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A Journey Through the Past: Thailand 1967-1971
by Maxmilian Wechsler
BigChilli
9/2/2018

As pointed out by renowned scientist Carl Sagan, ‘You have to know the past to understand the present’. If for no other reason, the events that shaped modern-day Thailand are worth revisiting to get an understanding of how the country has developed. Starting from February, The BigChilli will recap important news stories of the past 50 years, from 1967 to 2017, a period in which Thailand made the remarkable journey from Southeast Asian backwater to one of the world’s premier tourist destinations. Each issue will cover a five-year period and is sure to offer surprises for even the most knowledgeable Thai history buffs.

1967

1967 was the year Thai Rung Engineering Company was founded by Vichien Phaoenchoke. It was the first and only Thai automobile manufacturing company. Other major news stories of 1967 include:

January

• For the first time Thai troops were deployed to South Vietnam. About 1,000 Thai soldiers joined in military operations alongside South Vietnamese forces backed by the US.
• Nobel Prize-winning American author John Steinbeck arrived in Bangkok following a four-month ‘fact-finding mission’ to Vietnam. Steinbeck predicted that the US would win the war and condemned anti-war protesters.

March

• US officials admitted for the first time that the US planes were using Thai bases to bomb North Vietnam. Around 35,000 US personnel were stationed in Thailand at the time.
• American Jim Thompson failed to return from a trip to Malaysia. It was learned that he disappeared in the jungle around the Cameron Highlands after taking a walk from a cottage where he was staying. Thompson was a former intelligence officer who had been attached to the US Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the CIA). He settled in Thailand in 1946 and was responsible for making Thai silk famous around the world.

James Harrison Wilson Thompson (March 21, 1906 – March 26, 1967 disappeared) was an American businessman who helped revitalise the Thai silk industry in the 1950s and 1960s. At the time of his disappearance he was one of the most famous Americans living in Asia. Time magazine claimed he "almost singlehanded(ly) saved Thailand's vital silk industry from extinction".

Jim Thompson was born in Greenville, Delaware in 1906. He was the youngest of five children of Henry and Mary Thompson. His father was a wealthy textile manufacturer; his mother was the daughter of James Harrison Wilson (1837–1925), a noted Union general during the American Civil War....

From 1931 to 1940, he practised in New York City with Holden, McLaughlin & Associates, designing homes for the East Coast rich. During this period, he led an active social life and sat on the board of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

The Original Ballet Russe (originally named Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo) was a ballet company established in 1931 by René Blum and Colonel Wassily de Basil as a successor to the Ballets Russes, founded in 1909 by Sergei Diaghilev. The company assumed the new name Original Ballet Russe after a split between de Basil and Blum. De Basil led the renamed company, while Blum and others founded a new company under the name Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo. It was a large scale professional ballet company which toured extensively in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the United States, and Central and South America. It closed down operations in 1947.

-- Original Ballet Russe, by Wikipedia

In 1941, he quit his job and enlisted with the Delaware National Guard. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, he was transferred to a military outpost in Fort Monroe, Virginia. While he was here, he got to know Second Lieutenant Edwin Fahey Black, a fresh graduate from the US Military Academy, West Point. It was Black who encouraged him to join the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

At the height of the Second World War, Thompson was recruited by major general William Joseph Donovan (1883–1959) to serve as an operative in the OSS.

His first assignment was with the French Resistance in North Africa. He was then sent to Europe. After Victory in Europe Day (May 7–8, 1945), he was transferred to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) to work with the pro-Allied Seri Thai (Free Thai Movement). Their mission was to help liberate Thailand from the occupying Japanese Army. The group had the support of Pridi Panomyong, the regent to King Ananda Mahidol of Thailand, and Seni Pramoj, the Thai ambassador to the United States.

In August 1945, Thompson was about to be sent into Thailand, when the Surrender of Japan officially ended World War II. He arrived in Thailand shortly after Victory over Japan Day and organised the Bangkok OSS office. It was here he got to know Constance (Connie) Mangskau, an Allied Services translator, who later became one of his closest friends.

In the spring of 1946, Thompson went to work as military attaché at the United States legation for his former Princeton classmate Charles Woodruff Yost, the US Minister to Thailand. Thompson used his contacts with the Free Thai and Free Lao groups to gather information and defuse conflicts on Thailand's borders. Working with him in the Legation was Kenneth Landon, an American missionary whose wife, Margaret Landon, was the author of Anna and the King of Siam, which was the inspiration for a 1946 film of the same name, and The King and I in 1956.

In late 1946, Thompson headed for home to seek his discharge from the army. After his divorce from Patricia Thraves (1920–1969), he returned to Thailand to join a group of investors to buy The Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. While working on its restoration, he had some differences with his associates and this resulted in him giving up his shares. He subsequently switched his focus to silk.

In 1948,[13] he partnered with George Barrie to found the Thai Silk Company Limited. It was capitalised at US$25,000. They each bought eighteen percent of the shares. The remaining sixty-four percent were sold to Thai and foreign investors.

The firm achieved a coup in 1951 when designer Irene Sharaff made use of Thai silk fabrics for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I. From then on, the company prospered.... It was only after Thompson's disappearance that the Thai Silk Company relocated its weaving operations to Korat, a city which serves as a base of operations for the Royal Thai Army....

In 1958, he began what was to be the pinnacle of his architectural achievement – the construction of a new home to showcase his objets d'art.

Using parts of old up-country houses – some as old as a hundred years – he succeeded in constructing a masterpiece that involved the reassembling of six Thai dwellings on his estate. Most of the units were dismantled and brought over by river from Ayutthaya, but the largest – a weaver's house (now the living room) – came from Bangkrua. On arrival, the woodwork was offloaded and pieced together....

After he was through with its creation, he filled his home with the items he had collected in the past. Decorating his rooms were Chinese blue-and-white Ming pieces, Belgian glass, Cambodian carvings, Victorian-era chandeliers, Benjarong earthenware, Thai stone images, Burmese statues, and a dining table which was once used by King Rama V of Thailand....

Thompson disappeared from Malaysia's Cameron Highlands on Sunday, March 26, 1967. His disappearance from the hill station generated one of the largest land searches in Southeast Asian history, and is one of the most famous mysteries in the region.

-- Jim Thompson (designer), by Wikipedia

• Chulalongkorn University, Thailand’s first university named after King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), celebrated its 50th anniversary. Their Majesties King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit opened the festivities which took place on the campus over a three-day period.

June

• A fascinated crowd watched the first Thai colour TV show on eight 24-inch colour sets placed outside the Royal Hotel in Bangkok. TV sets were sold in the shops but cost at least twice as much as black and white sets.

September

• Thai security forces arrested 37 members of the Communist Party of Thailand, both males and females, including some alleged leaders. Most of the arrests were made in Bangkok. Under the Article 17 of the new interim constitution those arrested faced a possible death sentence.

October

• An emotional ceremony was held for the first two Thai soldiers killed in Vietnam. The soldiers were reportedly killed by a booby trap while on patrol near Saigon. Their bodies were flown to Don Muang airport.
• Establishment of Prince of Songkhla University, the first university in southern Thailand. The King christened the university in honour of his father, His Royal Highness Prince Mahidol Adulyadej, Prince of Songkhla. An initial plan to construct the university in Pattani province was scrapped and Hat Yai in Songkhla province was chosen instead.

November

• Establishment of the Association of Thai Industries (FTA), a private sector organization designed to assist and promote Thai industries.
• The Dalai Lama arrived in Bangkok at the invitation of the Buddhist Association of Thailand. While in Thailand he met with local religious leaders and government officials including Prince Dhani Nivat, president of the Privy Council, and Prime Minister Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn.

Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn (11 August 1911 – 16 June 2004) was a Thai military dictator. A staunch anti-communist, Thanom oversaw a decade of military rule in Thailand from 1963 to 1973, during which he staged a self-coup, until public protests which exploded into violence forced him to step down. His return from exile in 1976 sparked protests which led to a massacre of demonstrators, followed by a military coup....

After serving in the Shan States of Burma during World War II, then Lieutenant Colonel Thanom took part in a successful 1947 coup headed by Colonel Sarit Thanarat. He became a regimental commander and was head of the Lopburi military department. He was soon promoted to colonel, commanding the 11th Infantry Division. Thanom was appointed a member of parliament in 1951, his first political role. He was promoted to major general the same year.

In February 1953, Thanom led the suppression of a rebellion against military rule, and was rewarded with promotion to lieutenant general. He represented Thailand at the ceremony to mark the end of the Korean War in July 1953 and was later promoted as commander of the 1st Region Army.

He was appointed deputy cooperatives minister in 1955. Thanom supported Sarit in his coup against the government of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram, and was subsequently appointed defence minister in Pote Sarasin's puppet regime in 1957.

Pote Sarasin (Thai: พจน์ สารสิน, RTGS: Phot Sarasin, pronounced [pʰót sǎː.rā.sǐn]; 25 March 1905 – 28 September 2000) was a Thai diplomat and politician from the influential Sarasin family. He served as foreign minister from 1949 to 1951 and then served as ambassador to the United States. In September 1957 when Sarit Thanarat seized power in a military coup, he appointed Pote to be the acting prime minister. He resigned in December 1957. Pote also served as the first Secretary General of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization from September 1957 until 1964....

Pote was a scion of the Sarasin family, one of Bangkok's oldest and wealthiest assimilated Chinese families. The Sarasins had always cultivated good relations with the bureaucratic elite of the 19th century, and by the early 1950s held substantial interests in real estate and rice trading. His father, Thian Hee (Chinese: 黄天喜, whose official title was Phraya Sarasinsawamiphakh), was the son of a traditional Chinese doctor and pharmacist who had immigrated from Hainan to Siam in the early 19th century.

Pote's sons are Pong, a leading businessman, Police General Pao, who once served as the Chief of the Royal Thai Police, and Arsa, who, like his father, was also one of the former foreign ministers of Thailand and was serving as the late King Bhumibol's Principal Private Secretary. All three sons–Pong, Arsa and Pao Sarasin had all served as the Deputy Prime Ministers of Thailand.

-- Pote Sarasin, by Wikipedia

Thanom consolidated his power base as the second military leader and right-hand man of Sarit. A few days after the December 1957 general election, in which the pro-government Sahaphum Party ("United Land") had performed disappointingly, Thanom co-founded the National Socialist Party (Chat Sangkhomniyom).

National Socialist Party was a short-lived pro-military political party in Thailand. It was founded on 21 December 1957 by Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat.

-- National Socialist Party (Thailand)

He became the deputy leader of this party, designed to extend the pro-government camp and win over former members of Phibunsongkhram's Seri Manangkhasila Party who had been reelected to parliament as independents.

In 1958, he was made a full general and assumed the offices of prime minister and defence minister. He was prime minister for nine months, after which he was replaced by Sarit himself and made deputy prime minister, defence minister, and armed forces deputy supreme commander.

Thanom was appointed prime minister one day after Sarit's death in 1963. He subsequently appointed himself commander-in-chief of the army. One year later, he promoted himself to the concurrent ranks of field marshal, admiral of the fleet, and Marshal of the Royal Thai Air Force. Thanom continued the pro-American and anti-communist politics of his predecessor, which helped to ensure massive US economic and financial aid during the Vietnam War. Although he was personally popular, his regime was known for massive corruption. He established and led the United Thai People's Party (Saha Prachathai) in October 1968.

Thanom reappointed himself prime minister in February 1969 after general elections had been completed. The following year saw the beginnings of the 1970s peasant revolts in Thailand. Then, in November 1971, he staged a coup against his own government, citing the need to suppress communist infiltration. He dissolved parliament and appointed himself Chairman of the National Executive Council, and served as a caretaker government for one year. In December 1972, he appointed himself prime minister for a fourth time, also serving as the defence and foreign ministers. Thanom, his son Colonel Narong, and Narong's father-in-law General Praphas Charusathien became known as the "three tyrants".

Public discontent grew, along with demands for a general election to choose a new parliament. Student-led demands for a return to constitutional government, the so-called "14 October 1973 uprising", led to three days of violence followed by the sudden downfall of his government. Thanom and the other "tyrants" flew to exile in the United States and Singapore. Thanom's departure was followed by a restoration of a democratic rule in Thailand.

In October 1976, Thanom returned to Thailand in the robes of a novice monk, to stay at Bangkok's Wat Bowonniwet. Even though he announced he had no desire to enter politics, his return triggered student protests, which eventually moved onto the campus of Thammasat University. This was only a year after South Vietnam and Thailand's neighbors Laos and Cambodia had fallen to the communists, and right-wing Thais suspected the protesters wished the same fate for their own country. On 6 October 1976, right-wing militants, aided by government security forces, stormed the Thammasat campus, violently broke up the protests, and killed many protesters. That evening, the military seized power from the elected civilian government of Democrat MR Seni Pramoj and installed hard-line royalist Thanin Kraivichien as premier.

Thanom soon left the monkhood, but he kept his word never to take part in politics again. Late in his life, he attempted to rehabilitate his tarnished image and recover properties seized when his government was overthrown.

In March 1999, Thanom was nominated to be a member of the honorary Royal Guard by Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, which led to controversy. Thanom settled the matter himself by turning down the appointment.

-- Thanom Kittikachorn, by Wikipedia

• According to the Public Health Ministry, the incidence of venereal diseases had increased in Thailand by 50 percent over the previous five years. The ministry said most infections were contracted through prostitutes and asked the United Nations for assistance. The UN Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization promised to help.
• Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of assassinated US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, visited Thailand. She met with the King and Queen during her short stay.
• The first Thailand National Games, also known as Phra Nakhon 1967, were held in Bangkok. The multi-sport venue hosted 103 events in 15 disciplines. A total of 716 athletes from all regions of the country participated in the games.

1968

1968 was the year the separatist Islamic group called Pattani United Liberation Organization was formed, with the aim of using military and political means to achieve independence for Muslim-majority areas of southern Thailand.

January

• PM Thanom announced that US warplanes taking off from Thai air force bases were bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. It was the first official admission that US bombing raids were launched from Thai soil. The PM justified the action by saying it was “for the defence of our country”.
• The Shan of Iran and Empress Farah made a week-long state visit to Thailand. They were greeted at Don Muang Airport by the King and the Queen, who had visited Iran in February 1967.
• Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda made a five-day state visit to Thailand during which they met with the King and the Queen.

February

• PM Thanom inaugurated Thailand’s first steel manufacturing plant, GS Steel, in a ceremony in Samut Prakan province. The plant was a joint venture between GS and Japan’s Mitsubishi Shoki Kaisha and Kawaishi-Gisho companies. The plant complex consisted of 14 buildings.

March

• Around 1,000 taxi drivers formed the Taxi Drivers Cooperative, making it the first labour union in Thailand. The stated aim of the cooperative was to improve the working conditions of taxi drivers and provide a better experience for passengers.
• Tanayong Public Company Limited was founded. Now called BTS Group Holding, the company is the majority shareholder of Bangkok Mass Transit System PCL, which operates both the BTS Skytrain and Bangkok BRT.

May

• The country’s first satellite communications earth station was opened at Tung Sukhla in Si Racha district of Chonburi province. The station was linked to an IntelSat II satellite in orbit 22.300 miles above the Pacific Ocean, facilitating communication by voice, television and data. It was the first such station in Southeast Asia.
• Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie made a state visit to Thailand lasting three days, during which he met with the King. His Majesty said that the Emperor’s visit “marks the first time that a reigning monarch from Africa has made a state visit to Thailand” and praised the Emperor’s “wise and benevolent leadership”.

July

• For the first time in Thai medical history doctors at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok succeeded in separating conjoined twins. The twins were joined at the liver and the complicated procedure to separate them was performed by a team of five Thai doctors led by the chief of the hospital’s paediatrics department, Dr Snoh Indrasukhsri.

August

• Popular 38-year-old singer Surapol Sombatcharoen, hailed as ‘Thailand’s Elvis’, was shot dead by an assassin after getting into his car at a car park following a performance at Saengchand Theatre in Nakhon Pathom province. Thousands of mourners came to his funeral at Wat Paknam in Thonburi.

October

• The last nine trams were removed from Bangkok streets after it was determined they were too expensive to maintain and they blocked vehicular traffic. The trams had been introduced to Bangkok about 70 years earlier.

November

• The first King’s Cup, the country’s first international football tournament organized by the Football Association of Thailand, kicked off at National Stadium and carried on to December. The Cup was won by Indonesia, who beat Burma 1-0 in the final. Thailand finished third. Three bottle bombs exploded during a semifinal between Thailand and Burma, injuring seven spectators at the stadium. Authorities suspected that the incident was the work of communist insurgents.

December

• The King opened the National Cancer Institute on Rama IV Road near Ramathibodi Hospital. The institute was partially financed by Japan. The King proclaimed December 10 as Anti-Cancer Day.

1969

1969 saw the transition of Assumption University, established in 1938, to an autonomous educational institution, as well as the founding of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Surat Thani province. The area was evangelized by the Salesians of Don Bosco in the 1930s. 1969 was also the year Sahakol Air was formed as an air-taxi service. It was the first privately owned domestic airline in Thailand and under contract to the Overseas International Construction Company, US Operation Mission and other organizations involved in oil and natural gas exploration in the Gulf of Thailand. The airline was rebranded as Bangkok Airways in 1989.

February

• An IBM 1800 computer was delivered to Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, a gift from the US Pentagon. The computer was installed inside the Engineering Faculty. The computer was intended for scientific and industrial work and also available to American and Thai military personnel.
• A professional bout between two Thai boxers at Ratchadamnoen Stadium was refereed by former world heavyweight boxing champion Rocco Francis Marchegiano, better known as Rocky Marciano. About 12,000 people were in attendance. Marciano won all 49 fights of his career, 43 by KO.
• The first national election in 11 years was held. More than 1,500 candidates from a dozen parties and independents vied for 219 seats in the House of Representatives. PM Thanom’s United Thai People Party won 75 seats and 72 went to independents. After the elections 30 of the 72 independents joined the UTPP.

April

• A US Air Force EC-121 spy plane crashed on takeoff near Korat killing all 18 crew-members. The crash was in an unpopulated area about five kilometers northwest of Korat’s Royal Thai Air Force Base.

May

• Three electricity generating companies, Yanhee Electricity Authority, Lignite Electricity and Northeast Electricity Authority joined to form the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). The merger was designed to reduce costs. EGAT became the largest power producer in Thailand.
• Fifty three Thai fishermen were freed by Cambodian Prince Norodom Sihanouk after spending five to eight years in Cambodian custody. The fishermen had been captured in Cambodian waters, charged with illegal fishing and jailed. The Burmese Ambassador representing Thai interests in Cambodia was partly responsible for the release.

June

• The King authorized the purchase of new printing presses to produce high quality banknotes. The Bank of Thailand’s Banknote Printing Division said that using high quality paper and modern printing techniques machines would deter counterfeiters. The first running of the new presses produced notes of five and 10 baht denomination.

July

• US President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat made a visit to Thailand and were received by the King and the Queen. They also met with PM Thanom and other officials, including the Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger joined the president in various meetings.

August

• PM Thanom told the National Cultural Council to ban mini-skirts.

September

• English language bookseller Asia Books was established.
• The US began the withdrawal of 48,000 troops and giant B52 bombers from Thailand amid growing anti-war protests and increasing criticism from Congress on the management of the war. State Department Secretary William Rogers said Congress was worried that the US could be dragged into another land war in Thailand. An agreement was reached on September 20 between the US and Thailand specifying that the first 6,000 US troops would leave Thailand by July 1, 1970.

November

• Thousands of Thai Marines were sent to help police in the struggle against communists and Muslim separatists in the jungles of South Thailand. The strategy of the insurgents was to destroy the economy by attacking infrastructure and spreading fear among workers at rubber plantations. On November 12 in Songkhla province insurgents killed seven policemen and critically injured three others.

December

• Bangkok Bank was the first financial institution in Thailand to computerize its operations. Bank officials said customers would be able to deposit and withdraw money from the 38 branches in Bangkok and Thonburi more conveniently.

1970

1970 brought new rules for foreign workers in the country in an effort to reduce the number of immigrants who were taking jobs from Thais. It was announced that regulations requiring foreigners to have work permits would soon be introduced.

1970 saw the founding of the following enterprises and institutions which are still with us: Provincial Electricity Football Club,now known as Buriram United FC; Wat Phra Dhammakaya Buddhist temple in Pathum Thani province, founded by the maechi (nun) Chandra Khonnokyoong and Luang Por Dhammajayo; Thai motion picture production and distribution company Sahamongkol Film International, or Mongkol Film; and Suriya College, renamed Sripatum University in 1987.

The Queen’s Cup annual football competition took place for the first time in 1970, but was discontinued in 2010.

February

• The Dusit Thani Hotel opened its doors on the corner of Silom and Rama IV roads. Founded by Chanut Piyaoui, it was the highest building in Bangkok at the time.

March

• Indonesian President Hajji Suharto and his wife made a two-day official visit to Thailand. The president was welcomed at the airport by the King, who said that both nations faced ‘critical dangers’. Both Thailand and Indonesia supported America’s program of communist suppression throughout the region.
• Color Television Channel 3 (TV3) began broadcasting at 10am on March 26. It was the first Thai commercial television station. TV3 was officially launched during a ceremony attended by PM Thanom.

May

• Cambodia asked Thailand for a military aid, one year after the Americans began bombing communist Vietnamese targets in Cambodia. Links between Thailand and Cambodia improved with the opening of the Aranyaprathet border crossing and re-establishment of diplomatic relations.

July

• Cambodian Prime Minister Lon Nol was the first Cambodian premier to make an official visit to Thailand in 20 years. Lon Nol led a successful bloodless military coup d'état in May which overthrew the regime of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. He was later overthrown by the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

July

• A tax was introduced on more than 200 imported and locally made items. Dubbed the Midnight Tax Decree, the new regulations increased the import duty on cars from an already high 60% to 80%, while sales taxes went up to 30 percent. The duty on cosmetics increased almost 100%. The government defended the increases as necessary to increase the military budget to fund communist suppression efforts and fend off other national security threats.

September

• More than 4,000 students from Chulalongkorn University broke through the main gate of the Parliament building and demanded the suspension of three professors allegedly involved in corruption in the lease of campus land to private businesses.

October

• Superstar actor Mitr Chaibancha (born Pichet Pumhem) fell 90 meters to his death from a helicopter while filming the final scene of his new movie Insee Thong (Golden Eagle) at Dongtan Beach, Jomtien, Pattaya. The 36-year-old actor appeared in 266 films between 1956 and 1970 was injured several times during his career. Around 100,000 fans came to a memorial service for Mitr held the day after his accident at Bangkok’s Wat Sunthorn Thammathan.

November

• A French monorail company approached the Bangkok municipality with a proposal to do a feasibility study into a mass rail line for Bangkok. The city accepted the proposal.

December

• A five-hour fire destroyed half of the commercial centre of Saraburi, laying waste to homes and businesses and leaving over 3,000 people homeless. Hundreds of shop houses, three banks, two insurance companies, a theatre, a market and two schools were destroyed. The King sent relief supplies to families affected by the fire.

1971

1971 saw the launch of the Chao Phraya Express transport service operating on the Chao Phraya River. The service still provides convenient transportation between Bangkok and Nonthaburi for locals and tourists. Ramkhamhaeng University, a public and open university named after King Ramkhamhaeng the Great of Sukhothai, was established. The King is credited with creating the Thai alphabet. Sirindhorn Dam, named after Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, was commissioned in 1971. The dam is located in Sirindhorn district of Ubon Ratchathani province and was built to serve as a hydropower facility and to supply water for irrigation.

January

• Mitr Chaibancha was cremated at Wat Thepsirin in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of fans attended the cremation ceremony.

March

• Martial law was suspended in 34 provinces including Bangkok, and the government said that Thonburi and Chiang Mai were no longer considered ‘communist infested’ areas. However, emergency powers remained in force in 37 Thai provinces, including the whole Northeast.

April

• A blaze at the Imperial Hotel in Bangkok claimed 24 lives, including six children. Many guests jumped from windows of the 107-room hotel to escape the blaze.

May

• FM Khoman referred to China as “the People’s Republic of China” during a press conference in a real sign of warming between the two countries. It was the first time any cabinet official used the official name of China.

July

• Nation Multimedia Group was formed and English-language newspaper The Nation was launched by former Bangkok Post journalist Suthichai Yoon on July 1. The front-page headline was: “The How and Why of The Nation.” The first issue reportedly sold 3,000 copies.
• The government considered various proposals on how to support the car manufacturing industry. Ministries worked together to come up with recommendations to promote car assembly and the manufacture of component parts. One proposal was to widen the import tax differential between completely built-up cars – to be taxed at higher rate – and cars which were assembled in Thailand.

August

• Scientists warned that unless something was done to prevent further subsidence, Bangkok could be below sea level in 20 years’ time. Two professors in geotechnical engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology claimed said there was evidence that many areas in Bangkok were subsiding because too much underground water had been pumped from beneath the city to meet the rapid increase in water demand.

September

• Transvestites (katoey) from Bangkok and Thonburi formed an association to protect their interests and to end what they claimed was prejudice against them. Among other aims, the group’s leaders said they wanted a law to allow them to marry. The group estimated there were around 10,000 katoey living in Bangkok and Thonburi.

October

• Mobs of football fans, mostly youths, rioted at the National Stadium after heavy rain led to cancellation of the Queen’s Cup semifinal match between Vee Foh and Rajathevi. The fans tore down goalposts, smashed seats and lit bonfires on the pitch. The match was attended by about 20,000 fans. An unknown number participated in the riot after players failed to show after half-time.
• The government approved a proposal to transform and develop the island of Koh Samui into a major holiday destination in an effort to boost the ailing tourist industry. Among other attempts to stimulate tourism was an extension of the length of time tourists could stay without a visa.

November

• PM Thanom staged a coup on November 17 against his own government, citing the need to suppress communist infiltration. In a shocking announcement made on Bangkok Radio at 7pm, PM Thanom declared martial law, abrogating the constitution, dissolving Parliament and disbanding the cabinet. All authority was placed in the hands of security forces chiefs. Thanom also announced the establishment of a nine-member Executive Council to direct affairs of state for five years.

December

• The Supreme Patriarch Somdej Phra Ariyawongsakhatayan passed away after injuries suffered in a car accident. The accident happened in Bang Phli district of Samut Prakan province as the supreme patriarch was on his way to deliver a sermon. His limousine crashed head-on with a pickup truck. The country went into a 15-day mourning period. A tearful Thanom paid homage to the patriarch at Police Hospital in Bangkok, where the body was taken.

*Sources for this story include archives of UPI, AFP, AP, the Bangkok Post, The Nation and Wikipedia.

[admin]

Rudolf Otto
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/29/20

"As a student, athlete, politician, mystic, and writer, Baba Pyare Lal Bedi, better known as Baba Bedi XVI, considered the sixteenth descendant of Nanak, who was in the past, one of the best known and active Sikh teachers.

Father of the well-known actor, Kabir Bedi, he spread a Sikh spirituality. Its setting is different from that of the Sikh master Yogi Bhajan who founded in Toronto, in 1968, the 3HO organization, also known as Sikh Dharma. Master of the Occult Circle of India, he is the descendant of the sixteenth generation of Sat Guru Baba Nanak, Founding Master of the Sikh faith, in the 15th century. Born in 1909 in Punjab, Northern India, he graduated from universities Punjab and Oxford; he was a researcher at the University of Berlin with a scholarship named after Alexander Von Humboldt, working with Prof. Werner Sombart and with Prof. Rudolf Otto of the University of Marburg.

As an athlete he won the championship in the hammer throw in the Indian Olympic race, and at the English inter-university meeting in Oxford. Returning to India in 1934, he began to participate, as a leftist revolutionary, in the liberation battle of India, and passed a few years in concentration camps and in English prisons....

In 1953, after 20 years of political activity, he gave up politics, and turned to mystical life. In 1961, to dig deeper into the heart of the occult, he founded the "Institute for Inquiry into the Unknown" (Institute of Investigation into the Unknown).

In 1963 he added a new dimension to his work by starting the Center for Psychic Art (Center for Psychic Art).

From 1972 onwards, he came to Italy where, after numerous conferences in Rome and Turin, he stopped in Milan, where he founded and lead the Aquarian Philosophy Center, from which he dissociated and opened his School of New Philosophical Thought by developing his philosophy for the Aquarian Age, taking courses to learn Vibration Therapy, and helping the development of human personality through the Psychic expression. His teachings are about meditation, awareness of God, psychophysical well-being, and evolution of personality.

In 1981 he chaired the International Congress on Reincarnation, held in Milan, and began the World Movement to "live according to Ethical Consciousness," as a means for achieve social Peace.

In the Italian years, Baba Bedi XVI published 3 reference books of Aquarian philosophy: "Total Man" (1975), "Man in the Age of Aquarius" (1982), and "Consciousness, eye of the Soul "(1991). Furthermore, in 1981, he founded and directed the Aquarian philosophy magazine “La Resonance".

He revealed truly new positive dynamics to humanity, which can be implemented on all levels, and at every level, as long as one desires it first. He never tired of repeating: “You can't bring the horse to the river and force him to drink, even if he is thirsty; no violation is possible to free will."

His works published jointly with his wife Freda M. Houlston Bedi* are:

• *India analyzed, work in 4 volumes (1933-1934 London, Victor Gollancz);
• *Gandhi: Mahatma Gandhi, Saint and statesman, with a preface by Prof. Rudolf Otto, London 1934);
• Karl Marx - Letters on India, Lahore, Contemporary India Publication (1936);
• Sheikh Abdullah: his life and ideals (1949);
• Harvest from the Desert, Sir Ganga Ram Trust Society (1940);
• Muslims in USSR, Lahore, Indian Printing Works (1947);
• Mystic India, (3 vol.), The Unity Book club of India, New Delhi;
• Hands off West Irian: Indonesia's national demand from Dutch colonialists (1962);
• Prophet of the Full Moon: Guru Baba Nanak, founder master of Sikhism, New Delhi, Chaudhari Publishers, (1966);
• The art of the tetress, Bombay, Pearl books (1968), translated into Italian by La nuova Via ed. 1972;
• The pilgrim's way, with a preface by the Indian President S. Radhakrishanan, India (1969), Patiala, Punjabi University;
• *Dynamics of the New Age, New Delhi (1970);
• Conscience as Dynamics of the Psychic for Human Well-being, New Delhi, Institute for Inquiry Into the Unknown;
• Mystic & Ecstacy Eros, New Delhi, Institute for Inquiry Into the Unknown;
• The dynamics of the occult, New Delhi, Unity Publishers;
• The total man, Age of Uranus ed. 1977;
• Soul Eye Consciousness, ed. Zanfi, 2008, second edition of Cittadella Instit. Aquarian pedagogy.

-- Biographical note of Baba Pyare Lal Bedi XVI, by Alleva Franca

Rudolf Otto
Born: 25 September 1869, Peine, North German Confederation
Died: 6 March 1937 (aged 67), Marburg, Germany
Academic background
Alma mater: University of Erlangen, University of Göttingen
Influences: Friedrich Schleiermacher, Immanuel Kant, Jakob Fries
Academic work
Discipline: Theology and comparative religion
School or tradition: History of religions school
Notable works: The Idea of the Holy
Notable ideas: The numinous
Influenced: Eliade, Jung, Campbell, C. S. Lewis, Tillich, Barth, Rahner, Heidegger, Wach, Horkheimer, Gadamer

Rudolf Otto (25 September 1869 – 7 March 1937) was an eminent German Lutheran theologian, philosopher, and comparative religionist. He is regarded as one of the most influential scholars of religion in the early twentieth century and is best known for his concept of the numinous, a profound emotional experience he argued was at the heart of the world's religions.[1]

In the drala teachings, each of the senses is considered an “unlimited field of perception” in which there are sights, sounds and feelings “we have never experienced before” –- no one has ever experienced! Each sense moment, if we are present for it, is a gate into the elemental wisdom of the world, even a cold sip of coffee could ignite the experience of Yeats: “While on the shop and street I gazed / My body of a sudden blazed.” Every perception is a pure perception; from the feel of a meager pebble stuck in our shoe to the meow of a house cat. Through this kind of perception we discover that we live in a vast, singular and unexplored world....

Sometimes a stone, a tree, a teacup or a violin processes an intangible presence, a numinousity, that cannot be explained.

-- The Drala Principle, by Bill Scheffel

While his work started in the domain of liberal Christian theology, its main thrust was always apologetical, seeking to defend religion against naturalist critiques.[2] Otto eventually came to conceive of his work as part of a science of religion, which was divided into the philosophy of religion, the history of religion, and the psychology of religion.[2]

Life

Born in Peine near Hanover, Otto was raised in a pious Christian family.[3] He attended the Gymnasium Andreanum in Hildesheim and studied at the universities of Erlangen and Göttingen, where he wrote his dissertation on Martin Luther's understanding of the Holy Spirit (Die Anschauung von heiligen Geiste bei Luther: Eine historisch-dogmatische Untersuchung), and his habilitation on Kant (Naturalistische und religiöse Weltansicht).

It is difficult to understand the behavior of most German Protestants in the first Nazi years unless one is aware of two things: their history and the influence of Martin Luther. [v] The great founder of Protestantism was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absolute obedience to political authority. He wanted Germany rid of the Jews and when they were sent away he advised that they be deprived of "all their cash and jewels and silver and gold" and, furthermore, "that their synagogues or schools be set on fire, that their houses be broken up and destroyed ... and they be put under a roof or stable, like the gypsies ... in misery and captivity as they incessantly lament and complain to God about us" -- advice that was literally followed four centuries later by Hitler, Goering and Himmler.

In what was perhaps the only popular revolt in German history, the peasant uprising of 1525, Luther advised the princes to adopt the most ruthless measures against the "mad dogs," as he called the desperate, downtrodden peasants. Here, as in his utterances about the Jews, Luther employed a coarseness and brutality of language unequaled in German history until the Nazi time. The influence of this towering figure extended down the generations in Germany, especially among the Protestants. Among other results was the ease with which German Protestantism became the instrument of royal and princely absolutism from the sixteenth century until the kings and princes were overthrown in 1918. The hereditary monarchs and petty rulers became the supreme bishops of the Protestant Church in their lands. Thus in Prussia the Hohenzollern King was the head of the Church. In no country with the exception of Czarist Russia did the clergy become by tradition so completely servile to the political authority of the State. Its members, with few exceptions, stood solidly behind the King, the Junkers and the Army, and during the nineteenth century they dutifully opposed the rising liberal and democratic movements. Even the Weimar Republic was anathema to most Protestant pastors, not only because it had deposed the kings and princes but because it drew its main support from the Catholics and the Socialists. During the Reichstag elections one could not help but notice that the Protestant clergy -- Niemoeller was typical -- quite openly supported the Nationalist and even the Nazi enemies of the Republic. Like Niemoeller, most of the pastors welcomed the advent of Adolf Hitler to the chancellorship in 1933.

-- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, by William L. Shirer

By 1906, he held a position as extraordinary professor, and in 1910 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Giessen.

Otto's fascination with non-Christian religions was awakened during an extended trip from 1911-1912 through North Africa, Palestine, British India, China, Japan, and the United States.[4] He cited a 1911 visit to a Moroccan synagogue as a key inspiration for the theme of the Holy he would later develop.[3] Otto became a member of the German parliament in 1913 and retained this position through the First World War.[4] In 1917, he spearheaded an effort to simplify the system of weighting votes in Prussian elections.[2] He then served in the post-war constituent assembly in 1918, and remained involved in the politics of the Weimar Republic.[4]

Meanwhile, in 1915, he became ordinary professor at the University of Breslau, and in 1917, at the University of Marburg's Divinity School, then one of the most famous Protestant seminaries in the world. Although he received several other calls, he remained in Marburg for the rest of his life. He retired in 1929 but continued writing afterward. On 6 March 1937, he died of pneumonia, after suffering serious injuries falling about twenty meters from a tower in October 1936. There were lasting rumors that the fall was a suicide attempt but this has never been confirmed.[2] He is buried in the Marburg cemetery.

Thought

Influences

In his early years Otto was most influenced by the German idealist theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher and his conceptualization of the category of the religious as a type of emotion or consciousness irreducible to ethical or rational epistemologies.[4] In this, Otto saw Schleiermacher as having recaptured a sense of holiness lost in the Age of Enlightenment. Schleiermacher described this religious feeling as one of absolute dependence; Otto eventually rejected this characterization as too closely analogous to earthly dependence and emphasized the complete otherness of the religious feeling from the mundane world (see below).[4] In 1904, while a student at the University of Göttingen, Otto became a proponent of the philosophy of Jakob Fries along with two fellow students.[2]

Fries' most important treatise, the Neue oder anthropologische Kritik der Vernunft (2nd ed., 1828–1831), was an attempt to give a new foundation of psychological analysis to the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant. In 1811 he published his System der Logik (ed. 1819 and 1837), and in 1814 Julius und Evagoras, a philosophical romance.[3] He was also involved in public polemics, and in 1816 wrote Ueber die Gefährdung des Wohlstandes und des Charakters der Deutschen durch die Juden (On the Danger Posed by the Jews to German Well-Being and Character), advocating among other things a distinct sign on the dress of Jews to distinguish them from the general population, and encouraging their emigration from German lands. He blamed the Jews for the ascendant role of money in society and called for Judaism to be "extirpated root and branch" from German society.

In 1816 he was invited to Jena to fill the chair of theoretical philosophy (including mathematics, physics, and philosophy proper), and entered upon a crusade against the prevailing Romanticism. In politics he was a strong Liberal and Unionist, and he did much to inspire the organization of the Burschenschaft. He also published a pamphlet calling for the exclusion of the Jews from public life in Germany. In 1816 he had published his views in a brochure, Von deutschem Bund und deutscher Staatsverfassung, dedicated to "the youth of Germany", and his influence gave a powerful impetus to the agitation which led in 1819 to the issue of the Carlsbad Decrees by the representatives of the German governments.[3]...

Fries was involved in a dispute with the contemporary German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel. In the preface to his Philosophy of Right, Hegel criticised Fries' participation in student events and his role in the Burschenschaft.

Its motto was “honor, freedom, fatherland”...

The Burschenschaften were student associations that engaged in numerous social activities. However, their most important goal was to foster loyalty to the concept of a united German national state as well as strong engagement for freedom, rights, and democracy. Quite often Burschenschaften decided to stress extreme nationalist or sometimes also liberal ideas, leading in time to the exclusion of Jews, who were considered to be un-German....

In the 1880s, a renaissance movement, the Reformburschenschaften, led by the ideas of Küster, arose and many new B!B! were founded. It was also during this time until the 1890s when members turned increasingly towards anti-Semitic outlook since it provided an approach to achieving the fraternity's fundamental goal. Members viewed the Jews as a problem that hampered the unification of Germany and the achievement of new values the organization advanced. There were members who resigned to protest a resolution adopted at an Eisenach meeting declaring that Burschenschaft "have no Jewish members and do not plan to have any in the future." Historical records show that the fraternity again accepted Jewish members later on since it was not in favor of racist antisemitism...

Some Nazis (e.g. Ernst Kaltenbrunner) and Nazi opponents (Karl Sack, Hermann Kaiser) were members of Burschenschaften. Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jewish journalist who founded modern political Zionism, was also a member of a Burschenschaft. However, he resigned two years after he joined because of the fraternity's antisemitism....

Roughly 160 Burschenschaften still exist today and many are organized in different organizations ranging from progressive to nationalistic. Among the latter is the Deutsche Burschenschaft organization (DB), which represents about a third of the Burschenschaften....

Many Burschenschaften, often found in certain "umbrella" organisations (such as the Burschenschaftliche Gemeinschaft), are associated with right-wing or far-right ideas, in particular with the wish for a German state encompassing Austria. In 2013 one Bonn fraternity proposed that only students of German origin should be eligible to join a Burschenschaft. Reportedly half of member clubs threatened to leave in a row over proposed ID cards and a decision to label an opponent of Adolf Hitler a "traitor".

-- Burschenschaft, by Wikipedia

Fries responded by accusing Hegel of defending the existing order and his own privileged position within it. He argued that "Hegel's metaphysical mushroom has grown not in the gardens of science but on the dunghill of servility." For Fries, Hegel's theories merely added up to a defence of the establishment and, specifically, the Prussian authorities.

-- Jakob Friedrich Fries, by Wikipedia

Early works

Otto's first book, Naturalism and Religion (1904) divides the world ontologically into the mental and the physical, a position reflecting Cartesian dualism. Otto argues consciousness cannot be explained in terms of physical or neural processes, and also accords it epistemological primacy by arguing all knowledge of the physical world is mediated by personal experience. On the other hand, he disagrees with Descartes' characterization of the mental as a rational realm, positing instead that rationality is built upon a nonrational intuitive realm.[2]

In 1909, he published his next book, The Philosophy of Religion Based on Kant and Fries, in which he examines the thought of Kant and Fries and from there attempts to build a philosophical framework within which religious experience can take place. While Kant's philosophy said thought occurred in a rational domain, Fries diverged and said it also occurred in practical and aesthetic domains; Otto pursued Fries' line of thinking further and suggested another nonrational domain of the thought, the religious. He felt intuition was valuable in rational domains like mathematics, but subject to the corrective of reason, whereas religious intuitions might not be subject to that corrective.[2]

These two early works were influenced by the rationalist approaches of Immanuel Kant and Jakob Fries. Otto stated that they focused on the rational aspects of the divine (the "Ratio aeterna") whereas his next (and most influential) book focused on the nonrational aspects of the divine.[5]

The Idea of the Holy

Otto's most famous work, The Idea of the Holy, was first published in German in 1917 as Das Heilige - Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen. It was one of the most successful German theological books of the 20th century, has never gone out of print, and is now available in about 20 languages. The first English translation was published in 1923 under the title The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Otto felt people should first do serious rational study of God, before turning to the non-rational element of God as he did in this book.[5][6]:vii

In The Idea of the Holy, Otto writes that while the concept of "the holy" is often used to convey moral perfection—and does entail this—it contains another distinct element, beyond the ethical sphere, for which he coined the term numinous based on the Latin word numen ("divine power").[6]:5–7 (The term is etymologically unrelated to Immanuel Kant's noumenon, a Greek term which Kant used to refer to an unknowable reality underlying sensations of the thing.) He explains the numinous as a "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self". This mental state "presents itself as ganz Andere,[7] wholly other, a condition absolutely sui generis and incomparable whereby the human being finds himself utterly abashed."[8] Otto argues that because the numinous is irreducible and sui generis it cannot be defined in terms of other concepts or experiences, and that the reader must therefore be "guided and led on by consideration and discussion of the matter through the ways of his own mind, until he reach the point at which 'the numinous' in him perforce begins to stir... In other words, our X cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, it can only be evoked, awakened in the mind."[6]:7 Chapters 4 to 6 are devoted to attempting to evoke the numinous and its various aspects. He writes:[4][6]:12–13

The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its “profane,” non-religious mood of everyday experience. [...] It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again it may be developed into something beautiful and pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature in the presence of—whom or what? In the presence of that which is a Mystery inexpressible and above all creatures.

He describes it as a mystery (Latin: mysterium) that is at once terrifying (tremendum) and fascinating (fascinans).[9] Otto felt that the numinous was most strongly present in the Old and New Testaments, but that it was also present in all other religions.[6]:74

According to Mark Wynn in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Idea of the Holy falls within a paradigm in the philosophy of emotion in which emotions are seen as including an element of perception with intrinsic epistemic value that is neither mediated by thoughts nor simply a response to physiological factors. Otto therefore understands religious experience as having mind-independent phenomenological content rather than being an internal response to belief in a divine reality. Otto applied this model specifically to religious experiences, which he felt were qualitatively different from other emotions.[10]

Later works

In Mysticism East and West, published in German in 1926 and English in 1932, Otto compares and contrasts the views of the medieval German Christian mystic Meister Eckhart with those of the influential Hindu philosopher Adi Shankara, the key figure of the Advaita Vedanta school.[2]

Influence

Otto left a broad influence on theology, religious studies, and philosophy of religion, which continues into the 21st century.[11]

Christian theology

Karl Barth, an influential Protestant theologian contemporary to Otto, acknowledged Otto's influence and approved a similar conception of God as ganz Andere or totaliter aliter,[12] thus falling within the tradition of apophatic theology.[13][14] Otto was also one of the very few modern theologians to whom C. S. Lewis indicates a debt, particularly to the idea of the numinous in The Problem of Pain. In that book Lewis offers his own description of the numinous:[15]

Suppose you were told there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told "There is a ghost in the next room," and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is "uncanny" rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply "There is a mighty spirit in the room," and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking—a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of prostration before it—an emotion which might be expressed in Shakespeare's words "Under it my genius is rebuked." This feeling may be described as awe, and the object which excites it as the Numinous.

German-American theologian Paul Tillich acknowledged Otto's influence on him,[2] as did Otto's most famous German pupil, Gustav Mensching (1901–1978) from Bonn University.[16] Otto's views can be seen in the noted Catholic theologian Karl Rahner's presentation of man as a being of transcendence. More recently, Otto has also influenced the American Franciscan friar and inspirational speaker Richard Rohr.[17]:139

Non-Christian theology and spirituality

Otto's ideas have also exerted an influence on non-Christian theology and spirituality. They have been discussed by Orthodox Jewish theologians including Joseph Soloveitchik[18] and Eliezer Berkovits.[19] The Iranian-American Sufi religious studies scholar and public intellectual Reza Aslan understands religion as "an institutionalized system of symbols and metaphors [...] with which a community of faith can share with each other their numinous encounter with the Divine Presence."[20] Further afield, Otto's work received words of appreciation from Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi.[16] Aldous Huxley, a major proponent of perennialism, was influenced by Otto; in The Doors of Perception he writes:[21]

The literature of religious experience abounds in references to the pains and terrors overwhelming those who have come, too suddenly, face to face with some manifestation of the mysterium tremendum. In theological language, this fear is due to the in-compatibility between man's egotism and the divine purity, between man's self-aggravated separateness and the infinity of God.

Religious studies

In The Idea of the Holy and other works, Otto set out a paradigm for the study of religion that focused on the need to realize the religious as a non-reducible, original category in its own right. The eminent Romanian-American historian of religion and philosopher Mircea Eliade used the concepts from The Idea of the Holy as the starting point for his own 1954 book, The Sacred and the Profane.[11][22] The paradigm represented by Otto and Eliade was then heavily criticized for viewing religion as a sui generis category,[11] until around 1990, when it began to see a resurgence as a result of its phenomenological aspects becoming more apparent. Ninian Smart, who was a formative influence on religious studies as a secular discipline, was influenced by Otto in his understanding of religious experience and his approach to understanding religion cross-culturally.[11]

Psychology

Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytic psychology, applied the concept of the numinous to psychology and psychotherapy, arguing it was therapeutic and brought greater self-understanding, and stating that to him religion was about a "careful and scrupulous observation... of the numinosum".[23] The American Episcopal priest John A. Sanford applied the ideas of both Otto and Jung in his writings on religious psychotherapy.

THE YEARS, OF WHICH I HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU, when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then. -- C.G. Jung, 1957

-- The Red Book: Liber Novus, by C.G. Jung

Philosophy

The philosopher and sociologist Max Horkheimer, a member of the Frankfurt School, has taken the concept of "wholly other" in his 1970 book Die Sehnsucht nach dem ganz Anderen ("longing for the entirely Other").[24][25] Other philosophers to acknowledge Otto were, for instance, Martin Heidegger,[16] Leo Strauss,[16] Hans-Georg Gadamer (who was critical when younger but respectful in his old age), Max Scheler,[16] Edmund Husserl,[16] W. T. Stace, Joachim Wach,[3][16] and Hans Jonas. The war veteran and writer Ernst Jünger and the historian and scientist Joseph Needham also cited his influence.

Ecumenical activities

Otto was heavily involved in ecumenical activities between Christian denominations and between Christianity and other religions.[4] He experimented with adding a time similar to a Quaker moment of silence to the Lutheran liturgy as an opportunity for worshipers to experience the numinous.[4]

Works

• A full bibliography of Otto's works is given in Robert F. Davidson, Rudolf Otto's Interpretation of Religion (Princeton, 1947), pp. 207–9

In German

• Naturalistische und religiöse Weltansicht (1904)
• Die Kant-Friesische Religions-Philosophie (1909)
• Das Heilige - Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen (Breslau, 1917)
• West-östliche Mystik (1926)
• Die Gnadenreligion Indiens und das Christentum (1930)
• Reich Gottes und Menschensohn (1934)

English translations

• Naturalism and Religion, trans J. Arthur Thomson and Margaret Thomson (London: Williams and Norgate, 1907), [originally published 1904]
• The Life and Ministry of Jesus, According to the Critical Method (Chicago: Open Court, 1908), ISBN 0-8370-4648-3 – Full text online at Internet Archive
• The Idea of the Holy, trans JW Harvey, (New York: OUP, 1923; 2nd edn, 1950; reprint, New York, 1970), ISBN 0-19-500210-5 [originally published 1917] (full text)
• Christianity and the Indian Religion of Grace (Madras, 1928)
• India's Religion of Grace and Christianity Compared and Contrasted, trans FH Foster, (New York; London, 1930)
• 'The Sensus Numinis as the Historical Basis of Religion', Hibbert Journal 29, (1930), 1-8
• The Philosophy of Religion Based on Kant and Fries, trans EB Dicker, (London, 1931) [originally published 1909]
• Religious essays: A supplement to 'The Idea of the Holy', trans B Lunn, (London, 1931)
• Mysticism East and West: A Comparative Analysis of the Nature of Mysticism, trans BL Bracey and RC Payne, (New York, 1932) [originally published 1926]
• 'In the sphere of the holy', Hibbert Journal 31, (1932-3), 413-6
• The original Gita: The song of the Supreme Exalted One (London, 1939)
• The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man: A Study in the History of Religion, trans FV Filson and BL Wolff, (Boston, 1943)
• Autobiographical and Social Essays (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1996), ISBN 3-11-014518-9

See also

• Christian philosophy
• Christian ecumenism
• Christian mysticism
• Neurotheology
• Argument from religious experience
• Hard problem of consciousness
• The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
• Perceiving God by William Alston
• The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley
• The Case for God by Karen Armstrong
• I and Thou by Martin Buber

References

1. Adler, Joseph. "Rudolf Otto's Concept of the Numinous". Gambier, Ohio: Kenyon College. Retrieved 19 October 2016.
2. Alles, Gregory D. (2005). "Otto, Rudolf". Encyclopedia of Religion. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
3. "Louis Karl Rudolf Otto Facts". YourDictionary.com. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
4. Meland, Bernard E. "Rudolf Otto | German philosopher and theologian". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
5. Ross, Kelley. "Rudolf Otto (1869-1937)". Retrieved 19 October 2016.
6. Otto, Rudolf (1923). The Idea of the Holy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-500210-5. Retrieved 31 December2016.
7. Otto, Rudolf (1996). Alles, Gregory D. (ed.). Autobiographical and Social Essays. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. p. 30. ISBN 978-3-110-14519-9. ISBN 3-11014519-7.
8. Eckardt, Alice L.; Eckardt, A. Roy (July 1980). "The Holocaust and the Enigma of Uniqueness: A Philosophical Effort at Practical Clarification". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Sage Publications. 450 (1): 165–178. doi:10.1177/000271628045000114. JSTOR 1042566. P. 169. Cited in: Cohn-Sherbok, Dan, ed. (1991). A Traditional Quest. Essays in Honour of Louis Jacobs. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-567-52728-8. ISBN 0-56752728-X.
9. Otto, Rudolf (1996). Mysterium tremendum et fascinans.
10. Wynn, Mark (19 December 2016). "Section 2.1 Emotional feelings and encounter with God". Phenomenology of Religion. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
11. Sarbacker, Stuart (August 2016). "Rudolf Otto and the Concept of the Numinous". Oxford Research Encyclopedias. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
12. Webb, Stephen H. (1991). Re-figuring Theology. The Rhetoric of Karl Barth. Albany, New York: SUNY Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-1-438-42347-0. ISBN 1-43842347-0.
13. Elkins, James (2011). "Iconoclasm and the Sublime. Two Implicit Religious Discourses in Art History (pp. 133–151)". In Ellenbogen, Josh; Tugendhaft, Aaron (eds.). Idol Anxiety. Redwood City, California: Stanford University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-804-76043-0. ISBN 0-80476043-8.
14. Mariña, Jacqueline (2010) [1997]. "26. Holiness (pp. 235–242)". In Taliaferro, Charles; Draper, Paul; Quinn, Philip L. (eds.). A Companion to Philosophy of Religion. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. p. 238. ISBN 978-1-444-32016-9. ISBN 1-44432016-5.
15. Lewis, C.S. (2009) [1940]. The Problem of Pain. New York City: HarperCollins. pp. 5–6. ISBN 978-0-007-33226-7. ISBN 0-00733226-2.
16. Gooch, Todd A. (2000). The Numinous and Modernity: An Interpretation of Rudolf Otto's Philosophy of Religion. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016799-9.
17. Rohr, Richard (2012). Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 978-1-118-42154-3.
18. Solomon, Norman (2012). The Reconstruction of Faith. Portland: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization. pp. 237–243. ISBN 978-1-906764-13-5.
19. Berkovits, Eliezer, God, Man and History, 2004, pp. 166, 170.
20. Aslan, Reza (2005). No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, And Future of Islam. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks. p. xxiii. ISBN 1-4000-6213-6.
21. Huxley, Aldous (2004). The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. Harper Collins. p. 55.
22. Eliade, Mircea (1959) [1954]. "Introduction (p. 8)". The Sacred and the Profane. The Nature of Religion. Translated from the French by Willard R. Trask. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-156-79201-1. ISBN 0-15679201-X.
23. Agnel, Aimé. "Numinous (Analytical Psychology)". Encyclopedia.com. International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Retrieved 9 November 2016.
24. Adorno, Theodor W.; Tiedemann, Rolf (2000) [1965]. Metaphysics. Concept and Problems. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford University Press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-804-74528-4. ISBN 0-80474528-5.
25. Siebert, Rudolf J. (1 January 2005). "The Critical Theory of Society: The Longing for the Totally Other". Critical Sociology. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. 31 (1–2): 57–113. doi:10.1163/1569163053084270.

Further reading

• Almond, Philip C., 'Rudolf Otto: An Introduction to his Philosophical Theology' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).
• Davidson, Robert F, Rudolf Otto's Interpretation of Religion, (Princeton, 1947)
• Gooch, Todd A, The Numinous and Modernity: An Interpretation of Rudolf Otto's Philosophy of Religion. Preface by Otto Kaiser and Wolfgang Drechsler. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000). ISBN 3-11-016799-9.
• Ludwig, Theodore M, ‘Otto, Rudolf’ in Encyclopedia of Religion, vol 11 (1987), pp139–141
• Melissa, Raphael, Rudolf Otto and the concept of holiness, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997)
• Mok, Daniël (2012). Rudolf Otto: Een kleine biografie. Preface by Gerardus van der Leeuw. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Abraxas. ISBN 978-90-79133-08-6.
• Mok, Daniël et al. (2002). Een wijze uit het westen: Beschouwingen over Rudolf Otto. Preface by Rudolph Boeke. Amsterdam: De Appelbloesem Pers (i.e. Uitgeverij Abraxas). ISBN 90-70459-36-1 (print), 978-90-79133-00-0 (e-Book).
• Moore, John Morrison, Theories of Religious Experience, with special reference to James, Otto and Bergson, (New York, 1938)

External links

• Otto and the Numinous
• Numinous – references from several thinkers at Earthpages.ca
• International Congress: Rudolf Otto – University of Marburg, 2012
• Works by Rudolf Otto at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Rudolf Otto at Internet Archive
• Newspaper clippings about Rudolf Otto in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

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Bhadralok
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/1/20

Bhadralok (Bengali: ভদ্রলোক bhôdrôlok, literally 'gentleman', 'well-mannered person') is Bengali for the new class of 'gentlefolk' who arose during British rule in India (approximately 1757 to 1947) in Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent.

Caste and class makeup

Most, though not all, members of the bhadralok class are upper caste, mainly Baidyas, Brahmins, Kayasthas, and later Mahishyas. There is no precise translation of bhadralok in English, since it attributes economic and class privilege on to caste ascendancy. Many bhadraloks in the nineteenth century came from the privileged Brahmin or Priest caste or middle-level merchant class (such as Rani Rashmoni). Anybody who could show considerable amount of wealth and standing in society was a member of the bhadralok community.[1]

The bhadralok community includes all gentlefolk belonging to the rich as well as middle-class segments of the Bengali society. Amongst the upper middle classes, a zamindar, or landowner, normally bearing the title Chaudhuri or Roy Chaudhuri at the end of the name, and Babu at the beginning would be considered to be a bhadralok. A zamindar bearing the title Raja or Maharaja would be considered to be higher than middle-class, but would still be a bhadralok 'gentleman'. All members of the professional classes, i.e. those belonging to the newly emerging professions, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, university professors, and higher civil servants, were members of the bhadralok community. However, an individual bearing the title Esquire at the end of the name, denoting a rank just below a Knight, was also considered to be higher than a bhadralok.

Colonial factors

The two biggest factors that led to the rise of the bhadralok were the huge fortunes many merchant houses made from aiding the English East India Company's trade up the Ganga valley, and Western-style education (at the hands of the colonial rulers and of missionaries). The steep rise in real estate prices in Calcutta also led some petty landlords in the area to become wealthy overnight. The first identifiable bhadralok figure is undoubtedly Ram Mohan Roy, who bridged the gap between the Persianised nobility of the Sultanate era in Bengal and the new, Western-educated, nouveau riche comprador class.

The Bengal Renaissance

The Bengal Renaissance was largely carried out and participated in by bhadralok. In addition, the rise of the Brahmo Samaj and various other samajes (a category halfway between 'society' and 'community') was also largely a bhadralok phenomenon. To be a bhadralok was to embrace some Western and Northern European values (though not always the same ones in each case), to have a modicum of education, and a sense of entitlement to (and consequently grievance against) favours or employment from the colonial government. While the bhadralok were influenced by the West (in terms of their morals, dress, and eating habits) they were also the people who reacted most strongly against the West, and the most scathing critiques, as well as the most spirited defences of Westernisation, were made by bhadralok writers.

Babus

The term Babu means an individual of rank and dignity. It is most commonly used to refer to the gentleman, but is meant for anybody who enjoys a position of dominance in his immediate social circle. An Indian zamindar, as well as an Indian member of the higher government services, was referred to as a Babu. Amongst the landlords, a Babu in the former Bengal Presidency, especially in Bengal and Behar, was normally a substantial and extremely wealthy zamindar in the same rank as a Thakur or a Mirza, and would rank just below a Raja. The term Babu has been historically used to refer to the upper echelons of Indian society, including the ruling classes.

In British India, the term was derogatorily used to refer to members of the indigenous community, especially in law courts and revenue establishments in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, where most members were appointed as Munsifs from respectable and/or zamindari families.

Popular Culture

Bhadralok class is copiously referred in the popular Bengali literature including in the novel and stories of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay and Rabindranath Tagore. Kaliprasanna Singha sarcastically criticized the class' social attitude and hypocrisy during its accession to prominence in the nineteenth century in his famous book, titled Hutom Pyanchar Naksha. In the 1990s and 2000s, Chandrabindoo brings forward the class' dilemma and hypocritical attitude in their songs including Sokale Uthiya Ami Mone Mone Boli, Amar Modhyobitto Bheeru Prem, Amra Bangali Jaati and many more.

Economy

Among others, Joya Chatterji, Lecturer in History of Modern South Asia at Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity College, accuses the Bhadralok class for the economic decline of the state of West Bengal after India's independence in 1947.[2] She writes in her book, titled "The Spoils of Partition" [3]:

In these ways, Bengal’s partition frustrated the plans and purposes of the very groups who had demanded it. Why their strategy failed so disastrously is a question which will no doubt be debated by bhadralok Bengal long after the last vestiges of its influence have been swept away. Many excuses have already been made, and different scapegoats remain to be identified and excoriated. But perhaps part of the explanation is this: for all their self-belief in their cultural superiority and their supposed talent for politics, the leaders of bhadralok Bengal misjudged matters so profoundly because, in point of fact, they were deeply inexperienced as a political class. Admittedly, they were highly educated and in some ways sophisticated, but they had never captured the commanding heights of Bengal’s polity or its economy. They had been called upon to execute policy but not to make it. They had lived off the proceeds of the land, but had never organised the business of agriculture. Whether as theorists or practitioners, they understood little of the mechanics of production and exchange, whether on the shop floor or in the fields. Above all, they had little or no experience in the delicate arts of ruling and taxing people. Far from being in the vanguard as they liked to believe, by 1947 Bengal’s bhadralok had become a backward-looking group, living in the past, trapped in the aspic of outdated assumptions, and so single-mindedly focussed upon their own narrow purposes that they were blind to the larger picture and the big changes that were taking place around them.

See also

• Christianity in West Bengal
• Nastanirh

References

1. K. L. Sharma, ed. (2013). Readings in Indian Sociology: Volume II: Sociological Probings in Rural Society. Sage Publications.
2. "Bengal's sorrow". frontline.thehindu.com. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
3. Chatterji, Joya. (3 March 2011). The spoils of partition : Bengal and India, 1947-1967. p. 317. ISBN 9780521188067. OCLC 816808562.
• Subho Basu and Sikata Banerjee, 'The Quest for Manhood: Masculine Hinduism and Nation in Bengal in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East
• Bhadralok in Banglapedia
• Indira Choudhuri, The Fragile Hero and Virile History: Gender and the Politics of Culture, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• Tithi Bhattacharya, The Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

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Yehudi Menuhin
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/30/20

The move to a bigger property at Dalhousie also allowed for some modest expansion of the school, requiring more volunteers and a gearing up of the administration. Cherry Armstrong, an eighteen-year-old whose mother was active in the Buddhist Society in London, arrived towards the end of the school's first summer in the hills.

Her role was a loosely defined mix of administrative and secretarial, particularly helping with the correspondence generated by the Tibetan Friendship Group and Freda's scheme for pen friends for young Tibetan refugees.

The western friend would include a small monetary gift, usually in the form of money orders ... In return the Tibetan pen friend would send a little photograph or a prayer written in Tibetan ... My job initially was to keep this scheme working and it was often a life-saver for individuals with no financial aid. It was a system that needed no overheads -- once the connection was established the money went directly to the person for whom it was intended and usually continued for years.

Freda was good at delegating, and at multitasking. Every morning she 'held court' with a pile of papers (the morning post) on her lap. Tibetan matters were handed over to Trungpa Tulku who acted as her interpreter and scribe (as well as doing his own religious and language studies). Indian matters were handed to the Indian administrator of the school, Attar Singh; English letters were handed to me, while Freda herself would be simultaneously writing her own more important letters. During this time there would be frequent Tibetan or Indian visitors asking for help or for Freda to use her influence on their behalf and everyone was attended to with care and foresight. Sitting beside her whilst all this was going on I could see that her method of coping was to give her undivided attention to the specific matter in hand; a kind of purposeful concentration to the exclusion of all other matters. When one matter was dealt with, the next had her exclusive attention .... She had an immense capacity for work.19

Cherry learnt to type, often with an old typewriter balanced on her lap or on her bed. It was rudimentary but it worked. Alongside the daily grind, Freda was also adept at maintaining connections with those of influence. When a couple of months after the move to Dalhousie Anita Morris headed home to England, she carried a package for Christmas Humphreys, the judge and doyen of the Buddhist Society in London, and for the renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

-- 14: The Young Lamas' Home School, Excerpt from The Lives of Freda: The Political, Spiritual and Personal Journeys of Freda Bedi, by Andrew Whitehead

Menuhin in 1937

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM KBE (22 April 1916 – 12 March 1999) was an American-born violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the great violinists of the 20th century. He played the Soil Stradivarius, considered one of the finest violins made by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari.

Early life and career


Menuhin with Bruno Walter (1931)

Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City to a family of Lithuanian Jews. Through his father Moshe, a former rabbinical student and anti-Zionist,[1] he was descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty. In late 1919, Moshe and his wife Marutha (née Sher) became American citizens, and changed the family name from Mnuchin to Menuhin.[2] Menuhin's sisters were concert pianist and human rights activist Hephzibah, and pianist, painter and poet Yaltah.

Menuhin's first violin instruction was at age four by Sigmund Anker (1891–1958);[3] his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to teach him, but Persinger refused. Menuhin displayed exceptional musical talent at an early age. His first public appearance, when he was seven years old, was as solo violinist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in 1923. Persinger then agreed to teach him and accompanied him on the piano for his first few solo recordings in 1928–29.

Julia Boyd records:

On 12 April 1929 it [the Semperoper] cancelled its advertised programme to make way for a performance by the twelve-year-old Yehudi Menuhin. That night he played the Bach, Beethoven and Brahms violin concertos to an ecstatic audience... The week before, Yehudi had played in Berlin with the Philharmonic under Bruno Walter to an equally rapturous response.[4]

It was said of his Berlin performance: "There steps a fat little blond boy on the podium, and wins at once all hearts as in an irresistibly ludicrous way, like a penguin, he alternately places one foot down, then the other. But wait: you will stop laughing when he puts his bow to the violin to play Bach's violin concerto in E major no.2."[5]


The city of Basel: place of study under the guidance of Adolf Busch

When the Menuhins moved to Paris, Persinger suggested Menuhin go to Persinger's old teacher, Belgian virtuoso and pedagogue Eugène Ysaÿe. Menuhin did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but he disliked Ysaÿe's teaching method and his advanced age. Instead, he went to Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, under whose tutelage he made recordings with several piano accompanists, including his sister Hephzibah. He was also a student of Adolf Busch in Basel. He stayed in the Swiss city for a bit more than a year, where he started to take lessons in German and Italian as well.

According to Henry A. Murray, Menuhin wrote:

Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to "retire" in this way. I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice?

— Yehudi Menuhin, personal communication, 31 October 1993[6]

His first concerto recording was made in 1931, Bruch's G minor, under Sir Landon Ronald in London, the labels calling him "Master Yehudi Menuhin". In 1932 he recorded Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor for HMV in London, with the composer himself conducting; in 1934, uncut, Paganini's D major Concerto with Emile Sauret's cadenza in Paris under Pierre Monteux. Between 1934 and 1936, he made the first integral recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin, although his Sonata No. 2, in A minor, was not released until all six were transferred to CD.

His interest in the music of Béla Bartók prompted him to commission a work from him – the Sonata for Solo Violin, which, completed in 1943 and first performed by Menuhin in New York in 1944, was the composer's penultimate work.

World War II musician


Menuhin in 1943

He performed for Allied soldiers during World War II [over 500 concerts for wounded servicemen and Allied troops] and, accompanied on the piano by English composer Benjamin Britten, for the surviving inmates of a number of concentration camps in July 1945 after their liberation in April of the same year, most famously the Bergen-Belsen. He returned to Germany in 1947 to play concerto concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation, the first Jewish musician to do so in the wake of the Holocaust, saying to Jewish critics that he wanted to rehabilitate Germany's music and spirit.

He and Louis Kentner (brother-in-law of his wife, Diana) gave the first performance of William Walton's Violin Sonata, in Zürich on 30 September 1949. He continued performing, and conducting (such as Bach orchestral works with the Bath Chamber Orchestra), to an advanced age, including some nonclassical music in his repertory.

World interactions

For Menuhin's notable students, see List of music students by teacher: K to M § Yehudi Menuhin.
Menuhin credited German philosopher Constantin Brunner with providing him with "a theoretical framework within which I could fit the events and experiences of life".[7]

Following his role as a member of the awards jury at the 1955 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, Menuhin secured a Rockefeller Foundation grant for the financially strapped Grand Prize winner at the event, Argentine violinist Alberto Lysy. Menuhin made Lysy his only personal student, and the two toured extensively throughout the concert halls of Europe. The young protégé later established the International Menuhin Music Academy (IMMA)[8] in Gstaad, in his honor.[9]

Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany.

Furtwängler made his London debut in 1924, and continued to appear there before the outbreak of World War II as late as 1938, when he conducted Richard Wagner's Ring [Die Nibelungen]...

On 10 April 1933, Furtwängler wrote a public letter to Goebbels ...

"If the fight against Judaism concentrates on those artists who are themselves rootless and destructive and who seek to succeed in kitsch, sterile virtuosity and the like, then it is quite acceptable; the fight against these people and the attitude they embody (as, unfortunately, do many non-Jews) cannot be pursued thoroughly or systematically enough. If, however, this campaign is also directed at truly great artists, then it ceases to be in the interests of Germany's cultural life [...] It must therefore be stated that men such as Walter, Klemperer, Reinhardt etc. must be allowed to exercise their talents in Germany in the future as well, in exactly the same way as Kreisler, Huberman, Schnabel and other great instrumentalists of the Jewish race"...

Goebbels and Göring ordered their administration to listen to Furtwängler's requests...

The violinist Yehudi Menuhin was, with Arnold Schoenberg, Bronisław Huberman, and Nathan Milstein, among the Jewish musicians who had a positive view of Furtwängler. In February 1946, he sent a wire to General Robert A. McClure in February 1946:

"Unless you have secret incriminating evidence against Furtwängler supporting your accusation that he was a tool of Nazi Party, I beg to take violent issue with your decision to ban him. The man never was a Party member. Upon numerous occasions, he risked his own safety and reputation to protect friends and colleagues. Do not believe that the fact of remaining in one's own country is alone sufficient to condemn a man. On the contrary, as a military man, you would know that remaining at one's post often requires greater courage than running away. He saved, and for that we are deeply his debtors, the best part of his own German culture... I believe it patently unjust and most cowardly for us to make of Furtwängler a scapegoat for our own crimes."...

At the end of his life, Yehudi Menuhin said of Furtwängler, "It was his greatness that attracted hatred".

-- Wilhelm Furtwängler, by Wikipedia

In 1957, he founded the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland. In 1962, he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey. He also established the music program at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, sometime around then. In 1965 he received an honorary knighthood from the British monarchy. In the same year, Australian composer Malcolm Williamson wrote a violin concerto for Menuhin. He performed the concerto many times and recorded it at its premiere at the Bath Festival in 1965. Originally known as the Bath Assembly,[10] the festival was first directed by the impresario Ian Hunter in 1948. After the first year the city tried to run the festival itself, but in 1955 asked Hunter back. In 1959 Hunter invited Menuhin to become artistic director of the festival. Menuhin accepted, and retained the post until 1968.[11]



Menuhin also had a long association with Ravi Shankar, beginning in 1966 with their joint performance at the Bath Festival and the recording of their Grammy Award-winning album West Meets East (1967). During this time, he commissioned composer Alan Hovhaness to write a concerto for violin, sitar, and orchestra to be performed by himself and Shankar. The resulting work, entitled Shambala (c. 1970), with a fully composed violin part and space for improvisation from the sitarist, is the earliest known work for sitar with western symphony orchestra, predating Shankar's own sitar concertos, but Menuhin and Shankar never recorded it. Menuhin also worked with famous jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli in the 1970s on Jalousie, an album of 1930s classics led by duetting violins backed by the Alan Claire Trio.

In 1975, in his role as president of the International Music Council, he declared October 1 as International Music Day. The first International Music Day, organised by the International Music Council, was held that same year, in accordance with the resolution taken at the 15th IMC General Assembly in Lausanne in 1973.[12]

In 1977, Menuhin and Ian Stoutzker founded the charity Live Music Now, the largest outreach music project in the UK. Live Music Now pays and trains professional musicians to work in the community, bringing the experience to those who rarely get an opportunity to hear or see live music performance. At the Edinburgh Festival Menuhin premiered Priaulx Rainier's violin concerto Due Canti e Finale, which he had commissioned Rainier to write. He also commissioned her last work, Wildlife Celebration, which he performed in aid of Gerald Durrell's Wildlife Conservation Trust.

In 1983, Menuhin and Robert Masters founded the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists, today one of the world's leading forums for young talent. Many of its prizewinners have gone on to become prominent violinists, including Tasmin Little, Nikolaj Znaider, Ilya Gringolts, Julia Fischer, Daishin Kashimoto and Ray Chen.

In the 1980s, Menuhin wrote and oversaw the creation of a "Music Guides" series of books; each covered a musical instrument, with one on the human voice. Menuhin wrote some, while others were edited by different authors.

In 1991, Menuhin was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize by the Israeli Government. In the Israeli Knesset he gave an acceptance speech in which he criticised Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank:

This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them.[13]

Later career


Stéphane Grappelli (left) with Menuhin in 1976

Menuhin regularly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, sometimes performing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. One of the more memorable later performances was of Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto, which Menuhin had recorded with the composer in 1932.

On 22 April 1978, along with Stéphane Grappelli, Yehudi played Pick Yourself Up, taken from the Menuhin & Grappelli Play Berlin, Kern, Porter and Rodgers & Hart album as the interval act at the 23rd Eurovision Song Contest for TF1. The performance came direct from the studios of TF1 and not that of the venue (Palais des Congrès), where the contest was being held.

Menuhin hosted the PBS telecast of the gala opening concert of the San Francisco Symphony from Davies Symphony Hall in September 1980.

His recording contract with EMI lasted almost 70 years and is the longest in the history of the music industry. He made his first recording at age 13 in November 1929, and his last in 1999, when he was nearly 83 years old. He recorded over 300 works for EMI, both as a violinist and as a conductor. In 2009 EMI released a 51-CD retrospective of Menuhin's recording career, titled Yehudi Menuhin: The Great EMI Recordings. In 2016, the Menuhin centenary year, Warner Classics (formerly EMI Classics) issued a milestone collection of 80 CDs entitled The Menuhin Century, curated by his long-time friend and protégé Bruno Monsaingeon, who selected the recordings and sourced rare archival materials to tell Menuhin's story.

In 1990 Menuhin was the first conductor for the Asian Youth Orchestra which toured around Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong with Julian Lloyd Webber and a group of young talented musicians from all over Asia.

Personal life


Menuhin and author Paulo Coelho in 1999 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Menuhin was married twice, first to Nola Nicholas, daughter of an Australian industrialist and sister of Hephzibah Menuhin's first husband Lindsay Nicholas. They had two children, Krov and Zamira (who married pianist Fou Ts'ong). Following their 1947 divorce he married the British ballerina and actress Diana Gould, whose mother was the pianist Evelyn Suart and stepfather was Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt.

Admiral Sir Cecil Halliday Jepson Harcourt GBE KCB (11 April 1892 – 19 December 1959) was a British naval officer. He was the de facto governor of Hong Kong as commander-in-chief and head of the military administration from September 1945 to June 1946. He was called by the Chinese name "Ha Kok", a reference to the fourth-century Chinese nobleman Chung Kok... On 18 December 1945, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB). In 1946, he was promoted to vice-admiral.

-- Cecil Harcourt, by Wikipedia

The couple had two sons, Gerard, notable as a Holocaust denier and far right activist, and Jeremy, a pianist. A third child died shortly after birth.

Gerard Menuhin (born 1948 in Scotland) is a Holocaust denier and far-right activist, associated with the neo-Nazi movement in Germany.

His book Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil, published in 2015, argues that the Holocaust is "the biggest lie in history", that Jews are an "alien, demonic force which seeks to dominate the world", that Jews are flooding Europe with non-white races, to create a "society of racial mongrels, under the rule of a “new Jewish nobility”", and plan to create a one-world government. Menuhin argues that "the world owes Adolf Hitler an apology".

He is the son of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and dancer Diana Gould, and brother of pianist Jeremy Menuhin.

-- Gerard Menuhin, by Wikipedia

The name Yehudi means "Jew" in Hebrew. In an interview republished in October 2004, he recounted to New Internationalist magazine the story of his name:

Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew".[14]

Menuhin died in Martin Luther Hospital[15] in Berlin, Germany, from complications of bronchitis. Soon after his death, the Royal Academy of Music acquired the Yehudi Menuhin Archive, which includes sheet music marked up for performance, correspondence, news articles and photographs relating to Menuhin, autograph musical manuscripts, and several portraits of Paganini.[16]

Interest in yoga

Collection: The LIFE Picture Collection
Date created: January 01, 1953

In 1953, Life published photos of him in various esoteric yoga positions.[17] In 1952, Menuhin was in India, where Nehru, the new nation's first Prime Minister, introduced him to an influential yogi B. K. S. Iyengar, who was largely unknown outside the country.[17] Menuhin arranged for Iyengar to teach abroad in London, Switzerland, Paris, and elsewhere. He became one of the first prominent yoga masters teaching in the West.

Menuhin also took lessons from Indra Devi, who opened the first yoga studio in the U.S. in Los Angeles in 1948.[18]

Her first spiritual awakening happened while attending a gathering of Theosophists in Ommen in the Netherlands in 1926, to listen to Jiddu Krishnamurti. Devi was moved, became a vegetarian, and traveled to the headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India.

-- Indra Devi, by Theosophy Wiki

Krishna[murti] visited Aldous Huxley, who was glad to see him. Huxley described him as looking well, but curiously different from former times, for he was now "a small bright old man, with a bald head ringed by white hair." Huxley made plans to hear Krishna's talks in Gstaad, Krishna's destination after London. Vanda Scaravelli met Krishna in Geneva and from there they went on to a chalet she rented at Gstaad, near Saanen. He gave talks in the Saanen Town Hall to about 350 people at gatherings which would become an annual event.

Krishna's process was ongoing in Saanen. In his Notebook on 13 July 1961 he wrote sagely that the urge for repetition of a pleasant experience was the soil in which sorrow grew, and the brain had to stop making its own ways and become passive. On 16 July he described a sacredness or power that filled the room, which Vanda also felt. This was what everyone craved -- monk, priest, sannyasi -- and because they craved it, it eluded them. Vanda also wrote about her experience of Krishna's 'process.' He fainted and there was a change in his face, his eyes becoming larger. Then she felt a powerful "presence" of another dimension -- simultaneously empty and full. Krishna did allow Vanda to touch him during the experience, she said, but no one else. Again, the next day, Vanda took notes to explain to Krishna what happened when he "went off."

Aldous Huxley and his second wife, Laura, visited Gstaad to hear Krishna speak several times at the end of July 1961, along with Huxley's friend, Yehudi Menuhin. Huxley said the talks were among the most impressive things he'd ever listened to. He likened the experience to that of listening to a discourse by the Buddha: "such power, such intrinsic authority, such an uncompromising refusal to allow the homme moyen sensual any escapes or surrogates, any gurus, saviours, fuhrers, churches." Krishna showed one how to end sorrow but if one didn't choose to fulfil these conditions, sorrow would continue indefinitely.

-- Jiddu Krishnamurti: World Philosopher (1895-1986): His Life and Thoughts, by C. V. Williams

Precisely because Huxley was plugged into the transcendental, his prose had power to liberate. You have to know that there actually is a transcendental something, if you are going to free anybody from anything -- if there is no beyond-the-given, there is no freedom from the given, and liberation is futile. Today's postmodern writers, who hug the given, stick to the obvious, cling to the shadows, celebrate the surface, have nowhere else to go, and so emancipation is the last of what they offer ... or you get.

No wonder that one of Aldous's best friends for several decades was Krishnamurti (the sage on whom I cut my spiritual teeth). Krishnamurti was a supreme liberator, at least on occasion, and in books such as "Freedom from the Known," this extraordinary sage pointed to the power of nondual choiceless awareness to liberate one from the binding tortures of space, time, death, and duality. When Huxley's house (and library) burned down, the first books he asked to be replaced were Krishnamurti's "Commentaries on Living."

Yehudi Menuhin wrote of Aldous: "He was scientist and artist in one -- standing for all we most need in a fragmented world where each of us carries a distorting splinter out of some great shattered universal mirror. He made it his mission to restore these fragments and, at least in his presence, men were whole again. To know where each splinter might belong one must have some conception of the whole, and only a mind such as Aldous's, cleansed of personal vanity, noticing and recording everything, and exploiting nothing, could achieve so broad a purpose."

-- One Taste: Daily Reflections on Integral Spirituality, by Ken Wilber, Shambhala Publications

1940s BKS Iyengar, Jiddu Krishnamurti and Yehudi Menuhin

Both Devi and Iyengar were students of Krishnamacharya, a famous yoga master in India.

Violins

Menuhin used a number of famous violins, arguably the most renowned of which is the Lord Wilton Guarnerius 1742. Others included the Giovanni Bussetto 1680, Giovanni Grancino 1695, Guarneri filius Andrea 1703, Soil Stradivarius, Prince Khevenhüller 1733 Stradivari, and Guarneri del Gesù 1739.

In his autobiography Unfinished Journey Mehunin wrote: "A great violin is alive; its very shape embodies its maker's intentions, and its wood stores the history, or the soul, of its successive owners. I never play without feeling that I have released or, alas, violated spirits."[19]

Awards and honours

• Freedom of the City (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1965).
• Appointed to the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1965. At the time of his appointment, he was an American citizen. As a result, his knighthood was honorary and he was not entitled to use the style 'Sir'. In 1993, he became The Right Honourable The Lord Menuhin, OM, KBE (see below).[20][21]
• The Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding (1968).[22]
• Became President of the International Music Council (1969–1975)[23]
• Became President of Trinity College of Music (now Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance), 1970.[24]
• The Léonie Sonning Music Prize (Denmark, 1972).
• Nominated as president of the Elgar Society (1983).
• The Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (1984).
• The Kennedy Center Honors (1986).
• Appointed as a member of the Order of Merit (1987).[25]
• His recording of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor with Julian Lloyd Webber won the 1987 BRIT Award for Best British Classical Recording (BBC Music Magazine named this recording "the finest version ever recorded").
• The Glenn Gould Prize (1990), in recognition of his lifetime of contributions.
• Wolf Prize in Arts (1991).
• Ambassador of Goodwill (UNESCO, 1992).
• On 19 July 1993, Menuhin was made a life peer, as Baron Menuhin, of Stoke d'Abernon in the County of Surrey.[26][27]
• Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship the highest honour conferred by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama (1994).[28]
• The Konex Decoration (Konex Foundation, Argentina, 1994).
• The Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Gold of the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in Berlin (1997).
• Honorary Doctorates from 20 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the University of Bath (1969).[29]
• The room in which concerts and performances are held at the European Parliament in Brussels is named the "Yehudi Menuhin Space".
• Menuhin was honored as a "Freeman" of the cities of Edinburgh, Bath, Reims and Warsaw.
• He held the Gold Medals of the cities of Paris, New York and Jerusalem.
• Honorary degree from Kalamazoo College.[30]
• Elected an Honorary Fellow of Fitzwilliam College in 1991.
• He received the 1997 Prince of Asturias Award in the Concord category along with Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
• In 1997, he received the Grand Cross 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
• On 15 May 1998, Menuhin received the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint James of the Sword (Portugal).[31]

Coat of arms of Yehudi Menuhin

Crest

Out of an eastern crown Or inscribed on either side with a crotchet rest a sharp semi-quaver a flat and semi-quaver rest Sable a pair of cubit arms Proper supporting a terrestrial globe the land Vert fimbriated Or the sea Azure.

Escutcheon

Azure four bendlets between as many violin bridges Gold.

Supporters

On either side a representation of a firebird à la Benois wings elevated and addorsed Gules beaked and membered with wings tipped Or the tail Bleu Celeste that to the dexter Gorged with a chain Or pendent therefrom a hurt fimbriated and charged with a menorah Or the candles Argent enflamed Proper that to the sinister gorged with a like chain pendent therefore a bezant charged with a representation of the gypsy flag mon Proper the compartment a grassy mound with bluebells and blue poppies growing therefrom all Proper with at the centre thereof a plough Gold.[32]

Cultural references

• The catchphrase "Who's Yehoodi?" popular in the 1930s and 1940s was inspired by Menuhin's guest appearance on a radio show, where Jerry Colonna turned "Yehoodi" into a widely recognized slang term for a mysteriously absent person. It eventually lost all of its original connection with Menuhin.
• Menuhin was also "meant" to appear on The 1971 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show but could not do so as he was "opening at the Argyle Theatre, Birkenhead in Old King Cole". He was replaced by Eric Morecambe in the famous "Grieg's Piano Concerto by Grieg" sketch featuring the conductor André Previn; he was also invited to appear on their 1973 Christmas Show to play his "banjo" as they said playing his violin would not be any good; he ruefully said that "I can't help you".
• A picture of Menuhin as a child is sometimes used as part of a Thematic Apperception Test.[33]

Bibliography

• Rolfe, Lionel Menuhin (2014). The Menuhins: A Family Odyssey. Los Angeles: Createspace. ISBN 978-1-4414-9399-6.
• Menuhin, Diana (1984). Fiddler's Moll. Life With Yehudi. New York: St Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-28819-0.
• Menuhin, Yehudi (1977). Unfinished Journey. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-394-41051-3.
• Menuhin, Yehudi (1997). Unfinished Journey: Twenty Years Later. New York: Fromm Intl. ISBN 0-88064-179-7.
• L. Subramaniam, Y. Menuhin; Directed by Jean Henri Meunier (1999). Violin From the Heart (DVD).
• Bailey, Philip (2008). Yehudiana – Reliving the Menuhin Odyssey|Book One. Australia: Fountaindale Press. ISBN 978-0-9804499-0-7.
• Bailey, Philip (2010). Yehudiana – Reliving the Menuhin Odyssey Book Two. Australia: Fountaindale Press. ISBN 978-0-9804499-1-4.
• Burton, Humphrey (2000). Yehudi Menuhin: a life. Northeastern. ISBN 978-1-55553-465-3.

Films

• 1943 – Menuhin was a featured performer in the 1943 film, Stage Door Canteen. Introduced only as "Mr. Menuhin," he performed two violin solos, "Ave Maria" and "Flight of the Bumble Bee" for an audience of servicemen, volunteer hostesses and celebrities from stage and screen.
• 1946 – Menuhin supplied the violin solos in the film The Magic Bow.
• 1979 – The Music of Man (television series)
• The Mind of Music

References

1. Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin, pp. 11, 158, 190
2. Jacqueline Kent, An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin, p. 18
3. "Sigmund Anker". Find a Grave. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
4. Julia Boyd, Travellers in the Third Reich, Elliott and Thompson Limited, London, 2018, ISBN 978-1-78396-381-2, page 73, paraphrasing Edward Sackville-West
5. Unnamed critic in the Berliner Zeitung, 12 April 1929, quoted in translation in Boyd, page 73
6. Hindle, Kevin; Klyver, Kim (1 January 2011). Handbook of Research on New Venture Creation. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-85793-306-5.
7. Conversations with Menuhin: 32–34
8. "International Menuhin Music Academy". menuhinacademy.ch. Gstaad. 2019. Retrieved 18 November2019.
9. "Alberto Lysy: maestro busca talentos". lanacion.com.ar. 18 July 2004. Retrieved 14 May 2016.
10. "The Third Bath Assembly – Festival of the Arts". The Canberra Times. 18 April 1950. Retrieved 18 March 2009.
11. Bullamore, Tim (1999). Fifty Festivals. Mushroom Books. ISBN 978-1-899142-29-3. Retrieved 16 March 2009.
12. "International Music Day". International Music Council.
13. "Wolf Prize winner raps government". Jerusalem Post, 6 May 1991.
14. "Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999)". New Internationalist. 2 October 2004. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
15. Kozinn, Allan (13 March 1999). "Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Violinist, Conductor and Supporter of Charities, Is Dead at 82". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
16. Yehudi Menuhin Archive Saved For The Nation Archived27 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine 26 February 2004, TourDates.Co.UK, retrieved 28 September 2013.
17. Rolfe, Lionel (17 April 2015). "Indra Devi Was Not Just a Nice Old Lady". Huffington Post. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
18. Martin, Douglas (30 April 2002). "Indra Devi, 102, Dies; Taught Yoga to Stars and Leaders". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
19. Faber, Tony (2004). Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection. Random House. ISBN 1588362140. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
20. "No. 53332". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 1993. p. 1.
21. Velde, François. "British and Other Honours in Music". Heraldica. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
22. "List of the recipients of the Jawaharlal Nehru Award". ICCRwebsite. Archived from the original on 1 September 2013. Retrieved 28 January 2011.
23. "Current and Past Presidents". International Music Council. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
24. "History of Trinity Laban". Trinity Laban website. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
25. "No. 50849". The London Gazette. 3 March 1987. p. 2855.
26. "No. 53379". The London Gazette. 22 July 1993. p. 12287.
27. "Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin". thepeerage.com. Retrieved 4 August 2007.
28. "SNA: List of Sangeet Natak Akademi Ratna Puraskarwinners (Akademi Fellows)". Official website. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
29. "Corporate Information". bath.ac.uk.
30. "History – Kalamazoo College".
31. "Cidadãos Estrangeiros Agraciados com Ordens Portuguesas" [Foreign Citizens Granted with Portuguese Orders] (in Portuguese). Lisbon: Presidência da República Portuguesa. Retrieved 19 March 2017. Search result for "Yehudi Menuhin".
32. Debrett's Peerage. 2000.
33. "A young boy is contemplating a violin..." University of Tennessee. Retrieved 27 January 2007.

External links

• Official website
• Yehudi Menuhin performing works by Bach, Bartók, Lalo, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Paganini and Tchaikovsky on Archive.org
• Yehudi Menuhin interview, 31 January 1987
• Text and pictures from Yehudi Menuhin by french film director Bruno Monsaingeon
• Yehudi Menuhin's life in Alma
• Yehudi Menuhin Collection (ARS.0040), Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound

[admin]

B. K. S. Iyengar
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/30/20

-- Iyengar’s Charisma of Incoherence, and Selected Indoctrination Defence Statements, by Matthew Remski

The videos below show two different instances of BKS Iyengar teaching at a yoga convention back in the 1990s.

The first one is particularly disturbing to watch. The student has cervical spondylosis and BKSI is shown dangerously pulling her out of position in Salamba Sarvangasana. Her neck could easily have been injured and she is clearly distressed by the reckless adjustment.

In the second video the student shown has lower back issues. BKSI treats his body as not much better than a slab of meat.

Can you imagine if a teacher up for certification had behaved in this way during a teaching assessment?

There is nothing admirable in this behavior. The arrogant, misplaced ownership BKSI asserts over his student's bodies is unnecessary and robs them of their personhood and self agency. He shows no sense of presence or connection to the many complex layers of the people that he is interacting with. In doing so, he leads them straight into harm's way.

There will be many ardent devotees who will try to explain this behavior away. Some will even try to glorify it. They will tell you not to believe what your eyes and gut are telling you about the violence you see. But once you strip the spiritual veneer away, that's what it is, violence, plain and simple.

I'm not denying BKS Iyengar's otherwise remarkable knowledge. But his delivery of that knowledge was mired in another, more brutal era. His methods were infused with the Indian caste culture and impacted by the British colonial rule that he was born into. Add to that the abuse that he suffered at the hands of his own teacher and you have a merciless, severe teaching style that has no place in contemporary culture.

I thoroughly reject the ongoing tradition in Iyengar Yoga of teachers treating another person's body with ownership and such a lack of care. Body treated as object, versus body treated as part of the continuum of the Self.

Let's keep the best of what BKSI had to offer and leave the rest behind. Or, as a dear friend said, "compost what is harmful so we can grow something healing and beautiful."

Our body should not be forced or punished like this. It should be honored and revered as temple to our Soul. Iyengar Yoga needs to and can evolve. It would be sad to see it become trapped in this wounded and antiquated type of behavior. Obsolete and lost to the wrong side of history.

Cassie Jackson
Liz Anne Potamianos
Karen Rain
Matthew Remski
Donna Farhi

-- Ann Tapsell West

B.K.S. Iyengar
Iyengar on his 86th birthday in 2004
Born: 14 December 1918, Bellur, Kolar district, Kingdom of Mysore (now Karnataka, India)
Died: 20 August 2014 (aged 95), Pune, Maharashtra, India
Occupation: Yoga teacher, author
Known for: Iyengar Yoga
Spouse(s): Ramamani
Children: Geeta and 5 others

Bellur Krishnamachar Sundararaja Iyengar (14 December 1918 – 20 August 2014), better known as B.K.S. Iyengar, was the founder of the style of yoga as exercise known as "Iyengar Yoga" and was considered one of the foremost yoga teachers in the world.[1][2] He was the author of many books on yoga practice and philosophy including Light on Yoga, Light on Pranayama, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and Light on Life. Iyengar was one of the earliest students of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who is often referred to as "the father of modern yoga".[3] He has been credited with popularizing yoga, first in India and then around the world.[4]

The Indian government awarded Iyengar the Padma Shri in 1991, the Padma Bhushan in 2002 and the Padma Vibhushan in 2014.[5][6] In 2004, Iyengar was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.[7][8]

Early years

B.K.S. Iyengar was born into a poor Sri Vaishnava Iyengar family[9] in Bellur, Kolar district,[10] Karnataka, India. He was the 11th of 13 children (10 of whom survived) born to Sri Krishnamachar, a school teacher, and Sheshamma.[11] When Iyengar was five years old, his family moved to Bangalore. Four years later, the 9-year-old boy lost his father to appendicitis.[11]

Iyengar's home town, Bellur, was in the grip of the influenza pandemic at the time of his birth, and an attack of that disease left the young boy sickly and weak for many years. Throughout his childhood, he struggled with malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and general malnutrition. "My arms were thin, my legs were spindly, and my stomach protruded in an ungainly manner," he wrote. "My head used to hang down, and I had to lift it with great effort."[12]

Education in yoga

In 1934, his brother-in-law, the yogi Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, asked the 15-year-old Iyengar to come to Mysore, so as to improve his health through the practice of yoga asanas.[11][13] Krishnamacharya had Iyengar and other students give asana demonstrations in the Maharaja's court at Mysore, which had a positive influence on Iyengar.[11][14] Iyengar considers his association with his brother-in-law a turning point in his life[11] saying that over a two-year period "he (Krishnamacharya) only taught me for about ten or fifteen days, but those few days determined what I have become today!"[15] K. Pattabhi Jois has claimed that he, and not Krishnamacharya, was Iyengar's guru.[16] In 1937, Krishnamacharya sent Iyengar to Pune at the age of eighteen to spread the teaching of yoga.[11][17]

Though Iyengar had very high regard for Krishnamacharya,[15] and occasionally turned to him for advice, he had a troubled relationship with his guru during his tutelage.[18] In the beginning, Krishnamacharya predicted that the stiff, sickly teenager would not be successful at yoga. He was neglected and tasked with household chores. Only when Krishnamacharya's favorite pupil at the time, Keshavamurthy, left one day did serious training start.[19] Krishnamacharya began teaching a series of difficult postures, sometimes telling him to not eat until he mastered a certain posture. These experiences would later inform the way he taught his students.[20]

Iyengar reported in interviews that, at the age of 90, he continued to practice asanas for 3 hours and pranayamas for an hour daily. Besides this, he mentioned that he found himself performing non-deliberate pranayamas at other times.[15][18]

International recognition

Further information: Iyengar Yoga


In 1954, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin invited Iyengar to teach in Europe.

In 1952, Iyengar befriended the violinist Yehudi Menuhin.[21] Menuhin gave him the opportunity that transformed Iyengar from a comparatively obscure Indian yoga teacher into an international guru. Because Iyengar had taught the famous philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, he was asked to go to Bombay to meet Menuhin, who was known to be interested in yoga. Menuhin said he was very tired and could spare only five minutes. Iyengar told him to lie down in Savasana (on his back), and he fell asleep. After one hour, Menuhin awoke refreshed and spent another two hours with Iyengar. Menuhin came to believe that practising yoga improved his playing, and in 1954 invited Iyengar to Switzerland. At the end of that visit, he presented his yoga teacher with a watch on the back of which was inscribed, "To my best violin teacher, BKS Iyengar". From then on Iyengar visited the west regularly.[22] In Switzerland he also taught Vanda Scaravelli, who went on to develop her own style of yoga.[23]

He taught yoga to several celebrities including Krishnamurti and Jayaprakash Narayan.[24] He taught sirsasana (head stand) to Elisabeth, Queen of Belgium when she was 80.[25] Among his other devotees were the novelist Aldous Huxley, the actress Annette Bening, the film maker Mira Nair and the designer Donna Karan, as well as prominent Indian figures, including the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and the Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor.[12]

Iyengar made his first visit to the United States in 1956, when he taught in Ann Arbor, Michigan and gave several lecture-demonstrations; he came back to Ann Arbor in 1973, 1974, and 1976.[26]

In 1966, Iyengar published his first book, Light on Yoga. It became an international best-seller. As of 2005, it had been translated into 17 languages and sold three million copies.[2] It was followed by 13 other books, covering pranayama and aspects of yoga philosophy.[27]


Iyengar Yoga in Britain: Iyengar with yoga teacher Malcolm Strutt at Iyengar Centre House, London, 1971

In 1967, the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) called for classes in "Hatha Yoga", free of yoga philosophy, but including asanas and "pranayamas (sic)" suitable especially for people aged over 40. The ILEA's Peter McIntosh watched some of Iyengar's classes, was impressed by Light on Yoga, and from 1970 ILEA-approved yoga teacher training in London was run by one of Iyengar's pupils, Silva Mehta. Iyengar was careful to comply with the proscription of yoga philosophy, and encouraged students to follow their own religious traditions, rather than trying to follow his own family's Visistadvaita, a qualified non-dualism within Hinduism.[28][29]

In 1975, Iyengar opened the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, in memory of his late wife. He officially retired from teaching in 1984, but continued to be active in the world of Iyengar Yoga, teaching special classes, giving lectures, and writing books. Iyengar's daughter, Geeta, and son, Prashant, have gained international acclaim as teachers.[8]

Iyengar attracted his students by offering them just what they sought – which tended to be physical stamina and flexibility.[18] He conducted demonstrations and later, when a scooter accident dislocated his spine, began exploring the use of props to help disabled people practice Yoga. He drew inspiration from Hindu deities such as Yoga Narasimha and stories of yogis using trees to support their asanas.[20] He was however thought by his students to be somewhat rough with his adjustments when setting people into alignment; the historian of yoga Elliott Goldberg records that, as well as being known for barking orders and yelling at students,[30] he was nicknamed, based on his initials B. K. S., "Bang, Kick, Slap".[30] In Goldberg's view, Iyengar "rationalized his humiliation of his followers as a necessary consequence of his demand for high standards",[31] but this was consistent with his childhood response to the rough and abusive treatment he received from Krishnamacharya, taking offence quickly, being suspicious of other people's intentions, and belittling others: "In other words, he sometimes behaved like Krishnamacharya".[31] Goldberg concludes, however, that Iyengar hid "a compassion of which Krishnamacharya was never capable", and his students remembered his playfulness as well as his unpredictable temper.[31]

Philanthropy and activism

Iyengar supported nature conservation, stating that it is important to conserve all animals and birds.[32] He donated Rs. 2 million to Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, Mysore, thought to be the largest donation by an individual to any zoo in India.[32] He also adopted a tiger and a cub in memory of his wife, who died in 1973.[32]

Iyengar helped promote awareness of multiple sclerosis with the Pune unit of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of India.[33]

Iyengar's most important charitable project involved donations to his ancestral village of Bellur, in the Kolar district of Karnataka. Through the Bellur Trust fund which he established, he led a transformation of the village, supporting a number of charitable activities there. He built a hospital, India's first temple dedicated to Patanjali, a free school that supplies uniforms, books, and a hot lunch to the children of Bellur and the surrounding villages, a secondary school, and a college.[34]

Family

In 1943, Iyengar married 16-year-old Ramamani in a marriage that was arranged by their parents in the usual Indian manner. He said of their marriage: "We lived without conflict as if our two souls were one."[22] Together, they raised five daughters and a son. Ramamani died in 1973 aged 46; Iyengar named his yoga institute in Pune, the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute, after her.[35]

Both Iyengar's eldest daughter Geeta (1944-2018) and his son Prashant have become internationally-known teachers in their own right. His other children are Vanita, Sunita, Suchita, and Savita.[36] Geeta, having worked extensively on yoga for women, published Yoga: A Gem for Women (2002); Prashant is the author of several books, including A Class after a Class: Yoga, an Integrated Science (1998), and Yoga and the New Millennium (2008). Since Geeta's death, Prashant has served as the director of the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute (RIMYI) in Pune.[37] Iyengar's granddaughter, Abhijata Sridhar Iyengar, trained for a number of years under his tutelage, and is now a teacher both at the Institute in Pune and internationally.

Iyengar died on 20 August 2014 in Pune, aged 95.[38][39]

Legacy

3 October 2005 was declared as "B.K.S. Iyengar Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.[2] Anthropologist Joseph S. Alter of the University of Pittsburgh stated that Iyengar "has by far had the most profound impact on the global spread of yoga."[2] In June 2011, he was presented with a commemorative stamp issued in his honour by the Beijing branch of China Post. At that time there were over thirty thousand Iyengar yoga students in 57 cities in China.[40]

The noun "Iyengar", short for "Iyengar Yoga", is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as "a type of Hatha yoga focusing on the correct alignment of the body, making use of straps, wooden blocks, and other objects as aids in achieving the correct postures."[41]

On 14 December 2015, what would have been Iyengar's 97th birthday, he was honoured with a Google Doodle. It was shown in India, North America, much of Europe, Russia, and Indonesia.[42]

Bibliography

• (1966; revised ed. 1977) Light on Yoga. New York: Schocken. ISBN 978-0-8052-1031-6
• (1981) Light on Pranayama: The Yogic Art of Breathing. New York: Crossroad. ISBN 0-8245-0686-3
• (1985) The Art of Yoga. Boston: Unwin. ISBN 978-0-04-149062-6
• (1988) The Tree of Yoga. Boston: Shambhala. ISBN 0-87773-464-X
• (1996) Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. London: Thorsons. ISBN 978-0-00-714516-4
• (2005) Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom. (with Abrams, D. & Evans, J.J.) Pennsylvania: Rodale. ISBN 1-59486-248-6
• (2007) Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health. New York: Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 978-0-7566-3362-2
• (2000–2008) Astadala Yogamala: Collected Works (8 vols) New Delhi: Allied Publishers.
• (2009) Yoga Wisdom and Practice. New York: Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 0-7566-4283-3
• (2010) Yaugika Manas: Know and Realize the Yogic Mind. Mumbai: Yog. ISBN 81-87603-14-3
• (2012) Core of the Yoga Sutras: The Definitive Guide to the Philosophy of Yoga. London: HarperThorsons. ISBN 978-0007921263

References

1. Aubrey, Allison. "Light on life: B.K.S. Iyengar's Yoga insights". Morning Edition: National Public Radio, 10 November 1995. (full text) Retrieved 4 July 2007
2. Jump up to:a b c d Stukin, Stacie (10 October 2005). "Yogis gather around the guru". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
3. Iyengar, B.K.S. (2000). Astadala Yogamala. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers. p. 53. ISBN 978-8177640465.
4. Sjoman 1999, p. 41.
5. "Ruskin Bond, Vidya Balan, Kamal Haasan honoured with Padma awards". Hindustan Times. HT Media Limited. 25 January 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
6. "Padma Awards Announced". Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs. 25 January 2014. Retrieved 26 January2014.
7. 2004 TIME 100 – B.K.S. Iyengar Heroes & Icons, TIME.
8. Iyengar, B.K.S. "Yoga News & Trends – Light on Iyengar". Yoga Journal. Archived from the original on 31 August 2007. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
9. "B. K. S. Iyengar Biography". Notablebiographies.com. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
10. Iyengar, B.K.S. (1991). Iyengar – His Life and Work. C.B.S. Publishers & Distributors. p. 3.
11. Iyengar, B.K.S. (2006). Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom. USA: Rodale. pp. xvi–xx. ISBN 9781594865244. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
12. "B. K. S. Iyengar, Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West, Dies at 95". The New York Times. 21 August 2014.
13. Smith & White 2014, p. 124.
14. Singleton, Mark (2010). Yoga Body : the origins of modern posture practice. Oxford University Press. pp. 184, 192. ISBN 978-0-19-539534-1. OCLC 318191988.
15. Interview by R. Alexander Medin. "3 Gurus, 48 Questions" (PDF). Namarupa (Fall 2004): 9. 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 March 2013. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
16. Sjoman 1999, p. 49.
17. Iyengar, B.K.S. (2000). Astadala Yogamala. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers. p. 57. ISBN 978-8177640465.
18. "Being BKS Iyengar: The enlightened yogi of yoga(part1-2)". YouTube. 22 June 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
19. Pag, Fernando. "Krishnamacharya's Legacy". Yogajournal.com. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
20. "Being BKS Iyengar: The enlightened yogi of yoga(part2-2)". YouTube. 22 June 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
21. SenGupta, Anuradha (22 June 2008). "Being BKS Iyengar: The yoga guru". IBN live. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
22. "BKS Iyengar obituary". The Guardian. 20 August 2014.
23. Wishner, Nan (5 May 2015). "The Legacy of Vanda Scaravelli". Yoga International.
24. "Life is yoga, yoga is life". Sakal Times. 13 December 2012. Archived from the original on 16 February 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
25. "Light on Iyengar". Yoga Journal. San Francisco: 96. September–October 2005. Retrieved 10 January 2013.
26. "Yogacharya B. K. S. Iyengar Dies August 20" (PDF). IYNAUS. 20 August 2014.
27. "au:B. K. S. Iyengar". WorldCat. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
28. Newcombe 2007.
29. Newcombe 2019, pp. 99, 236-239.
30. Goldberg 2016, p. 382.
31. Goldberg 2016, p. 384.
32. "Zoo felicitates B.K.S. Iyengar". The Hindu. 10 June 2009.
33. "BKS Iyengar to participate in multiple sclerosis awareness drive". The Indian Express. 22 May 2010. Retrieved 9 January2013.
34. "Bellur Trust". Iyengar Yoga UK. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
35. "The Pune Institute". Iyengar Yoga (UK). Retrieved 16 October 2019.
36. BKS Iyengar Archive Project 2007. IYNAUS. 2007. [ISBN unspecified]
37. Biography: Geeta Iyengar
38. "Yoga guru B. K. S. Iyengar passes away". The Hindu. 20 August 2014.
39. "B. K. S. Iyengar, Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West, Dies at 95". The New York Times. 20 August 2014. B. K. S. Iyengar ... died on Wednesday in the southern Indian city of Pune. He was 95. ... The cause was heart failure, said Abhijata Sridhar-Iyengar, his granddaughter. ...
40. Krishnan, Ananth (21 June 2011). "Indian yoga icon finds following in China". The Hindu. Chennai, India. Retrieved 22 June2011.
41. Oxford Dictionaries. "Iyengar". Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
42. "97th birthday of B. K. S. Iyengar". Google Doodles Archive. 14 December 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2015.

Sources

Goldberg, Elliott (2016). The Path of Modern Yoga :The History of an Embodied Spiritual Practice. Inner Traditions. ISBN 978-1-62055-567-5. OCLC 926062252.
Newcombe, Suzanne (2007). "Stretching for Health and Well-Being: Yoga and Women in Britain, 1960–1980". Asian Medicine. 3 (1): 37–63. doi:10.1163/157342107X207209.
——— (2019). Yoga in Britain: Stretching Spirituality and Educating Yogis. Bristol, England: Equinox Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78179-661-0.
Smith, Frederick M.; White, Joan (2014). Singleton, Mark; Goldberg, Ellen (eds.). Chapter 6. Becoming an Icon: B. K. S. Iyengar as a Yoga Teacher and a Yoga Guru. Gurus of Modern Yoga. Oxford University Press. pp. 122–146. ISBN 978-0-19-993871-1.
Sjoman, Norman E. (1999). The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace. New Delhi, India: Abhinav Publications. ISBN 81-7017-389-2.

External links

• Official website
• B. K. S. Iyengar on IMDb
• BBC World Service article and programme by Mark Tully
• Leap of faith (2008), Trivedi & Makim, Documentary about the life of BKS Iyengar
• BKS Iyengar – 97th birthday on YouTube. Google Doodle Collection. 13 December 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
• BKS Iyengar Google Doodle. 97th Birthday of "Iyengar Yoga" Founder on YouTube. Rajamanickam Antonimuthu. 14 December 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2015.
• Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute at Google Cultural Institute

**************************

Yoga Reconsiders the Role of the Guru in the Age of #MeToo
by Eliza Griswold
The New Yorker
July 23, 2019


In the Western context, yoga gurus such as Sharath Jois and Bikram Choudhury (pictured) become rock stars, and students compete for their favor.Photograph by Bob Riha, Jr. / Getty

Last week on Instagram, Sharath Jois, a grandson of Pattabhi Jois, the hugely influential founder of Ashtanga yoga, which has millions of followers worldwide, finally responded to several years’ worth of claims of sexual misconduct against his grandfather, who died in 2009, at the age of ninety-three. Since 2010, more than a dozen former students have come forward to accuse Guruji, as his followers called him, of sexually assaulting them in his yoga studio in Mysore, India, and during workshops while he was on tour in the United States. Their allegations include that he rubbed his genitals against their pelvises while they were in extreme backbends, lay on top of them while they were prostrate on the floor, and inserted his fingers into their vaginas—an action that fellow-students excused as an adjustment to their mula bandhas, the body’s lowest chakra, which lies between the genitals and the anus. After his grandfather’s death, Sharath became the director of the Shri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute, and the paramguru (or “guru’s guru”) of Ashtanga. “It brings me immense pain that I also witness him giving improper adjustments,” Sharath wrote in the post. “I am sorry it caused pain for any of his students. After all these years I still feel pain from my grandfather’s actions.”

This is only the latest in a string of scandals involving powerful men within the yoga community that date back decades. In 1991, protesters accused Swami Satchidananda, the famous yogi who issued the invocation at Woodstock, of molesting his students, and carried signs outside a hotel where he was staying in Virginia that read “Stop the Abuse.” (Satchidananda denied all claims of misconduct.) In 1994, Amrit Desai, the founder of the Kripalu Centre for Yoga, a well-known yoga-retreat center, was accused of sleeping with his students while purporting to practice celibacy. (Desai eventually admitted to having sexual contact with three women.) More recently, Bikram Choudhury, the founder of “hot,” or Bikram, yoga, has faced several civil lawsuits for sexual misconduct, including one filed in 2013 by his own lawyer, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, who said that he not only harassed her but also forced her to cover up allegations of misconduct against other women. (Bikram has denied all allegations.) After Bikram failed to pay Jafa-Bodden a seven-million-dollar judgment issued against him by a California court, in 2017, the judge issued an arrest warrant, and Bikram reportedly fled the country. In 2012, John Friend, the founder of Anusara yoga, admitted to sleeping with several students. He was also accused of running a Wiccan coven called Blazing Solar Flames, where members often went naked. (In a public statement, Friend denied any involvement in “a sex coven.”) Friend withdrew for a time from public life but has since launched another form of yoga, called Sridaiva. Not all of the recent scandals have been sexual; some have involved financial impropriety or the physical abuse of students. During his workshops, B. K. S. Iyengar, who died in Pune, India, in 2014, openly slapped and kicked his students while telling them, according to the Times of India, “It’s not you I’m angry with, not you I kick. It’s the knee, the back, the mind that is not listening.”

Jois was born in 1915, in the rural village of Kowshika, in South India, and spent the first thirty-two years of his life living under British colonial rule. One day at school, when he was twelve, he attended a lecture in which a yoga instructor named Sri Krishnamacharya demonstrated several asanas, or poses. Jois ran away from home at fourteen, reunited with Krishnamacharya a few years later, and proceeded to study with him for twenty-five years. He went on to create Ashtanga, a form of yoga that involves a series of rigorous athletic poses that students are encouraged to practice six times a week. Beginning in the seventies, students flocked to Mysore to study with Jois, and, as his following grew, so did his fame and influence. Some students stayed in Mysore for months or even years to perfect their poses. Others came to venerate the teacher, prostrating themselves at his feet. Female students later complained that he sometimes kissed them on the mouth without their consent, and patted their buttocks when they hugged him or bowed before him. Jubilee Cooke, a fifty-three-year-old former student who says that she was groped by Jois during yoga sessions, didn’t realize that his behavior was something that she could report. “I didn’t know it was called sexual assault until I heard political pundits talking about what Trump had done on the ‘Access Hollywood’ tapes,” she told me.

Alex Auder, the forty-eight-year-old founder of Magu Yoga, a studio in Philadelphia, has been one of Jois’s most vocal critics. During the late nineteen-nineties, Auder taught at Jivamukti, in New York City, one of the places where Ashtanga first grew popular in the United States. But, in the past decade, she has become increasingly skeptical of some aspects of the practice. Initially, her criticisms focussed on the poses themselves, which she believes Jois designed with little regard for how they would be enacted by women. “The physical practice is totally off base—it’s patriarchal,” she told me. “For many women’s bodies, it simply doesn’t work.” (To illustrate this point, she recently posted a picture on Instagram of Sharath Jois assisting a pregnant woman to “drop back” from a standing position into a backbend, which struck Auder as ill-advised.) For the past five years, Auder has written about the increasing commodification of yoga, which she calls “neo-spiritualism”—an alliance between yoga and neoliberalism. Such criticism is not taken lightly in the Ashtanga community; according to Auder and others, those who speak out are often ostracized. “Sharath kicked anyone off the list of sanctioned teachers who ever criticized Pattabhi Jois or Ashtanga,” she told me. (Sharath did not respond to requests for comment on this article.)

For Karen Rain, a fifty-one-year-old former student who says that Jois repeatedly assaulted her between 1994 and 1998, at his studio in Mysore, the fear of being ostracized kept her from telling anyone about the abuse. “I knew it would bring me criticism and slander,” she told me. She was certain that her fellow-students would turn on her if she made her allegations public, and, in 2002, she left Ashtanga. “It destroyed my life as I knew it,” she said. “I loved the practice and was hoping to build my life and career around it.” In 2018, she told her story on Medium and included photographs showing Jois pressing his crotch to hers while she lifted her leg above her head. “Since the images are still photographs, you don’t really see that he’s humping me,” she told me.

Anneke Lucas, a fifty-six-year-old former student, who now works as an advocate for survivors of sexual abuse and is the founder of Liberation Prison Yoga, confronted Jois the moment he groped her crotch, during a class in Manhattan in 2001, and told him that he could go to prison for touching her like that. After she spoke out, she felt that her experience wasn’t taken seriously by other students and teachers, which she found more harmful than the assault. “I was far more hurt by the culture of silence and ignoring the victim and victim-blaming than the abuse itself,” she told me. “If there would’ve been support from the community, and it had been dealt with, it would have gone away.” Cooke has called out the magazine Yoga Journal for favorable articles that it published about Jois in the nineties. “Whether or not they did it consciously, it was grooming,” she said. “Encouraging people to go study with Pattabhi Jois and expect good things from him.”

Last year, Auder became Facebook friends with Rain, Lucas, and Cooke, and the four began discussing what they saw as Ashtanga’s toxic sexual culture. At first, Auder wasn’t sure how to process the severity of the women’s claims. “I’m a product of the seventies,” she told me, “and I don’t mind a pat on the ass.” But as the number of accusers grew over the last year she came to see that what others called “inappropriate adjustment” was really a pattern of sexual abuse, and that the powerful following that had grown up around Jois had helped to keep his accusers silent. After that, on Instagram, she called for an official response from Ashtanga leaders.

Instead of putting the controversy to rest, the statement that Sharath issued last week has kicked off a flurry of angry responses from people who argue that it comes too late, and that it reads like an attempt to end the controversy rather than a genuine effort to set things right. Critics accused Sharath of shirking blame for himself or his family and instead accusing other students of failing to protect their fellow-practitioners. “Why did they not act in support of their fellow students, peers, girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, friends and speak against this?” he asks. He followed this up with another statement, in which he grew more defensive. “You can criticize me what ever you want,” he wrote on Instagram, punctuating his post with crying-face emojis. “I have always respected & supported women my students know it & god knows it.” The post has since been deleted.

But the scandal has prompted other leaders, including Eddie Stern, a fifty-one-year-old yoga instructor who, for twenty-five years, was the head of one of the most influential Ashtanga schools in the United States, to speak out about Jois’s abuses. Stern studied under Jois for eighteen years and has since authored three books about Ashtanga. After the allegations were made public, he received letters from current students asking him to respond. “People have considered me to be part of this problem because I haven’t spoken publicly,” he told me. Although Stern has been talking in private to concerned students and fellow-teachers, now that Sharath has issued a statement, Stern has decided to speak to me for this article.

Jois’s abuses remained hidden for so long in part because of his overwhelming authority as a guru, which may reflect a larger problem within the culture of yoga. In traditional yogic practice, a guru is a mediator—a translator of sorts—through whom a set of teachings is passed down. Devotion to the guru is meant to symbolize devotion to the teachings, not to the man. But in the Western context gurus become rock stars, and students compete to curry favor with them. This gives gurus significant influence over their students, which is sometimes misused. “I had this idea in me that the guru was supposed to be this all-encompassing everything,” Stern said. “I, along with other people, superimposed these mythologies on top of a human being . . . It was a misunderstanding of what the relationship was supposed to be.

For Rain, apologies from Ashtanga teachers have come too late. She is less interested in public statements and more interested in specific measures that schools can take to change their cultures. Some yoga communities have begun instituting official checks on how teachers are allowed to touch their students, including issuing “consent cards,” which students fill out to indicate whether they are willing to be touched and place at the edge of their mats. Rain wants Ashtanga teachers to pledge to offer free copies of articles about the accusations against Jois at their studios and to post unedited accounts of the allegations on their Web sites. She told me, “I’m offering them a way to make amends by giving the narrative to us.”

Eliza Griswold, a contributing writer covering religion, politics, and the environment, has been writing for The New Yorker since 2003. She won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America,” in 2019.

[admin]

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/30/20


Krishnamacharya
At 100 years (1988)
Born: November 18, 1888. Chitradurga district, Mysore Kingdom
Died: February 28, 1989 (aged 100), Madras, India
Nationality: Indian
Occupation: Yoga teacher
Known for :"Father of modern yoga"

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (November 18, 1888 – February 28, 1989)[1][2] was an Indian yoga teacher, ayurvedic healer and scholar. Often referred to as "the father of modern yoga,"[3][4] Krishnamacharya is widely regarded as one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century. Like earlier pioneers influenced by physical culture such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda, he contributed to the revival of hatha yoga.[5]

Krishnamacharya held degrees in all the six Vedic darśanas, or Indian philosophies. While under the patronage of the King of Mysore, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV, Krishnamacharya traveled around India giving lectures and demonstrations to promote yoga, including such feats as apparently stopping his heartbeat.[6] He is widely considered as the architect of vinyāsa,[5] in the sense of combining breathing with movement; the style of yoga he created has come to be called Viniyoga or Vinyasa Krama Yoga. Underlying all of Krishnamacharya's teachings was the principle "Teach what is appropriate for an individual."[7] While he is revered in other parts of the world as a yogi, in India Krishnamacharya is mainly known as a healer who drew from both ayurvedic and yogic traditions to restore health and well-being to those he treated.[5] He authored four books on yoga—Yoga Makaranda (1934), Yogaasanagalu (c. 1941),[8] Yoga Rahasya, and Yogavalli (Chapter 1 – 1988)—as well as several essays and poetic compositions.[9]

Krishnamacharya's students included many of yoga's most renowned and influential teachers: Indra Devi (1899–2002); K. Pattabhi Jois (1915–2009); B. K. S. Iyengar (1918-2014); his son T. K. V. Desikachar (1938-2016); Srivatsa Ramaswami (born 1939); and A. G. Mohan (born 1945). Iyengar, his brother-in-law and founder of Iyengar Yoga, credits Krishnamacharya with encouraging him to learn yoga as a boy in 1934.[10][11]

Biography

Early life

Krishnamacharya was born on November 18, 1888 in Muchukundapura, situated in the Chitradurga district of present-day Karnataka, in South India, to an orthodox Iyengar family. His parents were Sri Tirumalai Srinivasa Tatacharya, a well-known teacher of the Vedas, and Shrimati Ranganayakiamma.[12] Krishnamacharya was the eldest of six children. He had two brothers and three sisters. At the age of six, he underwent upanayana. He then began learning to speak and write Sanskrit, from texts such as the Amarakosha and to chant the Vedas under the strict tutelage of his father.[2]

When Krishnamacharya was ten, his father died,[13] and the family had to move to Mysore, the second largest city in Karnataka, where Krishnamcharya's great-grandfather H.H. Sri Srinivasa Brahmatantra Parakala Swami, was the head of the Parakala Math.[14]

Scholastic education

Krishnamacharya spent much of his youth traveling through India studying the six darśana or Indian philosophies: vaiśeṣika, nyāya, sāṃkhya, yoga, mīmāṃsā and vedānta.[15] In 1906, at the age of eighteen, Krishnamacharya left Mysore to attend university at Benares, also known as Vārānasī, a city of hundreds of temples and a highly regarded North Indian center of traditional learning.[16] While at university, he studied logic and Sanskrit, working with Brahmashri Shivakumar Shastry, "one of the greatest grammarians of the age".[17] He also learned the Mimamsa from Brahmasri Trilinga Rama Shastri.[2]

In 1914, he once again left for Benares to attend classes at Queens College, where he eventually earned a number of teaching certificates. During the first year he had little or no financial support from his family. In order to eat, he followed the rules that were laid down for religious beggars: he was to approach only seven households each day and offer a prayer "in return for wheat flour to mix with water for cakes".[18] Krishnamacharya eventually left Queens College to study the ṣaḍdarśana (six darshanas) in Vedic philosophy at Patna University, in Bihar, a state in eastern India. He received a scholarship to study Ayurveda under Vaidya Krishnakumar of Bengal.[2]

Krishnamacharya was invited to the coronation of the Rajah of Dikkanghat (a principality within Darbhanga), at which he defeated a scholar called Bihari Lal in a debate, and received rewards and honors from the Rajah.[19] His stay in Benares lasted 11 years.

He studied with the yoga master Sri Babu Bhagavan Das and passed the Samkhya Yoga Examination of Patna.[2] Many of his instructors recognized his outstanding abilities in the study and practice of yoga and supported his progress. Some asked that he teach their children.[20]

The tale of Ramamohana Brahmachari and the Yoga Korunta

Further information: Yoga Korunta


Krishnamacharya claimed that he had spent seven and a half years at the foot of the sacred Mount Kailash in Tibet, learning the Yoga Korunta in the Gurkha language of Nepal.

Krishnamacharya told his pupils, including Iyengar, "an imagined history, it turns out, of thousands of asanas".[21] Mark Singleton and Tara Fraser note that he provided contradictory descriptions of the facts of his own life, sometimes denying tales he had told earlier, and sometimes mischievously[22] adding new versions.[22] According to one such tale, recounted by Mohan, during the vacations, which would last about three months, Krishnamacharya made pilgrimages into the Himalayas.[20] Krishnamacharya claimed in his Yoga Makaranda that at the suggestion of Gaṅgānāth Jhā, he sought to further his yoga studies by seeking a master named Yogeshwara Ramamohana Brahmachari, who was rumored to live in the mountains beyond Nepal and had supposedly mastered 7000 asanas.[23] For this venture, Krishnamacharya had to obtain the permission of the Viceroy in Simla, Lord Irwin, who was then suffering from diabetes.[20] At the request of the Viceroy, Krishnamacharya travelled to Simla and taught him yogic practices for six months. The viceroy's health improved and he developed respect and affection for Krishnamacharya.[24] In 1919, the Viceroy made arrangements for Krishnamacharya's travel to Tibet, supplying three aides and taking care of the expenses. After two and a half months of walking, Krishnamacharya arrived at Sri Brahmachari's school, supposedly a cave at the foot of Mount Kailash, where the master lived with his wife and three children.[5] Under Brahmachari's tutelage, Krishnamacharya claimed to have spent seven and a half years[25] studying the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, learning asanas and pranayama, and studying the therapeutic aspects of yoga.[5] He was supposedly made to memorize the whole of the Yoga Korunta in the Gurkha language, though no evidence of that text exists. As tradition holds, at the end of his studies with the guru, Krishnamacharya asked what his payment would be. The master responded that Krishnamacharya was to "take a wife, raise children and be a teacher of Yoga".[26][27]

According to the tale, Krishnamacharya then returned to Varanasi. The Maharajah of Jaipur called him to serve as principal of the Vidyā Śālā in Jaipur; but as he did not like being answerable to many people, Krishnamacharya shortly returned to Varanasi. In accordance with his guru's wish that he live the life of a householder, Krishnamacharya married Namagiriamma in 1925. After his marriage, Krishnamacharya was forced by circumstance to work in a coffee plantation in the Hasan district. It was after a lecture on the Upanishads in Mysore town hall in 1931 that he attracted the attention as a learned scholar that eventually led to his employment at the palace.[27]

Mysore years


Krishnamacharya in a yoga demonstration

Further information: Asana and Modern yoga

In 1926, the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV (1884–1940) was in Varanasi to celebrate his mother's 60th birthday and heard about Krishnamacharya's learning and skill as a yoga therapist.[28] The Maharaja met Krishnamacharya and was so impressed by the young man's demeanor, authority, and scholarship that he engaged Krishnamacharya to teach him and his family.[28] Initially, Krishnamacharya taught yoga at the Mysore Palace.[29] He soon became a trusted advisor of the Maharajah, and was given the recognition of Asthana Vidwan — the intelligentsia of the palace.[30]

During the 1920s, Krishnamacharya held many demonstrations to stimulate popular interest in yoga. These included suspending his pulse, stopping cars with his bare hands, performing difficult asanas, and lifting heavy objects with his teeth.[5] The Palace archive records show that the Maharaja was interested in the promotion of yoga and continually sent Krishnamacharya around the country to give lectures and demonstrations.[31]

In 1931, Krishnamacharya was invited to teach at the Sanskrit College in Mysore. The Maharaja, who felt that yoga had helped cure his many ailments, asked Krishnamacharya to open a yoga school under his patronage[5][32] and was subsequently given the wing of a nearby palace, the Jaganmohan Palace, to start the Yogashala, an independent yoga institution,[29] which opened on August 11, 1933.[28][33]


Gajasana, hand-drawn illustration in Sritattvanidhi, 19th century Mysore Palace manuscript. The scholar Norman Sjoman suggests that Krishnamacharya was influenced by the yoga poses in the manuscript.[34]

In 1934, he wrote the book Yoga Makaranda ("Essence of Yoga"), which was published by Mysore University. In the introduction to Yoga Makaranda, Krishnamacharya lists the Sritattvanidhi, a 19th-century treatise containing a yoga section by Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar III (1794–1868) as one of the sources for his book. In The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace, Norman Sjoman asserts that Krishnamacharya was influenced by the Sritattvanidhi and by the Vyayama Dipika, a Western-based gymnastics manual written by the Mysore Palace gymnasts.[34] Mark Singleton argues that he was influenced by the 20th century yoga pioneers Yogendra and Kuvalayananda, and that all three "seamlessly incorporate[d] elements of physical culture into their systems of 'yoga'."[35]

Krishnamacharya, unlike earlier yoga gurus such as Yogendra, "severely criticized his students" including his young brother-in-law, B. K. S. Iyengar.[36] He was equally bad-tempered at home with his family. In the view of the historian of yoga Elliott Goldberg, Iyengar "would never recover from or anywhere near comprehend the damage inflicted on him by Krishnamacharya's abuse" during his teenage years.[37]

In 1940, Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV died. His nephew and successor, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974), less interested in yoga, no longer provided support for publishing texts and sending teams of teachers to surrounding areas.[38] Following political changes in 1946, around the time that India gained independence, a new government came into being and the powers of the maharajas were curtailed. Funding for the yoga school was cut off,[39] and Krishnamacharya struggled to maintain the school. At the age of 60 (1948), Krishnamacharya was forced to travel extensively to find students and provide for his family.[39] The yogashala in Mysore was ordered to be closed by K.C. Reddy, the first Chief Minister of Mysore State, and the school eventually closed in 1950.[5]

Madras years

After leaving Mysore, Krishnamacharya moved to Bangalore for a couple of years[40] and then was invited in 1952 to relocate to Madras, by a well-known lawyer who sought Krishnamacharya's help in healing from a stroke. By now, Krishnamacharya was in his sixties, and his reputation for being a strict and intimidating teacher had mellowed somewhat.


Krishnamacharya teaching a child

In Madras, Krishnamacharya accepted a job as a lecturer at Vivekananda College. He also began to acquire yoga students from diverse backgrounds and in various physical conditions, which required him to adapt his teaching to each student's abilities. For the remainder of his teaching life, Krishnamacharya continued to refine this individualized approach, which came to be known as Viniyoga.[5][41] Many considered Krishnamacharya a yoga master, but he continued to call himself a student because he felt that he was always "studying, exploring and experimenting" with the practice.[42] Throughout his life, Krishnamacharya refused to take credit for his innovative teachings but instead attributed the knowledge to his guru or to ancient texts.[5]

At the age of 96, Krishnamacharya fractured his hip. Refusing surgery, he treated himself and designed a course of practice that he could do in bed. Krishnamacharya lived and taught in Chennai until he slipped into a coma and died in 1989, at one hundred years of age. His cognitive faculties remained sharp until his death; and he continued to teach and heal whenever the situation arose.

Although his knowledge and teaching has influenced yoga throughout the world, Krishnamacharya never left his native India. Yoga Journal wrote:

You may never have heard of him but Tirumalai Krishnamacharya influenced or perhaps even invented your yoga. Whether you practice the dynamic series of Pattabhi Jois, the refined alignments of B. K. S. Iyengar, the classical postures of Indra Devi, or the customized vinyasa of Viniyoga, your practice stems from one source: a five-foot, two-inch Brahmin born more than one hundred years ago in a small South Indian village.[5]

By developing and refining different approaches, Krishnamacharya made yoga accessible to millions around the world.[5]

Approach

Further information: Yoga as therapy and Yoga as exercise

Krishnamacharya was a physician of Ayurvedic medicine. He "possessed enormous knowledge of nutrition, herbal medicine, the use of oils, and other remedies".[43] Krishnamacharya's custom as an Ayurvedic practitioner was to begin with a detailed examination to determine the most efficient path to take for a patient.[44] According to Krishnamacharya, even though the source or focus of a disease is in a particular area of the body, he assumed that many other systems in the body, both mental and physical, would also be affected. At some point during or after an initial examination, Krishnamacharya would ask if the patient was willing to follow his guidance. This question was important to a patient's treatment, because Krishnamacharya felt that if the person could not trust him fully there was little chance of his or her being healed.[45]


Krishnamacharya emphasised the use of three of Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, not only asana but also pranayama and dhyana.[46]

Once a person began seeing Krishnamacharya, he would work with him or her on a number of levels including adjusting their diet; creating herbal medicines; and setting up a series of yoga postures that would be most beneficial. When instructing a person on the practice of yoga, Krishnamacharya particularly stressed the importance of combining breath work (pranayama) with the postures (asanas) of yoga and meditation (dhyana) to reach the desired goal.[46]

Krishnamacharya "believed Yoga to be India's greatest gift to the world."[47] His yoga instruction reflected his conviction that yoga could be both a spiritual practice and a mode of physical healing.[48] His style of yoga is now known as Vinyasa Krama Yoga.[49] Krishnamacharya based his teachings on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Yoga Yajnavalkya. Whereas Krishnamacharya was deeply devoted to Vaishnavism, he also respected his students' varying religious beliefs, or nonbeliefs.[50] A former student recalls that while leading a meditation, Krishnamacharya instructed students to close their eyes and "think of God. If not God, the sun. If not the sun, your parents."[5] As a result of the teachings he received from his father and other instructors, Krishnamacharya approached every student as "absolutely unique",[51] in the belief that the most important aspect of teaching yoga was that the student be "taught according to his or her individual capacity at any given time".[52] For Krishnamacharya, the path of yoga meant different things for different people, and each person ought to be taught in a manner that he or she understood clearly.[53]

Krishnamacharya's students included many of 20th century yoga's most renowned and influential teachers: Indra Devi; K. Pattabhi Jois; B. K. S. Iyengar; T. K. V. Desikachar; Srivatsa Ramaswami; and A. G. Mohan (born 1945).[10][11]

Leading yoga teachers among Krishnamacharya's pupils[10][11]

Student / Relationship / Known for / Founded school / Best-known book

Indra Devi (1899–2002) pupil Yoga with Hollywood stars — Yoga for Americans 1959
K. Pattabhi Jois (1915–2009) pupil Mysore style Ashtanga vinyasa yoga Yoga Mala 1999
B. K. S. Iyengar (1918-2014) brother-in-law Precision, props Iyengar Yoga Light on Yoga 1966
T. K. V. Desikachar (1938-2016) son Viniyoga Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram The Heart of Yoga 1995
Srivatsa Ramaswami (1939- ) pupil Vinyasa Krama yoga — Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga 2005
A. G. Mohan (1945- ) pupil Svastha Yoga & Ayurveda — Yoga for Body, Breath, and Mind 2002

Accomplishment as a scholar

Krishnamacharya was highly regarded as a scholar. He earned degrees in philosophy, logic, divinity, philology, and music.[5][54] He was twice offered the position of Acharya in the Srivaishnava sampradaya, but he declined in order to stay with his family, in accordance with his guru's wishes.[5]

He also had extensive knowledge of orthodox Hindu rituals. His scholarship in various darshanas of orthodox Indian philosophy earned him titles such as Sāṃkhya-yoga-śikhāmaṇi, Mīmāṃsā-ratna, Mīmāṃsā-thīrtha, Nyāyācārya, Vedāntavāgīśa, Veda-kesari and Yogācārya.[55]

Works

1. Yoga Makaranda (1934)
2. Yogaasanagalu (c. 1941)
3. Yoga Rahasya (2004)
4. Yogavalli (Chapter 1 – 1988)

References

1. Mohan 2010, p. 125.
2. "Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram". Archived from the original on 11 April 2015.
3. Mohan, A. G.; Mohan, Ganesh (5 April 2017) [2009]. "Memories of a Master". Yoga Journal.
4. "The YJ Interview: Partners in Peace". Yoga Journal.
5. Pagés Ruiz 2001.
6. Mohan 2010, p. 7.
7. Mohan 2010, p. 38.
8. Singleton 2010, p. 240.
9. Mohan 2010, pp. 128–130.
10. Iyengar 2006, pp. xvi-xx.
11. Singleton & Fraser 2014, p. 83.
12. Mohan 2010, p. 1.
13. Pierce, Martin (January–February 1988). "A Lion in Winter". Yoga Journal: 61–62.
14. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 30 June 2010. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
15. http://malankazlev.com/kheper/topics/ea ... shanas.htm.
16. Mohan 2010, p. 2.
17. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 38.
18. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 40.
19. "Krishnamacharya – The King and the Young Man". Ashtanga Yoga Shala NYC.
20. Mohan 2010, p. 3.
21. Smith & White 2014, p. 125.
22. Singleton & Fraser 2014, p. 85.
23. Krishnamacharya, Tirumalai. Yoga Makaranda. p. 25. Kannada Edition 1934 Madurai C.M.V. Press
24. Mohan 2010, pp. 3–4.
25. Mohan 2010, p. 5.
26. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 44.
27. Singleton 2010, pp. 184–186, 197.
28. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 87.
29. Sjoman 1999, p. 52.
30. Iyengar 2000, p. 53.
31. Sjoman 1999, p. 53.
32. Mohan 2010, p. 6.
33. Singleton 2010, p. 181ff.
34. Cushman, Anne. "Yoga Through Time". Yoga Journal.
35. Singleton 2010, p. 111.
36. Goldberg 2016, pp. 370–371.
37. Goldberg 2016, p. 375.
38. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 94.
39. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 96.
40. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 101.
41. Mohan 2010, pp. 38-43.
42. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 104.
43. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 124.
44. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 129.
45. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 131.
46. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 111.
47. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 123.
48. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. xviii.
49. "Vinyasa Krama Yoga". Harmony Yoga. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
50. Mohan 2010, p. 107.
51. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 20.
52. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. 22.
53. Desikachar & Cravens 1998, p. xix.
54. Mohan 2010, pp. 3–5.
55. "Interview of the week: TKV Desikachar, Founder, Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram". Chennai Online Archives. Archived from the original on 20 October 2008. Retrieved 19 October 2008.

Sources

• Desikachar, T. K. V.; Cravens, Richard H. (1998). Health, Healing & Beyond : Yoga and the living tradition of Krishnamacharya. Aperture. ISBN 0-89381-941-7.
• Goldberg, Elliott (2016). The Path of Modern Yoga : the history of an embodied spiritual practice. Inner Traditions. ISBN 978-1-62055-567-5. OCLC 926062252.
• Iyengar, B.K.S. (2000). Astadala Yogamala. New Delhi, India: Allied Publishers. ISBN 978-8177640465.
• Iyengar, B. K. S. (2006). Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom. Rodale. ISBN 978-1594865244.
• Mohan, A. G. (2010). Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings. Boston: Shambhala. ISBN 978-1-59030-800-4.
• Pagés Ruiz, Fernando (2001). "Krishnamacharya's Legacy". Yoga Journal (May/June 2001).
• Singleton, Mark (2010). Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539534-1.
• Singleton, Mark; Fraser, Tara (2014). Singleton, Mark; Goldberg, Ellen (eds.). Chapter 4. T. Krishnamacharya, Father of Modern Yoga. Gurus of Modern Yoga. Oxford University Press. pp. 83–106. ISBN 978-0-19-993871-1.
• Sjoman, N.E. (1999) [1996]. The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace (2nd ed.). New Delhi, India: Abhinav Publications. ISBN 81-7017-389-2.
• Smith, Frederick M.; White, Joan (2014). Singleton, Mark; Goldberg, Ellen (eds.). Chapter 6. Becoming an Icon: B. K. S. Iyengar as a Yoga Teacher and a Yoga Guru. Gurus of Modern Yoga. Oxford University Press. pp. 122–146. ISBN 978-0-19-993871-1.
• Srivatsan, Mala (1997) Śrī Krishnamacharya the pūrnācārya. Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. OCLC 39292632.

Media

• Dars, Jean-François (Director); Papillault, Anne (Director) (1989). Hundred Years of Beatitude (Documentary). CNRS.
• Wadiyar, Krishna Raja (Sponsor) (1989) [1938]. T. Krishnamacharya Asanas (Film). Archived from the original on 14 December 2013. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
• Schmidt-Garre, Jan (Director) (2012). Breath of the Gods: A Journey to the Origins of Modern Yoga (Documentary). PARS Media.

External links

• India portal
• Yoga Makaranda (Part 1)

[admin]

Gerard Menuhin
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/30/20



Gerard Menuhin (born 1948[1] in Scotland)[2][3] is a Holocaust denier and far-right activist, associated with the neo-Nazi movement in Germany.[4][5]

His book Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil, published in 2015, argues that the Holocaust is "the biggest lie in history",[6] that Jews are an "alien, demonic force which seeks to dominate the world", that Jews are flooding Europe with non-white races, to create a "society of racial mongrels, under the rule of a “new Jewish nobility”", and plan to create a one-world government.[7] Menuhin argues that "the world owes Adolf Hitler an apology".[8]

He is the son of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and dancer Diana Gould, and brother of pianist Jeremy Menuhin.

Background

Born in July[2][3] 1948[1] in Scotland, United Kingdom,[2][3] he is the son of violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who was Jewish and Diana Gould, an English ballerina who was a gentile.[9] He attended Eton College, completing his studies at Stanford University in California. The brother of the pianist Jeremy Menuhin,[10] Gerard did not want to follow in the footsteps of his father or brother and decided to enter into acting. In London's Mermaid Theatre, he landed a role in the Erich Kästner-piece Emil and the Detectives.[11]

In December 1970, when Menuhin was 22, he and his father temporarily lost their American citizenship after they were granted Swiss citizenship, as American law at the time did not permit dual citizenship.[12]

In 1985, he published his first book, a novel, Elmer, which was panned by critics.[13]

Menuhin was, until November 2005, the CEO of the German chapter of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation. He was representative of the Menuhin family on the Board of the Menuhin Festival Gstaad in Gstaad, Switzerland. In June 2007, he took up the post as president of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation in Grenchen, Switzerland.[14] Since 2009, there is no indication to be found of Menuhin's continuing administrative position with the Menuhin Festival Gstaad.[15]

He has previously worked for Menuhin IP Management GmbH (Menuhin IP Management Ltd liab Co) (Menuhin IP Management Sàrl) in Schöfflisdorf[15] which owns the official Yehudi Menuhin website.[16] The content of the website, however, is controlled by two of Yehudi Menuhin's other children, Jeremy Menuhin and Zamira Menuhin Benthall, as directors of SYM Music Company Limited.

Controversy over extremist views

A supporter of Adolf Hitler, Menuhin writes about Jews: "It remains for Jews only to imitate or destroy what they can never have or become, and to undermine the homogeneous social fabric via their political stooges, by civil-war-induced migrations and so-called anti-discriminatory legislation, including attacks on such core values as the traditional family, through contrived “gender neutral” and radical feminist ideologies and “movements.”"[17]

He considers himself anti-Zionist. Until 2005, his political views had barely registered with the outside world even though he has a regular column in the Munich-based ultra-German nationalist National Zeitung. Because of Gerard Menuhin's extremist or nationalistic utterances, he was relieved of his post as chairman on 12 November 2005 by the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation Germany. The London Times Berlin correspondent Roger Boyes reported a few days later, that Menuhin had "outed himself as a clear sympathiser with the neo-Nazi cause in two interviews he gave. In Deutsche Stimme" the newspaper of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NDP), "he used classical anti-Semitic language while still staying within the boundaries of German law".[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]

"Apart from a few curious comments about America, we weren’t really aware of his politics", Winfried Kneip, YMF's chief executive, said.[26] Alarmed by press reports, from the Spiegel website among others, the Foundation took notice, that Gerard Menuhin had given interviews to the National Zeitung, writing a column named "Menuhin and how he sees the world", and also in the newspaper of the far-right NDP's Deutsche Stimme (German Voice).[19][27]

In November 2014, Israeli media referred to Menuhin as an example of a "Jewish anti-Semite" and "anti-Israel extremist". An article in The Jerusalem Post asserted that he "authored columns in the National-Zeitung, a paper infamous for its neo-Nazi and right-wing extremist ideas. He has also provided a fiercely anti-Israel interview with the pro-Iranian regime extremist German-language website, Muslim-Markt."[28][29]

Gerard Menuhin's book Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil was published in 2015. According to Menuhin, the Holocaust is "the biggest lie in history" and "Germany has no blame for the Second World War".[6]

Private life

Menuhin married Eva Struyvenberg in New York in March 1983, the daughter of Albert Struyvenberg from Seattle.[30][31][32] In 1990, he and Eva had one child together, Maxwell Duncan Menuhin, but later divorced.[31][32]

Bibliography

• Elmer, Hutchinson, 1985, ISBN 978-0091599003.
• Die Antwort, FZ-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-924309-81-7 (German).
• Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil, Barnes Review, 2015, ISBN 978-1937787295.
• Lies & Gravy: Landmarks in Human Decay, Castle Hill Publishers, 2019, ISBN 978-1591489894.
• Lived It Wrong: An Autobiography, Reconquista Press, 2020, ISBN 978-1-912853-16-8.

Sources

1. Fragen & Antworten: Interview mit Gerard Menuhin
2. The Milwaukee Journal, 29 April 1949
3. Toledo Blade, 29 April 1949
4. Wie ticken die "Reichsbürger"? (in German), retrieved 14 June 2017
5. "Kölner „Klagemauer" vereint mit Neonazis – haGalil". Retrieved 14 June 2017.
6. Morrison, Richard (6 April 2016). "Yehudi Menuhin: The genius who put the fight for justice before his family". London. Retrieved 17 November 2016. (subscription required)
7. TELL THE TRUTH & SHAME THE DEVIL, GERARD MENUHIN, Castle Hill Publishers, page 108, 184, 186, 318
8. TELL THE TRUTH & SHAME THE DEVIL, GERARD MENUHIN, Castle Hill Publishers, page 77
9. Rosenbaum, Fred (2011) [2009]. Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area. Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. p. 229.
10. "Another Son Is Born To Yehudi Menuhin". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 3 November 1951. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
11. Berufliches: Gerard Menuhin, Der Spiegel, 14 December 1960
12. State Department Warning: Famed Violinist Told Citizenship in Danger, Tad Szulc, Eugene Register-Guard, 4 December 1970 (New York Times News Service)
13. Irony without humour, Ian Murray, Glasgow Herald, 20 April 1985.
14. Menuhin president bows to pressure, Solothurn Tagblatt / Espace Media Groupe, 8 June 2007. Der unsichtbare Elefant im Raum by Gerard Menuhin
15. http://www.moneyhouse.ch/fr/p/Gerard-Menuhin
16. http://menuhin.org/about
17. TELL THE TRUTH & SHAME THE DEVIL, GERARD MENUHIN, Castle Hill Publishers, page 233-34
18. Right-wing views troubles Menuhin, United Press International, 15 November 2005
19. Neonazi-Gesinnung: Yehudi-Menuhin-Stiftung trennt sich von Vorstand, Paul Nellen, Der Spiegel, 12 November 2005
20. Tabubruch bei "Vanity Fair": Der Nazi, der Jude und das Prinzip Eitelkeit, Henryk M. Broder, Der Spiegel, 4 November 2005
21. Der Schicksals-Vater, Joachim Kronsbein, Der Spiegel, 2005
22. Menuhin Stiftung entläßt Gerard Menuhin, DPA, Die Welt, 14 November 2005
23. Falscher Trost für Deutsche: Der Fall Gerard Menuhin, Thomas Assheuer, Die Zeit, 17 November 2005
24. Sohn von Yehudi Menuhin veröffentlichte Texte in echtsextremen Organen, Editorial Staff, Der Standard, 13 November 2005
25. Violinist’s son fired for remarks, Berlin (JTA), Cleveland Jewish News, 17 November 2005
26. Boyes, Roger (15 November 2005). "Menuhin's son forced to resign over 'anti-Semitic' interviews". The Times. Retrieved 17 November 2016. (subscription required)
27. Deutsche und Juden – Zu den Ufern der Vernunft: Gerard Menuhin über Vergangenheit und Zukunft des deutsch-jüdischen Verhältnisses (cached), Deutsche Stimme, November 2005
28. Analysis: Making sense of Germany’s anti-Semitic ‘Toiletgate’ scandal, Benjamin Weinthal, The Jerusalem Post, 16 November 2014
29. Muslim-Markt interviewt Gerard Menuhin, ehemaliger Vorstandsvorsitzender der Yehudi Menuhin Stiftung, Muslim-Markt, 14 February 2006
30. "Gerard Menuhin Wed To Eva Struyvenberg". The New York Times. 9 March 1983. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
31. Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 106th edition, volume 2, page 1907. Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 1999.
32. http://www.thepeerage.com/p23823.htm#i238224

External links

• Official website
• Fredrick Töben (Adelaide – 5 January 2016), reviews Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil
• "I have confidence in the German people" Interview with Gerard in the National Gazette
• Interview with Gerard Menuhin
• [3]

[admin]

Bengali Renaissance
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/1/20


Rabindranath Tagore was a poet, philosopher and artist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

The Bengali Renaissance or simply Bengal Renaissance, (Bengali: বাংলার নবজাগরণ; Banglār Nobojāgoroṇ) was a cultural, social, intellectual and artistic movement in Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent during the period of the British Indian Empire, from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century dominated by Bengalis.[1]

Historian Nitish Sengupta describes the Bengal Renaissance as taking place from Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) through Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941).[2] According to historian Sumit Sarkar, nineteenth-century Bengali religious and social reformers, scholars, literary giants, journalists, patriotic orators and scientists were revered and regarded with nostalgia in the early and mid-twentieth century. In the early 1970s, however, a more critical view emerged. "Few serious scholars could deny that nineteenth-century Bengal had fallen considerably short of the alleged Italian prototype", wrote Sarkar. Although in 1990 the "average educated Bengali" still admired the Bengali Renaissance, "most intellectuals who would like to consider themselves radical and sophisticated", no longer glorified the period.[3]

Background

During this period, Bengal witnessed an intellectual awakening that is in some way similar to the Renaissance in Europe during the 16th century, although Europeans of that age were not confronted with the challenge and influence of alien colonialism. This movement questioned existing orthodoxies, particularly with respect to women, marriage, the dowry system, the caste system, and religion. One of the earliest social movements that emerged during this time was the Young Bengal movement, that espoused rationalism and atheism as the common denominators of civil conduct among upper caste educated Hindus.


Keshab Chandra Sen is one of the early pioneers of Brahmo Samaj.

The parallel socio-religious movement, the Brahmo Samaj, developed during this time period and counted many of the leaders of the Bengal Renaissance among its followers.[4] However, in that feudal-colonial era Brahmo Samaj, like the rest of society in years past, could not conceptualize a free India as it was influenced by the European Enlightenment (and its bearers in India, the British Raj) although it had traced its intellectual roots to the Upanishads. Their version of Hinduism, or rather Universal Religion (similar to that of Ramakrishna), although devoid of practices like sati and polygamy[citation needed] that had crept into the social aspects of Hindu life, was ultimately a rigid impersonal monotheistic faith, that was actually quite distinct from the pluralistic and multifaceted nature in the way the Hindu religion was practiced. Future leaders like Keshub Chunder Sen were as much devotees of Christ, as they were of Brahma, Krishna or the Buddha. It has been argued by some scholars that the Brahmo Samaj movement never gained the support of the masses and remained restricted to the elite, although Hindu society has accepted most of the social reform programmes of the Brahmo Samaj. It must also be acknowledged that many of the later Brahmos were also leaders of the freedom movement.

The renaissance period after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 saw a magnificent outburst of Bengali literature. While Ram Mohan Roy and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar were the pioneers, others like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee widened it and built upon it.[5] The first significant nationalist detour to the Bengal Renaissance was given by the writings of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Later writers of the period who introduced broad discussion of social problems and more colloquial forms of Bengali into mainstream literature included Saratchandra Chatterjee.


Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh.

The Tagore family, including Rabindranath Tagore, were leaders of this period and had a particular interest in educational reform.[6] Their contribution to the Bengal Renaissance was multi-faceted. Several members of the family, including Rabindranath, Abanindranath, Gaganendranath and Jyotirindranath Tagore, Asit Kumar Haldar and Jnanadanandini Devi have been associated with the movement.[7]

Comparison with European renaissance

The word "renaissance" in European history meant "rebirth" and was used in the context of the revival of the Graeco-Roman learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries after the long winter of the dark medieval period. But the modernization and efflorescence of Bengali culture was catalyzed by its contact with Western culture after the establishment of British rule in Bengal in 1857. Bengalis were the first people in Asian modernity to interact with Western culture in deep and meaningful-enough ways to produce works of lasting global interest. One serious comparison considers impacts of the so-called dramatis personae of the Bengal Renaissance like Keshab Chandra Sen, Bipin Chandra Pal and M. N. Roy. For about a century, Bengal's conscious awareness of a rapidly-changing modern world was more profound and predated that of the rest of India. Many of the leading figures of various fields in India and even the entire Asian region first ushering in both local and foreign new influences were Bengalis. Reformation of religion, society and education started with Rammohan Roy in India. The first great moderns in various fields in Asia- Novelist (Bankim Chandra Chatterjee), poet (Rabindranath Tagore), painter (Rabindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore and Abanindranath Tagore along with Japanese Yokoyama Taikan), sculptor (Ramkinkar Baij), philosopher (Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya) and scientist (Jagadish Chandra Bose along with Japanese Kitasato Shibasaburō) were from Bengal. The role played by Bengal in the modern awakening of India is thus comparable to the position occupied by Italy in the European renaissance.

There are other notable distinctions. The modernity of the Bengal Renaissance is sometimes referred to as post-Enlightenment modernity. Unlike the Italian Renaissance, it influenced and managed to impact a rather substantial portion of Indian society, however nearly all of its leading figures and advocates were members of the middle class, many of whom were also in sympathy with the goals of socialism.

According to Nitish Sengupta, though the Bengal Renaissance was the "culmination of the process of emergence of the cultural characteristics of the Bengali people that had started in the age of Hussein Shah, it remained predominantly Hindu and only partially Muslim."[8] There were, nevertheless, examples of Muslim intellectuals such as Syed Ameer Ali, Mosharraf Hussain,[8] Sake Dean Mahomed, Kazi Nazrul Islam, and Roquia Sakhawat Hussain. The Freedom of Intellect Movement sought to challenge religious and social dogma in Bengali Muslim society.

Science and technology


Jagadish Chandra Bose was one of the fathers of radio science.

During the Bengal Renaissance science was also advanced by several Bengali scientists such as Satyendra Nath Bose, Anil Kumar Gain, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Prafulla Chandra Ray, Debendra Mohan Bose, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Jnan Chandra Ghosh, Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya, Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay, Jnanendra Nath Mukherjee, Sisir Kumar Mitra, Upendranath Brahmachari and Meghnad Saha.


Satyendra Nath Bose was one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics.

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) was a polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, and writer of science fiction.[9] He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made very significant contributions to botany, and laid the foundations of experimental science in the Indian subcontinent.[10] He is considered one of the fathers of radio science,[11] and is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction. He also invented the crescograph.

Anil Kumar Gain (1919–1978) and Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893–1972) were leading mathematicians and statisticians of their time. Gain went on to found Vidyasagar University, while Mahalanobis laid the foundation of the Indian Statistical Institute.

Satyendra Nath Bose (1894–1974) was a physicist, specializing in mathematical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. He is honoured as the namesake of the boson. Although more than one Nobel Prize was awarded for research related to the concepts of the boson, Bose-Einstein statistics and Bose-Einstein condensate—the latest being the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics, which was given for advancing the theory of Bose-Einstein condensates—Bose himself was never awarded the Nobel Prize.

Arts

Visual arts

Main article: Bengal School of Art

The Bengal School of Art was an art movement and a style of Indian painting that originated in Bengal and flourished throughout British India in the early 20th century. Also known as 'Indian style of painting' in its early days, it was associated with Indian nationalism (swadeshi) and led by Abanindranath Tagore.[12][13]

Following the influence of Indian spiritual ideas in the West, the British art teacher Ernest Binfield Havell attempted to reform the teaching methods at the Calcutta School of Art by encouraging students to imitate Mughal miniatures. This caused controversy, leading to a strike by students and complaints from the local press, including from nationalists who considered it to be a retrogressive move. Havell was supported by the artist Abanindranath Tagore.[14] As with the Italian Renaissance, artists drew inspiration from the past. Abanindranath drew inspiration from Indian miniatures, and Nandalal Bose was inspired by the murals of Ajanta Caves.

Some prominent artists associated with the Bengal school include Nandalal Bose, Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore, Asit Kumar Haldar, Kalipada Ghoshal, Sunayani Devi, and Beohar Rammanohar Sinha. The Bengal school's influence in India declined with the spread of modernist ideas in the 1920s, and it eventually led to the development of modern Indian painting.

Music

Rabindranath Tagore was the most famous musician of this period.

Cinema


Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray was considered one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century. Although traditionally, the Bengali Renaissance is said to have ended with India's Independence, Ray is regarded by some as the last prominent figure of the movement.

Literature

Main article: Bengali literature

See also: Bengali poetry


Sukumar Ray

Rabindranath Tagore is the most influential literary figure of the movement. Tagore's 1901 Bengali novella, Nastanirh was written as a critique of men who professed to follow the ideals of the Renaissance, but failed to do so within their own families. In many ways Rabindranath Tagore's writings (especially poems and songs) can be seen as imbued with the spirit of the Upanishads. His works repeatedly allude to Upanishadic ideas regarding soul, liberation, transmigration and—perhaps most essentially—about a spirit that imbues all creation not unlike the Upanishadic Brahman. Tagore's English translation of a set of poems titled the Gitanjali won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He was the first Asian to win this award (and the first non-European/non-white person of 'colour' to win the Nobel Prize in any category).

Begum Rokeya is widely known for her work Sultana's Dream, which depicts a futuristic society of role reversal, in which men are locked away in seclusion, in a manner corresponding to the traditional Muslim practice of purdah for women.

According to historian Romesh Chunder Dutt:[15]

The conquest of Bengal by the English was not only a political revolution, but ushered in a greater revolution in thoughts and ideas, in religion and society ... From the stories of gods and goddesses, kings and queens, princes and princesses, we have learnt to descend to the humble walks of life, to sympathise with the common citizen or even common peasant … Every revolution is attended with vigour, and the present one is no exception to the rule. Nowhere in the annals of Bengali literature are so many or so bright names found crowded together in the limited space of one century as those of Ram Mohan Roy, Akshay Kumar Dutt, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, Isvar Chandra Gupta, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Hem Chandra Banerjee, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Dina Bandhu Mitra. Within the three quarters of the present century, prose, blank verse, historical fiction and drama have been introduced for the first time in the Bengali literature.

Science fiction

Main article: Bengali science fiction

Jagadish Chandra Bose is considered the father of Bengali science fiction. Subsequently, authors like Jagadananda Roy and Satyajit Ray have written in the genre.


Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar


Michael Madhusudan Dutt


Bankim Chandra Chatterjee


Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay


Begum Rokeya

Religion and spirituality

Most notable Bengali religious and spiritual personalities are Atiśa, Tilopa, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Ramakrishna, Sree Sree Thakur Anukulchandra, Nityananda, Haridasa Thakur, Jiva Goswami, Ramprasad Sen, Lokenath Brahmachari, Swami Vivekananda, Keshub Chandra Sen, Balananda Brahmachari, Vishuddhananda Paramahansa, Sri Aurobindo, Lahiri Mahasaya, Bamakhepa, Yukteswar Giri, Debendranath Tagore, Swami Abhedananda, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Mohanananda Brahmachari, Sitaramdas Omkarnath, Ram Thakur, Lalon, Tibbetibaba, Soham Swami, Nigamananda Paramahansa, Niralamba Swami, Pranavananda, Bijoy Krishna Goswami, Paramahansa Yogananda, Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, Anukulchandra Chakravarty, Anandamayi Ma, Hariharananda Giri, Anirvan and Sri Chinmoy.


Chaitanya Mahaprabhu


Ramakrishna


Swami Vivekananda


Sri Aurobindo


Paramahansa Yogananda


A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Contributing institutions

• Asiatic Society (est.1784)
• Fort William College (1800)
• Serampore College (1817)
• Calcutta School-Book Society (1817)
• Hindu School (1817)
• Hare School (1818)
• Sanskrit College (1824)
• General Assembly's Institution (1830) (now known as Scottish Church College)
• Calcutta Medical College (1835)
• Mutty Lall Seal's Free School & College (1842)
• Hindu College (1817) later Presidency College, Calcutta (1855) now Presidency University (since 2010)
• Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur (1856) now known as Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur
• University of Calcutta (1857)
• Vidyasagar College (1872)
• Hindu Mahila Vidyalaya (1873)
• Banga Mahila Vidyalaya (1876)
• Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (1876)
• Bethune College (1879)
• Ripon College (1884) (now known as Surendranath College)
• National Council of Education, Bengal (1906) (now known as Jadavpur University)
• Visva-Bharati University (1921)
• University of Dhaka (1921)
• Maharaja Manindra Chandra College (1941)
• Seth Anandram Jaipuria College (1945)


The Asiatic Society


Visva-Bharati University


Hare School


Presidency University


Jadavpur University


University of Calcutta


University of Dhaka


Calcutta Medical College

See also

• History of Bengal
• Bengali people
• Ramtanu Lahiri
• Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Bangasamaj
• Adi Dharm
• Prarthana Samaj
• Ayyavazhi
• Calcutta Youth Choir
• Parineeta
• Structure of Ayyavazhi
• Tattwabodhini Patrika
• Scottish Renaissance
• Harlem Renaissance

References

1. Andrew Clinton Willford (1991). Religious Resurgence in British India: Vivekananda and the Hindu Renaissance. University of California, San Diego, Department of Anthropology.
2. Nitish Sengupta (2001). History of the Bengali-speaking People. UBS Publishers' Distributors. p. 211. ISBN 978-81-7476-355-6. The Bengal Renaissance can be said to have started with Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1775-1833) and ended with Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), although there were many other stalwarts thereafter embodying particular aspects of the unique intellectual and creative ferment.
3. Sarkar, Sumit (1990). "Calcutta and the Bengal Renaissance". In Chaudhuri, Sukanta (ed.). Calcutta: The Living City. Volume I: The Past. Oxford University Press. pp. 95, 97. ISBN 978-0-19-563696-3.
4. "Reform and Education: Young Bengal & Derozio", Bengalinet.com
5. Nitish Sengupta (2001). History of the Bengali-speaking People. UBS Publishers' Distributors. p. 253. ISBN 978-81-7476-355-6.
6. Kathleen M. O'Connell, "Rabindranath Tagore on Education", infed.org
7. Deb, Chitra, pp 64-65.
8. Nitish Sengupta (2001). History of the Bengali-speaking People. UBS Publishers' Distributors. p. 213. ISBN 978-81-7476-355-6.
9. A versatile genius Archived 3 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Frontline 21 (24), 2004.
10. Chatterjee, Santimay and Chatterjee, Enakshi, Satyendranath Bose, 2002 reprint, p. 5, National Book Trust, ISBN 8123704925
11. Sen, A. K. (1997). "Sir J.C. Bose and radio science". Microwave Symposium Digest. IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium. Denver, CO: IEEE. pp. 557–560. doi:10.1109/MWSYM.1997.602854. ISBN 0-7803-3814-6.
12. "Bengal School". National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. Archived from the original on 22 October 2018. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
13. Dey, Mukul. "Which Way Indian Art?". chitralekha.org. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
14. Cotter, Holland (19 August 2008). "'Rhythms of India' Exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Indian Modernism Via an Eclectic, Elusive Artist". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 13 February 2019.
15. R. C. Dutt (1962) [First published 1877 as The Literature of Bengal]. Cultural Heritage of Bengal. (3rd ed). Punthi Pustak. p. 166–167, cited in Nitish Sengupta (2001). History of the Bengali-speaking People. UBS Publishers' Distributors. pp. 211–212. ISBN 978-81-7476-355-6.

Further reading

• Chatterjee, Pranab (2010). A Story of Ambivalent Modernization in Bangladesh and West Bengal: The Rise and Fall of Bengali Elitism in South Asia. Peter Lang. ISBN 9781433108204.
• Dasgupta, Subrata (2005). Twilight of the Bengal renaissance: R.K. Dasgupta & his quest for a world mind. the University of California: Dey's Publishing.
• Dasgupta, Subrata (2009). The Bengal Renaissance. Permanent Black. ISBN 978-8178242798.
• Dasgupta, Subrata (2011). Awakening: The Story of the Bengal Renaissance. Random House India. ISBN 978-8184001839.
• Dhar, Niranjan (1977). Vedanta and the Bengal Renaissance. the University of Michigan: Minerva Associates. ISBN 9780883868379.
• Fraser, Bashabi edited Special Issue on Rabindranath Tagore, Literary Compass, Wiley Publications. Volume 12, Issue 5, May 2015. See Fraser's Introduction pp. 161–172. ISSN 1741-4113.
• Kabir, Abulfazal M. Fazle (2011). The Libraries of Bengal, 1700-1947: The Story of Bengali Renaissance. Promilla & Co. Publishers. ISBN 978-8185002071.
• Kopf, David (1969). British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520006652.
• Kumar, Raj (2003). Essays on Indian Renaissance. Discovery Publishing House. ISBN 978-81-7141-689-9.
• Marshall, P. J. (2006). Bengal: The British Bridgehead: Eastern India 1740-1828 (The New Cambridge History of India). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521028226.
• Mittra, Sitansu Sekhar (2001). Bengal's Renaissance. Academic Publishers. ISBN 9788187504184.
• Pal, Bipin Chandra; Cakrabartī, Jagannātha (1977). Studies in the Bengal renaissance. the University of California: National Council of Education, Bengal.
• Sastri, Sivanath. A History of the Renaissance in Bengal: Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer, London: Swan, Sonnenschein (1903); Kolkata: Renaissance (2002).
• Sastri, Sibnath (2008). Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer: A History of the Renaissance in Bengal. BiblioLife. ISBN 978-0559841064.
• Sen, Amit (2011). Notes on the Bengal Renaissance. Nabu Press. ISBN 978-1179501390.
• Travers, Robert (2007). Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in Bengal. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521059688.

External links

• Copf, David (2012). "Bengal Renaissance". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.

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Part 1 of 3

Partition of India
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 6/1/20


Partition of India
British Indian Empire in The Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1909. British India is shaded pink, the princely states yellow.
Date: August 1947
Location: British Raj, India and Pakistan
Outcome: Partition of British Indian Empire into independent dominions, India and Pakistan, and refugee crises
Deaths: 200,000 to 2 million,[1][a] 14 million displaced[2]


The prevailing religions of the British Indian Empire based on the Census of India, 1901

The Partition of India of 1947 was the division of British India[ b] into two independent dominion states, India and Pakistan by an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.[3] India is today the Republic of India; Pakistan is today the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal and Punjab, based on district-wise non-Muslim or Muslim majorities. The partition also saw the division of the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy, the Indian Civil Service, the railways, and the central treasury. The partition was outlined in the Indian Independence Act 1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj, or Crown rule in India. The two self-governing countries of India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight on 15 August 1947.

The partition displaced between 10–12 million people along religious lines, creating overwhelming refugee crises in the newly constituted dominions. There was large-scale violence, with estimates of loss of life accompanying or preceding the partition disputed and varying between several hundred thousand and two million.[1][c] The violent nature of the partition created an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion between India and Pakistan that plagues their relationship to the present.

The term partition of India does not cover the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, nor the earlier separations of Burma (now Myanmar) and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the administration of British India.[d] The term also does not cover the political integration of princely states into the two new dominions, nor the disputes of annexation or division arising in the princely states of Hyderabad, Junagadh, and Jammu and Kashmir, though violence along religious lines did break out in some princely states at the time of the partition. It does not cover the incorporation of the enclaves of French India into India during the period 1947–1954, nor the annexation of Goa and other districts of Portuguese India by India in 1961. Other contemporaneous political entities in the region in 1947, Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and the Maldives were unaffected by the partition.[e]

Among princely states, the violence was often highly organised with the involvement or complicity of the rulers. It is believed that in the Sikh states (except for Jind and Kapurthala) the Maharajas were complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims, while other Maharajas such as those of Patiala, Faridkot, and Bharatpur were heavily involved in ordering them. The ruler of Bharatpur is said to have witnessed the ethnic cleansing of his population, especially at places such as Deeg.[7]

Background

Partition of Bengal (1905)

Main article: Partition of Bengal (1905)


1909 Percentage of Hindus.


1909 Percentage of Muslims.


1909 Percentage of Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains.









The 1921 Census of British India shows 69 million Muslims and 217 million Hindus out of a total population of 316 million.

In 1905, the viceroy, Lord Curzon, in his second term, divided the largest administrative subdivision in British India, the Bengal Presidency, into the Muslim-majority province of East Bengal and Assam and the Hindu-majority province of Bengal (present-day Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha).[8] Curzon's act, the Partition of Bengal—which some considered administratively felicitous, and, which had been contemplated by various colonial administrations since the time of Lord William Bentinck, but never acted upon—was to transform nationalist politics as nothing else before it.[8] The Hindu elite of Bengal, among them many who owned land in East Bengal that was leased out to Muslim peasants, protested strongly. The large Bengali Hindu middle-class (the Bhadralok), upset at the prospect of Bengalis being outnumbered in the new Bengal province by Biharis and Oriyas, felt that Curzon's act was punishment for their political assertiveness.[8] The pervasive protests against Curzon's decision took the form predominantly of the Swadeshi ("buy Indian") campaign and involved a boycott of British goods. Sporadically—but flagrantly—the protesters also took to political violence that involved attacks on civilians.[9] The violence, however, was not effective, as most planned attacks were either pre-empted by the British or failed.[10] The rallying cry for both types of protest was the slogan Bande Mataram (Bengali, lit: "Hail to the Mother"), the title of a song by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, which invoked a mother goddess, who stood variously for Bengal, India, and the Hindu goddess Kali.[11] The unrest spread from Calcutta to the surrounding regions of Bengal when Calcutta's English-educated students returned home to their villages and towns.[12] The religious stirrings of the slogan and the political outrage over the partition were combined as young men, in groups such as Jugantar, took to bombing public buildings, staging armed robberies,[10] and assassinating British officials.[11] Since Calcutta was the imperial capital, both the outrage and the slogan soon became known nationally.[11]

The overwhelming, but predominantly Hindu, protest against the partition of Bengal and the fear of reforms favouring the Hindu majority, now led the Muslim elite in India to meet with the new viceroy Lord Minto in 1906 and ask for separate electorates for Muslims. In conjunction, they demanded proportional legislative representation reflecting both their status as former rulers and their record of cooperating with the British. This led, in December 1906, to the founding of the All-India Muslim League in Dacca. Although Curzon by now had resigned his position over a dispute with his military chief Lord Kitchener and returned to England, the League was in favor of his partition plan. The Muslim elite's position, which was reflected in the League's position, had crystallized gradually over the previous three decades, beginning with the 1871 Census of British India, which had first estimated the populations in regions of Muslim majority.[13] For his part, Curzon's desire to court the Muslims of East Bengal had arisen from British anxieties ever since the 1871 census, and in light of the history of Muslims fighting them in the 1857 Mutiny and the Second Anglo-Afghan War.[13] In the three decades since that census, Muslim leaders across northern India, had intermittently experienced public animosity from some of the new Hindu political and social groups.[13] The Arya Samaj, for example, had not only supported Cow Protection Societies in their agitation,[14] but also—distraught at the 1871 Census's Muslim numbers—organized "reconversion" events for the purpose of welcoming Muslims back to the Hindu fold.[13] In the United Provinces, Muslims became anxious in the late 19th century Hindu political representation increased, and Hindus were politically mobilized in the Hindi-Urdu controversy and the anti-cow-killing riots of 1893.[15] In 1905 Muslim fears increased when Tilak and Lajpat Rai attempted to rise to leadership positions in the Congress, and the Congress itself rallied around the symbolism of Kali.[13] It was not lost on many Muslims, for example, that the rallying cry, "Bande Mataram," had first appeared in the novel Anandmath in which Hindus had battled their Muslim oppressors.[16] Lastly, the Muslim elite, and among it Dacca Nawab, Khwaja Salimullah, who hosted the League's first meeting in his mansion in Shahbag, was aware that a new province with a Muslim majority would directly benefit Muslims aspiring to political power.[16]

World War I, Lucknow Pact: 1914–1918


Indian medical orderlies attending to wounded soldiers with the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia during World War I


Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (seated in the carriage, on the right, eyes downcast, with black flat-top hat) receives a big welcome in Karachi in 1916 after his return to India from South Africa


Muhammad Ali Jinnah, seated, third from the left, was a supporter of the Lucknow Pact, which, in 1916, ended the three-way rift between the Extremists, the Moderates and the League

World War I would prove to be a watershed in the imperial relationship between Britain and India. 1.4 million Indian and British soldiers of the British Indian Army would take part in the war, and their participation would have a wider cultural fallout: news of Indian soldiers fighting and dying with British soldiers, as well as soldiers from dominions like Canada and Australia, would travel to distant corners of the world both in newsprint and by the new medium of the radio.[17] India's international profile would thereby rise and would continue to rise during the 1920s.[17] It was to lead, among other things, to India, under its name, becoming a founding member of the League of Nations in 1920 and participating, under the name, "Les Indes Anglaises" (British India), in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp.[18] Back in India, especially among the leaders of the Indian National Congress, it would lead to calls for greater self-government for Indians.[17]

The 1916 Lucknow Session of the Congress was also the venue of an unanticipated mutual effort by the Congress and the Muslim League, the occasion for which was provided by the wartime partnership between Germany and Turkey. Since the Turkish Sultan, or Khalifah, also had sporadically claimed guardianship of the Islamic holy sites of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, and since the British and their allies were now in conflict with Turkey, doubts began to increase among some Indian Muslims about the "religious neutrality" of the British, doubts that had already surfaced as a result of the reunification of Bengal in 1911, a decision that was seen as ill-disposed to Muslims.[19] In the Lucknow Pact, the League joined the Congress in the proposal for greater self-government that was campaigned for by Tilak and his supporters; in return, the Congress accepted separate electorates for Muslims in the provincial legislatures as well as the Imperial Legislative Council. In 1916, the Muslim League had anywhere between 500 and 800 members and did not yet have its wider following among Indian Muslims of later years; in the League itself, the pact did not have unanimous backing, having largely been negotiated by a group of "Young Party" Muslims from the United Provinces (UP), most prominently, the brothers Mohammad and Shaukat Ali, who had embraced the Pan-Islamic cause.[19] However, it did have the support of a young lawyer from Bombay, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who was later to rise to leadership roles in both the League and the Indian independence movement. In later years, as the full ramifications of the pact unfolded, it was seen as benefiting the Muslim minority elites of provinces like UP and Bihar more than the Muslim majorities of Punjab and Bengal. At the time, the "Lucknow Pact" was an important milestone in nationalistic agitation and was seen so by the British.[19]

Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms: 1919

Secretary of State for India, Montagu and Viceroy Lord Chelmsford presented a report in July 1918 after a long fact-finding trip through India the previous winter.[20] After more discussion by the government and parliament in Britain, and another tour by the Franchise and Functions Committee to identify who among the Indian population could vote in future elections, the Government of India Act of 1919 (also known as the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms) was passed in December 1919.[20] The new Act enlarged both the provincial and Imperial legislative councils and repealed the Government of India's recourse to the "official majority" in unfavourable votes.[20] Although departments like defence, foreign affairs, criminal law, communications, and income-tax were retained by the Viceroy and the central government in New Delhi, other departments like public health, education, land-revenue, local self-government were transferred to the provinces.[20] The provinces themselves were now to be administered under a new dyarchical system, whereby some areas like education, agriculture, infrastructure development, and local self-government became the preserve of Indian ministers and legislatures, and ultimately the Indian electorates, while others like irrigation, land-revenue, police, prisons, and control of media remained within the purview of the British governor and his executive council.[20] The new Act also made it easier for Indians to be admitted into the civil service and the army officer corps.

A greater number of Indians were now enfranchised, although, for voting at the national level, they constituted only 10% of the total adult male population, many of whom were still illiterate.[20] In the provincial legislatures, the British continued to exercise some control by setting aside seats for special interests they considered cooperative or useful. In particular, rural candidates, generally sympathetic to British rule and less confrontational, were assigned more seats than their urban counterparts.[20] Seats were also reserved for non-Brahmins, landowners, businessmen, and college graduates. The principle of "communal representation," an integral part of the Minto-Morley Reforms, and more recently of the Congress-Muslim League Lucknow Pact, was reaffirmed, with seats being reserved for Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, and domiciled Europeans, in both provincial and Imperial legislative councils.[20] The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms offered Indians the most significant opportunity yet for exercising legislative power, especially at the provincial level; however, that opportunity was also restricted by the still limited number of eligible voters, by the small budgets available to provincial legislatures, and by the presence of rural and special interest seats that were seen as instruments of British control.[20]

Two-nation theory

Main article: Two-nation theory

The two-nation theory is the ideology that the primary identity and unifying denominator of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent is their religion, rather than their language or ethnicity, and therefore Indian Hindus and Muslims are two distinct nations regardless of commonalities.[21][22] The two-nation theory was a founding principle of the Pakistan Movement (i.e., the ideology of Pakistan as a Muslim nation-state in South Asia), and the partition of India in 1947.[23]

The Pakistan Movement or Tehrik-e-Pakistan (Urdu: تحریک پاکستان‎ – Taḥrīk-i Pākistān) was a political movement in the first half of the 20th century that aimed for and succeeded in the creation of the Dominion of Pakistan from the Muslim-majority areas of British India.

Pakistan Movement started originally as the Aligarh Movement, and as a result, the British Indian Muslims began to develop a secular political identity. Soon thereafter, the All India Muslim League was formed, which perhaps marked the beginning of the Pakistan Movement. Many of the top leadership of the movement were educated in Great Britain, with many of them educated at the Aligarh Muslim University. Many graduates of the Dhaka University soon also joined.

The Pakistan Movement was a part of the Indian independence movement, but eventually it also sought to establish a new nation-state that protected the political interests of the Indian Muslims.

-- Pakistan Movement, by Wikipedia

The ideology that religion is the determining factor in defining the nationality of Indian Muslims was undertaken by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who termed it as the awakening of Muslims for the creation of Pakistan.[24] It is also a source of inspiration to several Hindu nationalist organizations, with causes as varied as the redefinition of Indian Muslims as non-Indian foreigners and second-class citizens in India, the expulsion of all Muslims from India, establishment of a legally Hindu state in India, prohibition of conversions to Islam, and the promotion of conversions or reconversions of Indian Muslims to Hinduism.[25][26][27][28]

The Hindu Mahasabha leader Lala Lajpat Rai was one of the first persons to demand to bifurcate India by Muslim and non-Muslim population. He wrote in The Tribune of 14 December 1924:

Under my scheme the Muslims will have four Muslim States: (1) The Pathan Province or the North-West Frontier; (2) Western Punjab (3) Sindh and (4) Eastern Bengal. If there are small Muslim communities in any other part of India, sufficiently large to form a province, they should be similarly constituted. But it should be distinctly understood that this is not a united India. It means a clear partition of India into a Muslim India and a non-Muslim India.[29]

There are varying interpretations of the two-nation theory, based on whether the two postulated nationalities can coexist in one territory or not, with radically different implications. One interpretation argued for sovereign autonomy, including the right to secede, for Muslim-majority areas of the Indian subcontinent, but without any transfer of populations (i.e., Hindus and Muslims would continue to live together). A different interpretation contends that Hindus and Muslims constitute "two distinct and frequently antagonistic ways of life and that therefore they cannot coexist in one nation."[30] In this version, a transfer of populations (i.e., the total removal of Hindus from Muslim-majority areas and the total removal of Muslims from Hindu-majority areas) was a desirable step towards a complete separation of two incompatible nations that "cannot coexist in a harmonious relationship." [31][32]

Opposition to the theory has come from two sources. The first is the concept of a single Indian nation, of which Hindus and Muslims are two intertwined communities.[33] This is a founding principle of the modern, officially secular, Republic of India. Even after the formation of Pakistan, debates on whether Muslims and Hindus are distinct nationalities or not continued in that country as well.[34] The second source of opposition is the concept that while Indians are not one nation, neither are the Muslims or Hindus of the subcontinent, and it is instead the relatively homogeneous provincial units of the subcontinent which are true nations and deserving of sovereignty; the Baloch has presented this view,[35] Sindhi,[36] and Pashtun[37] sub-nationalities of Pakistan and the Assamese[38] and Punjabi[39] sub-nationalities of India.

Muslim homeland, provincial elections, World War II, Lahore Resolution: 1930–1945


Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and Maulana Azad at the 1940 Ramgarh session of the Congress in which Azad was elected president for the second time


Chaudhari Khaliquzzaman (left) seconding the 1940 Lahore Resolution of the All-India Muslim League with Jinnah (right) presiding, and Liaquat Ali Khan centre

Although Choudhry Rahmat Ali had in 1933 produced a pamphlet, Now or never, in which the term "Pakistan", "the land of the pure", comprising the Punjab, North West Frontier Province (Afghania), Kashmir, Sindh, and Balochistan, was coined for the first time, the pamphlet did not attract political attention.[40] A little later, a Muslim delegation to the Parliamentary Committee on Indian Constitutional Reforms gave short shrift to the Pakistan idea, calling it "chimerical and impracticable".[40] In 1932, the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald accepted Dr. Ambedkar's [Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar] demand for the “Depressed Classes” to have separate representation in the central and provincial legislatures. The Muslim League favoured the award as it had the potential to weaken the Hindu caste leadership. However, Mahatma Gandhi, who was seen as a leading advocate for Dalit [untouchable] rights, went on a fast to persuade the British to repeal the award. Ambedkar had to back down when it seemed Gandhi's life was threatened.[41]

Two years later, the Government of India Act 1935 introduced provincial autonomy, increasing the number of voters in India to 35 million.[42] More significantly, law and order issues were for the first time devolved from British authority to provincial governments headed by Indians.[42] This increased Muslim anxieties about eventual Hindu domination.[42] In the 1937 Indian provincial elections, the Muslim League turned out its best performance in Muslim-minority provinces such as the United Provinces, where it won 29 of the 64 reserved Muslim seats.[42] However, in the Muslim-majority regions of the Punjab and Bengal regional parties outperformed the League.[42] In the Punjab, the Unionist Party of Sikandar Hayat Khan, won the elections and formed a government, with the support of the Indian National Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal, which lasted five years.[42] In Bengal, the League had to share power in a coalition headed by A. K. Fazlul Huq, the leader of the Krishak Praja Party.[42]

The Congress, on the other hand, with 716 wins in the total of 1585 provincial assemblies seats, was able to form governments in 7 out of the 11 provinces of British India.[42] In its manifesto, the Congress maintained that religious issues were of lesser importance to the masses than economic and social issues. However, the election revealed that the Congress had contested just 58 out of the total 482 Muslim seats, and of these, it won in only 26.[42] In UP, where the Congress won, it offered to share power with the League on condition that the League stop functioning as a representative only of Muslims, which the League refused.[42] This proved to be a mistake as it alienated Congress further from the Muslim masses. Besides, the new UP provincial administration promulgated cow protection and the use of Hindi.[42] The Muslim elite in UP was further alienated, when they saw chaotic scenes of the new Congress Raj, in which rural people who sometimes turned up in large numbers in Government buildings, were indistinguishable from the administrators and the law enforcement personnel.[43]

The Muslim League conducted its investigation into the conditions of Muslims under Congress-governed provinces.[44] The findings of such investigations increased fear among the Muslim masses of future Hindu domination.[44] The view that Muslims would be unfairly treated in an independent India dominated by the Congress was now a part of the public discourse of Muslims.[44] With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared war on India's behalf without consulting Indian leaders, leading the Congress provincial ministries to resign in protest.[44] The Muslim League, which functioned under state patronage,[45] in contrast, organized "Deliverance Day", celebrations (from Congress dominance) and supported Britain in the war effort.[44] When Linlithgow met with nationalist leaders, he gave the same status to Jinnah as he did to Gandhi, and a month later described the Congress as a "Hindu organization."[45]

In March 1940, in the League's annual three-day session in Lahore, Jinnah gave a two-hour speech in English, in which were laid out the arguments of the Two-nation theory, stating, in the words of historians Talbot and Singh, that "Muslims and Hindus ... were irreconcilably opposed monolithic religious communities and as such, no settlement could be imposed that did not satisfy the aspirations of the former."[44] On the last day of its session, the League passed, what came to be known as the Lahore Resolution, sometimes also "Pakistan Resolution," [44] demanding that "the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in the majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign." Though it had been founded more than three decades earlier, the League would gather support among South Asian Muslims only during the Second World War.[46]

Viceroy Linlithgow proposed in August 1940 that India be granted a Dominion status after the war. Having not taken the Pakistan idea seriously, Linlithgow supposed that what Jinnah wanted was a non-federal arrangement without Hindu domination. To allay Muslim fears of Hindu domination, the 'August offer' was accompanied by the promise that a future constitution would consider the views of minorities.[47] Neither the Congress nor the Muslim League were satisfied with the offer, and both rejected it in September. The Congress once again started a program of civil disobedience.[48]

In March 1942, with the Japanese fast moving up the Malayan Peninsula after the Fall of Singapore,[45] and with the Americans supporting independence for India,[49] Winston Churchill, the wartime Prime Minister of Britain, sent Sir Stafford Cripps, the leader of the House of Commons, with an offer of dominion status to India at the end of the war in return for the Congress's support for the war effort.[50] Not wishing to lose the support of the allies they had already secured—the Muslim League, Unionists of Punjab, and the Princes—Cripps's offer included a clause stating that no part of the British Indian Empire would be forced to join the post-war Dominion. The League rejected the offer, seeing this clause as insufficient in meeting the principle of Pakistan.[51] As a result of that proviso, the proposals were also rejected by the Congress, which, since its founding as a polite group of lawyers in 1885,[52] saw itself as the representative of all Indians of all faiths.[50] After the arrival in 1920 of Gandhi, the pre-eminent strategist of Indian nationalism,[53] the Congress had been transformed into a mass nationalist movement of millions.[52] In August 1942, the Congress launched the Quit India Resolution which asked for drastic constitutional changes, which the British saw as the most serious threat to their rule since the Indian rebellion of 1857.[50] With their resources and attention already spread thin by a global war, the nervous British immediately jailed the Congress leaders and kept them in jail until August 1945,[54] whereas the Muslim League was now free for the next three years to spread its message.[45] Consequently, the Muslim League's ranks surged during the war, with Jinnah himself admitting, "The war which nobody welcomed proved to be a blessing in disguise."[55] Although there were other important national Muslim politicians such as Congress leader Abul Kalam Azad, and influential regional Muslim politicians such as A. K. Fazlul Huq of the leftist Krishak Praja Party in Bengal, Sikander Hyat Khan of the landlord-dominated Punjab Unionist Party, and Abd al-Ghaffar Khan of the pro-Congress Khudai Khidmatgar (popularly, "red shirts") in the North West Frontier Province, the British were to increasingly see the League as the main representative of Muslim India.[56] The Muslim League's demand for Pakistan pitted it against the British and Congress.[57]

1946 Election, Cabinet Mission, Direct Action Day, Plan for Partition, Independence: 1946–1947

Further information: Indian general election, 1945 and Indian provincial elections, 1946


Members of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to India meeting Muhammad Ali Jinnah. On the extreme left is Lord Pethick Lawrence; on the extreme right, Sir Stafford Cripps.


An aged and abandoned Muslim couple and their grandchildren are sitting by the roadside on this arduous journey. "The old man is dying of exhaustion. The caravan has gone on," wrote Bourke-White.


An old Sikh man is carrying his wife. Over 10 million people were uprooted from their homeland and traveled on foot, bullock carts and trains to their promised new home.


Gandhi in Bela, Bihar, after attacks on Muslims, 28 March 1947.

In January 1946 mutinies broke out in the armed services, starting with RAF servicemen frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain.[58] The mutinies came to a head with mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi. Although the mutinies were rapidly suppressed, they had the effect of spurring the Attlee government to action. Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee had been deeply interested in Indian independence since the 1920s, and for years had supported it. He now took charge of the government position and gave the issue the highest priority. A Cabinet Mission was sent to India led by the Secretary of State for India, Lord Pethick Lawrence, which also included Sir Stafford Cripps, who had visited India four years before. The objective of the mission was to arrange for an orderly transfer to independence.[58]

In early 1946, new elections were held in India. With the announcement of the polls the line had been drawn for Muslim voters to choose between a united Indian State or Partition.[59] At the end of the war in 1945, the colonial government had announced the public trial of three senior officers of Subhas Chandra Bose's defeated Indian National Army who stood accused of treason. Now as the trials began, the Congress leadership, although it never supported the INA, chose to defend the accused officers.[60] The subsequent convictions of the officers, the public outcry against the beliefs, and the eventual remission of the sentences created positive propaganda for the Congress, which enabled it to win the party's subsequent electoral victories in eight of the eleven provinces.[61] The negotiations between the Congress and the Muslim League, however, stumbled over the issue of partition.

British rule had lost its legitimacy for most Hindus, and conclusive proof of this came in the form of the 1946 elections with the Congress winning 91 percent of the vote among non-Muslim constituencies, thereby gaining a majority in the Central Legislature and forming governments in eight provinces, and becoming the legitimate successor to the British government for most Hindus. If the British intended to stay in India the acquiescence of politically active Indians to British rule would have been in doubt after these election results, although the views of many rural Indians were uncertain even at that point.[62] The Muslim League won the majority of the Muslim vote as well as most reserved Muslim seats in the provincial assemblies, and it also secured all the Muslim seats in the Central Assembly. Recovering from its performance in the 1937 elections, the Muslim League was finally able to make good on the claim that it and Jinnah alone represented India's Muslims[63] and Jinnah quickly interpreted this vote as a popular demand for a separate homeland.[64] However, tensions heightened while the Muslim League was unable to form ministries outside the two provinces of Sind and Bengal, with the Congress forming a ministry in the NWFP and the key Punjab province coming under a coalition ministry of the Congress, Sikhs and Unionists.[65]

The British, while not approving of a separate Muslim homeland, appreciated the simplicity of a single voice to speak on behalf of India's Muslims.[66] Britain had wanted India and its army to remain united to keep India in its system of 'imperial defence'.[67][68] With India's two political parties unable to agree, Britain devised the Cabinet Mission Plan. Through this mission, Britain hoped to preserve the united India which they and the Congress desired, while concurrently securing the essence of Jinnah's demand for a Pakistan through 'groupings. [69] The Cabinet mission scheme encapsulated a federal arrangement consisting of three groups of provinces. Two of these groupings would consist of predominantly Muslim provinces, while the third grouping would be made up of the predominantly Hindu regions. The provinces would be autonomous, but the centre would retain control over the defence, foreign affairs, and communications. Though the proposals did not offer independent Pakistan, the Muslim League accepted the proposals. Even though the unity of India would have been preserved, the Congress leaders, especially Nehru, believed it would leave the Center weak. On 10 July 1946 Nehru gave a "provocative speech," rejected the idea of grouping the provinces and "effectively torpedoed" both the Cabinet mission plan and the prospect of a United India.[70]'

After the Cabinet Mission broke down, Jinnah proclaimed 16 August 1946 Direct Action Day, with the stated goal of peacefully highlighting the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India. However, on the morning of the 16th, armed Muslim gangs gathered at the Ochterlony Monument in Calcutta to hear Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, the League's Chief Minister of Bengal, who, in the words of historian Yasmin Khan, "if he did not explicitly incite violence certainly gave the crowd the impression that they could act with impunity, that neither the police nor the military would be called out and that the ministry would turn a blind eye to any action they unleashed in the city."[71] That very evening, in Calcutta, Hindus were attacked by returning Muslim celebrants, who carried pamphlets distributed earlier which showed a clear connection between violence and the demand for Pakistan, and directly implicated the celebration of Direct Action Day with the outbreak of the cycle of violence that would later be called the "Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946".[72] The next day, Hindus struck back, and the violence continued for three days in which approximately 4,000 people died (according to official accounts), both Hindus and Muslims. Although India had had outbreaks of religious violence between Hindus and Muslims before, the Calcutta killings were the first to display elements of "ethnic cleansing".[73] Violence was not confined to the public sphere, but homes were entered and destroyed, and women and children were attacked.[74] Although the Government of India and the Congress were both shaken by the course of events, in September, a Congress-led interim government was installed, with Jawaharlal Nehru as united India's prime minister.

The communal violence spread to Bihar (where Hindus attacked Muslims), to Noakhali in Bengal (where Muslims targeted Hindus), to Garhmukteshwar in the United Provinces (where Hindus attacked Muslims), and on to Rawalpindi in March 1947 in which Hindus were attacked or driven out by Muslims.[75]

The British Prime Minister Attlee appointed Lord Louis Mountbatten as India's last viceroy, and he was given the task to oversee British India's independence by June 1948, with the instruction to avoid partition and preserve a United India, but with adaptable authority to ensure a British withdrawal with minimal setbacks. Mountbatten hoped to revive the Cabinet Mission scheme for a federal arrangement for India. But despite his initial keenness for preserving the centre, the tense communal situation caused him to conclude that partition had become necessary for a quicker transfer of power.[76][77][78][79]

Vallabhbhai Patel was one of the first Congress leaders to accept the partition of India as a solution to the rising Muslim separatist movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He had been outraged by Jinnah's Direct Action campaign, which had provoked communal violence across India and by the viceroy's vetoes of his home department's plans to stop the violence on the grounds of constitutionality. Patel severely criticized the viceroy's induction of League ministers into the government and the revalidation of the grouping scheme by the British without Congress approval. Although further outraged at the League's boycott of the assembly and non-acceptance of the plan of 16 May despite entering government, he was also aware that Jinnah enjoyed popular support amongst Muslims, and that an open conflict between him and the nationalists could degenerate into a Hindu-Muslim civil war. The continuation of a divided and weak central government would in Patel's mind, result in the wider fragmentation of India by encouraging more than 600 princely states towards independence.[80] Between the months of December 1946 and January 1947, Patel worked with civil servant V. P. Menon [Rao Bahadur Vappala Pangunni Menon] on the latter's suggestion for a separate dominion of Pakistan created out of Muslim-majority provinces. Communal violence in Bengal and Punjab in January and March 1947 further convinced Patel of the soundness of partition. Patel, a fierce critic of Jinnah's demand that the Hindu-majority areas of Punjab and Bengal be included in a Muslim state, obtained the partition of those provinces, thus blocking any possibility of their inclusion in Pakistan.

The Partition of Bengal in 1947, part of the Partition of India, divided the British Indian province of Bengal based on the Radcliffe Line between India and Pakistan. Predominantly Hindu West Bengal became a state of India, and predominantly Muslim East Bengal (now Bangladesh) became a province of Pakistan....

The partition, with the power transferred to Pakistan and India on 14–15 August 1947, was done according to what has come to be known as the "3 June Plan" or "Mountbatten Plan"....

In 1905, the first partition in Bengal was implemented as an administrative preference, making governing the two provinces, West and East Bengal, easier.[2] While the partition split the province between West Bengal, in which the majority was Hindu, and the East, where the majority was Muslim, the 1905 partition left considerable minorities of Hindus in East Bengal and Muslims in West Bengal. While the Muslims were in favour of the partition, as they would have their own province, Hindus were not. This controversy led to increased violence and protest and finally, in 1911, the two provinces were once again united.....

Under the Mountbatten Plan, a single majority vote in favour of partition by either notionally divided half of the Assembly would have decided the division of the province, and hence the house proceedings on 20 June resulted in the decision to partition Bengal. This set the stage for the creation of West Bengal as a province of India and East Bengal as a province of the Dominion of Pakistan....

After it became apparent that the division of India on the basis of the Two-nation theory would almost certainly result in the partition of the Bengal province along religious lines, Bengal provincial Muslim League leader Suhrawardy came up with a new plan to create an independent Bengal state that would join neither Pakistan nor India and remain unpartitioned. Suhrawardy realised that if Bengal was partitioned, it would be economically disastrous for East Bengal as all coal mines, all jute mills but two and other industrial plants would certainly go to the western part since these were in an overwhelmingly Hindu majority area. Most important of all, Calcutta, then the largest city in India, an industrial and commercial hub and the largest port, would also go to the western part. Suhrawardy floated his idea on 24 April 1947 at a press conference in Delhi.

However, the plan directly ran counter to that of the Muslim League's, which demanded the creation of a separate Muslim homeland on the basis of the two-nation theory. Bengal provincial Muslim League leadership opinion was divided. Barddhaman's League leader Abul Hashim supported it. On the other hand, Nurul Amin and Mohammad Akram Khan opposed it. But Muhammad Ali Jinnah realised the validity of Suhrawardy's argument and gave his tacit support to the plan. After Jinnah's approval, Suhrawardy started gathering support for his plan.

On the Congress side, only a handful of leaders agreed to the plan. Among them was the influential Bengal provincial congress leader Sarat Chandra Bose, the elder brother of Netaji [Subhas Chandra Bose] and Kiran Shankar Roy. However most other BPCC leaders and Congress leadership including Nehru and Patel rejected the plan. The Hindu nationalist party Hindu Mahasabha under the leadership of Shyama Prasad Mukherjee vehemently opposed it. Their opinion was that the plan is nothing but a ploy by Suhrawardy to stop the partition of the state so that the industrially developed western part including the city of Kolkata remains under League control. They also opined that even though the plan asked for a sovereign Bengal state, in practice it will be a virtual Pakistan and the Hindu minority will be at the mercy of the Muslim majority forever....

Soon afterwards, division arose among Bose and Suhrawardy on the question of the nature of the electorate; separate or joint. Suhrawardy insisted upon maintaining the separate electorate for Muslims and Non-Muslims. Bose was opposed to this. He withdrew and due to lack of any other significant support from the Congress's side, the United Bengal plan was discarded....

A massive population transfer began immediately after partition. Millions of Hindus migrated to India from East Bengal. The majority of them settled in West Bengal. A smaller number went to Assam, Tripura and other states. However the refugee crisis was markedly different from Punjab at India's western border. Punjab witnessed widespread communal riots immediately before partition. As a result, population transfer in Punjab happened almost immediately after the partition as terrified people left their homes from both sides. Within a year the population exchange was largely complete between East and West Punjab. But in Bengal, violence was limited only to Kolkata and Noakhali. And hence in Bengal migration occurred in a much more gradual fashion and continued over the next three decades following partition. Although riots were limited in pre-independence Bengal, the environment was nonetheless communally charged. Both Hindus in East Bengal and Muslims in West Bengal felt unsafe and had to take a crucial decision that is whether to leave for an uncertain future in another country or to stay in subjugation under the other community. Among Hindus in East Bengal those who were economically better placed, particularly higher caste Hindus, left first. Government employees were given a chance to swap their posts between India and Pakistan. The educated urban upper and middle class, the rural gentry, traders, businessmen and artisans left for India soon after partition. They often had relatives and other connections in West Bengal and were able to settle with less difficulty. Muslims followed a similar pattern. The urban and educated upper and middle class left for East Bengal first.

However poorer Hindus in East Bengal, most of whom belonged to lower castes like the Namashudras found it much more difficult to migrate. Their only property was immovable land holdings. Many sharecropped. They didn't have any skills other than farming. As a result, most of them decided to stay in East Bengal. However the political climate in Pakistan deteriorated soon after partition and communal violence started to rise. In 1950 severe riots occurred in Barisal and other places in East Pakistan, causing a further exodus of Hindus.... Throughout the next two decades Hindus left East Bengal whenever communal tensions flared up or relationship between India and Pakistan deteriorated, as in 1964. The situation of the Hindu minority in East Bengal reached its worst in the months preceding and during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, when the Pakistani army systematically targeted ethnic Bengalis regardless of religious background as part of Operation Searchlight....

Though Muslims in post-independence West Bengal faced some discrimination, it was unlike the state sponsored discrimination faced by the Hindus in East Bengal. While Hindus had to flee from East Bengal, Muslims were able to stay in West Bengal. Over the years, however, the community became ghettoised and was socially and economically segregated from the majority community. Muslims lag well behind other minorities like Sikhs and Christians in almost all social indicators like literacy and per capita income.

-- Partition of Bengal (1947), by Wikipedia

Patel's decisiveness on the partition of Punjab and Bengal had won him many supporters and admirers amongst the Indian public, which had been tired of the League's tactics. Still, he was criticized by Gandhi, Nehru, secular Muslims and socialists for a perceived eagerness for the partition. When Lord Mountbatten formally proposed the plan on 3 June 1947, Patel gave his approval and lobbied Nehru and other Congress leaders to accept the proposal. Knowing Gandhi's deep anguish regarding proposals of partition, Patel engaged him in private meetings discussions over the perceived practical unworkability of any Congress-League coalition, the rising violence, and the threat of civil war. At the All India Congress Committee meeting called to vote on the proposal, Patel said:

I fully appreciate the fears of our brothers from [the Muslim-majority areas]. Nobody likes the division of India, and my heart is heavy. But the choice is between one division and many divisions. We must face facts. We cannot give way to emotionalism and sentimentality. The Working Committee has not acted out of fear. But I am afraid of one thing, that all our toil and hard work of these many years might go waste or prove unfruitful. My nine months in office have completely disillusioned me regarding the supposed merits of the Cabinet Mission Plan. Except for a few honourable exceptions, Muslim officials from the top down to the chaprasis (peons or servants) are working for the League. The communal veto given to the League in the Mission Plan would have blocked India's progress at every stage. Whether we like it or not, de facto Pakistan already exists in the Punjab and Bengal. Under the circumstances, I would prefer a de jure Pakistan, which may make the League more responsible. Freedom is coming. We have 75 to 80 percent of India, which we can make strong with our genius. The League can develop the rest of the country.[81]

Following Gandhi's denial[82] and Congress' approval of the plan, Patel represented India on the Partition Council, where he oversaw the division of public assets and selected the Indian council of ministers with Nehru. However, neither he nor any other Indian leader had foreseen the intense violence and population transfer that would take place with partition. Late in 1946 the Labour government in Britain, its exchequer exhausted by the recently concluded World War II, decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948. However, with the British army unprepared for the potential for increased violence, the new viceroy, Louis Mountbatten, advanced the date for the transfer of power, allowing less than six months for a mutually agreed plan for independence. In June 1947, the nationalist leaders, including Nehru and Abul Kalam Azad on behalf of the Congress, Jinnah representing the Muslim League, B. R. Ambedkar representing the Untouchable community, and Master Tara Singh representing the Sikhs, agreed to a partition of the country along religious lines in stark opposition to Gandhi's views. The predominantly Hindu and Sikh areas were assigned to the new India and predominantly Muslim areas to the new nation of Pakistan; the plan included a partition of the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab and Bengal. The communal violence that accompanied the announcement of the Radcliffe Line, the line of partition, was even more horrific. Describing the violence that accompanied the Partition of India, historians Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh write:

There are numerous eyewitness accounts of the maiming and mutilation of victims. The catalogue of horrors includes the disembowelling of pregnant women, the slamming of babies' heads against brick walls, the cutting off of the victim's limbs and genitalia, and the displaying of heads and corpses. While previous communal riots had been deadly, the scale and level of brutality during the Partition massacres was unprecedented. Although some scholars question the use of the term 'genocide' concerning the Partition massacres, much of the violence was manifested with genocidal tendencies. It was designed to cleanse an existing generation and prevent its future reproduction."[83]

On 14 August 1947, the new Dominion of Pakistan came into being, with Muhammad Ali Jinnah sworn in as its first Governor-General in Karachi. The following day, 15 August 1947, India, now a smaller Union of India, became an independent country with official ceremonies taking place in New Delhi, and with Jawaharlal Nehru assuming the office of prime minister, and the viceroy Mountbatten staying on as its first Governor General. Gandhi remained in Bengal to work with the new refugees from the partitioned subcontinent.

Geographic partition, 1947

Mountbatten Plan


Mountbatten with a countdown calendar to the Transfer of Power in the background

The actual division of British India between the two new dominions was accomplished according to what has come to be known as the "3 June Plan" or "Mountbatten Plan". It was announced at a press conference by Mountbatten on 3 June 1947, when the date of independence - 15 August 1947 - was also announced. The plan's main points were:

• Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims in Punjab and Bengal legislative assemblies would meet and vote for partition. If a simple majority of either group wanted partition, then these provinces would be divided.
• Sind and Baluchistan were to make their own decision.[84]
• The fate of Northwest Frontier Province and Sylhet district of Assam was to be decided by a referendum.
• India would be independent by 15 August 1947.
• The separate independence of Bengal was ruled out.
• A boundary commission to be set up in case of partition.

The Indian political leaders accepted the Plan on 2 June. It could not deal with the question of the princely states, which were not British possessions, but on 3 June Mountbatten advised them against remaining independent and urged them to join one of the two new dominions.[85]

The Muslim League's demands for a separate country were thus conceded. The Congress's position on unity was also taken into account, while making Pakistan as small as possible. Mountbatten's formula was to divide India and, at the same time, retain maximum possible unity.

Abul Kalam Azad expressed concern over the likelihood of violent riots, to which Mountbatten replied:

At least on this question I shall give you complete assurance. I shall see to it that there is no bloodshed and riot. I am a soldier and not a civilian. Once the partition is accepted in principle, I shall issue orders to see that there are no communal disturbances anywhere in the country. If there should be the slightest agitation, I shall adopt the sternest measures to nip the trouble in the bud.[86]

Jagmohan has stated that this and what followed showed a "glaring failure of the government machinery".[86]

[b]On 3 June 1947, the partition plan was accepted by the Congress Working Committee.[87] Boloji states that in Punjab, there were no riots, but there was communal tension, while Gandhi was reportedly isolated by Nehru and Patel and observed maun vrat (day of silence). Mountbatten visited Gandhi and said he hoped that he would not oppose the partition, to which Gandhi wrote the reply: "Have I ever opposed you?"[88]

Within British India, the border between India and Pakistan (the Radcliffe Line) was determined by a British Government-commissioned report prepared under the chairmanship of a London barrister, Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Pakistan came into being with two non-contiguous enclaves, East Pakistan (today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan, separated geographically by India. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of British India, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.

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Part 2 of 3

On 18 July 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that finalized the arrangements for partition and abandoned British suzerainty over the princely states, of which there were several hundred, leaving them free to choose whether to accede to one of the new dominions or to remain independent outside both.[89] The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the new dominions.[/b]

The Union of India, also called the Dominion of India, was an independent dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations between 15 August 1947 and 26 January 1950. It was created by the Indian Independence Act 1947 and was transformed into the Republic of India by the promulgation of the Constitution of India in 1950.

The King was represented by the Governor-General of India. However, the Governor-General was not designated Viceroy, as had been customary under the British Raj. The office of Viceroy was abolished on independence. Two governors-general held office between independence and India's transformation into a republic: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1947–48) and Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (1948–50). Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister of India throughout.

Since the late 1920s the Indian independence movement had been demanding Pūrṇa Swarāj (complete self-rule) for the Indian nation and the establishment of the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan was a major victory for the Swarajis. Nevertheless, the Partition was controversial among the people, and resulted in significant political instability and displacement.

The 1946 Cabinet Mission to India proposed 'Union of India' as a political unit that would encompass both British India and the Indian princely states. The Mission's plan did not come into fruition due to disagreements over the powers to be held by the Union government. On 3 June 1947, it was decided that British India would be partitioned into two sovereign states, both dominions: Pakistan, consisting of Muslim-majority regions, and India, consisting of the rest. In deference to the wishes of Indian National Congress, it was accepted that the partition would be regarded as the Muslim majority areas splitting off from India.

The Partition of took place on 15 August 1947, leading to the creation of Pakistan (which later split into the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh in 1971) and India (later the Republic of India).

Most of the 565 princely states within Indian territory acceded to the Dominion of India. The Hindu-majority Junagadh State located in modern-day Gujarat attempted to accede to Pakistan under Nawab Sir Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III, who was a Muslim. It was annexed militarily by the Indian government. Similarly, the State of Hyderabad sought to remain independent and was also annexed by India in 1948.

The newly created states of Pakistan and India both joined the Commonwealth, a platform for cooperation between the countries that had been part of the British Empire. Nevertheless, they soon found themselves at war beginning in October 1947, over the contested princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistani militants entered the state, alarming Maharaja Hari Singh who appealed to India for military intervention, in exchange for the signing of the Instrument of Accession and annexation into India. The region is contested to this day and two other Indo-Pakistan wars occurred as part of the Kashmir conflict.

The Dominion of India began working towards a constitution based on liberal democracy immediately after independence.

The Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India, drafted by a committee headed by B. R. Ambedkar, on 26 November 1949. India abolished the role of the constitutional monarchy and became a federal, democratic republic after its constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950; henceforth celebrated as Republic Day. The governmental structure was similar to that of the United Kingdom but within a federal system. Rajendra Prasad became the first President of India.

-- Dominion of India, by Wikipedia

Following its creation as a new country in August 1947, Pakistan applied for membership of the United Nations and was accepted by the General Assembly on 30 September 1947. The Dominion of India continued to have the existing seat as India had been a founding member of the United Nations since 1945.[90]

Radcliffe Line

Further information: Radcliffe Line


A map of the Punjab region c. 1947.

The Punjab—the region of the five rivers east of Indus: Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej—consists of inter-fluvial doabs, or tracts of land lying between two confluent rivers. These are the Sind-Sagar doab (between Indus and Jhelum), the Jech doab (Jhelum/Chenab), the Rechna doab (Chenab/Ravi), the Bari doab (Ravi/Beas), and the Bist doab (Beas/Sutlej) (see map on the right). In early 1947, in the months leading up to the deliberations of the Punjab Boundary Commission, the main disputed areas appeared to be in the Bari and Bist doabs. However, some areas in the Rechna doab were claimed by the Congress and Sikhs. In the Bari doab, the districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Lahore, and Montgomery were all disputed.[91] All districts (other than Amritsar, which was 46.5% Muslim) had Muslim majorities; albeit, in Gurdaspur, the Muslim majority, at 51.1%, was slender. At a smaller area-scale, only three tehsils (sub-units of a district) in the Bari doab had non-Muslim majorities. These were: Pathankot (in the extreme north of Gurdaspur, which was not in dispute), and Amritsar and Tarn Taran in Amritsar district. Besides, there were four Muslim-majority tehsils east of Beas-Sutlej (with two where Muslims outnumbered Hindus and Sikhs together).[91]

Before the Boundary Commission began formal hearings, governments were set up for the East and the West Punjab regions. Their territories were provisionally divided by "notional division" based on simple district majorities. In both the Punjab and Bengal, the Boundary Commission consisted of two Muslim and two non-Muslim judges with Sir Cyril Radcliffe as a common chairman.[91] The mission of the Punjab commission was worded generally as: "To demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of Punjab, based on ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will take into account other factors." Each side (the Muslims and the Congress/Sikhs) presented its claim through counsel with no liberty to bargain. The judges, too, had no mandate to compromise, and on all major issues they "divided two and two, leaving Sir Cyril Radcliffe the invidious task of making the actual decisions."[91]

Independence, population transfer, and violence


Train to Pakistan being given an honor-guard send-off. New Delhi railway station, 1947


Rural Sikhs in a long oxcart train headed towards India. 1947.


Two Muslim men (in a rural refugee train headed towards Pakistan) carrying an old woman in a makeshift doli or palanquin of 1947.


A refugee train on its way to Punjab, Pakistan

Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly formed states in the months immediately following the Partition. There was no conception that population transfers would be necessary because of the partitioning. Religious minorities were expected to stay put in the states they found themselves residing in. However, an exception was made for Punjab, where the transfer of populations was organized because of the communal violence affecting the province, this did not apply to other provinces.[92][93]

"The population of undivided India in 1947 was approx 390 million. After partition, there were 330 million people in India, 30 million in West Pakistan, and 30 million people in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)." Once the boundaries were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. The 1951 Census of Pakistan identified the number of displaced persons in Pakistan at 7,226,600, presumably all Muslims who had entered Pakistan from India; the 1951 Census of India counted 7,295,870 displaced persons, apparently all Hindus and Sikhs who had moved to India from Pakistan immediately after the Partition.[2] The overall total is therefore around 14.5 million, although since both censuses were held about 4 years after the Partition, this numbers includes net population increase following the mass migration.[94]

About 11.2 million (77.4% of the displaced persons) were in the west, the majority from the Punjab of it: 6.5 million Muslims moved from India to West Pakistan, and 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from West Pakistan to India; thus the net migration in the west from India to West Pakistan (now Pakistan) was 1.8 million. The other 3.3 million (22.6% of the displaced persons) were in the east: 2.6 million moved from East Pakistan to India, and 0.7 million moved from India to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh); thus, net migration in the east was 1.9 million into India.

Punjab


A refugee special train at Ambala Station during the partition of India

The Partition of British India split the former British province of Punjab between the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The mostly Muslim western part of the province became Pakistan's Punjab province; the mostly Hindu and Sikh eastern part became India's East Punjab state (later divided into the new states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh). Many Hindus and Sikhs lived in the west, and many Muslims lived in the east, and the fears of all such minorities were so great that the Partition saw many people displaced and much inter-communal violence. Some have described the violence in Punjab as a retributive genocide.[95]

The newly formed governments had not anticipated, and were completely unequipped for, a two-way migration of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the new India-Pakistan border. Estimates of the number of deaths vary, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 2,000,000. The worst case of violence among all regions is concluded to have taken place in Punjab.[96][97][98][99] Virtually no Muslim survived in East Punjab (except in Malerkotla) and virtually no Hindu or Sikh survived in West Punjab.[100]

Lawrence James observed that 'Sir Francis Mudie, the governor of West Punjab, estimated that 500,000 Muslims died trying to enter his province, while the British high commissioner in Karachi put the full total at 800,000. This makes nonsense of the claim by Mountbatten and his partisans that only 200,000 were killed: [James 1998: 636]".[101]

During this period, many alleged that Tara Singh was endorsing the killing of Muslims. On 3 March 1947, at Lahore, Singh, along with about 500 Sikhs, declared from a dais "Death to Pakistan." [102] According to political scientist Ishtiaq Ahmed, "On March 3, radical Sikh leader Master Tara Singh famously flashed his kirpan (sword) outside the Punjab Assembly, calling for the destruction of the Pakistan idea prompting violent response by the Muslims mainly against Sikhs but also Hindus, in the Muslim-majority districts of northern Punjab. Yet, at the end of that year, more Muslims had been killed in East Punjab than Hindus and Sikhs together in West Punjab."[103][104][105][106] Nehru wrote to Gandhi on 22 August that up to that point, twice as many Muslims had been killed in East Punjab than Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab.[107]

Bengal

Main article: Partition of Bengal (1947)

The province of Bengal was divided into the two separate entities of West Bengal, awarded to the Dominion of India, and East Bengal, awarded to the Dominion of Pakistan. East Bengal was renamed East Pakistan in 1955, and later became the independent nation of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.

While the Muslim majority districts of Murshidabad and Malda were given to India, the Hindu majority district of Khulna and the Buddhist majority, but sparsely populated, Chittagong Hill Tracts were given to Pakistan by the Radcliffe award.[108]

Thousands of Hindus, located in the districts of East Bengal, which were awarded to Pakistan, found themselves being attacked, and this religious persecution forced hundreds of thousands of Hindus from East Bengal to seek refuge in India. The massive influx of Hindu refugees into Calcutta affected the demographics of the city. Many Muslims left the city for East Pakistan, and the refugee families occupied some of their homes and properties.

Sindh

At the time of Partition, most of Sindh's prosperous middle class was Hindu. There were then 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis, though most were concentrated in cities such as Hyderabad, Karachi, Shikarpur, and Sukkur. Hundreds of Hindus residing in Sindh were forced to migrate. Some anti-Hindu violence in Sindh was precipitated by the arrival of Muslim refugees from India with minimal local Muslim support for the rioters. Sindhi Hindus faced low scale rioting unlike the Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs who had to migrate from West Punjab.[109]

On 6 December 1947, communal violence broke out in Ajmer in India, precipitated by an argument between Sindhi Hindu refugees and local Muslims in the Dargah Bazaar. Violence in Ajmer again broke out in the middle of December with stabbings, looting and arson resulting in mostly Muslim casualties.[110] Many Muslims fled across the Thar Desert to Sindh in Pakistan.[110] This sparked further anti-Hindu riots in Hyderabad, Sindh. On 6 January anti-Hindu riots broke out in Karachi, leading to an estimate of 1100 casualties.[110] 776,000 Sindhi Hindus fled to India.[111] The arrival of Sindhi Hindu refugees in North Gujarat's town of Godhra sparked the March 1948 riots there which led to an emigration of Muslims from Godhra to Pakistan.[110]

Despite the migration, a significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan's Sindh province, where they number at around 2.3 million as per Pakistan's 1998 census; the Sindhi Hindus in India were at 2.6 million as per India's 2001 Census. Some bordering districts in Sindh had a Hindu majority like Tharparkar District, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar and Badin, but their population is decreasing, and they consider themselves a minority in decline. Only Umerkot still has a majority of Hindus in the district.[112] The Sindhi community did not face large scale violence, but felt deprivation of homeland and culture.[110]

Gujarat

During the partition, there was no mass violence in Gujarat as there was in Punjab and Bengal.[113] Only about 2.2% of the migrants to Pakistan were from Gujarat and Bombay city, and of them, about 75% went to Karachi due to business interests.[113]

Delhi


A crowd of Muslims at the Old Fort (Purana Qila) in Delhi, which had been converted into a vast camp for Muslim refugees waiting to be transported to Pakistan. Manchester Guardian, 27 September 1947.

For centuries Delhi had been the capital of the Mughal Empire from Babur to successors of Aurangzeb and previous Turkic Muslim rulers of North India. The series of Islamic rulers keeping Delhi as a stronghold of their empires left a vast array of Islamic architecture in Delhi, and a strong Islamic culture permeated the city. In 1911, when the British Raj shifted their colonial capital from Calcutta to Delhi, the nature of the city began slightly changing. The core of the city was called ‘Lutyens’ Delhi’ named after the British architect Edwin Lutyens, and was designed to service the needs of the small, but growing population of the British elite gentry. Nevertheless, in 1941 the Census listed Delhi's population as being 33.2% Muslim.

As refugees began pouring into Delhi in 1947, the city was ill-equipped to deal with the influx of residents. Refugees “spread themselves out wherever they could. They thronged into camps…colleges, temples, gurudwaras, dharmshalas, military barracks, and gardens”.[114] By 1950, the government began allowing squatters to construct houses in certain portions of the city. As a result, neighborhoods such as Lajpat Nagar and Patel Nagar sprung into existence, which carry a distinct Punjabi characteristic to this day. However, as thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Punjab fled to the city this created an atmosphere of upheavals as communal pogroms rocked the historical stronghold of Indo-Islamic culture and politics. Pakistani diplomat in Delhi, Hussain, alleged that the Indian government was intent on eliminating Delhi's Muslim population or was indifferent to their fate. He reported that Army troops openly gunned down innocent Muslims.[115] Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru estimated 1000 casualties in the city. However, other sources claimed that the casualty rate had been 20 times higher. Gyanendra Pandey's more recent account of the Delhi violence puts the figure of Muslim casualties in Delhi as being between 20,000–25,000.[116]

Tens of thousands of Muslims were driven to refugee camps regardless of their political affiliations, and numerous historical sites in Delhi such as the Purana Qila, Idgah, and Nizamuddin were transformed into refugee camps. In fact, many Hindu and Sikh refugees eventually occupied the abandoned houses of Delhi's Muslim inhabitants.[117] At the culmination of the tensions in Delhi, 330,000 Muslims were forced to flee the city to Pakistan. The 1951 Census registered a drop of the Muslim population in the city from 33.2% in 1941 to 5.3% in 1951.[118]

Princely States

In several cases, rulers of princely states were involved in communal violence or did not do enough to stop in time. Some rulers were away from their states for the summer, such as those of the Sikh states. Some believe that the rulers were whisked away by communal ministers in large part to avoid responsibility for the soon-to-come ethnic cleansing. However, in Bhawalpur and Patiala, upon the return of their ruler to the state, there was a marked decrease in violence, and the rulers consequently stood against the cleansing. The Nawab of Bahawalpur was away in Europe and returned on 1 October, shortening his trip. A bitter Hassan Suhrawardy would write to Mahatma Gandhi:

What is the use now, of the Maharaja of Patiala [Yadavindra Singh], when all the Muslims have been eliminated, standing up as the champion of peace and order?[119]

During the Partition of India numerous pogroms occurred in and around the princely state of Patiala. In several cases, organized bands of Sikhs were responsible for atrocities. The late Harkishan Singh Surjeet, of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), witnessed the events and claimed in an interview: ‘The communal attacks on the minorities were definitely planned. I know more about the persons involved in the eastern wing because I was there. I saw those dreadful acts with my own eyes. In that conspiracy, the Maharaja of Patiala was involved. The idea was that if the Muslims were driven out.'” The attacks on Sikhs and Hindus in March 1947 in Rawalpindi are regarded as one of the major crimes that triggered off others. Nehru believed the Maharaja had sought to ethnically cleanse the territory of Muslims as part of this effort. Maharajas of Patiala and Faridkot, and Yadavindra Singh is quoted as having said "We won't leave a Muslim here" at a party with British officers.[5] The Foreign Minister of Patiala, Sardar Bari Ram Sharma issued a denial stating "I definitely assert that no Patiala soldier has associated himself with or has been involved in any killings in any part of the East Punjab."

-- Yadavindra Singh, by Wikipedia

With the exceptions of Jind and Kapurthala, the violence was well organised in the Sikh states, with logistics provided by the durbar.[120] In Patiala and Faridkot, the Maharajas responded to the call of Master Tara Singh to cleanse India of Muslims. The Maharaja of Patiala was offered the headship of a future united Sikh state that would rise from the "ashes of a Punjab civil war".[121] The Maharaja of Faridkot, Harinder Singh, is reported to have listened to stories of the massacres with great interest going so far as to ask for "juicy details" of the carnage. The ruler of Bharatpur State personally witnessed the cleansing of Muslim Meos at Khumbar and Deeg. When reproached by Muslims for his actions, the Maharaja retorted by saying: "Why come to me? Go to Jinnah."

In Alwar [Tej Singh Prabhakar/N.B. Khare] ...

Sir Tej Singh was a supporter of Hindu nationalism through the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, and hosted the Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya Mahasabha of which he served as president in 1947. He opposed Mahatma Gandhi's Non-cooperation movement. There is speculation that he supported and funded the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He appointed Dr N.B. Khare [Dr. Narayan Bhaskar Khare] as his prime minister who failed to prevent, and some say encouraged pushing, Alwar into sectarian violence that saw Muslims forcefully converted, forced out, and in some cases murdered during the Partition of India. He was accused but found innocent of playing a role in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, with a claim (never upheld) that the revolver used in the assassination came from Sir Tej Singh. His association with the implicated Hindu Mahasabha and a prominent suspect at the time, Dr N.B. Khare (his Prime Minister), added to the suspicion. The issue remains controversial to this day.[5][6]

-- Tej Singh Prabhakar, by Wikipedia

Khare was a member of the Viceroy's Executive Council from 7 May 1943 to 3 July 1946 where he was in charge of the Commonwealth Relations Department. He was responsible for placing on the Statute book the Indian Reciprocity Act Amendment Bill and enforcing it against South African Europeans for getting acquitted all the highly placed Indians in Malaya, like Dr. Goho, who were charged with high treason and collaboration with the Japanese, for securing rights of citizenship for Indians domiciled in America, for withdrawing the High Commissioner of India from South Africa, for applying economic sanctions against South Africa and for lodging complaint against South Africa in the United Nations.

Khare later became the Prime Minister of then Alwar State from 19 April 1947 to 7 February 1948. He was elected as a member of the Constituent Assembly of India in July 1947.

Khare was appointed as the Premier or Chief Minister of the first elected government of the Central Provinces and Berar in August 1937. His sacking of Ravi Shankar Shukla, Dwarika Prasad Mishra and D S Mehta led to disciplinary action against him by the Congress President Subhas Chandra Bose. He resigned at the request of the Indian National Congress leadership in July 1938 and was ousted from party. He wrote a pamphlet accusing Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel for his ouster from party titled "To my Countrymen: My Defence".

After the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, Khare was put under house arrest in Delhi on suspicion of being a part of the conspiracy with Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte. He was immediately sacked from his Constituent Assembly seat in February 1948 and as Prime minister of Alwar state. The government tried to implicate him in mass killings and communal violence but had to release him in absence of hard evidence. Khare rejoiced, as mentioned in his book: "As a result, today there is not a single Muslim in the whole of the Alwar State… In this way, the Meo problem [ Meo is a Muslim community from North-Western India, particularly in and around Mewat that includes Mewat district of Haryana and parts of adjacent Alwar and Bharatpur districts in Rajasthan. Meos speak Mewati] in the State which was troubling the State for several centuries has been solved at least for the time being." He later he joined Hindu Mahasabha on 15 August 1949 and was its President from 1949 to 1951 and the Vice-President of the All India Hindu Mahasabha in 1954.

-- Narayan Bhaskar Khare, by Wikipedi

and Bahawalpur communal sentiments extended to higher echelons of government, and the prime ministers of these States were said to have been involved in planning and directly overseeing the cleansing. In Bikaner, by contrast, the organisation occurred at much lower levels.[122]

Alwar and Bharatpur

In Alwar and Bharatpur, princely states of Rajputana (modern-day Rajasthan), there were bloody confrontation between the dominant, Hindu land-holding community and the Muslim cultivating community.[123] Well-organised bands of Hindu Jats, Ahirs and Gujars, started attacking Muslim Meos in April 1947. By June, more than fifty Muslim villages had been destroyed. The Muslim League was outraged and demanded that the Viceroy provide Muslim troops. Accusations emerged in June of the involvement of Indian State Forces from Alwar and Bharatpur in the destruction of Muslim villages both inside their states and in British India.[124]

In the wake of unprecedented violent attacks unleashed against them in 1947, 100,000 Muslim Meos from Alwar and Bharatpur were forced to flee their homes, and an estimated 30,000 are said to have been massacred.[125] On 17 November, a column of 80,000 Meo refugees went to Pakistan. However, 10,000 stopped travelling due to the risks.[123]

Jammu and Kashmir

Main article: 1947 Jammu massacres

In September–November 1947 in the Jammu region of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, a large number of Muslims were massacred, and others driven away to West Punjab. The impetus for this violence was partly due to the "harrowing stories of Muslim atrocities", brought by Hindu and Sikh refugees arriving to Jammu from West Punjab since March 1947. The killings were carried out by extremist Hindus and Sikhs, aided and abetted by the forces of the Dogra State, headed by the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir Hari Singh. Observers state that Hari Singh aimed to alter the demographics of the region by eliminating the Muslim population and ensure a Hindu majority.[126][127]

Hari Singh was born on 23 September 1895 at the palace of Amar Mahal, Jammu, the only surviving son of Raja Amar Singh Jamwal, the brother of Maharaja Pratap Singh, then the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the Maharaja had no issue, Hari Singh was heir to the throne of Jammu and Kashmir.

In 1903, Hari Singh served as a page of honour to Lord Curzon at the grand Delhi Durbar. At the age of thirteen, he was sent to Mayo College in Ajmer. A year later, in 1909, his father died, and the British took a keen interest in his education and appointed Major H. K. Brar as his guardian. After Mayo College, Hari Singh went to the British-run Imperial Cadet Corps at Dehra Dun for military training.

Maharaja Pratap Singh appointed him as the commander-in-chief of the State Forces in 1915.

The "youthful escapades" of Hari Singh included paying £300,000 for blackmail by a prostitute in Paris in 1921. That issue had resulted in a court case in London in 1924 during which the India Office tried to keep his name out of proceedings by arranging for him to be referred to as "Mr A."

Singh was known as a lavish spender of money. The funeral of his uncle and former ruler Pratap Singh is believed to have expended much gold and jewellery in the funeral pyre.

Hari Singh's married life is dark. He married four times as his first three wives failed to give birth to his heirs. Each of them died within a few years of childlessness allowing Hari Singh to immediately take a new bride. His last wife, Tara Devi Sahiba of Kangra, had a son.

Following the death of his uncle Pratap Singh in 1925, Hari Singh ascended the throne of Jammu and Kashmir. He made primary education compulsory in the state, introduced laws prohibiting child marriage, and opened places of worship to the low castes.

The Seal of Maharaja Hari Singh had a Crown at the top. A katar or ceremonial dagger sat below the crown. Two soldiers held flags. An image of the sun was between them, that symbolised his Rajput lineage from Lord Surya, the Hindu Sun God.

Hari Singh was believed to have been hostile towards the Indian National Congress, in part because of the close friendship between Kashmiri political activist and socialist Sheikh Abdullah and the Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru. He also opposed the Muslim League and its members' communalist outlook, as represented by their two-nation theory.

In 1947, after India gained independence from British rule, Jammu and Kashmir could have joined India, joined Pakistan, or remained independent. Hari Singh originally manoeuvred to maintain his independence by playing off India and Pakistan. There was a widespread belief that rulers of the princely states, in deciding to accede to India or Pakistan, should respect the wishes of the population, but few rulers took any steps to consult on such decisions. Jammu and Kashmir was a Muslim majority state. Pashtun Tribesman from Pakistan then invaded Kashmir and defeated Hari Singh's forces. Hari Singh appealed to India for help. Although the Indian Prime Minister Nehru was ready to send troops, the Governor-General of India, Lord Mountbatten of Burma, advised the Maharaja to accede to India before India could send its troops. Hence, considering the emergency situation, the Maharaja signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947, joining the whole of his princely state (including Jammu, Kashmir, Northern Areas, Ladakh, Trans-Karakoram Tract and Aksai Chin) to the Dominion of India. These events triggered the first Indo-Pakistan War.

Pressure from Nehru and Sardar Patel eventually compelled Hari Singh to appoint his son and heir, Yuvraj (crown prince) Karan Singh, as Regent of Jammu and Kashmir in 1949, although he remained titular Maharaja of the state until 1952, when the monarchy was abolished. He was also forced to appoint the popular Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah as the prime minister of Kashmir. He had a contentious relationship with both Nehru and Abdullah. Karan Singh was appointed 'Sadr-e-Riyasat' ('Head of State') in 1952 and Governor of the State in 1964. Abdullah would later be dismissed from his position as prime minister of Kashmir and jailed by Karan Singh.

-- Hari Singh, by Wikipedia

Resettlement of refugees in India: 1947–1951

According to the 1951 Census of India, 2% of India's population were refugees (1.3% from West Pakistan and 0.7% from East Pakistan). Delhi received the largest number of refugees for a single city – the population of Delhi grew rapidly in 1947 from under 1 million (917,939) to a little less than 2 million (1,744,072) during the period 1941–1951.[128] The refugees were housed in various historical and military locations such as the Purana Qila, Red Fort, and military barracks in Kingsway Camp (around the present Delhi University). The latter became the site of one of the largest refugee camps in northern India, with more than 35,000 refugees at any given time besides Kurukshetra camp near Panipat. The campsites were later converted into permanent housing through extensive building projects undertaken by the Government of India from 1948 onwards. Many housing colonies in Delhi came up around this period, like Lajpat Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Nizamuddin East, Punjabi Bagh, Rehgar Pura, Jangpura and Kingsway Camp. Several schemes such as the provision of education, employment opportunities, and easy loans to start businesses were provided for the refugees at the all-India level.[129]

Many Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis came from West Punjab and settled in East Punjab (which then also included Haryana and Himachal Pradesh) and Delhi. Hindus fleeing from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) settled across Eastern India and Northeastern India, many ending up in neighbouring Indian states such as West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Some migrants were sent to the Andaman islands, where Bengalis today form the largest linguistic group.

In 1789, the Bengal Presidency established a naval base and penal colony on Chatham Island in the southeast bay of Great Andaman. The settlement is now known as Port Blair (after the Bombay Marine lieutenant Archibald Blair who founded it). After two years, the colony was moved to the northeast part of Great Andaman and was named Port Cornwallis after Admiral William Cornwallis. However, there was much disease and death in the penal colony and the government ceased operating it in May 1796.

In 1824, Port Cornwallis was the rendezvous of the fleet carrying the army to the First Burmese War. In the 1830s and 1840s, shipwrecked crews who landed on the Andamans were often attacked and killed by the natives and the islands had a reputation for cannibalism. The loss of the Runnymede and the Briton in 1844 during the same storm, while transporting goods and passengers between India and Australia, and the continuous attacks launched by the natives, which the survivors fought off, alarmed the British government. In 1855, the government proposed another settlement on the islands, including a convict establishment, but the Indian Rebellion of 1857 forced a delay in its construction. However, because the rebellion gave the British so many prisoners, it made the new Andaman settlement and prison urgently necessary. Construction began in November 1857 at Port Blair using inmates' labour, avoiding the vicinity of a salt swamp that seemed to have been the source of many of the earlier problems at Port Cornwallis.

17 May 1859 was another major day for Andaman. The Battle of Aberdeen was fought between the Great Andamanese tribe and the British.

The Great Andamanese are classified by anthropologists as one of the Negrito peoples, which also include the other four aboriginal groups of the Andaman islands (Onge, Jarawa, Jangil and Sentinelese) and five other isolated populations of Southeast Asia. The Andaman Negritos are thought to be the first inhabitants of the islands, having emigrated from the mainland tens of thousands of years ago.

Until the late 18th century, the Andamanese peoples were preserved from outside influences by their fierce rejection of contacts (which included killing any shipwrecked foreigners) and by the remoteness of the islands. Thus the ten Great Andamanese tribes and the other four indigenous groups are thought to have diverged on their own over the course of millennia....

Estimates of the Great Andamanese population by the time of the first British settlement (1789–1796) vary between 2000 and 6600 individuals. When the British established a permanent settlement and penal colony on Great Andaman in the 1860s, the population was estimated at 3500. At that time their isolated stone-age culture was suddenly confronted with the industrial and colonial culture of 19th century Europe. The colonial administrators proactively tried to pacify and co-opt the tribes, recruiting them to capture escaped convicts. Populations went into sharp decline as contact intensified. Imported diseases, to which the islanders had no immunity, decimated the tribes at the end of the 19th century; In some cases, people who became sick were killed by other tribe members in an attempt to stop contagion. The migration of mainland settlers to the islands accelerated this decline.

By 1901, only 625 Great Andamanese were left, and following censuses reported steadily declining numbers: 455 in 1911, 207 in 1921, 90 in 1931. Von Eickstedt counted "around one hundred" in 1927.

In 1949, the surviving Great Andamanese were relocated to a reservation on Bluff Island (1.14 km2) in an attempt to protect them from diseases and other threats. In 1951, after Indian independence, their numbers had shrunk to about 25, mostly from the northern tribes. They became extinct in the mid 20th century, but had a few admixed individuals which went to an all-time low of only 19 in 1961.

-- Great Andamanese, by Wikipedia

Today, a memorial stands in Andaman water sports complex as a tribute to the people who lost their lives. Fearing foreign invasion and with help from an escaped convict from Cellular Jail, the Great Andamanese stormed the British post, but they were outnumbered and soon suffered heavy loss of life. Later, it was identified that an escaped convict named Doodnath had changed sides and informed the British about the tribe's plans. Today, the tribe has been reduced to some 50 people, with less than 50% of them adults. The government of the Andaman Islands is making efforts to increase the headcount of this tribe.

In 1867, the ship Nineveh wrecked on the reef of North Sentinel Island. The 86 survivors reached the beach in the ship's boats. On the third day, they were attacked with iron-tipped spears by naked islanders. One person from the ship escaped in a boat and the others were later rescued by a British Royal Navy ship.

For some time, sickness and mortality were high, but swamp reclamation and extensive forest clearance continued. The Andaman colony became notorious with the murder of the Viceroy Richard Southwell Bourke, 6th Earl of Mayo, on a visit to the settlement (8 February 1872), by a Muslim convict, a Pathan from Afghanistan, Sher Ali Afridi. In the same year, the two island groups Andaman and Nicobar, were united under a chief commissioner residing at Port Blair.

From the time of its development in 1858 under the direction of James Pattison Walker, and in response to the mutiny and rebellion of the previous year, the settlement was first and foremost a repository for political prisoners. The Cellular Jail at Port Blair, when completed in 1910, included 698 cells designed for solitary confinement; each cell measured 4.5 by 2.7 m (15 by 9 ft) with a single ventilation window 3 metres (10 ft) above the floor.

The Indians imprisoned here referred to the island and its prison as Kala Pani ("black water"); a 1996 film set on the island took that term as its title, Kaalapani. The number of prisoners who died in this camp is estimated to be in the thousands. Many more died of harsh treatment and the harsh living and working conditions in this camp.

The Viper Chain Gang Jail on Viper Island was reserved for troublemakers, and was also the site of hangings. In the 20th century, it became a convenient place to house prominent members of India's independence movement.

The Andaman and Nicobar islands were occupied by Japan during World War II. The islands were nominally put under the authority of the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind (Provisional Government of Free India) headed by Subhas Chandra Bose, who visited the islands during the war, and renamed them as Shaheed (Martyr) & Swaraj (Self-rule). On 30 December 1943, during the Japanese occupation, Bose, who was allied with the Japanese, first raised the flag of Indian independence. General Loganathan, of the Indian National Army, was Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which had been annexed to the Provisional Government. According to Werner Gruhl: "Before leaving the islands, the Japanese rounded up and executed 750 innocents."

At the close of World War II, the British government announced its intention to abolish the penal settlement. The government proposed to employ former inmates in an initiative to develop the island's fisheries, timber, and agricultural resources. In exchange, inmates would be granted return passage to the Indian mainland, or the right to settle on the islands. J H Williams, one of the Bombay Burma Company's senior officials, was dispatched to perform a timber survey of the islands using convict labor. He recorded his findings in 'The Spotted Dear' (1957).

The penal colony was eventually closed on 15 August 1947 when India gained independence. It has since served as a museum to the independence movement.

-- Andaman Islands, by Wikipedia

Sindhi Hindus settled predominantly in Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan. Some, however, settled further afield in Madhya Pradesh. A new township was established for Sindhi Hindu refugees in Maharashtra. The Governor-General of India, Sir Rajagopalachari, laid the foundation for this township and named it Ulhasnagar (namely 'city of joy').

A settlement consisting largely of Sikhs and Punjabi Hindus was also founded in Central Mumbai's Sion Koliwada region, and named Guru Tegh Bahadur Nagar.[130]

Resettlement of refugees in Pakistan: 1947–1951

The 1951 Census of Pakistan recorded that the most significant number of Muslim refugees came from the East Punjab and nearby Rajputana states (Alwar and Bharatpur). They were several 5,783,100 and constituted 80.1% of Pakistan's total refugee population.[131] This was the effect of the retributive ethnic cleansing on both sides of the Punjab where the Muslim population of East Punjab was forcibly expelled like the Hindu/Sikh population in West Punjab.

Migration from other regions of India were as follows: Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa, 700,300 or 9.8%; UP and Delhi 464,200 or 6.4%; Gujarat and Bombay, 160,400 or 2.2%; Bhopal and Hyderabad 95,200 or 1.2%; and Madras and Mysore 18,000 or 0.2%.[131]

So far as their settlement in Pakistan is concerned, 97.4% of the refugees from East Punjab and its contiguous areas went to West Punjab; 95.9% from Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa to the erstwhile East Pakistan; 95.5% from UP and Delhi to West Pakistan, mainly in Karachi division of Sindh; 97.2% from Bhopal and Hyderabad to West Pakistan, mainly Karachi; and 98.9% from Bombay and Gujarat to West Pakistan, largely to Karachi; and 98.9% from Madras and Mysore went to West Pakistan, mainly Karachi.[131]

West Punjab received the largest number of refugees (73.1%), mainly from East Punjab and its contiguous areas. Sindh received the second largest number of refugees, 16.1% of the total migrants, while the Karachi division of Sindh received 8.5% of the total migrant population. East Bengal received the third-largest number of refugees, 699,100, who constituted 9.7% of the total Muslim refugee population in Pakistan. 66.7% of the refugees in East Bengal originated from West Bengal, 14.5% from Bihar and 11.8% from Assam.[132]

NWFP and Baluchistan received the lowest number of migrants. NWFP received 51,100 migrants (0.7% of the migrant population) while Baluchistan received 28,000 (0.4% of the migrant population).

The Government undertook a census of refugees in West Punjab in 1948, which displayed their place of origin in India.

Data on the Number of Muslim refugees in West Punjab from the Districts of East Punjab and Neighbouring Regions[133]

Places / Number
Amritsar (East Punjab) / 741,444
Jalandhar (East Punjab) / 520,189
Gurdaspur (East Punjab) / 499,793
Hoshiarpur (East Punjab) / 384,448
Karnal (East Punjab) / 306,509
Hissar (East Punjab) / 287,479
Ludhiana (East Punjab) / 255,864
Ambala (East Punjab) / 222,939
Gurgaon (East Punjab) / 80,537
Rohtak (East Punjab) / 172,640
Delhi / 91,185
Kangra (East Punjab) / 33,826
United Provinces / 28,363
Shimla (East Punjab) / 11,300

Data on the Number of Muslim refugees in West Punjab from the Princely states in East Punjab and Rajputana[133]

Name / Number

Patiala (East Punjab) / 308,948
Alwar (Rajputana) / 191,567
Kapurthala (East Punjab) / 172,079
Faridkot (East Punjab) / 66,596
Bharatpur (Rajputana) / 43,614
Nabha (East Punjab) / 43,538
Jind (East Punjab) / 41,696
Together other small states / 39,322

Missing People

A study of the total population inflows and outflows in the districts of Punjab, using the data provided by the 1931 and 1951 Census has led to an estimate of 1.3 million missing Muslims who left western India but did not reach Pakistan.[101] The corresponding number of missing Hindus/Sikhs along the western border is estimated to be approximately 0.8 million.[134] This puts the total of missing people, due to Partition-related migration along the Punjab border, to around 2.2 million.[134] Another study of the demographic consequences of partition in the Punjab region using the 1931, 1941 and 1951 censuses concluded that between 2.3 and 3.2 million people went missing in the Punjab.[135]

Rehabilitation of women

See also: Violence against women during the partition of India

Both sides promised each other that they would try to restore women abducted and raped during the riots. The Indian government claimed that 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women were abducted, and the Pakistani government claimed that 50,000 Muslim women were abducted during riots. By 1949, there were legal claims that 12,000 women had been recovered in India and 6,000 in Pakistan.[136] By 1954, there were 20,728 Muslim women recovered from India, and 9,032 Hindu and Sikh women recovered from Pakistan.[137] Most of the Hindu and Sikh women refused to go back to India, fearing that their family would never accept them, a fear mirrored by Muslim women.[138]

Post-Partition migration

Pakistan

Even after the 1951 Census, many Muslim families from India continued migrating to Pakistan throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s. According to historian Omar Khalidi, the Indian Muslim migration to West Pakistan between December 1947 and December 1971 was from U.P., Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. The next stage of migration was between 1973 and the 1990s, and the primary destination for these migrants was Karachi and other urban centres in Sindh.[139]

In 1959, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) published a report stating that from 1951 to 1956, a total of 650,000 Muslims from India relocated to West Pakistan.[139] However, Visaria (1969) raised doubts about the authenticity of the claims about Indian Muslim migration to Pakistan, since the 1961 Census of Pakistan did not corroborate these figures. However, the 1961 Census of Pakistan did incorporate a statement suggesting that there had been a migration of 800,000 people from India to Pakistan throughout the previous decade.[140] Of those who left for Pakistan, most never came back.

Indian Muslim migration to Pakistan declined drastically in the 1970s, a trend noticed by the Pakistani authorities. In June 1995, Pakistan's interior minister, Naseerullah Babar, informed the National Assembly that between the period of 1973–1994, as many as 800,000 visitors came from India on valid travel documents. Of these only 3,393 stayed.[139] In a related trend, intermarriages between Indian and Pakistani Muslims have declined sharply. According to a November 1995 statement of Riaz Khokhar, the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi, the number of cross-border marriages has dropped from 40,000 a year in the 1950s and 1960s to barely 300 annually.[139]

In the aftermath of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, 3,500 Muslim families migrated from the Indian part of the Thar Desert to the Pakistani section of the Thar Desert.[141] 400 families were settled in Nagar after the 1965 war and an additional 3000 settled in the Chachro taluka in Sind province of West Pakistan.[142] The government of Pakistan provided each family with 12 acres of land. According to government records, this land totalled 42,000 acres.[142]

The 1951 census in Pakistan recorded 671,000 refugees in East Pakistan, the majority of which came from West Bengal. The rest were from Bihar.[143] According to the ILO in the period 1951–1956, half a million Indian Muslims migrated to East Pakistan.[139] By 1961 the numbers reached 850,000. In the aftermath of the riots in Ranchi and Jamshedpur, Biharis continued to migrate to East Pakistan well into the late sixties and added up to around a million.[144] Crude estimates suggest that about 1.5 million Muslims migrated from West Bengal and Bihar to East Bengal in the two decades after partition.[145]

India

Due to religious persecution in Pakistan, Hindus continue to flee to India. Most of them tend to settle in the state of Rajasthan in India.[146] According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan data, just around 1,000 Hindu families fled to India in 2013.[146] In May 2014, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, revealed in the National Assembly of Pakistan that around 5,000 Hindus are migrating from Pakistan to India every year.[147] Since India is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention it refuses to recognise Pakistani Hindu migrants as refugees.[146]

The population in the Tharparkar district in the Sind province of West Pakistan was 80% Hindu and 20% Muslim at the time of independence in 1947. During the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1965 and 1971, the Hindu upper castes and their retainers fled to India, this led to a massive demographic shift in the district.[141] In 1978 India gave citizenship to 55,000 Pakistanis.[146] By the time of the 1998 census of Pakistan, Muslims made up 64.4% of the population and Hindus 35.6% of the population in Tharparkar.

The migration of Hindus from East Pakistan to India continued unabated after partition. The 1951 census in India recorded that 2.5 million refugees arrived from East Pakistan, of which 2.1 million migrated to West Bengal while the rest migrated to Assam, Tripura and other states.[143] These refugees arrived in waves and did not come solely at partition. By 1973 their number reached over 6 million. The following data displays the major waves of refugees from East Pakistan and the incidents which precipitated the migrations:[148][149]

Year / Reason / Number

1965 / Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 / 107,000
1956 / Pakistan becomes Islamic Republic / 320,000
1947 / Partition / 344,000
1964 / Riots over Hazratbal incident / 693,000
1948/ Fear due to the annexation of Hyderabad / 786,000
1971 / Bangladesh liberation war / 1,500,000
1950 1950 / Barisal Riots / 1,575,000
1947–1973 / Total / 6,000,000[150]

Perspectives

The Partition was a highly controversial arrangement, and remains a cause of much tension on the Indian subcontinent today. According to American scholar[151] Allen McGrath, many British leaders including the British Viceroy, Mountbatten, were unhappy over the partition of India.[152] Lord Mountbatten of Burma had not only been accused of rushing the process through but also is alleged to have influenced the Radcliffe Line in India's favor.[153][154][155] The commission took longer to decide on a final boundary than on the partition itself. Thus the two nations were granted their independence even before there was a defined boundary between them.

Some critics allege that British haste led to increased cruelties during the Partition.[156] Because independence was declared prior to the actual Partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to keep public order. No large population movements were contemplated; the plan called for safeguards for minorities on both sides of the new border. It was a task at which both states failed. There was a complete breakdown of law and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. What ensued was one of the largest population movements in recorded history. According to Richard Symonds, at the lowest estimate, half a million people perished and twelve million became homeless.[157]

However, many argue that the British were forced to expedite the Partition by events on the ground.[158] Once in office, Mountbatten quickly became aware that if Britain were to avoid involvement in a civil war, which seemed increasingly likely, there was no alternative to partition and a hasty exit from India.[158] Law and order had broken down many times before Partition, with much bloodshed on both sides. A massive civil war was looming by the time Mountbatten became Viceroy. After the Second World War, Britain had limited resources,[159] perhaps insufficient to the task of keeping order. Another viewpoint is that while Mountbatten may have been too hasty, he had no real options left and achieved the best he could under difficult circumstances.[160] The historian Lawrence James concurs that in 1947 Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run. The alternative seemed to be involved in a potentially bloody civil war from which it would be difficult to get out.[161]

Conservative elements in England consider the partition of India to be the moment that the British Empire ceased to be a world power, following Curzon's dictum: "the loss of India would mean that Britain drop straight away to a third rate power."[162]


Four nations (India, Pakistan, Dominion of Ceylon, and Union of Burma) that gained independence in 1947 and 1948

Venkat Dhulipala rejects the idea that the British divide and rule policy was responsible for partition and elaborates on the perspective that Pakistan was popularly imagined as a sovereign Islamic state or a 'New Medina', as a potential successor to the defunct Turkish caliphate[163][164] and as a leader and protector of the entire Islamic world. Islamic scholars debated over creating Pakistan and its potential to become a true Islamic state.[163][164] The majority of Barelvis supported the creation of Pakistan[165][166] and believed that any co-operation with Hindus would be counter productive.[167] Most Deobandis, who were led by Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, were opposed to the creation of Pakistan and the two-nation theory. According to them Muslims and Hindus could be a part of a single nation.[168][169][170]

In their authoritative study of the partition, Ian Talbot and Gurharpal Singh have shown that the partition was not the inevitable end of the so-called British 'divide and rule policy' nor was it the inevitable end of Hindu-Muslim differences.[171]

A cross-border student initiative, The History Project, was launched in 2014 to explore the differences in perception of the events during the British era, which led to the partition. The project resulted in a book that explains both interpretations of the shared a history in Pakistan and India.[172][173]

A Berkeley California-based non-profit organization, The 1947 Partition Archive, collects oral histories from people who lived through the Partition and consolidated the interviews into an archive.[174] A 2019 book by Kavita Puri, Partition Voices: Untold British Stories, based on the BBC Radio 4 documentary series of the same name, includes interviews with about two dozen people who witnessed partition and subsequently migrated to Britain.[175][176]

In October 2016, The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust (TAACHT) of India set up what they describe as "the world’s first Partition Museum" at Town Hall in Amritsar (in Punjab state). The Museum, which is open from Tuesday to Sunday, offers multi-media exhibits and documents that describe both the political process that led to partition and carried it forward, and video and written narratives offered by survivors of the events.[177]