Don't expel US historian, govt told Hindustan Times Gautam
Chikermane, New Delhi, March 31, 2012
After spending 41 years in India
The ostensible reason for the non-extension of
Heehs's visa, according to sources, is his ninth book, 'The Lives of Sri
Aurobindo'. For years, a handful of religious fundamentalists have been
harassing Heehs over his treatment of Sri Aurobindo's relationship with his
spiritual collaborator, Mirra Richard, better known as The Mother. "Should
I have to leave India
Proponents of democratic values and free speech
raised their concerns over the issue. "Factional disagreements in Mr
Heehs' hometown should not receive the implicit support of the Indian
state," a March 30 letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home
minister P Chidambaram from prominent historians, including Romila Thapar and
Ramachandra Guha, said. "It would be greatly to the detriment of our
country to be seen as having driven out an internationally recognised
scholar..."
In their letter, the historians quoted a March 29
letter by minister of rural development Jairam Ramesh to Chidambaram. "I
am very well aware that his book has angered some people in Puducherry,"
Ramesh's letter states. "But are we not a democracy where different points
of view can be expressed?"
Based on select excerpts of the book presented by a
small group of religious fundamentalists - and without actually reading it - a
February 13, 2009 report of the Orissa government's IG Police Intelligence said
it "appears to be blasphemous". Two months later, Orissa banned the
book on that basis.
Sri Aurobindo was not a religious personality, and
his teachings did not amount to being a religion - this was a fact underlined
by the Supreme Court in its November 8, 1982 judgment. However, if Heehs's visa
is not extended, the book will have to fight for its life in the Orissa high
court - without its author.
The following anonymous letter is recently making
the rounds in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. It apparently arrived by post ...
The Lives of Sri Aurobindo Kheper.com
Not since Satprem published the Agenda has
the Integral Yoga community been wracked by such a schism. The Western
disciples and Westernised Indians praised the book, and no doubnt were inspired
by it for exactly the same reason I was (well, some of them anyway). But the
religious and devotional Indians hated it. I myself could find nothing at all
objectionable about his book, but the ashramites are up in arms; Heehs has been
driven out and there was even a court case brought against him…
I can appreciate and respect that Heeh's critics are devotees who
belong to the emotional religious polarity, and have a religious worship of Sri
Aurobindo, and would therefore be offended by a non-hagiographic biography,
especially by an ashramite who they had always considered one of their own. And
certainly there is great value in passion and of faith which is lost in
secularism. Also I can understand the ashramites (as Hindus) see it as another
attack by a Westerner on their culture and sacred traditions, a culture i
myself resonate very powerfully to (because of past life samskaras/vasanas no
doubt!). But that doesn't excuse the lies and hysteria that they have spread
about Heeh's book; I know their claims are lies because i read (most of) the
book, and apart from one or two correct things almost everything they claim is
in the book isn't.
The only thing I myself would say that is really
critical of the book is that Heehs does not clearly specify that Sri Aurobindo
attained the Supramental state early on; just the opposite, he seems to imply
that Sri Aurobindo never really attained it, even after thirty years. The
reason for this error is easy to see. Heehs is an academic, not a gnostic, and
therefore he is not in a position to understand the higher aspects of Sri
Aurobindo's life and teachings. In this respect at least his critics are right. by M. Alan Kazlev page uploaded 11 August 2009, last modified 11 January 2011 IY Fundamentalism - Religious Fundamentalism
and Integral Yoga - keep up to date with the controversy.
Unknown
among the Known Mar 1 2011 autobiographical
- Aju-Mukhopadhyay
I am surely in my country, India
A writer of an alien language is rarely known to the
common people. This way, though I know the people around me, daily see each
other’s faces, do marketing together and try to assimilate each other’s
culture, as everywhere in India
Active in the internet, writing in literary
magazines that hardly reach the common readers, writing in English mostly, I am
becoming more known to the literary world in general but not much known to the
people around me who are the source of my knowledge about human character and
culture. Towards
the Rebirth of India Sep 24 2008
Hema bids emotional adieu to Rajya Sabha Daily Pioneer SATURDAY,
31 MARCH 2012 00:14 PIONEER NEWS SERVICE | NEW DELHI
Film actor and BJP MP Hema Malini bid an emotional
adieu to the Rajya Sabha on Friday after being its member for seven years. In
her farewell speech, the ‘dream girl’ of yesteryears said that she was sad and
with a heavy heart bidding goodbye to the Upper House where she learnt a lot.
Amidst the thumping of desks, Hema said that despite
being attached to the position she realises that nothing is permanent and
things move on. She remembered her experience in Bollywood where she ruled for
many years only to pave way for a younger lot.
“I was the number one heroine in the film industry
in the past for many years. As time passes you find there is someone else as
number one. Nothing is permanent in life. I also feel attached. I feel sad,”
she said. Quoting Aurobindo, she hoped that the country would soon become a
super power.
Are moderates losing trust in science? Mother Jones —By Kevin Drum Thu Mar.
29, 2012
More and more, liberals and conservatives are almost
literally living in different worlds with different versions of consensus
reality… Is this because moderates have always viewed science as a politicized
enterprise, something they're especially sensitive about?
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