History Archive

On September 11, 1942, our National Anthem’ Jana Gana Mana’ was performed for the first time as National Anthem. It was played at the Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg.

Let us start with an anecdote. In 2019, a video went viral, which showed a man wearing a T-shirt with the face of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The person in question was one Saikat Chakrabarti, then chief of staff for democratic socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

799 years ago, in the year 1221, the great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan¹ stood victorious at the western bank of the Indus river with 50,000 soldiers, having just defeated Jalal-ad-Din², the Shah of Khwarazm. Jalal-ad-Din’s army was completely destroyed in this battle³, which took place near the town of Kalabagh in Punjab.

A lot of noise is being made over criticism of MK Gandhi after Kalicharan Maharaj’s recent speech at the Raipur Dharma Sansad. The Chhattisgarh government headed by Congress’ Bhupesh Baghel has now arrested Kalicharan and many people are asking an important question. Is MK Gandhi beyond criticism? Why are some political leaders so touchy and indignant about Gandhi being criticized?

MK Gandhi has been deified in Bharat to such an extent that any attempt to critically analyze his follies, for which the Hindu society continues to pay a price to date, is seen as an insult to the ‘father of the nation’. While Kalicharan Maharaj has stated that he stands by his comments even as he faces multiple cases in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh where the Shiv Sena-led MVA and Congress are in power respectively, it is time to take a look at the history of the ‘mahatma’ tag.

While Mahatma Gandhi is known worldwide for his non-violence movement for independence of India, his simple lifestyle, and other such aspects that make him a ‘Mahatma’, there are several other aspects in his that raise curiosity in the minds of people. Apart from the extreme pacifism that Gandhi practiced which was questioned by many of his contemporaries, the one weird aspect, widely known but little discussed in public discourse, is his experiments with his celibacy.

At a time when historical revisionists want to portray Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a ‘tolerant, secular individual’ who envisioned a Pakistan-for-all, the signs of religious bigotry were visible from the very start. One of the immediate aftermaths of the Partition of India was the sidelining of non-Muslims who contributed to the Pakistani cause. They were misled by Jinnah into believing that a society, based on the principles of ‘Islamic equality’, was waiting for them.

Mahatma Gandhi’s unqualified capitulationism has apparently triumphed in post-independence Bharat over Bhagwan Krishna’s unyielding terse realism in the Bhagavad Gita. Not only that Bharat has zealously sacrificed the narrative of its own bloody travails, in which its courageous men and women laid down their lives.

In 2005, an otherwise dry academic book called The Mitrokhin Archive, about the activities of the KGB in Third World countries, created an unlikely political uproar in India. One might wonder what could have possibly piqued the interest of an ordinary Indian politician in the activities of the secret agency of a faraway country of a bygone era. The answer is very interesting.

I was nearing my fifth birthday (January, 1902) when I was told I would be sent to school. I do not know how other children have felt in similar circumstances, but I was delighted. To see your elder brothers and sisters dress and go to school day after day and be left behind at home simply because you are not big enough—not old enough—is a galling experience. At least, so I had felt, and that is why I was overjoyed.