CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR - Online unilateral censorship - VED from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS' Writings Page

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR - Online unilateral censorship

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

Being judicious versus being arbitrary

The native ‘Indian’ officers were also given much administrative powers by the British administration. However, at the higher levels including the judiciary, the concept of being judicious in their actions was powerfully encoded into the powers given to the ‘Indian’ officials. Now, this issue of being judicious is a term which stresses that the spirit of a law or rule has to be understood. The person in authority is given much power. These powers are not for his personal entertainment or to boost his ego. They are given to deal with issues wherein the words of the statutory rules may not have foreseen certain eventualities. When taking any decisions, the person who does it has to see that his actions are judicious. And not arbitrary. It is here the need for high calibre, well-read persons are required. For, anyone can take arbitrary actions and decisions. In fact, the most mediocre man, if posted to a powerful position can make powerful decisions. However, only a quality man, with good calibre can make and take decisions which are judicious. For, he would have to show that he has taken an action that is judicious.

Now it is here that the Wikipedia has failed at many levels. Simply handing over great punitive powers to persons who at best have the calibre to be ‘Indian’ constables is not an intelligent posture. For, the general quality of the ‘Indian’ constables is not of an English constable.

I am not sure on what basis administrative powers and powers of patrol and punishment has been given to many Indian administrators and other officials of the Wikipedia India pages. If it is based on formal educational qualification and professions connected to university education, well, it is quite a very low quality qualification indeed. I am yet to see a real quality academician in India, who knows anything other than the sterile mediocrity in Indian Textbooks. There are no doubt persons of fabulous calibre in India. However, whether they are among the Indian academicians, is the moot point.

Here I must stress that this writer here has no claims that he is a better person than the academicians. However, when one gets a teacher, who addresses himself as a professor, Doctorate holder, PHd, MA, MSc. etc. it is the student’s prerogative to evaluate the person for various capacities, all of them not necessarily of the academic kind. This is the only right that the writer has taken. When persons who are good in English and who addresses the student in pejoratives adorn the position of teachers, professors, PHd holders etc. the feeling sets in that they are not there to ennoble the student but to atrophy him or her.

An introduction to the spite

Recently I came upon a site which styled itself as Scientific American. The page I visited was on Ramanujan, the Mathematical genius from the erstwhile Madras Presidency of British-India. Seeing statements that needed some correction to give a proper perspective, I simply gave this comment:

It is not India's honour. It is honour to Britain that brought out the genius in this man!

See the invectives that came out.

1. This is directed at Ved from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS.(Typing it in caps doesn't make it, or you, sound more important Ved)

You are a complete idiot for conflating two completely different issues.

2. To that half-knowing idiot called ' VED from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS' (what kind of idiotic pen name is that ?)

3. As for the East India Company, if you believe that it was anything but exploitative, I'm afraid I must call you an idiot, again.

4. Look like VED from Victoria Institutions is a Communist guy from India. Indian communists love Western countries, western culture, but dislike Indian culture.

5. So I am not surprised by people such as VED ... Indian commies are like person who loves & admires the next door prostitute more than his Mom who gave him birth, food, money, shelter, etc by working hard 24/7/365.

6. VED, You must be the one what Indians call "moorkha" {fool).

MY EXPERIENCE: I did not call anyone any ‘names’ or use profanity or explective. Yet, the site administrators removed two of my posts, and gave the explanation thus:

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

A pitiable 'Indian' history

The Indian pages of Wikipedia are quite mediocre and have many negative issues. The first issue that should become quite noticeable to a dispassionate observer is in the categorisation of history. The history of the place currently called ‘India’ is a confusing mix up and mess. For, the very wordings Ancient India, Medieval India and Modern India are a misguiding thing. This categorisation directly follows the misguided attempts of the national historians to mould a conception that India was a nation that existed right from times immemorial.

Actually the current day nation called India is only a part of the direct continuation of the nation called British-India. British India itself has been divided into three parts: Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Thus British India itself is not India.

Second point is that there was no such thing as an Ancient India. The time in history described as Ancient India is only the history of various small time kingdoms, principalities and monarchical structures having sway over reasonably wide areas. To call any of them as empires may not be correct.

The part of history called the Harappan Age has only very limited geographical connection with modern-day India. It is taught in Indian history due to a feeling that everything that was under British-India is related to ‘India’. If British-India had extended to Kazakhstan, then Kazakhstan would have claimed Harappan Civilisation as part of their ancestry, while India would have included Kazakhstan inside its own Ancient history.

As to Vedic period, both Early Vedic period as well as Later Vedic period is connected to modern day India only due to the diligent efforts of the colonial British officials to translate ancient Sanskrit texts into English and to unearth the early histories. If the British officials had been in the areas to the northwest of India, namely Afghanistan and other western areas, those places would have claimed direct link to the Vedic times. These populations who lived in the fringe areas of north-western India are not more connected to modern South India, West India, Middle India, North India, East India or North Eastern India, than they are connected to places west of Pakistan. In fact, the claims of western areas could be more powerful.

The part in history shown as Medieval India was not a part of the modern Indian nation. No king or official of any medieval kingdom would have acknowledged with pride that he was an Indian. Moreover, many peoples entered these places and fought among themselves. However, to categorise one group as ‘Indians’ and the other group as aggressors on ‘Indian people’ is only the figment of some nonsensical mind.

For example, when I go to a temple, there are rites done by the priest. I do not understand them. When I go to a Muthappan temple, the rites are totally different. Many of these rites are similar to so many other rites seen in very many other ancient people, like the Shamanism. Is my culture Vedic? I doubt. Most of my thought processes are connected to the immensity of readings that I have done in English. As to the others around me, I do not see anything Vedic in their culture or behaviour. They do not know Sanskrit and if at all they do pray at the temple, it is just because it is the one way that they know to communicate with God, and not because they possess Vedic Culture.

There is a section called Modern India. Actually this section is not on Modern India, but on British-India. The fact that British-India is not India is not clearly mentioned. Just as one would mention Genghis Khan, Magadha Kingdom, Maurya Kingdom, Mugal kingdom, Slave dynasty of Delhi, Cholas of Sangham Age, Kulasherkara Kings of deep south in the sub continent, Bahmani Kingdom of Deccan area, Vijayanaraga Kingdom of Canara area, Shivaji of Maratha area, Rajputs of Rajasthan, Zamorins of Calicut, Travancore Kingdom, British-India was also a political reality on the globe. In fact, it was the most significant political reality of this geographical area.

Now when giving contents to this section what is widely seen is the attempt to give the various political activisms of small-time political groups a more than intelligent importance. The history of a place is not the history of so many activisms of various small-time political outfits. What is purported as history is political meetings, conventions, various socio-religious organisation which had extremely minute influence on the huge social scale of the place, political leaders of small groups of people (maximum followers around 5000 people in an area with population touching then 30 crores/300000000 {current day Pakistan, India & Bangladesh}) etc.

There are so many other things happening. Like administrative reforms, setting up of government departments (judiciary, police, military, land registration, irrigation, dams, waterways, railways, road building, health services, drinking water, telegraph, postal department, forest and many more) in a geographical area with almost zero number of these things, setting up of various infrastructures, elevating the educational standards, introduction of English, changes in dressing standards, protection given to tribal people, tree protection, animal welfare, survey, historical research, unearthing of lost Sanskrit and other literature, improving the local vernacular and their script, and such other things, including various incidences not at all connected to political activisms.

It may also be mentioned in passing that one of the most thieving departments of current-day India, the Sales Tax department was not there in British-India, until the congress ministries of the Presidencies wanted to use this to collect income from traders, just before British departure. The fact is that the so-called political activisms were not a major part of the people’s mind until the British government handed over the place to the local politicians.

SEE what these politicians have done to the place: Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Indian officials

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

Setting up of a Medical College

Just to understand the complexities that the English colonial officials faced in each one of them, simply see this on Calcutta Medical College:

QUOTE: [The British East India Company established the Indian Medical Service (IMS) as early as 1764 to look after Europeans in British India. IMS officers headed military and civilian hospitals in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, and also accompanied the Company's ships and army. The British also established on 21 June 1822 "The Native Medical Institution"(NMI) in Calcutta, where medical teaching was imparted in the vernacular. Treatises on anatomy, medicine, and surgery were translated from European languages for the benefit of the students. From 1826 onwards, classes on Unani and Ayurvedic medicine were held respectively at the Calcutta madrasa and the Sanskrit college. In 1827 John Tyler, an Orientalist and the first superintendent of the NMI started lectures on Mathematics and Anatomy at the Sanskrit College which was also founded by the British. In general, the medical education provided by the British at this stage involved parallel instructions in western and indigenous medical systems. Translation of western medical texts was encouraged and though dissection was not performed, clinical experience was a must. But the government was not satisfied with the medical education imparted at the Native Medical Institution.

Ayurveda had no knowledge of virology, anatomy, surgery, Otolaryngology (Ear, Nose & Throat), pediatrics and surgery. Surgical instruments were never used in Ayurveda because Ayurvedic system stressed a balance of three elemental energies or humours: Vāyu vāta (air, space – "wind"), pitta (fire & water – "bile"). This was a primitive belief and Ayurvedic conception of elemental energies has no scientific basis for the treatment of patients.. Even basic equipments such as thermometer, stethoscope and BP apparatus were unknown to Ayurvedic physicians and they were seeing them for the first time in 1822 at the NMI. The British wanted to improve the quality of medical education in India. Lord William Bentinck appointed a Committee and it consisted of Dr John Grant as President and J C C Sutherland, C E Trevelyan, Thomas Spens, Ram Comul Sen and M J Bramley as members. The Committee criticized the medical education imparted at the NMI for the inappropriate nature of its training and the examination system as well as for the absence of courses on practical anatomy The Committee recommended that the state found a medical college 'for the education of the natives'. The various branches of medical science cultivated in Europe should be taught in this college.]

MY COMMENT: Even though Ayurveda is quite different from English medical systems, it had it own social base. This base was not in any college, but in the hands of the traditional ayurvedic professionals, who are known as Vaidyans. Now, what has happened to them? The Indian government has declared all of them as quacks, and given the sole-right to half-baked ayurveda graduates to practise ayurveda. In fact, Sushurata, Charaka and Danwantri (Ayurveda exponents of the ancient times) would have been declared as quacks and given a sound slap by the Indian police if they could lay their hands on them.

I speak about the slap, because I have personally known that qualified graduates from a particular medical system had conspired with a particular police Sub Inspector who had the traditional practioner of a non-allopathy medical system summoned to the police station. He then asked some of the constables to give a sound beating to that man. However, they couldn’t do that. For, they had been his patients on earlier occasions. So he himself got up and severely slapped him. And informed that fact to the conspiring half-baked graduates of the medical system. Currently ayurveda is a system of medicine completely governed by the Drugs Control department of the state governments, which is a department full of corrupt-to-the-core personnel.

The English colonial officials were in a far-off area in a continent with a huge population of suppressed natives. It is not easy to change the mindset of a suppressed people, when the suppressed people themselves live with extreme loyalty to their suppressors.

Formation of current-day India and its farcical claims

It has been a major defect on the part of historians to mix-up the history of the landscape currently called Pakistan, India and Bangladesh with the history of current-day India. The history of current-day India starts from 1947, 15^th of August. This fact has to be clearly emphasised.

The fact is that only few nations in the world can identify their national history with the history of their geographical areas as a direct line. For instance, this may be true in the case of such nations as Great Britain and Japan. Even in the case of China, modern day China is not the continuation of any dynastic rule starting from ancient times. However in the case of China, there is a definite geographical parameter that might give it a more powerful claim. Like language, people, ancient borders etc. I cannot speak more about China, due to lack of enough information.

However, if other nations like Germany, Poland, Canada, USA etc. start writing the history of their nations starting from ancient times, it may look quite absurd. To make this clear, I wish to inform that the history of the USA is the history of a nation called USA that was formed in a specific time in history. It should not be confused with the history of the various peoples, groups, tribes and nations that existed in the American continent. This fact has a more wider ambit than the immediate issue.

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

A false claim on the US

That is, the various immigrant groups who barged into the US usually had used the argument that the US was formed by people who immigrated to the US. Well, that is a misconception. It is a nation made by a particular group of people, who immigrated to the American continent. They formed a nation called the United States of America. Now, once this nation has been formed, it is no more a place anyone can barge in. In the same way that before the nation of India was formed, anyone could come into the geographical area and settle down there. However, once the nation of India was formed, it is not a place that anyone can come and go at their will and wish. They can’t claim that the people of India are the offspring of so many people who came to India from outside. So that they can also barge in at their own will and wish.

It may also be mentioned in passing here that the United States of America was formed by English-speaking people who came from Great Britain. Continental Europeans did once roam and ravage the place, but it was the English people who made a sensible nation from this despoiled area. Irish and other Celtic language people of Britain also did use the channel to reach the US. However, it was the English systems that held them all together.

Now, this is one major defect with Wikipedian History of India. It is a mirror of narrow jingoistic history writings that are done as a matter of national indoctrination. It is the duty of Wikipedia to keep apart from this sinister application of mediocre intelligence. In fact, this is going to be the problem that Wikipedia will face from almost all third world and some non-English European nations. Wherever the national language is feudal, local loyalty will override intellectual honesty. It is natural, for the codes are like that in these languages.

As to India, the fact is that this nation commenced in 1947, with a separate flag, a specific border, a constitution, a parliament, a federal system mixed up with unitary features, a national anthem, a national song, a national bird, a national animal, national languages, and a lot of administrative systems and governmental organisations like the Postal department, the police, the army, health services and much more, all continuation of British-India. To delete all these information and head straight backwards to 5000 years and more to connect to peoples and literature of unknown origin and content is rank nonsense. IT IS A SIGN OF SOME GREAT INFERIORITY COMPLEX! Something like, 'We know we are not great now, and we look dirty, but then we were great some 5000 years back, and we were great looking then!'

In fact, the people of current-day India have very feeble connection to Vedic literature. Very few people have seen a Vedic text or even the puranas, Upanishads, and the Brahmanas. If this is the fact now, it was worse than this at the time of British colonialism. For, the English East India Company officials had to work very hard to trace out various ancient Sanskrit literatures from various places. It is possible that if they hadn’t found them out then, many of them would have simply been lost to the world. SEE my own ancestry here

Fanaticism as actuality

The second issue in Wikipedia India pages is the deliberate attempts to showcase fanaticism in all pages connected caste and religion. The writings are not at all scholarly. If one were to read the pages of the various caste groups, one might get the idea that the people from these castes were like the Spartans as shown in Hollywood movies. Every one of them with great traditions, fantastic heritages, grand thinkers and all of them full of social reformers. However a mere picture of a group of such persons could erase such erroneous feelings.

The typical standard of this type of writings is thus: We belong to a great tradition. We had great thinkers in our midst. We were a great warrior race. Many members of our caste were great martial arts exponents. During the Independence movement, our great leaders took part and thus we aided in driving out the barbarian British. In culture, knowledge and refinement, we were among the best in India. In fact, when the barbarian British people were living in caves, our ancestors were living grand social life.

What is left out: See this picture of us to get a very clear picture of our physical attainments.

Look at this picture of a British worker and see his dirty looks:

Actually, I need not stress this. All that is required is to ask another person from a competing caste to inspect the claims. Like ask a Nair to inspect the page on Ezhavas, and ask an Ezhava to inspect the Nair page. Each one of them might go in for a frenzy to declaim that what is in the pages is utter nonsense. Actually, it would have been good to ask a person from outside the caste to write about a caste. However, even this is not going to help. It would be like trying to find a person who on joining a government service in which everyone is taking bribes, would refuse to take bribes. The fact is that such persons are a rare species in India. With the departure of the British from ‘India’, the whole generation of honest officials vanished from India. Similarly, with the departure of the English from here, academicians with mental rectitude have become a rare entity. However, it must be stressed that there are many persons who are quite honest as private individuals.

There are also a few government officials who would not touch a bribe. Exceptions to prove the rule!

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

An early experience with Indian Wikipedia

I was searching for the list of castes of Kerala and happened to reach the Wikipedia pages on the South Kerala caste Ezhavas. What I found there was a third-rate conspiracy that I was aware of some three decades back. However, I had not expected that attempt to become a statutory concept by way of Wikipedia. This is about the deliberate manipulation done by some persons with political aims to categorise the Thiyyas of Malabar as Ezhavas. I was quite perturbed. What disturbed was that unconnected people could impute deliberate mistakes with the help of Wikipedia. Wikipedia looked quite a foolish entity, siding with malicious crookedness. I was forced to correct the contentions. It was not an attempt on my part to enter into a fight. All that I wanted to do was to present corrections.

At that time I was not quite aware about the various limitations that are statutorily there on Talk Page for a contributor. That was a failing on my part. One issue that disallowed me from understanding it clearly was the poor performance of the Internet at that time. It was quite slow and took me a lot of time to open a page. The Talk Page actually looked a like a forum page, for it was filled with various comments. Looking back, it was a mistake on my part to have entered into a debate on the Talk Page with others who vehemently attacked my posts.

However, my attempt to give some solid information was met with a vehement antipathy by the people who were the creators of the Ezhava page. Vandalism and neat deleting of my post was done. I did not quite know how to handle this issue. I put in a question in a place meant to seek advice. Someone replied that vandalism was an everyday event and I could repost the deleted items. I did it.

See my request for help:

I find that two of my posting on the page Talk:Ezhava has been removed. Is it done by the editor or by someone else? Is it because the posts are content rich and not mere repeatation (sic) of oft repeated themes.

My posts headings include: A general answer

Please give me an answer someone.

--Ved from Victoria Institutions 18:07, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

No, that is vandalism. Feel free to undo it. Though I would have to say that you would probably be better served being more concise, as people are more likely to read such material. The Evil Spartan 18:16, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It helps to look at the edit history of a page. You can see who added or deleted what. The removal in this case was done by an IP user, which means it could have been anyone. They did not leave much of an edit summary, so there's no way to determine their reasoning (although Spartan is probably right in this case). This sort of thing happens every day. Several times a minute, actually. DarkAudit 18:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Can you please tell me how to undo the damage? --Ved from Victoria Institutions 11:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Along with it another user started added some terrible content about Toddy Tapers into my writings. See this link and search for Toddy Tapers

Then some posted thus, accusing me of posting the Toddy Tapper text:

Hello Ved the disguised warrior, why did you have to make a disguised delete of the open comment: By all means the Ezhavas have only engaged in professions that have dignity of labour. The caste surname of a certain community in Kerala itself, by of course olden sayings, meant that these guys were lying on the veranda’s of their wife's house like the watchdog at night! Toddy tapping is a lot more dignified agricultural job to do during the day. So don't prompt me to say the rest that will go down in history of the origination of the warrior's family name.

MY COMMENT: It was a very strange situation, wherein some persons do some disruption and I stand accused of it.

This coincided with an accusation that it was I who was vandalising the page. The administrator, a lady from possibly a non-Asian nation, stepped in and admonished me, saying that I had wasted 50,000 kilobytes of server space. Well, this was quite a painful thing at the moment. For, I had written with no personal stakes to correct a mistake. So, I painstakingly informed her of the developments in a step by step manner. She understood the same and told that I was free to protect the integrity of my writings.

See this last reply of hers:

Okay, I see. I didn't realize that the toddy tappers person was editing your posts, so I did remove your vandalised posts, but it was not my intention to delete your words. Sorry about that. I have the page watchlisted, and will revert any vandalism of anyone's talk page postings. You are free to do the same. Natalie 15:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

However, there was a slight thing that I had not expected. On my talk page, only her writings are visible. For, I had posted my replies in her Talk Page. So, when a person comes to my talk page, he would see a lot of accusation on me. Only if he is willing to painstakingly go to the end of the writings would he be able to see that the Administrator had retracted her words. But then not many persons are willing to go this distance. Also, persons who feel inimical towards me wouldn’t want to mention the last sentences even if they did notice it.

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

But later, much later, these statements were used by other Indian Wikipedia Administrators to mention that I was disruptive on the Wikipedia pages. See this line on the complaint posted about me: ‘He seems to have got into quite a conflict regarding his postings at Talk:Ezhava as well’ on this link:

Later this complaint was picked up by another Wikipedia Administrator on the South Africa page, for he was clearly influenced by the words. The earlier discussion is here:

He wrote thus:

This points to this.

Now, the series of events is thus: Indian administrator class and vested interest cannot bear ideas that are quite contradictory to their indoctrination. Someone writes a profanity. Some others write some other nonsense. Another group write something about Toddy Tapers and it is attributed to me. A complaint is put. I explain and I stand exonerated. However, the huge list of accusations is still there on my UserPage which I do not delete. Certain of the Indian Wikipedia page administrators do not want to see my writings on any page. A complaint is posted. I have mentioned once that this complaint does include the words: ‘He seems to have got into quite a conflict regarding his postings at Talk:Ezhava as well’. Well if this nut had visited the Ezhava Page, it would have been very well seen that I was engaged in a very content rich discussion with other and there was no misdemeanour on my part. See this

Now see the various posts done into my UserTalk page here: None of them are my writings. The profanity that was used is actually one of the worst. However, it is in Malayalam (written in English letters). The actions of the Wikipedia Indian page administrators are absolutely in line with the emotions of the person who has written the profanity here. This man could only write profanity. The Indian page administrators and others could conspire to get me off.

THIS BOOK can be download as a Digital book from here

VED · from VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS, Deverkovil; ved036@gmail.com

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