An article in the Organiser says that the Congress’s objection to revamping the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) is “more vociferous than their defence of Manmohan Singh’s involvement in the coal scam”. Claiming that the NMML is marked by rampant corruption, it says that, in 2009, several academics, including Ramachandra Guha, Sumit Sarkar, Mushirul Hasan and Mahesh Rangarajan, alleged that the institution “was being run in an inefficient and corrupt fashion”. The NMML had discontinued its publication programme, and the acquisition of manuscripts and oral histories had come to a halt. The article quotes news reports to say that the NMML “had channelled Rs 5 crore earmarked for publication work to a trust run by Congress president Sonia Gandhi” and money for the “publication of selected works of Jawaharlal Nehru and C. Rajagopalachari, salaries, development of museum and installation of CCTVs were diverted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund.”
It argues that Rangarajan’s appointment was neither hassle-free, nor was his tenure healthy. Yet, the Congress had faith in him. Just before the 2014 elections, the UPA made sure that the NDA, the likely election winner, could not pick its nominee for directorship of a public institution close to the Congress’s heart. With barely 48 hours left for the announcement of the election results and a new government -taking over, “Congress leaders worked at a furious pace and guaranteed Rangarajan’s job”. The article notes that “in [the] 2013 Union budget, the NMML was granted Rs 168.30 crore, a massive increase from last year’s Rs 17.07 crore.” The article demands a thorough probe of the NMML, saying, “Who knows, another scam will be unearthed”.
Integral Humanism
An editorial in the Organiser notes that “in modern times, politics is seen as a struggle for power, struggle between individual and society, individual and state, different classes and castes, human beings and nature”. The essence of politics is to harp on differences and carve out power positions, it claims. India adopted the same path, “thanks to the colonial transplant of polity”. However, Deendayal Upadhyaya challenged this “modern” framework and provided an alternative, based on the conventional wisdom of Bharat “through his philosophy of integral humanism”.
According to European notions, modernity “divorces the spiritual and material realms of life”. Upadhyaya accepted the importance of material development but connected it with “dharma (not religion, but principles of ethics) as the “fulfilment of essential needs” and “an instrument for larger transition towards spiritual goals”. The state has to be instrumental in both. Limiting the role of the polity to only “secular” affairs would mar the purpose of the state, it states. Integral humanism not only provided a critique of both socialism and capitalism as centralised and exploitative models of development but also provided an integral scheme of development, starting with the individual and progressing up to the universe, it opines.
Vedic Agriculture
An article in Panchajanya claims that Vedic farming reflects the refined thinking of Indian saints. Modern agricultural scientists have acknowledged this farming method, based on “experiments and evidence”, besides “Vaidic Yagna” methods, it claims. It says that Gajanan Maharaj and Vasant Paranjpe introduced and popularised this farming in the present era. If the government made sufficient arrangements for the marketing of its products, it could brighten the future of agriculturalists, it advises. The foundation of Agnihotra agriculture rests on the “purification of humans, farmland and atmosphere by the fire”. The article says that “powers of nature, astrological formulations and mantras” are used to bring this change.
Compiled by Ashutosh Bhardwaj
