Sarkar, you can not be forgotten. The life and work of Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 WHO IS SARKAR
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 MEMOIR OF PRABHAT RANJAN SARKAR

CHAPTER 2 INCREDIBLE WORKS OF SARKAR
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 FOUNDATION OF ANANDA MARGA
2.3 FOUNDATION OF RENAISSANCE UNIVERSAL
2.4 PROGRESSIVE UTILIZATION THEORY (PROUT)
2.5 ANANDA NAGAR PROJECT
2.6 EDUCATION RELIEF AND WELFARE SECTION (ERAWS)
2.7 ANANDA MARGA BOARD OF EDUCATION
2.8 WOMEN’S WELFARE SECTION (WWS)
2.9 ANANDA MARGA UNIVERSAL RELIEF TEAM (AMURT)
2.10 PHILOSOPHY OF NEOHUMANISM
2.11 THEORY OF MICROVITA
2.12 ANANDA MARGA GURUKUL
2.13 MUSIC
2.14 BOOKS

CHAPTER 3 VICISSITUDES OF SARKAR’S LIFE
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 UNWELCOMED EPISODES IN SARKAR’S LIFE
3.2.1 INJUSTICE TO SARKAR AND HIS MOVEMENT
3.2.2 SYDNEY HILTOL HOTEL BOMBING CASE
3.2.3 BIJON SETU MASSACRE CASE
3.2.4 SARKAR’S TALE OF AGONY
3.3 SUPPORTERS OF SARKAR
3.4 SACRIFICE MADE BY DISCIPLES OF SARKAR
3.5 SARKAR’S RELEASE FROM DETENTION

CHAPTER 4 SARKAR’S LIFE AFTER PHYSICAL DETENTION
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 SARKAR’S WORLD TOUR
4.3 DEMISE OF SARKAR

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It gives me immense pleasure to write the book entitled as “Sarkar: You Can Not Be Forgotten”. With this book, I have tried to share a memoir of My Guru Sri. Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar to the world.

First and foremost, I want to convey my unfathomable feelings and regards to my Guru Sri. P. R. Sarkar whose ideology and way of living have always been an inspiration to me. I thank him for writing all those jovial stories, songs, poems and books that gave me deep sense of understandings towards many subjects. I dedicate my life to my Guru Sri. P. R. Sarkar to work for his mission.

I am extremely indebted to Dr. S. N. Pandey and Mrs. M. Pandey who had introduced me to Sri Sarkar. They are the best teachers I have ever known and I thank them for encouraging me to write about Sri. Sarkar. I could not have finished this book without their support and blessings.

I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. A. Pandey who is my guide, philosopher and the best critic of my books. I thank him for standing beside me throughout my career and sharing a lot of information about P. R. Sarkar that has helped me to complete this book.

I am thankful to Dr. J. Bora whose hardworking nature has motivated me to work day and night to complete this book. I deeply thank her for seeing me through the good and bad times.

I am thankful to Ms. A. Pandey, Dr. A. K. Tiwary, Ms. S. Pandey and Mr. A. Pandey who supported and encouraged me in spite of all the time it took me away from them. They all have been my inspiration and motivation to improve my knowledge and move my career forward.

I would like to thank Mrs. S. K. Patil, Mr. A S Patil and Mrs. S. Desai and family for being my friends in a new city and supporting me with their utmost love and care.

I also thank my brilliant nieces: Coconut and Limon, for always making me smile and for noticing my books, although they are too little to read and understand books. I hope that one day they can read and understand my books.

I would like to express my deep respect to Acharya Sarvatmananda Avdhuta who has always been there for my family and me. He has been a great support and inspiration to authoring this book.

I look forward to discussing this book with my intellectual friends residing far away, at future gatherings, as I am sure they all will read it soon.

Last and not least: I beg forgiveness of all those who have been with me over the course of the years and whose names I have failed to mention.

CHAPTER 1 WHO IS SARKAR

“The biggest legacy I have inherited is my father’s inspiration.”

...R. Pandey

1.1 INTRODUCTION

It may lead to forget somebody in absence of his physical presence, but his thoughts make his presence alive. The physical body perishes, and not the thoughts. The superlative thoughts remain vibrant in our memories and inspire us at each pace of life. We see and meet many people in our lives but only few leave an impression on our mind. One such person who is an inspiration for many in the world is, Sri. Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. He believed in and followed the religion of universal spirituality and neo-humanism. He was a phenomenal philosopher, spiritual teacher, intellectual, social revolutionary, linguist, poet and composer. His colossal works, made a significant contribution to the development of global society.

1.2 MEMOIR OF PRABHAT RANJAN SARKAR

It was May 21, 1921 at 6:07 a.m. in the morning when Sarkar was born to Laksmi Narayan Sarkar, a homoeopathic doctor and Abharani Devi, a homemaker in Jamalpur, Bihar, India. Earlier he was named as Arun, which later changed to Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar when he was five years old. He is also known by his spiritual name Sri.. Anandmurti and called as Baba by his disciples. His family had moved from their ancestral village Bamunpara to Jamalpur in 1915. (cf. Young Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar and Family, http://sarkarverse.org/)

There were seven siblings in the family and Sarkar was very close to one of his brothers Sri. Himanshu Ranjan (http://ammemorial.blogspot.in/) as he understood him the best. According to his grandmother Binapari Sarkar and other family members, unlike other children, he used to behave like an adult in his childhood, talking about the different spiritual subjects, and practicing meditation on his bed in the middle of night (Acharya Vijayananda, 1994b).

He has been a very brilliant student during his student life. His intense interest towards studies, powerful memory, intelligence and obedient nature always attracted the attentions of his teachers. He used to spend a quality time in library and read books on different subjects like, spiritual, arts, literatures, scientific, philosophical etc. He attended Keshavpur Primary School in Jamalpur from 1927 to 1930 and Eastern Indian Railway High School in Jamalpur from 1931 to 1939. Later, he moved to Faculty of Science, Vidyasagar College, Kolkata to pursue further studies.

While his studies in Kolkata he stayed with his maternal uncle Sarat Chandra Bose, who was elder brother of Indian freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose (Dharmavedananda, 1999). While staying with Sarat Chandra Bose, Sarkar had been introduced to Subhash Chandra Bose and Manabendra Nath Roy (Indian revolutionary and founder of the Mexican Communist Party and the Communist Party of India).

For many years, Subhash Chandra Bose and Manabendra Nath Roy repeatedly visited Sarkar in Kolkata and Jamalpur. Sarkar, Bose brothers and Roy used to have endless discussions over different subjects and exchange ideas about sociological concepts. Sarkar’s love and respect towards Subhash made him to dedicate one of his books, “Problems of the day” (1959) to Subhash Chandra Bose.

Sarkar was a great admirer of Swami Vivekananda and his style of working. He had spoken about Swami Vivekananda and his thoughts in many of his discourses. Sarkar used to tell his disciples to work like Swami Vivekananda. In one of his book Sarkar has written, “Now one may say that some people like Vivekananda did not live long, but the cause of their early death was excessive labor” (Sri Anandamurti, 1999).

After completing his course from Vidyasagar College Sarkar left studies and moved back to Jamalpur to support his family. He was employed as an auditor in accounts department of the Jamalpur railway workshop at East End Colony. During those days, he used to spend most of his time meditating on a Tiger’s grave, located in the outskirts of Jamalpur. Tiger’s grave is still a favorite destination of most of his followers for practicing meditation and spending a quality time there (http://thejamalpur.com/).

Sarkar was a true patriot. He had a great respect for his country and its people. He was always willing to serve the people. In 1943, during Second World War, he joined the Indian Army for a few months and after completing his service there, he resumed to his job in the railway workshop (Figure 6). Later he left his job in the end of 1966 and devoted all his time and energy for the growth and development of Ananda Marga organization.

It was year 1939, when Sarkar gave diksha (Sanskrit: दीक्षा for preparation or consecration for a religious ceremony", is giving of a mantra or an initiation by the guru in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism) to a robber named Kalicharan Bandyopadhyay who had approached Sarkar with the intend of robbing him while he was meditating at Kashimitra Ghat in Kolkata. After accepting the initiation into spiritual meditation Kalicharan, was named as Kalikananda Avdhuta by Sarkar. Kalikananda Avdhuta was Sarkar’s first disciple. Later, Sarkar initiated and gave diksha to nearly 1200 people during the period of 1939 to 1955. Sarkar encouraged his disciples to practice spiritual meditation.

It was November 07, 1954 when Sarkar organized the first spiritual gathering in Jamalpur, where all his disciples were invited. After that gathering, several collective meetings were held in the future and this trend continued. On January 01, 1955, Sarkar founded the sociospiritual oraganization Ananda Marga. Impressed with Sarkar’s ideology thousands of people joined Ananda Marga and started working day and night for the progress of its mission.

Giani Zail Singh, the seventh president of India, has said that Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar was one of the greatest modern philosophers of India (Acharya Vijayananda, 1994a) (http://delcampe.net/).

CHAPTER 2 INCREDIBLE WORKS OF SARKAR

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Believing not in wasting time, Sarkar certainly not left a moment unused. Being creative by nature, he used each moment of his life to work for the prosperity of society and shared his wisdom to the world. He has said, “Die while working, and work even while dying”.

2.2 FOUNDATION OF ANANDA MARGA

Sixty-one years ago on January 1, 1955 Sarkar laid the foundation of Ananda Marga in Jamalpur, India. Ananda Marga (Sanskrit: Ananda for Bliss, Marga for Path; meaning The Path of Bliss) is a sociospiritual organization and movement, officially known as Ánanda Márga Pracáraka Saḿgha. The motto of Ananda Marga is self-realization and service to the universe. Having its headquarter in Ananda Nagar, Purulia, West Bengal, presence of Ananda Marga has been established in over 180 countries.

In May 1962, He established the monastic order in Ananda Marga and categorized Margi or Anandamargi (people who join Ananda Marga) as Grihastha and Sanyasi. Grihastha Margis are those who have their families and serve the Ananda Marga. And, Sanyasi are those who do not have their families and serve the Ananda Marga, devoting their full time. They are called as Acharya (monks) and Aaacharya (nuns). Sarkar had well defined the rules to be followed by Grihastha and Sanyasi Margis (http://www.anandamela.org.au/). Ananda Marga Ashramas existing worldwide accomplish well the spiritualty, educational, religious studies and philanthropic purposes. Through its meditation centers and service projects around the world, Ananda Marga offers instruction in meditation, yoga and other self-development practices on a non-commercial basis, and responds to social emergencies and long-term social needs.

2.3 FOUNDATION OF RENAISSANCE UNIVERSAL

Renaissance Universal (RU) is a movement and a network of people dedicated to the ideal of a universal renaissance in human affairs. Sarkar started the Renaissance Universal movement on January 27, 1958. He encouraged artists, musicians, writers, intellectuals and scientists to create a second renaissance, a global renaissance.

2.4 PROGRESSIVE UTILIZATION THEORY (PROUT)

Progressive Utilization Theory is a collection of social, economic and political ideas propounded in 1959 by Sarkar (Crovetto, 2008; Crovetto, 2011; Hayden and Angela, 2010). Sarkar has written about PROUT in his book Ananda Sutram (Irving and Cahill, 2010). He established the “Proutist Universal” organization to publicize the PROUT.

Sarkar sought a practical alternative to the theories of Marxism and Capitalism PROUT is based on universal values recognizing and protecting the rights of all to the fulfillment of their basic needs; the protection of the environment, plants and animals; and a dynamic, incentive based multi-tiered economy with local and cooperatively employee owned enterprises at its core (Sarkar,1968).

PROUT is an economic solution to poverty (Batra, 1989). It encourages a balance in the effort of satisfying individual and collective needs (http://www.prout.org/). It can maintain the balance between political structure and social structure (Acharya Krtashivananda, 2013). At the political level, PROUT rejects nationalism and seeks the formation of a world government (Inayatullah, 2003). Sarkar also supported the concept of world army.

2.5 ANANDA NAGAR PROJECT

Sarkar initiated Ananda Nagar Project in 1966. He selected one of the poorest areas in Purulia District, West Bengal for its development and, named the place as Ananda Nagar. Several schools, colleges, children homes (http://www.anandanagar.org/), hospitals (ibid.), small-scale industries, Ananda Marga Ashram have been established and developed under this project. The Acharya (monks) and Aaacharya (nuns) of Ananda Marga manage these. Ananda Nagar Project has been a prodigious support to the villagers of Ananda Nagar as it has improved their lifestyles.

2.6 EDUCATION RELIEF AND WELFARE SECTION (ERAWS)

The Education, Relief and Welfare Section of Ananda Marga (ERAWS) founded in 1963, watch over the education, relief and welfare. Under ERAWS, the education section runs primary and high schools and colleges. It currently runs over 1,000 primary schools in India, and over 200 abroad. Its permanent relief section runs children’s homes, homes for the handicapped, asylums for the mentally retarded and homes for the aged. About 165 children homes all over the world.

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