REFORMATION

 

The year 1500 AD was a round year to remember and that was the year in which Charles V was born. By then the feudal disorder of the Middle Ages was left behind and Europe was split into highly centralised kingdoms.

The most powerful of all kings during the coming time was Charles V, then a baby in the cradle. He was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and Maximilian I, the Emperor of the Holy Roman or the Western Roman Empire. 

Charles V has fallen heir to the greater part of the European map, to all the lands of his parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins and aunts in Germany, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Italy and Spain together with all their colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Charles V was born at Ghent in Belgium and was raised as a Fleming.  

As his father was dead and his mother became unbalanced in mind, he was raised by his Aunt Margaret. Charles grew up to be a Catholic but he was against religious intolerance. He was lazy but he was condemned to rule a large part of the world when Europe was in a state of religious fervour. 

Charles aped between various states of Europe and despite being a peace loving man was forced to be at war always. At the age of 55 he turned his back on the human race in utter disgust at so much hate and stupidity. 3 years later in 1558 he died, a very disappointed man.  

At that time, the church was the 2^nd great power and landowner in Europe and has changed greatly. The church has grown too rich and the Pope lived in a palace and surrounded himself with artists, musicians and literary men. He divided his time unevenly between state and art with a leaning towards the latter. The affairs of the state take only 10% of his time.   

The Archbishops and Cardinals follow the example of the Pope. The Bishops imitate the Archbishops and only the village priests have remained faithful to their duties.

The common people are much better off than earlier. They are more prosperous, lived in better houses, their children went to better schools, their cities were more beautiful than before, and their firearms have made them equal to their enemies.  

The people of Northern Europe, the Germans, the Dutch, the Swedes, and the English and so on had an entirely different climate than Southern Europe and kept indoors most of the time while the Italians lived under the open sky and it was easier for them to laugh and sing. The Northerners were very conscious of religion.          

In contrast, the papacy and the College of Cardinals were almost entirely composed of Italians and they had turned the church into a pleasant club where people discussed art, music and literature but rarely about religion. 

Therefore the split between the serious North and more civilised but easy going South, was growing wider all the time and no one was aware of the danger that was threatening the church.

The rift between the South and North made reformation take place first in Germany. The endless quarrels between Pope and the Emperor have caused much mutual bitterness. 

In the other European countries where there was a strong king, the ruler had been able to protect his people from the priests. In Germany where a shadowy emperor ruled a crowd of turbulent princelings, the people were left at the mercy of the Church. 

The church henchmen were trying to collect large sums of the money from the people for the benefit of the enormous churches that were built. The Germans felt they were being milked and did not like it at all. Most important, Germany was where the Printing press was invented and that made books cheap and the Bible was no longer a mysterious manuscript which only the priests interpreted.

When they read the Holy Scriptures, the people realized that the priests were telling them many things which were not there in them. People started asking questions for which there are no answers and doubt entered into the peoples mind.

The attack began when the humanist of the North opened fire (not in the real sense of the term) on the monks. They of course still had too much respect to direct their attack on the Pope, but the corrupt monks were a good target to open the attack. 

Surprisingly, the leader in this attack was a very faithful son of the Church named Desiderius Erasmus (actual name Gerard Gerardzoon). He is from Rotterdam and become a priest in a monastery and lived there for some time. He resented what happened in the church at those times and later as a public pamphleteer mounted an attack on the church. He published a series of letters named the “Letters of Obscure Men”. In these letters the stupidity and arrogance of the then monks and that was exposed in a mixture of German-Latin. Erasmus gave the world the first reliable version of the New Testament.

In the year 1500 Erasmus wrote a short work called “Praise of Folly” in which he attacked the monks and their followers with humour. The booklet was a huge seller in the sixteenth century and was translated into all the European languages. The book and other works by Erasmus made people attentive to the workings of the church. Erasmus appealed to the people to help him to bring about a reform in the Christian faith.   

But nothing came about of his plans as he was gentle and too tolerant to please the enemies of the Church who wanted a radical reform. They found their man in Martin Luther. 

He came from a North German peasant family and had a brilliant brain. He did his Master of Arts from a University and then joined in a Dominican Monastery. He then became a college professor at the theological school of Wittenburg and began to explain the scriptures. In his studies of the Old and New Testament he found that there are great differences which existed between the words of Christ and those that were preached in the churches.

The gigantic church of Saint Peter which Pope Julius has thrust upon his successors, although only half complete, was already in need of repair. Pope Alexander VI has spent every penny of the papal treasury on it and Pope Leo X who came in 1513 was on the verge of bankruptcy. 

The Pope then went back to the old method of raising cash. He started selling indulgences which are a piece of parchment when purchased for a certain some, of money promised a sinner to reduce the time he would have to spend in purgatory.

The sale of indulgences in Saxony was overdone forcefully and this led to great resentment among the people. Martin Luther who was honest was very angry with the way things are happening from the side of the Church and on the 31st of October 1517, he went to the Church and pasted on its door a sheet of paper which contained 95 statements attacking the sale of indulgences. In less than 2 months all of Europe was discussing those 95 statements.  

The papal authorities were alarmed and summoned Luther to proceed to Rome to explain what he did. Luther did not like the idea and remembered John Huss, the Czech about 100 years before him who tried to criticise the indulgences and the other aspects of the Roman Catholic faith. He was summoned to Rome and was ultimately burnt at stake when he refused to recant what he said. Martin Luther  burnt the papal bull summoning him to Rome in front of admiring people and after that peace between him and the Pope became impossible.

Without any design on his part to be so, Luther had become a leader of a large multitude of Christians. German patriots rushed to his defence. The students of Wittenberg, Erfurt and Leipzig offered to defend him should the Church try to imprison him. The Elector of Saxony proclaimed that no harm would befall Luther as long as he remained in Saxony.

This happened in the year 1520 when entire Europe along with all the colonies of the European nations in Asia, Africa and the Americas was being ruled by Charles V. He was just 20 years old then and was forced to remain in the good books of the Pope.  

Charles V now summoned Luther to the Diet (a general assembly) of Worms (a city) on the Rhine to explain his stand. By now Martin Luther has become the national hero of Germans and he went. He refused to take back one word of whatever he said and went on to say that his conscience was controlled only by the word of God and he would live and die for his conscience.   

The Diet of Worms after deliberation declared Luther an outlaw and ordered all Germans not to give him any food or shelter or even read a single word from his books. But a great majority of the Germans rejected the edict. 

For safety Luther was hidden in a castle belonging to the Elector of Saxony. There he defied all papal authority by translating the entire Bible into German so that people can read the word of God for themselves.

By this time the Reformation ceased to be a religious or spiritual affair. Everyone jumped in and Church territories were attacked and looted and their territory grabbed. The half-starved peasants following their half-crazy agitators attacked the castles of their masters and plundered and murdered with the same zeal as the early Crusaders that did so before. 

There was a huge disorder in the Empire. Some Princes became Protestants (as the protesting adherents of Luther were called) and persecuted their Catholic subjects. Some remained Catholic and hanged their Protestant subjects. Now all Luther did was to try and purify Christianity from the distortions preached by the Church but that movement has deteriorated into intolerance and strife.

In 1526 the Diet of Speyer was called to settle the dispute and it concluded that all subjects of a King should have the same religion. This turned Germany into thousands of principalities and created a situation where normal growth is delayed for hundreds of years.

Luther died in the year 1546 and was buried in the same Church where he posted the famous 95 objections. So in less than 30 years the joking and laughing world of renaissance got transformed into the arguing and quarrelling and debating society of the Reformation. The spiritual empire of the Pose ended and Europe turned into a battlefield where Protestants and Catholics killed each other for the greater glory of a theological doctrine. It is amazing that just one man can be the fulcrum for this complete transition.

CONFUCIUS

 All of us know about Buddha our own great ethical teacher, but know nothing about Confucius of China who was a contemporary of Buddha other than that he was a philosopher.  

Despite Buddha being an ethical teacher than a philosopher, Vaishnavism elevated him to be the 9th Avatar of Lord Vishnu. What Buddha taught was very simple, yet Hinayana Buddhism has turned his sayings into a web of philosophy and viewed Buddha only through that. A similar thing happened to Confucius. 

Confucius was born in the year 550 BC which makes him a contemporary of Buddha (born in 567 BC). China was then without a strong central government and their citizens were looted by robber barons who pillaged the people and went from city to city. This turned China into a wilderness of starving people. 

Confucius loved his countrymen and tried to save them by giving them a philosophy of life. He was a peaceful man and knew that salvation would come only from a change of heart. He therefore set about on his mission of changing the hearts of the people. 

Confucius was a good student in his youth. He studied many subjects, including ceremonial practices, music, archery, driving a chariot, calligraphy, and arithmetic. He also had a good understanding of history and poetry.

While in his 30s Confucius began teaching. His goal was to improve the society. He believed that students should work on bettering their lives in addition to gaining knowledge. Confucius is considered to be the first teacher in China who wanted to make education available to all men.

Confucius was also into politics. He wanted an influential position in the government so that he would be able to reform society. He held government posts while in his 40s and 50s, but he never received a position of great influence. Confucius died in 479 bce.

Till his time, the Chinese were not much interested in religion and believed in spooks and devils. But they never had any prophets. Confucius never claimed any divine powers, nor did he claim that any divine voice spoke to him from above. That makes him unique among the men who originated the various religions of the world.  

Confucius asked for no recognition, neither did he expect that anyone should follow him or worship him. He is akin to the Greek philosophers known as the Stoics; they believed in right living and righteous thinking without a hope for any reward but simply for the peace of a soul. For this reason Confucius was very tolerant, and he also visited Lao Tse who founded the system called Taoism. 

Confucius bore no hatred to anyone and taught the virtue of supreme self-possession. He taught that whatever happens, happens for the best and should be free from anger and passion and bear whatever life brings forth. (This is perhaps something akin to our theory of Karma) 

Initially, he had very few students but their numbers went on increasing and by the time of his death in 479 BC, several Kings and Princes of China have become his disciples. By the time Jesus was born, Confucianism has become a way of life for many Chinese and continues to influence them even today. 

However, like all religions, with time Confucianism too got distorted. Confucius said that the mother and father should be honoured, but with time his followers became more obsessed with the memory of their departed parents than their children and grandchildren. They became too intent of the past and forgot about the present. Rather than disturbing a cemetery located on the fertile side of a mountain, they planted rice on the other barren and rocky side and preferred starvation to desecration of the ancestral grave. 

Time went on, and in the sixteenth century when then uncivilised Christians came up on the new world, they did not know what to make of the statues of Confucius. They came to the easy conclusion that he is a plain devil who represented something idolatrous and heretical and did not deserve any respect from them.  

HYDERABAD STATE & MIR OSMAN ALI KHAN THE LAST NIZAM.

 

Hyderabad state was the largest independent state in India when we attained independence. The Nizam’s territory consisted of all the districts of Telangana, 4 districts of Karnataka & 4 Marathi speaking districts of the Aurangabad region. Its land area was about 223,000 Sq. Km. and it had a population of 1.60 crores or 4.6% of India’s population of 35 crores at the time of independence. J&K too had an area of over 200,000 Sq.Km but only had a population of 40 lacs. In comparison, the composite AP state had an area of 274,000 Sq. Km.

In 1947 princely states covered 40% of the land area of India and 23% of India’s population. The state of Hyderabad was dissolved in 1956 when states were reorganised on linguistic basis.

At the time of Independence, the Hyderabad state was being ruled by the Asaf Jahi dynasty founded by the Moghul Subedar of the Deccan Chin Qilich Khan also known as Asaf Jah Nizam ul Mulk. Nizam Ul Mulk means means the Administrator of the Realm.

Nizam Ul Mulk had been a commander of Aurangzeb. He later became a Wazier of the Empire after Auranzeb’s death, a competent Bahadur Shah 1 came onto the throne but his reign was very short and he died 5 years later. Looking to the incompetent sovereigns coming on to the throne after Bahadur Shah and the  intrigues taking place at the Mughal court, Nizam Ul Mulk  left in disgust and founded his own state of Hyderabad independent of the Mughal Empire in 1724. Although this state already existed earlier and Asaf Jah ruled it, it was not independent of the Mughal Empire and was its province.   

In 1728 AD, the Nizam was defeated by the Maratha army at the battle of Palkhed in Maharashtra. With this the Nizam started paying both the Chauth and Sardesmukhi to the Marathas. As per Maratha policy, the kingdoms they defeated were not annexed to their empire but allowed to exist independently but they had to pay the Chauth (one fourth of the tax paid to the Mughal Empire) and Sardesmukhi (one tenth of the tax paid to the Mughal Empire). This is actually protection money that is extracted for stopping further Maratha raids on the Kingdom. In 1805, after the British victory over the Marathas in the 2^nd Anglo Mysore war, the Nizam came under the protection of the British.

During the 2^nd world war the Nizam raised 80,000 men known as the 19^th Hyderabad Regiment which served in Malaya, North Africa, Persia, Singapore and Burma.

The last Nizam of Hyderabad state Mir Osman Ali Khan crowned in 1911 was the richest man in the world at his time. He developed the railway, introduced electricity, developed roads, airways, irrigation and reservoirs in Hyderabad state.  All major public buildings of Hyderabad were built during his time. He supported education and established the Osmania University. The Nizam constructed large reservoirs like Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar.

When partition took place, the Nizam wanted Hyderabad to join neither to India nor to Pakistan and remain independent instead. The Razakars under Kasim Razvi wanted Hyderabad to accede to Pakistan. When that did not happen they committed atrocities against the Hindus in the state prompting the Indian Government to launch ‘Operation Polo”. The Nizam surrendered on 17^th September 1948 and Hyderabad became a state in the Indian Union. Mir Osman Ali Khan died in 1963.   

Mir Osman Ali Khan was known for his interfaith philanthropy. He donated Rs 83,000 to the temple at Yadagiri Gutta, Rs 30,000 to the temple at Bhadrachalam and also made an annual grant of Rs 8000 to Lord Venkateswara of Tirupati and Rs 50,000 for the reconstruction of Sitarambagh temple at Hyderabad. He also made grants of land to the tune of 2 lac acres to various Hindu temples. He made a donation of Rs 1 lac to Benares Hindu University. He also made financial and land grants to Churches and Gurudwaras as well.

During the last Nizam’s reign Hyderabad state became very wealthy because of the Golconda diamond mines which are the only diamond mines in the world outside South Africa. The Nizam was the only Prince in India to be given both the titles of “His Exalted Highness”   and “Faithful Ally of the British Government” by the British. In 1948 the Hyderabad state had annual revenue of 90 million pounds as per British estimates. The state had its own currency known as the Hyderabadi rupee till 1951.

According to the Forbes all time Wealthiest list of 2008, Mir Osman Ali khan was 5^th richest man in recorded history with a wealth of 211 billion USD at that time.

Despite being so rich, Osman Ali Khan was also known for his miserliness in personal habits. The tales of his miserliness and personal frugalness abound. He wore a simple dress, sometimes crumpled and patched and used the same fez cap for 35 years. Despite an immense collection of Gold and Silver utensils, he ate his meals from a tin plate sitting in his bedroom. His guests were offered just 1 cup of tea, 1 biscuit and cheap Charminar cigarettes. Despite owning a fleet of 50 rolls Royces, he travelled in a rickety old car. His bedroom was reportedly cleaned once in a year. He put a steel ring around his walking stick to stop it from breaking and did not opt to buy a new one.

This personal miserliness contrasted with his public generosity and donations. He was a major philanthropist and a visionary administrator and is known as the architect of modern Hyderabad. In 1965 during the Indo Pak war, the Nizam invested 425 Kg of gold in the National Defence Gold Scheme which was a significant financial contribution. He also provided pensions to 10,000 former employees and princelings.  

These frugal personal habits and generous public contribution of the last Nizam present a huge contrast. It is very surprising that a person does not enjoy what he has in abundance, and distributes it to the public. He however, as an exception did use the Jacob diamond as a paper weight. That diamond was than worth Rs 100 crores.