Sunday, April 3, 2016

Research for resurgence -mukul K

Dear All,
Namaskar!

Research is the real source of knowledge. Research is the prime means of Education. Research with a proper and noble purpose has always been and will continue to be the force behind all Human excellence and progress. This purpose needs to be refreshed from time o time. Commerce and warfare tend to grab precedence over all other Humane activities of life. This imbalance in preference and proportion of resource allocation to research results in disastrous consequences and periodically poses existential problems before the mankind. Hence there is always a need for course correction. Academic activity decides the course mankind will take in next few generations. Knowledge leads all other human endeavours.

In this era of resurgence Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal in collaboration with other five premier academic and research institutes of Nagpur invites you to participate in a historical Vidvat Sabha (Conglomoration of Wise). 

An International Conference on Research for Resurgence
12-13 February 2016, VNIT, Nagpur.

Accompanied by a unique competition of research presentation either in text or a PPT or a Documentary or a poster or a Model -working or non working. The presentation has to be about research philosophy, practice or methodology in any of the 7 sub-themes covering almost all the areas of knowledge.

There are prizes worth Rs 100000 to be won. Hurry, registration is on. See the attached flyer for details. Visit 

http://conference.bsmbharat.org/
Very good tips, though most of these are applicable to inernational financing. But still we can use them in applying for funding for our projects also.

http://gu.com/p/485dz/sbl

प्रेस-वार्ता
कानपुर 30 जून । भारत सरकार की प्रस्तावित नवीन शिक्षा नीति के संदर्भ में आज भारतीय शिक्षण मण्डल के राष्ट्रीय सह संगठन मंत्री मुकुल कानिटकर ने आज बी. एन. एस. डी. शिक्षा निकेतन इण्टर कालेज में आयोजित प्रेस वार्ता में कहा कि आज भारत की शिक्षा व्यवस्था अनेक प्रकार के प्रश्नों के घेरे में खड़ी है हमारा युवक मंहगी से मंहगी शिक्षा प्राप्त करके भी हताशा निराशा और बेरोजगारी से त्रस्त हैं, यहां की शिक्षा जीवन मूल्यों से दूर हो चुकी है। भारतीय शिक्षण मण्डल भारतीय पुरूत्थान हेतु भारतीय जीवन मूल्यों स ेउपजी भारतीय ऐतिहासिक अनुभूति से उत्पन्न भारत हित के लिये शिक्षा व्यवस्था को विकसित करना चाहता हैं। इसके लिये संगठन ने विगत वर्षों में लगभग 4 हजार शिक्षाविदों शिक्षकों एवं समाजसेवियों को एक प्रश्नावली के माध्यम से उनके सुझावों को संकलित किया है। और उसे ‘‘भारतीय शिक्षण एक रूपरेखा’’ नाम की प्रस्तावित शिक्षा नीति का प्रारूप तैयार किया है, इस प्रारूप को पिछले 6 माह से सम्पूर्ण देश में शिक्षा से जुड़े लोगों से चर्चा हेतु प्रस्तुत किया गया है। इस ड्राफ्ट पर कार्यशालाओं, विचार-विमर्श गोष्ठियों का अभियान चल रहा है। इस प्रारूप में ही लोगों के सुझाव प्राप्त करने हेतु एक प्रश्नावली भी संलग्न की गयी है, जिसके द्वारा प्रबुद्ध वर्ग के अभिमत प्राप्त हो रहे हैं। देश भर से इस संदर्भ महत्वपूर्ण सुझाव प्राप्त हो रहे है। यह कार्य अभियान के रूप में चल रहा है। 6 जुलाई से 12 जुलाई तक सम्पूर्ण देश में इस प्रारूप पर अभिमत संग्रह करने का विशेष अभियान प्रस्तावित है, इस अभियान में लाखों की संख्या में अभिमत प्राप्त करने की योजना है फिर प्राप्त सुझावों के आधार पर एक परिपक्व शिक्षा नीति को तैयार करके केन्द्र सरकार व समस्त राज्य सरकारों के समक्ष क्रियान्वयन हेतु प्रस्तुत किया जायेगा। 
        इस प्रारूप में शिक्षा का उद्देश्य व्यक्ति के मौलिक एवं शाश्वत विकास को केन्द्र में रखा गया है साथ ही 8 वर्षीय शिक्षा पर विशेष बल देते हुये व्यवहारिक ज्ञान देने की संस्तुति दी गयी है। 8 वर्ष के पश्चात छात्र को अपनी जीविका हेतु कौशल विकास करने के लिये प्रशिक्षण संस्थान में प्रवेश कराने पर बल दिया गया है। इसके पश्चात यदि वह छात्र पुनः उच्च शिक्षा प्राप्त करना चाहता है तो उसे एक सेतु पाठ्यक्रम के द्वारा उच्च शिक्षा में प्रवेश देने की व्यवस्था सुझाई गयी हैं। 4 वर्षीय विद्यालयीय शिक्षा को और व्यवहारिक बनाने पर जोर दिया गया है। विश्वविद्यालय शिक्षा पूर्ण स्वायत्त हो छात्रों को अधिक से अधिक अवसर उपल्बध हों, पुस्तकालयों प्रयोगशालाओं में वृद्धि हो, कार्यानुभव पर बल दिया जाये जिससे कार्यसंस्कृति को बढ़ावा मिले। श्रेणी सुधार की सुविधा देते हुये हर स्तर पर उपाधि की व्यवस्था की जाये। स्नाकोत्तर स्तर पर अनुसंधान एवं पत्र लेखन पर वरीयता दी जाने चाहिये। 
व्यवसायिक शिक्षा में व्यवहारिक प्रवीणता पर बल देते हुये प्रत्येक छात्र को प्रतिदिन 2 घण्टे नियमित कार्य करना अनिवार्य हो। मुख्य प्रशिक्षण अनुभव से दिया जाना चाहिये, मूल्यांकन एवं परीक्षा पद्धति में व्यापक सुधार करते हुये कहा गया है कि कक्षा 1 व 2 में कोई परीक्षा नहीं 3 व 4 में मौखिक परीक्षा 5 व 6 में लिखित परीक्षा 7 व 8 में प्रायोगिक परीक्षा ली जाये, कक्षा 9 व 10 में आंतरिक मूल्यांकन मासिक परीक्षा व वार्षिक परीक्षा ली जाये। आतंरिक परीक्षा व मासिक परीक्षा में 40-60 का अनुपात रहे। आतंरिक मूल्यांकन का आधार कक्षाकार्य गृहकार्य व्यवहारिक ज्ञान व कार्यानुभव को बनाया जायें। उत्तीर्ण-अनुतीर्ण के संकेत समाप्त करके 50 प्रतिशत तक अंक पाने वाले को अगली कक्षा में प्रवेश दिया जाये, परीक्षाफल सुधार की सुविधा हो मूल्यांकन व परीक्षा पद्धति को क्रमशः लागू किया जाना चाहिये। 
       सम्पूर्ण शिक्षा तन्त्र के नियन्त्रण व निरीक्षण हेतु एक पूर्ण स्वायत्त आयोग बनाकर इसके नियमन का कार्य किया जाये, राज्य स्तर पर भी आयोग बनाकर उसकी इकाइयों की स्थापना सभी जिलों में की जाये। इस आयोग में 60 से 75 प्रतिशत सदस्य शिक्षा क्षेत्र से हों और 40 से 25 प्रतिशत सदस्य राजनैतिक प्रतिनिधि, समाजसेवी, शिक्षक संघ प्रतिनिधि, संस्था चालक प्रतिनिधि, शासन के प्रतिनिधि सम्मिलित हों। यह स्वायत्त आयोग पाठ्यक्रम, परीक्षा, शिक्षक कल्याण, नियुक्ति, समितियों का निर्माण तथा शिक्षण संस्थाओं के नियमों अधिनियमों का निर्माण संचालन करेगा।
        उपरोक्त के अतिरिक्त इस प्रस्तावित प्रारूप में यह भी प्रावधान किया गया है कि प्रत्येक 4-5 वर्ष के        पश्चात इस व्यवस्था के विषय में समाज से फीडबैक लेने हेतु सर्वेक्षण कार्य भी होना चाहिये, सर्वेक्षण के आधार पर प्राप्त सुझावों को क्रियान्वयन हेतु जोड़ते रहना चाहिये। यह प्रक्रिया क्रमशः चलाई जाये और इस बात का विशेष ध्यान रखा जाये कि शिक्षकों की सेवा पर इसका कोई प्रतिकूल प्रभाव न पड़े। तकनीक का प्रयोग करते हुये पारदर्शिता लाई जाये। यह बाते प्रास्तवित प्रारूप में विस्तार से दी गयी हैं, 6 जुलाई से 12 जुलाई तक सम्पूर्ण देश में व्यापक अभियान चलाकर इस प्रारूप पर प्रतिक्रिया व सुझााव लिये जायेंगे। आप सभी इसका हिस्सा बनकर इस अभियान में अपना सहयोग करें।
         प्रेस वार्ता में राष्ट्रीय उपाध्यक्ष डा0 अंगद सिंह, राष्ट्रीय संयुक्त महामंत्री डा0 ओमप्रकाश सिंह, राष्ट्रीय महिला प्रमुख डा0 गीता मिश्र, कानपुर प्रान्त के मंत्री दिनेश पाठक, वरिष्ठ अधिवक्ता आदित्य शंकर बाजपेयी उपस्थित थे।  
                                                          (डा0 गीता मिश्रा)                                                                                                               संयोजक- 9415200636 
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Dr. Ajitsinh Rana arjun68@gmail.com

12/2/15
to VSMukulMohanlaldrvamangogate11Aniruddhabnsdsnbvbanwarilalnati.OmprakashMukeshvinayakkanetka.drbnpanda.2010RAbhinshu68akgdavajmeraravindjoshibajpaineetaBhalchandrabhaskara.56c11vineykapoor2002bjgoswami83bsiksha_mandalbsm1609bsmmumbaiChandrashekharDhirendra
Dear friends,  
Greetings!!!!

We are delighted to announce about the ‘National Conference-Pramarjan to be organized by JG Group of Education Colleges and Educational Researchers' Association-ERA on 24-25 Jan, 2016 on the occasion of Golden Jubilee Celebration of our ASIA Charitable Trust.
The theme of the conference is EDUCATION - FROM NEOLITHIC INDIA TO CONTEMPORARY WORLD.
Please find the E-Pramarjan brochure and registerationdetails on  www.jgcolleges.com, CONFERENCE PRAMARJAN.
Further, please use the following URL link for filling up the e-registration form.http://www.jgcolleges.org/office_registration.php

We invite your participation for the conference and also expect your motivation to your faculty members to
participate for the same. Participation from your side will certainly add valuable inputs to the Conference theme.


Let’s join hands to unsoil the tribulations in education field and bring out the innovativeness lying within us……. 

Regards

Conference Coordinator: Dr. Ajitsinh Rana, R.B.SagarCollege of Education, ERA
Cell+91 99045 30030 | Emailarjun68@gmail.com

Conference Coordinator: Prin. Sonal Thareja, Offg.Principal, JG College of Education (Eng.Med.)
Cell+ 91 98247 22899 | Email:principaljgcollegeofeducation@yahoo.com
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Leena Mehendale leena.mehendale@gmail.com



Mukul

सर्वप्रथम अभिनंदन -- हा आपव्या देशांत अत्यंत दुर्लक्षित राहिलेला विषय हाती घेतल्याबद्दल. पण......
हा ही एक उत्सवच रहाणार की मागील इतिहीसाचे भान ठेवत भविष्याचा वेध घेऊ शकणार -- आऱंभशूरता ठरणार की चिरंतनतेच्या दिशेने काही समर्थ पावली टाकणारी योजना यातून निघणार, हे प्रश्नचिह्न अधिकच मोठे मोठे होत आहे. दुसरेही मोठे प्रश्नचिह्न मांडत आहे -- राग नसावा -- या कार्यक्रमातून 1000 वर्षांपूर्वी आम्ही किती मोठे होतो यावरच आधारित पेपर्स वाचले जाणार की आज आपण जगाच्या तुलनेत किती मागे आहोत त्यावरही पेपर वाचला जाऊन आपल्याकडील आज असलेल्या सुविधांचा व पूर्वसंचित ज्ञानाचा एकत्रित वापर करून निकट भविष्यात काय शोध केला जाऊ शकतो यावरही चर्चा मसलत होणार-- 
म्हणून एक सुचवत आहे की बरीच पूर्वतयारी तुम्ही करत असणार त्यातील प्रायोरिटी क्रमांक 1 वर एक काम करा -- महाराष्ट्रातील 2 (पैकी 1 नागपूर व्हीएनआयटी,  व देशातील अन्य 3) अशा 5 युनि, मधे स्नातकोत्तर 2-2 जणांची एक टीम या प्रमाणे 10 विद्यार्थ्यांना कामाला लावून गेल्या वीस वर्षात देशांत जे काही रिसर्च झाले त्याची सूची व विषयवार सूची बनविण्याचे काम हाती घ्या. ते लगोलग एका वेबसाईटवर टाकत चला. दोन शोधक प्राचार्यांना या सूचीवर आधारित प्रेझेंटेशन करण्यास सांगा -- कार्यक्रमाचा किक-स्टार्ट त्यातून होऊ दे. 
दोन्ही मुद्द्यांवर ठोस कार्यक्रमासाठी विद्यार्थ्यांना, शोधसंस्थांना संकल्पना व मार्गदर्शन मी करू शकेन, मात्र - या, एखादा पेपर वाचा - यात मला आता स्वारस्य नाही. 
या संदर्भात मागे मी एका कॉलेजला सुचवून त्यांनी विद्यार्थ्यांतर्फे सर्व्हे-कम- फाइंडिंग असा एक उपक्रम हाती घेतला होता तसे हजारो छोटे छोटे प्रकल्प आजही नितांत आवश्यक आहेतच. पण मोठ्या संकल्पनाही आवश्यक आहेत -- उदा - भारतातील एखादी मोठी शोधसंस्था संस्कृत व्याकरण-आधारित आज्ञावली रचून त्या आधारे वाचिक कमांडवर चालणारे संगणक बनवण्याचा शोध प्रकल्प घेऊ शकते का 
असो. विषय खूप मोठा आहे -- आशा सुटेना- देव भेटेना अशी आपली अवस्था आहे. 
योग्य वाटल्यास फोन अथवा ईमेल करालच (मी सध्या अमेरिकेत आहे 10 . फोन नं +16692245385)

From Nagpur RSS national Headquarters
——————————-
We express our Sranddhanjali to respected Sri Upendra Shenoyji. He was our Senior Pracharak symbol of simplicity  and dedication.
He was original thinker in Reviving Bharateeya values specially in Gram vikas Agriculture and Education.
An voracious Reader thinker and good friend of all.
He was an expert in Homoeopathy in Integral approach in Medical field.
We lost a great personality Guide and Philosopher specially for Karnataka.
With folded hands with tears and bowing my head before that great Soul I pay my sraddhanjali at his feet.
I pray god to give him Sadgati and Courage to all of us to bear this agony.
My pranams to his Fanily members and to all swayamsevaks.
I can understand the feelings and grief of Rashtrotthana karyakartas. I appeal to all those karyakartas to be courageous and i feel Sri Upendrajs Atma will guide us in rebuilding our society on Original Bharateeya values.

Leena Mehendale leena.mehendale@gmail.com

5/11/11
to drupendrashenoyRajendra
Rajendraji, this is the saddest news in last several months. I met dr Shenoy about 2 months back in banglore. He was black with dialysis but his brain was alert and he was still talking about a patient like him not getting advantage of all therapies because doctors are so compartmentalised.
He was a great thinker on the subject of education and I consider it lucky that I was able to discuss my ideas on education with him. His sad demise is a personal loss to me as a good soul, a wellwisher and a well-read person like him was always available for discussing new ideas.
May god grant SAdgati to his Atman
--Leena Mehendale


Muralidhar L B muraliganesh2001@gmail.com

Attachments12/30/14
to pbprofmenon.milatabdeshpandepunementb668muthya47reddydnmadhyanchalvcmeena_r_cggkumararkalgud3venk71venkatesh.kumarvc_hpugad.hpuharanganathjtilakmnsraovcbharathwaasidirectorcbsmsvc.vetunyvc
Sir/Madam

Please find attached invitation for the SZVCC-2015 to be held at VIT University, Vellore on January 3rd and 4th , 2015. Kindly acknowledge the same at the earliest.

Thanks and regards

Muralidhar L  B
Research Scholar,Canara Bank School of Management Studies
Bangalore University
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Manyavar Mahoday,
 Namaskar !

It gives me great pleasure on behalf of Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal to invite you to "International Conference - Research For Resurgence" - to be held from 11th to 13th February 2016 at Vishvesvaraiya National Institute of Technology Nagpur.
Please find below the details of the conference:

Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal(BSM) started its work in the educational sector in 1969 with a view of evolving an indigenous system of education. Shikshan Mandal is working in 28 states and 268 districts of Bharat .The mission of imbuing national education with ‘Bharatiyata’ for national regeneration is – Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal!. Respect of the diversity and recognition & acceptance of the inherent oneness in the universe are the foundational principles of Bharatityata. An education based on these principles aims at creation of a national character. The main motive of Shikshan Mandal is formulation of an education system based on time tested traditions and values of the land. An education that imparts holistic knowledge. Bharatiya Shikshan Mandal has developed a five-dimensional agenda for this purpose -- Research, Awareness, Orientation, Publication, and Organisation to support all these. The aim is to enable society to rediscover the Bharatiya way of life and therefore recreate Indigenous Model of education. (Pl Visitwww.bsmbharat.org for details)

The present scenario about Research and its applicability has unhappy face and needs rethinking in several aspects.  Think tank at BSM has initiated a discourse for solution of the issue and planned International conference on “Research for Resurgence” scheduled on 11-13 February 2016 at  VNIT Nagpur, in collaboration with all the leading institutes of academic excellence in Vidarbha region - Vishvesvaraiya National Institute of Technology Nagpur (VNIT), National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU), Dr. Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth, Akola (PDKV), Kavikulguru Kalidas Sanskrit University, Ramtek (KKSU), Sant Gadgebaba Amravati University, Amravati (SGBU).  The conference will serve as a platform for active interaction between policy makers, executors, true mind-set researchers and representatives from the corporate houses.  

Eminent Personalities who have confirmed their availability for the Conference:

1. Dr V K Saraswat Ji - Permanent Member Niti Aayog,Recipient of Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri.Ex Director General of DRDO.
2. Dr Madhavan Nair, Former Director ISRO
3. Guna Magesan Ji - Senior Scientist from New Zealand.Named amongst top 100 Indians in the world by Indian Magazine along with Sonal Shah(American Economist and Advisor to Barack Obama),Sunita Williams(Astronaut),Dr. Deepak Chopra,Jhumpa Lehri,Sir Anand Satyanand(Governor General of New Zealand).
4. Dr Anil Sahasrabuddhe, Chairman - All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE)
5. Dr D P Singh, Director - National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)
6. 
G. S. Gurumurthy Ji- Renowned economist and corporate advisor.7. Almost 40 Vice-Chancellors
8. Hon. HRD Minister Smriti Irani Ji
9. Hon. Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis Ji
10. Hon. Governor of Maharashtra
11.Education Ministers from different states.

Few of the names expected from abroad are:
1. Advisor to Malaysian Prime Minister
2. Advisor to Prime Minister of UK
3. Rajeev Bajpai - WPG C&C Computer and Peripheral. WPG Holdings is No.1 Global Semiconductor Distributor and the largest electronics distributor in Asia, headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan. WPG Holdings operating through four leading semiconductor components distributors serves as a franchise partner for nearly 250 world-wide suppliers.
4. Manjul Bhargava : A Canadian-American mathematician, Bhargava was awarded the Fields Medal in 2014. According to the International Mathematical Union citation, he was awarded the prize "for developing powerful new methods in the geometry of numbers, which he applied to count rings of small rank and to bound the average rank of elliptic curves.
5. Amit Goyal : He has recently joined University of Buffalo as Director for RENEW Institute. He has developed clean energy technologies for more than two decades. He is known for his research in the area of large-area, low-cost, high performance, “flexible electronic” devices, including superconducting devices, photovoltaic, ferro-electrics, multiferroics, etc., as well as in 3D self-assembly of nanodots and nanorods for device applications. Prior to joining UB, he was a corporate fellow, distinguished inventor and distinguished scientist at UT-Battelle/Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
6. Satish Kulkarni Ji - He was the Counselor for Science, Technology, Environment and Health Affairs at the Embassy of the United States of America in New Delhi, India with the Department of State.(Advisor to Bill Clinton - then President of USA)
He is now Director of Energy Initiatives, Office of VP of Research,Research Professor, Engineering Science and Mechanics - Virginia Tech University.
7. Padmabhushan Arun Netravati -  Ninth President of Bell Laboratories, Has 70 patents to his name, Was Chief Technology Officer of Lucent, Has written 170 technical papers, Was a Professor at MIT USA.

Attached herewith:
1. Brochure for the conference

Your presence and guidance will be very valuable in this movement of resurgence in research for National Mission. Please block the dates 11-13 Feb 2016 in your calender and oblige. 








Sunday, February 14, 2016

Saraswati -- some thoughts

Saraswati’s life was one of a million mutinies – but she always had the last word

Unlike domesticated Lakshmi, the goddess of learning repeatedly challenged the authority of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh.
 
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Each year in the month of Magha (the 11th month in the Hindu calendar), the fifth day of the new moon, or Vasant Panchami, marks the day for Saraswati pooja. This year, it falls on February 12. Yet few of those who offer flowers, vermilion, incense and prayers to this cerebral goddess and her symbols – musical instruments, pen, paper and ink – realise that she is one of the rare Vedic deities to have survived through the centuries with her name and mystical powers intact.
It is especially remarkable because according to myths, Saraswati, has repeatedly challenged the authority and might of the post-Vedic male trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh/Shiva. When proffered male consorts, she willfully ignored them, and when forced to accept them for a short while, she refused to bear children.
Saraswati also managed to elbow out her arch–rival Lakshmi (Sri, the Vedic goddess of wealth) and usurped the holy day of Magha Shukla Panchami, or Sri Panchami, for herself. Over the centuries, despite the considerable rise in Lakshmi’s importance in the divine pantheon and within Hindu homes, neither she nor the male trinity have been able to reclaim the space Saraswati has occupied. Efforts were made, we hear, to call the day Gyan Panchami and then jointly worship Lakshmi and Saraswati, but nothing came of it. The day continues to be Saraswati’s exclusive turf.
The source of Saraswati
Let us start Saraswati’s tale at the very beginning. Once upon a time, migrant tribes crossing the Sindhu river from the West settled next to a river by the name of Saraswati. This mighty river flowed westwards from the Himalayas between the Satluj and Yamuna, into the Arabian sea. The settlers worshipped her as their mother goddess. As they created a magnificent triad of Vedic literature, Saraswati, to them, became the supreme goddess of learning.
The French writer Colette once advised fellow writers to follow the generic verb to locate the real heart of a word. The verb behind the name Saraswati is the Sanskrit sru, signifying a constant and self-renewing flow of both pure water and also gyan or knowledge. A river with a name such as this was bound to merge and mutate with the Vedic goddess Vac, the creator of multiple streams of fluid thought. Thus Saraswati was born as a constantly purifying, fertilising force that lent a fluidity to languages and sustained all art forms. After the merger of Vac with Saraswati, even after the original river had petered out in the deserts of Rajasthan, Saraswati continued to signify a sustaining bond between humans and nature, a creator of the sense of nationhood. In the famous Vac Sutra, the goddess boasts:
“I move among the Gods, I hold them, sustain them… whosoever breathes, sees, hears or eats does so because of me… I create powerful creators and embed them with wisdom and sight… my powers overflow the universe..”
Free soul
Like all beautiful, eloquent and cerebral women, Saraswati’s life is a turbulent saga of a million mutinies. Unlike the charming Lakshmi, the goddess of big things and big money, Saraswati is a haughty and disputatious loner, fond of roaming with her veena, her books and a string of rudraksha beads. She is also, like most free souls, fearless, quick of tongue, and ever ready to give back as good as she gets.
One myth describes her as the cerebral progeny of Brahma. The powerful Vedic god, the creator of all things, like many creative artists, fell in love with his own creation and chased Saraswati. But his mercurial daughter escaped his advances. Still, wifehood followed her. Myths describe her as having become Vishnu’s wilful wife, constantly quarrelling with his other wives, Ganga and Lakshmi. Like many men, Vishnu sorted out his domestic squabbles by presenting Ganga to Shiva and Saraswati to Brahma while retaining the domesticated Lakshmi with her considerable bounty.
Saraswati seethed within. She deliberately arrived late to participate in a vital yagna being performed by her father-cum-consort Brahma that could not be performed without his wife being present. But Saraswati was furious to find that Brahma had, in the meanwhile, married Gayatri to complete the ritual. She then cursed Brahma before stomping off: there would be no temples built to Brahma and even within ones that existed, he would be worshipped only once a year.
What is more, it seems Saraswati’s ire did not end there. In Pushkar, Rajasthan, in 1984, Mahant Laharpuri, priest of the rare temple to Brahma, moved court asking that he also be allowed to access the temple of Brahma’s alienated wife Savitri (Saraswati) for five days every year and collect the offerings made there. The counsel of Saraswati, represented by the priest of the Savitri temple, challenged this saying that Saraswati as Savitri was an alienated wife and the Brahma temple must pay her alimony instead. The court, referring to Hindu law, rejected the demand made by the priest of the Brahma temple as deities are perpetual minors.
Essence of art
It is interesting that the lives of many famous women writers and musicians follow a trajectory similar to that of Saraswati’s. Take for example the famed 14th-century poet Laldyad of Kashmir, who was starved and tortured by her husband’s family for lapsing into mystical silences and sudden bouts of singing till she could take it no more. She is said to have taken to wandering naked as Mahadevi Akka, her 12th century soul sister in South India, composing her immortal lyrics sung as vakh, the earliest form of Kashmiri poetry:
“My womb never carried a child, I never gave breast to a baby,
Never tasted the milk with turmeric and ginger...”
To this day Saraswati as the goddess Vac refuses to be a domesticated goddess with a temple roof over her head. She prefers, it seems, to remain an abstraction, as the supreme power of rasa, the essential communication the arts create between minds through poetry, literature, sacred rituals and occasionally defiant thoughts.
The Vac Sukta in the Rigveda says the Sangamani or unifier, Saraswati, creates nations, (aham rashtri, Sangamani). As Chikitushi she constantly raises questions about linkages between people and nature. As Bhuryaveshayanti she brings into an intellectual fold all that seems disconnected but is actually not. This is no ordinary goddess. She is a feminine force that creates intimate partnerships of the mind not through a macho display of power or feminine wiles, but through gender, creed and caste neutral sakhyatva or friendship. Once a bond is formed between the artist and the rasika or connoisseur, like a beautiful woman, Vac shall uninhibitedly reveal her all to a good-hearted partner, says the Brihaspati Sukta (10/79).
It is a pity that the study of Saraswati as Vac – and as a mighty river of tradition accepting and carrying all streams of thought – remains mostly limited to a study of a certain aspect of the Hindu tradition. Saraswati symbolises a rare, holistic and multicultural stream of tradition that has created and recreated India.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

Kumbh Mela at stake

Kumbh Mela at stake -- RM
When Harvard University created a major new initiative called the Harvard Kumbh Mela Project, Hindus naturally became impressed and proud. After all, it brought global importance to our heritage. However, it is my nature to cross check such foreign interventions, and, therefore, I decided to study the project more closely. I also decided to take a look at various other international interventions on the Kumbh Mela besides those by Harvard. What I found has disconcerted me on several counts.
I have organized my concerns into the following categories, in increasing order of seriousness:
1. Dilution as exotic tourism
2. Source of research for appropriation and digestion
3. Distortion and secularization of the mela itself
4. Infiltration and hijacking by Christian and Islamic groups
5. Condemnation as another “human rights violation” to be exposed through atrocity literature.
6. This is the destructive stage.
To put it bluntly, I am suspicious of Harvard’s involvement, even if those directly involved in it might be innocent at this stage. Nor is my concern entirely focused on Harvard. There is a long history of Western interventions that have benign and noble beginnings, but that later take a dangerous turn. There is still time to investigate the risks discussed below, and I will offer some concrete recommendations to prevent the hijacking and destruction of the Kumbh Mela.
Kumbhmela (Photo: Yosarian)
Kumbhmela (Photo: Yosarian)
Professor Diana Eck, Harvard’s renowned professor of Hinduism studies, made a telling remark in the official video by Harvard’s Kumbh Mela project team. In a sense, she inadvertently gave away the hidden agenda. She said that she missed seeing feminist NGOs at the mela (1). This is exactly how Ford Foundation started its interventions in India several decades back: by training, funding and empowering several feminist NGOs in India, and then using them to dish out atrocity literature on Indian society, along with the large-scale training of a whole generation of Indian women in Western feminist ideology. The goal was to make Western feminist ideologies fashionable among the bright, young women of India by constantly encouraging them to do studies on women’s oppression in Indian society. I certainly want our society’s serious gender issues to be studied and remedied; however, there ought to be balanced research on the pros and cons of importing Western feminism into Indian society in such an aggressive manner.
The resources for gender studies within Indian traditions should also be brought into play in such analyses.
We should not be surprised to find Harvard and other influential institutions starting to bring in feminist groups to look for issues at the Kumbh Mela, such as the following: Is the mela dominated by males? Are women being exploited by the events? Are there rapes and harassment? These are some of the standard templates used by such institutions to kick-start their programme. Women are incentivized to speak up as “victims of culture”, leading them to exaggerate or even outright fabricate complaints. Such investigations feed copious databases riding on the back of which eventually we will face interventions in the name of women’s rights.
In other words, if one looks at the themes and results produced by the hundreds of anthropology and social sciences projects on India, the same list of research investigations can easily be applied to the Kumbh Mela. This would make the mela a new “site for research” in South Asian studies. Thus far, the mela has been almost entirely ignored by Western researchers, and so far their “sites” for such research have been in poor villages, in “Hindu chauvinism” organizations, in episodes of violence where Hinduism can be blamed, etc. I fear that this mela is about to turn into the latest playground for such mischief.
In the same way, demographic studies will soon be commissioned on caste exploitation at the mela. The façade will be to position these as diversity studies. The real goal of these will be to look for inequalities in the facilities available to caste groups. As in all sociological research, Indian NGOs and political groups representing various fragments will get roped in to politicize the mela. Once unleashed, this trend will get out of hand and fuel a dangerous fragmentation among mela attendees. There will be fights instigated by caste groups, among north/south constituencies, and among various ideological streams and social groups. For thousands of years, all this diversity has co-existed in mutual harmony and respect, and this is what the foreign interventions will try to disrupt in the name of modernization.
If the other trajectories of Western research interventions are any indicator, one may expect Western-sponsored research to look for crime against sadhvis and lower caste participants. There will be dissertations written with juicy allegations concerning women being victims of rape, tantric sex orgies, etc. Case studies will get published in National Geographic magazine, and Western television documentaries will be produced on dowry, sati, idolatry, some naked sadhus allegedly eating human flesh, etc.
The mela will turn into the biggest unexplored frontier of the exotic, “uncivilized and dangerous” others. It is far too open, and this offers huge opportunities for Western frontiersmen seeking adventure, fame, and fortune. Already, there were media reporters at the Nasik Kumbh Mela saying that there ought to be large scale distribution of condoms at the Kumbh Mela. Times of India set the ball rolling on this sensation (2) with India Today and Britain’s Daily Mail quickly picking up the hot story (3).
A blog by the Harvard Kumbh Mela team reported: “One of the major outcomes of this group’s research was observing the concern many people at the Kumbh had about the pollution produced throughout the course of this festival.”  (4) In other words, we can expect future research on how the mela causes pollution, and just as Divali, Ganesh festival, and some other Hindu festivals have already become targeted as environmental hazards, so will the Kumbh Mela be added to the list of primitive nuisance practices. Students from Harvard and other places will be assigned projects to document the health hazard being caused by immersing ash and other ritualistic objects into the Ganga and by the cremation of dead bodies and disposal in the rivers all year long, etc. In other words, apart from the feminist and sociological lens explained above, the environmentalism lens will also get applied to “study” the mela. This will be presented (and appreciated by many Indians) as Western “assistance” to help upgrade and modernize the mela.
Making an offering at the Kumbh. (AFP PHOTO/ Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)
Making an offering at the Kumbh. (AFP PHOTO/ Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)
The atrocity literature production about the mela is bound to explode with the help of camera crews that are everywhere. One enterprising Westerner bragged that he participated in the tradition of kite flying on the river bank, as this allowed him to hide a camera on his kite, thereby turning it into a drone for filming from the sky: imagine the treasure trove of scandalous and sensational video footage he could collect this way!
There are already attempts by Christian missionaries to infiltrate the mela for proselytizing. Any restrictions against this are likely to be challenged by missionaries with the help of their Western and Indian supporters. Arguments will be made that since “nobody owns the mela” or the Ganga (or any other public place where the mela is held), every citizen should have an equal right to go for a dip in the river. Such infiltrations will start in a small and passive way to get inside the door, and then gradually become entrenched and expand in size, scope, and level of assertiveness. Missionaries are experienced in entering as good guests using sama (friendship) and dana (charity). They will undoubtedly bring lots of free things to give away, and this will be a big hit among the villagers who comprise most of the attendees at the mela.
I anticipate that many confused Hindu groups who teach that all religions are the same will become facilitators to help such penetration by Abrahamic religions. How would one object to a so-called Hindu organization wanting to put up pictures of Jesus depicted as a yogi, or Mother Mary in a saree wearing a bindi? How would one stop prasad being given away by a missionary school wanting to feed the poor children at the mela? There are plenty of confused Hindu groups seeking the international limelight and money who will be glad to facilitate in opening such doors.
Harvard’s Pluralism Project (also run by Diana Eck) could easily open the door in the name of studying and nurturing “pluralism”. To disarm naïve Hindu leaders, it will offer patronizing praise for “Hindu tolerance” that would stir pride among these leaders. All this would make it difficult for anyone to deny them free access for their strategic intrusions.
Secularization of the Kumbh Mela is another shift that is not far away, either. Nothing stops Pepsi, Reliance, Airtel, Amazon or Flipkart, or any other consumer brand, to put up its large tent at the mela, show some spiritual movies to qualify as a religious pavilion, and then openly market its products and services. If not outright selling, this could be a place for soft sales to bring new clients into the door. In other words, seen from their viewpoint, the Kumbh Mela is a great brand marketing event. Some enterprising corporate houses will start a sales distribution channel catering specifically to religious festivals. Given the prestige of being “secularized”, many people will find nothing wrong with this “modernization” of the mela.
The first mela intervention by Harvard has already succeeded in its goal to secure a buy-in from many kinds of elites in India. Unfortunately, these elites lack far sightedness and are easily bought off, in exchange for prestigious association with Harvard and other international institutions. Harvard’s special book on its Kumbh Mela Project was launched in New York with the prestigious sponsorship of Asia Society (5). The India launch of the book was held at Oberoi Hotel, one of Delhi’s most prestigious locations. The chief guest at this event was none other than the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, who was given the limelight to secure his support. He was so grateful for the honor that “Harvard has arrived” in his town or state, or rather, that he has arrived on the world stage thanks to Harvard (6).
Scholars of the colonization process must take note that Harvard refers to its work as “mapping” the Kumbh Mela (7). One has to read Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities to understand how the British colonialists were obsessed with the mapping (in a broad sense of organizing databases) of the geography, population, religious practices, social and political structures, all for the purpose of developing a template for better negotiation and control. The same kind of mapping had earlier been done in North America by the European settlers, which helped their systematic aggression against the natives. Some of the best socio-religious databases on India at the district and village level are the ones developed by the Church and CIA.
This initial stage in the Kumbh Mela intervention is to become established as some “good guys” who are wanting to help. To establish those “good guy” credentials, they are now busy making inroads with politicians, leaders of various Hindu sampradayas and sants, by inviting them into their documentaries and visits to the USA. Unfortunately, many of these Indians are totally clueless, with insufficient competence at doing the purva-paksha of a sophisticated opponent. They have no idea of how the game is being played. They do not seem to appreciate that short-term benefits are often at the cost of long-term control.
Harvard refers to its Kumbh Mela project as an interdisciplinary one, combining many departments each with its own separate lens. The departments already participating include: urban planning, logistics, public health, religious studies, business school, anthropology, design school, etc. Each lens is highly secularized, lacking even an iota of shraddha for our traditions. They are looking for “interesting specimens” to study. This is a perfect example of a synthetic unity framework being used to study (and distort) the integral unity.
None of the materials produced by Harvard’s team have discussed the metaphysical meaning of the yajna being carried out at the Kumbh Mela. When they did discuss the “myth” behind the mela, it was presented as some exotic, primitive story along the lines of a Hollywood movie like Lord of the Rings. They do not have the embodied knowing experience, or even the interest, to appreciate the metaphysics of ritam and yajna, and how these manifest in every aspect of the world including in our lives. Such a profound insight into the integral unity lacks because there is no shraddha in the top leadership of the project. None of the project experts interviewed on camera mentioned anything about the metaphysics of re-enacting the cosmic yajna as the purpose of the mela. It is the latest hunting ground for the anthropology of the exotica and erotica.
Harvard’s team has announced that in the next phase they will move from descriptions/modeling to prescriptions and interventions. This will make it more dangerous in my opinion. The purpose of their interventions, they said, will be to “solve issues” and bring better “architecture/public health policies and assistance.” In other words, they make no secret that having “mapped” the Kumbh Mela within their framework, now it’s time to intervene in various ways. Sadly, we have quite a few clueless swamis, sadhus and gurus already eagerly waiting to serve them as functionaries for “reforming” the Kumbh Mela.
We are well along the following trajectory of Western interventions in the Kumbh Mela:
1. It starts out as curiosity-seeking field trips to bring back exotic reports, mostly benign and respectful at this stage.
2. More formally trained anthropologists and social scientists enter the arena and develop frameworks into which mappings are made. This privileges certain ways to see and understand the phenomena. It is a technique to make the strange look familiar (and safe) in terms that Westerners can deal with. Of course, the new framework is alien to the insiders of the tradition.
3. Elitist Westernized Indians, as well as some naïve traditional Hindus, buy into this new framework to understand the mela. This is when their drishti gets reprogrammed with the Western (whitened) gaze. Such Indians become very important in the spread of the Western mind set into the mainstream.
4. Many useful things learned get digested into Western knowledge systems.
5. Christian groups (followed by Muslims as well), initially seen as champions and as our friends, take over the greater share of the mental space of the mela participants.
6. The result is the rejection of many elements that have been important in the tradition, and this rejection is postured as a sort of “reform movement”. In fact, it is a distortion and relies upon one-sided facts and flawed analyses.
I am not saying all these stages will necessarily happen. I predict this as the likely trajectory if things continue in a present manner. The grand effect of all this will be a sweeping shift in the adhikar to interpret our traditions.
I find the Western interventionists making multi-year strategic plans with the benefit of having similar experiences in their other interventions. But I do not find any prominent Hindu leaders taking note of this syndrome, much less offering a counter-discourse.
My recommendations to Hindu leaders are as follows:
1. We should remain open to outsiders but not lose control to them.
2. Kumbh Mela should remain anchored primarily as a sacred yajna to re-enact the cosmic processes. It must not turn into a tourism spectacle or grand circus of weirdness for outsiders to enjoy. Even though there is money to be made from such a large gathering, that agenda should not take control over the mela.
The group of akhadas (sadhu organizations) that have run the mela since time immemorial must assert its authority firmly. This means that it must bring in advisors who know how these dangerous forces operate, especially those who have done the requisite purva-paksha on such forces.
3. Under the leadership of the akhadas, the state governments involved must develop risk assessment and risk management strategies to pre-empt the kinds of threats I am raising here.
4. Those firmly established as insiders (practitioners with shraddha) should retain control to evaluate the issues that do exist, and that need to be addressed from within. This includes making all kinds of studies ourselves, rather than abandoning that responsibility and letting outsiders take control over the data gathering and analysis about the mela. Issues like pollution and any form of social oppression must be taken seriously and dealt with by our leaders. Changes must be discussed and implemented, to move with the times. Our smritis are not meant to be frozen and do need constant debate and change in the face of new developments. Scientific validation of traditional practices must be done by our organizations and not be granted on a platter to outsiders.
5. Since 90% of the participants are traditional Hindus from villages and small towns, these innocent and humble persons must be given the utmost respect; they are the last remaining true practitioners of our heritage. They come from faraway places at great cost and effort because for them this is a very special spiritual experience.
6. Our leaders must develop poison pills to protect against digestion. These include respect for living gurus, sacred places, non-translatables, sacred sounds and mantras, sacred objects and symbols.