Read more : www.jacklaughlin.ca/readings/spiritual_life/lorenzen_warrior_ascetics.pdf

amazing! must b extremely interesting read !

Vande mataram...

Slogan mongering never helped any discussion. Unfortunately, none of us can travel back in time and verify different claims. We also know how biased or prejudiced current accounts can be. So "truths" discovered from "old current accounts" can also not be taken at face value. Bankim Chandra's novel was after all, fiction and his literary sense had falied to notice fakirs in revolt.

While it is true that we can not travel back in time, it is possible to have a fair view of history if we follow following dictums (in my opinion of course) 1. Look at multiple sources of evidences, textual, oral, archeological, geological etc. 2. Correlate the above. 3. Not extrapolate -- I personally think that a trap that most historians fall in, even in all honesty, is in trying to know more, they add to the narrative through extrapolation. That is very dangerous, better to say we dont know. Even if we have to say it often and regularly. 4. Lack of application of present biases on past. The world is not linear, civilizations, societies and places, fall and rise, often a historian looks at the current picture (either from his perspective or from the study matter perspective) and inadvertently tries to fit the old information in that frame work. The above in my opinion are common causes of distoration (apart from political and other such motivations of course)

Shekhar, you find "Vande Mataram" a slogan? That is living history, in many ways, whose historical impact in terms of asetic warriors has as much historical import by those who used in after the novel was written, in as much as Bankim knew of the history before the writing. You might find looking up a certain Rani Roshmoni and other narratives of how Bankim formed the background of "Anand Math" quite intresting, if you have the inclination of course.

By that measure...no history will ever be accurate ! So why fight over it...is exactly my point... : )

Come on RBSI you know why people fight over history, ;-) because control of history and narrative is control of the people. It is the parrot in which the soul of the country is hidden for safe keeping. A nation can not be destroyed as long as its history lives.

... four very fine 'dictums' [above], I'm sure we would all agree ... if only they were to be applied with any regularity by certain members of the RBSI ( the hypocrisy is breathtaking !) .... "O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain! My tables—meet it is I set it down That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain— At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark [ or even in India !] "

Rare Book Society of India: As Satyakam Sudarshan says, fight over history appears inevitable because "control of history and narrative is control of the people". It is precisely for this reason that straight-jacketing is to be resisted and plural view over monolithic view is to be preferred. Control freaks are the real danger, therefore fight over history is inevitable. Irrespective of whatever people say, there is a cogent and wholesome view of history which we must strive to unravel. The warrior ascetics in India were as recent as in the late seventies and early eighties of the 20th century. We all know of the Bhindranwale episode. The consequence was "desecration" of a "holy" place. In another wall-post you have posted a wonderful article describing how political reasons inevitable led to the so-called "desecretions" of places of worship.

desecration, not desecretion....sorry for the spelling error.

While what Shankar Sathe says is true, to add to the above points, we also have to be careful that the fig leaf of "multiple view points" is also often a simple device to confuse the matter to take away from the real understanding. Adding noise to reduce a signal is a fairly standard approach. I would there fore add another point, all people interested in history should be careful against noise makers. Typically such approaches include 1. generalization across dissimilar events and issues, 2. trivializing one or other aspect of historical sources (Often statements are made like "we can disregard the writing of xyz in 675 since it is unlikely that he.....") 3. a sense of superiority or sitting in"judgement" in examining older matters.

I agree entirely...but I only wish we all attempt to practice these sensible approaches...to make these discussions more like...discussions !!

RBSI I read the paper, that you posted here. A nice (if small) summary.

Multiplicity of approaches or view points does not mean all are correct. Only a few if not just one or two are correct, a few contribute towards better understanding and quite a few deserve to be discarded....I like all the three points which help in rising above the noise.