Wednesday, November 20, 2024
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Politicians, journalists slammed for playing politics over Amarnath Yatra attack

Yesterday the country witnessed a barbaric attack on Hindu pilgrims who were returning after taking Darshan at the holy Amarnath temple in Kashmir. At about 8:30 PM on Monday, as a bus carrying 60 Amarnath Pilgrims was returning to Jammu, terrorists opened fire at it. This led to the death of 7 pilgirms including 6 women and injured 19 more.

It is believed that 3-5 Pakistan backed terrorists led by one Ismael belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the attack. The casualties could have been more, but according to a passenger on that bus, the driver heroically drove through a hail of bullets to ensure that the bus reached to safety.

This attack shocked the nation. While most were demanding retributive justice and accountability from the government, there were few politicians and media persons who shamelessly tried to politicise the gruesome murder to peddle their agenda:


The CPM leader whose party in Kerala allows murders of RSS workers to go on unabated, was slammed for his comment. He also conveniently forgot that pilgrims were attacked in 2006 and 2007, when his party had extended support to the UPA government:


AAP MLA Alka Lamba, who in the past had laughed about her delaying a fire rescue operation, decided to peddle a cringeworthy conspiracy theory. She was widely slammed for this comment, following which she deleted the tweet:


Modi hating ex-cop, who regularly spreads anti-India propaganda, also joined in spreading the conspiracy theory, which was shared widely by Pakistanis and anti-Hindu commentators, as generally happens with his tweets:


Even journalists didn’t want to be left behind. A comment by controversial journalist Barkha Dutt, suggesting that the Yatra should have been suspended this year, was slammed as being akin to ‘victim blaming’:


One so-called journalist, with a history of peddling unsubstantiated claims, subtly painted the attackers as ‘militants’:


Some where more concerned about ‘Kashmiri Suffering’ than hate crime against Hindus, such as senior journalist Shekhar Gupta of ‘coup’ fame:


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Muslim man announces a 2 day fast for Gau Raksha

A Muslim Man named Jabar Jat is making the news after he has announced his intention to sit on a fast for two days, as part of his efforts to promote cow protection or Gau Raksha.

Jabar who hails from Kudbay village in Kutch, Gujarat is an owner of 16 cows and 9 buffaloes. His fast would begin from 20th July.

Apparently Jabar decided to go on a fast to take up the issue of welfare for stray cows. He blamed the alleged “Gau Rakshaks” for indulging in hooliganism in the name of cow protection and urged them to accompany him in his fast. He also stated that the so called killings in the name of the cow, would never serve their true purpose.

He has written a letter to the District Collector to list out a variety of his bovine related demands. In the letter Jabar calls for a law which requires every farmer to keep at-least two bullocks and that the government provides them subsidy for the same.

He asked for grazing land to be demarcated in each taluka of Kutch. He demanded that the government take care of stray cows and bears 50% of the cost for each gaushala. He has also asked the government to buy cow dung and cow based fertilisers from the farmer to further help them increase their cow based income.

He has received support from the Salimkhan Pathan, the convener of Rashtriya Muslim Manch which is the Muslim wing of the RSS. He reportedly appreciated the efforts of Jabar and claimed that he would urge the State government for setting up an infrastructure for the welfare of cows.

Vallabh Kathiria the chairman of Gujarat State Gauseva Ayog and Gauchar Vikas Board also affirmed that the State government would make efforts to increase the economic viability of the cow, by creating a market for cow dung and cow urine which might stop the people who decide let their bovines loose in the city.

NDTV writes an entire news report mistaking a ‘fake’ Abhishek Bachchan as real

NDTV looked like starting the week on an embarrassing note after it wrote an entire news report by mistaking a parody account of Abhishek Bachchan on Twitter to be his real account.

This is what the official twitter account of NDTV had tweeted out earlier today:

This is what had happened: Vivek Oberoi was trending on Twitter due to his upcoming show “Inside Edge” and in response to that, this is what ‘Abhishek Bachchan’ tweeted:


Somehow someone sitting in NDTV thought that it was real Abhishek Bachchan (even though his account is verified by Twitter) and wrote a report titled:

Vivek Oberoi Trends, Prompting Epic Tweet From Abhishek Bachchan

The report stated how on Monday, Vivek Oberoi’s name was unprecedentedly high up in the twitter trending section which prompted the hilarious tweet from ‘Abhishek Bachchan’. The report also claimed that it did not know who all were members in that WhatsApp group or whether Dino Morea had indeed paid heed to Abhishek’s request and removed Vivek Oberoi.

The report also decided to add a bit of ‘masala’ and pointed out how Abhishek and Vivek Oberoi being in the same WhatsApp group meant that there was no uneasiness between the two actors. This uneasiness according to the report was due to the fact that Aishwaria Rai the current wife of Abishek Bachchan had dated Vivek Oberoi in the past.

The parody account that had sent the Tweet

The only problem in this whole scenario was that the tweet which NDTV though to be from Abhishek Bachchan was actually sent by his parody account. Just by going to the description page of the account, one finds that its actually a parody and the the real Abhishek Bachchan goes by the handle @juniorbachchan and not by @juniorbacchha.

Also those who might be wondering, this joke was cracked in the context that actors like Dino Morea and Abhishek Bachchan struggle to find fame and new movies to act in, and thus no reasons for trending on Twitter.

After the parody account of Abhishek and other users pointed out this mistake, NDTV quickly deleted both the post and Google cache associated with it, in order to try removes all the traces of the article. A website though was kind enough to retain a copy which has now been archived by OpIndia, in case the media house also forces the website to remove its copy.

Dear Bengali Hindus, liberal-secular establishment doesn’t care if you die, but do you?

This is how HuffPost presented the news of murder of a 65 years old Hindu man Kartik Ghosh in West Bengal riots on their homepage:

HuffPost blames Modi

Unmissable irony between the header and the footer in that one.

Yeah, politicians should stop pointing fingers at each other. Leave it to the liberal HuffPost to tell us where we should point fingers. Because all their fingers always point at one and only one man : MODI.

In the wake of communal riots in Bengal that have become frequent of late and where Hindus bear the brunt of rampaging Islamist mobs, secular-liberal media such as HuffPost and The Wire have spent so much time talking about the BJP that they have barely managed to get in a word about the ruling party in the state.

Media agenda

Can anybody remember the name of Bengal’s ruling party at all?

Media agenda

Yeah and the Chief Minister of Bengal, who is locked … almost literally… in a “he said/she said” battle with the Governor has nothing to realize. What a poor victim she is, no?

Media agenda

Let’s get it straight:

Who is rioting? Muslims.

Who died? A Hindu.

Who rules Bengal? Trinamool Congress.

Whose fault? Modi.

Or if you follow the lead of the HuffPost, you should write ‘MODI’ in all caps, preferably in a size 500 font.

It is clear that Hindu lives don’t matter to the ‘secular-liberal’ media. Not a word for the man who was killed. Contrast that to copious tears they shed when a victim is Muslim.

The only thing remaining for liberals to do is to organise hashtag protests against “Hindu terror”, gau rakshaks, Bhakts, RSS, whatever to show how much they care about the loss of innocent human life in Bengal.

Apparently, this violence broke out over a Facebook post by a young boy that some Muslims did not like. As this article in The Indian Express describes, the boy who is a minor, was actually detained by police and subjected to an actual investigation and interrogation. Even though there were violent mobs out in the streets baying for his blood.

In sifting through all the reports about the subsequent violence, I am yet to come across one intellectual taking issue with the fact that the West Bengal police is taking action against the victim (a minor no less!) instead of going out and containing the rioters. How is this different from the police checking the meat in Akhlaque’s fridge?

Instead, I have seen media reporting on the original FB post calling it anything from “objectionable” to “blasphemous”. Is “blasphemy” a thing in India now? Define it for me, please.

Why blasphemy in secular state?

If a woman were to become the victim of a sexual assault, can you imagine a media report in a civilized society saying that the woman was wearing “objectionable” clothes?

No, it doesn’t matter what the woman was wearing. That’s an absolute. Just like it doesn’t matter what the boy wrote on Facebook about some religion. There is no excuse whatsoever for threatening him with violence. Another absolute.

Instead, they report on the arrest of the boy as a matter of course. I can’t seem to be able to find any liberal news outlets willing to take a clear and unequivocal stand that the boy is 100% innocent, that his arrest is a disastrous injustice and the only only people who should be arrested here are the rioters in the streets.

And neither can I find anyone willing to meet with the family of Kartik Ghosh and report on the tragedy they have faced.  It is as if Kartik Ghosh’s life was less real. No one wants to ask who is responsible for the loss of Kartik Ghosh’s life. Meanwhile, the death of Junaid Khan is being blamed collectively on the 1 billion Hindus of this country. Don’t believe me? See here:

Hatred for Hindus

The author here is no less an authority than Rajinder Sachar, the former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, who headed the famous Sachar Committee report on the condition of Indian Muslims during the UPA years.

The handful of actual condemnations that have tumbled out of the liberal brigade have all come with the heartfelt requests to malcontents within the Muslim community to stop rioting in Bengal because this is giving an opportunity to Hindu majoritarianism, to Gau Rakshaks, to BJP, to RSS (see examples here and here).

What they are really complaining about is not the atrocities being committed on Hindus in West Bengal, but the fact that it’s ruining their #NotInMyName narrative. A natural corollary of this is an admission that these liberals would have been totally silent about violence against Hindus if the BJP were not in a position to use it to their advantage.

Some top liberals have been fairly open about this argument :

Propaganda by Rajdeep Sardesai

Ok, who benefitted most from Partition? Who benefits most from dividing Hindus by caste? Which party benefits most if the corrupt old order in India stays intact?

For other liberals, even the handful of condemnations of Muslim mobs in Bengal are offensive. Instead their demand is a total free hand for Muslim mobs to commit as much violence as they please. Can you believe this appeared in an Indian publication?

India Today justifies riots by Muslims

The rage of murderous mobs over a Facebook post is morally equivalent to citizens peacefully expressing their anger over gangrape! Now, we really have seen everything. Personally, I call upon India Today group to delete this article and issue an apology.

But they will not. Because they are not in opinion or journalism, they are into politics. The only thing they can see here is BJP, not a man who lost his life or not a minor who has virtually lost his future career.

Of late, as the BJP has made forays into Bengal, I have seen a stream of articles in the media discussing the so called secular ethos of Bengal and how it has never humoured Hindutva elements in the past.

Which is hilarious (in a dark way) when you consider the history of how Indian secularism has treated Bengal. This is a simple pie chart that shows what happened to the territory of Bengal in the last one hundred years.

Partition of Bengal

On August 16, 1946, the workers of the Muslim League spilled onto the streets of Calcutta to observe “Direct Action Day”. In a few hours, some 4000 people lay dead. Almost exactly one year later, “India” became an independent nation. Minus Eastern Bengal, Western Punjab and the whole of Sind.

Now, it’s a wonderful truth that Bengali greats such as Swami Vivekananda and Ramkrishna Paramhamsa were all for a Bengal where all faiths flourish in harmony, as Rajinder Sachar points out, while acting as if he is scoring a point by throwing it in our faces:

Distorting history

But Swami Vivekananda passed away in 1902. And he was not an ostrich who would have refused to see how radical Islam refuses to co-exist with other religions, and how radical Islam was becoming a norm in India, so much so, that a mythical Sufi Islam exists perhaps only in Narendra Modi’s tweets.

What hope is left for secularism once a people see nearly two thirds of their ancient land snatched away and handed over to those of one religious faith?

Is it not rational for dispossessed Bengali Hindus to worry about keeping their little leftover slice of Bengal? If Bengali Hindus don’t worry about that, it is not something to be proud about. What is so great about ceding land and dignity to a mob that demands you to be in total submission?

It is clear that these concerns don’t matter to the so-called secular-liberal establishment, which has a hold over media and academia in a way that even Modi doesn’t have over BJP. They are not thinking how to free a teenager from jail, what they are thinking is how to assassinate his character. Death of a Hindu doesn’t bother them, what bothers them is who benefits.

But I want to ask fellow Bengali Hindus; are you happy with this arrangement? Do you care for your life and dignity? Or those are blasphemous concepts against secularism?

Congress and China try to hide meeting between Rahul Gandhi and Chinese Ambassador to India

Congress today did an extraordinary flip-flop over party vice president Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui amid the ongoing standoff between India and China.

When some media outlets reported about the meeting, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala attached the media termed it “fake news”:


//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsHowever, things were muddled when Dr Ajoy Kumar, another spokesperson of the Congress, replied to a Times Now tweet on Rahul Gandhi-Luo Zhaohui meeting, which suggested that the meeting indeed took place. However, he deleted the tweet, possibly as the official Congress line was to deny any meeting.

The tweet was deleted within minutes

But the party was caught lying as the Chinese embassy website had issued an official statement confirming the meeting between the Congress vice president and the Chinese envoy.

However, strangely, even the Chinese embassy deleted the statement, as if they were acting in tandem with Congress party to hide this development:

The statement on the Chinese embassy website that was later removed.

This led people to speculate even more as to why both the Congress party and China were trying to hide the meeting, after inadvertently having admitted the same.

With the screensort of the official statement of China on Rahul Gandhi-Luo Zhaohui meeting went viral on social media, Congress made a u-turn accepting that Rahul Gandhi indeed met Luo Zhaohui.

“Envoys met Rahul Gandhiji, not only Chinese envoy Luo Zhaohui but also Bhutanese envoy Vetsop Namgyel and ex NSA Shiv Shankar Menon,” said Surjewala. The Congress spokesperson said the meetings are totally “normal.”

If it indeed was a normal meeting, why did Congress initially call it a “fake news” and even the Chinese embassy removed the statement from its website? Was Congress party working with China to hide the news about the meeting? If so, what and why is Congress trying to hide? The party had not clarified on such issues by the time this report was filed.

Family of man accused of murdering Junaid claims he stabbed in self-defence

On 22nd June, 17 years old Junaid was returning home along with his brothers after Eid shopping in Delhi when he was stabbed onboard a Delhi-Mathura passenger train between Ballabgarh and Mathura stations.

The fight started over seat sharing, and later religious slurs were also allegedly thrown in the fight, but media reports highlighted this case as a ‘beef’ related lynching. Police investigations in the case though have found out that neither the complainant nor the accused talked about beef.

Police too is maintaining that the fight had started over seat sharing, which is reported to be a frequent trouble on the said train route. However, due to the communal angle, police acted with alacrity in this case and arrested 4 people, while the main accused remained at large.

Naresh, the main accused, was finally arrested on 8th July from Dhule, Maharashtra, who reportedly had confessed to the crime. Media reports claim that he was drawn into the fight after he tried to “intervene into a scuffle between a Delhi government employee and Junaid’s brothers”.

The family members of Naresh too accept that he was involved, but they claim that he acted in self-defence. ‘Had Naresh not acted in self-defence, they would have killed him’, Naresh’s 55-year-old father Inder Singh was quoted as saying.

According to the father, who is an ex-army man, Naresh got into the argument after Junaid and his friends misbehaved with an old man and also refused to offer him a seat.

His uncle even claimed that the initial argument, which only comprised of heated exchanges was soon sorted out. It allegedly turned violent when Junaid’s brother and his friends boarded the train from Ballabgarh after being phoned in by Junaid and co. They allegedly then proceeded to attack Naresh and others using belt and chains. They even took out a knife, which according to the Naresh’s uncle, was snatched by Naresh who then proceeded to stab them in self defense.

Incidentally the bit about Junaid calling his brother for help was also reported in media soon after the murder case became big headlines, but the reports suggested that phone calls were made for help, and not for revenge attack as is being claimed by Naresh’s family.

Naresh who used to work as a security guard was urged by his family to surrender but instead he chose to flee and ended up getting nabbed. The family has also accused the police of carrying a one sided investigation, while others have earlier accused the police of arresting innocent villagers.

According to the family, the police is not arresting 2 people, including a Muslim who had helped Naresh flee, owing to political pressure.

Amid Doklam standoff, Chinese media warns of troops entering Kashmir

Amid the ongoing standoff between the Indian Army and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at India-China-Bhutan tri-junction, Chinese state-controlled media argued that its troops would be entitled to enter Kashmir with the “logic” that Indian troops entered Doklam plateau.

“Even if India were requested to defend Bhutan’s territory, this could only be limited to its established territory, not the disputed area. Otherwise, under India’s logic, if the Pakistani government requests, a third country’s Army can enter the area disputed by India and Pakistan, including India-controlled Kashmir,” Director of the Center for Indian Studies at China West Normal University Long Xingchun wrote in an article in Global Times.

Indian Army and Chinese troops are locked in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation at the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction after China’s attempts to forcefully build a strategic highway through the Doklam plateau, which is Bhutanese territory. The 269-sq km Doklam plateau is strategically located at the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet tri-junction, the place where borders of the three countries meet.

The Global Times article suggests that Beijing can internationalise Doklam issue without worrying about western countries because the West has a lot of business to do with China.

Referring to the exchange of fire between India and Pakistani troops along the Line of Control in Kashmir, another article in Global Times said it is not a good idea for India to open “two fronts conflict”.

“Aside from the border spat with China, India is embroiled with Pakistan over an exchange of fire at the Kashmir border. Both India and Pakistan accused each other of initiating the incident on Saturday that caused civilian deaths on both sides of their controlled border in Kashmir,” the article said.

“That there are frequent conflicts and military scuffles between the areas of Kashmir controlled by the two sides. China has nothing to do with the situation in Kashmir, but it would be unwise for India to engage in two conflicts at the same time,” Lin Mingwang from the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai was quoted as saying in Global Times.

Another commentary in Global Times has criticised the reported move by Tibetan government in exile to hoist the Tibetan flag on the shores of Bangong Lake in Ladakh. Though there is no evidence of the New Delhi’s involvement in the reported incident, the Global Times article accused India of using the Tibet card and instigating the Tibet movement in a bid to exert pressure on China.

“Although the involvement of New Delhi remains unclear, we hope they did not send any signal of approval,” the article authored by Yu Ning read.

The article argued that India’s large-scale poverty and the need for peace and development are the reasons why “New Delhi cannot afford to mess up the China-India bilateral relationship”.

A brazen editorial in Global Times last week had called for a disintegration of Sikkim from the rest of India and promoting anti-India sentiments in Bhutan.

Nitish Kumar to now skip the opposition’s meet to decide Vice Presidential candidate

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seems to be turning out be a real mystery for the opposition. He appears set to give another blow to the so called ”Maha Gathbandhan” after having announced his support for the NDA backed Presidential candidate Ram Nath Kovind. Latest reports have claimed that the Bihar Chief Minister has decided to skip an opposition meeting on Tuesday for deciding their Vice Presidential candidate.

There have been conflicting theories over his decision. One theory claimed that Nitish is currently recovering from a viral infection and another tried to downplay this angle by pointing out that a JD-U meeting, which would include state legislators and MPs, has also been organized on Tuesday.

What is also adding fuel to the fire is Nitish not condemning or even giving a statement on the recent CBI and ED raids on Lalu and his family, even as the Congress has come out in full support of the RJD strongman.

Speculations of Nitish warming up (again) to the BJP/NDA started when the Bihar Chief Minister had openly supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi over demonetisation. This was followed by him skipping Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s ‘unity lunch’, to attend a luncheon meeting with PM Modi. Modi/BJP has also returned the favor by praising Nitish Kumar’s draconian prohibition law.

Nitish backed this up with his support for Kovind, which had led his alliance partner Lalu Prasad Yadav to describe the decision as a “historic blunder” and later urged Nitish to rectify it by backing Meira Kumar, the opposition’s Presidential candidate. Nitish though refused to budge and claimed that the “Bihar ki Beti” was nominated only to lose.

This was soon followed by other voices of dissent coming out of the JD-U. The party’s general secretary KC Tyagi then came out with an explosive statement that their party was more comfortable with the BJP as an alliance partner. This was also followed by Nitish Kumar’s clear dig at the opposition by stating that it (the opposition) was just protesting for protest’s sake and had no real solutions or alternative narratives to offer.

 

Muslim mob pelts stone at funeral procession of murdered RSS worker

The coastal city of Mangaluru is on the edge following the death of a RSS worker named Sharath Madivala. Madivala, 28, was brutally stabbed by a group of unidentified bike-borne assailants on 4 July at BC Road area in Mangaluru.

The victim, a resident Kandur in Dakshin Kannad District of Karnataka, was running a laundry shop at BC Road area. He was attacked around 9.30 PM on 4 July when he was on his way back home after closing his laundry for the day. Police said the bike-borne miscreants assaulted Madivala between Kaikamba and BC Road Police Checkpoint. The victim suffered serious injuries on his head and neck. Madivala succumbed to his injuries in AJ Hospital on Friday night. Police said Madivala has no enmity with anyone.

On Saturday, the mortal remains of Madivala were taken in a funeral procession from AJ Hospital to Kandur. Hundreds of activists belonging to RSS, BJP and some Hindu organisations took part in the funeral procession with black flags tied to their two-wheelers. As the funeral procession reached near Somayaji Building just before BC Road junction, stones were pelted at them from the building and vicinity.

“The miscreants were hiding behind Sultan Complex and the building next to it. As soon as the funeral procession passed by the complex, they began pelting stones. They began pelting stones at people in the funeral procession. One man was hit by a large stone on his head and sustained minor injuries,” Dakshina Kannada SP, Sudheer Kumar Reddy told The News Minute.

Reports suggest that several vehicles including three cars, an auto rickshaw and a bus were damaged in the stone-pelting. Shops have remained closed fearing clashes. Police had to lathi-charge and later arrested over a dozen people for the stone-pelting, though no arrests have been made yet in the murder case.

Former Mayor of Mangaluru K Ashraf, Suhail Khadak, Ashraf Kinaar Kudroli, CM Muttappa, Mohammad Hanif, H Meed Kudroli and Naushad Bandaru were arrested for stone-pelting. They have been booked for rioting and damaging property.

Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been clamped in the area since the attack on Madivala. On Friday, BJP MPs Shobha Karandlaje and Nalin Kumar Kateel led party workers in a protest. They were briefly held by the police.

Over 2,000 policemen, including CRPF personnel, have been deployed in the city to maintain law and order. Meanwhile, the prohibitory orders have been extended across Dakshina Kannada district.

The brutal attack on Madivala is a grim reminder of the lynching of 38-year-old Kithaganahalli Vasu in Bangaluru in March. In a repeat of CPM model of violence in Kerala, RSS and BJP workers are being systematically targeted in Siddaramaiah-led Congress rule in Karnataka.

Recently, a Facebook page called ‘Mangalore Muslims’ had posted a threatening message on Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, a RSS strongman in Dakshina Kannada district. After the news of Sharath’s death, the same page even celebrated the murder.

On Guru Purnima: Thirty-four meanings of the word ‘Guru’

Today is Guru Purnima, a festival celebrated by the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains in honour of the guru-s. Among Hindus, the festival is also called Vyasa Purnima, for it is believed that Veda Vyasa was born on this day. The Sikhs also have a festival Guru Parb, but that is celebrated on a different day.

As per the Concise Oxford English dictionary, the English word guru has three meanings: (1) a Hindu spiritual teacher, (2) each of the ten first leaders of the Sikh religion, and (3) an influential teacher or expert, for example “a management guru”.

As one can guess from the first and second meanings, the word guru in English comes from Hindi and Punjabi. In turn, the word guru and Hindi and Punjabi comes from the Sanskrit word guru.

The Online Etymology Dictionary traces the Sanskrit guru to Proto-Indo European (PIE) *gwere in the sense of “heavy”. The Latin word gravis meaning “heavy” is also believed to derive from PIE *gwere. English words related to gravis are grave (meaning weighty, as in “a grave matter”), gravitate, gravimeter, and gravity.

Interestingly, the word for the scientific concept of gravity is gurutvakarshana in many Indian languages including Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, and Gujarati. The first part of this word is gurutva, which means the quality of being guru or heavy.

“Heavy” is one of the primary meanings of guru in Sanskrit also. However, the word is customarily used in many other meanings in Sanskrit. Here is a list of thirty-four meanings of the word guru based on the citations in the nineteenth century lexicons Shabda-kalpa-druma and Vachaspatya.

(1) “one who swallows ignorance”. Indian etymologists in the first millennium BCE derived guru from the root gri (“to swallow”). The same root gives the Sanskrit word nigarana (“swallowing”), from which comes the Hindi word nigalna (“to swallow”).

(2) “one who teaches dharma and scriptures”. The root gri also means “to speak” or “to instruct” in Sanskrit. The meaning is from this sense of the root.

(3) “one who is praised by gods, gandharva‑s, humans, etc”. This comes from the passive sense of gri (“to speak”).

(4) “one who destroys darkness (=gu) with brilliance (=ru)”. This meaning is as per the Guru Gita, which is a part of the Skanda Purana. In the latter half of twentieth century, the Guru Gita was popularized in the West by Swami Muktananda of the Siddha Yoga movement.

(5) “one by whom darkness (=gu) is destroyed (=ru)”. This meaning is also from the Guru Gita.

(6) “one by whom the disease of worldly existence (=gu) is removed (=ru)”. This meaning is also from the Guru Gita.

(7) “one who is beyond qualities (=gu, standing for gunatita) and beyond form (=ru, standing for rupatita). This meaning is also from the Guru Gita.

(8) “one by whom the bondage of maya (=gu) is released (=ru)”. This meaning is also from the Guru Gita.

(9) “Brahma (the creator)”. Brahma is called guru in the Kashi-khanda of the Skanda Purana.

(10) “Vishnu”. Vishnu is called both guru and gurutama (“the most superior guru”) in the Vishnu Sahasranama of the Mahabharata.

(11) “Shiva”. Shiva is called guru in the Shiva Sahasranama, also in the Mahabharata.

(12) “The Supreme Brahman”. Towards the end of George Harrison’s single My Sweet Lord (1971), which was top of the charts globally, the chorus sang the famous Guru Gita verse listing the meanings (9) to (12): gurur-brahma gurur-vishnuh gurur-devo maheshvarah, guruh sakshat para-brahma tasmai shri-gurave namah.

(13) “Brihaspati, the teacher of the gods”. This is why Thursday, named after Jupiter, is called both guru-vaar and brihaspati-vaar in Hindi.

(14) “Prabhakara, the teacher of Mimamsa philosophy”. Mimamsa is one of the six orthodox schools of philosophy in Hinduism.

(15) “Dronacharya, the teacher of the Pandava‑s and Kaurava‑s”. Dronacharya, after whom the Dronacharya Award is named, is often called Guru Dronacharya or simply Guru Drona.

(16) “one who performs nisheka rituals”. The nisheka rituals are Hindu ceremonies like garbhadhana, etc.)”

(17) “one who gives a mantra”. This is why many mantra-s are referred to as guru-mantra.

(18) “the father”. The feminine form of guru is gurvi, one of whose meaning is “the mother”.

(19) “any of the eleven male elders”. The eleven male elders consist of the teacher, the father, elder brothers, maternal uncles, paternal uncles, maternal grandfathers, paternal grandfathers, father-in-law, protectors, king, and community elders.

(20) “any elder in general”. This group is called guru-varga and includes not only teachers, parents, elder siblings, uncles/aunts, parents-in-law, and grandparents, but also any protectors, the midwife, and the king.

(21) “one who is great”.

(22) “one who is ageless”.

(23) “one who is large”.

(24) “one who is powerful”

(25) “one who is honourable”. The abstract noun derived from guru is garima which has meanings corresponding to (21) to (25), i.e. greatness, largeness, honour/dignity, etc.

(26) “one whose speech has profound meaning”.

(27) “heavy”. It is this sense of guru from which modern words gurutva or gurutvakarshana meaning gravity are derived.

(28) “one who grants siddhi-s (=gu), burns sins (=r), and is same as Shiva (=u)”. This meaning is as per Agamasara, a Tantra work.

(29) “one who for the sake of attainment of jnana (=gu) illuminates the truth (=r) and bestows oneness with Shiva (=r)”. This meaning is also as per Agamasara.

(30) “abundance”. The first verse of Kalidasa’s Meghaduta (“the cloud messenger”) uses the word guru in this sense.

(31) “a long syllable”. This is the meaning of guru in the context of Indian prosody, a field where the concepts and/or examples of Fibonacci sequence, Pascal’s triangle, and de Bruijn’s sequence were known much before Leonardo Fibonacci, Blaise Pascal, and Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn lived.

(32) “the Pushya constellation”. Pushya is one of the 27 constellations in Indian astronomy.

(33) “the velvet bean creeper (Mucuna pruritus)”.

(34) “the foxtail millet grass (Panicum italicum)”. Coincidentally, millets are called mote anaj (“fat grains”) in Hindi, and Sanskrit guru also means large (23) and heavy (27).

Thus, the word guru, which means “heavy”, is indeed heavy for it is pregnant with so many meanings in Sanskrit. When one considers this fact, the word can be considered an autological word, defined by Wikipedia as “a word that expresses a property that it also possesses.”

With that, I wish you a very Happy Guru Purnima 2017.