Indian Interests

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 Nov 2011 02:59

Watch belonging to Rajendra Prasad being auctioned at Sotheby's. Auction halted as GOI said its pursuing stolen property claims.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 12 Nov 2011 03:28

The watch appears to show East Pakistan/BD as part of India.

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 12 Nov 2011 06:17

Rajendra was from Bihar. the man could well have cherished a dream of M in an independent India.

also Sri Lanka and Nepal+Bhutan are also included........brouhahaha....

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 12 Nov 2011 06:34

Please read "India divided" to know who was Shri. Rajendra Prasad and where he came from.

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 12 Nov 2011 06:43

Stan ji, if you know something please do share. I read somewhere that he was from Bihar. am I wrong?

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 12 Nov 2011 06:53

He is from Bihar, no questions about that.

He is one of those who did a cost-benefit calculation of the pak-e-satan project and showed clearly to the Muslims that the whole edifice is built on bunkum and will end up biting their backsides sooner than later. And he wrote that book when the brits had lodged him in jail. He was not a kandle kisser by any means, he was the Joe Frazier of his era. You should get his book for what a great first President we had. Ambedkar as Law minister, Rajendra Prasad as President, Radhakrishnan as Vice President, Sardar Patel as Home minister, GV Mavlankar as Speaker, and all scholars, erudites, and stalwarts in different dimensions. I have some special fondness for Ambedkar because of his deep erudition that set him far apart from most of the other members of the Constitution Committee. Truly, democracy set its roots because of such yeomen and women who drove India to what it is today, not because the Hindus want democrazy or Nehru planted democracy or the Army did nt intervene and other such wild hypotheses.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 12 Nov 2011 21:25

devesh wrote:Stan ji, if you know something please do share. I read somewhere that he was from Bihar. am I wrong?

So you don't know your first President of India? Incredible.

darshhan · Post by **darshhan** » 12 Nov 2011 22:01

Stan_Savljevic wrote: Ambedkar as Law minister, Rajendra Prasad as President, Radhakrishnan as Vice President, Sardar Patel as Home minister, GV Mavlankar as Speaker, and all scholars, erudites, and stalwarts in different dimensions. I have some special fondness for Ambedkar because of his deep erudition that set him far apart from most of the other members of the Constitution Committee.

Stan ji , But then a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.Nehru was one pathetic guy who probably did more damage to India than anyone else i.e in last 60 years.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 12 Nov 2011 22:25

Not to forget Alladi Krishanswami garu in drafting the Constitution.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 12 Nov 2011 22:26

It is one thing to admire individuals for their erudition and quite another thing to allocate all credit for "democracy" to these league of exceptional gentlemen.

The nameless, faceless, countless others who carried on their own struggles - with or without the erudite outpourings about the legaue of exceptional gentlemens' individual fantasies [which of course are all realistic and true and represents the truth about India compared to individual fantasies of others whose outpourings are all loony stuff because they did not make it to the Round Table] - of course had no role to play.

It reminds me of the constant fond usage of the concept/phrase of "mother India" by almost all of these exceptional gentlemen - the feminized nation as the passive woman on whose body the exceptional "leaders" - men -play around. The rest of India - its people, the many whose lives were torn apart, aspirations betrayed, all lending the strength and drive to the overall national project - of course are like that faceless, passive woman. The "woman" who must suffer the "birth pangs" of "Partition" - as a natural process, something to be expected and to be passively borne - because the league of exceptional gentlemen in their eye-dazzling brilliance of erudition, declared it was "necessary".

With all of Sardar or Babu Rajendraprasad's erudite conviction - the nation remained that passive woman who mus shut up and bear. If the nation was the woman - which father's child was she being forced to give birth to? Where was that father at the time of birth? What was he doing?

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 12 Nov 2011 23:28

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL35F886EB3C364C2A
Democracy is India's Achilles Heel - a debate.

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 13 Nov 2011 05:02

chaanakya wrote:
devesh wrote:Stan ji, if you know something please do share. I read somewhere that he was from Bihar. am I wrong?
So you don't know your first President of India? Incredible.

I knew he was the first president. stan ji's post was kind of low on details, so my question for further clarification of what he meant...

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 13 Nov 2011 07:28

Minorities panel to Modi: we need to meet, discuss Muslim plight

Team Rahul (couldn't find normal URL)

Bigger role: Is Rahul ready to lead seniors?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 13 Nov 2011 07:32

to pay that much in tax what is his income?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 13 Nov 2011 19:57

http://news.yahoo.com/feds-more-unmanne ... 44273.html
it applies for desh as well to improve border security. rustom ji ++

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 13 Nov 2011 21:30

Hargobind Singh Khorana, RIP

Har Gobind Khorana (1922-2011)

OUTLOOK WEB DESK | NOV 11, 2011

http://news. outlookindia. com/items. aspx?artid= 741039

India-born Har Gobind Khorana, winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, died of natural causes in Concord, Massachusetts, USA on Wednesday, November 10 morning, Emily Finn of MIT News Office reported.

He was 89.

Khorana was Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“Gobind was a brilliant, path-breaking scientist, a wise and considerate colleague, and a dear friend to many of us at MIT,” said Chris Kaiser, MacVicar Professor of Biology and head of the Department of Biology, in an email announcing the news to the department’s faculty.

Har Gobind Khorana was born of Hindu parents in Raipur, a little village in Punjab, which is now part of Pakistan.

The correct date of his birth is not known, as per the biographical notes with the Nobel Foundation, though that shown in documents is January 9th, 1922.

Khorana devoted much of his scientific career to unravelling the genetic code and the mechanisms by which nucleic acids give rise to proteins.

He was the youngest of a family of one daughter and four sons. His father was a patwari, a village agricultural taxation clerk in the British Indian system of government.

In an autobiographical note written upon winning the Nobel Prize, Khorana wrote: “Although poor, my father was dedicated to educating his children and we were practically the only literate family in the village inhabited by about 100 people.”

Khorana attended D.A.V. High School in Multan (now in Pakistan) and then went on to study at the Punjab University in Lahore where he obtained an M.Sc. degree.

Khorana lived in India until 1945, when the award of a Government of India Fellowship made it possible for him to go to England and he studied for a Ph. D. degree at the University of Liverpool.

Khorana spent a postdoctoral year (1948-1949) at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich with Professor Vladimir Prelog.

The association with Professor Prelog, he said, moulded his thought and philosophy towards science, work, and effort immeasurably.

It was in Switzerland itself that he met his wife, the late Esther Elizabeth Sibler, whom he married in 1952.

As he later wrote: “Esther brought a consistent sense of purpose in my life at a time when, after six years’ absence from the country of my birth, I felt out of place everywhere and at home nowhere.”

After a brief period in India in the fall of 1949, Khorana returned to England where he obtained a fellowship at Cambridge where he stayed from 1950 till 1952. This is where his interest in both proteins and nucleic acids took root.

A job offer in 1952 the British Columbia Research Council in Vancouver took him to Canada, and that is where he settled down with his wife, raising three children: Julia Elizabeth (born May 4th, 1953), Emily Anne (born October 18th, 1954), and Dave Roy (born July 26th, 1958).

Photo courtesy: MIT News

The MIT News Office quotes his colleague Uttam Rajbhandary, MIT’s Lester Wolfe Professor of Molecular Biology, recalling Khorana’s telling of how he accepted the position: “Gobind was so excited that he was going to start a lab of his own. He looked at the map of Canada, saw where Vancouver was for the first time, and off he went,”

In 1960, Khorana moved to the Institute for Enzyme Research at the University of Wisconsin. This is where he and his colleagues worked out the mechanisms by which showed how the nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell, control the cell’s synthesis of proteins, leading to the Nobel Prize in 1968, which he shared with Robert Holley of Cornell University and Marshall Nirenberg of the National Institutes of Health.
Khorana confirmed Nirenberg’s findings that the way the four different types of nucleotides are arranged on the spiral “staircase” of the DNA molecule determines the chemical composition and function of a new cell. The 64 possible combinations of the nucleotides are read off along a strand of DNA as required to produce the desired amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins.

Khorana added details about which serial combinations of nucleotides form which specific amino acids. He also proved that the nucleotide code is always transmitted to the cell in groups of three, called codons. Khorana also determined that some of the codons prompt the cell to start or stop the manufacture of proteins.
In between, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966.

As of the fall of 1970 Khorana had been Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he continued at the forefront of the ballooning field of genetics.

Shortly after arriving at MIT, Khorana — along with colleagues — announced the synthesis of two different genes crucial to protein building. In a major breakthrough in 1976, he and his research team were able to synthesize the first artificial copy of a yeast gene —the first fully functional manmade gene in a living cell. This method of chemically synthesizing genes made possible controlled, systematic studies of how genetic structure influences function.

Khorana then became interested in other cellular components, including biomembranes and, in the visual system, rhodopsin — the pigment on the eye’s retina that is responsible for the first step in the biological perception of light.
His later research explored the molecular mechanisms underlying the cell signalling pathways of vision in vertebrates.
His studies were concerned primarily with the structure and function of rhodopsin, a light-sensitive protein found in the retina of the vertebrate eye.
Khorana also investigated mutations in rhodopsin that are associated with retinitis pigmentosa, which causes night blindness.

He retired from the MIT faculty in 2007.

“Even while doing all this research, he was always really interested in education, in students and young people,” his daughter Julia Khorana is quoted by MIT News as saying. “After he retired, students would come to visit and he loved to talk to them about the work they were doing. He was very loyal to them, and they were very loyal to him, too.”

Prof Rajbhandary says he will remember Khorana for his drive and focus, but also his humility. “As good as he was, he was one of the most modest people I have known,” he says. “What he accomplished in his life, coming from where he did, is truly incredible.”

In addition to the Nobel, Khorana won many other professional awards, including the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University and the Lasker Foundation Award for Basic Medical Research, both in 1968; the Willard Gibbs Medal of the Chicago section of the American Chemical Society, in 1974; the Gairdner Foundation Annual Award, in 1980; and the Paul Kayser International Award of Merit in Retina Research, in 1987. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among other distinguished professional memberships.

Khorana is survived by his daughter, Julia, and son, Dave.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Government of India (DBT Department of Biotechnology) , and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum jointly created the Khorana Program in 2007.

The mission of the Khorana Program is to build a seamless community of scientists, industrialists, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and India.

The Khorana Program is focused on three objectives: Providing graduate and undergraduate students with a transformative research experience, engaging partners in rural development and food security, and facilitating public-private partnerships between the U.S. and India.

In 2009, Khorana was hosted by the Khorana Program and honoured at the 33rd Steenbock Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin.

(Biographical details courtesy Nobel Foundation, Britannica.com, Wikipedia and Emily Finn of MIT News, )

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 13 Nov 2011 22:14

abhishek_sharma wrote:Minorities panel to Modi: we need to meet, discuss Muslim plight

Team Rahul (couldn't find normal URL)

Bigger role: Is Rahul ready to lead seniors?

This is what one would call hogwash? Seriously?

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 14 Nov 2011 00:18

>>Nehru was one pathetic guy who probably did more damage to India than anyone else i.e in last 60 years.

Probably not. And, when alive, he demonstrated more physical courage than most of us on BRF are likely to.
The clarity of hindsight these days on BRF is amazing.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 14 Nov 2011 00:33

For JLN it was not a case of hindsight - both he and his patron denied repeatedly warnings from others less fortunate to win British favour politically - about exactly the consequences that India had to face.

Two straightforward issues - (a) first about full independence and (b) second, about the threat of Islamism and partition massacres.

As for physical courage : please quote the extraordinary physical courage shown by him, which many other less illuminating Indians also did not show, and with much less "protection" either. I personally know of a "lesser" Congressman who had baton introduced into one of his eyes and he lost that eye as a result - all within peaceful protest of non-cooperation within the jail.

The lion of a courageous man, JLN, on the other hand, seems to have never come across such situations - being allowed to get away with special "political" privileges while under arrest, ostensibly under Motilal's most favourable initial connections with the Brits.

Maybe he was courageous. But we will never really know since he seems to have led a charmed life from the beginning - not facing imprisonment conditions or treatments meted out to other political prisoners with generous love from the British. If you know that you will not really be harmed, it can become easier to show courage. We don't really know - and for Nehruji, there never was a situation to really test it out.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 14 Nov 2011 01:00

>>please quote the extraordinary physical courage shown by him, which many other less illuminating Indians also did not show

I did not say other Indians did not show courage. Read his biography by Gopal or Akbar or Tharoor (not sure which, maybe all have some detail on a dangerous crowd control situation when someone insulted Gandhi). I also know Indians, much more humble, who have shown more physical courage.

But Nehru a "pathetic guy"? Seriously? And you hold the same view?

No one is saying Nehru did not make mistakes or that he was some kind of saint. But to suggest he did "more damage to India over the past 60 years than anyone else" is beyond ridiculous because as PM he was in a position to do more damage. The implication, however, is that anyone else in that position would have done less damage. Maybe he should have agreed to Gandhi's wish to have Jinnah as PM then. Which is an interesting position to take. Seems more political than anything else. BRF does not bat for political parties or tendencies.

And by hindsight I was talking about ourselves on BRF. We seem to know exactly what the situation was then, such that we can call decisions with such certainty.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 14 Nov 2011 01:21

>> And, when alive, he demonstrated more physical courage than most of us on BRF are likely to.

How did you reach this conclusion? In particular, how did you estimate the courage levels of BRF members? (I am assuming that you have never met most of them.)

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 14 Nov 2011 01:40

JE Menon wrote:>>please quote the extraordinary physical courage shown by him, which many other less illuminating Indians also did not show

I did not say other Indians did not show courage. Read his biography by Gopal or Akbar or Tharoor (not sure which, maybe all have some detail on a dangerous crowd control situation when someone insulted Gandhi). I also know Indians, much more humble, who have shown more physical courage.

That reference is a pretty standard one in one particular situation, where MKG had gone post massacre of Hindus in one particular city in the east. Throughout, MKG and his entourage was never very far from the transitional British-Indian admin. In fact there is a parallel hypothesis that since British military/coercive presence became active after the major massacres had already been perpetrated, political targets achieved, and they were following MKG and his entourage - that in itself quelled continued "riots" wherever MKG went. We will not know for sure, but yes, MKG's tour always seems to have had greater effect in preventing "Hindu" retaliation and he always went "after" Hindu massacre and abduction was complete. There was talk of bombing Hindu "retaliators" in Bihar - but no such gossip seems to have come up in tackling Noakhali where Muslims were in the majority and had already performed the basic points of jihad - massacre, abduction and rape.

I have searched - but failed to obtain a reference where Nehru ji had been entirely alone, without some sort of admin coercive symbol - Brit or Indian, in close proximity, and shown exemplary courage in hostile situation control. Its not his fault - we simply cannot test the hypothesis of independent "courage".

But Nehru a "pathetic guy"? Seriously? And you hold the same view?

Did I say Nehru ji was a pathetic guy?

No one is saying Nehru did not make mistakes or that he was some kind of saint. But to suggest he did "more damage to India over the past 60 years than anyone else" is beyond ridiculous because as PM he was in a position to do more damage. The implication, however, is that anyone else in that position would have done less damage. Maybe he should have agreed to Gandhi's wish to have Jinnah as PM then. Which is an interesting position to take. Seems more political than anything else. BRF does not bat for political parties or tendencies.

And by hindsight I was talking about ourselves on BRF. We seem to know exactly what the situation was then, such that we can call decisions with such certainty.

Well, Nehru ji could deny Gandhiji when it was a case of accepting another "man" as PM, but he could not deny Gandhiji when he ordered Sardar to back off from the post of PM even after having the support of the majority of the organization. So you see - we cannot test his real resolve - where the case of PM ship and kursi was concerned.

Again this is not a case of BRFites resorting to hindsight. Nehru ji was proved wrong in almost each of his assertions about crucial political turning points in India - long before he was the PM. His "visions" of the "practical kind" - turn out mostly to be borrowings from equally if not more qualified predecessors, and his political visions have turned fatal. It is not modern BRFite hindsight we are talking about - he denied exactly those outcomes that others in his time pointed out and warned of repeatedly. He dismissed them in his arrogance, and sometimes made 180 degrees voltefaces later on and appropriated those same ideas and slogans without ever an acknowledgment of his own earlier foolhardiness and shortsightedness and others perspicacity - when he found it convenient. [Planning commission is an example, technical uni's another example,....].

But he dismissed the potential events of the Partition - not from any BRFite - but from his contemporaries. Its not that he could not see what Jinnah would bring - if we take his denial of Jinnah's PM ship as selfless and onlee seeing the dangers!! So given his consistent and sometimes aggressively dismissive denial of Islamic plans for genocide combined with his refusal of Jinnah's PM ship - leads to only one conclusion - he did not have the foresight to see reality, and his refusal of Jinnah was not about political foresight about the horror waiting for two pieces of land far from his beloved "India" which comprised Kashmir Valley and UP.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 14 Nov 2011 02:10

abhishek

"most" "likely"

Brihaspati,

>>Did I say Nehru ji was a pathetic guy?

I didn't say you did. I asked if you hold the same view.

Like I said, no one said Nehru was a saint, or that he took all the right political decisions and directions. For that you need to be a Pakistani expecting a Musharraf. I hope we are not looking for such leaders for they don't exist.

But to say that Nehru did more damage than anyone on India over the past 6 decades suggests, since he was PM, that anyone else as PM would have done a better job. I wonder if that is the position.

Why is it that we have to resort to such derogatory language against people who undoubtedly helped India become what it is today? We could have easily gone in multiple other directions, but we didn't and everyone from Nehru to Patel to Savarkar played a role. And all of them had their personal flaws...

This culture seems to be metastizing on BRF of late. If members have the interest of BRF as an entity striving for objectivity at heart, they might want to consider this.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 14 Nov 2011 02:14

I did see "most" and "likely". It is not clear to me how you reached that conclusion.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 14 Nov 2011 02:22

JEM,
I agree that we are not always being careful about the language we use about certain illustrious individuals. But some of us are not careful in using a few choice words which may turn out to be abusive. Some others among us are careful to avoid abusive qualifiers - but we claim qualities for these individuals which are equally a stretch in the other direction.

Respect for the dead as an individual is part of our culture [or claimed to be so - something the Brits obviously never had as a culture as when they destroyed the INA memorial in Singapore, and JLN ji said nothing in protest or did not insist on its rebuilding when he went there almost immediately after on invitation from his dear friends Lord and Lady Mountbatten] - and we should not use abusive disqualifiers.

But that should not be extended to stop critical analysis and abusive dismissal of past "actions" by individuals - all the more so if such "actions" have a continuity effect for posterity.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 14 Nov 2011 02:40

Brihaspati, that is all that I'm trying to say - i.e. be critical and dismissive and whatever. No one is immune from criticism and being torn apart for stupid policies or misguided actions. But why get abusive? This case of Nehru is just a sample, there are tons of posts which refer to our current prime minister by all sorts of names - and it is almost impossible to track them all.

Does it help BRF? Do none of the members care for how BRF has slowly over years built up a reputation, carefully shepherding discussions (as much as possible anyway) to reach a point where it is the first reference more often than not on all matters related to Indian defence on the web?

Now tomorrow if some idiot says Veer Savarkar was a "traitor and British agent" and backs it up with references and documentation will it be of any benefit? Is trying to paint a one-dimensional picture and demonising an individual (Modi is another example, even on this forum, though less so these days) of any value to anyone other than the enemies of the state who seek the dumbing down of the average Indian to Pak levels?

One could be forgiven for thinking that there is a sustained campaign being carried out to undermine and ultimately derail the orientation of the forum towards objectivity and critical analysis by precisely such sustained subversive methods.

And we need the help of long-term members who have the interests of BRF at heart to avoid this.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 14 Nov 2011 03:10

JEM,
personally, I always avoid abusive qualifiers. I don't think you will find much in my posts about MMS, or JLN that are personally abusive in "qualifier" terms. But I guess people get provoked when they are told that these individuals somehow knew better than modern hindsighters. That may appear as whitewashing of reality and a suppression of negative aspects in the other direction of "abuse".

JLN was given warnings and pointed out the reality - which he openly denied and tried to dismiss, and even worse, suppress. Many of his private correspondence indicates that he was well aware of the real potential consequences - but he pretended publicly otherwise, and made sure by his actions and words - that the very people most likely to suffer would be left unprotected and unprepared.

When you are told that your neighbour who is greeting you overtly in the streets is actually planning to set your house on fire and kidnap your niece - would you deny and denounce the person who warns, and urge your brother not to move to a safer location, dismissing such neighbourly threat as bunkum? Especially when your own daughter is in a safe and well protected location? Even when the neighbour actually has set the fire on, and you are safe with your daughter in a safe location - you would still urge your brother to stay put - because it is a sign of courage and strength to face hurt and pain? And after all that if a future generation looks back at what you said and did - in stages - even after "knowing" and being "warned" - you would expect them not to suspect your "motives" or your "character"? Would you expect them to shut up and show respect and give you the benefit of doubt - that you were perhaps not aware of the "reality" - even when you had been warned about the potential attack?

Critiques of past individuals taken as critiques and subversion of current political parties is unfortunate. I have not supported NaMo for PM, even if there are few alternatives from that side. Does it mean it will be taken as denouncement of the party he represents? In fact it is more important to avoid discussing current leaders. But discussing the past leaders is crucial.

Political movements should be mature enough to grow out of shadows of individuals. If a mere critique of a long past individual subverts a current party - or it is claimed that we need to suppress such critiques - it is the party which is losing out. who knows if the critique is coming from within people who had been and perhaps still are closely associated with the circles that sustains the party? It should be taken as a sign of dissent that is for the good of the movement.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 14 Nov 2011 04:05

It is not subversion of the parties I'm talking about. It is the forum. We cannot have abusive language against anyone from any party (God knows I've had to control myself agains the commies).

Points of view are OK, and dissent is OK... It is pointless to keep stating this.

No one is disputing or saying we cannot have dissent. But why get abusive and come out with one-liners with just abuse? Do you think this is OK? Obviously not. But that was what that post was about, and nothing more. And worse, because as far as I know, none of those ministers served unwillingly under Nehru's premiership.

>>JLN was given warnings and pointed out the reality - which he openly denied and tried to dismiss, and even worse, suppress. Many of his private correspondence indicates that he was well aware of the real potential consequences - but he pretended publicly otherwise, and made sure by his actions and words - that the very people most likely to suffer would be left unprotected and unprepared.

I disagree pretty much totally with the grand deception you are saying Nehru engaged in there, against Indians (and for what?) ... but that's OK. You have your views. I have mine. And we probably both read the same things to arrive at somewhat different conclusions.

>>When you are told that your neighbour who is greeting you overtly in the streets is actually planning to set your house on fire and kidnap your niece - would you deny and denounce the person who warns, and urge your brother not to move to a safer location, dismissing such neighbourly threat as bunkum? Especially when your own daughter is in a safe and well protected location? Even when the neighbour actually has set the fire on, and you are safe with your daughter in a safe location - you would still urge your brother to stay put - because it is a sign of courage and strength to face hurt and pain? And after all that if a future generation looks back at what you said and did - in stages - even after "knowing" and being "warned" - you would expect them not to suspect your "motives" or your "character"? Would you expect them to shut up and show respect and give you the benefit of doubt - that you were perhaps not aware of the "reality" - even when you had been warned about the potential attack?

Who is expecting and demanding these things? On BRF anyway? The above is a "Would you beat your wife?" set of questions... Rhetoric. You might as well have provided the answer too. Looks like a simple request for civil behaviour is not getting through and you as someone who has been on BRF for a while is looking to give excuse to this sort of thing rather than standing with the principle of keeping the forum stable. Which is a pity really. This is not really going to hurt Nehru's image, only BRFs.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 14 Nov 2011 05:41

JEM, as the poster whose post led to this grand-slide into cussing at Nehru-Gandhi-and-the-whole-ilk, the piskology here is fairly simple. Slowly, the grayness of logic has become black and white like the melting pot of amrika has changed colors under the Bush regime and the post-911 aftermath. People, those who have the choicest cusswords for all things amrikan and amrikan foreign policy, are following the same dictum that the US preaches --- with me or against me, some after realizing it, some without. The dichotomy of people following the same stuff they hate the most misses quite a few, but that is beside the point. This binary atmosphere makes the redlines and the pissing off points rather clear, but it makes for a poor understanding of the post-Constitutional Indian history let alone the pre-Constitutional one. The more I learn, the more uncertain I get in judging people, events, personalities and incidents. In contrast, people here seem to be so sure of so many things that makes me feel rather cocksure that they are wrong, that is the only thing I feel sure about these days

.

As for hating the commie comment of yours, let me drop in and say, the commies are not uni-dimensional idiots as the forum makes it out, which is a sentiment you will agree with. The commies are right on many aspects. In my opinion, i) caste emancipation for which they fight their backside off and for which they have always fought more often than not (look at the latest peace moves at Uthapuram --- http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/2 ... 312100.htm, http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tam ... 615879.ece where surprise surprise RSS and CPM were/are in the forefront of forcing the Pillais and the Pallars to spell out peace), ii) land reform in the way in which they fought for in Kerala, AP, a bit of WB, Mah, etc., and continue to do so in some broad measure across India, much better than INC/BJP ever did/could do, iii) their pisk-analysis of the naxal menace (modulo the inconvenient fact that Marxist-Leninism and maoism are attempts at being v2.0 of CPM) which is a decent v1.0 towards the ultimate way to fight the red menace --- all make me feel like the forum is so hopelessly brainwashed into calling commies traitors by sitting at the totem-pole of a middle class happy lifestyle. India is such a diverse country that we need the "left", the "right" as well as the "center" to put in their opinions before people can make up their minds. By being closed to leftist ideas, brf has become a self-patting cabal of self-adjudicated right wingism, which may be fine on certain aspects, but not like a universal virtue to hold onto for all things in life, let alone to govern a country.

I have done this accusation before in Nukkad as well as elsewhere, people on brf are easily impressionable by loquacious/garrulous grandiloquence (aka the Ji brigade). Says much about the Internet 2.0 generation aka "youngistan" or future India. We are in for some scary times when grayness of logic can be tossed aside by rhetorical flourish overnight. Now put yourself in sellout saar's chair and wunder how to "educate" these people. I dont want his job saar.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 14 Nov 2011 08:04

Yes.

Since we do not know who we are anymore and are intellectually enslaved we must accept every ideology equally to be truly (sic) secularist and inclusive. Otherwise there is the danger of these estranged groups will turn into terrorists and traitors. So let us invite Alqueeda, Taliban, KKK, Evangelic and every other ideologists to BRF so we can build the most (sic) secular india together.

If BRF is impressionable why didnt you excellency already overwrite their brain cells with your commie and INC (ideologically non citizenry) philosophy?

What is the purpose of BRF by the way? Just to be an equal-opportunity forum? Why don't you get a hundred commie friends and see what they think of various issues discussed here? Why the heck the ji-brigade to be nice to some traitor commie gang, especially when they are not interested in a debate but instead want to bring revolution thru the barrel of the gun?

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 14 Nov 2011 10:44

Stan ji, I have found myself agreeing with many things you say. but int he above post one nitpick: "with me or against me".

yup, Indian history is full of instances where such questions were not asked and consequences proved to be disastrous. I am not talking about Commies here. I am also assuming that you meant the "with me or against me" culture is "bad" no matter where it is applied. if this assumption of what you said, is wrong, then forgive me.

anyway, the most glaring example of "with me against me" was the narrow definition which Marathas applied to their struggle against Mughals. until 1707, they stuck to the narrow definition of "with me" thereby making the Mughals "against me". this helped them preserve their "ideological purity" and kept them from making compromises.

eventually, as they got enmeshed in North Indian politics of the time, the same question came up again. this time, they probably justified their choices with the same justifications that you gave. oh...India is so diverse onlee. we need to "adapt" and "embrace". after all, "economic growth" is important onleee....

in the fist instance, the prevailed against the much bigger and more powerful empire, ultimately exhausting that empire and inheriting vast tracts of that empire. during the 30 years, it was only their narrow definition of "with me or against me" that helped them. had they decided to instead "embrace" in the name of "diversity" they would have become another nameless little satrap under Islamic dominance.

in the second case, they compromised and allowed the Islamist networks to survive and continue to cherish their Ummahic dreams, albeit secretly, as overt exhibition was not "cool" anymore. eventually, the ideological compromisers bankrupted themselves dealing with the mess created by the GV Islamist networks, and defending and fighting for the Mughals, and ultimately, unable to influence any long term changes on the future path of the Islamist occupied GV.

the difference between the 2 choices is glaring and *very* informative. sometimes, a very narrow definition of "with me or against me" helps preserve the ideological edge, which ultimately fuels the ambitions and resurgence.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 14 Nov 2011 11:10

RamaY wrote:So let us invite Alqueeda, Taliban, KKK, Evangelic and every other ideologists to BRF so we can build the most (sic) secular india together.

If BRF is impressionable why didnt you excellency already overwrite their brain cells with your commie and INC (ideologically non citizenry) philosophy?

First of all, maoists != CPM, CPM != CPI, CPI != CPI(ML).

Second of all, the above post tells more about who you are and what drives you than about INC/commies who are clubbed with aq, taliban, kkk, ejs in one straight go. Even the Indian Constitution allows either party to contest elections and the people of India keep electing CPI and CPM to power in some constituencies. You can hate Sonia Gandhi and the Nehru family as much as you want for not being [fill in the blank] nuff, but they have won seats in the Lok Sabha and the elections have been fair and square. So who exactly the hell are you and where do your derive your authority from to determine if commies/INC are traitors are not? My two paise advise: go easy on the dharmic kool-aid and nuff of this Indic trash-talk. Not everyone who disagrees with you has to be less Indic/less dharmic than you are. I support the CPM to say what they please because the people of India have elected them to power, as simple as that. They have earned that right by being a national party. They are NOT traitors if they say something I dont agree with. I can disagree with them without pissing around as if I am the only nationalist around. So please [fill in the blank].

Devesh, what exactly is with me or against me in cussing against the Nehru family at the drop of a hat. Nehru is no saint, nor is Golwalkar or Savarkar or Gandhi or Ambedkar or Jinnah. Golwalkar wanted democratic rights to be bestowed only to a small elite fraction of India, hardly an India that I would like to see today. Much of the Jan Sangh sipped in Golwalkar's kool-aid before it became convenient for them to become democratic nuff to imbibe the virtues of one man one vote. Nehru and Gandhi were people, they were no gods. They had their irritating aspects to them, its one thing to be mature nuff in understanding their contributions to India as it is today and quite another to be a history denier of the other kind to attributing everything they did to someone before them. If that is the case, the much praised PVNR just followed the policies of WB as dictated to him via MMS. PVNR's contribution to liberalization is zuck. In the same vein, ABV's contribution minus the Pokharan blasts is zero. What else net positives do we have, here is one list from the opposite side: Parakram fail, IC-814 fail, Kargil fail, Godhra fail, India Shining fail, you can add all that you want but fact is you cant deny at least some of these realities. Even the Pokharan blasts were done as a continuation of the policy of PVNR regime, which in itself was a continuation of VP Singh/Chandrasekhar governments. One day people piss on Gujral doctrine if its convenient, another day they praise the same man for unraveling the neighborhood. You guys should take a with me or an against me position: you cant say Nehru followed up on his predecessors but at the same while attribute same great halo to your fellow state-man or fellow ideologue. As for me, they are all very similar and I dont piss on any of them and take time to read through what they did and more importantly, why they were forced to do what they did. I am open nuff to not make up my mind yet. I dont cuss at anyone in case a random datapoint drops in from some random sparrow's wings.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 14 Nov 2011 12:08

Stan, it appears that you are trying too hard to bring a "greyness" as nothing but a cloak to interrupt critical analysis on many counts, I dont know why, but you appear to be trying too hard to preserve some "hero figures".

No ones case is that some one has to be perfect, but I just dont realize what Gowalikar's views on voting have to do with "Nehru did a lot of damage to India"

A judgement on Nehru, will be made by fact, figures and oppertunities specific to Nehru. Since Gowalikar (or any one else) did not get 15 years at helm to run India into ground (like Man mohan getting 10 years to undo the good work by others) -- the comparison is deeply flawed.

Any attempts to do a ==, brings inherent suspicion of "torn fly, open shirt" type of argument.

Lets not go there.

You want to diss and cuss Gowalikar, please go ahead. But dont rant at the rest of world not finding the topic suitably interesting. Also dont rant if people want to diss and cuss Nehru.

The world is changing, the old kool aids are dead, calling the new awareness as Kool Aid, does not make it so. Just because the previous world view in India was blinkered Kool Aid, it does not mean a replacement will be Kool Aid as well.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 14 Nov 2011 12:18

Stan_Savljevic wrote:HYou should get his book for what a great first President we had. Ambedkar as Law minister, Rajendra Prasad as President, Radhakrishnan as Vice President, Sardar Patel as Home minister, GV Mavlankar as Speaker, and all scholars, erudites, and stalwarts in different dimensions. I have some special fondness for Ambedkar because of his deep erudition that set him far apart from most of the other members of the Constitution Committee. Truly, democracy set its roots because of such yeomen and women who drove India to what it is today, not because the Hindus want democrazy or Nehru planted democracy or the Army did nt intervene and other such wild hypotheses.

Stan, this is exteremly weird, on one hand

You do not want to give any credit to Indian society as a whole -- including its members in the armed forces. OTOH you want us to hero worship some figures who are essentially products of the same society?

While it is clear that I hold some of the names in great esteem (like Sardar Patel and Babu Rajendra Singh -- not the least because withing Congress they provided a strong counter point to the personality cult of madness characterized by Nehru) -- what I dont get is that

1) Did Patel, Rajendra Babu were blessed on India by the divine powers of Gaurang Mahaprabhu's on Mount Sinai? Did they come from Pluto? Were they not all essentially Hindu and characterized Hindu ethos?

2) Did not MKG say about SP Mukurjee and Patel that "You are a secular minded person in a Hindu party and he is a Hindu minded person in a secular party"

3) Did not Nehru's deep discomfort with Babu-ji essentially because Babu Rajendra Prasad was inherently working for "Hind Swaraj" -- one of the folks who singed on the congress letter because of the platform of Hind Swaraj that MKG made? (And was later shortchanged)

4) Is is not that Congress men thought that Motilal was a English man (what we would called deracintated today on BRF)? All those congress men were drinking Indic Kool aid as well?

5) Did Nehru not describe himself as "Englishman by preference, Muslim by heritage and accidentally Hindu" but the same character had no qualms in accepting the Pandit label as long as it was convenient Taqiuaa on others?

So yeah -- buddy, lets stop drinking the Kool Aid.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 14 Nov 2011 12:28

So the IA and Hindu culture had no role in India apparently, but it was Ambedkar et al, provided to India from especial express delivery from Mars who were responsible for India's democrazy.

So then, why did

1) IA and PA, trained by same Englishmen whom Nehru so depended on for advice and guidance -- behave so differently IMMEDIATELY after 47? Paki's were more than okay in using loot, rape and other, "textually sanctioned rightly guided conduct" towards warfare but Indian Army did not use rape loot and burning as instruments of war?

2) PA showed immediate tendencies to take over power, but IA did not, but stood by as Nehru mocked them, spat on them and reduced their powers based on his personal delusional fears based on his inferiority complexes?

Only because Nehru was very charismatic is it. So THE Cariappa looked into his eyes and swooned as he was being taken for a ride?

Or were there "divinely blessed, sent from heaven emissaries" in Indian Army too? Which gave discipline and honor to us heathens?

Can we have the name of those Arch-angles for IA too? Like we had in civilian space?

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 14 Nov 2011 12:32

Stan,

No broad disagreement with anything you have said. Except to point out gently that

"As for hating the commie comment of yours," ... I never said I "hated" the commies. I'm violently (verbally of course) in disagreement with their ideology and more particularly the way they implement its tenets (which is probably inevitable anyway given its fundamental weaknesses). This is not to say that they have been evil unleavened, no. On balance though, especially given their impact on education, I feel they have been the cause for far more harm than good.

Meanwhile, Sanku has raised what seems to me an interesting point - this one: "...'greyness' as nothing but a cloak to interrupt critical analysis on many counts"

I'm not saying you are doing it of course... not sure where Sanku sees that, but certainly as a tendency it is perhaps something we should guard against. The tyranny of the relative is as bad as a tyranny of the absolute. But as a forum we can only guard against it, we can never eliminate either and I don't believe we should seek to either. Which is why, again, we need people to help restore balance and equilibrium, rather than throw things out of kilter.

Plus it is easier to discuss and consider extremes when the language is moderate.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 14 Nov 2011 15:27

JE Menon wrote: On balance though, especially given their impact on education, I feel they have been the cause for far more harm than good.

JEM, no problem with that assessment. The point I see is this: there is this clamor for Hindu re-assertion, Hindu rights, etc. that we commonly see here on this forum couched in some innocent english and hifalutin prose. From that vantage point, anyone who strikes a chord at the rampant casteism that is rife in Indian society should be held at high esteem. Unfortunately for such egalitarianism-minded Hindus, the CPI and CPM have been at the forefront of this job at least if one goes by TN standards of which I am very deeply aware and as seen in other states too, of which I am aware of peripherally.

Now, there are two possibilities: one, accept the fact that the CPI/CPM are doing a decent job that should ideally be the vestige of the RSS/VHP/BD/[fill in the blank on any other Hindu revivalist organization]. Two, deny things and point to the fact that even a broken clock is right twice ityaadi, aka the CPI/CPM are doing it for their own selfish reasons (which is not false per se). Maturity comes from accepting that even your enemy can be useful for you. In your own words, "There is far more to be gained from co-operation uncircumscribed by self-imposed and irrational parameters than by sticking to overused expediencies of a different era." Commies synchronize with Hindu revivalist organizations in many aspects including land reform, caste emancipation, etc. A symbiotic existence in these aspects should nt be too idiotic, actually it is quite useful. In contrast, sticking to the cliche commie == traitor line is probably more idiotic. Unfortunately, going away from cliches requires some exercising of the brain to distinguish perceived ideological hatred from hatred on a case-to-case basis.

Meanwhile, Sanku has raised what seems to me an interesting point - this one: "...'greyness' as nothing but a cloak to interrupt critical analysis on many counts"

And you very well know that, it is hard to talk with Sanku on rational matters

. All jokes aside, life is gray, there are no questions about it. Politics is grayer. You cant attribute motives to people you dont know, especially worse is to attribute motives to people who operate in a multi-dimensional optimization framework. I would any day stick to a gray area of "I dont know" rather than a certitude of "I know he/she is a traitor/anti-national/[fill in the blank]." As a reformulation of the Pascalian wager, it suits one to remain ambivalent and synergistically optimize when cases permit such possibilities rather than create enemies out of perceived insecurities. The case of much of the BJP fanbois on the forum is precisely that. None of them have the responsibility of sitting as an opposition party, despite that by being cheerleaders at cussing at each and every GoI/INC move without any rationale-driven backing up, they are ending up focussing on politics instead of policies. Policy debates on brf have perished, we have political debates instead. Sadly, brf is getting tiresome at its overindulgence of illogical cliches masquerading as intellectual wisecracks.

PS: I am not against a critical analysis of Nehruvian era politics, just that critical better be critical instead of being redefined as and when the case suits an agenda. For foreign policy matters, I start with Iqbal Singh's tomes.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 14 Nov 2011 15:39

Thanks for the response Stan.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 14 Nov 2011 17:37

Commies are filth simply because they put a foreign powered ideal over and above national and civilizational interest, though that ideal and national interest may sometimes overlap!

They have been single-minded in suppressing the native and welcoming the foreign under the guise of secularism, tolerance and progressiveness.

If they want to do good, they can do good in some other persona, for the Communist persona has been completely compromised!

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 14 Nov 2011 17:54

Stan_Savljevic wrote:I would any day stick to a gray area of "I dont know" rather than a certitude of "I know he/she is a traitor/anti-national/[fill in the blank]."

So far so good; but then, when people know, why blame them for knowing. You take your position, but you cant force everyone to take your position.

Your position on matters is I dont know, some others say they know. Quit trying to say they must also say they do not know.

The case of much of the BJP fanbois on the forum is precisely that..

Sigh... there we go again. For some one who has been beating the drum of grayness, you certainly dont seem remotely careful in being very free with labeling when in comes to your turn.

So people who critize Nehru are BJP fanbois eh. I will inform Babu-ji to amend his ways (standard honorific for Rajendra Prasad in Bihar when he was active) when I meet him. Oh I used a "ji". The horror the horror, I must be a revisionist Chaddiwalla onlee.

Sorry buddy, you are WRONG. In black and white too.