Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Patel

Namaste, 

Too often, Westerners associate India’s independence movement with only Gandhi and Nehru. IMO Gandhi and Nehru emasculated India. In my article The Assertive Indian, I said that Westerners should know about the efforts of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel toward India’s independence.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

Now, after reading His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle against Empire by Sugata Bose, great-nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose (and grandson of Sarat Chandra Bose), I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that strong personalities such as Netaji and Sardar Patel were at odds with each other. For one thing, Sardar Patel, as part of Gandhi’s wing, undermined Netaji’s becoming Congress President.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

More personally, and this was new to me, Sardar Patel’s family fought the terms of his older brother Vithalbhai’s will, which allocated a portion of his fortune to Netaji “for the political uplift of India and preferably for publicity work on behalf of India’s cause in other countries.” Vithalbahai Patel and Netaji met as they were convalescing in a sanatorium in Europe.

This is not to disparage the efforts of both Netaji and Sardar Patel toward achieving India's independence.  Both men contributed strongly to India's independence in their own ways.

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My response to the teacher and students

Namaste, 

It took me a while to compose my thoughts and respond to the kind note about my Sanskrit page, but this is how I responded:

Dear A-,

I was surprised - and delighted to get your email.

My website was formerly hosted by Yahoo! GeoCities, but when Yahoo! GeoCities ceased operations, I got a dedicated web site name and migrated to another web site host. However, it has been a long time since I last updated the site. I had actually forgotten about it until I received your email. Kudos to your student who found my website. She must have done a lot of digging online to find it.

India comprises 1/6th of the world's population. Its diaspora (the people who migrated outside of India) has made its presence felt in many countries around the world. Recently, I was surprised to learn that the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean is a woman of Indian origin. As you probably know, your Attorney General Kamala Harris has an Indian mother.

More importantly, India has exported its culture and thought to points eastward in Asia. You will see adaptations of Indian thought and culture in countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia. That is the takeaway that I would like your students to have.

In closing, I would like to thank you for presenting this course module and your students (especially the girl) for finding online resources on India and its languages.

Kind regards,
जूली मैत्र (this is my name written in Devanagari, the script used to write Sanskrit).

A kind note about my Sanskrit page

Namaste, 

Before I started this blog and adopted the screen name of Bahu of Bengal, I maintained a web site on India and Hinduism on Yahoo! Geocities.  After Yahoo! Geocities closed, I got a dedicated web site http://merabharatmahanonline.com, but didn't update it.  I had practically forgotten about it.

Saraswati - in her lowered hand, she is holding the Vedas

Recently, I received this nice note from a teacher who did a unit on world cultures on my Sanskrit page:

Hello there, My name is A ___ and I'm a teacher for some lovely students out at a charter school out in Northern California. I hope I'm not a bother, but I just wanted take the time to send you a quick thank you note on behalf of my class and myself for providing the resources on your site (http://merabharatmahanonline.com/sanskrit.htm). They just completed a "Cultures around the World" project and your page was such a great reference for their assignment, so from all of us, thank you! 


As a small token of our appreciation, we thought we'd send along another helpful site that one of my students actually came across: http://languageshome.com/ It has a plethora of Indian language resources from Hindi to Awadhi, and was so great in teaching my students to basics of the different languages. Just thought it could be helpful to other students as well.


And if you wouldn't mind adding it to your other resources, I'd love to show my student who went above and beyond to find the site that her work was appreciated (maybe a little extra credit). Let me know what you think. Thanks again. And I hope you have a wonderful holiday! 


Sincerely, Mrs. H___' class

Cultural heritage or natural heritage first?

Protection of India's heritage, both cultural and natural, is one of the themes that the Bahu of Bengal covers on this blog.

Here is a story where development pits cultural heritage against natural heritage, titled Flamingos lost forever:

Flamingos at the Sewri mudflats near Mumbai

Source: lh5.ggpht.com via Bahu of Bengal on Pinterest

Construction work on the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link will damage the habitat for flamingos and migratory birds at Sewri, near Mumbai.  An alternative route would be near Elephanta Caves, a heritage site where construction is limited.