Editorial Volume 5, Issue 3

Our readers will be pleasantly surprised to receive another issue so soon after the last one. As promised we are doing our best to give you four issues of decent quality in a year. Before we comment on the contents of this issue we would like to welcome another inquirer as one of our distinguished editorial advisors. He is a well-known nuclear scientist and metallurgist of international fame, who has also applied his scientific knowledge and methods to unravel the history that is hidden in the material artefacts of ancient India. Welcome Dr Baldev Raj.

Our readers will be pleasantly surprised to receive another issue so soon after the last one. As promised we are doing our best to give you four issues of decent quality in a year. Before we comment on the contents of this issue we would like to welcome another inquirer as one of our distinguished editorial advisors. He is a well-known nuclear scientist and metallurgist of international fame, who has also applied his scientific knowledge and methods to unravel the history that is hidden in the material artefacts of ancient India. Welcome Dr Baldev Raj.

Corruption, its causes and remedies, have been much in the news recently. People who are seeing the state not fulfilling its Raja Dharma of providing sukh and suraksha while the treasury is being looted by members of the state apparatus and unscrupulous businessmen are expressing mass outrage about it in the streets of India. We have seen this happening periodically in the last six decades of independent India, each time more vigorously than the previous. But what is the remedy? Does a civilisation that is more than 5000 years old have any theory and prescription for that? Today there are many prescriptions being given about good governance, transparency and accountability, etc. Unfortunately we see them mostly originating and articulated in the think tanks and academia of North America and Europe. As Frantz Fannon once remarked, they are then “repeated like an echo” in the former colonies, without much thought about their relevance or correctness.

Does pre-colonial Indian statecraft have no well-constructed theory and practice of Raja Dharma as well as remedial measures if the Raja does not follow his dharma but insists on adharma? These are the important questions raised by a number of contributions in this issue. Udayan’s cover story raises them and urges all of us to strive to construct a modern Indian theory of Raja Dharma. We hope there will be sufficient response to this anguished call of the author from our readers and well-wishers.

We have reproduced excerpts from Chanakya’s Arthashastra that deal with forms of corruption engaged by state functionaries and remedial measures proposed by him in those days of Magadha empire. They are remarkable for their detail and clarity.

We have also reproduced excerpts of a paper by Prof M M Kalaburgi a highly respected researcher and scholar of ancient Kannada culture about an important articulation of Bhakti Movement in Karnataka in the 12th century. He has discussed the attitude of Basavanna and his band of radical Bhaktas towards state treasury and how it should be used. It is a significant contribution to our understanding of Bhakti movement. Since Bhakti has been seen as a largely spiritual reformist movement by many scholars and followers, its social, political and economic aspects have been little studied. These studies cast a new light on it as a radical reformist movement that had unprecedented impact at the ground level all over India through 11th to 19th centuries and even earlier. Increasingly, what were considered by many as dark ages of India are, on deeper investigation, turning out to be renaissance of India! Perhaps the colonial times were in many respects the dark ages of India, while our Eurocentric education is still to accept its full impact on our minds and on our body politic.

We have two interesting contributions in the cultural section. One is a report by S Gautham on an experiment to bring modern theatre and fi lm appreciation to a village, Heggodu in Karnataka by the late K V Subbanna. The other is an appreciation of the much loved “Kalki” who provoked the interests of millions of Tamil youth in ancient Tamil culture and polity through his historical fiction.

To our last page on poetry we bring another doyen of the eastern and western Banga, the evergreen and popular Qazi Nazrul Islam. A poet who stood with the oppressed and exploited in eastern India just as Faiz Ahmed Faiz did in North Western India.

 

Related Posts

2 thoughts on “Editorial Volume 5, Issue 3

  1. Dear Editor,
    The issue of

    Dear Editor,

    The issue of corruption has been much discussed in recent times. Large multinational companies are among the biggest crusaders against corruption at the present. The reason is that corruption inhibits global market expansion by enabling different rules (including no rules) for different competing business interests. Although institutionalised in the privilege based system of governance, it is an anachronism in the context of globalisation. Therefore there is a concerted effort led and funded by all the big (western) powers and big companies demanding more ‘transparency’ i.e. rules-like-ours, predictability, and no changing rules in the middle of play (bribery).

    Thus corruption is a many dimensional thing. Everybody is against corruption and they are thinking about different things of course. Anna Hazare and team were tolerated as long as they spoke against corruption but not when they verged on talking about changing the governance system itself. Corruption is like volume control – can be turned up or down but music remains the same.  The anger against corruption is indeed a moment of opportunity for those seeking to unveil the system and bring about change, but by itself the march that is purely against corruption can only walk into an ‘andhi galli’.

    Interesting to know that they discussed the problem 2000 years ago. Fantastic journey to discover our pasts.

    Best regards

    S Sharma

    Bengaluru

  2. Dear Editor,
    I enjoyed

    Dear Editor,

    I enjoyed immensely Sri Raghavan’s article on Kalki in your issue of Ghadar Jari Hai (Volume V No 3). He has really echoed the heartfelt feelings of millions of Tamilians scattered all over the world. His writings enthralled all (the intelligent and dull, man and woman, admirer and critic, capitalist and labour, educated and uneducated). Who can forget the inimitable characters like Vanthiyathevan, Kunthavai, Alwarkadian etc. It is said of great Vyasa that though he created lakhs of characters in his Mahabharata, each has some individual trait in it. To say that Kalki’s characters also have their individuality is no exaggeration. Kalki was also tolerant of writers holding opposite views. He was a good critic. Once in Kalki he wrote a review of Sri Annadurai’s drama Vellaikari under the caption ‘Kaliyin Karunai’. He eulogized Sri Anna’s dramatic talents and called him ‘Bernard Shaw of Tamil Nadu’. He pioneered the movement for singing of Tamil Songs in Kacheri (Musical Concerts). Millions of thanks for penning a true portrait of a great writer.

    M S Ramaswamy
    A-3/402, Chhabhaiya Park
    Kapur Bawdi. Thane West.

     

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *