This is going to be a
long one but I want it on record. If the BKWSU starts revising its history ...
AGAIN ... and recalling all the copies of Adi Dev, I want folks to know why. It was not through BapDada's touchings or Dadi's infinite wisdom.
arjun wrote:Thanks for all this research work. But from the quotation of Mama's book that you have produced, it is not clear as to what was the main reason behind the Court case.
I draw your attention to the references I have made on the Om Radhe topic,
here, in particular the book I have been given that will lead you to the other sources that I am referencing. I encourage forum members to get to them quick before the Brahmakumaris erase or remove them and encourage any BKs reading this to request copies from the so-called University and then start asking questions about the variances between the different stories. It looks to me that Adi Dev is of no more weight than the comic book versions based on and that Jagdish Chander was in charge of the historical revision wing. Under whose guidance I donot know at present.
I encourage you to start with;
'Is this Justice? Being an account of the founding of the Om Mandli & the Om Nivas and their suppression, by application of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908' by Om Radhe, 1939. ASIN:B00089UWHE
I must say that it also appears to me that the historical facts are at variance with the version put out by Virendra Dev Dixit and this book will allow you access specifically dated public records ... and the names of other bit part players which will be traceable.
The 3 main reasons behind the court cases are stated as (this is not my interpretation);
• Lekhraj Kirpalani encouraging one of his daughters to leave the house of another high status Sindhi Bhaibund members father-in-law Mukhi Mangaram. This would have been a huge taboo and offence within their society.
• The marriage of another of Lekhraj Kirapani's daughter to a school teacher outside of the community is a ceremony of his own devises. (Again, another taboo ... potentially I am guessing this might have been a celibate Yagya marriage otherwise it is very strange that he gave his daughter away to the sword of lust).
• The encouragement of 3 other women by Lekhraj Kirapani to leave their husbands and not go back when requested andhis support of there thereof
In short, and this is my interpretation, Lekhraj Kirapani put the Bhaibund community's nose out of joint, challenged their authority unrepentendly and became involved, primarly by the Yukti of "refusing to become involved" in sending them back to their husbands as any man would have done.
Additionally, there was the issue of children being held at the Om Mandlie/Om Nivas school without their parent or parent permission and the allegation that he had been seen touch one of the young girls on the thigh and the questionable issue of children going into trances.
The flames of the conflict are stated by third parties to have been fueled by the attitude and responses of Om Radhe, and 3 other girls who had become argumentative and "long-tongued" towards their parents, disobedient and refusing to accept their authority. There were girls running away from Hyderabad to Karachi and being put up at Om Mandli without their parents permission etc. Obviously the Bhaibund were very concerned that young girls and young women were being taught celibacy ... it i important to state what an absolutely outright challenge to the traditions of the community this would have been. (I am not saying that challenign authority was wrong).
As Om Radhe wrote, by all accounts for the first 3.5 years (which would take it back to 1934) there was no bad will shown towards the Mandli and the man were happy and encouraged that their wives go to satsand. It was these, PERSONAL, smites between Lekhraj Kirpalani and the other men of the Bhaibund, on top of his outspoken criticisms of their lifestyle, that broke the camels back. Bear in mind, the children at Om Nivas were between 4 to 12 years old and the teenage girls involved were younger than 16.
From then on it, things just want crazy and it is
VERY CLEAR that;
• a) it was a very domestic type of dispute between caste and family members
• b) it was, in retrospect, all about very petty power politics involving a number of different interest groups in the community ... far from the mental projection of Kauravas and Pandavas and Courts of Indras we are fed ... a time when there were many tensions in the air between different political and religious groups and, of course, The British who actually defended and saved Lekhraj Kirpalani and the Mandli. The British Government and Judicial members come out looking like paragons of patience, rationalism and mercy balancing above a vipers nest of mania on all sides.
From my reading, I cannot believe that Om Radhe, President of the Om Mandli, wrote all these quasi-legal letters. At one point she is described as Vice-President and Kirpalani as President, then he appears to have stood down and aside, perhaps when an EXTERNAL ORDER was made than men ought be excluded frm the Om Mandli and it be women only. Note an external that they complied with. Until that time, all the related families had been living together is what I interret to have been some hippie compound on a par with Waco, i.e. dormitories for men and women, shared communal areas, all built at Lekhraj Kirpalani's expense.
From my reading, the then 20 year who reportedly spoke Hindi with only a few words of English, carried on an extensive and impertinent legal dialogue in nigh perfect legal English with the British Officials telling the Honorable Judges what the law did and did not say Collector while trying to resolve a community dispute that was threatening Hindu and Moslem relationships, the rise of Communism and the Swaraj movement, within a to be Pakistan at a time when India and the British grip on it, was falling apart and WWII was just about to kick off. Also at a time when the British, through their legal system, had removed a lot of power from the local men's Bhaibund Panchayat, who must have ben left feeling awfully impotent and weak in the face of foreign invaders.
It give me the impression that Lekhraj Kirpalani was very wiley and 'political' - as I would have expected him to be - working through the capable voice piece of Radhe. Perhaps the spook/spooks were too? She was by all accounts quite outstandingly confident for a young girl.
And without a doubt, the voice of the Brahma-kumari was right-winged, bigotted and nationalist. the do not lose an opportunity to malign the "5.6 crore science-proud illiterate Kauravas" who are about to be eradicated from Bharat by the invention of their own "Gas, bombs and armaments" nor to they pull their punches against the 95% illiterate "communalists", priest, pundits, Sikhs, saddhus and basically everybody else except from themselves. Its a wonder they did not send someone to Germany and meet up with Himmler and Goebels and start up European service sooner. They would have goaded the Jews no end by their calling them "Islamic" children. (This stuff if not made up. It is all direct quotes from the Number Two soul who was meant to have been living with God at this time).
Going back to the disempowered men of the Panchayat. In former days they would have had the power to decide what is, and what is not, a wrongful and damaging act for the community that they by their endeavors financially supported and physically protected in a communalistic, feudal manner. I think that is reasonable, they are the ones that dealt with the **** when it arose.
The British had removed this from them, invigorated a very poor natural and backward environment and people by their industry and investment (Sukkur Barrage on the Indus River in 1932) and determined Karachi as a capital of one of a British feifdom ... the "impositions of British knowledge on Indian barbarism", to quote Macaulay, that must have been stunging the Hindu Sindis who it is said had little religious tendencies but were into much safer money and mercantile power. They are called the Jews of India. Not my words, I have little direct experience with Sindis except for seeing the lavish surroundings many live in.
To have then had this authority challenged by functionally illiterate women and teen age girls, the men of the Bhaibund must have been hugely threatening and was badly managed. The women and girls in their "revolt against their community" (actually words quoted) where being heavily financied and back up by theintellect of a high developed and wiley businessman, Lekhraj Kirpalani, who no doubt also had a position within the status system of the Bhaibund with envies and alliances. These women and girls had no financial support of their own, they were supported by Lekhraj Kirpalani.
There are wonderful headlines from papers of the time such as;
"Panchayat and OM Mandli Dada Dev Should be Given A Bullett"
that suggest what the rest of the more liberal and educated Sindhi and English speaking community through of the situation. The controversy followed the Mandli from Hyderabad, where they had been basically forcibly shut down and outlawed, to Karachi. Property was confiscated, orders made to stop the men and women living together because that was an offense to Hindus, police guard imposed, girls had to have written authority from parents to be with Lekhraj Kirpalani which was to be shown to the guards and so on.
Did you read on the Wikipedia, those official BKs trying to say there was no evidence to suggest that they were forced to move and deleting tiny references to all this stuff? ... the official version of the history is entirely whitewashed, an airy fairy divine dream of a New Age God "inspiring", giving them a touching to move. Yah ... the had families and the community in pieces and at each others throats and was threatening not just it but British Rule!When matters had just about settled down, by Lekhraj Kirpalani bowing down to official requests that "junior girls" be sent back home to their families where they did not have permission to be away, matters were inflamed by the involvement of an orthodox Hindu, Sadhu Vaswani.
Now, right or wrong, God or not, they were awfully insulting towards the orthodox Hindus but you can see where so many of their modes started. Vaswani was also local to Karachi. He was also involved in the upliftment of women. He had a school for girls and a welfare committee run for and by women that pre-dated Kirpalani's. I can imagine that Om Mandli was a great threat to them. Then the whole things goes completely out of orbit with the machinations of certain powerful members of the Bhaibund communIty who had business dealings, (
FOR WHICH, I GUESS, READ MONEY LENDER AND FINANCIER) and ran an oil mill (
FOR WHICH READ HELD LIFE AND DEATH OVER THE COMMUNITY) probably acting out of good faith from their perspective, attempting to shut Kirpalani's operation down for good quickly for the sake of protecting the status quo.
Accha, Om Shanti ... more tomorrow morning, kids. Be here at 6.30 am sharp.