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Special Parliament Session to debate the path to a poverty free India

Friends, Indians, Countrymen!

This is not another email that asks you to forward it for an ISP, continents away, to give pittance of its mammoth revenue to someone who suffers in US. This is not something that promises you that a cup of staple food would be delivered to some unknown sufferer if you click on some website regularly.

We have a lot of questions and we ask them, when it comes to our money. But we fail to ask those same incisive questions when it comes to spending of public money, and let our fellow citizens suffer and resign our nation to false fate. Some bootlegger somewhere loots our money and lavishes it on extraordinary and inhuman luxuries, while the deserving people suffer without food. This happens in our nation which boasts quite a few of it making to the Forbes list of the world's wealthy people. Yet, around 40% of our fellows are on the negative side of the economic growth.

Haves continue to have more, but have-nots continue have less. We have our politicians, we trusted them with our votes, stall the business of Parliament for their want of 300% hike in pay and perks. But none seems to bother about the sufferers and to discuss their sorry state of affairs and what could be done better to get them a life worth living.

It is a nice initiative by Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekar of an e-campaign for a special session of Parliament to strictly discuss only the poverty and measures to tame that, so that the human basics of food, clothing and shelter don't continue to remain key electoral issues even after 6 decades of independence aka self-rule.

An extract from Mr. Rajeev's web post is given hereunder.

If the Parliament can be convened specially to hear President Obama of America, surely we can also convene a special session to discuss National Priority issues like Poverty.

So, if you agree with this idea of special sessions of Parliament that will focus on ‘National Priority issues’ – write a letter or email to the Vice President vpindia@nic.in and/or Speaker of Lok Sabha speakerloksabha@sansad.nic.in or Prime Minister manmohan@sansad.nic.in and copy me rajeev.c@nic.in on it so I can get a sense as well of how many of us really want this focus to start. I can think of many ways of service to the country – this is one real way of serving by getting all of us to focus on creating a Poverty and destitution less India!

This is the link of Mr. Rajeev's website. 
Special Parliament Session to debate the path to a poverty free India

Please type a mail and help the attempt to change the type of our politics. My special thanks to Mr. Shanthnu of http://Satyameva-Jayate.org for bringing this to many friends' notice.
Vande Maatharam!

Aradhana of H.H.Chandrashekara Bharathi III

On the morning of Thursday the 7th of October 2010, my uncle Mr. Mee.Viswanathan, a Tamil poet and a staunch devotee of the Sringeri Acharya called me to give kudos for the Navarathri Invitation that I had earlier downloaded from Sringeri mutt's website and sent to him. He told me that the Aradhana of H.H.Chandrashekara Bharathi III was on that day. I got curious. My learned friends have told me about the much respected Guru, but I needed more info. So, googled about Him and found a lot of interesting and thought provoking stuff.

Although I'm not qualified either through readings or through followings to lecture about the Acharya lineage, I still prefer to do so. Pardon the adhikaprasangam, please.

Chandrashekhara Bharati Swaminah the saint who was spiritually liberated while being alive (Jeevanmukhtha), was specially remembered on Thursday, the day of Mahalaya Amavasya. A notable feature of his life was that his birth, upanayanam, sannyasa and videha mukti (death), all happened on Sundays the day of the universal enlightener, the provider of light. In 1912, Acharya Sacchidananda Shivabhinava Narasimha Bharati Swaminah decided to name Narasimha Sastri (as he was named by his parents) as his successor to the Sharada Peetham. Before Narasimha could arrive in Sringeri, the Acharya had attained Videha Mukti.


The Swami performed the Mahakumbhabhishekam of the Sri Sharadha Temple in Sringeri in 1916. After returning to Sringeri from his 3 years' dhigvijayam from 1924 - 1927, the Mahaswami assumed the Avadhuta Sthiti.  He was absorbed in the inward bliss of the Atma. To enable himself to spend more time in meditation and contemplation of the Self, he named a successor to the Peetham: a boy named Srinivasa Sastri. On May 22, 1931, he initiated Srinivasa Sastri into Sannyasa and gave him the yoga patta of Abhinava Vidyatirtha.

After 1945, the Mahaswami gradually withdrew from all activities. On September 26, 1954 (the day of the Mahalaya Amavasya festival), the Mahaswami took a bath in the Tunga River, which ran in Sringeri. Afterwards, he sat in padmasana posture and attained Videha Mukti on the banks of the river. His body was discovered floating in the river. The Jagadguru's body was then interred by Sri Abhinava Vidyatirtha, his successor to the Sharada Peetham. His body was buried beside his Guru's samadhi (shrine) and a samadhi was constructed for him. A Shiva Linga was consecrated over it. It is worshipped today and is called Sri Chandrashekhara Bharati Linga.

Chandrashekhara Bharati Swaminah composed a few poems and wrote a famous commentary. His main works are:

• Gururaja Sukti Malika containing 36 compositions in about 400 pages. Printed in Sanskrit and Tamil
• Bhashya (commentary) on Vivekachoodamani of Sri Adi Shankaracharya

Jagadguru advocates that an individual must not merely see a guru often and hear his teachings, but imbibe the good habits the guru suggests and follow in their own life. They are:

• Satvic habits which include vegetarianism, cleanliness, discipline.
• Regular Sandhyavandhanam and development of piety.
• Giving significance to learning and knowledge.
• Good behaviour, honesty, generosity, and adherence to scriptures.
• Love, respect, and responsibility towards family and community.
• Doing away with pride and ego.

I got a chance by His grace to pay homage at the Sringeri Mutt to the much celebrated, most revered Guru H.H.Chandrashekara Bharathi III.
I wanted to boast this in front of the world, but that would suffice only a tweet. So, found and keyed a lot of information, which I would love to but face stiff challenges in following. Yathaartham Vadaami!!

Faith, Belief and Legality

One of  the prime criticisms of the Ram Janma Bhoomi verdict was the basis for the conclusion of the birth place of Lord Ram. The court has decreed that the centuries old belief of the people of India and during the later centuries of the Hindus has to be accepted and upheld. By abstract legal terms, the conclusion of the Ram Janma Bhoomi was not asked for,  so the court has over stepped. But yet to justify the decision on the title suit, the court has to go into details so that the judgment could stand on firm legal grounds, supported by reason.

The argument that any claim based on faith or belief could not become legal unless concrete, solid facts are presented, is legally untenable. Many facts based on faith and belief without solid proofs are accepted by the courts with full legality. When someone is called for as a witness or as a plaintiff/defendant, his/her father's name is asked for. That is a fact everyone in this world believes purely based on faith, and asking for a solid proof of that fact would attract angry response and reaction from the person concerned and also from the bench. Such a query may be considered as insulting, unless the matter under the court's inquiry is that.

Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. It is confidence or trust in a person or thing, belief that is not based on proof, belief in god or in the doctrines or teachings of religion, belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc., a system of religious belief (Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam etc), the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc., the observance of the obligation, fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.

So, criticizing faith and belief based judgments would question the very existence of humans in the world. We're trusting a certificate given by Government authorities, as we believe that would help us in identifying ourselves. No one questions the identification given by the Government because of the belief in the established system, though we have regular complaints about how the system is violated and failed.

If we keep asking for solid proof for everything in the world, we could not even say the direction the Sun rises is East as we don't have solid proof for that. Ancestors said so, we believe so. Do we have a certificate from any authority that Sun rises only in the East? Then why trust it? As it is a rotating object, what is the proof that it regularly rises in the East and sets in the West?


Well, a legal point now to ponder for a while.

When the issue reaches the Supreme Court, legal eagles opine, the 1940 verdict in Lahore Gurdwara case would play a key role in deciding Ayodhya dispute. The gurdwara case was decided based on the doctrine of adverse possession, which says a rightful owner of a property can lose his title over the property if another person occupies it for a particular period without being challenged. But that too could not be applied to the Ram Janma Bhoomi case as the facts of the two cases differ a lot.

The gurdwara was built in the 18th century after razing to ground a mosque. Decades later, the Muslims sought possession of the land on which their mosque once stood, by filing a suit. After getting verdict against their claim in various tribunals, they went to the Lahore High Court. Lahore High Court also, by a majority decision, dismissed their claim over the land. The Privy Council, then apex judicial body of British legal system, finally put its seal on the rights of the Sikhs to have the gurdwara on that land, upholding the decisions based onthe doctrine of adverse possession. 

A blind following of the Privy council's decision would not suit the Janma Bhoomi case, as the historic facts those form the basis of the claim of the Hindu people for the Ram Janma Bhoomi and the claim of the Muslims on the Lahore Gurdwara have vast differences. The said mosque was dazed down during the 1800s and a Gurdwara was built on that. There was a legal system established by the British for contentious issues to be redressed. They would not be averse to hearing both the sides before pronouncing judgments, as long as the case was not about any anti-imperial activity. Even in anti-imperial activity related cases, the arguments of the defendants would be heard and recorded but would not be accepted on the grounds of antiestablishmentarianism.

But when Ram Mandir was demolished to build an Islamic looking structure (legally concluded that the structure was not built as per the Sharia regulations for a mosque) or as by Justice Khan's dictum there were ruins of a temple where the disputed structure was built, or as per the twisted and tainted version of the judgment by Burkha Dutt of NDTV  that the Islamic looking structure was constructed upon some temple, general temple but not Ram temple, there was no established legal system to try the demolishing or building on ruins complaints, since the Hindus were under aggression and their very way of life was thrashed, culture flagellated, religion asphyxiated, whereas the Sharia Law of those invaders would term blasphemy any complaint against building of that Islamic looking structure. This was the situation during the medieval in Hindustan aka India i.e Bharath.

If taken in this undistorted historic context of no proper authority to try the case and deliver justice at the time of the crime, the time limitation cited by the Privy Council would not fit into the fabric of this case. So, the argument that no faith on a faith based judgment is imbecilic and the argument of untimeliness citing the Privy Council verdict is illogical.

Vande Matharam, Hey Ram!

The Ram Janma Bhoomi is legally declared as Ram Janma Bhoomi. The much awaited conclusion on the 60 year old legal tussle has arrived. But there are some points those pave way for a further probably protracted legal battle. The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad (Prayag) High Court, has given a majority verdict that the land has to be trifurcated and shared between 3 of the parties to the litigation. Incidentally, two of the parties to the litigation are Hindus who support building of temple at the Janma Bhoomi. So, effectively, Hindu people have got 2/3 of the land and the Muslims 1/3.

Going into the verdict from a common man's view, the first question is why the land is divided when none of the parties to the litigation have asked for it? Is it Judicial activism to cool down all concerned? Or has the chronic national ailment of appeasement caught up with the Judiciary also? A simple example would help in understanding the frustration the verdict has created. My grandpa owned a piece of land that was occupied by someone using brute force. I filed a lawsuit and got a verdict that part of my grandpa's land has to be given to the occupier's heirs. I feel ditched by the court although I got a major part of my ancestral property.

The legal question is when the title of the land was awarded to Hindus unanimously, why a part of land has to go to a group which has been pronounced ineligible to claim title of the land. How can a group possess a property to which it has no title? If they possess a part of the land entitled to Hindus what would be their status? What are the terms of possession? Would they be tenants? Interestingly, Justice D V Sharma, registered a dissenting note, saying the entire land belonged to Hindus.


One of the anonymous senior lawyers, not associated with either side on this case, opined in the media, that the High Court has, in fact, forced the contesting parties to reach a compromise or be disappointed after the Supreme Court decides the matter on appeals. This makes one wonder on the job description of the courts of law in India. Hasn't the court delivered a verdict in this issue? Why should that be viewed as a suggestion for both parties to talk further and decide? These kind of insinuatory interpretations would further complicate the already prolonged legal issue.

The issue is set to go to Supreme Court. But the Government of India seems to take the side of the minority community since lump-sum votes matter. Home Minister of GoI P.Chidambaram stated that this verdict doesn't justify the demolition of the Babri Masjid. When the demolition of the disputed structure in 1992 and the title suit of the Janma Bhoomi are two different legal issues, what is the necessity of referring one while commenting upon the verdict of another by a legal luminary? May be political compulsion, may be vote bank politics or may be the long alleged paradigm shift of the political philosophy of the INC from national unity to minority appeasement.

The opinion of the nation is to accept the verdict of the court of law, build the temple at the Janmasthan and go ahead with economic and human development. Apart from those (politicians and accomplices) who benefited from the criminal communalization of national politics, all else are of the same opinion. Politicians who benefited from Muslim votes on the Janmabhoomi issue call this verdict by all names. But people with sane mind from both religions have advocated peace and respect for the verdict. Let us all share the suggestion of those sane minds and take recourse in the legal course for any further clarifications we need.


Let me quote the man who talked to quell Nazi threat, Sir. Winston Churchill. "It is better to jaw-jaw than war-war". It is high time we stand united and move ahead as a nation that articulates the sentiments of one and all, not only some sections those vote as a lump and hence disturb the tranquil civil life in India that is Bharath.