Shivaji -- Portrait of the King as Barbarian

Reference #58:

Dear ranjit Bhai:

{Jeez!! First Salim is insisting that Aurangzeb is a rajput and now you are insisting that Pakistan is Hind. Next thing you will say is that Lashkar-e-Toiba is a wing of Shiv Sena and Jinnah was Advani`s uncle. What happened to the good old Two Nation Theory? :-) }

LOL

Reference #56:

Dear tahmed32:

Wow! It is the Zoroastrians, once again, { when the persian achaemenids made what is now pakistan their eastern most province back around 5-6 centuries BC they changed the pronunciation to fit the ancient persian style by dropping the s and adding the h to make it ``hind``. And from where troops from this area fighting for Darius I against the greeks took the word to the west. }

Now we might get Ranjit Bhai all riled up once again..:)

Respectfully submitted,

tahmed32/74, the charkha on the tricolour was put forward during the Congress convention in 1927 by Hakim Ajmal Khan and others, and then unfurled for the first time in the Congress convention of 1929 in Lahore.

As per records which I have sighted a the offices of a newspaper in Belgaum, the saffron on the tricolour was supposed to represent all the religions of the day (Sufis = jogis = saffron was for islam, saffron was for Sikhs and Hindus and if I recollect there was some connection to Budhism too). The white was for purity and the green was for agrarian roots. The charkha was supposed to symbolise effort put in by people round the clock 24 hours, and after 1947, the Indian trocolour carries a blue wheel with 24 spokes to symbolise that.

GT #73
Let Mantolives #1 produce the original quote by Nehru before you waste time interpreting his own embellishments of the original.

Last time he was asked, this is the quote he presented:

``Shivaji did not belong to Maharashtra alone: He belonged to the whole Indian nation. A devout Hindu he was tolerant of other religions. Shri Shivaji is a symbol of many virtues, especially love of country`` (Jawaharlal Nehru).

Does it sound anything like #1?

GT

At the risk of possibly offending our friend Manto, we ought to be careful before calling Nehru an idiot on any issue. The man had some intellect, and a grand secular vision (too grand and too secular from a rightist pov) of history that rose above the standards of Chowk :)

Nehru could have come to wrong conclusions on this (as he did on many other subjects), but we should first know what precisely his stand was. Lest, in our ignorance (ignorance part is certainly true in my case) we may be projecting our own prejudices on the man.

a) I have an issue with the quality of this article. This is nothing but a collection of cut-and-pastes on a subject.

b) I have an issue with the writer`s credentials. A simple search has shown that his organisation is a ``small business`` in Cambridge which provides information along the lines of his article for profit.

c) And most of all, it emerges that the writer is a paid agent for promoting one of the books which he has used as reference material in his submission. That`s should have been mentioned in the article, and then placed in the business section of the services part of chowk.com

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But then, this is a website given to free interaction, and the Editor`s word is final.

Having said that, and then having taken the trouble to research the genesis of this article as well as the writer some more, why doesn`t it surprise me when I discover that some element of funding for Kedar Joshi`s BSSI also comes from the venerable Church of England? The same one, remember, where slaughtering of wives and siblings, and glorification of paedophilia, reigns supreme in its glorious history?

Go for it, Mr. Joshi. Must be getting cold in England, and somebody has to pay for the heating bills. The age-old British attempts at placing Hindus against the Muslims now has you on the batting crease. But you aren`t a patch on your predecessors. Bad luck.

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For interactors here, especially the Pakistanis - please go and research one single aspect of Shivaji = and that was, where did most o fhis multi-religion multi-ethnic generals and soldiers come from?

amrita #71 I didnt know that about the vande mataram. thanks for the correction. but i am sure I saw the charkhha on the indian flag - isnt that what the wheel in the center represents??

The interacts here are far more illuminating than the article and hence the large number of interacts. The following is my take on the discussion. I have not thought about this issue before and I am learning as the discussion is unfolding. Clearly, this discussion is veering towards `what is a nation state?`

Manto starts the thread by wondering what made Nehru (one of the founders of the present Indian state) assert that Shivaji fought a `foreigner` whose ancestors were considered `Indians`. Salim then explained the `problem` in a precise and logical manner. DM`s theory of `ancestry` could not provide a `solution` to the problem (as clearly demonstrated by Salim in various posts). As such various other solutions have been proposed.

One solution is that Shivaji is a hero, and his actions in fighting the Indian (Mogul) state were justified, because Azb. discriminated against Hindus. Well discrimination in what sense? Azb. even funded temples and furthered the welfare of various Hindu nobles (nobles is as good as it gets because the common people were treated like dirt by all feudals). So `some` Hindu nobles were discriminated against (dont give me the deal about jijya or whatever, even in today`s India only 2.5% of the people pay income tax). So, to cap it: Shivaji is justified because a section of the population is screwed by Azb. Great. But then the problem is that by the same token Kasmiris (a part, however small) are also justified in using ``terrorist` tactics against the present Indian state. (This is not my assertion it is a question).......so this `solution` is soon doomed as soon as Manto and Urstruly come in (if they do so at all).

Another solution is that proposed by Sadna. Modern India is not Mogul India. This is more or less my view. But interestingly that puts Nehru close to being an idiot (Manto may like this). Second, in terms of history of the modern Indian state we are a day younger than Pakistan. Like her, we have to figure out our `national` identity! What is it? What problems do we share? What are the problems that we do not? etc. etc.

The discussion is going to be interesting and I am eagerly waiting to learn. Like Kaal I am with Salim at present

Very, very weird. The whole article has a kind of kooky feeling. Sort of like the people who prove that the world was created in 4032AD or that the vedas explain how to fly to the moon. I guess the author is some kind of odd eccentric.

tahmed - i knew razia had a tough time of it but i didnt know the charkha was part of it. personally, i thought it had to do with gandhi... and its no longer on the flag btw. vande mataram was tipped to be the national anthem but then there was a controversy over the fact that it characterised india as a mother goddess and therefore as hindu blah de blah and so jan gan man was adopted instead. it was a wicked little ditty tagore dashed off when the brits asked him to write a poem praising the new emperor on his visit - it basically says that the only one in charge of india and her destiny is god and the implication was that anyone else who thought he had something to do with india could take a hike.

kaalchakra #61 I shall keep this knowledge a top secret, sir. :-) (also the question of the charkhha I mention below to amrita).

But on this article - i am surprised that shivaji is the only guy whom the rss-types seem to focus on when referring to the martial prowess of hindus. The fact is that a number of hindu leaders fought with great courage and often bested the arab and turk invaders - starting with Raja Dahar, who died sword in hand fighting muhammed bin qasims troops, and won the respect even of arab chroniclers; like the guy who fought of muhammed Ghori`s initial invasions and is credited with having fought Ghori himself in a one-on-one fight during Ghori`s first attempt at taking Delhi, whereby Ghori knocked out his teeth but in turn he almost killed ghori with a spear through his arm or something, and (more importantly) forced Ghori to retreat (only to come back an ultimately win, of course). Even the supposedly mild tamils produced the Cholas who were busy doing to temples in north-west deccan what Mahmud Ghazni was doing in the north at exactly the same time.

But then, if the rss and other hindu (and of course our own muslim) fanatics actually took the trouble of reading up a bit so they actually knew what they were talking about, they wouldnt be so fanatical any more. :-)

Aleph

That`s why Indians got so lucky. As of now, they have no reason to be concerned about losing any edge or any civilizational claim soon.

amrita: i thought the vande mataram was the indian national anthem. it is not?? not just the shiv sena in India would go bonkers if they realized they were rooting for Pakistan every time they shouted ``Jai Hind`` - the mullah nuts in Pakistan would have heart attacks if they realized that were in fact all Hindus (i.e. people of the land of Indus).

There is more - the ``charkhha`` (symbol of India, given a place of honor right there on the Indian flag) was first referred to in India was in connection with a muslim, namely Razia Sultana (brave daughter of Iltutmish who lived around the 1200`s I think) - the mullahs hated to see a woman ruling the Delhi Sultanate and to put her down said that she should be working on the ``charkkha`` rather than trying to rule a kingdom. Historians believe that the charkkha too was an import that came along with the muslims to india - cloth weaving and stitching simply wasnt needed in India`s tropical climate, and even Marco Polo (on his return journey from China) complained of not finding a tailor in all of Calicut where a simple lungi took care of the wardrobe. (This should send veeresh into a rage I think).

Re. various:

I’ve always been hugely amused when ‘Pakistanis’ rant and rave claiming that ‘India’ and ‘Indians’ have usurped a name that by rights belongs to them. Those who are impressed by the Manto/Tahmed point of view might wish to read the following lengthy but very profound meditation by a Pakistani (oops, Indian) barrister and towering intellectual on this very subject:

Islamic Republic of India

Enjoy!

kaal, are you calling me prosy? :))

samosa - coz we`re all intihaee jhagRalu kissam ke log... its what keeps us all going

This is funny about chowk.
1.) If the article is about India, Pakistan is discussed.
2.) If the article is about Pakistan, India is discussed.
3.) If the article is about Gandhi, Jinnah is discussed.
4.) If the article is about Jinnah, Gandhi is discussed.
5.) If the article is about Shivaji, Aurangzeb is discussed.

Any particular reason for this tendency.