A Counter to the Nonsense

Miland Brown has made the following comment on his post The Napoleonic Revolution and I quote, "I always like it when professors put there (their) lectures online. It is such a great counter to much of the nonsense which passes as history online."


The comment has a bigger meaning and may materialize sometime in future. It may not be surprising that many pundits in the field of communication and education may read this comment but care little about the actual import of this comment and move on with their activity without getting hooked to this comment.


The internet and its future modification in form of availability of text, audio messages, video messages, graphics, simulation and animations on hand held devices like cell phones, or a futuristic device which may become more interactive by becoming sensitive to input commands like touch, voice, or even just a look at a thing on a screen just in order to activate the commands hidden behind them, is already taking into a world wherein new beyond-imagination activities would take place.


However, before that, the situation at present is that one has to put it on the web the information which can be sought by someone on the other side.


There is general mythical belief that everything is available on Internet. How far is it true that everything or all the information and thing available on Internet? No, it is not like that. For anything information to become available to the user of Internet, the most important thing is that someone should first put it on the Internet. Now this factor, "someone", is the most crucial factor at present.


This "someone" is not some thing new. It has been there since long, dominating all the media which somewhere I feel is decisive in outlining the perspective and opinion of the common man. The general held perspective and opinion about ones own surrounding decides you consciousness about yourself and your surroundings. This collective consciousness is your history, but in your present, it becomes the vital core of your being alive in present and actions which you take that effects your future.


The need is that the actual pundits for their corresponding epistemology should come forward to put their paradigm on the Internet. But they are not coming. No doubt, lot of nonsense is available on Internet. There is no counter that. The people, who can counter them, they do not do that. May be, putting information and paradigm on Internet is still a futuristic thing to happen. May be, they are too busy. May be a new set of ethics are required in the field of knowledge and more effective activity. May be, there is need to attach some monetary value to the activity which can become an incentive for the required pundits to bring their knowledge on the internet and everybody can access it without paying directly to the pundit.


An issue, which does not seem to have attracted the attention is that what type of information generally available on the Internet. The information is given by the political authorities or the government. The information is given with an idea to make some deal or result into monetary gain. Now these factor of monetary gain are based on ones own perspective of making a business and deal out of a general activity. However, there is no information of a category which is gained only by spending much on research and development. There are addresses of such organisations which give such information but they remain short of providing you information about the latest findings and future implications of those findings.


However, there are many pundits or professors, who can tell so much to the people. There is need that they may also come and play this role.

________

Note:

It is a double copy of already published post at sumir-history.blogspot.com. However, the administrator has found the contents of this post equally relevant to basic core of the blog.

Hindi Granth Karyalay: Munshi Premchand : A brief life sketch

The essay is by Hindi Granth Karyalaya and Publisher of Mumbai. It is about the life sketch of Munshi Prem Chand. However, the essay covers all the works of Munshi Prem Chand and there are further links on which the information on Munshi Prem Chand can accessed.

Civil Services Prelims: Sanskrit Literature: Books and Authors Bank

On the link, there is an article from the Banglapedia on Sanskrit literature. It is a very detailed article on the history of Sanskrit as a language in India and different literature and research on it from the earliest time, that is from the Vedic times to present day. It is written from the perspective of Bangladesh scholars. However, the chronological evaluation of the development of the Sanskrit is quite prefect. Different written works in Sanskrit are discussed as per the chronological manner. Hence, it turns up a very good article on the history of Sanskrit literature. My study of history of Sanskrit literature is based on Wonder That Was of India by A. L. Basham. I have not found even a single fact in conflict with the presentation given by A. L. Bhasam, the Australian Sanskrit Scholar who had spent his time Calcutta before compeleting his work.

In addition to that, the essay includes number of such books and authors which are not found mentioned in Wonder That Was India.

Sitemeter Talks

Yes, the sitemeter talks.

I am not a marketing expert or an advertising expert. But I feel that I have been able to work like a true marketer and an advertiser.

My experiment with blogs started somewhere in February 2005. I got the idea, vision, motive and confidence from the discussions on educationforum.ipbhost.com. I knew about the blogs before that. As I do not have knowledge about computers and working of internet, I did not give much attention to the concept of blogging. However, the people of education forum in their e-help and e-learning section were aggressively talking about using web sites and blogs for teaching purpose. It was there that I was made to think seriously and try my hand at putting up on the web my professional achievements. Finally, in the month of February, I was able to locate the Blogger.com and pressed their three step buttons. I learned that I could do that. However, they immediately asked me to make some entries, and I developed sumir-history and I got my first address on the web as www.sumir-history.blogspot.com. If I remember it right, it was February 14 or February 18, 2005 when this thing happened. (Well, it can be checked from the records on blogger.com itself.)

After that I stopped for two days. I thought and thought over my new discovery. I was really excited and wanted to use it as a teaching tool in my job. I did not have any idea how I would reach my students and what would I put in to use it as a tool for my teaching. Gradually I developed a picture about what actually I would do. In the meantime, I just posted one posting. I added some of my already written and published views. I borrowed them from my Email enrollment with H-Asia of H-Net. Somewhere, I thought that my readings and writings could be useful for civil services aspirants and UGC NET applicants. Therefore, before I had made my blogs for teaching purpose, I created three more accounts after browsing through the contents of Blog Knowledge links on the blogger.com. I had written manuscripts for TATA McGrow Hill which they had refused to accept after having encouraged me for sometime. I knew that I had a good idea behind that manuscript and I posted already written some material on civil services blog.

In the meantime, all my attention was diverted to the working of blogs. It was summer holidays in the university. Earlier I used to read some books in those days or write some material for my lectures or visit places. But I spent those days on blogging. I started visiting other blogs and looked into the contents. I was definitely impressed by the appearances of many blogs and envied those who had developed their blogs nicely. One thing which always increased my jealousy was sighting a meter wherein it was showed that how many hits that blog had received. Some how, I learned from the Blog Knowledge of Blogger.com that it was an add-on feature which I could also use. By that time, I had also developed my undergraduate and postgraduate blogs with a plan how to use them as my teaching tools. I got the site meters in all my blogs. It also gave me some confidence in fiddling with the template and HTML. Here again, education forum became handy. They had the suggestions and lessons for learning HTML. I did not learn whole of HTML. However, I had learned how to check the HTML page, what was css and what does HTML and body code or tags do.

I had desired that my first blog should have become popular. But, I soon learned that it was my civil services blog which was receiving hits. It was during those days that I also managed to register for the Adsense feature in my blogs. I had learned about the HTML codes and I had become confident and I was able to implant them nicely because I could read and locate the tags. The Adsense account also gave me reports that where the people were visiting me.

In those days, that was in the month of April and May 2005, the sitemeter was not all that elaborate as it is today. I think the person who is looking after it, is David. He is a true professional because if you email him, be sure, that you will get back a reply. However, the site meter contents showed me about the referring URLs and also the search terms which were used in search engines which had directed the net surfing people to my site.

It was May 13, 2005, when the civil services result was announced. Suddenly, the rush to my civil services blog increased. I checked into my site meter for civil services. I found that most of the visitor had visited me to check the result. I immediately visited the UPSC site and implanted the desired link on my site. On May 15, 2005, the prelim test took place. From May 16, 2005, the hits on my site suddenly increased. I checked into the site meter. I found that most of the visitors who visited me were seeking the answers to civil services prelims paper. As my address was civilservices-prelims.blogspot.com, the search engines were locating my site for the search query.

One of my relatives had cleared the civil services in the already announced result of the Civil services. I phoned him and asked me to procure the papers of Civil services especially of history and also of general studies. I was able to procure general studies papers for me. The paper reached me on May 23, 2005 and I started posting the questions from May 25, 2005 onwards. On May 25, 2005, the total hits to my generalstudiesupsc.blogspot.com were hardly 10. All those visits were made by me. By June 4, 2005, I had solved whole of the paper and posted it on the blog. I had posted some wrong answers. But the demand of the question and answer to them was so great that people joined in to correct the answers. Here, one engineer, Tripathi really played a big role. By June 10, 2005 the total hit to my General Studies blog had crossed three hundred.

Now after seven months, the total hits on civil service blog and general studies blog have crossed 1000 hits for each blog. On the other hand, the visits to other blogs which I cherished that they should have become more popular, have not crossed even 500 hits each. I was highly disappointed when I found that my students, who are so eager to show off their latest and costly gadgets, did not visit the blogs whereas I have given enough useful material on them. It was only when I posted their lecture statement on my blog that they started visiting the blog. But, that was not my aim. I wanted to use the blog as a teaching tool and to improve my own learning by exploring the net for information and then using that information on my blog to increase my knowledge and that of my students.

In between, I have stopped looking into the sitemeters. But, the onsite meter on civil services is showing that it is still receiving rush. I have stopped posting new material on it. But it has enough content on it that it is attracting the visitors. Now when the total count has suddenly crossed 1100 on civil services, I visited the site meter reports. I was astonished to see the people and their queries with which they had visited me. It really amused me. They were not only from India but from virtually all the continents except Africa. The maximum numbers are from America and Canada. Some of the details even fascinate me. There are many people in America who are interested in Civil services examination of India. Who are they? Secondly, many of them are interested in Ancient India. I have made a list of the query phrases. It has given me a great boost to work further on blogs.

Now two things come out of my experience of blogging for the last seven months.

First, if the contents of your blogs have some stuff in it, then you will definitely get the hits.

Secondly, You must know what actually is in demand. In case of general studies blog, the answers to the latest question paper was in demand. I learned about it from the site meter. I provided the material. My material was not correct. Even then I received the visitors and gradually appreciation also. Some of the people prefer to email you instead of placing the comments. Or they do not get the idea that they can reach the blogger by placing comment below the post. But they are prompted enough to search for the email address or email icon and send a message to you.

The second observation is more important. In order to remain popular, you must know what actually the seeker wants to know. If you have the right material and knowledge then provide it. You will start getting the visits. But, before that, you must know that what they want to know. You must know what is being sought out there. Here, site meter has really become very handy.

Why Was Gandhi Not Given Nobel Prize?

"He is undoubtedly a good, noble and ascetic person - a prominent man who is deservedly honoured and loved by the masses of India...(But) sharp turns in his policies, which can hardly be satisfactorily explained by his followers. He is a freedom fighter and a dictator, an idealist and a nationalist. He is frequently a Christ, but then, suddenly, an ordinary politician," Professor Jacob Worm-Müller, 1937.

The above quotation is of a committee's advisor of Nobel Prize Norwegian committee, Professor Jacob Worm-Müller, who wrote a report on Gandhi in 1937 when his name was nominated for the Nobel peace prize. This is a quotation taken from a report which has appeared in Times of India dated October 8, 2005 at 12.10. It may appear in Print on October 9, 2005.

My main motive to bring this post here is not to discuss Gandhi and his contribution or the working of the Norwegian committee for deciding Nobel prize. It is one of the aim of this blog to collect the quotations of historic personalities and similar judgements on Historic personalities and historic events.

I have not brought any such post as yet and this turns out be the first one. Why have I picked up this quotation? Why have this very words attracted my attention?

Well this is another question. I have not studied Gandhi in detail. However, being a student of history and teacher, I have been studying Indian history. It is the result of the study of history, that I have spoken a number of times during my lectures that Gandhi has been presented out of proportion in the history of India. I have been studying about Surender Nath Banerjee, Gopal Krishan Gohkle, Bal Ganghadhar Tilak, Feroze Shah Mehta, Subash Chander Bose, the activities of Hindustan Revolutionary Party and many others. I have studied the role of different people and felt that they were the people with a vision and personality and Gandhi was one among them. However, there is so much talk about Gandhi and he is being studied as an institution. I have been giving a justification for that. I say that as it was the Congress party which came to power after the independence and therefore, the party in power projected the history overshadowing the achievements of other people in order to leave impression about its own achievements in making and raising of India. It was in course of such an attempt, the party in power had a mascot which it could project. Therefore, Gandhi became so important. Definitely, it had given rise to the controversry between Tara Chand and his work "Freedom Struggle" versus R. C. Majumdar and his writings with Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan series work.

Did the same government not present an apology when they bestowed upon Subash Chander Bose the Bharat Ratna? Who were the people who denied him such recognition for such long time and why?

I am not speaking against Gandhi. I have read only one book by Gandhi and that was My Experiment with Truth. When I read that book, (I have never completed its reading), I had also read "The Discovery of India" by Jwahar Lal Nehru. I have read the whole book. I am so much impressed by the writing ability of Nehru that he infatuates me. However, my study has remained confined to 1947. I have not studied beyond 1947. On the other hand, I have fully read the book by Sumit Sarkar, "Modern India 1885-1947". I have read with great attention and interest those pages in which Sumit Sarkar had studied the issue that Gandhi was a myth or what was the cause of the popularity of Gandhi. He had discussed this issue that how far it was true that the general public had a true perception of Gandhi. Somewhere he was accepted as a representative of Viceroy and on the other hand a special officer directly appointed by Queen of England who was even over and above the Viceroy. I have also studied the STS strategy of Gandhi as presented by Bipin Chandar. From those reading, I have acquired this confidence to say what I have been saying in my lectures. Now, here, I have found another quotation which was given somewhere in 1937. This quotation also gives the impression which Sumit Sarkar had tried to elaborate.

It is not an issue here that Gandhi could not be praised over and above all. I believe that he was the only person among Indians, who had the charisma and influence, and only he could have negotiated with person in authority at that time. No body had acquired the stature and vision that Gandhi possessed at that time. The country needed a leader and he was the person who could fulfill their need.

Why was then, Gandhi killed? Without going into different interpretations and generalizations, if we take the historic causes, then it was that, at that time of partition and after the partition had materialized, he was towing a liberal line towards Pakistan. He was creating an opinion about dealing with Pakistan on softer lines. He was in favour of giving the compensation which was being demanded by Pakistan but refused by the authorities which had taken over the responsibilities of the governance. The general public was pained by the massacre and communal riots that had created an environment, in which, the fundamentalists did not like his soft approach to Pakistan. They were not ready to accept the division. Gandhi, a politician and apostle of peace knew better than they did. The fundamentalists were not ready to accept a reality that Pakistan had become a reality. They were not against Islam or the Muslim population that has remained in India because their heart is in India and they are true Indians. The fundamentalists were against the political stance which Gandhi had taken on the issue of divisions of assets when the rest of nation was watching with dismay the sufferings of the refugees and riot effect Indians which included both Muslims and Hindus.

This had raised the question that why did Gandhi not taken this stand during the All Party Conference of 1928? Does this mean that it was only during the course of time, he evolved his doctrine of peace and modified his philosophy of Ahimsa after 1928? Did the Poona Pact frame his doctrine of peace? But that is not true. His doctrine and philosophy of Ahimsa might have undergone a variation but it was there well in place when he first visited Champaran in 1915. No doubt, the fundamentalists were wrong and Gandhi approach was right. Now if we go by the argument of the fundamentalist of that time, then they should also treat Atal Bihari Vajpayee playing Gandhi while dealing with Nawaz Sarif with their stiff dealings. In the recent days, the fundamentalists were again infuriated when L. K. Advani, playing a politician, called Jinnah a secularist. However, the issue of presenting and interpretation in history still demands some different approach. India needs a history written for the Indian nation. In that, a large number of people had also played a role which has not been rightly highlighted but the image of Gandhi is being created to such a proportion that their existence is being overshadowed and overlooked, should be brought before the country. The above mentioned quotation directs the attention to that fact, that the perception about Gandhi at that time, that is during 1930s was not such that he was the only leader. There were doubts about his overall role. When such doubts are expressed then it also suggests that a person, who has tried to doubt, knows something else also. He, here Professor Jacob Worm-Müller, who might had at that time, read some reports about other Indian leaders, had felt that if Gandhi was to be praised and recognised for his peace role, then there were other people also who were giving meaning to the struggle for peace. However, who were they? Well, this again a question of debate. But it seems that an impression was carried that he was one of the freedom struggle fighter. The politics of those time, that was Gandhi versus Bose, might have been read and reflected upon the judgement of Jacob Worm-Müller. Gandhi for him was a politician fighting for his nation in the country of Buddha and Mahavira (Jacob Worm-Mülle might not have studied about Mahavira).

Factor of Eight and India

Today, in the morning, India was shaken by an earthquake. The epicentre of the quake was in Muzzafrabad in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. The date is October 8, 2005 or 8-10-2005. The total of the numerals in the date is 7. It is 8+10+2005; that is 8+1+7 and that is 16 and finally 7. They are two numbers i.e. 8 and 7 in that order.

On December 26, 2004, the southern shores of India was hit by Tsunami. Again the date was 2+6 equal to 8. In this case also that the date was 26+12+2004. It makes 8+3+6 and which adds up in the order to the total of 17 and finally 8.


On another date, that is January 26, 2002, Bhuj was visited by an earthquake. Again the total of the date was 8. The total of the numerals in the date was 26-01-2002. It adds to 8+1+4 and it makes 13 and finally 4.

In the coming days, the dates 17 October, 2005 and 26 October, 2005 will make the same total.


Another date, that was August 17, 1988 was another important date when Zia-ul-Haq, the then Military President of Pakistan died in an air crash.

Well there is no scientific basis to predict the natural calamities or historic events. However, such patterns do emerge. The numerologists may stand up and give justifications and patterns behind it. The astrologers may also join in. However, there are no ascertainable basis for such numbers and their correlation with events. You can not predict that when an earthquake emerge.

On the other hand, August 8, 1942 is considered as an important date in the freedom struggle of India when Quit India was announced. There are many scientists who were born on a date which added to the total of eight or the date was eight.

The issue of date eight had emerged when Tsunami visited. But if we take this argument further in the year 2006, eight will emerge number of times. In that case, 2006 would see many startling events. It is difficult to say whether they would be natural calamities or the historic events. But the factor of eight continues to reappear.