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Your Voice
www.abplgroup.com - Asian Voice 20th July 2013
Concept of karma
Caste confusion
India Tossed the Coin
Dinesh Sheth, Christians/Muslims do believe in karma but in pragmatic manner, discarding essential profound, spiritual and divine ramifications. Their proverbs say- “day of judgement”, “reconcile with father in heaven” “man cannot live by bread alone”, “reap as you sow”, “do as you would be done by”, “sow wild oats etc”, “neki kar darya me dal-equivalent to karmanye vadhi karastey(Gita)” etc. Also note, life of honesty, simplicity, piousness, penance and penalties is not waste. Hindu teachings propounded thousands of years before Christ / Mohammad, were/are meant to stabilise ones attitude during prosperity/suffering; a cushion of philosophy which appears to be unprovable mumbo jumbo, is essential to tread middle path. These teachings appear dormant to non-Hindus because after being taught by Hindu saints and sages, nobodyHindus/non-Hindus-bothered to enquire, test, question, prove with credible and scientific evidence. Modern Hindus should have tried to prove concept of karma by psychology, parapsychology, hypnosis, mesmerism etc to plumb depths of time/consciousness. Yet civilisation, having Indic roots/ Indo-European interaction, has subliminally absorbed the concept of karma. Please also note concepts of karma were propounded in era and environs of no competition or threat from other religious/ spiritual philosophies prevalent at that time. All commoners and rulers were preoccupied with their vocations and accepted teachings full Monty. But Christianity and Islam arose after and with conflict and struggle for survival. Therefore their teachers shed ethereal and impalpable portion as per needs to survive. Humans rose from Hindu world of dream, vision and utopia, into world of modern technology.
While I share Arunji’s sentiments pertaining to caste discrimination and his admirable knowledge of Tamilnadu politics, his summary and comparisons to this country is so often irrelevant and misleading, akin to appeasement and weasel words. His blanket statement that Hindus, apart from the South, use the caste as surnames is an uneducated guess, entirely misleading and confusing in the extreme. I understand Narendra Modi emerges from schedule caste while surname Modi is common amongst allegedly higher caste of Brahmin and Vanik. Surnames Patel, Shah and Gandhi even crosses religious divide, having friends with such surnames back at home who were Shia Ithna-Asheri Muslims, as well as Jains and Parsis. Hindu surnames like Lila, Lalji, Lakhani, Mawji and Premji are common amongst Ismali Muslims, followers of Aga Khan. Caste system may be deep rooted in Tamilnadu but how passing legislation in this country could help people of Tamilnadu is beyond my comprehension? India has passed tons of legislation on castism, dowry, child marriage and such evils practices without much success. Surely Arunji is living in a bunker of despair rather than enlightened Hindu society that we experience. Education is the answer, as proved by our younger generation, as castism was the norm in marriages in sixties while it is as dead as dodo among Indians. Our youngsters do not even know their own caste, let alone of their partners. So let us concentrate on issues pertaining to this country, such as terrorism, child grooming, sex exploitation, education and NHS that affect us directly.
Eleven year old Pinki Sonkar from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh in India flipped the coin at the men’s Singles Final in lawn tennis on 7 July and marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Wimbledon. Perhaps it removed the jinx which had been hovering over British tennis players for 77 years, since Fred Perry lifted the cup, and Andy Murray of Great Britain won the men’s singles title after beating the reining champion, in three straight sets. It was a pleasure to watch the two titans where neither would let go of a single point without struggle. Besides the prize money of £1.6 million, Andy Murray will earn much more in sponsorship money and a title of knighthood would most certainly be bestowed upon him by the Queen. 17.3 million People watched the match on TV which was attended by the PM and the Scottish first minister. One wonders whether Pinki or the cause for which she is an ambassador will be rewarded by the Lawn Tennis Association for being the one to bring luck to GB tennis! Apart from a few attempts at Wimbledon by Anand Amritraj and Ramnathan Krishnan followed by Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhuppathi and Sania Mirza, India seems to have lost interest in this sport. Otherwise in a population of 1.21 billion people, why India has not been able to produce more people taking part in the game of tennis and representing us Indians at Wimbledon? Would it be that tennis is an expensive game and not many people could afford to spend money in tennis? Could the Government of India not pour more money into this game?
Ramesh Jhalla Via Email
New immigration policies All the comments made by Sarah Teathers MP (Liberal Democrat for Brent Central) in Asian Voice about the new immigration policies effecting the lives of Asian and African in this country from July this year are right. But are these comments are only meant for Asian Voice readers or is she going to discuss with her top party leaders who have supported the conservative party to make these laws? I would recommend to all the MPs of all the parties who have residents of Asian and African origins in their constituencies must come out and speak openly what they are going to do to help their constituents.
Dinesh Sheth Newbury Park, Ilford
Bhupendra M Gandhi Via Email
Why go through life after life? Dinesh Sheth of Ilford made interesting points about karma and reincarnation in last week’s Asian Voice. He took us out of our comfort zone by asserting that the soul’s birth after birth need not be exclusively in human form, which means we can be a king or queen in one incarnation, a crocodile in the next, followed by a bird, a fish or a frog, all depending, as Dinesh says, on the “accumulated effects of our actions, our attitudes, our mode of life in this and previous lifetimes”. All this, he says, is leading to the ultimate destination of “moksha” or salvation when one’s soul is finally laid to rest in peace. What is the purpose of this long drawn-out process of reincarnation over many hundreds or thousands of years? Is it assumed that the more souls achieving moksha will result in greater peace, happiness and prosperity enriching the world?
Dharam Sahdev Via Email
Rudy Otter Via Email
Patriotic Modi I am very pleased that India after independence has produced a top true nationalist leader Narendra Modi. Mr Modi stated that he is Hindu nationalist because I am a born Hindu and he is true patriotic. As an Indian born in India I consider myself as a Hindu Nationalist. Modi is right in saying about ‘burqa of secularism’ since the word secularism is meant to demean majority Hindus in India. In India Hindus, Muslims and Christians have their own code bill. Now the supreme court in the recent judgement has said that Jainism and Sikhism as separate religions and they will have their own code bill and the government is dividing Indians on the basis of religion. Muslim religious groups are allowed to hold public gatherings but Hindu caste groups are banned. In Uttarkhand the Indian government has done anything to help the tsunami victims since all the victims are Hindus. It is an insult on the part of the Congress leaders to equate Gujarat killing as Genocide and they should know what genocide means. How about killing of more than 10,000 Sikhs during the assassination of Indira Gandhi and they call it riot?
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Alpesh’s Political Sketchbook Though I regularly read editorial columns of Asian Voice for the last several years, I rarely contribute to these columns unless I feel exceptionally strongly about an issue or an issue which is close to my heart. According to Mr Nitin Mehta, Alpesh is very very angry as if it is crime to be an angry, venting your anger against the ills in any society can’t be bad, it is on the contrary a good thing, many would argue. Many politicians have made their way to the top by highlighting imminent ills of the society, immediately surrounding them and two such names that that immediately comes to the mind of the undersigned are John F kennedy and Nelson Mandela. They both fought fiercely against the discrimination meted out to the blacks of USA and South africa respectively. Nelson Mandela as we all know was imprisoned by white regime of South africa for over 20 years and John F kennedy was fiercely criticised by white thugs for opening supporting Martin Luther King for his anti- discrimination movement. If Alpesh Patel has got the right to be angry, so do we because using some harsh words publicly (though totally unwarranted in my view), which he has used would not eliminate the harsh reality of discrimination being faced by some under-privileged/lower caste Hindus. So, whereas on the one hand, I totally despise the harsh words having been used by Alpesh Patel, I absolutely endorse the gist of his article, because some sections of the Hindu community do face discrimination both in UK and India, which either we fail to recognise or fail to acknowledge. Subhash Mahajan London Now the government wants to bring anti-superstition Bill. In fact Mother Theresa who was very well respected in India was given a title of ‘saint’ because of her miracle power to cure Cancer. There are books written by the British authors exposing the ‘myth’. Whether BJP wins the next year Indian election or not, Narendra Modi has made every Hindu and Indian proud through out the world. Arun Vaidyanathan Via Email
Casteism and Hindu hypocrisy Both Baroness Shreela Flather and Arun Vaidyanathan have boldly drawn out in their respective letters (AV 13 July 2013) how hypocrite the mind of a typical Hindu can be when it comes to the issue of casteism. The Hindu might well deny this, but in reality casteism does exist within him inherently. Let me cite a personal episode with which I was involved. Some three years ago, whilst I was staying with my brother in the village of Degam in Gujarat, Continued on page 11