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Student DMK leader who was one among the leaders of Anti-Hindi agitation of 1965 , later announced the inception of Anna DMK on October 18 th 1972.Left Anna DMK within 3 months joined DMK back and fought emergency.Went into self imposed political exile in 1978.Lauched Dravida Peravai as political party and registered with Election Commission in 1996.

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HEMAYANA SAYS SITA IS RAPE VICTIM
Published on July 12th, 2008 In News, Parties, Politics |  Views 600

NO SANCTUARY FOR SITA IN

RAMAYANA PLAY 

Sita as a rape victim who chose to die by jumping into Ravana’s funeral pyre as the agni pariksha [test of fire] - this is the dramatic new interpretation of the Ramayana published in the form of the play, Sanctuary, released in Bangalore on Thursday i.e. 10 th July 2008.Bangalore born Author Hema Ramakrishna, who has been living in Srilanka since a decade, asks “What makes anyone think a man who abducted a woman will keep her in ivory tower and worship her? “ 

“It is psychologically inadmissible” she told MAIL TODAY. Hema has taken many liberties with the original story. The Lanka in her play becomes Ranka and is located near the Chilka lakes of Orissa. The image of the maryadha purusha [ideal man] Rama is questioned as his treatment of two women, his wife Sita and Ravana’s sister Surpanaka, comes under strong feminist scanner. 

The trigger for Ravana kidnapping Sita was Rama’s brutal rejection of the beautiful Surpanaka and her mutilation. Hema has brother Ravana stating “What ruffians to treat a woman like this?” Sanctuary was first published four years ago in Srilanka by Vijita Yapa Publications, and the same publisher has now released it in
Bangalore. The delay was owing to the time Hema took to gather the courage to release the book in
India.
 

“Now I feel the country is civilized enough to accept another view point on the myth. It is we who have made it a religion, The Ramayana is a myth about a man and his people”she contented. 

Even the thought of the ruling BJP in Karnataka has not deterred her from releasing the book there. “I have lot of respect for the CM. I think he will see the book for what it is and hold back rabid elements.” she said. The play features a deglamourized Sita, who loses her beauty and vitality with the rape. Ravana even has her tongue cut out, because of the abuses she heaps on him during the act. Finally when Rama does see Sita at Asokavana, he is repelled by her. An enraged and despairing Sita jumps into Ravana’s funeral pyre and dies at the end of the play, even as Rama moans “My punishment is come upon me now. My dreaded punishment is come “. For Hema, Sita is a representative of all women. “What happened to Sita is an eternal enigma and as long as there are women, we will keep writing about it”, she said. 

Yapa, a former journalist, who released the book with Hema, said he published the book as he was always interested in alternative view points. “If it causes a storm here, I am willing to face it “, he stated. 

Courtesy: By Sowmya Ali from
Bangalore published in MAIL TODAY, daily at
New Delhi on 11 th July 2008.
 

This post is dedicated to the very few hate mailers who instead of writing their blogs or views will post irrelevant comments unconnected to the topics, I discuss with dignity and decorum.

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16 Responses to “HEMAYANA SAYS SITA IS RAPE VICTIM”
    1. peveve Says:
    Posted on July 12th, 2008

    And Roberto Rajiv Ghandy is a rape victim too by a professional seductress from Italian-german origin . What about OP Raman’s wife? By the way are in true kalaignar’s tradition too. How many victims you have under your belt? Or are you like Siriyan Ramasamy first rape and then marry in true DK style?

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    2. peveve Says:
    Posted on July 12th, 2008

    I think as a ‘Dravidian’ historian of “repute” you will be able to confirm if it was true that Veeramani was ‘kept’ by a widow of that organization and that is how he laid his hands on the entire assets of that organization which was nothing but looted wealth.

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    3. Vedaprakash Says:
    Posted on July 12th, 2008

    Mr. Nandivarman, I have challenged many times, but as a coward, you have been keeping quite or running away from one forum or the other.

    For your earlier Paula Richman’s book, I have posted a counter article as follows, but you have no dignity or decorum to respond.

    The so-called 300 / 3000 Ramayanas: The Dravidian propaganda
    http://vedaprakash.indiainteracts.com/2008/03/16/the-so-called-300-3000-ramayana s-the-dravidian-propaganda/

    Coming to your posting, you simply vomit the so-called “feminist scanner” without going into the details.

    Who are these Hema Ramakrishna and Sowmiya ali? If they really scan in their feminist approach, they should have done it in all aspects.

    When there has been a time of writing “Kimayana” (the opposite of Ramayana). When you depend upon Hema, you are suppressing her. Hema’s arrogance is revealed when she contends that, “Now I feel the country is civilized enough to accept another view point on the myth. It is we who have made it a religion, The Ramayana is a myth about a man and his people”. Who is to decide about the ‘civilized or uncivilized status of India”? Should not Nandi have some sense when she treks on such path of haughtiness?

    Taking your posting: “The play features a deglamourized Sita, who loses her beauty and vitality with the rape. Ravana even has her tongue cut out, because of the abuses she heaps on him during the act. Finally when Rama does see Sita at Asokavana, he is repelled by her. An enraged and despairing Sita jumps into Ravana’s funeral pyre and dies at the end of the play, even as Rama moans “My punishment is come upon me now. My dreaded punishment is come “. For Hema, Sita is a representative of all women. “What happened to Sita is an eternal enigma and as long as there are women, we will keep writing about it”, she said”.

    • Is it actually feminist scanning or feminist sadism psychologically?
    • When she has decided to fly in imaginary world, she should thought about Ravana cutting Sita’s tongue and other torturous acts committed on her.
    • The play features a deglamourized Sita, who loses her beauty and vitality with the rape. Wonderful, indeed the scanning!
    • In fact, I need not discuss such things, as only imagination roosts without anything.
    • “An enraged and despairing Sita jumps into Ravana’s funeral pyre”, yes, she is not Sita and also Sita of Valmiki Ramayana, but Hema’s “ayana” – “Hemayana”.
    • If her imagination has not been conditioned, tainted or imbibed, the, she should start scanning, all women like Sita. Can she take the cases of Mary and Kathija?
    • Nandi, can you recommend her?
    • Like Kimayana, why there has not been any “Gibal”, “Kiran” etc. or Hemable, Hemakuran?
    • Being a woman, that too so popular, how she could have forgotten those two Goddesses, ladies or angles or simply women?

    Here comes the hypocrisy, scanning duplicity, feminist selectivity, women supporting womanizers and so on.

    Ironically, I tried for the e-paper:
    http://mailtoday.in/epapermain.aspx?queryed=9&querypage=4&boxid=2414431& amp;parentid=8096&eddate=07/11/08, but it is virus infected just like the notorious ones.

    So if you cannot debate, just keep quiet, instead of posting here and there and run away.

    VEDAPRAKASH
    12-07-2008.

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    4. Vedaprakash Says:
    Posted on July 12th, 2008

    Now, I find that purposely, 2005 news is repoeated here nkw through “mailtoday” dated 11-07-2008. It appeared in August 12, 2008 - The Times of India.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    Ramayana gets a feminist twist
    12 Aug 2005, 1006 hrs IST, Sowmya Aji Mehu,TNN

    BANGALORE: Giving a new dimension to the Rama-Sita relationship, a Bangalore-based author has written a poetic English play, Sanctuary , that inverts several accepted standards in the Ramayana.

    Hema Ramakrishna, 60, has thrown fresh light on the quintessential Indian drama.

    In her foreword to the play, she says her work is part of the intellectual and emotional churning in the country, post-Babri Masjid demolition in 1992.

    Her story de-glorifies both Rama and Ravana. Hers is a strongly feminist view: Rama’s treatment of two women-Sita and Surpanaka-comes under the scanner.

    Hema says, “Rama is that perfect being that can do no wrong. No doubt whatsoever is cast on his person, never mind how fraught his actions are with expediency, especially when it comes to the shabby treatment of his wife.

    And the unsavoury details of Surpanaka’s mutilation.'’ The play has been published by a Lankan bookhouse.

    But the Lanka in the play is not the same. It is Ranka, located in the ‘Mahasamund’ Bay of Bengal, next to Orissa’s Chilka lakes.

    The other changes are practical- Ravana is not ten-headed. He has ten men beheaded to ward off his predicted “untimely death'’.

    Hanuman and gang don’t build a bridge across the sea, but Vibhishana, Hanuman, Rama and Lakshmana swim with Vanaras to Ravana’s island and sneak in through a secret way into the palace-castle. There is no war.

    The street-smart Rama knows Vanaras cannot match Ravana’s crack army. He marches into Ravana’s bedroom in the night and kills him.

    Surpanaka is the story-trigger, Ravana kidnaps Sita because his sister is mutilated by Rama and Lakshmana.

    The demon king tells the audience: “What ruffians to attack a woman like this!'’ Sita comes in just one scene, but Hema endows her with doom. The invasion of Ranka is because of her, “a mere woman'’, much to the Vanaras’ disgruntlement.

    Hema’s reworked storyline is all in reported speech: Sita fights Ravana, but cannot match his force. Her tongue is cut for cursing him.

    She loses speech, beauty, vitality and cowers in fear in Asokavana. Rama, repelled by the changes, rejects her.

    The Agni Pariksha conveys new thought. Hema makes it an angry rejection of male-dominance: Sita jumps into Ravana’s burning funeral pyre and dies, leaving Rama guilt-ridden.

    The end is Trikala Narada’s epilogue: “Long before the first poets sang of him, Rama’s name and fame were well known. But somewhere along the way, on the long and dusty road taking us back to Ayodhya, many changes crept into being.

    For it is we who invent our myths, we who create them, shape them and sing them out..'’
    ______________________________________________________________________

    So why repeat it now?

    Just to create problem or othyerwse?

    Mr. Nandi, clarify immediately.

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    5. nathappan Says:
    Posted on July 12th, 2008

    Excellent Vedam !!

    The DK & their worms like Nandi can only vomit or cut/paste from others’ works, just for propaganda purposes, but cannot think straight !!

    Dishonest idiots like him will not answer your replies, because they are just idiots and do not care to think for themselves, only follow what KV or MK says !!

    ‘decency, decorum…’ - all tall claims by rogues like you cannot deceive us any more - it is a bigger conspiracy by all anti-Hindu elements !!

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    6. nathappan Says:
    Posted on July 12th, 2008

    Nandi, you think only you can cut & paste ??

    From organizer -
    Rajnath is right. Secularism has become communal
    By Shyam Khosla

    Two other concepts—Socialist and Secular—were added to the Preamble during the hated Emergency by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment that came into force on January 3, 1977.

    How irrationally even knowledgeable persons react to innocuous suggestions because of political compulsions and ideological confusion is borne out by Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s and CPM leader Sitaram Yahcuri’s response to BJP President’s remark that the correct Hindi translation of secular was panthnirpeksh and not dharamnirpeksh that is often perceived to be the synonym of the concept. Yachuri’s comment that it was Sangh’s terminology to underline its belief that Hinduism is a religion and other religions like Christianity and Islam are sects, betrays the Communist leader’s gross ignorance of the RSS thinking and Hindu ethos. He will do well to come out of his Marxist shell and make some effort to at least understand rival viewpoints.

    One, however, can’t ignore the galling observations made by Congress leader giving his knowledge of our cultural values and the Constitution. He is well aware that the authorised Hindi translation of the Constitution talks of panthnirpeksh and not dharamnirpeksh. It is outright absurd on his part to suggest Singh’s observations that words secular and socialist were unnecessarily inserted in the Preamble to the Constitution in 1976-77 amounted to the subversion of the basic tenets of the Constitution and negation of its soul. The fact remains that these terms were inserted to meet political exigencies at the fag end of the Emergency. Socialism is a political philosophy with which a vast majority of Indians are not comfortable and our Constitution was no less secular before the insertion of the term in the Preamble. BJP President committed no crime by asking his colleagues and the Government to stick to the correct terminology. Why is the aging party protesting too much? Isn’t it yet another gimmick to mislead minorities?

    The founding fathers of our Constitution had wisely adopted the Preamble that solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic. Two other concepts—Socialist and Secular—were added to the Preamble during the hated Emergency by the 42nd Constitutional Amendment that came into force on January 3, 1977 . The Preamble is a vision statement through which the Constitution Assembly expressed its intent. Can this intent be amended subsequently? More importantly, is such an exercise morally and politically correct?

    Interestingly the Supreme Court had in one of its landmark judgments laid down the concept of basic structure and while doing so underlined the importance of the Preamble to the Constitution. That judgment came long before the 42nd amendment which inserted two additional concepts. These were inserted into the all-important Preamble when democracy was under siege with a large number of parliamentarians were rotting in jails, press had lost its freedom and even the judiciary was under tremendous pressure. It is high time that there is an in-depth public debate on the political and moral desirability of retaining these two words in the Preamble. Nothing will be lost if these two concepts are removed from the Preamble of the Constitution.

    Much of the confusion in public mind is caused by the flawed belief that religion and dharma are synonyms. As a result, characteristics of a narrow religion are automatically attributed to the concept of dharma. Religion means a creed or a sect. Longman English Dictionary defines religion as a system of beliefs and practices relating to the sacred and uniting its adherent in a community. Religion, thus, is a comparatively narrow concept that believes in one sacred book, a messenger and a God likes the ones in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These religions believe that there is only one path to the achievement of the highest spiritual goal—whatever it may be called. Hindu Dharma, on the other hand, is a vastly wider concept that is concerned with all aspects of human life. The fundamental principles of dharma are eternal and universal. It transcends religions and holds that all paths lead to the same goal. This concept is beautifully expressed in the Vedic maxim: Ekam Sadvipraha Bahudha Vadanti (Truth is one, savants tell them variously). Fundamental laws of human nature that decides the propriety of human behaviour is dharma. M.V. Nadkarni in his work, Hinduism—A Gandhian Perspective, points out that the traditional term for Hinduism is Sanatana Dharma. He argues that it doesn’t connote fixed, let alone stagnant. The dictionary meaning of Sanatana is eternal. The secret of Hinduism’s perpetuity is that it is not fixed for all times but refreshes itself every now and then, adjusting to new circumstances, incorporating new and noble values. Sanatana, he insists, also doesn’t mean orthodox or conservative. The secret of its endurance for millennia is its dynamism. Shri Basaveshwara says, “What is standing fixed perishes, but not one which is dynamic”. The quality of dynamism is very closely related to tolerance for pluralism, for diversity, for inclusiveness and, thus, to liberalism in its purest form. That is why Arnold Toynbee called Hinduism a “live and let-live religion”. Question may be asked if dharma is eternal and applicable to all times and all climes and races, why call it Hindu Dharma. The fact of the matter is that since times immemorial, it was called Sanatana Dharma—eternal law. However, in the course of history, it began to be called Hindu Dharma. Somehow, the word Hindu stuck and is now more popularly used than Sanatana Dharma.

    “Secularists” refuse to see reason. They persist with their hidden agenda by projecting Hinduism in a narrow context that is rationally and historically flawed. In the political sense, secularism requires separation of the state from any particular religious order. Nobel Laureate Amritya Sen, who by no stretch of imagination is “communal”, in his Argumentative Indian says secularism can be interpreted in at least two different ways. The first view argues that secularism demands that the state be equidistant from all religions refusing to take sides and having a neutral attitude towards them. The second—more severe—view insists that the state must not have any relation at all with any religion. The equidistance must take the form, then, of being altogether removed from each other. In both interpretations, secularism goes against giving any religion a privileged position in the activities of the state. Calling himself an “unreformed secularist”, Sen, goes on to admit that the former—broader interpretation of secularism—is the dominant approach to secularism in India. He insists that the state must maintain a basic symmetry to all religious groups. Unfortunately, the concept has been taken to absurd lengths by certain elements by extending certain rights to a particular minority that are not available to majority community not necessarily out of commitment to secularism but for petty partisan gains. Since secularism demands basic symmetry to all religious groups, any attempt to favour a particular religious group amounts to distorting the concept inviting ridicule. This distorted version of secularism has been aptly dubbed as pseudo-secularism.

    Theocracy has no place in our value system and secularism as a value—justice to all and discrimination against none—is an integral part of the Indian value system and national psyche. This land has been a great melting pot that has assimilated people of countless religious faiths and races that made this country their home. The shared cultural outlook and civilisation that evolved in this land for millennia have produced such a cohesion—a homogenous identity—that is one of the essential attributes of nationhood. Muslims and Christians rulers who held sway over large parts of the country for about 800 years were, of course, non-secular. They discriminated against religious groups and bestowed huge favours on persons belonging to their respective faiths. There were exceptions in the long and glorious history of this land that never discriminated against people on the basis of their religious faith or race.

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