML0e3wAhbupq4OsDEL7wLOd5hBEQgGaL5ri8DPCn8QzSWoJZRn9d_U6Ei9f6c2QvW7ulYN5nkbKIkcESrj-9QcRqpiNRoCq_N2eCDxnsbNbwlYtO_n_CmsE1PySSwz9C9zuVh1SRE/w360-h640/PHOTO-2023-12-27-16-32-49.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] Of course, he was not a reluctant scientist, but yes, why [reluctant] physicist: </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">He researched in physics only for four years, from 1896 to 1900, and the rest of the life he dedicated [himself] towards plants. </span>He is the father of something called Plant Neurobiology. </blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now it’s an accepted field that plants also have a sort of nervous system. Now, Plant Cognition, which is: since the 90s, this thing of non-human intelligence, or [that] which we call now Artificial Intelligence [has been gaining ground]. Anything, [that] which is non-human, we generally term it as artificial. But Bose, almost 120 years back, he was talking about non-human intelligence, but which is not artificial, which is natural. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, since the last two-three decades, since we have this – Neural Networks and Artificial Intelligence –, this Plant Cognition has become very important. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">30 or 30 plus years of his life, he [Bose] did just plants. Only four years he did physics. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Since his childhood, he was a naturalist. He loved plants, animals, rivers. He was a horse rider (Ref. page 31). He was a rower (Ref. page 48). He rowed in the Ganga, and in oceans. He was a hunter. So, he was a person, who loved the nature. And incidentally, what happened: in St. Xavier's, he had somebody called Father Lafont, another amazing personality that Calcutta should be proud of (Ref. page 45). </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Father Lafont was a physics aficionado, and then, I think, he influenced a lot Jagdish Bose to take up physics. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[But] again, as the luck might happen, he went to England to study medicine (and not physics). But he had kala azar, and the scent of chloroform and all those things on the dissection table created a problem for him. So, he couldn’t do medicine… Reluctantly, he went to Cambridge, and there he registered to study, what at that time used to be called the Natural Science Tripos, which includes physics, botany, and maths. So that’s how he went there [Cambridge]. And there also, he got somebody like Father Lafont, I mean, some physics teachers, who took this young, adventurous guy from rural Bengal under their tutelage Ref. 53). So, reluctantly, he studied physics. But he was a naturalist by heart. His heart, and soul, was in plants and animals and rivers and all these things. So, I think, the fate brought him back to the plants and animals… </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] But, I think, for many Bengalis, many Indians, there is this feeling that Jagadish Chandra post was almost duped of the credit of having invented wireless or the radio. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">To what extent does your research throw light on it? Was it a myth? Or there is an element of truth in that.</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] Yes, it is true. Now, if you even go to the Wikipedia, now Marconi is no longer considered to be the inventor of radio. They have acknowledged that Nikola Tesla and Jagadish Bose are co-inventors of radio, along with Marconi, and many other people. In fact, interestingly, the first claim to fame of Marconi, was this trans-Atlantic wireless transmission in 1901… </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">After a detailed examination and, also, after a lot of forensic investigation, it was proved that Marconi had used Jagadish Bose’s receiver and Nikola Tesla’s transmitter [in the trans-Atlantic feat]. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, this part is very clear. So, I believe, it is no longer a myth. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also, it has been acknowledged everywhere that the frequency that 5G communication uses, which, you know, is the gigahertz frequency, and for which they use something called millimetre waves, which is nothing but the electromagnetic or radio waves few millimetres in length, was also first used by Jagadish Bose in the 1890s. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, the 5G communication that, you know, the entire world is depending on, the genesis of the wireless communication which you see in 5G, also goes back to Jagadish Bose. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And these are well known facts. I mean, I didn’t research all these things because in academic circle it is well known. But I feel that even the proud Bengalis, who are proud about the heritage, also don’t know about all these facts, which are well known and which have been academically acknowledged. So, I feel that bringing all these things out for a common layman – it would be nice. So, there it is: it’s not a myth anymore. I mean, this is true.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] Before I open it out to the audience, I’m sure there are many questions bubbling away, a question that I really want to put to you is again going back to your very meticulous research… Our culture is not very focused on preservation of documents, or even… our buildings, monuments. We have a particular challenge. I mean, I’m not making a value statement. It’s how some cultures are. Western culture places enormous value on written records and preserving buildings and monuments. We probably don’t. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">From an academic researcher’s perspective, did you face any challenge in terms of collecting materials or locating materials, sourcing materials, getting everything lined up?</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] The only challenge was accessing old Indian newspapers. Like, till date, I don’t know where to get the first edition of <i>Times of India</i> from 1838, or the first edition of <i>Jugantar</i>, first edition of <i>Ananda Bazar Patrika</i>. But I have access to all the editions of <i>New York Times</i>, <i>Times</i> London, or any insignificant, small, some tabloid paper from Scotland. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, I believe, yes, getting archival access of India newspapers is a big problem. At least, I haven’t figured out a way to surmount that…</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] Yes, this is a really interesting thing that you touch upon, because during my PhD research, lot of it is on 1930s newspapers of Britain, and everything is available at the click of a button. I mean, all of it, from, as you said, very insignificant journals to the Times, everything, it’s searchable, and that’s the beauty of it. So, there is something for us to consider here in Kolkata in a literature festival. Would like to invite questions. I’m sure number of hands have gone up, so starting in the front row and then we will take two quick questions, the lady in red, and then, the gentleman. Thank you.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Audience 1] This was a very engaging session. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">I had read that Jagdish Chandra Bose was very interested in science fiction. He used to collect science fiction and he tried writing some. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Apparently, this was an interest encouraged by his Cambridge supervisor as well. So, if you could throw some light on it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] Let me just take three questions and then you respond, fine? Yeah, ma’am, if you could…</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Audience 2] Your book is very interesting indeed and I really enjoyed reading it. My question is also something, which this discussion was started with, which is the subtitle of the “Reluctant Physicist.” So, that’s what my question is about. Basically, he transcended, I think, the narrow confines within which different disciplines used to be constrained and he had an inter disciplinary mind. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, I think, as someone who is now recognised as one of the pioneering biophysicists, and who taught physics in Presidency College throughout his professional life, would it then be correct to call him a reluctant physicist? </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because, his love for physics, and he was such a committed, dedicated researcher in physics as long as he was working on those four years, but he stayed with physics all his life. So that was my question. Thank you.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Audience 3] I really liked the discussion as a physics lover myself. Somewhere related to your (pointing to audience 2) question. You (pointing to Sudipto) mentioned a lot of contemporaries, like Nikola Tesla and other people. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you could, maybe, share some information about: was he in correspondence with these people or, for example, may be, Tesla, Niels Bohr, Einstein, of course? So, if you can, maybe, share some stories that would be amazing. Thank you.</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] (adding) Do buy the book. (laughter)</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Audience 3] I have not read the book. I plan on doing that, but if you could just share something.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6tu-0_HBFzXpEvyNqcWIrnZOVozVXkpn9JIVEE1NXQS80x6Is59FWiTRgNrfQnhJu3mfKX6839LY9y5eMusNBEGKJ4FjTjbiEsOdLgpChLXtpWx4q99LGGeEX_JTTBOw7zX60557R6usuotSjBVhMLW2Cew2mM6tNUHv8lM-Oj0VbuaG4QCdKdzMDsu8/s2560/Screenshot%202024-02-14%20at%208.08.39%E2%80%AFAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="2560" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6tu-0_HBFzXpEvyNqcWIrnZOVozVXkpn9JIVEE1NXQS80x6Is59FWiTRgNrfQnhJu3mfKX6839LY9y5eMusNBEGKJ4FjTjbiEsOdLgpChLXtpWx4q99LGGeEX_JTTBOw7zX60557R6usuotSjBVhMLW2Cew2mM6tNUHv8lM-Oj0VbuaG4QCdKdzMDsu8/w640-h400/Screenshot%202024-02-14%20at%208.08.39%E2%80%AFAM.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Sudipto] First, about the first question. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, Jagdish Chandra Bose was a mountaineer. He was a trekker. Apart from the science fiction, he also wrote world’s first Himalayan travelogue in any language in Bangla. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The travelogue that he wrote was about his search [for the source of the Ganges River], and in Bangla it’s called <i>Bhagirathir Utsha Sandhane</i> ("In Quest of the Ganges’ Source," 1895, Ref. page 109). And, that was actually [about] a trek to the Pindari Glacier, which happens to be the origin of the Pindar River, which is one of the channels for Ganga, like Alakananda, Mandakini, Bhagirathi, and also Pindar. So, that’s one, (about Bose's Himalayan travelogue). </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, also, he wrote one of the first science fictions in any Indian languages. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was trying to figure out if that can be the first science fiction in India, but there are few other contenders: one in Bangla (Hemlal Dutta, 1882), and one in Hindi (Pandit Ambika Dutt Vyas, 1884). Of course, he wrote one of the first science fictions in Indian languages. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">But he did write the first ever Himalayan travelogue in any language. The next Himalayan travelogue in English (perhaps Francis Younghusband’s “The Heart of a Continent,” 1896) came at least a year later than this <i>Bhagirathir Utsha Sandhane</i>.</span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now about the physics thing. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, the last paper that he [Bose] wrote on physics was in 1901. After that, he never wrote any paper [in physics]. If you go and see the papers submitted to the Royal Society, after 1901, all his papers were in, what used to be called, [Botany]. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">See, at that time, this plant neurobiology or all these things (biophysics, plant cognition, etc.) were not there, so he had to submit the things (papers) in Botany. But the problem is that, he was more interested in biophysics. He totally dismissed the division between biology and botany and physics. He used to research in botany, but using instruments, which used a lot of the principles from physics. He invented a lot of very intricate instruments, which were absolutely unheard of in the research of botany. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, I think, and also, seeing his letters, and also, seeing his lectures, it’s very apparent that his love is plants, animals, nature throughout his life. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, he taught physics because that was his vocation. He had to, for earning. He couldn’t have got a lectureship for botany. He had his job to do. But in Presidency College also, the researches he did from 1901 till 1915, when he retired, were all on plants. From that point of view, I think, yes, only for four years, he was a serious physics researcher, but he used physics throughout his life…</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And now, a very interesting thing. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">He [Bose] didn’t collaborate or communicate with Nikola Tesla. But there was a very important link between the two, which is Swami Vivekananda. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Swami Vivekananda and Tesla had met (first in Chicago 1893). And, in fact, if you go through Swamiji's letters, written after meeting Tesla, his [Swamiji’s] perspective of science suddenly changes. He is talking about <i>Prana</i> and <i>Akasha</i>, which is: Prana is the energy in Indian philosophy and Akasha is matter. And, in fact, there is an amazing conversation, which Vivekananda quotes. He quotes that, actually, Tesla was very excited after hearing about <i>Akasha</i> and <i>Prana</i>, and Vivekananda writes in 1896 (Letter to E. T. Sturdy, 13 Feb), which is [almost] 10 years before Einstein brought out the Special Theory of Relativity and the E = MC square equation. In 1896 Swamiji is writing, and he is quoting Tesla as having said that “I can prove mathematically that matter and energy are convertible.” That is exactly like E = MC square. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s amazing that Swami Vivekananda is interacting with Nikola Tesla on something which Einstein would do after 10 years. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The same Vivekananda was also very closely associated with Bose. And Bose had read Nikola Tesla’s books, because one of the inspirations for doing research on radio [waves] was also Nikola Tesla’s books (Ref. page 86). But I haven’t found any proof that Tesla and Jagadish Bose would have interacted with each other. But, of course, through Vivekananda, they knew. At least, Jagdish Bose knew enough of Tesla through Vivekananda. But the other way round, I don’t think it’s true.</span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">Einstein did meet Jagadish Bose in 1926. </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Einstein and Jagdish Bose both were members of a committee under the League of Nations. The committee was known as International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, which later became UNESCO, and in that committee Jagadish Bose’s other members were Einstein, then, Mary Curie, Hendrik Lorentz, again a physicist and a Nobel laureate, and also the philosopher Henri Bergson, the French philosopher. Jagdish Bose was also a member of that. And, in Geneva, when he first went there, he was so extremely popular that in the lecture, which he gave, Einstein had to jostle for a seat. </span></div><h3 style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;">And after hearing the lecture, where he [Bose] talked about unity, about life in plants and animals and human beings, he [Einstein] was so thrilled that he told the newspapers that only for this research this guy should have a statue in every European university (Ref. page 22). </span></blockquote></h3><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, that’s about it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[Debanjan] What a brilliant way to end this session. Everyone here, this is a brilliantly researched book and as you could make out that Sudipto doesn’t make any claim in the book that is not verifiable through data and evidence and research. So, thank you Sudipto for presenting us with this brilliant book, making us all very proud as Indians and as Bangalis. So, thank you very much and, as always, a great pleasure speaking to you and a big thanks to Apeejay Kolkata Literary meet [AKLF], big thanks to Anjum for having us here.</span></div></div></span></div></div></span></div></div>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-65515971056792887802024-01-28T19:09:00.008+05:302024-01-28T20:34:51.257+05:30Some Historical Background of "Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnHlq-VkQV455bMTcASMnyB-wqAKWrd_GxdDTWfXprpL467Bcq0luNcIl_HrZfAOiICC63Bcw-FIVK7Yv8lnXsAxFzW7PqgZI-Wu4qK-Ag00ypmzUj0BKwd8NuPVEIPtQahc8_-i8lZROm4O1ImFFvpdKaqLcuhJSkEIyxM6rMu2NDIRZk5cZOy1ErDvs/s1600/PHOTO-2023-12-27-16-32-49.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="899" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnHlq-VkQV455bMTcASMnyB-wqAKWrd_GxdDTWfXprpL467Bcq0luNcIl_HrZfAOiICC63Bcw-FIVK7Yv8lnXsAxFzW7PqgZI-Wu4qK-Ag00ypmzUj0BKwd8NuPVEIPtQahc8_-i8lZROm4O1ImFFvpdKaqLcuhJSkEIyxM6rMu2NDIRZk5cZOy1ErDvs/w360-h640/PHOTO-2023-12-27-16-32-49.jpg" width="360" /></a></div><div><br /></div><a href="https://www.amazon.in/dp/9389136997" target="_blank">Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist</a><h3 style="text-align: left;">Socio-political scenario in England in the 19th century, in the context of Marconi and wireless/radio</h3><p>Radio was born at a critical moment in the development of the British warfare state when colonial and industrial rivalries kept a diplomatically isolated Britain at the brink of conflict. Events like the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Fashoda-Incident" target="_blank">Fashoda Incident</a> of 1898 (conflict between England and France over control over Africa) fed a sense of imminent European war, as did the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Great-Game" target="_blank">Great Game</a> with Russia (over Afghanistan). In the shadow of a global arms race and a growing conviction that new technologies conferred military and imperial advantages to whoever was first in the field, the turn-of-the-century British state invested more deeply in scientific research, and scientists, in turn, relied increasingly on state support. In this time of science and technology for and by the nation, Marconi was an interloper. Despite his mother's British ancestry, he was a foreigner and, worse, a tinkerer, not a theoretician like Newton and Maxwell the British were so proud of. Transmitting across the imperial map enabled Marconi to prove his bona fides as a servant of the British state and style himself nostalgically as a "tinkerer-explorer" of the dark continent of space.</p><p>With his pursuit of bringing long distances under control through radio, Marconi played on a related set of security concerns that were more political-economic in nature: Britain’s diplomatic isolation at a time of long-distance military conflict intensified calls for strengthening imperial ties, particularly among the “white” colonies of settlement, leading to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Chamberlain" target="_blank">Chamberlain’s</a> post-war calls for a tariff federation (<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24427375" target="_blank">Tariff Reform League & Tariff Commission</a>). While critics harped on the "technical security" weaknesses (Marconi for a very long time couldn't figure out how to tune his systems, thus making them susceptible to tapping and interference from other's transmissions) of Marconi's device for military use, he traded on the multiple valences of the security concern as he explored other avenues for sustaining his commercial venture. Having failed to find contracts among state departments, he redirected his energies toward the creation of a wireless network that would capture the communication market of the empire itself, fuelled by the need for "imperial security." A sympathetic non-technical press continued to couch this application of the technology in terms of "imperial security," overlooking "technical security." So, very subtly, Marconi stoked the fear and insecurity of the imperial British and got away with pushing his inferior wireless.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/why-titanic-first-call-help-not-sos-signal" target="_blank">Titanic debacle</a> again brought the topic of Marconi's technical weaknesses to the fore.</p><p>Marconi had designated a new audience to adjudicate his claim to priority. The technical press’s implacable scepticism drove him into the arms of the lay press, where he strove to secure an alternative source of legitimacy as a businessman and scientist. In shifting the scene of the contest, he endeavoured not only to evade the biases of the scientific press but to exploit those of the lay press, which was seeking escape from the cable companies' stranglehold on its ability to fulfil growing demands for up-to-date news. The lay press also fell prey to Marconi's strategy of stoking fear and creating an urgency for "imperial security," totally ignoring quality.</p><p>These non-technical press reports styled Marconi as an imperial hero battling on the frontier of time and space itself. He filled the increasingly apparent iconographic void created by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Livingstone" target="_blank">Livingstones</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cecil-Rhodes" target="_blank">Rhodes</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Cook" target="_blank">Cooks</a> of the past, as the press hailed his “conquest of the air” and taming of the “trackless expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.” The Conservative Member of Parliament, journalist, and postal reformer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henniker_Heaton" target="_blank">J. Henniker Heaton</a> reminded Times readers that “[Marconi] has devoted his youth to working for England. Every one of his 130 patents benefits the Empire. The magical quality of electrical science in an age of occult fascinations, together with Marconi’s exotic origins and personal reserve, created an aura of the mystical genius conjuring knowledge from the void.</p><p>Clearly, some wider context shaped the path of radio's development.</p><p>If military needs had nevertheless remained the primary factor shaping early radio, we would have expected secrecy and directionality of transmission (Marconi's system was very easy to tap from any direction, hence provided zero secrecy, an absolute no-no for military use) to become Marconi’s primary preoccupations. But Marconi manipulated the narrative completely. He created a story around Radio being entrusted with the task of securing the ocean for imperial commerce and bridging the continental distances of an empire in the throes of long-distance warfare. Even after Marconi lost his institutional affiliation with the state, wireless remained tied to the notion of imperial security, albeit in the more allegorical form of an empire more closely knit, its constituents less autarkic, its form less fanciful.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Boer War (1899)</h3><p>At the peak of the bloodshed, Rudyard Kipling wrote that “the ‘simple and pastoral’ Boer… seems to be having us on toast.”</p><p>The <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/second-anglo-boer-war-1899-1902" target="_blank">Anglo-Boer War</a> was a pyrrhic victory that cost British taxpayers more than £200m; 22,000 troops never came home to a hero’s welcome, and more than 400,000 army horses, donkeys and mules were killed.</p><p>Mobile wireless was first attempted in this war. The mixed success in the war was also a matter of concern for the British - a major setback somehow averted in the history of their colonial expansion. In 50 years they lost almost all their colonies across the world, bringing the curtains down for a colonial era that had lasted more than 2 centuries (from British America in the 18th century to mid 20th century)</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">British science facing competition from the continent</h3><p>Till the 19th century, British science had not much competition from anywhere else, especially from the continent. Newton ruled over everything and then the entire Industrial Revolution was propelled by James Watt's steam engine. England was the centre of all science and technology. With steam engines came the trains and maritime power - the two vital things for colonial expansion. Till the 19th century, the only competition to Newton was Rene Descartes. Even in the 19th century, people like James Maxwell were perhaps the most celebrated theoretician of the world - he discovered the existence of radio waves, and electromagnetic waves, and claimed that light is also a form of electromagnetic waves. But the end of the 19th century was also the end of the age of British supremacy/monopoly in science.</p><p>A letter from Fitzgerald to Heaviside (both Maxwellians) in 1896, about Marconi clearly shows the sentiment of the day: On the last day but one (that was actually after Bose's lecture at the meeting of the British Association in Liverpool), Preece surprised us all by saying that he had taken up an Italian adventurer (Marconi) who had done no more than Lodge & others (all British) had done in observing Hertzian (German physicist who experimentally proved that Maxwell's prediction about the existence of radio waves is correct) radiations at a distance. Many of us were very indignant at this overlooking of British work for an Italian manufacturer. Science “made in Germany” we are accustomed to but “made in Italy” by an unknown firm was too bad.</p><p>The entire quantum age was hijacked by Germany - Einstein (1905 - Special Theory of Relativity), Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Max Plank (1910) etc.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Marconi's challenges - technical, social and political</h3><p>William Preece, a leading “practician,” was in a bitter dispute with academic scientists working on electromagnetic questions, particularly the distinguished professor Oliver Lodge. This was a moment in which the cosmopolitan “tinkerers” of an older era were engaged in a rearguard action against “theoreticians,” who disparaged them as mercenary relics oblivious to notions of intellectual property and national propriety.</p><p>When Marconi, a "tinkerer," contrasting to the rich British legacy of "theoreticians," found himself cornered by sceptics and critics, he took the debate to another venue—the popular press, where he traded on the shifting valences of the concern with "imperial security" and the press’s resentment of dependence on expensively cabled news. The press that Marconi relied on were: the conservative gentleman’s <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i>; the liberal provincial tradesman’s <i>Manchester Guardian</i>; the paper of record, the <i>Times</i>; the fashionable <i>Illustrated London News</i>; the liberal local <i>Westminster Gazette;</i> the cheap, mass, conservative <i>Daily Telegraph;</i> and the conservative, highbrow <i>Spectator </i>magazine.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Urge to claim cultural superiority in 19th-Century England</h3><p>British history was not as old as that of the Germans or the French. The oldest people in England were the Celts, and the Irish and their language was older than English. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Anglo-Saxon" target="_blank">Anglo-Saxon period</a>, the oldest part of English history was called the Dark Age due to the lacuna of historical records. Also, the Anglo-Saxons were considered mercenaries, not with any great culture or art. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo" target="_blank">The Sutton Hoo</a> (archaeological site that proved that the Anglo-Saxons were not mere barbarians) was yet to be discovered. Comparatively, India's history and languages were much older. The discovery of the new field "<a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/ieul/ieul-overview.xml?language=en" target="_blank">Indo Indo-European linguistics</a>" placed Sanskrit as the oldest member of the clan. Germany appropriated the Sanskrit heritage and claimed they were the original Indo-Europeans and that Germany was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_homeland" target="_blank">Indo-European Urheimat</a>. So, the British had to invent an extreme form of Indo-phobia to paint Indian history as lowly and inferior. Hence <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1842459" target="_blank">Macaulay</a> and others. Interestingly, the rest of the European continent didn’t see India in that light, mainly because the Germans were obsessed with Sanskrit, and people like Voltaire claimed that the Greeks learned from the Brahmins of Varanasi.</p><p>The Indo-European studies made many Europeans claim superiority in some way or the other - it was of course led by the Germans, which eventually degenerated into Nazism. But similar feelings germinated across the world. Nikola Tesla was openly anti-Semitic. Many in England had anti-Semitic feelings. And perhaps all this came from the Indo-European studies, which suddenly made the rest of the languages and races appear secondary when looked at narrowly. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_horse#:~:text=Genetic%20evidence%20indicates%20that%20domestication,%2C%20agricultural%20work%2C%20and%20warfare." target="_blank">Domestication of horses</a> and the introduction of chariots - the two most important symbols of power since the Iron Age civilizations (Persian, Greek, Roman, Indian) - were substantially proved to be of Indo-European origin. The same feeling fuelled the Indo-phobic viewpoints, which also helped a section of the British administration to rule over India.</p><p>In India, there were two schools - Orientalists, like William Jones (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asiatic_Society" target="_blank">Asiatic Society</a>), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Prinsep" target="_blank">Princep</a> (though an engineer, in charge of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India_Government_Mint,_Kolkata" target="_blank">Taratala mint</a>, he deciphered the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_script" target="_blank">Brahmi</a> script of Ashoka's inscription, the mother of all scripts in India and the far east), who wanted to give priority to Indian heritage and languages. The Anglicists wanted to replace everything with English, for various reasons, mainly administrative, to facilitate the running of the empire. A new generation of Indians - Rammohan, Dwarakanath, Vidyasagar etc - wanted both, English and also the Indian languages, and culture.</p><p>Few orientalists appreciated Indian culture, heritage, and languages, but felt Indians lacked scientific aptitude. This might be a vestige of East India Company's propaganda (Macaulay et al), or even the inherent view that "science is power" and that Indians should be deprived of science education forever. Medicine, engineering, and law were allowed just for administrative reasons.</p><p>As late as 1905, during the Partition of Bengal, Bombay and Madras Provinces didn’t yet have science at the university level. Bengal had, just because of Bose and PC Ray. There was no scope for employment with science. CV Raman in the 1910s came to Calcutta and joined a non-science job. Presidency College got India's first world standard science lab around 1915 when Bose was retiring. All researches of Bose and PC Roy were done privately. Even CV Raman did his entire research in Calcutta at the Association for the Cultivation of Science - even then, there were not enough labs.</p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Main characters: Marconi, Bose, Tesla, Nivedita/Mrs. Sara Bull & Tagore</h3><h4 style="text-align: left;">Marconi</h4><p>Homeschooled, no formal education. Son of a rich Italian landlord father and Irish aristocrat mother - the Jamesons, his mother's family, owned one of the oldest Irish whiskey brands in England (predating the popularization of the Scotch whiskeys). From the beginning, Marconi had access to politicians, high government officials, and of course huge money. Marconi's ventures, though publicly traded companies, were majorly funded by his rich relatives who didn't put any pressure for immediate profits - that was a huge commercial advantage against most other companies.</p><p>He had people to lobby within the parliament, influence the Admiralty, manipulate government, create chasms between different government departments, and of course all the money to hire the best lawyers, file costly lawsuits across countries, influence non-scientific media houses, spread rumours, run propaganda, etc.</p><p>He was a womaniser and used yachts for his revelries. Ditched his American fiancé to marry an Irish woman from a well-connected family. He amassed huge money at a very early age. At ripe age he even had an affair with an 18-year-old, and later married someone else, after divorcing his Irish wife. Became part of the fascist regime in Italy - but that would be out of our scope/timeline.</p><p>There are very strong reasons to believe that he used Tesla's transmitter and Bose's receiver for his first trans-Atlantic wireless transmission. Tesla's systems were well tuned, Marconi even stole that, and finally, the US Supreme Court ruled in Tesla's favour in 1943, in the first patent litigation to have reached the Supreme Court of the USA. He had died by that time, and the world politics had also changed hugely. US and Italy were warring sides and there was no way the Marconi side would have welded any influence by then. But till then, he repeatedly won most patent litigations, though they were quite blatant. This is where we would take some poetic license, connect some dots and explore how Marconi and his team would have manipulated the system.</p><p>Marconi's lawyer: J. Fletcher Moulton. He was a polymath - Cambridge Wrangler, mathematician, barrister, and Fellow of the Royal Society, experimented on electricity. Moulton became a Liberal Party Member of Parliament successively for Clapham 1885–86, South Hackney 1894–95, and Launceston 1898–1906. He backed the attempts of Gladstone to solve the problems in Ireland through Irish Home Rule. I have a strong feeling he was the main brain behind all of Marconi's strategies, which were mainly based on manipulation. We can use him like a Chanakya. A recent paper published by the Royal Society of London has pointed out his role in Marconi's success.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Tesla</h4><p>Serbian by birth, bachelor, influenced by Vivekananda, both had met many times between 1893-96, was present at Vivekananda's Chicago lectures at Columbia Exposition. Was an admirer of Buddhism, and had a strong spiritual bent of mind. Interestingly, he had promised Vivekananda that he would prove that Akash (matter) and prana (energy) were convertible - Vivekananda referred to this in a letter. That's quite incredible because it would be a decade later that Einstein would talk about E=mc2.</p><p>Tesla knew many languages and knew Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe etc. by heart. Never married, few say he might have been gay. Had a platonic relationship with a friend's wife.</p><p>Invented AC machines, and fought the devastating Current War with Edison (backed by JP Morgan) to establish the primacy of AC over DC. Invented some of the most important aspects of wireless transmission. Though filed many patents, somehow, Maroni managed to file the first radio patent in the world appropriating the works of Tesla and a few others. Henceforth, made multiple attempts to prove his priority over Tesla's in prolonged legal suits, and even steal his works. Here also, some extrapolations can be made to connect many unfortunate things in Tesla's life with Marconi's diabolic efforts. There are at least two recorded instances of their meeting in person.</p><p>Tesla had a grand vision of transmitting energy, not just messages, wirelessly. That was much ahead of age. (Only a few years back a start-up in New Zealand was able to achieve finally something close to that) But Marconi caught the public imagination with wireless telegraphy.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Bose</h4><p>A darling of the who's who of British science, highly promoted and supported by his teachers and friends in England. But faced immense challenges in India from the same British, mainly because they were not in favour of exposing the Indians to modern science.</p><p>Bose was also an experimentalist, like Marconi, not much of a theoretician. But was very methodical, had a scientific approach and regularly published his papers in the Royal Society, one of the best scientific journals in the world. His experiments on functional wireless systems in Calcutta predate Marconi. His first paper is at least a year before Marconi's first recorded experiment on wireless. Bose's speciality was in the receiver design - during his time, he had the best receiver in the world, at least for some time. It has been acknowledged formally in the electronics world that Marconi used Bose's receiver for the first trans-Atlantic wireless transmission but never gave him the credit. Rather, he made sure that Bose's name never came out.</p><p>It can be said quite conclusively that Bose was aware that Marconi had used his receiver. But why Bose kept quiet could be a matter of conjecture. We can connect dots here too - take some freedom to create some suspense. In fact, I think the climax could be the revelation that Bose had known all the time, but never said anything.</p><p>Like Tesla, Bose was also very spiritual. He started using Sanskrit names in scientific literature, moving away from the common practice of using Greek and Latin. I don’t know if anyone did that again in India. He used to quote from the <i>Rig Veda</i>, <i>Upanishads</i> even in lectures in London. Was highly inspired by the Indian concept that everything is that "One", and that all different things we see around us are only different manifestations of that same "One." This is the common Brahmo thought. This belief led him to "prove" that metals also have life, like plants and animals. He suddenly shifted from radio to this and it became very easy for Marconi to push him to oblivion, as the scientific fraternity that had hailed him a few years back now started feeling that he was mixing Indian metascience and spirituality with modern science. It took many decades to realise that he was the father of biophysics, plant neurobiology and plant cognition, among others.</p><p>Bose also played a pretty strong role, though indirectly, in the Swadeshi movement that sprung up around the partition of Bengal in 1905. But very interestingly, he never opposed the British openly, and Tagore and Nivedita supported him in that - they all felt that was the sacrifice for the sake of Indian science - Calcutta was the only place in India that had science at the university level and that too would have been stopped if Bose had opposed the British.</p><p>Unlike Tagore and Vivekananda, the strongest two Bengali personalities in the 19-20th century Bengal-India landscape, who couldn't be bridged, Bose was rather a bridge between many apparently divergent counterpoints. His mother was a staunch Kali worshipper, his father was Brahmo, and he was a Brahmo, too, but still maintained a very good relationship with the Ramakrishna Mission and other "Hindu" groups. Finding a bridge reflected in his works too - when he wanted to bridge the non-living with the living. This deep spiritualism impacted his science and came in very handy for Marconi to literally wipe him out of the scene.</p><p>Bose's relationship with Sara Bull and Nivedita was complicated. There's a good psycho-analysis done by Ashish Nandi on this. Bose used to call her "Mother" though she was eight years older. Nivedita had openly asked Vivekananda once if he thought anything was going on between her and Bose. And fortunately, Vivekananda didn't suspect anything. But Nivedita had once asked Bose if she was a temptation to him. Though Bose never said anything openly, he reacted jealously and childishly when Nivedita got close very to Okakura. Nivedita sort of broke up with Okakura, for various reasons and remained Bose's secretary, editor, collaborator and main motivation and inspiration till her last day.</p><p>Sara Bull forced Bose to file a few patents, with her as the co-applicant, both in London and the US. She would also pay Nivedita for the secretarial work she did for Bose. She paid for the land for the Bose Institute. She also left behind a good amount of money for Bose in her will - this was challenged by her daughter. It became a major scandal after Mrs Sara Bull died in 1911, a few months before Nivedita's death.</p><div><br /></div>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-15430130395311144002024-01-28T17:46:00.012+05:302024-01-28T20:35:15.387+05:30Transcript of the launch of "Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist" in Calcutta<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRf8uHNyzy4rgypC4JMEfZaUL5bjQj5wT3WyW5CCahYjct4qzeuKG1GK6XdSixBvT-Zzyz9VeZnjjvJISXL6vTKqQ-OLUXxT1adlNlXEDBUO3EIow3mo82Mv5mGsHEmMYodx24ux8YOUI21_3dUqo1I2meEXniZ7CWt9IdRKIp8LNB3gKa072Jb9EPCLo/s5472/125A2312.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3648" data-original-width="5472" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRf8uHNyzy4rgypC4JMEfZaUL5bjQj5wT3WyW5CCahYjct4qzeuKG1GK6XdSixBvT-Zzyz9VeZnjjvJISXL6vTKqQ-OLUXxT1adlNlXEDBUO3EIow3mo82Mv5mGsHEmMYodx24ux8YOUI21_3dUqo1I2meEXniZ7CWt9IdRKIp8LNB3gKa072Jb9EPCLo/w640-h426/125A2312.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">"The launch of Sudipto Das’s latest novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.in/dp/9389136997" target="_blank">Jagadish Chandra Bose: The Reluctant Physicist</a>, at Starmark, Quest Mall, was an enlightening affair, marked by discussions on art, literature, and the life and science of the eminent polymath.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Moderated by Debanjan Chakrabarti, director, East and Northeast India, British Council, the conversation started with a discussion on Bose’s life with author Sudipto Das, molecular biophysicist Gautam Basu and theoretical physicist Palash Baran Pal.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Supriya Roy, novelist, former teacher at Modern High School for Girls and grandniece of Jagadish Chandra Bose, shared some personal anecdotes about how the J.C. Bose Memorial in Giridih was founded." </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/culture/books/book-launch-of-sudipto-dass-jagadish-chandra-bose-the-reluctant-physicist-at-quest/cid/1994056" target="_blank">The Telegraph,</a> 16 Jan 2024</p><p>[Debanjan] Congratulations on your brilliant biography that brings alive the nuances, complexities and vast interests of the maverick and the polymath genius that was JC Bose. From the long lens of history, do you think he represents the apogee of the Bengal Renaissance movement that was ushered in by the likes of Raja Rammohan Roy?</p><p>[Sudipto] “Renaissance” is a French word that means “rebirth.” It refers to a period in European history that saw a revival of classical learning and wisdom. Broadly, the Renaissance refers to any period in history, mainly modern history, when there has been a revival, or rather resurrection, of old values and wisdom, art and culture, literature, etc. Renaissance has often been a uniting force towards creating a modern “nation,” of which there’s no word in any of the ancient Indian languages, including Sanskrit. Talking about “nation,” which he never translated to Bengali, Tagore had once said, quoting an ancient Spartan song, “We are only that what you were.” That, in his view, was the national song of all countries. The “nation,” Tagore elaborates, gives the people a unified purpose to be prepared to stay together through sacrifices and sorrows as their ancestors did in the past. Renaissance is all about finding that unified purpose for a group of people to stay together, irrespective of their apparent diversities, by identifying them all with their shared past, where their ancestors, through sacrifices and sorrows, had created a cultural and civilizational heritage all have inherited in diverse forms. </p><p>Finding a unity, a unified force that would awaken and arouse his countrymen was aligned with Bose’s spiritual ideology, which was the driving force behind his science, too. Uniting the present with the past was natural to him. Through science, he wanted to re-establish India at the high podium of scientific achievement where she had stood in ancient times. His ardent wish was to compel people from all over the world to come and acquire knowledge from India as they had done at the universities of Taxila and Nalanda in the past. He believed Indian science must go hand-in-hand with Western science, which was a very radical thought at a time when the British doubted our capabilities in the field. Hence, we see, that in his science, too, he was seeking a “rebirth.”</p><p>Bose and Tagore discussed enthusiastically the importance of retelling India’s fascinating history and reproducing her equally exciting and inspiring literature, full of tales of devotion, sacrifice and valour, for the present generation. Both the scientist and the poet concurred that the awakening of a nation could happen only with the appreciation of its own legacy, its past. They discussed the two books Tagore had been fascinated by lately—Rajendra Lal Mitra’s <i>The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal </i>and the <i>History of the Sikhs</i> by Joseph Davey Cunningham. Together they chose the most suitable stories that would have a direct bearing on the current situation and galvanise the nation out of its stupor. Thus, came about Tagore’s <i>Katha</i> (The Fables), a collection of poems derived from Indian history and mythology from all across the country. There was a story from Shivaji’s life, one about the Sikhs, quite a few from Buddhist lore, and many more. </p><p>It was perhaps the first such attempt to unite the vast and richly diverse country, that India is, through her past saga sharing the common cultural and spiritual theme of love and sacrifice, a template that was later used many times by multiple people to arouse the countrymen. In a way, Bose and Tagore were torchbearers. Very fittingly, Tagore had dedicated <i>Katha</i> to Bose.</p><p>When Mrs Herringham organised an artistic expedition to the Ajanta caves in the winter of 1909, Bose and Nivedita were there, too. Among Mrs Herringham's assistants detailed to copy the wall paintings was Nandalal Bose. He was inspired by Nivedita’s exhortations to Indian artists to give up the imitation of the Greek and Roman styles and create a new indigenous one reminiscent of ancient Indian art. Nandalal was one of the pioneers of Modern Indian Art, and many elements of the Ajanta paintings were reflected in his later artworks, especially the ones still visible in the Bose Institute. Bose held one of the first exhibitions of Ajanta paintings in his home, shortly after Mrs Herringham’s expedition.</p><p>So, as we can see, it’s not only Indian science but literature and art, too, that Jagadish Bose wanted to revive. What fascinated me about him is not just the fact that he was a scientist - many books celebrate his ground-breaking work in science. Rather, it’s his contribution to the Bengal Renaissance.</p><p>More interesting was his personal relationships with Rabindranath Tagore and Sister Nivedita, and how he helped resurrect literature and art while simultaneously indulging in science during the Bengal Renaissance. He was a revolutionary in the truest sense of the term.</p><p>[Debanjan] You highlight Sunil Ganguly’s <i>Prothom Alo</i> as one of the three books that influenced you most. To what extent was your interest in Bose and research methodology influenced by Sunil Ganguly’s books like <i>Prothom Alo</i> and <i>Shei Somoy</i>?</p><p>[Sudipto] To a large extent. The narrative of my book is highly inspired by Sunil Ganguly’s style. Narrating history like a story, for a non-academic audience is what I intended to do and in that, I didn’t find any other better benchmark.</p><p>[Debanjan] A common question for both Gautam Basu and Palash Baran Pal: Apart from being cutting-edge scientists, both of you are brilliant science communicators. What do you think is the value of biographies such as the one Sudipto has written for our society? </p><p>[Gautam Basu] There are many biographies on Bose, and his first biography was published while he was alive. Over the years, critical analyses have emerged, but Sudipto’s approach towards Bose was very different. In Sudipto’s work, Jagadish Bose comes alive in flesh and blood. I realised I’m not used to reading about him in this manner, and this is the first well-researched biography. The biography starts with a hunting trip to the Himalayan foothills. In writing the story, Sudipto rightly recognises that without a historical context, it is futile to understand the man, both his scientific journey and his personal life.</p><p>Of 26 major characters in the book, as explicitly declared at the beginning, 18 are from the West, and a majority of them are from the scientific world. This isn’t surprising because as the first Indian scientist in colonial India, Bose hardly had any Indian colleagues whom he could effectively engage with intellectually when sharing his never-ending discoveries.</p><p>[Palash Baran Pal] The book reads like a novel. From my academic perspective, I wish to see more references from the field of science and so on. I was truly impressed by the extent of sources he has consulted.</p><p>[Debanjan] Gautam Babu: You've had a hand/say in the subtitle of Sudipto 's book. Tell us more about this story.</p><p>[Gautam Basu] Since childhood, Bose had always been a Naturalist. Though, for a short while, at the very beginning of his scientific career, he was a physicist, he was actually a “Reluctant Physicist.” Physics was not his core penchant. His first love was nature – discovery and understanding of how nature worked. </p><p>Bose was born and brought up in a very rural setting in Faridpur in undivided Bengal. His formative years were spent with children of farmers, fishermen and other working-class people for whom nature – not the manicured type – was the playground. Bose reminisced, “In the vernacular school, to which I was sent, the son of the Muslim attendant of my father sat on my right side, and the son of a fisherman sat on my left. They were my playmates. I listened spellbound to their stories of birds, animals and aquatic creatures. Perhaps these stories created in my mind a keen interest in investigating the workings of Nature.”</p><p>Although initiated into Physics by Father Lafont in St. Xavier’s, it is interesting to note that he moved to England to study Medicine and not Physics. It was only when a nagging illness made it very difficult for him to pursue Medicine, that he moved to Christ’s College in Cambridge to pursue a degree in Natural Sciences, where he was heavily influenced by Lord Rayleigh, his Physics teacher and mentor. But unlike in St. Xavier’s College, he formally trained himself in Botany at Christ’s under eminent scientists like Sydney Vines and Francis Darwin, in addition to Physics. Formal exposure to the Biology of Plants revived in him what had innately been instilled in his heart since his childhood – the Naturalist Bose. So, the shift to plants and animals was a natural or, rather, spontaneous thing for Bose.</p><p>[Debanjan] Palash Babu: Why do you think was JC Bose the Physicist forgotten by history?</p><p>[Palash Baran Pal] It’s not true that Bose the Physicist has been forgotten…</p><p>[Gautam Basu] (Interrupting) Most eminent physicists of his times, and later, didn’t consider him a serious physicist. In fact, most would mock him. When I was entrusted with sifting through piles of old papers and journals in Jagadish Bose’s residence, I came across an edition of <i>The Indian Express</i> from the 70s with an article on Bose written by the eminent psychologist Ashish Nandy. There, he had quoted Bose’s student, Satyendranath Bose, of the Bose-Einstein fame, as snubbing Jagadish Bose and remarking that he was no physicist, but a mere mechanic. I called up Ashish Nandy one evening and he did confirm the same. (laughter)</p><p>[Palash Baran Pal] I have a list of 16 books written in Bengali on Bose by various authors. So, I can definitely say that he hasn’t been forgotten. I can say that Sudipto’s book is a fresh attempt at telling Bose’s life story.</p><p>[Debanjan] Sudipto, tell us a bit about the challenges of researching a biography, especially in a culture which is not too bothered about the preservation of historical records, and personal effects and this attitude extends to our built heritage as well.</p><p>[Sudipto] When it comes to Indian archives, I must admit that we cut a sorry figure. I can access online all the editions of even the most nondescript newspaper from a remote European town, but I have no access to, say, even a 50-year-old edition of the most widely circulated Indian newspaper – <i>The Times of India</i>, which has been in publication since 1838, close to 200 years. I didn’t find online archives of the earlier editions of <i>Ananda Bazar Patrika</i>, <i>Amrita Bazar Patrika</i>, <i>Jugantar</i>, <i>Hindustan Times</i>, etc. That’s really sad. There must be a concerted effort, both by the Government and private enterprises, to scan all Indian newspapers in all languages and make them available to all at a nominal cost. One of the old periodicals that has been quite well archived is <i>Modern Review</i>, started by Ramananda Chatterjee, a student of Bose. That, apart from the many letters written by Bose himself, Nivedita, Vivekananda, Tagore, and a few others, comprised my main source of information about Bose from India. Newspapers and journals from Europe and America in various languages were plenty. I wish I had more sources from India, too.</p><p>[Debanjan] This is your fourth published work. You're a busy IT professional and entrepreneur. How do you switch these hats? What are your writing habits?</p><p>[Sudipto] I don’t have a deadline. Neither do I have any fixed outcome in mind. That always keeps the entire thing joyful and stress-free. But I do try to maintain some discipline when it comes to reading and writing. It’s like anything else that improves with practice. I try to spend a few hours daily, mainly on reading, as that’s what I do most of the time. Writing takes a very small part of the whole book. I do have to make some compromises, like cutting down on social activities during weekends. I also never took a job, since I started writing seriously in 2008, that necessitated late-night calls or weekend work. That way, consciously I chalked out my own path that was supportive of my writing habits.</p><p>[Debanjan] Question for all three: Did that culture of being “Jack of many trades, masters of some” inspire subsequent generations, including your own? Am thinking of the likes of JC Bose’s student Satyen Bose to name just one. Is that culture of cultivating many diverse interests among students and young people in crisis today, with the current societal obsession/anxiety with education as only a means to careers, that are too often restricted to engineering and medicine?</p><p>[Sudipto] Yes, especially in India, there’s no concept of Multiple Intelligence, something that has been found very effective in many other places. The craze for becoming an engineer or doctor is so high that most parents even feel studying literature and language is a waste of time. Only a few streams get all the focus. Even in engineering, only Computer Science, AI and anything related to those get the best and most students, with the core engineering streams like Mechanical, Chemical, etc. rarely attracting the good ones. I feel parents are mostly responsible for this sorry state of affairs. I’ve seen many wanting to take up unconventional streams, but they are more often than not discouraged by their parents. Such is the state of language skills among engineers, that even a senior Vice President sometimes can’t even write one sentence of correct English in emails. The fact that liberal arts and humanities are becoming more and more important now, especially with the advent of AI, is still not being realised by many. I hope this changes soon – the sooner the better. Given this, it’s remarkable that what Jagadish Bose – and, of course, many of his contemporaries, notably Tagore – did was to experiment with the idea of what later came to be known as Multiple Intelligence.</p><p>[Debanjan] What role do good, well-researched biographies play in our culture: educational, societal, political and national.</p><p>[Sudipto] A good biography is the best teacher for all.</p>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-31328980494247711202024-01-27T17:18:00.011+05:302024-01-28T20:35:42.404+05:30Bangalore Launch of "Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiUpXhHoi0dsraO5dRQhtlh1ljfjv1JCAsT0fWExRW1yOZZynwp7ZszRVCQ0ywne9DpjVST_T1hT9j-y_a27tVqS2CIJ3969MJOqIXVwhq8sFDxJNGhr7kTHp9E1tr3TeeFyRom4Xa-mjucIRDmFBHr3YjLLMdQeVwxu4nkhAdhjTR2AnremzXj0ww-Ug/s1710/IndianExpress-4Dec-2023.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1289" data-original-width="1710" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiUpXhHoi0dsraO5dRQhtlh1ljfjv1JCAsT0fWExRW1yOZZynwp7ZszRVCQ0ywne9DpjVST_T1hT9j-y_a27tVqS2CIJ3969MJOqIXVwhq8sFDxJNGhr7kTHp9E1tr3TeeFyRom4Xa-mjucIRDmFBHr3YjLLMdQeVwxu4nkhAdhjTR2AnremzXj0ww-Ug/w640-h482/IndianExpress-4Dec-2023.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/bangalore-literature-festival-ends-shashi-tharoor-book-launches-discussion-9054394/" target="_blank">The Indian Express, 4 Dec 2023</a></div><p></p><p>By: Express News Service</p><p>Bengaluru | December 4, 2023 20:48 IST</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">A fresh biographical release by a Bangalore-based author was ‘Jagadish Chandra Bose – The Reluctant Physicist’ by Sudipto Das. With his previous three works being fiction, this was his first foray into biographical non-fiction.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Das, an engineer, said, “Bose has almost been forgotten outside the academic world. Even a lot of Bengalis don’t know about him anymore. But his contribution to practical science and innovation is immense. Any technical paper on 5G will mention him.”</p><p></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Referring to the reason for the book’s title, Das explained that despite the fact that his work in physics was best known (such as his collaboration with Einstein), his true passion for many years had been in the field of botany.</p><p></p></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/XcgE28ZbYDKR5QARA" target="_blank">Photo Gallery</a></p><p></p>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-58671121193658172052024-01-27T17:09:00.010+05:302024-01-28T20:36:24.638+05:30Calcutta launch of "Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8WQjKRhPBe-s04mGKnqDXQ1BE1NZd3sZaqja7C1zhpo2OeDCNQfaRkUt8KzVUXYo3Jo0yQBsSWyOlgPFXlH_MXt507R6a8khTAINKfLb0mythNa48aoeQU31rk5al5dubOH95hnNDNkiowjmZSr-0C25kq1kJsWXe55rXnSf2w8UmyLG93S7jc2cHAkY/s2053/Telegraph-16Jan-2024.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="832" data-original-width="2053" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8WQjKRhPBe-s04mGKnqDXQ1BE1NZd3sZaqja7C1zhpo2OeDCNQfaRkUt8KzVUXYo3Jo0yQBsSWyOlgPFXlH_MXt507R6a8khTAINKfLb0mythNa48aoeQU31rk5al5dubOH95hnNDNkiowjmZSr-0C25kq1kJsWXe55rXnSf2w8UmyLG93S7jc2cHAkY/w640-h260/Telegraph-16Jan-2024.png" width="640" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/culture/books/book-launch-of-sudipto-dass-jagadish-chandra-bose-the-reluctant-physicist-at-quest/cid/1994056" target="_blank">Telegraph, 16 Jan 2024</a></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_qchDsQzUqTUwSaX4e0PYhY-9TjMhfAur0lUEKB_GQTd_ZyLtRbx4L0jEwFP_IS4dfTOkOM1r441M61GvftxkEfgZeoiDGI2JA9ghPUDYNHd-3XJqansIS9PbGPv33U0ai9Dn9Z9VVCbYz1SHtvZjow-YhOlGwQOIOVkKHC_HxqUs9f8HORwimCJAnfg/s1457/TOI-12Jan-2024.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="1457" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_qchDsQzUqTUwSaX4e0PYhY-9TjMhfAur0lUEKB_GQTd_ZyLtRbx4L0jEwFP_IS4dfTOkOM1r441M61GvftxkEfgZeoiDGI2JA9ghPUDYNHd-3XJqansIS9PbGPv33U0ai9Dn9Z9VVCbYz1SHtvZjow-YhOlGwQOIOVkKHC_HxqUs9f8HORwimCJAnfg/w640-h412/TOI-12Jan-2024.png" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/events/kolkata/new-book-on-jagadish-chandra-bose-looks-beyond-his-scientific-contribution/articleshow/106769683.cms" target="_blank">Times of India, 12 Jan 2024</a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://photos.app.goo.gl/sc6U6yU7PprXMSAE6" target="_blank">Photo Gallery</a></p>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-78696103544153172922024-01-27T16:33:00.002+05:302024-01-28T20:15:55.422+05:30Transcript of the launch of "Jagadish Chandra - The Reluctant Physicist" at the Bangalore Lit-Fest 2023<p> [The book "<a href="https://niyogibooksindia.com/books/jagadish-chandra-bose-the-reluctant-physicist/" target="_blank">Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist</a>" was launched at the <a href="https://bangaloreliteraturefestival.org/year-2023/schedule/" target="_blank">Bangalore Lit-Fest</a> on 3 Dec 2023.]</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="366" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BCk6fTW307o" width="482" youtube-src-id="BCk6fTW307o"></iframe></div><p>[Shevlin Sebastian] Welcome dear friends for this interaction with Sudipto. We'll be starting this interaction with Keerti Ramachandra, who is one of the finest translators from vernacular to English and one of the finest editors. She has edited Sudipto’s first and current book and Sudipto will be presenting the first copy to her.</p><p>[Keerti Ramachandra] I’d just like to say how much I enjoyed reading this book because it was a subject, I knew nothing about. I barely got 35 out of 100 when I studied physics in college in the first year… But his first book, which has remained with me, <i>The Ekkos Clan</i>, was also marvellous, because he dealt with, apart from many other things, Linguistic Palaeontology… and it was so close to my heart because language is something I deal with, I work with, I love. It’s my passion, it’s my profession… Working with Sudipto was very easy. I would insist that he came personally, and explained to me every experiment, every aspect of Jagadish Chandra Bose’s work, because only then would I be able to edit, in the sense, make it easy for the reader to understand… And, dealing with me was like dealing with the lowest common denominator, and therefore the book has come out extremely well… He does so much research and so much reading. There’s so much material in him that I think he can write 100 books on any subject and I wish him all the very best. I hope this book really goes a long way and I hope The Ekkos Clan is revived… and you do lots of other things as well. Thank you very much. Thank you, Sudipto.</p><p>[Shevlin] A brief intro of Sudipto: he’s a writer and a musician, who also happens to be an engineer, having done his undergrad at IIT Kharagpur. Regarding his background, Sudipto himself wants to talk about it.</p><p>[Sudipto] I have a sort of ancestry, which is interesting, and I take extreme pride in its historical aspects. It so happened that in 1947, at the stroke of midnight, the Bengal Province was partitioned, and overnight around 10 million people were rendered homeless. And, over the next many decades: 10 million is one crore, and, just for the perspective, World War II created 15 million refugees and the Bengal partition alone created around 10 million – my father happens to be one of those 10 million people, who gradually trickled into India over the next many years… My father – he was around seven years old – he alone, with his elder brother, who was around 14 years old, and another elder sister, who was nine years old, somehow managed to come to India after a 14-day-ordeal, which included waiting for a ferry for seven days… And, he landed up in Calcutta with broken ribs, [marks of] which he still has as a memento of his past. But that is not unique because there are around 10 million stories like that, which you, none of you, might have heard. The Bengalis, who moved to India from Bangladesh, happen to be the single largest displaced community in the world, more than the Jews. And the reason you don’t know this is what I am proud of: none of these 10 million people actually resorted to violence, and that is the reason I’m here. I believe, I am the chalta-firta-jeeta-jagta saboot of what happens if one generation sacrifices and doesn’t take to violence. I think, apart from being an Indian, being a Bengali, being a Bangalorean, being a musician, the identity, [in] which I take maximum pride is this: I’m the son of somebody who didn’t become a terrorist but who could have become one. (<i>applause</i>)</p><p>[Shevlin] That’s super that. This aspect of the migration, it has been described beautifully in Sudipto’s remarkable first novel, which I’ve read. It’s called <i>The Ekkos Clan</i>. It has also been brought out by Niyogi Books, who have brought out this book. So, Sudipto, should we start?</p><p>[Sudipto] Before that, [I should say] how I know Shevlin. So, you know, my first book was about the Bengal partition, which, I think, nobody knew [much about] outside Bengal. And, as I said, that we have not been conspicuous is actually the [real] achievement, because we never resorted to violence and only if you are violent do people know of you, right? So, I am proud that we [and our partition story] are not known. It so happened that I went to Cochin for a book event, and then I was wondering. I knew that outside Bengal nobody knew of the Bengal partition. So, I was wondering what I should talk about there. </p><p>And then, Shevlin comes [to me] and speaks to me in a Bengali, which is even more correct than what my son, who was born and brought up in Bangalore, speaks. He said in fluent Bangla that the chapters on the Bengal partition were very well written. I got the first Mallu I’d come across who speaks Bengali better than my son – I knew of other connections between the Bongs and Mallus, like fish and communism. (<i>laughter</i>) So, that’s about Shevlin. He has stayed in Calcutta more than me Since then, for the last, I think, 10 years, we have been friends.</p><p>[Shevlin] I was born and brought up in Calcutta. So, I’m a half Bong, and I’m a Malayali, and my children call me Baba in tribute to my Bong roots.</p><p>[Sudipto] Also, you would have noticed that he introduced me as <b>Shudipto</b>, not <b>Sudipto</b>. That’s a typical Bong thing. </p><p>[Shevlin] Yes, <b>Shudipto</b> was Bengali. Okay, so, Sudipto, my first question is: <b><i>how did you get the idea to do a biography of Dr JC Bose?</i></b></p><p>[Sudipto] An interesting anecdote: Yesterday, I was there at the bookstore. I was trying to set up my books, and then somebody saw this book, and then he spoke in Hindi to his friend, “Dude, who’s this Jagadish Chandra Bose?” </p><p>His friend said, “Wasn’t there someone by the name of Chandra Shekhar Bose?”</p><p>“Idiot, that’s Subhas Chandra Bose and Chandra Shekhar is Azad.”</p><p>“That’s fine, but who’s this one?”</p><p>So, I believe, that’s why I wrote the book.</p><p>I’m keeping aside his scientific achievements, which…, I don’t want to go into [in detail]. But, just to give you a snippet: he is modern India’s first scientist and, now we know, he’s a co-inventor of radio, which Marconi… well, I don’t want to go into that [now]. He’s a co-inventor of radio and, also, had set up one of the first practical working wireless solutions in the world in the Presidency College in Calcutta. He also holds the patent for the [world’s] first semiconductor device. A semiconductor device is… [to put it simplistically] the chip that you see in all electronics. Wireless and semiconductors are something which drive our life today from the morning, when you wake up, till the time you sleep, in your phone, in your office, in your car…, everywhere. So, this guy in India, he and his work, creates the foundation for both Wireless and electronics, which is [made of] semiconductor devices. </p><p>But that is not something which attracted me. What attracted me was his life, which appeared to be more interesting than fiction. First of all, he’s a scientist but then he’s also an avid hunter. I mean, how many scientists do you know, who, at the age of 19, go to the Himalayas and hunt tigers? He was a hunter. He was a horse rider. He was a professional sculler – rowing in England is called sculling. He used to do professional sculling in Cambridge. Also, he was caught in a storm while doing deep sea rowing.</p><p>And, more interestingly, there are two important women, western women, in his life other than his own wife – one was a very rich American widow socialite, Mrs Sara Bull, and the other was an Irish revolutionary nun, called Margaret Elizabeth Noble, who was christened Sister Nivedita [by Swami Vivekananda]. Both these women were disciples of Swami Vivekananda who came to India to love India and to serve India. These two women play a very important role in Bose’s life. So, his life is “pati patni aur woh do” [husband wife and the other two]. (<i>laughter</i>) And, these three women were also on very good terms [with each other]. How these three women played a big role in his life is again a story of how the West and East can blend together – two Western women and an Indian scientist, who is also a spiritualist… </p><p>Finally, what attracted me is that, if I have to plagiarize from Charles Dickens, the timeline of my bio – [that] is 1890 to 1910 – is the best of the times and also the worst of the times. The geopolitics of the world was going through tectonic changes, which finally formed the 20th century. World War I was going to happen in some time and there were [already] signs of that; India’s Swadeshi Movement was going to happen, and I think Bose’s life is entwined with all these things. So, I believe, it had all the characters and features of fiction; just not any villain – if you put the British as a villain that’s a different thing, but otherwise it had all the elements…</p><p>[Shevlin] Okay, next question is: <b><i>what is the research that you did? </i></b></p><p>[Sudipto] Well, I went to Bose Institute in Calcutta and Shantiniketan: Tagore [and Bose] had a very good relationship… A lot of archives are available online – I had to pay the subscription but all the 100-year-old archives of the <i>New York Times</i> or the <i>Times</i> London were available. So, it’s mainly, I would say, online, some free and some paid subscriptions.</p><p>[Shevlin] <b><i>Did you speak to the descendants of Bose?</i></b></p><p>[Sudipto] There is no descendant of Bose. He didn’t have any children. I mean, his [only] girl child died during birth and he didn’t have anybody. He had nephews, though. I couldn’t figure out any direct descendant of Bose. In fact, the Bose Institute also doesn’t know of anybody who can claim to be his [direct] descendant, so his royalties don’t go to anybody. So, there is no descendant.</p><p>[Shevlin] Okay, so if you [were] growing up in Calcutta like me the only way you remember J C Bose is because there’s an AJC Bose Road. There’s no other way you remember him. So, my next question is: <b><i>why do you think Bose is not as famous as, say, Rabindranath Tagore or Satyajit Ray?</i></b></p><p>[Sudipto] That’s also one of the very interesting things. In the 1920s, Bose was so popular… I’ll just give one incident: he was a member of the League of Nations, which later became the United Nations. He was the Indian representative of the League of Nations and [the] other members in his committee were Einstein, Nobel Laureate, Hendrik Lorentz – he was also Nobel [Laureate] – and then Mary Curie: there are five-six people, who are all Nobel Laureates. The first time he went to Geneva to attend one of the League of Nations's functions, it was so crowded that even Einstein had to jostle for a seat. Einstein was so damn impressed with this guy… </p><p>So, from that [level of] popularity, [to] now “Chandra Bose kaun hai,” I believe, a lot of things would have happened. One is, what I feel, is his extra dependence on these two women, who contributed a lot to his life as long as they were alive. They did everything for Bose, being his publicist, being his editor… So, I think, that when they died, Bose, for the rest of his life, which is almost 30 years after the death of Mrs Sara Bull and Sister Nivedita, somehow stayed a confused person. </p><p>He didn’t have any disciple. So that is also another reason [why his legacy didn’t survive]. And, finally, I think his writings, his scientific papers, became a little spiritual. However, it is not that his experiments were forged. He used to do a tremendous amount of experiments but his language became spiritual. He used to quote verses from the <i>Rig Veda</i>, from the <i>Upanishads</i>. He was extremely influenced by this one verse from the <i>Rig Veda</i>, which in Sanskrit goes like this: <i>ekam sat, vipra bahudha vadanti,</i> which means, there is only One and the wise call it in various ways. So, his entire life was in the search of this One… Einstein also spent the last 30 years of his life searching for One Unified theory, which will combine quantum mechanics, electromagnetic waves and gravity. He died in [the] search of this. </p><p>Bose also became too spiritual and the scientific community never liked that. Even today, the moment you talk about the <i>Rig Veda</i>, people will brand you either as a <i>bhakt</i> or a right hand – sorry, what [do] they call, right-wing? (<i>laughter</i>) Whatever. That was the case then, too. So, the moment he started quoting the <i>Rig Veda</i>, chalo, isko kuchh nahin ata, [lo, he knows nothing]. So, I think, all these were reasons why he was lost, and it’s, I think, up to people like us to resurrect him.</p><p>[Shevlin] One of the most remarkable things about the book is that <b><i>Sudipto [has] humanized some legendary figures, and one of them is Swami Vivekananda.</i></b> I was a member of the Ramakrishna Library in Golpark. There, you know, Swami Vivekananda was really deified. But Sudipto writes about Swami Vivekananda as someone who loses his temper. He gets angry. So, that is one of the more remarkable things, how you humanized legendary figures.</p><p>[Sudipto] I think the problem with, not only the Bongs, even in [the rest of] India is [that] anybody who becomes famous, you actually make him a prophet and the moment you make somebody God you actually kill that personality. So, Vivekananda, the moment you think of him as a God, there’s nothing to learn from a God. Only you can learn from humans. In most of the Bengali literature and also in [the] South, Vivekananda is so damn popular that if you say something which the Ramakrishnaites might not like, they’ll become wild. But I myself studied in Ramakrishna Mission my whole life. I thought that a very analytical literature about their personal life [is needed]. It’s not possible that Vivekananda was a God, right? I mean, he was a human being. He had virtues and vices. So why not talk about that. Though it’s a biography I tried to get under the skin of all the characters, mainly Tagore, Jagadish Bose, and Vivekananda – these two [personalities: Tagore and Vivekananda] are very closely related to Bose. I don’t know if people might like it, and, again, some real bhakts might get a little angry.</p><div><br /></div>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-65140494080855058092024-01-27T11:21:00.009+05:302024-02-13T06:53:21.358+05:30Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuu4Dd7B2E1e7H0amVtc9XWjyN7LGYOcDd1FfUnzjIlg4Ib4amUEcrzNQn-2vGAB4UKClRbt6uvF0dyIfXz7n9yzsDGF8Zy6zbVsqwhXSzUQ7-J5cb0BhbbLZOpk3g53OWC53dHZ8vZDWY3mKz18er5xvC7dHxSdkWGKKc5AhRtbs-v24xTiWqBEdCPw/s3019/IMG_2686.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuu4Dd7B2E1e7H0amVtc9XWjyN7LGYOcDd1FfUnzjIlg4Ib4amUEcrzNQn-2vGAB4UKClRbt6uvF0dyIfXz7n9yzsDGF8Zy6zbVsqwhXSzUQ7-J5cb0BhbbLZOpk3g53OWC53dHZ8vZDWY3mKz18er5xvC7dHxSdkWGKKc5AhRtbs-v24xTiWqBEdCPw/s3019/IMG_2686.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuu4Dd7B2E1e7H0amVtc9XWjyN7LGYOcDd1FfUnzjIlg4Ib4amUEcrzNQn-2vGAB4UKClRbt6uvF0dyIfXz7n9yzsDGF8Zy6zbVsqwhXSzUQ7-J5cb0BhbbLZOpk3g53OWC53dHZ8vZDWY3mKz18er5xvC7dHxSdkWGKKc5AhRtbs-v24xTiWqBEdCPw/s3019/IMG_2686.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuu4Dd7B2E1e7H0amVtc9XWjyN7LGYOcDd1FfUnzjIlg4Ib4amUEcrzNQn-2vGAB4UKClRbt6uvF0dyIfXz7n9yzsDGF8Zy6zbVsqwhXSzUQ7-J5cb0BhbbLZOpk3g53OWC53dHZ8vZDWY3mKz18er5xvC7dHxSdkWGKKc5AhRtbs-v24xTiWqBEdCPw/s3019/IMG_2686.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuu4Dd7B2E1e7H0amVtc9XWjyN7LGYOcDd1FfUnzjIlg4Ib4amUEcrzNQn-2vGAB4UKClRbt6uvF0dyIfXz7n9yzsDGF8Zy6zbVsqwhXSzUQ7-J5cb0BhbbLZOpk3g53OWC53dHZ8vZDWY3mKz18er5xvC7dHxSdkWGKKc5AhRtbs-v24xTiWqBEdCPw/s3019/IMG_2686.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuu4Dd7B2E1e7H0amVtc9XWjyN7LGYOcDd1FfUnzjIlg4Ib4amUEcrzNQn-2vGAB4UKClRbt6uvF0dyIfXz7n9yzsDGF8Zy6zbVsqwhXSzUQ7-J5cb0BhbbLZOpk3g53OWC53dHZ8vZDWY3mKz18er5xvC7dHxSdkWGKKc5AhRtbs-v24xTiWqBEdCPw/s3019/IMG_2686.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2155" data-original-width="3019" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuuu4Dd7B2E1e7H0amVtc9XWjyN7LGYOcDd1FfUnzjIlg4Ib4amUEcrzNQn-2vGAB4UKClRbt6uvF0dyIfXz7n9yzsDGF8Zy6zbVsqwhXSzUQ7-J5cb0BhbbLZOpk3g53OWC53dHZ8vZDWY3mKz18er5xvC7dHxSdkWGKKc5AhRtbs-v24xTiWqBEdCPw/w640-h456/IMG_2686.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://www.amazon.in/dp/9389136997" target="_blank">Amazon India</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jagadish-Chandra-Bose-Reluctant-Physicist-ebook/dp/B0CPFXFB5P" target="_blank">Amazon US</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jagadish-Chandra-Bose-Reluctant-Physicist-ebook/dp/B0CPFXFB5P" target="_blank">Amazon UK</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Jagadish-Chandra-Bose-Reluctant-Physicist-ebook/dp/B0CPFXFB5P" target="_blank">Amazon France</a> | <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Jagadish-Chandra-Bose-Reluctant-Physicist-ebook/dp/B0CPFXFB5P" target="_blank">Amazon Canada</a><div><p>My latest book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203709340-jagadish-chandra-bose" target="_blank">Jagadish Chandra Bose - The Reluctant Physicist</a>, was released at the Bangalore Lit-Fest 2023 in Bangalore on 3 Dec, 2023. Before the event, I had a chat with Shevlin Sebastian, with whom I was to converse during the book launch. Here is the summary of the chat, which throws a good amount of light on the "behind-the-scene" things of the book.</p><p>[Shevlin] How did you get the idea to do a biography of JC Bose? </p><p>[Sudipto] It so happened that I had to deliver a lecture on 5G at a seminar sometime in early 2019. To make the lecture a little more engaging I wanted to delve a bit into the history of 5G, sharing some interesting facts and figures. That’s when I chanced upon a paper published in a European journal divulging this intriguing tidbit that millimetre waves were first used for wireless communication close to 125 years ago in Calcutta by the Indian scientist JC Bose – that was more than a year before Marconi demonstrated “radio” in London. Incidentally, 5G is again using millimetre waves for wireless communication, more than a century later than Bose did. Knowing that was quite embarrassing for me, especially when I am a communication engineer, who takes pride in India and her history and culture. More embarrassment awaited me when I figured out that the world’s first patent on a semiconductor device was granted to none other than the same guy – JC Bose – in 1904. Today, we can’t even think of a world without wireless and semiconductors, which are at the heart of almost everything that controls our lives, from the phone to the laptop to the car, even the FASTag sticker. And, here is an Indian scientist who is at the core of both, almost unknown to everyone. That is not all. Totally orthogonal to wireless and semiconductors, Bose also happens to be the father of biophysics and some of the very latest research areas like plant neurobiology, plant cognition, etc. He also happens to be the first Indian scientist of the modern times, and the first Indian professor of Science in India. My ignorance about Bose pulled me to knowing him more, learning about him more, reading his papers, his books, his lectures.</p><p>But what attracted me more is not Bose the scientist – the Nobel Laureate CV Raman, the other Bose of the Bose-Einstein fame, the Rocket Boys Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai are much more celebrated scientists. What attracted me more was the man that JC Bose was, a scientist who hunted tigers in the Terai jungles, rode horses, participated in rowing competitions on the Cam River in Cambridge, was an avid Himalayan trekker and the writer of the first-ever Himalayan travelogue in any language, and especially the time he lived in, and the people around him. As Charles Dickens said, it is the best of times, it is the worst of times: the timeline of my book – mainly between 1890 and 1911. </p><p>The British empire is past its zenith – the Boer War in South Africa almost brought them to their knees. For the first time in more than a hundred years, they were on the verge of losing a war, and that was the beginning of the end of the Empire. The same is happening in their science. For centuries it has been British science that has ruled the world with the Newtons, the Maxwells, the Faradays, and the Kelvins. But suddenly now there is German science, Italian science too. In geopolitics, the British as well as European Empires are battling for global domination and hurtling unwittingly towards devastating wars, leading to the First World War in a decade. Bose’s life is some sort of a mirror of what’s happening around the world, every major event having a bearing on him in some way or the other.</p><p>Back home, the Swadeshi movement took shape, with the Partition of Bengal in 1905. Here, Bose emerges as a Universalist, Pacifist, and advocate of self-rule or self-reliance not through terrorism and violence, but through science and innovation. Incidentally, the British have made all efforts to deprive Indians of scientific research and innovation, the very thing that has catapulted the West to a sudden growth trajectory.</p><p>I felt awareness about Bose, what he did, and what he stood for are more relevant now than it was perhaps during his lifetime. Unfortunately, there’s very little written about him for a non-academic audience. Hence the urge to write a bio that would go under his skin and reveal the man with all his virtues and vices.</p><p>[Shevlin] Why do you think Bose is almost forgotten now? As you mentioned, eminent psychologist Ashis Nandy termed Bose a “lapsed scientist.” Why is it so?</p><p>[Sudipto] It’s an act of serendipity that the person who was one of the two most popular Indians in the West – the other being Tagore – in the 1920s was suddenly forgotten both in the West and in his own country – India. My book is meant to delve into this. </p><p>It’s well acknowledged now that Bose was a co-inventor of radio, alongside Marconi and Nikola Tesla. In fact, Tesla was granted priority over Marconi in what became the first-ever patent litigation to have reached the Supreme Court in the US in the 1940s – by then both Marconi and Tesla were already dead. In the 1990s, it was proved beyond doubt that Marconi, in his much-publicized first trans-Atlantic wireless transmission between Cornwall in South West England and Newfoundland in Canada in 1901, had actually used Tesla’s transmitter and Bose’s receiver. How the Marconi Company managed to propagate a totally different narrative for so long is indeed a chilling account of all that an extractive and monopolistic institution can do in collusion with a corrupt and duped government machinery, in this case, the British. National Geographic did an investigative story recently that had the other wireless companies in the world not been so threatened by the Marconi Company of costly legal battles that had already killed most of the competition distress calls from Titanic fitted with Marconi wireless could have been picked up by non-Marconi wireless sets from the nearby German ships, which didn’t even dare to read a Marconi-wireless message.</p><p>But interestingly, Bose was not forgotten because of Marconi. Tesla was, till he was resurrected in the 1980s. Bose was forgotten because of many things, and his own countrymen, too, played a role in it. I personally feel he himself was responsible to a great extent for his own oblivion. First and foremost was perhaps his over-dependence on this remarkable and multi-faceted personality, Sister Nivedita, Margaret Noble, who shielded him like a child to such an extent from the external world that when she suddenly died in 1911, Bose was left almost orphan for the rest of his life. Had she been alive, things would have been totally different.</p><p>[Shevlin] Talking about Sister Nivedita, a few people played a very important role in Bose’s life. They include Sr. Nivedita, Sara Chapman Bull, Swami Vivekananda, and Tagore. What were their influences on Bose?</p><p>[Sudipto] Sister Nivedita’s influence on Bose was paramount, as was Mrs. Sara Chapman Bull’s, both western disciples of Swami Vivekananda – Nivedita Irish and Mrs. Bull American, a rich widow of the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull. Ashis Nandy, elder brother of Pritish Nandy, did Bose’s psycho-analysis. He concluded that both Sister Nivedita and Mrs. Bull filled the void of a much-needed tender but tough mother figure that Bose’s mother had been in his life. Bose’s relationship with these two women – Nivedita a decade younger than him and Mrs Bull close to a decade older – raised eyebrows after Mrs Bull’s death. Leading newspapers and tabloids in the US ran titillating stories about them. That Bose called Mrs. Bull Mother, and Nivedita privately referred to Bose as her “child” added enough fodder to these stories.</p><p>In reality, these two women created a safety net around Bose. It was only under Mrs. Bull’s persuasion that he finally agreed to file a few patents, making her his co-applicant. Sister Nivedita acted as Bose’s secretary, editor, and even writer, to a great extent, of most of his papers till she lived – Bose would often demonstrate an experiment to Nivedita and she would then write the paper. She promoted Bose vociferously in the West, as she did for Swami Vivekananda as well. She pursued leading journalists in England and the US to write favourably about Bose. She fought with anyone who said anything not-so-good about him. She once wrote to the manager of a hotel, where Bose was supposed to stay in the US, insisting that the manager ensure Bose, being unaccustomed to the American ways, didn’t face any problem, whatsoever. </p><p>I think Bose was so much used to this pampering and caregiving that when both the women died almost simultaneously, he never managed to deal with many worldly things alone – one of those being creating followers that would keep him alive, and carry on with his unfinished tasks. Even the eponymous Bose Institute that he founded didn’t have a battalion of his followers. So, he faded away soon.</p><p>Tagore was Bose’s closest friend for many years, though they drifted apart a bit later in their lives. Bose made Nivedita translate one of Tagore’s short stories, making that his first work to be translated into English. In fact, Tagore started writing short stories when Bose demanded he create one every day during one of Bose’s trips to Shilaidaha, Tagore’s estate in Bangladesh. Both the poet and the scientist strongly felt that India must be awakened with tales of selfless love and heroic sacrifices found in old ballads, fables and mythologies from all across the country. They sifted through Buddhist, Maratha, and Sikh histories and thus came into being “Katha,” an anthology of long poems curated from all ages and regions of India, perhaps the first of its kind intended to integrate the whole country through a common cultural thread. That was also a template for what the Indian resistance should be – not through arms or terrorism or hatred, but through inner strength, self-reliance, resilience, selflessness, sacrifices, and love. Tagore dedicated “Katha” to Bose.</p><p>[Shevlin] What was Bose’s view of the Swadeshi Movement, and the Partition of Bengal in 1905? </p><p>[Sudipto] Bose believed that science and innovation were the keys to self-reliance. Complimenting that was Tagore’s idea of a self-reliant, self-driven, self-sustained Swadeshi Samaj, built on the foundations of true education that would arouse and awaken inner strength, self-esteem, determination and righteousness. Bose fought through his entire career trying to convince the British administration to set up a world-class physical laboratory in Presidency College. It’s really incredible that at a time when the Swadeshi Movement was taking shape in the aftermath of the Partition of Bengal in 1905, and people were starting to seriously think of liberation from British rule, Bose was thinking of liberation in the form of autonomy and self-reliance through science and innovation. It’s well known now that powerful and prosperous nations like the US, France, Germany, Japan, and others are so only because of their edge over others in science and innovation. India’s track record in scientific innovation is abysmal, which poses a big threat towards making India a self-reliant and powerful nation. We’ve become the service provider to the world, but for many of the basic things, for example, the semiconductors, of which Bose holds the first patent in the world, we can’t but rely on others. Bose’s thrust on scientific innovation is still relevant and remains the only solution for many of India’s problems.</p><p>[Shevlin] Did science become a mainstream subject in India, because of Bose, as you have said?</p><p>[Sudipto] Yes, that’s true. Higher studies in science wouldn’t have been possible in India without Bose. The Imperial British Government allowed Indians to study medicine, engineering, law, and civil service because all that was needed to run the government machinery. But, science, they already knew, would make the Indians innovative, and self-reliant. Hence, that was very tactfully kept out of reach. There was no employment for a science grad, as is evident from the fact that C V Raman, with a degree in science, came to Calcutta to work as an assistant accountant general in the Indian Finance Department. Presidency College finally got its first laboratory when Bose was on the verge of retirement. Bose made science a mainstream subject and profession.</p><p>[Shevlin] You talk a lot about Prana, the universal energy? Can you elaborate a bit on it in the context of Bose’s works?</p><p>[Sudipto] <i>Prana</i> in Indian philosophy is the universal energy, complimenting <i>Akasha</i>, the universal matter. Modern concepts of matter and energy and the fact that both are convertible to one another ushered in the quantum age, with Einstein’s famous E = mc2 equation, which came into being in 1905. 12 years before that, Vivekananda had met Nikola Tesla in Chicago, where Vivekananda delivered his world-famous lecture at the World Religion Conference and Tesla lighted the entire city with AC for the first time. Both Tesla and Vivekananda were attracted towards each other and would have discussed Prana and Akasha. Referring to these interactions, Vivekananda later wrote in a letter that Tesla believed he could demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are reducible to potential energy, which, given the pre-Einstein era, was actually incredible. That was perhaps the first time someone was talking about the convertibility of matter and energy before Einstein. Vivekananda saw in Tesla a scientific validation of Indian concepts from the <i>Vedas</i> and <i>Upanishads</i>. </p><p>When Vivekananda met Bose a few years later, he became a major inspiration for Bose for connecting science with the Indian Knowledge System. Being a firm believer in Advaita Vedanta, like Tagore, Aurobindo and many others, the driving force behind Bose’s science became this verse from the <i>Rig Veda</i>: <i>Ekam sat, vipra bahudha vadanti,</i> only “One” exists, and the wise call it variously. Simplistically put, it means, whether it’s the energy or matter, it’s all “That One,” Tat Ekam. This gave Bose a sort of purpose for his science, to prove, with elaborate experiments, that plants and also sentient beings, to a great extent like humans and animals, and that it’s our ignorance that we are not able to realize that. That plants can also have some form of consciousness, might not be at the same level as humans, was a radical thought 125 years ago, but not anymore as “Plant Cognition” is a mainstream thing now. Back then, when Bose started talking about all this, many secular scientists, and even non-scientific people, felt that he was dragging Indian spirituality and philosophy too much into the realm of science. This became a nemesis for him, distancing him from the scientific fraternity. And, there was no one to fight for him after Nivedita.</p><p>In today’s world of Artificial Intelligence and the fear about what might become of the world when machines become “conscious,” Bose’s views on intelligence and consciousness are very relevant. But we might not have time to discuss that today – some other time.</p><div><br /></div></div>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-41351015278749801922021-04-30T19:55:00.004+05:302021-04-30T20:34:19.769+05:30Karwaan Banta Gaya – The Initiative That Grew by Itself<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlL8U2v0vpCW8Q4GPqCoKNSkHhBonfoZ2FWAJElb14hiflk71nPHmymHNNdxRRLZJHEMV_vKd1D5mDw4lGCOlnDx9KmTLo2Q9NxG3ae2d2PZBFniaGWrBEKal1rpFjPVoI8PjOwjOzKoE/s452/Picture+5.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlL8U2v0vpCW8Q4GPqCoKNSkHhBonfoZ2FWAJElb14hiflk71nPHmymHNNdxRRLZJHEMV_vKd1D5mDw4lGCOlnDx9KmTLo2Q9NxG3ae2d2PZBFniaGWrBEKal1rpFjPVoI8PjOwjOzKoE/s16000/Picture+5.png" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">With the immediate enforcement of the nationwide lockdown in March 2020, we had been pondering how we could help so many stranded people. Images of migrant workers trekking hundreds of kilometres, abandoning the cities they no longer felt like home any more, carrying with them whatever they had in life, carrying even little babies in their arms – babies that might not even survive the ordeal – drove us crazy. There had to be a solution. Then we saw even more pathetic scenes of thousands of people thronging central kitchens set up by the governments or NGOs, waiting hours for meals. The exodus and the crowded feeding centres both defeated the very purpose of the lockdown. It was a matter of great concern what the outcome of this could be – the virus which had been predominantly an urban phenomenon till then could soon ravage the hinterlands of India. That was when we started thinking backwards, like reverse engineering and finding out what the root cause of all these could be.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">After some introspection and brainstorming, a few interesting things emerged. The exodus was not caused because a huge number of people had been suddenly rendered homeless. It was not caused because of any fear – like what happens in the case of communal riots or pogroms. It was also not caused due to any natural calamity which suddenly rendered a place totally unliveable. It was caused only because, suddenly, with no cash in hand, millions of daily wage earners staying away from home were feeling alienated, lonesome, and helpless too, with no one to share their pains of hunger, and the uncertainties about the immediate future. Under such circumstances, it's but natural to yearn for their kin back home who could at least cry with them, die with them, if need be.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">So now there were two problems – one of hunger, and the other of the chance of rapid spreading of the virus through the mass movements. It’s very obvious that the first was the root cause of the exodus the second its immediate fatal outcome. The foremost thing that came to our mind then was the immediate need for feeding the hungry people and hence the central kitchens and arrangements for massive food distribution appeared logical. Even, for the sake of argument, if we assumed that the million people would be picked up from their homes during the lockdown, taken to the central kitchens, fed, and then again dropped back home, all the time maintaining social distancing, and all the desirable standards of hygiene, still, it was not just feasible to prepare so much food on a daily basis.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">But in all these, we had been missing a very simple fact that these stranded millions actually didn’t need cooked food. Most of them already had cooking arrangements wherever they had been staying and could very well do good if only the local neighbourhood grocers they had been going to all these days gave them their daily provisions on debt. We can’t blame the local grocers, who are more often than not, people of meagre means, as their concerns for unrecoverable bad debts, given the situation, are indeed true. The ideal solution would have been the government transferring some money to the bank accounts of the affected people so that they could go about buying the necessary items and sustaining their lives. But that won’t happen overnight and would involve a lot of hiccups too, even if we assumed that everyone had a bank account, which is not the case anyway. So, what could be done next? That was when it just flashed into our minds that we could apply the age-old tried and tested method of Divide and Conquer, something that we had anyway got used to over the past few centuries of British and then Indian rules.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">We thought of conquering the macro problem of million people at the city level by dividing it into the hyper micro problems of only a few hundred in each neighbourhood. Looking around in our own neighbourhood we figured out that we could very well pull in some money from our neighbours and pay the local grocery stores for the daily provisions of the people stranded around us. As the amount needed was not much, we managed to raise the fund in a few hours, talk to the affected people about their basic requirements, negotiate a good rate with the local grocer and come up with a unit packet containing the basic provisions for a family of 4-5 people including kids to sustain for two days.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The unit packet, we settled for, contained two kilograms of rice, half a kilogram each of dal, potato and onion, half a litre of cooking oil, a packet of biscuit, some green chilies and one soap. After some negotiation, the grocer was ready to give it at 250 bucks.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Then we paid the shop through one of the digital payment apps, and requested one person from each family to collect the packet directly from the shop. This served several purposes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Firstly, it ensured that no one had to travel beyond a few hundred metres, thus not violating the norms of the lockdown or social distancing.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Secondly, it ensured that we didn't have to bother much about the logistics at all, thus making the entire process very simple. Our delivery channel, practically, was the existing retail supply chain, which was very much functional all over the country, even during the lockdown, and was delivering the stock regularly even to the smallest of the kirana shops, thus keeping the last mile connectivity intact everywhere, irrespective of everything. Any other delivery channel would be much less efficient and ineffective, both from the point of view of coverage and speed, compared to the supply chain of these shops.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Thirdly, it ensured that there were no middlemen and that the packets reached directly the ones they were meant for.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Finally, it ensured that there wouldn’t be any wastage, as we had given a limited quantity which would exhaust in two days.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">That was how we started with twenty families around Sarjapur Road in Bangalore. As the words spread around that we had been able to deliver raw materials to more than a hundred people without much ado, and more importantly, without anyone violating any social distancing norm, our friends gave us contacts of more stranded people, from their neighbourhood. All we had to do was just talk to the local grocer, negotiate the cost of the unit packet and get it collected by one member per family.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In less than a day, we reached out to close to 150 people, across Bangalore. We felt this was indeed a viable model which could be replicated very easily in any neighbourhood. Our learnings from the entire exercise could be well leveraged by anyone interested in replicating the model. If every neighbourhood had at least one person taking this initiative, the entire problem could be solved in just a day.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The beauty of this simple model is as follows:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Very minimal movement, no breaking the lockdown, no logistics,</b> no hassles, and very minimal planning. Any other form of delivery system would involve much more movement, crowding, and engagement of people, either on the side of the volunteers or that of the beneficiaries, thus endangering the safety and security of both. In our model, only one person from each group or family needed to go out to the nearest grocery store and collect the provisions for two days, whenever it was convenient.</li><li><b>Immediate delivery of essential food items</b> to people who needed them the most. There was no long and indefinite wait, crowding at the roads or at the central distribution centres.</li><li><b>Minimal scope of leakage or hoarding</b> as we gave provisions to each family or group of 4-5 people only for two days.</li><li><b>Limited chance of fraudulence</b>, as one of us always identified and authenticated each of the beneficiaries, either in person, if they were in the same neighbourhood, or through a few phone calls and some basic fact-checking. We tried to ensure, to a great extent, that we were indeed reaching out to the right people who really were in dire need. In the course of a few days, we put in place a few simple checks and balances, like insisting on two pictures (sent through WhatsApp) each of the packets collected, one at the shop, with the shopkeeper, as the proof that the packet had been really collected from the shop, and the other with the rest of the family or group, as the proof that the person who collected the packet had really taken it home. Any lapse in this was dealt with very strictly, with immediate disqualification not only of the violating family or the group but of the entire cluster it belonged to, thus holding every family or group as a guarantee against each other.</li><li><b>The model was simple enough to be scaled and/or replicated</b> by anyone in her locality.</li><li><b>Finally, the entire model maintained the safety and dignity of the beneficiaries</b>, by not compelling them to queue up for receiving the daily provisions or wait indefinitely in its anticipation.</li></ol></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Thus, applying the rudimentary concepts of networked, distributed, hyper-local supply chain management, taking some cue from the ideas of Bangladeshi Nobel laureate Professor Yunus’ microfinance model, and finally, ensuring the basic principles of social distancing, we were able to reach out to around 8500 people across seven states, taking care of more than 4.5 lakh meals in a span of 45 days.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgXSL9sRCJdBaV4ZpCY1II0enzuPNLPXmeyS4IEMfh6ldtLdgsl6Adnzot5rYy32aJ7bRfQyXAmQkZWiTPNt4-VdgNuHC-E7sc6Ckeb7n1ro3hrNAWjLHQG7668kG_pJxQ-hXNFlyIYZ0/s495/Picture+1.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="468" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgXSL9sRCJdBaV4ZpCY1II0enzuPNLPXmeyS4IEMfh6ldtLdgsl6Adnzot5rYy32aJ7bRfQyXAmQkZWiTPNt4-VdgNuHC-E7sc6Ckeb7n1ro3hrNAWjLHQG7668kG_pJxQ-hXNFlyIYZ0/w378-h400/Picture+1.png" width="378" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbtbXjOUCjTmRXZg7XhJd-kpZKX8kH2EVkqWmgoU7wpVLzopwyUjWOZY95bF7hOQFwx3utOkqrfBg_k2Zqi9JAZ3KjXHIPo8kNoNXSlS4t9CkQbzMapsHjpqy_hm8gakMPfqLoKmMyPY/s608/Picture+3.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="452" data-original-width="608" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbtbXjOUCjTmRXZg7XhJd-kpZKX8kH2EVkqWmgoU7wpVLzopwyUjWOZY95bF7hOQFwx3utOkqrfBg_k2Zqi9JAZ3KjXHIPo8kNoNXSlS4t9CkQbzMapsHjpqy_hm8gakMPfqLoKmMyPY/w400-h297/Picture+3.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">We had started with reaching out only to the stranded migrant workers, but soon we were helping daily wagers like cab drivers, skilled factory workers, plumbers, electricians, and employees in the wellness, hospitality, and entertainment industries, who were not all daily wagers but had lost their wages immediately with the lockdown, petty musicians and singers who thrive on performing in trains, temples and other places, tribal rag pickers, residents of shelter-homes for orphans and senior citizens, poor villagers who live on running little errands and odd jobs, and many others.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdZ_j6bib1HRroww9EwNiEjFD6QCJcbBTM2-6dV_w_tXshyUtqa8mmD50-mB5xKLQ7-nEIBKF0Yx7pvXmHFZtgz16Y-agSagFl78ZPwuH-HjTsT5hCI-r6pGkbMqpmHWo_GoQT1WjW10Y/s906/Picture+2.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="906" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdZ_j6bib1HRroww9EwNiEjFD6QCJcbBTM2-6dV_w_tXshyUtqa8mmD50-mB5xKLQ7-nEIBKF0Yx7pvXmHFZtgz16Y-agSagFl78ZPwuH-HjTsT5hCI-r6pGkbMqpmHWo_GoQT1WjW10Y/w400-h265/Picture+2.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Beginning on 30th March 2020, Day Zero, with a small amount pulled in between neighbours and friends, the initiative grew day by day. The last payment was done on the 60th day, 29th May.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">This year, in 2021, when the problem has taken a totally different turn, we’ve taken up delivering medicines and O<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> concentrators, too, at doorsteps, across India, through our unique, well-tested model – no logistics, no warehousing, no crowding, no hoarding, no violation of any Covid guidelines.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In the case of O<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span> concentrators, which cost upwards of INR 75K each, we get the equipment shipped directly to the health centres, preferably small non-government rural establishments known to any one of us, so that we could check to a great extent any misuse, fraudulence or malpractice.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>For international payment</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lnkd.in/gqYtGeb">https://lnkd.in/gqYtGeb</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>For domestic UPI payment</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="mailto:205712010000093@UBIN0820571.ifsc.npci">205712010000093@UBIN0820571.ifsc.npci</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>For Bank Transfer</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Account name: Kalpataru</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Account no: 205712010000093</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">IFSC- UBIN0820571</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">SWIFT Code: UBININBBCHG</div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://youtu.be/Xq4rfgXpleo" target="_blank"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Xq4rfgXpleo" width="320" youtube-src-id="Xq4rfgXpleo"></iframe></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Media Coverage</i></div><div><br /></div><div><div><a href="https://www.thehindu.com/society/an-apartment-in-bengaluru-is-distributing-groceries-to-daily-wage-earners/article31237291.ece">https://www.thehindu.com/society/an-apartment-in-bengaluru-is-distributing-groceries-to-daily-wage-earners/article31237291.ece</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/calcutta/coronavirus-lockdown-ration-without-queues-for-needy-in-east-midnapore/cid/1771539">https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/calcutta/coronavirus-lockdown-ration-without-queues-for-needy-in-east-midnapore/cid/1771539</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/metrolife/metrolife-cityscape/networked-kitchens-add-to-relief-efforts-825319.html">https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/metrolife/metrolife-cityscape/networked-kitchens-add-to-relief-efforts-825319.html</a></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://thisweekindia.news/article/an-initiative-by-residents-of-bangalore/23874">https://thisweekindia.news/article/an-initiative-by-residents-of-bangalore/23874</a></div></div></div>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-31035912361051467652021-02-19T00:12:00.003+05:302021-02-19T00:43:26.861+05:30Abhyuday<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtZJUFsAqW4jDkLZrtIkmEEPG8qFz1EoCs1w2mQ-B_HovU39ef2uzT5kDHhjZ926e-OuSQbqz3e9pU7rEqgcmIV42SF9XW0gkNbUxvQzh5XX3liQeK0KZneQuTcmLPc7-CO7tobKu3g0o/s2048/Abhuday+Logo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1578" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtZJUFsAqW4jDkLZrtIkmEEPG8qFz1EoCs1w2mQ-B_HovU39ef2uzT5kDHhjZ926e-OuSQbqz3e9pU7rEqgcmIV42SF9XW0gkNbUxvQzh5XX3liQeK0KZneQuTcmLPc7-CO7tobKu3g0o/s320/Abhuday+Logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p>Swami Vivekananda said that education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man. As a nation is built with her people, the more educated they are, the more perfect the nation. Conversely, lack of education is perhaps the starkest national imperfection.</p><p>According to <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Why-children-drop-out-from-primary-school/article16792949.ece" target="_blank">data</a> put out by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the national dropout rate at the primary level was 4.34 percent in 2014-15, and it was even higher at the secondary level, at 17.86 percent. As per a <a href="https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000266057" target="_blank">paper</a> commissioned by UNESCO for the 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report, the dropout at the secondary level could be a whopping 36 million, close to Canada’s population. More than half of those have actually dropped out because they had to start working and earn a living. Child labour’s compulsion remains one of the main reasons for dropout when a child grows big enough for heavy work. </p><p>The compulsion is perhaps more for the migrant labourers’ children. The indication comes from the UNESCO paper. The 2011 Census data points out that the proportion of dropout in urban boys aged between 15 and 19 years among construction workers – the majority of them are migrant labourers – is 16% more than the national average in the same age group. Age-specific Attendance Ratio (AAR) has been found to be lower in the outmigration prone districts as compared to others. That the AAR for rural boys in West Bengal and Orissa aged between 15 and 19 years is among the lowest in India is perhaps not surprising when it’s recalled that the rural population from both states comprise a good chunk of the migrant workforce across India.</p><p>Despite the well-intended initiatives like RTE, many non-working kids of the migrant workers cannot go to regular schools because they are always moving. Even the government schools are not flexible enough to accommodate them. And for the older kids, who more often than not land up being child labourers, regular day schools are out of the question. It’s quite evident that all enforcement against child labour hasn’t eradicated the problem. So, it’s better to accept the reality and work out something that could tackle the issue in a different way.</p><p>That’s where the concept of free and informal Evening Schools, or rather coaching centres, seems apt. A regular school needs to follow a particular curriculum and operate under certain norms, which might not suit migrant kids. Moreover, it will be out of reach to the child labourers, who spend the whole day working and running errands. Tailor-made evening classes would solve all the problems. The parents would be encouraged to send their kids to the evening classes as that would neither hamper their day-work if they are working nor require the ordeal of seeking admission in the local schools through RTE or otherwise.</p><p>Kalpataru has started the Abhyuday Evening Schools under its Sanjh Ki Kiran initiative precisely for this reason. The idea is to utilise the existing setup and resources as much as possible and fill in some gaps to create a self-sustaining system that is beneficial to the kids who need it the most. In many places, we seek permission from the concerned authorities to use the government primary schools for the evening classes. We employ local teachers, predominantly young women, often students themselves, studious and hardworking, for whom a steady monthly income would go a long way in making them self-reliant and confident. This is directly linked to Kalpataru’s mission to work towards women’s wellness and empowerment.</p><p>The evening classes could evolve into many different things in the future. They could become places for vocational training for women, awareness camps, or simply women health centres.</p><p>Vivekananda interpreted abhyuday as uday, the awakening, of the abhi, the fearlessness. It symbolises the enkindling of the fire within, arousing the inner strength, and conquering the darkness of despair and hopelessness with the light of education.</p><p>Paraphrasing what Kofi Annan, a former Secretary-General of the United Nations, had once said, it could be asserted that education is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty and a building block of development. It is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity.</p><p>Abhyuday is a humble effort at empowering the challenged with the strength and ammunition of education.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FbVw0by0nM4mMkaS-OXb_IbaNFtsoJ1mVqN1Z0VmdDg_VQbKmfM9tYPe9F6k4vAvVdPei7Wdmo2L__GSNVv55Yoa7agffQAdBJ4HF3ticcI5jJzAc1xP_ZcUHsWxpWqQnAd1Hr6yVYc/s1080/b4de46d5-9ecb-44a6-aeb2-dc73d58ca865.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FbVw0by0nM4mMkaS-OXb_IbaNFtsoJ1mVqN1Z0VmdDg_VQbKmfM9tYPe9F6k4vAvVdPei7Wdmo2L__GSNVv55Yoa7agffQAdBJ4HF3ticcI5jJzAc1xP_ZcUHsWxpWqQnAd1Hr6yVYc/w640-h640/b4de46d5-9ecb-44a6-aeb2-dc73d58ca865.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-34024007081006029792021-02-19T00:08:00.001+05:302021-02-19T00:23:05.062+05:30Sanjh Ki Kiran<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg92Sq4obCSOG84Cp1HpL8IdI2eU-SENEXFHlY_xz6-UeUOFQlPgnvHs-AY-tBvUmWqFIrdI7HkaqEsDUEcAKJpBie_wlbkjOeJMLl7jz8hEKDwZzEalh5c5zmEmgr7GtyzCZY384bBo-8/s3910/Sanjh+Ki+Kiran+Logo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="3910" height="83" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg92Sq4obCSOG84Cp1HpL8IdI2eU-SENEXFHlY_xz6-UeUOFQlPgnvHs-AY-tBvUmWqFIrdI7HkaqEsDUEcAKJpBie_wlbkjOeJMLl7jz8hEKDwZzEalh5c5zmEmgr7GtyzCZY384bBo-8/w400-h83/Sanjh+Ki+Kiran+Logo.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p>In Indian philosophy, Kalpataru is a Wishing Tree, a tree that can fulfil all our wishes. Kalpataru Trust is a not-for-profit organization working at the national level towards creating a greener world, where the women would have better health, the children better education and the people, affected by the sudden wrath of nature, some basic aids to survive the turmoil. The members of Kalpataru strive to fulfil some of the basic needs, if not all the wishes, of the people around us. Our means are limited, but our dreams are boundless. <p></p><p>We strongly feel that if everyone were adequately educated, we would have a self-reliant and capable world, atma nirbhar and sakshama. With this resolve, Kalpatru launched an initiative, Sanjh Ki Kiran, across India. Under the aegis of this initiative, the first evening school, Abhyuday, was inaugurated at Suneheri village, Kurukshetra, Haryana, on 29 November 2020.</p><p>The Abhyuday evening schools across the country would be like Sanjh ki Kiran, which would keep the darkness of incompetence away, even after the sun has gone down. Swami Vivekananda would say that education is that which brings out the best within us. It’s like the nurturing that makes a tiny seedling grow into a big Ashwatha tree, even the mighty Kalptaru. Without the gardener’s nurturing, even a Kalpataru might not grow to its fullest potential – the wrath of nature could consume it. We want to create the gardens and the gardeners to help today’s kids blossom like an Ashwatha, like a Kalpataru of the future. </p><p>To make India atma nirbhar and sakshama, every kid of today should have a proper education. The evening schools would cater to the children of the migrant labourers and others who are economically challenged and who cannot afford to send their kids to coaching classes or good schools. Thus, these kids are deprived of the essential ammunition to fight poverty in the long run and the keys to better lives. The evening schools are meant to fill in the gaps in the education for these kids, thus nurturing them to become atma nirbhar citizens of India. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisOEeZ2odBfRihyphenhyphenOJrkqhw907ZYEUP41tegYUXtj4nUoU00QEF7rlRcm3HnVnGQ_o5PA4LIWD4KTC4y5-8sos3zYKX4JIe-ig1vHUj_jveZf73uCu_SgxyCVHDN553f3xax1Aq8M7N7Vk/s1280/7ad3eda1-607c-467b-9f17-ca05599547b9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="731" data-original-width="1280" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisOEeZ2odBfRihyphenhyphenOJrkqhw907ZYEUP41tegYUXtj4nUoU00QEF7rlRcm3HnVnGQ_o5PA4LIWD4KTC4y5-8sos3zYKX4JIe-ig1vHUj_jveZf73uCu_SgxyCVHDN553f3xax1Aq8M7N7Vk/w640-h366/7ad3eda1-607c-467b-9f17-ca05599547b9.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div><br /></div>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-1081603172681253472021-02-19T00:05:00.004+05:302021-02-19T00:05:58.509+05:30Kalpataru<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAZSUnSwJ9yXLxlCqxAe8aCSE9CdSLrK6jsMLwcIX48Sva_gYNBWCcDoCfImrm-FhaasYnVZA4rYpEA2G_dYrpJ3QC-Pir0svv3egP7_bn5w8X24WOlcRjeM5nTCdXD_2GoMPOviKwGlI/s2048/Kalpataru+Logo+Variant+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1988" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAZSUnSwJ9yXLxlCqxAe8aCSE9CdSLrK6jsMLwcIX48Sva_gYNBWCcDoCfImrm-FhaasYnVZA4rYpEA2G_dYrpJ3QC-Pir0svv3egP7_bn5w8X24WOlcRjeM5nTCdXD_2GoMPOviKwGlI/s320/Kalpataru+Logo+Variant+1.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In Indian philosophy, Kalpataru is a Wishing Tree, a bountiful source that can fulfil humanity’s wishes. At Kalpataru, we strive to meet some of the basic needs, if not all wishes, of people around us. Our means are limited. But our dreams are boundless. We have an undying conviction that if we all sacrificed a bit of our energy, resource and time, we would collectively amass enough to make some difference to society, spread some happiness, dispel some gloom. We envision a greener world, where the women would have better health, the children better education, and the people, affected by the sudden wrath of nature, some basic aids to survive the turmoil.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Our Vision: To create a self-sustaining greener world, where the women are empowered and children educated</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Our Motto: तेन त्यक्तेन भुञ्जीथा, We Rejoice with What Has Been Sacrificed</div></div><p><br /></p>Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-30447784806863725802019-12-25T19:47:00.002+05:302019-12-25T19:47:48.811+05:30Protests Against Exclusion Are Themselves Becoming Exclusionist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0m4ZV8DE90isUKVkuPlPTHvSb21XsiDZB81PdoUSQr3tyHDF3tbN4dujecAagCJfxaNED6xuN6zxqTG9ie8mlo41TwmGN_znMVr-S9Ot8RpXKmMdallS89ul-2QJI1OXEdRQujtyQEV0/s1600/1.12-2.sized-770x415xc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="770" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0m4ZV8DE90isUKVkuPlPTHvSb21XsiDZB81PdoUSQr3tyHDF3tbN4dujecAagCJfxaNED6xuN6zxqTG9ie8mlo41TwmGN_znMVr-S9Ot8RpXKmMdallS89ul-2QJI1OXEdRQujtyQEV0/s640/1.12-2.sized-770x415xc.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Isn’t it true that the protests against CAA are turning into
what they are against – exclusion? The rhetoric seems to be, “If you’re with
me, you’re good, else you’re a fascist, neo-patriot, Nazi sympathizer, Muslim
hater, Islam phobic.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Most writers had once threatened to withdraw from the
Bangalore Lit Fest if Vikram Sampath, who was not vocal enough in his support for
their “Award Wapsi” movement, was involved in any capacity. He soon resigned
from the organizing committee of the fest and everyone was fine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Do you see the contradiction – the side that’s protesting
against exclusion is also excluding anyone who doesn’t align with their views.
So how different are they from what they are protesting against? <o:p></o:p></div>
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There’s a huge number of people (yes, it’s true – in a
country with 1.5 billion people a few hundred thousand protesters is not
significant), like me, who are not driven by any specific agenda, neither do
they believe in the Hindutva rhetoric the current government talks about, but
still support the Citizen Amendment Act. It’s very important for the people who
are protesting against the act to understand the views of the other side. Dismissing
all of them could be very detrimental to very cause of all the protests, and
will yield very limited results, other than some moral victory in limited intellectual
and liberal forum worldwide.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Unless the side protesting listens to all other voices, they’re
doing the same mistake the government is also doing – being exclusionist. If they
think everyone with a different view is a fascist and exclude all of them from their
crusade, they’re also creating another Frankenstein the present government is
creating too, by alienating all that don’t agree to them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There’s a huge resentment on the other side too and that
must also be considered, without calling them names. There’s indeed a growing concern
that the persecuted Hindus have often been ignored in the name of equality, as
though, showing sympathy to them would tantamount to being communal. What
saddens them is an apparent lack of sympathy to the Hindus of the Indian
subcontinent, who are among the most persecuted religious minorities in the
world after the Jews (2.5 million of them were killed by the Pakistan Army alone
in East Pakistan between 1947 and 1971). The plight of the Hindus from East Pakistan
have been totally forgotten. Same is the case with the Kashmiri Pandits –
everyone condemns the Indian state and the Army for the plight for the Kashmiris
but very rarely have we seen any condemnation of what actually caused the
problem – the total eviction of the minority Pandits from the valley. Not only
that, people are out citing facts to “prove” that the Hindus were never
persecuted in Pakistan – isn’t it ridiculous? Whom are we ignoring? What are we
trying to prove? What will become of such movements when you exclude one big
community who needs the most sympathy?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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People who are supporting the CAA have their personal
reasons for doing so, from their lived experience. Aren’t they absolutely entitled
to that?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Just because one Amit shah or Modi speak in a language not
acceptable even to them that are supporting the CAA, the side not supporting
the act can’t ignore the emotive context totally, in their angst against the
government. But sadly, that’s what is happening. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s not that anyone’s support for CAA means she is
indifferent of the follies of the current government, like lynching, mob
attacks, the allowed devolution of language around Muslims by a certain section
of the BJP, the exalting of Hindutva in irrational and often ridiculous ways, the
repeated and prolonged internet shutdowns whenever there is dissent, suppressing
counter voices critical to the government, among many others. But again, the Abrogation
of the Article 370 and the Babri verdict ought to have difference of opinions and
multiple but pertinent voices, all of which can’t be bucketed simplistically
into communal and secular.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What’s happening is that, the protests seem to be turning anti
Modi-Shah, and also alienating a large section of Indian population who have
reasons to support the law, or at least the intent behind it, but not necessarily
support the government in everything they do.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are also several dichotomies and contradictions in
various things. For example, I personally support the cause of Assam and the
NE, and I believe they do have a very valid point – that their demographics is
under threat from the Bengali influx. But in the same line of thought, it could
be also argued that the demographics of Bengal is changing too, because of the
influx of a certain community from Bangladesh, who are of course not persecuted
but are being allured by the present ruling government (and also the previous) in
Bengal, just to increase their vote bank. There are many districts in Bengal
where the Indian Bengalis are in minority, like many in Assam where Assamese
are. And the problem wouldn’t have happened if things at the ground level
hadn’t been altered. Calcutta has a huge proportion of non-Bengalis but there’s
no problem because the ethos of Calcutta is still very much Bengali. But the
concern of a considerable section of Hindus in many bordering districts of
Bengal is that the natural and traditional ethos is now being altered,
forcefully by the last two governments, over the last 40 plus years. So why shouldn’t
that be a valid concern? Is ethos just linguistic? Doesn’t ethos also include
religion and culture?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Again, mob lynching is horrific. But equally horrific are
the political lynching and murders, say in Bengal – statistically the number of
political murders are more than lynching – but where’s there an outcry for
that? Is political murder less heinous? I don’t see any condemnation of that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are many such things which seem very contradictory not
only to me, but a large, actually very very large section of people, and alienating
all of them or relegating them to bigots or fascists would be quite dangerous.
Most of them are not illiterate party cadres that could be allured by a Babri
or a shallow Hindutva narrative. When many of them do support the BJP, despite all
the follies, it means something else which, unless understood by the other side
of the “fence” would never solve the problem they are seeking to solve, through
the protests.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everyone has the right to take his or her side without one
being superior or inferior to the other. It’s good that people are voicing
their views. But not everyone who’s not on one side is an enemy of the state or
for that matter not everyone on one side is saving the state. Any opinion has two
or more sides, with all reasons, and unless both/all sides maintain the
humility of not demeaning the other, there’s not much that will come out of any
initiative from the either. The government will fail and the protests too.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What we are seeing now is just calling names from both
sides. This reminds me of a Bengali poem by Annada Shankar Ray, which roughly
translates to – The Mukherjee is the king, the Mukherjees are the people. The Mukherjee
is the government the Mukherjee is the opposition. The Mukherjee is the protest
and the Mukherjee is the cop.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally, there’s also a concern about many of the protesters,
as very well pointed out in a well-researched <a href="https://theprint.in/opinion/you-cant-cancel-modi-rss-why-us-style-identity-politics-wont-help-indian-liberals-fight/">article</a>
(thankfully written by a Muslim, not a Hindu). The writer pointed out rightly,
to tackle the RSS and their politics, the opponents have to get onto the ground
and create similar levels of engagements the former have with the people. The
real problem is that the opponent, who claim themselves are progressive and the
savior of the country, is too elitist and totally disconnected from the masses.</div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-29162242211979484162019-12-24T19:23:00.001+05:302019-12-24T19:23:32.161+05:30Defending the Indefensible - by Kanishka Lahiri<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoHrMX4ATnMJwnb3KJszoaeQkIjsdWrUzRLHW4YRC8HF_K49oUpaBMK6B-lfgrvmaIJlHgi2TCFluE9BMq280WNpQ1n-_vI0Q5sW9YXG5x-dcRWa_fnmLiQ7UfeN-WbS9UUa6JiiMvKbU/s1600/Ye-bol-raha-hai-Modi-pointing-at-Amit-Shah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="660" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoHrMX4ATnMJwnb3KJszoaeQkIjsdWrUzRLHW4YRC8HF_K49oUpaBMK6B-lfgrvmaIJlHgi2TCFluE9BMq280WNpQ1n-_vI0Q5sW9YXG5x-dcRWa_fnmLiQ7UfeN-WbS9UUa6JiiMvKbU/s640/Ye-bol-raha-hai-Modi-pointing-at-Amit-Shah.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The last two weeks have seen massive and for the most part, peaceful protests in response to the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, and the repeatedly stated objective of the government to build a “National Register for Citizens” along the lines of the one recently executed with ineptitude and horrific disregard for human rights in Assam.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The protests have been unique in India’s independent history in that many of them have been led by students, civil society, and a variety of community organizations, without (in many cases) any active involvement from opposition parties. They have brought tens of thousands of ordinary people cutting across a variety of social fault lines onto the streets in a rare demonstration of solidarity to reaffirm basic constitutional ideals. Noted author Amit Chaudhuri has called these protests “such as haven’t been seen since the freedom struggle”.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I have been among those who have participated in these protests, and have witnessed them with incredulity and a gradually deepening sense of reassurance that our citizenry, including those who are comfortably insulated from these issues by virtue of their positions of social privilege, actually cares about the future and the ideals of the country. How Bangalore, where the educated classes and it’s youth, characteristically shy of stepping out of their comfort zones of shopping malls and gated communities, has stepped out on to the streets in huge numbers to be counted among those who said, “I cannot be silent any more”.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">After two weeks of these protests, on Dec 22, during an election rally for the upcoming elections to the Delhi State Assembly, the Prime Minister appeared to back down on the immediacy of the NRC, and claimed that it “has not even been discussed since 2014”. This is completely at odds with statements made by his own Home Minister, Mr Amit Shah, who as recently as on Dec 10, on the floor of the Lok Sabha said “Maan kar chaliye NRC ane wala hai” (just take it for granted that the NRC is coming). There are numerous other examples where he has connected the CAA with the NRC in rally after election rally, all of which have been well documented by several media houses, including an excellent collection by The Wire.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">While this contradiction is making headlines, what is getting less coverage is the Prime Minister comment in the same speech where he disavowed the existence of Detention Camps, and even tried to make a joke out it, suggesting with a smirk that they are the figment of the imagination of “Urban Naxals”. The truth is the construction and maintenance of detention camps have been documented at length by contemporary reportage, and even happens to be documented on the Lok Sabha’s own website. Unfortunately, in the timid news environment we live in, it seems like he will get away with it. The next day, there was only one prominent English daily that came close to calling him a liar.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">How do we explain the PM’s statement? One possibility is that we accept that there have been no formal discussions on the topic. In that case, Mr Shah has prematurely let the cat out of the bag as to the real intention behind the combination of the CAA and NRC, for which we must thank him. While the political value of such statements with respect to the BJPs vote bank is obvious, it is very hard to see how the Home Minister might have acted without tacit or explicit approval from the PM. If that reality is murky and disturbing, the alternative, which is that the PM lied in a planned speech with a potential audience of a billion people with no accountability, is horrifying.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">What these brazen denials do is further deepen the trust deficit between the government and an increasingly large section of the people. The leadership likely doesn’t care, because a multi-year project to label anyone who chooses to reject their politics and policies as a public enemy (the “urban naxals” alluded to earlier) has met with resounding success as evidenced by widespread hate on social media and the comments sections of popular national dailies that target the government’s critics.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">While the leadership may not care, a lot of people do. In the interests of accountability, a healthy democracy must always maintain a trust deficit between citizens and government. Too little trust is problematic, since various systems (e.g. the criminal justice system) rely on some level of trust. Without it we are condemned to incidents like the extra-judicial “encounter” killings of suspected rapists in Hyderabad, egged on and applauded by a worryingly large section of society. To an extent, we all need to trust government to “do the right thing”. But there is a line that separates that trust from becoming belief. “Followers” of Modi (as opposed to his “supporters” --- and it is important to make that distinction) who have “belief” in him put a host of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights that even they take for granted today, at serious risk. “Blind belief in authority”, Albert Einstein said while reflecting on times eerily similar to the present day, “is the greatest enemy of truth”.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 can be looked at in isolation, as the current leadership, taken by surprise at the severity of the push back from civil society, would have us do today. However, the more pragmatic approach right now demands that we analyze it in the context of a potential nation-wide NRC, without being beguiled by the Prime Ministers dubious and confusing reassurances.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Shekhar Gupta, a well-known journalist on his program “Cut the Clutter” described the CAA as a missile, and the NRC as a warhead that could create untold destruction. Without the CAA, the NRC is doomed to face a backlash from the Hindu vote bank no matter how the failed Assam process is tweaked. In the reality that is India, any process that is aimed at excluding potential illegal migrants will necessarily exclude large swathes of our genuine population. Tightening the norms for proving citizenship risks mass exclusion, as we have seen pitifully play out in Assam, where 2 million people are today at the risk of statelessness, and much to the horror of the BJP, 60% of them turned out to be Hindu. Those excluded face either detention camps or years of chasing the tail of our judicial system trying to prove existential legitimacy, instead of pursuing incidental goals like life, liberty, and happiness. Either way, those excluded have been condemned by the state to face severe restrictions on personal liberty, irrespective of whether they are migrants or not. Heart rending stories have been surfacing from Assam, where families have been separated: mother from child, husband from wife, on the suspicion that they are illegal immigrants. In an answer to a question in parliament, it was disclosed that 28 people have died in detention camps that current house about a 1000 people. This is a matter of public record, irrespective of what the PM may say. While this has backfired on the BJP in Assam, it is clear this would be an unmitigated disaster both socially and electorally, if it is simply scaled up to a national level.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In order to avoid this political apocalypse, one option is to loosen the norms that define citizenship; however, this risks almost everyone getting included and we will end up living as one happy nation, migrants and all. But that serves no practical or political end. (Or maybe it does, like demonetization, where “followers”, not “supporters” will say, “oh well, at least he tried”, and will overlook the Tughlaqian expenditure and monumental waste in human resources to execute the project).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Bottomline, the CAA is a critical to preventing the NRC warhead from blowing up at the front door of the BJPs newly constructed national headquarters.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">For minorities from neighbouring Islamic countries, the act does two things. First, it removes the illegal tag from their status in India. Existing rules (pre-Dec 2019) required that, irrespective of religion, you could apply for citizenship after continuous legal residence of 11 years. Second, for these minorities, the domicile requirement has been reduced to 5 years. With the loss of the illegal tag, that means any non-Muslim migrant who has lived in India for 5 years or more, automatically qualifies for citizenship irrespective of whether they were “illegal” in the first place. The same benefit does not apply to Muslim migrants even if they entered India for a variety of reasons, one of which could in fact include religious persecution. Several commentators and the so called "CAA awareness" drive of the government argues that the path to citizenship has not been taken away for them and that they can still apply using the “old rules”, happily ignoring the fact that most of them they can’t, since the onus of proving legal residence (for 11 years in their case) remains on them, while for non-Muslims, the state has taken on that burden and given them a free pass.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Now with the CAA as the law of the land (pending notification, and a potential Supreme Court ruling on its constitutionality), how should we anticipate the NRC playing out? In theory, migrant non-Muslims should have little cause for fear. However, this is not obvious, since the CAA is silent on how the migrant is, if at all, expected to prove that she is from one of the listed Islamic countries. In fact, for that matter, the CAA is silent on how the migrant, if at all, is expected to prove she is Hindu (or any one of the other exempt religions). The idea that a bureaucrat will have the power to decide for an individual whether her claim of a certain religious identity is bona fide seems like a dangerous proposition, one that is almost crying out for misuse of official power. Setting that question of identity aside, how would a migrant prove her country of origin, when she has spent years living in India, and has likely done her best to erase any evidence of having come from another country? Certain sections may have documentation, such as a school leaving certificate, or a college degree, but the vast majority will not.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Keeping the above compulsions in mind, in order to gain a politically favorable NRC result and avoid the Assam debacle on a national scale, it seems fair to hypothesize that the process will not require much formal documentation at all. After all, the correction of a historical injustice to a section of society cannot be achieved by making the same section run pillar to post of the famed Indian bureaucracy. In such a scenario, the only differentiating factor would come down to religious identity, not a combination of religious identity and country of origin. The rules will apply equally to non-migrants who will need to prove themselves to the state. In the absence of appropriate documentation, if they don’t want to be faced with the threat of detention camps, they will declare themselves as foreigners from one of those three countries, and if they are accepted by the powers that be as non-Muslim, and can show proof of domicile for 5 years (which is easier to do), they will walk through the pearly gates of the NRC. While the idea that genuine Indians may have to declare themselves as foreigners in order to remain Indian is ridiculous enough, it needs to be understood that based on the current level of information, no such escape route, contrived as it might be, is available for the average Indian Muslim.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">To counter the current protests, in recent days the government has launched a campaign to underline the fact that “genuine Indian Muslims have nothing to worry about”. However, the statements are short on detail, and do not explain why under the current CAA and envisaged NRC exercise, the possibility of mass disenfranchisement and delegitimization of Indian Muslims is not real.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">One side of this debate places faith in the government and argues that we should “wait and watch”. No government should be given that latitude, irrespective of what ideology they belong to. Silence is complicity. If you don’t want your children to ask where you were when this country took a giant stride towards a Hindu Rashtra, and till such time questions such as these remain unanswered, all those who value the principles on which this country was founded must demand that the Citizenship Amendment Act be repealed. Next, we must demand a clear public statement from the Prime Minister that the NRC will not be implemented while his government is in office.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And finally, truth matters. If either of them have any respect for the trust that the public placed in them, Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Shah must own responsibility for misleading the country on the NRC and detention camps, and must resign immediately.</span></div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-42288067257298186012019-12-22T10:27:00.004+05:302019-12-22T10:27:35.622+05:30I support the Citizen Amendment Act – And I Don’t Hate Muslims, Nor Am I a Fascist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhihUtw19Cmleea0hmdBbH6pReBCagMrBtMCYgUb-63_fpeO97h6dL7m_UZgH41aTWTnDyFk2-YHRVdpDMFe9ISv416JctV_XbEK3mLyo7s0tHnzCk8hsz3E9P4XPRo6KICFJu_syxNqZQ/s1600/Antifa-Portland-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="789" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhihUtw19Cmleea0hmdBbH6pReBCagMrBtMCYgUb-63_fpeO97h6dL7m_UZgH41aTWTnDyFk2-YHRVdpDMFe9ISv416JctV_XbEK3mLyo7s0tHnzCk8hsz3E9P4XPRo6KICFJu_syxNqZQ/s640/Antifa-Portland-.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I have always maintained that the Hindus of Bangladesh can’t
be compared with anyone else. They have all the right to be Indian citizens but
were denied that basic right earlier – they were not allowed to enter India as
a fallout of the ill-conceived Nehru-Liyaquat Pact, which is again a totally forgotten
episode now – and that resulted in them being the second largest victim of religious
persecution after the Jews (2.5 million of them were killed by the Pakistan
Army between 1947 and 1971). If I’m the citizen then they too are, and I (a
second generation of someone who just managed to enter India at the nick of
time) too could have been one of them who couldn’t enter India, or rather not
allowed to enter India. The partition made it mandatory for India to accept all
willing non-Muslim people from both East and West Pakistan – everyone from West
Pakistan was allowed to enter and only a part from East Bengal was. So the
Hindus of Bangladesh can’t be mixed with anyone else.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Something which seems default to me is not easy to explain
others. And there lies the chasm between the two sides – one who doesn’t oppose
the CAA and the one who does. The Jews have been rehabilitated worldwide. But
the second most persecuted religious community in the world is still not being
rehabilitated and we are still debating. That’s really painful. And isn’t it
just amazing that despite such level of persecution not a single of them have
yet become militant or even taken to any form of violence, both in Bangladesh
and also in India.<o:p></o:p></div>
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You may not be convinced about rehabilitation for past
wrongs at the cost of others who are very much in the present. It could be also
argued whether the Hindus not taking to militancy is amazing. You could think
of various reasons. Divisions within Hindu society, lack of leadership, lack of
support from rich diaspora from across the world, nonintervention of India, who
knows. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But still, there’s a persecuted community who were ready to
adjust to anything that came along and struggle to do whatever best they
managed to get. And today, many successful Bengalis worldwide are among those
persecuted people. It’s indeed something to study for the whole world. But they
never came to the radar of anyone. No one is asking to do any wrong to others.
I’m just saying, keep them aside and create rules for others. Don’t mix them
with other persecuted people at all. Isn’t it ironical that we are ready to
understand why someone can become militant but we say “don’t know” when there’s
an example of such a huge persecuted community who stayed away from militancy? The
Parsis and Tibetans too never became militants and they too were not less
persecuted. It’s indeed worth studying why certain people – Sri Lankan Tamils,
Maoists, Kashmiris – took to militancy but many others didn’t.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It could be argued that we could keep on theorizing about
this stuff. But the pain and suffering that people and kids are going through
right now, today, is something we are all complicit in. Just as our parents
were complicit in Nehru's mistakes. In our times if there is something I can do
to raise my voice against injustice that moves me, I will. But it should be
also agreed I can't do it for everyone. So the argument of what about the
community X in such and such place doesn't hold for me. We are not super humans
that we have to stand up for every injustice. If we raise our voice for any
cause, we believe in, I think we are being good citizens, irrespective of what
side of the debate we are on, as long as it is sincere and not agenda driven.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But, I stand for something doesn’t mean that someone else
can’t stand for something else. And “my standing” is the only high “standing”
is also not acceptable. Today’s problem comes exactly from this attitude. I
love Gandhi like a God and always hated Nathuram Godse but when I read what he
told to the court in his trial I was firstly so shaken that I couldn’t sleep
for [a] few days. Not that my love for Gandhi came down, rather it increased,
but I learned a very big thing – that the other perspective is also equally
strong as mine, and that the ethics and moralities are only relative. At the
end, Nathuram Godse took arms, very much like a Kashmiri terrorist, and the adamancy
and arrogance about the absoluteness of my ideology never allows to pardon a
militant, come what may. Hence, at the end I can’t take Nathuram’s side though
he also stood for what he felt was right. All our standings are like that. If I
stand for Gandhi I must demonize Nathuram, and if I stand for Nathuram I must demonize
Gandhi. But in reality, both sides become demon – the Gandhians might feel
appalled at the thought that Nathuram could be right, and vice versa. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The moment you demonize one side too much, there’s a
retaliation and in most cases it’s very severe. There are very solid grounds,
supported by facts and figures, that Hindus have been wronged in many ways. But
that’s normal – anyone could be wronged. So there’s perhaps no exception about
the wrongs done towards the Hindus. But for a very long time the side that
stood for the Hindus were demonized so much that one day they retaliated. If
the demonization didn’t happen, perhaps the retaliation also wouldn’t have happened.
Terrorism is also one form of fascism. In fact, fascism is terrorism. So if you
think why the BJP has such enormous support base in what one side refers to as its
own form of “terrorism”, it’s perhaps because of the same reason why Kashmiris
have also come to support terrorism – the feeling that they haven’t been heard
enough, that they have been demonized in many ways. So basically the problem is
always in demonizing the other side. Whenever I call someone fascist or
communal I’m demonizing him, not understanding why he’s behaving like that. For
the sake of argument, it could be said that there’s no difference between a
Kashmiri terrorist and may be Amit Shah or Modi or another Nathuram. One has
more power so he’s doing more harm. So unless this looking down on others,
taking a moral high ground that “my stand is higher than yours”, this will
never end. As I told, BJP will lose, Congress will come, they will also do some
other form of harm and then again BJP will come and it will go on and on like a
vicious circle – unless we learn to listen otters, stop demonizing others.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, I say again – I support the CAA and I don’t hate Muslims
and I’m not a demon either. I don’t devour humans.</div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-74780747413224658912019-12-21T17:05:00.000+05:302019-12-24T07:49:55.203+05:30The Citizen Amendment Act - The Different Voices<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivNnP3sOkS-6_LrfgmdnOEvx0PSpZhe0uHNBgv_4o7fcsE_b86sH_DbPTtXrsSkS2LvyKFlCcC_9O_9vQ5gpzBmMWcLxQgs6Y99jMbrW_02of8WS6KbTxGSUqLp4TugwFSJ8XcSE9WTgk/s1600/19091_frankensteincoverart_final_twittercard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="796" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivNnP3sOkS-6_LrfgmdnOEvx0PSpZhe0uHNBgv_4o7fcsE_b86sH_DbPTtXrsSkS2LvyKFlCcC_9O_9vQ5gpzBmMWcLxQgs6Y99jMbrW_02of8WS6KbTxGSUqLp4TugwFSJ8XcSE9WTgk/s640/19091_frankensteincoverart_final_twittercard.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: Hey
there. What is this Citizenship Bill mess? Objectively, why use religion as a
criteria and not use religious persecution as the sole criteria? Using the
latter would have achieved the same goal without appearing to be
discriminatory. [I accept that the] Hindus fled Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Bangladesh facing religious persecution [and that something should be done for
them. But] I am a bit puzzled by the structure of the citizenship bill as it
appears to be reinforcing the narrative that BJP is fundamentally anti Muslim.
May be I am missing something. Shia Muslims, who were kicked out of POK, should
also be considered as a wronged minority.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: Well,
not you but everyone is missing the main point. Very few people know the
following:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There were more than 11 million Hindus in East Bengal during
partition, more than double [the number of] Sikhs and Hindus in West Punjab [in
what became part of Pakistan]. Almost 100% [non-Muslims] from Pakistan-Punjab
moved to India and a very similar number of Muslims from India moved to
Pakistan. But in Bengal, the numbers were totally different. Only seven lakh
Muslims from India moved to Bangladesh. But the 11 million [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the number of Hindus in east Bengal</i>] is
a huge number that can’t shift in a day. Even by 1950 only a small part had
trickled into India. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then Nehru, in his zeal to be a secularist, did a deal
with Pakistan to take back Bengali Hindus into East Pakistan with the assurance
that they would be safe. So practically, millions of Hindus who had entered
India were kicked out of India, and the person who protested most, Shyama
Prasad Mukherjee, died mysteriously in Kashmir very soon. So all the Hindus who
kept on trickling into India ever since and were marked illegal are actually
the ones who were kicked out of India by Nehru [in the 1950s], and their descendants.
So technically, they can’t be called illegal, as India had the moral obligation
to give them refuge after 1947, which they never did. So this bill is
predominantly to finally give those Bengali Hindus, and of course now their
descendants too, from Bangladesh a legal status which India should have given
in [the aftermath of] 1947. Somehow BJP is shying away from saying the truth
and that’s another problem.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The bill is not also for all the Hindus who are being
persecuted elsewhere, like [the] Sri Lankan Tamils. Whoever [among them] has
moved to India has been anyway given refuge and those numbers are minuscule
compared to the millions Bengali Hindus. The Shias from POK, The Kalasha people
from the Hindukush, the Hazaras, the Baloch, the Ahmadis, all are [no doubt] persecuted
in Pakistan but that’s a totally different story than the Bengali Hindus,
because they [unlike the others] were evicted out of India when they had
entered first, and [now] they can’t be compared to any other persecuted people
anywhere else.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As for the marginalized non-minorities of Pakistan and POK,
India would be more than happy to give them asylum but they must come legally.
India already has given a lot of asylum to a lot of such people. The entire
Tibetans have been given asylum and they are not considered illegal. Why can’t
others also take the same route?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: I see, but
BJP is not communicating this fact clearly – that the bill is trying to rectify
a historical error / injustice by the Indian Government. This is coming across
as [if] I am going to provide citizenship to only Hindu refugees, which comes
across as narrow minded and perhaps against the spirit of secularism.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: Well
it’s not that they didn’t tell all these, but these were lost in [the] narrative.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: OK, why
not provide citizenship to all refugees who were persecuted based on religion –
that would have been a very clean approach.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: I can [say]
that [a significant part of the] Muslims from Bangladesh, who entered [lately] were
actually lured by Mamata and the previous CPM [governments in West Bengal] to
change the demographics of Bengal. Why should they all be given citizenship? Is
there any reason for that? [As for the other persecuted Muslims in the
neighboring countries], they can take asylum – see the Tibetans. Was there any
problem for that? The Sri Lankan Tamils. So what’s the problem in that route?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: Yes,
Muslims who crossed from Bangladesh for economic reasons [should] not be
eligible.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: So,
you are also saying the same thing but in a different way. That’s what [the
amendment] is also saying. [By the way, I don’t think that] the Ahmadis, Shias
and the others infiltrate into India. They seek asylum and India have been [also]
giving [them the same]. The Baloch leader – now he is in Switzerland – [has been
offered Indian citizenship]. Many Shias from POK, who came to India, are
staying peacefully.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: I am
saying that refugees who came to India fearing religious persecution should be
granted citizenship [and] illegal immigrants who came for economic reasons will
not have any rights. That solves the infiltration problem, but does not single
out Muslims as not eligible. Why put religion as a criterion when it could be
used to create a divisive narrative?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: That’s
effectively saying [persecuted] Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Bangladesh, isn’t it? I would like to see a single Shia or Ahmadi or Hazara
anywhere in India who has entered illegally [or has been sent back]. They don’t,
like the Tibetans. They always take asylum.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: It still
does not justify the framing [of] the bill as granting citizenship based on
one’s religion – to me when I read the summary, the bill does not state
partition or the historical wrongs – rather it comes across as an explicit
attempt to exclude Muslims. Why is a minority Muslim-sect refugee not welcomed
into India if he or she has been living illegally? To me the bill conveniently
excludes this fact.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: Yes,
they should be given asylum like the Tibetans... And many have already got,
even Lankan Tamils. But I fail to understand why are Indian Muslims feeling
it’s a threat to them?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: Well,
this to Indian Muslims can appear as the government discriminating against them.
It also creates an element of fear – tomorrow someone can question a Muslim
whether he or she is an Indian or not. Having lived in USA as a minority I can
empathize why Muslims may feel scared. My personal experience with an Indian
Muslim (a very dear childhood family friend) and an Indian Christian (a highly
educated colleague) has been quite stark. There is a strong mistrust of the
government, there is a feeling of fundamental insecurity. Imagine an Indian
Muslim, liberal and educated saying, “It is safer for me and my family in Trump’s
America than India.” He eventually emigrated to US, even though his wife was
very hesitant.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: Anyway
I’m always fond of arguments and spending time in making my point with facts
and figures and also listening to others. That’s important. Well, that mistrust
is there on both sides. Majority Hindus never trusted Congress and there are
reasons for that. Many Hindus, who were not allowed to enter India after partition
from the East Pakistan due to the ill-conceived Nehru-Liyaquat Pact, and whose families
partially had moved to India [earlier], finally relocated to the US because
they didn’t trust the Congress. This is a major problem I agree – people can’t
trust the government. And for that, government and people both have to be open hear
each other and not take a moral high ground that “I’m secular” and “you’re
communal”. That’s what is happening for a long time.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: Agree, I
think we need a civil debate. However, I am deeply disappointed by BJP [that] they
are squandering a historic mandate and implementing policies that is not really
helping the country. To me, issues like pollution in major cities is so
critical to solve, [and] issues like CAB are becoming a major distraction.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: Ya, I
agree... they could have done much better.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: Not
saying that CAB should be ignored but the timing and the messaging was so
poorly planned.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: This
was, I think, mainly to fulfil their election commitment – all these were there
in their manifesto and they are implementing everything in a year. [But I]
agree [that] the narrative was wrong. [It] created a totally different type of
problem in [the] NE.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: I did
not know about the whole conflict between the Bengali Hindus and the Assamese.
Deep down, I think a lot of Assamese and Oriya people feel that Bengalis look
down upon them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: Not
Hindus, but both the Bengali Hindus and Muslims. It has been there for very
long and their demographics were changed very badly by the Bengalis even before
the partition. Because the Hindus were denied entry into India legally, huge
chunks [of them] went and entered into Assam [after the partition], assuming
less backlash, [further altering the demographics of the NE].<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>:
Examining the letter of the law is one thing, but we must also pay attention to
its intent. The rhetoric [often] sounds like Nazism to me. How do you view it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: Yes,
it is, and the rhetoric is also not positive. I don’t like it. But it’s the
Frankenstein created by the same people who are now opposing him. Why do you
think people like me support BJP? And there are many – we are not insensitive,
communal or fascist from any angle. We strongly feel we need someone who would at
least give some attention to the plight of the Hindus too. I know it’s like
playing with fire but something has to be done. The only Muslim majority state
in India [Kashmir] has persecuted all the minorities. Pakistan and Bangladesh
have also done similar things but there’s not even any acknowledgement from
anyone that the Hindus are indeed persecuted [at the hands of the Muslims].
People want to always forget the past whenever it’s a wrong done to the Hindus –
so why not forget Palestine? It’s even older than Kashmir or Bangladesh. People
like me don’t seek revenge – we just want some acknowledgement, at least, and [some]
respectable solution to the plight [of the persecuted Hindus] without being
dragged into politics and comparison, and some sympathy from others who shed so
much tears for Palestine and the Sunni Muslim – I repeat Sunni because no one
bothers for the Shias, no one has ever raised any voice for anyone in the POK
or Iran. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How many people came to support Taslima Nasrin? Show me a single
article from Arundhati Roy, Barkha Dutt or Girish Karnad supporting her openly.
You may say that it’s their right to choose where to raise voice, but that also
makes people like us suspicious of their intention or agenda. When I speak
about persecution I always talk about the Shias. But the absolute silence from
the same liberal side about POK again makes me suspicious. And if I am
suspicious think about someone who’s relatively less read? When Javed Akhtar
says that he can’t come to the Bangalore Lit Fest because Vikram Sampath [the
founder of the fest] didn’t support Award Wapsi, I really doubt the seriousness
of the entire movement they are launching.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: I definitely
support Taslima Nasrin, and I think she has widespread support from the left
leaning Bengali middle classes. Not sure about Ram Guha etc., maybe it's
because she writes in Bengali. I don't know anything about writers in other
languages, and came to learn about Perumal Murugan and his work only a few
years ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>:
Taslima is not restricted to Bengal and no one has to read Bengali to know her.
Come on. She’s known to everyone and all her books are available in English
also. You can’t deny that people like Arundhati Roy and Girsh Karnad would
never ever condemn Muslims. She even went ahead and condemned the US for the
9-11 attacks. And this is something that makes the entire movement led by them
and their sympathizers very suspicious even to me. On top of that, I now see
people citing numbers to say that the percentage of Hindus in Pakistan has
increased from 1.6 to 1.8% or something like that and [that] the myth about
they being persecuted is fake propaganda. What would you say to that?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Any One</b>: I think
when you have to get your political message across to a wide section, you have
to take extreme stances, else no one will notice. Of course people will quietly
support the good things that the BJP has done, like Swachh Bharat, or the
insolvency code (never understood why they don't take more credit for that). I
think Amit Shah is doing the same thing – taking the extreme stance for
political gain. In the end, all these writers you referred to are political,
and no one denies that. The thing is, I am unable to extract any humanity based
message from Amit Shah, which I am able to get from you. From him I only get
hate. His tone and rhetoric are so aggressive, even you are able to see why
people label him fascist.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Other One</b>: People
try to justify why the Muslims are becoming terrorist and they don’t condemn
their persecution of minorities... why? Can you please explain? There’s a huge
one sided propaganda and narrative that has created today’s problem. So again,
we come to the beginning – that people should listen to the other side also. I
dislike Shah for what he says. Modi is decisive and could have done lot more
and I still hope he delivers on the economy too rather than the jumla. But at
least, one big side sees them as their savior from the onslaught of the “other
side” in everything.</div>
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Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-23926590032655572992019-12-20T21:39:00.001+05:302019-12-20T22:27:58.536+05:30The Fallacy of the “Two Sides” - Parts I-VII<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-i.html" target="_blank">Part I</a></i></div>
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<i>Not only in India, elsewhere too, the divide between the “Two Sides” are widening. One side always accuses the other of one or the other. Take this example from India. One side is “Bhakt” and the other “Sickular”. One is “Fascist” and the other “Urban Naxal”. One is “Sold Media” and the other “Modia”. One is “Tukde Tukde Gang” and the other “Divider No 1”. One is “Right” and the other “Left”. One is “So-called Liberal” and the other “Fundamentalist”. One is “Regressive” and the other “Anti National”. There are many. And interestingly, you could find similar nomenclature for the “Two Sides” in the UK, in the US too.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>In reality, both the sides are like the two sides of the same coin, which has no value without either of them. But still one thinks it’s superior to the other and the other dismisses it as though its existence is inconsequential. But one thing that comes about, seen holistically, is that both the sides are adamant, arrogant and insensitive to each other. The reality is that, one exists because of the other and if one hadn’t been there perhaps the other wouldn’t be there too. There’s a “Bhakt”, only because there’s also a “Sickular”. There’s a “Sold Media” because there’s also a “Modia”. And in the melee, the coin seems meaningless.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>To give an example, let’s go through a conversation between “Any One” and “Other One”, who represent the two sides. They both are friends and come from similar backgrounds. But still they are on the two sides and here goes their conversation, about the recent CAA, Citizenship Amendment Act.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: I'm sure you know which side of the CAA debate I am on.</div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Well, it’s a very layered thing. The entire North East is also on the same side as you, but of course for a totally different reason. And, one thing that everyone is forgetting is that the problem arose because, very few people might know, millions of Hindus who wanted to flee East Pakistan, what later became Bangladesh, and take refuge in India around the Indian Independence, were actually sent back [<i>due to the ill-conceived Nehru-Liaquat Pact</i>] and they and their descendants kept pouring into India ever since – they can’t be called illegal, because there’s no difference between them and me and my father, who managed to somehow enter into India [at the nick of time]. It’s sad that it took so long to acknowledge that they are not illegal. But then, this is totally lost in the narrative of the CAA.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: In my view, if the intent was as noble as that, there could have been other laws that could have been passed, refugee and amnesty laws that so many countries have. This bill to me, stinks of a clear agenda. When taken together with the NRC, it’s nothing short of anti-national in the strongest possible sense.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Yes, the way it was done was not right. NE broke into chaos and the various sentiments were not handled properly. But somewhere, the colossal wrong against the Hindus from East Bengal had to be corrected. It was wrapped under the carpet forever that few millions of them were not allowed to settle in India when it was India’s moral obligation to give them shelter. Just in one stroke, few millions were made to bear the ignominy of being illegal forever. No one ever bothered to correct this serious wrong. The entire NE problem is also due to that. [Those] who were not allowed to [take refuge] in India legally, trickled into the entire NE slowly, [changing the demographics of the entire region]. The locals do have a reason to be angry with that. Now, I really don’t know what should have been a better way. Whatever you do, amnesty or anything [else], the basic point remains that the Hindus from Bangladesh had to be treated differently. There also, the same arguments would have come – why amnesty only to them?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Do you know anyone personally who is alive, Hindu, and staying illegally in West Bengal today because they were forced to migrate due to minority circumstances? Someone who could benefit from this bill?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Well, I speak so vocally about this because I realized many things from within my own family. My father, an uncle and an aunt, seven, fourteen and nine years of age, entered India in 1948, alone. My grandmother and grandfather stayed back in East Pakistan, because they had already heard that the Hindus pouring into India were not being entertained at all. Many had already been sent back. My grandfather was more than seventy. He didn’t want to go through all these. They stayed back till 1965, till he died. My grandma entered India along with my aunt in 1965. By that time my father already had a job and it was not hard for them to settle in India. My grandma died in the 80s and never had a Voter’s card, nor a passport. My aunt never got a passport because there were always some complications as she didn’t go to any school in India. Her son, my cousin brother, now stays in Dubai. He tried all ways to get her there, but the passport itself couldn’t be done. My aunt’s husband is idealistic and never wanted to go to the local MLA for help.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Likewise, many of my relatives were still there, in Bangladesh, because they had heard horrid stories about rehabilitation of the Hindus from East Pakistan. But by the sixties, they all wanted to flee. By then, few had managed to go to the US, and many more eventually relocated to US. Again, the fear was [uncertainties] about their rehabilitation in India – especially because of India’s stand taken by Nehru, I don’t know why, to not allow the Hindu refugees from Bangladesh any more in India beyond 1950. Somehow, we and our flock, who were allowed to settle in India, moved up in the social ladder and managed. Many settled in the US. So, now I don’t know anyone personally in India who would benefit from this new amendment, but I kept on hearing from my relatives [from across the border], who came to India much later, and also many, who stayed back in the US illegally for years before getting asylum, that all through the 80s and 90s lot of poor Hindus, who didn’t have any richer relatives in India [or in the US], moved into the NE – that’s the root cause of the entire issue in NE. The Hindu migrants there are predominantly the next generations of the poor Hindus who couldn’t settle in India in the 50s because of India’s hostile attitude towards them. Don’t you think it’s just by sheer luck that I’m here and not in the NE, having “infiltrated” into India? I could have been one of them, and if I got the citizen why not them?<o:p></o:p></div>
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If the premise of partition, which India, whatever it might say in paper, also agreed to, is that Pakistan is the home for the Muslims, where very soon “anyone else” was alienated, it’s India’s moral obligation to accommodate this “anyone else”. It should have been from [the] day one, don’t you think? The Shias in Kashmir and POK, Baluch, Ahmadis, Kalash, Hazara etc. from Pakistan should also be accommodated and they can always take asylum. Same goes for the Sri Lankan Tamils – they have already got asylum. But whatever you do, there will always be some classification, as asylum can’t be given [indiscriminately] to everyone. Finally, the whole problem, you also know, has aggravated because the Left, and now the Trinamool Congress, have aggressively lured Muslims from Bangladesh to change the demographics of Bengal, just for their vote bank. My cousin stays at a place near Diamond Harbor, the constituency of Mamata’s nephew, and I hear interesting stories from there all the time about how the proportion of Bangladeshi Muslims is suddenly on rise since 2011. I visited one such neighborhood few years back, just out of curiosity, and I can say none of them came to India because of any good reason – they just knew someone here who lured them to come here.<br />
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<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-ii.html" style="color: #de7008;" target="_blank">Part II</a></i></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Do you think the government is sincere in solving the specific problem you describe [<i>protecting the persecuted minorities of the Indian subcontinent</i>], and you see no ulterior / broader motive?</div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Well, let me ask, do you think any Muslim who has been staying in India forever would be illegally made a non-citizen now, like what everyone is talking? NRC in Assam had lot of Hindus who were excluded. There would be many errors, but I can say many are not errors. They did actually trickle in between 71 and now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Well, 2 million people who were left out of the NRC are right now headed for detention camps. In another day and age, we would have called them concentration camps. Who are we to judge how many of those 2 million are genuine illegals. And even if they are, locking then up isn’t an answer that's acceptable in 2019.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Yes, that I agree, [that] detention camp is not the solution. But no one else is coming up with [a] good solution either. Political parties like TMC can’t be given a free hand to lure Muslims from Bangladesh just to secure their vote bank. That’s also illegal and how do you stop that? No one even speaks about the condition in Bengal, and one day it will also erupt like the NE. The change in demographics in many parts of Bengal is rampant now. Someone should come up with a solution. And yes, it should be better than what we have now, I mean what the [incumbent] government is doing. By the way, see, even now we refer to [the] Bangladeshi Hindus and “illegals”. Isn’t it sad? Why are they illegals first of all? And why am I then legal?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: I think what's missing is proper asylum refugee policy. If as you say Ahmadi and Tamils are free to avail of that policy, why isn't it accessible to Hindus from Bangladesh? Why isn't migration from Nepal an issue? Is it because they are Hindu? What about persecuted minorities in Nepal? I see this whole process as riddled with contradictions, aimed to suit one group in politics, no different from Mamata. Referring to anyone as illegal is sad. No one can be illegal. We are all legitimate humans with legitimate aspirations. These ‘infiltrators’ and ‘termites’ that Shah refers to are the poorest people in the sub-continent. I mean Muslims, who migrate from Bangladesh to India. How poor must they be to want a better life in India, where Muslims are as low as Dalits in socio economic terms?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: My point is simple, this “anyone else” from erstwhile East Pakistan must be treated differently because they were not allowed to enter India and were not taken care of earlier – there shouldn’t be a question of asylum to them. My father didn’t get asylum. “Anyone else” from Pakistan who wanted to come to India after partition shouldn’t be a case for asylum – they are as good citizens as any other, like you and me. As they were then not allowed to claim the Indian citizenship they were entitled to [<i>because being a party to the partition, India implicitly accepted the Two Nation Theory in letter and spirit and hence was obligated to give refuge to all willing non-Muslims from Pakistan</i>], first they should be allowed to do so now. That should be separate from anything else, I feel. And then, there can be any humane rules for absorbing people from other countries on compassionate grounds irrespective of religions, as much as India can afford to, like the Tibetans. All of them [who had fled Tibet] were absorbed in due course. Something like that could always be there. Anyway, let’s continue with the arguments as that’s what is very much needed, in civilized form, not attacking each other.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Academic thought exercise: How do you feel about a regular Muslim who chose to leave Dhaka in 1975 because she wanted to live in secular India with better women's rights? In your view is her claim to Indian citizenship weaker than a Hindu from Bangladesh who decided to migrate at the same time?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: I believe, she can always seek citizenship through natural process, like <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/Adnan-Sami-is-Indian-now/article13973329.ece" style="color: #de7008;">Adnan Sami</a> and many of Pakistani origin have also done. She doesn’t have to illegally enter India without documents. It’s like our friends settling in the US for better opportunities. Taslima Nasreen is also staying legally in India and she will surely get Indian citizenship someday. Interestingly, she’s hounded by the Muslims not the Hindus, please note. No one is talking about such cases. The Baloch leader <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/exiled-baloch-leader-brahumdagh-bugti-to-get-indian-citizenship-pakistan-media/articleshow/54358610.cms" style="color: #de7008;">Bugti</a> was granted Indian citizenship. There are so many Shias from POK staying peacefully in India, legally. But for the Hindus of Bangladesh, that’s a total different story. The partition gave them the right to stay in India, and no one can deny that. Millions of them were not allowed to stay in India – so their case can’t be mixed with anyone else’s, I feel. It’s like the Pandits’ right to go back to Kashmir. It can’t be mixed with anything else. Their claim to citizenship is above all, even before mine and yours because they have been wronged in the most horrific way by India. They were denied their legal right by India. For everyone else [<i>the other persecuted people in question</i>] – India didn’t do any wrong to them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The data I have dug out, and have also validated with a report from a Bangladeshi Muslim reporter’s article, says, only seven lakh Muslims actually crossed border from India to East Pakistan, during the partition, and many of them were Hindi speaking Biharis. And multiple reports say that very few of these seven lakh would have left because of the fear of persecution. On the contrary, the Great Calcutta Killing and the Nokhali riots [of 1946] had made it very clear that Hindus were no longer safe in Bangladesh or East Pakistan. So when the partition happened, there was absolutely no reason to deny them entry to India. That’s the most inhuman act ever done to any community – leave them to die. And they did. Peer reviewed papers cite reports that more than 2.5 million Hindus were killed in East Pakistan between 1947 and 1971 – these numbers are comparable to Holocaust. And they died just because they were not allowed to enter India. How can I compare them with anyone else? Sometimes I myself feel disillusioned why these particular community – the Hindus from Bangladesh – never got any sympathy from anyone.<br />
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<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-iii.html" style="color: #de7008;" target="_blank">Part III</a></i></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Can you point me to some good material that describes how the Hindus of East Pakistan were denied entry into India in the late 40s and 50s? Deplorable as that might be, I still don't see how that makes it OK to give blanket citizenship to all Hindus from Bangladesh who may have entered India all the way up until 2014, while excluding others.</div>
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<b>Other One</b>: How can you compare the Hindus of Bangladesh with anyone else in the world? Which other community has been killed in so big numbers? Of course they are more eligible than anyone else in the world – they were left to be killed because of India’s fault. Forget about facts and figures and history. Have you ever thought why’s it that you never hear of Hindus (or for that matter even Muslim) from Pakistan infiltrating into the Punjab, but you hear Hindus from Bangladesh have been entering into Bengal and NE till this day? What do you think is the reason? The only reason is that close to 100% non-Muslims were allowed to enter India immediately after partition from [West] Pakistan, but only a part could enter India from Bangladesh and rest couldn’t, and they and their descendants have been pouring in ever since. Why do you think you rarely hear about infiltration of Muslims form the west – are they not poor? Of course they are poor and may be even poorer than Bangladeshi Muslims. But still why don’t they pour into India through the Punjab or Gujarat or Rajasthan? Rajasthan is much easier to slip through. But still you only hear Muslims entering through Bengal. Doesn’t that smell of something else? Good that these are coming out now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This is a pretty well researched article but still not fully correct, as the author might not have researched that well. But at least it’s coming out now. It says, “This insistence, that the solution lay not in rehabilitation but encouraging East Bengali Hindus to not migrate, flew in the face of facts. This severely affected the state of East Bengali refugees, who were ignored by the Central government, which remained “preoccupied with the problem of resettling 7 million refugees fleeing the massacres in the Punjab”. Since New Delhi kept on insisting that Bengal had no refugee problem, “long after the number of refugees in West Bengal had outstripped those in the East Punjab, such funds for their relief and rehabilitation as the central government was persuaded to sanction remained hopelessly inadequate and far too belated to resolve, or even to alleviate on the margins, one of the most intractable problems which partition had created,” wrote Chatterjee.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://scroll.in/article/946454/the-nehru-liaquat-pact-failed-refugees-from-bangladesh-but-so-would-the-citizenship-bill" style="color: #de7008;">https://scroll.in/article/946454/the-nehru-liaquat-pact-failed-refugees-from-bangladesh-but-so-would-the-citizenship-bill</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Thanks for the info on the fallout of the Nehru Liaquat pact. I was only partly aware of the impact. There is a process to become a citizen, but it seems very complex and probably out of reach of poor people irrespective of religion. So fixing that without discriminating based on religion would have been the right thing to do, in my view. That would mean a proper refugee law. That could have addressed the historical wrong in the case of Hindus from East Pakistan, and still maintained our pluralistic credentials. I don't believe in fixing one historical injustice by committing another.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: That’s [<i>Nehru Liaquat pact</i>] the main reason behind most of today’s problems in NE, and so many others. And it’s sad that no one even in Bengal ever acknowledged that so many million Hindus from East Pakistan were actually deprived of their citizenship of India. It’s as if it never happened. Even the Bengalis and the Bengali intelligentsia totally ignored them – and then 2.5 million of them were [left to be] killed by [the] Pakistani army between 1947 and 1971. Which other religious community other than the Jews faced such level of genocide? Don’t you think they, like the Jews, can’t be categorized with anyone else in the world?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Well, in spite of what happened to the Jews, I do not for once condone the way Israel was created. Again an example of addressing a historical injustice with another one. How well that worked out? Kashmir is our own Palestine too. Since August. These are just my views, all of us have views that are shaped by our personal exposure. But I guess it's important to keep listening to others.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Well, I have a different perspective of both Israel and Kashmir. As for Kashmir, why is there the army first of all? And before 1990, was there any army? What started this?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: I am generally depressed at the loss of ideals. This is no country of Tagore’s “Where the mind is without fear”. I met a group of Kashmiri students and professionals. They have lived the horror personally. All Indians should listen to them. They are too scared to speak up. What kind of a country is this?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Totally agreed, but why did it come to this? What happened in 1989? Why were things normal before that? And have you heard the views from the Pandits? Why were they kicked out? Who’s responsible for that? And what triggered that?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: I have a very close Pandit friend.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: What’s his view about why they were kicked out?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: His view is that all Kashmiris see the issue through their own prism. He is totally sympathetic to the cause of the young Kashmiris in the valley today. He doesn't believe in punishing them for what happened in 1989. Most were not even born then. But he understands that it's not the wider view held by the Pandit community. Most of them are like Anupam Kher.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: But did the problem end after 1989? Why, first of all, the army had to be deployed? If you want to forget everything then no problem will be solved ever. What about the emotions of the Pandits who lost everything? And how can they get justice? Forget Pandits, what about the Shias in Kashmir? I always have one question about Kashmir: Why no one even acknowledges the plight of the Pandits? Why is it always one sided narrative?<br />
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<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-iv.html" style="color: #de7008;" target="_blank">Part IV</a></i></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: OK [<i>Referring to the fact that the militarization of Kashmir started with the Pandit exodus in the late eighties</i>]. But it goes back to my fundamental problem with addressing one historical injustice by committing new ones. With Kashmir, I think the recent moves will be seen by history as having created another Palestine. I think there's plenty of awareness about the plight of the Pandits. May be, it wasn't talked about in the 90s, but that's all I hear these days. I have a Pandit aunt who lives in Kolkata. Maybe that's why I was aware even through the 90s. Competitive injustice will kill us all.</div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Well, as for Kashmir, I visited with my patents and family just two years back, just to get a firsthand experience, in the middle of another crackdown where internet was stopped. My driver for the entire stay was a Shia and he has absolutely no problem with India. He is not anti-India and he hates Pakistan and holds the Sunnis for their plight. So you have all the minorities – Buddhist in Ladakh, Pandits, Shias – all have a totally different perspective than the Sunnis. But you always hear the Sunni narrative – what about the rest of the minorities? I have problem with any narrative which becomes one sided and I see that most for Kashmir, as if it’s only all Sunni. So, what’s the solution? Can the Pandits ever be rehabilitated to Kashmir? And if not, then would you be fine with that? What I don’t get anywhere is any alternative solution that would keep Pakistan at bay and also restore the rights of the Pandits and the Shias.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: The average guy will not know about the historical injustice. Just like the Kashmiri kids don't know about the Pandit exodus. Their personal reality is what will define their attitude towards the state.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: So what do you think should be the right solution?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: I think it's OK to say “I’m not sure”. Definitely for me. And the state should also be humble enough to say that. Involving the stakeholders is critical. They killed that possibility in Kashmir. And they may have killed in Assam too. The autocracy we are living in doesn't understand these things. What consultations did they hold with Kashmiris before deciding their fate? What did they discuss with the Assamese? The arrogance shocks me. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that it's 100 years since the Rowlatt Act and the worst of the colonial oppression. Echoes of an inglorious past.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Assam is too early to say what they did and how much they consulted the local people – I don’t have any information about that. But yes I can “assume” they must have done more. Now for Kashmir, not only they, but successive governments have been talking for thirty years. And I would really like to hear from anyone what’s the solution there. Few things are nonnegotiable I believe you admit. (1) They have to stop all persecution of non-Sunnis, have to rehabilitate [the] Pandits in letter and spirit, stop marginalizing the Shias and the Buddhists. (2) They have to stop terrorism in all ways – I think you also know terrorism can’t thrive without local support. (3) They have to stop aligning with Pakistan. Do you disagree to these main tenets? It applies not only to Kashmir but also to the rest of India. I always hear criticism but no one has ever given a solution. If anyone is saying Kashmir must be allowed to be independent, then you know how stupid that would be. (1) That would mean succeeding Kashmir to Pakistan, and (2) That will be a bad precedence for all other states all of which could then ask for secession. So now, let people suggest what the possibilities are. I’ve been studying this at least for the last 10 years and have just heard barbs and idealistic rhetoric but not a single person who claim to be sympathetic to the Kashmiri cause has given any solution – including Arundhati Roy, Barkha Dutt and so many western media.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Well, the comparison with Rowland act is not technically very correct. British India was predominantly nonviolent and Kashmir is not. Not even the NE, but the latter has become predominantly nonviolent and I am hopeful something will be soon worked out there. But without stopping terrorism in Kashmir, I don’t see how things will change. I have one more major problem with Kashmir. And I see this elsewhere too. There’s a sympathy for the Sunnis worldwide but there’s no sympathy for other sects of Muslims. No Kashmir sympathizer ever talks about POK. I believe you know how their demographics have been ruthlessly altered by Pakistan. But even after 70 years, the demographics of Indian Kashmir hasn’t changed at all for the Muslims, though the Hindus have been totally kicked out. Still, I didn’t find anything significant about POK in the internet. The same Article 370 has been violated both by Pakistan and China in their parts of Kashmir but hell broke loose when India wanted to end that. What do you have to say about this total silence about the Kashmiris of POK? I have problem with such one sided narrative. If you see, I have come to realize, the both sides of a cause actually are equally one sided – the government at one side and ones who oppose at the other side. Neither side ever takes a holistic view and I feel both sides are equally guilty of not solving any problem, just because of this one sidedness.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And finally I’m also amused at this stand that whenever something wrong happens to the Hindus, people want to forget that totally. Like this case of the Hindus of East Pakistan – they are the second most persecuted religions community in the world after the Jews. Then the Pandits – they are again one of the very few religious communities who have been 100% evicted from their homeland. In both cases people are ready to forget such huge colossal wrongs and want to move ahead. So then the other side can also say, “Anyway, you want to forget. This Kashmir thing will also be forgotten after 50-60 years.” Are you fine with this? Of course not, and no one can be fine with this. So my original question comes: What’s the solution which doesn’t ask for forgetting anything?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now related to this is my even a larger problem – people always side with the first aggressor and accuse the retaliator because the retaliation is always 100 times more than the first aggression. Everyone accuses US for the nuclear attack on Japan but they totally forget what instigated that. For the Palestine cause too, it’s very clear who’s the first aggressor and if you do a “what if” analysis of what could have happened if the first aggression didn’t happen, then you can realize how different everything would have been. No one thinks this, that if the Ottoman Empire had sided with the Allied forces in both the World Wars, perhaps there won’t be any Palestine problem today. So most of the plight in the Middle East is created by that, and how can you totally ignore that, like ignoring Japan’s responsibility in bringing such loses to its own people?<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m always in for healthy debates which enlighten me more than anything as I believe in seeing both sides with equal importance.</div>
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<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-v.html" style="color: #de7008;" target="_blank">Part V</a></i></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: I feel it's incorrect to believe that Arundhati Roy or Barkha Dutt or folks like us can magically come up with a solution [for Kashmir]. It has to be some [a] combination of declaring the LOC an international border, giving the current Kashmiris proper rights and representation, a roadmap for demilitarization, a roadmap for minority rights, strengthening our border protection, etc. Specifics needs much deeper and sincere engagement with the valley. But now this is all academic talk. After August, the chances of this happening are zero. People like me are ready to join the militancy. Not me as in me, but people with our kind of background.</div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Well, when you say Kashmiris I’m sure you’re referring only to the Sunnis because the Shias and others don’t have much problem – I saw that first hand two years ago. Now I would be also curious to know what rights and representations the Kashmiris in India didn’t have between 1947 and the late eighties that anyone anywhere else in India had. All political parties in Kashmir were run by Kashmiris and I don’t take the crap that elections were rigged and hence they had to take to militancy. Elections have been rigged in Bengal all along till recently. First of all, it was never militarized. Even to get into talks, there has to be a status quo and few things like “azaadi” and sympathy towards terrorists and Pakistan have to be kept aside. So both sides have to come to some compromise that never happened, I see. See, these things are easy said than done. And you have very strong points, so do I, and both have logic and reasoning. Another problem is that my side and your side both are adamant and arrogant, claiming superiority in ideology and humanism. I see some very silly arguments coming up from both sides.<o:p></o:p></div>
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By the way, going by your logic of joining militancy, don’t you think the Hindus of Bangladesh and the Pandits should have all taken to militancy by now because their persecutions and human rights violation have been much more than the Sunnis of Indian Kashmir? See, this logic also doesn’t hold good. Many more people have been deprived of many things but they never took to militancy. Same goes for the Maoists – nothing can justify their militancy, or for that matter [that of] the Lankan Tamils.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Incorrect to assume that I'm only talking about rights and representation of Sunni Kashmiris. Everyone has rights. The idea of a democracy is not majority rule, which is what our politicians have made us believe, but a voice for everyone, no matter how feeble. If we carve out a Kashmir solution while ignoring the Shias and Pandits we will just sow the seeds of a new problem. Anyway, like I said, this debate is completely academic, because for the foreseeable future Kashmir is lost to India as a result of the August actions. As far as why Hindus didn't become militant in Bangladesh, I don't know. These are hard questions. Regarding militancy, where it does exist, one must try and understand the reasons behind it. Understanding terrorism isn’t the same as condoning it. For a while now anyone who tries to do the former is branded as someone who is doing the latter, and gets called terrorist sympathizer and anti-national. That in my view is an intentional political strategy that ultimately damages the country.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: To me, if I see from little above, taking a holistic view, both sides seem to be agenda driven without any side trying to understanding the other. Whenever it comes to [the] persecuted Hindus, the response is, either “I can’t say” or “Let’s not bring that here”, or “Let’s move on, that’s past, why rake history”. And to me that aggravates the chasm between the two sides. To me both sides have serious biases and both sides think they are doing the right thing from their perspective. Like I always failed to understand why there’s no sympathy for the second largest persecuted religious community in the world, that’s the Hindus of East Pakistan, from the people who seem to be so much concerned about Palestine and Kashmir, whereas the numbers of the latter are lower in some order of magnitude than that of the former. There’s absolutely nothing significant available in the internet about the conditions of the Shias in POK. No one seems to be bothered about them but all are so concerned about the Sunnis of Indian Kashmir. There’s a bias in many other things which again increases the gaps between the two sides. So unless both sides reconcile, and stop taking moral high ground over the other, things will not stop.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I and you may be a skewed representative of the two sides – I said skewed because very few from your side seem to be as sensible and well-read and well opinionated like you and I can say the same for my side too. I feel so strongly about something without bias and you for something else. I can’t agree that I’m communal and you’re of course not anti-national. But still, see, how much “difference of opinion” exists on some very fundamental things between us. At least I listen to you and you hear me without me calling you anti national and you calling me communal. But that’s not the case for all from my and your sides. I perhaps can’t make you understand what makes me sad and what makes me feel helpless about certain reactions I see about certain things. I’m sure you too feel why I don’t think like you. So, you know that the thing we are dealing with is not simple and unless everyone behaves like us, there’s absolutely no hope. Next time BJP will lose, Congress will again carry out the same mistakes that will again bring back a more ferocious BJP after few terms and this will go on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Wondering why if Ahmadis could access a process to gain citizenship why couldn't the Hindus from Bangladesh access the same process?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: As I always maintain, Hindus of Bangladesh can’t be compared with anyone else. They are technically Indian citizens who were denied their basic right – they were not allowed to enter India – and that resulted in them being the second largest victim of persecution after the Jews. As I told, if I’m the citizen then they too are, and I could have been also one of them who couldn’t enter India, or rather not allowed to enter India. The partition made it mandatory for India to accept all willing non-Muslim people from both East and West Pakistan – everyone from West Pakistan was allowed to enter and only a part from East Bengal was. So the Hindus of Bangladesh can’t be mixed with anyone else. And no question of asylum for them – they are Indian citizens who were deprived of their rights. And then, they are much more persecuted than anyone else in India. Ahmadi, Baloch etc., etc. – no one faced such genocide killing 2.5 million.<br />
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<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-vi.html" style="color: #de7008;" target="_blank">Part VI</a></i></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: So your argument is they [<i>the persecuted Hindus from Bangladesh who have entered India illegally</i>] should not be made to go through any process [for Indian citizenship]. Understood.</div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Something which seems default to me is not easy to explain others. And there lies the chasm between the two sides of the story. Of course, no one has been wronged like them. The Jews have been rehabilitated worldwide. But the second most persecuted religious community in the world is still not being rehabilitated and we are still debating. That’s really painful. And isn’t it just amazing that despite such level of persecution not a single of them have yet become militant or even taken to any form of violence, both in Bangladesh and also in India.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Understood. I am not convinced about rehabilitation for past wrongs at the cost of others who are very much in the present. I don't know if it's [<i>Hindus not taking to militancy</i>] amazing. You could think of various reasons. Divisions within Hindu society, lack of leadership, who knows. They are all theories. But i understand your viewpoint. Even though i don't agree with it. I guess that's important.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: There’s a persecuted community who were ready to adjust to anything that came along and struggle to do whatever best they managed to get. And see, most successful Bengalis worldwide are among those persecuted people. It’s indeed something to study for the whole world. But they never even came to the radar of anyone. No one is asking to do any wrong to others. I’m just saying, keep them aside and create rules for others. Don’t mix them with other persecuted people at all. Isn’t it ironical that we are ready to understand why someone can become militant but we say “don’t know” when there’s an example of such a huge persecuted community who stayed away from militancy? By the way, Parsis and Tibetans too never became militants and they too were not less persecuted. It’s indeed worth studying why certain people – Sri Lankan Tamils, Maoists, Kashmiris – took to militancy but many others didn’t.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: It would be worth studying why militancy did not develop among the Hindus in Bangladesh or Tibetans in China while it did among Tamils of Sri Lanka, or Sunni Muslims of Kashmir. Maybe it will help prevent militancy among other marginalized groups, of which there are hundreds. But as a matter of urgency, when faced with militant violence, the state reacts with violence, academics try to ask why is there militancy, and perhaps forget to ask the question of why there isn't militancy elsewhere. I am certain the answer if there is one cannot be simplistic (e.g. Tibetans are fundamentally peace loving) and should not be seen through the prism of race or religion, but needs to be dug out from the specific political and social circumstance. Maybe at a people to people level, the Hindus of Bangladesh didn't consider their Muslim neighbors to be sufficiently different from them, given the abundance of cultural commonalities, in order for them to wage war on them. Or maybe there was no wealthy diaspora willing to fund them with arms. It will require serious research to understand why. It might be easier to answer questions of why there is militancy elsewhere. Because it's there, and causal links can be established. Understanding absence of something is fundamentally harder I think. But I'm no expert.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Availability of arms is fundamental I think. Presence of Pakistan is an obvious factor in Kashmir. India fortunately didn't fuel an insurgency in Bangladesh. But just academically speaking, if India did, do you think the Hindus would have seized the opportunity? It's possible, isn't it? E.g. the LTTE got some of their power and legitimacy from an arguable level of endorsement from some South Indian parties. All I'm saying is, we can theorize about this stuff. But the pain and suffering that people and kids are going through right now, today, is something we are all complicit in. Just as our parents were complicit in Nehru's mistakes. In our times if there is something I can do to raise my voice against injustice that moves me, I will. And I agree I can't do it for everyone. So the argument of what about the community X in such and such place doesn't hold for me. We are not super humans that we have to stand up for every injustice. If we raise our voice for any cause, we believe in, I think we are being good citizens, irrespective of what side of the debate we are on, as long as it is sincere and not agenda driven.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: These are very interesting discussions and I wish people actually indulged into this rather than attacking the other side and landing nowhere. As you said, yes, there’s a bias in everyone and people should accept that. You stand for something doesn’t mean that someone else can’t stand for something else. And “my standing” is the only high “standing” is also not acceptable. Today’s problem comes exactly from this attitude. I love Gandhi like a God and always hated Nathuram Godse but when I read what he told to the court in his trial I was firstly so shaken that I couldn’t sleep for [a] few days. Not that my love for Gandhi came down, rather it increased, but I learned a very big thing – that the other perspective is also equally strong as mine, and that the ethics and moralities are only relative. At the end, Nathuram Godse took arms, very much like a Kashmiri terrorist, and the adamancy and arrogance about the absoluteness of my ideology never allows to pardon a militant, come what may. Hence, at the end I can’t take Nathuram’s side though he also stood for what he felt was right. All our standings are like that. If I stand for Gandhi I must demonize Nathuram, and if I stand for Nathuram I must demonize Gandhi. But in reality, both sides become demon – the Gandhians might feel appalled at the thought that Nathuram could be right, and vice versa.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The moment you demonize one side too much, there’s a retaliation and in most cases it’s very severe. There are very solid grounds, supported by facts and figures, that Hindus have been wronged in many ways. But that’s normal – anyone could be wronged. So there’s perhaps no exception about the wrongs done towards the Hindus. But for a very long time the side that stood for the Hindus were demonized so much that one day they retaliated. If the demonization didn’t happen, perhaps the retaliation also wouldn’t have happened. Terrorism is also one form of fascism. In fact, fascism is terrorism. So if you think why the BJP has such enormous support base in [what your side refers to as] its [own] form of “terrorism”, it’s perhaps because of the same reason why Kashmiris have also come to support terrorism – the feeling that they haven’t been heard enough, that they have been demonized in many ways. So basically the problem is always in demonizing the other side. Whenever I call someone fascist or communal I’m demonizing him, not understanding why he’s behaving like that. [For the sake of argument, it could be said that] there’s no difference between a Kashmiri terrorist and may be Amit Shah or Modi or another Nathuram. One has more power so he’s doing more harm. So unless this looking down on others, taking a moral high ground that “my stand is higher than yours”, this will never end. As I told, BJP will lose, Congress will come, they will also do some other form of harm and then again BJP will come and it will go on and on like a vicious circle – unless we learn to listen otters, stop demonizing others.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-vii.html" style="color: #de7008;" target="_blank">Part VII</a></i></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Good points. I recently read Vikram Sampath's biography of Savarkar. That was useful for me. As was Ambedkar's exchanges with Gandhi. By the way, there’s a funny story. Baba went to Bombay while he was in first year at college. The guy who was hosting him lived in the same building as Savarkar. He dropped by his house, and my father was told, <i>pronam koro</i>. So he did. Now he can tell the story of how he touched Savarkar's feet, the man who likely inspired Godse. Yes, I agree that a unidimensional impression of any of these people is a huge injustice to each of them.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Interestingly, in the leftist narrative of Savarkar, at least in the history text books we read in [the] Bengal board, Savarkar was shown as a great hero and there was no mention of his two nation theory or anything. Gokhale introduced Ganapati festival which Tagore also introduced in Bengal and unknowingly that alienated the Muslims to a great extent, might be more than what Savarkar did. In fact, I really doubt how much alienation of the Muslims in India happened due to Savarkar, or for that matter Godse. Of the so huge Tagore’s work, how many [have] Muslim characters could again be a bone of contention and perhaps that’s the reason why he’s now being condemned by [a section of] the radicalized Bangladesh. Tagore wrote so widely about the Vedas and the Upanishads, but I haven’t come across anything about Muslim [theology]. And the same holds good for Swami Vivekananda. But that doesn’t make them communal. But if someone wants to say, from one angle both Swamiji and Tagore could be seen as communal.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Yes, but it's also not fair to judge these people by 21<sup>st</sup> century social norms. By that argument Gandhi was a racist. The reason social norms change is because of forward looking thinkers like them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: It’s all about one sided narratives that creates a chasm between two sides. The leftist narrative of India for the first 50-60 years after independence did the most harm in creating the chasm. Yes, you’re correct, that’s my point also – you can’t say Gandhi a racist or Swamiji a communal, but a narrow agenda based narrative could paint them like that. And that’s what has happened in India in many ways. What we see today is a bad retaliation of that – the reaction to looking down and demonizing one side.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Coming to Vikram Sampath, do you support how everyone left him out of the Bangalore lit fest just because he had a different ideology or because he didn’t support the Award Wapsi? So what’s the difference between bigots and the people who raise their voices against bigots? That’s what makes the other side very suspicious of the people who raise voices. There are tons of other similar examples. None of those voices comes openly in support of Taslima Nasreen. And everything is reciprocal. The moment the other side becomes powerful the reciprocation becomes more vigorous. But who created the Frankenstein? The same voices who now fight against the Frankenstein. So, at the end of the day, it’s like [a] poem by Annada Shankar Roy, I read long time back – it goes something like this: Mukherjee is the King, Mukherjees are the people; Mukherjee is the government, Mukherjees are the opposition; Mukherjees are the protest, Mukherjees are the police... You know what he means and I see the same thing here too. It’s all the same people on either sides.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Yes. I don't support Vikram Sampath being disinvited. It's as bad as how Ambedkar was disinvited from his last lecture. I too have a few friends who are on other sides of the spectrum including you. No good can come out of stopping dialogue. Positions will only get hardened. It's important to keep explaining to each other with rational arguments.</div>
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Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-46138560225392000352019-12-20T21:22:00.008+05:302019-12-20T22:01:40.961+05:30The Fallacy of the “Two Sides” - Part VII<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAI_-1UfcCvxxwsSQh7Jw8B2y1vqDr3nliKGpGQmM9O1SEj52VZIhBeLaswy0VSGjWp5nYezz4qqyMUucTGFeesRdH0X_kkHPvEqUteVH-hr7k_GvYhXDGkcsS87CFWJeP2Veskpcq6tM/s1600/savarkar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="312" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAI_-1UfcCvxxwsSQh7Jw8B2y1vqDr3nliKGpGQmM9O1SEj52VZIhBeLaswy0VSGjWp5nYezz4qqyMUucTGFeesRdH0X_kkHPvEqUteVH-hr7k_GvYhXDGkcsS87CFWJeP2Veskpcq6tM/s400/savarkar.jpg" width="306" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-vi.html" target="_blank">Part VI</a></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>The two sides of a
cause, or a narrative, or an ideology are like the two sides of the same coin,
which has no value without either of them. But still one thinks it’s superior
to the other and the other dismisses it as though its existence is
inconsequential. But one thing that comes about, seen holistically, is that
both the sides are adamant, arrogant and insensitive to each other. The
reality is that, one exists because of the other and if one hadn’t been there
perhaps the other wouldn’t be there too. There’s a “Bhakt”, only because
there’s also a “Sickular”. There’s a “Sold Media” because there’s also a
“Modia”. And in the melee, the coin seems meaningless.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>To give an example,
let’s go through a conversation between “Any One” and “Other One”, who
represent the two sides. They both are friends and come from similar
backgrounds. But still they are on the two sides and here goes their
conversation, about the recent CAA, Citizenship Amendment Act.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Good points. I recently read Vikram Sampath's
biography of Savarkar. That was useful for me. As was Ambedkar's exchanges with
Gandhi. By the way, there’s a funny story. Baba went to Bombay while he was in
first year at college. The guy who was hosting him lived in the same building
as Savarkar. He dropped by his house, and my father was told, <i>pronam koro</i>. So he did. Now he can tell
the story of how he touched Savarkar's feet, the man who likely inspired Godse.
Yes, I agree that a unidimensional impression of any of these people is a huge
injustice to each of them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Interestingly, in the leftist narrative of
Savarkar, at least in the history text books we read in [the] Bengal board,
Savarkar was shown as a great hero and there was no mention of his two nation
theory or anything. Gokhale introduced Ganapati festival which Tagore also
introduced in Bengal and unknowingly that alienated the Muslims to a great
extent, might be more than what Savarkar did. In fact, I really doubt how much
alienation of the Muslims in India happened due to Savarkar, or for that matter
Godse. Of the so huge Tagore’s work, how many [have] Muslim characters could
again be a bone of contention and perhaps that’s the reason why he’s now being
condemned by [a section of] the radicalized Bangladesh. Tagore wrote so widely
about the Vedas and the Upanishads, but I haven’t come across anything about Muslim
[theology]. And the same holds good for Swami Vivekananda. But that doesn’t
make them communal. But if someone wants to say, from one angle both Swamiji
and Tagore could be seen as communal.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Yes, but it's also not fair to judge these people by
21<sup>st</sup> century social norms. By that argument Gandhi was a racist. The
reason social norms change is because of forward looking thinkers like them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: It’s all about one sided narratives that creates
a chasm between two sides. The leftist narrative of India for the first 50-60
years after independence did the most harm in creating the chasm. Yes, you’re correct,
that’s my point also – you can’t say Gandhi a racist or Swamiji a communal, but
a narrow agenda based narrative could paint them like that. And that’s what has
happened in India in many ways. What we see today is a bad retaliation of that
– the reaction to looking down and demonizing one side. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Coming to Vikram Sampath, do you support how everyone left
him out of the Bangalore lit fest just because he had a different ideology or
because he didn’t support the Award Wapsi? So what’s the difference between
bigots and the people who raise their voices against bigots? That’s what makes
the other side very suspicious of the people who raise voices. There are tons
of other similar examples. None of those voices comes openly in support of
Taslima Nasreen. And everything is reciprocal. The moment the other side
becomes powerful the reciprocation becomes more vigorous. But who created the
Frankenstein? The same voices who now fight against the Frankenstein. So, at
the end of the day, it’s like [a] poem by Annada Shankar Roy, I read long time
back – it goes something like this: Mukherjee is the King, Mukherjees are the
people; Mukherjee is the government, Mukherjees are the opposition; Mukherjees
are the protest, Mukherjees are the police... You know what he means and I see
the same thing here too. It’s all the same people on either sides. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Yes. I don't support Vikram Sampath being
disinvited. It's as bad as how Ambedkar was disinvited from his last lecture. I
too have a few friends who are on other sides of the spectrum including you. No
good can come out of stopping dialogue. Positions will only get hardened. It's
important to keep explaining to each other with rational arguments.</div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-79122139591261850392019-12-20T21:15:00.003+05:302019-12-20T22:01:55.682+05:30The Fallacy of the “Two Sides” - Part VI<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0n7e9tmOkXT-CeBDQiaMjTe4X4oxvGgcIo8uD7RMwZzm22wZJ-fazp-qMeonM3Zz9iUJR11gHOHl6AHSfC7iL_IBqzsLk2pHpmMBPQHmnPgltWIaokcaJXJH-UUPOvz0oejuRYR-rj4k/s1600/tibetans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0n7e9tmOkXT-CeBDQiaMjTe4X4oxvGgcIo8uD7RMwZzm22wZJ-fazp-qMeonM3Zz9iUJR11gHOHl6AHSfC7iL_IBqzsLk2pHpmMBPQHmnPgltWIaokcaJXJH-UUPOvz0oejuRYR-rj4k/s640/tibetans.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-v.html" target="_blank">Part V</a></i><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The two sides of a
cause, or a narrative, or an ideology are like the two sides of the same coin,
which has no value without either of them. But still one thinks it’s superior
to the other and the other dismisses it as though its existence is
inconsequential. But one thing that comes about, seen holistically, is that
both the sides are adamant, arrogant and insensitive to each other. The
reality is that, one exists because of the other and if one hadn’t been there
perhaps the other wouldn’t be there too. There’s a “Bhakt”, only because there’s
also a “Sickular”. There’s a “Sold Media” because there’s also a “Modia”. And
in the melee, the coin seems meaningless.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>To give an example,
let’s go through a conversation between “Any One” and “Other One”, who
represent the two sides. They both are friends and come from similar
backgrounds. But still they are on the two sides and here goes their
conversation, about the recent CAA, Citizenship Amendment Act.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: So your argument is they [<i>the persecuted Hindus from Bangladesh who have entered India illegally</i>]
should not be made to go through any process [for Indian citizenship].
Understood.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: Something which seems default to me is not easy
to explain others. And there lies the chasm between the two sides of the story.
Of course, no one has been wronged like them. The Jews have been rehabilitated worldwide.
But the second most persecuted religious community in the world is still not
being rehabilitated and we are still debating. That’s really painful. And isn’t
it just amazing that despite such level of persecution not a single of them
have yet become militant or even taken to any form of violence, both in
Bangladesh and also in India.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: Understood. I am not convinced about rehabilitation
for past wrongs at the cost of others who are very much in the present. I don't
know if it's [<i>Hindus not taking to
militancy</i>] amazing. You could think of various reasons. Divisions within
Hindu society, lack of leadership, who knows. They are all theories. But i
understand your viewpoint. Even though i don't agree with it. I guess that's
important.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: There’s a persecuted community who were ready to
adjust to anything that came along and struggle to do whatever best they
managed to get. And see, most successful Bengalis worldwide are among those
persecuted people. It’s indeed something to study for the whole world. But they
never even came to the radar of anyone. No one is asking to do any wrong to
others. I’m just saying, keep them aside and create rules for others. Don’t mix
them with other persecuted people at all. Isn’t it ironical that we are ready
to understand why someone can become militant but we say “don’t know” when
there’s an example of such a huge persecuted community who stayed away from
militancy? By the way, Parsis and Tibetans too never became militants and they too
were not less persecuted. It’s indeed worth studying why certain people – Sri
Lankan Tamils, Maoists, Kashmiris – took to militancy but many others didn’t.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Any One</b>: It would be worth studying why militancy did not
develop among the Hindus in Bangladesh or Tibetans in China while it did among
Tamils of Sri Lanka, or Sunni Muslims of Kashmir. Maybe it will help prevent
militancy among other marginalized groups, of which there are hundreds. But as
a matter of urgency, when faced with militant violence, the state reacts with
violence, academics try to ask why is there militancy, and perhaps forget to
ask the question of why there isn't militancy elsewhere. I am certain the
answer if there is one cannot be simplistic (e.g. Tibetans are fundamentally
peace loving) and should not be seen through the prism of race or religion, but
needs to be dug out from the specific political and social circumstance. Maybe
at a people to people level, the Hindus of Bangladesh didn't consider their
Muslim neighbors to be sufficiently different from them, given the abundance of
cultural commonalities, in order for them to wage war on them. Or maybe there
was no wealthy diaspora willing to fund them with arms. It will require serious
research to understand why. It might be easier to answer questions of why there
is militancy elsewhere. Because it's there, and causal links can be
established. Understanding absence of something is fundamentally harder I
think. But I'm no expert.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Availability of arms is fundamental I think. Presence of
Pakistan is an obvious factor in Kashmir. India fortunately didn't fuel an
insurgency in Bangladesh. But just academically speaking, if India did, do you
think the Hindus would have seized the opportunity? It's possible, isn't it?
E.g. the LTTE got some of their power and legitimacy from an arguable level of
endorsement from some South Indian parties. All I'm saying is, we can theorize
about this stuff. But the pain and suffering that people and kids are going
through right now, today, is something we are all complicit in. Just as our
parents were complicit in Nehru's mistakes. In our times if there is something
I can do to raise my voice against injustice that moves me, I will. And I agree
I can't do it for everyone. So the argument of what about the community X in
such and such place doesn't hold for me. We are not super humans that we have
to stand up for every injustice. If we raise our voice for any cause, we
believe in, I think we are being good citizens, irrespective of what side of
the debate we are on, as long as it is sincere and not agenda driven.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Other One</b>: These are very interesting discussions and I wish
people actually indulged into this rather than attacking the other side and
landing nowhere. As you said, yes, there’s a bias in everyone and people should
accept that. You stand for something doesn’t mean that someone else can’t stand
for something else. And “my standing” is the only high “standing” is also not
acceptable. Today’s problem comes exactly from this attitude. I love Gandhi
like a God and always hated Nathuram Godse but when I read what he told to the
court in his trial I was firstly so shaken that I couldn’t sleep for [a] few
days. Not that my love for Gandhi came down, rather it increased, but I learned
a very big thing – that the other perspective is also equally strong as mine,
and that the ethics and moralities are only relative. At the end, Nathuram Godse
took arms, very much like a Kashmiri terrorist, and the adamancy and arrogance
about the absoluteness of my ideology never allows to pardon a militant, come
what may. Hence, at the end I can’t take Nathuram’s side though he also stood
for what he felt was right. All our standings are like that. If I stand for
Gandhi I must demonize Nathuram, and if I stand for Nathuram I must demonize
Gandhi. But in reality, both sides become demon – the Gandhians might feel
appalled at the thought that Nathuram could be right, and vice versa. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The moment you demonize one side too much, there’s a
retaliation and in most cases it’s very severe. There are very solid grounds,
supported by facts and figures, that Hindus have been wronged in many ways. But
that’s normal – anyone could be wronged. So there’s perhaps no exception about
the wrongs done towards the Hindus. But for a very long time the side that
stood for the Hindus were demonized so much that one day they retaliated. If
the demonization didn’t happen, perhaps the retaliation also wouldn’t have
happened. Terrorism is also one form of fascism. In fact, fascism is terrorism.
So if you think why the BJP has such enormous support base in [what your side
refers to as] its [own] form of “terrorism”, it’s perhaps because of the same
reason why Kashmiris have also come to support terrorism – the feeling that
they haven’t been heard enough, that they have been demonized in many ways. So
basically the problem is always in demonizing the other side. Whenever I call
someone fascist or communal I’m demonizing him, not understanding why he’s
behaving like that. [For the sake of argument, it could be said that] there’s
no difference between a Kashmiri terrorist and may be Amit Shah or Modi or
another Nathuram. One has more power so he’s doing more harm. So unless this
looking down on others, taking a moral high ground that “my stand is higher
than yours”, this will never end. As I told, BJP will lose, Congress will come,
they will also do some other form of harm and then again BJP will come and it
will go on and on like a vicious circle – unless we learn to listen otters,
stop demonizing others.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-vii.html" target="_blank">Part VII</a></i></div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-63206154491555734632019-12-20T21:09:00.003+05:302019-12-20T22:02:18.855+05:30The Fallacy of the “Two Sides” - Part V<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5MxjROG5DimA9bbtJVH_8bFEM4gHdFQ6wzslTpiwk4Nn30topcX_N4LBMlGVv0jfU7ZceUydRgJ0e0O1cO7xP-0Ee4SFJFCxzZF8bBgCTv4yya6riVIePa-xoBVdQXeWL_bj0ES9B8Xw/s1600/Ltte_emblem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="239" data-original-width="198" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5MxjROG5DimA9bbtJVH_8bFEM4gHdFQ6wzslTpiwk4Nn30topcX_N4LBMlGVv0jfU7ZceUydRgJ0e0O1cO7xP-0Ee4SFJFCxzZF8bBgCTv4yya6riVIePa-xoBVdQXeWL_bj0ES9B8Xw/s400/Ltte_emblem.jpg" width="331" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-iv.html" target="_blank">Part IV</a></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The two sides of a
cause, or a narrative, or an ideology are like the two sides of the same coin,
which has no value without either of them. But still one thinks it’s superior
to the other and the other dismisses it as though its existence is
inconsequential. But one thing that comes about, seen holistically, is that
both the sides are adamant, arrogant and insensitive to each other. The
reality is that, one exists because of the other and if one hadn’t been there
perhaps the other wouldn’t be there too. There’s a “Bhakt”, only because
there’s also a “Sickular”. There’s a “Sold Media” because there’s also a “Modia”.
And in the melee, the coin seems meaningless.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>To give an example,
let’s go through a conversation between “Any One” and “Other One”, who
represent the two sides. They both are friends and come from similar
backgrounds. But still they are on the two sides and here goes their
conversation, about the recent CAA, Citizenship Amendment Act.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: I feel it's incorrect to believe that Arundhati Roy
or Barkha Dutt or folks like us can magically come up with a solution [for
Kashmir]. It has to be some [a] combination of declaring the LOC an
international border, giving the current Kashmiris proper rights and representation,
a roadmap for demilitarization, a roadmap for minority rights, strengthening
our border protection, etc. Specifics needs much deeper and sincere engagement
with the valley. But now this is all academic talk. After August, the chances
of this happening are zero. People like me are ready to join the militancy. Not
me as in me, but people with our kind of background.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Well, when you say Kashmiris I’m sure you’re
referring only to the Sunnis because the Shias and others don’t have much
problem – I saw that first hand two years ago. Now I would be also curious to
know what rights and representations the Kashmiris in India didn’t have between
1947 and the late eighties that anyone anywhere else in India had. All
political parties in Kashmir were run by Kashmiris and I don’t take the crap
that elections were rigged and hence they had to take to militancy. Elections
have been rigged in Bengal all along till recently. First of all, it was never militarized.
Even to get into talks, there has to be a status quo and few things like
“azaadi” and sympathy towards terrorists and Pakistan have to be kept aside. So
both sides have to come to some compromise that never happened, I see. See,
these things are easy said than done. And you have very strong points, so do I,
and both have logic and reasoning. Another problem is that my side and your
side both are adamant and arrogant, claiming superiority in ideology and
humanism. I see some very silly arguments coming up from both sides.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By the way, going by your logic of joining militancy, don’t
you think the Hindus of Bangladesh and the Pandits should have all taken to
militancy by now because their persecutions and human rights violation have
been much more than the Sunnis of Indian Kashmir? See, this logic also doesn’t
hold good. Many more people have been deprived of many things but they never
took to militancy. Same goes for the Maoists – nothing can justify their
militancy, or for that matter [that of] the Lankan Tamils.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Incorrect to assume that I'm only talking about
rights and representation of Sunni Kashmiris. Everyone has rights. The idea of
a democracy is not majority rule, which is what our politicians have made us
believe, but a voice for everyone, no matter how feeble. If we carve out a
Kashmir solution while ignoring the Shias and Pandits we will just sow the
seeds of a new problem. Anyway, like I said, this debate is completely
academic, because for the foreseeable future Kashmir is lost to India as a
result of the August actions. As far as why Hindus didn't become militant in
Bangladesh, I don't know. These are hard questions. Regarding militancy, where
it does exist, one must try and understand the reasons behind it. Understanding
terrorism isn’t the same as condoning it. For a while now anyone who tries to
do the former is branded as someone who is doing the latter, and gets called
terrorist sympathizer and anti-national. That in my view is an intentional
political strategy that ultimately damages the country.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: To me, if I see from little above, taking a
holistic view, both sides seem to be agenda driven without any side trying to
understanding the other. Whenever it comes to [the] persecuted Hindus, the
response is, either “I can’t say” or “Let’s not bring that here”, or “Let’s move
on, that’s past, why rake history”. And to me that aggravates the chasm between
the two sides. To me both sides have serious biases and both sides think they
are doing the right thing from their perspective. Like I always failed to
understand why there’s no sympathy for the second largest persecuted religious
community in the world, that’s the Hindus of East Pakistan, from the people who
seem to be so much concerned about Palestine and Kashmir, whereas the numbers
of the latter are lower in some order of magnitude than that of the former.
There’s absolutely nothing significant available in the internet about the
conditions of the Shias in POK. No one seems to be bothered about them but all
are so concerned about the Sunnis of Indian Kashmir. There’s a bias in many
other things which again increases the gaps between the two sides. So unless
both sides reconcile, and stop taking moral high ground over the other, things
will not stop.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I and you may be a skewed representative of the two sides –
I said skewed because very few from your side seem to be as sensible and well-read
and well opinionated like you and I can say the same for my side too. I feel so
strongly about something without bias and you for something else. I can’t agree
that I’m communal and you’re of course not anti-national. But still, see, how
much “difference of opinion” exists on some very fundamental things between us.
At least I listen to you and you hear me without me calling you anti national
and you calling me communal. But that’s not the case for all from my and your
sides. I perhaps can’t make you understand what makes me sad and what makes me
feel helpless about certain reactions I see about certain things. I’m sure you
too feel why I don’t think like you. So, you know that the thing we are dealing
with is not simple and unless everyone behaves like us, there’s absolutely no hope.
Next time BJP will lose, Congress will again carry out the same mistakes that
will again bring back a more ferocious BJP after few terms and this will go on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Wondering why if Ahmadis could access a process to
gain citizenship why couldn't the Hindus from Bangladesh access the same
process?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: As I always maintain, Hindus of Bangladesh can’t
be compared with anyone else. They are technically Indian citizens who were
denied their basic right – they were not allowed to enter India – and that
resulted in them being the second largest victim of persecution after the Jews.
As I told, if I’m the citizen then they too are, and I could have been also one
of them who couldn’t enter India, or rather not allowed to enter India. The partition
made it mandatory for India to accept all willing non-Muslim people from both
East and West Pakistan – everyone from West Pakistan was allowed to enter and
only a part from East Bengal was. So the Hindus of Bangladesh can’t be mixed
with anyone else. And no question of asylum for them – they are Indian citizens
who were deprived of their rights. And then, they are much more persecuted than
anyone else in India. Ahmadi, Baloch etc., etc. – no one faced such genocide
killing 2.5 million.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-vi.html" target="_blank">Part VI</a></i></div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-2263795652019696082019-12-20T21:02:00.000+05:302019-12-20T22:04:01.359+05:30The Fallacy of the “Two Sides” - Part IV<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq76BXkyAhqEr44Sig0qXbysgHDs7b5ySqwGS9msZEb2X-O_0H5iA7VvpNJQq_fqCe7ZeryQUsnj3CGVLKlPcF-dhLa8XBsfyZraQR0JxytINV-oPufVbsiKKjiAWVLUrIe3OAPwbbtV0/s1600/Kashmir.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="436" data-original-width="640" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq76BXkyAhqEr44Sig0qXbysgHDs7b5ySqwGS9msZEb2X-O_0H5iA7VvpNJQq_fqCe7ZeryQUsnj3CGVLKlPcF-dhLa8XBsfyZraQR0JxytINV-oPufVbsiKKjiAWVLUrIe3OAPwbbtV0/s640/Kashmir.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-iii.html" target="_blank">Part III</a></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The two sides of a
cause, or a narrative, or an ideology are like the two sides of the same coin,
which has no value without either of them. But still one thinks it’s superior
to the other and the other dismisses it as though its existence is
inconsequential. But one thing that comes about, seen holistically, is that
both the sides are adamant, arrogant and insensitive to each other. The
reality is that, one exists because of the other and if one hadn’t been there
perhaps the other wouldn’t be there too. There’s a “Bhakt”, only because
there’s also a “Sickular”. There’s a “Sold Media” because there’s also a
“Modia”. And in the melee, the coin seems meaningless.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>To give an example,
let’s go through a conversation between “Any One” and “Other One”, who
represent the two sides. They both are friends and come from similar
backgrounds. But still they are on the two sides and here goes their
conversation, about the recent CAA, Citizenship Amendment Act.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: OK [<i>Referring
to the fact that the militarization of Kashmir started with the Pandit exodus
in the late eighties</i>]. But it goes back to my fundamental problem with
addressing one historical injustice by committing new ones. With Kashmir, I
think the recent moves will be seen by history as having created another
Palestine. I think there's plenty of awareness about the plight of the Pandits.
May be, it wasn't talked about in the 90s, but that's all I hear these days. I
have a Pandit aunt who lives in Kolkata. Maybe that's why I was aware even
through the 90s. Competitive injustice will kill us all.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Well, as for Kashmir, I visited with my patents
and family just two years back, just to get a firsthand experience, in the
middle of another crackdown where internet was stopped. My driver for the
entire stay was a Shia and he has absolutely no problem with India. He is not anti-India
and he hates Pakistan and holds the Sunnis for their plight. So you have all
the minorities – Buddhist in Ladakh, Pandits, Shias – all have a totally
different perspective than the Sunnis. But you always hear the Sunni narrative
– what about the rest of the minorities? I have problem with any narrative
which becomes one sided and I see that most for Kashmir, as if it’s only all
Sunni. So, what’s the solution? Can the Pandits ever be rehabilitated to
Kashmir? And if not, then would you be fine with that? What I don’t get
anywhere is any alternative solution that would keep Pakistan at bay and also
restore the rights of the Pandits and the Shias.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: The average guy will not know about the historical
injustice. Just like the Kashmiri kids don't know about the Pandit exodus.
Their personal reality is what will define their attitude towards the state.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: So what do you think should be the right
solution?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: I think it's OK to say “I’m not sure”. Definitely
for me. And the state should also be humble enough to say that. Involving the
stakeholders is critical. They killed that possibility in Kashmir. And they may
have killed in Assam too. The autocracy we are living in doesn't understand
these things. What consultations did they hold with Kashmiris before deciding
their fate? What did they discuss with the Assamese? The arrogance shocks me.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that it's 100 years since the Rowlatt Act and the
worst of the colonial oppression. Echoes of an inglorious past.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Assam is too early to say what they did and how
much they consulted the local people – I don’t have any information about that.
But yes I can “assume” they must have done more. Now for Kashmir, not only
they, but successive governments have been talking for thirty years. And I
would really like to hear from anyone what’s the solution there. Few things are
nonnegotiable I believe you admit. (1) They have to stop all persecution of non-Sunnis,
have to rehabilitate [the] Pandits in letter and spirit, stop marginalizing the
Shias and the Buddhists. (2) They have to stop terrorism in all ways – I think
you also know terrorism can’t thrive without local support. (3) They have to
stop aligning with Pakistan. Do you disagree to these main tenets? It applies
not only to Kashmir but also to the rest of India. I always hear criticism but
no one has ever given a solution. If anyone is saying Kashmir must be allowed
to be independent, then you know how stupid that would be. (1) That would mean
succeeding Kashmir to Pakistan, and (2) That will be a bad precedence for all
other states all of which could then ask for secession. So now, let people
suggest what the possibilities are. I’ve been studying this at least for the
last 10 years and have just heard barbs and idealistic rhetoric but not a
single person who claim to be sympathetic to the Kashmiri cause has given any
solution – including Arundhati Roy, Barkha Dutt and so many western media. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, the comparison with Rowland act is not technically
very correct. British India was predominantly nonviolent and Kashmir is not.
Not even the NE, but the latter has become predominantly nonviolent and I am
hopeful something will be soon worked out there. But without stopping terrorism
in Kashmir, I don’t see how things will change. I have one more major problem
with Kashmir. And I see this elsewhere too. There’s a sympathy for the Sunnis worldwide
but there’s no sympathy for other sects of Muslims. No Kashmir sympathizer ever
talks about POK. I believe you know how their demographics have been ruthlessly
altered by Pakistan. But even after 70 years, the demographics of Indian
Kashmir hasn’t changed at all for the Muslims, though the Hindus have been
totally kicked out. Still, I didn’t find anything significant about POK in the
internet. The same Article 370 has been violated both by Pakistan and China in
their parts of Kashmir but hell broke loose when India wanted to end that. What
do you have to say about this total silence about the Kashmiris of POK? I have
problem with such one sided narrative. If you see, I have come to realize, the
both sides of a cause actually are equally one sided – the government at one
side and ones who oppose at the other side. Neither side ever takes a holistic
view and I feel both sides are equally guilty of not solving any problem, just because
of this one sidedness.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And finally I’m also amused at this stand that whenever
something wrong happens to the Hindus, people want to forget that totally. Like
this case of the Hindus of East Pakistan – they are the second most persecuted
religions community in the world after the Jews. Then the Pandits – they are
again one of the very few religious communities who have been 100% evicted from
their homeland. In both cases people are ready to forget such huge colossal
wrongs and want to move ahead. So then the other side can also say, “Anyway,
you want to forget. This Kashmir thing will also be forgotten after 50-60 years.”
Are you fine with this? Of course not, and no one can be fine with this. So my
original question comes: What’s the solution which doesn’t ask for forgetting
anything?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now related to this is my even a larger problem – people always
side with the first aggressor and accuse the retaliator because the retaliation
is always 100 times more than the first aggression. Everyone accuses US for the
nuclear attack on Japan but they totally forget what instigated that. For the
Palestine cause too, it’s very clear who’s the first aggressor and if you do a “what
if” analysis of what could have happened if the first aggression didn’t happen,
then you can realize how different everything would have been. No one thinks
this, that if the Ottoman Empire had sided with the Allied forces in both the World
Wars, perhaps there won’t be any Palestine problem today. So most of the plight
in the Middle East is created by that, and how can you totally ignore that,
like ignoring Japan’s responsibility in bringing such loses to its own people?<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m always in for healthy debates which enlighten me more
than anything as I believe in seeing both sides with equal importance.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-v.html" target="_blank">Part V</a></i></div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-74144550632847249092019-12-20T20:37:00.000+05:302019-12-20T22:28:39.381+05:30The Fallacy of the “Two Sides” - Part III<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXusm3qsZ3Q77v_rwh2ZyZ48XPM5V83gpET59y6DAkbJpT__9NrOoli99LaC0bZffItE1NH0dyWNW8_U2Va1-7BdyOZrWI1ZQaZ-T6EXbMkuVGVY3_0NuvQvFu8_JDt7Y9ovNR5N32Do/s1600/pandit.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="580" height="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixXusm3qsZ3Q77v_rwh2ZyZ48XPM5V83gpET59y6DAkbJpT__9NrOoli99LaC0bZffItE1NH0dyWNW8_U2Va1-7BdyOZrWI1ZQaZ-T6EXbMkuVGVY3_0NuvQvFu8_JDt7Y9ovNR5N32Do/s640/pandit.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-ii.html" target="_blank">Part II</a></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The two sides of a
cause, or a narrative, or an ideology are like the two sides of the same coin,
which has no value without either of them. But still one thinks it’s superior
to the other and the other dismisses it as though its existence is
inconsequential. But one thing that comes about, seen holistically, is that
both the sides are adamant, arrogant and insensitive to each other. The
reality is that, one exists because of the other and if one hadn’t been there
perhaps the other wouldn’t be there too. There’s a “Bhakt”, only because
there’s also a “Sickular”. There’s a “Sold Media” because there’s also a
“Modia”. And in the melee, the coin seems meaningless.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To give an example,
let’s go through a conversation between “Any One” and “Other One”, who
represent the two sides. They both are friends and come from similar
backgrounds. But still they are on the two sides and here goes their
conversation, about the recent CAA, Citizenship Amendment Act.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Can you point me to some good material that
describes how the Hindus of East Pakistan were denied entry into India in the
late 40s and 50s? Deplorable as that might be, I still don't see how that makes
it OK to give blanket citizenship to all Hindus from Bangladesh who may have
entered India all the way up until 2014, while excluding others.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: How can you compare the Hindus of Bangladesh with
anyone else in the world? Which other community has been killed in so big
numbers? Of course they are more eligible than anyone else in the world – they were
left to be killed because of India’s fault. Forget about facts and figures and
history. Have you ever thought why’s it that you never hear of Hindus (or for
that matter even Muslim) from Pakistan infiltrating into the Punjab, but you
hear Hindus from Bangladesh have been entering into Bengal and NE till this
day? What do you think is the reason? The only reason is that close to 100% non-Muslims
were allowed to enter India immediately after partition from [West] Pakistan,
but only a part could enter India from Bangladesh and rest couldn’t, and they
and their descendants have been pouring in ever since. Why do you think you
rarely hear about infiltration of Muslims form the west – are they not poor? Of
course they are poor and may be even poorer than Bangladeshi Muslims. But still
why don’t they pour into India through the Punjab or Gujarat or Rajasthan?
Rajasthan is much easier to slip through. But still you only hear Muslims
entering through Bengal. Doesn’t that smell of something else? Good that these
are coming out now. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a pretty well researched article but still not fully
correct, as the author might not have researched that well. But at least it’s
coming out now. It says, “This insistence, that the solution lay not in
rehabilitation but encouraging East Bengali Hindus to not migrate, flew in the
face of facts. This severely affected the state of East Bengali refugees, who
were ignored by the Central government, which remained “preoccupied with the
problem of resettling 7 million refugees fleeing the massacres in the Punjab”.
Since New Delhi kept on insisting that Bengal had no refugee problem, “long
after the number of refugees in West Bengal had outstripped those in the East
Punjab, such funds for their relief and rehabilitation as the central
government was persuaded to sanction remained hopelessly inadequate and far too
belated to resolve, or even to alleviate on the margins, one of the most
intractable problems which partition had created,” wrote Chatterjee.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://scroll.in/article/946454/the-nehru-liaquat-pact-failed-refugees-from-bangladesh-but-so-would-the-citizenship-bill">https://scroll.in/article/946454/the-nehru-liaquat-pact-failed-refugees-from-bangladesh-but-so-would-the-citizenship-bill</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Thanks for the info on the fallout of the Nehru
Liaquat pact. I was only partly aware of the impact. There is a process to
become a citizen, but it seems very complex and probably out of reach of poor
people irrespective of religion. So fixing that without discriminating based on
religion would have been the right thing to do, in my view. That would mean a
proper refugee law. That could have addressed the historical wrong in the case
of Hindus from East Pakistan, and still maintained our pluralistic credentials.
I don't believe in fixing one historical injustice by committing another.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<b>Other One</b>: That’s [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nehru
Liaquat pact</i>] the main reason behind most of today’s problems in NE, and so
many others. And it’s sad that no one even in Bengal ever acknowledged that so
many million Hindus from East Pakistan were actually deprived of their
citizenship of India. It’s as if it never happened. Even the Bengalis and the
Bengali intelligentsia totally ignored them – and then 2.5 million of them were
[left to be] killed by [the] Pakistani army between 1947 and 1971. Which other
religious community other than the Jews faced such level of genocide? Don’t you
think they, like the Jews, can’t be categorized with anyone else in the world?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Well, in spite of what happened to the Jews, I do
not for once condone the way Israel was created. Again an example of addressing
a historical injustice with another one. How well that worked out? Kashmir is
our own Palestine too. Since August. These are just my views, all of us have
views that are shaped by our personal exposure. But I guess it's important to
keep listening to others.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<b>Other One</b>: Well, I have a different perspective of both
Israel and Kashmir. As for Kashmir, why is there the army first of all? And
before 1990, was there any army? What started this?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<b>Any One</b>: I am generally depressed at the loss of ideals. This
is no country of Tagore’s “Where the mind is without fear”. I met a group of
Kashmiri students and professionals. They have lived the horror personally. All
Indians should listen to them. They are too scared to speak up. What kind of a
country is this?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Totally agreed, but why did it come to this? What
happened in 1989? Why were things normal before that? And have you heard the
views from the Pandits? Why were they kicked out? Who’s responsible for that?
And what triggered that?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: I have a very close Pandit friend. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: What’s his view about why they were kicked out?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: His view is that all Kashmiris see the issue
through their own prism. He is totally sympathetic to the cause of the young
Kashmiris in the valley today. He doesn't believe in punishing them for what
happened in 1989. Most were not even born then. But he understands that it's not
the wider view held by the Pandit community. Most of them are like Anupam Kher.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<b>Other One</b>: But did the problem end after 1989? Why, first of
all, the army had to be deployed? If you want to forget everything then no
problem will be solved ever. What about the emotions of the Pandits who lost
everything? And how can they get justice? Forget Pandits, what about the Shias
in Kashmir? I always have one question about Kashmir: Why no one even acknowledges
the plight of the Pandits? Why is it always one sided narrative?<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-iv.html" target="_blank">Part IV</a></i></div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-31754083068620181282019-12-20T20:12:00.004+05:302019-12-20T22:04:40.408+05:30The Fallacy of the “Two Sides” - Part II<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnp86YLT-0xqbaieXPyYsJqu8GcgviRVVK8CRzox_tFVnc-cH79HqlkLvqBjjIrPojlAfwkT1jMRFArFymMPDjiYskBhTaizH2NM7DceKCFe82AEdfZIJw_zzGB3YtzTNZAzs9lFb6Hg/s1600/detention.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="512" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnp86YLT-0xqbaieXPyYsJqu8GcgviRVVK8CRzox_tFVnc-cH79HqlkLvqBjjIrPojlAfwkT1jMRFArFymMPDjiYskBhTaizH2NM7DceKCFe82AEdfZIJw_zzGB3YtzTNZAzs9lFb6Hg/s640/detention.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-i.html" target="_blank">Part I</a></i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The two sides of a
cause, or a narrative, or an ideology are like the two sides of the same coin,
which has no value without either of them. But still one thinks it’s superior
to the other and the other dismisses it as though its existence is
inconsequential. But one thing that comes about, seen holistically, is that both
the sides are adamant, arrogant and insensitive to each other. The reality
is that, one exists because of the other and if one hadn’t been there perhaps
the other wouldn’t be there too. There’s a “Bhakt”, only because there’s also a
“Sickular”. There’s a “Sold Media” because there’s also a “Modia”. And in the
melee, the coin seems meaningless.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To give an example,
let’s go through a conversation between “Any One” and “Other One”, who
represent the two sides. They both are friends and come from similar backgrounds.
But still they are on the two sides and here goes their conversation, about the
recent CAA, Citizenship Amendment Act.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Do you think the government is sincere in solving
the specific problem you describe [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">protecting
the persecuted minorities of the Indian subcontinent</i>], and you see no
ulterior / broader motive?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Well, let me ask, do you think any Muslim who has
been staying in India forever would be illegally made a non-citizen now, like
what everyone is talking? NRC in Assam had lot of Hindus who were excluded. There
would be many errors, but I can say many are not errors. They did actually
trickle in between 71 and now.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Well, 2 million people who were left out of the NRC
are right now headed for detention camps. In another day and age, we would have
called them concentration camps. Who are we to judge how many of those 2
million are genuine illegals. And even if they are, locking then up isn’t an
answer that's acceptable in 2019.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Yes, that I agree, [that] detention camp is not
the solution. But no one else is coming up with [a] good solution either.
Political parties like TMC can’t be given a free hand to lure Muslims from
Bangladesh just to secure their vote bank. That’s also illegal and how do you
stop that? No one even speaks about the condition in Bengal, and one day it will
also erupt like the NE. The change in demographics in many parts of Bengal is rampant
now. Someone should come up with a solution. And yes, it should be better than
what we have now, I mean what the [incumbent] government is doing. By the way,
see, even now we refer to [the] Bangladeshi Hindus and “illegals”. Isn’t it
sad? Why are they illegals first of all? And why am I then legal?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: I think what's missing is proper asylum refugee
policy. If as you say Ahmadi and Tamils are free to avail of that policy, why
isn't it accessible to Hindus from Bangladesh? Why isn't migration from Nepal
an issue? Is it because they are Hindu? What about persecuted minorities in
Nepal? I see this whole process as riddled with contradictions, aimed to suit
one group in politics, no different from Mamata. Referring to anyone as illegal
is sad. No one can be illegal. We are all legitimate humans with legitimate
aspirations. These ‘infiltrators’ and ‘termites’ that Shah refers to are the
poorest people in the sub-continent. I mean Muslims, who migrate from
Bangladesh to India. How poor must they be to want a better life in India,
where Muslims are as low as Dalits in socio economic terms?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: My point is simple, this “anyone else” from
erstwhile East Pakistan must be treated differently because they were not
allowed to enter India and were not taken care of earlier – there shouldn’t be
a question of asylum to them. My father didn’t get asylum. “Anyone else” from
Pakistan who wanted to come to India after partition shouldn’t be a case for
asylum – they are as good citizens as any other, like you and me. As they were then
not allowed to claim the Indian citizenship they were entitled to [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">because being a party to the partition,
India implicitly accepted the Two Nation Theory in letter and spirit and hence
was obligated to give refuge to all willing non-Muslims from Pakistan</i>], first
they should be allowed to do so now. That should be separate from anything else,
I feel. And then, there can be any humane rules for absorbing people from other
countries on compassionate grounds irrespective of religions, as much as India
can afford to, like the Tibetans. All of them [who had fled Tibet] were
absorbed in due course. Something like that could always be there. Anyway,
let’s continue with the arguments as that’s what is very much needed, in civilized
form, not attacking each other.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Academic thought exercise: How do you feel about a
regular Muslim who chose to leave Dhaka in 1975 because she wanted to live in
secular India with better women's rights? In your view is her claim to Indian
citizenship weaker than a Hindu from Bangladesh who decided to migrate at the
same time?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: I believe, she can always seek citizenship
through natural process, like <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/Adnan-Sami-is-Indian-now/article13973329.ece">Adnan
Sami</a> and many of Pakistani origin have also done. She doesn’t have to
illegally enter India without documents. It’s like our friends settling in the
US for better opportunities. Taslima Nasreen is also staying legally in India and
she will surely get Indian citizenship someday. Interestingly, she’s hounded by
the Muslims not the Hindus, please note. No one is talking about such cases.
The Baloch leader <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/exiled-baloch-leader-brahumdagh-bugti-to-get-indian-citizenship-pakistan-media/articleshow/54358610.cms">Bugti</a>
was granted Indian citizenship. There are so many Shias from POK staying
peacefully in India, legally. But for the Hindus of Bangladesh, that’s a total
different story. The partition gave them the right to stay in India, and no one
can deny that. Millions of them were not allowed to stay in India – so their
case can’t be mixed with anyone else’s, I feel. It’s like the Pandits’ right to
go back to Kashmir. It can’t be mixed with anything else. Their claim to
citizenship is above all, even before mine and yours because they have been
wronged in the most horrific way by India. They were denied their legal right
by India. For everyone else [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the other
persecuted people in question</i>] – India didn’t do any wrong to them. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The data I have dug out, and have also validated with a report
from a Bangladeshi Muslim reporter’s article, says, only seven lakh Muslims actually
crossed border from India to East Pakistan, during the partition, and many of
them were Hindi speaking Biharis. And multiple reports say that very few of
these seven lakh would have left because of the fear of persecution. On the
contrary, the Great Calcutta Killing and the Nokhali riots [of 1946] had made it
very clear that Hindus were no longer safe in Bangladesh or East Pakistan. So
when the partition happened, there was absolutely no reason to deny them entry
to India. That’s the most inhuman act ever done to any community – leave them
to die. And they did. Peer reviewed papers cite reports that more than 2.5
million Hindus were killed in East Pakistan between 1947 and 1971 – these
numbers are comparable to Holocaust. And they died just because they were not
allowed to enter India. How can I compare them with anyone else? Sometimes I
myself feel disillusioned why these particular community – the Hindus from Bangladesh
– never got any sympathy from anyone.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-iii.html" target="_blank">Part III</a></i></div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-5642847915140445472019-12-20T19:58:00.003+05:302019-12-20T22:05:02.470+05:30The Fallacy of the “Two Sides” - Part I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Not only in India,
elsewhere too, the divide between the “Two Sides” are widening. One side always
accuses the other of one or the other. Take this example from India. One side
is “Bhakt” and the other “Sickular”. One is “Fascist” and the other “Urban
Naxal”. One is “Sold Media” and the other “Modia”. One is “Tukde Tukde Gang”
and the other “Divider No 1”. One is “Right” and the other “Left”. One is
“So-called Liberal” and the other “Fundamentalist”. One is “Regressive” and the
other “Anti National”. There are many. And interestingly, you could find
similar nomenclature for the “Two Sides” in the UK, in the US too.</i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In reality, both the
sides are like the two sides of the same coin, which has no value without either
of them. But still one thinks it’s superior to the other and the other
dismisses it as though its existence is inconsequential. But one thing that
comes about, seen holistically, is that both the sides are adamant, arrogant
and insensitive to each other. The reality is that, one exists because of
the other and if one hadn’t been there perhaps the other wouldn’t be there too.
There’s a “Bhakt”, only because there’s also a “Sickular”. There’s a “Sold
Media” because there’s also a “Modia”. And in the melee, the coin seems
meaningless.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To give an example,
let’s go through a conversation between “Any One” and “Other One”, who
represent the two sides. They both are friends and come from similar
backgrounds. But still they are on the two sides and here goes their
conversation, about the recent CAA, Citizenship Amendment Act.<o:p></o:p></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm5qGFwqn6JoYlMwb6QK_n9LxwP6uT9VIs0Bot1OPfAmjULKW0bReRmFDmVJRET5HACVhNkF3hsJpc51YbSt902HCCSx2kP39CGtjNVQu43ffV0qzzMCUygAnZNiPSF-5OQdN1Kcqeq4Y/s1600/Citizenship-Amendment-Act-20191.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="800" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm5qGFwqn6JoYlMwb6QK_n9LxwP6uT9VIs0Bot1OPfAmjULKW0bReRmFDmVJRET5HACVhNkF3hsJpc51YbSt902HCCSx2kP39CGtjNVQu43ffV0qzzMCUygAnZNiPSF-5OQdN1Kcqeq4Y/s640/Citizenship-Amendment-Act-20191.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: I'm sure you know which side of the CAA debate I am
on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Well, it’s a very layered thing. The entire North
East is also on the same side as you, but of course for a totally different
reason. And, one thing that everyone is forgetting is that the problem arose
because, very few people might know, millions of Hindus who wanted to flee East
Pakistan, what later became Bangladesh, and take refuge in India around the
Indian Independence, were actually sent back [<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">due to the ill-conceived Nehru-Liaquat Pact</i>] and they and their descendants
kept pouring into India ever since – they can’t be called illegal, because
there’s no difference between them and me and my father, who managed to somehow
enter into India [at the nick of time]. It’s sad that it took so long to
acknowledge that they are not illegal. But then, this is totally lost in the
narrative of the CAA.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: In my view, if the intent was as noble as that, there
could have been other laws that could have been passed, refugee and amnesty
laws that so many countries have. This bill to me, stinks of a clear agenda. When
taken together with the NRC, it’s nothing short of anti-national in the
strongest possible sense.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Yes, the way it was done was not right. NE broke
into chaos and the various sentiments were not handled properly. But somewhere,
the colossal wrong against the Hindus from East Bengal had to be corrected. It was
wrapped under the carpet forever that few millions of them were not allowed to
settle in India when it was India’s moral obligation to give them shelter. Just
in one stroke, few millions were made to bear the ignominy of being illegal
forever. No one ever bothered to correct this serious wrong. The entire NE problem
is also due to that. [Those] who were not allowed to [take refuge] in India
legally, trickled into the entire NE slowly, [changing the demographics of the
entire region]. The locals do have a reason to be angry with that. Now, I
really don’t know what should have been a better way. Whatever you do, amnesty
or anything [else], the basic point remains that the Hindus from Bangladesh had
to be treated differently. There also, the same arguments would have come – why
amnesty only to them?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Any One</b>: Do you know anyone personally who is alive, Hindu,
and staying illegally in West Bengal today because they were forced to migrate
due to minority circumstances? Someone who could benefit from this bill?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Other One</b>: Well, I speak so vocally about this because I realized
many things from within my own family. My father, an uncle and an aunt, seven,
fourteen and nine years of age, entered India in 1948, alone. My grandmother
and grandfather stayed back in East Pakistan, because they had already heard
that the Hindus pouring into India were not being entertained at all. Many had
already been sent back. My grandfather was more than seventy. He didn’t want to
go through all these. They stayed back till 1965, till he died. My grandma
entered India along with my aunt in 1965. By that time my father already had a job
and it was not hard for them to settle in India. My grandma died in the 80s and
never had a Voter’s card, nor a passport. My aunt never got a passport because
there were always some complications as she didn’t go to any school in India. Her
son, my cousin brother, now stays in Dubai. He tried all ways to get her there,
but the passport itself couldn’t be done. My aunt’s husband is idealistic and
never wanted to go to the local MLA for help. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Likewise, many of my relatives were still there, in
Bangladesh, because they had heard horrid stories about rehabilitation of the
Hindus from East Pakistan. But by the sixties, they all wanted to flee. By then,
few had managed to go to the US, and many more eventually relocated to US. Again,
the fear was [uncertainties] about their rehabilitation in India – especially because
of India’s stand taken by Nehru, I don’t know why, to not allow the Hindu
refugees from Bangladesh any more in India beyond 1950. Somehow, we and our
flock, who were allowed to settle in India, moved up in the social ladder and
managed. Many settled in the US. So, now I don’t know anyone personally in India
who would benefit from this new amendment, but I kept on hearing from my
relatives [from across the border], who came to India much later, and also many,
who stayed back in the US illegally for years before getting asylum, that all
through the 80s and 90s lot of poor Hindus, who didn’t have any richer
relatives in India [or in the US], moved into the NE – that’s the root cause of
the entire issue in NE. The Hindu migrants there are predominantly the next
generations of the poor Hindus who couldn’t settle in India in the 50s because
of India’s hostile attitude towards them. Don’t you think it’s just by sheer
luck that I’m here and not in the NE, having “infiltrated” into India? I could
have been one of them, and if I got the citizen why not them? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If the premise of partition, which India, whatever it might
say in paper, also agreed to, is that Pakistan is the home for the Muslims,
where very soon “anyone else” was alienated, it’s India’s moral obligation to
accommodate this “anyone else”. It should have been from [the] day one, don’t
you think? The Shias in Kashmir and POK, Baluch, Ahmadis, Kalash, Hazara etc.
from Pakistan should also be accommodated and they can always take asylum. Same
goes for the Sri Lankan Tamils – they have already got asylum. But whatever you
do, there will always be some classification, as asylum can’t be given [indiscriminately]
to everyone. Finally, the whole problem, you also know, has aggravated because
the Left, and now the Trinamool Congress, have aggressively lured Muslims from
Bangladesh to change the demographics of Bengal, just for their vote bank. My
cousin stays at a place near Diamond Harbor, the constituency of Mamata’s
nephew, and I hear interesting stories from there all the time about how the
proportion of Bangladeshi Muslims is suddenly on rise since 2011. I visited one
such neighborhood few years back, just out of curiosity, and I can say none of
them came to India because of any good reason – they just knew someone here who
lured them to come here.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-fallacy-of-two-sides-part-ii.html" target="_blank">Part II</a></i></div>
</div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7442932827813396568.post-36411338408690892192019-12-10T02:09:00.002+05:302019-12-10T02:15:04.146+05:30Who are the persecuted minorities in the Indian subcontinent?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<img alt="Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019, Citizenship Bill 2019" height="425" src="https://images.financialexpress.com/2019/12/1-132.jpg" width="640" /><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Citizenship Amendment Bill 2019 was finally passed by
the Lok Sabha on 9<sup>th</sup> December, after a prolonged debate and vitriolic
criticism by the opposition and sections of media and intelligentsia, accusing
the government of murdering secularism at the altar of democracy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The amendment, roughly speaking, without going into the
nitty-gritty, exempts only the non-Muslim illegal immigrants of deportation or
imprisonment, and gives them a chance to obtain Indian citizenship, if they have
been victims of religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Questions have been raised about excluding Muslims from such an exemption, and
thus discriminating against them on the basis of religion.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In so many narratives from the either side – the government
along with the supporters, and the oppositions along with the opponents of such
a move – one very simple fact is being totally ignored. Though the names of Pakistan
and Afghanistan have also been taken along with that of Bangladesh, as the
possible sources of the illegal immigrants, some basic fact check and recalling
of deliberately forgotten not-so-old history could reveal that the bulk of this
so called illegal immigrants are Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh who shouldn’t
be called “illegal” in the first place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oscar Spate, an eminent geographer and an unofficial advisor
to the Muslim League, especially on the matter of the desired boundary of the
Pakistan side of the Punjab, said in the paper <i>The Partition of the Punjab and of Bengal</i>, published in December
1947 in <i>The Geographical Journal</i>,
"I favor the Muslim case in the Punjab … and in Bengal my leaning is
towards the other side." In the same paper he elaborated why he said so.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The proposed boundary in the Punjab left 3.5 to 4.5 million
minorities on either side. Western Punjab had a population of 15.8 million, of
whom 11.85 or close to 75% were Muslim, and the rest 25% predominantly Hindu and
Sikh minorities. East Punjab had a population of 12.6 million, of whom 4.4
million or roughly 35% were Muslim minorities. Presently, both sides have only
around 3% minorities. Almost the entire minority population changed sides soon,
amidst the fast deteriorating atmosphere of insecurities and brutal violence of
unthinkable magnitude inflicted upon the minorities on either side. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>The boundary of the
partitioned Bengal was unduly favorable to the Muslim side.</b> For example, whole
of Khulna district with 49.3% Muslim population was awarded to Pakistan, for
reasons even Spate couldn’t figure out. West Bengal had a population of 21.2
million, of whom only 5.3 million or roughly 25% were Muslim minorities, whereas
East Bengal had 39.1 million people, of whom a staggering 11.4 million or
roughly 30% were predominantly Hindu minorities. <b>Presently only 8% of East Bengal, now Bangladesh, is Hindu, whereas West
Bengal is 27% Muslim, compared to 25% at the time of partition.</b> <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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By 1948, as the great migration drew to a close, more than 15
million people had been uprooted, and between one and two million were dead.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Anything between
seven to eight million of the 11.4 million Hindus were forced to flee East Bengal
or East Pakistan and seek refuge in West Bengal and other parts of India, over
the years, in a staggered way, during which there was formidable resistance
even from the newly formed India government in accepting them, or even
acknowledging their status as displaced people, forget settling them
respectfully.</b> </div>
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<br /></div>
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On the contrary, as pointed out by a Bangladeshi writer in an
article published in the New York Times during the seventieth anniversary of
the partition of India, “only 700,000 moved to East Bengal… <b>Bengali Muslims suffered less violence than
other groups</b>. For many of them the move was voluntary, indeed opportunistic…
[in the] hope of a better future, rather than the mere search for a safe haven.”
It might be noted here that a good number of them who moved to East Pakistan or
East Bengal (now Bangladesh) from India for better prospects were not Bengalis,
but Hindi speaking Biharis, who later played a significant role in the brutal
persecution of the Hindus who were still there in East Bengal.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Exactly a year before the partition of India, Jinnah had declared
the Direct Action Day on 16<sup>th</sup> August 1946 – “Direct Action” to
achieve Pakistan. Rajmohan Gandhi, in his magnum opus <i>Mohandas</i>, quoted Jinnah as saying, “Today we bid goodbye to
constitutional methods.” What ensued was mayhem in the streets of Calcutta,
killing thousands of Hindus. On 20<sup>th</sup> August the British owned <i>The Statesman</i> reported, “The origin of
the appalling carnage – we believe the worst communal riot in India’s history –
was a political demonstration by the Muslim League.” <i>The Great Calcutta Killing</i>, as the daily reported it as, unleashed
the chain reaction of communal riots in India, something which would attain
more sinister forms in the next hundred years. <b>The Suhrawardy government in Bengal did literally nothing to stop the killings
in Calcutta. That was the beginning of the Hindu genocide in Bengal, something
which would be very soon brushed under the carpet. The Great Calcutta Killing
is the mother of all communal riots in India, setting off an unending fission
chain reaction of killings and destruction.</b></div>
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<b style="text-align: left;"><br /></b></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
Every action has a reaction, and the reaction another retaliatory
action, which again triggers a reaction, creating a sort of an avalanche. The
Hindu killings in Calcutta on the Direct Action Day immediately triggered
Muslim killings in Calcutta and elsewhere, which in turn triggered horrific
riots in Noakhali in East Bengal in October, unleashing another round of Hindu
genocide, which led to the Bihar killings of the Muslims, which again had
catastrophic impact on the ongoing Noakhali riots. The Great Calcutta Killings
left 7000 to 10000 dead, both Hindus and Muslims. In the Noakhali riots more
than 5000 Hindus were killed, villages after villages were burned, innumerable
Hindu women were raped and many were forcefully converted to Islam. In Bihar
2000 to 3000 Muslims were killed. The Noakhali riots were so horrific that
Gandhi had to camp there for months, to get things under control.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b>By end of 1946, it
was clear that the League wouldn’t allow the riots to stop till the demand for
Pakistan was met. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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When the partition finally happened in 1947, East Pakistan
had a staggering 11.4 million Hindus, who by now, had realized that they wouldn’t
be safe, for sure, in what had already become East Pakistan. Unlike Punjab,
here it was not possible for such a huge population to flee East Bengal
overnight. As they trickled into India slowly, over the years, carrying with
them never heard of horrific stories of one sided Hindu genocide of massive
proportions, Nehru, then the Prime Minister, came up with an ill-conceived idea,
much to the protests of people like Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the founder of the
organization which eventually evolved into the present Bharatiya Janata Party. <b>To prevent the Hindu exodus from East
Bengal, Nehru entered into a pact with the government of East Pakistan to help
create favorable conditions for the post 1950 Hindu refugees to go back to
their original homes in East Bengal. It’s really surprising that such a plan
was never implemented in the Punjab. </b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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The only reason for such an action could be the for a ‘secular’
garb, at any cost. Accepting the disproportionately large number of Hindus from
East Bengal would destabilize the Hindu-Muslim parity in the share of violence
inflicted by each side. It would expose the uncomfortable truth that in Bengal
the violence was inflicted predominantly by the Muslims against the Hindus. The
very fact that only 700,000 Muslims migrated to East Bengal from the west,
against the eight million Hindus who would eventually move into India over the
years, is proof enough that the violence in Bengal was one sided, against the
Hindus. In Punjab though, it maintained the much sought after parity, which
would make both the Muslims and the non-Muslims equally devil. Any disparity in
this regard would be uncomfortable for the idea of secularism. The Bengal side
of the partition didn’t fit into a particular kind of narrative of Hindu-Muslim
equality, which is rather more impractical and utopian than idealistic. The
disparity also had another danger – the retaliation. The moment the rest of
India would come to know of the magnitude of the atrocities against the Hindus
in East Bengal, there ought to be retaliation and chain reactions of communal
violence.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s not the end of the story.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Under Pakistan, the condition of the Hindus in East Bengal
deteriorated drastically. They were always looked at with suspicion, as though
they were all Indian agents. When the people of East Bengal, irrespective of
religion, protested against the imposition of Urdu on them by the federal
government, the Hindus were again at the receiving end of the Pakistan Army’s
wrath, as they thought the Hindus, with their India leanings, were instigating,
influencing and corrupting the Muslims of East Bengal. Even a theft of a holy
relic from the Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar, in Kashmir, lead to killings of
Hindus in 1963. <b>Hindu genocide, on any
pretext, continued for years, and it culminated in 1971, during the Bangladesh
war of liberation, when around 2.5 million Hindus were killed by the Pakistan
Army. Compare that with the five to six million Jews killed in Holocaust.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Hindu genocide in East Pakistan and Bangladesh, since
the Bengal Partition in 1947, might need a little more background for a better
understanding. Dr. Hans Hock, a faculty of Linguistics & Sanskrit and an
Emeritus Professor at UIUC, summarized it quite well in his talk <i>Banglatā, Islam, and Language</i>, at the
panel on <i>Borderland Narratives of the
Bengal Partition</i>. Dr. Hock said, “<b>there
is and has been a dual identity for many Bengali Muslims, especially in East
Bengal, a tension between what may be called Banglatā and Islam.</b>” Banglatā,
or the Bengali ethnic and linguistic identity of the Muslims of East Bengal or
East Pakistan, often superseded their Islamic religious identity. For the
Hindus though, there was never any confusion with regards to the identity –
they were just Bengalis. Right after the creation of Pakistan, Banglatā posed a
severe threat to the very idea of Pakistan, which very strictly centered around
an exclusive Islamic identity. Any other identity was not at all acceptable. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Immediately after 1947, Hock said in his talk, the
government of East Pakistan proceeded to remove Bangla from its currency and
postal stamps. The minister of Education, Fazlur Rahman, started the procedure
of making Urdu the single official state language. Students protested in
December 1947 and March 1948. They were joined by numerous East Bengal
intellectuals, both Muslim and Hindu. Jinnah condemned the Bengali language
movement as an effort to divide Pakistan. He said, “The State Language of
Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language. Anyone who tries to mislead
you is really the enemy of Pakistan. Without one State Language, no Nation can
remain tied up solidly together and function. Look at the history of other
countries. Therefore, so far as the State Language is concerned, Pakistan’s
language shall be Urdu.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This subsequently led to the violent suppression of the
Bhasha Andolan, the Bengali Language Movement, in East Pakistan by the Pakistan
Army on 21<sup>st</sup> February 1952 – the day commemorated now as the Mother
Language Day worldwide. Tensions continued, and then, in 1971, “Operation
Searchlight” by the Pakistan Army against the Bengali intelligentsia and
cultural institutions, as well as the Hindu minorities, lead to some 10 million
fleeing to India, and some three million being killed, of which a massive 2.5
million were Hindus. Interestingly, the Hindi-speaking Biharis, who had moved
to East Pakistan from the Indian state of Bihar after 1947, played a major
supporting role in the genocide. Finally, with intervention from India,
Bangladesh was declared independent in December 1971, at the end of a very
decisive war between India and Pakistan, where the latter had to swallow and
very inglorious defeat.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It was expected that Bangladesh, the country which was
created on linguistic lines, would turn out to be secular. But, sadly enough,
“atrocities [against the Hindus] recurred numerous times after 1971, driven by
Islamist groups. At the same time, many Bangladeshi intellectuals protested
against these events, including the well-known writer Taslima Nasrin [she wrote
the controversial book Lajja, Shame], who had to go into exile in 1994 and, [ironically],
met with opposition in India as well.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Though the Banglatā,
Hock referred to, does play a crucial role in the identity of the Muslims in
Bangladesh, but there have been numerous instances when the frenzy Islamic
identity overtook the ethnic and linguistic identity, ever since the Muslim
League declared the “Direct Action” in 1946.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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Unlike the population migration in the Punjab, which
happened in one shot, the Hindus left in East Bengal, and then Bangladesh, have
been trickling into India continuously, over the years, till this day, being
constantly under the threat of violence and genocide. They were always unwanted
and never accepted properly, or rather legally, by Indian government. Moreover,
many were sent back at the behest of Nehru, with the false assurance that they
would be safe in their ancestral land. That never happened.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The very tenet of the partition of India was to carve out a
safe “home” for the Muslims. The very name Pakistan – the Land of the Pure –
implies that it’s not a home for the impure – the non-Muslims. This also
implies, by contrast, that the rest of India should provide safety to the
non-Muslims of the sub-continent, because otherwise there wouldn’t be any
“home” for them. So, providing sanctuary to the Hindus of East Bengal and
Bangladesh was the moral obligation for India. Here too, the same obsession for
a particular form of secularism played a big role. <b>It was as though, accepting the Hindus facing persecution in Bangladesh
would be tantamount to being partisan to the Hindus, and hence being communal. <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thus, the bulk of the “illegal immigrants” we are talking
about are none but those Hindus from East Bengal who couldn’t enter into India immediately
after the partition and were forced to stay back in a hostile land. They faced
severe persecution in years to come and the ones who survived took desperate
attempts at entering into India again and again. If all, who crossed the borders
in 1947 and took refuge in India, could be considered legal citizens, why should
the Hindus from East Bengal, who were not allowed to settle in India at that
time, become “illegal immigrants”? Had Nehru not been a fanatic apostle of secularism,
the situation in Bengal would have been the same as that in the Punjab –
everyone would have crossed the border in 1947 and there wouldn’t be this
problem of “illegal immigrants” now.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So, if seen closely, the Amendment of the Citizenship Bill is
nothing but predominantly a much belated attempt by the Indian government to provide
a safe home to the Hindus of East Bengal whose ancestors, just a generation
back, were denied their rights and were left to their own fates to fend for
themselves. I don’t think there’s any accurate figure for their numbers, and
for that matter, for the others like them who had to flee Pakistan or
Afghanistan, but it wouldn’t be a wrong estimate to put the former much above
the others. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Given this background, should we still ask why the
non-Muslims are being considered now for an exemption? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I would say, it’s not an exemption anyway. It’s delivering them
their rights, though much belated.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br /></div>
Sudipto Dashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16864021359307769834noreply@blogger.com0