Indian History
Buddha in 500 BC:
I have found the root cause of all human suffering and a technique by which all human beings can attain salvation.
Javed Akhtar, Shabana Azmi’s husband, in 2005:
“The gurus teach that come to me and I shall take you away from suffering. In truth, that can never be done, no one can take away the suffering of the world.
Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal by Jonathan Gregson, Miramax Books, 255 pages
In 1846, Queen Rajya Laxmi of Nepal had an illicit relationship with Gagan Singh Bhandari, the minister in charge of civil affairs. When this news came out in the open, someone shot dead Gagan Singh wile he was at prayer on the roof of his home. When the Queen heard about this, she sent orders summoning all senior officers to the assembly ground known as Kot. From the balcony, she demanded the identity of the murder of her lover. When no one answered, she accused one person and rushed towards him with a sword in her hand.
She was restrained, but rival officers had taken positions around the Kot. Soon there was gunfire all around and within minutes thirty members of Nepal’s aristocracy including three ministers were dead. The nobility who were not killed in the Kot massacre were later hunted down. Later her minister turned against her and put her under house arrest and later exiled to Benares in India.
In 2001 , when Prince Dipendra gunned down members of his family, he was just following the tradition of the Nepali Royal family. Prithvi Narayan Shah, ruler of a small kingdom conquered all the others, even more powerful ones and formed the present day Nepal in the 17th century. He set the condition that the eldest son of the King should succeed him. This caused some problems when the King had many wives and each Queen wanted her son to be the King. Some Kings, to make their position secure would have the closest relatives jailed or exiled.
The man who became King in 1775 was Pratap Singh who had two wives. The first Queen, when she came to know that her rival Queen was pregnant, wanted to secure the position for her son. King Pratap Singh died when he was twenty five and immediately Queen Rajendra Laxmi’s two-year old son was declared the King. The Queen became the regent with tremendous powers. She allowed the second Queen to have her son, and immediately after that forced her to perform sati even though a month had passed since the king’s cremation.
After presenting the history of Nepal and the court dramas, the book leads to what the title says, the Royal Massacre of 2001. Thus we get introduced to Crown Prince Dipendra, and come to know that he loved playing the guitar and the traditional Nepali drum and he volunteered for tough infantry training and parachute courses. He sat on meetings with his father, King Birendra on key policy issues, thus preparing to be the king, later. He was also fond of drugs (hashish and marijuana), guns (M-16, 9mm Heckler and Koch MP5K) and women (Supriya Shah, Devyani Rana).
His mother Queen Aishwarya was not fond of Devyani Rana whom Dipendra wanted to marry, since Devyani was related to the Scindias of India and they considered the Nepali Royal family below them. The relationships soured in the palace over the marriage question and many discussions were done over this and sharp words were exchanged. Finally the Queen threated that if he married Devyani, his title would be stripped and financial allowance restricted.
After this there is a detailed description of what happened on the evening of June 1, 2001 whe Prince Dipendra opened fire killing his parents, siblings and close relatives and later killing himself. Jonathan Gregson provided a minute by minute update on that fateful evening when Nepal plunged into a deep crisis.
I knew very little about Nepal’s history and this book provided a short but wonderful introduction to Nepal and the build up to the events of 2001. The book is big on people and we meet not just the Royal Family of Nepal, but also the Prime Ministers, their families and their power struggle. The book is very focussed on the title and does not deviate with other side stories unless they have a direct bearing on the kingdom, such as India’s intervention in the 1950s to restore the monarchy.
This book does not provide any references or footnotes and so when the author makes statements like the tiff between Queen Aishwarya and Sonia Gandhi strengthened Rajiv Gandhi’s determination to impose an economic blockade of Nepal, we have to be skeptical. The cover of the book says that the author had exclusive interviews with the late King Birendra and surviving members of the Shah family, but no credits are provided. The book has no index either which I think is a must for any non-fiction book.
This is a very readable book, for the tragic human story told.
There was a scene in Martin Scorsese’s Kundun, where Chairman Mao tells a young Dalai Lama,
More news from Mahabalipuram. As per mythology there were seven temples in that area out of which only one is visible now. But the naval diving team helping the Archaeological Society of India has made some more discoveries related to that.
As the killer tsunami waves receded, it also gulped the sand deposits only to unveil a line of rocks 500 metres from the Shore temple. The neat arrangement of rocks with man-made features could turn out to be another cave temple of the Pallava era (8th century). The naval diving team, assisting the Archaeological Society of India, also discovered another structure $(Ope(Brhaps a temple 100 metres north-east.
Commander A K Sharma of Indian Naval Command Diving team claims that the structures have striking resemblance with the legendary painting of the seven pagodas (or seven temples). “We know for sure that a temple is going to emerge from the excavation site. We have found another temple close to the shore and also located a slab believed to be the pedestal on which the deity was placed,” he said.
Says commanding officer of INS Ghorpad, Lt Commander Satyendra Vaidya: “We have recovered prominent objects of archaeological importance. A temple-shaped structure has been discovered during one of the dives. Then came a square structure resembling a sanctum sanctorum. It is covered with marine growth and the centre is buried under silt.”
The INS Ghorpad team also found some artifacts belonging to the temple site. Carved relics depicting lions and elephant were exposed by the tsunami further down south of the excavation site. These rocks were visible earlier too, but not as clearly as now, showing sharp carvings. [Tsunami unveils ‘seven pagodas’ via IndiaArchaeology]
Was Sonia Gandhi behind the economic blockade imposed by India against Nepal 1989 ? According to Jonathan Gregson in his book Massacre at the Palace: The Doomed Royal Dynasty of Nepal, there was an issue between Sonia Gandhi and Queen Aishwarya during the SAARC meet over who should take precedence. This incident strengthened Rajiv Gandhi’s determination to teach and an economic blockade was imposed over Nepal using the pretext that the trade treaty between the two countries had expired.
Later when a widowed Sonia Gandhi visited Kathmandu, the Queen made sure that she was denied permission to enter Pashupathinath temple on the basis that she was born a Catholic. The Queen thus gained happiness of standing up against India, whom she hated because she thought India was behind the Spring Awakening of 1990 that led to democracy.
Devyani Rana was one of the women shortlisted for marrying Prince Dipendra and she was related to the Scindias of India. Devyani’s mother cosidered the Nepali Royal family below them. This combined with the Queen’s hatred for India, made the Queen oppose Dipendra’s marriage to Devyani. Later it was over this woman that Dipendra massacred the Royal family and killed himself.
TVR Shenoy has an article criticizing the suspension of military aid to Nepal
Scenario One: The Maoists intensify their attacks, controlling larger swatches of that unfortunate country. They already rule 39 of Nepal’s 75 districts. If India chooses to starve the Royal Nepal Army of supplies, in the name of restoring democracy, there is an excellent chance that the king and his forces will simply throw in the towel and give in to the Maoists. The Maoists will then join hands with their murderous Naxalite brethren in India.
Scenario Two: What happens if King Gyanendra becomes desperate at the Indian decision to stop military supplies? Let us remember that it is open to him to seek aid from Pakistan or China. This gives him a fighting chance of beating the Maoists. The victorious monarch shall then be an enemy of India as long as he lives (and probably his successors too).
Scenario Three: The Government of India decides to reverse its stance and resume the flow of arms to the Royal Nepal Army. The politicians in Nepal will protest vehemently. Irrespective of whether King Gyanendra carries the field against the Maoists, a section of the Nepali people will hate India. [India’s short-sightedness]
While India tolerates a King in Bhutan, dictators in Myanmar and a General who exiled a Prime Minister, suddenly we have come intolerant of a King. The Maoists are gaining in Nepal and that is not good for India as well as Nepal. Most Communist/Maoist coming of power is followed by genocide and getting them off the chair is almost impossible. India has its own Naxalite problems and thanks to the lenient handling of the borders by the present Indian administration, both these guys are able to exchange notes.
Now that India and Britain has suspended aid, King Gyanendra has asked for international aid which means that some other countries could get involved in India’s neighborhood. India’s best bet would be to help Gyanendra in his fight against the Maoists while exerting sufficient pressure to bring back democracy.
Last year, Amartya Sen had an article in New York Review of Books on the 2000 year old relation between China and India. Now on the occasion of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s upcoming visit to New Delhi in March, China Daily has an article on the same topic, acknowledging the cultural imports from India.
China was thus linked culturally to India, via its adoption and transformation of Mahayana Buddhism (of the “Large Vehicle,” as opposed to Hinayana Buddhism of the “Small Vehicle,” which spread from Sri Lanka to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia). Both were already pursuing their “wider Asian interests” then, as they dominated the philosophical and cultural psyche of Asia. This “civilization dialogue” between China and India (and through China to the rest of Confucianist Asia) could be seen in three aspects of Chinese civilization: architecture and temple-building, sculpture (in China’s famous “temple caves”), and paintings and creative arts.
The teachings of Gautama Buddha indeed added flavour to Chinese civilization. Buddhism “with Chinese characteristics” had in fact helped galvanize Chinese civilization, as was built up to an apogee (of Chinese culture and civilization) during the Tang Dynasty. The Tang was also at the zenith of Chinese art and culture in its millennium-old history, and India and Buddhism have undoubtedly contributed to China’s cultural apogee.
Although Buddhism was first introduced to the Chinese courts during the Han Dynasty, the religion only pervaded Chinese society and culture progressively, as Buddhist concepts and philosophy were infused into a fast-developing and affluent Chinese society, with its own inherent characteristics and personality. [Cultural factors bind China and India]
Remember the tsunami treasures that were discovered in Mahabalipuram ? One of the items was a granite lion which was actually seen in 1980. Now it seems the Buddha statue that washed ashore is not really Buddha but Jalagupta, a Hindu diety worshipped in Myanmar.
K Gurumurthy, a member of the Indo-Myanmar Chamber of Commerce, who visited the Meyyurkuppam site upon advice from the Myanmar Embassy, New Delhi, has now confirmed that the idol is of Myanmarese origin but not that of the Buddha. The raft-shrine that houses the idol must indeed have come from Myanmar as the robe, bowl and photograph that accompanied the idol on the high seas all contained Myanmarese letters.
However, contrary to media reports till now, the statue with distinct Mongloid features is not that of Buddha but of Jalagupta, a local Hindu deity much in worship in Myanmarese village as a
State Of Fear by Michael Crichton, HarperCollins Publishers, 603 pages.
“The United States of America is an international pariah, isolated from the rest of the world and justifiably despised because we failed to sign the Kyoto Protocol to attack a global problem”, says one of the characters in Michael Crichton’s new book State Of Fear. This is countered by one of the main characters in the book with the statement that Kyoto protocol does plan to reduce warming by 0.04 degrees Celsius in 100 years. Right now we cannot even predict weather beyond five days accurately and how do we know what’s going to happen in 100 years.
In the book the villain is Nicholas Drake, the head of National Environmental Resource Fund who thinks that people have lost interest in environmental causes and need to be shocked into action. For this he plans some eco-terrorism with a group called Environmental Liberation Front. Fighting them are George Morton, a billionaire philanthropist, Peter Evans, a junior attorney, and John Kenner an M.I.T professor who works for the National Security Intelligence Agency.
After the heroes and villains have been introduced, they embark on their well choreographed behaviors. The villains try to blow up things and the heroes reach just in time to foil it. For foiling the terrorist activities, our heroes follow the Dan Brown design pattern which says that there has to be clues to the actual locations of terrorism which the heroes will decode with their brains and Internet. The Dan Brown pattern also says that even though the villains know that the hero has decoded the location, they will still go ahead with their plans. During this dance, we are given lectures on how much we trust all these global warming advocates who themselves have no idea on how the weather changes.
Crichton’s books are mostly techno-thrillers. Prey was about nanotechnology, Timeline was about time travel and Airframe was about the airline industry. This book questions the blind faith that people have in the global warming theory and Crichton quotes several research papers in footnotes to lend authenticity to his arguments.
The book does manage to raise awareness on the global warming data and on the agenda of the NGOs who claim to work for environmental causes which is refreshing. After reading this book, you will look at global warming with skepticism. As a thriller it is predictable and the characters are two-dimensional. This book is not as good as Jurassic Park or even Prey or Timeline, but better than Airframe.
Last time we told you about the satirical report on Jawaharlal Nehru University students who had stopped brushing their teeth. But now here is a report, which is real.
Independent thought in India’s better universities is alive and well. Office bearers of the Jawaharlal Nehru University students union in Delhi were requested by the university’s administration to present flowers to President Abdul Kalam at the annual convocation. They flatly refused, saying that he is a nuclear hawk and an appointee of a Hindu fundamentalist party. Moreover, as young women of dignity they could not agree to act as mere flower girls presenting bouquets to a man. [India, as Seen Today Through the Eyes of an Eminent Pakistani Scholar]
Indian President Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam was the person whom Pervez Hoodbhoy’s friend Praful Bidwai accidently left out from his list of Muslim achievers.