A rare correspondence between Marx and Ghalib

Today when i met my friend Shamil he told me about rare correspndence between Marx and Ghalib.I found the letter on net.Although authanticity of the letter is disputed the letter really enlightened me.here is the passionate encounter.

"Sunday, April 21, 1867

London, England

Dear Ghalib,

Day before yesterday I received a letter from my friend, Angels. It ended with a couplet that impressed me very much. After much effort, I learnt that it was written by some Indian poet named Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib. Brother, it’s wonderful! I had never envisaged that revolutionary feelings for independence from slavery would ripen so early in a country like India! Yesterday, I got some more poetic works of yours from a Lord’s personal library. The couplet is highly appreciable!:

Hum ko maloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin,

Dil ko behlane ko Ghalib ye khayal achha hai. (I know paradise does exist, But, Ghalib! It’s good to console your heart.)

In your next edition of poetry do write in detail addressing workers: "Landlords, administrators, and religious leaders sap your toil’s rewards by taking you to the fanciful world of paradise. Rather, it would be nicer if you write some lines on:

"Duniya bhar ke mazdooron, muttahid ho jao (World labourers, get united.)"

I am not well aware of the Indian style and poetic treatment. You are a poet, you write something substantive being under poetic restrictions. Whatever, the sole purpose is to invigorate the masses with its message. Moreover, I would advise you to quit composing leisure writings like ghazal or quatrain and move over to free verses so that in least time you can write more and the more you write the more the wretched people would have to read and mull over.

I am dispatching the Indian version of the Communist Manifesto along with the first volume whose translation is unfortunately not available. If you like it, next time I will send you some more literature. At present, India has been converted into a den of the English imperialists. And only the collective effort of the exploited and downtrodden masses or workers can liberate them from the clutches of the perpetrators.

You should study the modern philosophies of the West than the outmoded and unworkable thoughts of Asian scholars; and do not write the fables and praises of the Mughal kings and nawabs and create the literature that takes up the revolutionary cause of the masses. Revolution is imminent. No force in this world can restrain it. That time is coming soon when the tradition of guru and disciple will fade away.

I wish India a steady path toward revolution,

Yours,

Karl Marx

From Ghalib to Karl Marx

September 9, 1867

I received your letter along with the Communist Manifesto. How would I reply? First, it’s too difficult to understand what you talk. Second, I have grown too weak to write as well as speak. Today, I wrote a letter to a friend, so, I thought of writing to you too.

Your view about Farhaad (reference in Ghalib’s one poem) is mistaken. He is not any worker as you perceived him. Rather, he was a lover but his perception toward love did not impress me. He was lunatic in love and would think of committing suicide all the time for his beloved’s sake. And you talk of which inquilab (revolution)? That is a past, ended ten years ago! Now the Britishers roam broad-chested and everyone eulogises them here. The discipline of royalty and lavishness has become a thing of the past; and the tradition of guru and disciple is losing its charm.

If you don’t believe, pay a visit to Delhi and see all in flesh and blood..... And that’s not confined to Delhi only, Lucknow’s essence too is disappearing...where have those mannerisms gone...where are those gentlemen! Now, you predict of which revolution?

And in the middle of your letter I also learnt you talk of changing the mode of poetry writing. Mind you, poetry cannot be created but it comes to you naturally. And my case is distinct. When ideas flow in, they just merge into any forms, ghazal or quatrains.

I believe, Ghalib’s style is unmatched in the world of poetry, and because of that, the kings have already gone and you want me to be deprived of the nawabs and patrons who take care of me... !? What goes wrong if I say a few lines in their praise!

What is philosophy and what it has to do with life, who knows better than me? My dear, which modern thinking you talk about? If you are interested in it, you better read Vedanta and Wahdat-ul-Wajood. And stop just harping on thought after thought, if you can, do some work in this direction...you are an Englishman, do me a favour. Please convey a recommendation letter to the viceroy, requesting for reissue of my pension....

Now I am feeling very tired. So, I am putting an end to it,

Humbly yours,

Ghalib

Country of contrasts Che Guevara’s impressions of India, recorded after a visit in 1959.

From Cairo we flew directly into India, a country of 390 million inhabitants, with an area of more than three million square kilometres.
The drama of the land is not felt here as much as in Egypt, given that the conditions of the soil are far more superior than those that obtain in that desert country, but social injustice has resulted in an arbitrary distribution of land where a few have a lot and many have nothing.
India was “colonised” by England between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This did not, of course, happen without great struggles for independence, but the military effectiveness of the English proved decisive. The flourishing handicrafts industry suffered from the impact of a colonial structure that was interested in destroying the economic independence of the Indians and making them eternally indebted to the Empire. These conditions prevailed throughout the 19th century and during part of the present one [the 20th century, with] the country sporadically convulsed by rebellions that drowned in the innocent blood of the people.
English colonial power came out of the last Great War with clear indications of disintegration, and India, its passive resistance led by the mystic figure of Mahatma Gandhi, at last achieved the long-desired independence. After Gandhi’s death, [Jawaharlal] Nehru had to carry the responsibility of public office on his shoulders. He took over a country whose spirit was ill from infinite years of domination and whose economy had been directed to supply at low cost to London metropolitan markets. Land had to be distributed and the country had to be industrialised as a base for future economic development. The leaders of the Congress party dedicated themselves to this task with enthusiasm.
This enormous and extraordinary country has a series of institutions and customs that do not respond to any concept that we may form about the social problems of the times we live in.
We have the same political and economic system, a similar past of opprobrium and colonisation, the same direction in our line of progress; yet, the solutions – very similar and geared towards the same objective – differ like day from night; while the hurricane of agrarian reform sweeps away the big land holdings of Camaguey in one grand wave and advances unstoppable through the entire country giving free land to the farmers, the great Indian nation treads cautiously with oriental parsimony, convincing the big landlords of the justice of giving the land to the tiller and the farmers of paying a price for this land, thus making almost imperceptible the transition of one of the most noble, sensible and pauperised masses of entire humanity from misery to poverty.
We visited an agricultural cooperative in a place close to the capital, New Delhi. After about 40 km of passage through arid landscapes, in which greenery and trees stood out through their absence, while cows and buffaloes demonstrated their almost singular presence in the plains, we reached a small hutment with mud walls and desperate poverty. The school, a pride for the cooperative, was being run on the extraordinary effort of two teachers who looked after the five classes which it consisted of. Emaciated children with frequent signs of illnesses, sitting on the floor on their haunches, heard the explanations of the teacher.
The great advance had been the inauguration of two wells with a cement parapet for community use, but there were other innovations of extraordinary social importance which give one an idea of the poverty that reigns: the technicians of the agrarian reform are teaching the Indian farmer to change their fuel from cow dung to kerosene. Sacred animal
This small, almost funny change, however allows the freeing of enormous quantities of dried cow excrement, ill-used as fuel, to be used instead as fertilizer. With a loving effort, children and women knead the bovine excreta, putting it to dry under the sun and later forming enormous pyramids of several metres high, quite like huge anthills. Thanks to the efforts of the Indian government, they shall now have their own little kerosene stoves and will fertilize their soil with that important product. One can quite understand that the cow was a sacred animal for the ancient ones: it worked in the fields, gave milk, and even its excreta had the enormous importance of replacing natural fuel, which does not exist here; this explains why their religious precepts prohibited the farmer from killing this precious animal and, for that, the only way out was to consider it sacred; to have such a determining force as religion impose respect for the most efficient element of production which the community counted on.
Years, however, went passing by and turned into centuries, and now, in the age of mechanical plough and liquid fuels, the sacred animal continues to be venerated with the same fervour, and it multiplies freely with hardly anyone committing the sacrilege of eating its meat. One hundred and eighty million cows is what India has, almost 100 million more than the United States, which is the second producer in the world, and Indian leaders apply themselves to the terrible problem of making a people, religious and obedient to cultural commandments, cease their veneration of the sacred animal. In Calcutta [now Kolkata], a premier city of India, six million human beings live crammed with an incredible number of cows that pullulate the streets, interrupting the traffic each time they feel like reclining right in the middle of the street.
In this city we saw a strange example of the complexity of the Indian panorama: alongside the most abject misery, the signs of an industrial development which is capable of creating products of heavy industry that we will take a long time in producing, such as locomotives; and the signs of a technical development in all the fields of research for which Indian scientists are regarded highly all over the world.
We had the opportunity to meet the wise Krishna, one of the most distinguished physicists of contemporary world, who with the simplicity and humility characteristic of his people conversed with us for a long time, emphasising the need to employ all the technical force and capacity of the world to ensure the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and condemning the absurd policy of those who dedicate themselves to amassing hydrogen weapons as an argument of international discussion

In India, the word War is so distant from the spirit of people that they did not use it even in the tensest moments of their struggle for independence. The huge concentrations of peaceful discontent forced English colonialism to leave forever the land that they had ruled for 150 years.
It is interesting to note that in this country of contrasts, where misery coexists with the highest refinements of civilised life and state-of-the-art technical know-how, women occupy a preponderant role in social relations and even in politics. The graceful and sweet Indian woman occupies positions such as those of the Congress president and the Vice-Minister of External Affairs, to cite just a few examples.
During the course of our visit, we had interviews with all the important personalities of Indian political life. Nehru received us with the amiable familiarity of a grandfather but with a noble interest in the pains and struggles of the Cuban people, giving us extraordinarily valuable suggestions and assurances of unconditional sympathy towards our cause. I can say the same of [V.K.] Krishna Menon, the Defence Minister and Chief of Delegation to the United Nations, who arranged for us to meet all the military chiefs for an interchange of impressions on the problems of our respective countries.
We had a cordial interview with the Commerce Minister, preparing the ground for future commercial negotiations, which can be of great importance. Among the products that we can supply could be copper, cocoa, rayon fibres for tyres and, perhaps in the near future, our sugar; India can sell us coal, cotton, textiles, jute articles, edible oils, nuts, films, rail material and training aircraft. But the list does not stop here; experience shows us that two countries in the process of industrialisation can go on increasing, in the measure they industrialise, exchange of their manufactured goods. As the level of the 390 millions of Indians advances, their need for our sugar will increase and we can acquire a new and valuable market.
We learnt valuable lessons from our visit, but the most important was the demonstration that the basis of economic development of a country is conditioned by the technological advance it has made, and institutions of scientific research have to be created primarily in the areas of medicine, chemistry, physics and agriculture. All these technical bodies and the general state of these disciplines should be coordinated and directed by a national statistical centre, in which the Indians are masters. When we were leaving the cooperative that I described above, the children bade us goodbye with a litany whose translation was: “Cuba and India are brothers.” Undoubtedly, Cuba and India are brothers, as all people of the world should be in these times of nuclear disintegration and interplanetary missiles.

COURTESY-FRONTLINE

why we shout long live revolution.letter of Bhagat Singh to the editor Modern Review

The editor of Modern Review, ridiculed the slogan of ‘Long Live Revolution’ through an editorial note and gave an entirely wrong interpretation. Bhagat Singh wrote a reply and handed it over to the trying magistrate to be sent to Modern Review. This was published in The Tribune of December 24, 1929.
To
THE EDITOR MODERN REVIEW
You have in the December (1929) issue of your esteemed magazine, written a note under the caption “Long Live Revolution” and have pointed out the meaninglessness of this phrase. It would be impertinent on our part to try to refute or contradict the statement of such an old, experienced and renowned journalist as your noble self, for whom every enlightened Indian has profound admiration. Still we feel it our duty to explain what we desire to convey by the said phrase, as in a way it fell to our lot to give these “cries” a publicity in this country at this stage.
We are not the originators of this cry. The same cry had been used in Russain revolutionary movement. Upton Sinclair, the well-known socialist writer, has, in his recent novels Boston and Oil, used this cry through some of the anarchist revolutionary characters. The phrase never means that the sanguinary strife should ever continue, or that nothing should ever be stationary even for a short while. By long usage this cry achieves a significance which may not be quite justifiable from the grammatical or the etymological point of view, but nevertheless we cannot abstract from that the association of ideas connected with that. All such shouts denote a general sense which is partly acquired and partly inherent in them. For instance, when we shout “Long Live Jatin Das”, we cannot and do not mean thereby that Das should Physically be alive. What we mean by that shout is that the noble ideal of his life, the indomitable spirit which enabled that great martyr to bear such untold suffering and to make the extreme sacrifice for that we may show the same unfailing courage in pursuance of our ideal. It is that spirit that we allude to.
Simiarly, one should not interpret the word “Revolution” in its literal sense. Various meanings and significance are attributed to this word, according to the interests of those who use or misuse it. For the established agencies of exploitation it conjures up a feeling of blood stained horror. To the revolutionaries it is a sacred phrase. We tried to clear in our statement before the Session Judge, Delhi, in our trial in the Assembly Bomb Case, what we mean by the word “Revolution”
We stated therein that Revolution did not necessarily involve sanguinary strife. It was not a cult of bomb and pistol. They may sometimes be mere means for its achievement. No doubt they play a prominent part in some movements, but they do not – for that very reason -become one and the same thing. A rebellion is not a revolution. It may ultimately lead to that end.
The sense in which the word Revolution is used in that phrase, is the spirit, the longing for a change for the better. The people generally get accustomed to the established order of things and begin to tremble at the very idea of a change. It is this lethargic spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit. Otherwise degeneration gains the upper hand and the whole humanity is led stray by the reactionary forces. Such a state of affairs leads to stagnation and paralysis in human progress. The spirit of Revolution should always permeate the soul of humanity, so that the reactionary forces may not accumulate (strength) to check its eternal onward march. Old order should change, always and ever, yielding place to new, so that one “good” order may not corrupt the world. It is in this sense that we raise the shout “Long Live Revolution”
Yours sincerely
(Sd/-.)
Bhagat Singh
B. K. Dutt

Bravo!

As the Women's Reservation Bill rings in the centennial year of Women's Day on a celebratory note, 25-year-old Sushma Tiwari's story tells of an inspirational fight-back against a brutal form of patriarchy and caste oppression.
It has been a six-year legal battle for Sushma against the horrific ‘honour killing' by her brother of almost her entire marital family: husband Prabhu Nochil, her father-in-law and two minors in their home near Mumbai, all to avenge her marriage into a family of a ‘lower' caste. Sushma is from a Brahmin family of UP, and Prabhu, an Ezhava from Kerala.
Although the fast track sessions court in Maharashtra, and later the Bombay High Court, awarded the death penalty to Sushma's brother Dilip Tiwari and his accomplices, the Supreme Court in December 2009 reduced the sentence to 25-year imprisonment.
This February, Sushma filed a review petition questioning the decision to let off the perpetrators of this heinous crime.
In 2004, seven months after the couple got married, Shushma's brother and his associates massacred four members of her marital family, and grievously injured two others. A pregnant Sushma luckily escaped.
The Supreme Court, explaining its decision to revoke the death sentence, said: “It is a common experience that when the younger sister commits something unusual and in this case it was an inter-caste, intercommunity marriage out of [a] secret love affair, then in society it is the elder brother who justifiably or otherwise is held responsible for not stopping such [an] affair.”
It added: “If he became the victim of his wrong but genuine caste considerations, it would not justify the death sentence... The vicious grip of the caste, community, religion, though totally unjustified, is a stark reality.”

Sushma has challenged this reasoning, stating this perception “is wrong and totally illegal under our Constitution and various laws of the land like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989” and “can never be made a ground for lessening a sentence. In fact, these feelings of caste hatred are themselves criminal…”
Her petition states: “In fact, mass killings based on the concept of ‘honour' must be viewed by this Hon'ble Court as murders which must be given the highest deterrent sentence.”
In Bangalore recently to attend the National Young Women's convention organised by the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), this resolute young woman told The Hindu that by reducing the sentence, the highest court of the land has sent out a wrong message to all those who wished to marry out of caste. “Even if not for my own safety or that of my five-year-old daughter Trishna, the death sentence must be upheld for the sake of humanity.”

courtesy-The Hindu

The real Avatar: Story of a Sacred Mountain

They are an indigenous people struggling to defend their land against mining interests who threaten their homes, culture and sacred deity.
Sounds familiar? No, they are not blue-skinned aliens and this is not the plot for the blockbuster film Avatar. Instead, it is the real life story of the Dongria Kondhs, a tribe of about 8,000 people in Orissa. Many of them are protesting the plans of mining giant Vedanta Resources and its subsidiary Sterlite Industries to mine bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills, which they worship as their deity.
In an advertisement tribal rights organisation Survival International appealed to Avatar director James Cameron on behalf of the Dongria Kondhs. “ Avatar is fantasy…and real,” reads the advertisement. “We’ve watched your film — now watch ours,” it says, with a link to Survival’s 10-minute film ‘Mine: story of a sacred mountain,’
“Just as the Na’vi [of Avatar] describe the forest of Pandora as ‘their everything,’ for the Dongria Kondh, life and land have always been deeply connected. The fundamental story of Avatar — if you take away the multi-coloured lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids — is being played out today in the hills of Niyamgiri.”

Foot notes-
Last Friday, the Church of England sold its £3.8 million stake in Vedanta, saying it was unsatisfied with “the level of respect for human rights and local communities” shown by the mining company.

Thanka Maa-A Must Watch Movie

'Thanks Maa' is a story about a 12 year old boy named 'Municipality' finds and saves a two day old abandoned baby from becoming the prey to a ferocious street dog. Failing to find any takers among the people whom he deemed responsible and respectable, Municipality takes up the onus of finding the mother of that abandoned baby himself. Municipality's rock steady determination ultimately helps him emerge a winner against all odds as he reaches that baby's mother but in bargain he loses his most precious possession, the flawless and god-like image of a mother he used to see in his dreams and probably the hope that he'll ever find his own mother again.

official website of the movie
http://www.thanksmaa.com

Decline In Gender Based Discrimination

Gender-based disparities have shown a decline in the country in the last decade with the national capital scoring the highest, according to a report by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

There is an overall improvement in the performance on the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) over the decade, both in the all-India score and in the scores achieved by the States and Union Territories, the report titled “Gendering Human Development Indices: Recasting the Gender Development Index and Gender Empowerment Measure for Index” says.

The GEM is calculated on political participation and decision-making power, economic participation and decision-making power and power over economic resources of women.

The GEM score for India, which was 0.416 in 1996, increased to 0.497 in 2006.



The National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi had the highest score of 0.564 in 2006, jumping from rank three to occupy the top slot. Nagaland, on the other hand, got the lowest rank, both in 2006 and 1996 with GEM scores of 0.289 and 0.165 respectively.

While 13 States improved their ranks over the decade, 19 lost their respective position during the same period.

The newly formed Jharkhand and Uttarakhand achieved large gains of 0.157 and 0.132 respectively and improved their ranks by six positions each. While Uttar Pradesh and Bihar performed slightly better, the improvement in their GEM was lower in comparison (0.118 and 0.101 respectively). Chhattisgarh improved its score by only 0.058, compared with an improvement of 0.056 by Madhya Pradesh. These States lost four and five ranks respectively.

However, the biggest GEM rank losers are Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Chandigarh and Lakshadweep.

Courtesy-The Hindu

My Favourite Hindi Movies Posters

Netaji currency

A currency issued by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s Bank of Independence has been made public in Bhopal on the eve of his 113th birth anniversary.

In the 1980s, Ram Kishore Dubey, a retired contractor with the State Irrigation Department, discovered the note in his grandfather’s Ramayana book.His grandfather used to stay away from the family for months on end working covertly for the INA [Indian National Army] in the Bundelkhand region on a recruitment drive for its Jhansi ki Rani Regiment, led by Lakshmi Swaminathan. He gave up his land for the cause of the army and so Netaji rewarded him with this note promising him the amount in independent India.
The currency, of denomination one lakh, has a photograph of Bose on the left side and a pre-independence map of the Indian territory with the inscription “ swatantra bharat” in Hindi on the other. In the middle are inscribed the words “ Jai Hind” in English, with the words “I promise to pay the bearer the sum of one Lac” below it.
On the top of the note is a series of flags of the Azaad Hind Fauj over a bold inscription saying “Bank of Independence” with “good wishes” inscribed at the bottom.
Several historians contend that in April 1944, Netaji established the Azad Hind Bank or the Bank of Independence in Rangoon (now Yangon) to manage funds donated by the Indian community from across the world.

courtesy-The Hindu





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Three Passions

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.


With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.
Bertrand Russel