Kiran's Thoughts.. As Is

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is a tall figure of 20th century Indian history. Popularly known as Babasaheb, the details about his careers as a lawyer, politician, constitution framer, social reformer and an economist are well known. He's an inspiration to crores of young Indians today of various classes and ideologies.

But there are ten snippets about this famous man, that are not quite highlighted. Time to take a look at them. I will provide references for each as to where I learned about them, and if any of them need correction or contention, please post comments with authentic references.

1: Dr. Ambedkar stood for Sanskrit as the official language of India.

This is not a well known fact, but it is a fact. In 2005, this was revealed by Chamu Krishna Shastry, a well known Sanskrit proponent in India.

"Dr Ambedkar himself wanted to sponsor Sanskrit as the official language of the Indian union along with his supporters Dr BV Keskar, deputy minister for external affairs, and Naziruddin Ahmed. He moved an amendment draft on September 10, 1949. The resolution had to be withdrawn due to political pressure."

Reference: Ambedkar wanted Sanskrit as official language

It is anyone's guess as to who might have exerted " political pressure" on Ambedkar in 1949 to withdraw that historic resolution, which could have changed India in an different direction. Ambedkar's strong support to Sanskrit is something to ponder upon, for those who consider Sanskrit as an "Aryan" language of upper castes, that should not be supported.

2: Ambedkar is actually a Hindu Brahmin surname.

Image from Wiki

Bhimrao's original surname was Ambavadekar. It comes from his family's native village name in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, even though he was born in today's Madhya Pradesh region. In Marathi, it is a common practice to add "kar" to the village name as the surname.

In this writeup in the Outlook, Smruti Koppikar describes how his favourite Hindu Brahmin teacher, Mahadev Ambedkar, changed his surname from 'Ambavadekar' to his own surname 'Ambedkar' in the school records. The respect Bhimrao had for his teacher Mahadev, ensured that his borrowed surname continued for rest of his life! It tells us that Bhimrao respected all castes - his fight was against caste discrimination, and not Hinduism or any particular caste.

Reference: Bhimrao Sakpal Ambavadekar became Bhimrao Ambedkar

3. Ambedkar's father was a Vegetarian.

This one really surprised me. In the recent days, whenever there's a protest against ban on cow slaughter, you will invariably see an Ambedkar picture and beef eating "ceremonies".

But after reading Vikram Doctor's blog on the Economic Times, I stumbled upon two surprising details.

"Nor is it correct to equate all upper-castes with vegetarianism and all Dalits with eating meat – Dr.Ambedkar’s father, for example, was vegetarian."

"I’m not sure if Dr.Ambedkar became vegetarian when he converted to Buddhism – Keer’s book doesn’t seem to make this clear and there is a surprising lack of other biographical material."

It looks like being a Kabir Panthi, Ambedkar's father Ramji was certainly a vegetarian and teetotaler. It also kind of implies that Babasaheb might have become a vegetarian coming from that family and also a vegetarian during the later part of his life. Something that needs a bit more research. And those who follow Ambedkar's path, this is something critical to ask - why was his father and (likely) himself vegetarian?

Reference: The Dalit Meanings of Food

4. Nehru prevented Ambedkar from entering Lok Sabha. Jan Sangh got him to Rajya Sabha.

Ambedkar contested Lok Sabha election twice. Both times Nehru's Congress made sure that he was defeated. Babasaheb Ambedkar contested from Bombay North in the first Indian General Election in 1952 but lost to the Congress candidates Narayan Kajrolkar, who had been his assistant once. He tried to enter Lok Sabha again in 1954 when he contested the by-election from Bhandara but he was placed third in the ballot won by Congress.

"In 1952, the Congress defeated Ambedkar in the parliamentary seat of Dadar in Bombay. It is strange that Jawaharlal Nehru did the sin of campaigning against Ambedkar during the elections.”

"The reason behind this was the Congress mentality of devaluing him. Later, the role played by Jan Sangh in getting him elected for Rajya Sabha from West Bengal is not hidden from anybody,” - Arvind Menon, BJP.

So much for "love" of Ambedkar by Congress party.

Reference: Babasaheb was close to Jan Sangh, says BJP

5. Bhimrao's second wife was a Hindu Brahmin.

Ambedkar met Dr. Sharada Kabir, a Saraswat Brahmin, when he needed medical treatment in the late 1940s. He married her on 15 April 1948, at his home in New Delhi. His first wife had passed away a decade ago. Doctors recommended that he needed a companion who was both a good cook and a possessor of medical knowledge and could thus take care of him. She adopted the name Savita Ambedkar and took care of him for the rest of his life.

Pic: photobucket

It is unfortunate that any political or NGO conversations regarding Ambedkar quickly turn into anti-Brahmin mode, when his borrowed surname is that of a Brahmin and his wife who served him during most needy years, was a Brahmin woman.

6. Ambedkar was not against Hindutva or RSS.

Ambedkar actually claimed Hindutva for the Dalits (untouchables or depressed classes) in 1927.

"Hindutva belongs as much to untouchable Hindus as to the touchable Hindus. The temples must be open for all. Efforts were made for the growth of Hindutva by Brahmins like Vasishta, Kshatriyas like Krishna, Vaishyas like Harsha and Shudras like Tukaram. The same amount of efforts for Hindutva were pitched in by untouchables (Dalits) like Valmiki (of Ramayana), Drishthara of Vyadha Gita, Chhokamela and Rohidasa. We have brave Sidnak Mahar kind of untouchable who fought for protection of Hindutva. Both touchable and untouchable Hindus have served the Hindu temples built in the names of Hindutva. So everyone has the right to enter them."

He also also praised Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar's efforts to eradicate caste discrimination in his Janata paper in 1933.

"Savarkar's efforts to uplift Dalits are as noble and effective as Gautama Buddha's"

Ambedkar even visited RSS camp and praised them.

"Ever conscious of Hindu movements supporting Sanghatan – social solidarity, Dr.Ambedkar visited RSS camp in Pune in May 1939. He expressed his satisfaction: “I am surprised to find Swayamsevaks here moving about in absolute equality and brotherhood without even caring to know the castes of others."

References:

Essays on Dalits book by Raj Kumar, page 72.
Kannada Prabha 14-Apr-2015 page 7, by Tejasvi Surya. Need to save Ambedkar from pseudos
Bodhi Sattva’s Hindutva: Part 4 by Aravindan Neelakandan.

7. Ambedkar's strong views on Muslim society's evils, Christianity and Partition of India.

When some Dalit youth were supporting the anti-India Razakars of Hyderabad after independence, Ambedkar told them not to take that path:

"Hyderabad state's scheduled castes must not support the Nizam or Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen under any circumstance. No scheduled caste member should join hands with anti India forces, bringing disrepute to their castes"

If you read Ambedkar's book, chapter 10, you would start seeing his absolutely rational arguments condemning the evils of Muslim society in pre-partitioned India.

Read chapter 10 for instance which has a sub title ;- Muslim Society is even more full of social evils than Hindu Society is.

"the Muslim woman is the most helpless person in the world."

"No words can adequately express the great and many evils of polygamy and concubinage, and especially as a source of misery to a Muslim woman. It is true that because polygamy and concubinage are sanctioned, one must not suppose they are indulged in by the generality of Muslims; still the fact remains that they are privileges which are easy for a Muslim to abuse to the misery and unhappiness of his wife."

"Take the caste system. Islam speaks of brotherhood. Everybody infers that Islam must be free from slavery and caste. Regarding slavery nothing needs to be said. It stands abolished now by law. But while it existed, much of its support was derived from Islam and Islamic countries.While the prescriptions by the Prophet regarding the just and humane treatment of slaves contained in the Koran are praiseworthy, there is nothing whatever in Islam that lends support to the abolition of this curse..... But if slavery has gone, caste among Musalmans has remained. As an illustration one may take the conditions prevalent among the Bengal Muslims."

"There can thus be no manner of doubt that the Muslim Society in India is afflicted by the same social evils as afflict the Hindu Society. Indeed, the Muslims have all the social evils of the Hindus and something more. That something more is the compulsory system of purdah for Muslim women."

Regarding Pakistan, if you read the Chapter 14 of the same book, you can clearly see that he wanted transfer of Muslims to Pakistan (east and West) with non Muslims back to India from there.

What about its workability? The scheme is not new. It has been tried and found workable. It was put into effect after the last European War, to bring about a transferof population between Greece and Bulgaria and Turkey and Greece. Nobody can deny that it has worked, has been tried and found workable. The scheme I have outlined is a copy of the same scheme. It had the effect of bringing about a transfer of population between Greece and Bulgaria and Turkey and Greece. Nobody can deny that it was [=has] worked with signal success. What succeeded elsewhere may well be expected to succeed in India.

The most recent Organiser special edition on Ambedkar notes his view about Christianity and Islam, and conversion in general:

Ambedkar was against Dalits converting to Christianity or Islam because he believed that “if the numbers of Muslims and Christians rise and it will cause danger to India.”

References:

Kannada Prabha 14-Apr-2015 page 7, by Tejasvi Surya. Need to save Ambedkar from pseudos
Book: Pakistan or the Partition of India by BR Ambedkar - Chapter 10 and Chapter 14.
Ambedkar a pioneer like Savarkar, Malviya: RSS.

8. Ambedkar's openly opposed Article 370 of Nehru's Congress, for Jammu and Kashmir.

Ambedkar opposed Article 370 in the Constitution, which gives a special status to the State of Jammu and Kashmir, and it was put against his wishes. Balraj Madhok reportedly said, Ambedkar had clearly told Sheikh Abdullah:-

"You wish India should protect your borders, she should build roads in your area, she should supply you food grains, and Kashmir should get equal status as India. But Government of India should have only limited powers and Indian people should have no rights in Kashmir. To give consent to this proposal, would be a treacherous thing against the interests of India and I, as the Law Minister of India, will never do it."

Reference: Kashmir problem from Ambedkarite Perspective, by K Jamanadas.

9. Ambedkar was a confirmed enemy of Communists, in his own words!

Read this excerpt from a book on India.

In another context, presiding over a District conference of the Depressed Classes at Masur in September 1937, Ambedkar declared that he was a confirmed enemy of the Communists who exploited the labourers for their political ends, and there was no possibility of joining them.

Reference: Book Perfidies of Power: India in the New Millennium, by P Radhakrishnan, page 54.

10. Ambedkar warned India against China's aggression on Tibet and beyond.

The Time issue dated October 22, 1951, noted:

“Ambedkar is the first important Indian official who has openly attacked Nehru for being too friendly to China and not friendly enough to the US”.

On China he disagreed with the Tibet policy and the enunciation of Panchsheel. He said:-

“If Mao had any faith in the Panchsheel, he certainly would treat the Buddhist in his own country in a very different way. There is no room for Panchsheel in politics”.

Reference: Ambedkar’s views on foreign policy, by Harish Parvathaneni

Hope you gained some insight after reading these today. Anything else you want to share in comments?

Today, I saw twitter trending #NationalistRSS in India. Social media has been a powerful medium in exposing the sinister campaign against RSS.

While reviewing some of the tweets by anti RSS propagandists, I felt it is necessary to expose some of the popular myths about RSS. A lot of people are blindly ranting against Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh, without getting proper information. You can't change everyone, but at least you can put some facts on the table. So here we go.. Note that these are not the official statements of RSS, but that of general social media population in India today. Full credit to the original thinkers and the original photographers, for the information presented here onwards.

Myth 1: RSS Killed Gandhi.
Fact 1: Nathuram Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. Godse had left RSS in 1930s itself. This has been reiterated countless number of times by RSS, and the recent one is from December 2010, when Ram Madhav of RSS claimed court records clearly showing RSS had nothing to do with Gandhi's murder. Justice Kapur Commission Report clearly says: "RSS as such were not responsible for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, meaning thereby that one could not name the organisation as such as being responsible for that most diabolical crime, the murder of the apostle of peace. It has not been proved that they (the accused) were members of the RSS"
Also, Nathuram, the convict was hanged within months, bringing justice to the whole incident. Blaming RSS for Gandhi's murder just because Godse was a former member of RSS, is like blaming Congress for Muslim League's mass murder and atrocities during Partition, because Jinnah was a member of Congress earlier. Jinnah was a member of Congress party between 1906 and 1920. So someone who was a member of Congress for long 14 years, was instrumental in inciting Direct Action Day and other mass atrocities against Hindus, resulting in 1000s of deaths. Will today's Sonia Gandhi's Congress claim responsibility for all the wrong doings of Jinnah, including breaking up an age old civilization resulting in millions of deaths?

Myth 2: Sardar Patel disliked RSS.
Fact 2: Sardar Patel had to take action in 1948 due to political pressure from "secular" Nehru and group. But when the ban on RSS was lifted, read Sardar's letters to Guruji, the RSS chief. Patel was the happiest man then! All the bans till date on RSS, including the ones after Sardar's death, are purely the hate that Congress party nurturers for RSS. Everyone knows that RSS does not negotiate with vote bank politics, corruption or country's soverignty. If the same yard stick was used against Congress, SP or other parties, they all should have been banned for the violence of their cadres, or the deadly riots their governments failed to stop (and in some cases helped rioters like in 1984) over the years. Here is a partial list of nearly 150 incidents of Congress violence. If for each riot or disturbance Congress party was banned, that number would have easily gone beyond Sachin Tendulkar's international century count!

Myth 3: RSS is anti national.
Fact 3: RSS is the most nationalistic organization in India. In fact, even the most bitter enemy of RSS, Jawaharlal Nehru, invited RSS to come participate in the 1963 Republic day parade. 3500 Swayamsevaks marched on that day, in their typical Gana Vesha. During his final years, Nehru realized the patriotic pulse of RSS, that too only when his Congress party's foreign policy went seriously wrong resulting in a humiliating defeat at the hands of China. It was RSS that helped Indian soldiers and civilians greatly in 1962, for which even Nehru was forced to invite them to be a part of 1963 Republic Day parade. I am sure the icon of secularism, Nehru would not invite an anti national organization to march with Indian army during republic day. In fact, the so-called secular folks like members of Indian communist parties, were busy raising donations for India's enemy China during 1962 war! During the 1965 Indo-Pak war PM Shastri requested nationalist RSS to help control traffic in Delhi so policemen could be freed for defence duties. When Pakistanis were trying to take over Jammu and Kashmir, it was swayamsevaks who cleared the snow, so that Indian air force could land their aircrafts.

Myth 4: RSS is fundamentalist.
Fact 4: RSS is pro India, pro Hindutva. RSS' ideology says that there are only two kinds of Hindus in India. Those who are Hindu today and those who were Hindus yesterday. That makes every single human in India (and rest of Indian subcontinent), Hindus by culture, ancestry and tradition. That is the Hindut-va (Hindu essence). Tva in Sanskrit means characteristic, essence or hood - like Bhratrutva (brotherhood), Maatrutva (motherhood), Shatrutva (Enmity) and so on. RSS never preaches any religious doctrine using any sacred book with the eventual goal of converting everyone to that doctrine 100%. RSS does not believe in converting anyone to its "religion". So calling such organization fundamentalist is silly. If at all RSS has any fundamentals, it is that of calling India as Bharat, and treating her as the mother of every single human in Indian subcontinent. In fact, RSS supports uniform civil code in India, meaning one type of marriage/divorce/inheritance laws for ALL citizen, which is opposed by so called progressive parties like Communists and Congress!

Myth 5: RSS is fascist and a terrorist organization.
Fact 5: When you show the long list of social service organizations that are a part of Sangh Parivar (family), the favourite line of Jihad supporters is that Jamat ud Da'wah also does social service. But they don't understand the basics that RSS does not preach violence in any of its shakha. It only teaches people to be proud of India's glorious 5000+ years culture and tradition. It teaches swayamsevaks (volunteers for the nation), self defence. Every human on this planet has the right to defend himself or herself. RSS never advocated for killing or converting "non-believers", like Jihadi terrorists or radical evangelicals do. If any person who claims to be associated with RSS is convicted of any crime, RSS won't play communal or victim card. RSS believes in law taking its own course and punishment for anyone who violates law, unlike Congress party that still supports a convict Lalu Yadav or those charged with mass murder like Sajjan Kumar, or those caught giving genocidal "15 minutes"hate speeches like Akbaruddin Owaisi. While Nehru was unable to stop the blood shed during partition, it was the RSS that organised over 3000 relief camps for the Hindu Refugees from Pakistan after the Partition. In short, every effort to frame RSS to a fictional "Hindutva terror" or "Saffron terror" has failed till date. Here is one such example.

Myth 6: RSS is only for Hindu males.
Fact 6: This is the favourite line of ignoramus feminists. There are two kinds of RSS setups. Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh for males, and Rastra Sevika Samiti for females. Both are thriving in India for decades. Both take out marches, celebrate India's heritage festivals and glorify India's national Hindutva icons.

Myth 7: RSS is anti Muslim and RSS is anti Christian.
Fact 7: RSS treats Muslims, Christians and everyone else in India, irrespective of caste and creed as cultural Hindus. Hindutva is an all encompassing ideology of RSS. This is the reason why RSS never has RSS Muslim shakha (daily assembly) or RSS Christian shakha. Anyone can become a member of RSS as long as they are ready to respect Bharat Mata (Mother India). RSS is against only those whose work against India's soverignty and heritage. In the famous Ranganathacharya Agnihotri case, "Primafacie the RSS is a non-political cultural organization without any hatred or ill will towards non-Hindus", declared Karnataka High Court (then Mysore HC).

Myth 8: RSS is for Brahmins, Kshatriyas and other upper caste Hindus only.
Fact 8: Totally wrong. RSS has no caste system at all. It treats every single member, be it male or female, as equal. In fact, even Mahatma Gandhi had applauded RSS' casteless setup 7 decades ago. All RSS requires from a volunteer, is respecting Bharat Mata (Mother India) as "vatsale, Maatru bhoome".

Myth 9: RSS was anti Sikh in 1984 riots.
Fact 9: Even the most staunch Sikh supporters of 1984 time, won't claim such things. Read Kushwant Singh's writeup. In fact, RSS was instrumental in helping Sikhs in large numbers when Congress party's murderers went on rampage to kill, and their leader Rajiv Gandhi failed to stop the mass killing.

Myth 10: Organizations like the Sri Rama Sene of the infamous pub incident, Abhinav Bharat and other organizations are part of RSS.
Fact 10: No. RSS clearly has defined who is a part of Sangh Parivar and who is not. You can't club everyone who claims to be a Hindu organization, and malign RSS because of those organizations' actions. In fact some of those ignorantly clubbed as "Sangh Parivar" with RSS, were trying to kill RSS leaders! Every attempt to malign RSS, like how Congress leaders did in case of Ajmer blast, has backfired.

Myth 11: BJP is the political outfit of RSS.
Fact 11: Wrong. RSS has always been a non political organization. It's prime aim is service to the society, character buidling of youth and nation building. BJP evolved from Jan Sangh. Many BJP leaders, like Vajpayee, Advani and Modi might be from RSS background, but that does not maike RSS a political outfit. In fact, many Congress, AAP and other party leaders are also of RSS background. It is like scores of Indian leaders today could be from NCC, but that does not make NCC a political organization. RSS volunteers support many political parties, depending upon who is doing the best service to the society, without bias, at that time. The only non-political force that vehemently opposed Emergency was RSS. It was so feared, that Indira Gandhi, who had murdered democracy in 1970s, banned the RSS during her draconian Emergency. J P aandolan, Janlokpal aandolan and a whole lot of popular movements had RSS support. In short, there are RSS admirers and RSS opponents in every party of India. To give an example, even the most staunch anti RSS politician in India today, Digvijaya Singh, was sharing dais with RSS leaders when it suited his Congress party :)

Myth 12: RSS has a membership process.
Fact 12: Wrong. RSS has no business card or party member ID. Anyone can walk in, and anyone can walk out. The concept is that of Swayam sevak. No RSS volunteer carries a Sangh membership card. In short, anyone who wants to serve the society and Bharat Mata, can become a part of RSS, temporarily or permanently. RSS adheres to the age old saffron colour flag (Bhagwa) that was an inspiration to serve the mother land for billions of Indians over millenia.

Myth 13: RSS only concerns with Hindus.
Fact 13: RSS deals with all sections of Indian society. RSS is the first one in majority of natural disasters like 2004 TN Tsunami, 2001 Gujarat Earthquake, 2009 Karnataka-AP massive floods, 2013 Uttarakhand floods, or any rail/bus/building disasters. RSS volunteers are found from Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, rushing to help every single natural disaster. They are also in forefront to help people in case of man-made disasters like 2012 Asom riots caused by illegal foreign settlers from Bangladesh. It was RSS volunteers who donated blood during 1971 war. RSS runs over 1,70,000 projects across India via organizations like Sewa Bharati, catering to every language, state, religion, caste, colour and creed. Go to their website to learn. RSS runs 27,041 schools (Ekal Vidyalaya) in remote tribal areas : 7,53,123 socially deprived tribal students are enrolled. RSS is in fact the world's largest voluntary service organization with over 60,00,000 active members, plus millions of supporters. RSS was one of the first to land at Uttarakhand to help the needy. They even proudly helped the organization that helps every Indian.. the national army! Watch this video.

Myth 14: RSS does not raise Indian flag.
Fact 14: RSS Sarsangh chalak (highest position within RSS), Mohan Bhagawat himself stands and respects an Indian flag during important national festivals.

There are scores of other myths being propagated systematically against RSS. For now, this list is enough. Just remember:

R : Ready for
S : Selfless
S : Service

RSS will become stronger with availability of social media, as the malicious propaganda against the Sangh Parivar, will eventually have to die down.

सत्यमेव जयते !

Recently, I spent some time understanding the physical India and the tectonic plates movement. This was right after the devastating earthquake in the Himalayan region killing over 6000 already in Nepal and close to 100 in India.

My key question was - Why is the Himalayan region so susceptible to earthquakes? But while understanding that, I had a good revision of the entire physical features of Indian subcontinent. Right from 12 crores years back to today, and the projection 10 crore years into the future!

Sharing some highlights for those interested in our Bharata Varsha, Bharata Khanda and Jambu Dweepa :)

12 crore years back, India was fairly close to today's Antarctica's location. Trace our Indian subcontinent's movement right from Antarctica region to northern hemisphere pushing the Eurasian tectonic plate up here. India moved from Antarctica region close to African east cost to middle of the Indian ocean to colliding with the Europe-Asia plate and to pushing Himalayas up and reaching the place today.

Where would Indian subcontinent be 10 crores years from today? Pretty much the same place as it can't push any considerable distance. But the western half might expand, while the eastern part might get submerged per the scientific projections.

Watch this video for a graphical representation of what I am trying to say.

Here's another video giving a closeup look at the most recent 5 crore years.

Isn't it amazing to see how India changed the Asian continent, and most importantly gave the planet earth, the most amazing Himalayas (Hima = Snow, Alaya = Mountain, in Sanskrit)? Out of the top 15 peaks in the world, ALL are in the Himalayas. If India had not traveled from the tip of southern pole to northern hemisphere, planet Earth would have been a much boring place without giants like Mount Everest, Kanchanjunga, K2, Kailash mountain etc..

If your interest in tectonic geology has gone up, don't miss this awesome video on how Earth was formed, how earth's land surface came up, how continents formed - split - rejoined - split again.. Amazing journey over 10s of crore years!

Asteroid impact

Now that your thirst for tectonic plates, earthquakes, Tsunamis, island formation, Himalayas etc. is quenched, let's move on to more India specific things. I was reading this morning more connection between a very historic event that wiped out Dinosaurs 6.5 crores years ago, and the rise of Deccan plateau over which I am sitting and typing this today. Why did Deccan plateau rise? Also, note that India was not exactly where it is today, as 6.5 crore years ago. It was still somewhere near Equator, making the massive asteroid impact point on the western hemisphere, directly antipodal (exactly opposite place of the sphere in the other side) to the Deccan plateau today.

Yucatan peninsula (impact point) and Deccan plateau. Pic: enchantedlearning

Pic: Wiki

Here is a simple depiction of what is antipodal point when you take a sphere.

Here is the interesting article that describes how the largest Deccan eruptions, referred to as the Wai subgroup flows, which produced about 70% of the lavas that now stretch across the Indian subcontinent from Mumbai to Kolkata. These researchers argue that the impact likely triggered most of the immense eruptions of lava in India known as the Deccan Traps, explaining the “uncomfortably close” coincidence between the Deccan Traps eruptions and the impact, which has always cast doubt on the theory that the asteroid was the sole cause of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

For those not familiar with the Deccan traps, here is a beautiful sight.

Deccan Traps - Pic. Wiki

So we learned quickly about the tectonic plates, the great movement of Indian subcontinent from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere, and the amazing connection between the Dinosaur extinction asteroid impact, and the Deccan plateau. Keep in mind, we are talking of extremely high amount of volcanic eruption into the atmosphere right from India, between today's Mumbai to Puri, and Nagpur to Bengaluru region!

Now comes the most important question. Why is India termed a "subcontinent"? Was it just a fancy name due to the amazing diversity of languages, cultures and other diversity? Or was it something beyond that?

Well, I found my answer today. India is called a "subcontinent" because it is the only country on the planet that has ALL the six types of physical features described on planet earth. Wow.. exciting isn't it? Let's find out what are those six physical features and their subcategories.

Feature 1: Mountains.
India is home to all types of mountains described in physical geology. India is home to one of the world's oldest fold mountain called Aravalli range spreading across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Dilli. India is also the home to the world's newest mountain ranges, the mighty Himalayas. India has the Western Ghats, one of UNESCO's eight biological *hot spots* of the planet, among other mountain regions.

Watch this educational video to learn about the mountains of India. Right from the coldest mountain region to the tropical mountain regions are there in India. This video shows a very interesting sub section of the four cross sections of the might Himalayas, taking you right from the plains of north India to the Mount Everest, to the Manas sarovar holy place, to Tibetan plateau.

Tip: Do you know about a place just north of Jammu and Kashmir (not in India), that is called a *knot*, because four of the world's great mountain ranges start from there, including Himalayas? See the videos here.

Feature 2: Plains.
India is home to some of the most fertile plains on this planet. The Indus planes, the Gangetic planes and the Brahmaputra planes of North and North-East India are amazingly diverse.

Watch this video to learn everything you want, about the plains of India, how they were formed and the difference between each section of plains.

Tip: Did you know that India converted most of Tarai or marshy plains of North India into agricultural fields since 1947, to settle and feed the large group of refugees who came in during partition?

Feature 3: Plateaus.
India is home to some of the oldest plateaus on mother Earth. We already talked of Deccan plateau earlier. Did you know about the economic importance of the Chhota Nagpur plateau and its incredible deposits of iron and other valuable ores?

Watch this video to know all you want about plateaus.

Tip: Did you know that Deccan plateau and Chhota Nagpur plateau of India are the two, that NEVER were submerged under sea over 100s of millions of years? Not even during the four major ice ages or after ice melting! Extremely rare examples of always being above sea level places, yet never below the ice sheet places.

Feature 4: Deserts.
India is home to both hot and cold deserts. The coldest deserts are in the Leh/Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, while the hottest deserts are in the Thar region of Rajasthan.

Watch this video about deserts.

Tip: You can comfortably drive from one of the coldest deserts on the planet, Ladakh, to the one of the hottest deserts on the planet in Bikaner area, in just 24 hours by road. Where else can you find such diversity?

Feature 5: Coasts.
India is home to over 7000 KM of coastline. This is the seventh longest coastline for a country in the world. Also, the coasts are very historic and very diverse connecting 3 seas and one ocean.

Watch this video about coasts.

Tip: Some coastal areas of India like Dwaraka in Gujarat, trace their history back to 10000+ years of continuous human settlement.

Feature 5: Islands.
India is home to both Volcanic and Coral islands.

Watch this video about islands.

Tip: Traditionally we say Kashmir to Kanyakumari as describing India. But the physical southernmost tip of India is Nicobar islands - a point called Indira Point that is more than 1 degree latitude south of Kanyakumari!

Isn't India one of the most amazing countries of India?

The world's largest democracy..
the country with the world's largest number of tigers.
Has the world's biggest gathering of humans called Kumbha Mela (over 10,00,00,000 participated last time) repeating every few years.
A historic and traditional calendar that has all six seasons.
Home to the world's oldest continuing civilization. Vedas chanted the same way they were chanted 5000+ years ago!
The source of 70% of the world's spices, making the world a truly *spicy* place :)
The world's most diverse linguistic country with 15 languages being spoken by at least 1,00,00,000 people.
A country where marriages have been sacred, instead of being contracts for 1000s of years.
The only country on the planet where Jews were not persecuted, ever!
The first country on the planet that sent a mission successfully to Mars in its first attempt.
The world's largest postal service network.
Among the four religions with 1 billion+ adherents on the planet, two originated in India.
The list continues endlessly..

But most importantly.. India is the ONLY country that is also a subcontinent! You leaned why :)

RSS leader Dr. Mohan Bhagawat was mentioning about the late HV Sheshadri. An interesting narration. Let me see if I can type it keeping the same interest that he generated in the talk.

Once HV Sheshadri of RSS was traveling in a bus in Karnataka. He was the Karnataka pranth pracharak. A well dressed and educated man boarded the bus, and sat next to HVS. They got into hello-hello chats. The man talked about his MCom education, employment at a bank, his family etc.

Dr. Mohan Bhagawat with the Late HV Sheshadri in the background. Pic - Samvada

Then he asked HVS. "What do you?"
HVS: "Nothing. Go from home to home, tell good things. Serve the society. Pretty much that's it".
Passenger: "Then how do you take care of your family?"
HVS: "I am not married. I don't have a family to take care of".
Passenger: "So you don't have a family. You don't earn anything. You have no duty of raising a family.. what's the use of your life? You are not an asset to the society".

Both kept quiet for some time....

HVS: "That's the way I am.. BTW, can you tell the names of your 8th generation from father's side?"
Passenger: " I don't know"
HVS: "Mother's side?"
Passenger: "Not sure. We know only 3 generations for shraddha (Vedic ritual for the dead) purposes. Never thought of it.".

Both kept quiet for some time....

HVS: "Do you know about Swami Vivekananda? The monk who...."
Passenger: "Of course.. Who doesn't know the Swami? I have studied many times about him. Here are some details....."
HVS: "Was he your relative?".
Passenger: "How can that be? He's from Bongo and I am from Karnataka".
HVS: "Oh.. maybe you met him?"
Passenger: "Are you joking? I was born 50 years after his death!"
HVS: "Maybe he visited your village sometime back?"
Passenger: "No. Never".

Both kept quiet for some time....

Swami. Pic - Wiki

HVS: "Strange... Swami Vivekananda was not your relative. You have never met him. He never even came near your village. And he was from generations before you. But still you know a lot about him. You also should know that he never earned any money. He didn't support his family the way you do. He never got married. He didn't raise kids. But everything he did in his life was for the society.. for the people.. for the country.. for the humanity. He lived his life per Dharma, to the perfection.

On the other hand, your family's 8th generation before you did everything you are saying as valuable to the society. They got married. They raised kids. They educated them. They earned. They passed on things so that you are prospering today. Still you don't even know their names!!"

Both kept quiet for some time....for a very long time...

The passenger seriously felt something in his heart. He apologized to HV Sheshadri and asked why this kind of thing happened.

HVS: "See.. it happens with all of us. We focus only on the material benefit for the immediate family. But that's not everything about Dharma. In the real sense, Dharma is all about Dharana or carrying. Dharayati iti dharma. We alone getting educated, enjoying or prospering in life is not enough. We should take the society with us. Some of us can take smaller load and some like the Swami can take massive load. But our efforts must be to take everyone with us on the path of prosperity. That is the true Sewa. And, Sewa or selfless service is the best Dharma. Hence our lives must be dedicated as a daana or gift, for the humanity. Try to think more on why some of us make Sangha and its Sewa as the topmost priority in life and dedicate ourselves towards the society".

Needless to say.. the passenger had nothing else but total respect to HV Sheshadri!

If you have a desire to see the glory of Hindu Dharma, via medieval or ancient temples, Tamil Nadu is the place to go. There's no second thought about it. Luckily, most massive temples have been retained in the original shape and splendor, when unfortunately many other states in India couldn't during foreign invasions. I made five trips in the past five years and an opportunity came for a sixth trip - a trip with lots of temples to see in TN and PY. I immediately grabbed the invitation of friend Bharath and got into the vehicle.

Let me narrate some interesting things about each place we visited last weekend.

First of all, our interest is in covering all the five Pancha Bhoota Sthala Linga or Pancha Tatva Linga. There is one major and historic temple dedicated for each of the five basic elements of nature as shown in an image from Wiki here. Three months ago, we had seen the Agni Linga temple in Thiruvannamalai. This time we aimed at three, but ended up doing two.

So we got started, in an anticlockwise road trip, heading straight to Tiruchirapalli or Trichy, the place of our first Shiva Linga temple - Jambukeshwarar.

Once we finished eating chapati at the local restaurant, we started asking common people in Trichy. Where is Jambukeshwara temple? Five queries and no one answered properly. Then I found that we were asking in the wrong way. Made some calls and found that we should be asking for Thiruvanaikaval Kovil (Kovil in Tamil = Temple). Got the answers immediately. I must say that common people in Tamil Nadu have always been very helpful and friendly. We just have to figure out some basic Tamil speaking skills.. that's it. Kovil = Temple, Perumal = Vishnu, Siva = Shiva, Periya = Big etc...

To our surprise, we booked a hotel within half a KM from the great Srirangam Vishnu temple, which is not far from the Jambukeshwara temple. We set out to see Shiva temples. But our first visit next morning had to start with Vishnu Bhagawan! That's called divine planning.

So we were there to see sleeping Lord Vishnu (Ranga natha) in our proper uniforms :)

You will be amazed at the vast nature of this Srirangam temple complex. This is one of the Tri-Ranga (3 Rangas) along the Kaveri river. The first one being Sriranga Patnam near Mysuru, the second one at Shivana Samudra near Gaganachukki falls and the third one being this Srirangam near Trichy. There were nine massive gopuras/traditional doors from the street. There is a 1000 mantapa (pillar) auditorium. There's the (jiva) samadhi of the famous Vaishnava Guru Ramanujacharya. There must be at least 50 smaller temples within the complex itself.

It will take a full day just to pay proper visit to each deity within this massive and ancient temple complex. Our friend Nagesh chanted Purusha Sukta in one of the Rama temple and we were elated along with the local Purohit. Great darshan, great food (paid, not free) and a wonderful place to visit.

Next stop, the mighty Jambukeshwara temple for water tatva of Shiva. And to our total surprise, we entered right when the abhisheka was happening in the main temple. It was fabulous to sit outside the small garbha gudi (sanctum sanctoram) of the temple, besides small holes in the wall, and watch the pouring of liquids over this very ancient Linga, and then decorating it with various pastes and cloths.

This temple has interesting history involving an elephant and a spider worshiping the Linga.

They do very nice Gow-puja (Cow Worship) in this temple after the main abhisheka.

And of course, the thing which caught my eye was this.. We can discuss that some time later.

So our first major Shiva temple was done. Vishnu had called us even without our planning at Srirangam. Time to head east to the glorious UNESCO heritage city of Tanjavur. No surprises here. The massive ~13 feet tall Shiva Linga (Brihadeswarar) in one of the greatest buildings ever built by ancient and medieval world - the BIG temple. You have to visit this place to understand the immense technology Indians had 1000 years ago. In this Kaveri river delta area devoid of any big granite mountainous, Chola empire got a massive 81,600+ KG stone, and hoisted it above 200 feet. The total height of the gopura or vimana on the temple is 216 ft (66 m) high. Just imagine the technology to do this 1005 years to be precise? No where in the world you can find such a massive feat, which is living even today surviving tsunamis, earthquakes and of course, human invaders!

And of course, Bharat makes it look small.. really small :)

I felt like... I am witnessing 1000 years of Bharatiya history in just a few minutes.. Awesome and proud experience. Felt so good about our ancient shilpis, rajas and everyone who left us such great legacy.

If you have time, please browse through lots of pictures in here to know how happy we were during this entire trip, particularly the Tanjavur Periya Kovil (Big Temple) visit.

Next stop.. Kumbakonam. A city of temples where there are 188 temples within the municipal limits of a small town of 1,40,000 people. And if you include smaller temples, they say over 1500 temples are there in and around this city of temples!! Of course we wanted to visit a lot, but had time for only one. The big Adi Kumbeswarar temple. We had a wonderful time here watching many unique things. The pujari showed us the place within the temple where the great Raghavendra Swamy had sat and meditated. They also showed the Devi (Durga) with nandi in front of her, not lion/tiger. They showed us a slight tilt of the main Linga and told that it's because of this kona (angle) of the kumbha (one above linga), it is named Kumbha Konam. You also have 9 temples around Kumbakonam, for each Nava graha (nine planets in Hinduism). We surely needed a week, just for this temple town!

We had to then drive into Puducherry enclave within TN, near Karaikal beach in the night. Our next stop was Tirunallar Saniswaran Temple at Tirunallar in Puducherry Union Territory. The specialty here is that 1000s of people come to take a dip in the pond, and leave their wet cloths on the banks of the pond, to get away from Lord Shani's wrath.

Image: Wiki

We followed what 1000s do. A proper bath in that pond, giving arghya to Surya deva early morning from within water, leaving our cloths, and then heading to the ancient temple in the town.

Just like the 100s of other big temples in Tamil Nadu, we had walk past many arches (gopuras) and finally get a beautiful darshan of Shani Deva. And to get a bonus, we were allowed to do a full Rudra abhisheka at a Shiva temple behind the Shani temple. Our Nagesh, the knowledgeable purohit, made us do abhisheka on the spatika Linga that he had carried from Bengaluru. It was a divine experience chanting the Vedic Rudra and Chamakam at this ancient temple. We loved every moment of it. Best part, I could do this on Ekadashi day, which is now my fasting day :)

Now overwhelmed with temples after temples, we took some beach breaks. It was emotional visiting the Karaikal Tsunami memorial, remembering the 1000s who perished during the 2004 mega Indian ocean Tsunami.

Now time to head north. Next stop Chidambaram mega dancing Shiva temple. But since it opens only in the evening, we had time for some fun trip through the mangrove filled backwaters of Pichavaram. Our "vocal" skills and funny hand movements came handy when going inside the shallow mangrove backwaters :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Lirk7o8m4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOR-afBLF3I
Even our boatman started off -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sKRynDomgE

Playing in the backwaters, climbing up some mangroves and paddling the boat was really fun. I am told that this is the world's second largestmangrove wetland!

And our boatman told us that this is the same mangrove area where the famous Kamal Hasan song from the movie Dasavataram was shot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM-r6CP_uY4

Next stop, the great Chidambaram temple. This great Hindu temple of South India that has held its prominence for over 2000 years is a must visit place for any temple enthusiast. The Shiva in here is associated with the Akasha (or sky/ether) tatva (essence) among the pancha bhootas (five basic elements sustaining life). This holy temple has been built and repaired by Pallava, Chola, Pandya, Vijayanagara and Chera kingdoms over the past 2000 years.

And, I insist that you learn more about the significance of Chidambaram temple's design. Focus on why the roof has been laid by 21,600 golden tiles with the word Shiva nama inscribed on them representing 21600 breaths!!

Around the 9th minute of this famous video of Carl Sagan - Cosmos of India, you can see the description of Nataraja (Dancing Shiva), for whom this Chidambaram temple is dedicated to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugyrzr5Ds8o

All I can say is... Srirangam, Jambukeshwara, Tanjavur, Kumbha Konam, Tirunallar Shani and now Chidambaram Nataraja. Overwhelming architecture, significance and puja tradition for millenium.
Incredible trip!! How can I forget the awesome tender coconut water in Kadalur, to break the Ekadashi fast? :)

Lastly, how can we end up such a fabulous trip without some fun in water? That too when we are close to the Goa of the east coast, Puducherry? We stayed at a nice resort right on the beach, danced in the beach at midnight, saw sun rise at the beach, offered arghya to Lord Surya after a swim, and then had super fun in the resort pool.

Lastly, visited the pious Aurobindo Ashram at Puducherry.. A small and silent zone in the French legacy town.

While returning via Tiruvannamalai, another great Shiva temple (Agni link) which we had seen 3 months back, we had some nice fun on the road trip too.. like watching this crazy scooter driver -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxubUk-Xrl4

Overall.. great fun. If you want historic temples, amazing Dharmic puja traditions in Sanskrit and Tamil, and fun beaches, head to these places I have listed. You will have a great time.. guaranteed!

Now that 3 of the 5 Shiva Tatva temples covered this year, hoping to do the other two - Kanchi (in TN) and Kalahasti (in AP) soon. Om Namah Shivaya!

Dr. M Chidananda Murthy is a researcher, historian and scholar par excellence. Even at age 84, he has great grip of his research and presents his papers with amazing clarity. He has published a long list of papers and books throughout his life, and lots of debates happen on his findings. His strong support to Hindutva in particular makes his opponents very uncomfortable. His research on Tipu Sultan in particular, exposed the other side of Tipu which self-proclaimed seculars had a very hard time digesting.

I have met this extremely gentle human many times. I am thoroughly impressed with his ability to research into Indian history in a precise manner.

Today, I came across his column. "Earlier Karnataka was three times the size of today's Karnataka". If you can't read the font properly in the image below, use this link to read the Vijayavani epaper.

The focus of this article, with lots of historical proofs is to inform that during ancient and medieval periods, Kannada speaking areas were from Kaveri delta in today's central Tamil Nadu till Godavari in Nashik area of Maharashtra. As with everything in history, there would be for's and against's to such claims. But I thought it would be useful to give a quick translation so that those interested further in research, can pursue the topic.

Some snippets from his article, which extensively focuses on today's Maharashtra, and its Kannada past in many areas. Here are some districts of Maharashtra for which the Kannada influence has been researched and presented by Dr. Murthy in this article.

Districts of Maharashtra covered in this article. Pic: NIC

Sri Vijaya's Kavirajamarga from 850 CE, has given 8th and 9th century CE description that Karnataka, or the land of Kannada speaking people, extended from Kaveri to Godavari.

Sham. Bha. Joshi, Raja Purohit, and Alur Venkata Rao have done extensive research supporting the geographic claims of Sri Vijaya.

Chidananda Murthy has written "Bhashika Brihat Karnataka - From Nilagiri to Nashik".

Deshabhakta Veer Savarkar is from Nashik district. His father's place is Bhagur. His mother's place is Kothur. Notice "Ur" or "Uru" in both places, that are distinct Kannada names. Savarkar's family dog was named "Kariya" (Darkie or Blackie in Kannada). Savarkar's father used to call Vinayak as "Balam Bhatta" during younger days. That name is very popular in Karnataka.

Maharashtra's Mahanubhava pantha (sect) was started during 13th century by Shri Chakradhar swami. Chakradhara's guru was Gundama Bhatta. Gundama is a medieval Kannada name.

Nashik district has a distinct tribe called "Hatkar Kaanadi" people. Maybe they are named that way because they lived in Huts and spoke Kannada (Kaanadi). Per Chidananda Murthy, they are the native people of Nashik from ancient times. Even today that tribe speaks sentences like:

Ninge magadir yaanayudu? (How many children do you have?)
Nange ain magadir, eddu magardir aaidu (I have 5 sons and 2 daughters).
Nange maneg hogadu usiraat (it is time for me to go home).

Here, magadir, magaLdir, usiraat (avasara) are all old Kannada words. Similarly Hatkar Kaanadi people use kundal (hair), ba (mother) and many other words showing that North Maharashtra's Nashik area had Kannada population 1000 years ago.

Next, Murthy tells about Mumbai. A famous place today in Mumbai, Malabar hills is per him named after "male" people. In Kannada Male (maley) means hill. British would have used this for the hilly people (ghaati) who lived there. In 1818 (or 1819), when a new British person Mount Stuart Elphinstone was appointed as the Governor of Mumbai, Malabar hills people submitted a letter in Kannada welcoming him. British used the word "Canarese" or "Kanarese" to describe Kannada speakers. That's why they named Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada districts as North Canara and South Canara districts.

Some evidences suggest that Mumbai's original inhabitants, the KoLi people, spoke Kannada centuries ago. BA Salettur has opined that long ago, today's Mumbai area was inhabited by Kannada speaking people.

Talking further about Mumbai, the marriage treaty of Charles II of England and Catherine of Braganza, daughter of King John IV of Portugal, placed Bombay in possession of the British Empire in the 1660s, as part of dowry of Catherine to Charles. Dr. Murthy says that in 1670, when the British brought in new law in English, they translated it into Portuguese and Canarese (Kananda) to help the inhabitants or Bombay. Goa during those times also had many Kannada speakers. In 1737, a British writer has described Kannada as a language of "lower class" people of Mumbai.

Dr. Murthy presents two maps - One from 1909 (English and Kannada) and one from 1940 (Marathi text book), that indicate the contemporary Karnataka of those times. The 1940 text book map published by British government, named "Arvachin Karnataka" (Modern Karnataka) has Belagavi/Belagav in it. The 1909 clearly is much larger than what Karnataka is today. It includes today's Goa, Belagavi, Kolhapur and even Solapur in Karnataka.

Post 1956 Karnataka - Map: Wiki

Of course, the districts were merged into administration of various neighbouring kings or provinces during British era. You can compare that side by side with Karnataka since 1956 States Reorganization done by Jawaharlal Nehru's government to get an idea of districts within today's Karnataka and the ones which are with other states today.

Dr. Murthy continues district-wise in Maharashtra. He says that betel leaf growers of Nashik are "Tigula" people, the same ones found in Karnataka speaking Kannada or Tamil. South Maharashtra's districts like Solapur, Kolhapur, Nanded, Sangli etc. have most of their ancient shila shasana (inscriptions) in Kannada.

Shri Siddheshwar Temple, Solapur. Pic - Wiki

Solapur's village deity (grama devata) is Shri Siddheshwar. His name was Siddha Rama, and he was a vachana writer 800 years ago. His father was Muddu Gowda. They are from Moradi village of Solarpur. Moradi or Mordi in Kannada means small hill. Vachanas are Kannada literature of Lingayat or Veerashaiva community. So the Kannada origin of Solapur goes back centuries or even millenium.

In Nanded, common people call laying foundation for a new house as "Kesaru Kalliku". (In Kannada, Kesaru = wet mud, Kallikku = put stone).

Solapur district has a very famous temple for Vithoba or Vitthala in Pandharpur. Marathi scholar RB Shere clearly attributes Kannada origin to Vithoba. Sant Dnyaneshwar in one of his Marathi abhangaha screams - "O Vithala.. You are Kaanadi (Kannadiga).. Hence you are not hearing my pleas". You can read more on Sant Dnyaneshwar, Marathi and Kannada in my earlier blog here. In the famous Pandharpur temple, the last song sung for Lord Vithoba after all puja is in Kannada - to put him to sleep.

Khandoba or Mailara. Pic - Wiki

Jejuri near Pune has the famous Khandoba temple. Khandoba is a Marathi name for Mailara, a very famous name for Shiva in Kannada. If you travel in North Karnataka, especially Hoovina Hadagali area, millions of people worship Shiva in the form of Mailara or Mailara Linga, with almost exactly same description as Khandoba. In Khandoba's major festivities, people near Pune even today shout "El Koti Ughe" or "Khande rayaca Elkot". Here "Elu" and "Kote" are Kannada words meaning Seven forts.

Coming to literature, at the feet of Bahubali's statue in Shravana Belagola in south Karnataka, there's an inscription "Shri Chavundaraje karaveeyale". This from 983 CE, is believed to be the earliest Marathi inscription ever found. But Kannada was existing for centuries before that. Per Dr. Murthy, Marathi existed in the northern regions of Godavari by then. So this inscription was for those people, along with Kannada and Tamil inscriptions for other people visiting this place. Till 12th or 13th century, most of today's Maharashtra below Godavari river were Kannada speaking areas. Badami Chalukyas, Kalyana Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and many more were ruling over these areas. It was only since the Yadavas of Devagiri about 800 years ago, that Marathi spread widely into today's southern Maharashtra area, replacing Kannada (and some Telugu).

Source: Wiki

The famous Elephanta caves near Mumbai, were built and temples carved by Kannada kings - Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas. Before that, Pulikeshi II had fought Harshavardhana at Narmada banks itself, going far north of Godavari river. And the only battle Harsha lost in his life was this one!

World famous Kailasa natha temple, Ellora. Pic: Wiki

Chalukya emperor Pulikeshi's inscriptions are found in the world famous Ajanta caves today in north Maharashtra. It was during Chalukya and Rashtrakuta empires Ajanta and Ellora became great centers of arts and temples. The world famous Kailasa natha temple in Ellora was built by Kannada king Krishna I before 774 CE using a unique top to bottom rock chiseling technique. It is estimated that about 400,000 tons of rocks were scooped out over hundreds of years to construct this monolithic structure!! The contribution to Ajanta, Ellora, Elephanta, Solapur, Pandharpur, Kolhapur and many other areas of Maharashtra by Kannada kings and people is immense.

Then Dr. Murthy goes into the vocabulary of Marathi language. There are lot of Kannada origin words there. Olage or Oule (inside), Kolu (stick), Tupa (ghee), Mudila (before, first), Oli (letter), Konth (weapon), Balanti (mom or newborn), Aḍakitta (nutcracker), Akka (sister), Anna (brother), Veergal (stone inscription for a martyr), Mechu (small sword like device), Hon (gold)... If you go into depth, you will find that Marathi has a Kannada or Dravidian foundation from ancient and medieval times, but the upper structure is that of Aryan language. Even today's Devanagari script being used as a standard to write Marathi, is an adaptation of recent centuries. For almost a millennium Modi alphabets were used to write Marathi (and occasionally Kannada in Maharashtra).

Per Dr. S Srikanta Shastry, Shatavahana empire that ruled over Maharashtra 1700 years ago, had lot of Kannada (and Telugu) impact.

Then Dr. Murthy finally mentions about Ananthpur and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, and Dharmapuri, Salem and Nilgiri areas of Tamil Nadu, to cover the ancient Kannada links.

The purpose of me translating this is not for any political reason. I have good friends from every language. I just found it historically interesting to see the linguistic overlaps. In some cases, I have added a few words of my own, giving additional Wiki or other links to establish better connection. Just like any case involving neighbours in India, you can also find the other side of overlap, if a research is presented properly.

Today, a friend on Facebook shared this video of Khurshed Batliwala, Director of World Alliance for Youth Empowerment. He was speaking at Ruia College, Mumbai.

I knew a bit about him, nicknamed "Bawa". But this video blew me off.. It had amazing amount of examples from ancient Bharat (India) that was hard core scientific. And Bawa being a faculty member of the Art of Living, under Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's guidance, his smiling way fo communicating was more captivating.

Technology of Spirituality

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9aR_xfm-gE

Earth is round/spherical: Ancient Hindus knew that the earth was round, long before Europeans theorized the same. If you look at Varaha avatara (Vishnu's 3rd avatara among the 10 major ones), the varaha or boar is lifting a round or spherical earth.. Not a flat earth!

Varaha Avarata: Pic from allhindugodgoddess.blogspot

No wonder the Sanskrit name for Geography is Bhu-Gola (Bhu = Earch, Gola = round/spherical) from time immemorial! Outside India, even today some religions and cults are believing that earth is flat, due to their books. Now contrast that with the scientific temper of Hindus.

Also, the Sanskrit word for our world is called Jagat (the one which moves) knowing fully well that the earth is moving all the time!

Indians knew about Antares twin star system: Nearly 5,000 to 7,000 years ago ancient Indians could recognize the 15th brightest object in the sky, the Antares twin star system.

Antares or Arundhati-Vasishta twin stars - pic from azurewebsites.net

This system was called Jeshta (in Sanskrit meaning the biggest, oldest or eldest). Now science shows us that it is the biggest start. 40,000 times or more bigger than earth. In fact, this Antares was wedded into Indian tradition deeply. This 2 stars system was named Arundhati and Vasishta stars. After marriage in south India, husband and wife should go out and look at these 2 stars after wedding's night!

And this particular Twin star system is unique. Both stars circle around each other, instead of hte usual one star revolving the other. So symbolically how a perfect marriage should be, was demonstrated by ancient Hindus 5000+ years ago, using a star system, that too a perfect one in twin rotation form, without any modern telescope!

Amazing Metallurgy of India: Many of us would have seen the iron pillar in front of the Qutub Minar in Dilli. That's over 1000 years old and still not rusted in spite of empires changing, weather changing and severe pollution of the capital city.

Kollur Mookambika temple's iron pillar. Pic: Flickr

Similarly, the Kollur Mookambika temple's iron pillar in coastal Karnataka, where it rains 6 to 8 months in a year, at a very high 750 cm level per year, has not rusted in over 2000 years! And this was built by tribals of the region, and not some well known architects of the 1st millennium BCE.

Production of Zinc in ancient India: India had the sole knowledge of Zinc production for nearly 4000 years during our human history. This is because Zinc is very tricky. When you heat the ore, at
997 degree C it melts, but at 1000'C it vaporizes. So you have only 3 degree window to pull the Zinc out, after heating up the ore. This must have been very difficult for pre-modern humans. But ancient Indians found a technique. They heated it from the top, with an ice bath below to collect that molten liquid. China stole this technique from India after 4000 years. Then British (William Champion) stole this from the Chinese in 1543 CE.

Value of Pi: Then Bawa shows a shloka in Sanskrit on Lord Krishna. It looks like a simple one starting with Gopibhagya ...

Then he explains the Katapayadi Samkhya (number system), using which, this simple 2 liner gives us the value of Pi into 30 decimal places!! 3.1415....

A Gujarati guided Vasco da Gama to India: We all have learnt that Europeans found naval route to India through Vasco da Gama. There's even a place in Goa today named after him. But Bawa explains the actual "finder". Portuguese wanted to to India. But it was not Vasco who discovered India. The story is in Vasco's own journal in Lisbon. Columbus and Vasco were the first to search India. Christopher went in the opposite direction and found Americas. Called the natives there Indians.

Vasco went in the right direction. He had the biggest ship available at that time in Europe. He reached Cape of Good Hope the tip of Africa, without venturing too far from the coast all along. But then he had to sail over a massive Indian ocean. There he met a Gujarati. Kanha was a trader from Gujarat. Kanha's ships were 12 times the size of Vasco's ships!! His ships escorted Vasco's ships to Goa in India. We never heard of this in our text books. In fact, ancient India's naval technology needs lot of research.

In summary: The amount of knowledge India had was phenomenal. 5 to 10,000 years ago itself when Europe was in pre-civilization mode. But how did they acquire so much knowledge?

Because ALL our scientists were saints! Our scientists did Yoga, Pranayama and did meditation.
They could focus mind into smallest of the things and farthest of the things. Basis of science is spirituality. This wealth of India was systematically destroyed by foreigners. They rewrote our history. Made Indians of the 20th century ashamed of their own culture. They broke the education system and traditions.

So what is this Technology of Spirituality?
A human has 3 Gunas: Tamas (brings sleep), Rajas (ability to act), Sattwa (Rajas and Tamas are balanced). Learn to meditate to keep Sattwa in place throughout the year. Balance Rajas and tamas, and increase sattwa. Spirituality is not about renouncing. For example, Narayana is the God of knowledge. Lakshmi is the Goddess of wealth. And they are married to each other!

To succeed in this world, soft skills are far more important than the core domain expertise. But more than 90% of the money, time and effort is going into acquiring domain expertise. Exactly opposite of what's needed! That's the main reason India has become a country of crores of unemployable educated people.

Get back to roots. Learn to meditate. Learn to increase Sattwa guna. You will start understanding how our ancient scientists excelled so well in so many amazing technologies!

Thanks Bawa for this lecture :)

Myth 14: RSS does not raise Indian flag.
Fact 14: RSS Sarsangh chalak (highest position within RSS), Mohan Bhagawat himself stands and respects an Indian flag during important national festivals.

It has been almost 9 months since India's tax payers money is misused to a wide extent to bombard Indians that a massive "Bharat Nirman" (India building) is happening. Every print or visual advertisement will surely have Sonia Gandhi (no one is sure what is her active and constitutionally sanctioned role in the government) and PM Manmohan Singh. More or less all these ads are hypes and I have spent time debunking many of them earlier.

Over 100 crores are clearly burnt in various Bharat Nirman ads. The one ad that always catches my attention is the Jobs related ad. The "revolution" in job creation as claimed via MNREGA has burnt crores of valuable tax money, in just the print and digital ads.

Bharat Nirman ad on jobs - source: vifindia

Keep in mind, there are three kinds of major jobs in India.

The regular jobs - salaried either in government or in private sector.
The casual jobs - like the one being advertised. These are seasonal either in private or public sectors.
The self employment jobs - Majority of Indians make their living in self employment or casual jobs.

"Earlier we used to search for work.. now jobs come to us" claims the young man, in that UPA ad.

Are you really sure Mrs. Sonia Gandhi?
Have you really created the crores of jobs that you claim using our tax money?

Let's explore.

Devinder Sharma, an expert in food and agriculture policy, has written a very important, fact filled article in DNA on 17th February 2014. The title of the article is Migration back to villages. If we don't understand the plight of the 60,00,00,000 farmers in India who are actively into agriculture, we just can't comment on the economy in any sensible manner. This article paints the most current picture of Indian agriculture. It not only exposes the jobs creation myth of UPA, and also exposes the hollowness of their claims on food security and land acquisition bills.

Some key excerpts from that tell us an entirely different picture.

Farmers are leaving the cities and moving back to the villages. Why? The economy has tanked in urban areas.

In the coming months, about 1.5 crore farmers who quit agriculture in the past seven years, are likely to trudge back into the villages. In normal circumstances such a massive reverse migration — from the cities back to the villages — would have been a sign of inclusive growth. But economists are taking this U-turn as a sign of economic slowdown.

When UPA talked of employment generation, it did not tell that 50,00,000 farmers of India left their farming jobs each year, to take up menial and highly unstable jobs. Who calculated these lost jobs?

In the seven-year period between 2005 and 2012, according to CRISIL an estimated 3.7 crore farmers quit agriculture. Economists view this trend as a sign of economic growth. In other words, while 50 lakh farmers are forced out of agriculture every year, growing farm unemployment is being considered as a sign of economic growth. How can pushing farmers out of agriculture sector and then finding an alternative employment for these millions displaced from agriculture constitute economic growth?

India saw mostly temporary and casual jobs that were counted as "Bharat Nirman". Here's the reality.

we are told that an estimated 70 lakh jobs are created in the non-farm sector. Considering that most of the non-farm jobs are in construction, what is not being told is that these menial jobs are temporary and do not carry any social security.

Except agriculture, everything else is collapsing during "Bharat Nirman" phase of Manmohan Singh.

At a time when there is an all round doom and gloom — industrial output failing to keep pace, manufacturing sector declining, joblessness growing, fiscal deficit mounting and the current account deficit growing to a worrisome level — it is only agriculture that provides a glimmer of hope.

Here is a very worrying part. India emerged as the biggest exporter of rice during the years immediately after NDA government. But the so-called Bharat Nirman is almost making India an importer of rice in 3 years.

India emerged as the world’s biggest exporter of rice, and farm exports zoomed exponentially. And yet the fact remains that agriculture is the most neglected sector. Even the Prime Minister acknowledges that India is faced with terrible agrarian distress.

Already there are indications that India will turn into an importer of rice in the next three years.

UPA government is killing even the only sector that has some decent future, the agriculture.

In fact, at a time when government employees have been promised a further pay rise from the 7th Pay Commission, farmers remain at the bottom of the pile, neglected and forgotten. On an average, 2,500 farmers quit farming every day to join the army of landless workers.

UPA is not reducing the poverty, but infact making it worse. All the "garibi hatao" slogans are just eye washes, by reducing the scale with which poverty is measured.

With joblessness growing and the policy thrust on reducing subsidies for the poor and needy, the number of poor in absolute terms has been increasing. By reducing the poverty line to Rs28 in urban areas, and Rs24 in rural areas, the government can play around with figures, but the fact remains that poverty is on an upswing.

UPA government burns public money to claim that the National Food Security Bill (FSB) is a great thing.

Food Security Bill ad - source: castingnb

But the reality exposed by Devinder Sharma is that UPA's failed policies have deliberately displaced farmers and now this FSB is just to reduce the chances of food riots when people have neither jobs nor food.

The enactment of the Food Security Act ensuring a monthly entitlement of 5 kg of rice/wheat/millet to 67 per cent of the population or 830 million people is not only aimed at offsetting the additional burden of the unprecedented price rise, but more importantly, it is aimed at minimising the possibility of food riots that can erupt when a large section of the population is being deliberately displaced from an assured livelihood.

UPA 2 has killed India's economy. Proof.

From a high of 9.3 per cent two years ago, the GDP has fallen to less than 5 per cent in 2013.

As opposed to UPA's Bharat Nirman claim, jobs are disappearing in India. All the growth we saw on paper was jobless growth in totality. This is not going to help India that has 18% of the world's population.

At a time when GDP was galloping at 8-9 per cent between 2005 and 2010, the report shows 140 lakh people were displaced from agriculture. Generally it is believed that those who quit agriculture would be joining the workforce in the manufacturing sector. But the report showed that even in the manufacturing sector 57 lakh jobs were lost. A clear pointer to the jobless growth the country is witnessing.

And lastly, Rahul Gandhi keeps harping about the Land Acquisition bill as a great achievement of UPA government, even though he has no official role in the government (meaning, will take credit for all positive thigns, but escapes all blame for negative things like scams).

But Devinder exposes the hollowness of Rahul Gandhi's claim:

With the new land acquisition law coming into force, more people would be driven out of their meagre land holdings and forced to migrate to the cities looking for menial jobs.

Wake up India.. It's not Bharat Nirman. It's Bharat Nirnaam (ruin) that UPA government is doing.
India needs a leader with a growth track record. Not tape records. Think and vote in 2014.

We live in a world, where talking about Hindu culture or tradition is usually frowned upon by the self-declared progressives. I know many people who think Hinduism is full of superstition and upbringing children in a solid Hindu environment is impossible. I also know a few of them blindly aping Europe and America, with an unapologetic message that if the future of a kid has to be bright, a westernized education system is a must, keeping away the ಗೋಡ್ಡು ಸಂಪ್ರದಾಯ (useless traditions) that a primarily Hindu traditional school would offer. Let's not even get into the medium of instruction, as English medium education right from the start is more preferred than Indian languages, in most cases.

Don't get me wrong. I love English. I strongly believe that there are lots of good western values that should be inculcated into a child, during the growing years. Things like charity, cleanliness, social involvement, scientific temper are great things. But aren't there schools which get all these into children, while giving education in a local language, and deeply sustaining the rich Indian (primarily Hindu) culture and tradition?

To my surprise, I was invited to visit one such school for their annual function, as a chief guest. My friend Guruprasad Bhat from Mumbai, got this arranged as his family runs a school called Prabodhini, at a gorgeous place called Kalasa, tucked in the beautiful ಮಲೆ ನಾಡು (western ghats) area of Karnataka. And to put it simply... I was blown out! The school is run by RSS volunteers, deeply rooted in Indian tradition, and the quality of education is outstanding. Yet, the school treated students from all castes, languages and religions equally, preparing the best batch of future citizen of India.

The family and friends who run this school.

The serene setting of absolutely charming greenery, where the school is located.

This school is run so well, in spite of no money coming from the government, that it has scored 100% result year after year, this century! In fact, it was started by Mr. Raghavendra Bhatt and family, for a few really poor kids whose parents were busy throughout the day on daily labour. It has expanded now into nearly 800 students capacity!

Coming to the function we were invited for.. They greeted us with traditional Hindu Vedic prayers.

Then we witnessed top class meditation and discipline.

The chanted Bhagavad Gita and other Vedic Shanti mantras. Crisp, clear and fully involved prayers for the ಸರಸ್ವತಿ ವಂದನ (Saraswati Vandana) part. Traditionally students are expected to always begin any major function with Saraswati prayer, invoking the Goddess of education. But off late I see lot of resistance to this citing secularism, which for me is a meaningless argument. How is praying the deity of education against secularism? This Prabhodini school surprised us pleasantly!

Then every part of the day long function fascinated me. The 10th standard children were asked to bring their parents and do ಕೃತಂ ಸ್ಮರ (felicitating the parents, Kritam Smara). The literally worship the parents, thank them for all the support to get them educated till this level, and get their blessing to continue their study further. All this happens right in front of Goddess of Education, Saraswati.

And, caste or religion is no bar. I saw even Muslim women in their burqa and hijab, participating in this function, happily blessing their sons and daughters for a bright future! The self-declared seculars would get a heart attack seeing this :)

Then the outgoing students (10th standard) are made to take a oath that they would keep up the good tradition, behave well in life, and make their parents proud.

Not only that, the outgoing senior batch is made to hand over ದೀಪ (Diya) to the next batch, asking them to safeguard the tradition and future of the school. Great camaraderie!

The cultural aspect of respecting the elders by touching their feet after award ceremony, was quite visible. I even saw the Head Master following this tradition himself.. Here is the head master taking blessings from the generous Guruprasad Bhat, who has served this school even when away from the town of Kalasa for decades.

Saraswati Mata, the primordial ಪ್ರಣವ (Om) and Bharat Mata were prominently visible in the school, along with 100s of pictures of pictures of great Indian educationists, freedom fighters, spiritual gurus and so on. Students get an overdose of the feeling of nationalism and dedication to Indian society in such a school.

And the dance and cultural event after all the speeches and prize distribution was so special. They covered so many folk dances, story telling, inspirational events... I was overwhelmed as to how deeply the students are rooted in the Indian culture and tradition, while keeping a very good scientific and mathematical temper!

The more interesting part was the boys and girls equally performed in various events, keeping 100% gender equality.

And how can any event happen in coastal and western ghat area of Karnataka, without the colourful ಯಕ್ಷ ಗಾನ - Yaksha Gana costume?

How can they miss Ishwara and family, when they are from a Kalaseshwara town?

Cute girls showing village costume from Karnataka.

And some nice energetic village dances.

And their patriotism..

Their energy levels of drum beating..

Their Karate..

Bhuvaneshwari.. the Karnataka mata.

Ever loving glorious Bharat Mata..

Outstanding acrobatics involving pyramids...

ಮಲ್ಲ ಕಂಭ - Malla Khambas..

The display of energy, culture and tradition was so overwhelming that I had to think about it for days after that..

Such a school also exists in today's world where children are mostly forced into rote learning, with very little physical activities making them obese, in the highly polluted cities with very little green nature around them, stripping their cultural roots for most part in the name of westernization and/or secularism??

That too in a location which is just one hour walk from this gorgeous hill near ಅನ್ನಪೂರ್ಣೆಶ್ವರಿ - Mata Annapoorneshwari temple at Horanadu!

They are just 10 to 12 KM from a gorgeous trekking spot, high above western ghats.. so high that most vegetation disappears. It's called ಗಾಳಿ ಗುಡ್ಡ or the windy hill.

And when they are just 30 minutes walk from this beautiful ಅಂಬಾ ತೀರ್ಥ - Amba teertha area of Bhadra river..

100% results.. great science education involving computers too.. dedicated staff giving an all round modern education... deeply rooted in India's glorious 5000+ years culture and tradition.. and amidst one of the heavenly locations of the planet next to big mountains and lovely rivers, plus moderate temperatures throughout the year!

I wish you all studied in such a school.. if not, at least your children or grand children. This is as close to the ancient Guru Kula education that you can get in 21st century, as possible :)

Two notes:

1) If you have more time, browse through nearly 300 pictures here: https://plus.google.com/photos/110981894709471519856/albums/5978739794695073985?banner=pwa

2) Since this amazing school caters to some of the lowest income families, and completely supported by private donors, you can also sponsor children for their studies. Contact @gbhat_ or @KiranKS on twitter. Or just leave a comment and I will have the school management contact you.

Here's what happened in India.

Pre 2013:
Congress was winning elections due to ill-informed middle-class and mostly freebie enjoying rural population. In 1994, India's middle class population was just 2.5 crores. Now it is 10 times that. And one thing I observed is that middle class has more or less moved away from Congress. I don't have a single sane friend in my close circle, who vehemently supports Sonia Gandhi's party.

Since most political parties have their own designated votebanks (DMK, ADMK, BSP, SP, RJD etc.), by default middle class, that too in tier 1, 2 and 3 cities were supporting BJP in large numbers. But many were disillusioned with BJP too as those who were imported for quick power, did not stand up the scrutiny in many cases. And BJP is always disliked by those who have lesser connection to true Hindu roots. No matter what, for them BJP is dangerous.

This vacuum was exploited by Kejriwal. He could fool a few middle class disgruntled youth, who were encouraged by revolutions in the middle East, Occupy Wall Street and many other contemporary movements. They saw a messiah in him, even after he blatantly used Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev and many more to only dump them to achieve his goal to grab power. And the hype continued 24*7 on TV.

Late 2013 and early 2014:

The small success in Dilli was portrayed by media as a great achievement. In reality, AAP had only 0.68% of MLA seats in India. In most countries such parties are not given the space they got in India. Why they got so much space?

2 reasons:
1) They had close media links as it was exposed in "bahut hi krantikaari" video -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hj6ScbJ3sY

2) Some middle class folks saw their potential to challenge BJP and Congress as a third front.

In Dilli, the situation is worse now. They have no government after Kejri ran out giving excuses and hence earned BhagodaKejri title.
The rapes, the crime, the water mafia, and everything is rampant.
Worse, the much publicized electricity "subsidy" drama has been exposed too. Kejri never left any money to pay for the subsidy.

http://zeenews.india.com/videos/setback-for-aap-delhi-hc-puts-electricity-subsidy-on-hold_27946.html

So in essence AAP and Kejriwal defaulted on ALL his promises to Dilli voters. The long list of u-turns and lies earned the title Kejri-Turn.
If an election is held in Dilli today, a vast majority of those who funded AAP just 4 months back may be reluctant to repeat the funding.

After running away after 49 days:

The 3 cities that had donated most to AAP, seeing hope in them were Dilli, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Dilli was an utter flop episode. In fact, Sheila's government at least provided some governance and did not run away like Bhagoda Kejri.

In Mumbai the second most contributing city to AAP, he tried to test waters, but the show was bad. It resulted in AAP Chaos and people cursed the drama company.

Then the drama queen went down south to test waters in Bengaluru, the third highest contributing city to AAP.

It was so bad that the next morning's paper had flAAP show as the headline. The road show was cut short miles before the planned finish. Dinner saw only 175 and next day's rally was nowhere near the enthusiasm shown to Anna Hazare's rallies 2 years back at Freedom park. The local people almost fully dumped Kejri and gang with only some North Indian migrants still sticking to sloganeering.

So now what?
Modi wave is clearly predicting an NDA government now. The third, fourth, republic and AAP fronts are all collapsing. Congress is staring at 100 or so seats only. So what's now for Kejri whose political existence is at stake?

The one and only option. Go anti Modi in full force. At least that way he would be in news for 2 more months.

So the 2014 election battle is back to the familiar BJP versus "secularism". This time even within BJP, Modi has overshadowed everyone, sending them to non-striker end.

Another way to showin the same desperate effort of all anti BJP forces trying to dislodge Modi's tsunami, keeping Kejri was a poster boy.

That my friends, is a summary of the rise and fall of anti-corruption movement in India. Now we are back to election time secularism and communalism debate, but the only change this time is... Modi has turned communalism debate in most cases into Development debate. Even Mulayam Singh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal, with zero development track record, have been forced to talk of development (or talk negatively about Gujarat where development is clearly visible to the local people).

Modi has already won 2 battles.

1) He has emerged as the clear winner within BJP camp. It took him lot of effort.
2) He has forced casteists, communals and even anarchists to talk of development topic. In fact, Modi's clear emergence as leader has already secured NDA 20+ allies before the election itself! That's comparable to Vajpayee's ally strength at the peak of NDA :)

Now the third and the last step in his 2014 battle would be to demolish the pretentious anti-corruption squad and their sponsoring corrupt Congress team by big margin. Let's hope he does!

{Credit to pictures - social media}

Yesterday the Supreme Court of India came up with a very significant judgement.

It was a long process and involved judgment, but the summary was this.

"No government can force a student to chose his or her medium of education. It of course means, the parents or guardians of the child have absolute right to pick any medium of education for their children."

And a few of this morning's front pages in Kannada news paper world.

"Setback to Kannada"

Vijayavani

"Kannada Medha", roughly meaning the sacrifice of Kannada.
"Public opinion is that this verdict is against the very concept of linguistic states"
"Central government (UPA) has kept mum on this topic"

Kannada Prabha

"English medium not accepted"
"A result due to the lack of experts"

Samyukta Karnataka

"Can't force medium of education says SC"

Udayavani

Overall, a situation of gloom in Karnataka. 6 to 8 news TV channels in Kannada were abuzz since yesterday itself that this is a big setback to Kannada language.

Before anyone starts wondering why I am writing this, the issue is closer to my heart. I am a product of Kannada medium schooling and it worked very well for me even when I switched to English medium for higher education. My medium of education never became a hurdle even when working in top levels in IT industry for long number of years. In fact, the ease with which we could pick up Maths, science, social studies etc. when taught in our mother tongue, was something I am quite happy about.

Now some observations:

In my view, most Kannada papers and news channels are overreacting. Activists are also over reacting. Supreme Court's constitution bench has quoted Article 19 (1) to arrive at this judgment. No government or organization can go against the constitution.

Secondly, this is not anything specific to Kannada or Karnataka. The same judgment will be held as a benchmark, like the SR Bommai case in article 356, for other states too in the future. This is a landmark judgment that will have long term effect.

Thirdly, there is no need to beat the chests that there's been a "defeat" or "setback" to Kannada. Look at the actual reality. Nearly 74% of the one crore students in Karnataka are ALREADY studying in Kannada medium. All the government has to do is to make sure that the quality of education for these folks, plus those 6% studying in other Indian languages, is at the same level as the 20% who are studying in English medium. Can they do it? That's the big challenge.

Fourthly, the state government already has control over 69% of the schools in Karnataka. They are either fully government owned or government aided. Made the quality of education in here top notch, and the 2 to 3% shift happening each year to private schools will slow down. Why do parents send kids to private schools that mostly teach in English medium? Because they want "better" education and "better" career. If the government or aided schools can provide the same at competitive levels, who would pay higher amount to switch to private unaided schools anyway?

Fifthly, India has nearly 1400 mother tongues. When a continent sized country with so many mother tongues are in place, it is extremely difficult to come up with any kind of language formula. The three language or two language formulae have to factor in the important fact that English is as Indian today, as any other Bharatiya language. Take the examples of Poschim Bongo or Uttar Pradesh. Opposing English just won't work as ordinary parents for the past 3 generations are seeing English as a way for their children's "better" career. The governments need to understand the "better" part well. Then everything will fall in place. So far there is no practical linguistic policy for schools, that make every Indian boy or girl go through equal linguistic difficulty level, yet practical enough to earn living in the future. Presenting here a quick summary sheet on the language categories of India that I had prepared earlier. There may be crores, or even 10s of crores of Indians who might not have practical access to their mother tongue medium of education, strictly following the freedom that the Supreme Court outlined. In my view, crores of children already might be forced to go through a medium of education that is already violating the Supreme Court's judgment, across India.

Lastly, no one is opposing teaching Kannada or other language. The issue is with forcing the medium of education. If a large group of people, like 25 to 35% in the state now, mostly in urban areas, see a value in English medium education, the governments and activists have to sit back and think.

Why are they preferring English? Is it blind westernization?
Is it better salaried jobs for English medium educated students compared to Kannada or other Bharatiya language educated students?
Is it the poorer quality of education in Bharatiya language schools in most cases?
Is it much beyond language like Science/Math which are easy to learn in English medium?

What needs to be done?

It's time for experts to talk to 1000s of parents.. Maybe lakhs. Find out what is working in English medium and why people are even willing to fight for 20 years in courts, all the way to Supreme Court to oppose imposition of medium by the government?

I feel that the majority of the parents won't be against Kannada or other Bharatiya langauges that they speak at home. Their focus will be more business oriented. Investment on their children for a better return for them and children in the future. When a vast chunk of urbanized parents, and now even semi-urban parents, are thinking in education as investment, the government has only ONE option. To make the schools under its control supremely competent a global level. Then everything will fall in place. That's my opinion.

What do you think?

ನಿಮ್ಮ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯಗಳನ್ನು ಖಂಡಿತ ಕಾಮೆಂಟ್, ಟ್ವೀಟ್, FB ಪೋಸ್ಟ್ ಅಥವಾ ಇಮೇಲ್ ಮೂಲಕ ನನಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿ.
ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳು!

At an event on Saturday night, my friend Gokul gave a pamphlet. Hey, tomorrow, there is a pilgrimage tour, do you want to go? I was like to which place?

In Bengaluru!

I gave a strange look. In Bengaluru? That too a day long pilgrimage? Then saw the details and got excited. Why not? So was on the pilgrimage bus at St. Mark's road at 7.30 AM. It was a good decision because I was going to enjoy the day thoroughly.. In what I call in Modi's lingo as "Sadbhavana" Yatra :)

This is organized by a Catholic Christian group in Saint Mark's Road. Most of the occupants of the bus were Christians, but there were some Hindus like me. There was one Muslim and one Buddhist. More than the composition, it was the interest of the people in other modes of worship, that was important.

All the areas we went are tracked in this map.

1) Shri Dharmanatha Shwetambar Jain Temple, Jayanagar.

Jainism for me is one of the Guru Paramparas of Dharmic India. But politically it is a different religion. There are two kinds of Jainism. Shwetambara and Digambara. We went to a Shwetambara temple where the prime deity is Shri Dharmanatha. He is the fifteenth Tirthankara among the 24 highly revered Jain Gurus. It was nice to see women putting pastes (Shri Gandha?) to various parts of murtis, the swastikas drawn with rice, the pious women monks who were busy in prayer and much more. This is a prayer place for many Rajasthanis in Karnataka.

Devi Padmavati's temple is in the back. Nakoda Bhairav and many other murtis exist in this temple complex. Beautiful white marble temple with soothing bhajans :)

2) Mahabodhi Buddhist Temple, Gandhinagar.

This Buddhist temple was getting decorated by the time we went in the morning, for their special Sunday prarthana. It's a beautiful temple with a Bodhi tree (Peepal). I saw some idols of Buddha gifted by Thailand as Thai language were written at the bottom. This center has mostly North East Indian people settled in Karnataka. This center follows the Theravada sect of Buddhism. Theravada as far as I know is a synonym for Mahayana type of Buddhism, which is different from Hinayana or "smaller vehicle" Buddhism. Buddhism again for me is a different Guru parampara in Dharmic traditions, but technically it is a religion now.

It was so nice to hear nearly 2500 year old Pali language prayer being sung in a melodious way. You have to follow men and women sections in the temple and a great place for meditation. 2500 year old glorious Indian culture comes right in front of your eyes hearing the powerful Pali hymns!

We also got nice breakfast served by the Buddhist monks. Our favourite Uppittu was made nice by the North Eastern friends :)

3) Yaqeen Shah Wali Dargah, Palace Road.

Dargah is a type of Islamic place where a Muslim Guru or Peer's tomb exists. Not every sect of Islam accepts Dargahs, and some term these as UnIslamic.

This Dargah in my view is maintained by Sufi sect of Islam. If not, Shias. We were treated well here. There are restrictions. Women can't enter the main Dargah part, but can come near. Head cloth is suggested for men and women.

I went inside and stood next to the religious man here who sings praise or prayer. It was a soothing song and he later translated. He explained that on behalf of everyone who was there, irrespective of faith, he prayed for their welfare. I was particularly interested in the hand figures, and what they represent. The symbolism of these Hand signs and other rituals performed here had lot of Hindu influence.

There is a small mosque also in the complex where they read Namaz. Had a lot of discussions with the Dargah staff on who was this peer, how many centuries ago this tomb came up, difference between Sufi and Sunni Islam and much more. They were open in answering all. Served nice tea too later.

4) Catholic Chapel, Thomas Town.

The next visit was to NBCLC - National Biblical, Catechetical and Liturgical Centre. This is a very different type of Christian complex. It is not a typical Church, but a full inculturation center. For some inculturation is a good thing after Vatican 2 in Christianity where the European cultural way is making way for native - here Hindu, cultural way for Christians. For those who oppose this, it is a process of stealing from Hinduism. We can have that debate some other time, but let me just narrate the experience there.

Everything is "Hindu"ised here. From names of buildings to dress to window pane drawing to gopura (top of Chapel).. I mean everything! Building names are Sacchidananda, Brahma vidya, Shanti sadan etc. You won't find a saree wearing Mother Mary sitting in padmasana, with and Indian dressed baby Jesus like this anywhere else in the world.

Here, the resident sister explaining the central point of the Chapel. The whole building and the central God and Jesus concept is built on Hindu Kundalini Chakra concept. It is just narrated in a different way, which you might not find in the Bible.

A Catholic lady from Mumbai who was with us, explained that at the start, Christians find it difficult to pray in a place like this with Indianized (Hindu-ized) symbols. But later they feel much more home than a European style Church. I was explained how multi cultural symbols are so essential for Christianity in today's world. I talked to a few Fathers/priests too who told the same thing. There are courses conducted here in inculturation for Christians from around India.

5) Guru Singh Sabha Gurudwara, Halasuru.

The next stop was by mid day to Sikh Gurudwara. Here, cloth over head is mandatory. They provide it right in the front, and even tie to your head if you wish. I found the discipline of Sikh devotees simply amazing. Men, women and children come inside in strict lines and bow before the Granth Sahib (holy book). There's a Granthi who reads from the Guru Granth Sabhib book. There were narrations in Punjabi language on heroes of Sikhism, how weapons are needed for self defence, how to sing Kirtans and praise the Gurus and more. I think the term for singing before meal was Ardas. I also saw people having a small knife as a part of the 5 basic tenets of Sikhism, called Kirpan. Women too had turbans in some cases.

This is one place where we spent maximum time. I heard many songs or Bhajans. They were sung melodiously and they were so close to how we sing bhajans at Hindu temples. Again, I found this just another Dharmic place, but we are told it is a different religion. I felt completely at home even though I understand only basic Punjabi.

The most impressive part of Gurudwara was after the soothing prayer session. There is a community kitchen called Langar, where anyone can go and prepare food. There is free food served for anyone who comes, no questions asked. Just keep a cloth over your head and take food obediently the way everyone else takes. I was amazed at how 100s of people, men and women - went about contributing to food preparation. The amazing discipline in preparation, serving (every serving is praised on Wahe Guru), and cleaning up. It's like you can be anything in this Gurudwara. You can sing, preach from the holy book, clean, cook, keep shoes, volunteer at gate... anything! A truly open system.

I had never seen in my life, well to do middle class people coming and cleaning up plates after lunch, with bare hands. Never.. These are well to do middle class people. I literally saw people using thumbs to wipe out the plate after we ate, to remove every single grain or vegetable piece onto other containers. They probably don't waste a single grain. Just amazing! And next step was another bunch of volunteers cleaning up with water and making the plates ready for the next round.

After enjoying a great prasad (offered food) at Gurudwara, I was thoroughly satisfied with what I saw. The discipline and Bhakti at a Gurudwara is something you just have to see for yourself!

6) Masjid al Nur, Halasuru.

The final stop for me was the Sunni Muslim mosque. It's a big and grand mosque built not many years ago. We went at a time when Muslim prayer, or Namaz was not being read. So we had a chance to go on a guided tour, well conducted by a friend of mine, Syed. Head cloths over head are mandatory during prayer, but was kept optional for visitors on guided tour. Also, for women, there is a separate prayer hall opposite to the main mosque.

Unlike other places of worship we visited, this Mosque had lots of questions from the team. People asked questions right from namaz direction, to where women assemble, to what's inside Kaaba etc. Syed answered everything very patiently and showed us things. Right from Wazu, where you use water to clean before prayer, to how prayers work, how many times, why pray, what are the key tenets of Islam and much more.

The team came out much more educated about Islam after this trip. Of course, we were served nice soft drinks and biscuits outside the mosque.

In summary...
The pilgrimage was later going to Hindu place of worship after this, but I had to drop out due to another engagement. I am not unfamiliar with Hindu temples and ashramas anyway :)

All pictures in here if you have more time.

Some more videos if you want to watch:

Buddhist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFCPtDFCBzE
Catholic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tleki95ZtG8
Catholic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo9IOz4ix_k
Sikh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiU4qhstVkQ

So here is the final collage.. A memorable day wherein I learned a lot about fellow Bharatiyas! After all, we are all very close to each other as humans, and once we understand the differences clearly, we can find ways to co-exist with minimal friction. The primary goal of every mode of worship is to make you a better human. That's what is Sad (good) Bhavana (feeling or intention) :)

Try it once.. You can do it yourself, of go with an organized pilgrimage. Contact Ashirvad, 30, Saint Mark's Road in Bengaluru for the next trip.

I am now reading the Land of Seven Rivers book by Sanjeev Sanyal. Some interesting facts about Saraswati river and origin of name "Bharat" follow. I will be brief, as I don't want to type the whole chapter 2 of the book here. You have enough material here to get inspired and read the full book yourself :)

Saraswati was the mightiest river of Indian known history. Even Sutlej and Yamuna were tributaries of Saraswati.

Archaeology talks of Mohenjodaro (Mound of the dead), Harappa, Dholavira and others of Indus valley civilization. Rig Veda was part of the same civilization. It was not some horse mounted "Aryans" came from central Asia and destroyed this, by attacking the "Dasa" or "Dasyu" people. In fact, the greatest Aryan king of Rig Veda is a person named Sudasa. His name and his father's name has 'dasa' in them! Arya was never a racial thing. It meant, polished or sophesticated.

Harappan or Indus Valley civilization stretched from 3500 BCE till 1400 BCE. "Aryan invasion" from north west is a myth. Drying Saraswati ended Harappans and not any invasion.

5) Today's Ghaggar river in Haryana is ancient Saraswati's remnant. It's a very small remnant of the mighty Saraswati river that once supported Rig Vedic age & Harappan cities.

Ghaggar river

More on Ghaggar -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar-Hakra_River

Harappans have unique connection to today's India-> Namaste, Sindhur, construction in 5:4 ratio, weights mentioned in Arthashastra, Chess etc. They are all continuous cultural things from Indus valley civilization to 21st century India.

Rig Veda praises the might Saraswati river at least 45 times. Ganga only twice & Sindhu (Indus) rarely. It's very obvious that Veda was composed near Saraswati, and not anywhere outside India carried by "invaders".

Rig Veda's Nadistuti Sukta clearly explains geography of ancient India. Starts from Ganga and goes till Kabul river in the west.

Read -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadistuti_sukta

It comes in Rig Veda 10.75.

Verse 5 mentions rivers from east to west:

Ganga
Yamuna
Sarasvati
Sutudri
Parusni
Asikni
Marudvrdha
Vitasta
Arjikiya
Susoma

Verse 6 mentions north western rivers:

Trstama
Susartu
Rasā
Shvetya
Sindhu
Kubha
Gomati
Krumu
Mehatnu

Anyone who studies Rig Veda's Nadistuti Sukta, would immediately reject "Aryan invasion" theory. It's that clear!

Rig Veda was definitely composed before 2600 BC when Saraswati was flowing mightily. Also, no mention of iron, so it was bronze age.

There is a major battle called the Battle of ten Kings in Rig Veda: Sudasa of Bharata tribe under Rishi Vashishtra, fought 10 kings under Rishi Vishwamitra's guidance.

Read -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Ten_Kings

Trtsu-Bharata tribe fought these tribes:

Alinas
Anu
Bhrigus
Bhalanas
Dasa
Druhyus
Matsya
Parsu
Purus
Panis

Battle of ten kings of Rig Veda was the start of Indian civilization. Bharata tribe (from Haryana) won. India became "Bharata Varsha"! In a way, we are all Haryanvis in some way :)

Sudasa under the brilliant leadership of Rishi Vashishtha, won and became the first Chakravarti of Bharat (India). Chakra (wheel) varti means his (chariot) wheels can go anywhere. A true monarch!

Most of the losing tribes in the Rig Vedic war, went westwards. Dhruhya (Afghanistan), Puru (Porus), Pakhta (Pashtun of NWFP, Pakistan), Parsu (Iran). Later Mittani (Mesopotamia) , Yezidi (Syria, Iraq) etc. all were further movements. R1a1 gene link with Indian Hindus is clearly visible even today.

4600 years ago, a great earthquake & after effects, made Yamuna move east to Ganga and Sutlej west to Sindhu (Indus). Saraswati dried up gradually, killing the first major urban civilization of India. Harappans or the Vedic people started migrating east towards Ganga and west towards Sindhu in large numbers.

The end of Rig Vedic era is very close to the end of Harappan civilization. Essentially, Vedic was a part of bigger Indus valley area.

It's most likely that victorious Bharata tribe invited Rishis from all tribes to meditate and compile Vedas on the banks of Saraswati. It happened over generations and finally we have the Rig Veda. All of today's Indian subcontinent is culturally linked to Bharata tribe of Rig Veda. It became Bharata Varsha or the land of Bharatas, later becoming "Bhaarat" - 1st major civilization of India! Frankly, I learnt about the exact detail of Bharat only today!

Again, my special thanks to Sanjeev Sanyal for amazing research in the Land of Seven Rivers book. Now back to reading further chapters:)

Some further links shared by Twitter friends:

a) When I said, The end of Rig Vedic era is very close to the end of Harappan civilization. Essentially, Vedic was a part of bigger Indus valley area, a friend shared that this is factually correct. Nicholas Kazanas provides hard proof -> http://www.omilosmeleton.gr/pdf/en/indology/RPSSC.pdf

b) Another friend says - Even Shrikant Kalgeri gives good evidence in this regard. Just Youtube for links.

c) Then a friend says, the battle of ten kings in Vedas is nicely described by Ashok Banker in his novel Dasarajna.

d) Another friend commented on the Bharata tribe part. He says, presume you would have listened to the "Bharata Darsana" by Sri.Vidyananda Shenoy. He reiterates the same fact.
Here is the link to Bharata Darshana amazing series of talks in Kannada -> https://soundcloud.com/vasishta-shastry/bharatha-dharshana-vidyananda

e) Another friend shared - Here is an article from IISC journal Current Science : Saraswati – the ancient river lost in the desert - http://www.iisc.ernet.in/currsci/oct25/articles20.htm

f) Then another friend says - Bharata tribe were experts in Alloys. They were using Tin, Zinc, etc., Approximately 1500 years before silk route the Maritime Tin route existed. Our ancestors sourced tin from present Israel!

It just kept coming.. My twitter friends are just amazing. I stopped taking links after this :)

Tonight, went to Samaya TV to discuss on the news that the famous Dharmasthala Manjunatha temple was being considered to be taken over by the govt.

One senior Jyotishi told things about the Kshetra. Not much arguments.

The core arguments were between me and Talakadu Chikka Rangegowda. It was well anchored by Aravind. This is my second presence as a panelist in Aravind's show.

As usual, the pro government take over arguments were on "mismanagement", "Why should Jains run Hindu temple", "there have been complaints against the Dharmadhikari" etc..

My points were:

1) I am a Bhakta of Dharmasthala temple. I go there voluntarily. I give money on my own. I trust the good work is done by the Trust headed by a Jain. I have absolutely no issue that they are Jains. They are running awesome anna dana. Kitchen Annapurna featured in June 2015 Mega Kitchen National Geographic Channel. Their educational and other institutions are doing wonderful job. For 800 Years, Jain Bunt Heggade Pergade family has administered it splendidly. 21 Dharmadhikaris have come to this seat till date. Government's job is to provide basic facilities and govern. I drove 15 KM to the studio and 10KM were in "Kattale Bhagya" power cut. When the govt can't take care of basic things, why they heck are they wanting to take over well run temples?

2) pSeculars always want Hindu temple money by giving some or the other excuse. Let's stop this now. Why should govt control 35,000 Hindu temples in Karnataka? Why should other states like TN control similar count of Hindu temples? Are all these having mismanagement? There are 164 A category and 283 B category temples with KA govt. Were all these managed by "other religions", before take over? Govt just wants money. And some excuse. I gave examples of how very simple excuses were used by governments to take over cash cows.

3) Talking of mismanagement, there was a murder of a Church father (KJ Thomas) in Bengaluru. There were large scale Wakf land grab amounting to 2 lakh crore as reported by Anwar Manippady. Should the govt take over churches and mosques/dargahs citing mismanagement, murder or other issues?

4) When I heard that only Hindus should manage Hindu temples, I showed that Mohammed Ali, First Division Assistant appointed by the govt in Bengaluru Rural district to manage Mujrai or Endowments department. I don't want a Muslim to manage Hindu temples. Hindus have managed for 1000s of years, and will easily manage ourselves. This argument seriously hurt Mr. Gowda as he saw the hypocrisy of opposing Jains, but having been forced to support Muslims!

5) If there is a big issue with Dharmasthala, people can file an FIR file. If no action taken approach the Magistrate directly. Or file PIL file if land is an issue. Why is the police there? Use them. Instead, trying Govt executive order to grab temple is not something we will allow.

6) I gave examples of Sahasralingeshwara temple of Uppinangady fighting with Karnataka Govt's Mujrai department's 1997 act. The 2007 judgment clearly said that the Endowments act itself is unconstitutional. Google for "Karnataka High Court Sri Sahasra Lingeshwara Temple vs State Of Karnataka on 8 September, 2006".

The judgment concluded:

"We have already ruled that the Act is hit by Articles 14 and 26 of the Constitution of India. We have further ruled that it is not possible to severe them. Hence, we deem it proper to strike down the entire act and consequently strike down the notification as un constitutional."

Use this wherever you see temple issue with govt. Governments can't and should not take over temples.

7) I also gave the example of Chidambaram Natarajar temple in Tamil Nadu. The judgment of 2014 January 10th, gave Podu Dikshitars a big victory in a century old case. If Endowments department of a state govt takes over a temple there should be a reason. Merely issuing show cause and circular is not right. Once you take over you will have 2 years or so to rectify it; notification should mention what reason - only take over mismanagement of temple affairs. This was Dr. Swamy's famous case. The 1951 take over of TN govt was deemed unlawful. Dikshitars had printed temple constitution in 1849 itself. Was opened to all castes of Hindus. This point stumped the others and there is not much they could say on this.

Overall; My repeated stress was that Hindus have freedom of religion like everyone else. If there are issues, let other parts of constitution address them (like theft, mismanagement etc.). So called secular government taking over temples violates Articles 14, 25, 26 and 27 of Indian constitution. As a Hindu, I don't want any temple to be managed by the government. Government's job is to take care of power, water, security and other basic necessities. Hindus know how to manage temples and they have been doing it for 1000s of years. Leave our temples alone.

#KeepOffHinduTemples

I think it went on well. If a video is uploaded by Samaya News, I will share here.

Once upon a time, Samanya Praja, a man in his middle ages, lived in a middle class suburb of India's capital Delhi. He was very frustrated with Indian politics. He wanted change. He was feeling angry at 1000s of rapes happening in his city. He felt like kicking the politicians indulging in 2G, CWG, Coalgate and a thousand other scams. He used to tell his family that he has lost hope in the Idea of India. He felt very pessimistic at the prospects of jobs, progress and security of his son and daughter. He was concerned on how his wife and himself would get any quality healthcare in Delhi, after seeing corruption from cradle to grave in the society.

Then came a messiah.. A self declared corruption fighter named Arvind Kejriwal. A man who worked as a government babu, but miraculously managed to avoid transfer in his entire career.. a Guinness record in corrupt India! He always sat next to famous people of the society like Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev. He dressed like Samanya Praja, so there was a lot of connection. The simple shirt, the basic pant, a chappal, no big car, very pleasing mannerism.. Praja got very attracted. He heard Arvind a few times. He got very inspired at "Brashtachar khatam karo" slogans. He convinced himself and his family that this man can change Delhi. This man is the answer to all ills they had seen so far. They paid close attention to the charming words of Kejriwal. The most impressive speeches were always on how the highly corrupt Sheila Dikshit would be sent to jail if Kejriwal comes to power. They cheered when they heard that rapes would be stopped in Delhi. They loved it when they heard that Delhi would be a clean and green city. Praja jumped when they heard that they would be getting cheaper electricity 24*7, no more slums in Delhi, cheaper and reliable water, clean roads, children getting free WiFi, lots of new schools, upcoming great hospitals, perfect Lokayukta and Lokpal systems, perfect harmony in the society, absolutely no cheating by MLAs, security for senior citizen... oh the list was so long.. it felt like a Utopian dream world was just knocking on the door of Delhi..

Then a tragic accident. One bad evening, Samanya Praja got hit by a drunken driver. He descended into coma.

After great effort by doctors and his family, he woke up just before Diwali of 2015. The family cheered and prayed to Durga mata profusely. Thank you Devi ma.. Our Samanya Praja is back in walking state after sleeping unconscious for a long time.

After 4 hours of cheers, juice and light food, Praja asks.. Where am I? What date is it? How are things?
His family slowly answers them.

By evening, he got curious on how things are. He was thrilled to learn that his ideal politician Kejriwal had become the CM by winning the election by a huge margin. He was like.. Oohhooo!! His wife said.. Jee.. relax. You still need some rest for a week. Don't get excited. Praja was still cheering. You don't know dear. I waited for this moment for years. I hope Delhi is now a great place!

His wife and kids didn't show any smile. He got worried. He asked his son. Did you get the WiFi? He nodded left to right. He asked his daughter. Are girls safer now in Delhi? Rapes have stopped? She got tears.. Pappa.. it has gotten worse. Even 2 and 5 year old girls are not left now. Oh! Praja is shocked. He asked his wife. Is Sheila Dikshit, the horribly corrupt woman who ruined Delhi, in Tihar jail? She just looked down. He got furious now. No WiFi.. no safety for women.. no jail for Sheila? What the heck?

After 10 minutes of silence, he continued. Is there a Lokpal? Son nodded no. How about a Lokayukta sending all corrupt to jails? No daddy.. We only got a name-sake Lokayukta a week ago. We had none till now. So far no jail for any corrupt. Praja is furious.. then at least tell me that Arvind's government is working well. No corruption in the MLA circle. Right? His daughter got angry. Pappa.. this Arvind cheated us badly. His MLA gang is full of crooks. Law Minister went to jail for Degree fraud. More are about to go to jail for degree frauds. Former law minister is about to go jail for beating up his wife. His own MLA was caught in corruption needing a firing on live TV - just like for everything involving Kejriwal, his MLA firing also needed TV camera and action! His MLAs are now VIPs with big cars. Kejriwal himself got a 5 bed room bungalow after all preaching earlier of no bungalows. They spent 100s of crores on just giving radio and billboard ads. They kicked out Prashant Bhushan, Yogendra Yadav and other uncles with whom you were on roads doing dharna earlier. This guy has become a power hungry dictator.. Worse, he has no portfolio under him, so that he can keep doing 24*7 drama across India, while our roads are full of stinking garbage. And there are still lots of slums and they are getting bigger. No new school or hospital in sight. I can't see any new job creation for Engineers, Commerce Graduates or Scientists. Traffic is getting worse. Yamuna is still full of froth. Road rage is very high. In fact, Kejriwal's party law makers like Alka Lamba were seen vandalizing a shop. Nothing pappa.. I repeat nothing.. got better after years of listening to Anna and Kejriwal speeches.

Praja is now really feeling dizzy. After months of coma, what he heard made him even more weaker. What are you telling children? At least tell me that he has not allied with any corrupt politician. His wife got furious now. This guy is an ally of Lalu Yadav's ghatbandhan.. the same chara chor who went to jail!! Worse.. even the 2G scam tainted Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are in the same team for which Kejriwal is campaigning in Bihar! What more you want?

Praja became unconscious!

When he woke up after 10 minutes. His daughter gave lemon juice and told. Pappa.. we got fooled. That Sheila was corrupt, but she was 100 times better than this drama guy. Kejriwal and his irresponsible gang even watched a poor farmer from Rajasthan commit suicide 30 feet in front during a speech, but still didn't stop their speech blaming central government and police. This CM has no respect for the police who protect us. He even called them criminals and "thulla". All he does is keep fighting with police, Lt Governor, Home Minister and Prime Minister. Sometimes he gets mad at press too, in spite of his entire career being built by press and TV. I have never been cheated mentally like this before. He raised our hopes on every corner. Got our votes. We worked with his topi gang on streets for months. Now, all we get is ads using our own money, to blame the central government. We could have done that free, sitting on our sofa.. We Indians are experts in blaming politicians in our homes, for generations. Why did we need a Chief Minister who has no portfolio, spending crores of our money, to blame government that we are experts in blaming ourselves?

Then power went off. It took 5 minutes for the critical machines to get generator power. Mosquitos were biting his tender skin. His wife was worried about Dengue and screaming to put a coil to prevent mosquito bites. By then the exhausted Praja had gone back to coma.

It has been a long time since I blogged on any topic. There were many chances, but I procrastinated and lost the interest eventually.

But today, I got a chance. So enjoy reading :)

Venkaiah Naidu flagging off Namma Metro. Pic: Indian Express

For the past week or so, social media in Karnataka is abuzz with Venkayya Sakayya (enough of Venkaiah) kind of messages. First there was a big column in Vishwavani. It was followed by other news paper reports and countless memes floating on Facebook and Twitter. TV stations also might be picking it up by now. The core message was to force BJP to not give Venkaiah Naidu, a fourth term to Rajya Sabha from Karnataka. For a casual observer, Venkaiah Naidu is usually in news whether in parliament or his rhyming word speeches, or his frequent photo ops for important events.

Initially I was not interested in this. Didn't read or comment much on this. But when I saw that it was a well organized movement, just posted one casual tweet.

Of course, my focus was Congress supporters who were sending me tweets for a week. I knew quite well that BJP and JDS supporters were also in this campaign. But I thought I will handle them later :)

Posted a similar message on FB too. I thought it was just one off post on this topic and time for a good night's sleep.

I was surprised with the reaction. It was from all corners. Highly popular FB poster Vivek Shetty picked up this tweet and posted on FB where it went viral. Within hours, 100s of reactions started pouring in. I tried to answer a few dozen initially. Then it became difficult to keep up. Emotions were flying around.. Some abused me.. Small number praised me. Most argued that it is a bad choice to support Naidu.

The fact of the matter is - I have no favourites among the 12 Rajya Sabha MPs from Karnataka. Rather, I hardly care. For me Legislative Council, Rajya Sabha, Governors' offices and President's office are things that are mostly ceremonial. I don't spend much time talking about them. Hence I was very surprised at the amount of interest by youth, particularly the emotion part! How can anyone be so interested suddenly on as trivial thing as reelection of a Rajya Sabha MP? Every 2 years, RS keeps getting people coming and going.. No one really pays much attention, but this was different.

Here is how things went parallelly across Facebook and Twitter. Let me sum up.

I said: Indira Gandhi was also an outsider. So what's the big deal with Venkaiah?
They said: So you are saying BJP can do the same sins that Congress did? What happened to Party with a difference tag?

I said: Not that way. From when did we get so touchy about "outsiders" in Karnataka? Sonia Gandhi won in Ballari (which she dumped quickly). Many "outsiders" have gone to parliament from Karnataka. Why suddenly touchy about Venkaiah's fourth term?
They said: Lok Sabha is different from Rajya Sabha. Here you are nominating, and not getting elected directly.

I said: OK. Then how do you feel about Chikkamagaluru, Karnataka, born Jairam Ramesh going to Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh? He was in RS for 12 years since 2004. Isn't that case exactly reverse of what you are opposing? How do you justify Manmohan Singh becoming India's PM from Asom's RS quota?
They said: Who cares? That is up to people from AP or Asom to oppose.

I said: So you are OK with Sonia Gandhi winning from Karnataka. You think it is their problem if someone elects a Karnataka born person to RS from their state. What is your core issue with Venkaiah?
They said: He does not work for the development of Karnataka. He is too partial towards AP.

I said: OK. Let's examine facts. You know that Karnataka has a quota of 12 RS MPs. Have you even examined how all 12 have done before shooting on Venkaiah?
They said: Again, he has not done anything for Karnataka. That's the point.

I said: Let's go to details. Here are the 12 MPs from Karnataka in Rajya Sabha as of May 2016. Number 9 is vacant as Vijay Mallya was allowed to quit a few weeks ago. Have you done any comparison of how Naidu has fared against the rest? Keep out "Bhakt", "Sanghi" and other blah blah from discussion. Let's compare people across all parties.

List of Karnataka RS MPs - May 2016. Source Wiki

They said: We know that Venkaiah has not given any money towards Bengaluru's development projects. See Vijaya Karnataka and other paper articles.

I said: Let's go straight to the parliament website. The link is here: Then dig into Karnataka MPs using the MPLADS funds. These funds are sanctioned by the government frequently, based on the amount requested for their constituency's development activities. Venkaiah has done a very good job in using 92.35% of the allocated funds, while Rajeev Gowda of Congress has a zero in the utilization percentage! How can you say Venkaiah is not working when there is an MP listed right next to him with zero development funds utilization in 2 years?

Usage of MPLADS funds by Karnataka RS MPs

They said: *Silence for some time*. Yes, it does seem impressive for Venkaiah. But he uses the funds in Andhra. He adopts villages there.

I said: As far as I know, the funds are for the constituency specified by the Rajya Sabha website. He can't use it in another state.
They said: Whatever.. He is too focused on AP. He adopts villages in Andhra, but not in Karnataka where he is an MP from.

I said: Are you sure? Just go to Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana website and see which village he has adopted. It is from Devanahalli, north of Bengaluru city. He might have adopted a village in AP after the cyclone in 2014, but not under Adarsh Gram Yojana.

Village Adopted by Naidu

They said: Oh! We were told by 100s of people that he adopted Andhra village. Anyway... he does not speak Kannada. He does not talk in the parliament about Karnataka matters. He does not wish for Karnataka Rajyotsava.

I said: That's a valid point. We can tell him to wish. We can ask him to pick up matters. For that matter, even Sonia Gandhi who won from Ballari, does not wish for Rajyotsava as far as I have seen.
They said: Just because Congress does some mistakes, why BJP should do it? It was NDA that changed Rajya Sabha rule to elect people from other states.

I said: That's not what I know. MS Gurupadaswamy of Mysuru, got elected to Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh (1966-72). Forget NDA, even BJP wasn't born!
They said:*Silence*. But it is wrong from federal structure. We should only send people who are from that state to Rajya Sabha. Enough of money bags and outsiders using our state and not doing anything for us.

I said: Just to give an instance (not comparing with Venkaiah in any way) - Dr. Ambedkar was from Bombay. Got to parliament from Bengal. Bengalis didn't ask..you failed to get elected from home state. Why should we help?
They said: Hmmn.. we were told that it was BJP that tweaked rules. In any case, both BJP and Congress are useless parties that surrender to Dilli High Command. We wish a regional party like JDS stands up for Kannadigas. High commands enforcing candidates in spite of opposition from people is not right.

I said: Do you even know the kind of people Deve Gowda's Janata Dal sent to Rajya Sabha?
They said: Better people than Hema Malini or outsiders that national parties send.

I said: What did the "local" Janata Dal do? Sent Sindhi Ram Jethmalani, Tamil MAM Ramaswamy and Telugu Kupendra Reddy to Rajya Sabha! Some said they even supported Malayalee Rajeev Chandrashekhar's candidacy (I don't remember properly). How do you justify them?
They said: Now you are deviating.. It is not about language. Reddy is local to Bengaluru at HSR Layout.

I said: So is Venkaiah now. He is a voter from Malleshwaram area. Indian constitution considers him as a resident of Karnataka. So what's the issue?
They said: Frankly, he does not speak for Karnataka issues. He never spoke for Kalasa Banduri issue. He is too focused on AP issues. Why doesn't he go there and get elected?

I said: Now you are talking about real issues. So far I had not come across any valid comparison to be made to other MPs. Let's go further. Let me ask 5 questions on how other MPs from Karnataka have performed recently in Rajya Sabha. Here I go..

They said: *Silence for some time*. You should ask the editor of papers who campaigned against Venkaiah to answer this.

I said: It is not about the editor of newspaper. It is about facts. If you are measuring Venkaiah using some parameters, why not ask the same for others? If you are opposing Venkaiah Naidu's Rajya Sabha reelection, oppose based on data. Show how other 12 Karnataka RS MPs have done better.
They said: This might be a game played by Congress with the help of Media in Karnataka. There could be reasons right from the dynasty at the center of whom Venkaiah is very critical. After media took over, BJP supporters too joined in.

I said: I have not seen anyone telling how Rajeev Gowda (zero MPLADS usage) or Rahaman Khan (no MPLADS used in 14 Mon) are better. How come no one is campaigning against them them? Development is for the state. Who does is secondary.

But as you can imagine... most have made up their mind. I only saw more arguments like he has not done anything, to vocal abuses.. I don't care much about abuses. That only shows the weakness of those who abuse.

But I left these discussions shaking my head.

Frankly, I don't care if Venkaiah Naidu goes to parliament from BJP again.
Frankly, I don't care whom Congress or JDS send. At the end it is usually the most influential or money bags that become Rajya Sabha MPs or MLCs at state. We know that!

But what I care is:-

how much MPLADS funds is used to Karnataka, by those who are sent.
I care how much attendance they have.
I care about what kind of debates they participate in.
I care about the end result - their constituency's development. What's the use of MPs getting reelected 3-6-9 times from their constituencies, but people continue to live in poor conditions? We have plenty of such examples in Karnataka.

It was too late by the time I realized that too many people have fallen to media propaganda. I have nothing against those who angrily reacted to my tweets or posts. At the end, I want the development of Karnataka, as much as they want. But I was more focusing on the parameters they used and the facts they checked. Some points might be valid, but the overall way in which Venkaiah was made a soft target was strange. Before I raised the data from Rajya Sabha website, most did not even know that there are RS MPs in Karnataka with low to zero MPLADS usage. Media propaganda is very powerful! A fair movement would have been to put all 12 RS MPs side by side, and show why Venkaiah failed in certain areas.

No one did that, or at least I have not seen it! If you did.. let me know. Naidu might be a big failure in reality, but no one is presenting that in a fair manner, with parameters that can be applied to other MPs too. After all, a state's development can't be done by one MP. It is a collective effort. Ultra regionalism without using data to compare MPs, can be dangerous in the long run. Every state would end up doing it, which hurts the nation as a whole.

Jammu and Kashmir is again in news.

50 days of curfew, non stop media coverage, 10s of crores of Rupees coming from Pakistan to sponsor stone pelting, anti India slogans in the so called "human rights" events, with natural reaction against anti nationals from Desha Bhakta students on streets, and much more. So I attended the well publicized and very well attended Nilume eventtoday in Bengaluru. This Nilume group is the most active group of Kannada bloggers today with 1000s of highly creative writers. I went there to understand the situation from three different angles:-

One from police angle narrated by the former Commissioner of Police of Bengaluru city, Mr. Shankar Bidari.
Second from a researcher, professor and journalist angle narrated by the popular Kannada writer Mr. Prem Shekhar. He has also written books on Jammu and Kashmir.
Third from a Kargil war veteran, Captain Naveen Nagappa, who fought valiantly to protect India's sovereignty in the Himalayan hills in July 1999.

I was thoroughly impressed with Mr. Bidari and Mr. Prem Shekhar's narrations. They covered the issue from human rights, army morale, history, blunders of Nehru, British and US bias, geo-politics and war perspective. They were outstanding. Between them, they spoke for over 2 hours, so I will try to narrate their talk a little later on Facebook and Twitter. I knew both of them and admired them for years. Awesome gentlemen!

Here, I want to jump straight to Captain Naveen Nagappa. Honestly, I did not know about him till date. Shame on me! I did not know about a valiant Indian army man who not only fought bravely at Kargil protecting us, but also survived a serious injury to tell us the story. But it is never too late. So you can learn more about him here..

It was January 1999. A young Engineer from Karnataka called Naveen had joined Indian Army, instead of going to do Masters Degree in Engineering. He had great dreams of protecting our Bharat and had become a part of 13th Jammu and Kashmir Rifles group. This was the group of Late Captain Vikram Batra, of "Yeh dil maange more" fame. This battalion got numerous awards during the war for supreme sacrifice. Our of the 4 Param Vir Chakras awarded during Kargil war, two were given to his JK Rifles unit.

While he was just getting started with his army career, General Musharraf and Pakistanis were planning and executing something sinister. They were breaking the Gentleman's agreement between India and Pakistan of vacating the 16000 feet plus altitude hills during extremely bitter winter periods. They were not only occupying the Kargil heights, but also were building bunkers and getting ready to shell Indian army's vital Siachen and Leh supply routes from Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir state.

Things came out open in May 1999. But June Indian army was fighting to capture the hills back, one by one. When Naveen's team was sent in early July to capture a vital hill, he was put in reserve.
Point 5140 was where the big battle was starting. Captain Batra and team had already fought there, but Naveen was not given a chance to fight. His team was sending radio signal, including "Yeh dil maange more" kind of awesome slogans. But Naveen was not fighting in the open. He desperately wanted to.
When his team was given a big task for 3rd and 4th July 1999, he went and pleaded his chiefs like General Yogesh Kumar Joshi. Naveen pleaded that he did not leave his chance for Masters in Engineering, and come all the way to Jammu and Kashmir borderline, to just stay in the reserve. He wanted to fight. His boss asked - You are here only for 6 months in the army. Not only your safety, but also the safety of 120 people who are with you matters, with your split decision. It is not easy. But Naveen did not quit. He kept on requesting and finally got the stamp of approval to lead a mission.

Super excited, Naveen was on the mission to liberate "Point 4875" near Kargil. Captain Batra had told Captain Nagappa one simple thing - "Naveen, you take care of your men, and they will take care of you". So Naveen started his expedition with JK Rifles' war cry - "Durga Mata Ki Jai"!

Location of Point 4875. Source: http://lazydesiauthor.com

We have heard more of Tiger Hill and other popular named hills. But a few of these numbered hills were vital to get to the top of Kargil mountains where Pakistanis had setup bunkers, so that they can be kicked out of Indian side of Jammu and Kashmir. So the battle started on 4th July 1999. Incidentally the day of Vivekananda and US independence too! Personally, I had just crossed oceans at 38,000 ft to get back to India that morning, but had no clue that supreme sacrifices were being made exactly at that time by the brave jawans of India.

Naveen and team had followed the same buddy system that army follows. Everyone who goes out in the night for attack, is paired with another brave soldier. Their job is to make sure that if something happens to one, the other would take care of it. Naveen had just seen his buddy suffer badly the previous night. But there was no going back. He had to fight on 4th morning, 4th night, 5th morning, 5th night, 6th morning, 6th night... They had to melt water from snow capped mountain for drink and eat some energy food carried with them. They could not move easily as the enemy was in higher location and had clear sight of them. But their mental power carried them. Why? They had heard about how Pakistanis had tortured Late Captain Saurabh Kalia and team who had gone on a fact finding mission earlier. They had heard about the gory details of brutally Pakistanis had taken out organ by organ of the brave Indian soldiers who were taken as Prisoners of War. They had heard about how after torturing in the most inhuman ways, Pakistanis had shot Kalia and team at point blank, before "returning" the bodies to India. When you hear such barbarism and brutality of your enemy at front lines, you just get the energy to hit back. No question of fear or family or tiredness. That was Captain Nagappa and team during those extremely difficult moments of July 1999.

They kept fighting bravely. And then a grenade landed in front of Naveen. He was trained on how to handle a grenade when it lands. Usually you have 6 to 10 seconds. A grenade can kill everyone within 10 meters radius. So the first instinct of Naveen on 7th July morning was to just pick it up and throw it away. But a body that has been fighting non stop for 100+ hours can't really throw a grenade back 100s of feet as they show in movies. Unfortunately, the grenade came back after hitting a boulder.. Now Naveen had 2 to 3 seconds!!

His thought was - Anyway the explosion will happen now. I have no chance of escaping. At least, let my upper body go back home in one piece, rather than piece by piece in a bag. So he hid his upper body from grenade and exposed only his lower body. Booooom.. the explosion happened and before he knew what happened, he was in severe pain. His legs were hit. But in a conflict zone, you can't just get away after being injured. Any movement will attract more bullets. So he controlled his extreme pain of both legs being damaged and still fought on. But his team observed and asked him that he should crawl from the mountain to the bottom slowly. He did not agree, but they convinced him that he had to do it as he was seriously injured. With great reluctance, Naveen left his team to fight further, and crawled back to the lower heights very slowly. As you can imagine, he would be in tremendous pain and losing blood rapidly. Still he made to the bottom. The first thing he did there was to remove his snow shoes which are below the knee, but above the ankle. And then he realized how hard he was hit as his blood turned a few feet of snow around him red! He had literally spilled half of his body's blood for Bharat Mata, in an un-named hill, 1000s of KM from his home.. what a spirit! Still he wanted to fight barely having consciousness.

Even there, you can't expect a quick evacuation as the enemy was a higher position, observing everything. So it took lot of time. Finally after hours, he was given basic treatment and taken to the nearest helicopter. With great reluctance, he had to head away from the fighting zone, in the army helicopter taking him to Srinagar. And when the chopper took off, at a lower height to avoid firing from higher hills, he was losing consciousness due to heavy blood loss. Just then his chopper flew past Point 4875 for which he almost sacrificed his life. And there the Indian national flag, the tricolour was flying proudly!! After watching it from the army chopper, under lot of sedatives to kill the pain, he finally closed his eyes in total satisfaction. YES!! My boys have done what I went there to do......... What a relief!
His mind was -

"Naveen.. You have left a legacy behind.. whatever happens after this is irrelevant. Whatever role you were meant to play, you have played. You have created history".

Then he spent 21 months in the hospital undergoing treatment. He had to undergo 8 surgeries. He got the Sena Medal. His spirit kept him going even when the bravest of human minds crumble when hospitalized for such a long time.

And he narrates one other thing from his hospital stay. The mother of his close friend from army came from Dilli to visit him. She had lost her son during the same battle. Naveen could not sleep the prior night as he did not know what to tell that Maa, about her son. He could not digest that fact that he was alive, but his close friend soldier had made the supreme sacrifice for India. She came and met him. He talked with his "aunty" with lot of respect. They talked for 2 hours, but she never asked about her son not returning. Naveen could not take it anymore when she was about to walk away. He asked her.. "Aunty.. I am extremely sorry that I could not get your son back, while I survived myself". She told in a calm way - "Naveen.. it is the best honour for a mother to see her son wrapped in a tiranga. I am proud of my son". No need to highlight that when Naveen narrated this today, he got loud claps from the emotional audience in Bengaluru.

Why am I writing all these 17 years later? Because when I was busy building my high paying corporate career in 1999, these young men, some younger than me, were busy shedding their precious blood drops for Bharat Mata. As I am typing this, I am sure 1000s are taking extreme risks in the Himalayan mountains, rough seas, dangerous central Indian jungles and much more. During every real estate purchase we do, ever mall purchase we do, every road trip we take, every party we enjoy, every cricket match we cheer for, every political rally we attend, every TV show we watch, every birthday party of kid we celebrate.... there is an Indian army soldier making a split second decision whether to sacrifice his upper body or lower body because that grenade is about to explode. Either he is facing the situation in real, or training hard in drills. Sooner or later that situation would come for many brave fighters as we are surrounded by internal and external enemies.

Hold these brave soldiers with the highest respect. We have NO IDEA of what they go through.. when you can't even take out your shoe for hours to check if your bleeding legs are still attacked to the knees or not, THAT is sacrifice for mother India. That is what 1000s of these Jawans are paying with their blood for our safety each year.

Oh.. did I tell you that all the tall promises politicians made to him - nothing has materialized till date :( You can hear his narration here, from an earlier event.

You can read about another narration of meeting with Captain Nagappa here. They have posted one memorable picture from Kargil times.

The next time you hear some nincompoop talk of "human rights" or "azaadi" slogans against these brave Jawans, just ask them to go speak to brave sons of Bharat Mata like Captain Naveen Nagappa in Bengaluru. I can take them personally.

Freedom is not free. It takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to protect it. DAILY!

Background: It is the second week of September 2016. A very bad week in south India. Lot of disturbance, violence, animosity etc. It is that season of the year where Supreme Court gets involved and Kaveri is a big topic. This year, it went way worse than the previous few years due to many reasons.

In 2012, I had written a comprehensive writeup on what is the Kaveri issue, what are the issues from Karnataka's side, what are the issues from Tamil Nadu's side, and how this can be solved in the long run -Kaveri River Water Sharing : What Are The Solutions?I had listed 10 solutions, based on what I read from experts. Now more solutions have come up too, like desalination.
In 2016, The same has been used in this better articulated Quora answer. - How can the Cauvery (Kaveri) river issue be solved?

For those who want long term solutions, and points of view from both states, please spend time in those links, and also check out references from each. You will learn a lot about actionable steps!

This analysis is Not for YOU: And those who are busy distributing violence videos, sarcastic or insulting memes, chest beating that Kaveri is only "ours", please continue doing that. Don't read this any further. Because my intention is not to discuss any point that is fruitless when it comes to final water sharing details. I am more focused on actual figures, statistics and actionable steps.

What is the water situation in Karnataka in September 2016? Now the rest of this writeup would be purely showing the water situation in Karnataka's Kaveri basin as of September 13th, 2016. This is fully using a fantastic analysis done by a Twitter user named V Vinay - @ainvvy . He calls himself a curious academic entrepreneur. Again, all the information provided from this point on wards, is only from Karnataka's dams, as I did not see any qualitative analysis or data from Tamil Nadu's dams. If you know, please share in the comments and I will update here.

Names of Dams: Mr. Vinay managed to download the daily inflow and reservoir levels at the 4 Karnataka dams: Harangi, Hemavati, KRS, and Kabini.

Water Measurements: Before getting into the data, we need to understand TMC and cusecs. For historical reasons, the measurement is in terms of cubic feet. 1 cubic feet is roughly 28.3 litres of water. cusec stands for cubic feet/second. Or as @sheksis joked, 28 Bisleri bottles/second... More relatable :)

What did Supreme Court say on 12th September 2016 in the modified order?

The current SC order for example asks Karnataka (KA) to release 12,000 cubic feet of water every second. TMC is a thousand million cubic feet, which is a billion cubic feet of water. This is 1,000,000,000 = 10⁹ = 1 billion cubic feet. Also, important to note that this has NO component of time involved here. It is just a measure of water.

So if 10,000 cusecs of water is released for a day, it amounts to 0.86 TMC of water. 15K cusecs amounts to 1.3 TMC a day.

In Human usage terms:To get a sense for these numbers, how much of water is used for drinking, washing cloths, bathing etc. In other words how much water is needed for human in Indian terms, per day? It is usually taken to be about 100 Litres per person per day. This translates to a little over 3.5 cubic feet of water. Do not compare with other countries where more water is available per capita. @abhicrux said, 135 liters/person/day is used for standard hydraulic calculations. All uses included. Rural south India gets less than 100 liters today. So we will go with 100 liters on the average side per person, in a water starved south India.

Drinking Water Needs of Karnataka's Kaveri basin: The estimated number of people in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Mandya and other Kaveri basin areas is about 1.6 to 1.8 crores. This amounts to about 0.063 TMC of water a day. Let's call it drinking water, even though it is for other daily use purposes too. Essentially anything that is not related to irrigation which is the primary user of Kaveri water. Note that not all parts of Bengaluru get Kaveri water. This computation is only for the areas getting Kaveri today.

Taken over a year, it amounts to about 24 TMC of water. This is the water that the state needs to have to take care of drinking water needs. Of course, there will be losses of all sorts, so the figure is likely to be more like 35-40 TMC. Losses are usually in the form of evaporation loss, distribution loss and leakage from dams and pipes.

Water in Dams of Karnataka: Now let us get back to the 4 dams. Harangi has a storage capacity of 8 TMC, KRS in Mandya district has 45 TMC. This is the biggest and the most important reservoir in south Karnataka. Hemavati has 35 and Kabini has 16. That totals to about 104 TMC that can be stored MAX by Karnataka at any given point of time. With around 750 TMC of water estimated for Kaveri river as a whole in a good monsoon year, this is about 14% of Kaveri water that can be stored by Karnataka, at any point in dams.

This is the capacity. Current levels as of September 13th 2016 are at about 5 in Harangi and about 10 in the remaining three. They add up to 35 TMC in total across ALL dams in Karnataka on Kaveri basin. All these are computed with live storage of water without getting into dead storage analysis (which amounts to water that can't be released from dam at the bottom). An additional discharge at the current levels of 12000 cusecs to TN over the next 8 days will mean 8.3 TMC of water. Since some of the water will surely be released for other purposes, and with some inflow, the likely level in 8 days is 25 TMC. Again 25 TMC in total across ALL dams in Karnataka on Kaveri basin. This 25TMC is what we will have to survive with until June-July of 2017 when you will see south west monsoon filling in dams again. That is at least 9 full months with 25 TMC of water, if no further rains happen :(

What about farmers in Karnataka? Forget irrigation using above mentioned water levels. Farmers are screwed in Karnataka for this year! You need 100 to 150 TMC of water for irrigation for rest of the year in Karnataka. Not sure if they could even get one full crop this year, while Tamil Nadu is planning for the second crop now, and might get a third crop also early next year. This is the fundamental reason why Karnataka was burning for days in September 2016.

Dynamics of Dams and Inflow Analysis: Let’s look at the dynamics of the dams. Vinay's data starts from 2011. So we have about 5.5 years of data. Here is a table of the total inflow into various dams. Kabini has small capacity but matches Hemavati in inflow.

As you can see, Harangi and Hemavati sit behind KRS, while Kabini is ‘independent’ and joins later.

Keep in mind that some outflow from Hemavati can be inflow to KRS, etc. Vinay focuses on KRS and Kabini to look at the data more closely.

Here is Kabini. Most of the water in the months of June to September.
And then the inflow dies down. Look at September. This time we are done through about 10 days. And the inflow has been a mere 1.5 TMC!

Likewise, KRS dam near Mysuru, has got an inflow of 3.3 TMC for the first 10 days of this month. Will it hit 10 for the month?

Then Vinay plotted the reservoir level and inflow for KRS. This graph is revealing. Notice how the reservoir level shoot up at monsoon (where the inflow is heavy) and how it progressively decreases until the next. There are small inflows in between, but noting compared to what happens during the monsoon.

And notice the 2016 inflows and reservoir levels. It is quite pathetic. So the usual inflow after monsoon will also be limited this year. Usually, post September of any year, the inflows are about 25-30 TMC. We don’t see it happening this time. But we don’t have enough data to predict.

What's for Karnataka for rest of 2016 and first half of 2017? It is going to be a very tough year at this side of Karnataka. Farmers are already ditched for 2016. Drinking water might be barely sustained at the current storage levels, for the next 9 months. See above graphs and inflow analysis.

Vinay says that Tamil Nadu gets two monsoons and has better groundwater than Karnataka. Some people are disputing this two monsoon theory, but what Vinay means is that Tamil Nadu gets both South West and North East monsoons. Remember Chennai floods in 2015? That was the North East Monsoon season.

After reading this analysis, it became very clear why Karnataka farmers and Kaveri delta drinking water users, are absolutely outraged at the current situation of draining the remaining precious water from dams. Every TV channel in Karnataka is saying the same thing - We have no drinking water.. why are we being forced to leave the remaining water for growing 2nd crop in Tamil Nadu? Drinking water takes precedence over everything else when it comes to human needs.

Any Suggestion for Politicians of TN and KA? The two states need to demonstrate better sense than landing in court every time there is a distress. Lack of sagacity is the problem. For those who say the Supreme Court would have ‘looked’ at the data and come to the conclusion, Vinay says, he does not know. These graphs don’t seem to suggest so…

There is more in the data, but Vinay says that he will take it up on some other day. Vinay got all these data using a simple python program… shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes for a programmer to write.

Let's stop here, hoping wisdom prevails all around. I don't think a blog or set of tweets can change politics, courts or tribunal happenings, but this is only meant for common people like you and me, to understand the dire situation in Karnataka today.

Source of Data for Karnataka's dams and water levels: https://www.ksndmc.org/Reservoir_Details.aspx

I wish I could find similar data on Tamil Nadu's dams starting with Mettur for September 2016, to see how good or bad the situation is for Tamil Nadu farmers. Again, if you have similar data from TN, please do share.

Thanks again, Mr. Vinay for a classic analysis.

It is about 32 hours since the attack on Uri army camp in India, by Pakistani terrorists. There is tremendous amount of anger in India, specifically in the sections of society which I normally don't see overreact on social media.

This was the front page of paper at my home - "We have had enough!"

Front page of New Indian Xpress, the day after Uri Attack

The overwhelming majority are screaming - Dear Prime Minister.. do something. do quickly..

That "do" can be full fledged war.
It can be economic blockade.
It can be water stoppage for Sindhu and five rivers of Punjab going into Pakistan.
It can be surgical strikes inside Pakistan like India did inside Myanmar last year.
It can be as many as there are opinions on social media, papers and TV.

But the big question is.. Can India attack Pakistan this week?

I am sure there is military will power.
I am sure there would be enough political will power.
I am sure India has plenty of financial cushion to do this. (Pakistan's GDP is smaller than just one state's in India - Maharashtra)
I am sure internally there won't be much opposition to India for a small scale surgical strike.

But still.. 69 years of handling of Jammu and Kashmir by India is something we have to look at right now. Can India afford to hit Pakistan where it hurts the most, for Pakistan's obsession with Jihadi terror export all these decades?

While I was looking for some pragmatic answers, amidst very loud war cries that I see in press, TV and social media, I happened to see this tweet set. A very thoughtful set of tweets by the user @vadakkus. From here onward, I am merely reproducing the fantastic probing analysis done by @vadakkus, with very little info from my side. Read it fully and then comment on what Indian government can do, should do, and most importantly, when to do. Vadakkus starts off a tweet storm on the entire Pakistan - India fiasco. There is more than what meets the eye here. And issue is NOT Kashmir. It also does not look like anything to do with Islam, Separatism, Human Rights, Army, AFSPA, Track 2 negotiation and many other things we hear on TV.

It is must deeper than that.. Geo politics!

Why is Pakistan obsessed with Kashmir? I have always wondered what makes Kashmir so attractive to Pakistan, that they are willing to keep the issue burning forever. What IS there?
{Prem Shekhar, a well known Kannada columnist informed a few weeks that Pakistan had even offered to give up East Pakistan in 1950s, in return for Jammu and Kashmir on the sidelines of official discussions with India! So definitely it is not religion or Kashmiris.. it is much deeper than that. It was water sources then, but now much more deeper...}

Why is India so reluctant to hit back at Pakistan? Also why does India always seem to be unable to retaliate to Pakistan in kind (it should, totally) and pussyfoots around Pakistan, despite all the atrocities it commits in India from daily incursions in Kashmir to the Mumbai attacks. They spend too much money on all this and the country, despite no visible revenue-generating industry (terrorism no revenue) has managed to survive until today, develop nukes and has so much international clout? Where does it get its money from? Why?? Why is India reluctant to strike? There must be reasons.

Yes, water is an issue. The Indus and its tributaries. But where do they get money to keep the issue alive? There is more to this than water. Today, someone told me about this thing and I was stumped about how bloody obvious this is, and even then, NOBODY in India talks about this!

It is China... stupid.. It is China and CPEC: The "thing" is the CPEC: China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. If you look at it closely suddenly everything falls into place. Kashmir, Balochistan, India's unwillingness to strike, silence of international community, everything else. Pakistan is just a front.

The real sponsor is hiding behind.

Maybe it is because Indian method of viewing everything in black & white. Pakistan sponsors terrorism to get Kashmir. It is not that simple. Pakistan kept the Kashmir flame burning until the 1990s to meet their ends, when China conceived the CPEC and decided to take over. A bit on the CPEC as no one seems to have heard about it. China has a huge geographic handicap: no access to southern world oceans.

So Chinese shipments from Europe, Middle East, Africa have to travel all the way around India, Malacca and ASEAN. China has serious problems with most countries in that region due to its aggressive military posture.

CPEC Need. Source - Twitter. Please excuse since J&K map is not as per India's standards.

Why Pakistan is so important for Chinese economy? What if China could get a route through Pakistan to access the Arabian Sea? That line in blue. Look at it, so much distance, money saved! That, is the CPEC. A corridor of highways and railways will run from Kashgar in China to Gwadar in Pakistan (Baluchistan) on the Arabian sea near Iran border. And ALL the infrastructure and associated stuff for CPEC will be constructed for Pakistan by China, free or cost or for negligible loans.

What is CPEC?Four Six-lane Expressways from north to south Pakistan, four different routes. All main railway lines being upgraded to 160 kph double. A six to eight lane super expressway Karachi to Gwadar and Hyderabad Innumerable coal, thermal, solar and hydro power plants all across Pakistan. All of Gwadar, including a mega international airport! Then Hospitals, schools, colleges, tech institutes, even a Metro line in Lahore!

And of course, the capstone: reconstruction of the Karakoram highway to six to four lanes. All projects listed here. Click, zoom and read.

CPEC Map. Source Twitter.Please excuse since J&K map is not as per India's standards.

But why is Jammu and Kashmir involved here? Now, on the Karakoram highway, this is where it matters most for India. It connects China and Pakistan, though India! Through Jammu and Kashmir, which legally acceded to India in 1947 October. This is a route map of the Karakoram highway (grey). Look at the top, inside the red circle. It is Gilgit Baltistan area of Jammu and Kashmir state, which legally belongs to India, but illegally occupied by Pakistan. Keep in mind, China also occupies illegally the eastern and northern part of Jammu and Kashmir - Shaksgam valley (gifted by Pakistan in 1960s) and Aksai Chin (occupied by China in 1950s when it annexed Tibet).

Karakoram highway location. Map from Wiki.Not per India's J&K map standards.

The highway passes through Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The red line is the LOC. Pakistan and China are connected through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK for short). Pakistan calls this Gilgit-Baltistan area of Jammu and Kashmir, as Northern Territories sometimes.

More on Karakoram highway: Soon to be a 4/6 lane highway through some of the world's toughest terrain. A high-capacity highway across the Himalayas!

Now, though the CPEC is a recent thing, the idea had taken birth long back. The Karakoram highway started building in 1959, opened in 1979! Possibly Pakistan had refused China access to Gwadar then as they could. But now they have no other choice but hand over to China.

Why CPEC?OIL: Gwadar is just 400 km away from Muscat and 500 from the Strait of Hormuz through which all Gulf oil passes. 12 hours at sea! Proximity to Africa: China virtually owns much of Africa today. Billions in investment, buys natural resources. Nothing better than this. Pakistan as a market: China will flood Pakistan and Gulf with its cheap products and make a windfall there too. Proximity to new friend Sri Lanka.If USA/UK (control Malacca strait - Singapore) or India in Indian ocean decide to choke it, China will have no problem as it has CPEC.

But, all of CPEC and China's ambitions bearing fruit depends on the Karakoram highway. That depends on PoK continued to be occupied by Pakistan.

Money Involved: With the CPEC, China has sunk close to 50 BILLION Dollars in Pakistan. Of course, China gets free access to all this infrastructure in Pakistan. With this, 20% of Pakistan's GDP is now Chinese. China has Pakistan now firmly by the b***s, so much so that Pakistan can now be China's 24th province. With so much invested and at stake, China wouldn't even think twice about ruthlessly suppressing any attack on Pakistan, because they own it now.

Doesn't India know all this? Of course India knows all this. If we were to attack Pakistan, we would have to deal with China. Pakistan is small fry. China is not.

Who would side with India? Mostly nobody. Why? Because China is involved. How international geopolitics work, most don't get that either. USA wants to support us because China makes it nervous. But US corporations are over invested in China, so Uncle Sam will look the other way. Russia - Don't even think about it. Putin has enough troubles at home, and India's pandering to Obama hasn't got him amused. Europe will sit just and watch (because China), and all of the Middle East will (clandestinely) support Pakistan for obvious reasons (Islam).

People think alliances between countries are forget like high school friendships - on emotional grounds of some sort - No. Not at all. International friendships are always based on "how can I benefit by allying", "what terrible can this guy do to me if I don't ally".

So, India will left out cold if it were to as much as touch Pakistan. We will mostly have to take on BOTH Pakistan and China. Mostly. Can India take on both Pakistan and China alone? From two (or three) flanks? We are surrounded by China's friends. What do we do? Dunno.

A bit more on the Karakoram highway: 1962, remember? What if the Chinese were testing the Indian waters before building the highway? China could've walked through India. Still, they withdrew. They were only testing India's resolve to defend PoK if it came to that. We have all but written off PoK. All Wikipedia articles tell all of PoK as "Pakistan". Not Pakistan administered", but Pakistan. Hurts :(

Here is the Khunjerab Pass (PoK): the "top" of India, the border between India and China, but now Pakistan.

A sign in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir - Source Twitter

Here is the Karakoram highway near Gilgit in India (PoK) and under construction somewhere in the mountains. It should be obvious by now that China does NOT want India to reclaim its land lost to Pakistan in 1947 and 1948 - the strategic Karakoram ranges in Gilgit-Baltistan area of Jammu and Kashmir. It is as simply as that!

Karakoram Highway in PoK part of Jammu and Kashmir state. Pics - Twitter

Here is the entire map of the Karakoram Highway from Kashgar to Rawalpindi. Look where all it passes through.

Karakoram highway map. Source - Twitter

China owns Pakistan for most part today: CPEC and all associated stuff are called "China-Pakistan Friendship" something or the other. No friendship there. Just Chinese business. China is not doing business with Pakistan. It is running its business in Pakistan. It is running Pakistan. China pays for protection. If things get push to shove, China can tell US: "We will nationalize your businesses if you don't tell India to withdraw". What will we do?

What we should first realize is that there is no Pakistan. There is only China. Pakistan is just a front. We should deal accordingly. It is in China's interest to keep Kashmir burning. If there is peace in the valley, India MIGHT set its eyes on PoK. Chinese know that India has a strong Prime Minister today who can think of that. China does not want India to even think of getting PoK back. Of course, China did not light the Kashmir fire, but it certainly looks like it is them who keeps it burning that no consensus is reached. So, in addition to water, religion, ego, demographics and so on there is one more reason behind the Kashmir unrest: China and CPEC.

Is dialogue with Pakistan sensible? It is utter foolishness to think that in such a case we can resolve this through dialogue! We talk one thing while issue is another! Issue is NOT what we think is the issue! We and our govt should first understand this. I am sure they have. Hopefully they aren't helpless. China is waging a proxy-proxy-deceptive war which we cannot understand or prove or blame. We need to mobilize some other way.

War with Pakistan? Vadakkus said at the end - I am not generally not a warmonger, but this has gone too far. We should strike. Do something. I only wish something be done about those 17 Indian soldiers who were killed without any provocation. They didn't have to die. Take on both China and Pakistan. Maybe. Can we? I don't know what we should do. Hopefully our hands aren't tied and someone is coming up with a plan to hit them. Hopefully.

Baluchistan's role: Why Pakistan got all worked up when India raised Balochistan? Gwadar is in Balochistan. Much of CPEC infra passes through Balochistan. The CPEC is China's hope at lifting its sagging economy and securing its strategic position in the region. Its future maybe depends on it. Karakoram- Hindukush- Pamir region since ancient times been strategically sensitive. The Silk Road. China wants control of the new Silk Road. If India were to take PoK we would squeeze the Karakoram Highway shut. No more CPEC, Silk Road. China done for. That is the whole game. Highways are primary military conduits rather than civilian. Whoever controls the highway controls the region.

Ultimately.. Pakistan's ultimate aim is to establish an Islamic caliphate. Apart from this China helps them through CPEC. You might disagree with Modi et al but please support the govt right now in whatever action it takes. Politicking can wait. Wait two more months before taking any harsh decisions. Things might change post November.

What do you think India should do now, after reading this fully?

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