Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Drishtikone

Home
Hindu
Mindless Baba Ramdev Bashing Brigade: When Elitists become pawns in the Grand Game of Politics

Mindless Baba Ramdev Bashing Brigade: When Elitists become pawns in the Grand Game of Politics

Last updated on: April 19, 2011 at 4:30 am by Desh Kapoor

Mindless Baba Ramdev Bashing Brigade: When Elitists become pawns in the Grand Game of Politics 2011-04-19T04:30:25-05:00 Desh Kapoor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

On January 9th, 2009 Rajeev Dixit founded the Bharat Swabhiman Movement along with Baba Ramdev. A Telecom scientist who had worked with multinationals and returned to work on the rejuvenation of India – specially rural India, fought against the exploitation of the Foreign companies, corruption amongst the Politicians and Bureaucrats and the need to resuscitate the Indian knowledge base. His knowledge and ability to assimilate so many areas – history, economics, law and politics made his speeches a hit. A young person, whose audio cassettes were a big hit amongst the masses and youtube videos a hit with the online audience died young recently. Unfortunately, and intriguingly, the entire National media blanked out his death.

Baba Ramdev, the Yoga teacher who has made it his mission to teach Yoga to as many people he can reach, used his platform to propagate the very serious and well articulated issues that Rajeev Dixit would raise. They had a very simple set of 5 goals:

100% voting
100% nationalist thought
100% boycott of foreign companies, adoption of ‘swadeshi’
100% unification of the people of the nation
100% yoga-oriented nation

The people in the movement took just 5 vows:

We will only vote for patriotic, honest, valiant, farsighted, and skillful people. We ourselves will vote 100% and also make others vote.
We will unite all patriotic, sincere, aware, sensitive, intelligent and honest people together 100% and uniting the powers of the nation will bring about a new freedom, new system and new change. We will make Bharat the biggest superpower in the world.
We will 100% boycott foreign goods made with zero technology and adopt indigenous goods.
We will adopt nationalist thought 100%, and while in our personal lives we observe Hindu, Islam, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, etc. religious traditions, in our public lives we will live like a true Bharatiya.
We will make the entire country 100% yoga-oriented and make the citizens inward-focused by making them healthy and arouse the feeling of self-pride in each one by removing the cheating, corruption, hopelessness, disbelief and self-languor arising because of self-confusion, and awaken Bharat’s sleeping self-respect by building national character.

Given how the focus in the Indian economy has moved away from the poor and the entire economic process been captured by the wealthy and corrupt, this direction made sense for the resurgence of a holistic India or rather Bharat.

Vishwa Bandhu Gupta, an ex Additional Commissioner of Income Tax saw through the level and expanse of the corruption and the money laundering during his time when he oversaw the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS). He was suspended when he came out to expose the corruption.
He showed how the money was stashed by Congress MPs – specifically Sonia Gandhi – and the extent of corruption that was being engaged in.

Recently, a jawan Mitu Singh Rathore went to attend Baba Ramdev’s Free Yoga Camp. Baba Ramdev, used the platform to share the message of Bharat Swabhiman that he and others he calls on his platform – like Rajeev Dixit and Vishwa Bandhu Gupta – have shared from time to time. The guy, who had come on his own volition to a camp which was free was “disappointed” that he didn’t get to do enough “yoga” as was “promised” and hurled a shoe at the Yoga Guru.

Now, If one were to look at the above incidents and try to see the importance and seriousness of it, one would assume that the incredible mass movement and awareness generated by Baba Ramdev along with Rajeev Dixit – and the latter’s early death; along with the expose’ from Vishwa Bandhu Gupta an ex-IRS officer would be very important.

But what does the media and the copy cat bloggers focus on? Yes, the guy who went to a free Yoga camp on his own, who was disappointed that he didn’t get his money’s and time’s worth, and refused to leave through the open door without slamming his shoe at the Baba for consumer dis-satisfaction. Interestingly, instead of finding fault with the guy – who was clearly out of his mind (and maybe even financed by Baba’s detractors) – the media and the bloggers seem to find Baba Ramdev at fault!

And if that kind of close-minded and blind follow the first idiotic “journalist” to the ditch wasn’t enough, the smart-ass commenters seem to suggest that somehow Politics and Spirituality doesn’t gell together. Such people, of course, haven’t heard about Guru Nanak Dev (who talked about the madness of Babar’s killings in Lahore and about several social issues) and the rest of the Gurus including Guru Gobind Singh, Kabir (who commented a lot of the social structure of his time) Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhi etc. All the popular Spiritualists in the past have been fully engaged in public life. Spiritual pursuits have no meaning without full engagement with life in all its dimensions. And politics or social issues have interested the Spiritual leaders as much as the Eternal has. They don’t differentiate between the two.

But then this mass of educated, smart ass uninterested but fully caustic media writers open another front.

How can you compare Baba Ramdev with Vivekananda?

Hello? Did I bring the imagined dichotomy between Spirituality and Politics?

Here is a guy – Baba Ramdev – who gets up every morning with the aim to help people come out of their lazy and sedentary life styles and make Yoga asanas a part of their daily routine. The kriyas, the proper eating, asanas, the herbal medicines – things that the New Age in the US swear by and something that the Alternative Medicine enthusiasts in the West go after – are pitched to the poor and the rural across the length and breadth of the country. The Yoga camps which have introduced this health enhancing gift from the ancients – and cost an arm and a leg in the US and even in Mumbai – are offered free! Yet, the educated have an issue.

That the Baba Ramdev believes that his platform also should propagate against the ills of the society and the high and mighty is his prerogative. He has built his platform, audience and brand through his dedication and hard work – one healthy body after another – over the many years. What he does with it is completely and SOLELY within his powers. Has anyone ever ever questioned why Sachin Tendulkar sells a brand? Or why a musician gives a social interest message?

The truth is that two things are at play here:

Delibrate and Malicious Campaign against Baba Ramdev by the Government: Remember in 2006, MP Brinda Karat had accused Baba Ramdev of selling Herbal Remedies made out of “Human Bones”? She further alleged that it was based on report by a laboratory of the Health Ministry. Brinda, a Christian who is at the helm of the Communist Part of India (Marxist) – which nevertheless promotes atheism, but that is another story – had made a huge hue and cry about the human remains in Ramdev’s medicines. Today its April of 2011. If indeed so many human remains were being used in the huge amount of medicine prepared by the Baba’s Ayurvedic laboratory, pray, why wasn’t he indicted?

Or was that campaign just created as a “Hit and Run”? (Blog on the human remains) Media was all over it – which was easy as Brinda’s sister Radhika is married to Prannoy Roy.

Attempts at Ramdev’s credibility have been made from time to time, and every stone has failed to “catch any moss”. Yet, the effort continues.

Contempt of the Urban and “Educated” class for Vernacular Instruction: If the amount of Yoga teaching that Baba Ramdev has disseminated was provided by Shilpa Shetty for money with English instruction and sexy female bodies, then all that would have been kosher. But here is a guy, in full hair and worse Saffron robes offering Yoga in chaste Hindi, which to the prejudiced and brain-washed Urban wannabes, with little knowledge of West or their own culture – seems to wreak of “Yuck”. Of course, all that critique is couched in sarcasm or humor by the many writers in the media and blogosphere.

Recently, Ramdev has made it clear that the way to change the politics is to, well, challenge it from within. Many have done that before. And Ramdev is no stranger. Given that he is a citizen of India and a tax payer, he is completely within legal right to stand up in the elections, if he so chooses. The ONLY group which could be fearful of his political ambitions are the political parties, specially the ruling one. And no wonder, they have been at him ever since he generated a decent crowd!

India

Politics

Spirituality

Previous Post

April 18, 2011

Science

Next Post

April 20, 2011 How Evangelist Forces Completely Annihilated the Druids in Ireland

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Aarti Achievement and Leadership AfPak Africa Annual and Year-end Asia Audio Australia Behavioural Sciences Bhagwad Gita Bhagwad Gita Blogging Blogs Business Business Intelligence Business Strategy Cannes Careers Chanakya China Conservation Corruption Creative Daily Links Desh Poems Development & Welfare Devotional Audio Devotional Songs Drama Earth Economics Education Entertainment Environment Europe Everyday Quotes Featured Articles Featured Songs Finance Flickr Pictures Food Geo-Political Global Warming Globalization Health & Medicine Hinduism Historic History Humour India Indian Culture Indian music Indian Weddings Israel Issues Legal Link Love Minorities Misc Motivation and Personal Development Movie Lists Movie Reviews Movies Mumbai terror attacks Natural Disasters Nature News Outsourcing Pakistan Parenting Personal Philosophy Poetry Politics Poverty Quotes Recipe Regular Blog Post Relationships Religion Religious/Spiritual Audio Sciences Showcase Slideshow South Asia Special Stories Spiritual Quotes Spirituality Sports Stories Strategy Technology Technology Terrorism Travel Uncategorized US Video Women Women_s Rights Worship Yoga

Select a Month December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 June 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 September 2014 August 2014 January 2014 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was the primary form of transportation in Biblical times?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Donkey Camel Chariot Horse