Dear friends, all my life as journalist and writer, I have tried to defend your great country: India or Bharat. I have written 1000’s of articles, nearly 30 books, both in French and English. It’s not been an easy task: journalists in France and even India have labelled me as a pro-Hindu ‘saffron’, islamophobe, right wing…
Yet I continued, because I can’t help it and I feel the first duty of a journalist is to stand by Truth as he or she perceives it and my perception is that the spirituality that props us Hinduisms the last Knowledge alive that can alone save the World from extinction.
Some of my articles are still going around, thanks to the Internet, and my latest “And Entire New History of India” is doing well. But articles and books have a limited life, thus I decided to put my ideas in hard stone, paintings and bricks and the Shivaji Maharaj Museum of India History Pune, was born
It’s been a hard task friends, I received threats from all kind of people: Christians (for my Goa Inquisition exhibition), Muslims (for our Aurangzeb exhibition as ell as Hindu Holocaust one) even from Marathis converted to Buddhism, who opposed my talking about Mother, India the Vedas, Brahmins etc. Problems with the land that was only rocks without water when I go, worth nothing, but that has now shot up a million times because of the wells we dugs, the trees we planted and Pune catching up very fast . But I have carried on, as I feel this is what I will leave best behind me and which survive (hopefully) time.
Now, in spite of the Covid and the lockdown in Maharashtra, work in the Museum continues: we have commissioned 4 new exhibition: in Jijamata, the extraordinary mother of Shivaji Maharaj, on Tarabai, the intrepid wife of Shivaji Maharaj, who battled the Moghols like a man; o n the immense and mighty Vijaynagar, empire, its birth growth and terrible ending; on Rani Kittur Chennama, the great queen of Karnataka, who fought the British and on the Vedas, its science, relevance and message for today. We are also making an air-conditioned building for all these exhibitions, as I time paintings get spoilt by hat and humidity
As some of you may know, this is a sewa project that I am doing to repay my debt to Mother India, who gave me so much over the years. We have a trust called FACT, Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism, for my first exhibition was on the ethnic cleansing of the Kashmiri Hindu, which I witnessed first hand as a journalist. It is a registered trust, both in India and the US and we have 80G as well as 501C. Your donations will go towards one of these exhibitions, you can chose which one. You could for instance sponsor one painting : each painting costs 25.000 Rs and we can, if you wish, mention the name of the donor below the painting. You can either donate using Google pay: https://www.factmuseum.com/google-pay-page/
Or transfer electronically to the above account and send me a mail at ffgautier@rediffmail.com once you have done so. If u want to donate in US $, just send me a mail and I will guide you
Namaste
Francois Gautier
Indian bank account details
Name of account: Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism (FACT)
Account No: 04071450000237
IFCS code: HDFC0000407
Bank Address: HDFC Bank Ltd.
T S No.6, 100 Feet Road
Ellaipillaichavadi
Pondicherry-605 005.