History and faith

This was response to RSS defence of scrapping Ramanujan's essay on Ramayan

I absolutely agree with you, profs Anurag Mishra & Inder Mohan Kapahy, that ASBVP has right to protest something they think is wrong. I praise Voltaire for his view, " “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". But the crux of matter is what happened in History Dept in 2008 was not a protest but an act of hooliganism and vandalism by a gang of 15-20 ABVP lumpens led by Vikas Dahiya who roughed up the professors as is their culture and wont of treating non-RSS teachers. Talking to some of them revealed that none of them had read the essay but they knew for sure that it was demeaning to Hindu deities like Sita and Ahalya. Anyway, RSS forums do not encourage reading and thinking but following and acting. This opinion of mine is not born of hearsay but of my experience and observation of its functioning and practice as an office bearer of its student wing which claims, reflecting dual character of RSS and its eternal dichotomous contradiction of theory and practice, that ABVP is an independent student body while the supreme authority of a unit is Sangathan mantri who is not a student but RSS whole timer - a PRACHARAK. And tell me honestly Pofs Mishra and kapahy have you read the essay? I had not read it till the acts of vanfdalism by ABVP lumpens in 2008. Born and brought up in a staunch ritualistic Brahman family with my grand father an acknowledged scholar of and devout believer in Panchang, I spent most of early mornings reciting verses from Ramcharitmanas and Bhagvatgita, many of them still remain in memory. In teenage after reading a hindi translation of Valmiki Ramayan whose protagonist, Ram was not a divine incarnation but a super human hero, i was quite puzzled but could not dare asking my grand father as he disliked questions on divine issues. After reading Ramanujan's essay which is serious in content and product of tedious scholarly research, the materialist view of history gets further vindicated that all the historic communities creat their own language, idioms, phrases, culture, religion and Gods and Goddesses according bto their own historico-economic needs across the tome-space. encouraged by going Scot-free after their acts of vandalism, within a few days the damaged the van and vandalized a book exhibition organised by a group of students with due permission of authorities. Why do the fascists across the time-space try to destroy the books and libraries? Why are the so scared of ideas?? if you really want to fight it at the level of ideas, please read the essay and let us talk about the merits and demerits of the essay don't cry in abstract that it contains insult to "deities". I n Valmiki ramayan, Indra in disguise seduces Ahilya who knowing the reality could not refrain from the desire of sleeping with him where as in Kampan's Indra does not seduce Ahilya but ahilya knowing well could not refrain from being attracted to the king of Gods and having pleasure of making love with the divine king. Which version would you subscribe to?