Manasa Mangal, Behula and the Snake Goddess
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 14
Palash Biswas
http://www.troubledgalaxydetroyeddreams.blogspot.com/
Indigenous life style and struggle for livelihood may not be understood without the knowledge of aboriginal attachment with Nature and Natural forces. East Bengal lower caste and out caste people always had to fight against natural calamities, epidemics and famine. They had no way to escape. They knew the ultimate Truth that the Nature is the source of all energy for survival. They worshiped the nature. They later worshiped the forces of nature. Maa Kali saved them from calamities and epidemics. Shiva was the original god of Indian aboriginal. More over, Manasa, the Snake Goddess had been worshiped by the marginal peasants and aboriginal people in east Bengal as we see the tradition of Snake Totem in vogue amongst different aboriginal communities worldwide.
Our People, the Black Untouchables of east Bengal migrated to India and are best known as the unwanted refugees, brought the legacy right into the Heart of Terai in Nanital.
The rites as observed in connection with the worship of the serpent-goddess Manasa differ widely in the different districts of Bengal, but a careful analysis of these rites shows that they have originated from a common source. The elements of difference which have developed in the meantime are nothing but local factors and as such have no intrinsic relationship with the fundamental factors.We, the people from east Bengal followed our homeland tradition obviously.
According to Ashutosh bhattacharya of Calcutta Universiti(THE SERPENT AS A FOLK-DEITY IN BENGAL), The Naga-Panchami, mentioned above, is very widely prevalent here among all classes of Hindus. On this occasion,
worship is conducted of the eight principal serpents of the
Mahabharata legend, or nine or forty-two serpents according
to the family tradition of each worshiper. Earthen images of
serpents with raised hoods, the number of which is determined
according to the tradition prevailing in each family, are made
and worshiped on this occasion. Worship in all cases is minister-
ed by the Brahmin priests without any scruple whatsoever. The
serpent-deity is also worshiped on the last day of the Bengali
month of Sravana as in other places of East Bengal; the worship
of the serpent-deity on this particular day is known as the
worship of Pat Visahari. In most houses, a pitcher representing
the serpent-deity is installed on the first day of the Bengali
month qf Sravana and worshiped up to the last day of the same
month, when it is ceremonially immersed. The house-wives,
young or old, are not allowed to go to their fathers' houses on
any account after the pitcher has been ceremonially installed
within the house. Though there is no dearth of watery
stretches in the above area, yet the boat-festival is seldom
celebrated here on such or any other occasions now-a-days.
Neither Nag-Panchami nor the worship of Pat-Visahari is
a matter of importance so far as serpent-worship is concerned.
From the archaeological discoveries of Paharpur in Dinajpur district, which adjoins Maldah on the east and northeast, it is evident that serpent worship was a highlv
popular cult in this area from as early as the eleventh century
A.D. Both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic serpent-images
have been discovered from there. In this area there is no perma-
nent serpent shrine anywhere. The worship is held once in the
whole year with great pomp. The orthodox Hindu serpent
festival known as Naga-Panchami is unknown here even among
tbe higher class Hindus. The last day of the Bengali month of
Sravana (July-August) , instead of the Naga-Panchami day, is
the day for ritual worship. The rites are conducted either at the
public places of such worship or in the houses of the individual
worshipers. Usually no image of the deity is generally made.
but on this occasion the earthen images of the eight principal
serpents of the Mahabharata legend (or sometimes of one
serpent, probably of Astika of the same leqend) are worshiped.
In most cases instead of any image the milky hedge plant is
worshiped as the seat of the serpent-deity. Special offerings,
consisting of milk and fried rice and sometimes of milk with
banana kept in big-sized arum leaves, are offered to the deity.
In East Maldah the floors of rooms, verandah and the courtvards
are beautifully decorated with special designs of rice-paste draw-
ings resembling the winding gait of the serpent. In some places
the womenfolk abstain from taking food on that occasion. In
most of the Hindu families no food is cooked on that day. This
ceremonial or ritual abstinence of cooking is known as arandhan,
and is observed on other occasions also.
The Rajvamsi constitute the main population of Rangpur,
Cooch Bihar and Jalpaiguri districts. Serpent worship is also
practised among them with due pomp and grandeur. In the Raj
family of Jalpaiguri, which also belongs to the Rajvamsi clan,
idols illustrating the principal serpent legend are displayed on
this occasion when a large fair is also held. Sometimes the
festival continues when a large fair is also held. Sometimes
the festival continues for the whole month during which various
folk-entertainments are offered.
The Rajvamsi constitute the main population of Rangpur.
Cooch Bihar and Jalpaiguri districts. Serpent worship is also
practised among them with due pomp and grandeur. In the
Raj family of Jalpaiguri, which also belongs to the Rajvamsi
clan. idols illustrating the principal serpent legend are displayed
on this occasion when a large fair is also held. Sometimes the
festival continues for the whole month during which various
folk-entertainments are offered.
Barring a few minor exceptions, on the whole there is unity
in the rituals of serpent-worship in the districts along the
Ganges. Among them the western part of the district of
Murshidabad is naturally influenced by the district of Birbhum.
Elsewhere such as in East Burdwan, Hooghly, Howrah, Nadia
and 24 Parganas there is very little or no difference in ritualistic
observations of serpent-worship. In this part of Bengal there
are public places of worship of the serpent-deity in almost every
village where worship is held on the prescribed date, invariably
before a milky hedge plant which grows in size as years roll by.
People assemble there irrespective of caste and creed and offer
their worship without, however, making any animal sacrifices.
Sometimes the higher class Hindu women, instead of going over
to such places of public worship, perform the ceremonies at their
own houses with the assistance of the Brahmin priests. In that
case also a branch of the milky hedge plant will be invariably
kept upon a conventional type of earthen pitcher which will
form the chief object of worship.
I witnessed my friend Pallab succumbing to snake bite while we were playing hide and seek game.We were small boys and girls. We used the Pual gada, Rice Paddies thatch stocks or the Cow dung stores to hide. Although, in the beginning we had enough land of grass and shrubs around us and always welcomed dear and rabbits as playing partners. but with fast cultivation, jungles evaporated very soon and we were left without the grass, shrubs and jungle! The black cobras are abundant in Terai of Nainital. My wife Sabita never sleeps in Basantipur as she is so scared of cobras. We have black cobras everywhere in and around our home. My youngest brother Panchanan found one hanging just over his head. another brother Padmlochan got one hanging with his leg. My nephew got on in his bed. Our servant Jau Harijan found one asleep on his chest in the dark of the night. My father invented on tied with the plough. Cobras, and specially cobras are present here or there every time. But, luckily, no one was bitten by Cobra. Rather my sister Bahnumati was bitten by other types of snakes and was cured by the snake charmer Haju Sana. We were quite accustomed to see black cobras in our garden, fields, veranda, windows, avenues and around the tube well. Once I was thrashed by my elder uncle jethamosahi as I was found asleep on the part of the wood which was lying on a small nallah on the border of our home. It was the most dearest place for the cobras as the Bamboo bushes are.
We were never afraid of cobras. But Pallab was bitten within minutes of hiding. Hari Dhali could do nothing to cure him. He was immersed in the rivulet with the boat made of banana stem. As Lakhinder was with his living wife Behula.
Since my infant days, I have been witnessing the rituals of worshipping the Snake Goddess. Ma kali, Sheetala, Banabibi and Sheetala along with Ma Manasa have been worshipped in Basantipur from the beginning. Shashthi and Sarswati were the other two goddesses worshipped by our folk but it never happened a community affair. It has always been a part of the sanskar dictated by the Brahmins and always meant for the caste Hindus!
The districts of Dacca, Faridpur and Bakherganj form
another distinct socio-cultural unit. The area known as Vikram-
pur, included within it, is the section most effectively influenced
by Hinduism in the whole of East Bengal, and has developed
certain rituals in the line more of Hinduism proper than of the
popular faiths. Serpent-worship is also a very well-developed
cult here, its rituals being more complicated than in any other
part of Bengal.
Among the people of the above area. The most important
serpent-festival is known here as Rayani, a word of doubtful
origin. Rayani can be celebrated at any time of the year. It
is indeed a very important social festival among the Hindus of
the above area though it is unknown elsewhere in Bengal. When
a child is born in a family a mental vow is taken by its head
to the effect that the snake-festival known as Rayani would be
performed on the occasion of its marriage or sacred-thread cere-
mony, if the child is a male and Brahmin or Vaisya by caste.
It is indeed a very costly affair. Therefore due to economic
reasons a greater part of its rituals is now being sacrificed though
only a couple of decades back the festival used to be celebrated
with all its complicated details. The worship is arranged to
be held two or three days before the actual sacred thread or
the marriage ceremony as the case may be. The celebration
of Rayani extends over a period either of five or two and a half
days according to the custom prevailing in each family, or, in
the absence of such a custom, according to the mental vow taken
for either of the above periods at the time of the child's birth.
In this connection, clay images of the serpent-goddess as big as
the image of the goddess Durga (three to four feet in height)
are sometimes built. On either side of the image are placed
three or four images of her associates. In front of these images
a row of idols representing the chief character of the principal
Bengali serpent-story are placed side by side, each on his or her
distinct seat. The snake-story is recited musically through the
night. Nobody dares to hold the marriage of his son or daughter
without performing this ceremony, because of the strong belief
that on failure to do so snakes will create trouble for the mar-
ried couple.
On the following day, before the image is immersed in the river, the earthen snakes are taken
out of the image and placed in the house. People believe that
the dried earth of these clay snakes is an infallible remedy of
many incurable diseases, especially children's diseases. There
is one very interesting item among the objects of worship here,
which is nowhere met with now-a-days. This is known as
Karandi, which is worshiped along with the image and some-
times in lieu of it. It is made of Indian cork (shola) in the
shape of a small house, generally not more than two feet in
height. Coloured drawings of serpents, the serpent-goddess and
some characters with some incidents of the serpent-legend are
made on the conical outer roof and the flat outer walls. These
drawings are undoubtedly among the remarkable specimens of
folk-art in Bengal. After the animal is sacrificed its blood is
sprinkled on the Karandi which is sometimes preserved in the
house with the stains of blood on it, though more frequently
floated down the river on the immersion day. Besides the
Karandi there is another essential ingredient necessary for the
worship of the serpent deity. These are the tiny pictures (ghat)
made of clay and shaped in a peculiar fashion, like a thin pipe
with two snakes spreading their hoods on either side of it.
Sometimes a human face, obviously that of the serpent-deity,
is carved out of the upper part of the pipe. These pictures are
known as Kaitari Ghat. Though the word Kaitar in East Bengal
means pigeon, I failed to understand how this particular bird
could be associated with an object of serpent worship. These
pitchers are filled with corn and kept beside the image during
the ceremonies. Milk and bananas in vessels made of plantain
bark are placed in the Karandi as the special offerings to the
serpents. Eight kinds of fried foods such as pea, oil-seed and
other pulses form the special offerings for the eight principal
serpents of the Mahabharata legend.
The special feature of the serpent festival in this part of the
province is the rice-paste drawings (alipana) . The entire venue
of worship is decorated, with these drawings representing
serpents in various designs. Around these drawings other paint-
ings illustrating the chief incidents of the principal Bengali
snake-story are also drawn. Coloured powders are used in such
drawings. The entire floor of the room appears to be a picture-
gallery. From the first day of the Bengali month of Sravana
until the day of the worship, which falls on the last day of the
month, the principal snake story is recited in part every day
after nightfall before the assembly of villagers.
I was lucky enough to get a Padm Puran, Mangal Kavya at home when I was literate enough to read and write Bengali. Mind you I had to study in Hindi medium in the school. But it was mandatory for us to learn Bengali and English at home.
I rmemeber well Chechan Mandal,the living loudspeaker. Chechan means crying. His voice was so loud that any body could hear him from anywhere. Villagers in Basantipur would gather just for a single cry for meeting from Chechan. He was as black as coal. He prepared the prasad for different rituals and we hated it just because of his blackness. But we loved the man as he always looked after us and never denied any extra share demanded.
Mind you, West Bengal was never in the mainstream Hindu empire. It was an isolated and abandoned zone for brahminical Hindus of ancient times. The King of Banga sided with the kauravas in the epic war of Mahabharata. the geopolitics has always been quite different fro rest of India until the British made Kolkata the capital of British India. It was never under the direct rule of Pathans or Mughals. Shersah was the subedar of Bengal who later overthrew Humayoon. Bengal was governed by Nawabs. In ancient India, only connection was the Buddhism. While the great Shasahanka ruled Bengal, even at that time it was not the part of mainland. bengal was considered as VANGA, the land of asuras.
Aboriginal people, the black untouchables lived in Bengal. The religion as tribal or semitribal after conversion into Hindutva. During preindependence days, Gajan and Charak, were the main folk festivals in Bengal. Modern Bengal is identified with goddess Durga. But Bengal is known for Goddess Kali and Lord Shiva devotees since ancient times. Sanskrit poet Jaidev and later, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu introduced Vaishnav cult during sen dynasty which may be also recognised as a revolt against the Rule Of Manusmriti, imported by the Brahmins arrived from kanyakubj. The Brahmins were themselves imported by Ballal Sen, who is considered to implement caste System in Bengal.
Bengal is a land full of rivers. It has never been as patriarchal as focused on during British Rule due to Sati and other traditions of Bengali Brahmins. The aboriginal people rather respected the women. Women enjoyed a status of equality in the aboriginal social lifestyle as well as in the traditional indigenous production system. thus, it is not mere coincidentally that Bengalies worship Kali, Durga, Manasa,and a number of other goddesses. Ganesh or Vishnu has never been popular in Bengal.
We worship Ma Manasa, not the Nagraj, as rest of India does.In most ancient Hindu religious texts Manasa is said to be the daughter of Kasyapa, a famous sage, and Kadru, the sister of the serpent-king Sesha. Unlike her uncle Manasa is still actively worshipped as a goddess who protects and saves humans from snake-bites. Her cult is most prevalent in Bengal where she is ceremoniously worshipped in temples. She is also attributed with the powers of curing infectious diseases like small-pox and of bringing wealth and prosperity. At the onset of the rainy season, when the snakes are most active, she is ritually invoked with sacrifices and offerings. She is probably a pre-Aryan goddess but this tale is of more recent vintage and comes from Bengal where she is most revered and tells how she gained recognition for herself as a potent member of the Hindu pantheon.
My Thamma and other old women would lead the all female troupe to sing in praise of mother Manas for days. It was pure folk tune. I forgot the tune. I forgot all the songs of Ashtak, Charak, Gajan and Doljatra. But my heart is full of the melody still today. They would recite from the Panchali. they were illiterate but they remembered the Panchali well.
Thamma was a very devotee woman. I may not mention all the goddesses and gods and their incarnations , she used to worship. She was a mobile Bangladesh for us. With her, we always felt the waves of Madhumati, the river across Jassore and Faridpur and the heart and minds of the people lived there.
Thamma was very particular with Manasa Puja. It related to the most personal tragedy of her life.
Our second Grandfather was known for his leadership as the first, Kailash Biswas was known for his militant image. He was the head of his community and led scores of villages. I miss his name. All my elders except Meeradi have expired. And I have lost the links with other parts of the family migrated to West Bengal, I may not refresh the memory once again.
The youngest grand father survived partition and died in his new place Harishchandra pur.His name was Indra Nath. He captured the family property after the death of my grandfather. My father and the uncles were boys. Jethamosahi was a student of class six and father had passed class two, while the tragedy struck the family. Eldest Grandfather was no more. Second grand father was bitten by a Black Cobra at midnight during Kali Puja celebration. They had to go to another village on the bank of Madhumati near somewhere Itna Bajar. It was a procession of hundreds of his followers and he was walking in the middle. Strangely, the Cobra singled out him. My Thamma used to say that it was predestined. snake bite is always predestined. There were some snake charmers with the procession. They did the instant rituals prevalent in those days and continued the journey. In the mid river, grandfather felt the stings full of poison. They returned, but in vain. Within three months of the death, my own grand father Umesh followed his brother just out of shock and Indra Nath took over everything. The parents of Thamma looked after the family. but they were themselves a poor lot who used to believe that Boars are better relatives as they would plough your land. They could not stop neither the partition nor the transfer of the property by our youngest grand father. Meanwhile Jethamosahi and Chhoto kaka joined police. They were in Kolkata during Direct action. my father also left east Bengal as the partition seemed inevitable. he landed in Duttapukur near Barasat and worked in a Cinema Hall as gate keeper. I visited the destroyed hall in 1973. The family reunited in Sealdah railway station as refugees in 1948.
Owing to wide prevalence of the cult among all classes of
people in East Bengal, a very elaborate and complicated ritual
has developed in this area with regard to its observance.
Though the modes of worship are fundamentally the same, yet
they differ in detail to a considerable extent. There is little
difference in ritualistic observances of this cult in the area
covered by East Mymensing, West Sylhet and North Tippera.
This area can be accepted as a social and cultural unit. The
annual celebration of serpent-worship is held here on the last
day of the Bengali month of Sravana when the whole of the
above area is practically covered by a vast sheet of water over-
flowing from the Assam and Surma Valleys. People irrespective
of caste and creed build clay images of the snake-deity and
worship her at their own houses individually with sacrifices
either of goat or of pigeon. The Vaisnavas (the worshipers of
Visnu) who do not take meat, offer the goddess sacrifices of
sugar-cane, pumpkin and other vegetables. The image has two
or sometimes four arms; two clay snakes spread their hoods on
either side of her shoulder.
Mangal Kava was the lats thing the black untouchables created in Bengal. This is the richest part of the rural ballad, Geetika. Poet jasimuddin spent years to collect them. No less as a personality like Abbasuddin acompanied him in his research. We know the role of the two giants as far as the folk culture of bengal is concerned. Even, we may not imagin Ruposi Baangla By Jibanand das without this tradition of mangal Kavya.
Of all the animals held in worship in different parts of
India, the serpent is the most important. Its cult is widely dis-
tributed throughout the whole of India from Kashmir in the
north to Cape Comorine in the south, though it is more popular
at the latter place. The cult as prevalent in Bengal is somewhat
different in character from what it is in the other parts of North
India. Among the common run of people both in Bengal and
in the south the cult has retained its primitive character to a
very great extent. Roughly speaking, in North India the image
of a serpent considered male in character and known as
Nagaraja or the king of the snakes is held in worship, and in
the south it is the living snakes to whom worship is often offered.
Instead of the "king of the serpents" and the living snakes, an
anthropomorphic serpent goddess known as Manasa is worshiped
in Bengal. An exclusive cult known as the Manasa-cult has
developed in this part of the country and is highly popular
among all sections of the Hindus, especially among the lower
classes in some areas.
Even before I got admission in School. I had to encounter with the Snake Goddess. She was not only worshipped by our people, but our village Basantipur had a Jatra Troup, which staged the Bhasan, the drama form of Manasa Mangal. The female characters including Manasa, Behula and Soneka were played by boys. kartick Kaka was selected as Lakhinder. A boy was imported from Durgapur to play Behula. As a child I visited his home situated amongst Rice Paddies. In earlier seventies, with liberation of Bangladesh they left the place and the known destination was Bangladesh.So many people left Terai in those days! All the Barishal people living in Vijay nagar, Netaji Nagar , Haridashpur, Anand Khera and some Faridpur people from Pipulia left for Bangladesh.Every village was affected by this migration. But Basantipur was unaffected. No one from Basantipur left us. My father was very sad that so many people left the colonies. he was specially shocked with the departure of Jatin Biswas, the only individual in Dineshpur other than us, hailing from Jassore.
Thus, I forgot the Behula actor. I forgot so many of them. Ishan Dhali used to play Manasa. later he became a devotee of Ma Kali. Our people believed that he could invoke the saviour Goddess. Later his family also left Terai. They wer four brothers. The elder one left the village just after 1964.He registered himself as refugee once again and got rehabilitated in lakhim Pur Kheri. Second brother Anata dhali was the first Home Guard in our area. He was also a good character artist in Jatra. Their father Hari Dhali was very close to me. Bhushan Dhali was the third son of the oldman. The entire family shifted to Lakhimpur Kheri in eighties.
But I never forgot Ishan Dhali. His wife was a beautiful girl from Chandipur and was worried very much while I was staying in Nainital as a college student and there was a forecast of destruction for Nainital. She was one or two year older than me. But we had very good family relations.
Hari Dhali was also a snake charmer who could treat snake bite with his mantra. We had another snake charmer in and as Hajoo Sana. He was treated as a family member in every household and we called him , Dada. He used to play comic characters in the Jatra party. But he was a very serious snake charmer and was well known amongst all communities in Terai. later, his popularity mad him a drunk. He died in late eighties.
Hari Dhali with another village elder Baradakant Mandal led in every performance of rituals and worships. The Idol were created by Vijay Bhaskar fro Panchananpur. He was a man perfect in sculptor. He was in demand. He also used to make the idol of Goddess Durga in Dishpur, the only Puja celebrated by the Bengalies landed in refugee colonies in Dineshpur Area. I knew very late about the Pals in Kumordanga, in our ancestral village in Narail, Jassore. The pals were also the specialists of Patua, the clay culture in West Bengal. I was very keen to follow every stroke of the Brush of the Bhaskar. I spent hours in the pandal and always witnessed him finalising his creation.
It continued while I went to the Highschool. it was always very concentrating experience of pleasure for me. Later, while I was a student of DSB college in Nainital, istayed with Mr Guha Majumdar in his hotel at malroad, Bengal Hotel. He worshipped Goddess Kali. I got Vijay Bhaskar and Bhuvan Chatterjee, our Purohit in basantipur, both in Nainital.
SNAKE bites kill an estimated 25,000 people a year. More people die from snakebite in India than in any other country in the world, with the total death toll estimated I to average 10 - 12,000 annually.
According to ecologist Monojit Dey, construction of houses by clearing forests and filling up ponds could be one reason why snakes were entering residential areas. Rampant catching of frogs for export could have upset the ecological balance and driven snakes to human habitations. Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilisers in paddy fields was also disturbing the snakes.
My friend Vivek das and his family worshipped the snakes most. they would never witness any snake killing which was a routine in Terai. They always believed that one of their ancestor has been a Snake.
With the introduction of a local treatment protocol the snakebite mortality in West Bengal has been reduced by nearly 35 per cent over the past one year.Informing this, the state Minister for Health and Family Welfare Dr Surjya Kanta Mishra said that the initiative has helped the state government save Rs 59 lakh.According to the Minister, while the number of victims being treated during the last one year has gone up, the new treatment protocol has meant that 20,000 less units of Anti Snake Venom (ASV) vials were used in the past year.
The success was possible after a snakebite task force, constituted at the Snakebite Research Unit at Midnapore Medical College in September 2006 introduced an uniform and correct protocol for snakebite management.
Normally medical education relating to snakebite comes from Western textbooks, which provides non-applicable guidelines to doctors treating snakebites in India. A local protocol was therefore developed for use by doctors in the state.
In addition to providing the correct first-aid treatment methodology, the protocol gives a clear dosage guidelines, as well as information on also when to administer ASV and instructions on when to repeat and when to stop. The protocol also reduces the period of stay of a patient in hospital.
“Previously many victims who did not need ASVs were administered the dose due to lack of proper information. In some cases they were administered high doses while in others repeat doses were given where it was not at all necessary,” Mishra said.
In West Bengal about 18,000 snakebite cases are reported every year and according to the Minister the state government can easily save up to Rs 12 crore with proper administration of ASVs.
On the other hand, Snake charmers in Kolkata and other parts of West Bengal have said that they are on the verge of starvation following a government order to ban the keeping of snakes.
“From the time of my father, grandfather, we have been in the snake charming profession. The law has banned this tradition but we continue with the trade to make a living,” claimed Lalu Sapuria, a snake charmer.
The Government banned the keeping of snakes as pets under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The Act also prohibits snake charmers from catching snakes or using them for entertainment.
Voluntary groups, however, say snake charmers are a part of the country’s heritage and insist that their traditional knowledge should be preserved and developed as a modern science.
“In India, some 800,000 people are associated with the tradition of snake charming. In West Bengal, there are 100,000 snake charmers. The snake charmers are backward. They have no voter identification cards or ration cards. We have tried to bring them under one organization to help them,” said Raktim Das, an organiser of the Snake Charmers’ Federation of India.
Snake charmers are demanding the right to catch snakes and to sell venom of theses reptiles to snakebite antidote manufacturers.
According to the World Wildlife Fund survey on the occasion of Nagpanchmi, some 70,000 snakes die of pneumonia, lung infection, sepsis and milk allergy.
Snake Charmer (sapurey) group of people who handle the snakes by music and other activities. However, the snakes usually do not respond to any aerial sound. Snake-charming is a full time profession for some and a part-time job for others. It is traditionally a family business and the art of snake charming is passed on from one generation to the other. The secrecy behind it is well-guarded.
Most people belonging to the ethnic group of bedey or Bangladeshi gypsy are known as snake charmers. These people lead a life on boat. In some families bedeyni (women bedey) do the job. There are others whose only profession is snake charming. They keep a number of snakes in boxes, gunny bags and earthen pots, carry these from one weekly market place to another or get stationed in one town market for months and then move to a new destination where there is always congregation of people. Average snake charmers do not catch the snakes on their own but buy it from the professional snake-catchers. All of them are likely to keep a number of snakes in their possessions. The most favoured species are the cobras and pythons. In addition they keep many non-venomous snakes.
There will be no snake charming without cobra mainly because it can raise its head to an appreciable height and inflate the hood displaying its spectacular pattern. As the charmer plays his flute and keeps chanting 'mantra' at the same time moving either his head, elbows or knees the cobra sways its raised hood and body to fix its vision towards the moving object and not to the music. The cobra is teased to attack the snake charmer. Once the snake fixes its attention to the object it dares attacking it either with open mouth or amidst production of loud hissing noise.
Most snake charmers exhibit those snakes whose poison fangs have been removed so that the charmers can receive bites without the risk of getting venom. Such snakes also fail to eat their usual diet of live food because they can not utilize their poison gland for paralyzing the preys and die within 6 months or so. This is the reason snake charmers must get replacement snakes every couple of months. It may be noted that often the successive teeth behind the uprooted poison fangs of cobras some how get attached with the poison gland. Therefore, these so called 'fang-less' cobras' bites become fatal for the snake charmers themselves. Most snake charmers ultimately die from the bite of such 'fang-less' snakes. A few extremely daring and professional snake charmers will keep poisonous snakes with fangs. Some of them sell amulet (Tabiz) or herbal medicines as protection against snakebite.
In one section of the mangal, the heroine Behula offers puja to the clay image of the goddess who is known as Bisahari:
Having disembarked at the shrine
The dancer Behula bathed and did puja to Hara's daughter
Behula did puja for three days before the clay image
Of Bisahari, Kejuya's lotus.
It is clear from several other references that Behula worships clay images of Manasa in riverside shrines.
Manasa-mangal (late 15th; Ban- gla) of Bijoy Gupta: also known as Padma-purana (Manasa is also called Padma because she was born in a lotus pond). MANASA HAPPENS TO BE The Goddess of Snakes in Medieval Bengali Literature.Mangal kavyas are auspicious poems dedicated to rural deities and appear as a distinctive feature of medieval Bengali literature.
Mangalkavya , lit. "poems of well-being") is a genre of Bengali language epic poems written in the 13–18th centuries. They depicted the social customs of the era and also were devotional paeans to the local deities. Mangalkavya were used to describe the greatness of particular Hindu deities known as "nimnokoti" (roughly translating as lower) by historians, because they were absent or unimportant in classical Hindu literature such as the Vedas or Purans. These deities were based on indigenous to Bengal (like Manasa) who had become assimilated in regional Hinduism. These deities are often depicted with unusually strong human qualities and they engage in direct interaction with humans. They are also portrayed to have flaws such as envy like other human beings.
The form of the mangal kavya was a new one, and quite different from the narrative poetry of Sanskrit.The Manasa Mangal Kavya, one of the earliest epics, shows a human hero holding out with fortitude against the tyranny and relentless fury of the gods. One of the important characteristics of the ethos of the people of Bangladesh that runs trough their cultural consciousness is the mood of resistance. The mood of resistance and the pride with which they assert the value and dignity of the human self, a salient feature of the contemporary poetry of Bangladesh, can be traced back to the old Bangla literature. The Manasa Mangal Kavya, one of the earliest epics, shows a human hero holding out with fortitude against the tyranny and relentless fury of the gods.
Mangal Kavya is a Type of verse in honour of a god or goddess in Bengal. Most mangal-kavya tell how a local deity established his or her worship on earth. They are often recited at the festivals of the deities they praise. Some have become so popular that performers sing them to entertain village audiences. Many variants exist, since each singer is free to change the verses. Most are written in a simple couplet form, using earthy imagery drawn from village, field, and river.
The mangalkavyas depict the conflict between these indigenous and alien deities ending with the victory of the indigenous gods. The word "mangal" also means Vijay (victory), and the poems were written to celebrate the victory of the local gods over goda worshipped by foreigners. Many poems contain the word "Vijay" such as Manasavijay by Bipradas Pipilai.
In the time period when they were produced, Mangalkavya was the representation of nearly all medieval Bengali literature. Mangalkavya was the main form of expression in the Later Middle Period of the language.[1]
Manasa, Manasha) is a Hindu folk goddess of snakes, worshipped mainly in Bengal and other parts of northeastern India, chiefly for the prevention and cure of snakebite and also for fertility and general prosperity. Manasa is the sister of Vasuki, king of Nagas (snakes) and wife of sage Jagatkaru (Jaratkaru). [1] She is also known as Vishahara (the destroyer of poison), Jagadgauri, Nitya (eternal) and Padmavati. [2]
Her myths emphasize her bad temper and unhappiness, due to rejection by her father Shiva or sage Kashyapa and her husband and the hate of her stepmother Chandi (Shiva's wife, identified with Parvati in this context). Manasa is depicted as kind to her devotees, but harsh on people who refused to worship her. [3] Denied full godhead by her mixed parentage, Manasa’s aim was to fully establish her authority as a goddess and to acquire steadfast human devotees. [4]
Behula, a faithful wife, featured in the Manasar bhasan,. also called Manasa mangal in its more lengthy narrative form.Behula (is the heroine in the Bangla epic of Manasamangal. Manasamangal was written between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. Though its religious purpose is that to glorify the Hindu goddess of Manasa, it is more well known for depicting the love story of Behula and her husband Lakhindar. Lakhindar's father, Chand Sadagar, angers Manasa, who causes Lakhindar to be bitten by a snake on his wedding night, though he and Behula are enclosed in an iron made house. Behula sails alone with her husband's dead body on a boat. She finally appeases the goddess and brings Lakhindar back to life.
Behula continues to fascinate the Bengali mind, both in Bangladesh and West Bengal. She is often seen as the archetypal Bengali woman, full of love and courage.
Originally a Adivasi goddess, Manasa was accepted in the worship of Hindu lower caste groups. Later, she was included in higher caste Hindu pantheons, where she is now regarded as Hindu goddess than a tribal one. [5] She was then recognized as a daughter of sage Kashyapa and Kadru, the mother of all Nagas. By the 14th century, Manasa - the goddess of fertility and marriage rites - was assimilated into Shiva's pantheon. Myths, such as those which arose from Samudra manthan, glorified Manasa, who saved the Shiva after he drank poison. Manasa was then venerated as the "remover of poison". Her popularity grew and spread in southern India as well and began "to rival" Shaivism. In reaction, stories attributing Manasa's birth to Shiva emerged and thus Shaivism adopted the indigenous goddess in the Brahmanical tradition of mainstream Hinduism.
The villagers of Bangladesh sing:
Snake Charmer / Babu Selam Lyric and Music Jasim Uddin dance by Shibli & Nipa
O babu, many salams to you
my name is Goya the Snakecharmer, My home is the Padma river.
We catch birds
we live on birds
There is no end to our happiness,
For we trade,
With the jewel on the Cobra's head.
"We cook on one bank,
We eat at another
We have no homes,
The whole world is our home,
All men are our brothers
We look for them
In every door….."
(Jasim Uddin)
Many references supporting the existence of dance forms in ancient Bengal are to be found also in literature. In the story on Behula, given in the Manasa Mangal Kavya, we come across an instance of a housewife of the soil of Bengal dancing in the court of Lord Indra, the king of the Gods. In Vijaya Gupta's Manasa Mangal there is a description of Ananda-Tandava dance of Shiva.
Manasa the goddess of snakes, also known as the goddess of agriculture. Basically a folk goddess, Manasa was later incorporated into the Vedic pantheon. According to the puranas, the hermit Kashyap, commanded by brahma, composed the snake mantras and out of it was born Manasa. She is the sister of the snake king Basuki; her husband is Jaratkaru and her son Astik. She is also known as Jagatgauri, Shaivi, Vaishnavi, Nageshwari, Siddhayogini etc. She is pictured as a fair-complexioned goddess, who wears a red dress. Her face is round, calm and serene. Mounted on a swan, Manasa is flanked by snakes. Manasa Puja is observed on the nagpanchami tithi (the fifth day of the lunar month) in Asadh.
Snake worship is an ancient and widespread religious practice in Indian customs. The cobra is associated with the lingam the emblem of lord Siva who is an Indian god.
Snake worshipping is an ancient religious practice in India. On Nagapanchami Day, the day of the serpent festival, people offer eggs and milk to snakes. This festival is celebrated by many Indians. On this day, the people worship snake gods with flowers, milk and eggs in front of their idols in temples.
In Karnataka, villagers even go to worship the termite mounds where cobras are believed to be residing. In Bengal some people wrap snakes around their bodies and march along the seashore. In Bihar people roam about in boats in the rivers and with the image of Behra, a young bride whose piety saved her husband from death by snake bite. In Bihar, the Santhal tribes christen their young girls as ‘Visha kanya’ meaning girls with poison. They carry on their necks an ampoule of snake venom and a nail to forstall any attack on her by miscreants. Seals bearing snake symbols can be found in the ancient sites of Harappa and Mohanjodaro. The Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarath depict Lord Mahavira performing penance with serpents gliding over his body.
Innumerable shrines containing images of the snake king Vasuki bear eloquent testimony to the influence of serpent on the social and spiritual fabric of India.
In Hindu mythology we come across several episodes centering on snakes. When the ocean of milk was churned for the recovery of ambrosia, snake king Vasuki served as a rope and was tied around Meru mountain. The poison ‘Kalakuta,’ which emerged from the ocean, was about to pollute the whole universe. But lord Shiva consumed the poison emitted by the serpent to prevent the destruction of the earth. Due to the strength of poison his throat became dark blue in colour. For this reason Shiva got another name: Neela kandha ( Blue Throat).
Snake worship is widely spread all over the world. The ancient Greeks worshipped the sun and snakes. The kings of ancient Egypt had images of a Cobra and a vulture on their crowns. In Tibet there is a belief that the rivers and lakes are abodes of snake gods and that their king ‘Lu’ lives in a crystal palace at the bottom of a lake.
Cobras are poisonous snakes but they will protect harvests from the attack of rats, rodents and by eating
them.
In Shetphal, a village in Sholapur district in Masharashtra, the houses have a resting place for a live cobra in a raft in the ceiling. A copper image of sevenhooded cobra over a Shiva idol also adorns a temple.
In a village called Moribund, nearly twenty kilometers away from Delhi, there are many snake charmers and their families. They have a sort of a snake charming university, and they also have a union called All India Snake Charmers Association.
In Kerala there are many temples exclusively for snakes. The main temples are Pampummaikatu and Mannarsala. On the day of star Ayilliam [Cancer] people usually offer eggs and milk for the snakes for obtaining their blessings. In Pappinissery in Kannur district in Kerala there is a beautiful snake park. One can see different varieties of snakes there.
Manasa Mangal, (Bipradas Pipalai 1545 AD) a medieval Bengali classic about the serpent-goddess Manasa. These stories related to mythology are the main elemnets of the Pat-chitra culture.
Patuas, like the kumars, started out in the village tradition as painters of scrolls or pats telling the popular mangal stories of the gods and goddesses. For generations these scroll painters or patuas have gone from village to village with their scrolls or pat singing stories in return for money or food. Many come from the different villages of Bengal. The pats or scrolls are made of sheets of paper of equal or different sizes which are sown together and painted with ordinary poster paints. Originally they would have been painted on cloth and used to tell religious stories such as the medieval mangal poems. Today they may be used to comment on social and political issues such as the evils of cinema or the promotion of literacy.
Mangal kavyas are auspicious poems dedicated to rural deities and appear as a distinctive feature of medieval Bengali literature. Mangals can still be heard today in rural areas of West Bengal often during the festivals of the deities they celebrate, for example Manasa puja in the rainy season during July-August when the danger of snake bite is at its peak. Interestingly, it is the mangal stories connected with this particular art form that provide us with some of the earliest clues about the worship of clay images in Bengal.
The two most famous poems in this respect are the Chandi Mangal and the Manasa Mangal. In the Chandi Mangal of the Bengali poet Mukundarama Chakravarti (16th c), known as Kavikankana, the village goddess Chandi takes on the form of the Puranic deity Mahisasuramarddini (Durga) before the startled eyes of the hunter Kalketu and his wife.
In Ketaka Das's Manasa Mangal or poem to the snake goddess Manasa dating from the 17th c, the term 'mrinmayi' meaning 'earthen' occurs unexpectedly in several places. Mrinmayi refers in this context to the earthen or clay image of Manasa, a form in which she is still worshipped to this day in Bengal. In his poem you often hear about 'mrinmayi Visahari', Vishari meaning 'remover of poison', an epithet of Manasa. It is unusual to find this rather technical term mrinmayi rather than the more common 'mati' meaning 'mud'. Could it be that Ketaka Das is attempting to elevate the status of Manasa and her puja? By the time he wrote his poem, mrinmayi would have been a term used to refer to the clay images of respected Puranic deities. To say that Manasa was also worshipped in the form of mrinmayi, an earthen image, would be equating her with goddesses such as Durga and make her worship all the more attractive to those listening to the Manasa Mangal.
In the Manasa Mangal the wealthy spice merchant Chando Shadagar is reluctantly converted to the cult of the goddess Manasa after a series of misfortunes brought upon his family by the goddess herself. Initially Chando refuses to worship Manasa as he is already a devotee of the great god Shiva. He insults Manasa by calling her a one-eyed, unnattractive, bad-tempered girl. In retaliation Manasa destroys Chando's ships and kills his six sons, but his wife gives birth to another boy called Lakhindar.
Tha main part of the mangal concerns the fate of Lakhindar and his bride Behula. Manasa warns that Lakhindar will die on their wedding night. So Chando has an iron room built to keep out any snakes that might kill his only son. However, Manasa persuades the architect to leave a gap big enough for one of her deadliest snakes to squeeze through at night and bite Lakhindar as he sleeps. Behula wakes up too late to help her newly-wed husband.
The distraught Behula scolds Chando for his quarrel with Manasa and returns her wedding gifts. Instead of cremating her husband's body and scattering his ashes in the river as is the Hindu custom, she sets off downriver in a desperate bid to persuade to gods to revive her husband so that she avoids the fate of being made a young widow.
Further on, she visits the city of the gods where she meets the gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva who are impressed by her skills as a dancer and washerwoman to the gods. Shiva decides to persuade Manasa to revive Lakhindar and his six brothers in return for persuading Chando to worship the snake goddess.
Shiva embodies the apparently contradictory aspects of a god of ascetics and a god of the phallus. He is the deity of renouncers, particularly of the many Shaiva sects that imitate him: Kapalikas, who carry skulls to reenact the myth in which Shiva beheaded his father, the incestuous Brahma, and was condemned to carry the skull until he found release in Benares (now Varanasi); Pashupatas, worshipers of Shiva Pashupati, "Lord of Beasts"; and Aghoris, "to whom nothing is horrible," yogis who eat ordure or flesh in order to demonstrate their complete indifference to pleasure or pain. Shiva is also the deity whose phallus (linga) is the central shrine of all Shaiva temples and the personal shrine of all Shaiva householders; his priapism is said to have resulted in his castration and the subsequent worship of his disembodied phallus. In addition, Shiva is said to have appeared on earth in various human, animal, and vegetable forms, establishing his many local shrines.Although all Hindus acknowledge the existence and importance of a number of gods and demigods, most individual worshipers are primarily devoted to a single god or goddess, of whom Shiva, Vishnu, and the Goddess are the most popular.
Worshipping snakes in India is an ancient ritual and is mentioned in the Grhyasutra. Statues of snakes, dating as far back as the Indus Valley Civilisation, have been found all over India. Several statues of the deity, adorned with hood and decorated pitcher, have been unearthed in places such as Satna, Dinajpur, and Rajshahi.
Birbhum in West Bengal has undoubtedly the largest number
of votaries of the serpent-deity Manasa. Any casual visitor to
the rural areas of this district will certainly agree with me
on this point. Even to this day the serpent-worship in Birbhum
is a very well-developed and living cult. Almost in every vil-
lage in this district a visitor will come across one or more serpent
shrines. These are but low mud-walled straw huts situated
within the house-quadrangles of some of the lower class Hindus.
Daily worship is offered in most of these shrines, where in-
variably a Hinduized aboriginal serves as priest and conducts
the worship. People of the various sections of the Hindu com-
munity ungrudgingly join the worship, though the educated
higher class Hindus generally disassociate themselves from it.
Such shrines are maintained by a class of priests known as
Deyasi or Dyasi, Sanskritized sometimes to Devamsi, meaning a
part and parcel of the gods, though the word is believed to have
been derived from Deva-vasi 'associate of a god'. But I think
the word has originated from some non-Aryan source. For in
southern India the word Deyasi is still very widely used in
rural areas to denote a headman, who may be said in a manner
to correspond to a Justice of the Peace. Due to the growing
influence of Hinduism, Brahmin priests are also requisitioned
on special occasions. Sometimes the maintenance of the serpent-
shrines is the only source of income of the Deyasis who also act
as exorcists in cases of snake-bite. It is rather strange that
the serpent-worship in the neighbouring districts of Birbhum
is neither as widespread nor as developed as it is in Birbhum
proper. The area of Murshidabad district which is contiguous
to Birbhum and falls west of the river Bhagirathi is however
an exception.
The serpent-shrines have no provision for the entry of air
and light from outside when the only door is closed after the
daily worship. Within in the darkness are installed on raised
altars the images of the serpent-deity known by various local
names at various places, e.g., Chintamani (literally meaning
a fabulous gem able to grant the possessor whatever he wishes),
Jalduburi (diver), Visahari (destroyer of poison). Padma,
Padma-kumari (lotus maiden), Budima (the old mother),
Dulaler Ma (Dulal's mother, and various others. A Bagdi. Kaot
or Mal. all Hinduized aboriginals. is entrusted with the dutv of
performing the worship, a duty which is adopted as an here-
ditary profession. On the raised altar within the shrjne are to
be seen three, five or seven earthen pitchers, with carvings of
hoods of snakes around them. The pitchers are covered with
a thick layer of vermilion which is being deposited on them
since the day of their installation some decades back. Very
rarely, however, one pitcher representing the deity is also seen,
but in all cases it must be an odd number. On the top of each
image are placed green leaves of the milky hedge plant
(Euphorbia lingularum), which are daily replaced at the time
of worship. Some times brass nails, offered by the devotees in
fulfilment of their mental vows, are stuck to the outer side of
the images. These nails are known as chik (one which glitters),
because they glitter in the dim light of the lamp which burns
within. The images are considered to be mutually related to
each other as sisters, and I have already stated that they are
also individually named. Numerous legends are in vogue in
connection with these earthen pitchers, which are worshiped as
the serpent deity.
The canon of Hinduism is basically defined with regard to what people do rather than what they think. Consequently, far more uniformity in behavior than in belief is found among Hindus, although very few practices or beliefs are shared by all. Most Hindus chant the gayatri hymn to the sun at dawn, but little agreement exists as to what other prayers should be chanted. Most Hindus worship Shiva, Vishnu, or the Goddess (Devi), but they also worship hundreds of additional minor deities peculiar to a particular village or even to a particular family. A few practices are honored by almost all Hindus: reverence for Brahmans and cows; a prohibition on the eating of meat (especially beef); and marriage within the caste (jati), in the hope of producing male heirs. Although Hindus believe and do many apparently contradictory things--contradictory not merely from one Hindu to the next, but also within the daily religious life of a single Hindu--each individual perceives an orderly pattern that gives form and meaning to his or her own life. No doctrinal or ecclesiastical hierarchy exists in Hinduism, but the intricate hierarchy of the social system (which is inseparable from the religion) gives each person a sense of place within the whole.
Brindaban Das relates that at the time of Chaitanyadev, Manasa Puja was performed with great fanfare with clay idols of the goddess. It is still customary in many places of Bengal to worship Manasa by offering milk and banana in a pot or at the foot of a tree called sij (euphorbia nerrifolia). In some places, Astamangala is sung for eight days after the puja. Musical plays based on Manasa are also held at other times of the year.
Manasa has had a profound influence on the Hindu community. There are many legends about her stressing that worshipping the snake goddess will keep people safe from snakebites. Conversely, disrespect to her brings catastrophe, usually in the form of the disrespectful person being killed by a snake. The story of Behula-Lakhindar is one such popular legend, narrating how Lakhindar was killed because his father refused to acknowledge Manasa's power. The medieval manasamangal epics, eulogising Manasa constitute an important genre of bangla literature. Famous Manasamangal poets include vijay gupta and bipradas pipilai. Decorated Manasa pots, depicting the snake goddess, are a colourful form of folk art.
The ultimate canonical authority for all Hindus is the Vedas. The oldest of the four Vedas is the Rig-Veda, which was composed in an ancient form of the Sanskrit language in northwest India. This text, probably composed between 1300 and 1000 BC and consisting of 1028 hymns to a pantheon of gods, has been memorized syllable by syllable and preserved orally to the present day. The Rig-Veda was supplemented by two other Vedas, the Yajur-Veda (the textbook for sacrifice) and the Sama-Veda (the hymnal). A fourth book, the Atharva-Veda (a collection of magic spells), was probably added about 900 BC. At this time, too, the Brahmanas, lengthy Sanskrit texts expounding the priests' ritual and the myths behind it, were composed. Beginning about 600 BC, the Upanishads were composed; these are mystical-philosophical meditations on the meaning of existence and the nature of the universe.
The Vedas (including the Brahmanas and the Upanishads) are regarded as revealed canon (shruti, "what has been heard [from the gods]"), and no syllable can be changed. The actual content of this canon, however, is unknown to most Hindus. The practical compendium of Hinduism is contained in the Smriti, or "what is remembered," which is also orally preserved. No prohibition is made, however, against improvising variations on, rewording, or challenging the Smriti. The Smriti includes the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana; the many Sanskrit Puranas, including 18 great Puranas and several dozen more subordinate Puranas; and the many Dharmashastras and Dharmasutras (textbooks on sacred law), of which the one attributed to the sage Manu is the most frequently cited.
The two epics are built on central stories. The Mahabharata tells of the war between the Pandava brothers, led by their cousin Krishna, and their cousins the Kauravas. The Ramayana tells of the journey of Rama to recapture his wife Sita after she is stolen by the demon Ravana. But these stories are embedded in a rich corpus of other tales and discourses on philosophy, law, geography, political science, and astronomy, so that the Mahabharata (about 200,000 lines long) is a kind of encyclopedia or even a literature, and the Ramayana (over 50,000 lines long) is hardly less. Although it is therefore impossible to fix their dates, the main bodies of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were probably composed between 300 BC and AD 300. Both, however, continued to grow even after they were translated into the vernacular languages of India (such as Tamil and Hindi) in the medieval period.
The Puranas were composed after the epics, and several of them expand on themes found in the epics (for instance, the Bhagavata-Purana describes the childhood of Krishna, a topic not elaborated in the Mahabharata). The Puranas also include subsidiary myths, hymns of praise, philosophies, iconography, and rituals. Most of the Puranas are predominantly sectarian in nature; the great Puranas (and some subordinate Puranas) are dedicated to the worship of Shiva or Vishnu or the Goddess, and several subordinate Puranas are devoted to Ganesha or Skanda or the sun. In addition, they all contain much nonsectarian material, probably of earlier origin, such as the "five marks," or topics (panchalakshana), of the Puranas: the creation of the universe, the destruction and re-creation of the universe, the dynasties of the solar and lunar gods, the genealogy of the gods and holy sages, and the ages of the founding fathers of humankind (the Manus).
Mangal Kavyas
One of the most important features of
the mediaeval Bengali literature is
'Mangal Kavya'. The Mangal Kavyas
were regularly composed from the 15th
century to 18th century A.D. and even
much later. The impact of Mangal
Kavyas has been conspicuously felt in
the then Banga that is later divided
into present Bangladesh, and West
Bengal, part of Bihar, Assam and
Tripura of India. Even today, the
songs of Mangal Kavyas can be heard
in many rural areas of this north-
east Indian sub-continent part,
especially during the Hindu religious
festivals.
Manasa Mangal Kavya
It's amazing how beautifully the
poems of Manasa Mangal Kavya were
composed by the poet Bijoy Gupta that
he mixed all sorts of greatness such
as poetic rhythm, religious myth and
the folk juicy. Even after five
centuries, the demand of these
rhythmic poems and songs has not been
declined at all. What a fairy tale in
the form of poems, Bijoy Gupta
narrated the vanity of Chand Sadagar
disregarding the Goddess Manasa,
religious belief of his wife Soneka
to the Manasa and fate of his seven
sons one after another due to wrath
of the Manasa; then, how Behula came
to the scene rescuing the Sadagars
family having got back the lives of
her husband Lakhindara and her six
brother-in-laws; and finally, how all
of them started worship to the
Goddess of Manasa that has become an
inalienable part of the Hindu
Religion in this part of the world.
The Manasa Devimurti & the Manasa
Mandir
The Hindus pay worship to the Goddess
Manasa building her embodiment by
various materials. Poet Bijoy Gupta
established the first Manasa
Devimurti at his birth place of
Goila, Barisal that attracted people
for hundreds of years. Having had
devoted, the local worshippers built
a beautiful Manasa Devimurti with
brass in early twentieth century. The
Manasa Mandir (Temple) attracts daily
hundreds of people since its
inception till date. As such, in
spite of the religious dignity for
centuries together, the Manasa
Devimutri & Mandir has the great
importance equally in respect to
historical, cultural and hereditary
perspectives in Bangladesh as the
successor of the then Banga, the then
greater India, and of course of the
world.
The Devimurti looted by razakars
During the War of Liberation of
Bangladesh in 1971, as in all cases
brutally acted the local
collaborators of Pakistani Junta
hatedly known as `razakars ransacked
the Temple of the Goddess Manasa at
Goila and looted the invaluable
Devimurti, and that could not be
rescued by any means upon all out
efforts after the independence of the
country.
Impetus for rebuilding the Devimurti
The devotees, most of who were
refugees during the liberation war of
Bangladesh in 1971, though cowries-
less, built a makeshift Devimurti
with sand and cement, and they were
suffering from the deepest heartache
due to their inability to rebuild it
with brass. At last, recently, the
local people united and formed the
"Manasa Devimurti Rebuilt Committee"
to rebuild the Manasa Devimurti in
its original form along with a
secured Temple.
It is estimated an approximate amount
of US $18,000.00 would be required to
rebuild the Manasa Devimurti and its
secured Temple.
The people of northern Barisal,
Bangladesh have come forward to
contribute as much as they can do for
reestablishment of the Devimurti.
However, they feel that participation
at a greater sphere by devotees at
home and abroad will bring the
projects universality.
We would appeal to all devotees
around the globe to come forward in
contributing to rebuild the Manasa
Devimurti and its security
arrangement. On doing so, let us be a
part to protect our religious
establishment, history, culture and
heritage.
Manasa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Iconography
She is depicted as a woman covered with snakes, sitting on a lotus or standing upon a snake. She is flanked by a canopy of seven hoods of cobras. Sometimes, she is depicted with a child on her lap. The child is assumed to be her son Astika. She is often called "the one-eyed goddess", as one of her eyes was burnt by her stepmother Chandi.
[edit] Legends
[edit] Mahabharata
The Mahabharata tells the story of Manasa's marriage. Sage Jagatkaru practised severe austerities and had decided to abstain from marriage. Once he came across a group of men hanging from a tree upside down. These men were his ancestors, who were doomed to misery as their children had not performed their last rites. So they advised Jagatkaru to marry and have a son who could free them of those miseries by performing the ceremonies. Vasuki offered his sister Manasa's hand to Jagatkaru. Manasa mothered a son, Astika, who freed his ancestors and also helped in saving the Naga race from destruction when King Janamejaya decided to exterminate them by sacrificing them in his Yajna. [7]
[edit] Puranas
Puranas are the first scriptures to speak about her birth. They declare sage Kashyapa her father, not Shiva as in the Mangalkavyas. Once, when serpents and reptiles had created chaos on the earth, sage Kashyapa created goddess Manasa from his mind (mana). The creator god Brahma made her the presiding deity of snakes and reptiles. Having chanted mantras, Manasa controlled the earth. Manasa then had sex with Shiva, who told her to please Krishna. On being pleased, Krishna granted divine Siddhi powers and ritually worshipped her, making an established goddess.
Kashyapa married her to sage Jaratkaru, who married Manasa on the condition that he would leave her if she disobeyed him. Once when Jaratkaru was woken by Manasa because he was late for worship he got upset and deserted her. On the request of the great Hindu gods, Jaratkaru returned to Manasa and they had a son named Astika. [8]
[edit] Mangalkavyas
The Mangalkavyas were devotional paeans to the local deities like Manasa, composed between 13th-18th century Bengal. The’’ Manasa Mangalkavya’’ by Bijay Gupta and ‘’Manasa Vijaya’’ (1495) by Bipradas Pipilai trace the origin and myths of the goddess.
According to Manasa Vijaya, Manasa was born when a statue of girl sculpted by Vasuki's mother was touched by Shiva's semen. Vasuki accepted Manasa as his sister and granted her the charge of the poison that emerged when King Prithu milked the Earth as a cow. When Shiva saw Manasa he was sexually attracted to her, but she proved to him that he was her father. Shiva took Manasa to his home, where his wife Chandi suspected Manasa to be Shiva's concubine or co-wife and insulted Manasa and burnt one of her eyes, leaving Manasa half-blind. Later, when Shiva was dying of poison Manasa cured him. At one occasion, when Chandi kicked her Manasa made her senseless by the glance of her poison eye. Finally tired of quarrels between Manasa and Chandi, Shiva deserted Manasa under a tree, but created a companion for her from his tears of remorse called Neto (Neta). [9]
Finally, the sage Jaratkaru was married to Manasa, but Chandi ruined Manasa' wedding night. Chandi advised Manasa to wear snake ornaments and then threw a frog in the bridal chamber at which the snakes ran all over the place. As a consequence the terrified Jaratkaru ran away from the house. After few days, he returned and they had a son called Astika. [10]
Accompanied with her adviser Neto, she descended to earth to get human devotees. She was initially mocked by people but then Manasa forced them to worship her by raining calamity on those who denied her power. She managed to compel people from different walks of life, including the Muslim ruler Hasan, but failed to convert Chand Sadagar, an ardent Shiva and Chandi (identified with Durga in this context) devotee. In the process, Manasa killed Chand's six sons and left him bankrupt. She also killed Lakhindar, Chand's eldest son, on his wedding night. Chand's wife and widowed daughter-in-law tried to coax him to worship the goddess. At last, he yielded by offering a flower to the goddess with his left hand without even looking at the goddess. But this gesture made Manasa so happy she resurrected all Chand's sons and restored his fame and fortunes. The ‘’Mangal kavyas’’ say after this Manasa's worship became ever popular. [11]
Manasa Mangalkavya attributes her hardships in getting devotees to an unjust curse she gave in her anger to Chand in his previous birth to be born as a human, which retaliated with a counter-curse that her worship would not be popular on earth unless he worships her. [12]
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Sister Nivedita say that "[The] legend of [Chand Sadagar] and Manasa Devi, [..] who must be as old as the Mykenean stratum in Asiatic society, reflects the conflict between the religion of Shiva and that of female local deities in Bengal. Afterwards Manasa or Padma was recognized as a form of Shakti [..], and her worship accepted by Shaivas. She is a phase of the mother-divinity who for so many worshippers is nearer and dearer than the far-off and impersonal Shiva.." [13]
[edit] Worship
Generally, Manasa is worshipped without an idol. A branch of a tree, an earthen pot or an earthen snake image is worshipped as the goddess. [14] She can be worshipped in the form of an idol or even as a formless force (Kundalini). She is not only worshipped for protection from and cure of snake bites but also of infectious diseases like smallpox.
The cult of the goddess is most widespread in Bengal, where she is ritually worshipped in temples. The goddess is widely worshipped in the rainy season when the snakes are most active. [15] Also, Manasa is specially worshipped on Nag Panchami - a festival of snake worship during the Hindu month of Shravan (July-August). Bengali women observe a fast (vrata) on this day and offer milk at snake holes. [16]
Nuclear dialectics
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 13
Palash Biswas
http://www.troubledgalaxydetroyeddreams.blogspot.com/
The idea that history is a dialectic, or continuing conflict, between two opposites - capitalism and communism, or Christianity and Islam, or liberalism and conservatism. Each of these struggles succeeds the other as a historical imperative. No doubt experts can summarise this better.
I note only that I was told recently that the Labour government has no historical meaning because it doesn't define itself in opposition to anything. He said this as a critique of the government, but relying slyly on the Marxist assumption that history really is structured like this. And this was accepted by everyone else in the group. Anyone who wanted to argue back preferred to challenge on whether the government really is in opposition to something, instead of the much more important point of whether the grounds of the argument are valid.
dialectic
Greek term, originally associated with the philosopher Socrates' method of argument through dialogue and conversation. Hegelian dialectic, named after the German philosopher Hegel, refers to an interpretive method in which the contradiction between a thesis and its antithesis is resolved through synthesis.
Leaders of Left parties, who have strongly opposed the implementation of the Indo-US nuclear deal, have started receiving hate mail.
Continuing a static stand on the Indo-US nuclear deal, CPM on Saturday said that deal is a cover to promote strategic ties with United States.The party said that Congress and UPA are propagating N-deal as an answer to the energy crisis in the country, which is not true.CPM accused Congress of running a massive disinformation campaign that nuclear deal is essential to India.
Mind you, the left parties are always habitual to threat the Centre to implement its agenda. Prakash karat and company have been posing for withdrawal of support for the first day of the Manmohan Government. It has never happened. Manmohan economics has herald the Liberalisation, Privatisation and globalisation age for Indian Nation. it is no secret that this Prim minister and his Gang is planted by Washington and all of them have been the declared slaves of world Bank. An elite Brahmin from West Bengal who was the number two in Indira cabinet during Soviet Model of development and Socialism plus Poverty eradiction days turned the most authentic agent of corporate US Colonisation. yes, Pranab Mukherjee, the best friend of Indian communists happens to be the de facto Prime minister, heading thirty nine parliamentary committees and executing all the policy decisions. What if Manmohan resigns! The Marxist wil get their Man in helms. The parliament is run by another Brahmin, though Marxist, Somnath Chatterjee!
The Zionist Brahmin White Global strategic alliance depends so much so on Indo US nuclear deal that it overlaps the Inflation rates, Economic Disasters, Recession, Middle East stand off, Palestine crisis and even the rise of Barrack Obama!
The allies of the Congress are stepping up efforts to broker a peace between the UPA and the Left.The DMK chief, M Karunanidhi met the CPM chief Prakash Karat in Chennai on Sunday.
The Left continues to maintain its tough posturing that it will be forced to withdraw support to the UPA Government if the Centre went ahead with the nuclear deal.
That could mean early elections, which several allies are against.
Over half of the American Whites consider presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama as a ‘risky’ choice for the White House, whereas two-thirds believe McCain as a ‘safe’ pick, a new survey has revealed. The survey by The Washington Post/ABC News also opens up apprehensions of the race factor being whipped up by white supremist groups as a way to stop the Illinois Senator and the first African American from entering the White House.
The survey has shown that over half of Whites called 46-year-old Obama a ‘risky’ choice for the top post, while two-thirds said McCain is a ‘safe’ pick -- 43 per cent of the Whites said Obama has sufficient experience to serve effectively as president, and about two in 10 worry he would over-represent the interests of African Americans.
Most of the Indians would hate to see Barrack Obama in White House. The Hindus, always hate the Black Untouchables. Even, the Mahatma Mohan das Karam Chand Gandhi helped the White Government in repression of the Black Movement in South Africa! He was the man who ensured the transfer of Power to the Brahmins in Independent India.
It is a Nuclear Stand Off, of course thanks to the hypocrite, betraying Brahminical Communists in India!
CPIM may not afford earlier elections after the results of Panchayat elections in West Bengal. a damage control mobilisation is on with the latest phase of Gorkhaland movement led by Bimal Gurung to evoke violent Aamra Baangali Brand Bengali communalism consolidating Marxist vote bank, eroded with Nandigram Singur uprising and revolt of traditional Muslim and Dalit votes. CPIM is not very well in Kerala also.Other constituents of UPA government are afraid of elections simply because of Price rise and Petro crisis. Congress understands this and playing the trump card to push the US agenda of strategical realignment in the Indian Ocean region with this bloody Nuclear deal!
CPIM has not clanged its Marxist capitalist ways. Pet economists and media are engaged to prove that the Election Debacle is nothing to do with indiscriminate Industrialisation and urbanisation. Retail Chains are switched on. Salem is still waiting in the wings. Chemical Hub and nuclear plan happen to be the topmost priority of Buddhadeb Government. They try their best to reorganise the Gestapo and tame the rebels with the maximum hype of Bengali Communalism! Rather the Marxists are doing everything to reverse the Land Reforms. land acquisition is on. SEZ drive is not withdrawn. MNCs and Investment abroad, IT and outsourcing, privatisation of production systems and services intensified. Hire and fire goes on. latest move is the arrangement of commercial taxation in irrigation! On these lines, the Marxist opposition of Indo US Nuclear deal si nothing but simple rhetoric of Autocratic democracy! Nothing else!
Marxist have to pose as the fiercest crusaders against US Imperialism still engaged in Muslim annihilation, so called War Agianst Terrorism. It has to pose as the security umbrella for the minorities, say Muslims against RSS brand fascist Hindutva. It is the obligation of Majoritarian election system to have blocks of castes and communities, minorities to have a workable majority for state power!
Meanwhile, another dimension of the got up game of Gorkhaland is exposed as the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), spearheading an agitation for a separate Gorkhaland state, relaxed its indefinite Bandh in the Darjeeling hills for 60 hours beginning this evening even as it decided to send two teams to talk to the West Bengal government as well as the Centre.
GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said while the date of visit of the team bound for Kolkata has not been decided yet, the team for Delhi would leave tomorrow.
The gist of the Titanic War may be described as Nuclear Dialectics which is targeted to a favourable vote bank mobilisation. All political parties are playing the game including Mayawati, the Dalit Icon and Karunanidhi, the Dravid DOn!
We have to enjoy the drama of Nuclear Dialectics until elections are declared or President George butcher Bush steps down! The Indian Ruling Class is doing its best to lobby for a Republican Win once again as the Republican Presidential candidate Mc Cain is considered the best friend of Shining Sensex Manusmriti India! It is the Castism inherited by the fascist Hindutva based on enslavement of all the indigenous people and nationalities, the black untouchables, inherent inequality and continuous persecution and repression, continuous displacement and deprivement, which ignites the Indian Apartheid against a possible black democrate President in the Oval House. World bank slaves rule India and the colonisation is complete with the classic betrayals by the Brahminacal Indian communists, socialists and Gandhian all working together in the best Interest of Corporate Imperialism, the Post Modern Manusmriti Galaxy Order!
The stalemate between the government and Left parties showed no signs of resolution as the CPI(M) maintained its hard line on the nuclear agreement with the United States and the UPA coalition suffered another jolt when BSP withdrew its support to it. Government's chief negotiator on the deal, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who left for Australia , met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and apprised him of his discussions with the Left parties and UPA constituents on the stand-off.Hectic activities are expected to resumed when Mukherjee returns from his visit on June 24, a day ahead of the next crucial meeting of the UPA-Left Committee on nuclear deal.
Compared to the frenetic pace of consultations between government, UPA constituents and Left parties in the last few days, there was lull till today.
NCP spokesperson D P Tripati called on CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat in New Delhi while his party boss Sharad Pawar said in Pune that Left parties do not want to push the UPA government over the brink.Pawar said there are signs of finding a way out of the current impasse over the contentious Indo-US nuclear deal.
However, the CPI(M) issued a strong statement accusing the government of mounting a "massive disinformation campaign" to promote a "bad" nuclear deal, which it said, was only a cover to promote strategic ties with the US.
"Mythical energy claims are being made in order to promote a bad nuclear deal. Energy is just a cover. The real intent is India-US strategic ties," it said.
The party also accused the government of "dragging its feet" on the Iran gas pipeline project "at the behest of the US and in consideration of the Hyde Act".
I am lucky to have an encounter with a Marxist Gestapo lieutenant. Hardly twenty three years old. he visited my house having stumbled with some sites containing my write ups.
He introduced himself as a CITU trade union district leader.
`You are using your writeup full of venom against the Communists’, he directly charged.
`I never write against Communism. Rather I don`t consider the Indian Communist or Marxist leaders as communists. I am convinced that none of them believe in Marxist ideology anymore,’ i had to explain.
I appreciate the zeal and energy of the young man who tried his best to convince me the ways and obligations of Marxist capitalism. he debated violently . But I escaped unhurt.
He discussed the recent developments and analysed everything with accuracy. I realised that the man has got relevant informations. He pointed out the stagnation after land reforms and rural development. He also analysed the strategic set up and socio economic system. he recognised the facts of Nandigram and Singur Insurrections.
Then he tried his best to justify the gestapo culture. According him, sate power has to be the topmost priority. You may not go very far with the rotten ideology. You have to depend on the MNCs, Muscle Power, Police, Hooligans, goons, Promoters, Builders. Thus, the Hegemony is defended.
` You won`t win a single election with all those ideological hurdles’, he declared.
`I understand your stand. But you may not ensure any support base for the party. If you want to hold on Power, you have to adopt the ways of the Ruling Class. You have to align with the Global Order. You may not go against this. ‘
`Indian communists have grown up.Days of Telengana are long over. Over are the days of USSR. China has opened the Great walls. But we are winning elections in West Bengal and Kerala because we learnt to adjust with demanding time.’
` Human rights violations are wrong. SEZ drive is wrong. Chemical Hub is hazardous. Nuclear plants would undermine the land an the environment. everything is true. But we may not escape the urgency emphasised by the global ruling class’.
He warned me to restrain myself in my write ups.
`all this criticism is unwanted and irrelevant,’ he declared.
He was honest enough and told everything what the Indian communist Leadership would deny and quote Ideology instantly with betraying stance.
This episode in my personal life provides me a rare insight to analyse the on going Nuclear Stand Off. I understand the psyche of the Marxists who want to be in power and are very keen to have share in power all India level. The comrade visiting my home, did not say anything about the Brahminical Tie Up and the demographical politics and the continuous enslavement of indigenous people. The Marxists have to do everything to defend the interests of the Indian Brahminical ruling Class which are ultimately the interests of the United States of America.
I remember those days of reading Che`s diary or Red book. Those were the days of Thundering Spring. I was involved with so many of the Naxalites escaping from the repression in West Bengal. I shared their experiences and also shared their dreams. Chhoto Kaka has given me a copy of the Bengali translation of `Mother’, written by Maxim Gorky while I was still reading in Primary school.
I did not witness the Dhimri Block betrayal. But I witnessed the follow up. I witnessed the trial in the court . I felt the disillusionment of my father.
IN Zila Parishad High school, Prem Prakash Budhlakoti explained the Marxist ideology.
But Tara Chandra Tripathi was the man who guided me in systematic study of Marxism. It began with Communist Manifesto followed by Study circle book list. During our graduation days we read all the relevant classics, political ideologies and theories, economics and of course, Das Capital. It helped me to break the jinx of Telengana and Dhimri Block. i have not given up my imaginations and dreams even after my horrifying experiences in West Bengal. Saving communist movement being the agenda, we have to stand united with the indigenous people and production system, we have to be ecological activists, we have to break up the Harmonies as soon as possible. We have to resist Imperialism and globalisation. We have to defend the Nature, Natural resources and mankind.
Thus, we have no option but to expose the hypocrite and betraying Brahminical communist leadership in India!
At a time when the CPM top brass in Delhi has renewed its threat to withdraw support to the UPA government amid the standoff over the nuclear deal, CPM veteran Jyoti Basu on Friday evaded a question on the issue, but said the Left had not changed its stand.
Asked whether the CPM would pull the plug on the Congress-led UPA government, Mr Basu dodged a direct reply, but said: “The Left parties are sticking to their stand on the issue of the Indo-US nuclear deal. I have been told that the Congress is trying to evolve a compromise formula. But I don’t know what that will be and I also don’t know what will happen to this government ultimately.”
Mr Basu was talking to newspersons after attending the CPM state secretariat meeting at the party headquarters on Alimuddin Street on Friday. The CPM top brass in Delhi stressed that they would withdraw support to the UPA government if it took the next step to finalise the India-specific safeguard agreements with the IAEA.
The West Bengal CPM, it is learnt, does not want any immediate Lok Sabha elections as the party has suffered an electoral setback in the May panchayat elections in the state.
On the other hand, Defence Minister A K Antony has been roped in for all political discussions over the India-US civil nuclear deal on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's request, Congress sources said on Sunday.
According to the sources, Manmohan Singh told Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday that he wanted Antony to join the negotiations held with the Left parties, rather than entrust the task exclusively to External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Since then, the Defence Minister has been present in almost all the known meetings Mukherjee has had with leaders of the Left and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) allies over the nuclear issue.
A section of the Congress feels that Mukherjee is seemingly not eager to push the nuclear agreement, an issue close to Manmohan Singh's heart, because the Foreign Minister felt he was ignored in the initial stages of the ambitious agreement. Mukherjee's supporters deny this.
Besides, Mukherjee's rumoured proximity with Communist leaders also has been viewed warily by some Congress leaders. When the Communists backed his name for the post of the president to succeed A P J Abdul Kalam, it raised eyebrows in the Congress.
It is following the request of both the Prime Minister and Sonia that Mukherjee came to head the 15-member UPA-Left committee formed to address concerns raised by the Communists over the nuclear deal.
But Antony's presence, it seems, has not helped Mukherjee to persuade the Communists to give up their opposition to the deal -- so far.
Mukherjee met Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Monday and Tuesday evenings. But he could not convince Karat into giving a green signal to the government to finalise the India-specific safeguard agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
It was after this Manmohan Singh called on Sonia and expressed his desire that Antony should be asked to aid Mukherjee in future talks with the Left and other UPA allies.
Antony was present when Mukherjee met Karat for the third time in the week Friday and earlier with CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury.
Antony attended Mukherjee's meetings on Friday with Communist Party of India (CPI) national secretary D Raja, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad.
The CPI-M-led Left parties, which prop up the Congress-led Manmohan Singh government, have rejected the government's repeated pleas to allow it to finalise the IAEA safeguards agreement.
After the Wednesday meeting between the Prime Minister and Sonia, the government axed a scheduled meeting of the UPA-Left nuclear committee that had been scheduled for June 25.
Just see this item!
Asking the Congress-led UPA to set its priority on fighting soaring inflation instead of focusing on Indo-US nuclear deal, CPI on Sunday said the central government should not be sacrificed in the name of such an agreement, as nobody wants early polls.
"The priority at this moment is to fight the rising inflation and not the nuclear deal," CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan told reporters on the sidelines of a convention here against POSCO's proposed steel project in Orissa.
"There should not be early elections as nobody favours it except the divisive forces," he said adding, I do not understand as to why the government is in such a hurry to go ahead with the deal.
"After all, the UPA government should realise it is not going to be a deal between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush but between India and the US," the CPI leader said.
The stand of the Left parties on the nuclear deal was clear, he said adding, they were against the agreement but efforts will be made to "convince UPA during the meeting" on the issue slated on June 25.
And this!
DMK Chief M Karunanidhi said that the unity between the UPA and Left parties should not be disrupted over the latter's opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal, as it would affect the nation's progress.
Emerging from Karunanidhi's residence after a 40-minute meeting with him and CPI leader D Raja, Karat told reporters that the Chief Minister had told them that the disruption would only pave the way for 'communal forces' to gain the upper hand.
Karat said they had assured Karunanidhi that the Left parties would meet again to find a solution to the Indo-US nuclear deal.
"We will meet Karunanidhi again," he said.
Karat said they had put forth the Left parties' views on the UPA Government's move to go ahead with negotiations with the IAEA board of governors on the safeguards agreement.
"We are against it. We have explained to him our stand.
As a senior leader of the UPA, Karunanidhi will take up the issue with the Congress," he said.
"We have assured him that the Left parties will discuss the matter and come out with a solution," he said.
On the Indo-Pakistan-Iran pipeline, he said, "We want the negotiations to continue so that the deal is completed".
It is the finest form of north Indian folk drama , Nautankee. All characters are coorful and loud.As the stalemate on the India-US nuclear deal continued on Saturday, the CPI(M) accused the UPA government of furthering American interests at a time when inflation has crossed the 11 per cent mark.
The CPI(M) leadership that has led the Left bloc’s tirade against the nuclear deal, said it is “nothing but a cover to promote the strategic ties with the US”. The party also accused the government of “dragging its feet” on the Iran gas pipeline project “at the behest of the US and in consideration of the Hyde Act”.
Meanwhile, Left leaders continued talks with UPA allies. In New Delhi, NCP spokesperson D.P. Tripathi called on CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat and CPI National Secretary D. Raja spoke with DMK chief M. Karunanidhi on the Left’s position on the deal. Raja and Karat are slated to travel to Chennai on Sunday.
“Mythical energy claims are being made in order to promote a bad nuclear deal.
Energy is just a cover. The real intent is India-US strategic ties,” the CPI(M) Central Committee said in a statement.
CC member Nilotpal Basu took a dig at Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal, a keen advocate of the deal. “The government is linking nuclear energy with the oil crisis. We do not know if the government has any technology to put uranium directly into the fuel tanks of buses and cars. We might lack in technological knowledge as compared to the Science and Technology Minister,” he said.
Asked to elaborate on why the CPI(M) thought American interests are being pushed, Basu said: “I think the people of the country can draw their own conclusions. Obviously, there are some political interests at play to gain from the strategic alliance with the US.”
Four top Communist leaders -- Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M), AB Bardhan and D Raja (CPI) -- have received "death threats" by mail for stopping the Congress-led UPA Government in going ahead with the nuclear deal and "harassing" Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet.
Sources said, the letter written in incorrect English by one Vinay Kateri from Mumbai has accused the Left leaders of "hijacking" national interests and warned them against "behaving like terrorists." The mail accuses the Left leaders of "hijacking" national interests and warns them against "behaving like terrorists."
The writer also accused them of suffering from "anti-American virus" and said "people of this country are tired with their ... behaviour and harassing (of) the government for the last four-and-a-half years."
Joining the chorus from the Left front to scrap Indo-US nuclear deal, the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) today called the agreement a threat to the nation's sovereignty.
"The proposed Indo-US civilian nuclear deal is a threat to the national sovereignty and violation of the Common Minimum Programme of the UPA government," AIFB national secretary G Devarajan told party workers here.
The agreement went against the time-tested independent foreign policy of the country, Devarajan said calling upon the people to oppose the deal.
Addressing the AIFB party's foundation day function here, he said all successive governments since independence had failed to resolve the basic problems of the common man such as illiteracy, unemployment, ill-health and inequality.
"The unfinished task of party founder Subhas Chandra Bose in his struggle against imperialism should be carried forward to save the nation from neo-imperialist forces and their Indian agents," he said.
Meanwhile,India has blamed speculators for the price in global oil prices and warned that the country’s economic goals were in “great peril”.
Oil-producing nations must not to remain a "passive spectator of speculation" and should adopt a "price band mechanism" to decrease prices, said Finance Minister P Chidambaram at the meeting of world energy ministers in Jeddah.
"Oil prices threaten to wipe out the economic gains made by developing countries in recent years. The irrational escalation in oil prices is a cause of diversion of cash resources from education, health and other social sector schemes.
"The only way forward is for the both producers and consumers to find common ground. We propose that we adopt a price band mechanism," said Chidambaram.
According to Chidambaram’s proposal petrol-consuming countries will guarantee that oil prices would not fall below an agreed level and producing countries will guarantee that prices would not rise above a guaranteed level.
"In the band between these two levels, let prices be determined by market forces. This is the only way to shelter the world from volatility and unpredictability in oil prices," he said.
India has acquired the capacity to end poverty but global oil prices were endangering it capabilities. "I speak with great anguish because the goals that we have set for ourselves are in great peril," he said.
"Questions have been raised about the fundamentals of the oil industry. There is a need for the oil industry to reassert its leadership in price formation and not remain a passive spectator of speculation and paper trading in oil.
“The global hydrocarbon community must address this situation through appropriate supply side responses and calm the oil markets.”
Chidambaram, who is accompanying Petroleum Minister Murli Deora as part of the Indian delegation to the summit, warned oil producers that would sufferer too if the global economy slows down or slips into recession because of high oil prices.
Global consumption increased by one million barrels a day last year, but production fell by 1.30 lakh barrels per day. "Spare capacity, across the supply chain, has dwindled considerably. This has added to risks and uncertainty. Hence the need to fast track development of oil resources," he said.
Rejecting the suggestion that rise in demand is the cause of spiraling prices, Chidambaram said that demand and supply dynamics cannot explain what has happened over the last twelve months.
"How is that oil prices were $70 a barrel in August 2007 and how is it that they have doubled when there has been no dramatic change in demand? The causes for the current pandemonium in oil prices lie elsewhere: in unregulated over-the-counter markets and futures trading in oil," he said.
Bleeding Rainbow
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed dreams: Chapter Ten
Palash Biswas
http://www.troubledgalaxydetroyeddreams.blogspot.com/
Rainbow
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rainbows are optical and meteorological phenomena that cause a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. They take the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outer part of the arch and violet on the inner section of the arch. More rarely, a secondary rainbow is seen, which is a second, fainter arc, outside the primary arc, with colours in the opposite order, that is, with violet on the outside and red on the inside.
A rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours. Traditionally, however, the sequence is quantised. The most commonly cited and remembered sequence, in English, is Newton's sevenfold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. "Roy G. Biv" and "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain" are popular mnemonics.
Rainbows can be caused by other forms of water than rain, including mist, spray, dew, fog, and ice. Moreover, rainbows can have shapes other than a bow (arc), including stripes, circles, or even flames. (See circumhorizontal arc).
Rainbows can be observed whenever there are water drops in the air and sunlight shining from behind a person at a low altitude angle (on the ground). The most spectacular rainbow displays happen when half of the sky is still dark with draining clouds and the observer is at a spot with clear sky in the direction of the Sun. The result is a luminous rainbow that contrasts with the darkened background.
The rainbow effect is also commonly seen near waterfalls or fountains. Rainbow fringes can sometimes be seen at the edges of backlit clouds[1] and as vertical bands in distant rain or virga. The effect can also be artificially created by dispersing water droplets into the air during a sunny day. Rarely, a moonbow, lunar rainbow or night-time rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human visual perception for colour is poor in low light, moonbows are often perceived to be white.[1]
You can create your own rainbow by facing 180 degrees from the sun and spraying mist from a garden hose in front of you in a circular motion, outlining a 360 degree "rainbow".
It is difficult to photograph the complete arc of a rainbow, as this would require an angle of view of 84°. For a 35 mm camera, a lens with a focal length of 19 mm or less would be required, whilst most photographers are only likely to have a 28 mm wide-angle lens. From an aeroplane, one has the opportunity to see the whole circle of the rainbow, with the plane's shadow in the centre. This phenomenon can be confused with the glory, but a glory is usually much smaller, covering only 5°–20°.
When I Look At The Rainbow
Lord when I look at the Rainbow you have placed in sky so
blue, it reminds me that all your promises are true
Your Rainbow reminds me that those who believe on you
are few, yet you have called us your little Ewe
Lord when I look at the Rainbow I see it's hue, it reminds
me that your love for us true
Your Rainbow in sky so blue, reminds me to keep praying
through
Lord when I look at the Rainbow it reminds me of your
promise to all of your creatures some of whom are of
different features
Your Rainbow and it's many colors reminds me that it
represents some whom are called colored
Lord when I look at your Rainbow and see how it's colors
are bright, it reminds me to do what is right
Your Rainbow I have never seen at night, this reminds me
to stay in the light
Lord when I look at your Rainbow it reminds me of your grief
because of our unbelief
Your Rainbow have no pot of gold, but your wonderful story
of love it has told
Lord when I Look at your Rainbow it reminds that you
promised to never again destroy the World with a flood
Your Rainbow to me is a sign of your love it represents
your Son's life Blood
Vincent G. Mead
And yet another dream......
Feel like dancing under a rainbow, feel like singing happy
songs, but my rainbow, no my rainbow, wont shine for me.
Feel like going to the ocean, building castle in the sand..
but my rainbow, my rainbow, wont shine for me.
,
DAVID GERARDINO
Rainbow
When I first came to the city
the rainbow paint the sky
It's in a little bus station
where I heard the rainbow song
a beautiful mother singing to her little three sons
And then rainbow shows day after day
with God telling me everything's gonna be so right
Oh, beautiful rainbow, beautiful sign
just letting people feel right
It is in this rainbow season
that love fills friends' hearts
some to express, some to hide
some to broadcast, some are shy
With the rainbow in the sky
You shouldn't hide and you shouldn't be shy
Nobody's gonna laugh at your lovely lines
Oh, beautiful rainbow, beautiful sign
Forever having her by my side
Xin Wang
Rainbow
I raised the elbow
I have seen the rainbow
It is the celebration of sky
My heart vibrates with joy
Rainbow happens on special moment
Busy life misses it in the speed movement
Waiting for rainbow,
In the raindrops Meadow,
Sky is not showing grace
Rainbow is not in trace
Rainbow with seven colors,
Appears to my beloved,
stays somewhere,
melts in the infinite sky!
Heart felts it’s gay
Rainbow is not mirage
It leaves image in my soul!
Mula Veereswara Rao
Rainbows bleed!
Just you should have the vision. Not only the Vision, you must have a heart to feel and a mind to understand.
For us, the persecuted Untouchables, black people and all underclasses, the refugees, the immigrants and the victims of Holocaust, Partition, Natural and man made hazards, Wars and civil Wars , the rainbows have to bleed!
We, the defenders of Nature and Natural resources, have to be killed and uprooted. this has been the Ultimate agenda of the Ruling Class and Hegemony all the time and Everywhere!
It happened in Americas while Columbus invented the new world for Colonisation. It was repeated as Vasco De Gama reached India. It was the same story in Africa, Australia and Neuzealand.
Europe experienced the Bloodshed with the introduction of industrial revolution followed by Hundred Years War, the CRUSED!
A Tale of Two Cities written by Charles Dickens and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo consists of enough Bloodshed.
USA also had to cross the rivers of blood in the struggle of Independence! USA had to suffer the tragedies involving civil War. Rise of Barrack Obama is the climax of all those tragedies.
China and Korea suffered Japanese Aggression!
Russia faced Napoleon and thus, Leo Tolstoy wrote the classic, War and Peace! USSR was born in bloodshed. USSR was the ultimate demise in Bloodshed.
Vietnam bore the burn of War as Hiroshima and Nagasaki witnessed first atomic Disaster heralding an Age of Troubled galaxy!
We witness Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Palestine and the middle east have never seen any Rainbow without the rain of Blood!
Thus, the Rainbows are bleeding for us worldwide. We bear the heritage and legacy of Holocaust as the War criminals consist of the Galaxy ruling Class!
Memories of Another Day continue and continue!
I have to live with so many families losing dearest and nearest ones in partition. Families had its members stranded in East Pakistan. Sometimes the Old Men and Helpless ladies would come to me and request to write a Post card for them addressed somewhere in East Bengal.
I learnt this with personal tragedies.
In 1960, my father Pulin Babu organised an all India Refugee Conference in Dineshpur. Invitees included SM Bannerjee, MP kanpur, Renuka chakrabarti and Samar Mukherjee , MPs from West Bengal and other dignitaries. Some posters printed for the event were stocked on the partition wall in our Uttar Gahr, the North House. I found them later. i don`t remember anything particular about that conference. Nainital based Bengali Refugees demonstrated in Rudrapur in 1956 under the banner of Terai Udvastu committee. Pulin Babu was the general secretary. Radhakanta Roy, a Paundra Kshatriya from Khulna and resettled in Sunderpur Refugee colony in Dineshpur Area had been the President. Haripada Biswas was another prominent leader who hailed from Khulna and was resettled in Laxmipur Colony. Kumud Ranjan Mallick from Panchananpur, Shadanand Shikdar from Khanpur, Prafulla saha from Udainagar, kalipada Mandal from Kalinagar, Haren Roy from Chandan Nagar, Haren Sarkar from Makrand pur, Basudeb Mandal from Pipulia, Phuljhuri Mandal from Chandayan, Sukhlal Mandal from Dinesh Pur, Shishubar Roy from Vijaya Nagar, Meghnad Roy from Shibpur, Birinchi Pada Mandal from Durgapur, Deben Biswas from Amrita Nagar, Prafulla Manjhi from Haridaspur, Harimohan from Anand Khera were the prominent leaders of the Bengali refugees at that time.
I remember well that all the Bengali MPs and MLAs skipped Dinseh Pur and Shaktifarm with refugee colonies countrywide. Only in seventies, while CPIM launched Marichjhanpi Movement, leaders from West Bengal visited Dandakaranya. Uttaranchal saw the West Bengal based comrades only after the death of my Father. In 2001, Newly Uttaranchal BJP Government led by Nityanand Swami, made domicile certificates compulsory for jobs in the state. Bengalies were denied the domicile certificates. All the Bengali Refugees settled in Terai were branded as Bangladeshi. The Bengalies and the Sikhs settled in Terai in the same time period in early fifties and they were responsible for deforestation and cultivation in Terai. But the Sikhs were never questioned. The Bengalies launched an agitation once again after 1956. this time, they had to defend their citizenship. All communities residing in Terai, the media and all political parties except BJP, stood united rock solid to support this agitation.
We contacted the West Bengal Government, Political parties, Civil Society and Media. We formed an organisation, SAHMARMI. For the first time, West Bengal supported the Dalit Refugees. Later it turned out to be an exercise to expand the CPIM base in North India with refugee Vote Bank. CPIM launched a false land movement led by Brinda karat in Terai only to divide the Bengalies settled there.MPs and Party leaders including Biman Basu visited our area for the first time while they had already cooperated to pass the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2003. Cpim fielded no less than forteen candidates in the next assembly elections!
ND Tiwari was the only leader who always supported the Bengali refugees in Terai. He visited Bengali resettlement in 1954 for the first time. He befriended with all the refugees. he knew all the Old Men and the Youth by name in every colony.
In 1960, only ND Tiwari ensured the suceess of the first All India Refugee Conference in Dineshpur.
I was to young to join the conference. But I would never forget the occassion. My father was involved in Refugee Mobilisation. Meanwhile, he visited the riot torn Assam. he returned and organised the conference having sent his younger brother, Chhoto kaka to Assam.
My two sisters died without any medical help during those hectic days.
I remember that day. It was a dark, humid day in Terai. We saw no Rainbow in the sky as it did not rain. The sky was unclear and the Himalays were not visible. The Himalays just disappeared from the Horizon.
We were all alone, isolated like a lonely Island.
Though our Village people were there. But what help could they offer? They tried their best to locate Pulin Babu and failed.
Tuni was younger than me. the other girl was an infant and was still unnamed. They both succumbed in the Evening and all the darkness of this Galaxy involved us. I saw my Jetah Moshai, the Eldest uncle weeping. Thamma, Pisisma, Jethima and Kakima were crying. Didi, Meera was also crying. All the women in the neighbourhood were crying.
But I was not crying. I do not know how I realised in those days of innocense that any amount of crying is not going to help us anyway.
I just noted and witness the Event of Tragedy.
I was shocked.
But I was strong enough to face the Ultimate truth.
It was my Making. I had to change this scenerio!
Tragedies and Holocaust never cease. We have to change the system and circumstances causing all these tragedies and Holocausts.
Believe me, or not, I saw the rainbow bleedin all the time and always I believed that we could Change! It has to be changed!
This is the ultimate lesson I got with my first solid memory as a child.
And just read this letter which I wrote in 2007. It is addressed to a friend , Dr PG Biswas, a Professor in GB Pant University Pant Nagar.
The Terai in Nainital was a home for epidemics and wild life. We changed it.
We have to change the galaxy someday!
Biswas Da (PG Biswas, Pantnagar University, Namaskar.
I was waiting for your call/mail. My mobile 09903717833 as well as land phone had been out of order for few days. May be you have tried. I tried to call you yesterday thrice and failed to contact. I am interested to know the progress of your work. I also wait for the feedback from all the friends and orgs involved in Dalit mobilisation and anti imperialism Black Untouchable Resistance!
Meanwhile, BAMCEF invited me to address its National conference in Patna. I have to speak on Nationality problem , Refugee problem and citizenship amendment act, Dalit Panchayat and south India and non Hindu periphery. I have to speak on 25th December.I have nothing against the other faction of Bamcef which is holding its conference in New Delhi. I was also proposed to address that conference. Since they do not treat our case, the plight of Dalit Bengali Refugees and Nationality problems, non Hindu periphera as burning issues inescapable and skip it- I decided for not going there. But I believe broader unity of all subaltern, SC, ST, OBC and Minority unity to annihilate this Hindu, Zionist, White Post Modern Manusmriti Corporate Manusmriti Imperialism!
On the other hand , our family faced a great tragedy as my cousin sister`s MeeraDee`s eldest Son Shekhar who belong to Suraj Farm, expired in a road accident near Bijnore.The body is waited to reach there from New Delhi AAIMS, where a brain surgery was done to save him as last bid. Whole family is there. I had to go.But I can not.Shekhar had been eldest amongst all our children. While my father was leading Dhimri Block Insurrection in 1958 or led refuges countrywide, we, Meeradi and me had been the only children in the joint family. My uncles were liable to see the family. Father was dedicated to the society. Later, after the riots of sixties my late uncle Dr Sudhir Kumar Biswas was also sent to Assam refugee areas to attend their health needs. Meeradi looked after me. As the ladies in the family my aunts and mother used to be always busy to attend infinite needy crisis struck daily guests and home management.
Shekhar was borne at our place and I clearly visualise the event. he had been such a nice boy always present to help in crisis. Thanks God, My father, mother, Uncles and aunts - no one survive to face the tragedy. My sister is an excellent old lady and her Husband had been a teacher. I am concerned for the poor old couple!
My wife Sabita had undergone open heart surgery in 1995 and we have got doctors appointments.
Moreover, it is a rare opportunity to address the BAMCEF Conference as no other political or non political org supports us.
You know the family legacy and liability. It is really a very tough decision to make. I inherit the legacy of struggle from my father. And perhaps you should know that two of my sisters expired without medical care while he was engaged in mass mobilisation.
I am just following my father`s example. My wife is weeping all these days. As last week my bosome college life friend Pawan Rakesh also lost his only son dearest gaurab, only 23 yrs old in a road accident in Dehradoon where he studied.
It is a very tough time.
but I have to be aware of my surroundings. I have to take care of my enslaved communities unguarded from civil and human rights violations. My family in Naninital and relatives countrywide would consider me heartless as my family considered my father once upon a time in 1960.
In these circumstances I want your support to convince my friends there that I have not any other option. i will be in Naninital in January, i hope.
I request everyone belonging to Bahujan communities to attend the BAMCEF Conference in Patna beginning from 25th December. I hope that our friends from Uttaranchal and UP will be there. It is much more important as the conference is being held in Bihar where Dalit Bengali refugees are isolated rest of the community.
We have to unify all the Islands!
Palash Biswas
Kolkata
15 December,2007
Nirmal. Nirmal joshi, a friend , a comrade is no more. He died on 24 October,2007. He was sick for long time. My sweet home Nainital is situated perhaps in another galaxy. We have so many E-Groups, mobiles and net, but we did not know the news. I had to attend the birthday party of Golu, the lovely small boy , my friend film director Rajiv Kumar`s son last Sunday. We met in south kolkata in his new flat. Director Joshy Joseph and a bunch of young filmmakers and technitians were present. We discussed nandigram, Singur, Bangladesh, Refugee movement, my father, globalisation and American corporate Imperialism. But we could not discuss on our home Nainital or Uttrakhand. We have no news, no feedback, no phone call from Nainital. No body informed us that Nirmal is not there to participate in any hot debate on our favourite topics as he used to do in seventies during our college days, during emergency and Chipko Andolan, during Nasha nahee Rozgar do. He won`t be there to enact again , `Thank You Mr Glad’.
On monday only, I recieved a copy of Nainital samachar and got the news. I informed rajiv. We were stunned that a friend born in 1956 went away for ever so silently. Nirmal was never silent. We shared a single quilt in Girda`s room with Girda, Mohan, Prim, Pushpa and Nirmal. We shared single cup of tea during rehearsals of Yugmanch. We shared a bottle of wine in chilly night in Nainital.Everyone had to have a chuski. We discussed the world strolling on Mal road beside the splendid Naini Lake in winter nights amid snowfall. We discussed Marx and Mao, Gandhi and Lohia, Classics written worldwide and the contemporary world. We discussed our dreams. We discussed every moment a better Uttarakhand , a better India and a better world.
What Uttarakhand we have got! What a world is this!
During emergency, we were students in degree classes in Nainital. Mohan alias Kapilesh Bhoj and me went to Mathura and Kota during winter vacation to attend writers` secret meetings. We used to have our study circles on Snow Peak or Tiffin Top. Nainital samchar was yet to publish. In DSB college we had Mahendra Singh Pal, the students` Union President, Raja Bahuguna, Sher Singh Naulia, Bhagirath Lal, the most versatile actor Zahoor Alam, Suresh Arya, Kashi Singh Airy and many more who represent Uttarakhand assembly nowadays.Pradip Tamta, now a Congress MLA , was our ideological leader.He was most aggressive. Mohan and me were considered intellectuals in the group as we used to write regularly.At that time we were room partners in Bengal Hotel Nainital as we left the house of Tara Chandra Tripathi, our guide and teacher.
We knew Girda as a poet and a very good director actor.We had no interaction with Rajiv Lochan sah or Shekhar Pathak at that time. DD Pant was our Vice chacellor who launched Uttarakhand Kranti Dal later and kash emerged the leader.
Tamta came to our room and introduced Nirmal, an MA student in political science.His father was the head clerk in our DSB college and we had serious doubts about Nirmal`s commitment. Very soon he proved to be more committed. We had secret meetings in Kashipur, Gularbhoj and Dineshpur in Terai. We had regular study circles. We were fighting against emergency. Raja Bahuguna joined us at this point. He shifted to new founded Uttaraghand Sangharsh Vahini with us from Janata Dal. Earlier he had been Nainital district Youth Congress President. He left Congress during May, 1977 elections.
During Chipko movement and just after Nainital Club Fire, the entire group was together with Almora friends Vipin Tripathi, shamsher Singh Bisht and chandra Sekhar Bhatt, PC Tiwari and many more. Nirmal was most active among us.Nainital Samachar, Nainital, Ramje Inter College Almora, Someshwar, Dwarahat, Tehri, Uttarkashi and the total Uttarakhan along with Terai became our centres of activity. We often were involved in heated discussion. Niramal, Girda, Vipin Chacha and Me were the most vocal. Harish Pant, Zahoor Alam, Shamsher, Rajiv Lochan, Pawan Rakesh, Shekhar Pathak, dr Ajay Rawat and Dr Chandresh Shastri were very logical. We always dominated.
We decided the layout and content of Nainital Samachar and the editorial team had to surrender. Outsiders like Naveen Joshi from Lucknow were the regular visitors. Pankaj Bisht, Biren Dangwal, kunwar Prasoon, Sundar Lal Bahuguna, Jawaqhar Lal kaul, Anand Swaroop Verma, Himanshu Joshi, Diva Bhatt and others interrupted us sometimes.
Uma Bahtt was married to Shekhar and she became the most silent and active worker. She played the host role for us the anarchists. We danced together on the occassion of Rajiv`s marriage. We may not forget all those days. Rajiv Kumar came from Pantnagar and became a part of us. We played dramas by Badal Sarkar and the director was BB karanth. We played Trishanku with BM shah.
During Thank You Mr Glad our team was attacked in Ramje college by RSS goons. Nirmal was thrashed. He played the Patnaik role in the play. He was not an actor as Zahoor and our Yugmanch friends were. But he acted very well. The wife of Patnaik was enacted by Pushpa. Nirmal`s father was not ready to agree their marriage as Nirmal was a Kumauni Brahmin and Pushpa , a Thakur titled Bisht. Bua Pushpa and Nirmal passed those challanges very well. both of them were established lawyers in Nainital Highcourt.
Me and Savita went to Nainital just after our marraige. We met Nirmal and Pushpa for the last time then in May, 1983.
Nirmal changed a lot. He was drinking too muich and was availabl only in the Boat club. thus, I could not meet him for years. same was the case with friends in Nainital. We listened that Nirmal is changing once again. he is prepared to play a second innings in the mass movement.
Person's nexus of statuses, defines only a selection of his rights, duties, and capacities and endangers only one sector of his total social identity....
The family is a group of persons united by the ties of marriage, blood, or adoption; constituting a single household, interacting and inter-communicating...A Joint family is a group of people who generally live under one roof, who eat food cooked at one hearth, who hold property in common.
Tribe, caste, sect and class are the various categories of social stratification found in India. A tribe is a collection of families or groups of families.
330 kms northeast of New Delhi in the Kumaon Himalayas lies the Nainital Lake Valley (29° 22' 60N and 79° 27' 0E) and adjacent hill resorts. The Nainital area (1938m) lies in the central Himalayas and is a vantage point to view the great Nanda Devi massif. The Pangot area (1900m) lies 15 kilometers past Nainital and is on the road to Vinayak past Kilbury.
The area and its surrounding hills has a record of 200+ Himalayan bird species.
Mixed forests dominated by thick ban-oak, pine and rhododendron cover most of the area and surrounding hills. A large part of the landscape is characterized by dense vegetation. Numerous perennial creeks and streams crisscross the area.
The terai & bhabhar belt presents the climate of the plains while the deep valleys with elevation upto 1000 Mts. play host to flora and fauna typical of hills as well as plains. The middle Himalayan ranges to 2000 Mts and the sub alpine region upto 2500 Mts complete the eco-zones.
Indian farmers in a district in Uttar Pradesh, who had given up traditional rice varieties for high yielding varieties (HYVs) during the Green Revolution, found themselves in difficulty as the HYVs ran into problems. These farmers were saved by the foresight of one farmer who had continued growing traditional varieties which are cheaper to cultivate and superior to the HYVs in disease and pest resistance, climate tolerance, yield, flavour and market price.
While several farmers had started growing the Pant-4 HYV (and some other HYVs) recommended to them, the very high demands of irrigation as well as chemical fertilisers for this rice HYV were proving a problem for them. This problem was particularly acute in this drought year. As a result of heavy exploitation of water, nearly half of the artesian wells (the most important sources of irrigation in the terai) had dried up. In the remaining wells too the pressure had reduced considerably.
Even in rivers the water level declined steeply. The water level in the Haripura dam on Bhakhra river and the Bore dam on Bore river has receded so much that the farmers could not seek any solace from these structures.
A large number of eucalyptus trees planted here in recent years have also contributed to lowering the water-table. Most of these trees have been planted on fields bunds. Villagers say that a row of this tree sucks up to a distance of five metres in the field.
Earlier the main feature of this area had been its abundance of ground-water. But the destruction of natural forests in the hills above as well as in the plains of the terai reduced this to a large extent. At the same time, exploitation of the ground-water started on a truly massive scale by not only bringing much more land under cultivation but also growing highly water-intensive HYVs, especially the new exotic strains of paddy, on this land. The water-table went down drastically, at some places as low as 50 feet, making it necessary to dig tubewells to satiate the needs of the HYVs and the new cropping pattern.
Initially, when water abundance had made this a particularly good land for growing rice HYVs, the traditional paddy varieties had been given up by most farmers. However, one far-sighted farmer, Inder Singh continued to grow and preserve several diverse traditional varieties having different properties with respect to disease and pest susceptibility, climate tolerance, yield, flavour, aroma, etc. Among these he noticed one particular variety which had good qualities of flavour as well as high yield.
As the water level receded and the HYVs ran into some other problems as well, some farmers started yearning for traditional seeds and happily they could get these from Inder Singh. His best variety was named Indarasan - as a tribute to his farsightedness in preserving and improving it. Owing to high productivity and low costs of cultivation (in terms of fertilisers and water), this variety was popular among farmers. The small farmers least capable of coping with the high cost of HYVs especially found Indarasan a very useful variety. In just about six to seven years nearly half of the land was covered by Indarasan, and even some big farmers adopted this variety.
During the recent drought season, Indarasan coped much better than Pant-4, the most widely grown variety here among the various paddy HYVs. In fact the yield of Indarasan paddy this year has gone up, reaching a peak of 32 quintals per acre from the earlier average of 25 quintals per acre. On the other hand Pant-4 has stagnated at 20 quintals per acre, and where irrigation could not be arranged, this HYV has been destroyed almost entirely.
What is more, the Indarasan variety is fetching a better price on the market - its rate of Rs.208 per quintal in Gandarpur mandi (market) compares very favourably with the Rs.175 per quintal for Pant-4.
There is a big rush among farmers to get the Indarasan seed for next year's crop.
Farmers who have been cultivating Indarasan for some time are satisfied that it has not been susceptible to diseases and they compare this to the high susceptibility of the so-called HYVs.
The Indarasan variety also has good flavour and scent, and its threshing is much easier. In comparison the threshing of Pant-4 requires much more effort. In addition the proportion of unbroken grains is higher in Indarasan.
In terms of flavour Indarasan is vying with popular types of rice like Basmati and Hansraj for a place of honour. It also yields more dry fodder for cattle compared to the dwarf HYVs, and even in quality Indarasan's fodder has been found relatively better (generally paddy fodder is considered a poor quality fodder, to be used only in case of extreme need).
Unfortunately some scientists who identify their own work only with the popularisation of exotic HYVs are feeling uneasy about this re-discovery of farmers, instead of learning from the field-situation and re-orienting their research effort accordingly.
This better performance of a traditional variety grown at a lower cost, particularly in a drought year, is especially significant since it took place in the Nainital terai region, considered a birth-place of the Green Revolution in India.
Nainital is referred to in the ‘Manas Khand’ of the ‘Skanda Purana’ as the Tri-Rishi-Sarovar, the lake of the three sages, Atri, Pulastya and Pulaha who were reputed to have arrived here on penitential pilgrimage and finding no water to quench their thirst dug a hole and siphoned water into it from Mansarovar the sacred lake in Tibet.
The second important mythological reference to Nainital is as one of 64 ‘Shakti Peeths’. These centres were created wherever parts of charred body of Sati fell, when Lord Shiva was carrying around her corpse in grief. It is said that the left eye (Nain) of Sati fell here and this gave rise to patron deity of town Nainital. It is said that the lake is formed in the emerald eye shape. Naina Devi temple is located at the northern end of the lake. Thus name of Nainital derivated from Naina and the tal (Lake).
Before creation of independent District Nainital on October 13, 1891, it was part of Kumaon Sessions Division vide Notification No.1314/VI-48-1914 dated 26th March, 1914 Mr.Wyndham, I.C.S. was appointed as first Commissioner of Kumaon Division, who also worked as Sessions Judge for this Division. At that time, Almora, Garhwal, Nainital and Pilibhit were placed under this Sessions Division. Later on, Pilibhit was removed from Kumaon Sessions Division.
Under the treaty of Sigauli in 1816, Nepal formally ceded the territory of Uttarakhand, and certain other areas to the East India Company. A province of Kumaon was formed consisting of the erstwhile districts of Almora, Garhwal and Nainital. Garhwal was separated from Kumaon under the Act X of 1838 and Terai Districts were created. Thus, the province of Kumaon included the districts of Kumaon, Garhwal and Terai came in existence. But, on 13th October, 1891, Nainital district was formed by combining the Tarai and Bhabar area with certain hill patties which were formerly included in what was known as Kumaon District which thereafter came to be known as Almora. The three Districts of Almora, Nainital and Garhwal constituted the Kumaon Division. On the merger of the erstwhile Tehri State in 1949, Tehri District was also added to this Division.
On the absorption of Kumaon with the rest of British India, the then Governor-General appointed Hon’ble E.Gardner to assume the office and title of Commissioner for the affairs of Kumaon and Agent to the Governor-General on 3rd May, 1815, and Mr. G.W.Traill as his Assistant. But as the former mostly remained busy with his military and political duties in Nepal, the burden of administration fell on his Assistant, Mr.Traill.
The administrative history of Kumaon Division in the words of Whalley in his "Law of Non-Regulation-Provinces" divides itself into three periods "Kumaon under Traill; Kumaon under Batten and Kumaon under Ramsay". The regime in the first period was essentially paternal, despotic and personal. It resisted the centralizing tendency which the policy of the Government had developed. It, though arbitrary was just wise and progressive administration. Mr.Traill’s administration lasted from 1815 to 1835.
"Mr. Batten ruled Kumaon during 1836-56, but the early stages of his rule were marked by an influx of codes and rules and a predominance of official supervision which gradually subsided as he gained influence position and experience. Thus, the second period glided insensibly, into the third period which nevertheless has a distinctive character of its own. In Sir Henry Ramsay’s administration we see the two currents blended. The personal sway and unhampered autocracy of the first era, combining with it the orderly procedure and observance of fixed rules and principles, was the chief feature of the second."
It may be stated that in the earliest times administration of justice, civil or criminal was hardly any problem to the British Government. From 1st of January, 1820 to 31st December, 1821 the total number of criminals confined in Jail amounted to sixty five out of whom 4 had been convicted of murder, 3 for thefts above Rs.50 and the rest for petty thefts, assaults, defamation, forgery, etc. In the words of Traill himself in his Statistical Sketch of Kumaon, "affrays of a serious nature are of rare occurrence and even petty assaults are most infrequent…..Applications to court on the subject of caste are numerous; these are invariably referred to the Pandit of the Court, whose decree delivered to the party concerned is conclusive …. In civil judicature the simple forms of the preceding Government have been generally retained. The petition originating the suit is required to be written on an eight-anna stamp but no institution or other fees are levied. A notice in the form of an ittalanama is then issued when process is served by the plaintiff in three cases out of four produces a compromise between the parties. In case the compromise is not affected it is returned by the plaintiff to the court and the defendant was summoned. The parties then plead their cause in person and in case the facts are disputed on either side, evidence is called for. Oaths are never administered except in particular cases and at the express desire of either party. Suits for division of property or settlement of accounts are commonly referred to arbitrators selected by the parties. In the matter of execution of decrees, the established forms were followed by the leniency of native creditors renders imprisonment and sales in satisfaction of decrees uncommon… At that time only one court (Commissioner’s Court) exists in the province for trial of civil cases."
Untramelled by any laws, rules and regulations Mr. Traill made his own arrangements for administration of Civil and Criminal justice. He was not only the head of the civil administration but the sole legislator and dispenser of civil justice. He had framed his own rules of procedure for presentation of plaints on an eight-anna stamp irrespective of the valuation of the claim on presentation of which the plaintiff was required to serve notice on the defendant himself. In seventy-five percent of cases the claims were compromised. In other cases the parties were first examined where after their witnesses, if any, were examined, but oath was generally not administered.
There were no lawyers and no one was permitted to act as an agent of the contending parties and the maximum duration of a suit was twelve days. Incidentally, it may be stated that Mr. Traill also conducted the first ‘Nazarandazi’ survey of Kumaon in Samvat 1880 i.e., 1818 A.D. (Commonly known as "Sal assi") which still continues to form the basic document for determining village boundaries. There was no actual survey, but Mr. Traill rationally allotted and amidst the different villages by reference to natural or prominent features existing on the northern, southern, eastern and western boundaries of each village. Actual survey operations in most of the areas of Kumaon were undertaken for the first time by Mr. Beckett in 1856.
According to Walton’s Gazetteer for the District of Almora first Munsif was appointed in 1829 and seven Kanungos were invested with the title and powers of Munsif and title of Sadar Amin was conferred on Court Pandit. These officers continued to exercise powers of Civil Judges till 1838. After these offices were abolished, the Act X of 1838 was enforced under which the districts of Kumaon and Garhwal each had one Senior Assistant, one Sadar Amin and one Munsiff under Sadar Dewani Adalat. In civil administration Kumaon Province was placed under the jurisdiction of Sadar Dewani Adalat in 1838 and remained subject to its jurisdiction till 1864. The Assam Rules with certain modifications were adopted for the administration of civil and criminal justice in 1839. These rules were superseded in 1863 by a set of Civil and Revenue Rules known as Jhansi Rules, statutory authority was given to these rules by section 2 of the Non-Regulation District Act (Central Act XXIV of 1864). Under section 4 of the said Act, Civil Procedure Code was also made applicable. Rules for service of processes were based on the lines laid down by Mr. Traill.
Thereafter, a new set of rules under notification No.628/VII-569-B dated 27th June, 1894 were promulgated under which the Commissioner was constituted as the High Court of Kumaon except in the cases under Succession Act, in respect of which he acted as a District Judge and an appeal would lie to the High Court of Allahabad against his decision. The other revenue officers i.e. Assistant Collectors were invested with the powers to decide civil cases with varying extent of jurisdiction. Under Rule 17 the Government had however been vested with power to make reference to the High Court of Allahabad against the decision of the Commissioner. Thereafter, the Commissioner sitting as the High Court of Kumaon would decide the cases in accordance with the opinion of the High Court.
The Commissioner of Kumaon, however, continued to exercise the powers of a High Court until the enforcement of Notification No.543/VII-421 dated 1st April, 1926 (Published at page 57 of the Rules and orders relating to Kumaon). A District Judge was appointed to exercise jurisdiction over Pilibhit and the three districts Almora, Garhwal and Nainital constituting the Kumaon Division. Later on Pilibhit was separated from Kumaon judgeship. The Deputy Commissioners of the three districts were invested with the powers of a subordinate judge and Assistant Collectors who were revenue officers were empowered to try civil suits up to a valuation of rupees five thousand.
The arrangement of investing revenue officers with the powers of Civil Judges and Munsiffs did not work satisfactorily. After 1926 the District Judge of Kumaon became the Appellate Court in respect of civil case decided by them. These revenue officers were not very much conversant with civil laws. Their judgments were subjected to severe criticism at the hands of the District Judge. Consequently they were hesitant to try civil cases which had been thrust upon them by virtue of their office as Assistant Collectors. This led to an appalling state of affairs in the accumulation of arrears in the disposal of civil cases. Sir Iqbal Ahmad the then Chief Justice drew the attention of the Government to this fact. In 1942 the U.P. Government agreed to post one judicial officer at Almora with powers of an Assistant Collector of first class, who by virtue of his office became a Civil Judge with jurisdiction to try civil suits up to a valuation of Rs.5,000/-.
This experiment proved very successful. Consequently in 1947 the Government appointed a number of young and promising lawyers as Revenue Officers exclusively to try and dispose of civil cases. In 1952 the High Court appointed its own Munsiffs and Civil Judges under Bengal and Assam Civil Courts Act.
After the merger of the erstwhile Tehri State one more Civil and Sessions Judges were posted to Kumaon under the District and Sessions Judge. On account of administrative convenience his headquarters was fixed at Tehri. The District and Sessions Judge of Kumaon was also a Civil Judge of Kumaon and as such he tried and disposed of original suits of higher valuation. An Additional Civil and Sessions Judge was also appointed to assist him whenever the workload increased.
As regards administration of criminal justice, criminal jurisdiction was conferred on Kumaon officers in July 1817 under Regulation X of 1817 except in certain serious offences like murder, robbery, treason etc. for the trial of which a Commissioner had to be specifically appointed by the Governor-General in Council. After recording evidence in the case, the Commissioner used to submit his report to the Nizamat Adalat which passed the final sentence. It seldom became necessary to appoint a Commissioner under this provision. This Regulation was subsequently repealed by Act X of 1838, as a result of which criminal courts in Kumaon came directly under the control of Nizamat Adalat. Rules were made under the Act for administration of criminal justice which was later on superseded by the Criminal Procedure Code under which the Commissioner of Kumaon was appointed as the Sessions Judge.
Shukla RP, Nanda N, Pandey AC, Kohli VK, Joshi H, Subbarao SK.
Malaria Research Centre (Field Station), Haldwani, India.
A study on the bionomics of Anopheles fluviatilis sensu lato was carried out in two physiographic regions, viz. Bhabar and Terai of District Nainital, Uttar Pradesh. In both areas, An. fluviatilis was found resting indoors predominantly in cattlesheds. Cytological examination of An. fluviatilis revealed that species T and U were sympatric in Bhabar and Terai villages with predominance of species T. These two sibling species appear to be poor vectors of malaria.
PMID: 10448226 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
[edit] Scientific explanation
The rainbow's appearance is caused by dispersion of sunlight as it goes through raindrops. The light is first refracted as it enters the surface of the raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of angles, with the most intense light at an angle of 40°–42°. The angle is independent of the size of the drop, but does depend on its refractive index. Seawater has a higher refractive index than rain water, so the radius of a 'rain'bow in sea spray is smaller than a true rainbow. This is visible to the naked eye by a misalignment of these bows.[2]
The amount by which light is refracted depends upon its wavelength, and hence its colour. Blue light (shorter wavelength) is refracted at a greater angle than red light, but because the area of the back of the droplet has a focal point inside the droplet, the spectrum crosses itself, and therefore the red light appears higher in the sky, and forms the outer colour of the rainbow. Contrary to popular belief, the light at the back of the raindrop does not undergo total internal reflection and some light does emerge from the back. However, light coming out the back of the raindrop does not create a rainbow between the observer and the sun because spectra emitted from the back of the raindrop do not have a maximum of intensity, as the other visible rainbows do, and thus the colours blend together rather than forming a rainbow.
Light rays enter a raindrop from one direction (typically a straight line from the Sun), reflect off the back of the raindrop, and fan out as they leave the raindrop. The light leaving the rainbow is spread over a wide angle, with a maximum intensity of 40.6°–42°.
White light separates into different colours (wavelengths) on entering the raindrop because red light is refracted by a lesser angle than blue light. On leaving the raindrop, the red rays have turned through a smaller angle than the blue rays, producing a rainbow.
Religion and mythology
The end of a rainbow.
Main article: Rainbows in mythology
The rainbow has a place in legend owing to its beauty and the historical difficulty in explaining the phenomenon.
In Greek mythology, the rainbow was considered to be a path made by a messenger (Iris) between Earth and Heaven. In Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by Goddess Nüwa using stones of five different colours. In Hindu mythology, the rainbow is called Indradhanush, meaning the bow of Indra, the God of lightning and thunder. In Norse Mythology, a rainbow called the Bifröst Bridge connects the realms of Ásgard and Midgard, homes of the gods and humans, respectively. The Irish leprechaun's secret hiding place for his pot of gold is usually said to be at the end of the rainbow. This place is impossible to reach, because the rainbow is an optical effect which depends on the location of the viewer. When walking towards the end of a rainbow, it will move further away.
After Noah's Deluge, the Bible relates that the rainbow gained meaning as the sign of God's promise that terrestrial life would never again be destroyed by flood (Genesis 9.13-15[14]):
I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
Another ancient portrayal of the rainbow is given in the Epic of Gilgamesh: the rainbow is the "jewelled necklace of the Great Mother Ishtar" that she lifts into the sky as a promise that she "will never forget these days of the great flood" that destroyed her children. (The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet Eleven)
Then Ishtar arrived. She lifted up the necklace of great jewels that her father, Anu, had created to please her and said, "Heavenly gods, as surely as this jewelled necklace hangs upon my neck, I will never forget these days of the great flood. Let all of the gods except Enlil come to the offering. Enlil may not come, for without reason he brought forth the flood that destroyed my people."
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