Rumi - translation by Camille and Kabir Helminski
“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”
Threshold Books, 1996

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‘Dalit’ means broken, oppressed, untouchable, downtrodden, and exploited. They come from the poor communities which under the Indian caste system used to be known as ‘untouchables’. They constitute nearly 16% of the Indian population.

The caste system, with a history of more than 3000 years in India, is a shameful system of social segregation, which works on the principle of purity and impurity. Purity is rich and white or whitish, impurity is poor and dark. Hidden powers of wealth can be easily traced in every feudal Brahmanical concept of the ideal. Material milieu of purity and beauty and prominence and command and comforts is also wealth. Economic division is reflected in the social classifications. But it should not be registered that caste is racial or economic. Dr. Ambedkar says that the caste system came into being long after the different races of India had commingled in blood and culture. To hold that distinctions of caste are really distinctions of race and to treat different castes as though they were so many different races is a gross perversion of the historical facts. Ambedkar asks: What affinity is there between the Untouchable of Bengal and the Untouchable of Madras? The Brahman of Punjab is racially the same stock as the Chamar of the Punjab and the Brahman of Madras is the same race as the Pariah of Madras. The caste system does not demarcate racial division. (Annihilation of caste – in writings and speeches vol.1 .p.49 Dr .B.R. Ambedkar) (more…)

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Carry a message to your own people, my friend,
Which will be well understood by your people,
Not ours- the creed of the material, phenomental
World as an illusion, you call it, Maya, don’t you?
Concealing but also symbolically revealing
A deeper order of reality. Do I sound philosophical?
You must excuse me. I cannot help it.
This view of things with a deeper reality
At a deeper level is intriguing. I am myself affected
To the extent of thinking of blood and terror
As fantasies, symbols. Isn’t it intellectually
Consoling  to think that violence, blood and terror
Are not real but only symbols of a deeper
Reality. Although I live in a firm word, I move
On two planes of reality- the mundane level,
And a deeper level of mystical yearnings and insights.
Yet the mystique of blood and terror is terrifying
Thing, not consoling at all. Passion and the craving
For power at a deeper level are murderous things.
Call it spirituality of blood and terror, if you
Like. But it is no joke to allow your face
To be blasted. No taking you first by the scruff
Of your neck even.
But I speak of none of those things here, the fear
And dread in the pursuit of Passion and Power.
Let them be. I would rather tell you of other mystical
Properties of violence and bloodletting. Although
We perpetuate violence to see an end to what we hate,
Violence is endless. Like Time. Though Time
Must have limit, time is endless, eternal.
Besides, our relationship with our enemies is
Of both love and hate, in which note a deeper
Dimension. Hatred is in the desire to exterminate
Our caemies. Our love for our enemies is in the care
We take for the continuance of violence……..
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Symbol and blood, blood and symbol. Why only
Symbols, you are asking. What about emblems?
You are right. They are there, when we often
Look at things horizontally, on the surface,
Not seeing the wood for the trees, if there is
Any wood to see. Look at the emblems of our culture
Which we are apt to overrate, but worth
Something, the surrogate and substitute fantasies,
The flotsam and jetsam of this our modern life.
Ponderous definitions!  Let us have some model samples.
Yes the toothbrush, the sanitary towel- the tampon,
That covering for the female back under certain
Conditions. Don’t your Dakshina ladies in their
Shopping expeditions go in search of it – two
To three thousand miles? We may call them universal
Symbols, being so ubiquitous….  Nonsense!
We will stick to them as nothing but emblems.
But what is covered, is it at least universal…
Appetites are universal, passions urges aren’t
They? Possessing uniqueness, individually too?
What universality, uniqueness in a word
Of throw- away tampons and throw-away condoms!
Emblems will always be emblems, But in the rotund
World, baubles too have their place,
Looked at representationally.
All these- dilettantish nonsense! Commodity
Rules the world, someone truly said. The spilling
Of blood is profitable. Next of kin to blood
Is arms - for an orgiastic embrace, the buying and selling
Of which is profitable.
How we forget the realities of life!
Farewell, fantasy symbols and emblems. Yesterday’s
Shopkeepers are now the most expert gunmakers.
The descendants of those who stormed the Bastille
For the Brotherhood of Man are the manufacturers
Of deadly missiles. Three hurrahs for Gallic Socialism,
And four for their Socialist President. Thou shalt
No kill, said the great Jehovah to prophet
Moses. Thou shalt kill, kill and kill again
In Jordan and Gaza. That is the new dictum
Which replaces all of Hammurabi and Moses.
Christ and Gautama. Arms have to be sold,
Blood has to be spilt.
Look! Can great powers survive without arms
And arms-trade? And if they can’t survive,
If they collapse, what is the future of mankind?
And your terrorist gangs- call them guerrillas
Or freedom-fighters- where do they get their arms
From? From the sources controlled by us. We know
The extent of their sources and resources.
We have prescribed the rules and the game
As to who wins, who loses. But the game
Must go on. It is such fun-and so profitable. (more…)

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When studying the Quran, one frequently encounters what may be described as “key­- phrases” - that is to say, statements which provide a clear, concise indication of the idea underlying a particular passage or passages: for instance, the many references to the creation of man “out of dust” and “out of a drop of sperm”, pointing to the lowly biological origin of the human species; or the statement in the ninety-ninth surah (Az-Zalzalah) that on Resurrection Day “he who shall have done an atom’s weight of good, shall behold it; and he who shall have done an atom’s weight of evil, shall behold it” - indicating the ineluctable afterlife consequences of, and the responsibility for, all that man consciously does in this world; or the divine declaration (in 38:27), “We have not created heaven and earth and all that is between them without meaning and purpose (baatilan), as is the surmise of those who are bent on denying the truth.”

Instances of such Quranic key-phrases can be quoted almost ad infinitum, and in many varying formulations. But there is one fundamental statement in the Quran which occurs only once, and which may be qualified as “the key-phrase of all its key-phrases”: the statement in verse 3:7 to the effect that the Quran “contains messages that are clear in and by themselves (ayat-e-muhkamaat) as well as others that are allegorical (mutashabihaat)”. It is this verse which represents, in an absolute sense, a key to the understanding of the Qur’anic message and makes the whole of it accessible to “people who think” (li-qawmin yatafakkarUn). (more…)

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The media imposes certain stories on us, and the one about Tibet goes like this. The People’s Republic of China, which, back in 1949, illegally occupied Tibet, has for decades engaged in the brutal and systematic destruction not only of the Tibetan religion, but of the Tibetans themselves. Recently, the Tibetans’ protests against Chinese occupation were again crushed by military force. Since China is hosting the 2008 Olympics, it is the duty of all of us who love democracy and freedom to put pressure on China to give back to the Tibetans what it stole from them. A country with such a dismal human rights record cannot be allowed to use the noble Olympic spectacle to whitewash its image. What will our governments do? Will they, as usual, cede to economic pragmatism, or will they summon the strength to put ethical and political values above short-term economic interests?

There are complications in this story of ‘good guys versus bad guys’. It is not the case that Tibet was an independent country until 1949, when it was suddenly occupied by China. The history of relations between Tibet and China is a long and complex one, in which China has often played the role of a protective overlord: the anti-Communist Kuomintang also insisted on Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. Before 1949, Tibet was no Shangri-la, but an extremely harsh feudal society, poor (life expectancy was barely over 30), corrupt and fractured by civil wars (the most recent one, between two monastic factions, took place in 1948, when the Red Army was already knocking at the door). Fearing social unrest and disintegration, the ruling elite prohibited industrial development, so that metal, for example, had to be imported from India. (more…)

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“Nirmila Deshpande, a well known peace crusader of India, died on May 1, 2008, after a long period of illness. She was 79-years-old and left behind so many followers who like her, wanted peace. From her early years she was a Gandhian and an enlightened person whose only aim in life was to work for the cause of humanity. Nirmila was the one by whose efforts the bus service between different cities of India and Pakistan particularly, between the Kashmiri people of both sides, were started. She worked extensively all her life for peace among various religious and linguistic communities in India and to achieve this cause she undertook a 40,000-km padyatra (long march) across India to carry Mahatma Gandhi’s message of Gram Swaraj. She firmly believed that although it was difficult to practice Gandhian principles, it was the only way towards a truly democratic society.
At the time of her death she was Chairperson of the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy, an organization with chapters all over India and Pakistan that works for peace in the region. (more…)