PANCHAAMRITAM 216

Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Chennai

PANCHAAMRITAM 216

Pancha is five in Samskritam, Amritam is nectar

Amavaasya/ Kali Yugaabda 5113 / Kara Aadi 14 (July 30, 2011)

 

ONE

Threat to natural resources and livelihood of Mendha villagers led to the emergence of "Mawa Mate, Mawa Raj" concept. These four words mean "in our village we are the government" in Gondi dialect. Keeping with the objective of the independence struggle people of this village decided to have Gram Swaraj (village democracy) based on Gram Sabha (village assembly). One can gauge the power of Mendha's Gram Sabha from the fact that when P C Alexander, the then Governor of Maharashtra was to visit this village in December 2000, the collector took permission from the Gram Sabha for his visit. Mendha is situated in the Dhanora tehsil of Gadchiroli district (Maharashtra, Bharat), a Naxal-infested area. Over 80 per cent of the village is forest. 450 persons live in this village. Mendha became the first village in the country where standing natural forests are the village's asset (as a result of their sustained peaceful struggle for over 24 years). So, every villager earns an income of Rs 5,000 to 10,000 per bamboo cutting season – as against mere Rs 400 as wages when the Forest Department was the owner. Gandhian Mohan Hirabai Hiralal of Vrikshamitra, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), played a crucial role in bringing the villagers together. Based on his experience in Mendha, Mohan Hirabai quotes Mahatma Gandhi's book Hind Swaraj saying, "Parliamentary democracy is a prostitute which is infertile," as it goes to the powerful and seeks status quo. It is only participatory democracy which can redeem the status of the citizens of our country, he added. If every Indian village follows Mendha form of governance then Gandhi's and Vinoba's dream of an ecologically rich and democratic society can easily be realised. Based on a report in HINDI VIVEK, Mumbai, July 2011 and website http://india.indymedia.org.

TWO

Two decades ago, an old couple, the owners of over 100 acres of land costing some crores, used to live happily on that land with some 200 dogs. They served the dogs as a service to Almighty. After the demise of the husband, the old lady handed over the papers to a karyakarta and she left for heavenly abode in a week with the satisfaction in her heart that she has handed over the property to a correct person. A team of karyakartas started working day and night to turn the dream of the noble lady into reality. Now the dream has come true as Maitreyi Gurukulam. The Gurukulam is situated in a serene atmosphere in Moorkaje village, 4 km off Vittla, Bantwal taluka, Dakshin Kannada district (Karnataka, Bharat). Gurus sit on the platforms and the shishyas sit on the floor, right beneath the huge `cool' green trees. The oral tradition is practiced flawlessly in a modern world where no one understands a concept unless it is presented through visuals. Most of the girls come from rural areas. The admission is open to all Hindu girls above 10 years of age without any consideration for caste and class with only 20 students per batch. The first phase consists of six-year course and the admission to the higher course is given on the successful completion of the first phase. Hindu tradition does not approve commercialization of education, medicine and food; the three essentials in life. Maitreyi Gurukulam being true to tradition, does not charge fees from the students. The project is run under the aegis of a local Trust that is a part of Hindu Seva Pratisthana, Karnataka.www.newsbharati.com

THREE

Indian Navy ship, INS Godavari, deployed in anti-piracy escort operations, has successfully foiled a bid by Somali sea pirates to seize a Greek merchant vessel MV Elinakos in the Gulf of Aden between Yemen and Somalia. INS Godavari readily responded to a distress call from MV Elikanos while escorting four ships in the piracy-hit Gulf of Aden on July 16, 2011 morning, and promptly launched the anti-piracy escort operation. Indian Navy ship deployed a helicopter a mission to locate the skiff used by the eight Somali pirates and also sent a team of Marine commandos to board the pirate boat. However, the Somali pirates abandoned MV Elikanos, the Greek vessel, on seeing the fast approaching naval craft. The German warship Niedersachsen was assisted INS Godavari in this anti-piracy operation. INS Godavari has provided safe escort to 219 ships from various countries in the piracy-hit Gulf of Aden since it started anti-piracy operations since May 25. Last month, INS Godavari escorted MV Islamabad, a Pakistani vessel with 38-member crew.  From a report in  http://breakingnewsonline.net, July 20, 2011.

FOUR

The number of volunteers registered with Sathya Sai Baba's organisation to render from menial to clerical service exceeded six lakh. Baba's entire work rests on this devoted cadre. A serving IAS officer would give up his job and join him as his clerk; a young IT professional would forgo his fortune, start cleaning the bhajan hall; a businessman heading a billion dollar firm would leave his business and look after one of Baba's projects. A count of less than 1/6^th of the total volunteers (91,753 to be precise) shows this telling break-up — doctors 3,173; engineers 9,760; lawyers/chartered accountants 3,521; professors and teachers 18,226; farmers and workers 41,295; industrialists 11,350; bankers 3,606; judges 71; legislators 167; journalists 261. His trusts have a corpus of several hundreds of crores of rupees. But never did he ask for donations; and he never hesitated to reject the wrong donors. Donors recount how Baba accepted their offerings after making them wait for months to test their sincerity to give. He kept all the money he received in trust for the poor and the needy in his times and in future. Even the undeposited cash and gold in his personal chamber — the Yajur Mandir — made their way to the trusts after him. Shri S Gurumurthy in THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS, July 11, 2011.

FIVE

It happened a fortnight ago. Smt Shanti of Sembedu village near Vellore (Tamilnadu, Bharat) was returning from Bangalore on a bus. She saw the conductor asking two girls to get down, as they were travelling without tickets. Moved by the girls' plight, Shanti, stopped the bus, got down and boarded it again, this time, along with the two girls. She took them to her village and offered them shelter for several days. However, being the wife of a daily wage labourer addicted to alcohol, Shanti couldn't offer shelter to the the girls, aged nine and two, for long and handed them over to the Collector, requesting him to take care of them by arranging for their education and stay. Abhinaya, the elder of the two girls, refused to go back to her home in Bangalore, as she and her sister were being ill-treated by their stepmother."When Shanti akka took me and my little sister Anusha, I was happy that I got rid of my step mother who was torturing us badly," said Abhinaya. Collector Nagarajan handed over them to the district child welfare committee. From THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS, July 26, 2011

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PANCHAAMRITAM 215

Vishwa Samvad Kendra, Chennai

PANCHAAMRITAM 215

Pancha is five in Samskritam, AmritaJulm is nectar

Poornima/ Kali Yugaabda 5113 / Kara Aani 29 (July 14, 2011)

ONE

The all-India meeting of the Prant Pracharaks (Provincial Organisers) of the RSS was in session at a far off North Eastern town of Tinsukia. News reached Tinsukia that `the Delhi-bound Kalka Mail met with a ghastly accident near Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh, Bharat) on July 10, 2011 around noon. Two general compartments were very badly mangled. Information reaching Tinsukia was that at least 60 people have died and hundreds injured. Till 4 pm the Railway Accident Relief train had not reached the site of the accident'. All Sangh elders at Tinsukia were heartened on hearing the following information: The RSS Swayamsevaks were already there at the site of the accident for several hours helping the railwaymen and other security personnel. They were there at the railway station near the dead bodies. They were there in hospitals where the injured have been transported. They were there even in Kanpur attending to the seriously injured.  The key RSS functionary in Kanpur was so busy that he could barely respond to calls from Tinsukia for a minute; he was rushing to the hospital where several injured had arrived. He had already asked a number of Swayamsevaks to reach there anticipating need for blood and other help. When contacted by the karyakarthas in Tinsukia, the district secretary of RSS in the affected area was found busy organising relief at the site along with more than hundred Swayamsevaks. When they reached out to the local head of the organisation, a doctor by profession, he told them that he was busy attending to the injured people in his own hospital as dozens of them had arrived. This is not to suggest that only Swayamsevaks respond in such times of calamity. Many other socially conscious individuals too do. But the Swayamsevaks enjoy a distinct advantage. They are mentally better trained and equipped due to their RSS background to respond to such situations. Bassd on a write up by Shri Ram Madhav of RSS on July 11, 2011 in his blog: http://ram-madhav.blogspot.com

TWO

Any infant that comes into the Vatsalya Gram in Vrindavan (Uttar Pradesh , Bharat) will have a home, a mother, aunt and grandmother. As Sadhvi Rithambara, the founder of the 54-acre ashram, says, "Vatsalya Gram is an orphanage, estranged women's centre and old age home; it is one cohesive unit. It provides people an environment to grow, that people only in well-to-do families get." There are 30 families now staying at Gokulam, a housing complex situated in the ashram. Each family consists of a mother, aunt and grandmother.  Each flat in Gokulam consists of one dining room, drawing room, master bedroom, one additional bedroom, bathroom and toilet, kitchen, prayer room and a central courtyard. Each family consists of anywhere between five and 10 children staying with three elders who play the role of mother, aunt and grandmother. The ashram has its own gaushala (cow shed) with 125 cows, whose milk is used to feed infants here. The ashram has a school, Samvid Gurukulam, based on CBSE pattern. There's also a theme park with models of various animals, and of incidents from epics like the Ramayana which are used for providing children moral education. Also in the ashram are a training centre where woman are taught self defence techniques and a shaheed museum with paintings and stories of freedom fighters. Anika Parmanand, of Vatsalya Gram  completed her graduation in 2006 and recently got married into a good family in Delhi. Another member, Rohit Parmanand, completed his 12th grade from Bhonsala military school (Maharashtra) and will appear for engineeringentrance exams soon. We will support him till he becomes self-sufficient," says Rithambara. (In 2003 Rithambara moved to Vrindavan). From a report by Shri Tarun Nangia in THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS, 19 June 2011.

THREE

Ten persons, including all seven onboard a small civil chartered aircraft, were killed when the medical ambulance flight to Delhi from Patna crashed into a densely-populated residential area of  Faridabad (Haryana, Bharat) in bad weather on May 26, 2011 night. Once he heard of this, Shri Rakesh Tyagi, the district secretary of RSS sent instructions through SMS and phone to swayamsevaks of the city to reach the accident spot. Soon after, dozens of swayamsevaks assembled there. They quickly gathered the bodies of the dead and helped send them quickly to hospital for post mortem. By then it was past midnight. But early in the morning, the swayamsevaks assembled in front of the Government Badshah Khan Hospital. They distributed mineral water bottles among the waiting relatives of the victims. Once the post mortem was over, they brought the bodies out and placed them in the vans. They arranged for the conduct of complete Hindu last rites for Ratnesh and Rahul, both victims hailing from Bihar, and helped cremate them at the smashaan. Ramashankar and Mukesh Chaudary, relatives of Rahul and Ratnesh, said that because of the manner in which the RSS swayamsevaks served them, they never once felt that they were far away in another state. ""These swayamsevaks took upon themselves the responsibility of arranging the last rites in full and carried out the funeral in Faridabad itself. We received love all around that made us feel that we were at home", the relatives said. From a report in DAINIK JAGRAN, May 27, 2011. Also from SANGH MARG (Rohtak, July 2011).

FOUR

What has been missed in the discourse on the wealth at Sri Pamanabha Swami temple in Thituvanandapuram (Kerala, Bharat), hijacked by hype and excitement, is that even when the Travancore royals were in danger of losing their kingdom, they never thought of touching the Lord's wealth. Tipu Sultan, who had invaded Malabar and destroyed many temples, had conquered Thrissur in 1789 and made it his headquarters, posing a threat to Travancore. When Tipu was driving down southwards, the kingdom itself was at risk. This seems to have persuaded Dharma Raja, the then king of Travancore royalty to bury and seal the wealth of the Lord in secret chambers to keep it beyond the reach of the invader. But, in 1790, Tipu withdrew from Thrissur when the British raided Mysore, de-risking Travancore from invasion. Still Dharma Raja and his successors opted to keep the Lord's treasure buried, safe from risk of loot.  The royalty had continued to keep it buried so that it ever remained the wealth of the Lord; it did not unseal it even after the danger had diminished. This shows the unmatched height of honesty and integrity of the trustees, the royal family. From an essay by Shri S Gurumurthy in THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS, July 7, 2011.

FIVE

Even as the anti-Posco and pro-Posco activists have adopted contradictory stands in regard to land acquisition at villages in Kujanga area for the biggest FDI in the State, in a remarkable instance of camaraderie, on July 4, 2011 both groups were found pulling the chariot of Lord Jagannath in Kunjabihari Pitha, locally known as Subhadra Kshetra at Gadakujang village (Orissa, Bharat). The annual Rath Yatra celebration in Gadakujanga village is unique in the way that the chariot is pulled a day after the Rath Yatra in Puri and the celebration is observed for two consecutive days. Temple management sources said that thousands of devotees and villagers from Gadakujang, Nuagaon, Govindapur, Polang, Dhinkia and the surrounding areas, including residents from Paradeep outskirts, took part in the chariot pulling. Interestingly, shedding past enmity and hostility over the proposed controversial Posco project, both the supporters and opponents congregated at the venue and joined hands with each other to pull the chariot.It may be mentioned here that the supporters and protesters of Posco were not allowed to enter each other's villages but on the auspicious Rath Yatra day, the prohibition had been lifted and, reportedly, they participated in the festival with great enthusiasm. The unity among the antagonistic groups surprised many as last year a very few people from Dhinkia village had participated in the festival.  "We allowed the Posco opponents to participate in the festival as it is a matter of religious congregation which has nothing to do with the Posco controversy," informed a pro-Posco leader and Nuagaon gram panchayat samiti member Soumendra Nayak. Anti-Posco leader and former Dhinkia GP Sarpanch Sisir Mohapatra said that the Rath Yatra of Gadakujanga has a rich tradition and spiritual heritage, which enjoys the status at par with Puri, Kendrapada, Baripada and Keonjhar. So the Posco controversy can in no way deter people from following the traditions and customs.     From a report in DAILY PIONEER, July 5, 2011.

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