Poem with text: Fiires of hate

Burning of Hindu books and libraries in Nepal reminds us Nazi’s ‘funeral pyre of the intellect’ & demolition of Buddha statue by Taliban. Who kills people burns books? Body burns but soul flies away.

Addressing the media on international threat to Hinduism and the situation in Nepal Jagadguru Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saraswati cited instances of how special library in Nepal containing Hindu books of mythology and culture were burnt down and a cultural centre was destroyed. He said that the Government of India should intervene in the affairs of Nepal and check further erosion of Hinduism there. He called upon the countrymen to stand united to check cultural exploitation of Hindus.

Lord Jagannath, almighty God signifies peace, love and unity. Lord Jagannath, the symbol of universal love and brotherhood is worshipped. On the occasion of prosperous ‘Rath Yatra’ we should swear to protect the Hinduism. I was born on this day. So I am happy to write the following poem to hear the call of Puri Shankaracharya. Bottom of the poem I gave past instances of book burning barbarianism.


POEM

(1)
Body burns, But the soul flies away
Paper burns, but the words fly away
Every burned book enlightens others
Every patriot martyr enlightens others

(2)
Holika burns, Bhakt Prahlad was safe
Yet Sanatan Hinduism Hindutva is safe
Hirnakasyip wished all to worship him
Maoist Leftists want all to follow them

(3)
Barbarians Chinese Russian & West
Youths are busy copying their waste
Brain washed youth lost their liberty
How they retain now their ethnicity?

(4)
Nepal a nation of Hindu cultures
Now becomes home of vultures
Don’t grow crop of myth mystery
Forget suicidal Mao-Marx history

(5)
Can their actions be so believed ussome are censured, some reprieved?
Who is excused & who is to blame
Alone Hindu Rashtra has no claim

(6)
People in grip Propagandist cunning
As sheep group to slaughter running
Kill to suicide world worse ideology
Earth is not to slaughter in this way

(7)
These Mao-Marxists have no soul
World domination is only their goal
Maoist ISI LITTE LeT all together
Separate is family brother & brother

(8)
Killed his family parent brother sister
Dipendra gunned himself there after
Maoists kill own parent brother sister
Killers’ suicide history in black words

(9)
Human beings are killed by Maoists
Hindu books are burnt by Maoists
No one should join the book burners
No one should join the human killers

(10)
They crush flower perfume spreads
Can break Violin but music spreads
Can kill human, not remembrance
Hinduism preaches much tolerance


"Where one burns books, one will soon burn people." --Heinrich Heine
Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.

In retaliation, please don’t be agitated and don’t take revenge to burn Maoiist-Marxist prints and don’t destroy their libraries. How will we defeat communism unless we know what it is, what it teaches, and why does it have such an appeal for men, why are so many people swearing allegiance to it? How lefts are in power W.B. for so many years against the wishes of people?


We live in glass houses

That's right; we love literature and religion. We should never burn a book out of hate. Instead, we're hoping to redefine what a book burning is to all those who attend. We of the 21st century live in glass houses, and had best be chary of throwing stones.

It was not many centuries after the first books were made that some writers stirred men's anger to the burning point. The first cause ever alleged for condemning books to the fire was atheism. This was in the violet-crowned, glorious city of Athens, in the fifth century B.c.

Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, heresies and opposition to Christianity frequently led to the burning of books.


Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels

In Berlin, on May 10, 1933, the newly-elected Nazi party carefully orchestrated an event that would announce to Germans and the world some of the aims and the reach of the Nazi party. Beginning at nightfall, trucks laden with thousands of books taken from Berlin-area public, state and university libraries converged on the Opernplatz. Members of Nazi student groups and the Sturm Abteilung (Nazi Party private police) tossed the books onto waiting wooden biers and set them afire in a huge "funeral pyre of the intellect."

Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels had given a short speech announcing the end of Jewish intellectual influence and proclaiming that a new Germany would rise from the ashes: a Germany remade in the Nazi's image.

As Helen Keller pointed out in her letter to the German students, you cannot burn ideas. We hope this exhibit will be one more way to remember the books which were burned and their authors, and so remind us of the importance of intellectual freedom to free peoples everywhere.


Taliban demolished 51 & 36 meters high Buddhas

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had described the demolition of the Buddhas statues in central Bamiyan province as "an act of barbarism". "We do admit all these statues were the cultural heritage of Afghanistan, but we will not leave the part which is contrary to our belief." Former Taleban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil had said in Islamabad. The statues are now said to lie in ruins at the foot of the cliff where they had stood at 51 and 36 metres high since the second and fifth century.


Iraq's National Libraries and Archives burnt

May 14, 2003: “Although the details differ, the loss of contemporary Baghdad's books is no less shocking. On April 14, Iraq's National Library and Archives (home to 1 million books and an archival trove of 20 million documents) and the library of Awqaf or Religious Endowments were burned. The speed and ferocious efficiency of the fires could have been on accident. Books burn poorly; their immolation requires the concerted effort of expert arsonists, who must have tended the fires with all the care that a poet lavishes on his lines or a scholar showers on her references. The Wall Street Journal reported on April 28 that the arsonists may have used white phosphorus, a fast-burning substance favored by military forces disposing of paper documents.”


Destruction of Jaffna Library in 1981

It is only now, two decades after the library was burnt to the ground that a replacement building is finally being built in the centre of Jaffna town, 400km north of Colombo.
Nothing, however, can be done about the thousands of priceless Tamil books, manuscripts and ola [dried palm] leaf documents that went up in flames in 1981. Jaffna has been an important Tamil cultural centre for centuries. Some books such as Yalpanam Vaipavama —a history of Jaffna—were literally irreplaceable, as the library contained the only existing copy.


British Muslims burned Salman Rushdie’s book

The most famous recent book burning involved the 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie, based on Muhammad’s life: in December 1988 and January 1989 British Muslims burned the novel in Bolton and Bradford.


By Premendra