India’s Many New Years In Baisakh

India’s Many New Years In Baisakh

By Jawhar Sircar

“Ananda Bazar Patrika” 15th April 2015, Revised

The best evidence of India’s splendid diversity is so evident in the celebration of so many calendars and ‘new years’. No uniformity could ever be imposed upon different languages and cultures, that slowly came together over several centuries into one great nation.. But, as we shall see, amidst this confusion of dozens of ‘new years’, there are indeed emerging unities

            If we leave aside exceptions like Gujarat, we will see that all others celebrate their new year within a ‘time band’ that starts with Holi and ends in the first days of Baisakh, which means just about three to six weeks. The Gangetic belt and its offshoots in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand, usually take Holi as the beginning of their ‘religious year’ and the Saka Samvat, during  Spring equinox as the official new year.  More than a century ago, MM Underhill stated in his knowledgeable book The Hindu Religious Year that “several eras are reckoned among the Hindus, but the great majority follows one of the two”. He spoke about the Saka and Vikram samvats, but their new year dates are very close to each other, and over the next hundred years, it became clear that most states start counting either in March from the first of Chaitra and the Spring equinox, or in mid-April, as ‘Baisakhi’. Thus, even without a  single common date, more than a hundred crore Indians celebrate new year it on either of just two main dates. Isn’t it remarkable?

            The first date, i.e., the Spring Equinox (Chaitra Shukla Pratipada) is the Gudi Paadwa of Maharashtrians, the Ugadi or Yuga-adi of Kannadigas and Telegus, the Cheiti Chand of Sindhis, the Nowroz of Parsis and Kashmiris and Thapna of conservative Marwaris. Though Himachalis observe it as Chaitti and Sikhs as the Nanakshahi New Year, both actually celebrate the ‘Baisakh’ date with more gusto. So, While about half of India, i.e., the north west, north and upper Deccan celebrate new year in March, the rest of India concentrates on ‘Baisakh’, like the Bengalis. It used to depend on the winter Rabi crop being ready which called for the celebrations. Maharashtra and the upper Deccan  start festivities in March as their traditional crop was ripe then, while others wait till Baisakh for their harvest and new year.

Punjab’s Baisakhi congregation at Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar on unlucky 13^th of April in 1919 will never be forgiven or forgotten and it is on the same date exactly 220 years earlier that Guru Gobindji instituted the Khalsa Panth. But Punjab tops all in religious fervour, as millions take an early bath and line up at hundreds of gurudwaras: for prayers, sips of sweet Amrita and parsada as also for devotional music sung by the famous Ragis. The Panj Pyaras, i.e., “five beloved and blessed priests” head the holy processions, but once this is over, the energetic Sikh engages in all types of contests, from wrestling and sword fencing to mock duels. Animated dances like the Bhangra and Gidda are obviously a must but where we are concerned we would much rather watch these bursts of phenomenal energy, on TV.

        Coming to Bengal, Poila Boisakh of the Surya Siddhanta began during the reign of Raja Shashaka of Gour 594 years after the Christian era but popularization, was done by Akbar and his astronomer, Fatehullah Shirazi. The Islamic lunar Hijri calendar was difficult for marking agricultural harvests for Mughal taxation, thereby a new solar-lunar calendar called the Fasli San or Tarikh-i-Ihali was started. Economics remain the hidden factor behind religion and culture and we may choose to recall that during the Middle Ages, our Mangal Kavyas of that period focus around Saudagars or businessmen, not on Brahman-Baidya-Kayastha Bhadraloks. The latter actually arose as the most powerful group in Bengal only in the late Mughal and British periods, when they dwarfed the local Baniks so terribly that trading groups from other states rushed to fill in the vacuum. This pushed Bengali enterprise even further down, so just long queues outside temples and sanctifying hal-khataas on Poila Boisakh can hardly bring back what has appears to have gone forever. Anyway, Bangladesh celebrates this month with more sincerity nowadays, it may be a good idea for western Bengalis to use the auspiciousness of this month mainly for conducting marriages and events.

                 In both parts of Bengal, West Bengal and Bangladesh, New Year celebrations on Poela Baisakh of the first day of Baisakh that is either on the 14th or the 15th of April began in right earnest when Akbar captured this province and started this accounting year for his a

 revenue collection. It has its social and religious significance also and while traders gather at temples from dawn to get divine blessings on their books of accounts, a lot of sweets and festivities flow. A relatively recent celebration called Mangal Shobha Jatra that was started in Bangladesh a few decades ago has turned into the second major public festival after Durga Pujas. People in West Bengal have also started to take out colourful processions with huge masks and other decorative animals or scenes on slow moving trucks and lakhs of enthusiasts follow with music, poetry and gaiety. In Dhaka, Chittagong or Kolkata, joyyful crowds cheer this secular parade that showcases plurality — all along the path.

                In neighbouring Assam, the last day of the year is called Goru Bihu, as the cattle are bathed thoroughly and smeared with a paste of turmeric and other ingredients, probably for medicinal reasons. The new year begins with Rongali or Bohag Bihu and lasts for almost a month, combining the best of three major traditions: the Sino-Burmese, Indo-Aryan and Austro-Asiatic. Innately connected with agriculture and fertility, this Bishu or Bihu is a call to young men and women to be at their resplendent best: as they dance with soft sensuous movements of the limbs, swaying to lilting tunes of Bihu-geets.  Bengal’s other neighbor, Odisha also observes its new year on the first of Baisakh or Vishu as Maha Vishuva Sankranti. It is famous as the Pana Sankranti after the sweet drink made from bel, fruits, yoghurt, paneer and other substances that is offered to all. Even the sacred Tulsi plant is nourished with drops from a pot hung above it, with a small hole in its bottom. Odisha has several other unique Yatras to celebrate the occasion, like Jhamu, Patua, Hingula, Patua and Danda, with each contributing its own rites and colour.

Crossing over now to deep southwest, a thousand miles away, one comes to Kerala where Vishu is celebrated with fireworks and a million lights. ‘Kani’ or the first auspicious sight of the new year is ensured the night before by carefully arranging the traditional Vishukkani: placing money, jewellery, holy texts, lamps, rice, fruits, betel leaves, areca-nuts, bananas, vegetables, lemons, metal mirrors, yellow Konna flowers and so on. Sadhyas or feasts are compulsory as are Kanjis made of rice, coconut milk and spices, along with Vishu Katta rice cakes and sour mango drinks.

In Tamil Nadu, as among Tamil-speaking people in all parts of the world, Puthandu on the 14^th of April marks the new year and the same Kani or first sight of auspicious objects is mandatory. As in other parts of India, cleanliness of the body through the ritual bath and donning new clothes are insisted upon, while the home is done anew with colourful Kollam floral designs on the floor. Even in Karnataka where Ugadi comes in March, the Tulus and Kodagus of the south west celebrate Vishu and strictly observe the auspicious Kani rite during the Vishu of mid-April.

 India is too complex to analyse, but with some effort it becomes easier to appreciate at least the broad patterns, as we have just done.   Though about half of India celebrates new year in Baisakh, while the others do it in Chaitra, if counts the overseas celebrations, then ‘Baisakh’ wins as the most popular New Year. Not only do Bangladesh and Nepal observe this date, but Sri Lanka, Myanmar and South East Asia also observe ‘Baisakhi’ with religious passion. 

Laos celebrates the middle of April as Sonkan (derived from Sankranti), where ritual cleanliness, perfumed waters and obeisance to monks and visits to Buddha temples are compulsory.  Thailand also calls it a similar name ‘Sonkran’ with almost the same rituals.  But both countries organise massive “water fights” on this occasion and  people come out on to the streets and spray each other with water in every possible manner including hose pipes and buckets.  Cambodia celebrates as Maha-Sonkran and all the three South East Asian countries pass through their hottest period during April, as it is just before the rainy season.  Thus, water is obviously welcome.

What is more interesting is that the insistence of these countries on paying respect to the elderly and releasing living creatures from bondage, whether it be tortoise or tiny fish or even birds, This is a Buddhist contribution and another one is the dictum to give alms to the needy which is something that Indians could emulate.

We end with a round-up of our two neighbours and Myanmar celebrates ‘Thingyan’ during this period.  The same Theravada Buddhist rites and rituals, like respect to monks and elders, release of caged animals and the compulsory alms giving to the needy are followed.  But after all this piety is over, the evenings are meant for song and dance, as also for getting ready for the next day’s water fights.  Sri Lanka celebrates Aluth-Avurudda more seriously, as the zodiac changes from Pisces to Aries, but Dravidian customs like ‘Kani’ appear in the celebration: as the auspicious time for starting business and other ventures.  Sinhalese also believe in big bangs and crackers like the Malayalees.

As one traverse the entire spectrum, one is amazed to see the tremendous variety, colour and forms of celebration in India and the world: of different yet close “New Year Days”.  They are so unlike the almost mechanical rigidity that surrounds the “Happy New Year” of the West.

(Please Click Here to Read the Article in Bangla on ABP Website)

The curious case of NaMo TV

The curious case of NaMo TV

By Jawhar Sircar

(16^th April, 2019, The Telegraph)

Never before in the history of television in India have we come across a television channel that operates as a full-fledged one but claims that it is not a TV channel. It appears on well-known direct-to-home TV platforms like Tata Sky, Airtel and DishTV, but resorts to as much subterfuge as possible to obfuscate its real character — as it has not come in through the normal licensing route. It sprang into life suddenly on March 31 after the Election Commission’s ‘model code of conduct’ had already been promulgated, but quite strangely, the EC did not question it. No one really knows who owns it; how it operates and what its finances are. The acronym in its name stands for Narendra Modi, the prime minister who is also the prime campaigner of his Bharatiya Janata Party. Yet, he does not own up to his ‘paternal status’ — he tweets in its favour instead — and his party conceded, most reluctantly, that it is theirs, after trying every trick in the book to distance itself from the channel that exists only for propagating its political message and telecast the speeches of its mascot.

The broadcasting sector is so well governed — perhaps, excessively so — that NaMo’s claims notwithstanding, this channel is bound to have trampled upon existing regulations. The EC appears to have woken up finally to its responsibilities after 12 days but the transgressions have already been committed. But before we get there, it may be interesting to see how the government and the party deliberately sent everyone else on a wild goose chase to figure out which genre of television this channel came under — by simply being completely non-transparent. While the media and the Opposition tried to locate possible violations of the information and broadcasting ministry’s strict ‘uplinking and downlinking guidelines’ that apply to all normal TV channels that use satellite communication, NaMo TV went on telecasting programmes — in violation of the model code of conduct. The TV channel deliberately does not give any information of its ownership, tax compliance, its partners or foreign technical support, if any. Yet, the hyperactive income tax department and the enforcement directorate that are always on raid mode have not bothered to seek financial and taxation details from it. Besides, television is a super-sensitive domain and the antecedents of each channel are verified by the home ministry in detail. Again, NaMo TV appears to be an exception by thinly disguising its real character. The manner in which government departments and agencies of the government — who would have torn any Opposition leader to shreds had he or she done this — maintain a ‘hands off’ policy is sinister and unashamedly genuflecting.

NaMo’s claim to be a ‘shopping channel’ or a ‘special service’ that DTH platforms operate for profit does not hide its full-blown channel character and that too, as a very sensitive political channel. All it means is that it has avoided the government licensing procedure in some convoluted manner and that its programmes are made in a studio and sent to Tata Sky, Airtel and DishTV through optic fibre. But since it is not selling undergarments or household gadgets, but undiluted political propaganda, it falls squarely under the EC’s present ‘model code’ restrictions on media. After 12 days and external pressure on it to act properly, the Commission is now reasserting its time-tested media content monitoring committee procedure, to check and certify all material before it is telecast. The state chief electoral officers have to do this but there are doubts whether their machinery is capable of viewing and clearing so much material. But there is one more violation, and NaMo’s telecast on multiple DTH platforms runs foul of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s order of 2014 restricting ‘special services’ to just one DTH TV company. The information and broadcasting ministry needs to check the exact wording and act fast.

More important is that Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, strictly prohibits political speeches for 48 hours preceding the last hour of poll in those constituencies where polling was held in the first phase of elections. This has surely been violated, and T.N. Seshan would have declared these polls as invalid.

(Please ClickHere to read the article on The Telegraph’s Website)

Is the Election Commission Overawed ?

              Is the Election Commission Overawed ?

                               

 By Jawhar Sircar

          ( Ananda Bazar Patrika, 11th April ‘19 —English version)

        Long before Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or the Trinamool Congress started raising their voices against the Election Commission’s alleged bias, a group of some 150 retired officials of the IAS, IFS, IPS and Central Services had already started waving the ‘yellow card’ at the Commission that is led by three officers of the same tribe. The difference is also that while people may not have forgotten the recent Panchayat elections in West Bengal that were conducted most unfairly by the Trinamool regime or the infamous ‘rigged elections’ under Siddharta Shankar Ray or later under the Left Front, no such history bogs down the the retired officers group who have now pooled their experience together under the name ‘Constitutional Conduct’. This group consists of a past Chief Election Commissioner and former State Chief Electoral Officers as also numerous ex-Returning Officers and Central Observers— all of whom have handled several elections long before the present CEC members arrived. They are, naturally, in a better position to judge their ‘younger colleagues’ in the present Commission especially when they appear to deviate from the principles of fair play — that they are duty-bound to adhere to under Article 324 of the Indian Constitution and the Representation of the People Act of 1951.

              During discussions over the last several months, this group met the-then CEC and explained to the Election Commission that since doubts had been expressed by many about the possibility of tampering with the EVMs or Electronic Voting Machines, alternate measures must be considered seriously. It was, incidentally, this very generation of officials who had introduced the EVM system in India in the closing years of the twentieth century so enthusiastically, and it is now the same group that now feels that these machines may not be as foolproof as was believed earlier. After all, technology and hacking techniques have both improved in the last two decades, while fairness has come down in public life. Thus, a new system called the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail, must be introduced as it proved successful in the 2014 polls, when it was first tried out on experimental basis. Under this system, it is possible to check one’s vote because as soon as a voter punches his or her choice on the EVM, a small printer next to it pops out a paper ballot slip. This would tell the voter that the vote has been correctly recorded and, internationally, the option is either to put this paper into a ballot box placed near the EVM for these to be counted later or to tear up the slip after the voter is satisfied. The Constitutional Conduct group mentioned to the Election Commission that its plan to use just one VVPAT or Paper Trail per Assembly Constituency, which means 7 per parliament seat, was ridiculously low as a sample. It insisted that this percentage of ‘paper trails’ should go up substantially in each parliament constituency, to really represent a reliable sample of the total number of the polling booths, which was as high as 1500 to 2000.

       Now, some political parties are insisting on cent percent counting of ‘paper trails’, though this may not be possible in 2019. But it is only fair to expect that the Election Commission settles for a reasonable number of booths where ‘paper trails’ shall be made compulsory, somewhere between present figure of 7 and the total number of 1500-2000 booths per parliamentary constituency. This is what the retired officers have repeatedly advised the Commission. But the attitude of the present three-member Commission to fight this issue out in the courts appears rather odd, especially in response to a PIL filed by 21 political parties before the Supreme Court. The Commission has declared that counting of even half of these paper-trail votes many take six days, which sounds quite exaggerated. Even when we counted paper ballots under the old system of ballot boxes, the whole process took between 12 and 18 hours. In unionised states like West Bengal, this sometimes stretched to a few hours more, as counting staff reportedly delayed the counting process, in order to extract more ‘tiffin allowance’ and other rewards. Some parties have clearly stated that accurate results are more important than delayed results and the Constitutional Conduct group insists from the collective experience of so many hands-on experienced officers that it just cannot take so long. The real reason why the Commission is acting so difficult is not clear, but let us go into some recent happenings to draw our own conclusions.

         The Prime Minister appears to have overawed the present Commission that did not consider his brazen efforts to project macho ultra-national pride and also to appropriate decades of the nation’s achievements in the space sector by destroying a satellite in space to be crossing the red line during the period covered by the Model Code of Conduct. It refused to stop the ruling party from releasing a bio-pic on the PM that everyone is talking about and it did nothing to prevent the public streaming of a web documentary ‘Modi: A Common Man’s Journey’ on Eros Now — despite protests. This emboldened the ruling establishment to go to the unprecedented length of starting a television channel called NaMo, named after the Prime Minister, and while the concerned official agencies cringe in fear, the constitutionally-protected Election Commission, headed by the former Broadcasting secretary, is resorting to bureaucratic games. The retired officers and many other parties and groups have approached the Commission but it just looks the other way. Never since Sukumar Sen set up the Election Commission in the early 1950s and TN Seshan strengthened it in the early 1990s, have we seen such deliberate inaction from the Commission. 

     But the present Commission does not hesitate to take selective action against those governments that Modi dislikes by transferring its top officials, while the DGP of Tamil Nadu, that is ruled by the PM’s ally, continues to boss around election arrangements — even though he has a proven track record of political bias and criminal charges against him. There appears little point in mentioning that a Governor made clearly political statements without even a line from the Commission, that proved equally ineffective when Adityanath Yogi, CM of Uttar Pradesh, got away by declaring the Indian Army to Modi’s own. The first phase of the polls is about to begin and morning clearly shows the day. If we are to have really fair polls in Independent India’s most critical elections, the present Election Commission must be taken to task either by a ‘hue and cry’ at every act of favouritism, or by the courts — preferably by both.  

How Buddhist Records Helped Recreate The History of India

How Buddhist Records Helped Recreate The History of India

By Jawhar Sircar

(Published in 'The Edition', 8th February, 2019)

       

           I thank the India Bhutan Foundation for having invited me to deliver a talk on a subject that is so close to my heart. For the last two decades I chose a rather unusual combination of subjects for my research, namely, History and Religion, and it feels satisfying to see some positive results emanating out of this combination. This is not the first occasion when I have expressed India’s indebtedness to Buddhist records for reconstructing Indian history in the last two centuries. Those who are familiar with this issue would be aware of the basic problem of deciphering history as an empirical discipline from materials that were never meant to serve as historical records or documents. I refer to Indian texts, more specifically the genre of sacred texts. We must remember that in ancient India which covers the period from 3500 BC to 1200 AD, i.e, more than four-fifth of India’s recorded history, the chronicling of events was primarily the task of what we call the Brahmanical intelligentsia that was also the keeper of religious traditions.

               For various reasons, history was not their focus and though we get large volumes of literature, primarily sacred, from the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Sutras, the Puranas and numerous commentaries thereof, we hardly get any historical narratives. The Puranas do recite genealogies and some parts are substantiated by facts, but they mix up a lot of fiction and religion and cannot, therefore, qualify as historical texts. They have, of course, been treated as source materials of history, but with a lot of caution and very selectively. Where India’s secular side is concerned, India was not known to have produced histories except rare ones like Kalhana’s Rajatangini in the 12^th century that chronicles the dynasties of Kashmir and some others. With the arrival of Muslim rulers, the emphasis changed and political records were kept quite rigorously and it is needless to say that during the colonial period, this was obsessive but one needs to be extremely careful about imperial bias and other failings.

              While it is not difficult to produce the history of India from the 12^th century onwards, there were considerable problems in delineating a linear history of India from the earliest historical period. India had completely forgotten even the grandeur of Harappan civilisation and its large cities on the Indus and its tributaries and distributaries like Mohenjo Daro, Harappa, Lothal that were built as early as 3500 BC and flourished for almost two millennia. The Vedic period has left behind almost no such direct material civilisation but archeology has been able to retrieve remains of pottery, metals, small towns and other evidence. The next major phase, that is personified by the great Gangetic kingdoms, the Mahajanapadas and the Mauryas have considerable material artefacts and architecture but much of the Buddhist glory was sadly forgotten in the land of its birth. In fact, the first two major discoveries of British archeology, i.e, the Amravati stupa, that Col. Colin Mackenzie had stumbled upon first in 1798, and the Ajanta caves that were discovered accidentally by a team of soldiers in 1819 are two of the grandest evidence of the efflorescence of Buddhist art and culture that had lapsed from human memory. Mackenzie returned to Amravati in 1816 as the Surveyor General of India as he knew that his earlier visit was quite superficial and spent four years in documenting the find and sketching the ruins. He made a presentation on Amravati before the Asiatic Society in Kolkata in 1819 with 85 illustrations, but he made the mistake of mistaking the site to be one of Deccan Jainism rather than of Buddhism. Ever after it was discovered, it took both the British and Indians several decades to understand the uniqueness of the art of Ajanta and hence, it was not incorporated into India’s historical timeline till the end of the 19^th century. That journey is another interesting story in itself.

         Both Ajanta’s discovery and Amaravati’s presentation were in the year 1819. This means that even two hundred years ago, 1817, there was no proper linearity in Indian history and there was, for instance, no idea of the glory of the Mauryas, the greatness of Ashoka and the magnificence of the Buddhist phase. Almost all the architectural grandeur of pre-Islamic India is represented by the mighty stupas at Sarnath and Sanchi and the ancient universities of Taxila and Nalanda. In 1817, their existence was not known or visible as they had been lying in ruins from centuries of neglect. They had become highly avoidable ruins that were dreaded because of snakes and ghosts. Buddhism had survived and prospered outside its homeland, but in its cradle and nursery its existence was forgotten. Today, we shall briefly touch upon the fascinating process though which India rediscovered her past in the next hundred years, bit by bit, and how Buddhist memory helped the process.

Let us quickly recapitulate some of the other major Buddhist monuments that were discovered during this exciting phase. The next significant discovery after Amaravati and Ajanta was in 1830, General Ventura uncovered the Manikyala Stupa at Taxila. This very ancient city, was said to be the capital of Parikshit, the grand-son of Arjuna of Mahabharata, and it had been an important Buddhist centre that the Jataka tales describe in great details.  Taxila had seen Darius of Persia and Alexander the Great. Taxila carried valuable evidence of several periods, pre-Mauryan, Indo-Greek and Kushan. This ancient centre of India’s first university had been destroyed by the Huns in the 5^th century AD and it lay in ruins for 1400 years. But how did the British find out what Indians had forgotten? One was their boundless curiosity and the other was their scorn for Indian concepts of ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’, as well as for ghosts and evil spirits that prohibited Indians from venturing into ruins. Cobras, and other dangerous creatures that inhabited these ruins did not deter them either.

  More interesting is the fact that British scholars and archaeologists utilised Indian or Chinese texts, mainly Buddhist, to provide them with valuable clues to many historical sites. After all, James Rennell had used the writings of foreigners, i.e, classical European geographers like Pliny and Ptolemy to identify Pataliputra with modern Patna in his 1783 Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan. But, Alexander Cunningham, who later became the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India depended a lot on the testimony of Chinese pilgrims and their travel accounts of the Buddhist sacred places in India. By using the bearings and distances mentioned by travellers like Fa Xian and Xuan Zang, Cunningham succeeded in fixing the locations of many of the famous sites mentioned in ancient Indian texts and thus rediscovering them. These records, of course, had their own limitations which resulted in all kinds of controversies as, for instance, the identification of Kapilavastu. Here, for instance, the field of speculation was very wide because the bearings in the accounts of Chinese pilgrims were not consistent. While Nepal has claimed Tilaurakot as ancient Kapilavastu, we in India have identified it with Piprahwa-Ganwaria in Uttar Pradesh. And while it is true that freely occurring monastic seals of the first-second centuries CE which mention the Kapilavastu Sangha have been found at Piprahwah-Ganwaria, at Tailaurakot too, a terracotta sealing with 'Sa-ka-na-sya' ('of the Sakyas') in the Brahmi script has been reported. So, where exactly was Kapilavastu located is a question that neither archaeology nor literature can still answer to everyone’s satisfaction.

Cunningham unravelled the mighty Dhameka Stupa at Sarnath in 1835, which was cylindrical and quite unlike other hemi-spherical stupas. It marked the spot of the ‘Deer Park’, where Buddha gave his first sermon after attaining his enlightenment. The holiest of Buddhist sacred texts like the Vinaya Sutras and the Dhamma-Chakka-Pavattana Sutta contain the Lord’s message of the four noble truths that were delivered at this very spot. But it was James Prinsep’s remarkable decipherment of the Brahmi script two years later in 1837 that really shook history. The earliest messages of the Buddha and Buddhism were transmitted orally but when they were first recorded the script used to convey the Pali language was ancient or archaic Brahmi that was completely forgotten. For centuries, Indians had come across strange epigraphs or carvings on rocks and metal that none understood. What is more regrettable is that even the Maurya, the first emperors of India and Ashoka the great were almost gone and existed more in fables and legends rather that in written texts.

  The mystery was unraveled by epigraphist and scholar of numismatics, James Prinsep of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal in Kolkata.  As editor of the Society’s journal, he received all types of coins and copies of inscriptions from all over India for decipherment, translation and publication. He was intrigued by the strange unknown alphabets on the rock engravings of Allahabad and Delhi that lay in front of him. From the middle of the 1830s, he embarked on a serious mission to make sense of them. With extreme patience and his extraordinary command over other foreign scripts, he managed finally to decipher the words ‘Devanampiya Piyadasi’. This was the term by which Ashoka was addressed in the sacred texts and translated as “Beloved of the Gods of Gracious Mein”. Prinsep managed thereafter to decipher the Brahmi script in which most Ashokan rock edicts were inscribed and he produced the most solid form of historical evidence to establish that emperor Ashoka was truly a historical character. He had been mentioned in the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka by the same epithet, but he could now be fixed with historical accuracy: after a few hiccups. Prinsep assumed first that this Ashoka was a Sri Lankan king who used the same epithet. It was only when George Turnour, who had considerable knowledge of Lankan Buddhism, sent him correct evidence from Pali sacred literature did Prinsep  rectify his error and declare this monarch as Ashoka the great of Indian legends. 

After so many years of speculation, Ashoka Maurya was finally demystified and firmly established on the throne of Buddhism and India. This helped in joining the dots of the missing grandeur of India’s real heritage, for none personifies the plural soul of India more than him. If the Buddhist texts had not been there as a back up there are grave doubts as to how well we would have succeeded in establishing a credible history of ancient India. Cunningham’s subsequent discovery of Sanchi Stupa in 1851 that had been lost in our memory was the most educative of all our stupa sites. The restored stupa brings out the characters from the Jataka Tales that embellish the gateways. In 1854, Cunningham published the Bhilsa Topes which attempted to establish the history of Buddhism based on whatever architecture and archaeology evidence was available. Himanshu Prabha Ray mentions Sanchi with special emphasis in her significant work ‘The Return of the Buddha: Ancient Symbols for a New Nation’.

Cunningham’s doggedness led him to rediscover and re-excavate Bodh Gaya in 1861 that Hamilton Buchanan had reported half a century ago as a place covered by a thick forest.Cunningham’s further discoveries in 1862-63 were as important in the treatment of historical amnesia. He, identified Ramnagar as the ancient ‘Ahich-chatra’; Kosam as the great ‘Kausambi’ and Sahet Mahet as the historic ‘Sravasti’.  British archaeologists could retrieve these jewels from our past mainly on the basis of Buddhist textual evidence.  The indefatigable Cunningham then moved to the Bharhut Stupa and physically uprooted large number of stone carvings from this site, in true imperial style, and transported them to Calcutta’s Indian Museum. They served there as a ‘classroom’ and exhibition of the excellence of Buddhist art and architecture. Succeeding generations of art historians, archaeologists, museologists and connoisseurs derived their education from these eloquent stones in Kolkata. Thus, within just eight decades, Buddhist architecture was suddenly brought back into our memory and served to stoke a strong sense of pride among Indians who were throughly demoralised by the systematic campaign of British rulers to belittle their past. These structures and sculptures of Buddhism compensated somewhat for the apparent lack of outstanding tangible cultural heritage that stared  at us where ancient Indian history was concerned, except the few temples like those of the Pallavas and Cholas, Vijayanagar and Jagannath.

Before concluding, we need also to appreciate that though Buddhism disappeared from large parts of India by the middle of the first millennium,  the Buddhist Pala dynasty of Bengal established their kingdom as late as the 8^th century and ruled till the 11^thcentury. It created the ‘Pala School of Sculptural Art’ and constructed massive architectural structures at Vikramshila Odantapuri and elsewhere. In fact, the Buddhist Vihara of Somapura in Paharpur, Bangladesh, that the Palas erected is considered to be the largest such structure in the Indian sub-continent and is now a “World Heritage Site”. What is interesting is that once Buddhism was rediscovered, however, several Indians of all religions came forward to celebrate its glory. In fact, Buddhism was proudly declared as an inseparable part of India and the Hindu cultural sphere, forgetting the centuries of persecution that Brahmanism had unleashed upon that religion — that managed to wipe off its grandeur and memory so effectively that they had to be rediscovered with tremendous effort.

The revival of Buddhism in the 20^th century was also due to great social reformers like Jyotiba Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar. Even Rabindranath Tagore’s creative genius drew inspiration from Buddha’s teachings on social equality and to him Buddha was the greatest human being. The poet laureate chose to prostrate himself before the image of the Buddha at Bodh Gaya which is the only time in his life that he ever did so. Tagore made a profound observation on the 8^th May, 1935, the Buddha Purnima Day: “Materials of different shades of Indian thought and culture are confined in Buddhist literature and due to the lack of intimacy with them, the entire history of India remains unfulfilled. Being convinced of it, cannot a few youths of our country dedicate themselves for the restoration of the Buddhist heritage and make it a mission in life?” Since then, a lot of research into the greatness of Indian Buddhism has been undertaken and the departments of Archelology, Numismatics, Ancient Indian History, Pali, Buddhist Studies and the like of many universities and both the central and state governments have re-discovered a lot. But we are yet to come up and declare in broad terms the debt that the discipline of Ancient Indian history and India as a nation owes to Buddhism in enriching our legacy with magnificent architecture, especially when Hinduism has so little of it between the third century BCE and the twelfth century in the Current Era. One cannot imagine India without Ashoka and had it not been for Buddhist records, he would have remained lost for ever.

(Please Click Here to Read on "The Edition" Website)

Modi’s surgical strikes bear resemblance to a game of Kabaddi--watch out for the next ‘raid’ by the PM

Modi’s surgical strikes bear resemblance to a game of Kabaddi--watch out for the next ‘raid’ by the PM

By Jawhar Sircar

(National Herald, 5 Apr 2019)

Narendra Modi’s record in office being quite pathetic and people having neither forgotten nor forgiven him for the economic mess that he created with his ‘demonetisation’ that caused havoc in the economy and destroyed livelihoods, it is hardly surprising that he has fallen back on faux nationalism as the cornerstone of his poll campaign.

Modi has been pining from ‘day one’ for a hallowed pedestal in India’s history and the single puerile act of Demonetisation ensured that he gets a slot, next to the reckless Muhammad Bin Tughlaq. His hastily implemented GST that he announced at midnight in Parliament in cheap imitation of Pandit Nehru’s Tryst with Destiny speech harassed an entire nation for months and years. This half-baked GST and the mindless Demonetisation caused growth to nosedive to such abysmally low levels that he had to let loose his ever-obliging coterie of economists and crafty mandarins to invent new and extremely doubtful new rules of growth measurement.

Job creation has hit the lowest level ever in 45 years and the spate of crude fudging and inventive apologia have failed to cover up the disaster. He is, therefore, pining to display his questionable machismo to deviate public attention from this messed-up reality and we have not even mentioned his failures to deal with agriculture, education, scientific research and many other spheres. In this crisis, the tragic attack at a convoy of para-military forces at Pulwama on the 14th of February that killed close to 50 CRPF jawans was a ‘gift’ to him from Jaish, as former RA&W chief AS Dulat has said, and the Indian Kashmiri suicide bomber was unbelievably ‘made-to-order’ for Modi.

As it shook the shocked nation, Modi resorted to his theatrical call to war — “we shall avenge!” and calculated hysterical outbursts like #EndPakistan and #IndiaWantsRevenge rent the air. No discussion took place on who was responsible for this terrible security lapse and hysteria was just synchronised on the media, fed obviously by a Machiavellian establishment. It almost coaxed the great leader to strike back, which he did on the 26th of February at Balakot in Pakistan — a 1.5 days’ war that is in keeping up with India’a great indigenous sport called Kabaddi.

Everything was over in a flash as the genuflecting media announced that an important target within Pakistan had been hit by the Indian Air Force and that 250 or even 300 Pakistanis had been killed. The government smirked in silence and the Air Force refused to give any number, even on repeated questioning.

It was clear that Modi’s regime had outsourced the whipping up of frenzy to a new breed of ever-obliging media. It accused everyone else of not being patriotic enough and branding these who raised common sense questions as anti-nationals. This was most surely the first private public partnership (PPP) of propaganda. The idea was to stun a disturbed nation with calculated overdoses of Goebbelsian fake news and freshly-brewed series of blood-curling hatred.

A game of Kabaddi

A word about Kabaddi — as the hit and run, zip-zap-boom ‘war’ at Balakot is best described. This sole-surviving indigenous game of India and Pakistan, Kabaddi, incidentally, outlasted the domineering colonial sports like football, cricket, hockey, tennis and the lot. Indians and Pakistanis love this very exciting game for the surge of blood that it pumps up and drops, both rather dramatically.

Under the rules, a lone attacker sneaks into ‘enemy territory’ with some aggressive choo-choo sounds and his mission is to simply touch any one of the players on that side — which then knocks the ‘hit’ person off from the game. The defending side is equally alert and its objective is to entice the attacker deeper into their territory and then grab the raider and pin him down.

It is all over in a flicker, with a lot of sound and fury on both sides, just as the Balakot skirmish was, where an Indian Air Force officer landed in Pakistan and was pinned down. Both sides enjoy that feverish excitement but, unlike Kabaddi, no one could really make out who won at Balakot — as both sides screamed that victory was theirs.

We need to understand that the extreme fundamentalists and the army who monopolise Pakistani politics and dominate society are indeed most benefitted by Modi’s regime. Its pronounced anti-Muslim acts and its calculated ambivalence to the recurring lynching of Muslims heats up a larger section of the Pakistani people, that then supports both terrorism and an anti-democratic polity.

The Pakistani Military-Mullah establishment just love every excess that the India regime indulge in and its uncontrollable paroxysms of anti-Kashmiri detestation, as these provoke reciprocal hatred for India, which strengthens the Pakistani establishment.

The poison that Zia-ul-Haq injected into the body of Pakistan in the 1970s was deeply regretted by secular and democracy-loving Indians until the present Indian government arrived, to match villainy with villainy.

Bitterness, hatred and war help only demented megalomaniacs on both sides and jumping the gun after Pulwama is exactly what the international conspirators desired. Modi appeared just too glad to oblige. It helped him foment dangerous ultra-nationalism on which he feeds, and gave him an opportunity to indulge in demagoguery, the only thing he has mastered.

The war option, however, ran out of steam obviously because it was much too dangerous for the world to permit two nuclear nations to slug it out. Modi soon realised that he would not be permitted to escalate his ‘war’ beyond a 1.5 day Kabaddi match as China would just not permit its ally, Pakistan, to be hit, beyond this token gesture. Russia was certainly not willing to have either America or China gaining from a war in its backyard. Even Trump must have displayed rare bouts of sense and must have conveyed that he would surely intervene, most forcefully.

Let us remember that Indira Gandhi had to convince every important world leader over several months to obtain their ‘no objection’ before she sent the Indian army into East Pakistan in 1971. Even so, the US Seventh Fleet came perilously close to intervention but she won the game of nerves.

Modi’s constant anti-minority terror techniques and his crackdown on Kashmiri Muslims have worried every important foreign leader, his embarrassing bear-hugs notwithstanding. All, except Israel’s Netanyahu — who, anyway, has blood on his hands and is charged for taking bribes. War was soon realised as a non-option and even imagined machismo that followed in lieu has its own limitations.

We need to remember that, under the circumstances, one more option always exists and this is communal riot — that invariably polarise voters.

It must not be allowed to happen suddenly, as it did in Gujarat in 2002 or in Muzaffarnagar in 2013. Well over a thousand people were killed in 2002 but till now no big leader could be fixed for inciting pogroms or for abetting the killers. This frightening option of communal riots is never closed in India and we need to remain on alert.

 (Please Click Here to read the article on National Herald's Website)

Maha Shivratri: Bengal has two Shiva traditions – of the potbellied peasant and the King of Kailash

Maha Shivratri: Bengal has two Shiva traditions – of the potbellied peasant and the King of Kailash

By Jawhar Sircar

(The Scroll.in, 4^th March,2019)

On the occasion of Maha Shivratri millions of Shiva devotees keep a fast all day and pray through the night. The festival, which falls on March 4 this year, is one of the holiest days in the Hindu calendar and the most important among the 12 Shivratris celebrated throughout the year. Some say this was the day when Shiva manifested himself in the form of a linga, and the Puranas mention that Shiva wed Parvati on this day. But why do Hindus celebrate this birthday or even the marriage, which was as tempestuous and interesting as most human marriages?

It is said that the planetary positions in the northern hemisphere are in such a conjunction on the day of Maha Shivratri that it is a potent catalyst, which can help a person improve their spiritual and other energies. Shiva himself is said to have declared to his wife Uma that if this date is observed, it could destroy the consequences of all sins and confer final liberation. Some actually believe that Sanskrit mantras like Maha-Mrityunjaya enhance their powers on this very night.

The rituals of Shivratri – literally Shiva’s night – have also been documented in several Kalpadrumas (hymns or incantations usually of Tantric origin) and Tithi Tattwas (Smriti texts the most famous ones ascribed to Raghunandan Bhattacharya of Bengal), and some appear quite Tantric in character.

In this small piece, however, we will not focus on rites, rituals or mantras of Shivratri but try to understand when this festival assumed importance among the masses of Bengal. The wedding of Shiva and Parvati is mentioned in the Puranas and in Sanskrit literature as in the writings of Kalidasa, but our concern is to trace when Shiva’s night began to be observed in Bengal at the level of the common man, not just the thin layer that represented the Brahmanical elite.

Shiva’s secure seat

Shiva remains a fascinating Hindu deity as he combines several contradictions –love and war; affection and vengeance; monogamy and sexual deviation; generosity and vindictiveness. Even the English educated urban youth, who usually keep a safe distance from what they view as “native” culture and religion, have now become his ardent fans thanks to authors like Amish Tripathi, who is famous for his Shiva Trilogy.

Let us also remember that Brahma lost his position in the original Hindu triumvirate – Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar (Shiva) – and manages with just one temple at Pushkar dedicated to him, among the millions of temples that dot the country.

Vishnu formed a grand alliance by absorbing nine deities through his Dashavatara (ten avatars) legend. But Shiva had no such problems as his seat in the great triad is quite secure. Shiva outlived even Indra, who exists now only as a suffix in names like Narendra and Dharmendra, and actually expanded his kingdom rather extensively. It stretches all the way from Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet to the tip of southern India, in Kanyakumari. There are a dozen jyotirlingas across India – from Kedarnath in Uttarakhand to Somnath in Gujarat; from Baidyanath in Jharkhand to Kashi Vishwanath in Uttar Pradesh, and in Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

Shiva was not originally a great Vedic deity like Varuna or Indra, though he did appropriate some of the qualities of Rudra, a Rigvedic deity. Yet Shivratri is said to have been worshipped for ages. The story of Raja Chitrabhanu of the Ikshvaku dynasty, who observed Shivratri, and the Ishana Samhita are quoted to prove its antiquity. Puranas, like the Shiva, Padma, Skanda, Matsya and Vayu are also cited. But they refer to Shiva’s mahatmya in general, not necessarily to this ratri or night.

Shiva in Bengal

Then Bengal has its special problems and Shiva had to go through major humiliation in the medieval period. Bengal’s Mangal Kavyas – a group of Bengali Hindu religious texts, composed more or less between the 13th century and 18th century – celebrated the defeat of the great Puranic deities of North India such as Shiva of Kailash and even Durga at the hands of the gods and goddesses of the lowest strata like Chandi, Dharma and Manasa. For instance, in the texts, Shiva, the king of Kailash, was defeated repeatedly by the local snake goddess Manasa.

We also need to recall a story of Kalketu, the hunter, who came out of the forests in the Middle Ages to set up a kingdom, where agriculture would be the mainstay not hunting.

In simple terms, Bengal crafted its own narrative between the 15th century and 17th century, when more and more persons moved from their earlier professions of hunting, gathering, fishing and herding cattle to agriculture and settled life.

The Shiva model that finally succeeded in Bengal was actually the humble peasant of Shivayana literature. He is a potbellied peasant, who smokes ganja and goes around dancing with his ganas or companions, and is chased around the village by an angry Parvati, broom in hand. The peasant Shiva became an instant hit among the newly-emerging farmers of medieval Bengal. It is this democratisation of worship that distinguishes Bengal from other provinces.

But the pre-agricultural past of Bengal was not forgotten. The primary tale of Shivratri still focuses on a hunter, who climbed the branch of a bael tree on Shivratri. He happened to throw leaves throughout the night, quite inadvertently, upon a Shiv linga that was at the foot of the tree. When he died, Shiva’s hordes fought with Yama’s messengers for the body, which was taken directly to heaven, as Shiva wanted to reward him for his act of piety on the night of Shivratri.

It was later in the 18th century that Shiva cults from North India managed to establish the pan Indian Shiva in Bengal once again. Among them were the Naths such as Gorakshanath and Minanath, and Dashnamis, who set up the Tarakeshwar temple in West Bengal along with other temples. Rajas and zamindars like the Punjabi family of Burdwan Raj patronised Shiva and established many temples in Bengal too.

Shivratri celebrations

Then how old is the celebration of Shivratri in Bengal? The fact is that while many of our deities are quite ancient, many of their present festivals like Shivratri, could be fairly recent. We found that the worship of both Saraswati and Vishwakarma can be traced to just a century-and-a-half, once all classes of Bengalis realised that education ensured a decent livelihood and that the factory system brought jobs and economic prosperity. The problem is that Indians use the word pracheen or ancient quite vaguely. A hundred-year-old temple is ancient and so is Harappa of 5,000 years ago.

But we can still safely presume that in Bengal Shivratri must have been celebrated as a mass-level festival for more than 200 years. This is fairly old when we compare it to many others such as the community worship of Durga or Ganesh Chaturthi that were begun to be celebrated only a little more than a century ago.

John Murdoch, who complied the earliest serious and detailed studies of Indian festivals wrote in 1904 that “notwithstanding its reputed sanctity, it is evidently quite modern”. In Bengal, Shivratri seems to have been adopted only in the late 18th or early 19th centuries when Bengali well-educated gentlefolk started reinforcing male patriarchy as soon as they became prosperous under British rule.

This is the age when Sati increased and widows were treated cruelly or banished to Kashi Vrindavan. Jamai Sasthi – a festival dedicated to the son-in-law – was the rage and all socio-religious energies were directed at husbands – praying for a good one was just part of this trend.

Thus we have two Shiva traditions that run parallel to each other in Bengal – one that loves the poor but jolly peasant Shiva or Bholanath, and the other that prays to the King of Kailash.

One more issue is that Bengalis often wonder how this God of the cold Himalayas could manage to survive with just a single piece of tiger skin around his waist. As is well known, Bengalis are terrified of the cold and they quickly put on mufflers and monkey caps as soon as the temperature drops below 25 degrees Celsius.

(Please Click Here to read thearticle on The Scroll.in Website)

An Old Game of Thrones

An Old Game of Thrones

Narendra Modi has only two diversionary options before him

By Jawhar Sircar

(Published in The Telegraph, 25.03.19)

Those who are wondering what happened on February 26 at Balakot and how an Indian air force pilot fell captive soon after may recall the game of kabaddi. It is the only indigenous game of India and Pakistan that remained alive in spite of the takeover by colonial sports like cricket, football, hockey, tennis or badminton. Not only did it survive, but it also staged a remarkable comeback. Both Indians and Pakistanis enjoy that surge of adrenaline every time ‘their raider’ sneaks into enemy territory and ‘tags’ or knocks out one or more targets — even as the entire opposing team tries its best to grab the raider and pin him down. Unintelligible sounds mark the lightning-fast game, much like the din that was raised by several Indian television channels — the Pakistanis must have gone through similar excitement. But the striking difference between kabaddi and the air raid at Balakot is that in the latter nobody could make out who knocked out whom.

Patriotism invariably rises to abnormal levels every time the home side goes to war or is attacked, and the nation state invariably capitalizes on this social psyche to consolidate its grip over the populace. But the depths to which ‘patriotic television anchors’ took the discourse — posturing belligerently, demanding immediate retribution, accusing people of being ‘anti-national’ — were unprecedented. They declared that 250 or even 300 Pakistanis had been killed, although the Indian regime was shrewd enough not to mention any number. Narendra Modi and his men seemed to have outsourced the whipping up of frenzy to a new breed of obliging media. The idea was to stun a disturbed nation with overdoses of fake news that would breed hatred. The social media pumped in suspicious footage of mass burials to prove that India’s greatest leader had indeed killed so many.

And that is precisely the point. The leader needs to face his people before the polls with some awe-inspiring message — his record is rather pathetic. People have not forgotten the economic devastation that resulted from Modi’s Tughlaq-style demonetization and the hastily implemented goods and services tax. Together they managed to drag employment down to the lowest level in 45 years, and so miserably is the regime faring where gross domestic product growth is concerned that new rules had to be declared to establish the leader as infallible. There are other failures, as in agriculture. Even Modi knows that these post-truths may not be gulped down easily by voters and, therefore, there are only two diversionary options to retain Delhi.

The first is to go in for a full-fledged war with Pakistan, which, anyway, is being fought in daily instalments along the border for years. The second option is to ensure that riots take place, for they would be likely to incline the majority community towards the leader and the Hindutva brand. As if on cue, the Pakistani establishment — which is certainly not coterminous with the Pakistani people — presented the Indian regime with the perfect alibi — at Pulwama, on February 14. An Indian Kashmiri suicide bomber killed 40 members of the paramilitary forces. No responsibility was fixed for the gravest security lapses and no heads rolled. Fundamentalists who dominate Pakistani politics and the army need the belligerence of religious zealots in India to sustain their own hegemony. There has been no looking back since Zia-ul-Haq demonstrated in the late 1970s that the hate-India campaign could be effective in invoking Islamic extremism and terror. The purveyors of this attitude must have been delighted when India ushered in its first Hindu Right government in 2014, for it could represent similar principles of religious intolerance. The lynching of Muslims or the situation in Kashmir could provoke hatred for India, which strengthened the establishment. Tragically, increasingly larger sections of otherwise peace-loving citizens moved closer to the extremists.

Returning to the war option, Modi knows that he cannot pull it off: China would flash the red card, Russia the yellow card and even Trump would intervene. The Modi government’s anti-minority stance and its policy in Kashmir have alienated him from every international leader. The hatred for minorities that the Hindu Right has injected into the Kashmir debate and the army’s high-handedness in quelling civil unrest have shocked sane people everywhere, including in India.

The possibility of communal riots looms over us.

(PleaseClick Here to read the article on The Telegraph’s Website)