A thread on Indian Knowledge Systems - Past, Present & Future

Credits: IIT Kharagpur

#NationWithArnab

Republic Day: The Lawyers who helped draft the Constitution of India


Our Constitution was handwritten by Shri. Prem Behari Raizada who took 6 months and used 254 various nibs to write the Constitution. (Image Source - Prem Foundation)

Our original constitution copy was then sent to Survey of India office where these handwritten copies were copied and distributed to its members. Even now, very few copies are freely available in the market.

Constitution of India is not only a beautiful document but a beautifully presented document too. Illustrations include Mohenjodaro period to Vedic and Epic periods to that of Maurya and Gupta Empire.

A short story:

In Nov 2018, a man from UP’s Shamli named Saleem gave an affidavit in local court that he and his family were changing religion. News leaked in local media and became national news. I also visited him and wrote a report +

Saleem was born in Hindu Jat family and named Susheel. He was left orphaned at 8. One Mohd Sabdar picked him from streets and took him in as assistant in his transport business. Sabdar changed his name to Saleem and even got him circumcised as Islamic ritual +

When he turned 15, Sabdar got him married to Wajida. As Saleem grew independent, he left Sabdar & began to work for another transporter, a Punjabi Hindu. Susheel told me Sabdar never paid him a salary

In 2018 when he was 31, he decided to revert to his original name and faith +

Wajida supported him. Things were fine till her father Israel arrived from Jharkhand. He tried to change Saleem’s mind. When he remained adamant, Israel brainwashed Wajida into leaving him. When Saleem went for a tour, Israel quietly took Wajida and their 5 kids to Jharkhand +

Saleem immediately went to Jharkhand on his return. Israel asked him to read kalma again and serve Tablighi Jamaat for 40 days as penance. Saleem refused. He did not have Wajida’s support anymore.

On 16 Jan, he sent me a Whatsapp video saying he was ready to commit suicide +

We were all revering Cows and other animals much before all these 'Activists' cropped up. Respecting the environment, the trees and animals are a way of life for Hindus

On the eve of Maattu Pongal, here are a few personal Cow Remembrances 1/n

I was all of 4 when we moved to Vadakara. School was still a year away. We lived in a House named 'Kottaram' (Palace), which had a long backyard. Beyond that was a small house where a Brahmin Family Resided. Mami had a cow. 2/n

Around 2.30 pm, she will call "Konthe" (Colloquial for Kuzhanthai or Child), and that was the sign for me to run across pulling up my half trouser.

A Half Wall separated the houses and I would climb up to watch the guy who milched their cow. 3/n

Once he milched, I will get my quota of a very small glass of raw milk. She never ever took the milk inside without giving me my share fondly. Once I drink it, I played with the calf and then ran back home 4/n

We moved back to Palakkad when I was 9. Grandfathers Agraharam house was 20 kms away and I was a frequent visitor

Thatha and Paatti maintained 3 Cows

The Big Red, Elder Karumi (Blacky) and the Younger Karumi 5/n

The insidious thing about how people gaslight Hindus about the erasure of our ancestors' oppression is that they often do it in soft and civil(izing) tones. And it always comes from people who seem to otherwise care about oppression, people who are "well read" and "progressive".

Theirs is a quiet violence, clear and flowing as if it were beautiful and natural and peaceful, even as it corrodes and expands the edges of the hollowness created by lies. Silencing is a kind of acid.

Move on, I had been told for years. The past is in the past.

Except how do people move on from something they are either never told to study or told to never study? How do they move on from a past that is far worse than what they’ve been told (or not told)? How do they move on from a past that keeps reinventing itself today?

Sometimes when I speak of the erasure of Hindu persecution, I am gently, smugly corrected (it is always done civilly), "Indu, the information is there. No one is trying to hide it."

(That's how gaslighting works, right? It is arrogant and maddening and untethered to reality.)

Because the FACT is that’s not true at all. There are innumerable, insidious, systemic ways that people are hiding the truth. Ways that are supported and sustained by institutions, by scholars, by media conglomerates, by Hindu (American) politicians, proud internet trolls...