Dharampal Net Resources
Dear Friends and Associates of Shri Dharampal,Today (19th February) is the date of birth of Shri. Dharampal. Since his demise there have been many discussions on how to take his work forward.
We at Samanvaya have done what we know best, put together the material that we have in our collection in the form of a website.
We are happy to announce the new website www.dharampal.net which will be an online repository of Dharampalji's website. Among its features, it contains a downloadable version of some of his publications, a collection of unpublished archival compilations, his note on possible future work based on them, related initiatives, life sketch, etc.
Currently the site is hosted in the Samanvaya website. Some of the features are not currently available or fully ready yet. This we will have ready in very soon.
We have provided a few snippets of the material in the website at the end of this mail. It is our hope that this Endeavour will be found useful by not just his friends, but, also those who want to embark on a journey of a discovery of India anew.
We welcome your comments and participation. We wish to thank many friends of Dharampalji for their voluntary interest and association in this effort, without their guidance this effort would not have been possible.
Warm regards,
Ramasubramanian
Chief, Samanvaya
chief@samanvaya.com
mob : 9444957781
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Please Note: Samanvaya New Office Address from 1st March 2007:
Samanvaya, 2nd Floor, Old No. 94, New No. 179,
Royapettah High Road,Mylapore,
Chennai - 600004
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Dharampal.Net --- Some of the current information include:
Work Ahead : It may be worth mentioning that, these researches and studies were taken up by Dharampal in his individual capacity, also because he was not considered a scholar or a historian and did not even have a University degree. It may be mentioned that a question about his not having a degree was raised in the Bihar legislature during 1973.
Archival material : "...The extent to which it has been carried throughout all the irrigated region of the Madras Presidency is truly extraordinary.
An imperfect record of the number of tanks in 14 districts shows them to amount to no less than, 43,000 in repair, and 10,000 out of repair, or 53,000 in all.
It would be a moderate estimate of the length of embankment for each to fix it at half a mile; and the number of masonry works, in sluices of irrigation, waste weirs, & e., would probably be not over-rated at an average of 6.
These data, only assumed to give some definite idea of the extent of the system, would give close upon 30,000 miles of embankments (sufficient " to put a girdle round the globe" not less than 6 feet thick) and 3,00,000 separate masonry works. The whole of this gigantic machinery of irrigation is of purely native origin ..."
India 1947 - 64 : Events and their background - "When I first read President Roosevelt’s advice on India to the British in August 1942 (India: The Transfer of Power, vol 3), I took his statement to imply that the British should "act in such a way that India stays in the western orbit", quite literally.
It was only years later that I understood that Roosevelt was not thinking in terms of his preference for the West or the USSR, but rather that they, he and the British, "should try to think of some arrangement by which India found its place in the European and American, i.e., western orbit, rather than the Asiatic."
Quite naturally, Roosevelt and his friends, could not conceive an India, run according to the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi.
Relevance of Dharampal :... His interest in history or his work on the archives has been according to him, only an incidental outcome of his quest for understanding the reasons why the nation was in the state he found it in.
Perhaps that is why he never sought company among ‘historians’ and always seemed to befriend politicians, activists and such kind. His quest for understanding why things were so was obviously attached with the corollary why can’t things change from this situation...
Wednesday 21 February 2007
Friday 2 February 2007
Global Warming and Indian Science Establishment
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Global Warming has today released its report in Paris. Some 500 of the top environment and climate change world scientists have gathered in Paris in a bid to focus attention on the issue of irreversible global warming, climate change and the rise of sea levels across the world. This conference is a reminder that the world of today is very intricately inter related and actions in one part of the world cannot escape global attention.
There is no home, sweet home, or gharonda in the globalized world of today. I quote from a poem of the metaphysical poet John Donne in Meditation XVII - "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
European countries are certainly spearheading the effort to raise awareness on climate change issues on a global level. Maybe they do have their agendas as well. So be it.
At the same time it seems this present report is now finding ways to confront and engage India, its political elite, and its development policies, with the issue of global warming.
Indian diplomats and scientists in their learned erudition are publicly taking the view that for India, development and poverty alleviation is the primary issue, global climate change comes lower down in the hierarchy of priorities.
They articulate that those who are so concerned about climate change must foot the bill for global warming and enable yet some more transfer of technology in terms of energy generation and waste recycling.
Aware of this rhetorical stance of Indian officials, European countries are gearing up to put increasing pressure on India, because of the widespread recognition, that no efforts on global change will proceed successfully forward without getting India on board. Just as WTO will not proceed without India on board.
I personally think, Indian scientists are capable of more creative responses rather than reacting in terms of pro or anti India - US civil nuclear agreement. Indian scientific establishment is now faced with a choice of whether to ignore global warming and ride on its economic juggernaut, or to get its act together on asking the fundamental questions of science and the larger Indian society.
I think the creative response of Indian scientists, who have long preferred to act from behind positions of bureaucratic power, rather than in full public scrutiny, will be an important indicator of whether as a people we are still "coping" or are actually capable of creativity.
No more is this issue going to be an argument to be played out by the scientific advisers in Delhi and leading science and technology institutes. For the first time, with the global focus on global warming and the size of India's energy bill, Indian scientific establishment will have to ask deeper questions about itself and its creativity.
There is no home, sweet home, or gharonda in the globalized world of today. I quote from a poem of the metaphysical poet John Donne in Meditation XVII - "No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
European countries are certainly spearheading the effort to raise awareness on climate change issues on a global level. Maybe they do have their agendas as well. So be it.
At the same time it seems this present report is now finding ways to confront and engage India, its political elite, and its development policies, with the issue of global warming.
Indian diplomats and scientists in their learned erudition are publicly taking the view that for India, development and poverty alleviation is the primary issue, global climate change comes lower down in the hierarchy of priorities.
They articulate that those who are so concerned about climate change must foot the bill for global warming and enable yet some more transfer of technology in terms of energy generation and waste recycling.
Aware of this rhetorical stance of Indian officials, European countries are gearing up to put increasing pressure on India, because of the widespread recognition, that no efforts on global change will proceed successfully forward without getting India on board. Just as WTO will not proceed without India on board.
I personally think, Indian scientists are capable of more creative responses rather than reacting in terms of pro or anti India - US civil nuclear agreement. Indian scientific establishment is now faced with a choice of whether to ignore global warming and ride on its economic juggernaut, or to get its act together on asking the fundamental questions of science and the larger Indian society.
I think the creative response of Indian scientists, who have long preferred to act from behind positions of bureaucratic power, rather than in full public scrutiny, will be an important indicator of whether as a people we are still "coping" or are actually capable of creativity.
No more is this issue going to be an argument to be played out by the scientific advisers in Delhi and leading science and technology institutes. For the first time, with the global focus on global warming and the size of India's energy bill, Indian scientific establishment will have to ask deeper questions about itself and its creativity.
Thursday 1 February 2007
Fencing In Space - Colonization Agendas
Further to my raising the issue of knowledge ownership as being an issue - who creates knowledge, who owns knowledge - and the issue of the agenda of patenting knowledge in the private domain, what I refer to as " Marketing of the Patenting Business " as per the needs of European countries, I recently came across a very respected science popularization magazine, offering a ride to space for interested people as a marketing prize to generate in people, the idea that space needs to be colonized.
They have appropriately started a new website called http://www.winatriptospace.com/ and are trying to tell everyone that if you get the wonderful prize of being able to look down at the earth from outer space, you will have broken the shackles of issues like Iraq and Afghanistan. Interestingly, they are terming the venture as "colonization" of space. Somehow the association of creativity with colonization, whether of non western world or the oil rich Middle East, or now of the outer space, is intrinsic to western thought. Fences can now be posted in yet more terrains., as the non Westerners still try to emerge from the coping mentality.
Shifting the goalposts is also what it is sometimes called. By the time, the elite in non Western societies are able to understand the extreme vacuousness of many Western ideas related to colonization, the goalposts have shifted, and knowledge has been patented.
But that a reputed magazine like New Scientist is also pushing this dream of colonizable space and trying to generate marketing buzz around the idea of an hour in space as an astronaut, the issues of public funding priorities of scientific ventures will get pushed into the background. Eternal creativity of the Western mind !!! And yes of course, the whole thing is wrapped in the " marketing of the patenting business and patenting agenda".
But yes, they also carry an interview of Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia and ask him about the future of knowledge in the public domain - or as we would call it - "lokvidya". Do have a look if you get the time. Interesting stuff for knowledge dialoguers. Jimbo talks of how he found the " ideas of Open Source software " extremely exciting and how he went about this enterprise called Wikipedia.
They have appropriately started a new website called http://www.winatriptospace.com/ and are trying to tell everyone that if you get the wonderful prize of being able to look down at the earth from outer space, you will have broken the shackles of issues like Iraq and Afghanistan. Interestingly, they are terming the venture as "colonization" of space. Somehow the association of creativity with colonization, whether of non western world or the oil rich Middle East, or now of the outer space, is intrinsic to western thought. Fences can now be posted in yet more terrains., as the non Westerners still try to emerge from the coping mentality.
Shifting the goalposts is also what it is sometimes called. By the time, the elite in non Western societies are able to understand the extreme vacuousness of many Western ideas related to colonization, the goalposts have shifted, and knowledge has been patented.
But that a reputed magazine like New Scientist is also pushing this dream of colonizable space and trying to generate marketing buzz around the idea of an hour in space as an astronaut, the issues of public funding priorities of scientific ventures will get pushed into the background. Eternal creativity of the Western mind !!! And yes of course, the whole thing is wrapped in the " marketing of the patenting business and patenting agenda".
But yes, they also carry an interview of Jimmy Wales, who founded Wikipedia and ask him about the future of knowledge in the public domain - or as we would call it - "lokvidya". Do have a look if you get the time. Interesting stuff for knowledge dialoguers. Jimbo talks of how he found the " ideas of Open Source software " extremely exciting and how he went about this enterprise called Wikipedia.
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