Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone: Issue #116 - Tibetan Ninjas; Being worthy of Shivaji!
“Rulers who destroy men's freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. ... They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution
One person posed an interesting question to Sadhguru. She said, "Ramana Maharishi said - to realize, you have to do nothing. Then why,” she continued “do we have to do so many things to realize?”
Sadhguru smiled and explained. Yes, he said that and he was right. But can you really “do nothing” as Sri Ramana did? Can you sit still as he did? He sat at one place and termite hills grew around him, insects started eating him, and ants bit him, but he didn’t move. If you can “do nothing” like him, then yes, nothing is needed. All this that is being asked of you to do, is to get you to a point where you can sit and do nothing.
It is very easy to take words of great beings and wield them willy-nilly. It is quite another to mean them.
Ordinary people should not be allowed to “lift the words” of great beings without adequate preparation and सामर्थ.
It is one thing to say that Krishna asked Arjun to fight, so why can’t I kill my enemies?. Quite another to get humiliated by some idiot even when you know that he won’t budge, but you still want to try to avert the war. Humiliated not once but thrice!
Those who can walk into those situations where your humiliation is imminent, yet you want to try and avert violence should only be allowed to quote Krishna’s ask of Arjun to fight.
It is the same with beings like Shivaji.
Being from the same village or street where Shivaji was born doesn’t give you the right over Shivaji. Remember outside of a handful of people, hardly anyone in Mathura really knew Krishna for who he was. And, he was born there!
Yet, those like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Meera attained to Krishna so many centuries later and so far away.
Krishna belonged more to Meera or Chaitanya than to anyone in Mathura who did not even recognize Him.
Shivaji’s legacy is similar. Maharashtrians who do not recognize Shivaji for exactly who he was and yet brandish their ownership of him are desecrating his memory. They should never be allowed to “lift his name” and throw around the way it is done so shamelessly by people simply they were born in a certain geography!
पहले अपने कर्मों से शिवजी महाराज का नाम लेने का सामर्थ्य तो पैदा करो!
Establishing Hindavi Swarajya in Maharashtra, yet again!
Kangana Ranaut has stirred a hornet’s nest by saying that she is scared to return to Mumbai, specifically after Sushant Singh’s death. And the way the fake avatar of Shiv Sena, the original one is long dead when Balasaheb left, went about raking up the hatred against her, she correctly called Mumbai being governed like Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Just like PoK, Mumbai today has become like a no-go zone for patriotic Indians even when it is a part of India.
It is sad that the fanaticism and fascism of Udhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena are not called out clearly.
They have banned any criticism of the Uddhav Thackeray government. Imagine if such an order was passed by any BJP government?
The Mumbai police commissioner has on May 23rd, 2020 issued prohibitory orders under section 144 of the CrPC, valid through 00.15 hours on 25th May 2020 and ending at 24 hours on 8th June 2020, prohibiting any kind of ‘online hate’ on various social media platforms like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc. Essentially, the order also indirectly bans all criticism of the Maharashtra government led by Uddhhav Thackeray as one of the clauses in the prohibitory order says that messages that incite “mistrust towards government functionaries and their actions taken to control Covid-19” will also be acted against. (Source)
This kind of government tries to claim the ownership of the heritage of Shivaji, one of the greatest fighters that India has ever seen.
In a beautiful Shabad (Sikh spiritual bhajan), Bhai Chaman Lal Ji, asks an interesting question: “Nanak kis da?” (Who does Nanak belong to?) and then he goes on to answer his own question in the most beautiful way - “Jo Nanak da!” (whoever belongs to Nanak)
Beings like Shivaji are not owned by the haughty but reside in those who have submitted to them.
Just like Prahalad said in Yoga Vasistha, that worshipping Vishnu without being Vishnu is useless. Because, any other act - other than reaching the consciousness of the isht - is deception.
Ram or Shiva cannot be claimed to be owned by people who just treat them as entertainment. They reside in those who have fully submitted to them.
You cannot own Shiva. You can only become Him.
Similarly, you cannot own Shivaji. You can only become Him.
That is how you commemorate his name. And, in that, you can humbly be part of the heritage that he left for humanity.
Fighting fearlessly by destabilizing the fascist powers to restore justice and Truth is the consciousness that Shivaji represented.
Ruthlessly fighting the evil, while being extremely respectful of the feminine and women, was his hallmark.
When Sanjay Raut called Kangana “haramkhor”, he insulted the soil where Shivaji had walked and given his life for. Raut, Thackerays, Deshmukh, and Shiv Sena are demeaning and butchering Shivaji’s legacy in a way that even Aurangzeb could not.
The time for such misogynist, adharmic, fascist, and slanderers of Shivaji’s heritage is over. They themselves have become caricatures.
Jijabai, Shivaji Maharaj’s mother, singlehandedly created the phenomenon that he was. The phenomenon that the Marathas under Shivaji became, owed a great deal to Maharani Jijabai’s indomitable spirit and power.
That amazing feminine grace and power remained the strength and representation of divinity for Shivaji his whole life.
It is that feminine divinity that Shiv Sena is now desecrating.
Beings like Shivaji are not saleable properties that anyone can simply buy or usurp. They deserve our highest self. If we cannot raise ourselves to a point where we can do justice to his heritage, we should refrain from even taking his name.
Yes, Shivaji was from Maharashtra, but his oath at the famous Raireshwar temple was to establish Hindavi Swarajya (not Maratha Swarajya). That is what Shiv Sena is dismantling today!
Let the youth in Maharashtra go to the Raireshwar temple once again and take another oath, this time to uproot these usurpers and butchers of the heritage of Shivaji Maharaj and establish the Hindavi Swarajya yet again.
The Hindavi Swarajya has to be established yet again. And its beginning needs to be from Maharashtra itself!
Voice of the Tigress
These few tweets of Kangana show that she understands the legacy of Shivaji Maharaj more than most Marathis do today, unfortunately.
Vivek Agnihotri explains the right of Kangana Ranaut versus the fascist ways of the Shiv Sena government very succinctly.
the Special Frontier Force - of Tibetan Ninjas
On 14 November 1962, a Special Frontier Force was created with the aim of thwarting any future attempts by the Chinese. The aim was to hit the Chinese behind the enemy lines. Maj. Gen. Sujan Singh Uban, who had commanded the 22nd Mountain Division as an artillery officer in Europe during World War II, became its first Inspector General.
Uban was a legendary figure who had won a Military Cross for his battles.
This secretive and special force was put under the control of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) as opposed to the Indian Army.
General Thimayya had first proposed using the Tibetans who had escaped the Chinese atrocities in a special force due to their physical acclimation at high altitudes, especially in the event of a war against China. Nehru and Krishna Menon shot it down.
However, after 1962, by some hectic lobbying by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) Chief Bhola Nath Mullick and Biju Patnaik (father of Naveen Patnaik), this force was created.
The force consists of members of a special Tibetan group - Khampas - who are legendary warriors. They are the ones who ensured that Dalai Lama made it safely to India. And after that, they single-handedly, mostly without weapons, fought against the Chinese.
The initial strength of 5000 was trained at the Mountain Training Facility at Chakrata, Dehradun. They are the main force that has the responsibility of conducting clandestine intelligence gathering and commando operations in the entire Chinese LAC areas.
The SFF was instrumental in many battles in the 1971 war, the insurgency operations in North East, and also in the recent battles in Ladakh.
During the recent battle on Aug 29/30th night, one of the Tibetan Ninjas, as they are often referred to, was martyred. Here is one of the Tibetans living in India paying tribute to Nyima Tensing, the leader of the SFF who gave his all to the defense of India, his adopted land.
It is tough to find credible and useful information on SFF anywhere. Simply because its existence is also not admitted by the Army or the government. But it is there.
What may have irked the Chinese in the recent battles is that Tibetans, whom the Chinese want to finish, are the ones who became game-changers in their clash with India.
Please do bow down to the courage, sacrifice, and contributions of the Tibetan Ninjas.
nota bene
US change to H1-B Visa: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will propose to revise the definition of specialty occupation to increase focus on obtaining the best and the brightest foreign nationals via the H-1B program, and revise the definition of employment and employer-employee relationship to better protect U.S. workers and wages. (Source)
China’s Food crisis: China has a difficult task to feed its population - feed 22 percent of the world population with only 07 percent of the global arable land. There are 334 million acres of arable land, of which roughly 37 million acres are noncultivable. Since 1949, China lost one-fifth of its arable land to urbanization and industrialization and currently, only about 10 to 15 percent of the land is left good for agriculture (compared to 1 percent in Saudi Arabia, 50 percent in India, 20 percent in the United States, and 32 percent in France). (Source)
IIT Students’ Recruiting woes: With recruiters rescinding offers and delaying joining dates owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, the graduating batch of students from various Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) is facing an unprecedented situation. Students of IIT-Madras are among the worst-affected, as almost eight companies withdrew as many as 28 job offers during the lockdown. (Source)
Mysterious Holes: A Russian TV crew flying over the Siberian tundra this summer spotted a massive crater 30 meters (100 feet) deep and 20 meters wide -- striking in its size, symmetry, and the explosive force of nature that it must have taken to have created it. Scientists are not sure exactly how the huge hole, which is at least the ninth spotted in the region since 2013, formed. Initial theories floated when the first crater was discovered near an oil and gas field in the Yamal Peninsula in northwest Siberia included a meteorite impact, a UFO landing, and the collapse of a secret underground military storage facility. (Source)
Why are Indians more successful than the Chinese?
A trend that I have also observed in the US what Yusen Zhang also brings up. That despite the fact that Chinese outnumber Indians in the US Colleges, the Indians completely outnumber the Chinese in the H1-B visas.
One of the things that Yusen discusses is how the Chinese return home for success. Part of that has been because of the tremendous economy there as well. It made more sense to go back home.
Personally, I have very high respect for the Chinese people.
I have been to Shanghai and I fell in love with the Chinese people there. Common men and women are very courteous, nice, friendly, and helpful.
I remember taking a cab from the hotel to the office and for some reason, the cab driver over-shot the destination and therefore had to come back. No big deal in my view. But he was very upset with himself and decided to only charge me for the exact distance. He didn’t seem very rich to me, but his honesty was humbling.
And in my company, I would sometimes work with the offshore team in India and sometimes in Shanghai. I used to prefer the latter. Why? Because of their sense of responsibility. They were always on the top of their work and would complete on time. Even when only one person would understand what I was saying in our conference call (because of English comprehension limitation). On the other hand, the Indian team was cavalier and had to be pushed and reminded to get the work finished. The availability of jobs in the Indian tech sector and the rate of attrition also didn’t help the matters. It was literally like that guy would go the floor below and get a better offer from another company if he didn’t like the project.
That is why there seems to be a remarkable disconnect between the ways of the Chinese people and that of China’s establishment.
Yusen discusses the limitations that the Chinese experience very honestly. I find it a must-watch.
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