I agree with Prasad sir and Brahmanyan sir. I only felt that since Prasad Sir said that men must fight for change, that it was slightly not realistic since they have all the benefits. I completely take on board all those men who fought for change such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Periaval Dayananda Saraswathi etc...I was, I admit generalising.
I must agree with Suraju Sir that EVR is very very suspect. In fact a question that still bugs me till date is : How on earth as a Kannadiga he was able to gather such Tamizh mass?...someone kindly explain to me....even those telugus like vaiko etc have such popularity...(my ancestry is thiruvaiyaru telugu smartha)
Kum. amala,
The very mention of EVR stirs a hornet's nest in this Forum, as you must definitely have observed right from the past discussions. Our dear friend Shri Nara was a supporter of EVR while I am sort of neutral, possibly because we tabras in Travancore did not have to experience any anti-brahmin crusade by EVR. But if we (or you) can forget for one moment our (your) brahmin identity and analyze the EVR phenomenon
dispassionately (and this is the crucial factor, I believe), it will be clear that EVR was the centre around which all the historically pent-up abhorrence towards brahmins in the erstwhile Madras Presidency, gravitated and this made him a great leader of iconic status. There are sufficient evidences to show that but for the unyielding attitude of the brahmin leaders in the Indian National Congress, EVR who was a "Chela" of Rajaji might have died a staunch congressman and possibly a Rajaji supporter too. But history has its own course and we ordinary people cannot direct the course of history.
M.K. Gandhi, as Shri tbs has rightly put it in post #44 above , was thrown out of a train by a Britisher in SA and he (Gandhi) it seems planned to 'organize' all the Indians living there and 'to teach a lesson' to the British. Some well-wisher advised him that he would end up in this way in hard labour for life and will never see freedom again; so the well-wisher (I now forget his name) advised Gandhi to go to India and try his hand there rather than in SA. When Gandhi came to India he was just an ordinary fellow, unnoticed by the then Congress Leadership. But he gradually made his presence felt and was in a haste to teach the British a lesson. This restlessness alienated many well-meaning Congress persons (leaders) among whom Shri M.G. Ranade, who argued that the first need of India then was social upliftment, abolition of caste hierarchy and some reforms in the Hindu religious practices, and so on. But in the end Gandhi and his agenda prevailed, the press in India as also his own publications, made him an icon and the rest we all know. Well-meaning leader like Ranade went unsung and unnoticed. This too is the course of history.
Jews as a group, AFAIK, were disliked right from the historical beginnings and the jews were specially taxed even in the old Roman empire because they were 'aliens' who came as the great 'diaspora'. It was also the common perception that jews controlled the financial and trading economies which always exploited the common work force in many European countries. Hitler thought that by exterminating the Jews he would be doing the right thing for his country. But Jews had continued their migration and diaspora-like entry into the newly colonized Americas also and Hitler's anti-Jewish rule caused a good number more to escape to the Americas. These American Jews, as is their wont, came to control the finances and trades of the country (and still they do); so the USA which was situated far away, entered the war against Germany and ultimately Hitler was eradicated.
In my limited view, Gandhi, EVR, Hitler, all were personalities thrown up as mass-leaders, by history in its inexorable march. We are free to praise some of them and deride others, depending upon our pov and preferences, but history has made them all into leaders who will not be forgotten easily and quickly.
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