From: Xavier William <varekatx@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 5:30 AM
Subject: Re: [india-unity] A PIL: Mahabali vs. Indian State
To: india-unity@yahoogroups.com, indiathinkersnet@yahoogroups.com, KeralaDD@yahoogroups.co.uk, Mahajanapada@yahoogroups.com
So what? Epics and myths are very good at saying a thing in one place and contradicting it in another place. Thus there are many discrepancies/contradictions in the Bible and the Koran and the Mahbharatha and the Ramayan are no exception. So basing your conclusions on an incident or two in the Mahabharat or on any myth is not conclusive.
All religions and castes belong to the past and let the dead past bury its dead.
Was it Advani who said "A people without a great past cannot have a great future"
It is nonsense. As a skeptic I would ask him to first define the terms 'great past' and 'great future'. Many Malayalam Christian matrimonial ads goes like "... boy/girl from ancient SC family seeks matrimonial alliance..etc" It would seem that some families existed from the beginning of time whereas others sprouted out of virgins one fine day 2-3 years ago or something like that.
It was not only India that had a great past. There are others like China, Egypt, Mesopotomia, Turkey, Greece, Peru, Mexico ...etc And where are these people with a great past compared to people of Scandinavia and Singapore with no past to boast of? There is a famous Malayalam Novel by Basheer titled "Ntuppaappaykoranendarnu.." (My grand father had an elephant) In this novel the heroine's mother though indigent, always boasts about her past and how her grandfather had an elephant. As their poverty grows the old woman increases the number of elepahnts her grandfather is supposed to have had. Finally she goes mad and boasts that her gradpa had ten elephants. Most if not all of the so called people with a past are like that woman who always boast about their past. This reminds me of Thomas Paine's words "People who have nothing to boast of, boast of their heritage"
So Bahasker, history and the past has only limited relevance. It is the present and the future that matters and in these India has little to boast of being the poorest and most disease ridden of the nations on earth.
History is something to learn from and the biggest lesson o learn from it is to leave it behind and formulate a future in line with what we have learned from the past. Instead here is a young IT - proficient man like Menon wasting his time gloating over the past and yearning for vendetta for imagined crimes of his imagined enemies centuries past.
If the Hindus of India believed in the bullshit you bandy about then the Hindutwa forces would have swept all the polls. Instead they are gasping for dear breath for those lined up against them are none other than Hindus of teh lower castes. Blaming the Muslims and Christians for the travails of Hinduism is sheer escapism and scapegoatism.
So Bhasker! First reconsile with your own kind before you take on imagined enemies. If you are unmarried go marry a girl from a scheduled caste - if you dare. India's salvation lies in caste integration and not in driving out the Muslims on one pretest or other or in annihilating Pakistan.
You cannot drive the Muslims out of India, you cannot drive the Christians, Jains, Sikhs, Buddists ..out. So learn to live with them and then to cooperate with them and with the other castes. That is the way to the future. Gloating on the past as Adwani and his Hindutwa forces advise can only lead us to our ruin and dont think for a moment that you can climb out of the morass that India is in by climbing over the dead bodies of Muslims and Christians. You can get out of this only by cooperation with your imagined enemies.
Almost every statement you make is factually incorrect. The priestly Brahmins were a minority within the caste. Others followed a wide range of callings from fighting (the pre-1857 British Indian army in Bengal had a large component of Oudh Brahmins) to teaching, administering, -- all the way down to begging. As a caste Brahmins were not rich. The poor Brahmin is a stock character in Indian literature. And Brahmins did not rule. The rulers were kshatriyas. Nor was marriage between Brahmin women and men of lower castes punishable. In the Mahabharatha there are numerous references to the progeny of such unions; in fact, they formed sub-castes of their own.
A
Sent: Tue, October 5, 2010 3:19:08 AM
Subject: Re: [india-unity] A PIL: Mahabali vs. Indian State
--Yes Bhasker,
The Brahmins are a minority all over India. They do/did no productive work. They were not aggressive and yet they ruled. How did they rule even so"? For one thing, they were the priests and everyone feared them for their superstitious powers just as Christians fear the popes and bishops and the Muslims fear their own priests. The priest in Christendom are far fewer than the Brahmins in Hindu-dom and yet they ruled Europe at will until reason took over in the form of Renaissance. In Europe there were no born warriors whereas in India warriors were born and they were often of clandestine Brahmin-Kshatriya sexual liaisons - Brahmin men had access to Kshatriya women whereas if a warrior Kshatriya as much as turned a lascivious eye on a Brahmin girl he would be emasculated. It was this nexus between the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas that lorded over the lower castes and exploited most inumanly
On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 1:20 PM, BHASKAR MENON <papamenon04@yahoo.com> wrote:
The author of the Countercurrents article claims to be a student of history at JNU, but I wonder if he understands the nature of Indian history at all.Our history is not a factual account of dynasties and wars as in the West, but a moral history that depicts our past, warts and all, through myth and legend. As is evidenced by the annual celebration of Mahabali's return, our way is far superior in keeping the past alive and focusing attention on the karmic nature of the deeds that were done.The course of human affairs is not smooth or just. To remember the beloved king Mahabali and acknowledge the injustice of his death on Kerala's most widely celebrated festival is not something to be mocked. Take a bow, Kerala.As for Vishnu, he acted at the behest of the gods who felt that Malayalees under Mahabali were upsetting the universal order by being as happy as those in paradise. He was acting to preserve the balance of the universe, the given role of all his incarnations.One final point for Mr. Karthik's consideration: nowhere in India are the Brahmins more than about five per cent of the population. Nowhere are they the dominant landed caste. That goes for Kerala in spades.
Bhaskar Menon
www.undiplomatictimes.com
Dona Paula, Goa 403003
From: Xavier William <varekatx@gmail.com>Sent: Mon, October 4, 2010 12:08:20 PM
To: india-unity@yahoogroups.com; indiathinkersnet@yahoogroups.com; KeralaDD@yahoogroups.co.uk; Mahajanapada@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [india-unity] A PIL: Mahabali vs. Indian State
--To add insult to injury the Aryan-descendents boast aht Vishnu incarnated 23 times to eradicate evil from the face of this earth. What evil did Vishnu and his avataar Vaman eradicate by banishing the good King Mahabali to the nether worlds and that too by treachery by exploiting the generosity and honesty of the noble king? Then there is Rama himself, another of Vishnu's avatars. He burned down Lanka and massacred its people only for rescuing one person - Sita - and then she too is banished to the forests with her unborn suns even though she proved her chastity by the trial by fire. What evil did Ram eradicate in all this much ado about nothing? Then there is Narasimha , a third avatar - who came out of a pillar and struck a king dead for his disbelief in Vishnu. Here again one fails to see what evil was eradicated. Then there is Krishna and Parasuram and ... None of them seems to have eradicated any evil unless killing one's enemy amounts to eradication ov evil even when the enemy is as noble as Mahabali. However repeat a lie or myth million times and it becomes the most sacred of truths - unquestionable and nondebatable.
On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Khalid Azam <khalidazam@yahoo.com> wrote:
A PIL: Mahabali vs. Indian State
By Karthick RM
03 October, 2010
Countercurrents.orgHonorable your Honour
I recently read the judgment of your colleagues on the Babri Masjid… ooops… the Ramjanmabhoomi issue. I should say that I was thrilled. Since legal bodies of our great modern country have extended their jurisdiction to the unknown past to settle real or imagined religious disputes, I make an appeal for my client with great confidence in your rational-legal authority.
Since in the RJB judgment, 'Lord' Rama is accepted as a historical character, I would like you to the consider the case of my client, King Mahabali. Since you have managed to map out Ram lalla's birth to a specific geographic region, we hope you would pay due regard to our argument of the Kerala origins of Mahabali. Sir, we want to bring to light the historical and religious injustice done to Mahabali and his followers.
Mahabali was a righteous king who hailed from that section whom you call in legal terms as 'backward castes'. He was to the oppressed sections what 'Lord' Rama was to the upper castes. In case you need more information on his historical significance, I would suggest that you read Mahatma Phule's works, in case thy most knowledgeable self has not already. His rule was considered to be one where there was a just treatment of all sections of the population. However, jealous with the virtuous rule of this backward caste king, Vishnu, in the guise of a brahmin dwarf (Vamana), duped Mahabali and pushed him into the underworld. (I think a case of impersonation can also be filed against Vishnu).
Anyway, what happened over the years was that my client was denied his place in history by the brahminical ruling classes and they also crafted stories to justify his predicament, thereby legitimizing their own rule. Result was disastrous for his people, the backward castes, who comprise the majority of the population. Not only did they lose a politico-spiritual symbol, it also meant material losses. Thanks to Mr. Vishnu, they lost their wealth, their lands and above all, their self-worth, being stigmatized and dehumanized for well over a millennium. I am sure your honour understands the social and historical significance of all this.
Thus, keeping the Allahabad verdict on RJB in mind, we would like you to consider the following
1. That Kerala was the kingdom of Mahabali (if you go by Mahatma Phule, it was much larger. But we are content with Kerala as of now) which was unjustly usurped by the brahmins with the help of Mr. Vamana, an alias of Mr. Vishnu.
2. That since Kerala is the birthplace of Mahabali lalla, we want 2/3rd of the land to go to his descendants, that is, the backward castes - yes, even after Namboodripad's much talked of land reforms, the brahmins still have enormous land-holdings in the state.
3. That an Archaeological Survey of India research team must constituted to do a study of all brahminical temples in Kerala. If evidence showing that they have been built over backward caste temples is arrived at, steps for their demolition and the rebuilding of the original temples should begin in earnest.
Regards
To be filed in any high court in Indian TerritoryKarthick RM is a student-activist based in JNU, pursuing his Masters in History.He is associated with the Delhi Tamil Students Union, a Periyarite-Marxist group
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