MOTHER ~~Ryan Baidya, Ph.D., MBA. Takshila Foundation, California, USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Bharat-mata has been in grief past 200+ years. We the sons and daughters of our mother seem to not be capable of holding her grief in our heart, mind, and soul, and act compassionately and wisely. Artist Phauzdar is deeply saddened by the contemporary terrors, atrocities, blood, and killings in Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala, Maharashtra, UP, and elsewhere in the country. These events reminded him of the 1970s Pak atrocities in Bangladesh, which he witnessed firsthand.
Phauzdar captured our mother's thunderous cries and grief in his artwork. He gave us this image to reflect on and to be prepared to fend off any further atrocities. This image should give a chill to our spine. Our system of governance is far from the key principle of democracy - by the people, for the people, and to the people - for all practical purposes. Our system of governance consists of laws, rules, and regulations to rule the people of the land - the subjects. This is primarily due to a clumsy process of transfer of the ruling power of the British government to the then newly formed republic - the Republic of India. In doing so, many of the laws, rules, regulations, and police codes that the prior raj used in ruling its subject had been adopted for the Republic. And, when we get to choose our transient government officials to serve us, we must recollect on this image and cast our precious vote for the individuals who would work for building a just and fair society, review statutory provisions in the constitution,
reevaluate laws, regulations, and police codes those fit for the cardinal principle of a democratic system. Our mother cannot come to this land the way we call her during this time every year. However, she is in all of us. We all need to use our knowledge and wisdom to make things right for us all of us and all year long not just during the Dussehra festival. Our mother has been suffering since the beginning of the last century, starting with terrorizing British generals, and government officials who exploited India for a long time. Do you recall the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre that took place on April 13, 1919, at Amritsar's Jallianwala Bagh, in which British troops opened fire against thousands of peaceful people who gathered to celebrate the occasion of Baisakhi? In that massacre, hundreds of people were mercilessly killed, and thousands were injured. Soon after that in 1921, the mother shed tears for her thousands of Hindu sons and daughters who were killed as a result of the genocide in Moplah. It was reported that around 10,000 people were brutally killed, and over 100,000 Hindus were forced to leave Kerala in the wake of that massacre. Annie Besant and C Sankaran Nair, the president of the Indian National Congress, called it genocide. Did we forget the Bengal famine of 1943 that killed over three million people? It was not caused by drought but was a result of a racist and oppressive policy of the thenBritish Prime Minister Winston Churchill - a Reminiscence of WWII holocaust. The scientific and analytical research firmly reestablished that Churchill-era British policies caused the catastrophe Bengal famine of 1943, which was the only one in modern Indian history not to occur as a result of serious drought, And, more recent pain and suffering mother endure is the massacre and exodus of the Kashmiri pandits, whose scars are still visible on the face of the Kashmiri pandits and their offspring. On the cold and dark night of January 19, 1990, Kashmiri Pandits experienced their worst nightmares. Screaming from loudspeakers and crowded streets was a message for the Sikhs and Hindus of Kashmir - Ralive, Tsaliv ya Galive (convert to Islam, leave the land, or die). The frantic assault of that night of January 19 was barbaric. Even after three decades Kashmiri sons and daughters of Hindu and Sikh origin shiver remembering the night that forced them into exodus. Dasehra reminds us of the evils with us. We must win over our self-interest, greed, and Rahu-fic energy, and aggregate around pure, clean, and truthful souls. These truthful souls can only save us once and for all. Choices are ours to stop this vicious cycle of atrocities that our mother can no longer endure. Next time around it won't be simple, and it won't spare anyone. Artworks: Pranab Phauzdar ********