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Tag: Swadeshi
Slices from Life
Historical Accuracy
No Comments on Historical Accuracy
By Ravibala Shenoy
"He was badly beaten in lockup, denied medicine, and died soon after," my cousin writes in his article on our Uncle Anand in a local Indian publication.
"Uncle A. died of dysentery," I respond via WhatsApp. "He was only eleven or twelve. Not fourteen as you state. And my father was eight at the time. It says so in my father's writings." Later in life, my father had kept notes on his brother's death.
My cousin hesitated. "I have it on the evidence of Aunt S.," Aunt S. is our only surviving relative from that generation. "She told me that the police warned our grandfather, that they were watching Uncle A. They finally arrested him. They threatened our grandfather into silence."
"With all due deference," I say, because my cousin is nine years older than me, "Aunt S. was just a few weeks old in August 1930. She hardly counts as an eyewitness. And neither you nor I were alive then."
1930 was the year of Mahatma Gandhi's civil disobedience movement. Mahatma Gandhi led the fight for independence from the British Empire by nonviolent means. Even in the small coastal town of Karwar, men and women joined in the struggle. Uncle A. with a natural flair for leadership organised the "monkey brigade" that was made up of youngsters. Townspeople hinted to my grandfather that his son, who was leading boys and girls every morning in the dawn marches, was perhaps neglecting his studies. To which my grandfather replied that his son was very smart and secured the first rank in class.
These dawn marches were accompanied by stirring patriotic songs, punctuated by lusty salutations to Mother India, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru. Boys and girls accompanied Uncle Anand to the sea to produce salt out of seawater in defiance of the law. Making salt was a government monopoly. The spirit of swadeshi, of boycotting foreign goods for domestic ones, was in the air and Uncle A. learned how to make soap and taught it to others. He acquired a spinning wheel and showed his family how to spin cotton into yarn on a spindle. The finished yarn was mailed by Uncle A. in a parcel to the handlooms of Nandangadda.
The movement slackened a bit with the advent of the monsoons, and then in August 1930, Karwar was struck for the first time by an epidemic of dysentery.
I write to my cousin, "Uncle A. was not arrested or beaten. He was the first one to contract dysentery. Would you like to see my father's writings?"
Dysentery was still an unfamiliar disease for the doctors in Karwar. The family doctor was very competent, and he gave Uncle A. the best treatment he knew. There were no antibiotics then. The family doctor believed that another doctor had the penicillin that could save Uncle A. He asked our grandfather to approach him, but the second doctor did not oblige. It was alleged that he was saving it for his own patients. (Our grandfather never forgave this second doctor.) Perhaps he never had any penicillin in the first place.
In the night of the fourth day of the attack, Uncle Anand died. Unexpectedly, the cloth made of yarn that he had spun arrived from Nandangadda on the morning of the funeral. It covered his body like a shroud as he was led to the cremation ground. The town held a large public meeting to mourn the death of Uncle A.
Several people died in the epidemic. My father also had a long brush with the disease, but he survived because this time the family doctor was able to acquire the penicillin.
I wonder why my cousin wants to falsify facts and revise history because that often results in making people believe none of it. This is how myths are born. Was dying from police brutality more tragic or glamorous than dying of dysentery? To me this was like an important intervention between historiography and the "woke" debate.
My cousin resents my contradicting him. Did I, a girl, albeit a grandmother now, younger than him, dare impugn his credibility? I was the unpatriotic one, removed from her heritage, a U.S. citizen who lived in the West with a westernized preciosity that downplayed the brave deeds of Indian patriots. How could I know better?
My beef with my cousin is that he doesn't check his facts and seeks out the sensational. My cousin's "facts" came via an aunt whose information was based on hearsay because my grandparents never spoke of the tragedy that had befallen them.
In my cousin's defense, I must admit that I have my biases too: I hero-worship my father and regard him as the custodian of historical truth; could he have overlooked the arrest and police brutality in recording his brother's short but heroic life? My father's memory could just as easily have been distorted.
I also had a grievance. On my ninth birthday, my cousin had snatched my new water colour set before I even had a chance to open it and mixed up the coral with the ultramarine and the white with the green. Maybe I found it hard to believe him.
We are in agreement on one point: that my grandparents could never bear to utter Uncle A.'s name again. His name "Anand" meant "joy"—and after his death the word was forevermore excised from their vocabulary.
Once, during one of my subsequent visits to Karwar, I came across a concrete till. It stood in the shadow of the road, at some distance from my grandparents' house. The till had a slit for coins, and a sign asking for donations for the oil needed to light the lamp for the Brahma. The Brahma was believed to be the spirit of an unmarried Brahmin youth who haunted peepul trees and coconut palms. I suspect this was a ghost that predated Uncle A.
Then it struck me. The reason for the lamp for the Brahma was to memorialise the dead so that they were not forgotten. It was a way of bearing witness to their lives and the unrealised potential of their lives. Similarly, my cousin's write-up on Uncle Anand was like a lamp that had been lit to rescue his memory from the jaws of oblivion. If some facts had been embellished for a "good story," it was all part of the homage.
Ravibala Shenoy has published award-winning short stories, short stories, flash fiction, memoir, and op-ed pieces. She was a former librarian and book reviewer, who lives in Chicago.
Tags Civil disobedience, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Ravibala Shenoy, Swadeshi, WhatsAp
A Special Tribute
In Conversation with Tushar Gandhi
15 Comments on In Conversation with Tushar Gandhi
Santosh Bakaya interviews Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of Bapu, after paying a brief tribute to the Mahatma
Gandhi (1869-1948) was assassinated on January 30th 1948. This was one of the last photos of him – sometime in 1947 when both, Gandhi and Nehru, apparently were appalled and concerned about the carnage resulting from the separation of India and Pakistan. This photo was published in Newsweek, Aug. 4, 1997. Courtesy: Creative Commons
Before I begin the interview, I would like to pay a small tribute to the great Bapu, the unarmed fighter, the environmentalist, the vibrant economic philosopher, who talked of Swadeshi and self- dependence long before the modern world is slowly waking up to its benefits, who emphasized a people -centered economy rather than a technology centred one, where we find individuals stripped off their dignity, becoming insignificant cogs in the machine. The plight of the migrant labourers during the current pandemic is branded on our collective consciousness, all because of a flawed-topsy- turvy model of development. Only if we had heeded Bapu's call of making the villages self- sufficient and self- reliant.
Right from the time he refused to 'cheat' to correct the spelling of kettle in a class test during the visit of the school inspector, to the time he abruptly called off the Non-cooperation movement, due to violence at Chauri Chaura, well-aware of the repercussions that would follow, he shunned mendacity and violence. Belying his physical fragility, he managed to emerge as a strong moral icon. In a world torn asunder by war and violence, he succeeded in teaching many a world leader lessons in the powerful weapon of non- violence and truth, pitting soul force against brute force. The vulnerable Mohan, full of complexes, foibles, fears and phobias, a boy who was afraid of snakes, ghosts, multiplication tables, metamorphosed into the valiant, venerable Mahatma, [a sobriquet he did not feel comfortable with]. Under the seemingly frail façade, was a man who could flex his moral muscles and shake a comatose nation out of its languor. This unarmed warrior, went on to exemplify self- introspection, self -analysis, self- mastery, and a humongous moral power. Denigrated as the half-naked fakir by Winston Churchill, he was the very epitome of minimalism, but well- clothed in the raiment of love, compassion, fearlessness and forgiveness.
During the Dandi March, women from all sections of society- women who had never been part of public gatherings, women who had not stepped out of the four walls of the house, unlettered village women, poured out on the streets because he had very intelligently linked salt, a common kitchen ingredient to an uncommon call for freedom. Kamladevi Chattopadhyay valiantly stalked into the High Court premises, and while a stunned magistrate gaped, hurled a question at him whether he would like to buy "the salt of freedom", she had prepared. Songs of freedom rang in the streets, women metamorphosed into human shields blocking the paths of policemen, facing lathi blows and even landing in jails. What do you call such a man – an intelligent strategist? Quixotic? Charismatic? A maverick? Was this not a coup of sorts?
Bapu's strategy paid off and the Indians realized that throwing off the foreign yoke was not difficult, if heads are held high and spines, straightened. Gurudev Tagore told the Manchester Guardian of 17 May, 1930, "Europe has completely lost her former moral prestige in Asia." Louis Fischer wrote in the chapter, 'Drama at the Seashore', in his biography of Gandhi, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, "The British beat the Indians with batons and rifle butts. The Indians neither cringed, nor complained, nor retreated. That made England powerless and India invincible"– all because of a seemingly weak, five-foot five man, who sent quivers down the rulers' backs by a handful of salt.
Tushar Gandhi with his book
In this interview with his great grandson, Tushar Gandhi , author of a book called Let's Kill Gandhi (2007), chronicling the last days of his great grandfather, we hear more on Bapu and Gandhi-ism in the current world.
It is with a feeling of immense awe for the descendant of a great moral icon that I am here with my questions for you, Tusharji. If you remember, this is not the first time I am talking to you. It was in the year 2015 that I not just met you, but presented you my poetic biography of Bapu, Ballad of Bapu, for which you had graciously written the foreword. I remember being awe-struck by your unassuming demeanour coupled with a self-derogatory sense of humour, which your great-grandfather was also known to have had. Please tell us something about yourself, which we don't know already.
I am an ordinary, simple person of limited abilities who is very lucky to be born a descendant of very illustrious ancestors. Life has taught me that greatness is not an inheritable quality it must be earned. I remember when a celebrity TV presenter Richard Quest was doing a series for CNN called 'Quest for Greatness', he shot the concluding episode at Sabarmati Ashram and invited me to talk to him. His precept was whether places associated with greatness were the source of that greatness. He talked about the greatness of Bapu and about how the place attracted so many leaders of the world to visit it and be inspired by the place and the legacy of the person with whom the place was associated. He asked me if the fountain of greatness was at Sabarmati Ashram and was that the reason leaders visited it to partake of that greatness. My answer was yes, absolutely, sometimes the place inspires great actions and sometimes the aura of the great person associated with the place lingers on to inspire future generations. That draws them to the place.
Tushar Gandhi with his father at Hriday Kunj Sabarmati Ashram
Yes, that is absolutely right. The lingering aura of a particular place cannot be shrugged off, and if it is a place associated with our beloved Bapu, it will always keep inspiring people. The fragrance that I inhaled on my visit to the Sabarmati Ashram, is something I can never forget. Its aura and extraordinary energy seems to cling to ordinary visitors.
Richard's concluding question for the show was directed at me, he asked, "There is no doubt that Gandhi was great. Scientists believe that our nature and what we become is also hot-wired in one's DNA, genes. Did Gandhi have the greatness gene? As his direct descendant have you, Tushar inherited that greatness gene?"
My answer was immediate and short, I told Richard, "Greatness cannot be inherited, it has to be earned."
I am overweight, the result of an indulgent lifestyle. I am lazy, when you sent me these questions my first question was how long would you be willing to wait for my responses! I haven't, as yet developed the courage to be absolutely truthful. I succumb to anger and passion. I am enslaved by the sense of taste, to delicious food. I am unable to reduce my requirements in life. I know Bapu would have disapproved of me.
So, I live within my limitations, aware of my short comings.
No one is perfect. We all have our fads, foibles, idiosyncrasies and shortcomings. Yes, I remember, seeing some pictures, of your early teens, in one of which you are even holding on to your pet dog. What were your dreams then? Were you aware of your monumental legacy? Were you curious to know more and more about your great grandfather?
Yes, Zendy was more of a brother than a pet. I loved him, poor chap was a bit of a cripple, he had very limited abilities in his hind legs and so he would drag himself around or we carried him around.
As a child I was inspired by my mother's brother. He was a pilot in the Indian Air Force. So, from very early childhood I wanted to become a pilot. As I grew older, I wanted to join the Indian Air Force and become a fighter pilot. I even sat for the NDA entrance exam, unfortunately I could not qualify and so abandoned those plans. But my desire to become a pilot was obsessive and so I never considered doing anything else and when that dream crumbled, I was left adrift, not knowing what to do. Finally at my father's suggestion I joined the Printing Institute to do a diploma in printing, I qualified as a printer, but my heart was never in that work and so after several halfhearted attempts, I gave it up as a career.
I don't have any recollection of a moment or age in my life when I became aware of the legacy I had inherited. I feel I was always aware of the greatness of my ancestor, as I grew older, and my understanding increased the awareness about the greatness of Ba (Kasturba, Gandhi's wife)and Bapu and my grandparents has grown and along with it my pride in the legacy they have bequeathed to me and with it the awareness of my limitations too.
Kasturba Gandhi. Courtesy: Creative Commons
I never had to request my elders about information about Bapu, I remember as a child my bedtime stories as told by my grandmother or by her sisters and cousins were almost always about their recollections of Ba and Bapu. As a child sometimes I would get fed up and throw a tantrum demanding to be told stories of kings and princes, fairies and princesses. But all I got were stories of Ashram experiences and anecdotes with Ba and Bapu. As I grew older, and my abilities of understanding evolved, I realised and understood the profound lessons those stories taught and the reason why my elders insisted on instilling those stories into my psyche.
My study of the ideals and the methods of Bapu continues. That is a lifelong never-ending quest.
We would love to know about your early life — your idols and heroes. Was Bapu also one of them? Are you also known for your candid, straightforward, hard-hitting words like your great- granddad?
My childhood, like me was very ordinary and unremarkable. I was a very average student someone who would have been diagnosed as being dyslexic, I am still spelling-challenged in all the languages I can write. If it wasn't for the word processor software with their built-in spell checks I would never have been accepted as a writer, let alone a published author.
Were you a mischievous boy in school?
I was known to be a mischief maker and spent a record amount of time in detention. But it turned out to be a boon. In detention we were made to sit on a bench outside our principal's office. The door of his curtain-less office always remained open, so he kept an eagle eye on all the benched ones.
The rule was that after we told him why we were on the detention bench, we had to go to the library, get a book and read it while sitting on the bench. I was so often on the bench that I got hooked to reading to such an extent that our school librarian when asked, why he was spending more than what was budgeted for library purchase, complained to our principal about how he had to keep buying new books because I had read all the books in the library.
This is hilarious! Your punishments turned you into a bibliophile!
The reading addiction grew so much that by my teenage years I was black listed by four libraries in our neighbourhood, because I had read through their collections of books!
In my childhood, shopkeepers used to keep paper bags made from pages of magazines and newspapers. I remember back home after the purchases had been put away, I would open up the bags and read whatever was printed on them, even though it was incomplete. My obsession with reading continues even today, now on laptops and smart phones, but I still prefer to read stuff printed on paper.
I had many idols during my childhood many still are, my ancestors, naturally. Revolutionaries too. Heroes from the folklore and history, sports icons, armed forces legends and martyrs. Those associates of my great grandfather I was fortunate to meet, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, C. Rajagopalachary, Maniben Patel, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, once and several others. They all left an indelible impression on my mind.
Since I am well- aware of my limitations I am not as honestly outspoken or frank as Bapu, but I am not known to mince words. Brash, is how I am more often described. But, as we live in a world of increasing hypocrisy, I have realized the need for plain speaking, so I too am becoming more and more outspoken.
To suit myself I have reinterpreted Bapu's favourite three Monkeys from ancient Japanese and Buddhist lore who were actually four, Mizaru, who covers his eyes and sees no evil, Kikazaru who covers his ears and hears no evil, Iwazaru who covers his mouth and speaks no evil and the obscure fourth Sezaru who covers his lower abdomen and does no evil.
In today's times I have reinterpreted them, feeling that they more appropriately convey the message: "Don't shut your eyes and block out evil acts or crimes. Don't close your ears so as not to hear a cry for help or to the bitter truth. Don't shut your mouth and remain silent while evil is done, and hate is preached around you. And don't remain indifferent against injustice, act against it decisively."
I strongly believe Bapu would have adopted the fourth monkey too and reinterpreted all of them. It is no longer the time for polite and diplomatic talk, we need strong but honest words, not necessarily angry ones and most importantly, actions.
Very rightly said. In his very first public speech, on 4 February 1916, at the inaugural ceremony of Banaras Hindu University, because of his forthright words, Annie Besant had to plead, "Sit down Gandhi", when he had ridiculed the highly bejeweled princes who were glibly talking about poverty. "Our salvation can only come through the farmer". Don't you think these words of Gandhi resonate today with a renewed vigour?
Yes, Bapu did fall foul of the organisers at the foundation stone laying ceremony of the Banaras Hindu University where he was invited to speak, as the hero of South Africa. When he criticised the bejeweled and pompously attired princes and the elite gathered there, Annie Besant who presided over the function, requested him to stop on several occasions.
When he started talking about swaraj (self-rule), the dignitaries on the dais staged a walk out and Ms. Besant called the meeting to a halt, but the student body gathered, insisted on listening to Bapu and trooped out of the venue and held an impromptu meeting on the open ground where Bapu continued his very 'hard hitting' and what was then dismissed as, impertinent ravings.
Yes, the students had applauded his candid utterances, saying Hear Hear! much to the discomfiture of the organizers and the princes.
The students were very fascinated by Bapu's thoughts. It was after this that Bapu forayed into the Champaran Satyagraha, registering a decisive triumph over the colonial power, and gradually taking hold of the reins of the freedom movement.
There is a lot of dissatisfaction and frustration in our country and much that needs to be set right. To begin the process, we need a leader with Bapu's ability of calling a spade a spade and yet not speaking in an offensive, insulting manner. India today suffers from a very dangerous epidemic of hate, it mustn't and can't be countered by counter hate. We must revert to Bapu's method, honest, truthful words, yet not the language of hate and abuse.
India is witnessing an ongoing protest by farmers from northern states now almost a year old, there is discontent and despair in the entire farm sector, but it is being compromised by a general apathy towards their plight, today it is the farmers, tomorrow it will be another group of us, we must wake up and fight together, united.
Indeed, we need to yank away our comatose stupor, before it is too late. Bapu is said to have had a great sense of humour. Do you recall having heard any incident of Bapu which had tickled your funny bone immensely, as a child?
Bapu is reported to have said that 'If it wasn't for his sense of humour he would have gone mad.' and also that ' If he did not have a sense of humour, the ability to enjoy the funny side of everything he would have been driven to despair and committed suicide.' This is how much Bapu appreciated and valued humour. His humor used to be laced with sarcasm. When an American journalist asked Bapu what he thought about Western Civilisation, Bapu replied "It is a good idea!"
Yes, that witticism by Bapu never fails to bring a smile to my lips.
I recall a personal anecdote told by my grandmother. This happened in Sevagram, Wardha. Bapu received a request from a group of women village sevaks (workers), who wished to greet him on his birthday and spend 2nd October at the Ashram. Bapu welcomed them but said that he was a poor man and so they would have to bring their own meals and not burden the Ashram.
On 2nd October, they came to the Ashram early morning and participated in the activities of the Ashram. At lunch time when everyone at the ashram assembled at the dining hall, Kasturba noticed that the visitors were sitting under a tree, opening the cloth bundles they were carrying. She called my father and asked him why the visitors were not eating along with all the other residents of the Ashram? My father told her of the condition Bapu had laid down to permit the visitors to spend the day at the ashram.
Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, where Gandhi evolved his ideology within India. Courtesy: Creative Commons
When Ba heard the story, she was very angry, she told my father to call the visitors to assemble in her kutir (hut), she would cook a meal and feed the guests. Unlike her husband, she refused to forget her dharma (duty) as a host. Ba hurriedly cooked Khichadi and fed them. This defiance of his order by Ba was reported to Bapu, everyone expected him to get annoyed and reprimand her. But he smiled, quipping, 'At one time the British Queen listens to me, but my words hold no authority over Ba.'
A typical Bapu witticism! We have mutated into rodents, running the rodent derby in helter-skelter haste. How would Bapu have reacted to this rodent derby? Would he still have continued to walk alone – taking long strides towards self- discovery, advising\ rebuking people along the way?
Bapu would have warned us about our devolution into rodents. But he would not have just warned us about the evil, danger and unsuitability of our way of life, he would have presented humankind with an evolving alternative way of life and lived it himself. Walking alone was second nature to Bapu, he was so far ahead of his times that he had no option but walk alone, not intimidated by the unknown. Having said that, his belief in the omnipresence of God was so deeply entrenched that he never considered himself to ever be alone.
Please tell us something about yourself as a student, were you obedient and disciplined? How did your peers and teachers treat you? Did you have a rebellious streak in you?
I was a very average student. In our times we were expected to be obedient, and we too believed that we should be obedient, so I also obeyed my elders and teachers. I was only nominally disciplined, there was a rebellious streak in me, muted most of the time, but it did manifest itself from time to time.
Please tell us something about Bapu's walking habits. He shunned physical classes in school, but later did a lot of physical labour, becoming a very agile walker. "The modern generation is delicate, weak and much pampered." He said during the Dandi March and walking less than twelve miles a day, he considered, "child's play". How did he become such a sturdy walker?
Bapu acquired the habit of walking far and fast in South Africa. He used to compete with his friend Herman Kallenbach to see who walked the longer distance and who was faster than the other. This became a daily lifelong habit and when at the age of 61 he lead the Dandi March, others much younger than him had to run to keep pace with him. There is a very iconic photograph of a child holding on to Bapu's walking stick and seemingly pulling Bapu along.
Yes, I have seen that iconic photograph.
The child is Bapu's grandson Kanha, who lived with him when Bapu was briefly staying at Juhu in Bombay. Every evening Bapu would insist that Kanha accompany him on his walks on the beach. Kanha walked very slowly, so, to make him walk faster, Bapu used to push him ahead of him with his walking stick. Over the years some dexterous photo retouching artists touched up the photo to appear as if the child was pulling Bapu along. Bapu had a very long stride which also added to his speed of walking.
Bapu was a staunch supporter of women empowerment, but in the Dandi March, if I am not mistaken, among the 78 handpicked volunteers, who accompanied Bapu on the 240-mile march which lasted 24 days [12 March to 6 April 1930], only a few women joined the retinue from the Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, other women only joined him later. Did this issue not become a bone of contention among the women? I recall having read that powerful women like Kamladevi Chattopadhyay, Sarojini Naidu and Perin Captain (the granddaughter of Dada Bhai Naoroji) were displeased that they were not part of the handpicked retinue, strongly venting their ire, saying that they would not be satisfied merely by picketing shops. But yes, I remember Sarojini Naidu becoming a part of the March during the last stretch to Dandi, and raising a fistful of salt on 6 April,1930, and saying, "Hail Deliverer".
There was a reason why Bapu refused to allow women to accompany him on the Dandi March. His objective was to provoke the Colonial Government to deal harshly with him. Threats were also made against the Satyagrahis, news was leaked that the Government would unleash a regiment of Pathan Sepoys to beat them and disrupt the march, not even sparing Bapu. Sardar Patel was arrested a week before the March was to begin and locked up in Sabarmati Prison. This was a warning to Bapu. Bapu wanted such harsh responses. He knew that if women accompanied him the Colonial Government would claim that Gandhi had taken women along as protection.
Gandhi leading the Dandi March, 1930. Courtesy: Creative Commons
He knew that the 'gentlemanly' colonial government would not harm women and so he had insulated himself from reprisals by hiding behind a protective shield of women. So Bapu decided that women would not accompany the marchers, hence they were not allowed to accompany him and his handpicked companions on the March from Sabarmati to Dandi.
There was a lot of discontent among the leading women Satyagrahis of that time, and they protested against Bapu, but they obeyed him too.
After he picked up salt at Dandi and broke the law on 6th April 1930 they demanded that now they must be allowed an equal opportunity to participate in Satyagraha in the front lines of Satyagrahis. Sarojini Naidu and Mithuben Petiet welcomed Bapu at Dandi. Eventually a Women's Conference was held at Dandi and addressing the attendees, Bapu ordered the women to participate in the Satyagraha from then on.
Bapu used symbols very powerfully. Symbols such as minimal clothes, charkha(spinning wheel), salt, khadi were very effectively used by him for mass mobilisation. We would like to know something from you about his strategic use of symbols.
Bapu was a master communicator throughout his campaigns, first in South Africa and later in India, he utilised the power of symbolism to a great advantage. Bapu's use of symbols and gestures was unlike the very artificial and dramatic use of symbolism, by the 'leaders' of today. He used them in a much more honest, sincere and believable manner. After deciding to embrace poverty when he was one of the most prosperous Indian lawyers in South Africa, Bapu chose to live simply to identify with the poor Indians he was leading and living amongst at the Phoenix Settlement. Yet he continued to wear the western attire of a gentleman.
It was only towards the end of his struggle in South Africa after a few Satyagrahis died during the Satyagraha and as a result of the brutal incarceration they were subjected to, that Bapu discarded the western attire and appeared in public dressed as what was then contemptuously described as the dress of a 'Coolie'. When he arrived in India in 1915, he had started dressing in an elaborate costume of a Kathiyavadi gent. The dress of his home region in India.
In Champaran and before that during his year and half long travels to discover India, Bapu came face to face with the abject poverty of its populace and it was then that he began dressing less. Finally, it was when he saw the farmers of Madurai toiling in the fields, dressed merely in a brief loin cloth, that he discarded the kurti that he wore and adopted the attire of a mere loincloth to identify with the people he wanted to lead.
Yes, that is what riled Winston Churchill and he commented adversely on his attire.
Yes, it was this that bugged Winston Churchill and when Bapu visited Buckingham Palace to have tea with the royalty dressed similarly, Churchill called him 'the half-naked Faqeer'. When Bapu was questioned by a reporter as to whether he would be dressed as he always did if he was invited to meet the Emperor he had replied that if he dressed up in any other manner he would be dishonest and disrespectful towards the Emperor.
The charkha to him was not just a symbol but a tool for the rejuvenation of India's traditional crafts and village industries, he used it as a symbol of his idea of the ideal 'industrial' revolution in India's villages he wished to usher in.
Salt was one of his most brilliant and evocative symbolisms, which he turned into a symbol of the British oppression of the masses of India. Their suffering and their aspirations for freedom, dignity and existence. It caught the fancy of the people of India and the attention of the entire humanity.
It goes without saying that through the powerful use of symbols and symbolic language, he was able to drive many a point home. Could you throw some light on his relationship with Kasturba? Both were married at the age of thirteen, and both grew together, and all of us know that Ba's death devastated him completely. Obviously, with his obstinate ways, he was definitely not an easy man to carry along with. Yet, she was the moral strength behind him.
Gandhi & Kasturba. Courtesy: Creative Commons
Ba was Bapu's anchor. Throughout his evolution he has acknowledged her as his teacher of several important lessons, one of them being Passive Resistance.
Ba had the unenviable task of living with him as he transformed and surviving each of his catharsis. She not only survived but carried the family with her- immediate family initially, her growing sons and then the extended ashram family as she learnt to accept all of them and started feeling responsible for them.
Initially tumultuous, at times it was difficult to believe that their relationship would survive. But what Bapu wrote to the Viceroy and Lady Wavell replying to their message of condolences on Ba's death, illustrates the depth of their relationship, showing how much Bapu relied on Ba. I quote:
'I send you and Lady Wavell my thanks for your kind condolences on the death of my wife. Though for her sake I have welcomed her death as bringing freedom from living agony, I feel the loss more than I thought I should.
Gandhi at Kasturba's Memorial. Courtesy: Creative Commons
'We were a couple outside the ordinary. It was in 1906 that after mutual consent and after unconscious trials we definitely adopted self-restrain as a rule of life. To my great joy this knit us together as never before. We ceased to be two different entities. Without me wishing it, she chose to lose herself in me. The result was she became truly my better half. She was a woman always of very strong will which, in our early days, I used to mistake for obstinacy. But that strong will enabled her to become quite unwittingly my teacher in the art and practice of nonviolent non-co-operation.'
One does not require to say any more.
Do you not find it a daunting task to carry forward the legacy of Bapu?
It is daunting but I have always lived within my limitations, and I don't bother to live up to the expectations of others, this has made it easier to live with such a 'heavy' legacy. I have always considered the legacy I have inherited as a boon and so I have never felt it a burden.
It was Martin Luther King Jr who had said, "Gandhi was perhaps the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale", which is indeed the truth. There is no denying the fact that it is a dystopian world that we are living in, where all are caught between the harsh tones of hatred and the insidious currents of revenge and rancor. How can non-violence again be revived as an effective social force?
Even in the past, we have lived in the age of hate, prejudice and strife; family relationships too have become fragile due to this but it's not entirely a new phenomenon. When Bapu arrived in India, one of the first things he realised was the disunity between Hindus and Muslims due to distrust and hostility. He concluded that to effectively fight the colonial power he had to unite the two religious groups, and he set about working diligently towards it by igniting the passion for freedom in every heart.
He achieved his objective, but the glue was tenuous, and as independence became a reality, it rapidly deteriorated and the traditional distrust and hostility resurfaced. Hate and violence took center stage in 1946. Bapu realised that he had lost his dream in his hour of triumph. In 1946-47 and the first month of 1948 , insanity prevailed in India and the newly-created Pakistan.
It was only Bapu's murder which shocked Indians and restored sanity for the time being. That sanity lasted for the first fifty years of its existence because of compassionate leadership and the memory of the sacrifice of Bapu. But then opportunist 'leaders' stepped into the forefront and unleashed a campaign of untruths and communal hate. The venom has now permeated to our cells and altered our very DNA, and we see its manifestation in every aspect of our existence. Unfortunately, now there is no Gandhi to jolt us back to sanity by sacrificing himself. Even if one was to emerge, I don't think we collectively deserve such a deliverer.
Yes, we indeed need Bapu to remerge, and pull us back to sanity. Tell me, can walks for peace change mindsets? What triggered the idea of the re-enactment of the Dandi March? I remember, it was the year 2005, the 75th anniversary of the March I was in my MPhil class, and the news of the reenactment of Dandi March was very much in the air, and my students were hurling questions after questions at me – most of them laced with cynicism. Can you tell us something about your experience during these marches? I remember seeing pics of the March where one man was dressed like Bapu. How did this image of Gandhi impact the people?
My reenactment of the Dandi March in 2005, in its 75th anniversary year, was a personal challenge and a token gesture of response to the violence of 2002 the state had endured. That is why I went out of my way to invite the participation of a group of Pakhtoon Khudai Khidmatgaar, descendants of the legacy of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan. It was a privilege to walk alongside the almost 100 Red Shirts from Pukhtoon Khwa in Pakistan and watch the people of Gujarat warmly embrace them and invite them into their homes.
The personal challenge was that three of my ancestors had walked the entire route in 1930: my great grandfather, Bapu, my grandfather, Manilal and my uncle, Kantilal. It always felt challenging to me. I wanted to test if I had it in me to walk the distance. I was always the proverbial 'Couch Potato', so, it was an intimidating task. After putting it off several times, I decided to take the plunge. None who knew me, believed I would complete the journey. On several occasions during the March, I wanted to give up mid-stride, the agony too excruciating. Then I visualized walking with Bapu, imagining his walking stick pushing me along and it gave me the strength to complete the walk-first that day's walk and then the entire 241 miles.
There were several people who dressed as Bapu during the March, but one had a remarkable resemblance to Bapu, and it was very inspiring, walking the entire distance, barefeet!
That was indeed a commendable feat. Gurudev Tagore, who was deeply revered by Bapu, happened to be in the vicinity of Sabarmati Ashram on 18 January, 1930, and paid him a visit. When asked what plans he had for his country in 1930, Bapu remarked, "I am furiously thinking night and day, and I do not see any light coming out of the surrounding darkness." But then the Inner Voice spoke to him, and light came in the form of the iniquities of the Salt Tax, and he decided to embark on the path of Civil Disobedience. What exactly was the nature of this Inner voice, for him?
For Bapu his inner voice was his conscience keeper. He acquired the ability to hear it after much effort. Once he began hearing the 'still faint voice' it became his search light, it guided him, showed him the direction and illuminated his objective.
Bapu was not against technology as such, but he was staunchly convinced that our education system bred mediocrity. What would he say about the education system of today?
Bapu had rejected the western education system outright as unsuitable for Indian needs. He believed it till his end, begging with his sons in South Africa and then in his Ashrams in South Africa and India he developed a new system of basic education that he believed would cater to the varied needs of India. It was based on the principle of Enlightening the mind, Awakening the heart and Empowering the hands. He named his model of Basic Education Buniyadi Talim and then Naee Talim.
True to his brutally honest utterances, he would have termed the education system in India today as a curse on India and Indians and would have crusaded to destroy it completely, at the same time, offering a more suitable sustainable alternative.
We are witnessing that our basic education model has completely failed and only churns out substandard students, worth next to nothing. Same is the case with the higher University education system. Upon graduation, students realise that their 'qualifications' are worthless, they are not able to get jobs which their parents were able to secure upon graduation. Even with professional degrees, it is the same. Engineers acquire a degree in Management even after specialising in a field of engineering, even after a masters. Doctors study for super specialisation after specializing to enhance their earning ability. Education from being a medium of enlightenment has been reduced to merely being a means of earning. That is the resounding failure of education system the world over, but starkly so in India.
Yes, it is indeed pathetic. If you happen to meet him again, what would your first question to him be? Any niggling doubt that you would want to clarify?
If I were to have an opportunity to meet Bapu now, my question to him, even though I know what his answer would be is, "Bapu, how may I seek revenge for your murder?" My biggest regret is that I did not get to learn from him and so the rest of the time I would sit patiently and absorb whatever he thought I needed to learn. I would not waste my time in asking questions.
In this era of Instant gratification, truth and honesty have become outdated. How would Bapu react to the WhatsApp forwards, short cuts, cutting corners, passing the buck and the inhumane behaviour of the human beings that have become so much a part of the present socio- political- psychological ethos?
Bapu would have rejected it all and made a bonfire of all of it.
Do you think Bapu was a disillusioned man in the last days of his life? On 14\ 15 August 1947 midnight, when the thrilling words of Nehru's epochal "Tryst with Destiny" speech rang through a free India, sheathed in a celebratory fervor, a frail but morally strong man, lay on a frayed mat in Beliaghata in Calcutta praying, fasting and relentlessly spinning, considering the partition 'a spiritual tragedy', ruing the vacuity of such a freedom, but still not losing faith in humanity. Mulling over many things– if he had erred somewhere, maybe he could set it right, somehow? What do you think were the issues that were going on in his mind that day?
The last years of his life were tragic for Bapu, as he had faced betrayal, he felt abandoned, cast away by those he had trusted. He saw the true nature of his people, his countrymen and women, whom he had assumed he had transformed. But his personal grief would have been enhanced because for all the things he saw going wrong with his people and in the nation, he had helped liberate, he would have blamed some weakness of his own character some flaw in his actions and he would have been harsh on himself. That was the greatest agony he had to endure.
On the first Independence Day, he pondered over his anxieties but continued to work to set things right and guide his people back on the right path and to do penance for everything wrong, that he blamed himself for.
After India won freedom, in a message to the cabinet of ministers of West Bengal, he wrote, "From today, you have to wear the crown of thorns. Strive ceaselessly to cultivate truth and non-violence. Be humble. Be forbearing… Do not let yourself be entrapped by its pomp and pageantry. Remember, you are in office to serve poor in India's villages." Humility is needed like never before. Is the India that we see today the India of his dreams? Are the poor in India's villages being served?
India became Independent on August 15, 1947. But it never achieved 'Purna Swaraj' that Bapu had aspired for, 75 years later it still hasn't.
I quote Bapu to show what he believed 'Purna Swaraj' was. In 1925, in the issue of Young India of 29th January he wrote. 'Real Swaraj will come not by the acquisition –of authority by the few but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused. In other words, Swaraj is to be obtained by educating the masses to a sense of their capacity to regulate and control authority.'
Then again writing in the April 16, 1931 issue of Young India, Bapu said, ' Let there be no mistake what Purna Swaraj means. It is full economic freedom for all the toiling millions it means no unholy alliance with any interest for their exploitation. Any alliance must mean their deliverance.'
One does not need to illustrate how far India has diverged from Bapu's concept of Purna Swaraj for his people. Today those he commanded to become servants of the people have become their Overlords.
Martin Luther King Jr. had pointed out, "He lived, thought and acted, inspired by the vision of humanity evolving toward a world of peace and harmony. We may ignore Gandhi at our own risk." Ever thought of recreating a New India based on Bapu's principles, with you heading it?
I am not capable of the task. I have admitted my short comings right in the beginning and once again let me remind you 'Greatness cannot be inherited it has to be earned'.
It was an absolute honour interacting with you and getting to know a lot more about you and Bapu. Immensely grateful for this enriching and enlightening discussion.
Thanks for your precious time.
The pleasure and privilege are mine. Thank you.
Dr. Santosh Bakaya is an academician, poet, essayist, novelist, biographer, Ted Speaker and creative writing mentor. She has been critically acclaimed for her poetic biography of Mahatma Gandhi [Ballad of Bapu]. She has more than ten books to her credit , her latest books are a biography of Martin Luther King Jr. (Only in Darkness can you see the Stars) and Songs of Belligerence (poetry). She runs a very popular column Morning meanderings in Learning And Creativity.com.
Tags Dandi March, Kasturba Gandhi, Khan Abdul Khan Gaffar, Killing Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, NOn-Cooperation, Sabarmati, Santosh Bakaya, Sarojini Naidu, South Africa, Swadeshi, Times of India, Tushar Gandhi, Winston Churchill
The Idea of India
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Anasuya Bhar explores the history of the National Anthem of India, composed by Tagore in Bengali and translated only by the poet himself and by Aruna Chakravarti. Both the translations are featured here.
1700 AD: An illustrative map of the world in the early colonial period. The Mughal Empire in India was at its greatest territorial extent. Courtesy: Creative Commons
The national anthem and the national song of India are both parts of a post-colonial narrative and did not originate prior to the British colonisation of the country, which happened effectively, from the middle of the eighteenth century. India has been broadly classified as a civilisation and a cultural phenomenon, rather than a race or a territorial presence prior to the British colonisation.
India has remained an idea ever since the ancient times, perhaps even prior to the advent of the Classical Graeco-Roman civilisation of the west. The historicisation of India's past has been a much debatable issue, with European historians representing India from their perspective. Much damage was done, for instance, by James Mill's The History of British India (1817), which rubbished the country as thoroughly debased and wanting the civilisational touch of the European west. The reality of India, or more correctly Bharat, inhered in the local and regional historical specificities, its literature, culture, myths and legends. The historical perspective of our inhabitants was that of the Puranic history whose chronology, order and narrativity depended on a time scale different from the idea of time in the western rationale for chronology. In other words, the European west's rationale consequent of the enlightenment, and the enlightened concept of history, was a later addition to the Indian consciousness.
The concept of a distinct nation, and as an individual entity in the consciousness of a socio-political presence in the history of the world, was also, a comparatively belated concept in our country. In fact, it was not earlier than the Mughals that the country was conceptualised as a unified entity from the North to the South, from the East to the West. The Indian sub-continent is strategically guarded by the geographical presence of the Himalayan range, the Indian ocean, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. Hence, the territorial boundaries which become crucial in determining the political borders of the European or the American west are not of much consequence over here. The borders that are present in the former continents are a result of political aggression and imperialism. The borders that ensued in the Indian subcontinent and eventually created Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh and also Sri Lanka, are, however, a result of the European and, particularly, British intervention.
The consciousness of India's nationalism was, as mentioned in the beginning, a later one and quite clearly a colonial aftermath. Among the first to mention the lack of an indigenous history was Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838 – 94), the celebrated novelist and intellectual of nineteenth century Bengal, who himself attempted to write, through his various essays, a historical consciousness for his country. The writer of our national song 'Bande Mataram' (in Anandamath, 1882), Bankimchandra was also the first to think of a 'jatiyo' or a nationalist consciousness, and attempted to take a fresh look at the puranic history based on myths and legends. He rewrote the narrative of Krishna, and also looked afresh at the fundamentals of the Hindu religion.
The nationalist consciousness was given a fresh lease through the several attempts for promoting indigenous products and enterprises by the Tagores of Jorasanko in Kolkata. The Hindu Mela (Hindu fair), begun since the mid-1860s by Dwijendranath Tagore (1840 – 1926) was among the first to strike concepts of an indigenous nationhood, by giving impetus through homespun fabrics, cultivation of rural handicrafts and traditional food items like pickles or 'bori', such that a space could be created independent of the parameters used by the colonial masters. Rabindranath (1861 – 1941) also refers to several attempts of his elder brother Jyotirindranath (1849 – 1925), in creating the matchstick factory or even striking a competition in the ship trade with their English counterparts in the waters of Bengal in his autobiographical Jibansmriti (My Reminiscences, 1911). He also mentions the latter's attempt at designing a national dress for the country, trying to fuse various drapes of traditional clothing. This is again very interesting because, a distinctive sartorial appearance would help in identifying the Indian from the European, even externally. The sari as we wear it now, was first conceptualised by Jnanadanandini Devi (1850 – 1941) of the Tagore household. She gave the Indian women a dignified attire by fusing the styles of Parsis and Gujaratis, and also by improvising on the styles of the European gown to give us the blouse-jacket. The unification of various styles automatically veered towards a oneness in the same territorial boundaries and the nationalistic consciousness came first through cultural means.
The Tagores of Bengal were also among the first, after Rammohan Roy (1772 – 1833), to venture beyond their homes. Dwarakanath (1794 -1846), grandfather of Rabindranath, not only stayed in England for a substantial period of time, but also endeared himself to Queen Victoria as the 'Prince'. Debendranath (1817 – 1905), his son, was in the habit of touring the Himalayas extensively, and even took his youngest son Rabi along with him. Satyendranath (1842 – 1923), another of his sons, was the first Indian to qualify in the Indian Civil Service; he too, extensively toured several parts of India and abroad. Rabindranath was a frequent traveller from a very early age. The women of the Tagore household, beginning with Jnanadanandini Devi also moved out of their antarmahal (inner quarters) and into the other parts of their country and even the world. Indira, Mrinalini, Sarala, Pratima along with Jnanada were frequent travellers both within and outside the country. Hence, the country and the ideology of India as a nation were familiar concepts to the members of this remarkable family from Bengal. Of course, there were other influential households in nineteenth century Bengal, but none so extensively influential.
The formation of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885, marked the culmination of several isolated and scattered attempts at nurturing a nationalist consciousness. I have, however, given a few instances from Bengal. I am sure similar attempts were made in other states as well. Even in the formation of the INC, we see the pivotal role played by Janakinath Ghosal (1840 – 1913), husband of the well-known litterateur Swarnakumari Devi (1855 – 1932), elder sister of Rabindranath. According to the memoirs of his elder daughter Hiranmayee, Janakinath was a key presence at the time of the formation of the Congress. Later, Sarala (1872 – 1945), their younger daughter, not only became a part of the Congress, but was also among the foremost figures in Bengal to enthuse young men into the national struggle through cultivation of physical fitness programs. Sarala also worked closely with Swami Vivekananda and Sister Nivedita in some of their philanthropic programs.
Jana Gana Mana, now venerated as our National Anthem, was most possibly first composed as a hymn, by Rabindranath Tagore. This hymn was first recited on the second day of the annual session of the Indian National Congress on 27th December 1911, by none other than Rabindranath himself. This was followed by a second performance of it in January 1912, in the annual event of the 'Adi Brahmo Samaj' or the Brahmo Congregation, and then it was published, for the first time in the January edition of the Tattwabodhini Patrika, which was the official journal of the 'Adi Brahmo Samaj', with the title 'Bharata Bhagya Bidhata' or 'the determinant of Bharat's destiny'. The journal was, at that time, edited by Rabindranath himself. The original song, composed in Bengali, has five stanzas. The Anthem makes use of only the first of the five and usually covers an average time of 52 seconds when sung. The original language has been retained, although its intonation is Devanagiri.
The Song in Bengali. Photo courtesy: Anasuya Bhar
The song is a hymn to the all-pervasive, almighty, and the maker of the country's destiny, the power of whom presides over her natural boundaries of the Himalayas and other mountains and the rivers, and where resides individuals of all races, cultures and religions. It has been the benefactor, through thick and thin, assimilating the good with the bad, and when the country has been lying destitute in trouble and pain, has extended its hand in empathetic wonder. The sun of Bharat's destiny will rise again and the pall of darkness shall be drowned in the light of a new dawn – a new beginning and a new hope. Rabindranath did not live to see this dawn, but his visions were realised and honoured by the makers of the Constitution of the Republic of India.
The hymn that originated in the poet's fiftieth year, perhaps had its germs planted in him through his entire life as the beginning of this essay tries to elaborate. It was only time and the political needs of the country that expedited its utterance in the year 1911. The poet's vision found embodiment in other and similar creations as well. His Gitanjali (1912) contains the well-known poem, 'Where the mind is without fear' (XXXV) –
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action —
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father let my country awake.
The year in which he composed and first presented Jana Gana Mana, that is 1911, was in many ways a very crucial year in his personal history. As mentioned earlier it was his fiftieth birth-year, and he was gradually beginning to be acknowledged for his poetic greatness in his own land. The following year, that is 1912, he would go to England, with some of his own translations into English, and which would, introduce him to the world as a major poet, among other poets. 1911, was also the year which marked the coronation of King George V and the transfer of the British capital from Calcutta to Delhi. In fact, Rabindranath's hymn was initially mistaken to be sung in honour of the new Emperor of the British dominions, but was later clarified to be otherwise, and was acknowledged to be a 'prayer' for his own native land and independent of such intentions.
The period that we are considering is also a very significant one in Rabindranath's own consciousness of the nation and his concept of nationalism. In 1910, he published his novel Gora where he underlined the irony inherent in religious exclusivity and bigotry. His protagonist, a staunch votary of Hindu values and virtues, ironically emerges to be an Irish foundling reared in a Hindu home. Through him Rabindranath proves the efficacy of such conservative religious bigotry. His song 'Bharata Bhagya Bidhata' pledges to go beyond external divisions of religion and politics, and endorses the value of humanity; nor does it discount the importance of the west, but believes in the fruitful coming together of the best of all worlds. His school at Santiniketan, later to be identified as Visva-Bharati, exemplifies this coming together of the best of all the worlds. In 1919, he delivered a series of lectures on nationalism, which came together in a single volume called Nationalism, and further endorsed his beliefs in finding the nation through culture, history and habits rather than through and in territorial, narrow parochial walls. In Ghare Baire (The Home and the World, 1916), published around the same time, he offers us a critique of the Swadeshi Movement that dominated colonial politics in the first decade of the twentieth century in Bengal. He subtly interweaves a tale of the 'personal' with the 'political' in the triangular narrative structure of Bimala, Nikhil and Sandip, only to expose the petty hypocrisies that inhere within the grand narratives of 'nationalism', 'patriotism' and even 'swadeshi' at the cost of the common good and humanity at large.
Jana Gana Mana was sung by Sarala Devi Chaudhuri, Rabindranath's niece and daughter of Janakinath, in 1912, and who had distinguished herself as one of the earliest women nationalists of the country. The song was, then, performed in front of veteran Congress leaders. Outside Bengal, the song was perhaps performed for the first time by Rabindranath in the annual session of Besant Theosophical College in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, on 28th February 1919. The Vice-Principal of the college, Margaret Cousins, was so enthralled by the song that she asked the poet to translate it for her. This Tagore did, and the translation is called 'The Morning Song of India'. A facsimile image of the same is shown here.
The Morning Song of India in Rabindranath's handwriting. Photo courtesy: Anasuya Bhar
'Jana Gana Mana' has been translated into English by noted writer, academic and translator, Aruna Chakravarti. She is perhaps the only person to accomplish this beside the poet himself. The following is the translation made by her, along with the English transliteration of the Bengali original (Songs of Tagore, Niyogi Books):
Leader of the masses.
Lord of the minds of men.
Arbiter of India's destiny.
Hail to you! All hail!
Your name resounds through her sea and land
waking countless sleeping souls
from Punjab, Sindh, Gurarat, Maratha
to Dravid, Utkal, Banga.
Her mighty mountains—Himachal, Vindhya,
her rivers—Yamuna, Ganga,
the blue green sea with which she is girdled;
her waves, her peaks, her rippling air
seek your blessing, carry your echoes.
Oh boundless good! Oh merciful!
At the sound of your call the people assemble
from myriad streams of life.
Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain.
Christian, Parsee and Sikh.
East and West stand by your throne
hands held in amity,
weaving a wreath of fraternal love;
of empathy, unity.
Oh you who bring us all together!
Nations rise and nations fall
on the perilous path of history.
And you Eternal Charioteer
guide the world's destiny.
Through day, through night, your wheels are heard
renting the air with sound,
dispelling terror, banishing pain;
blowing the conch of peace.
Oh true arbiter of India's fate!
In the deep dark of a turbulent night,
when our swooning, suffering land
lifted her eyes to your face in hope,
she saw your unwavering gaze
raining blessings, alight with love,
banishing evil dreams.
Like a loving mother you held out your arms
and changed her destiny.
Oh you who wipe out the pain of the masses!
A new day dawns; a new sun rises
from the mountains of the east.
Song birds trill; new sap of life
is borne on the holy breeze.
India awakes from aeons of slumber
to the strains of your lofty song.
Head bowed to your feet oh King of kings!
(Republished with permission from Songs of Tagore, Niyogi Books)
Outside of the country, the song was also performed as the 'national anthem' of independent India, under the leadership of Subhas Chandra Bose on the occasion of the founding meeting of the German Indian Society on the 11th of September 1942, in Hamburg, Germany. The Indian Constituent Assembly allowed the performance of Jana Gana Mana on the midnight of 14th August 1947, marking the close of the historical session in the Parliament. It was on the 24th of January, 1950 that only the first stanza of the song was accepted as the National Anthem of independent India. The paeans of a land millennia old, perhaps heading the dawn of all human civilisation alone, is sung through glory to the world over, till date, bearing the torch of an all tolerant, enduring land, by the name of Bharat. Perhaps we still need to be in quest of its philosophy of oneness.
A full rendition of Jana Gana Mana by Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta
Dr. Anasuya Bhar is Associate Professor of English and Dean of Postgraduate Studies, at St. Paul's Cathedral Mission College Kolkata, India. She has many publications, both academic and creative, to her credit.
Tags Anadamath, Anasuya Bhar, Aruna Chakravarti, Bande Mataram, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Besant Theosophical society, Brahmo Samaj, Gitanjali, Gora, Home and the World/Ghare Baire, James Mill, Janaganamana, Jibansmriti, Mughals, National Congress, Niyogi Books, Queen Victoria, Rammohun Roy, Sarala Devi Chaudhari, Sister Nivedita, Songs of Tagore, Subhas Chandra Bose, Swadeshi, Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta, Swami Vivekananda, Swarnakumari Devi, Tagore, The History of British India, Visva Bharati, Where the Mind is without Fear


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Professor Julie Cairney grew up in outback Australia in the town of Broken Hill. She studied Materials Science and Engineering at UNSW under a scholarship from Pasminco Limited (a former mining company based in Broken Hill). In 2002, she was awarded a PhD (Physical Metallurgy) also from UNSW. The next few years were spent working as a researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK and the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, Germany, before returning to Australia. She is currently working as a Professor in the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, and is a Director at the Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis and is CEO of Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility.
Professor Julie Cairney studies materials using advanced microscopy techniques that can image matter down to atomic scale. Their microstructure can then be related to their properties, and this knowledge can be used to engineer advanced materials with desirable properties such as superalloys, steels and hard coatings. In this way her work contributes to the development of stronger, lighter materials that require less energy to produce, for applications in industries like aerospace, construction and manufacturing.
"I love working with microscopes. In a parallel to astronomy, we're able to explore the unseen world of 'inner space' with the amazing scientific instrumentation available today. I think it's incredible that we can actually detect and visualise single atoms. To give some perspective, a single human hair is approximately the width of a million Carbon 12 atoms lying side by side.
"The structure of matter at atomic scale can tell us a lot about its performance in the real world. This information can then be used to develop new engineering materials such as high-wear alloys for longer-lasting parts that can save the mining industry millions of dollars in downtime costs, high-temperature materials that will enable the next generation of renewable energy technologies, thin-strip steels that require significantly less energy to produce, and exceptionally strong alloys with nanometre-sized grains.
"The successful manufacture of these materials will provide significant environmental as well as economic benefits, and they will have high-performance applications in a range of industries including aerospace, transport, construction, manufacturing, sports products, food and chemical processing, as well as in microelectromechanical and biomedical systems.
"I've been a materials researcher since completing my PhD in 2002, and joined the staff at the University of Sydney in 2005. My research relies heavily on being able to access world-class infrastructure for materials characterisation. Here at the Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis we have an outstanding array of state-of-the-art microscopes, as good as any of their kind in the world."
Cryo atom probe tomography: an atomic-scale view of life; Cairney J; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Future Fellowships (FT).
Exploring Mars atom-by-atom; Cairney J, Lee M, McCarroll I, Eder K, Daly L, Hallis L, McGrouther D, Griffin S, O'Brien A; Office of Global Engagement/Partnership Collaboration Awards.
A comprehensive correlative cryo microscopy suite; Cairney J; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF).
Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility; Cairney J; NSW Department of Industry/Research Attraction and Acceleration Program.
The Characterisation Data Enhanced Virtual Laboratory; Goscinski W, Cairney J, Hammond J, Hoo R; Department of Education and Training (Federal)/National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).
Measurements and characterizations on hydrogen trapping in advanced steels; Cairney J, Yen H, La Fontaine A; Office of Global Engagement/Partnership Collaboration Awards.
ARC Research Hub for Advanced Manufacturing of Personalised Medical Devices; Dargusch M, St John D, Nabulsi S, Easton M, Cairney J, Croft J, Veidt M, Bermingham M, Kent D, Smart M, Erskine E, McDonald S, Bryant S, Tucker N; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Industrial Transformation Research Hubs (ITRH).
The Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility; Cairney J; Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services (NSW)/Research Support.
Achieving Atomic Scale Tomography; Cairney J, Gorman B; DVC Research/International Research Collaboration Award (IRCA).
A tool to observe nanoscale deformation by transmission Kikuchi diffraction; Liao X, Cairney J, Lu C, Yang C, Trimby P, Li H, Proust G, Xiang Y, Mai Y; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF).
How nanoscale deformation mechanisms affect the mechanical behavior of materials; Liao X, Cairney J, Mai Y, Proust G; University of Sydney/Equipment Grant.
High performance ultrasonically processed biodegradable alloy products; Dargusch M, St John D, Easton M, Nabulsi S, Cairney J; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP).
Atom probe of nanomaterials; Cairney J, Ringer S; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP).
Deed of Variation Australian NCRIS funding for Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facility Project AMMRF; Cairney J, Apperley M; DEST - NCRIS/Research Grants Program.
Wear-resistant alloys for the mining industry LP130100111; Cairney J, Dolman K, Lucey T; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP).
LIC: Wear-resistant alloys for the mining industry (Licence imbedded in LP130100111); Cairney J.
Atomic-scale insights into interfaces in ultrafine-grained, low-solute alloys LP120100067; Cairney J, Ferry M, Cai H, Ferry M; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP).
Thermal and Mechanical Simulation Laboratory for Light Metals; Ferry M, Ringer S, Cairney J; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF).
Understanding Grain Boundary Segregation - A Route to Developing New Advanced Engineering Materials; Cairney J, Dargusch M; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP).
Quantifying the role of impurities in nanocrystalline metals; Cairney J, Gianola D; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP).
New insights on the role of microalloying in high strength steels; Pereloma E, Ringer S, Cairney J, Barbaro F, Killmore C; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP).
Pushing the limits: fabricating micro and nano actuators; Cairney J; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP).
Transmission Electron Mircroscope-Nanoindenter for Nano-Mechanical Testing; Liao X, Wang X, Mai Y, Zhang L, Cairney J, Ringer S; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF).
Transmission Electron Microscope-Nanoindenter for Nano-Mechanical Testing; Zhang L, Cairney J, Liao X, Ringer S, Mai Y, Wang X; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF).
CSIRO Light Metals Flagship: Atom Probe Tomography (APT) of Titanium for Cold Spray Processing.; Ringer S, Cairney J, Jahedi M; Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation/Flagship Cluster.
International Visit to United States - Jan 2007; Cairney J; Australian Research Network for Advanced Materials (ARNAM)/Research Grants.
New approaches to understanding grain boundary chemistry; Cairney J, Larson D; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP).
Organisation of NanosStructure in new Microalloyed Strip Cast Steels for Control of Properties; Cairney J, Barbaro F, Killmore C, Williams J, Yao L, Kennedy P, Ringer S, Williams J, Williams J; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP).
Improving Tribological Performance Through the Control of Surface Microstructure Using Plasma Based Surface Engineering Technologies; Wong Y, Munroe P, Cairney J, Lu G, Doyle E; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP).
3-D investigation of internal interfaces in annealed metals using 3-D focused ion beam tomography; Ferry M, Cairney J; Australian Research Council (ARC)/Discovery Projects (DP).
The Influence of Sample Dimensions on Strength and Plasticity; Cairney J; University of New South Wales/Faculty Research Grant.
Development of a hard-coating system adapted to metal forming; Cairney J; Australian Academy of Science/Default scheme.
Mechanical Surface Property Analysis Facility; Burford R, Chan D, Ferry M, Furukawa E, Lamb R, Walsh W, Cairney J, Hoffman M; University of New South Wales/Capital Grant.
Gault, B., Moody, M., Cairney, J., Ringer, S. (2012). Atom Probe Microscopy (Springer Series in Materials Science 160). New York: Springer.
Trimby, P., Cairney, J. (2014). Transmission kikuchi diffraction in the scanning electron microscope: orientation mapping on the nanoscale. Advanced Materials and Processes, 172(2), 13-15.
Killmore, C., Carpenter, K., Kaul, H., Edelman, D., Zhu, C., Cairney, J., Ringer, S., Williams, J., Campell, P., Blejde, W. (2011). Development of Low Carbon Microalloyed High Strength Ultra-Thin Cast Strip Products Produced by the Castrip (R) Process With Excellent Strength-Ductility Properties. Journal of Iron and Steel Research International, 18(S1), 846-850.
Wong, C., Ruys, A., Cairney, J. (2008). Freeze-Dried Nanoparticulate Sols. Materials Forum, 32, 78-81.
Ceguerra, A., Moody, M., Cairney, J., Jahedi, M., Ringer, S. (2008). Preliminary Interface Characterisation of Cold Sprayed Copper on Aluminium. Materials Forum, 32, 123-127.
Burgmann, F., Xie, K., Cairney, J., Ringer, S., Killmore, C., Barbaro, F., Williams, J. (2008). The Effect of Niobium Additions on Ferrite Formation in Castrip� Steel. Materials Forum, 32, 9-12.
Cairney, J., McKenzie, W., Saxey, D., Munroe, P., Ringer, S. (2007). Recent advances in FIB-based site-specific atom probe specimen preparation techniques. Microscopy and Microanalysis, 13(Suppl 2), 1634 CD-1635 CD.
Ma, L., Cairney, J., McGrouther, D., Hoffman, M., Munroe, P. (2007). Three dimensional imaging of deformation modes in TiN-based thin film coatings. Thin Solid Films.
Mateescu, N., Ferry, M., Ma, R., Cairney, J. (2006). Influence of FIB milling parameters on EBSD pattern quality. TMS Letters, 3(1), 7-8.
Ferry, M., Mateescu, N., Ma, L., Cairney, J. (2006). The influence of material type and milling parameters on the generation of high quality EBSD patterns for 3-D orientation mapping by FIB tomography. TMS Letters.
Cairney, J., Munroe, P., SORDELE, D. (2001). Microstructural analysis of FeAl-quasicrystal composites prepared using a focused ion beam miller. Journal of Microscopy.
Cairney, J., Munroe, P. (2001). Preparation of transmission electron microscope specimens from FeAl and WC Powders using focused-ion beam milling. Materials Characterization, 46(4), 297-304.
Daly, L., Bland, P., Evans, K., Dyl, K., Forman, L., Trimby, P., Moody, S., Yang, L., Liu, H., La Fontaine, A., Cairney, J., Ringer, S., et al (2016). Composition of Refractory Metal Nuggets: Implications for Their Origins. 47th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC 2016), The Woodlands, Texas: Lunar & Planetary Science Conference.
Cairney, J., Saxey, D., McGrouther, D., Ringer, S. (2006). Atom probe tomography studies of grain boundary segregation. Australian conference on microscopy and microanalysis ACMM19.
Ma, L., McGrouther, D., Munroe, P., Cairney, J., Hoffman, M. (2006). Three-dimensional imaging of cracking in berkovich indented thin film coatings. TMS 2006, USA: TMS Publications.
Rebollo, N., Cairney, J., Gandhi, A., Rühle, M., Levi, C. (2005). De-stabilization kinetics of t' Zirconia: Y content and Temperature Effects. Winter Study Group on Science and Technology of Thermal Barrier Coatings.
Yang, M., Tsukano, R., Fujimoto, K., Cairney, J. (2005). Development of a hard-coating system adapted to metal forming (in Japanese). Meeting of the Japan Society for the Technology of Plasticity, Japan.
Cairney, J., Rebollo, N., Catanoiu, A., Levi, C., Rühle, M. (2005). Improving the phase stability of TBC's at high temperatures with Yb additions. Winter Study Group on Science and Technology of Thermal Barrier Coatings.
Doyle, E., Wong, Y., Dowey, S., Cairney, J., Munroe, P. (2005). Nitriding Response of high speed steels using active screen plasma technology (ASPN). Heat Treatment and Surface Engineering in Automotive Applications, Not Published: Not Published.
Munroe, P., Cairney, J., Rubanov, S. (2004). Artifacts in transmission electron microscope specimens prepared using the focused ion beam miller", invited paper. Thin Films 2004 & Nanotech 2004.
Munroe, P., Cairney, J., Rubanov, S. (2003). Artifacts and damage in transmission electron microscope specimens prepared using the FIB. FIB 2003: Advances in Focused Ion Beam Microscopy, Not Published: Not Published.
Cairney, J., Munroe, P., Doyle, E. (2003). Characterisation of TiN and TiAlN coatings on rough surfaces using focused ion beam milling. ICMCTF.
Hoffman, M., Xie, Z., Cairney, J., Moon, R., Munroe, P. (2003). Deformation processes in TiN films on Ductile substrates. ICMCTF.
Cairney, J., Munroe, P. (2003). The application of focused ion beam technology to nanoscale materials. APNF 2003 "Oz Nano 03", Australia.
Cairney, J., Munroe, P. (2002). Redeposition effects in TEM specimens of composites prepared using a focused ion beam miller. 15th International Congress on Electron Microscopy, South Africa: Microscopy Society of Southern Africa.


Our growing engineering business is looking for an Office Coordinator who can help us create a more productive work environment, while ensuring that our clients get the support they need.
The ideal candidate for this position is an organized, detail-oriented individual who is able to manage multiple projects at once in a fast-paced environment. If you are a deadline-driven professional with a strong work ethic and a background in office administration, we want to hear from you.


Mystik Pathways began with the hope of its founder. Inspired by her years of spiritual exploration, Mary Winters seeks to contribute towards the access, understanding and growth of alternative pathways to health and well-being. Established as a holistic atelier, Mystik Pathways offers healing sessions, training and specialty items which embrace a comprehensive approach towards a life in balance.
At its most general, a Holistic approach emphasizes that a thing is not defined solely by its parts and that those parts are directly interconnected and interdependent to the whole. One example of the concept is employed within the medical community. In modern medicine, the word is characterized by the treatment of the whole person, taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just the physical symptoms of a disease1.
Purely clinical perspectives can only go so far. A better understanding emerges if we include the full range of human experience. A holistic viewpoint acknowledges that the various aspects of our lives, including the mental; physical and spiritual components, directly and intimately influence each other.
Atelier is a French word for "workshop". In the English language, the word has been used as a name for a workshop of fine arts, where an instructor, a number students and associates worked together towards a common goal. In such places, skilled artists tapped their creative energies for the enrichment of our lives.
As a holistic atelier, Mystik Pathways promotes the uniting of mind, body and spirit for the sake of complete well-being. We invite you to explore the unique services, training and products as well as the oppurtunity to share your own insights and experiences. Though each of us travels a distinct journey through life, all of us can achieve happiness. With clarity, compassion and commitment, we seek to help in realizing that destination.
1 - Holistic: In terms of modern medicine; defined by Oxford Dictionaries.
Copyright © 2019 Mystik Pathways. All Rights Reserved.


text:
FORNEY SHARES THEIR ROOTS
by Rachel Bigum | Oct 29, 2019 | Informational Blogs | 0 comments
It was a simple idea, brought to fruition by the people of Forney Industries.
We would design a tree made entirely of steel. In a sense, a metaphor for Forney Industries. A representation of life, constructed of strong material, only as strong as the welds that hold it together.
The design concept itself was developed by a welding technician at Forney Industries, Gabby. She has a gift for not only welding and metalworking, but also art. When these two gifts are combined the result is awe-inspiring, and this tree is proof of that.
Gabby started with Forney Industries mid-September 2016 and has been a valuable asset to our team ever since. She began her metalworking career in the fall of 2014 when she discovered the welding program at Front Range Community College, and from there her love of the trade began to flourish. In fact, Gabby's knowledge about welding is so extensive that she teaches welding and metalworking classes to employees from all departments of Forney Industries. Her passion for art combined with her welding talent made her an obvious choice as the artist behind the tree sculpture project.
While the sculpture itself represents a multitude of metaphors, the actual construction of the tree encapsulates another beautiful message; one of teamwork and comradery.
If one of Matt Kaufman's coworkers were to describe him in two words the choice would be easy—wild card.
At home, Matt is an amazing artist who's capable of creating drawings, paintings and other works of art in a matter of seconds… literally. As one could probably imagine, Matt's artistic talents didn't go unnoticed for long around Forney. Once his talent was discovered, he was asked to design Forney shirts, welding helmets, and even sketch logos for various products.
At work, you can find Matt assisting with maintenance projects, helping the warehouse streamline processes, or even building new conference rooms for the corporate office. Although, arguably the greatest thing about Matt is that he hardly ever needs to be asked to lend a hand.
That is precisely why when Matt realized the energy a sculpture of this scale would take, he jumped in without hesitation. Thanks to Gabby and Matt, the tree sculpture is ready for its debut at FABTECH this year.
So together, an artistic handyman and a creative welding technician joined forces to complete a representation of life, constructed of strong material, that is undoubtedly as strong as the people that that welded it together.
End Note:
This tree will be showcased in Forney's booth at FABTECH 2019. Attendees will be given the opportunity to cut out a leaf using a Forney plasma cutter, and Gabby will weld them onto the sculpture. For every leaf cut, Forney Industries will donate $1 to Workshops for Warriors.
Workshops for Warriors is a nonprofit school that trains and certifies veterans, wounded warriors and transitioning service members for careers in advanced manufacturing. They believe our veterans deserve renewed purpose and meaningful careers when they transition out of the military.
Their curriculum offers welding, CAD/CAM programming (SolidWorks and Mastercam) and CNC Machining (CNC milling, CNC turning, CNC laser, CNC waterjet). In only 16 weeks, Workshops for Warriors students can pursue their chosen path in one of several high-tech manufacturing fields. Since 2008, this organization has maintained a 94 percent placement rate, with most students having landed a job prior to graduation.
For more information about this organization, click here.
To learn more about Forney Industries check out this blog, or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Tyron brings a wealth of experience to his role within Capricorn from the time he spent working in a similar role within one of the largest banks in South Africa. This role taught him the importance of service, a meticulous attention to detail, and innovative thinking when looking to deliver great customer outcomes. Tyron enjoys the outdoors, whether it be throwing a Frisbee or going for Hikes and also enjoys watching football, as long as Manchester United is winning.


text:
Pitman loses 3rd straight in CCC
Cady Riley is the first to put points on the board for Pitman on Thursday night. - photo by CANDY PADILLA / The Journal
The struggles continue for Pitman High's girls basketball team. After finishing 9-8 in pre-league play, the Pride have since dropped their first three Central California Conference matchups, with the most recent loss coming at the hands of Atwater High in a 51-37 final on Thursday.
Pitman's roster is young and fairly inexperienced when it comes to varsity competition. Their play is reflective of that as the girls' lack of execution has been the leading factor in their losses. On Thursday, an inability to defend against Atwater's perimeter shooting and the failure to drop their shots—from both inside and outside the paint— proved to be the death nail for the Pride.
"We didn't play real well to start the game. We played a little better in the third and fourth quarters, but we had a really slow start," head coach Dustin Curtiss said. "They made shots. They kind of got on us right away, they knocked shots down, and we kind of got into that constant fight back mode trying to climb up a hill we can't climb up yet."
The Falcons surged to a 19-6 lead by the end of the first quarter with the help of four treys. While Atwater was adding to their total, Pitman was toiling on offense to no avail as a steady stream of turnovers limited their opportunities and put a wrench in its offensive game plan.
So far, Pitman is averaging 30 turnovers a game in the CCC.
"We're turning the ball over way too much to be successful. When we have 30 turnovers, that's 30 possessions down the drain where we're not getting anything," Curtiss said. "We're also having a lot of trouble making open shots and a lot of trouble getting open shots. Then when we get them, we miss them.
"That aspect has to be cleaned up for us to be successful in league," Curtiss added.
But despite their slow start, the Pride were able to up their competitive level in the second, third, and fourth quarters as they nearly matched Atwater's offensive output before outscoring its girls 13-9 in the final quarter. Much of the Pride's second half success was aided by Estephanie Torres who finished the game with a team high nine points.
"I think the girls' confidence is a little low right now, so if we can get their confidence back I think things will start flowing the way they should," Curtiss said.
Pitman will look to get things moving in the right direction and snap a three-game losing streak on Tuesday when it travels to Golden Valley High to face the Cougars, a 1-2 team in league with room to exploit on the court.
"We got to look at everything; we're in a rut and we have to figure out a way to get out of it," Curtiss said. "The ultimate goal, obviously, is win the next game. But we're still shooting for playoffs which was our goal coming into the year. With the new playoff system we just have to finish in the top three, and that's something we can still do. We just got to start playing better ASAP."
High school sports postponed again as COVID cases rise
Rodriguez signs with Fresno State


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NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OO INTERFACE

Digest speed

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR

NAME

Digest - Modules that calculate message digests

SYNOPSIS

  $md5  = Digest->new("MD5");
  $sha1 = Digest->new("SHA-1");
  $sha256 = Digest->new("SHA-256");
  $sha384 = Digest->new("SHA-384");
  $sha512 = Digest->new("SHA-512");

  $hmac = Digest->HMAC_MD5($key);

DESCRIPTION

The Digest:: modules calculate digests, also called "fingerprints" or "hashes", of some data, called a message. The digest is (usually) some small/fixed size string. The actual size of the digest depend of the algorithm used. The message is simply a sequence of arbitrary bytes or bits.

An important property of the digest algorithms is that the digest is likely to change if the message change in some way. Another property is that digest functions are one-way functions, that is it should be hard to find a message that correspond to some given digest. Algorithms differ in how "likely" and how "hard", as well as how efficient they are to compute.

Note that the properties of the algorithms change over time, as the algorithms are analyzed and machines grow faster. If your application for instance depends on it being "impossible" to generate the same digest for a different message it is wise to make it easy to plug in stronger algorithms as the one used grow weaker. Using the interface documented here should make it easy to change algorithms later.

All Digest:: modules provide the same programming interface. A functional interface for simple use, as well as an object oriented interface that can handle messages of arbitrary length and which can read files directly.

The digest can be delivered in three formats:

binary

This is the most compact form, but it is not well suited for printing or embedding in places that can't handle arbitrary data.

hex

A twice as long string of lowercase hexadecimal digits.

base64

A string of portable printable characters. This is the base64 encoded representation of the digest with any trailing padding removed. The string will be about 30% longer than the binary version. MIME::Base64 tells you more about this encoding.

The functional interface is simply importable functions with the same name as the algorithm. The functions take the message as argument and return the digest. Example:

  use Digest::MD5 qw(md5);
  $digest = md5($message);

There are also versions of the functions with "_hex" or "_base64" appended to the name, which returns the digest in the indicated form.

OO INTERFACE

The following methods are available for all Digest:: modules:

$ctx = Digest->XXX($arg,...)

$ctx = Digest->new(XXX => $arg,...)

$ctx = Digest::XXX->new($arg,...)

The constructor returns some object that encapsulate the state of the message-digest algorithm. You can add data to the object and finally ask for the digest. The "XXX" should of course be replaced by the proper name of the digest algorithm you want to use.

The two first forms are simply syntactic sugar which automatically load the right module on first use. The second form allow you to use algorithm names which contains letters which are not legal perl identifiers, e.g. "SHA-1". If no implementation for the given algorithm can be found, then an exception is raised.

If new() is called as an instance method (i.e. $ctx->new) it will just reset the state the object to the state of a newly created object. No new object is created in this case, and the return value is the reference to the object (i.e. $ctx).

$other_ctx = $ctx->clone

The clone method creates a copy of the digest state object and returns a reference to the copy.

$ctx->reset

This is just an alias for $ctx->new.

$ctx->add( $data )

$ctx->add( $chunk1, $chunk2, ... )

The string value of the $data provided as argument is appended to the message we calculate the digest for. The return value is the $ctx object itself.

If more arguments are provided then they are all appended to the message, thus all these lines will have the same effect on the state of the $ctx object:

  $ctx->add("a"); $ctx->add("b"); $ctx->add("c");
  $ctx->add("a")->add("b")->add("c");
  $ctx->add("a", "b", "c");
  $ctx->add("abc");

Most algorithms are only defined for strings of bytes and this method might therefore croak if the provided arguments contain chars with ordinal number above 255.

$ctx->addfile( $io_handle )

The $io_handle is read until EOF and the content is appended to the message we calculate the digest for. The return value is the $ctx object itself.

The addfile() method will croak() if it fails reading data for some reason. If it croaks it is unpredictable what the state of the $ctx object will be in. The addfile() method might have been able to read the file partially before it failed. It is probably wise to discard or reset the $ctx object if this occurs.

In most cases you want to make sure that the $io_handle is in "binmode" before you pass it as argument to the addfile() method.

$ctx->add_bits( $data, $nbits )

$ctx->add_bits( $bitstring )

The add_bits() method is an alternative to add() that allow partial bytes to be appended to the message. Most users should just ignore this method as partial bytes is very unlikely to be of any practical use.

The two argument form of add_bits() will add the first $nbits bits from $data. For the last potentially partial byte only the high order $nbits % 8 bits are used. If $nbits is greater than length($data) * 8, then this method would do the same as $ctx->add($data).

The one argument form of add_bits() takes a $bitstring of "1" and "0" chars as argument. It's a shorthand for $ctx->add_bits(pack("B*", $bitstring), length($bitstring)).

The return value is the $ctx object itself.

This example shows two calls that should have the same effect:

   $ctx->add_bits("111100001010");
   $ctx->add_bits("\xF0\xA0", 12);

Most digest algorithms are byte based and for these it is not possible to add bits that are not a multiple of 8, and the add_bits() method will croak if you try.

$ctx->digest

Return the binary digest for the message.

Note that the digest operation is effectively a destructive, read-once operation. Once it has been performed, the $ctx object is automatically reset and can be used to calculate another digest value. Call $ctx->clone->digest if you want to calculate the digest without resetting the digest state.

$ctx->hexdigest

Same as $ctx->digest, but will return the digest in hexadecimal form.

$ctx->b64digest

Same as $ctx->digest, but will return the digest as a base64 encoded string.

Digest speed

This table should give some indication on the relative speed of different algorithms. It is sorted by throughput based on a benchmark done with of some implementations of this API:

 Algorithm      Size    Implementation                  MB/s

 MD4            128     Digest::MD4 v1.3               165.0
 MD5            128     Digest::MD5 v2.33               98.8
 SHA-256        256     Digest::SHA2 v1.1.0             66.7
 SHA-1          160     Digest::SHA v4.3.1              58.9
 SHA-1          160     Digest::SHA1 v2.10              48.8
 SHA-256        256     Digest::SHA v4.3.1              41.3
 Haval-256      256     Digest::Haval256 v1.0.4         39.8
 SHA-384        384     Digest::SHA2 v1.1.0             19.6
 SHA-512        512     Digest::SHA2 v1.1.0             19.3
 SHA-384        384     Digest::SHA v4.3.1              19.2
 SHA-512        512     Digest::SHA v4.3.1              19.2
 Whirlpool      512     Digest::Whirlpool v1.0.2        13.0
 MD2            128     Digest::MD2 v2.03                9.5

 Adler-32        32     Digest::Adler32 v0.03            1.3
 CRC-16          16     Digest::CRC v0.05                1.1
 CRC-32          32     Digest::CRC v0.05                1.1
 MD5            128     Digest::Perl::MD5 v1.5           1.0
 CRC-CCITT       16     Digest::CRC v0.05                0.8

These numbers was achieved Apr 2004 with ActivePerl-5.8.3 running under Linux on a P4 2.8 GHz CPU. The last 5 entries differ by being pure perl implementations of the algorithms, which explains why they are so slow.

SEE ALSO

Digest::Adler32, Digest::CRC, Digest::Haval256, Digest::HMAC, Digest::MD2, Digest::MD4, Digest::MD5, Digest::SHA, Digest::SHA1, Digest::SHA2, Digest::Whirlpool

New digest implementations should consider subclassing from Digest::base.

MIME::Base64

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

AUTHOR

Gisle Aas <gisle@aas.no>

The Digest:: interface is based on the interface originally developed by Neil Winton for his MD5 module.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

    Copyright 1998-2006 Gisle Aas.
    Copyright 1995,1996 Neil Winton.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Alfreton Town manager Nicky Law insists his side are capable of producing an upset in this Saturday's Emirates FA Cup fourth qualifying round tie at Macclesfield Town.
The Reds have lost their last three league games in succession but those defeats have been interspersed by two very good away wins in the cup and Law is now looking for his young side to go out and show what they can do against higher ranking opponents.
"Macclesfield away is certainly not the ideal tie and will be a tough game" said the Reds boss.
"But, I think their manager John Askey will know that we will be tough opposition and I am sure they will approach the tie in the right way.
"To be honest, we are in a win-win scenario as nobody is really expecting us to get through so we will just go and give it our best shot and see where it takes us, hopefully it will be enough.
"We need not fear them, just respect them and be mindful of their threats and weaknesses.
"Whoever you play at this stage is a tough draw as every team left in the competition is wanting to get into the first round proper.
"We are certainly capable of winning the game but one thing is for sure and that is that we are going to have to perform far better all round than we did at both Hednesford and Tamworth in the last two rounds.
Law is still smarting from last weekend's 2-1 league defeat at Boston United but says the squad just have to put it behind them and get on with things.
ATFC Supporters' Association transport to this Saturday's big Emirates FA Cup tie at Macclesfield Town departs at 10.15am and seats can be booked by contacting Mark Thorpe on 07857 558401.
Should a replay be required, this will be staged at the Impact Arena on Tuesday, October 27 with a 7.45pm kick-off. Extra time and penalties would be utilised if required.