Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone: Issue #150 - Our milestone; and End of Civility
Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash
“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.” ― Jim Morrison
And, we reach 150 editions of this newsletter.
When this newsletter was started, one had no idea that it could even reach this number. I honestly did not know if I could have so much to share. Where will we get the information or topics? But every day, one looks around, and out of what one reads, one finds things that need to be shared.
Even though one tries his best to not focus on topics that everyone else is talking about, but some topics and events are so fundamental to social change, that one needs to explore them. The fundamental editorial stance, however, has been to not look at things from a rhetorical or run-of-the-mill perspective.
Sometimes one succeeds.
So many times I have wondered if this newsletter is even worth any value for anyone. And, then when some of the readers share their comments (so please do let us know, you have no idea what it means to us!) and some even share their hard-earned money which they can use for many other things, one knows that the hard work is worth it.
Thank you all for reading, sharing, and contributing. The biggest thing we can do is to share with people who will appreciate the content. We don’t want to gather “subscribers”, but readers. Those who value what is shared so it can help us look at ourselves and our heritage in a way that it is worthy of.
British were greater devils than Hitler for the Indians
In his book, An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, Shashi Tharoor explains the atrocities that the British unleashed on India. In one of his columns, Tharoor wrote:
Nor is there any memorial to the massacres of the Raj, from Delhi in 1857 to Amritsar in 1919, the deaths of 35 million Indians in totally unnecessary famines caused by British policy, or the “divide and rule” policy that culminated in the horrors of Partition in 1947 when the British made their shambolic and tragic Brexit from the subcontinent. The lack of such a museum is striking. (Source)
35 million Indians were killed in just the famines. We haven’t talked about the
more than 74000 Indians who died in World War 1
over 87000 who died in World War 2
10 million in the aftermath of the 1857 war of independence* The “exploits” of General Neill are infamous in the annals of history.
Amaresh Misra, a writer and historian based in Mumbai, argues that there was an "untold holocaust" which caused the deaths of almost 10 million people over 10 years beginning in 1857…… Conventional histories have counted only 100,000 Indian soldiers who were slaughtered in savage reprisals, but none have tallied the number of rebels and civilians killed by British forces desperate to impose order, claims Misra. (Source)
$45 trillion equivalent of wealth plundered, upwards of 50 million killed, often brutally - in imperialist battles, by torture, starvation, shooting innocents, and innumerable massacres that have no record - that was the legacy of the British in India!
Someone wants to talk about genocide or holocaust? Well, no other holocaust in the world in the modern era stands close to what the British did to Indians during their imperial rule. That they were not beaten and thrown into the sea while being chased out, was a testimony to the immense tolerance levels of Indians, as opposed to any indication of the virtue that the British bestowed on us!
And, now, in comparison, Hitler killed 6 million Jews during the holocaust.
So when people start throwing out Hitler’s name along with Netaji’s or RSS founders, when they were looking at the usefulness of the German Reich to counter the British, remember that for Indians, the British were far greater devils than Hitler.
If Netaji could use and take the help of Hitler or the Japanese to throw the British - who had carried out an Indian Genocide - out, it was worth it!
And in the end, that is exactly how it played out. Germany and Japan may have lost World War II, and even though Netaji’s Azad Hind lost its war, India won its independence on the back of the stories of Azad Hind Fauj. For, these stories had fueled the Naval and Royal Air Force Mutiny of 1946. (How India got its independence - the real story)
when police hurl bombs at MPs - end of civility in West Bengal
There is a price to be paid for obscene and forced objectivity that is informed only by the need to balance between the devil and humanity.
That is what the people of Bengal have been trying to do for last 50 years in all their wisdom! They have been pretending that devils need as much listening and seat on the table as humanity itself. So, today we are at a point where the state police has taken to hurling bombs at a rally led by an MP of a party that is in opposition to the party in power.
That should not and can not be tolerated. Anyone who even as much as argues or justifies anything about Mamata Bannerjee’s diabolical rule and pathetic existence needs to be pushed back hard.
There is no place for ambiguity in any society where tyrants like Mamata and her mobs are given even an iota of respect.
A procession was carried out by the BJP young MP Tejasvi Surya and the BJP activists to the state secretariat on Thursday. The mass movement and participation that it created was tremendous. The fear in Mamata Bannerjee’s camp was palpable. She sent her law enforcement agencies after them.
The West Police were caught hurling crude bombs and water mixed with chemicals.
Surya, the BJP MP from Bengaluru South, also sought an inquiry by the Union Home Ministry into the blue chemical-laced water that was sprayed on party activists during the rally and termed it a "gross violation of human rights". (Source)
This is what the police are doing in West Bengal. And, yet no one in media talks about that!
The security personnel of one of the BJP leaders was beaten up by the West Bengal police.
Balvinder Singh, a security personnel to BJP leader Priyangu Pandey was beaten by West Bengal police. The police have brutally beaten him and the black and blue marks of lathis are visible on his body. (Source)
If there was ever a time to return the awards by the celebs - this is it!
This cartoon explains the situation perfectly.
Did modern humans and earlier species interact?
Ramayana and Mahabharat are replete with references to human-like beings who were larger than humans. There were two such evolutionary humanoids - Neanderthals and the Denisovans. The question that many have asked is - did the modern humans intermingle with any of these humanoids? Scientific research is now saying yes.
Modern humans arrived in westernmost Europe 41,000 to 38,000 years ago, about 5,000 years earlier than previously known, according to an international team of researchers that discovered stone tools used by modern humans dated to the earlier time period in a cave near the Atlantic coast of central Portugal. The tools document the presence of modern humans at a time when Neanderthals were thought to be present in the region. (Source)
Here is a chart that shows which geographies these species inhabited.
Of the three - Neanderthals, Denisovans, and the modern Homo sapiens, the Denisovans were the biggest.
Denisovans who lived 40,000 years ago, were probably three times the modern homo sapiens. Probably as tall as 18 feet. Please read Denisovans - the 18ft Human Giants for more information)
The neanderthals lived until 40,000 years ago, as per archeological estimates.
The three species did mate together and the DNA traces show that clearly.
Their analysis shows that, in addition to Melanesians, Denisovans contributed DNA to Australian aborigines, a Philippine "Negrito" group called Mamanwa, and several other populations in eastern Southeast Asia and Oceania. However, groups in the west or northwest, including other Negrito groups such as the Onge in the Andaman Islands and the Jehai in Malaysia, as well as mainland East Asians, did not interbreed with Denisovans. Overall, this suggests that Denisovans interbred with modern humans in Southeast Asia at least 44,000 years ago, before the time of the separation of the Australians and New Guineans. (Source)
The Denisovan DNA is present in some aboriginal DNA and not in others. This shows that the inter-species mating happened in only some of the places.
So until how recently did these different homo sapien species remain together?
Roughly 24,000 years ago, our species, Homo sapiens, was not alone in the world — our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, (Homo neanderthalensis) were still alive. The so-called 'hobbit' found in Indonesia might also have been a member of the genus Homo, and it apparently survived until as recently as 12,000 years ago. (Source)
The timeline below is from the tremendous work by Nilesh Oak on the timelining of the Hindu Civilization.
This makes you wonder what were those ‘beings’ that the writers of Ramayana talked about?
Check out this interesting TED talk by Chris Doyle.
nota bene
Serial Fake News Offender: India Today was held guilty of viewership malpractice after show-cause notice, was asked to pay Rs 5,00,000 fine to BARC. Since it was the first offense of India Today, they were left with a warning, and their license was not canceled, however, TV Today Network Limited was made to pay Rs 5,00,000 penalty to BARC. (Source)
Rise of Indian Jihadis in ISIS: The most interesting aspect of the attack by the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) on Jalalabad prison in early August was the roster of fighters involved—a multinational group that included Afghans, Indians, Tajiks, and Pakistanis. The presence of Central Asians and Indians in transnational attacks is a relatively new phenomenon that reflects a shifting pattern in jihadism linked to the Islamic State. (Source)
Navy Surveillance planes for Ladakh: On 9 October, an Open Source Intelligence handle on Twitter, @detresfa, revealed that a P-8I aircraft of the Indian Navy was flying over Himachal Pradesh, possibly headed towards Ladakh, where India and China have been locked in a tense standoff for months now. This wasn’t the only time a P-8I of the navy was used along the land border. The maritime surveillance aircraft, this report says, was also put to use “to keep an eye on the movement of Pakistani troops after the Pulwama terror attack last year”. The P-8Is come equipped with the AN/APY-10 radar, which its maker Raytheon describes as a “maritime, littoral and overland surveillance radar”. As it is clear from the description, the radar can be used to monitor ground movement and is capable of providing data in all weather conditions, both at night and day. (Source)
2 dozen other planets good for life: At least two dozen planets outside the solar system might be better for life than Earth. These planets are just a little older, a little wetter, a little warmer, and a little larger than Earth is, researchers wrote Sept. 18 in the journal Astrobiology. All of these factors could mean that some of these planets are the best places to search for extraterrestrial life. (Source)
Plastic pollution: An estimated 15 million tons (14 million metric tons) of microplastics have settled in the deep ocean, according to a new report by Australia's national science agency. That's more than double the amount of plastic pollution at the ocean's surface. Researchers sampled seafloor sediments in locations hundreds of miles from Australia's coastline, discovering that the quantity of microplastics was far higher than anticipated. (Source)
your liberation is in the liberation of this society
Some creations are done for posterity. Like this Chanakya series by Chandraprakash Dwivedi. His clarity of thought, understanding of spiritual heritage, and sharpness of logic and reasoning are tremendous. Whenever I am unclear on things, his work in this series is where I constantly go back to.
This small scene is about the responsibility of women in society. Those who shape the coming generations. But the sense of being a parent to everyone can be exercised by anyone. If you consider yourself to be a parent to your society, even when you cannot spend any time or money, you can at least include them as part of you in how you respond as a being.
What you are capable of, you do. What you don’t have the means for, you leave that. That is all that is needed for parenting your society. If you don’t do what you cannot do, there is nothing wrong with that. But if you don’t do what you can do, then this life is quite a failure.
समाज की मुक्ति में ही तुम्हारी मुक्ति है
Liberation and freedom is not a zero-sum game. Someone’s loss cannot be my freedom. That is why we work for freedom for the entire society.
Powerful clip this one!
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