Rashsundari Debi (1809-1900)

“I would start working at dawn, and I would still be at it until well beyond midnight. I had no rest in between. I was only fourteen years old at the time. I came to nurture a great longing: I would learn to read and I would read a religious manuscript. I was unlucky, in those days women were not educated. Later, I began to resent my own thoughts. What is wrong with me? Women do not read, how will I do it? Then I had a dream: I was reading the manuscript of Chaitanya Bhagabat (the life of a saint)… Later in the day, as I sat cooking in the kitchen, I heard my husband say to my eldest son: “Bepin, I have left my Chaitanya Bhagabat here. When I ask for it, bring it in.” He left the book there and went away. When the book had been taken inside, I secretly took out a page and hid it carefully. It was a job hiding it, for nobody must find it in my hands. My eldest son was practising his alphabets at that time. I hid one of them as well. At times, I went over that, trying to match letters from that page with the letters that I remembered. I also tried to match the words with those that I would hear in the course of my days. With tremendous care and effort, and over a long period of time, I learnt how to read…”

Later, because of her incessant desire to read and learn, she was able to teach herself the alphabets and then read the Chaitanya Bhagabat.

This was the experience of Rashsundari Debi who was born in a so-called Hindu upper caste, landed family in colonial Bengal, some 200 years ago, when it was believed that if a woman acquired an education then it would bring bad luck to her husband and become a widow. Only at the age of twelve, she was married to an affluent landlord. She came to have twelve children and thus the inescapable responsibility of running a large household. There were days when she had not a moment’s rest, no time even to sit down and eat. In spite of such a hostile and adverse environment, she secretly taught herself to read at the age of twenty-five and to write at the age of fifty, defying all social conventions and obstacles.

Despite household chores and the demands of the many children she bore, she finally succeeded in writing her autobiography, Amar Jiban, at the age of 73, perhaps the first autobiography ever to be written in the Bengali language and certainly the first by a Bengali woman and maybe the first by an Indian woman.

Situations have changed a lot since then yet there are people and some are my so-called modern friends only who still hold fast to the idea that the kitchen is for a woman only and a man should never take a step inside unless the woman is unavailable, though they are not at all averse to the idea of her bringing in some money by working in an MNC or even better in a Govt Organisation.

Courtesy: NCERT and the World Wide Web

Ghost Speech

The following was posted by someone on Facebook and is being claimed as the speech given by Vladmir Putin, the Russian president, to the Duma (Russian Parliament), about tensions with minorities in Russia:

"In Russia live Russians. Any minority, from anywhere, if it wants to live in Russia, to work and eat in Russia, should speak Russian, and should respect the Russian laws. If they prefer Sharia Law, then we advise them to go to those places where that's the state law. Russia does not need minorities. Minorities need Russia, and we will not grant them special privileges, or try to change our laws to fit their desires, no matter how loud they yell 'discrimination'. We better learn from the suicides of America, England, Holland and France, if we are to survive as a nation. The Russian customs and traditions are not compatible with the lack of culture or the primitive ways of most minorities. When this honorable legislative body thinks of creating new laws, it should have in mind the national interest first, observing that the minorities are not Russians.

Truth be told, then there exist no records to validate if this speech was ever made by Mr. Putin. However, this blog post is not being written to investigate the existence of this speech, it is in-fact just a reproduction of the comments that followed the above post. It is upon the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Comments:-

A: You are right [Name]. Time demands a change in our approach, if we have to survive.

Me: Sir, Vladmir Putin never made such a speech, its a hoax. There are no news reports available to claim the veracity of existence of this speech. And, regarding the message being conveyed through this speech, it is one of intolerance and certainly should not be welcome. The problem with our country is not that we are being over-tolerant or appeasing but inefficient, lazy and narrow-minded.

B: Before claiming this as a hoax, you check net and search for putin's speech in Feb. You will find many links of newspapaers. Regarding the speech, i think time has come to talk beyond religion, caste, creed in our country and show Mulayam, Maya, Mamata and others road to their extinction. These politicians are thriving on such issues at the cost of country.

Me: I forgot to mention "credible" news reports...does BBC report, does The Guardian say something, does the New York Times or even our very own The Times of India report anything??....and, Yes sir, I agree with you on that, 'time has come", and those politicians certainly needs to change their ways or get extinct. That was my whole point politicians are using appeasement, vote-politics to further their cause only. What I want is a reasonable and fair approach in government policies. What this message conveys is disrespect and intolerant attitude towards the culture, religion of the so-called minorities. I only demand reason and fairness, that's it.

C: Great Putin! He is a true leader; He has foresight and moral courage; He is a true patriot; India needs to have such masculine leaders!!

C: [Name], you are great;

C: I don't think there is any intolerance in Putin's statement, as somebody here predicates; A Muslim leader in Hyderabad openly threatens to quash the Hindu culture; That Muslim leader claims that he has even stamped out the normal temple activities such as chiming the bell, during Deity-worship in the Bhagya-Laxmi Temple of the city; To deal with such so called minorities, a Putin-like leader is urgently required in India;

Me: Putin might feel odd knowing that he is being hailed for a speech that he never gave. Regarding the previous comment, a Muslim leader agitates a disaffected crowd and goes on rampage and the whole of community is branded as such; similarly when RSS or VHP go on a rampage the whole of Hindu community is branded as such. This point that one or two people or an organized unit do not make up the general make up of the whole community is not being understood by anyone. Its not about a Muslim or a Hindu doing something, its about a bad person doing bad deed, that's what this is about. Put them in prison and let them rot. I don't know where the religion figures here. And that message, what that conveys is highly dangerous; it says to ostracize the whole of community based on religion or whatever social factor is there. That is what I am against, the disrespect of culture of people who are different from us. It’s just like that Muslim leader who has no respect for our culture and similarly there are "truth-seekers" who have no respect for their culture. An eye for an eye.

C: What {name} says is an ideal approach to the situation; This rarely happens in a real world;

Me: I really don't get it, what's ideal approach. It seems to be suggested from the previous comment that if an anti-social element from one community commits a crime then other should persecute the whole of the masses from former community. What is to be done then? Carry out your actions the way the message says, 1). they should speak the language the majority speaks, 2) make laws with suitability for majorities only, 3) force customs and culture on them - resulted in unrest in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Refugees in Myanmar, CHECHENS IN RUSSIA, and it is endless - is it really what we want? - and it will continue till somebody decides with a calm mind that we should discuss and solve problems. I am proud of my country where lived such Men and Women of foresight who made this country what it is, there lived many cultures, many religions, like different colors of a rainbow and so long will they as there continue to take birth such Men and Women, irrespective of religion, caste, creed, and color. I think lets agree to disagree, because there seems no end to this discussion.

Heroes and Villains

Today a senior friend said to me that Guha is a Nehruvian, a word that says he is an admirer of Nehru, and if I continue reading his works I may end up having wrong and prejudiced opinion about Nehru (though he did not say this but it seems to be the most likely of conclusions and which I could have drawn from his gestures - shades of holmes???).

Well, I could have allowed myself to indulge in a debate with him on this topic but since I had some other prearranged thoughts in my mind (gossiping, after a long time!), I did not.

Obviously, I can afford to do that now.

Why does someone admire some other person? May be because they like some aspects of their personality, their acts and their thoughts. And Mr. Guha, considering that he is the one who wrote the book India After Gandhi, surely had done a lot of reading not only about Nehru but many other eminent personalities. So, this argument easily establishes the point that he, in complete certainty, knows a lot about Nehru than me and my senior friend and that too based on facts which can be validated to the source unlike many of us who base their opinions on mere hearsay or dubious sources or wishful thinking or even wild imaginations.

First I talked about knowing the facts correctly because more often than not this comes out to be the main point of deviation. There are people who fight passionately in order to assert themselves as correct but disregarding the facts altogether or even distorting them in way that benefits them. So first know your facts!

Second thing is about knowing the facts as it is but disagreeing with regards to their application, that is, a difference of opinion.

So they Say: Nehru is blamed for appeasement of minorities, for economic policies, for neglect of threat from China, for neglect of primary education and for continuing dynasty politics in Congress or more appropriately in all spheres of life. [Want to know Nehru correctly, then read his biography by Sarvepalli Gopal, The Idea of India by Sunil Khilnani, India After Gandhi by Guha, Nehru by B.R. Nanda, and many more authentic books]

When India achieved freedom there was not a single western observer who said that nation such as India would even survive for more than a day considering her huge diversity in terms of Religion, Culture, Language,  etc. After Patel had done his tremendous task of merging more than 500 princely states to the Union of India and Ambedkar had done his part of consolidating hugely divergent opinions into a constitution for the working of this newly formed nation, it was left to Nehru to build a nation on a democratic framework because Patel had died in 1950 and Ambedkar had resigned from the cabinet in 1951 following the stalling in parliament of his draft of the Hindu Code Bill, which sought to expound gender equality in the laws of inheritance, marriage and the economy. [facts - India After Gandhi]

And, where most other former colonies turned into dictatorships and yet others into unstable democracies, India survived and she is still a democracy. That we do not even in the wildest of our imaginations ever consider India would ever be turned into a dictatorial regime that we breathe and live democracy then the man responsible at least deserves a bit of respect for this from a race of ingrate and selfish human beings! [generally speaking - exceptions are always there]

I sometimes wonder what we would have done to Bhagat Singh had he lived long and implemented his thoughts, which would have seemed highly revolutionary and inflammatory to the Hindu extremists or for that matter, any kind of extremist.

It will be very appropriate to say, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain [Batman, The Dark Knight]”, Bhagat Singh is a hero and Nehru is a villain (and so they say), whereas I am hundred percent sure that had the former hero of mine lived and would have been able to bring the “social, economic revolution - the way he conceived”, then even the person who is at present his staunchest of supporter, would have appeared chastising him.

They lived, had flaws, but did their part of work and now it is up to us to learn from their good things and bad things, and contribute to the nation.

But what are we doing picking up few icons for worship and vilifying others!