We don't bomb the country we adopt – Tarun Vijay

[Guest guest]

http://sites.google.com/site/hindunew/modern-hinduWe don't bomb the country we adopt – Tarun Vijay

Mr. Tarun Vijay, a former editor of Panchjanya, the official publication of the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which is an old Hindu nationalist

organisation, made a telling distinction between India and some of its neighbours at

the last meeting of the Club.

Significantly, the meeting was held at the poolside of the Taj Mahal Hotel

where the worst carnage by terrorists in India’s recent history was

initiated just a year ago, on November 26, 2008.

Mr. Tarun Vijay said that over the last few centuries Indian scholars, saints

and seers went to several countries in Asia

carrying the message of love and compassion and of a caring and affectionate

God. In return, those countries feted their guests, honoured them and adopted

Sanskrit names for themselves and for their landmarks.

Not only were they proud of their heritage, they were often surprised by the

modern-day Indians’ lack of knowledge about their glorious culture and

heritage.

It was this respect for ancestry that had led to the new international airport

in Bangkok (the

biggest and most sophisticated in the world) being named Suvarnabhumi, a chaste

Sanskrit term. In fact, the first visual to strike one on entering the premises

was that of a 150-foot-long mural of sagar-manthan, or the mythical churning of

the oceans.

Similarly, the present King of Thailand was known as Rama Navam (or Rama the

Ninth). A brief chat with the Rajguru, the King’s teacher, revealed that the

country followed the legacy of King Rama and that all kings were known after

him.

The full name of the present King of Thailand was Bhumidol Adulyadej, also a

Sanskrit name, and it was he who had christened Bangkok airport as Suvarnabhumi, showing that

the Thais were proud of their heritage.

‘People in East Asia are often surprised that Indians are largely ignorant of

their culture and heritage’

In complete contrast, said Mr. Tarun Vijay, the barbarians who attacked the

city on 26/11 came armed with sophisticated weapons and other armaments to kill

people – never mind that they did not know any one of the people whom they had

come to kill, or the fact that among them were women, children and the aged,

all of them unarmed and harmless, leading normal lives in their own country.

Mr. Tarun Vijay, who gave a talk on “Global mission of Indiaâ€, was introduced

by Tarjani Vakil who said that he was the Director of the Dr. Shyama Prasad

Mukherjee Research Foundation, a centre for civilizational values and policy

research and an ideological think-tank based on the nationalist school of

thought at the headquarters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in New Delhi.

A prolific writer both in English and Hindi, he had written over 2,000 articles

and was a regular columnist for The Times of India, Dainik Jagran, Maharashtra

Times and so on. He had launched a peace initiative between

India and Pakistan

along with the Daily Jung, a major newspaper in Pakistan. That initiative had been

appreciated on both sides of the border.

And, as Nanik Rupani revealed later, it was Mr. Tarun Vijay who had put the

ancient town of Ladakh on the tourist map by organising the “Sindhu Darshanâ€

programme that had gone on to become a popular event. That one initiative had

changed the entire economy of Ladakh.

Mr. Tarun Vijay started his talk by pointing out that it was a rishi from India

who went to Cambodia 1,200 years ago, married a local and settled down there

who gave the country a name, “Kamboj†(whence Cambodia), which later became a

part of the Srivijaya Empire.

The biggest temple of Hindus was not in India

but in Angkor Vat in Cambodia.

Even after the advent of communism, Communist Cambodia remembered its Hindu and

Indian heritage with respect and honour.

A UNESCO publication on that country showed how Indians who left the shores of

their land established their global footprint on the basis of love, friendship

and scholarship.

After referring to the naming of Bangkok airport

as Suvarnabhumi by Thailand’s

King Bhumidol Adulyadej, he said, “That is the footprint of your ancestors, a

legacy of your forefathers who spread out and impressed the people with the

power and the strength of knowledge and character, the two major aspects of the

Indian footprint… That is the global vision of India,

the global message of India

even todayâ€.

Mr. Tarun Vijay said that the third chief of the RSS, the late Prof. Rajendra

Singh, who was the Head of the Department of Physics at Allahabad University,

had said to him in the course of his last interview that he did not want to see

India as a brutal military power or as a dehumanised, prosperous country. On

the contrary, he wanted India

to be known for its knowledge and character.

Speaking about his experiences in China

where he is a Fellow of the Sichuan University, he said when he went to see the Leshan

Buddha in Chengdu,

he came across the largest Buddha sculpture in the world. It was about 250 feet

tall and had been made from one solid rock – an entire mountain had been

sculpted into a sitting Buddha.

And the very first statue visible on entering the campus was that of

Samantabhadra, another Sanskrit name. When he asked about Samantabhadra, his

interlocutors said it was surprising that he did not know about him.

The official accompanying him (in a China ruled by the Communist Party) then

told him that Samantabhadra was a rishi from North India who crossed snow

deserts and the Himalayas and survived to live in Chengdu some 950 years ago.

He learned the Chinese language and started communicating with the King and the

people.

Such was the influence of his brilliance, intellect and scholarship that

everyone started believing in Buddha and he was able to inspire the people of Chengdu to build the

Leshan Buddha sculpture.

“Even in the year 2009, it is the biggest

Buddha sculpture in the world. And it was done by your ancestors, by those

Indians who were brave and courageous and who never wanted to subjugate or

colonise other people.

“They took dharma with them. They were not ashamed of their civilization, they

were not ashamed of their past, of their glorious heroes and of the great men

and women who loved their language; they translated the entire literature of China and East Asia

into Sanskrit and from Sanskrit into their language.â€

Mr. Tarun Vijay said the Rajguru of China was Kumarajiva whose father was from

Sinkiang and mother from Kashmir. When he went

there, the Han King of Beijing gave him the title, “Teacher of Chinaâ€.

It was Kumarajiva who started the finest method of translating the classics

from Sanskrit to Chinese and from Chinese to Sanskrit with a 17-tier

arrangement. It started with literal translation, followed by the first step of

checking; next, ensuring that the main spirit of the text was conveyed, and so

on. It was only after 17 steps that the final text of the original text from

Sanskrit into Chinese and from Chinese into Sanskrit was available.

Recently, when visiting the Indian Embassy in Beijing, he met a man called Vijay Choudhary,

a small trader from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan. This man revealed that he employed

1,000 Chinese in his diamond-cutting factory in Kunming!

That was the distance that India

had travelled – from Samantabhadra to Vijay Choudhary – and neither of them had

used a gun to befriend the Chinese. Rather, they had won them over with the

help of mutual respect and understanding.

The Chinese cared for Vijay Choudhary because he was bringing a lot of money

into China

and giving employment to the rural people there.

This case, too, represented the spirit of India whose teachers, professors,

technologists and engineers were respected icons of knowledge, scholarship,

integrity and character.

And there was also the story narrated by Mr. L.K. Advani of a Malaysian whom he

had met in Kuala Lumpur.

The man lived in New York

where he had his office and establishment. But what was he doing in Kuala Lumpur?

He told Mr. Advani that he had to undergo a heart surgery. When he learnt that

an Indian doctor in Kuala Lumpur was the best in

the field, he had travelled from the USA

to be operated by that Indian doctor in Malaysia.

“We don’t bomb the country that we adopt. That’s what everyone says about

Indians. Everyone loves and accepts Indians. Even if an Indian is a British,

German or American passport-holder, they trust him 100% – that he won’t bomb

their land. He will work for the country, fight for the country and will never

ditch it.

“That is your achievement, the blessings of your ancestors; and that’s the

Indian footprint all over the world, that of character, honesty, integrity.â€

Turning to Nanik Rupani, Mr. Tarun Vijay said it was worth pondering over that

several leaders from all over the world happily came to India to accept awards presented by his Priyadarshini Academy. This was no mean achievement

and an endorsement of brand India.

The speaker next referred to the aftermath of the “discovery†of America by Columbus who had actually set out in

search of India.

He could not find India but

reached the land that was now called America.

“What happened after Columbus reached America? More

than four crores of the original inhabitants of the land, who were known as

American Indians, were brutalised, massacred. It was a holocaust. And the

originator of that holocaust was Columbus.â€

He had wanted to proselytise, to find gold, to grab land, to get slaves, to

subjugate the people; to take over their land and to build his own buildings.

In comparison, the Taj Mahal Hotel was a symbol of the indomitable, invincible

Indian spirit represented by the tricolour. For it was here that the mission of

the barbarians who had attacked Bombay

on 26/11 was defeated.

Would we respect Rama or celebrate Diwali had he played peacenik and allowed

his wife to be taken away? asks Tarun Vijay

“Ask yourself, what kind of people must they have been (those who attacked

Bombay on 26/11). Compare

your civilization and the work done by your ancestors in the earlier years

which gave you the Hindu civilization, the Indus civilization, which left

imprints all over the globe, from Japan

to Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam,

Laos, Korea, Brazil,

New Zealand.

(You will find) respect and understanding for a different viewpoint.

“You will find a solid belief in pluralism, in democracy and diversity. We are

not those who want everything to be uniformly same, who want all people

speaking one language, reading one book, wearing the same attire. No, we love

diversity.

“Let a million flowers with a million fragrances bloom; if there can be any

such place in the world, then that is Hindustan.

No other country can boast of this kind of legacy which is so supportive of

pluralism, respecting different viewpoints. We never had a Galileo hanged for

his beliefs.â€

Taking a dig at the growing tribe of peaceniks, Mr. Tarun Vijay said Rama did

not compromise with Ravana, telling him that he could take Janaki to Colombo. And he, as a

pace-loving person, would return to Ayodhya where the people would be so happy

that he had played peacenik and left his wife behind, that they would welcome him

and celebrate his return as Diwali.

On the contrary, Rama cautioned Ravana and when the latter remained adamant, he

vanquished Ravana. That was the legacy of India, that of not compromising

with the wicked.

Narrating another experience, Mr. Tarun Vijay said that the renowned

businessman and philanthropist, Mr. Bob Harilela, had told him that he never

cared about India

when he was a little boy. In fact, he hated the heat and the poverty that he

saw when he came here at the age of 13.

But his mother told him that whatever he did and wherever he went, he would not

be able to erase the fact that he was an Indian – it was “written†on his face.

In course of time Mr. Harilela bought an apartment in Bombay

and now his largest spend on charity was in India. He spent his vacations in India and had

taught his children to respect their heritage.

The children would always remain Indian, but “not on the basis of a gun, or of

gun powder†or colonisation.

“No one will remember a Gen. Dyer in India with respect, or even Queen

Elizabeth. But Bhagat Singh, who was only 23 years old when he went to the

gallows? Yes… This land has always respected those who have stood with their

heritage, with their civilization, and those who have stood up at times of

crisis to fight the enemy, to fight the barbarians so that peace, pluralism and

democracy can be saved.â€

On a visit to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia,

he saw that not a single shop in the markets had a portrait of Osama bin Laden

because violence, extremism and uncivilized behaviour never won respect.

History only remembered those who spread the message of love and compassion and

it was such people who were respected down the ages.

Buddha was “still alive†in spite of the fact that his sculpture in Bamiyan had

been bombed out by the Taliban.

“The global vision of India

cannot be anything but to spread the message that the gun never achieves

success or does any good for the people. It is the power of love, compassion

and character that does so. And that’s what I have learned in my organisation,

in the RSS.â€

Finally, Mr. Tarun Vijay quoted a couplet by Akbar Allahabadi:

Tere lab pe hai Iraqo Shamo Misro Romo Cheen

Lekin apne hi watan ke naam se waqif nahin

Arre sabse pehle mard ban Hindustan ke wastey

Hind jag uthe to phir saare jahan ke wastey

(A loose translation: The names on your lips are those of Iraq, Egypt, Rome and

China, but you don’t seem to be acquainted with the name of your own country;

the first thing you need to do is to become a man for Hindustan, and once you

rouse Hindustan, then become a man for the whole world.)

Answering questions, Mr. Tarun Vijay told Trilochan Sahney that he

did not agree that India

was always populated by invaders. In fact, even the theory of “the Aryan

invasion of India†had been

proved false, what with American scientists finding that the genes of the

Aryans and the Dravids living in India since ancient times had a lot

in common.

On the contrary, India

had always given shelter to those refused shelter elsewhere and to every

persecuted community in the world. No other country could boast of such a

record.

But he agreed that Hindu society was fractured by the caste system. In this

context the speaker quoted Swami Vivekananda who had said that the only ideal

before Hindu society was the ideal of Guru Govind Singh.

Sitaram Shah pointed out that the word Hindu did not appear in any literature.

Where had the word come from? Secondly, all that the speaker had said in praise

of Hinduism was being maligned by the very people who were talking of Hinduism.

Mr. Tarun Vijay said that the word Hindu came from the Greeks. At that time

Indians were called “Aryasâ€, “Vedicsâ€, or “Sindhuputrasâ€. But since the Greeks

had difficulty pronouncing certain consonants, it so happened that Sindhus came

to be called Hindus.

However, changing the name of a city or a land could not change the basic

character of the people who inhabited that place.

“And the basic character of this land, beyond the Indus,

is that they love nature, they don’t condemn it. When Bachendri Pal became the

first Indian woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, she did not set foot

on it till she had placed vermillion and rice on it as a ritual offering,

thanking the goddess mother for giving her the strength to reach the summit.

“On the other hand, Western mountaineers write that they ‘conquered’ Mount Everest; the word ‘conquered nature’ does not

appear in the Indian language. This is the basic difference in the worldview of

our people. We have respect for parents, for family values, for pluralism. That

makes us different people. You may call them Hindus, Indians, Bharatiyas,

whatever, it means the same thing,†Mr. Tarun Vijay added.

The vote of thanks was proposed by Nanik Rupani.

Source: The Gateway-a

publication of Rotary Club of Bombay (Nov. 2009) has this news item on its

front page Thanks & Regards,Sudhir SrinivasanB.Arch, Dip.ID, Dip.CAD, Dip.PM, AIIA,

IIID, ARIAI| Architect |