Chaitra Amavasya Vik. Samvat 2078, Yugabda 5123 : 1 April, 2022:SM 4001 (For Private Circulation only)
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We wish all the readers and their families a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year Yugabda 5124 - ‘Subhakrta’ naam Samvatsar. |
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2. SWAYAMSEVAKS SHOULD STRIVE TO END SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION: DR. MOHAN BHAGWAT |
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3. BHARAT HAS A VAST KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM WAITING TO BE EXPLORED: SUNIL AMBEKAR |
4. PM MODI HAILS OPERATION GANGA STAKEHOLDERS |
| 15. SHRI VISHWA NIKETAN | FOOD FOR THOUGHT |
1. FESTIVALS: VAISAKHI: Vaisakhi, also pronounced Baisakhi, marks the
first day of the month of Vaisakha (April 14) and is celebrated as the Hindu and
Sikh solar new year. It is also a spring harvest festival for many Bharatiyas.
Vaisakhi also marks the formation of the Khalsa panth by Guru Gobind Singh - the
tenth Sikh Guru, coronation of Ranjit Singh as Maharaja of the Sikh Empire and
the day of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. 
2. SWAYAMSEVAKS SHOULD STRIVE TO END SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION:
DR. MOHAN BHAGWAT: During his visit to Kashi prant, RSS Sarasanghachalak Dr.
Mohan Bhagwat held various meetings and discussed social harmony and environment
among other issues.
He outlined the negative effect of environmental imbalance and said that it is
our basic responsibility to bring balance in the environment and we should
create awareness about the environment.
Addressing a gathering of families of swayamsevaks, he said that sangh works to
organize the society and hence it is dharma. He added that sangh work could tide
over the two bans imposed on it and grow continuously because of the avowed
support of the family of sangh karyakartas. -GoTop
3. BHARAT HAS A VAST KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM WAITING TO BE
EXPLORED: SUNIL AMBEKAR: Speaking at the book launch of ‘A Brief History of
Science in India’ by Sabareesh PA in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on March
21, Akhil Bharatiya Prachar pramukh of RSS Shri Sunil Ambekar said that Bharat
has a vast knowledge system that is still waiting to be explored and it is the
duty of young thinkers and scholars to ensure that people are aware of the
vastness of Indic knowledge system. He added that contrary to popular
misconception, Bharat has always been a scientific society and science has been
embedded in our day to day lives for thousands of years.
4. PM MODI HAILS OPERATION GANGA STAKEHOLDERS: On March
15, Pradhan Mantri Shri Narendra Modi interacted virtually with various
stakeholders who participated in Operation Ganga and thanked them. He praised
the patriotic fervour and community service of the various community
organisations, and said that they exemplified the Bharatiya civilisational
ethos. Among others, ISCKON, BAPS, SEWA International, Art of Living, Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh were some of the organisations that provided Bharatiya
students with various relief materials. Moreover, the services were extended to
scores of refugees leaving Ukraine. 
According to the statement given in the Parliament by External Affairs Minister
S Jaishankar, under Operation Ganga, 23,000 thousand students were evacuated via
90 flights, 76 out of which were civilian and 14 were Indian Air Force flights.
Bharat also rescued 147 foreign nationals belonging to 18 countries. -GoTop
5. NATIONALIST MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS MEET IN DELHI:
Various nationalist media organization editors and owners met at the
Constitutional Club of India, New Delhi on March 26 to empower the collective
media strength of nationalist and Dharmic media outlets. Big players of digital
social media – YouTubers, Bloggers, Authors, Editors, Websites etc and some
print media organizations participated in the event.
A SWOT analysis of nationalist media was done during this meeting with a final
goal to work in cohesion to safeguard Bharat’s interest and protect Dharma from
the media houses which are majorly Anti-Hindu and Anti Bharat in their
broadcasting content. Among others, the speakers included Dr. Swapan Das Gupta
(a well-known journalist and political commentator), Lt. Gen. V.K. Khandare
(former military advisor to NSCS and former Director-General Defence
Intelligence Agency) and Mr. Ram Bahadur Rai (eminent journalist, former news
editor of Hindi daily Jansatta and current director of Indira Gandhi National
Centre for the Arts). The program was held under the umbrella of SMaRT –
Samachar Manyata Association for Research and Training, a confederation of
nationalistic media organizations. -GoTop
6. 3-DAY ISHAN MANTHAN FESTIVAL HELD IN DELHI: The Union
Minister of Culture Shri G Kishan Reddy inaugurated the three-day Ishan Manthan
festival on March 25 at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).
The festival was organized by IGNCA in collaboration with Prajna Pravah to
celebrate interconnectedness of North-East (NE) with the rest of Bharat. Member
Secretary of IGNCA Dr. Sachidanand Joshi, Vice Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru
University, Prof. Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit and National convener of Prajna
Pravah J. Nandakumar were present on the occasion. The people of Delhi and NCR
got a chance to experience the authentic culture, art, traditions, folk dances,
music, handicrafts and traditional cuisines of NE Bharat in the festival.
7. HINDU HERITAGE CAMP HELD IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh, HSS British Columbia Vibhag held a Hindu Heritage Camp (HHC)
for children from March 21-23. There were 38 participants between the ages of
6-16 from the greater Vancouver area.
The camp activities included warmups, yoga, pranayam, khels and arts & crafts
sessions in which children made Hanuman masks and a Holi fire. Shlokas like the
bhojan mantra, Ganesh mantra and Gayatri mantra were practiced. Children were
organised into five teams and each team prepared a skit. Themes for the skit
were based on Shiva-Parvati, Krishna-Sudama, Shivaji-Tanaji, Markandeya and
Krishna’s childhood.
On the final day, parents were invited to watch the skit performance. Shri
Somadatta Karanjekar informed the parents about what their children had done the
last three days and discussed shakha activities with them.
Local team of shikshaks including several kishors, bal kishors and sevikas
planned and conducted the activities in the camp.
The camp facilitated reaching out to new families in and around Vancouver. -GoTop
9. SEWA INTERNATIONAL ATLANTA CHAPTER ANNUAL HOLI EVENT:
On March 19, more than 10,000 people of Bharatiya descent along with their
American friends and families gathered to celebrate the “Festival of Colors” at
Sewa International’s 15th Annual Color Festival in Atlanta.
More than 250 volunteers worked to organise the event. All the food that was
served was cooked by more than 100 Sewa Volunteer families.
Several Sewa International partner organizations including Pure Hearts of
Georgia, Sri Krishna Vrundavana, ISKCON, YMCA Forsyth County, Gaudiya Vaishnava
Association (GVA) and Green Cell set up their booths at this event. -GoTop
11. YOGA LESSON IN QATAR CREATES GUINNESS WORLD RECORD:
On March 25, a Guinness World Record was created in Doha after Indian Sports
Centre successfully conducted a yoga lesson for most nationalities. The record
was achieved by the participation of yoga enthusiasts from 114 nationalities at
Aspire Zone under the aegis of the Bharatiya embassy in Doha.
12. HSS INDIANA PRESIDENT DR. PATEL GETS INTERFAITH AWARD:
On March 13, Dr. Vimal Patel, President of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS),
Indiana Chapter was honored as the Interfaith Ambassador of the Year at a
celebratory banquet with over 350 people in attendance, including the Mayor of
Indianapolis, at the historical Union Station in Downtown Indianapolis. The
award was given by the Center for Interfaith Cooperation and Dr. Patel is the
first Hindu to receive the award. 
82 year old Dr. Patel is an emeritus of University of California, Davis, where
he received his Ph.D. in Nutritional Biochemistry. He is a founding member of
India Community Center, the Geeta Mandal of Indianapolis and a founder of the
Hindu Temple of Central Indiana and is also a board member of the Hindu
University of America in Orlando, FL.
Dr. Patel was an Associate Professor of Neuropathology at the Indiana University
School of Medicine where he served as Director of Neurochemistry Diagnostic
Laboratory at the Department of Pathology for 34 years. In his post-retirement
period, he is actively engaged in Interfaith dialogues representing Hindu Dharma
with many different organizations, including schools and churches and was a
board member of the Center for Interfaith Cooperation in the past. -GoTop
13. PROF DHAR : FIRST BHARATIYA TO GET BOLTZMANN MEDAL:
Prof. Deepak Dhar, professor emeritus for physics at Indian Institute of Science
Education and Research (IISER), Pune has become the first Bharatiya to receive
the coveted Boltzmann medal for 2022. 
Dr. Dhar was conferred with the award for his seminal contributions to several
areas of statistical physics, including exact solutions of self-organized
criticality models, interfacial growth, universal long-time relaxation in
disordered magnetic systems, exact solutions in percolation and cluster counting
problems and definition of spectral dimension of fractals. -GoTop
14. SHRI CHAMAN LAL MEMORIAL LECTURE: On the occasion
of 102nd birth anniversary (on March 25) of Senior RSS Pracharak Shri Chaman Lal,
an international gathering was organised by International Center of Cultural
Studies (ICCS) on March 29. Around 200 delegates from more than 22 countries
participated in the memorial lecture. RSS Sarkaryavah Shri Dattatreya Hosabale
was the distinguished speaker on the occasion. Shri Hosabale expressed his
gratitude towards the epitome of Sangh figure - Shri Chaman Lal - and paid rich
tributes to his utmost humbleness and simplicity. He also shared his memories
with Shri Chaman Lal and said that one can know a person by his deeds, not by
his physical appearance. He added that Shri Chaman Lal left behind a legacy of 'swayamsevakatava'
and concluded with an appeal to follow the path shown by him. 
15. SHRI VISHWA NIKETAN: Pravas: Saumitra
Gokhale, samyojak Vishwa Vibhag travelled to USA after completion of ABPS
baithak. Dr. Ram Vaidya, sahsamyojak travelled to UK.
Visitors: Hemprakash Dhotah and others - Mauritius, Navin Rana and Shiju
- Ireland, Omkar Joshi and Pranav Gupta - USA -GoTop
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: “Every one must take care while walking, talking that
no action of his will even slightly cause damage to the goal or work of the
Sangh, in any way.” - Dr. Keshavrao Baliram Hedgewar -GoTop
JAI SHRI RAM
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BIRTH OF INDIAN SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS
Discrimination by the British forced Indian scientists to lay the foundations of indigenous institutions to carry out scientific research without the support—and despite the repression— of the colonial power, with amazing success
Dr Arvind C Ranade
It is a
well-known fact that the British came to India as traders through the East India
Company in the year 1608. A handful of Britishers established themselves under
the guise of business relationships and started capturing various parts of India
by adopting unethical techniques and methods. After defeating the Nawab of
Bengal in 1757, this company started establishing itself as the ruler of the
land. It operated arbitrarily, which led to total unrest and the Sepoy Mutiny of
1857. To settle this unrest, the British Government intervened and thus began
the British Raj in India. The Britishers, through various acts and laws, started
appeasing certain sections of Indians by generating avenues for recruiting them
in the lower positions of Government offices, administration, police, etc., to
utilise their services for furthering their own interest.
This approach could not sustain for a long time, and their action revealed their
natural face in their working style and procedures. The attitude of superiority,
discriminatory and insulting treatment was high in trading, education, commerce,
and science as well. We need to acknowledge the efforts of the Indian scientific
community to cultivate science in the country despite British suppression.
Britishers brought science-based tools like mapping devices, compass,
fire-glass, binoculars, and firearms, which initially impressed the Indians. But
their ulterior motive of using scientific tools to explore and loot the natural
resources from India was realised gradually by some individuals. The British
established survey-based scientific exploration and used modern tools to extract
our resources. As they were severely in need of a supporting and cheap workforce
to meet their dark goals, they employed in their service local people with sharp
acumen and those who had the best knowledge about their area’s geography and the
respective field of science.
Punishing Dr Sircar For Supporting Homeopathy
One of the noteworthy incidents is how a once blue-eyed Dr Mahendralal Sircar, a
well-known allopathic doctor from Kolkata, became an antagonist for the
Britishers. The story goes back to 1863 when he received his professional degree
of MD from Calcutta Medical College. Soon, Dr Sircar became a very successful
medical practitioner and was selected to be the secretary of the British Medical
Association, Bengal branch. By 1867, he realised that specific treatments were
not successful through allopathy. Moreover, allopathy treatments with Western
medicine were a costly affair for ordinary Indians. In search of alternatives,
he came across the well-known homoeopathy practitioner Dr Rajendralal Dutt from
Calcutta and got attracted towards homoeopathy. Dr Sircar was perfect in his
profession; he used all the scientific principles to study and practice medical
treatment and started using homoeopathy to treat certain patients. However, this
did not go down well with the British. For them, support to homoeopathy was like
support to Germany as it originated from there, which was unacceptable to their
belief and notion. Therefore, Dr Mahendralal Sircar became an enemy of the
British, and they started taking revenge. He was immediately removed from the
position of the secretary of the British Medical Association; they started
rejecting his research publications in many journals and restricted his practice
in many ways.
During his campaign for the association in 1875, Dr Sircar stated, “The
objective of the association is to enable natives of India to cultivate science
in all of its departments with a view to its advancement by original research,
and (as it will necessarily follow) with a view to its varied applications to
the arts and comforts of life”.
The IACS started with seven frontline areas of work viz. Physics, Chemistry,
Astronomy, Systematic botany, Systematic zoology, Physiology, and Geology. Dr
Mahendralal Sircar, Prof Lafont, Tara Prasanna Roy, Nilratan Sarkar, Chunilal
Bose, JC Bose, Ashutosh Mukherjee and Param Nath Bose were some of the Indian
scientists and intellectuals, who delivered lectures at the IACS. The most
significant contribution of IACS was the development of the idea of nationalism
in the cultivation of science. It is well-known that the first Nobel Prize in
science in Asia—won by Sir CV Raman in 1930 for Raman Effect—is credited to the
IACS, where Raman had carried out his experiments leading to the most
prestigious award in the world.
The role of IACS was limited to Bengal; however, it led to the emergence of
various institutions across various princely States. One of the members, and a
hardcore geologist, Param Nath Bose, established the Indian Industrial
Association in 1891, where members experimented with indigenous raw materials.
Later on, the same Param Nath Bose educated Sir Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata on the
iron deposits of the Chhota Nagpur plateau, Subsequently, the Tata Steel mill
was established at Jamshedpur.
Institutions Survived on Donations by Indians
In 1904, Jogendranath Ghose established the Association for the Advancement of
Scientific and Industrial Education (AASIE). This association played an
important role in sending Indian students abroad during the Swadeshi movement.
It is important to note the present Jadavpur University and Rajabazar Science
College are also the outcome of the National Council of Education set up in 1906
through Bengal Technical Institute and Bengal National College. The point to
note is these institutions were outside the purview of the financial support of
the British Government and survived only on donations from Indian
philanthropists like Sir Taraknath Palit and politician and social worker Sir
Rashbehari Ghose. Despite the discriminatory behaviour of the colonial masters,
these institutions carried out advanced scientific research in Calcutta.
The establishment of the Calcutta Mathematical Society on September 6, 1908, was
one of the similar efforts to generate opportunities and contribute to
mathematics by Indian students. The society made its mark under the leadership
of Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, the then Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University and
founder president of the society, along with others.
The story of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose is another anecdote on the list. Bose, an
extraordinary physicist, botanist and biologist of the time, attracted the
attention of the significant scientific community across the globe through his
demonstration of wireless transmission of electromagnetic radiations. However,
he too had to endure intense racial discrimination by the British. He was
appointed in provisional education service with one-third the full salary of a
professor, which they reserved only for professors of European origin. In fact,
during his official deputation at Cambridge, the authority did not sanction his
paid leave and forced him to make arrangements to complete his studies. Bose
lived his life with the Indian philosophical thoughts of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam
by not patenting his research in the interest of humanity. A man of high calibre,
his experiments discovered and proved the existence of life and sensitivity in
plants through his innovative techniques and instruments. After he retired from
Presidency College, he used all his savings to establish Bose Research Institute
in 1917. His sheer interest was to continue the tradition of experimentations
for the sake of science and for national prestige. In the inaugural function, he
mentioned, “I dedicate this institute—not merely a laboratory but a temple…”,
which was later known as Basu Vigyan Mandir.
Prof Shankar Purushottam Agharkar was yet another name, who established
educational institutions in Pune. He was an Indian morphologist and an expert on
biodiversity of the Western Ghats, where he discovered the freshwater jellyfish,
generally found in Africa. Prof Agharkar was also secretary of the Indian
Science Congress Association for several years. Inspired by Dr Sircar’s IACS, he
brought together many like-minded educationists and scientists of Pune and
established the Maharashtra Association for Cultivation of Science in Pune in
1946. Prof Agharkar was unanimously chosen as the founder-director of the
institute. In the beginning, there was no fund available to run the institute.
Therefore, many scientists worked voluntarily without any pay.
To establish the institute, Prof Agharkar even sold his wife's gold ornaments.
Such was the dedication and passion of people at that time. The institute was
named after him in 1992 as the Agharkar Research Institute.
It is clear that the national scientific awakening of the country—an important
constituent of the struggle for freedom from British rule—was powered by India's
scientific community with the generous support of the country's philanthropists,
businessmen and political leaders, all of whom came together to free India from
the colonial yoke. It was a brave effort to create and nurture long-lasting
indigenous scientific institutions without the support of the colonial
Government and without antagonising it either.
A well-known example is Swami Vivekanada’s suggestion to Sir Jamsetji
Nusserwanji Tata during their voyage from Japan to Chicago in 1893 to establish
an indigenous science institute in India. This idea came about due to the
typical characteristics of Britishers of not sharing their ideas and techniques
when it came to the natural growth of science. Swami Vivekananda’s suggestion
became a reality in 1908 when the Indian Institute of Science was established at
the initiative of Jamsetji Tata and through the wholehearted support of the
Maharaja of Mysore, who donated 350 acres of land in Bangalore to set up the
institute.
To conclude, we can infer that the establishments started by the British in
India had the sheer aim to loot India and generate lower-income labour to
increase their revenue. Therefore, the majority of institutions established by
native Indians were highly spiritual in developing the Swadeshi spirit and
nationalistic approach among the people of India.
A Sea Voyage That Changed India
In 1893, Jamsetji was on his way to an industrial exposition in Chicago. He was
staying at the same hotel in which Vivekananda would check in a few days later.
The great duo embarked on a voyage from the Japanese port of Yokohama to the
Canadian port of Vancouver aboard SS Empress of India.
The two had met earlier also. Vivekananda narrated to Jamsetji the experiences
he had gained during his travels throughout the length and breadth of India as a
wandering monk in the quest of truth. He talked about the relentless oppression
and repression of his fellow Indians he had seen at the hands of colonial
authorities.
Furthermore, Vivekanada spoke about how, during his visit to in Canton
(Guangzhou) in China, he had come across many Sanskrit and Bengali manuscripts
in Buddhist monasteries.
He also explained that taking his faith to the West and calling for unity
between the world’s major religions was the mission of his visit to the World
Parliament of Religions.
They also discussed Japan’s phenomenal progress in technology and Jamsetji’s
plan of laying the foundations of the steel industry to India. Jamsetji also
explained that he was in search of equipment and technology that would help make
India a strong industrial nation.
Vivekananda endorsed the vision with enthusiasm, adding that the real hope of
India lay in the prosperity and progress of its ordinary millions. He also added
that instead of importing matches from Japan, Jamsetji should manufacture them
in India and help provide a livelihood to the rural poor.
Impressed by Vivekananda’s views on science and deep-rooted patriotism, Jamsetji
requested his guidance in his campaign in establishing a research Institute in
India. The visionary monk smiled, gave his blessings to Jamsetji. February 28,
2022 : https://www.organiser.org/
-GoTop
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