Comments on New York Times article Gandhi’s Killer Evokes Admiration as Never Before

And here is yet another letter of complaint that I wrote concerning an article in the New York Times, as written by Sameer Yasir:

from: thebahuofbengal@gmail.com  
to: yasirshi@gmail.com 
date: Feb 5, 2020, 5:21 PM 
subject: Comments on Gandhi’s Killer Evokes Admiration as Never Before

Dear Mr. Yasir,

This message concerns your article Gandhi’s Killer Evokes Admiration as Never Before, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/world/asia/india-gandhi-nathuram-godse.html.  I have also posted my comments on Twitter and Facebook.

A statue for Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who assassinated Mohandas K. Gandhi death.Credit: Smita Sharma for The New York Times

Comments:

• I don't condone Godse's action, but Gandhi was a disaster for India
• Thanks to Gandhi, people think that India should be passive and not fight back.
• Sometimes it's necessary to take up arms against the forces of adharma: that's what the Mahabharata taught us.
• Gandhi recommended collective suicide to Jews, Brits, and Hindus in the face of evil.  Read Repudiating Gandhian pacifism in the face of mass murder, https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Repudiating-Gandhian-pacifism-in-the-face-of-mass-murder-449885.
• You missed that Gandhi was on a fast to the death concerning giving Pakistan 55 crores. He was working on the behalf on the British
• You wrote "Gandhi walked slowly across a stately lawn in New Delhi, India’s capital, leaning on the shoulders of two young women." Those young women were his grandnieces.
• Gandhi slept naked with these grandnieces to test his sexual abstinence.

Your sincerely,
[The Bahu of Bengal]
xxx-xxx-xxxx

HT Anantanand Rambachan

Comments on Anubhav Gupta’s article Will the World Accept India’s Hindu Nationalist Turn Under Modi?

While going through my email, I found this:

from: thebahuofbengal@gmail.com

to: comments@worldpoliticsreview.com, PolicyInstitute@asiasociety.org

date: Sep 23, 2019, 12:50 AM

subject: Comments on Anubhav Gupta’s article Will the World Accept India’s Hindu Nationalist Turn Under Modi?

Anubhav Gupta

Hello, I would like to comment on Anubhav Gupta’s article Will the World Accept India’s Hindu Nationalist Turn Under Modi? An excerpt was published on the Asia Society website. 

Comments:

• Abrogation of Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu & Kashmir, is long overdue. Residents of Jammu and Kashmir were subject to separate laws that gave them fewer rights and protections than other Indian citizens, without the protection of the Indian Constitution. 

• Residents of Ladakh have wanted Ladakh to become a Union Territory for years. They have complained of being socially, economically, and politically marginalized by state policies that favored the Kashmir Valley. 

• Between 1989 and 1991, over 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits (more than 95% of the Valley’s indigenous Hindu population) were driven from the Valley due to a Pakistan-sponsored insurgency and campaign of targeted killings, rape, threats, and destruction of properties and religious sites. They are displaced persons, often living in squalid conditions in the rest of India. 

• As far as National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the state of Assam is concerned, PTI News reported that the final NRC list left out over 19.6 lakh people, of which around 12 lakh (over 60%) are Hindus and Bengali Hindus. 

• Religious minorities suffer discrimination and even persecution in the Muslim majority states of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. It is fitting that India would give religious minorities from these countries expedited rights to become naturalized citizens under the Citizenship Amendment Bill. 

Mr. Gupta’s article vilified Hindu nationalism, Narendra Modi and the BJP. Sadly, Asia Society, ASPI and media in the U.S. and India promulgate this view. It pains me that someone with a Hindu name like Anubhav Gupta doesn’t stand up for Hindus.

Yours sincerely,
xxxxxxxx
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx

Sources:

• Gupta, A. (2019, September 19). Will the World Accept India's Hindu Nationalist Turn Under Modi? Retrieved from https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/28202/will-the-world-accept-india-s-hindu-nationalist-turn-under-modi 

• Gupta, A. (2019, September 19). Will the World Accept India's Hindu Nationalist Turn Under Modi? Retrieved from https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/will-world-accept-indias-hindu-nationalist-turn-under-modi 

• Tapadar, P. (2019, September 22). Exclusion of Hindu Bengalis from Assam NRC changing political. Retrieved from http://ptinews.com/news/10867311_Exclusion-of-Hindu-Bengalis-from-Assam-NRC-changing-political.html 

• What You May Not Know About Kashmir and Articles 370/35A. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.hafsite.org/media/pr/what-you-may-not-know-about-kashmir-and-articles-37035a

Comments on Friday December 27, 2019 PBS NewsHour broadcast

To: viewermail@newshour.org
Cc: alyssa@alyssaayres.com
Bcc: thebahuofbengal@gmail.com, presswingeoi@gmail.com, info@hafsite.org

Dear PBS NewsHour, I am writing with respect to the segment on What ongoing Indian protests say about the country’s secular identity, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-ongoing-indian-protests-say-about-the-countrys-secular-identity, on your Friday, September 27, 2019 broadcast. I have copied Alyssa Ayres, whom Lisa Desjardins interviewed for this segment, on this email.

Alyssa Ayres

My comments:

• I'm embittered that the media pays so much attention to the status of Muslims in India but cares not one whit about the plight of religious minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Tell your listeners about discrimination and abuse that religious minorities face in the Islamic countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Religious minorities from Pakistan and Bangladesh are not migrants, but refugees. Tell your listeners about the precipitous drop in the number/percentage of non-Muslims in Pakistan and Bangladesh. These are the reasons that the Citizenship Amendment Act is needed. 

• While Ms. Ayres focused on anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protests, which she called “inspiring,” she said nothing about large PRO-Citizenship Amendment Act rallies in major cities of India. Nor did she say anything about wide support for the CAA among the Indian public. 

• Concerning the “secular identity” of India, please note that "secular" was not in the preamble of the original Constitution of India. According to Wikipedia, “secularity” is the state of being separate from religion, or of not being exclusively allied with or against any particular religion: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularity. Many Hindus chafe at the clauses in the Constitution of India that omit protection of Hindu institutions from state seizure. This is not secularism. 

• A video of two hijab-clad university students who were protecting a man from police went viral. Here's Ladeeda Sakhaloon, one of the two so-called "sheroes," said about secularism: 

Clearly, Ms. Sakhaloon is a protester who is not agitating for so-called secularism.

Do better. Report news that supports the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Yours sincerely, xxxx
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Bouma-of-Bengal-161615384026398/ 
Twitter: @TheBahuOfBengal

---

To learn more, consult:

Charter of Hindu Demands – Introduction, https://hinducharter.org/introduction/, which discusses inequities in the Constitution of India

Human Rights Report | Hindu American Foundation (HAF), https://www.hafsite.org/resources/human-rights-report, which covers human rights conditions for Hindus around the world, including Pakistan and Bangladesh. HAF has been publishing these reports since 2005.

Sanskrit declension table

नमस्ते I created some tools to help you learn Sanskrit declensions.

Below is a template that I uploaded to SlideShare:
 

Sanskrit declension table 

You may clip this slide from SlideShare and print so that you can practice declensions.

Alternatively, you may download a template in PDF from Google Sites.

I have also created a study set on Quizlet so that you can learn the Sanskrit declension cases.

Districts of India with Shakti Pithas

Here is a map that I created of districts of India that contain at least one shakti pitha.

Districts with Shakti Pithas

Here is the table I used to create the map:

Shakti Pithas in India

I will update blog content to tell the story behind the shakti pithas and explain how I created the map.