Why the Vogue video misses the point ?

                                  बुंदेले हरबोलों के मुँह हमने सुनी कहानी थी,
                                  खूब लड़ी मर्दानी वह तो झाँसी वाली रानी थी

Between this couplet by freedom fighter and one of the most famous poetess of Hindi literature Subhadra Kumari Chauhan and the Vogue video with Deepika Padukone over women empowerment,I don't know whether the girls have progressed or have become just a copycats sycophants of the west.

You need not look far,you just to need through the three women discussed in the post.Rani Lakshmi Bai and Subhadra Kumari Chauhan fighting for the true "freedom" and Deepika Padukone demanding "freedom" for adultery.

Its true that if male chauvinism was allowed to deride Rani Lakshmi Bai and Subhadra Kumari Chauhan,India's glorious history and literature would have been a bit dimmer.The need is to promote feminist culture.But its really sad if this culture is all about dress,sex and misguided notions of modernity.

One thing is that the video is boring to the core.Secondly it promotes in the name of equal standards few things that are shameful even by men standards.You are not actually equalizing the standards,you are just pulling them down and down.The need is to provide better education,nutrition,amenities and safety to the millions of growing girls.In a society where dowry and sexual harassments are incidents of day-to-day life,the video talks about rights that are unheard of in the east.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtPv7IEhWRA

Girls have always found utmost respect in the Indian society from ages past.The need is to imbibe back that culture again.This will take considerable effort and education.Meanwhile rather than promoting free sex and adultery,the people behind the video could have done better by promoting faithfulness and love among both the genders.If men are strolling the wrong path,force them to see the light.To encourage women to walk the same path can never be the solution.

Between the modernist designs to see a west in India and the culturalist fantasy of following the Taliban standards,somewhere the ancient land of Sita,Gargi and Padmini is lost long away.

Mahatma is Immortal in his Death

Today is death anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.Although sixty seven years have passed since his death still the Mahatma is being remembered as usual.But after the historic elections to the Lower House of Indian Parliament,one man who is being remembered earnestly is Nathuram Godse,the assassinator of Mahatma Gandhi.Situations have become so grim that today hardly any tributes have been paid to Mahatma without invoking Godse's name.Most of the people are busy pointing towards the attempt by Hindu right wings to honour Nathuram Godse.They are pouring hate towards Godse without having any serious love for Bapu.The thing is that they want to use the situation to beat black and blue over the intentions of the new government.And,remember what path the right wing organizations are treading to honour Nathuram Godse.They have decided to built a temple in his honour.Both of them are doing huge injustice to both Mahatma and Godse.
A man is the combination of both good and evil.No man born is perfect,so,says the legend of Lord Ram,one who was termed Maryda Purshottam (man of perfect conduct) for his flawlessness.Now,Mahatma had his share of flaws.They were never important as long as he was in the helm of Indian freedom movement.His control over the affairs of the nation had suffered a drastic setback by the time India won its Independence.This didn't at all mean that he didn't enjoyed the support of public which swayed according to the directions of his soul.He had simply been sidelined by the Congress party which no more needed his ethics and virtue to enjoy their newly found treasure of power.The country was divided despite his reservations and Muslim League and Congress found their respective goals.But there lies an important catch.A partition had taken place about which Gandhiji is believed to have said will take place only over my corpse.Mahatma put on all efforts to convince Congress to reject the idea of partition but failed to do so.But the story didn't end there.Soon after Pakistan secured its independence from Britishers and a division from India,it launched a scathing attack on the princely state of Jammu & Kashmir.That too when all the conditions of partition had not been fulfilled.One of the conditions required India to pay Rs.75 crores to Pakistan.The amount was to be paid in two instalments.The first instalment of Rs.20 crores had already been paid and the Indian government decided to withheld the payment of Rs.55 crore to put pressure on the Pakistan government.It was an open secret that the Pakistani establisment will use the money to buy arms and ammunition to sustain its Kashmiri adventure.However,Mahatma Gandhi who was a strict observer of his principles found the stand of Indian side unethical and was using his influence to force the Indian government to change its stand.He wanted the government to release the fund and he even proclaimed his desire to go to Pakistan with the money so that he can show the correct path to the Pakistan government too.This was in January 1948,the same month that Gandhi was assassinated.
Under such situations a man decided to eliminate Mahatma Gandhi.He has been described by some scholars as a mad Hindu.Mad you can argue,but Hindu was simply an attempt to give the murder a religious flavour.Nathuram Godse's statement over the assassination has been kept out of public by the Union government.However,the stories that have come out have pointed to political connections.This may be true considering Godse's association with right wing outfits.However dismissing him as a mad his rather silly.He did it with dead precision and clear consideration.His motive may not have been disclosed by the government but this does not barres us from speculating the reasons for the murder.There may have been religious inkling inside the conspiracy but no one can deny the immediate political fallout of the murder.It would have served a much better purpose had RSS had similar organizations worked hard to research the reasons for the shocking murder of the Father of the Nation rather than honour the murderer.
However,this does not at all mean that Nathuram Godse was a traitor or terrorist bent on harming the nation.Seeing the situation from the other perspective one arrives at the inevitability of Mahatma's death.Bapu felt that people of both the countries,India and Pakistan,were like his sons.He failed to see that Pakistan will soon turn into a Islamic nation (it was secular at the time of its Independence) were the people will have no respect for the life-long service and sacrifice he gave for the freedom of both the nations.Books in Pakistan describe him as a "Hindu" leader.It will be good if could show more sense and not dismiss Bapu as a "Muslim" nation.He was in the truest sense,a father-like figure for both Hindus and Muslims,and all other religions living in India.But one thing that we all must not forget is that if indeed Mahatma Gandhi had been able to secure the due amount for Pakistan he would never been remembered as fondly as he is remembered today.He would forever have been dismissed in this country as a "Muslim" leader.Just imagine,the man who changed the world scenario forever with his tools of peace and non-violence would have had a haughty legend of being a religious leader in the 2-nations whose independence was secured under his leadership.

The Outcast Heroes

" history is written by the victors "

Some great king,politician or poet said that.May be Napoleon,may be Churchill.Exact source is quite unknown.But one thing is for sure - he was great.He was great by the shear magnitude of his words.Coming to the Indian context,not only history but also the signboards of all the famous monuments and universities have been written by the victors.The Independence of India is seen to be the magical of a single party,with 'The Family' at its helm and Mahatma as its spiritual guide.So much so,that the role of Indira Gandhi as the head of Monkey Brigade has now become legendary.I too heard the story as a child.But what you don't get to hear in Independent India is the story of millions and millions of commoners who died fighting for their motherland.And their fight was not the non-violent fight preached by Mahatma Gandhi.They paid the price in blood.Chandrasekhar Aazad,the man who fought till his second last bullet,only to put the last bullet in his own temple so as to be not captured by the Britishers alive,died in the famous Company Garden of Allahabad.After Independence,the Garden was renamed Motilal Nehru Park.Only after much furore,the particular spot of Aazad's martyrdom was encircled and named after him.Veer Savarkar was never arrested and kept in the infamous Cellular Jail or Kaala Paani for petty crime like theft.He was involved in serious political activities which included a struggle against the British Empire for India's freedom.Yet he was not even given the monthly pension customary for freedom fighters until Nehru was Prime Minister.No honour was bestowed upon the man who served the gruesome jail term of eleven years under the evil British laws in a place where hell and death were things one dreamt of attaining.Not even in his death,although Indians are none to glorifying one and all after their deaths.All because he was a political opponent of Congress.Another man who never bowed to the Britishers but was soon systematically ignored by subsequent governments after Independence was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.But he was not just a political opponent.He was the man who commanded the respect of the commoners and the mighty alike.Be it Hitler or Stalin in 1940's or the common Congress worker in the 1920's and 30's.The man who served as Congress President,winning the election only after defeating a candidate supported by Mahatma himself but had to go because of "differences" with the 'High Command',had the weight of 60000 strong soldiers behind him.And a nation which thought him as another pole of India's freedom struggle.With his slogan "Tum Mujhe Khoon Do,Mai Tumhe Aazadi Dunga (Give me blood,and I will give you freedom)" and "Dilli Chalo (Capture Delhi)" he was a man whose voice could be clearly heard and felt far and wide at a time when even Gandhi was compelled into using the term "Do or Die".And that proved to his undoing.That a man single-handedly raises a force and declares a war against the mightiest empires of its time,is quite unheard of in the entire history.And what a dedicated force!Two-third of his soldiers fought till their last breath.And those who were left alive in the war were not even accepted as freedom fighters in Independent India.They never got their due credit in the freedom struggle(in the words of NSA Ajit Doval).So much so,they were even kept out of the Indian Army.No government tried to celebrate the contribution of Netaji in freedom struggle or even tried to dig his whereabouts.He was a man whose presence or even discussion in independent India could have hurt the treatment of India's independence as the sole handiwork of the ruling dynasty.The glorious fighter was fatefully or forcefully faded into oblivion.But the harsh truth is that these freedom fighters were never fighting for petty prizes or to sit on the throne of Independent India.It was a selfless struggle for their Motherland and for the self pride which never allowed them to become allies of the Empire(Subhash Chandra Bose came fourth in the esteemed ICS Exams).Even the politicians of Bengal,who are famous for protecting and promoting the relics of its legends,only paid lip-service to Netaji.While the poets and painters continue to bash in the cultural saga of the state,Netaji is a forgotten hero.

भोपाल गैस त्रासदी : जिसे देश ने भूला दिया

वारेन एंडरसन की आज अमेरिका में मृत्यु हो गयी । आर्थिक वैश्विकरण के बाद देश में आए उद्योगीकरण और उससे जुड़े पैसे एवं खुशाली की बयार में लोगों ने इस मनुष्यरूपी दानव को भुला दिया । किसी नेता ने कभी उन मासूमों के हक़ में आवाज नही उठाई । कोई नेता इससे आजाद भारत के सीने पे सबसे बड़े बोझ के तौर पे याद नही करता । साल सन 1984 का ही था । देश में दंगे हुए थे । आज ही के दिन 30 साल पहले देश ने इंदिरा गांधी को खो दिया था । सब याद रह गया पर भोपाल गैस त्रासदी भुला दिया गया । दरअसल राजनीतिक हस्त-छेप नहीं था न । वरना मुर्दे कभी बिना गिने गाड़े नहीं जाते । 16000 आदमी या तो मारे गए या ज़िंदगी भर के लिए अपाहिज़ बना दिए गए । पंच-परमेश्वर ने सजा भी तय की थी,दो साल की । गौरतलब है की ये विश्व का अबतक का सबसे व्यापक औद्योगिक अपराध था । 2-3 दिसंबर के बीच की रात हुए इस त्रासदी के तुरंत बाद भारत आया । भोपाल की सैर भी की । सरकार की गाड़ी में उसे घुमाया गया । उसके बाद वो देश छोड़ के हमेशा के लिए चला गया । मध्य-प्रदेश में अर्जुन सिंह की सरकार थी और केंद्र में थें नवनिर्वाचित प्रधान-मंत्री और स्वर्गीय प्रधान-मंत्री इंदिरा गांधी के सुपुत्र राजीव गांधी । देश का सबसे बड़ा मुज़रिम विदेश से भोपाल पहुंचा, यहाँ तक की सरकारी गाड़ी में घुमा और फिर आराम से लौट गया । पर न अर्जुन सिंह ने ध्यान दिया और न राजीव गांधी को खबर मिली । बाद के सरकारों ने भी कुछ नहीं किया । हाँ एक तस्वीर है । बच्चे की ज़मीन में दबी एक खोपड़ी है । आत्मा को ताउम्र रुलाएगी । सिर्फ मेरी आपकी नहीं इस देश की धरती माँ पे एक ऐसा धब्बा है जो भोपाल की हवा की तरह कभी साफ़ नहीं होगा । आज जब विज्ञानं और उद्योगीकरण का ज़माना है तो युवा पीढ़ी के लिए महत्वपूर्ण है की इस घटना को याद में बसाया जाये । हाँ अगर मीडिया को ये हंगामा करने से फुरसत मिल जाये की सरदार पटेल किसकी "संपन्ति" है तो एक बार आज फिर भोपाल की काली रात को याद कर दो बूंद आँशु बहा लेने चाहिए । राजीव नहीं,अर्जुन नहीं और अब तो एंडरसन भी नहीं । जवाब देने वाला कोई नहीं । पर न्याय होगा । इस लोक में में नहीं, इहलोक में । पर फिर इस अंधे कानून का क्या काम ? और क्या काम इन ज़मीर विहीन सत्ता के बादशाहों का जिनके लिए सारा मुल्क दरअसल एक रखैल मात्र है जो उन्हें सुख देता है । अच्छा है की आज सरदार पटेल की जयंती भी है । पहली बार मीडिया इतने व्यापक तौर पे उन्हें याद कर रही है । शर्म की बात है की ऐसे राजनेता को भुला दिया गया जिसके लिए ये धरती माता थी और सत्ता जनता की सेवा का माध्यम मात्र ।

ज़मीर का द्वन्द : एक धर्मयुद्ध

जो अब भी चैन से सो रहा बेकार उसकी जवानी है

जो अब भी नही खौला वो खून खून नही पानी है 

कृष्ण राम के भूमि पे रोज़ पद्मिनी चिता चढ़ रही 

हर तरफ मोहम्मद गज़नी की ही जयजयकार मची 

खोया पृथ्वीराज का सपूत है जयचंद ने है सत्ता धरी

कब तक ये जड़ता सह लेंगे निर्बलता से मुह सी लेंगे  

पूर्वजों ने जुबान पे जान दी है फिर ये सर कैसे झुका लेंगे   

गंगा को भी लाल कर देंगे जिस दिन अपने आन पे ले लेंगे 

मेदनीपति के वसुधा पे अब और न होने देंगे पाप 

फिर उतरेंगे कई पार्थ रण में धनुष उठाने को बेताब

और आएगा एक मोहन सीखने गीता का अमर पाठ 

अतंत तो सब को एक ही जगह एक ही में मिल जाना 

पर जब तक साँस है जिंदा होने का फ़र्ज़ तो है निभाना    

तपस्वी का तपोबल न परखो धरती को फिर आज़ाद करेंगे  

मद में मशग़ूल बैठा है रावण उसे रामायण याद दिला देंगे 

सहस्त्रभुजा से युद्ध करने का माद्दा हम भी दिखला देंगे 

बहुत कर लिया फरियाद अब तो ये झूठी आस खत्म करो 

योगनिद्रा में सोये है भगवान शक्ति का ही अाह्वाहन करो 

रो रहा है खून तुम्हारा कम से कम उसका तो क़र्ज़ अदा करो

नीलाम होती है पुरुषत्व अब और सहने का धीज न धरो 

शर्मसार होते आर्यव्रत की वीर संस्कृति का नाम ले लड़ो    

जीत तुम्हारी ही है बस अपने कर्म की शुरुआत तो करो

अभी विनती कर रहे हैं अहिंसा धर्म मान गांधी की तरह

अब उठेंगे कफ़न बांधे भगत सिंह और आज़ाद की तरह