On disowning Bhagat Singh and Other Vagaries

# 16 Kaura bhai,

I agree with you on many things, but I think you are mistaken on this one...the only reason the great works of Greek thinkers like Aristotle have survived from the ancient times is because the early Arab Muslims had them translated into Arabic, like much of the great Iranian and Indian texts...the panchtantra for example...it was from these Arabic translations that the Christian West, much later on, salavaged Greek Philosophers' works and had them translated into Latin and other languages.

Having said that, Muslims in India, Turks most likely, burnt down the great libraries at monasteries, which contained great tomes of Buddhist and Eastern philosphy...Nalanda in particular...in fact the sacking of Nalanda sounded the death knell of Buddhism in India, which had been in a long decline from earlier times.

regards

Throwing a piece of history into a ganda nalla is probably similar to desecrating a grave...a cowardly and "safe" way of taking out frustration on a dead person who symbolizes something strong like religion, patriotism or whatever. The act actually reeks of fear that, even dead, that person or way of thought may exist in some way, in memory or history, and rise up to influence the present.So it ends up as an effort to try and wipe out facts and ignore or rewrite history to suit present needs.

Simple logic -

If it is in Quran then it is has already been revealed and is redundant. It is not in Quran it is Kufr and needs to be destroyed.


Either way it is to be destroyed.

So the Bedouin Logic reigns supreme in Islam!!!

Re: # 17
Budhism was dead long ago before the muslims set their feet on Indian soil and hindu renaissance by Shankar Acharya was responsible for this.

Alihasan,

What are you talking about, disowning bhagat sing by whom, the pakistanis. Why should they preserve anything of bhagat sing. He was a hindu, an indian.

Alihasan, ask pakistanis about Abdus Salam, ask YLH about teh nobel prize winner, ask him whether an article should be written on chowk to celebrate his birth anniversary...even ask tahmed..all will say no, he was an ahmadia, a non muslim...what chance the kafir bhagat sing has got.

Wake up Alihasan, you have been away for so long , listen to teh children of TNT, the ones who are guided only by the doctrine that muslims cannot live with people of other religions. Alihasan, name that man who created that ideology.

drlokraj, hope you don't believe Hindus went around slaughtering Buddhists or destroying libraries :)

Re: # 22

I havn't said that. I was responding to kabuliwala's comment about muslims being responsible for ousting of Budhism from India, though some people do claim that Budhist monastries were destoyed by hindus and monks were killed and many monks ran away to eastern countries along with some old budhist literature. Did Rahul Sankretayan not go to Tibet in search of those old budhist monuscripts?

e: # 20 and 23

I agree with you that Buddhism was long in decline by the time Muslims came to India, but was not completely out of the picture...what I said in # 17 was that the coup de grace to Buddhism in India was the sacking of monasteries like Nalanda which housed many monks and were centres of Buddhist learning...monks played a very important role in the propagation and explanation of Dharma to the laity and once they were out of the picture, what was left of Buddhism in India came to an end...Muslims first attacked India in 712 A.D. and Nalanda was sacked in 1193 A.D...in the interim Buddhism was most definitely not "dead" but continued in pockets in India especially in the northwest under the Hindushahis and the northeast under the Palas...while the spread of Muslim rule is only one of many reasons, it is an important one.

You are absolutely right about Adi Sankara being a major reason for the strengthening of Hinduism and the decline in Buddhism's popularity...it was never a majority religion to begin with except in pockets here and there...most of the great Buddhist sites in the country were in fact commissioned by rulers who had Brahmanical leanings (there is a very good article in the current issue of Frontline magazine about that)...once the patronage from kings for stupas and monasteries stopped, Buddhism suffered further...nevertheless the Sangha carried on, weak and emaciated, but was not completely dead

regards

I know Ahmed Salim from way back. He used to write poetry and used to talk a lot about his friendship with Amrita Pritam which proved to be bogus when I got a chance to meet her in Delhi and she failed to recognize his name. I don't know if he still writes poetry or not. Back in the 70s and 80s, he was also known for making up stories. Though I know for sure that he was arrested in 1971 for protesting against the army action in E.Pak. That was really courageous considering the situation in Punjab at that time. This act was one reason for his fame.

Bhagat Singh and what he did was truly great but if we put the whole thing in context, he had a small but a courageous part in Indian independence.(Today he would have been called a terrorist by Indians.)

Just to remind people that INC and even the CPI were not really keen on calling him a hero at that time. He was not even given a proper defense by Indians.

The influence of movies and the fake that goes with that has a huge influence on Indian minds. Because there were a few movies about him, all of a sudden he is the all time great.
There were tons of Indian before him who fought for Independence with civility and courage and attempted to keep the independence struggle within respectable boundaries.

There was a school of thought which perhaps was represented by outlaws like Bhagat Singh that believed that isolated acts of terror would bring Indian independence closer.

Actors like Bhagat Singh add romanticism to the whole struggle. Take the romanticism out and there is nothing left in Bhagat Singh story. Makes a good narrative but there is no real impact of what he did on Indian politics.

Until I hear from Independent sources about the Gormaukhi and Hindi books, I am not inclined to believe a word of Ahmed Salim.

#25 Posted by HP on October 30, 2007 8:06:50 pm

Gibberish & poor knowledge/info abt the subject.(minus the unknown part abt the author).

Drlokraj, please base your opinions on either logic or some historical information, or both. Not on what 'some people' say (there is no shortage of opinion in any mental assylum) or what communist brother Rahul Sankretayan whispered into some people's ears.

If you have some logic and or information, please, let's hear it. We would be happy for the opportunity to agree with you, if warranted. Thanks.

Re: # 27
kaal, here is some part of it from man article on wikipedia, (not written by Rahul Sankritayan of course):

Persecution under the Sunga Pusyamitra

Pusyamitra Sunga (reigned 185 to 151 BCE) assassinated the last Mauryan emperor Brhadrata in 185 BCE, and subsequently founded the Sunga dynasty. From the mid 3rd century BC, under Ashoka, Buddhist proselytization had begun to spread beyond the subcontinent. Buddhist texts such as the Ashokavadana and Divyavadana, written about four centuries after his reign, they contain accounts of the persecution of Buddhists during his reign. They ascribe to him the razing of stupas and viharas built by Ashoka, the placement of a bounty of 100 dinaras on the heads of Buddhist monks and describe him as one who wanted to undo the work of Ashoka.[39]

Some historians have rejected Pushyamitra' s persecution of Buddhists and the traditional accounts are often described as exaggerated. The Asokavadana legend has been likened to a Buddhist version of Pusyamitra's attack of the Mauryas, reflecting the declining influence of Buddhism in the Sunga Imperial court.

Later Sunga kings were seen as amenable to Buddhism and as having contributed to the building of the stupa at Bharhut.[40]. The decline of Buddhism in India did not set in until the Gupta dynasty.

drlokraj

Thanks. For now, regretfully, I must pull a neembu on you, suggesting for your reading pleasure a url available on wiki itself. The article is by Koenraad Elst, arguably the greatest living scourge of all Indian communists and communist historians, and clearly not your favorite writer.

Yet he addresses precisely the point you raised. So please have a look. It's only a short write up.

http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/ayodhya/pushyamitra.html

I personally have a different take on why only a very sick/communist mind (exept you, of course) will see Pushyamitra's destruction of some Buddhist Viharas (I believe he did do so) as Buddhists being slaughtered and driven from India by Hindus. Time permitting, hopefully soon, I will be glad to explain that.

Regards.

HP, what year did you meet Amrita Pritam in New Delhi? Do you remember a clear statement from her not remembering Ahmad Salim? or who he is?
thanks. it is important.

dullabhatti,
is he same Ahmad Salim, whom Paash had dedicated a long poem in 71-72?

u bastards who are abusing Zia for throwing your dirty books where were you when the muslim women of Jalander, from where Zia an Awan hailed, were being raped and thrown in ganda nalas? or being sold in open markets and being paraded naked (along with the muslim women of ferozepur, patiala, kapurthala, gurdaspur and a hundred other places)? this Kaura sach and his kind who piss on their gurus have the gall to talk about alexandria when muslims collected the books of the ancient greeks and romans when you hindus and christian rolled in your filth, the renaissance would not have ben possible without the transmission of knowledge through baghdad and cordoba,