Constitutional powers should not be exceeded: Manmohan Singh
Maoists trigger landmine blast, about 10 CRPF personnel killed
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams, chapter 471
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
Britain's opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will hold more talks on Sunday on a pact after Thursday's indecisive election, but they are unlikely to reach a deal before Monday, the Conservatives said on Saturday.At the same time, Corporate Friend Maoist network is well defended by the Ruling Hegemony in India as the Brahaminical Civil Society helps the Market Dominating Community and LPG mafia Interest backed by the Government of India Incs in India.In a chilling reminder of Naxal attack on security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district recently, about six to ten Central Reserve Police Force personnel have been killed and 13 others injured in a landmine blast in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur area here on Saturday evening.The security personnel, who were carrying out a combing operation, came under the Maoists' attack after the latter blasted off an anti-landmine vehicle.The Death Toll may not Change the Hegemony Strategy of Segregation and Exclusion, Monopolistic aggression and Privatisation which is very clearly Explained by Waman Meshram- Sale INDIA! Security Personnel are SCAPEGOATS to justify Economic Ethnic Cleansing, Displacement, exodus and Holocaust in the Tribal Landscape! Ms Arundhati Roy had proved it in her so many Articles on central India and Chidambaram`s Corporate War!
Progressive Bengal Celebrates Conservative Advantage in the Motherland of Brahaminical Nationality as PACHISHE Baishakh Boosts Change Brigade to Sustain Manusmriti Rule and the Status Quo Anti RABINDRIK!It is quite an Elizabethan Nostalgia about the Iron Lady Margarette Thatcher!The Conservatives won most parliamentary seats in the election but fell short of a majority and are seeking the support of the smaller Lib Dems to end 13 years of Labour rule.
Pirali Brahmin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Pirali Brahmin is any member of a subgrouping of Brahmins found throughout Bengal, which is split between India and Bangladesh. Notably, Rabindranath Tagore and the Tagore family are members of this group. The term "Pirali" historically carried a stigmatized and pejorative connotation; its eponym is the vizier Mohammad Tahir Pir Ali, who served under a governor of Jessore. Pir Ali was a Brahmin Hindu who converted to Islam; his actions resulted in the additional conversion of two Brahmins brothers. As a result, orthodox Hindu society shunned the brothers' Hindu relatives (who had not converted),[1] and their descendants became the Pirali — among whom numbered the Tagores.[2] This unorthodox background ultimately led the Tagore family to dispense with many of the customs followed by orthodox Brahmins.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
Rabindranath Tagore brahmo.org Brahmo Samaj
Rabindranath Tagore Brahmo Processing search results excluded stop words by screening or filtration techniques. The indexed search phrase tokens are ...
brahmo.org/B60B.HTM - CachedArts of transitional India twentieth century - Google Books Result
Vinayak Purohit - 1988 - Art - 1378 pages
Tagore, J. Roy, M..F. Husain, SM Sen, MB Samant and Sudha Mookerjee, and again, G. Tagore was excluded. It was in the middle thirties, after the arrival of ...
books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0861321383...THE RELIGIOUS MOTIF IN THE POETRY OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE
by DR Tuck - 1974
silence are excluded as having part in religion. Tagore's criticism of those who cut off all relations with the world falls short of total ...
www.jstor.org/stable/3269559 - SimilarSir Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Philosopher
by FB Jevons - 1918
But Tagore's " world of reality," his " world of infinite personality," from which law and logic and reasoning are excluded, and in which knowledge, ...
www.jstor.org/stable/4543965 - SimilarA People's Poet or a Literary Deity - An article by Indrani ...
15 Jul 2001 ... (In my contention, I have deliberately excluded students for whom many of Tagore's writings are a must read.) ...
www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pIndrani1.html - Cached - Similaranother subcontinent forums > Ghare Baire: Ray's adaptation of Tagore
39 posts - 15 authors - Last post: 21 Jul 2009I read the one translated by tagore's son. Like most of Tagore, ..... Were they excluded because they could be potentially subversive? ...
www.anothersubcontinent.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t5121... - Cached
Get more discussion resultsIndia Together: Why Tagore? - 08 July 2007
8 Jul 2007 ... Tagore's influence was also manifest in the foreign policy of the .... It pains me to find that you have excluded Swami Vivekananda and ...
www.indiatogether.org/2007/jul/rgh-tagore.htm - CachedFinding an expression of its own
... the most gifted of Delhi's young artists, was excluded from the show as he ... We can see a powerful link between Gaganendranath Tagore's savage ...
www.thehindu.com/fline/fl1418/14180690.htm - Cached24. PANDEY, J.B., A Comparative Study of Educational Philosophy in ...
Tagore was so sensitive to human impulses, passions and emotions that he never excluded these in his system of education. 5. There were two dominant trends ...
www.education.nic.in/cd50years/g/z/9I/0Z9I0407.htm - Cached - SimilarRABINDRANATH TAGORE : ENVISIONING HUMANISTIC EDUCATION AT
While Rabindranath Tagore's life reveals new forms of creativity in each phase, the period between 1902 and 1922 .... Grammar was excluded from the lessons. ...
www.asiaticsociety.org.bd/.../H_473%20(Kent%20M%20O'conel).htm - Cached
News videos for Conservative
Mouse over video thumbnails for a preview
- Liberal Democrats, Tories, face issues
- CNN Video
- Clegg will 'push Lib Dem priorities'
- BBC UK News
- Lib Dems consider Tory power deal
- BBC News
- Clegg: I Want Fundamental Reform
- Sky News
- Cameron: Talks between parties to begin
- CNN Video
- Nick Clegg addresses political protest
- CNN Video
- Nick Clegg: Electoral system is broken
- CNN Video
- Parties court Liberal Democrats
- CNN Video
- UPDATE: UK Clegg Meets Party Over Conservative Deal ...
- Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg started a round ... Thursday's general election left David Cameron's Conservative party as the largest in parliament, with 306 seats compared to 258 for Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour party. With 57…
- NASDAQ
- ·
- 4 hours ago
- Clegg's Liberal Democrats Back More Talks on Cameron ...
- ·
- BusinessWeek
- Clegg's Liberal Democrats Debate Cameron's Offer of ...
- ·
- BusinessWeek
Big Hollywood- Britain's top 2 parties _ Labour and the Conservatives ...
- ... Minister Gordon Brown signaled that his Labour Party would attempt to form a coalition with Clegg _ though Conservative leader David ... according to broadcaster ITN, with the Liberal Democrats capturing 47 seats and smaller parties…
- Newser
- ·
- 1 day ago
- Britain's top 2 parties _ Labour and the Conservatives _…
- ·
- Gaea Times (blog)
- UK's top 2 parties locked in election standoff
- ·
- Richmond Times-Dispatch
Grand Island Independent- General Election 2010: Nick Clegg says Conservatives have the…
- Shortly after the news that the UK had its first hung parliament since 1974, the Liberal Democrat leader said that the Tories should now prove that they are "capable of seeking to govern the national interest". However, they came just after…
- Daily Telegraph
- ·
- 1 day ago
- Nick Clegg meets top Lib Dems over David Cameron ...
- ·
- Times Online
The Daily Star- Conservatives, LibDems debate coalition UK government
- Conservative party leader David Cameron, right, turns his head towards Liberal Democrat party leader Nick Clegg, left, as they stand beside Britain Prime Minister Gordon Brown, not pictured, during a remembrance service to mark VE Day in…
- Washington Examiner
- ·
- 1 hour ago
- Conservatives and LibDems to meet on Sunday
- ·
- Reuters UK
The Guardian- Even conservatives must fear the tea party
- Bob Bennett seems likely to lose the Republican Party ... from the American Conservative Union, an A ranking from the National Rifle Association - and is nothing like a liberal. But Bennett committed the ultimate sin in tea party circles.
- Post-Star
- ·
- 5/5/2010
- Parker: It's tea party time in the U.S.
- ·
- Abilene Reporter-News
- Kathleen Parker: Tea partiers forcing out establishment…
- ·
- San Gabriel Valley Tribune
- US Sen. Bob Bennett faces conservative test in Utah
- ... attorney Mike Lee, 38, and businessman Tim Bridgewater, 49, who say they're better suited to reign in government spending. The opposition to Bennett is specific, and can't be chalked up to a general anti-incumbency fervor. Neither of…
- Boston Herald
- ·
- 3 hours ago
- US Sen. Bennett faces conservative test in Utah, with ...
- ·
- Minneapolis Star Tribune
- Bennett touts conservative record in final debate
- ·
- Daily Herald
Buffalo News- Conservative leader Cameron claims right to head Britain's…
- Cameron tried to seize the momentum of the Tories' strong finish in Thursday's national poll, which landed them the most seats in the House of Commons and smashed 13 years of Labor Party dominance ... Clegg , said that the Conservative…
- Danbury News-Times
- ·
- 6 hours ago
- Cameron asks Liberal Democrats to help form U.K ...
- ·
- Bend Bulletin
- 2 big British parties woo 3rd-place group
- ·
- Arkansas Online
UPI.com- GOP Sen. Bennett Faces Conservative Test in Utah
- An array of rivals at Utah's GOP convention Saturday are lining up against Sen. Bob Bennett — a potential first victim in a national effort by some conservatives to drive out officeholders they view as not conservative enough. The state's…
- NewsMax.com
- ·
- 1 hour ago
- Scott Brown Explains Citizenship Revocation and ...
- Here's a tip for all aspiring conservative upstarts in 2010; use talk radio. Sounds simple right? But not really. I know of no other politician, whether during their campaign or during their term, to use talk radio to reach the people like…
- RedState (blog)
- ·
- 28 minutes ago
Celebrations galore for Tagore anniversary
Ananya Dutta
KOLKATA:Themed trains, anthologies of paintings and published works and a proposal for a twin-museum complex and auditorium — the 150 {+t} {+h} birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore on May 9, has set in motion hectic activities to commemorate the occasion.
The first public exhibition of paintings by the Nobel laureate was held in 1930 in Paris. His admirers can now look forward to revisiting those works as well as about 1,500 others in an anthology of his artwork to be published by Visva Bharati.
As a part of the year-long celebrations, the first of the four-volume Rabindra Chitravali — collection of paintings — will be released. The Union government has released Rs.1 crore, the first instalment for the project, said Amitava Chowdhury, a spokesperson for Visva Bharati.
An exhibition train will be flagged off by Railway Minster Mamata Banerjee at Howrah.
It will tour the country with coaches depicting the life, songs, literature, paintings and photographs of the national poet.
http://www.thehindu.com/2010/05/08/stories/2010050855202200.htmKOLKATA:Themed trains, anthologies of paintings and published works and a proposal for a twin-museum complex and auditorium — the 150 {+t} {+h} birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore on May 9, has set in motion hectic activities to commemorate the occasion.
The first public exhibition of paintings by the Nobel laureate was held in 1930 in Paris. His admirers can now look forward to revisiting those works as well as about 1,500 others in an anthology of his artwork to be published by Visva Bharati.
As a part of the year-long celebrations, the first of the four-volume Rabindra Chitravali — collection of paintings — will be released. The Union government has released Rs.1 crore, the first instalment for the project, said Amitava Chowdhury, a spokesperson for Visva Bharati.
An exhibition train will be flagged off by Railway Minster Mamata Banerjee at Howrah.
It will tour the country with coaches depicting the life, songs, literature, paintings and photographs of the national poet.
Meanwhile, my wait for the Census team at Home seems to be Infinite as I have informed my OMISSION to the Officer In charge in Panihati Municipality, Two full weeks Passed. I wrote to the President of India, and sent to Supreme court, Census RGI, UIDAI, MICs in the Central Government including MICs in Home and Railway, Chief Ministers, Governors, Media in General and Social activists, Intellectuals and Journalists countrywide, Posted the Open letter to the President on Egroups and Blogs, Face Book, Twitter, Google Buzz and so on. I not only informed my Omission but questioned the methodology of Census Unilateral! No Response as yet. This is the Democracy we Boast for where a Social Activist and Professional Journalist as Creative writer for Three Decades have to defend Citizenship against Criminal Negligence! What do you Expect in the Excluded land scape and Human scape?
Census 2011 to include casteHindustan Times - May 7, 2010 A caste-based census was last carried out in 1931. Independent India had shunned counting the numbers of people belonging to each caste — barring an ... Govt buckles, agrees to caste in 2011 census Times of India 5 years for caste count Calcutta Telegraph Yadav trio forces Govt to consider caste census IBNLive.com Dalai Lama included in 2011 censusSify - 11 hours ago The Dalai Lama expressed his delight at the inclusion of Tibetans-in exile in the 2011 census of India, asserting that he himself has been residing here for ... Home Minister's statement on Census 2011NDTV.com - May 7, 2010 Let me reiterate that the main objective of the population census is to do an accurate de-facto headcount of the usual residents in India on the deemed date ... Doubtful citizenship to be verified: PC Assam Tribune  Email this storyOh India! 2011 census shows caste system still reignsdailynews365 - 10 hours ago Later, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the reporters, "Yes, we will include it (caste) in this census. It was not too late to add the criterion as ... INDIA POST TO DELIVER UNIQUE IDENTITY NUMBERSPress Information Bureau (press release) - 4 hours ago ... connection with Census 2011 as its official carrier. India Post will also be undertaking the reverse logistics for collection of filled in census forms ... UIDAI unveils brand name, AADHAAR and logo Express Computer Email this storyInheritance of lossTimes of India - - 11 hours ago The 2011 census was preceded by demands for a "caste" count as OBC leaders claimed backwards were more than 50 per cent of the population. ... Count, but don't teachHindustan Times - May 7, 2010 Sarita is one of 15000 MCD schoolteachers who are sweating it out in the scorching heat to conduct the Delhi leg of Census of India, 2011. ... Census-2011 begins in DelhiSify - May 1, 2010 New Delhi: With the enumeration of Lt. Governor Tejendra Khanna, Census-2011 kicked off in the national capital on Saturday. With this, the operation for ... List Kutchi as separate from Sindhi in Census '11, says KutchDaily News & Analysis - - May 5, 2010 Bhuj: The first phase of Census 2011 has now started and Kutchis are apprehensive that, as in the 2001 census, their mother tongue, Kutchi, would again get ... First phase of Census-2011 todayCentral Chronicle - May 6, 2010 By Our Staff Reporter The first phase of Census 2011 is going to start in Madhya Pradesh from tomorrow. First of all, information will be gathered from ... Stay up to date on these results: |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Next |
The talks, starting at 11 a.m. (1000 GMT), will be face-to-face between the two parties but below the level of leader, a Conservative Party spokesman said.
He said it was unlikely a deal could be reached by Monday, noting that Conservative members of parliament, who will be briefed on the negotiations, will not meet until Monday evening.
Bengali Ruling Class replicated Anglo Saxon Characteristics in the very beginning of Raj in India. Bengali Ruling Hegemony is IMPERIALIST in Nature and loves to have Colonies as it enjoyed Colonies in Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam and entire North east in Muslim Rule followed by British Colonial Rule.It allows no space for Mulnivasi Mainstream Indigenous aboriginal Sc, ST. OBC and Minority Communities in any sphere of life. I received number of Phone calls from Maharashtra today from places like Kolha Pur, Yavatmal and Pune.
While I am writing these lines, someone called from Amrawati. They are responding on my article published in Mulnivasi Nayak and talking in groups.
I am helpless when they enquire about the developments of Indigenous Aboriginal Mulnivasi Ambedkarite Movement. I have to say that Bengali Psyche is inflicted with Brahaminical Anglo Saxon Virus and it may not Cured as Religious Partition Overlapped the Buddhist Heritage, legacy of Anti Brahaminical Anti Fascist Anti Imperialist Insurrections led by Peasants and Tribal Landscpae!
While I was responding the call, a colleague interrupted and defended the RSS Ideology! Bengalies are very happy to connect their Greatest Icon in Brahaminical Age, Rabindra Nath Tagore with England.
Bengali Media published screaming Headlines on conservative Advantage Indicating the End of Marxism in India as well as Globalisation of Rabindrik Bengali nationality Connected to England and developed world. However, Ananad bazaar Group pointed out the fiscal deficit and borrowing connected Greek Crisis also in the page inside which is not a matter of Public discussion at all.
I got the MULNIVASI Smanvaya Samiti PEHL document this morning by Speed post which is all about Character ASSASSINATION and Opposition of the Agitation launched by Bharat Mukti Morcha without substantial facts and logic.It is disgusting that they plead that the Government Employees are not Entitled for Agitation and Bamcef is Originally Non political Non Agitational Social forum. At the same time, they Claim Centre stage in New Delhi and North Indian leadership in Bamcef. They vomit Venom against Maratahi Manush and Maharashtra. They do criticise Dr BR Ambedkar, Kharpade , Vorkar and wamn Meshram while glorify Shankar Das, Tara Ram Maina, KANSHIRAM, Power sharing and Mayawati raj in Uttar Pradesh!
The Centre of Power in New Delhi is all about Co Option and exclusion, Repression and Deprivement, Betrayal and Bargaining, Deals and Cut Money, Lust and Luxury, Sacms and Scandals, Military rule and Zero Tolerance! And a faction of the Co opted leaders of Black Untouchables are trying their best to undermine nationwide liberation Movement. I talked to Mulnivasi Bamcef President Waman Meshram camping in Nagpur on the way to Bhawani Ptna in Orissa. He is quiet clear about the Economic ethnic Cleansing and well aware of the imminent betrayal on OBC Headcount and hegemony floor management in the Parliament.
I know well that Neither VTR and Dalit Voice nor Mulnivasi Bamcef and Waman Meshram have to do anything to satisfy the Ruling hegemony as alleged by the Splinter Groups and Individual including those from Bengal, Gujrat, Rajastah and Haryana, Negligible Minority. I am Happy with the enormous Feed back we get daily right from Rural Black Untouchable India on Grass root level and collective basis!
Email this storyPutting the Greek debt crisis in contextVancouver Sun - - 46 minutes ago A major part of the Greek debt crisis is the result of excessive military expenditures forced on the country by the German military industrial complex. ... EU to Set Up Fund to Prevent Spread of Greek Crisis BusinessWeek Eurozone Announces Emergency Plan To Contain Greek Crisis RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty Yuan move could be postponed by Greek crisis: AnalystsMoneycontrol.com - 7 hours ago The Greek debt crisis and worries that it could spill over into other European countries might prompt China to move more slowly than expected to let the ... Merkel Says Response to Spread of Greek Crisis to Be 'Decisive'BusinessWeek - - 15 minutes ago Merkel said measures aimed at stemming the Greek deficit crisis had failed to ensure the stability of the euro as default speculation prompted yields on ... Harper, Merkel call on countries to rein in debt Toronto Star FTSE 100 down 4% after Greek crisisThe Press Association - May 7, 2010 The FTSE 100 Index plunged 4% in another panic-driven session as world markets took a fresh battering from the Greek debt crisis. ... A look at global economic developments BusinessWeek IMF bailout not enough to cure Greek crisis, say expertsMoneycontrol.com - 9 hours ago Greek two-year notes are quoting at a yield of 14.9% over German bunds. But if Germany and France bring in the first tranche of cash before May 19, ... Shock therapy may smother Greek economy, extend crisisReuters - - 4 hours ago Another risk to the economy is the Greek banking sector, which made it through the first wave of the global financial crisis without too much damage because ... Euro Falls Most Since Financial Crisis on Contagion ConcernBusinessWeek - - 13 hours ago The UK Treasury said Group of Seven officials met by conference call yesterday as the Greek crisis roil financial markets and "agreed to continue to monitor ... Video: Trichet on Greek crisis: "Rating agencies knew better" EUX.TV What the Greek Crisis Means for American Travelers Forbes (blog) CANADA STOCKS-TSX drops broadly on Greek crisis fearsReuters - - 21 hours ago ... session on Friday as investors shaken by Thursday's stunning selloff and worried about Greece's debt crisis sold shares across all industry groups. ... TSX drops broadly on Europe fears Reuters Canada Treasury Prices Down, But Post Weekly Gains On Greek Debt CrisisWall Street Journal - - 21 hours ago ... loans to banks as the Greek debt crisis has raised stress in short-term funding markets in both Europe and the US The ECB wouldn't comment on the talk, ... Video: Stocks Falter After Wild Day, Europe Woes Linger The Associated Press Greek crisis fuels market panic The Province Spread of Greek debt crisis hits world markets Christian Science Monitor Stay up to date on these results: |
I am sorry that the Bengali Brahaminical colonial Anglo Saxon Conservative Zionist leadership has INFLICTED the Manusmriti VIRUS not only within Bengal Presidency but the Pandemic has Escalated countrywide justifying the Exclusion, Foreign Capital Inflow and fund, Borrowing and Budget Deficit without any fiscal policy as taxation load has to be born by the Majority Masses underprivileged in Free Market US Israel sponsored Nuclear Chemical Society in the Periphery of US war Economy!
In New Delhi, it is quite amusing that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Saturday said the judiciary, legislature and executive should not exceed their respective powers as enshrined in the Constitution, but work in accord to maximise public good.We know how Judiciary Proactvism has become the best tool of Economic ethnic Cleansing and Powers of Legislation, Policy Making, Planning and Executive have been vested into EXTRACONSTITUTIONAL Elements committed to Zionist Brahaminiocal Hegemony and foreign Capital Inflow, bypassing Parliament and Constitution and killing the Indian Democratic republic.
sify.com reports:
| |||
 | |||
I am consistantly writing and speaking that the Brahaminical Civil Society, Politics and Intelligentsia with its FDI Fed Toilet Media have no Sympathy with Balck Untouchable Tribal Landscape either in Lalgarh or Dantewada! I have also written time and again that more than Thirty Million Refugees , SC and OBc Tamil and bengal People Rehabilitated without Ownership rights and deprived of Citizenship, Mother Tongue and Reservation, Civil and Human Rights are Stranded in CROSS Fire all along Dandakarany. Maoist Menace and Operation Green Hunt have made the Life as Hell Loosing all around. Just see how they suffer.
Mukesh Ambani pledges to renegotiate gas dealAFP - 5 hours ago NEW DELHI — Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani will abide by a court ruling ordering him to renegotiate a deal sharing the family's gas wealth, his firm said ... Video: I don't think it's a defeat for Anil: RNRL lawyer NDTV.com Judgement Day: Ambani v/s Ambani Moneycontrol.com Gas row: This round goes to Mukesh Ambani Times of India Intervention could deter foreign investorsFinancial Times - - 15 hours ago Only two weeks ago, Mukesh Ambani was grappling with disappointment after his star-studded cricket team, the Mumbai Indians, ... Video: Ambani vs Ambani: Ground Zero NDTV.com Why the Ambani Family Fight is Far From Over Moneycontrol.com JUDGMENT TODAY IN AMBANIS' GAS WAR; SPLIT VERDICT POSSIBLEHindustan Times ePaper - May 6, 2010 The dispute relates to the price at which the Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) should sup- ply gas extracted from its east- ern offshore ... 'Is there a film star in court?' Times of India Jethmalani loses the case, wins the Bar Economic Times SC rules in favour of RILEconomic Times - 13 hours ago (FILE) In this picture taken on January 12, 2009, chairman of India's Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani gestures as he speaks during the innauguration of ... SC asks Centre to frame a policy on energy securityEconomic Times - 20 hours ago The apex court while deciding the dispute between Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries (RIL) and Anil Ambani's Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL) over supply ... Indian shares fall 1 pct; Reliance down, RNRL upReuters - May 6, 2010 All eyes were on the Indian Supreme Court, which is set to rule in a gas-pricing dispute between billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RELI. ... Favourite Lobby HorsesOutlook - - 10 hours ago Also, by getting the PR mandate of Mukesh Ambani's business empire in 2008, Radia would have found herself on the hitlist of Anil Ambani, who incidentally ... Policy brokers The Week Email this storyRIL-RNRL verdict establishes that gas is an asset of the govt: Somashekar ...Economic Times - May 7, 2010 ... that now the legislature will also need to get involved and a new law will have to be drafted if the Anli and Mukesh Ambani cannot come to a new accord? ... Deora vindicated, govt's right upheldTimes of India - - 20 hours ago Anil Ambani and the Samajwadi Party had accused Deora and the government of favouring Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries when the ministry intervened in ... Supreme Court Ruling All Set To Give Advantage To RILEconomy News India - - 9 hours ago The Supreme court has apparently made a judgment which is likely to favour of world's fourth richest man, Mukesh Ambani, in a long running dispute over ... Stay up to date on these results: |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Next |
ANI reports: Residents of Malkangiri district of Orissa are leading a fearful life, as the Maoist are compelling these tribals to join them against the system.
The tribals say in the name of their development, the Maoist rebels have been attacking government policies as well as the government establishments, which is in turn affecting them.
They say that till a few years ago they used to live freely and communicate with each other without any barriers, but today they do not even venture out of their houses after dark.
Kemo, a local resident, stated that the rebels come to their village frequently and force their children to join their group.
"The Maoists come to our village and force us to give our children to them. How can we do this? Our area is deprived of government facilities; no doctors come here. We, the people, living in hilly areas are facing a lot of problems due to this. That is why the Maoists are active in this region. The police officials also don't visit this area frequently, which proves helpful the Maoists," said Kemo.
He said security forces' presence can prevent such incidents of Maoists' atrocities.
Locals say that by the time the Central government takes some action to curb the violence, the Maoists will destroy the whole area.
"People are scared as you see the Maoists are killing the contractors frequently in these areas. Recently, they killed a contractor in this area. They have also killed the government officials that include a Block Chairman, a village head, and a prominent Bharatiya Janata Party leader in this district," said B Mishra, a local resident.
The Maoists have spread into rural pockets in 20 of India's 28 states and their crusade has upset business prospects worth billions of dollars in mining and allied industries.
Thousands have been killed in the Maoist insurgency, which began in the late 1960s, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has warned the rebels have managed to retain support among a cross-section of society, and remain the country's biggest internal security threat. (ANI)
Police: Maoist rebel blast kills 8 troops in India
Eight troopers killed as Maoists blast CRPF vehicle
Maoists trigger landmine blast, about 10 CRPF personnel killed
CRPF commandant suspended for supplying ammo to Maoists
Pillai to meet DGPs of six Maoist-hit states in Delhi tomorrow
Seven CRPF jawans killed in Naxal attack in Bijapur
Naxal landmine blast kills 9 CRPF
9 CRPF jawans killed in Chhattisgarh
- Police: Maoist rebel blast kills eight troops in India
- NEW DELHI (AP) — A top police official says Maoist rebels blew up an army truck in central India, killing eight paramilitary soldiers. The director general of police says Maoist rebels mined a bulletproof armored truck, killing the soldiers…
- KHON2
- ·
- 1 hour ago
KHON2- Police: Maoist rebel blast kills 8 troops in India
- NEW DELHI— Maoist rebels blew up an army truck Saturday killing eight paramilitary soldiers and wounding two others in a densely forested area in central India, a top police official said. The rebels planted and triggered an explosive…
- Boston Globe
- ·
- 49 minutes ago
- Six paramilitary troopers killed in Maoist attack in ...
- New Delhi - At least six paramilitary troopers were killed and 10 injured Saturday when Maoist rebels blew up their vehicle in India's central Chhattisgarh state, news reports said. The incident took place in Bijapur district, about 284…
- Earthtimes (press release)
- ·
- 2 hours ago
- 2ND LD: Nepal's Maoist leader warns shutdown could be ...
- The leader of Nepal's former rebel Maoists warned Saturday, after calling off a six-day strike that shut down most of the country, that the shutdown could be merely a rehearsal if the government fails to fulfill Maoist demands. Addressing a…
- Big Hollywood
- ·
- 3 hours ago
- Frustration in Nepal Turns Into Anti-Maoist ...
- The general strike that has paralyzed Nepal this week went four days with only minor incidents, but violence and counter-demonstrations have been reported throughout the country on Thursday. Despite the early concerns of security forces,…
- Newsblaze.com
- ·
- 2 hours ago
- Bulletproof car fabrication industry in top gear ...
- Trade circles said the indigenous fabricators, mostly in the unorganised sector, have acquired the expertise to erect frames that can withstand a landmine blast. The demand for such cars has increased from the Maoist-affected states in…
- New Kerala
- ·
- 1 hour ago
- Six CRPF men killed in Maoist attack
- Maoist guerrillas on Saturday blasted a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) vehicle in Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh, killing six troopers, a top police officer said. The troopers were from the 168 CRPF battalion, Director General of…
- Hindustan Times
- ·
- 3 hours ago
- Six CRPF troopers killed in Maoist attack
- Raipur, May 8: Six troopers were killed Saturday when Maoist guerrillas blew up a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) vehicle in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, a top police officer said. "The Maoists blew up a bullet-proof vehicle in the…
- New Kerala
- ·
- 2 hours ago
- Maoist strike get a deadly blow in Nepal
- In a fast moving development, an emergency meeting of the UCPN (Maoist) Standing Committee called off the indefinite strike that began on May 2 to force Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal to quit. The Maoists have said they have only…
- GroundReport
- ·
- 6 hours ago
- PM welcomes Maoist decision to withdraw strike; EU, US ...
- Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has welcomed the decision of the Maoist leadership to withdraw the nationwide general strike they had called for last six days. In a statement on Saturday, PM Nepal said the decision would play a positive…
- Nepalnews.com
- ·
- 7 hours ago
Wkly review: Investors lose over Rs 2,50000 croreBusiness Standard - 7 hours ago Investors lost over Rs 250000 crore in the last five trading days after the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark index plunged on concerns of the deepening ... Europe debt crisis engulfs world boursesEconomic Times - 8 hours ago MUMBAI: Benchmark indices for Indian equities fell to two-month lows on investor concerns that another financial crisis stemming from Greece's souring ... Sensex falls on worries Greek contagion could spread furtherLivemint - - 22 hours ago Mumbai: Fears of another global credit crunch triggered by the unspooling Greek crisis rattled the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on Friday. ... Sensex closes 1.17 per cent lower on eventful dayHindustan Times - May 7, 2010 On what was a volatile and eventful trading day, the 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 16939.58 points, ... Welcome, correctionBusiness Standard - - May 6, 2010 A dip in the market is an opportunity if you have missed out on the action earlier or even to rejig the portfolio. A falling stock market has few takers. ... Sensex ends 100 pts downSify - May 6, 2010 After openeing on a weak note and drifting further down, the market staged a splendid recovery a little past mid afternoon, only to tumble again and end ... Sensex sheds 265 pts on European woesIndian Express - May 6, 2010 The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex plunged 265 points at mid-session on heavy selling by funds on fears the euro zone debt crisis could take a toll ... Sensex opens lower on weak global cuesEconomic Times - May 5, 2010 MUMBAI: Markets opened in the negative territory Thursday as sentiments in global markets continued to remain bearish due to Europe economic concerns. ... Sensex plunges to two-month low amidst fears of spreading Greek crisisdomain-B - 2 hours ago Fears of another global credit crunch sparked by the continuing Greek crisis hit the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) yesterday with the benchmark index, Sensex, ... Greece crisis casts shadow on Indian mkts; Sensex tanks 790ptsPress Trust of India - 4 hours ago Mumbai, May 8 (PTI) Stocks: The benchmark Sensex recorded its biggest weekly fall of 789.60 points in the current year to close at nearly 10-week low, ... | Timeline of articles Number of sources covering this story
|
Now see thes documents landed in my INBOX!
gangadhara
to aanand-bakshi, adakalli, agniastra, agnigiri_smg, ahmed-amma_ravi, ajthathrodu, airblr, andolanadaily, anilkumar45, anilsastry, ankura, anupamamasika, arakere.jayaram, asad.mohammed, baanasu, banavasibalaga, Bangalore, bangerasr, baragur, basavaraj_agni, belegereravi, belthangady, bhanutejn, bhanuvara05, blreenadu, bmhaneef2003 show details 3:07 PM (4 hours ago) | COMMUNIST_PARTY_OF_INDIA.doc 30K View as HTML Open as a Google document Download |
| PUDR_Statement__1_.._A_response_by_Sumanta_Bannerjee.doc 28K View as HTML Open as a Google document Download |
COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
Press Release: April 8, 2010
Hail the daring and the biggest ever guerrilla attack on the hired mercenaries of the Indian State carried out by the heroic PLGA guerrillas in Chhattisgarh!
Sonia-Man Mohan-Chidambaram-Pranab gang is solely responsible for the loss of lives of CRPF jawans used as cannon-fodder in their dirty war on behalf of tiny a parasitic corporate elite!!
The heroic PLGA guerrillas led by the CPI (Maoist) have created history by wiping out an entire Company of the central paramilitary force in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. The PLGA had wiped out over 80 CRPF mercenaries—a part of the huge armed mercenary force of over 60 battalions sent by Chidambaram to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar and Maharashtra to carry out the genocide of adivasis. Several more mercenaries were injured in India's biggest ever guerrilla attack till date. A huge cache of highly sophisticated arms and ammunition was seized from these mercenaries that include mortars and LMGs. The CC, CPI (Maoist) sends its heartiest revolutionary greetings to the brave warriors of PLGA who have given a fitting reply to fraud Chidambaram and nailed his unabashed naked lie that his brutal Operation Green Hunt is a myth invented by the media.
The Dantewada ambush is a logical culmination of the unending terrible provocation by the uniformed goondas sent by Chidambaram and Raman Singh to the adivasi areas to create a brutal reign of terror. In just eight months, 114 innocent unarmed adivasi people were abducted, tortured and murdered in cold blood by these uniformed goondas (list is attached). Several women were gang-raped by these lawless goons. Neither they nor their khadi-clad bosses have any respect for the Indian Constitution. They have an unwritten licence to abduct, torture, rape and murder any adivasi or Maoist without any questions being asked. This dehumanization of the police and paramilitary forces is consciously encouraged by Chidambaram, Raman Singh, Vishwa Ranjan and others, notwithstanding their holy chants of peace and ahimsa. Behind their sophisticated-looking rhetoric lie the raw, beastly, cannibalistic passions that devour human beings for establishing their absolute control over the resources and lives of the people. Their vision goes no farther than that of a local daroga, as aptly pointed out by a JD (U) spokesperson referring to Chidambaram. And their tactics fare no better than those of a street rowdy. As long as their fascist mind-set refuses to see the socio-politico-economic roots of Naxalism and continue to treat it as a disease or a problem while the oppressed people see it increasingly as a remedy and a solution to their problems, Dantewada-type attacks will continue to take place at an even greater frequency and intensity.
The atrocities committed by these forces, along with the state-sponsored Salwa Judum goons, koya commandos and SPOs in Dantewada and Bijapur, make one shudder (leaving out Chidambaram and his animal species of cobras, jaguars, greyhounds etc) with horror and repugnance. Besides tales of unending abductions, horrifying torture, gruesome gang-rapes, and ghastly massacres of ordinary adivasis, the so-called "security forces" have kept in their illegal custody at least 20-30 adivasis from every village. Whenever they feel the need to show some success over the Maoists in terms of body count some of these hapless adivasi captives are bumped off with the claim that the "security forces" had killed Maoist guerrillas in "fierce encounters". And to prove their claim to the world these Chidambaran liars put on military uniforms on the dead bodies of poor adivasis. With such a bizarre drama enacted by those supposed to be the guardians of law, then what other option do the Maoists and the adivasi masses have but to retaliate for their own self-defence?
Now the war-mongering hawks in the Union Home Ministry and various state governments, the political leaders and spokespersons of the parliamentary parties, the so-called defence analysts, police top brass and their agents employed in the media are yelling that an all-out war should be declared and the Maoists should be wiped out. The fact is, an all-out war has already been declared and executed in the most ruthless manner. What these vultures want is perhaps bombing of entire areas under Maoist control and achieving the peace of the graveyard. If they indulge in such mindless barbaric acts, the Maoist revolutionary counter-violence will take on new and deadly forms which these apologists of state terror and state-sponsored terror cannot even imagine.
The BJP and its saffron gang of Hindu fascist terrorists have been yelling like lunatics that Maoists had declared a war on India and that the BJP would endorse every move of the Congress to finish off the Maoists. In reply to these saffron terrorist gangsters we assert once again that ours is a war waged by the real India—the India of the oppressed, suppressed and depressed sections of society; the India of the hungry, impoverished, undernourished masses—against the India that shines for a handful of parasitic corporate elites, imperialist agents deriving enormous commissions and kickbacks through nefarious deals, real estate mafia gangs who grab the land of the poor in the name of SEZs and various projects, unscrupulous contractors and mining syndicates who run a parallel state, horribly corrupt and degenerate political leaders and bureaucrats, licensed murderers in police uniforms who are infamous for the worst crimes against humanity, and such other traitors. Ours is a revolutionary war on the saffron gang of terrorists who are armed to the teeth and dream of transforming our country into a Hindu fascist state by enacting Gujarat-type genocides of religious minorities. Ours is a genuine people's war for achieving the real liberation of the people from all types of oppression and exploitation, and to establish a genuine people's democratic India. It is not a war on India but a war for the liberation of India from the clutches of rapacious plunderers.
The sole responsibility for the death of the CRPF men in Dantewada lies with Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Pranab gang and the saffron terrorist Raman Singh regime in Chhattisgarh who are recruiting young boys and girls in a massive way and using them as cannon-fodder in their dirty counter-revolutionary war against Maoist revolutionaries, against the Maoist model of development, and in their greed hunt for the mineral wealth of the adivasi regions. The CC, CPI (Maoist), while offering its heart-felt condolences to the bereaved families of the dead jawans, appeals to the state and central paramilitary personnel to realize that they are being used as cannon-fodder in this war waged by the exploiting ruling class in the interests of a tiny parasitic elite against the poor and oppressed people of our country led by CPI (Maoist).
We appeal to all peace-loving, democratic-minded organizations and individuals in India to understand the context in which the Maoists are compelled to annihilate the so-called security forces who are creating a virtual reign of terror in adivasi areas armed with mortars, LMGs and grenades. When dacoits try to loot your house you have to fight back. And that is what the masses led by the Maoists are doing in all these areas. When the CRPF dacoits enter and loot the houses of adivasis is it not justified to hit back? The daring attack by our heroic PLGA on a superior enemy force in terms of fire-power became possible through the enormous mass support the Party and guerrillas enjoy. With the intelligence inputs from the people who are our eyes and ears and with their active participation we are confident of defeating the brutal enemy offensive in the name of Operation Green Hunt. There is no short-cut for achieving peace. Only the most ferocious, most resolute, and the most heroic resistance on the part of the people can defeat the war-mongers and bring democratic space and peace for the people.
Azad,
Spokesperson,
Central committee,
CPI (Maoist)
Death of jawans in Chhattisgarh - PUDR Statement; A Response by Sumanta Banerjee
6 April 2010
Peoples Union for Democratic Rights believes that the death of 70 jawans in Dantewada on early hours of April 6th, 2010, is an unfortunate fallout of the government's willful policy of pursuing 'Operation Green Hunt'. We consider the war against the so called "Left Wing Extremists", as a wrong policy at a time when the country has been reeling under unprecedented drought, crop failure and price rise. We have been urging the Indian government that war at home against our own people, under any pretext, should be ruled out as an option, for once and for all, and the issues arising out of tribal people's opposition to MoU's signed by the state governments with mining and other industrial conglomerates and the consequent land grab, forest displacement, river water privatization needs to be resolved peacefully rather than imposed on the people against their will. On either side of the divide it is our own people who fall victim to the bullets.
Since war remains the preferred option of the Indian government they have no one else but themselves to blame if and when combatants die. We wish to remind them that security forces were returning from three day long operations when the ambush took place. As civil rights organization we neither condemn the killing of security force combatants nor that of the Maoists combatants, or for that matter any other combatants, when it occurs. We can only lament the folly of the Indian government which lacks the courage and imagination to pursue a non militaristic approach which is pushing us towards a bloody and dirty war.
Moushumi Basu and Asish Gupta
(Secretaries PUDR)
***********************************************************************************************************
The other side of transactions in a violent system: the Maoist way of suppressing the para-military forces
Sumanta Banerjee
It is understandable that human rights/civil liberties organizations should come out with statements deploring the killing of security forces (e.g. PUDR press statement on the wiping out of 75-odd CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh on April 6) on the purely humanitarian ground that any loss of life is deplorable. But civil society groups or individuals who view the issue from a larger perspective need to take a more rigorous and clear-cut stand. If they agree that the fundamental issues raised by the Maoists are right, even if they do not accept their tactics (in other words, if they are well-disposed towards the basic Maoist critique of the present exploitative system and sympathize with their efforts to build up alternative structures of egalitarian governance in their areas of control, without supporting their tactics of indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians), they have to recognize the stark reality.
The stark reality is that the confrontation between the recalcitrant Indian state (which is adopting an oppressive neo-liberal model of development) and its opponents (the rural poor and tribal villagers who are facing displacement by that model) is fast acquiring the dimensions of a civil war. In such a war situation, the liberal-bourgeois pacifists can condemn both the disputing parties, and wash their hands off, shouting: "plague on both houses." But can we afford to withdraw and refuse to take sides in this war?
If we are opposing the Indian state's neo-liberal model of development and its oppressive policies to impose it on our people by displacing them from their homes, we should define our position with regard to the various popular protest movements that are breaking out in different forms – ranging from Gandhian non-violent types like the Narmada Banchao Movement or the anti-steel plant agitation in Kalinganagar on the one hand, to armed resistance by forest-dwellers and tribal people organized under Maoist leadership on the other. The mainstream media propaganda builds up a peculiar dichotomy between these two types of movements – describing the former as part of `democratic' protest, and denouncing the latter as `terrorism' – as if the Maoist movement is not democratic. It is as if protests and agitations can be termed democratic only if they are non-violent. But what if thousands of people in a particular area, comprising the majority of the population, decide to opt for armed resistance, after their non-violent forms of protest are violently suppressed by the state? This is what is happening in Chhattisgarh. The reasons why the tribal people in Dandakaranya have taken up arms have been well-documented – not only by human rights activists, but also by no less an important body than the Planning Commission Experts Group in its report on extremist-affected areas a few years ago. For years together, their basic needs had not only been ignored by the state, but whenever they tried to assert their economic demands through peaceful democratic avenues – like demonstrations asking for higher prices for tendu leave collection, or access to forest produce – they were ruthlessly suppressed by the police.
What needs to be asserted – and which is deliberately suppressed by the mainstream media – is that even the non-violent protest movements (accepted as `democratic' by the bourgeois-liberals) are violently opposed by the state through the use of military force (witness the experience of the Narmada Banchao movement, or of the Gandhian Himangshu whose ashram in Chhattisgarh was destroyed by the police). If the followers of these non-violent movements, after their disillusionment with the `peaceful' means of constitutional protest, take up arms tomorrow to protect their homes and occupations, should we denounce them as `terrorists'?
The Home Minister, P. Chidambaram says that the Naxalites have forced a war on the Indian state and its people. It's the other way round. The Indian state has forced a war on the Indian poor by imposing on them a corporate sector-induced model of development – threatening wide sections of rural people ranging from the villages of Orissa, Jharkhand in the east to Rajasthan and Haryana in the north, who are being ousted from their lands. They are breaking out in protest demonstrations. The state responds by resorting to violence to suppress them. It has built up a well-structured a military network consisting of a variety of forces going under the names of CRPF, CISF, Special Operation Group, Eastern Frontier Rifles, etc. in various states. Exposures by independent reporters (in magazines like TEHELKA) have revealed how the senior officials and their juniors in these para-military forces have been consistently killing innocent people in false encounters, raping women, burning villages, not only in Maoist-dominated villages of Chhattisgarh, but also in Manipur and other parts of the north-east. The CRPF in particular has earned a notoriety for atrocities in areas wherever they had been deployed. The national media may shed tears for the death of the 75-odd CRPF soldiers in Chhattisgarh. But then, these soldiers, by being cannon-fodders of the Indian state, however tragic it might be, suffered the fate that – I'm sorry to say – they deserved. Should the bourgeois-liberals and human rights activists shed tears for the young dedicated Nazi soldiers (who massacred the Jews), and were killed in reprisal by the Soviet Red Army? Surely, there should be a limit to the tolerance that bourgeois-liberalism allows!
To come back to the latest incident of the Maoist attack on the CRPF camp in Chhattisgarh…. if we accept it as a part of a civil war, such killings are inevitable (just as the CRPF killings of Maoists) in a violent system that has been institutionalized by the Indian state. The difference between the CRPF violence (involving `false encounters', raping of tribal women, burning their homes, etc.) on the one hand, and the Maoist violence on the other (which means attacks on oppressive landlords and the police and para-military forces like the CRPF which come to the aid of the landlords) - has to be distinguished by civil society groups.
France24 - India gropes for response to Maoist menace
6 Apr 2010 ... India gropes for response to Maoist menace ... and under-trained" and argued that the government needed to re-think its strategy. ...
www.france24.com/.../20100407-india-gropes-response-maoist-menace - Cached'Strong strategy needed to tackle Maoists' - India - ibnlive
23 Mar 2010 ... I think this is all a part of that strategy. But what we are doing in our state to combat this Naxal menace or Maoist menace is to recruit ...
ibnlive.in.com/news/strong-strategy...to...maoists/111931-3.html - CachedBuddha, PM discuss Maoist menace - Yahoo! India News
5 May 2010 ... Buddha, PM discuss Maoist menace ... According to him, the strategy should be to launch simultaneous joint operations in Maoist-affected ...
in.news.yahoo.com/.../tnl-buddha-pm-discuss-maoist-menace_1.html - CachedNo dilution in strategy to tackle Maoists: Chidambaram - Worldnews.com
3 May 2010 ... Did the West Bengal state government cut a deal with the Maoists to get the .... The Telegraph India: Munde bares BJP cracks on Maoists .... and states should adopt a joint strategy for combating the menace of Naxalism ...
article.wn.com/.../No_dilution_in_strategy_to_tackle_Maoists_Chidambaram/ - CachedColumns - The Daily Mail - Daily News from Pakistan - Newspaper ...
12 Apr 2010 ... yet to evoke a creditable strategy to eliminate the Maoist menace. .... The reason behind India's step back was the civil nuclear deal ...
dailymailnews.com/0410/20/Editorial_Column/DMColumn.php - CachedNaxal Terror Watch: Maoist Menace: A lesson from the past
28 Apr 2010 ... Maoist Menace: A lesson from the past. By Dr TH Chowdary ... India must make up its mind whether it recognises the Maoists as enemies of the ...
naxalwatch.blogspot.com/.../maoist-menace-lesson-from-past.html - CachedNo dilution in strategy to tackle Maoists: HM | Maoists States ...
No dilution in strategy to tackle Maoists: HM States? role pivotal in Naxal zones: ... in the government's two-pronged policy to deal with the Naxal menace. ...
www.24dunia.com/english-news/national-news/.../6058405.html - CachedCover Story: India Today - Latest Breaking News from India, World ...
It is time India declares a war on the conditions that foment Maoism and Maoists. ... an all-round and successful strategy to deal with the Maoist menace. ...
indiatoday.intoday.in/site/section?secId=30&page=2 - CachedIndia takes off against 'Red Taliban' - Asia Times Online :: South ...
16 Oct 2009 ... BANGALORE - India's Maoists have signaled they are not ... by the [Maoist] menace," Home Minister P Chidambaram declared recently. ... methods to deal with a problem that is primarily political. ... "Development efforts should be an important part of the strategy to defeat them [Maoists]," points ...
www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KJ16Df02.html - Cached - SimilarFour-plank strategy to counter Maoism : India : S D Pradhan : TOI ...
6 Apr 2010 ... The fact is that a multi pronged strategy including the above mentioned dimensions needs to be adopted to deal with this menace. ...
blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/.../four-plank-strategy-to-counter - Cached
- [PDF]
The Empowerment of Women from the Excluded Communities in Bihar:
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
by U INDIA - Related articles
The Empowerment of Women from Excluded Communities in Bihar. UNICEF KCCI Internship 2006. 9. As elsewhere in India, much of the gaps in education can be ...
www.hks.harvard.edu/wappp/students/internships/roy.../Woojin3.pdf Flipkart.com: Nutring Social Capital In Excluded Communities ...
Buy Nutring Social Capital In Excluded Communities in India. FREE Shipping. Rs.3955, Save 5%. Nutring Social Capital In Excluded Communities by julia preece ...
www.flipkart.com/book/...excluded-communities/0754614654 - CachedMIHIR BHATT - Civil Society,India Civil Society,Civil Society ...
We do not only exclude victim communities from mainstream national .... Mihir Bhatt is director of the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, Ahmedabad. ...
www.civilsocietyonline.com/sept07/sep0730.asp - Cached - SimilarThe Hindu : Education Plus : Researching socially excluded groups
3 May 2010 ... Policies for the socially excluded communities are innumerable but an ... and research on 75 primitive tribes in India such as the great ...
www.thehindu.com/edu/2010/05/03/.../2010050350171100.htm - CachedeBay India: Nurturing Social Capital In Excluded Communities (item ...
Find Nurturing Social Capital In Excluded Communities in the Books Magazines , Other Books category on eBay India.
cgi.ebay.in/Nurturing...In-Excluded-Communities-/270573931139 - CachedDevNetJobs, India Country Programme Officer , Skillshare ...
Skillshare has a staff vacancy for: India Country Programme Officer ... and national programmes impacting socially excluded communities like tribals, ...
216.119.85.221/artman2/publish/indian-jobs/article_22754.shtml - CachedOther Backward Class - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Political parties in India have attempted to use these communities as votebanks ... its prior stand that "Creamy layer" should be excluded from the ambit of ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Backward_Class - Cached - SimilarChildFund India | Child Community Development | Leader for ...
An India…where. Our Vision is… community…and nation …and positive role…within family… An India…where. Our Vision is… discriminated…excluded…child ...
www.childfundindia.org/ - Cached - SimilarSocial exclusion - PACS Programme backgrounders and discussion ...
The Muslim community is another excluded group in India. There are more Muslims who live below the poverty line than any other group. ...
www.empowerpoor.org/backgrounder.asp?report=704 - Cached - SimilarChoice and Dignity of the Socially Excluded Devdasi Project
The project supports India's achievement of the Millennium Development Goals with a particular focus on reducing poverty ; promoting gender equality and ...
www.tlmindia.org/.../community.../choice-and-dignity-of-the-socially-excluded-devdasi-project - Cached
"It is assumed that none of the organs of the state, whether it is the judiciary or the executive or the legislature, would exceed its powers as laid down in the Constitution," said Dr Singh at the national conference on 'Law and Governance' to mark the Golden Jubilee of the Bar Association of India.Even though their jurisdiction may be separated and demarcated, it is expected that all institutions would work in harmony and in tandem to maximise the public good," he added.
Dr Singh reiterated the need for concerted efforts by the government, the judiciary and the Bar Association to help reduce the mounting arrears in courts and growing cost of litigation, as he said the doctrine of 'separation of powers' was acknowledged as one of the basic features of the Constitution.
"It is also commonly agreed that all the three organs of the state, namely the Legislature, the Judiciary and the Executive, are bound by and subject to provisions of the Constitution, which demarcates their respective powers, jurisdictions, responsibilities and relationship with one another," he said.
The Prime Minister said the lawyers were an integral part of India's system of administration of justice and they had a role, which was not confined to courts and advising clients.
"The role of lawyers is not confined to courts alone or advising the clients in business deals. It extends to being an integral part of our system of administration of justice - and justice is not just in the legal sense, but justice - social, economic and political - as set out in the preamble of our Constitution," said Dr Singh.
Praising the efforts of the lawyers for their contribution, whether during Independence struggle, framing of the Constitution or just government, Dr Singh expressed his delight at having some former members of the Bar Association of India in his Cabinet.
"The Bar Association of India too has a larger objective beyond the furtherance of professional interests. It aims at promoting public and national welfare in manifold directions and upholding the Constitution of India and the Rule of Law," added Dr Singh.
Krishna to represent India at G-15 Tehran meet
Against the backdrop of escalating Western pressure on Iran over its suspect nuclear programme, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna goes to Tehran next week to represent India at the G-15 summit and to hold bilateral talks with his Iranian counterpart.
Tehran will host the May 17-18 G-15 summit of developing countries, a forum that now comprises 18 nations from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Besides India and Iran, the G-15 comprises Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Jamaica, Mexico, Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
Krishna will go to Tehran after a three-day trip to Kazakhstan that ends April 13. He is likely to go to Iran March 15, sources said.
Krishna will hold bilateral talks with his Iranian counterpart, the Bangalore-educated Manouchehr Mottaki, with whom he shares a good personal rapport.
The visit comes against the backdrop of a plan by Western powers to impose new sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear programme suspected to be for making atomic bombs.
Krishna is likely to clarify India's position on this issue to the Iranian leadership and stress that New Delhi has always advocated dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.
India has voted in favour of IAEA resolutions on the Iranian nuclear programme - an issue that has caused much heartburn in Tehran.
The two ministers are set to discuss the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project. Iran and Pakistan sealed pacts to launch the gas pipeline nearly two months ago, but India continues to have issues relating to pricing and security of the project.
These issues will be discussed afresh during this visit, official sources said.
Krishna will hold consultations on the evolving situation in Afghanistan, specially in view of a West-backed proposal for reintegration of the Taliban, an idea both New Delhi and Tehran are not comfortable with.
Krishna was set to go to Tehran in the last week of March for the Navroz celebrations, but had to call off the trip because the Iranians changed the dates of his visit twice.
Rabindranath Tagore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali: রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর) (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore - Cached - SimilarTagore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tagore (the anglicised form of the Bengali title Thakur. Bengali: ঠাকুর) is the name of a prominent Bengali family of intellectuals, writers and ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagore - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta, India into a wealthy Brahmin family. After a brief stay in England (1878) to attempt to study law, he returned to ...
www.schoolofwisdom.com/tagore-bio.html - Cached - SimilarGitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore and Gitanjali - Song Poems. ... RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S. GITANJALI. "Song Offerings". Translations made by the author from the original ...
www.schoolofwisdom.com/gitanjali.html - CachedNews for Tagore
The HinduMarches kick off Tagore's 150th anniversary celebrations - 36 minutes ago
West Bengal Saturday kicked off the year-long celebrations of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary with two processions through busy ...Sify - 139 related articles »
Tagore in China - Hindustan TimesBangalore gave Rabindranath Tagore wealth of health - Daily News & AnalysisImages for Tagore
- Report imagesThank you for the feedback. Report another imagePlease report the offensive image. CancelDone
Videos for Tagore
Kora Kagaz Tha - Rajesh Khanna & Sharmila ...
5 min - 6 Feb 2008
www.youtube.comRoop Tera Mastana - Sharmila Tagore & Rajesh ...
3 min 39 sec - 23 Jan 2008
www.youtube.comBooks by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore - Biography
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in ...
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/.../tagore-bio.html - Cached - SimilarTagore and His India
Rabindranath Tagore, who died in 1941 at the age of eighty, is a towering figure in the millennium-old literature of Bengal. Anyone who becomes familiar ...
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/articles/sen/ - Cached - SimilarCalcuttaweb - Rabindranath Tagore
Tagore was born on Tuesday, 7th May 1861 in a wealthy family in Calcutta at the address of 6, Dwarakanath Thakur Lane, Calcutta. ...
www.calcuttaweb.com/tagore/ - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta into a wealthy and prominent family. His father was Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, a religious reformer and scholar ...
www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rtagore.htm - Cached - SimilarRabindranath
Rabindranath Tagore : The Founder. Life Sketch | Writings · Paintings | Music · Educational Ideas | Nobel Award · HOME | CONTENT | SEARCH.
www.visva-bharati.ac.in/Rabindranath/Rabindranath.htm - Cached - SimilarIndia's Freedom Struggle : Freedom Fighters : Rabindranath Tagore
India's National Movement for freedom was accompanied by a large wave of social, educational and economic awareness throughout the nation. Tagore, one of ...
www.kamat.com/kalranga/freedom/tagore.htm - Cached - Similar
Search Options
- The web
- Pages from India
- Any time
- Latest
- Past 2 days
- All results
Tagore inspired all the movements in Bangladesh: Hasina
Bangladesh celebrated the 149th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate and poet Rabindranath Tagore on Saturday, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina describing him as a source of inspiration for all movements in the country.
Hasina opening the main official programme at a city hall recalled his contribution towards reshaping the Bengali literature and the nation's cultural life and values.
Hasina in another statement called Tagore a "lighthouse" for the Bengalis as he wandered in their hearts and said "he was a source of inspiration in all movements, struggles, revolutions, thoughts and creativity of the Bengali nation."
Cultural groups including the apex Sammilita Sangskritik Jote organized colourful street marches and concerts in open air and inside auditoriums across Bangladesh as leading artistes rendered Rabindra Sangit, which the poet himself expected him to keep alive to the posterity, though he earned the credit of being Asia's first Nobel Laureate for his poetry in 1913.
Special Television programmes including talk shows and newspaper supplements, however, paid rich tributes to the poet, the composer of the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh, reviewing his greatness also as a playwright, novelist, short story writer, artist, educationists, social reformer, nationalist and business manager.
"Our bonds with Rabindranath are getting closer with the passage of time as his literature has become a source of inspiration and courage for us during the days of our crisis or debacle," President Zillur Rahman said in a statement to mark his birth anniversary.
Her arch-rival main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chief Khaleda Zia also issued a statement paying her rich tributes to the memories of Tagore.
As part of the national celebrations, the state-run apex Bangla Academy and Shilpakala Academy will organise programmes based on various creative works of the great poet while various programmes at Shilaidah in western Kushtia, Patisar in northwestern Naogaon and Dakkhindihi in Phultola upazila of southwestern Khulna ---the three districts that harbour the memories of Tagore were underway to mark the day.
Bangla Academy this year confers veteran Bangladeshi Rabindra Sangeet exponents Kalim Sharafi and Sanjida Khatun with Rabindra Awards.
Octogenarian Sharafi received the award for his contribution in promoting and preserving Rabindra Sangeet, while Professor Khatun received it for her research on Tagore songs.
Ahead of his time, Tagore left a legacy for world (Tribute - May 9 is 150th anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore) | |||
| 2010-05-08 12:20:00 | |||
| |||
| |||
| |||
| |||
| All About: National,Art - Culture | |||
Comments |  Share |  Print | Rate | More Headlines | ||
| |||
| Tagore's birth anniversary today | ||||||
| ||||||
The 149th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore will be celebrated across the country today.
The government and socio-cultural organisations have taken up elaborate programmes to celebrate the great poet's birthday.
President Zillur Rahman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have given special messages highlighting the colourful life of the poet and his contributions to Bengali language and literature.
 |
The prime minister, in a separate message, said the people of Bangladesh greatly owe to Rabindranath as his writings inspired the nation in all its movement including in the War of Liberation, reports BSS.
As part of the national celebrations, Bangla Academy and Shilpakala Academy will organise programmes based on various creative works of the great poet.
Besides, various programmes have been chalked out to mark the day at Shilaidah in Kushtia, Patisar in Naogaon and Dakkhindihi in Phultola upazila of Khulna - the three districts that harbour the memories of Tagore.
Local administrations across the country will arrange programmes marking the day.
Bangladesh missions abroad will also celebrate the day holding various programmes.
Tagore, born in 1861 at Jorasanko mansion in Kolkata, was a poet, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
He became Asia's first Nobel laureate after winning the Nobel Prize in literature for his book Gitanjali in 1913.
Two songs from his canon are now the national anthems of Bangladesh and India -- Amar Sonar Bangla and Jana Gana Mana, respectively.
His verse, short stories, and novels, which often exhibited rhythmic lyricism, colloquial language, meditative naturalism, and philosophical contemplation, received global acclaim.
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Showbiz/Story/A1Story20100508-214919.html- Stories in this Section
- Conservatives in talks with Liberal Democrats in Britain
- Governors can't be removed at Centre's whims, says Court
- Centre's gas pricing policy will prevail, rules Supreme Court
- Muivah puts his visit to Manipur on hold
- Decision soon on caste-based census, Manmohan Singh assures Lok Sabha
- Army officer held for child pornography
- Amid protests, Nuclear Liability Bill introduced in Lok Sabha
- Talk of a coalition government begins
- BJP not happy with JMM proposal
- Nagaland condemns use of force
- "Ideal if PSUs handle projects relating to natural resources"
- Merciless Australia pounds India into submission
- India scores a facile win over Pakistan
- Indian women cruise into the final
- Fee structure fixed for private schools
- Foreign varsities put up 55 stalls at The Hindu Education Plus Fair
- Experts studying Kerala mud snake
- Celebrations galore for Tagore anniversary
- UPSC rule upheld
- Rosaiah pats civil services toppers
- Violence: Karim alleges conspiracy
- KC(J) faction's inclusion in Cabinet to come up at meet
- Hangman offers services to execute Kasab
- Army officer held for child pornography
- Plan to increase salaries of MPs
- Hoax call delays train
- Be prepared to more than walk on the boulevard
- Accident averted
Tagores we didn't know about
As we prepare to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, it is sometimes easy to forget that he came from a family bristling with remarkable people. Chitra Deb's bestseller in Bengali - Thakurbarir Andar Mahal - now available in English reminds us that it wasn't just men in the Tagore family who were accomplished.
Beginning with Rabindranath's great-grandmother Alakasundari - mother of Dwarkanath - the Tagore household in Jorasanko was home to an extraordinary cast of women, both daughters and daughters-in-law. Easily two of the most accomplished women in the family were Jnanadanandini, wife of Rabindranath's elder brother and India's first ICS officer Satyendranath, and Swarnakumari, the poet's sister.
Jnanadanandini had many firsts to her name - from popularising the modern style of wearing a sari to shocking Calcutta's elite society by driving her own carriage to the Maidan. She was a livewire in the Tagore household organising plays and editing a magazine for children.
Swarnakumari - described as the "brightest star of the andar mahal" by Deb - created a stir in 1876 with her first novel. Since the author was unnamed, there was feverish speculation about the writer's identity, which was revealed only later. She followed it up with a series of novels. She is equally remembered for her stint as editor of Bharati, the famous journal started by the Tagores.
Deb dismisses the much talked about relationship between Rabindranath and his elder brother Jyotirindranath's wife, Kadambari, who committed suicide. She writes, "There has been great deal of gossip about Rabindranath and Kadambari. This was partly prompted by Kadambari's death within a few months of Rabindranath's marriage." Rabindranath's marriage was also shortlived as his wife Mrinalini died young.
The next generation of women, too, was brimming with talent. One of Rabindranath's nieces, Pragya, wrote what was probably the first cookbook in Bengali, Aamish O Niramish Aahar, published in three volumes. She is also credited with inventing a number of dishes to which she gave fancy names such as 'Rammohan dolma pillau' after the great Bengali 19th century reformer. On Tagore's 50th birthday, she created a sweet made from cauliflower, milk, almonds, raisins and saffron and named it 'kavi sambardana barfi'. The feasts that she prepared for guests were legendary. Another niece Protiva was an expert on music.
Yet another, Indira, combined beauty with intellect. A topper in the Calcutta University B. A. exam and fluent in French, she translated several of Tagore's works. She wrote a memoir which provides fascinating details about the Tagore household. She also had a wicked sense of humour. On her own acting, she wrote, "Only once I played the role of Lakshmi in Balmiki Protiva. In one scene I was supposed to place my hand on my heart and say, 'Do glance at me at this auspicious hour. 'My cousin Abhi always said, 'Boudidi, your expression makes me feel that you have a stomach ache.'"
While Deb's book is full of such delightful anecdotes, its format does have problems. A continuous narrative without any chapter breaks can put off many readers. For the sake of comprehensiveness, the book discusses many of the later Tagore women, some of whose lives are not particularly exceptional. These could easily have been edited out for the English translation. There is also a paucity of dates which sometimes makes it difficult to place people and events. The book devotes over 100 pages mapping the family tree of the sprawling Tagore clan, which is useful, though inevitably some errors have crept in.
But for insights into the talented Tagore women and a flavour of the social history of Bengal in the 19th and 20th centuries, this book is indispensable.
Blogs
Why is T- READ
- COMMENTED
- SHARED
- VIDEOS
Grand old modernist
| | |||||||||
| | ||||||||
| | |||||||||
The Return of Khokababu
Rabindranath Tagore
Translated by Sipra Bhattacharya
Harper perennial, Rs 350
PP 398
To be bitten by the Rabindranath bug can be fatal. It stops the victim from going to the man's writings and forces him to look upon Tagore with a strange veneration. Thanks to my intense dislike of Rabindrasangeet (which went into the same attic filled with modern jazz, ballet and musicals), I was vaccinated against this disease early enough. But what has enthralled me despite all is a strand of Tagore's prodigious output: his short stories.
There have been many anthologies of Tagore's short stories in English (Selected Short Stories edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri and published by Oxford University Press being a notable one). But what The Return of Khokababu: The Best of Tagore does is take the gravitas off and bring us a sample of, not the translated stories of a canonical writer, but of staggeringly good stories by an underrated master of the genre.
Sipra Bhattacharya's translations are lucid, faithful and will give even the Bengali-reader, seeking a refuge from the dated Bengali of Tagore's original (secret?) pleasure.
The collection starts with the very first short story Tagore ever wrote, The Bathing Ghat's Story. He wrote this in 1884 a few months after his beloved sister-in-law and muse Kadambari Debi killed herself. Tagore's narrator is the ghat, who tells the story of a woman who drowns herself in the river. 'Kabuliwala' is the story of fathers and daughters and teeters at the edge of sentimentalism but doesn't fall over. Hungry Stones (more correctly translated as The Hungering Stone), uses the popular genre of the historical romance and stitches it to another mutated genre, the Gothic ghost story.
But my favourite is Manihara. On the face of it, it's a standard Victorian ghost story plonked on to a 19th century Bengal. But layers are peeled as we proceed along the story of Phanibhushan Saha and his jewellery-obsessed wife, Manimalika. It's a domestic chamber drama; it's a supernatural tale; it's a psychological exploration. And as the tale-outside-the-tale that book-ends the story tells us, it's about the mechanics of telling a tale.
Stories like The Girl Next Door, The Living and the Dead and the novella The Broken Nest (on which Satyajit Ray's Charulata is based on) are great insights into the human condition, filtered through that of the minds of women. It's not an exaggeration to say that women, especially in his early life, played an immense role in Tagore's dealings with the world.
Which is why it would have been great to read this book with Chitra Deb's Women of the Tagore Household (Penguin, Rs 499). I say 'would' because the translation of this illuminating book is stilted, with no effort made to do anything but to translate and print Deb's engaging narrative. There's no introduction, no chapter breaks; the sub-quality photos have no captions worth having. Exactly the sort of book that makes people run miles away from any 'Tagore-Shagore'.
MUST READ | ||||||
| ||||||
- stories
- photos
- videos
most viewed
Top Stories
Portrait of Tagore as a progressive artist
May 8th, 2010 - 4:18 pm ICT by IANS -By Madhusree Chatterjee
New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) Art for Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore was the final extension of his literature, beginning at a point when he wanted to express himself in a more creative way at the age of 67. One hundred and fifty years after his birth, he still retains pride of place as one of the founders of the progressive art movement in India.
He devised a new language for contemporary art in the first decade of the 20th century, freeing it from the colonial stranglehold.
In an essay in 1926 (Art and Tradition), Tagore spoke about his journey away from nationalism in aesthetics to a more independent terrain saying, "When in the name of Indian art, we cultivate a certain bigotry born of the habit of a past generation, we smother our soul under idiosyncrasies that fail to respond to the ever-changing play of life."
Born in 1861 on the Indian calendar date of 'Pochishe Boishakh' - which falls May 9 this year - Tagore the youngest of 14 children of the clan, was inspired by sketches made by his elder brother Jyotirindranath, a gifted artist.
The images lingered in his mind and for the last 23 years of his life, the poet and novelist devoted himself to mastering techniques of water colour, gouache, tempera and mixed media of ink, etchings, oil and pencils to create an eclectic body of art that included doodles, scratch art, word art (suggestive of colours), visages, figures, wildlife and naturescapes.
"Of all the artists, the story of Rabindranath Tagore's emergence as a painter is the stuff that myths are made of. At the age of 67, his artistic impulses suddenly broke all barriers and flowered like a restless stream reflecting many moods," says eminent art writer and critic Ella Dutta.
His figurative compositions were characterised by a mute almost dull but varied colour palette, long, ovoid and gaunt faces of women with linear bodies, mysterious forests, exotic birds, animals, plural spaces suggestion assimilations from cultures, complex spiral forms that sometimes arose from a jumble of irrelevant words.
At a historic exhibition in Paris May 5-May 19, 1930, duchess Anna de Noailles, in her opening remark on Tagore's paintings, described them as, "To me, it is like climbing a staircase of dreamland".
Artist Mukul Dey, who sponsored one of Tagore's exhibitions and photo-documented his art, reminisces in one of his articles, "Exactly 22 months before his Gallery Pigalle exhibition, Tagore had stayed at 28 Chowringhee Road in Calcutta (which happened to be his residence) and … absolutely immersed himself in his paintings and if not more - completed 126 works."
The exhibition of Tagore's art in Paris was followed by expositions in England, Denmark, Sweden, Rome, Germany, Russia and Europe. Calcutta (Kolkata), his home turf, hosted the show a year later in 1931.
Tagore's paintings, say historians, created a flutter in Germany drawing visitors like scientist Albert Einstein.
Writes Debashish Banerjee, "The Jorasanko family culture in the mid-19th century offers an interesting example of the operation of the Bourdieu's theory of toxic practise.
"Subjective autonomy, critical consciousness and democratic openness to the 'other', enlightenment constructs of liberty in the public space of modernity were pressed into close relocation with the affective density - and the dialogic and dynamic co-constitution of taste, fantasy and understanding of Bengali village community." It brought out the soul of Bengal in his art.
In 1913, Tagore landed at the Chicago Art Institute Armoury show with 1,600 exhibits and researched a gamut of modern masters from the impressionists to Marcel Duchamp. Tagore's visit to the British Museum exposed him to primitive art - which he later encountered in Indonesia, China and US. The exposure - followed by several more thereafter - imbued his compositions with mystical aura.
Tagore identified with the world in colours. His art verged on the abstract inspired by surrealism, expressionism and post-modern impressionism practised by the early 20th century masters in Europe in America.
"The world speaks to me in colours; my soul answers in music," was his oft refrain.
–Indo-Asian New Service
'Tagore's Visva-Bharati veering away from his ideals'
May 8th, 2010 - 4:08 pm ICT by IANS -
By Sirshendu Panth
Kolkata, May 8 (IANS) Visva-Bharati, the university founded by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, has veered away from the poet's ideals and is today guided by "crass commercialism", says a descendent of the bard.
"I don't think Rabindranath had wanted Visva-Bharati as an institute providing mere degrees to the students. He wanted it to be an oriental centre of learning where foreigners will come for advanced research. And there will be a healthy exchange of knowledge," Supriyo Tagore, the great grandson of Rabindranath's elder brother Satyendranath Tagore, told IANS in an interview.
"There has been no effort on the part of the authorities to implement such concepts. Rabindranath had visualised the university as an institution that would facilitate the creation of knowledge. But there is a total lack of will among the powers-that-be," Supriyo said.
Rural reconstruction was very close to Rabindranath's heart for which he founded a special school at Surul close to his Santiniketan Ashram, said Supriyo, 72, a former principal of Visva-Bharati's Patha Bhavana school.
"At the core of Tagore's thoughts was a desire to nurture humane feelings. For this, he had settled poor Santhal families at Pearson Pally (named after the poet's associate William Winstanley Pearson), close to Santiniketan as part of his rural reconstruction and tribal welfare initiatives. But the university has simply turned a blind eye to the
sufferings of these poor families," he alleged.
"I feel like crying when I see their condition. Former MP Somnath Chatterjee and others have tried to help them out. But when some of us approached Visva-Bharati, we were told such activities are outside the purview of the central university.
"These Santhal families don't have the means to get education. There is an acute shortage of drinking water in the locality. The university seems to have all but forgotten Tagore's ideals," he said.
He accused the university of being guided by "crass commercialism", adding: "Sangit Bhavana (the music institute) has now become synonymous with propaganda and a means of getting funds. There is little scope for research. There is no quality library."
However, he praised Kala Bhavana (the institute of fine arts), saying a lot of creative work was being done there. "Kala Bhavana is the only wing where there is an honest effort to implement Tagore's philosophy."
According to Supriyo, the university has been devoured by politics.
"Be it the teachers' bodies or the non-teaching staff organsiations, there is politics everywhere. Even appointments are guided by political considerations."
Supriyo, who was principal of Patha Bhavana for a long time before taking voluntary retirement in 1995, said: "One of the reasons for my decision was that I was not able to implement my ideas. I found Patha Bhavana, or for that matter the entire university, had become exam centric."
Rabindranath Tagore had wanted a communion between students and nature, the teacher and the taught at Visva-Bharati.
"I passed out of the Patha Bhavana in 1954. Our teachers, true to Rabindranath's philosophy, would acquaint us with plants, birds and insects by taking us for regular strolls in the sprawling campus or even outside. Nowadays, teaching has become completely bookish."
He regretted that efforts were on to take Patha Bhavana out of the ambit of the university and run it like any other government school.
"This is again contrary to Tagore's ideals. He had visualised the university as a complete education centre from the primary to the highest level."
Rabindranath founded Visva-Bharati university in 1921. The poet's 150th birth anniversary falls Sunday, May 9.
Jorasanko Thakurbari – where every corner tells Tagore story
Kolkata, May 8 (IANS) A leisurely walk down the spacious balconies of 6, Dwarkanath Tagore Lane transports one to the time of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore with every brick and object telling the story of the poet, his family, lifestyle and achievements.
Located in a congested north Kolkata lane, the Rabindra Bharati Museum is housed in Tagore's ancestral home at Jorasanko – the Jorasanko Thakurbari – where he was born in 1861 and also breathed his last 69 years ago in 1941.
The museum, which will celebrate its own birthday Saturday, is part of Rabindra Bharati University set up in the palatial edifice and contains more than 700 photographs and a similar number of paintings of India's first Nobel laureate.
"There are around 750 paintings and more than 700 photographs in the museum," curator Indrani Ghosh told IANS, as workmen were seen busy setting up a marquee on the lawns near the main gate for holding the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of the poet who has the unique distinction of authoring the national anthems of two sovereign nations – India and Bangladesh.
Come May 9, the courtyards and lawns surrounding the museum will reverberate with the songs, poems, dance dramas and plays of Tagore to usher in the yearlong celebrations planned by the university for one of the world's greatest ever literary figures.
The various departments and classrooms of Rabindra Bharati University have now been shifted to another location for the preservation of the age-old structure.
"Only the Centre for Tagore Studies is still there and it conducts research and seminars on the poet throughout the year," the university's dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Amita Dutta, told IANS.
The museum, inaugurated by then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru May 8, 1961, as part of the centenary celebrations of the bard, has three galleries.
"We get around 50-60 visitors on a daily basis during summer. But during winter we get 250-300 every day," a security man told IANS.
The museum has three parts – Vichitra Bhavana, Maharshi Bhavana and Ram Bhavana – overlooking a clean courtyard.
Vichitra Bhavan has a large hall with a rich collection of Tagore's photographs covering his visits to erstwhile Burma (1930), Moscow (1930), and meetings with scientist Albert Einstein, deaf-blind author Hellen Keller. There are also snaps of the poet with Arabic Bedouins.
On the right side of the hall is the living room of the poet's wife Mrinalini Devi. It is written, "She breathed her last in this room." A showcase in that room still has her Nilambori sari (blue sari), a Japanese hand fan, cosmetic box and some silver decorative show pieces.
One of the many photographs adorning the walls of the room captures young Mrinalini with Tagore. The invitation sent out by Tagore himself for the wedding hangs from the wall.
A stroll of Vichitra Bhavan while listening to Tagore's popular song "Chokher aloye dekhechhilem" helps people to become one with the master. It also exhibits costly utensils of porcelain and white marble used by the affluent Tagores.
Tagore's study during the later years of his life is replete with handicrafts and books written by him that were translated into other languages.
Maharshi Bhavan has almirah showcasing his clothes, his bedroom with a low lying bed and the room where he breathed his last.
A little aloof from all these rooms is the family maternity room where Tagore was born.
A chief attraction of the museum is the art galleries that contain paintings by several artists. Another must-see is a labyrinthine gallery dedicated to India-Japan relations during his time and photographs of Tagore with the Japanese people.
The room where Tagore's father Debendranath worshipped is also open for public view along with his bedstead.
(Aparajita Gupta can be contacted at aparajita.g@ians.in)
[LM1]
Marches kick off Tagore's 150th anniversary celebrationsSify - 41 minutes ago West Bengal Saturday kicked off the year-long celebrations of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary with two processions through busy ... People of Siliguri celebrate Nobel laureate Tagore's birthdayOneindia - 2 hours ago Siliguri, May 8 (ANI): People in Siliguri celebrated the 150th birthday of the Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, by organising a painting exhibition. ... Tagore inspired all the movements in Bangladesh: HasinaHindustan Times - 6 hours ago PTI Bangladesh celebrated the 149th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate and poet Rabindranath Tagore on Saturday, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ... Ahead of his time, Tagore left a legacy for world (Tribute - May 9 is 150th ...Sify - 10 hours ago That Tagore was able to give voice to the voiceless from among the colonised and subjugated nations is history now. But his legacy still lives on because, ... Tagore's birth anniversary todayAsiaOne - 13 hours ago The 149th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore will be celebrated across the country today. The government and socio-cultural ... Celebrations galore for Tagore anniversaryThe Hindu - - 21 hours ago ... the 150 {+t} {+h} birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore on May 9, has set in motion hectic activities to commemorate the occasion. ... Tagores we didn't know aboutTimes of India - - 7 hours ago As we prepare to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, it is sometimes easy to forget that he came from a family bristling. ... Grand old modernistHindustan Times - - 9 hours ago It stops the victim from going to the man's writings and forces him to look upon Tagore with a strange veneration. Thanks to my intense dislike of ... Delhi to host a spread of Tagore's works SundayThaindian.com - 2 hours ago New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) The national capital will reverberate with the sounds of Bengal on Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary Sunday. ... All set for Tagore's 150th birth anniversary celebrationsDeccan Herald - 2 hours ago Foreigners have begun arriving at Santiniketan for Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary celebrations on Sunday, while his ancestral house here has ... Capital's cultural bodies celebrate Tagore's birth anniversaryHindustan Times - May 7, 2010 Big celebrations have been lined up for the 150th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, with the Sangeet Natak Akademi, Sahitya Akademi, ... Portrait of Tagore as a progressive artistThaindian.com - - 8 hours ago New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) Art for Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore was the final extension of his literature, beginning at a point ... 'Tagore's Visva-Bharati veering away from his ideals'Thaindian.com - - 8 hours ago Kolkata, May 8 (IANS) Visva-Bharati, the university founded by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, has veered away from the poet's ideals ... Kalyan remembers Rabindranath TagoreTodayNews.in - 10 hours ago On account of 150th birth anniversary of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Kalyan Cultural Association (KCA) has organised a special cultural treat for ... Jorasanko Thakurbari – where every corner tells Tagore story (Feature)SINDH TODAY - 12 hours ago Kolkata, May 8 (IANS) A leisurely walk down the spacious balconies of 6, Dwarkanath Tagore Lane transports one to the time of Nobel laureate Rabindranath ... The eternal magic of Tagore's music, stories inspires filmmakersThaindian.com - - 15 hours ago The film fraternity remembers Tagore and his creations as "eternal" on his 150th birth anniversary that falls May 9. "Rabindra sangeet is eternal. ... Tagore's school to celebrate birth anniversaryThe Hindu - - May 6, 2010 KOLKATA: On May 9, when people across the country will celebrate the 150 {+t} {+h} birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, Kolkata-based St. Xavier's ... Poll code: Tagore train to give Bengal a missTimes of India - - May 6, 2010 It deals with the songs and poetry of Tagore. The next coach Jogajog/Muktodhara' will exhibit Tagore's literature. Chitrarekha' will have copies of his ... Discovering the doodles on Tagore's 150th anniversaryEconomic Times - May 6, 2010 It is famously known that Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore took to painting quite late in life, between the age of sixty and seventy. ... Exhibition train to mark Tagore's 150th birth anniversarySify - May 6, 2010 Indian Railways will run an exhibition train Sanskriti Express to celebrate Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary and showcase his ... Rabindranath Tagore: A Legendary music composerThe New Nation - May 7, 2010 Today is Baishakh 25, the 149th birth anniversary of legendary poet, novelist, musician and playwright Rabindranath Tagore. He was born on this date of the ... Rabindranath Tagore on TV channelsThe New Nation - May 7, 2010 Today is Baishakh 25, the 149th birth anniversary of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. To observe the day, different TV channels will air special ... The creative genius who bore suffering silently (Tribute - May 9 is 150th ...Sify - May 7, 2010 There was lunacy in the Tagore family which came from the mother Sarada Debi's side. One of her brothers had insanity and two of the poet's elder brothers ... Govt to build university like Shantiniketan in Shilaidaha: PMThe Daily Star - 3 hours ago She disclosed this while inaugurating the 149th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore at the national level at a function at the ... New university to follow Tagor'e spiritBangladesh News 24 hours - 7 hours ago Dhaka, May 8 (bdnews24.com) — The government will establish a university in the same spirit as that of Rabindranath Tagore's famous Shantniketan University ... National Celebrations to Mark the 150th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath ...Press Information Bureau (press release) - May 7, 2010 It is also appropriate that this year-long commemoration of Rabindranath Tagore commences at Rabindra Bhavan in New Delhi, which itself was built on the ... Making style statement with Tagore kitschKhabrein.info - - May 6, 2010 New Delhi,(IANS) T-shirts, coffee mugs and posters carrying lines from Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's writings or prints of his ... Let us get past 'Gitanjali'Livemint - May 6, 2010 How should Tagore live on? As the 150th birth anniversary celebrations begin, author Sunil Gangopadhyay revisits the legacy In the 1950s, when some of us ... Looking through a new windowThe Daily Star - - May 7, 2010 It would not be an exaggeration to say that Rabindranath Tagore was one of the greatest Bengali playwrights. Apart from his poems, songs, novels and short ... Bard back in schoolCalcutta Telegraph - - 19 hours ago Though Rabindranath Tagore was always against institutionalised education and was taught at home for the most part, he had pleasant memories of his time as ... |
| 1 | 2 | Next |
Rabindranath Tagore's tunes still a hit with Bengal's young
Daily News & Analysis - Madhumita Mookerji - 20 hours ago
Kolkata: Tagoreana, celebrating Tagore,involuntarily assimilates intoa Bengali's subconscious in the formative years. As such, Tagore and Bengaliana are ...A poet under British watch - Daily News & Analysis
all 4 news articles »Noted Bengali writer, Mani Shankar Mukherjee rues that ...
TodayNews.in - 12 hours agoIt's a pity that even 70 yearsafter Tagore's death, his entire body of work has ... The richness of the experience of reading Tagore directly in Bengali has ...His constant presence in a changing world - Daily News & Analysis
all 3 news articles »Tagore, culture ride Mamata's train of thought
Business Standard - 1 day agoIn May — an auspicious month in the Bengali calendar with Rabindranath Tagore's birthday celebrated on May 7 — Banerjee will lay the foundation stones for ...Mamata's loyalist gets TV licence as 146 others wait - Financial Express
all 36 news articles »
In Thakur's home
The Hindu - 2 hours agoOn May 9, India celebrates the 150th birth anniversary of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, as will millions around the world, touched by his work. ...Tagore tales on talkies
Chandigarh Tribune - 20 hours agoThe works of Rabindranath Tagore have always fascinated filmmakers, as these are universal — in time, space, emotions and human relationships, writes Shoma ...
'Nothing but a poet'
Hindustan Times - 1 day agoThe fourth visage just may be Tagore's. And this, you feel, is largely the company Tagore will keep in the days leading to his 150th birth anniversary: ...The Bengali pride Tagore - The New Nation
all 3 news articles »Poetry of politics: In Tagore will the twain meet
Calcutta Telegraph - 2 days agoRabindranath Tagore has ensured what no one thought could ever have been possible — Mamata Banerjee and Sitaram Yechury will share the same table. ...
Search Options
- The web
- Pages from India
- Any time
- Past hour
- Past 24 hours
- Past week
- Past month
- Sorted by relevance
- Sorted by date
Did you mean: where the mind is without fear rabindranath tagore
Search Results
Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore at Old Poetry
Can anybody send me the hindi version of "The mind Without Fear" just Hindi Version of real ... In times of turmoil, Rabindranath Tagore's poetry is so apt. ...
oldpoetry.com/.../25043-Rabindranath-Tagore-Where-The-Mind-is-Without-Fear - Cached - SimilarWhere The Mind is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore
29 Mar 2010 ... Where The Mind is Without Fear - by Rabindranath Tagore .. Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free ...
www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-the-mind-is-without-fear/ - Cached - SimilarThe Wondering Minstrels: Where The Mind is Without Fear ...
14 Aug 1999 ... Where The Mind is Without Fear -- Rabindranath Tagore ... In 1901 Rabindranath Tagore founded a school at Santiniketan, West Bengal, India, ...
wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/.../where-mind-is-without-fear-rabindranath.html - CachedRabindranath Tagore's Vision of India
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high. ... The vision articulated by Rabindranath Tagore is all encompassing in every sense. ...
www.akhilesh.in › Life - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore - Wikiquote
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high. Where knowledge is free ..... Wikipedia has an article about: Rabindranath Tagore ...
en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore - Cached - SimilarGitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore and Gitanjali - Song Poems. ... Mind Without Fear. Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;. Where knowledge is free; ...
www.schoolofwisdom.com/gitanjali.html - CachedSummary of poem 'Where the Mind is Without Fear' by Rabindranath ...
14 Jun 2009 ... Summary of poem 'Where the Mind is Without Fear' by Rabindranath Tagore. Rate question: Flag as inappropriate ...
www.enotes.com › ... › Rabindranath Tagore Group - Cached - SimilarTagore and His India
Rabindranath Tagore, who died in 1941 at the age of eighty, is a towering figure in the ..... Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; ...
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/articles/sen/ - Cached - SimilarLopa'a Rabindranath Tagore Page
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; ... It was a book called "Selected Songs of Rabindranath Tagore". ...
home.comcast.net/~sbhattacharj/tagore.html - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Main article: Life of Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1901) ..... "Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo" ("Where the Mind is Without Fear") and "Ekla Chalo Re" ("If They ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore - Cached - Similar
Did you mean to search for: where the mind is without fear rabindranath tagore
where the mind is without fear gitanjali
where the mind is without fear poem
Poet: Rabindranath Tagore - All poems of Rabindranath Tagore
11 Jul 2008 ... 165 poems of Rabindranath Tagore File Size:777 k. File Format: Acrobat Reader. To download the eBook right-Click on the title and select ...
www.poemhunter.com/rabindranath-tagore/ - Cached - SimilarAll poems of the poet: Rabindranath Tagore - works
All poems of the poet: Rabindranath Tagore - works .. poetry. ... 165 poems of Rabindranath Tagore File Size:777 k. File Format: Acrobat Reader ...
www.poemhunter.com/rabindranath-tagore/poems/page-2/ - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore: Poems
An index of poems by Rabindranath Tagore. ... Chitra - Complete text of the play by Rabindranath Tagore. Find articles on Rabindranath Tagore ...
www.poetry-archive.com/t/tagore_rabindranath.html - Cached - SimilarNews for poems rabindra nath tagore
The HinduMarches kick off Tagore's 150th anniversary celebrations - 59 minutes ago
The participants held placards with lines from Tagore's poems and songs on varied ... 'I have been a fan of Rabindranath since the day I gained my senses. ...Sify - 140 related articles »
Marches kick off Tagore's 150th anniversary celebrations - Daily Latest News (blog) - 4 related articles »INDOlink Poetry - Rabindranath Tagore Collection
A small collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore in English.
www.indolink.com/Poetry/tgorIndx.html - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore - Poems, Biography, Quotes
Poems by Rabindranath Tagore :: Tagore Poetry
Rabindranath Tagore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to Poetry: Tagore's poetry—which varied in style from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic—proceeds from a lineage ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore : Poems and Biography
Collected Poems & Plays of Rabindranath Tagore, by Rabindranath Tagore. Amazon.com ... Rabindranath Tagore: Final Poems, Edited by Wendy Barker / Edited by ...
www.poetry-chaikhana.com/T/TagoreRabind/index.htm - Cached - SimilarRPO -- Selected Poetry of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
One Hundred Poems of Kabir. Trans. Rabindranath Tagore assisted by Evelyn Underhill. London: Macmillan, 1915. UofT call number: PK 2095 K33A28 1915 Robarts ...
rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/389.html - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore - Biography
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, ... The English renderings of his poetry, which include The Gardener (1913), ...
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/.../tagore-bio.html - Cached - Similar
Did you mean to search for: poems rabindranath tagore
rabindranath tagore rabindranath tagore poems quotes
all poems the poet rabindranath tagore works
Sponsored links
|
Search Options
- The web
- Pages from India
- Any time
- Latest
- All results
The Best of The Asian Studies WWW Monitor: [Digitised Colonial ...
21 Apr 2010 ... has undertaken the task of microfilming and digitising a huge amount of textual sources, including all the major journals of colonial Bengal ...
asia-www-monitor.blogspot.com/.../digitised-colonial-bengali-periodicals.html - CachedGaining imperial paradise: reading and rewriting paradise lost in ...
The popularization of Milton in colonial Bengal was rooted the pseudo-scientific discourse surrounding race and martiality that characterized the ways that ...
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6986/is_1_6/ai_n31909158/ - CachedUnder the Raj: Prostitution in Colonial Bengal - Monthly Review Press
Explores the world of the prostitute in nineteenth century India. Banerjee gives voice to the prostitutes themselves, from which we see their songs, ...
www.monthlyreview.org/books/undertheraj.php - Cached - Similarwww.tiprasa.com || BENGALI SCRIPT AND KOKBOROK: A COLONIAL PROJECT
The issue, now buried, exposed the colonial mindset and mental feudalism of the Bengali political elites. The scriptwriters continue to stage-manage the ...
www.tiprasa.com/articles/viewcomm.asp?identity=34 - Cached - SimilarIndrani Chatterjee | Review of Domesticity in Colonial India: What ...
by I Chatterjee
Hence it is likelier that the English-educated colonial Bengalis, attempting to locate themselves within the global domestic, generated a manual literature ...
muse.jhu.edu/demo/...of_colonialism...colonial.../6.1chatterjee.html - CachedThe Politics of Identity Formation: From British Colonialism to ...
"Hegemonic" policies of the British colonial administration, which worked to the detriment of the Bengalis and in favor of Punjabis, led to the emergence of ...
www.allacademic.com/meta/p364278_index.html - Cached - SimilarColonial Bodies, Colonial Sport: 'Martial' Punjabis, 'Effeminate ...
Colonial Bodies, Colonial Sport: 'Martial' Punjabis, 'Effeminate' Bengalis and the Development of Indian Football. Author: P. Dimeo. DOI: 10.1080/714001700 ...
www.informaworld.com/smpp/.../content~db=all~content=a714001700Representing Nationalism: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial Bengal
by J Bagchi - 1990 - Cited by 60 - Related articles
The burgeoning nationalism in colonial Bengal of the last quarter of the nineteenth ... motherhood in colonial Bengal was merely in the domain of ideology. ...
www.jstor.org/stable/4396894Bengali freedom struggle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The defeat paved the way for Company rule in Bengal and eventually British colonial authority across South Asia over the next 190 years. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_freedom_struggle - Cached - SimilarAmazon.com: Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the ...
This review is from: Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late Nineteenth Century (Studies in Imperalism) ...
www.amazon.com › Books › Gay & Lesbian › History - Cached - SimilarBooks for Colonial Bengalis
Search Results
Naxalite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
a b "Rising Maoists Insurgency in India". Global Politician. 2007-01-15. http://globalpolitician.com/22790-india. Retrieved 2009-03-17. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite - Cached - SimilarNaxalite-Maoist insurgency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
a b "Rising Maoists Insurgency in India". Global Politician. 2007-01-15. http://globalpolitician.com/22790-india. Retrieved 2009-03-17. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naxalite-Maoist_insurgency - Cached - SimilarThe Maoist Insurgency in India
The Maoist Insurgency in India. by Binoy Kampmark. Global Research, April 5, 2010. Email this article to a friend. Print this article ...
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18505 - CachedNews for Maoist Insurgency in India
Inside the Maoist insurgency in India's Jharkand state - 3 days ago
More than 20 of India's 28 states are affected by the insurgency. The remote tribal villages of Jharkhand state, where the fields are still tilled by oxen, ...BBC News - 5 related articles »
The Maoist Insurgency in India « Indus Asia Online Journal (iaoj)
10 Apr 2010 ... The Maoist Insurgency in India. 10 04 2010. By Binoy Kampmark. Courtesy: Global Research, April 5, 2010. The Indian government is puzzled by ...
iaoj.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/the-maoist-insurgency-in-india/ - CachedInside the Maoist Insurgency in India / ISN
1 Apr 2010 ... Last year was a good one for India's Maoists, who managed to extend their control across remote India, forcing the government to take ...
www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Current-Affairs/Security.../Detail/?... - CachedChennai Centre for China Studies » The Maoist Insurgency in India
12 Mar 2010 ... Given below are my replies to a set of questions on the Maoist insurgency in India e-mailed to me by a journalist of a Brazilian online ...
www.c3sindia.org/india/1259 - CachedIndia's war with itself | openDemocracy
2 Apr 2007 ... Officials from states in the grip of Maoist insurgency - which has cut through central India - have met frequently to hone their ...
www.opendemocracy.net/terrorism/articles/naxalites020407 - Cached - SimilarGlobal Politician - Rising Maoists Insurgency in India
Rising Maoists Insurgency in India. Bhuwan Thapaliya - 5/13/2007. India is divided in many ways: by caste, religion, language, and region. ...
www.globalpolitician.com/22790-india - Cached - SimilarBBC News - Inside the Maoist insurgency in India's Jharkand state
4 May 2010 ... India's Maoist rebels have been condemned as the country's greatest internal security threat - so why do they continue to gain recruits from ...
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8659501.stm - CachedJungle ambush leaves 75 police dead in the bloodiest day of Maoist ...
7 Apr 2010 ... Maoists are a greater threat to India than Islamists ... that the attack was a "black day in the history of India's counter-insurgency", ...
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7088952.ece
Sponsored links
|
Search Options
- The web
- Pages from India
- Any time
- Latest
- Past 4 days
- All results
Bengali Brahmins
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bengali Brahmins are those Brahmins who traditionally reside in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, currently comprising the Indian state of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam and Bangladesh. When the British left India in 1947, carving out separate nations (see partition), a number of families moved from Bangladesh to be within the borders of the newly defined Republic of India, and continued to migrate for several decades thereafter.
Bengali Brahmins are generally better educated than the average Hindu, and a number of prominent figures of India belong to this community. They had leanings toward Shaktism and Tantra . They make a claim of being pure Aryans. Vārendra, for instance, meant rain-maker magicians[1]. Historically, they have been the standard bearers of Madhyadeshiya (the historic-cultural region of the upper Ganga-Yamuna doab which was the seat of Panch-Gauda brahmins) Indo-Aryan culture in Bengal. Panch-Gauda and Panch-Dravida are two chief divisions of Brahmins, as per the śloka from Rājatarangini of Kalhaṇa / Kalhana:
कर्णाटकाश्च तैलङ्गा द्राविडा महाराष्ट्रकाः , गुर्जराश्चेति पञ्चैव द्राविडा विन्ध्यदक्षिणे ||
सारस्वताः कान्यकुब्जा गौडा उत्कलमैथिलाः, पञ्चगौडा इति ख्याता विन्ध्स्योत्तरवासिनः ||
Meaning :(The-) Karnātakas, Tailangas, Dravidas, Mahārāshtrakās and Gurjaras; these five(-types who-) live south of Vindhya (- mountains) are (called-) "five Dravidas" (- brahmins); (whereas-) Sārasvatas, Kānyakubjas, Gaudas, Utkalas, and Maithilas, who live north of Vindhya (- mountains) are known as "five Gaudas" (-brahmins)[2].
Dorilāl Śarmā says that the 'Five Gaudas' mentioned above were settled in region around Indus (Sārasvata brahmins), Kannauj and its territories (Kānyakubja brahmins), Mithila (Maithil Brahmins)and Orissa (Utkala Brahmins); the fifth branch Gauda brahmins settleed in the remaining areas north of Vindhya mountains ,in two distinct regions (1)Haryana and adjacent districts of Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh, and (2) northern Kosala around ancient Śrāvasti; he quotes Matsya Purana (chapter-12, śloka 30) in which Śrāvasti is said to be seat of Gauda brahmins [3]. According to this view, South Bihar, Bengal, Assam, etc were not inhabited by any of the brahmins mentioned by Kalhana. Hence, at the time of Kalhana, Bengali brahmins had not emerged as a distinct branch of Panch-Gauda. But all Bengali brahmins are descendants of Panch-Gauda, excepting some Dākṣiṇātyas Vaidikas who came from South India originally but are now part and parcel of Bengali brahmins [4]. Gauda meant the region from western Uttar Pradesh to Rajasthan, but it was also used for Bengal in mediaeval age. Entire North India was also called Gauda country, which is the reason why five north Indian branches have received the common name Panch-Gauda [5].
In the 19th and 20th national convention of Kanyakubja Brahmins by Kanyakubja Mahati Sabha, in 1926 and 1927 respectively, it reiterated Bhumihar Brahmins to be Kanyakubja Brahmins and appealed for unity among Kanyakubja Brahmins whose different branches included Sanadhya, Pahadi, Jujhoutia, Saryupareen, Chattisgadhi, Bhumihar and different Bengali Brahmins.[6]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] History
It is claimed that large scale migration of Brahmins from Kanyakubja region occurred during Pala and Sena periods. However historical evidence attests significant presence of Brahmins in Bengal since the Maurya period. The Jain Acharya Bhadrabahu, regarded to be the preceptor of Chandragupta Maurya is said to have been born in Brahmin family of Pundravardhana ( or Puṇḍra , the region north of Ganges and west of Brahmaputra in Bengal, later known as Vārendra). A copper-plate grant from the Gupta period found in the vicinity of Somapura mentions a Brahmin donating land to a Jain vihara at Vatagohali. Such evidences suggest Puṇḍra or Vārendra and regions west of Bhagirathi (called Radha in ancient age) to be seats of brahmins from ancient times; Rādhi and Varendra are still chief branches of Bengali brahmins settled in these regions [7]..
The three main divisions among Bengali brahmins are :
- Rādhi from Radh (region south-west of Ganga).
- Varendra, from Vārendra region (North-East) or Puṇḍra.
- Vaidika (migrants, originally experts of Vedic knowledge).
[edit] Traditional accounts
The traditional accounts of the origin are given in texts termed Kulagranthas (e.g., Kuladīpīkā), composed around the 17th century. They mention a ruler named Ādiśūra who invited five Brahmins from Kanyakubja [8], so that he could conduct a yajña, because he could not find Vedic experts locally. Traditional texts mention that Ādiśūra was ancestor of Ballāl Sena from maternal side and five brahmins had been invited in AD 1077 [9].
Historians have located a ruler named Ādiśūra ruling in north Bihar, but not in Bengal[citation needed]. But Ballāl Sena and his predecessors ruled over both Bengal and Mithila (i.e., North Bihar). It is unlikely that the brahmins from Kānyakubja may have been invited to Mithila for performing a yajña, because Mithila was a strong base of brahmins since Vedic age [10].
Another account mentions a king Shyamal Varma who invited five Brahmins from Kānyakubja who became the progenitors of the Vaidika Brahmins. A third account refers to five brahmins being the ancestors of Vārendra brahmins as well. From similarity of titles (e.g., upādhyāya), the first account is most probable.
Kulin Brahmins are those Brahmins in Bengal who can trace themselves to the five families of Kanauj (Kanyakubja), Uttar Pradesh who migrated to Bengal. The five families were of the five different gotras (Shandilya, Bharadwaj, Kashyap, Vatsya and Swavarna). They are widely believed to be at the apex of Bengal's caste hierarchy.[who?]
The kulin families are further divided into two sections:
Barendra : Belonging to those families who settled at the north or north east region of Ganges or Padma river. Rarhi : Belonging to those families who settled at the south or southwest region of Ganges or Padma river.
[edit] Divisions among Bengali Brahmins
The three main divisions of Bengali Brahmins are
- (1) Rādhi from Radh , modern West Bengal south of Ganges.
- (2) Varendra, from Varendra region (North-East)
- (3) Vaidika
Other minor divisions are :
- (4) Saptaśati
- (5) Pirāli
- (6) Patita
It is believed that the Brahmins of Bengal adapted kulinism from a similar hierarchical system used by the Brahmins of Mithilā, although Kānyakubja and more especially Saryupāriya were also highly scrupulous. The five original Brahmins belonged to five gotras : Śāndilya, Kāśyapa, Vatsa, Bhārdvāja, Sāvarṇa [11].
Both Brahmins and Kayasthas in Bengal have followed a system that ranks the clans hierarchically. The Kulinas formed the higher ranking clans.
[edit] Rādhi
Rādhi (also Rāṭhi in some old texts) is the major branch of Bengali brahmins . The descendants of these five Pancyājñika brahmins were hierarchically organised into three categories :
(1) Kulin comprised the most noble brahmins among these, who possessed all the nine qualities fixed by Ballāl Sena (nine qualities or "navadhā lula lakṣanam" were :āchāra, vinaya, vidyā, pratiṣṭhā, tirtha, darśana, karma, niṣṭhā, śreṣṭha-vritti, tapa, dāna) [12].
(2)Śrotriya is the second rank among the descendants of these five brahmins because they were deft in Vedic knowledge but were considered to be somewhat inferior to the Kulina brahmins (possessing 8 out of 9 noble qualities).
(3)Vamśaja is the third rank which was a result of kulinas marrying outside kulinas [12].
Major titles adopted by the high Rādhi brahmins :
- Mukhopādhyāya and its adaptation Mukherjee a Kulin brahmin
- Bandopādhyāya and its adaptation Banerjee a Kulin brahmin
- Chattopādhyāya and its adaptation Chatterjee a Kulin brahmin
- Bhattāchārya and its adaptation Bhattacharya/ Bhattacharjee a Kulin brahmin
- Gangopādhyāya and its adaptation Ganguli / Ganguly a Kulin brahmin
Jāti-Bhāṣkar mentions that those who were given grants along the Ganges by Ballāl Sena were called Gangopādhyāya (literally 'the Vedic teachers in the regions around the Ganges')[13].
Mukhopādhyāya means chief Vedic teacher. Bandopādhyāya is a Sanskritized form of 'Banodha + upādhyāya' , Banodha being the ancient name of Raebareli-Unnāva whence their ancestors had come from [14].
Bhattāchārya meant 'expert of Vedic rituals'. This was an honorary title awarded to a Rādhi or Vārendra brahmin who excelled in spiritual and vedic matters. The Bhattāchārya's are generally referred to as the Hindu Priests in Bengal.
[edit] Vārendra
These brahmins also claim descent from five original brahmins, although four out of five names are different, and they are also hierarchically organised into three groups :
(1) Śri Kulin comprising Bāgchi, Chākrāborty (Chākrāvārti), Lāhiri, Māitra, Bhāduri, Sānyal, etc.
(2) Śrotriya have Nanda, Bhato Shāstri, Karanja, Laduli, Navasi, etc.
(3) Kaṣṭa Kulin compride of 85 gains (villages given in grant by Sena kings).
Another intermediate order is called Kāpa(originally Kulin but negligent in duty) which is between first two.
Other famous titles of Bengali Kulin brahmins are Bhattāchārya, Majumdāra, Rāi, Choudhary, Roy Chowdhury, Jovādāra, Mishra,etc. There were many big landlords among Vārendra and Rādhi brahmins alike, bearing titles such as Roy and Roy Chowdhury. While Bhattāchārya literally meant 'experts of Vedic rituals', the Rāi/Roy, Choudhary and Roy Chowdhury were administrative titles, conferred not only on the Brahmin landlords, Rajas and/or zamindars, but also to landlords from other castes who owned and administered vast landed properties. Whereas titles, such the Dasguptas and Senguptas belong to the Vaidyas.
[edit] Vaidikas
These are of two types :
- Dākṣiṇātyas (coming from South India originally but now part and parcel of Bengali brahmins.
- Pāschātyas, coming from western and northern India originally but now part of Bengali brahmins.
These were experts of Vaidika knowledge who were invited to Bengal in different ages, later than the original five brahmins from which Rādhi brahmins originated.
[edit] Saptaśati
Before the coming of Five Brahmins, there were 700 houses of brahmins in Bengal, but now they are few. They were less learned than the migrants and therefore were deprived of patronage. Some of them mixed with the immigrants, which explains their decline in relative population. Many Saptaśatis became priests of lower castes and were labelled as Agradāni and grahavipra. Main titles are Arath, Bālkhāvi, Jagāye, Pikhoori, Mulkajoori, Bhagāye, Gāi, etc.
[edit] Others
- Pirāli : literally, boycotted brahmins. Some kulin brahmins mixed with Muslims in eating and other activities and were therefore boycotted by the orthodox sections. Prominent among these were Thākurs, anglicised as Tagores. Thākurs literally meant lords and were big landowners.
- Patita : Some Bengali brahmins were publicly declared to be fallen brahmins.
Chakraborty (Chakravarti) is a title suitable for emperors granted to some Bengali brahmins.
Another peculiar title is Chir Kori or Chir Koḍi.
[edit] Genetics
Bengali Brahmins showed positive results for only three Y-Haplogroups R1a1, R2 and H1. Y-Haplogroups and their respective percentages are shown in the following table.
| R1a1 | R2 | H1 |
|---|---|---|
| 72.22% | 22.22% | 5.56% |
Haplogroup R1a1, which is the most prevalent haplogroup amongst the Bengali Brahmins, is associated with the spread of the Indo-European culture in Indian sub-continent. A very high percentage of 72.22% among Bengali Brahmins hints at its presence as a founder lineage for this caste group[17].
[edit] Impact of British occupation
The kulinist system degenerated during the 18-19th century and is no longer popular. The British occupation of Bengal radically transformed the Bengali culture. Bengal has now gone through two century of Christian missionary efforts and a quarter century of a Marxist government in the state of West Bengal. Bengal was divided by the British colonial rulers. Eastern Bengal was a Muslim majority region which resulted in the first partition of Bengal in 1905, and then final partition in 1947. Although the interaction with the British resulting in what is termed the Bengal Renaissance (almost wholly Brahmin) it altered the hold of traditional mainstream Hinduism in the region.
[edit] Naming conventions
Many Bengali Brahmin family names are written in two different ways. For example, Chattopadhyay (compound of village name "Chaṭṭa" and "upādhyāya" denoting "priest, teacher" originally granted with the village named Chaṭṭa) is the Sanskritized form of the local Prakrit word "chaturjye", anglicized to Chatterjee.
Similar analyses may be performed on Mukhurjye/Mukherjee/Mukhopādhyāya and Banurjye/Banerjee/Bandyopādhyāya. Bhattāchārya which is made by two words Bhatta and Achārya which means teacher also called as Bhattāchārjee. Tagore is the anglicized form of Thakur, meaning "lord". Other Bengali Brahmin family names are anglicized in particular ways that have become the standard English spellings over time. Other Bengali Brahmin surnames are Chakraborty, Sanyal, Ghoshal etc.
The most famous Bengali Brahmin family which originally belonged to Calcutta (Kolkata) are the Sabarna Roy Choudhury (really?? famous?? who??), which had transferred the tenancy rights of Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kolikata to the East India Company at the behest of the Mughal Emperor.
[edit] List of Bengali Brahmin Gotras
The bulk of Bengali Brahmin gotras are:
Besides the above mentioned, other gotras can also be found at low frequencies within the Bengali Brahmin community.
[edit] Notable Bengali Brahmins
[edit] Pre-1947
- Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486 - 1534), ascetic, founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism
- Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), Hindu reformer and founder of Brahmo Samaj
- Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905) A leading proponent of Brahmo Samaj
- Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820 - 1891) Erudite,Polymath
- Ramakrishna Chattopadhyay (1836-1886) Hindu reformer and spiritual teacher
- Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838-1894), author and one of the founders of Indian nationalism
- Kisari Mohan Ganguli, one and only translator of the Mahabharata to English.
- Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Author of famouls novels like Devdas, Parineeta etc. and one of the most popular Bengali novelist and story-teller
- Sukanta Bhattacharya Poet
- Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), poet, philosopher and nationalist
- Abanindranath Tagore Author, Painter.
- Jatindra Nath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin) (1879-1915), Freedom Fighter and Revolutionary Leader
- Gadadhar Chattopadhyay (Ramakrishna Paramahansa) (1836-1886), Revered Hindu Religious leader, led Hindu revival
- Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee (1864-1924) Educationist, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta (1906 - 1924),and referred commonly as 'Bengal Tiger'.
- Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay (1876-1938) popular and sometimes controversial bengali novelist.
- Pramankur Atarthy Writer and film director
- Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay (1885-1930) Archaeologist, credited with finding and excavating the Mohenjo‑Daro civilization (Indus Valley Civilization).
- Manabendra Nath Roy (1887-1954), Political thinker and founder of Indian Communism movement
- Dwarkanath Tagore (1794-1846) One of the earliest entrepreneurs from India. Founded the first Indo-British agency house from India, Carr, Tagore and Company.
- Womesh Chandra Bonerjee. Founder of Indian National Congress
- Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. Novelist, author of 'Pather Panchali'.
[edit] Post-1947
- Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, founder president, Bhartiya Jana Sangh
- Subroto Mukerjee First Air Chief Marshall of Independent India
- Banaphool(Balaichand Mukherjee)
- Kishore Kumar Ganguly , Great Singer, Actor
- Ashok Kumar Ganguly, Actor
- Sitar Player Ravi Shankar
- Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Chief Minister of West Bengal since 2000.
- Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay
- Sunil Gangopadhyay
- Suchitra Bhattacharya
- Bharati Mukherjee
- poet Subhash Mukhopadhyay
- Famous Comedian/Actor Keshto Mukherjee
- actor Joy Mukherjee
- actor Jaya Bhaduri
- actor Soumitra Chatterjee
- actor Uttam Kumar (Arun Kumar Chatterjee)
- actor Victor Banerjee
- film actresses Madhabi Mukherjee
- actressKajol
- Hungryalist Movement Creator Malay Roy Choudhury
- poet Samir Roychoudhury
- actress Rani Mukherjee
- painter Benode Behari Mukherjee
- musician Budhaditya Mukherjee
- music director Hemanta Mukhopadhyay
- singer Amit Kumar
- popular singer Shaan
- singer Shreya Ghoshal
- singer Madhushree
- singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya
- singer Kumar Sanu
- Calcutta's mayor Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharjee
- director Hrishikesh Mukherjee
- director Basu Chatterjee
- director Basu Bhattacharya
- Actor Mithun Chakraborty
- Sitar Player Nikhil Banerjee
- police commissioner Prasun Mukherjee
- tennis player Jaideep Mukherjee
- India's current External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee
- Music Director Bappi Lahiri
- Music Director Pritam Chakraborty
- Sourav Ganguly, former captain of Indian cricket team
- Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize Winning author of "Interpreter of Maladies" and acclaimed novel 'The Namesake'
- Upamanyu Chatterjee, Civil Servant and author of 'English, August'
- Moushumi Chatterjee, Film Actress
- Bibhas Chakraborty, Theatre Practitioner and Cultural Icon
- Mamata Banerjee, Minister of railways
- Somnath Chakraborty : Marine Biologist
- Kanika Bandopadhyay: Famous Rabindrasangeet exponent
- Engineer Pradip Sankar Bhattacharyya
[edit] Notes
- ^ Vāri+indra, Vāri meant water : cf.A History of Brahmin Clans , page 283.
- ^ cf. Kalhana's Rajatarangini in reference for English version.
- ^ (A History of Brahmin Clans, p.41-42)
- ^ A History of Brahmin Clans, p.288
- ^ Ādi Gauda Dipikā quoted in A History of Brahmin Clans, p.100
- ^ Saraswati, Swami Sahajanand (2003). Swami Sahajanand Saraswati Rachnawali in Six volumes (in Volume 1). Delhi: Prakashan Sansthan. pp. 519 (at p 68–69) (Volume 1). ISBN 81-7714-097-3.
- ^ cf. History of Brahmin Clans,page 281
- ^ cf. History of Brahmin Clans,page 281-283
- ^ cf. History of Brahmin Clans,page 281 : this book quotes Krishna-Charita by Vidyāsāgar for dating.
- ^ cf. D.D. kosambi, p. 123.
- ^ cf. History of Brahmin Clans,page 282 : it quotes Kula-dīpīkā, a mediaeval text.
- ^ a b Kuladīpīkā quoted in History of Brahmin Clans,page 283
- ^ Jāti-Bhāṣkar quoted in History of Brahmin Clans,page 285
- ^ History of Brahmin Clans,page 287
- ^ Sengupta et al. (2005)
- ^ Sharma et al. (2009)
- ^ Sharma et al. (2007)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Swami Sahajanand Saraswati Rachnawali (Selected works of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati), Prakashan Sansthan, Delhi, 2003.
- Kalhana's Rajatarangini: A Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir; 3 Volumes > M.A.Stein (translator),(Introduction by Mohammad Ishaq Khan),published by Saujanya Books at Srinagar,2007,(First Edition pub. in 1900),ISBN 81-8339-043-9 / 8183390439.
- A History of Brahmin Clans (Brāhmaṇa Vaṃshõ kā Itihāsa) in Hindi, by Dorilāl Śarmā,published by Rāśtriya Brāhamana Mahāsabhā, Vimal Building, Jamirābād, Mitranagar, Masūdābād,Aligarh-1, 2nd ed-1998. (This Hindi book contains the most exhaustive list of Brahmana gotras and pravaras together their real and mythological histories).
- Jāti-Bhāṣkara by Pt. Jwālā Prasād Misra, published by Khemaraj Shrikrishnadas,(1914).
- An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, by Damodar Dharmanand Kosāmbi, Popular Prakasan,35c Tadeo Road, Popular Press Building, Bombay-400034, First Edition: 1956, Revised Second Edition: 1975.
- Nagendra Nath Basu, Banger Jatiya Itihas (in Bangla), 2 vols, Calcutta, 1321 BS.
- Atul Sur, Banglar Samajik Itihas (Bangla), Calcutta, 1976
- NN Bhattacharyya, Bharatiya Jati Varna Pratha (Bangla), Calcutta, 1987
- RC Majumdar, Vangiya Kulashastra (Bangla), 2nd ed, Calcutta, 1989.
- Sengupta et al. (2005), "Polarity and Temporality of High-Resolution Y-Chromosome Distributions in India Identify Both Indigenous and Exogenous Expansions and Reveal Minor Genetic Influence of Central Asian Pastoralists", Am. J. Hum. Genet. 78 (2): 202–21, doi:10.1086/499411, PMID 16400607, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1380230 .
- Sharma et al. (2007), "The Autochthonous Origin and a Tribal Link of Indian Brahmins: Evaluation Through Molecular Genetic Markers", THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF HUMAN GENETICS 57th Annual Meeting, http://www.ashg.org/genetics/ashg/annmeet/2007/call/abstractbook.pdf
- Sharma et al. (2009), "The Indian origin of paternal haplogroup R1a1(*)substantiates the autochthonous origin of Brahmins and the caste system", J. Hum.Genet. 54 (1): 47–55, doi:10.1038/jhg.2008.2, PMID: 19158816, http://www.nature.com/jhg/journal/v54/n1/fig_tab/jhg20082t1.html#figure-title
Religion in ancient Bengal: during pAla and candra
Buddhism was on the decline and idol worship on the rise in Bengal at the beginning of this period. However, under the pAlas, buddhism grew, and as its last resort India, it developed some unique sects here. Similarly, hinduism started developing its uniquely east Indian and Bengali forms during this period.
Hinduism
Vedic and Puranic
Many of the land grants in this period to brahmins mention vedic rituals, and the brahmins are praised for their knowledge of the scriptures, grammar, philosophy, and travel to holy places. Their praised behaviour included prAtaH, nakta, ayAcita and upavAsana. During this period, brahmins from other parts of India, e.g. lATadesha, kroraJja, muktAvAstu, and especially madhyadesha coming and settling down in Bengal. Mention of this settling is found as early as the donation of land to 205 vaidika brAhmaNas by bhUtivarmA, great-great-grandfather of bhAskaravarma, but the largest record is of a large land grant to 6000 brahmanas in zrIhaTTa in punDravardhana by the candra king zrIcandradeva.
In this period, the pauranic tradition is also in strong force in Bengal. vedavyAsas mahAbhArata, rAmAYaNa, and the various purANas were also commonly read. The stories of pRthu, dhanaJjaYa, ambarIsha, sagara, nala, yayAti, vali, bhArgava, karNa, vRhaspati, agastya, parashurAma, rAma, hutabhuj and svAhA, dhanapati and bhadrA, viSNu and brahmA, brahmA and sarasvatI, indra and paulamI, purandara and vali, shiva and sati, umA, and sarvvANI, sUrya and his horses, samudrotthita sashadharalAnchana candra of atri's dynasty and kAnti and rohiNI were already well known. viSNu has already completely merged with avatAra kRSNa, son of devakI who went to yashodA, and is shrIpati, ksamApati born of the sea and husband of lakSmI and vasudharA, murArI husband of lakSmI, janArddana, hari, murAri. The other avatAras like narasiMha, parashurAma and vAmana are also known.
vaishnavism
Temples to nanna-nArAYaNa and garUD.astambha, temples to kAdambarI devakulikA, sthAnaka viSNu with lakSmI and sarasvatI, and separate idols of lakSmI and sarasvatI (one with rAm instead of the usual swan as her steed) and garUD.a have also been found. Overall, viSNu with lakSmI, sarasvatI, vasumatI, jaYa, vijaYa, his twelve avatAras, and brahmA predominate the idol collections. Most viSNu idols in Bengal are sthAnaka and in a group, few garUD.AsIna, AsIna, and yogAsIna are also found. The shaYAna style is extremely rare. Similarly, the mot common form was the trivikrama form, and the next was of the vAsudeva forms. But some other forms, e.g. abhicArika, shrIdhara (hRSikesha), vishvarUpa, and caturmukha. Joint idols of brahmA and viSNu, and separate idols of fat, four faced, four armed brahmA seated on a swan are also found. lakSmI is usually gajalakSmI, but four armed and two armed standing idols are also found, sometimes carrying a jhÃpi. Out of the avatAras of viSNu other than kRSNa, the most popular separate ones were varAha, narasiMha and vAmana; though a few matsya and parashurAma, and haladhara were also found. A few idols show influence of mahAyAnI buddhism on vishnavism in this period.
Shaivism
Shaivism was probably less important in comparison to vaishnavism. There is mention of establishment of a four headed liGgam for shiva. nArAYaNapAla donated land to pAshupatas, and is said to have established one thousand shiva temples. rAmapAla is said to have constructed three shiva temples, one temple dedicated to the eleven rudras and others to sUryya, skanda, and gaNapati. The shaivism was probably of the pAshupata kind started by shiva-shrIkaNTha and lakulIsha in first century BC. The eighteen Agamas and the six yAmalas written slightly later, including the piGgalA appendix to the brahmayAmala describe the pAshupata sect: it describes kAmarUpa, kaliGga, kaGkana, kAJcI, kAverI, koshala, and kAshmIra as being outside the AryAvartta which is ideal for shiva worship. However, gauD.iYa teachers were not considered amongst the best. Shiva was worshipped mainly as a liGgam, usually one headed, but sometimes four headed in north bengal. The latter usually has four shakti idols. Also are found candrashekhara, nRtyapara, sadAshiva, umA-maheshvara, ardhanArIshvara and kalyANa-sundara or shiva-vivAha. Out of the the rudra forms vaTuka bhairava and aghorarudra has been found. Both two armed and four armed IshAna forms have been found. A four armed sthAnaka is known as virUpAkSa, though it fits nIlakaNTha better. The naTarAja or naTeshvara form in bengal is distinct from the southern ones, are usually ten armed as described in matsyapurANa, and do not have the apasmArapuruSa at his feet. A twelve armed version is also found. The sadAshiva follows uttara-kAmikAgama and garUD.a purANa description; it is similar to the southern forms, and might have been brought from there. The umA-maheshvara was the favourite of the bengalis: shivakroD.opaviSTa, sukhAsInA, AliGganavaddhA, and hAsyAnandamaYI umA had tAntrika significance. arddhanArIshvara (man on right, woman on left) is rare in bengal. The kalyANa sundara forms have typically bengali characteristics like saptapadI and kartri vahana. The aghora rudra worship was probably a cult. The wildly laughing, fiery faced naked vaTukabhairava holding skull and wearing skull garland and wooden slippers accompanied by dogs is definitely a tAntrika influence. Some shaivaite teachers, especially of the sadAshiva form, were respected far outside bengal.
Separate gaNapati and kArttikeYa are also found though gaNesha was probably more popular. He was always portrayed dancing on a mouse with a fruit in his hand: a typical siddhiphaladAta. A single example of shaiva gANapatya sect has been found, and is exactly like the southern form: probably an import. kArttika is in the mahArAjalIlA pose on a peacock.
shAkta
Shakta purANa from seventh-eigth century speaks of shakti worship in rADh.a, vArendra, kAmarUpa, kAmAKhyA, and bhoTTadesha. jaYadratha-yAmala written outside bengal after the guptas mentions IshAnakAlI, rakSAkAlI, vIryyakAlI, prajJAkAlI etc., as well as ghoratArA, yoginIcakra, cakreshvarI, etc. These ultimately lead to the tantradharma in Bengal, and the forms of shakti in this phase is probably already precursors to being tAntrika. In fact mahAnIla sarasvatI seems completely tAntrika. Most idols are four armed and standing. Sometimes she is alone, sometimes with the entire family of gaNesha, kArttikeYa, lakSmI, and sarasvatI, and sometimes with family and brahmA, viSNu, and shiva. A chameleon, perhaps from the caNDI-kAlaketu story, and two auspicious banana plants, foreshadowing later kalAbau, are almost always found. The contents in the four hands vary, and these have been variously called caNDi or gaurI-pArvvatI. Sometimes, they are only two armed, sometimes joined by other gods like navagraha. Seated forms are rarer, and have four, six or twenty hands, and are called sarvvamaGgalA, aparAjitA, pArvvatI or bhuvaneshvarI, and mahAlakSmI. There is an example of liGgodbhavA caturbhujA, two arms in dhyAnamudrA, two holding akSamAlA and a book, called mahAmAYA or tripurabhairavI. Of the ugra forms, mahiSamarddinI durgA, sometimes called shrI-mAsika-caNDI, is the most popular, in the oldest forms she is eight or ten armed. The navadurgA form mentioned in bhaviSyapurANa is also found; this is probably influenced by mahAyAna and vajrayAna. Twelve and sixteen armed mahiSamarddinI have also been found, as well as a thirtytwo-armed. A few four and six armed vAgIshvarI have also been found. Of the mAtRkAs, cAmuNDI was most common in bengal especially in the twelve armed siddha-yogeshvarI, two armed danturA, rUpavidyA, ksamA, rudracarcikA, rudracAmuNDA, and siddhacAmuNDA forms. There is a pishitAsanA on a donkey, and a carcikA on a corpse. A four armed brAhmaNI, a few varAhI, and an indrAnI have also been found. gaGgA and yamunA used to flank the temples, yamunA alone is rare otherwise. gaGgA on a crocodile is not that rare, and four armed gaGgA idols are also found. gaGgA is sometimes called dakSiNA-kAlikA.
In later evolution, the distinction between shAkta and Buddhist tantrik beliefs is often difficult.
saura
sUryya was considered the healer of illnesses, and his importance continued to rise. The form of the idols were clearly of the western/Iranian kind, though the interpretation probably got strongly influenced by the vedic and brahminical thoughts. Most of the idols are standing, and with entire family: seated ones are rare. They rarely had six hands. There is one which has three faces and ten hands; probably this is mArttaNDa bhairava. There are rare idols influenced by southern rather than western tradition. A few horse-riding revanta idols are also seen. Some independent navagraha idols are also found; separately only a single candra and a single bRhaSpati have been found.
Other
In addition, manasA has been found. The local concept has also produced gaGgA and yamunA, as well as bauddha hArItI and brAhmaNya SaSThI. A lady with a child is known: it is not clear whether this is a depiction of the birth of shiva or viSNu. Rare examples of indra, agni, varuNa, yama, and kuvera have also been found. zrIcandradeva also established a maTha for brahmA and eight maThas, two each (one each for dezAntarI and vaMgAla) for agni vaizvAnara, yogezvara ziva, jaimini, and mahAkAla ziva. They studied the four vedas and cAndra vyAkaraNa and housed a variety of people: we find mention of, amongst others, kAryanirvAhaka and other brahmins, kAYastha, mAlAkAra, tailika, kumbhakAra, kAlalika, shaGkhavAdaka, DhakkavAdaka, drAgaD.ika, karmakAra, carmakAra, naTa, sUtradhAra, sthapati, karmakara, veTTika, nApita, rajaka, mahattara, brAhmaNa, vArika, gaNaka, and vaidya.
Buddhism
Royal support
Many of the kings in this period belonged to the mahAyAna sect of buddhism, as is clear from their official documents staring with appropriate prayers. However, many of the queens seem to be shaivaites (especially the pAzupata sect), and the kings established many temples dedicated to shiva, sarvvANi, nArAYaNa, eleven rudras, sUryya, skanda, gaNapati, and other hindu gods. Sometimes, like under nArAYaNapAla, not only were temples dedicated to shiva, but arrangement were made to provide for worship and sacrifice in these temples. The kings also participated in hindu rituals like bathing during the summer solistice, giving land grants to brahmins, attending the yajJas, and organizing srAddha ceremonies. dharmmapAla seems to even have accepted and somewhat reformed the caste system in society, and it seems that the later pAlas and kAmbojas might even have become hindus.
vihAras
On the other hand, this support for hinduism pales into insignificance when compared to the rise of Buddhism during this period. The state support for building and enhancing vihArAs, already known from the previous period, continued during this period. Thus dharmmapAla enhanced the nAlanda mahAvihAra with repairs, and established the somapura (or somapurI or zrIdharmapAladeva) mahAvihAra (in current pAhAD.apura in rAjazAhI district; may have originally been a jaina vihAra). Tibetan sources claim that the latter was established by devapAla, but archaelogical evidence is against that. Its three storied central building housed the main temple on the second floor; with ornamentation on top it looked like a pyramid. The courtyard surrounding this had buildings at each corner, and 177 housing units around it. This mahAvihAra had 108 temples, 6 schools and 114 teachers, including such famous ones like bhikSu AraNyaka kAlambalapAda bodhibhadra, atIsha dIpaGkara for a while, vIryyendra who made a huge buddha statue in buddhagaYA, and later, karuNAshrImitra teacher of gokulashrImitra. Under dharmmapAla, in the traikUTaka vihAra (location unknown, but may be in rADh.a), AcAryya haribhadra wrote his famous works. Buddhist kumAra ghoSa in 778 AD established a maJjushrI statue, probably during the rule of dharmmapAla. vikramazIla dharmmapAla might also have established the vikramapurI vihAra which housed such teachers as avadhUtAcArya kumAracandra and lIlAvajra, stdent of lakSmIGkara. In the eighth century itself, bAlaputradeva made a vihAra in the mahAvihAra of nAlandA, and devapAla gave five villages for its upkeep. Either he or dharmmapAla established the odantapurI vihAra as well. Later he put brahmin vIradeva, who turned buddhist under AcAryya sarvajJashAnti of kaniSkavihAra and came to devapAla in yashodharmapura vihAra in budhagaYA, as a teacher in nAlandA. In 851 AD, probably under devapAla, gomin avighnAkara went to the kingdom of karpadina in shilAhAra and established a prayer hall in kRSNagiri mahAvihAra. rAmapAla might have established tje jagaddala mahAvihAra which housed such teachers as vibhUticandra, dAnazIla, mokSAkara gupta, zubhAkara gupta, and dharmmAkara.
During mahIpAla and jaYapAla, vikramashIla and somapura mahAvihAras were international institutions of knowledge. Many great texts were written during this time, and teachers like atIsha dIpaGkara and ratnAkara arose. A bengali whose name is recorded as pau-si or ko-lin-nai took a lot of sanskrit texts to china in 1026 AD.
vihAras were scatterred all over in this period: traikUTaka vihAra in rADh.a, devIkoTa vihAra, with such teachers as AcAryya advaYavajra, udhilipA, and bhikSuNI mekhalA, in dinAjapura, paNDita vihAra in caTTagrAma, phullahari vihAra in nort Bihar, paTTikeraka mahAvihAra, kanakastUpa vihAra in which was probably the one referred to by harikAladeva raNavaGkamalla as durgottArA vihAra, and sannagara mahAvihAras, where lived vanaratna, in tripura, vikramapurI mahAvihAra with such teachers like avadhUtAcAryya kumAracandra, lIlAvajra, and puNyadhvaja in vikramapura, jagaddala mahAvihAra with the likes of vibhUticandra, dAnashIla, shubhAkara gupta, mokSAkaragupta, and dharmmAkara in varendrI, and many others. The number of smaller vihAras was huge, and though many famous teachers lived there, not all have been traced yet.
mahAyAna and its evolutions
The sammatIYavAda of the previous period is almost unrecognizable in the Bengali buddhism of this phase: the advent of tAntrika beliefs changed it almost beyond recognition. Traditionally AcAryya asaGga is associated with this large scale tAntrika influence on mahAyAna. The exact reasons of this transition are unknown, but it is possible that increased contact with the himAlaYan tribes might have contributed. The net resut was that shUnyavAda and vijJAnavAda, yogAcAra and mAdhyamikavAda, and even sarvAstivAda and mahAsAGghikavAda failed to capture people's attention except probably during their initiation; most people focussed on the magical elements and the importance of mantra giving rise to mantrayAna.
mantrayAna however soon evolved into the complex thoughts of vajrayAna. nAgArjuna conceived of the shUnyatatva: the idea that sorrow, karma, and its results are all meaningless, and knowledge or vijJana, of this fact, the knowledge associated with goddess nirAtmA, is nirvANa and leads to mahAsukha. bodhicitta is a particular state of the mind or soul which decides upon attaining true knowledge; it is compared to the concentration that underlies sexual intercourse. To control emotions, one needs to arouse them first. This bodhicitta is supposed to control the emotions and senses to the extent that it is called vajra, or hard. When bodhicitta becomes vajra, bodhijJAna is achieved, and this path is called vajrayAna. The gods and goddesses are the personifications of the mantra needed to control the emotions. All these are secret, and a teacher is essential in following this path.
sahajayAna is the part of mantrayAna that deemphasizes the gods, goddesses, and rituals ('mokkha ki labbhai pAnI hNAi?'). The way to bodhi was not known to ordinary people, not even to Buddha himself: everyone had the capacity to reach bodhi which resided in their own bodies. They conceived of the female nihilistic nature and male kindness: their sexual union lead to ultimate happiness. They believed in basic equality (samarasa) and an empty mind (khasama: like the sky). They did not believe in asceticism (to vinu taruNi nirantara Nehe bodhi ki labbhai praNa vi dehe~), and liked simple comfort. They were totally against brahminical rituals (kajje virahia huavaha home~ | akkhi uhAvia kuD.a e' dhUrme~ ||) and caste system as well, and did not believe in the vedas and Agamas (jAhera vANacihNa rUba Na jAnI | se koise Agama vee~ vakhANI ||). Neither did they have much respect for the other religions of their time (jai nggA via hoi mukti tA suNaha siAlaha | lomupAD.aNo atthi siddhi tA juvai nitambaha || picchI gaNahe diTTha mokkha tA moraha camaraha | uJche~ bho aNõ hoi jANa tA kariha turaGgAha ||), and later extended that to the kApAlikas. In this period, however, the distinction between the sahajayAnIs and the kApAlikas was not that marked (A lo dombI toe sama karibe ma sAGga | nighiNa kAhNa kApAli joi lAga). These kApAlikas remained naked and used to wear garlands of bones. They wandered alone, and much of their behaviour arose out of the characters attributed to shiva.
kAlacakrayAna, a separate evolution from vajrayAna looked to rise above the cycle of time by controlling the activities of the body. Tradition has it that it arose in sambhala and came to Bengal later, but one of its main teachers, abhaYakaragupta lived here.
It is to be noted that these forms are not always cleanly distinguishable. It is not possible to classify the 84 siddhAcAryyas like AcAryya sarahapAda or sarahavajra of nAlanda from rAjJI city during ratnapala having been initiated at uDDiYAna, nAgArjuna, student of sarahpAda at nAlandA, luipAda of uDDiYAna, tillopAda or tailikapAda of paNdita vihAra from a brahmin family in caTTagrAma during mahIpAla, nAD.opAda, student of jetAri, of phullahari and vikrashIla vihAra from varendrI during jaYapAla, shavarapAda, student of sarahapAda, from baGgAla, advaYavajra, kAhNapAda, bhusuku, student of atIsha dIpaGkara, from vikramapura, kukkuripAda from a bengali brahmin family, etc. into the various sects.
All these forms of attaining bodhi relied on haThayoga, which involved a knowledge of the human body. The concept of the three major veins or flows, lalanA, rasanA, and avadhUti, their connections and cakras go back to this period. So does the classification of the religious natures of men into dombI, naTI, rajakI, caNDAlI, and brAhmaNI.
As the ideas of sahajayAna increased, the difference between Buddhist tAntrism and Hindu tAntrism slowly disappeared. Starting around the end of the pAla period Buddhist sahajayAna and Hindu shAkta beliefs slowly merged. In fact, some of the later forms like kaulamArga (a brahmnical system of beliefs that accepted the caste system, but whose main aim was to awaken the kulakuNDalinI, identified with shakti, in one's own body to unite with shiva) and nAthadharma, both of which claim descent from matsyendranAtha, who may have been the same as luipAda described above, can not be nicely classified as either Hindu or Buddhist.
The nAthadharmIs probably arose out of the rasasiddha yogis, the sect that did not believe in a freedom after death. That sect believed that the body is everything. They believed that this physical body could be converted to the shiva form, and that is freedom. The nathadharmIs sought for the cause of all ills and sorrows in an unprepared body and hence which wanted to improve the physical health more than anything else. Though they do not exist in Bengal today except as a sect of weavers, a famous character in Bengali folklore is madanAvatI or maYanAmatI, mother of gopIcÃda or govindracandra (disciple of jAlandharipAda or AdinAtha or hAD.ipAda, disciple of gorakSanAtha) and disciple of gorakSanAtha, disciple of matsyendranAtha. Other famous people of this sect include mInanAthaand cauraGgInAtha.
The avadhUtas, who lived ascetic lives in the forest, the pre-sahajIYA religion, that looked for simple, often carnal, pleasure, and the bAUla community of Bengal, who were much closer to the original vajra and sahajayAna, also arose out of this disintegration of the original buddhist religion.
Gods and goddesses
Though most of the idols from this period can be linked to mahAyAna and vajrayAna, a few do belong to the old buddhyAna conception of a central large shAkyasiMha or bodhisattva gautama in bhumisparsha, abhaYa, vyAkhyAna, dhyAna, or dharmacakrapravarttana form, surrouded by buddhAYana, incidents from his life. Some of these buddhas are worshipped even today as shivas.
mahAyAna pantheon was based on Adibuddha and AdipraJjA or praJjApAramita. The pancatathAgata or the five dhyAnibuddha, namely, vairocana, akSobhya, ratnasambhAra, amitAbha, and amoghasiddhi, and a sixth vajrasattva arose out of this Adibuddha. Each of these dhyAnibuddha has a bodhisattva and a mAnuSI buddha: present dhyAnibuddha amitAbha corresponds to bodhisattva avalokiteshvara lokanAtha and mAnuSI gautama. The bodhisattva's maJjushrI and maitreYa are also very famous. In addition, their power, all thought of as different forms of tArA are also important. No idols of Adibuddha have been found, though some of praJjApAramita have been. A few dhyAnibuddhas have also been found. The most common idols are of avalokiteshvara lokanAtha: mainly in the padmapANi, siMhanAda (said to cure leprosy), SaD.akSarI and khasaparNa (named probably after a place name in south bengal) forms, rarely of sugatisandarshanarupI form; both Asana and sthAnaka. There are a few 12-armed and six-armed forms which seem to be influenced by the Hindu pantheon of gods. The next most common avalokiteshvara was maJjushrI (linked to akSobhya) in the forms of maJjuvara on a lion, arapacana on a lotus on a snake, or of sthiracakra forms. vajrapANi who was the god of power and rain, and bodhisattva maitreYa are rare. Of the lower deities important are jambhala (god of wealth like the Hindu kuvera and linked with ratnasambhara), heruka (with akSobhya), and hevajra (a tAntrika god), the last usually embracing shakti. A few trailokyavashaGkara have also been found.
Of the tArAs, khadirvanI tArA (or shyAma tArA, linked to amoghasiddhi), vajra tArA (linked to ratnasambhara), and bhRkuTI tArA (linked to amitAbha) are the most common. A sitAtapatrA or sitatAra might also have been found, and a mahApratisarA (one of the pancarakSAmaNDala); and a few cannot be classified. Of the other goddesses, we find mainly mArIci (linked to vairocana and related to Hindu sUryya), parNashavarI (also called pishAcI, linked to amoghasiddhi), hArItI (shakti of jambhala), and cuNDA. A few uSNISavijaYA have aso been found.
vajrayAna conceived of a large number of gods and goddesses; called by names such as vajrasatva, hevajra, heruka, mahAmAYA, trailokyavashaGkara, nIlAmbaradharavajrapANi, yamAri, kRSNayamAri, jambhala, haYagrIva, samvara, cakrasamvara, cakreshvarAlI, kAli, vajrayoginI, siddhavajrayogini, kulukullA, kurukulla, vajrabhairava, vajradhara, hevajrodbhava, sitAtapatrAaparAjitA, and uSNISavijaYA. It is difficult to link these with the actual idols found from this period: many of these are unrepresented, and many idols do not seem to have been otherwise named.
Thus, in addition to vihAras, buddhism used to be well an alive in temples across Bengal. Temples of bhagavatItArA in candradvIpa, lokanAtha and buddhardhitArA in samataTa, cuNDA in paTTikeraka, and lokanAtha in harikela were quite famous. Most of the evidence, however, seems to concentrate in north and east bengal, and slightly in bÃkurA-vIrabhuma region.
Jainism
Jainism (or nirgrantha religion) reduced in influence during this period. It still seems to have existed into the thirteenth century: at least in lATa, gauD.a, and vaGga; but it was quite weak by then. A few idols have been found of the digambara sect: mainly of pArshvanAtha, but a few of RSabhanAtha, AdinAtha, neminAtha, and shAntinAtha as well.
Up to history of ancient Bengal: religion
http://tanmoy.tripod.com/bengal/palacandrarelig.htmlSearch Results
History of Bangladesh
Jump to THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT BENGAL: The influence of ancient Bengal was of Tibet and China. ..... In Bengal, Buddhism spread rapidly among those ...
www.bongoz.com/history/ - Cached - SimilarHistory of Buddhism in India - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Buddhism is a world religion, which arose in and around ancient Magadha, ..... He built other branches of the Bengal Buddhist Association at Shimla (1907), ...
en.wikipedia.org/.../History_of_Buddhism_in_India - 11 hours ago - Cached - SimilarBuddhism in India , ancient buddhism
Buddhism in India, ancient Buddhism in India,. India and Buddhism ... to longtime Buddhist populations in hill areas of northeast India (West Bengal, Assam, ...
www.indianchild.com/buddhism_in_india.htm - Cached - SimilarA glimpse of Buddhism in ancient Bangladesh, Appamāda Dhamma Opinion
Legends and a latter-day Buddhist treatise named 'Bodhisattva Avadan Kalpalata' suggest that Buddha visited ancient Bengal probably along the river route of ...
www.appamada.net/dhamma_news/view.php?id=21 - CachedReligion in Ancient Bengal: During Palas
Religion in ancient Bengal: during pAla and candra. Buddhism was on the decline and idol worship on the rise in Bengal at the beginning of this period. ...
tanmoy.tripod.com/bengal/palacandrarelig.html - Cached - Similar- [PDF]
Buddhist Charyapada & Bengali Identity
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
development of our ancient Bengali king Dharmapal's Nalanda University where many world scholars came to study including famous Chinese Buddhist monk Huen ...
www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/Sona_Baruwa/Genocide.pdf - Similar Buddhism in ancient Bengal (Open Library)
12 Dec 2009 ... Buddhism in ancient Bengal. by Gayatri Sen Majumdar Published in 1983, Navana (Calcutta). Buddhism in ancient Bengal. Gayatri Sen Majumdar ...
openlibrary.org/b/OL3007201M - CachedAncient And Medieval History of Bangladesh - WikiEducator
On the whole, the Hindu, the Buddhist and the low caste people formed the society in ancient Bengal. The Maurya and the Gupta Kings ruled this country from ...
wikieducator.org/Ancient_And_Medieval_History_of_Bangladesh - Cached - SimilarTeacher Support, Bangladesh Studies - Topic 2 (a) Ancient Bengal
Buddhism arrived in Bengal during the Mauryan era. From Bengal, Mahinda, the son of Asoka, one of the most famous Emperors of the ancient world, ...
projects.cie.org.uk/banglao/textbook/.../ancientbengal/index.../view?... - CachedThe History of Ancient Bengal, Part 2
6 Aug 2009 ... In Bengal, Buddhism spread rapidly among those people who never took to ... Among ancient works the Atharva Veda hymns were highly mystical ...
www.indiadivine.org › Articles on Hinduism - Cached - Similar
Sponsored links
|
| Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Next |
Tagore family
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tagore family | ||
| Gobindapur | ||
|---|---|---|
| Panchanan · Sukdeb | ||
| Jairam | ||
| Pathuriaghata | ||
| Darpanarayan | ||
| Gopimohan | ||
| Chandra Coomar · Prasanna Coomar | ||
| Gnanendramohan | ||
| Jatindramohan · Shourindramohan | ||
| Shoutindramohan | ||
| Jorasanko | ||
| Nilmani | ||
| Ramlochan · Rammani · Ramballav | ||
| Dwarkanath · Ramanath | ||
| Debendranath · Girindranath · Nagendranath | ||
| Debendranath's family | ||
| Generation 1 | ||
| Dwijendranath · Satyendranath | ||
| Hemendranath · Birendranath | ||
| Jyotirindranath · Somendranath | ||
| Rabindranath · Soudamini | ||
| Sukumari · Saratkumari | ||
| Swarnakumari · Barnakumari | ||
| Generation 2 | ||
| Dwijendranath's children | ||
| Dwipendranath · Arunendranath | ||
| Nitindranath · Sudhindranath | ||
| Kritendranath | ||
| Satyendranath's children | ||
| Surendranath · Indira | ||
| Hemendranath's Children | ||
| Hitendranath · Kshitindranath | ||
| Ritendranath · Pratibha | ||
| Pragna ·Abhi · Manisha | ||
| Shovana · Sushama | ||
| Sunrita · Sudakshina | ||
| Purnima | ||
| Birendranath's son | ||
| Balendranath | ||
| Rabindranath's children | ||
| Rathindranath · Shamindranath | ||
| Madhurilata · Renuka | ||
| Meera | ||
| Girindranath's family | ||
| Generation 1 | ||
| Ganedranath · Gunendranath | ||
| Generation 2 | ||
| Gunendranath's children | ||
| Gaganendranath | ||
| Abanindranath · Sunayani | ||
The Tagore family, with over three hundred years of history,[1] has been one of the leading families of Kolkata, and is regarded as a key influence during the Bengal Renaissance.[1] The family has produced several persons who have contributed substantially in the fields of business, social and religious reformation, literature, art and music.[1][2]
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Background
"Europeans" started coming to Bengal in the 17th century.[3] After the Battle of Plassey, the British became the ruling power.
The Bengal renaissance of the 19th century was a remarkable period of societal transformation in which whole range of creative activities – literary, cultural, social and economic- flourished[4] The Bengal Renaissance was the culmination of the process of emergence of the cultural characteristics of the Bengali people that had started in the age of Hussein Shah (1493–1519).[5] This spread over covering around three centuries had a tremendous impact on Bengali society. Incidentally that coincided with the rise of the Tagore family. The Tagore family attained prominence during this period through its unusual social positioning between Indian and European influences.
To quote Chitra Deb,[6] "Though the cultural role of the Thakurs has received the greatest attention by far, their importance on final assessment is a composite one: commercial and political as well as literary and musical. They played a collective role in every patriotic movement of their times: Nabagopal Mitra's Hindu Mela, the Congress and the National Conference, the Rakhi Festival of 1905, and the Nationalist Movement generally. The story of the Thakurs is inseparable from the story of Calcutta, Bengal and India."
[edit] Origins
The family earlier held the title (surname) of Kushari, and hailed from Jessore District, now in Bangladesh. Two of the Kusharis, Panchanan and Sukdeb, settled in Gobindapur, one of the villages that developed into the city of Kolkata, and engaged in stevedoring business. Being Brahmins, the neighbours called them Thakurmashai, or 'holy sir'. After the British gained control of the country, 'Thakur' became their family name. In English, it was Anglicized to 'Tagore', with some variations in spelling within the family. They were Pirali Brahmins, a sort of outcaste in orthodox Hindu society due to their conversions to Islam.
Darpanarayan Tagore (1731-1791), the first person in the family to gain prominence, earned major revenues through money-lending while spent as abundantly as he earned. When he quarrelled with his brother Nilmani Tagore over family matters the latter shifted out of the family household and settled in Mechuabazar, which later came to be known as Jorasanko. Subsequently, several other branches of the family settled in Pathuriaghata, Kailahata and Chorbagan, all neighbourhoods of the fledgling metropolis, particularly when Gobindapur was razed by the British for the construction of the new Fort William.[7]
[edit] The Pathuriaghata family
Gopimohan Tagore (1760–1819) was well known for his wealth and in 1822, made what may be the largest ever gift of gold to the Kali temple at Kalighat.[8] He was one of the founders of Hindu College, the institution that initiated western education in the country. He knew English, French, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Persian and Urdu, apart from Bengali.[9]
Prasanna Coomar Tagore, (1801–1868), son of Gopimohan Tagore, was one of the leaders of the Landholders' Society and later the president of the British Indian Association, the earliest organisations of Indians in the country. He had started as government lawyer but later turned his attention to family matters. Apart from being a director of Hindu College, he was involved with the activities of several institutions. Tagore Law lectures are organised by Calcutta University on the strength of donations he made. He was founder of the first local theatre – the Hindu theatre.[10] He was the first Indian to be appointed to the Viceregal Legislative Council.[11]
Gnanendramohan Tagore (1826–1890), son of Prasanna Coomar Tagore, converted to Christianity and married Kamalmani daughter of Krishna Mohan Banerjee. He was disowned by his father and disinherited. He went to England and qualified for the bar from Lincoln's Inn. He became the first Indian to become a barrister. For sometime he taught Hindu Law and Bengali at the University of London.[12]
Jatindramohan Tagore (1831–1908), son of Harakumar Tagore, inherited the Pathuriaghata branch wealth. He contributed substantially to the development of theatre in Kolkata and was himself a keen actor. He inspired Michael Madhusudan Dutt to write Tilottamasambhab Kabya and published it at his cost. In 1865, he established the Banganatyalaya at Pathuriaghata. He was keen in music also and patronised musicians. With his active support one of them, Kshetra Mohan Goswami, introduced the concept of orchestra in to Indian music for the first time in this country. He was president of the British Indian Association and was the first Indian to be member of the Royal Photographic Society.[13]
Ramanath Tagore (1801–1877) and Jatindramohan were major patrons of European art. Their palatial home, the Tagore Castle[14] at Pathuriaghta had a major collection of European painters. Subsequently, members of the family took to oil-painting. Shoutindramohan Tagore (1865–98) was one of the first Indians to have studied at the Royal Academy.[15]
Shourindramohan Tagore (180-1914), son of Harakumar Tagore, was a great musician who was awarded the doctor of music titles by Philadelphia University in 1875 and by Oxford University in 1896. He was proficient in both Indian and Western music. He founded the Banga Sangeet Vidyalaya in 1871 and the Bengal Academy of Music in 1881. He was honoured by the Shah of Iran with the 'Nabab Shahzada' title. The British government made him 'Knight Bachelor of the United Kingdom'. He was also a playwright and Justice of the Peace. He was also a leading philanthropist of his time.[16]
[edit] The Jorasanko family
[edit] Business wealth
Dwarkanath Tagore (1794–1846) was the man who ushered the family into its special role in Bengali history and culture. He was son of Nilmani Tagore's second son, Rammani Tagore, but was adopted by the childless elder son, Ramlochan Tagore. He not only inherited the great wealth of the Jorasanko[17] family but also built up an extensive business empire even while he worked as sheristadar, the highest position then open to Indians. He was a luxury loving prodigal.[18] His manners led his European friends to call him 'Prince'.[18] He was a friend of Raja Rammohun Roy and played a leading role in the social development of the country.[18] He was a shareholder of Macintosh & Co, a director of the Commercial Bank, founder of the Union Bank, director of several insurance companies, established Carr & Tagore Co. and engaged in coal mining (pioneering work), silk and indigo trade, shipping and sugar manufacture. He established himself as an industrialist and one of the leading rich men in the society of his time.[19]
He was the second person amongst the educated Indians, after Raja Rammohun Roy to sail to England in 1842, with two persons accompanying him, ignoring the prohibition of the pandits.[20] Rabindranath Tagore's creative multiplicity or Debendranath Tagore's spiritual pursuits were, to a considerable extent, made possible because of the foundations of leisure provided by Dwarakanath Tagore's wealth.[21]
[edit] Spiritual pursuits
After Dwarkanath Tagore, the leadership of the family passed on to Debendranath Tagore(1807–1905) and Girindranath Tagore, the two sons of Dwarkanath Tagore. Debendranath Tagore founded the Brahmo religion and also started its journal Tattwabodhini Patrika. His children continued in the Brahmo Samaj. Girindranath Tagore also joined the Brahmo Samaj but his children, Ganendra and Gunendra, did not. Gunendra's sons, Gaganendra, Samarendra and Abanindra branched out but retained cordial relationship with the Jorasanko family.[18] Debendranath Tagore took over the reins of the Brahmo Samaj in 1843 and not only resurrected it but also enriched it in many ways. It became the inspirtaion for the Bengal Renaissance.[22] It was he who gave the Brahmo movement the trappings of a separate faith and introduced its own unique rituals. The Brahmo Samaj cast a very wide-ranging influence on its parent Hindu society, much wider than its limited membership would ostensibly permit.[23]
[edit] Creative outpourings
Several of Debendranath Tagore's children were brilliant. Dwijendranath Tagore (1840–1926) was a great scholar, poet and music composer. He wrote extensively in the newspapers and magazines of the day on literature, philosophy and religion. He was editor of "Bharati" and Tattwabodhini Patrika. A pioneer in Bengali shorthand, he was one of organisers of the Hindu Mela[24]
Satyendranath Tagore, (1842–1923), was the first Indian to join the Indian Civil Service.in 1864. Earlier, he and his brother Ganendranath were among the first students to pass the Entrance Examination of Calcutta University in 1857. Even while serving in an adminsistrative job, he was a prolific writer, poet and song composer. Many of his nationalist songs are still sung. He was editor of "Tattwabodhini Patrika" and took an active interest in the Hindu Mela. He encourage his wife, Gyanadanandini Debi, to adopt western ideas and for that purpose took her to a governor's party and also to England, something unthinkable in those days.[25]
Debendranath's third son Hemendranath was a strict disciplinarian who was entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the education of his younger brothers as well as administrating the large family estates.Like most of Debendranath's children, he had varied interests in different fields.On one hand he composed a number of "Bromhosangeets" and on the other,wrote articles on physical science which he planned to compile and edit into a text book for school students.If his untimely death had not prevented him from completing the project,this would certainly have been the first science text book to be written in Bengali.He was known for his physical strength and wrestling skills. Exceptionally for the times,he insisted on a formal education for his daughters.He not only put them through school but trained them in music, arts and European languages such as French and German.It was another mark of his forward looking mentality that he actively sought out eligible grooms from different provinces of India for his daughters and married them off in places as far away as UP and Assam.
Jyotirindranath Tagore (1849–1925) was a scholar, artist, music composer and theatre personality. He knew several languages – Bengali, Sanskrit, English, Bengali, Marathi and Persian. In 1924, he translated "Gita Rahasya" of Bal Gangadhar Tilak into Bengali. He also translated several other books. He wrote several plays, and directed and acted in them. He composed songs that are still available in CDs. Around 2,000 of his paintings are in possession of Rabindra Bharati. A selection of his paintings were published in London in 1914, at the instance of Rothenstein.[26]
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) his youngest son, was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, and was exceptionally talented and the most famous in the family. Rabindrinath is best remembered in history for writing what became the national anthems of the nations of India and Bangladesh and for coining the title Mahatma for Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi.[27]
Amongst his daughters Swarnakumari Devi (1855–1932) was a gifted writer, editor, song-composer and social worker. She was editor of "Bharati", a remarkabale performance in an age when very few girls went to school. She also edited a children's magazine Balak. Sakhi Samiti was developed by her as means for upliftment of women. Her husband Janakinath Ghosal was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress. As a result she also participated in his nationalistic activities. She was the author of several books.[28]
[edit] The artists
After Rabindranath, the most notable in the Jorasanko family were Gaganendranath Tagore (1867–1938), Abanindranath Tagore (1871–1951), and Sunayani (1875–1962). They made an immense contribution to Indian art.[29] Even earlier, Abanindranath Tagore's grand father and father, Gindranath (1820–1854), Gunendranath (1847–81), and subsequently Abaindranath Tagore's cousin, Hitendranath Tagore (1867–1908) and his nephew Jaminiprakash Ganguli, were all gifted and prolific painters, specialising in a genre of dusky landscapes and romantic studies of peasant life.
Gaganendranath was a pioneer in many ways – in adopting Indian styles of painting after training in western art, and then absorbing Japanese styles.[30] However, it was his brother Abanindranath who inaugurated what became known as the "Bengal school" or "Neo-Oriental school". Its influence spread across the country while it incorporated various strains of South Asian influence.[31]
[edit] The younger generation
The younger generation also contributed substantially. Dwijendranath's second son Sudhindranath (1869–1929) was a renowned author. His son Soumyendranath (1901–74) was well-known as a leftist politician. Satyendranath's son Surendranath (1872–1940) also had political links. His daughter Indira (1873–1960) distinguished herself in literature, music and women's movement. She married Pramatha Chowdhury, a distinguished scholar and writer. The list does not end here. All of them had enormous talent and were brought up in an ideal environment of literary debates and discussions, musical compositions, painting, and theatrical performances. Sharmila Tagore, a well-known Mumbai actress, connected with Tagore on both sides, in an interview stated that her mother's mother, Latika Tagore was the grand daughter of Rabindranath Tagore's brother, Hijendranath [ sic.]. [32]
[edit] The family environment
The environment at Jorasanko was filled with literature, music, painting and theatre. They had their own education system. In the earlier days, the women did not go to school but they were all educated at home. Swarnakumari Debi has recalled how in her early days the governess would write something on a slate which the girls then had to copy. When Debedranath discovered this, he at once stopped such a mindless and mechanical method and brought in a better teacher, Ajodhyanath Pakrashi – a male outsider in the women's quarters... Some of the sons like Ganendra, Gunendra and Jyoitrindra set up their own private theatre. To start with men played in the role of women, but over a period of time even the women joined.[33] The environment in the family played a major role in the development of its members. Even Rabindranath Tagore who went to win the Nobel Prize in literature had very little formal education.[34]
Being somewhat conservative, Debendranath Tagore had put in many restrictions about members of the family participating in certain types of activities outside the house. Therefore, they brought the outside world into their house and the entire family, including the women participated. Two small examples will illustrate the environment:
"A baiji named Saraswatibai, renowned for her singing, had come from Kashi. We wanted to listen to her singing. She charged six hundred rupees for a single night's performance. We sent Shyamsundar, "Go and bargain, see what you can manage." Shyamsundar went and could fix her up for three hundred rupees. He came back and said, "Three hundred rupees and two bottles of brandy." On hearing about the brandy we were taken aback, mummy could object. Shyamsundar said, "She cannot sing without taking brandy." Everything was ready. Saraswati entered the gathering. She was demure, round nosed, nothing great. Natore said, "Abanda, what have you done? Just thrown away three hundred rupees." She was going to sing two songs. Natore was ready to accompany her on the mridangam. As the clock struck ten she started singing. One song and it was eleven at night. Natore was paralysed with the mridnagam in his laps. The wonderful voice of Saraswati reverberated around that dance-hall. How wonderfully she had tuned her voice. Some of us with pillows in our laps, others with hands close to our hearts, we were all wonderstruck. The gathering was won over with just one song. Everyone was still immersed in the song, when Saraswati said, "Aur kuch farmaiye." (present your wish). After listening to her, no one dared to put anything forward. Then I told Shyamsundar, "Ask her to sing a bhajan. We have heard that bhajans of Kashi are very famous." She sang a bhajan known to all, "Ao to Brajachandalal..." (Come oh, Lord!) Everybody was dumbfounded... "... The atarwala (scent seller) had come, we used to call him Gabriel Saheb, a genuine Jew. It was as if Shylock from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice had come alive and travelled all the way from Istambul to sell atar (scent) on the southern veranda of the Jorasanko house... so many types of people came and so much happened..."[35]Although the Jorasanko branch of the family had close links with Shilaidaha, in Kushtia District, now in Bangladesh and Santiniketan, where Rabindranath developed Viswa Bharati,[36] their roots were in the Jorasanko house. It was popular as Jorasanko Thakur Bari of the Tagores and now houses the Rabindra Bharati University.
[edit] References
- Deb, Chitra, Jorasanko and the Thakur Family, in Calcutta, the Living City, Vol I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, pp 64–67, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-563696-1
- Kopf, David (1979), The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691031258
- Sengupta, Nitish, "History of the Bengali-speaking People", 2001/2002, UBS Publishers' Distributors Pvt. Ltd., ISBN 81-7476-355-4
- Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali (editors), (1976/1998), Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Biographical dictionary) Vol I, in Bengali, Sahitya Sansad ISBN 81-85626-65-0
- Devi Choudhurani, Indira, Smritisamput Vol I (1997/2000), in Bengali, Rabindra Bhaban, Viswa Bharati.
- Tagore, Abanindranath and Chanda, Rani, Jorasankor Dhare (By the side of Jorasanko) in Bengali,(1944/2003), Viswabaharati Publications Division.
- Sastri, Sivanath, Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Banga Samaj in Bengali, (1903/2001), New Age Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c Deb, Chitra, pp 64-65.
- ^ "The Tagores and Society". Rabindra Baharati University. http://www.rabindrabharatiuniversity.net/museum/tagore_family/tagore_society.htm. Retrieved 2007-04-24.
- ^ Sengupta, Nitish, pp 119-126
- ^ Sengupta, Nitish, pp 209-216
- ^ History of Bengali-speaking People by Nitish Sengupta, p 210, 212-213.
- ^ Chitra Deb is a writer on social and historical subjects. She is attached to Ananda Bazar Patrika and has made enormous contribution in the field of study of the Tagores.
- ^ Deb, Chitra, p 64.
- ^ Dutta, Kalyani, "Kalighat", in "Calcutta, the Living City", Vol I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, p 25, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-563696-1.
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, p 141
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, p 313
- ^ Cotton, H.E.A., Calcutta Old and New, 1909/1980, pp344-345, General Printers and Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, pp 184, 313
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, p 433
- ^ It was so named because it was built like a castle. It was one of the landmarks of old Kolkata, off old Chitpore.
- ^ Guha Thakurta, Tapati, Art in Old Calcutta, the Melting Pot of Western Styles, in Calcutta, the Living City, Vol I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, pp 148-151, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-563696-1.
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, p 532
- ^ Jorasanko is so called because of the two (jora) wooden or bamboo bridges (sanko) that spanned a small stream at this point. The celebrated seat of the Tagore family, it was also home of the Sinhas(including Kaliprasanna Sinha), the Pals (including Krishnadas Pal), and the families of Dewan Banarasi Ghosh and Chandramohan Chatterji. "The area thus became the cradle of Bengal Renaissance," says Nair, P. Thankappan in The growth and Development of Old Calcutta in Calcutta, the Living City, Vol I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, p 17, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-563696-1.
- ^ a b c d Deb, Chitra, p 65.
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, p 223
- ^ Sastri, Sivanath, p99.
- ^ Sengupta, Nitish, p 258
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, p 219
- ^ Sengupta, Nitish, p 242
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, p 225
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, pp 554-555
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, pp 184-185
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, pp 454-455.
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, pp 609-610.
- ^ Deb, Chitra, p
- ^ Sengupta, Subodh Chandra and Bose, Anjali, pp 124-125.
- ^ Mitra, Tapan, Art and Artists in Twentieth Century Calcutta, in "Calcutta, the Living City", Vol I, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, p 261-62, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-563696-1.
- ^ Sharmila Tagore interview
- ^ Jorasanko and the Thakur Family by Chitra Deb in Calcutta, the Living City, edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Vol I, page 66
- ^ Please see Life of Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1901)
- ^ Tagore, Abanindranath and Chanda, Rani, pp 72, 75-76.
- ^ visva-bharati
[edit] External links
| |||||
Tagore and His India
Yeats did not totally reject his early admiration (as Ezra Pound and several others did), and he included some of Tagore's early poems in The Oxford Book of ...
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/articles/sen/ - Cached - SimilarCensor Chief Sharmila Tagore tells why Mumbai Amchich was Rejected ...
Censor Chief Sharmila Tagore tells why Mumbai Amchich was Rejected By Subhash K Jha Marathi filmmaker Sarad Bandsode's controversial film Mumbai Amchich has ...
www.santabanta.com/cinema.asp?pid=14677 - Cached - SimilarAnother Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin. By Rustom ...
by KH Katrak - 2007
Tagore rejected colonial notions of masculinity, "just as to be ... Japan, already allied with the Western powers in World War I, rejected Tagore's ...
journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid...-
A Foreign Shine and Assumed Gestures: The Ersatz Tagore of the ...
15 Jul 2001 ... Ezra Pound, one of the coterie of poets who first championed Tagore in the West, later bitterly rejected Tagore's religious themes purveyed ...
www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pSomjit1.html - Cached - Similar Rabindranath Tagore as reformer | Contemporary Review | Find ...
Rabindranath Tagore as reformer from Contemporary Review provided by Find Articles at BNET. ... He rejected imperialism in advance of many of his fellows, ...
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2242/is.../ai_n13247737/ - Cached - SimilarPersonality - Shri RAbindra Nath Tagore
22 Jan 2001 ... Tagore refused and rejected his "Knighthood" in 1919, against the Jallianwallabagh Massacre. Being a great patriot, he composed hundreds of ...
www.calcuttayellowpages.com/rtagore.html - Cached - Similar- [PDF]
A RABINDRANATH TAGORE RECITAL
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
ambivalent towards Tagore while he was still living, "Before 1912, Rabindranath was rejected by many, perhaps the majority, of Bengalis as being a product ...
www.sonarbangladesh.com/story/rabindranath_recital.pdf - Similar Brahmoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
While Ram Mohun Roy aimed at reforming Hinduism from within, his successor Debendranath Tagore in 1850 rejected the authority of the Vedas and thus broke ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmoism - Cached - SimilarFlipkart.com: RABINDRANATH TAGORE: Andrew Robinson Krishna Dutta ...
Related Tags rabindranath tagore rejected nobel prize rabindranath tagore journalism tagore krishna dutta rabindranath tagore the myraiad minded man andrew ...
www.flipkart.com/rabindranath-tagore.../0747530866-p5w3fw4ore - CachedVithal Rajan - A Brief Note On Non-Formal Education
Neither Gandhi nor Tagore rejected scientific development, or material progress. Both wanted a very much higher standard of living for the masses than ...
www.vithalrajan.com/cfbt.php - Cached
Did you mean to search for: Rejected tagore's
Pictures of Rabindra Sarovar|Images of Rabindra Sarovar|Roots-To ...
Enriching pictures of Rabindra Sarovar, Rabindra Sarovar images, photos of Rabindra Sarovar, Stills of Rabindra Sarovar, Rabindra Sarovar trip photos, ...
travel.sulekha.com/roots-to-the-ground_rabindra-sarovar-photo-161475.htm - CachedRabindra Sangeet Photo Gallery, Rabindra Sangeet Wallpaper Gallery
Rabindra Sangeet: ... roots in Rabindra Sangeet · Rabindra Sangeet:Atlantic Delight - Pilot ... Rabindra Sangeet:THE STATESMAN, 08.08.09 . ...
connect.in.com/rabindra-sangeet/photo-gallery.html - CachedWebsites For Downloading Rabindra Sangeet - IndusLadies
... trip from Kolkata and I must say, I have somehow become more proud of my roots. Though I did listen Rabindra Sangeet before but was not a sort of addict ...
www.indusladies.com › ... › India › West Bengal & Orissa - Cached - SimilarSignificance of Rabindra Jayanti - www.karmayog.org
25 Apr 2010 ... The message below on 'Significance of Rabindra Jayanti' has been posted by .... His world view had its roots in the Upanishadic thoughts of ...
www.karmayog.org/messages/message.aspx?id=2635 - CachedFor some T&T players, CLT20 will be all about discovering their roots
For some T&T players, CLT20 will be all about discovering their roots. 2009-10-02. Bookmark and Share. As a 23-year-old, Rabindra Ramanarayan Singh came to ...
www.clt20.com/features/2009/oct/210T.htm - Cached - SimilarRabindra-Sangeet as a Resource for Indian Classical Bandishes - An ...
15 Jul 2001 ... Being a person with cultural roots in Bengal, he might have had a greater exposure to Rabindra-sangeet in general. ...
www.parabaas.com/rabindranath/articles/pAnirban1.html - Cached - SimilarItalian singer adds new facet to Rabindra Sangeet - The Hindustan ...
News Wire article from: The Hindustan Times ...is a time for Bengalis to go back to their roots and celebrate. The melodious strains of Rabindra Sangeet, ...
www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P3-1537355351.html - CachedDr. KCV Works Volume -10 » RABINDRA NATH'S PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION
RABINDRA NATH'S PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION. Rabindranath is one of the most seminal thinkers of the modern age. His traditional roots are in the Upanishads and ...
www.drkcv.org/Books/kcv10chap_20.htm - CachedAalo - Rabindra Sangeet Tracks | Calcutta Music Blog
3 Jan 2009 ... The characters are real, and define their roots themselves. ... Listen to the Rabindra Sangeets used in the hit Bengali Film AALO. ...
calcuttaglobalchat.net/.../aalo-rabindra-sangeet-tracks/ - United States - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore Quotes And Rabindra Sangeet
17 Feb 2010 ... Visit here now http://rabindra-sangeet-website.blogspot.com/ .... Mavis Staples, the Roots, Passion Pit, Patrick Stump and Q-Tip. ...
www.articlesbase.com/.../rabindranath-tagore-quotes-and-rabindra-sangeet-1870391.html - United States - Cached
Search Results
Rothenstein, William (1872-1945) - 1912 Portrait of Rabindranath ...
30 Apr 2010 ... Click this icon to see all public photos and videos tagged with portrait of rabindranath tagore portrait of rabindranath tagore ...
www.flickr.com/photos/32357038@N08/4567221728/ - CachedRABINDRANATH TAGORE IN GERMANY: Four Responses To a Cultural Icon
About the Book:Rabindranath Tagore has been a strong cultural force especially in West Bengal and Bangladesh, where the population speaks his language, ...
www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/IDG108/ - Cached - SimilarSICI Discussion Forum | Rabindranath Tagore: Refracting a Cultural ...
Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel Laureate (in 1913 for literature) can well be deemed a 'cultural icon' in the sense that he embodied and ...
www.sici.org/forums/viewthread/8/ - CachedRabindranath Tagore Biography - Rabindranath Tagore History ...
Rabindranath Tagore was an icon of Indian culture. He was a poet, philosopher, musician, writer, and educationist. Rabindranath Tagore became the first ...
www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/rabindranath-tagore.html - Cached - Similarpoems of Rabindranath tagore eBook Downloads
Evidence does indicate that the poet W.B. Yeats ... poetry by Jibanananda Das; two cultural icons, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and Kazi Nazrul Islam ...
www.pdfgeni.com/.../poems-of-Rabindranath-tagore-pdf.html - United States - CachedRabindranath Tagore in Germany: Four responses to a cultural icon ...
0.00 avg rating - 0 ratings - 0 reviews - isbn 818595271X. Contributions of Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1941, in intellectual cooperation between India and ...
www.goodreads.com/.../4917128-rabindranath-tagore-in-germany - CachedProject MUSE - University of Toronto Quarterly - Introduction ...
by H Version - 2008 - Related articles
Rabindranath Tagore, Asia's first Nobel laureate, may well be characterized as a cultural icon, ambivalent as that term may be. ...
muse.jhu.edu/journals/university_of_toronto.../77.4.o-connell.htmlRabindranath Tagore Jayanti
Rabindranath Tagore was an icon of Indian culture, he became the first Asian to became Nobel laureate when he won Nobel Prize for his collection of poems, ...
www.totalbhakti.com/otherpages/rabindranath_jayanti/ - 15 hours ago - CachedGet more results from the past 24 hoursRabindranath Thakur | Complete Geetobitan in Bengali & It is ...
8 posts - 5 authors - Last post: 14 Apr 2009Post icon Posted 06 May 2007 - 08:21 AM. Songs of Rabindranath | Complete Geetobitan, in Bengali & It is "searchable" ! ...
www.calcuttaglobalchat.net/.../index.php?...10693 - United States - Cached - SimilarGet more discussion resultsEnjoy Rabindranath Tagore's favourite foods - India's social media ...
17 Dec 2008 ... It is now possible to enjoy Rabindranath Tagore's favourite foods at this ... Topic, Started By, Stats, Last Post Info. New Replies, Icon ...
www.gourmetindia.com/Enjoy-Rabindranath-Tagores-favourite-foods-t848.html - Cached - Similar
| Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Next |
Selected letters of Rabindranath Tagore - Google Books Result
Rabindranath Tagore, Krishna Dutta, Andrew ... - 1997 - Biography & Autobiography - 561 pages
Zamindar (1890-1897) Introduction In 1889, at his father's behest, Rabindranath took over the management of the Tagore zamindari (estates) in East Bengal ...
books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0521590183...Dwarkanath Tagore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to Dwarkanath and Zamindari: "As a zamindar Dwarkanath was mercilessly efficient and businesslike, but not generous". Dwarkanath looked upon his ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarkanath_Tagore - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 1890, Tagore released his Manasi poems, among his best-known work. As "Zamindar Babu", Tagore crisscrossed the holdings while living out of the family's ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore - Cached - SimilarDwarkanath Tagore: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article
Tagore's company managed huge zamindar. Zamindar. A zamindar or zemindar , also known as a jomidar or jamindar, was an official employed by the Mughals to ...
www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Dwarkanath_Tagore - CachedSelected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore
9 posts - 1 author - Last post: 19 May 2009At this period Uncle Rabi, in his thirties, was living away from Calcutta 'up-country', managing the family estates, the Tagore Zamindari, ...
www.fhiredekha.com/forum/index.php?topic=1081.0 - CachedGet more discussion resultsRabindranath Tagore's The home and the world: a critical companion - Google Books Result
Pradip Kumar Datta - 2005 - History - 204 pages
The alternative to Sandip, represented by the paternalist zamindar Nikhilesh (in large part, embodying Tagore himself), is one who goes out alone to fight ...
books.google.co.in/books?isbn=1843310996...The Tagore Mania: Identity Crisis and Anti-Bangladesh Syndrome Taj ...
11 May 2006 ... Those who deny Tagore's anti-Muslim, anti-East Bengali, anti-peasant, anti-communist and out and out pro-Zamindar, pro-Bhadralok (Hindu ...
www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/taj.../tagore110506.htm - Cached - SimilarWapedia - Wiki: Naogaon District
5 Mar 2010 ... The headquarters of the Tagore family's zamindari in Kaligram ... In 1921, when the zamindari was divided, Patisar fell to Tagore's share. ...
wapedia.mobi/en/Naogaon_District - CachedPartner in empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the age of enterprise in ... - Google Books Result
Blair B. Kling - 1976 - Business & Economics - 276 pages
Tagore's servants complained that Marquez had been bickering with them, had not paid his rent and had combined with the neighboring zamindars, ...
books.google.co.in/books?isbn=0520029275...Rabindranath Tagore: Biography from Answers.com
In 1890, Tagore released his Manasi poems, among his best-known work. As "Zamindar Babu", Tagore crisscrossed the holdings while living out of the family's ...
www.answers.com/topic/rabindranath-tagore - Cached - Similar
Rabindranath Tagore Criticism
Tagore is widely regarded as the inventor of the modern Bengali short story and is credited with introducing colloquial speech into Bengali literature. ...
www.enotes.com › Criticism › Short Story Criticism - Cached - SimilarTagore, Rabindranath - Mary M. Lago (essay date 1967): Short Story ...
With a unanimity rare among literary critics, four contemporary Bengali scholars agree that with the work of Rabindranath Tagore the short story "came of ...
www.enotes.com › Criticism › Short Story Criticism - Cached - SimilarReflections on Tagore, Arts, Politics and Rationalism by Aparthib
There has been a lot of debate and criticism about Tagore in various forums and in print media as well. One important point that these debates seemed to ...
www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/.../reflection_tagore_arts.htm - Cached - SimilarThe Tagore Debate - A Metacriticism. Aparthib
Once again it is unfortunate that criticism of Tagore is being labelled as Tagore bashing, mud slinging, Tagore hating, bringing Tagore down etc, ...
www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/.../tagore_debate_criticism.htm - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore Criticism
Rabindranath Tagore criticism, including critical essays, interviews, and literary reviews.
www.bookrags.com/criticisms/Rabindranath_Tagore - United States - Cached - SimilarRabindranath Tagore Biography Summary
Literary Criticism. summary from source: Critical Essay by Mary M. Lago 14147 words, approx. 47 pages. In the following essay, Lago discusses Tagore's short ...
www.bookrags.com/Rabindranath_Tagore - United States - Cached - SimilarTagore and His India
Tagore's criticism of the British administration of India was consistently strong and grew more intense over the years. This point is often missed, ...
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/articles/sen/ - Cached - SimilarThe Controversial Guest: Tagore in China ... part 1 - Sisir Kumar Das
The severity of the radical intellectuals criticism of Tagore makes one think ... It is interesting to note that some of the critics of Tagore's China visit ...
ignca.nic.in/ks_41037.htm - Cached- [PDF]
Letters of Edward Thompson and Rabindranath Tagore 1913-1940
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
It drew a barrage of criticism from Tagore, who called him inept at Bengali and a condescending Eng- lish schoolmaster. Less than a decade later their ...
www.iias.nl/nl/34/IIAS_NL34_34.pdf - Similar Book Excerptise: sheSher kabitA by rabIndranAth Tagore
2 Feb 2010 ... [This novel was written by Tagore at age 67, as a retort to criticism by the younger poets like Buddhadev Basu that he was throttling the ...
www.cse.iitk.ac.in/~amit/books/thakur--shesher-kabita-bn.html - Cached
Keep Up To Date
Start Campaigning
What We Stand For
The choice at this election is between 5 more years of Gordon Brown or a Conservative Government that will:
Make a Donation Today
Join Us On Facebook
Photos
The Blue Blog
- May
06 - May
05The Big Society can become a reality
People do have the solutions and appetite to solve local issues.
8
Our Policies
Community Relations
Getting Britain working; strengthening families; reforming schools; controlling immigration; tackling racism and challenging extremism all will play a part in uniting our divided society.
Sayeeda Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social ActionA Conservative Government will end the politics of us and them and put integration at the heart of our policies.
The Conservative Party
The Conservative Party | Policy
Promoted by Alan Mabbutt on behalf of the Conservative Party, both at 30 Millbank, London, SW1P 4DP. Press Releases · Site map · Mobile site · Accessibility ...
www.conservatives.com/Policy.aspx - United Kingdom - Cached - SimilarConservative Party (UK) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Conservative and Unionist Party (more commonly known as the Conservative Party) is a political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in its present form ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_(UK) - Cached - SimilarTory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, ... "Camden New Journal". http://www.thecnj.co.uk/review/2009/062509/books062509_01.html. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory - Cached - SimilarNews for conservative party uk
Times OnlineUK Conservatives, Lib Dems mull possible pact - 31 minutes ago
Among the party's old guard, the hostility toward the Lib Dems is palpable. Former Conservative Party Chairman Norman Tebbit said that Clegg's election ...The Associated Press - 8234 related articles »
UK stocks, pound drop after inconclusive election - The Associated Press - 295 related articles »UK's Brown gets poll lift on final day of campaign - Hindustan Times - 3471 related articles »About The Conservative Party
The Blue Blog
Conservative Party (UK)
Politician. 22-Sep-1961, UK Conservative Party Co-Chair ... Politician. 17-Jan-1918, 10-Dec-1994, Conservative UK Minister, Thatcher influence ...
www.nndb.com/org/974/000129587/ - Cached - SimilarYouTube - Conservative Party (UK)
- 3 min 38 sec - 19 Jul 2006
queueConservative Party Political Broadcast10711 viewsFeatured Videoninthwave · Conservative Party (UK) 2004 Election Spot 2:47. Add to queue ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd8gICZnRsA - more videos »Get more video resultsConservative Party (UK) | News
5 May 2010 ... News stories about Conservative Party (UK). ... The latest news, pictures and information related to Conservative Party (UK) published by ...
www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/related-56670-conservative-party-uk.doConservative Party News | Full Coverage - Yahoo! News UK
Complete Conservative Party news coverage from Yahoo! News UK. Find videos, pictures and in-depth Conservative Party commentary in our full coverage news ...
uk.news.yahoo.com/.../conservative-party.html - United Kingdom - 6 hours ago - Cached - Similar
Conservative Party (UK)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Conservative Party | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Leader | David Cameron | ||
| Chairman | Eric Pickles | ||
| Founded | Historical 1678, Modern 1912 | ||
| Headquarters | Conservative Campaign Headquarters, 30 Millbank, London, SW1P 4DP | ||
| Ideology | Conservatism, British unionism Internal factions: [1] Liberal conservatism,[2] Libertarianism, One nation conservatism, Thatcherism, Traditionalist conservatism | ||
| Political position | Centre-right | ||
| International affiliation | International Democrat Union | ||
| European affiliation | Movement for European Reform | ||
| European Parliament Group | European Conservatives and Reformists | ||
| Official colours | Blue | ||
| House of Commons |  | ||
| House of Lords |  | ||
| European Parliament |  | ||
| London Assembly |  | ||
| Scottish Parliament |  | ||
| Welsh Assembly |  | ||
| Local government[3][4] |  | ||
| Website | |||
| http://www.conservatives.com/ | |||
| Politics of the United Kingdom Political parties Elections | |||
The Conservative and Unionist Party[5] (more commonly known as the Conservative Party) is a political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in its present form during the early 19th century, it has since been the principal centre-right party in the UK.
The Conservative Party is descended from the old Tory Party, founded in 1678, and is still often referred to as the Tory Party and its politicians, members and supporters as Tories. It added the moniker Unionist in the early 20th century, following the Conservatives' alliance with that part of the Liberal Party, known as the Liberal Unionists, who opposed their party's support for Irish Home Rule.
The Conservative Party was in government for two-thirds of the 20th century. Since 2010, the party is the largest party in the House of Commons albeit without a majority. It is still to be confirmed whether the party will enter government for the first time since 1997 or remain as the Official Opposition. The current party leader is David Cameron, who acts as the leader of the opposition and heads the shadow cabinet. As of 2009, it has more councillors in local government, British members of the European Parliament and members of the London Assembly than any other party.
Contents[hide] |
Organisation and membership
In the organisation of the Conservative Party constituency associations dominate the election of party leaders and the selection of local candidates while the Conservative campaign headquarters leads financing, organisation of elections and drafting of policy. The leader of the parliamentary party forms policy in consultation with his cabinet and administration. This decentralised structure is unusual.[6]
Membership declined through the 20th century, and, despite an initial boost shortly after Cameron's election as leader in December 2005, later resumed its fall in 2006 to a lower level than when he was elected. In 2006 the Conservative Party had about 290,000 members according to The Daily Telegraph.[7] The membership fee for the Conservative party is £25, or £5 if the member is under the age of 23.
In the year 2004, according to accounts filed with the Electoral Commission, the party had an income of about £20 million and expenditures of about £26 million.[8]
Internationally the Conservative Party is member of the International Democratic Union, and in Europe it is a member of the European Democrat Union.
History
Origins in the Whig Party
The Conservative Party traces its origins to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party, that coalesced around William Pitt the Younger (Prime Minister of Great Britain 1783-1801 and 1804–1806). Originally known as "Independent Whigs", "Friends of Mr Pitt", or "Pittites", after Pitt's death the term "Tory" came into use. This was an allusion to the Tories, a political grouping that had existed from 1678, but which had no organisational continuity with the Pittite party. From about 1812 on the name "Tory" was commonly used for the newer party.
Not all members of the party were content with the "Tory" name. George Canning first used the term 'Conservative' in the 1820s and it was suggested as a title for the party by John Wilson Croker in the 1830s. It was later officially adopted under the aegis of Sir Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative Party, which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto.
Conservatives and Unionists
The widening of the electoral franchise in the nineteenth century forced the Conservative Party to popularise its approach under Lord Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, who carried through their own expansion of the franchise with the Reform Act of 1867. In 1886 the party formed an alliance with Lord Hartington (later the 8th Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain's new Liberal Unionist Party and, under the statesmen Lord Salisbury and Arthur Balfour, held power for all but three of the following twenty years before suffering a heavy defeat in 1906 when it split over the issue of free trade. In 1912 the party formally merged with the Liberal Unionists and was officially known as the Unionist party until 1925.
The Conservatives served with the Liberals in an all-party coalition government during World War I, and the coalition continued under Liberal PM David Lloyd George (with half of the Liberals) until 1922. Then Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin led the breakup of the coalition and the party governed until 1931 when it entered another coalition, the National Government, which, under the leadership of Winston Churchill, saw the United Kingdom through World War II. However the party lost the 1945 general election to the resurgent Labour Party.
Upon their election victory in the 1951 general election, the Conservatives supported part of Labour's 'welfare state' policies and industry nationalisation programme, though Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home continued to promote relatively liberal trade regulations and less state involvement throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Macmillan's bid to join the European Economic Community in early 1963 was blocked by French President Charles de Gaulle.
In 1965 it merged with the Scottish Unionist Party.
Electoral performance
 | This section requires expansion. |
This chart shows the electoral performance of the Conservative Party in general elections since 1900.[9]
Election | Number of votes for Conservative | Share of votes | Seats | Outcome of election |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 10,704,647 | 36.1% | 306 | Hung parliament |
| 2005 | 8,785,941 | 32.4% | 198 | Labour Victory |
| 2001 | 8,357,615 | 31.7% | 166 | Labour Victory |
| 1997 | 9,600,943 | 30.7% | 165 | Labour Victory |
| 1992 | 14,093,007 | 41.9% | 336 | Conservative Victory |
| 1987 | 13,760,935 | 42.2% | 376 | Conservative Victory |
| 1983 | 13,012,316 | 42.4% | 397 | Conservative Victory |
| 1979 | 13,697,923 | 43.9% | 339 | Conservative Victory |
| October 1974 | 10,462,565 | 35.8% | 277 | Labour Victory |
| February 1974 | 11,872,180 | 37.9% | 297 | Labour Hung Parliament |
| 1970 | 13,145,123 | 46.4% | 330 | Conservative Victory |
| 1966 | 11,418,455 | 41.9% | 253 | Labour Victory |
| 1964 | 12,002,642 | 43.4% | 304 | Labour Victory |
| 1959 | 13,750,875 | 49.4% | 365 | Conservative Victory |
| 1955 | 13,310,891 | 49.7% | 345 | Conservative Victory |
| 1951 | 13,724,418 | 48.0% | 321 (302+19) | Conservative Victory |
| 1950 | 11,507,061 | 40.0% | 282 | Labour Victory |
| 1945 | 8,716,211 | 36.2% | 197 | Labour Victory |
| 1935 | 10,025,083 | 47.8% | 386 | National Government (Conservative) Victory |
Party leadership since the 1970s
Edward Heath
Edward Heath's 1970-1974 government was notable for its success in taking the UK into the EU, although the right of the party objected to his failure to control the trade unions at a time when a declining British industry saw many strikes, as well as a recession which started in 1973 and lasted for two years.
Since accession to the EU, British membership has been a source of heated debate within the Conservative party.
Heath had come to power in June 1970 and had until the summer of 1975 to call the next general election,[10] but chose to do so in February 1974 in a bid to win public support as tensions ran high over the miners strike. However, his attempt to win a second term in power at this "snap" election backfired spectacularly as a deadlock result left no party with an overall majority. The Tories had more votes than Labour, who had four more seats. Heath resigned within days after failing to gain Liberal Party support in order to form a coalition government, paving the way for Harold Wilson and Labour to return to power as a minority government. Heath's hopes of returning to power later in the year were ended when Labour won the October 1974 election with a majority of three seats.[11]
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher won her party's leadership election in 1975 and led them to subsequent victory in the 1979 general election. In the years preceding her election, the UK had experienced sustained inflation (above 20% by the time of the election, and rarely below 10%), rising unemployment and the "Winter of Discontent" in which the UK was blighted by a series of strikes.[13]
As prime minister, Thatcher focused on establishing a political ideology that became known as the "New Right" or Thatcherism, based on social and economic ideas from the United States. Thatcher believed that too much socialist orientated government policy was leading to a long term decline in the British economy. As a result, her government pursued a programme of Economic Liberalism, adopting a free-market approach to public services based on the sale of publicly-owned industries and utilities, as well as a reduction in trade union power. She held the belief that the existing trend of Unions was bringing economic progress to a standstill by enforcing "wildcat" strikes, keeping wages artificially high and forcing unprofitable industries to stay open.
Thatcher led the Conservatives to two further election victories in 1983 and 1987. She was greatly admired by her supporters for her leadership in the Falklands War of 1982 - which coincided with a dramatic boost in her popularity — and for policies such as giving the right to council house tenants to buy their council house at a discount on market value. However, she was also deeply unpopular in certain sections of society due to unemployment, which reached its highest level since the 1930s, peaking at over 3 million following her economic reforms, and her response to the miners' strike. While unemployment had doubled between 1979 and 1982, this was largely due to Mrs Thatcher's committed battle against the inflation which had ravaged the British economy throughout the 1970s. At the time of the 1979 election, inflation was at a modern day high of 27%; but it had fallen to 4% by the start of 1983.[14]
However, the period of deep unpopularity of the Conservatives in the early 1980s coincided with a crisis in the Labour Party which now formed the opposition. The Social Democratic Party was formed in 1981 and consisted of more than 20 breakaway Labour MPs, who quickly formed an alliance with the Liberals. By the turn of 1982, the Alliance was ahead of the Tories in the opinion polls, but the Falklands triumph in June that year was quickly followed by the Tories returning to the top of the opinion polls.[14]
Thatcher now faced, arguably, her most serious rival yet after the 1983 election, when Michael Foot resigned as Labour leader and was succeeded by Neil Kinnock. With a new leader at the helm, Labour were clearly determined to topple the Tories at the next election and for virtually the entirety of Mrs Thatcher's second government it was looking a very serious possibility, as the lead in the opinion polls constantly saw a change in leadership from the Tories to Labour, with the Alliance occasionally scraping into first place.[15]
By the time of the election in June 1987, however, the economy was stronger, with lower inflation and falling unemployment and Mrs Thatcher secured her third successive election win.[16]
The introduction of the Community Charge (known by its opponents as the poll tax) in 1989 is often cited as contributing to her political downfall. The summer of 1989 saw her fall behind Neil Kinnock's Labour in the opinion polls for the first time since 1986, and her party's fall in popularity continued into 1990. By the autumn of that year, opinion polls were showing that Labour had a lead of up to 16 points over the Tories and they faced a tough 18 months ahead of them if they were to prevent Neil Kinnock's ambition to be prime minister from being realised. At the same time, the economy was sliding into another recession.[15]
Internal party tensions led to a leadership challenge by the Conservative MP Michael Heseltine, and after months of speculation about her future as prime minister she finally resigned on 22 November 1990, making way for a new Tory leader more likely to win the next general election in the interests of party unity.[17]
John Major
John Major won the party leadership contest on 27 November 1990, and his appointment led to an almost automatic boost in Tory fortunes. A MORI poll six days before Mrs Thatcher's resignation had shown the Tories to be 11 points behind Labour, but within two months the Tories had returned to the top of the opinion polls with a slim lead.[15]
An election had to be held within the next 18 months and the UK economy was sliding into recession, but 1991 was a year of electoral uncertainty as the Tories and Labour regularly swapped places at the top of the opinion polls, and Major resisted Kinnock's numerous calls for an immediate election.[15]
The election was finally held on 9 April 1992 and the Tories won, even though the economy was still in recession and most of the pollsters had predicted either a Labour win or a hung parliament. Major's vigorous campaigning, notably his claim that the UK would have higher prices and higher taxes under a Labour government, was seen to have been crucial in his election win (in which he became the first prime minister to attract 14,000,000 votes in a general election), as was a high profile campaign by The Sun newspaper against Labour leader Neil Kinnock, who resigned in the aftermath of the election to be succeeded by John Smith.[18]
The UK economy was deep in recession by this stage and remained so until the end of the year. The pound sterling was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on 16 September 1992, a day thereafter referred to as "Black Wednesday"; at that time, David Cameron, later to become leader of the party, was Special Advisor to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont (1942).
Soon after approximately one million householders faced re-possession of their homes during a recession that saw a sharp rise in unemployment, taking it close to 3,000,000. The party subsequently lost much of its reputation for good financial stewardship although the end of the recession was declared in April 1993[19] bringing economic recovery and a rise in employment.
The Tory government was also increasingly accused in the media of "sleaze". Their support reached its lowest ebb in late 1994, after the death of Labour Party leader John Smith and the election of Tony Blair as his successor, when Labour had up to 60% of the vote in opinion polls and had a lead of some 30 points ahead of the Tories. The Labour lead was gradually narrowed over the next two years, as the Tories gained some credit for the strong economic recovery and fall in unemployment. But as the 1997 general election loomed, it was still looking certain that Labour would win.[15]
An effective opposition campaign by the Labour Party culminated in a landslide defeat for the Conservatives in 1997 that was Labour's largest ever parliamentary victory. The 1997 election left the Conservative Party with MPs in just England, all remaining seats in Scotland and Wales having been lost and not a single seat having been gained anywhere.
Back in opposition: William Hague
John Major resigned as party leader after the Tories were voted out of power and was succeeded by William Hague. Though a strong debater, a Gallup poll for the Daily Telegraph found that two-thirds of voters regarded him as "a bit of a wally",[20] for headlines such as his claim that he drank 14 pints of beer in a single day in his youth. He was also criticised for attending the Notting Hill Carnival and for wearing a baseball cap in public in what were seen as poor attempts to appeal to younger voters.[21] Shortly before the 2001 election, Hague was much maligned for a speech in which he predicted that a re-elected Labour government would turn the UK into a "foreign land".[22] The BBC also reported that Conservative peer Lord Taylor criticised Hague for not removing the whip from Conservative MP John Townend, after the latter made a speech in which he termed the British "a mongrel race", although Hague did reject Townend's views.[23]
The 2001 election resulted in a net gain of just one seat for the Conservative Party, just months after the fuel protests of September 2000 had seen the Tories briefly take a narrow lead over Labour in the opinion polls.[15]
Having privately set himself a target of 209 seats, matching Labour's performance in 1983 – a target which he missed by 43 - William Hague resigned soon after.
Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard
Iain Duncan Smith (2001–2003) (often known as IDS and by satirists as "the quiet man") is a strong Eurosceptic, but the issue did not define Duncan Smith's leadership, though during his tenure Europe ceased to be an issue of division in the party as it united behind calls for a referendum on the proposed European Union Constitution.
However, before he could lead the party in a general election Duncan Smith lost the vote on a motion of no confidence by MPs who felt that the party would not be returned to government under his leadership. This was despite the Tory support equalling that of Labour in the months leading up to his departure from the leadership.[15]
Michael Howard then stood for the leadership unopposed on 6 November 2003.
Under Howard in the 2005 general election, the Conservative Party increased their total vote share by around 0.6% (up to 32.3%) and – more significantly – their number of parliamentary seats by 33 (up to 198 seats). This gain accompanied a large fall in the Labour vote, and the election reduced Labour's majority from 167 to 66. The Conservative party actually won the largest share of the vote in England, though not the largest number of seats. The campaign, based on the slogan "Are you thinking what we're thinking?", was designed by Australian pollster Lynton Crosby. The day after the election, on 6 May, Howard announced that he did not feel it was right to continue as leader after defeat in the general election, also saying that he would be too old to lead the party into another campaign and would therefore step down after allowing time for the party to amend its leadership election rules.
David Cameron
David Cameron won the subsequent leadership campaign. Cameron beat his closest rival, David Davis, by a margin of more than two to one, taking 134,446 votes to 64,398. He then announced his intention to reform and realign the Conservatives, saying they needed to change the way they looked, felt, thought and behaved, advocating a more centre-right stance as opposed to their recent staunchly right-wing platform.[24] Although Cameron's views are probably left of the party membership and he has sought to make the Conservative brand more attractive to young, socially liberal voters,[25] - he has also expressed his admiration for former PM Margaret Thatcher, describing himself as a "big fan of Thatcher's", though he questions whether that makes him a "Thatcherite". For most of 2006 and the first half of 2007, polls showed leads over Labour for the Conservatives.[26]
Polls became more volatile in the summer of 2007 with the accession of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister although polls gave the Conservatives a lead after October of that year and, by May 2008, with the UK's economy sliding into its first recession since 1992, and a week after local council elections, a YouGov poll commissioned by The Sun newspaper was published giving the Conservative Party a 26-point lead over Labour, its largest lead since 1968.[27] The Conservatives gained control of the London mayoralty for the first time in May 2008 after Boris Johnson defeated Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone.[28]
The Tory lead of the opinion polls had been almost unbroken for nearly three years when Britain finally went to the polls on 6 May 2010, though since the turn of 2010 most polls had shown the Tory lead as less than 10 points wide. The election ended in a hung parliament with the Tories having the most seats (306) but being 20 seats short of an overall majority and the nation uncertain as to which party would govern the country (as a coalition or minority government) for the next parliament.[1]
The Conservative Party today
The Conservative Party, now having the largest number of affiliate elected members in the House of Commons but without a majority, forms Her Majesty's Official Opposition (pending a resolution to the inconclusive 6 May election result) to the Labour Government of Gordon Brown, which currently is the second largest party in the House of Commons of 650 Members of Parliament. The Conservatives now number 306 MPs. In preparation for the UK General Election, the Conservative Party launched its manifesto at an event hosted at the disused Battersea Power Station site in London on 13 April 2010.
Current policies
 | The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. |
Since the election of David Cameron as leader, party policy has increasingly focused on social and quality of life issues such as the environment, government services (most prominently the National Health Service and the Home Office) and schools.
Defence of the Union
The Conservative Party continues to argue for the continuation of the Union and against Scottish independence.[29] Current leader, David Cameron, has insisted that he was willing to "do everything and anything to keep our two countries as one."[30]
Conservatives hold a varying record of opposition and support on parliamentary devolution to the nations and English regions of the UK. They opposed devolution of Wales and Scotland in the 1997 referendums while supporting it for Northern Ireland. They also opposed the government's unsuccessful attempt at devolution of power to North East England in 2004. However, now a Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly exist, the Conservatives have pledged not to reverse these reforms. Recently the Conservatives have begun to support — as a proposal but not yet as a policy — the idea that only English MPs should vote on policies that affect only England. (See the article on the West Lothian Question for fuller explanation of the issues involved).
Economic policy
The party's reputation for economic stewardship was dealt a blow by Black Wednesday in 1992, in which billions of pounds were spent in an effort to keep the pound within the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) system at an overvalued rate. Combined with the recession of the early 1990s 'Black Wednesday' allowed Tony Blair and then-Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to promise greater economic competence.
One concrete economic policy of recent years has been opposition to the European single currency. Anticipating the growing Euroscepticism within his party, John Major negotiated a British opt-out from the single currency in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, although several members of Major's cabinet, such as Kenneth Clarke, were personally supportive of EMU participation. Following Major's resignation after the 1997 defeat, each of the four successive Conservative leaders, including David Cameron, have positioned the party firmly against the abolition of the pound. This policy is broadly popular with the British electorate, although voters typically rank Europe as an issue of low importance compared to education, healthcare, immigration and crime.[31]
Following Labour's victory in the 1997 general election, the Conservative Party opposed Labour's decision to grant the Bank of England independent control of interest rates - on the grounds that it would be a prelude to the abolition of the pound sterling and acceptance of the European single currency, and also expressed concern over the removal of monetary policy from democratic control. However, Bank independence was popular amongst the financial community as it helped to keep inflation low.[32] The Conservatives accepted Labour's policy in early 2000.[33]
The Conservative Party under David Cameron has redirected its stance on taxation, still committed to the general principle of reducing direct taxation whilst arguing that the country needs a "dynamic and competitive economy", with the proceeds of any growth shared between both "tax reduction and extra public investment".
In the wake of the 2008-9 recession, the Conservatives have not ruled out raising taxes, and have said it will be difficult to scrap the 50% top rate of income tax. They have said how they would prefer to cut a recent rise in national insurance. Furthermore, they have stated that government spending will need to be reduced, and have only ringfenced international aid and the NHS.
Social policy
In recent years, 'modernisers' in the party have claimed that the association between social conservatism and the Conservatives (manifest in policies such as tax incentives for married couples, the removal of the link between pensions and earnings, and criticism of public financial support for those who do not work) have played a role in the electoral decline of the party in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since 1997 a debate has continued within the party between 'modernisers' such as Michael Portillo, who believe that the Conservatives should modify their public stances on social issues, and 'traditionalists' such as Boris Johnson, William Hague, and David Davis, who believe that the party should remain faithful to its traditional conservative platform. This may have resulted in William Hague's and Michael Howard's pre-election swings to the right in 2001 and 2005,[citation needed] as well as the election of the stop-Kenneth Clarke candidate Iain Duncan Smith in 2001. Iain Duncan Smith, however, remains influential. It has been argued by analysts[citation needed] that his Centre for Social Justice has forced Cameron to the right on many issues, particularly crime and social welfare.
The party has strongly criticised Labour's "state multiculturalism".[34] Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said in 2008 that multiculturalism had created a "terrible" legacy, a cultural vacuum that has been exploited by "extremists".[35] However the far right asserts that Cameron's is an equally multicultural outlook[36] and accuses the Conservative Party of promoting what the far right calls as "Islamic extremists."[37]
Foreign policy
For much of the twentieth century the Conservative party took a broadly Atlanticist stance in relations with the United States, favouring close ties with the United States and similarly aligned nations such as Canada, Australia and Japan. The Conservatives have generally favoured a diverse range of international alliances, ranging from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the Commonwealth of Nations.
Close US-British relations have been an element of Conservative foreign policy since World War II. Winston Churchill during his 1951–1955 post-war premiership built up a strong relationship with the Eisenhower Administration in the United States. Harold Macmillan demonstrated a similarly close relationship with the Democratic administration of John F. Kennedy. Though the US-British relationship in foreign affairs has often been termed a 'Special Relationship', a term coined by Sir Winston Churchill, this has often been observed most clearly where leaders in each country are of a similar political stripe. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher built a close relationship with American President Ronald Reagan in his opposition to the former Soviet Union, but John Major was less successful in his personal contacts with former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.[citation needed] Out of power and perceived as largely irrelevant by American politicians, Conservative leaders Hague, Duncan-Smith, and Howard each struggled to forge personal relationships with presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. However, Republican 2008 presidential candidate John McCain spoke at the 2006 Conservative Party Conference.[38]
The Conservatives have proposed a Pan-African Free Trade Area, which it says could help entrepreneurial dynamism of African people.[39] The Conservatives have also pledged to increase aid spending to 0.7% of national income by 2013.[39]
David Cameron had sought to distance himself from former US President Bush and his neoconservative foreign policy, calling for a "rebalancing" of US-UK ties[40] and met with Barack Obama during his 2008 European tour. Despite traditional links between the UK Conservatives and US Republicans, and between Labour and the Democrats, London Mayor Boris Johnson, a Conservative, endorsed Obama in the 2008 election.
Beyond relations with the United States, the Commonwealth and the EU, the Conservative Party has generally supported a pro free-trade foreign policy within the mainstream of international affairs. The degree to which Conservative Governments have supported interventionist or non-interventionist Presidents in the US has often varied with the personal relations between a US President and the British Prime Minister.
Defence policy
- Welfare
Improving the welfare of Britain's military service personnel is a priority for the Conservative Party. One of their main goals is to repair the Military Covenant[41] and strengthen the ties between the armed forces and a future government. Some of their policy commitments at the next general election will be: to double the operational bonus for troops serving in Afghanistan; to fund higher education for children of those service personnel killed in action and; to properly resource and staff the NHS to deal optimally with the particular needs of the Armed Forces.
Mental health has always a been a very important issue for the Conservative Party, particularly when it comes to service personnel.[42] The Party is committed to addressing issues of mental health before they arise with a mental health follow-up telephone service for veterans and personnel who have deployed on operations or to places in support of operations. It will be customer-service driven and at the convenience of the veteran. The Conservative Party have also pledged to support greater awareness of the programmes that offer help to armed forces personnel.
- Afghanistan
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11 the Conservative party has supported the coalition military action in Afghanistan. The Conservative Party believes that success in Afghanistan is defined in terms of the Afghans achieving the capability to maintain their own internal and external security.[43] They have repeatedly criticized the current Labour Government for failing to equip British Forces adequately in the earlier days on the campaign—especially highlighting the shortage of helicopters for British Forces resulting from Gordon Brown's £1.4bn cut to the helicopter budget in 2004.[44] The Conservative's support General Stanley McChrystal's counterinsurgency strategy and Liam Fox was one of the first British politicians to support this strategy.
- Strategic Security and Defence Review
The Conservative Party believes that in the 21st century defence and security are interlinked. They have pledged to break away from holding a traditional Strategic Defence Review and have committed to carrying out a more comprehensive Strategic Security and Defence Review (SDSR) immediately upon coming into office. This review will include both defence and homeland security related matters. The Labour Government last conducted a review in 1998. To prevent a long gap in the future they have also pledged to hold regular defence reviews every 4–5 years, and if necessary will put this requirement into legislation. Party officials claim that the SDSR will be a major step change, and will ensure that Britain maintains generic and flexible capability able to adapt to any changing threats. It will be a cross- departmental review that will begin with foreign policy priorities and will bring together all the levers of national and domestic security policy with overseas interests and defence priorities.[45]
As well as an SDSR, the Conservative Party has pledged to undertake a fundamental and far reaching review of the procurement process and how defence equipment is provided in Britain. They have pledged to reform the procurement process, conduct a Green Paper on Sovereignty Capability, and publish another Defence Industrial Strategy following on from the Defence Industrial Strategy in 2005. The Conservative Party has said that there will be four aims for British defence procurement: to provide the best possible equipment at the best possible price; to streamline the procurement process to ensure the speedy delivery of equipment to the front line; to support our industry jobs at home by increasing defence exports; to provide defence procurement that underpins strategic relationships abroad and; to provide predictability to the defence industry.
The Conservative Party has also pledged to increase Britain's share of the global defence market as Government policy.
- Europe and NATO
The Conservative Party aims to build enhanced bilateral defence relations with key European partners and believes that it is in Britain's national interest to cooperate fully with all its European neighbours. They have pledged to ensure that any EU military capability must supplement and not supplant British national defence and NATO, and that it is not in the British interest to hand over security to any supranational body.[46]
The Conservatives see it as a priority to encourage all members of the European Union to do more in terms of a commitment to European security at home and abroad.
Regarding the defence role of the European Union the Conservatives have pledged to re-examine some of Britain's EU Defence commitments to determine their practicality and utility if they form the next Government. Specifically, they have pledged to reassess UK participation provisions like Permanent Structured Cooperation, the European Defence Agency, and EU Battlegroups to determine if there is any value in Britain's participation.
The Conservative Party upholds the view that NATO should remain the most important security alliance for United Kingdom.[47] They believe that NATO, which has been the cornerstone of British security for the past 60 years, should continue to have primacy on all issues relating to Europe's defence.
A future Conservative Government will make NATO reform a key strategic priority. They have also called on the so called fighting/funding gap to be changed and have called on the creation of a fairer funding mechanism for NATO's expeditionary operations. As well as this, the Conservatives believe that there is scope for expanding NATO's Article V to include new 21st Century threats such as energy and cyber security.
- Nuclear Deterrent
A future Conservative Government will maintain Britain's continuous at sea, independent, submarine based strategic nuclear deterrent based on the Trident missile system.[46]
The European Union
No subject has more divided the Conservative Party in recent history than the UK's relations with the European Union (EU). Though the principal architect of the UK's entry into the then European Communities (now the European Union) was Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath, and both Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan favoured some form of European union, the bulk of contemporary Conservative opinion is opposed to closer economic and particularly political union with the EU. This is a noticeable shift in British politics, as in the 1960s and 1970s the Conservatives were more pro-Europe than the Labour Party. Divisions on Europe came to the fore under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990) and were cited by several ministers resigning, including Deputy Prime Minister Geoffrey Howe, whose resignation triggered the challenge that ended Thatcher's leadership. Under Thatcher's successor, John Major (1990–1997), the slow process of integration within the EU forced party tensions to the surface. A core of Eurosceptic MPs under Major used the small Conservative majority in Parliament to oppose Government policy on the Maastricht Treaty. By doing so they undermined Major's ability to govern.
In recent years the Conservative Party has become more clearly Eurosceptic, as the Labour Government has found itself unwilling to make a positive case for further integration, and Eurosceptic or pro-withdrawal parties such as the United Kingdom Independence Party have made showings in UK elections. But under current EU practices, the degree to which a Conservative Government could implement policy change regarding the EU would depend directly on the willingness of other EU member states to agree to such policies.
The Conservatives are a member of the International Democrat Union and its European Democrat Union. In the summer of 2006 the Conservatives became founding members of the Movement for European Reform, following Cameron's pledge to end the fourteen-year-old partnership between the largely Eurosceptic Conservatives and the more Euro-integrationist, European People's Party (EPP). Within the European Parliament, however, the Conservatives remain members of an informal bloc called the European Democrats (ED), which is committed to sit in a coalition arrangement with the EPP as the EPP-ED group until 2009. Paradoxically, the EPP group is a strongly pro-EU integrationist grouping in the EP, while the ED is a eurosceptic grouping.
In 2009 the Conservative Party actively campaigned against the Lisbon Treaty, which it believes would give away too much sovereignty to Brussels. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague stated that, should the Treaty be in force by the time of an incoming Conservative government, he would "not let matters rest there".[48] However, on 14 June 2009 shadow Business Secretary Kenneth Clarke said in an interview to the BBC that the Conservative party would not reopen negotiations on the Lisbon Treaty if the Irish backed it in a new referendum,[49] which they did on 2 October 2009.
In June 2009, the Conservative Party leader David Cameron sealed a new alliance with conservative Polish Law and Justice party (PiS), which at the time sat in opposition. Cameron attended a gathering at Warsaw's Palladium cinema celebrating the foundation of the new alliance; also present were Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, and Mirek Topolánek, leader of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) in the Czech Republic.[50]
As of June 2009, Cameron required a further four partners apart from the Polish and Czech supports to qualify for official fraction status in the parliament; the rules state that a caucus needs at least 25 MEPs from at least seven of the 27 EU member states.[50] In forming the caucus, Cameron is reportedly breaking with two decades of co-operation by the UK's Conservative party with the mainstream centre-right Christian democrats in the European parliament, the European People's Party (EPP) on the grounds that it is dominated by European federalists and supporters of the Lisbon treaty, which is opposed by the Tories.[50] EPP leader Wilfried Martens, former prime minister of Belgium, has stated "Cameron's campaign has been to take his party back to the centre in every policy area with one major exception: Europe. [...] I can't understand his tactics. Merkel and Sarkozy will never accept his Euroscepticism."[50]
In 2009 Foreign Secretary David Miliband accused the Conservative Party of having links to far-Right parties. He reiterated this in October, saying he was "astounded" by comments of the ECR group's chairman, the Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, who had said that he believed that the murder of hundreds of Jews in Jedwabne should be considered a lesser crime than those committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.[51]
In October 2009, the Conservative party came under pressure from the US administration concerning its alliances in the European Parliament.[52] According to reports, the Conservative party's links to far-right parties within Europe has caused a "host of condemnation"[52] from Jewish groups in the US; Ira Forman, chief executive of the National Jewish Democratic Council, stated that "There is obviously concern in the US when there is legitimacy conferred on individuals and political parties that have had some association with anti-Semitism."[52]
Party factions
One Nation Conservatives
One Nation Conservatism was the party's dominant ideology in the 20th century until the rise of Thatcherism in the 1970s, and included in its ranks Conservative Prime Ministers such as Stanley Baldwin, Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath. The name itself comes from a famous phrase of Benjamin Disraeli. The basis of One-Nation Conservatism is a belief in social cohesion, and its adherents support social institutions that maintain harmony between different interest groups, classes, and—more recently—different races or religions. These institutions have typically included the welfare state, the BBC, and local government. Some are also supporters of the European Union, perhaps stemming from an extension of the cohesion principle to the international level, though others are strongly against the EU (such as Sir Peter Tapsell). Prominent One Nation Conservatives in the contemporary party include Kenneth Clarke, Malcolm Rifkind and Damian Green; they are often associated with the Tory Reform Group and the Bow Group. One Nation Conservatives often invoke Edmund Burke and his emphasis on civil society ("little platoons") as the foundations of society, as well as his opposition to radical politics of all hues.
Free-Market Conservatives
The second main grouping in the Conservative party is the "free market" or Thatcherite wing of economic liberals who achieved dominance after the election of Margaret Thatcher as party leader in 1975. Their goal was to reduce the role of the government in the economy and to this end they supported cuts in direct taxation, the privatisation of nationalised industries and a reduction in the size and scope of the welfare state. The group has disparate views of social policy: Thatcher herself was socially conservative and a practising Methodist but her supporters harbour a range of social opinions from the libertarian views of Michael Portillo and David Davis to the traditional conservatism of William Hague. The Thatcherite wing is also associated with the concept of a "classless society."
Many are also Eurosceptic, perceiving most EU regulations as interference in the free market and/or a threat to British sovereignty. Rare Thatcherite Europhiles include Leon Brittan. Many take inspiration from Thatcher's Bruges speech in 1988, in which she declared that "we have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them reimposed at a European level". Thatcherites also tend to be Atlanticist, dating back to the close friendship between Thatcher and US President Ronald Reagan. Thatcher herself claimed philosophical inspiration from the works of Burke and Friedrich Hayek for her defence of liberal economics. Groups associated with this tradition include the No Turning Back Group and Conservative Way Forward.
Traditionalist Conservatives
This right-wing grouping is currently associated with the Cornerstone Group (or Faith, Flag and Family), and is the third main tradition within the Conservative Party. The name stems from its support for three English social institutions: the Church of England, the unitary British state and the family. To this end, they emphasise the country's Anglican heritage, oppose any transfer of power away from the United Kingdom—either downwards to the nations and regions or upwards to the European Union—and seek to place greater emphasis on traditional family structures to repair what they see as a broken society in the UK. They are strong advocates of marriage and believe the Conservative Party should back the institution with tax breaks and have opposed Labour's alleged assault on both traditional family structures and 'fatherhood'. Most oppose high levels of immigration and support the lowering of the current 24 week abortion limit. They have been credited with securing a last minute u-turn by the Government who were planning to further liberalise the UK's abortion laws, when in 2008 to the surprise of many MPs the Leader of the House announced plans to shelve these proposals. Some members in the past have expressed support for capital punishment. Prominent MPs from this wing of the party include Andrew Rosindell, Nadine Dorries, Ann Widdecombe and Edward Leigh—the last two prominent Roman Catholics, notable in a faction marked out by its support for the established Church of England. The conservative English philosopher Roger Scruton is a representative of the intellectual wing of the Cornerstone group: his writings rarely touch on economics and instead focus on conservative perspectives concerning political, social, cultural and moral issues.
Sometimes two groupings have united to oppose the third. Both Thatcherite and Traditionalist Conservatives rebelled over Europe (and in particular Maastricht) during John Major's premiership; and Traditionalist and One Nation MPs united to inflict Margaret Thatcher's only defeat in parliament, over Sunday trading.
Not all Conservative MPs can be easily placed within one of the above groupings. For example, John Major was the ostensibly "Thatcherite" candidate during the 1990 leadership election, but he consistently promoted One-Nation Conservatives to the higher reaches of his cabinet during his time as Prime Minister. These included Kenneth Clarke as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Michael Heseltine as Deputy Prime Minister.
Associated groups
See also
- Chairman of the Conservative Party
- Conservative Campaign Headquarters
- Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 2005
- Conservative Research Department
- Conservatives in Northern Ireland
- List of Conservative Party politicians
- List of UK Conservative Party general election manifestos
- Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (UK)
- Scottish Conservative Party
- Welsh Conservative Party
References
- ^ Sparrow, Andrew (17 December 2009). "Only 12% of Tory MPs choose Cameronism as political philosophy". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/dec/17/12-tory-mps-name-cameronism-philosophy.
- ^ Current party leader David Cameron has asserted that he is a liberal conservative (Kirkup, James (3 September 2008). "David Cameron rejects neo-conservative foreign policy". Telegraph.co.uk (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/2675952/David-Cameron-rejects-neo-conservative-foreign-policy.html. Retrieved 2 July 2009. )
- ^ Keith Edkins (30 November 2009). "Local Council Political Compositions". http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/uklocalgov/makeup.htm. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
- ^ Nicholas Whyte (10 May 2005). "The 2005 Local Government Elections in Northern Ireland". Northern Ireland Social and Political Archive. http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/flg05.htm. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
- ^ "Conservative and Unionist Party". www.robinsonlibrary.com. http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/political/europe/britain/parties/conservative.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
- ^ Conservative and Unionist Central Office v. James Robert Samuel Burrell (HM Inspector of Taxes) [{{{year}}}] EWCA 2 (Civ) (1981-12-10)
- ^ Toby Helm; George Jones (2006-12-27). "Conservatives' success story stalls". Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/27/npolitics127.xml. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 December 2004" (PDF). The Conservative and Unionist Central Office. http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/files/dms/ConservativeCentralOffice_17969-13291__E__N__S__W__.PDF. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "General Election Results 1885-1979". Election.demon.co.uk. http://www.election.demon.co.uk/geresults.html. Retrieved 2010-04-13.
- ^ "1970: Heath's surprise victory". BBC News. 2005-04-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393297.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "1974 Oct: Wilson makes it four". BBC News. 2005-04-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393307.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ Image provided by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation
- ^ "1979: Thatcher wins Tory landslide". BBC News. 2005-04-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393311.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ a b "1983: Thatcher triumphs again". BBC News. 2005-04-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393313.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Poll tracker: Interactive guide to the opinion polls". BBC News. 2009-09-29. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8280050.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "1987: Thatcher's third victory". BBC News. 2005-04-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393315.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "1990: Thatcher quits as prime minister". BBC News. 1990-11-22. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/22/newsid_2549000/2549189.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "1992: Tories win again against odds". BBC News. 2005-04-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/basics/4393317.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "1993: Recession over — it's official". BBC News. 1993-04-26. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/26/newsid_2503000/2503271.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ David Cowling (2001-02-09). "Poll monitor: Labour looks hard to beat". London: BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/talking_politics/1162569.stm. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Trying to be 'down with the kids'". London: BBC News. 2003-03-07. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2823679.stm. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Tory critics round on Hague". London: BBC News. 2001-03-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1200842.stm. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Tory peer attacks Hague over race". London: BBC News. 2001-04-27. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1298786.stm. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Full text of David Cameron's victory speech". Guardian Unlimited (London). 2005-06-12. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/toryleader/story/0,,1660246,00.html. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ News.BBC.co.uk Minister in Tory homophobia claim. BBC. Retrieved on 2009-07-07
- ^ "Conservative or Labour preference ("forced choice")". UK Polling Report. YouGov. http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/voting-intention/labcon-forced-choice/. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Labour at its lowest ebb". Conservative Party. 2008-05-09. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1142543.ece. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
- ^ "Boris is the new Mayor of London". Conservative Party. 2008-05-03. http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=144004. Retrieved 2008-05-03.
- ^ Wilson, Graeme (16 January 2007). "Tories head to Scotland to defend Union". London: telegraph.co.uk. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1539649/Tories-head-to-Scotland-to-defend-Union.html. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ MacLeod, Angus (24 May 2008). "David Cameron tells Scots Tories: 'I will treat Scotland with respect'". London: timesonline.co.uk. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article3994720.ece. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "EU boost for professionals' job mobility". European Review, Issue 26. p. 4. http://www.tueip.dircon.co.uk/er26-page4.html. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Business: The Economy - Labour's economic record". London: BBC News. 1999-07-26. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_economy/404098.stm. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Portillo springs surprise U-turns". London: BBC News. 2000-02-03. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/629601.stm. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ Sparrow, Andrew (2008-02-26). "Cameron attacks 'state multiculturalism'". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/feb/26/conservatives.race. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "Tory warning on multiculturalism". BBC News. 2008-09-28. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7639047.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ Peter Hitchens (2009-10-14). "Peter Hitchens: The Tory Party is racing to cloud cuckoo land.. via Manchester | Mail Online". Dailymail.co.uk. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1219488/PETER-HITCHENS-The-Tory-Party-racing-cloud-cuckoo-land--Manchester.html. Retrieved 2010-04-13.
- ^ Conservatives for Terror? by Nile Gardiner on National Review Online
- ^ Martin Kettle (2006-08-29). "David Cameron's special relationship". Guardian Unlimited: Comment is Free (London). http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/martin_kettle/2006/08/david_camerons_special_relatio.html. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ a b Robbins, James (26 June 2008). "Cameron's Britain: Foreign policy". London: BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7464427.stm. Retrieved 1 June 2009.
- ^ Matthew Tempest (2006-09-11). "Cameron: I'm no neo-con". Guardian Unlimited (London). http://politics.guardian.co.uk/conservatives/story/0,,1869704,00.html. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ Conservatives.com, Military Covenant
- ^ Fox, Dr. Liam, (18 March 2009). "'We must defuse timebomb of veterans' mental health'". http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/03/Liam_Fox_We_must_defuse_timebomb_of_veterans_mental_health.aspx.
- ^ Fox, Dr. Liam (28 September 2009). "'If Afghanistan will be lost, it will be lost at home'". http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/09/Liam_Fox_If_Afghanistan_will_be_lost_it_will_be_lost_at_home.aspx. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
- ^ Fox, Dr. Liam, (15 December 2009). "'Armed Forces pay for Labour's incompetence'". http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/12/Liam_Fox_Armed_Forces_pay_for_Labours_incompetence.aspx.
- ^ "'The Strategic Defence and Security Review: A Conservative View of Defence and Future Challenges'". Royal United Services Institute. 8 February 2010 accessdate= 2010-02-08. http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/09/Liam_Fox_If_Afghanistan_will_be_lost_it_will_be_lost_at_home.aspx.
- ^ a b Fox, Dr. Liam, (11 February 2010). "'The EU should only act when NATO cannot'". http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/02/Liam_Fox_EU_should_only_act_when_NATO_cannot.aspx. Retrieved 2010-03-04.
- ^ "Liam Fox: The EU should only act when NATO cannot". 11 February 2010. http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/02/Liam_Fox_EU_should_only_act_when_NATO_cannot.aspx. Retrieved 2007-04-20.
- ^ "Cameron's Britain: Euro-doubts". BBC News. 2008-06-26. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7470078.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "Clarke's treaty pledge sparks row". London: BBC. 2009-06-14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8099510.stm. Retrieved 2009-06-14.
- ^ a b c d Traynor, Ian (2009-06-02). "Anti-gay, climate change deniers: meet David Cameron's new friends". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/02/david-cameron-alliance-polish-nationalists. Retrieved 2009-06-02.
- ^ Toby Helm and Rajeev Syal (2009-10-11). "David Miliband in fresh attack on Tory links to far right". London: Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/11/david-miliband-attacks-tory-links. Retrieved 2010-04-13.
- ^ a b c The recently formed European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is headed by Polish politician Michał Kamińskiof the Polish PiS (Law & Justice) party and the Latvian "For Fatherland & Freedom" party, some of whose MPs notably Roberts Zile attend th 16 March commemoration of the two Waffen SS units of Latvian Legion. The European Conservatives and Reformists includes nationalist, euro-sceptic and anti-federalist MEPs from Hungary, Czech, the Netherlands, Belgium and Lithuania. MacAskill, Ewan; Nicholas Watt (20 October 2009). "William Hague under pressure from US over Conservative allies in Europe: Clinton urged to condemn party's links with Polish and Latvian right-wingers". The Guardian (UK). http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/20/tories-eu-allies-us-pressure. Retrieved 21 October 2009.
Further reading
- R. T. McKenzie and A. Silver (1968), Angels in Marble: Working-class Conservatives in Urban England
- Geoffrey Wheatcroft (2005), The Strange Death of Tory England
External links
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Conservative Party (UK) |
Official party sites
- Conservative Party
- Conservatives.tv
- Conservatives in Northern Ireland
- Conservatives in Scotland
- Conservatives in Wales
- Conservative Future
- Conservatives Abroad
Internal party policy groups
Other
- conservative-party.net - Conservative website directory
- Guardian Politics - Special Report: Conservative Party
- Conservative Party (UK) at the Open Directory Project
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||
No comments:
Post a Comment