“Religion of peace treats women with dignity” : Old Mullah Saying.
Here is how this dignity is awarded:
Bangladeshi woman whipped 200 times in public
Now, if the Mullahs can do all of us a favour and award some “dignity” to champagne liberals of India too, such as Burkha Dutt . . .
Recently this news caught my eyes.
Panel, Sibal differ on foreign varsity
The government-appointed Yash Pal committee on higher education has cautioned against allowing foreign universities to set up campuses in India, challenging human resource development minister Kapil Sibal’s plans to expedite their entry.
In a recommendation that could embarrass the government, the panel has argued that liberalising visa restrictions to allow foreign scholars access to Indian universities may prove more beneficial than letting in foreign universities.
The panel has also recommended in its report submitted to Sibal yesterday that any foreign university that sets up a campus here should give an “Indian degree” and follow all rules and regulations binding on Indian universities.
“One has to keep in mind the fact that universities grow in organic connection with their social, cultural and geographical surroundings and even the best of them cannot be transplanted somewhere else and expected to do as well,” the panel has said.
It has questioned “the purpose” that allowing such universities is going to achieve. “Don’t we want the best learning experiences to be shared by our students? If so, can this not be done by opening our doors to foreign scholars and making our rules more flexible?” the report asks.
The US has been trying to infiltrate our universities since the last 20 years, from Rajiv Gandhi’s time. This UPA government it seems will allow access to the US. This will be nothing short of a disaster.
The real target of Americans is history, social studies and political science departments. You have to see the “scholarship” of these US professors in Ameican universities to realise the amount of poison they spread about Indian society and history. Once these professors arrive in India, they will get direct access to impressionable minds of our students. Till now, they have been brainwashing and de-Hinduising Indian students who land in the US universities. But that is not enough for them. They actually want to land in India itself and tap the core here.
The american government through CIA and state deptt. is carrying out a massive social psyops campaign on Indians to Balkanize the country. Indian history and culture and the self-identity of Indians is being attacked repeatedly by scholarship emanating out of the US university system. The American professors are full integrated into this campaign. As Rajiv Malhotra spoke recently in a seminar, he was shocked to visit an American professor and see a full size map of “Dalitistan” hanging on his office wall. Does the Indian government have any idea what kind of snakes it is letting loose in our country?
Let me quote Rajiv Malhotra here from his speech that he gave at Delhi this Feb.
Afro-Dalit Project
Now what caught me started on this course of understanding America’s intervention with India’s break up was a very interesting meeting I had with a scholar in Princeton University. We were just sitting and having lunch and he has just come back from India and I said “What did you do in India?” And he said “Oh I went there as part of the Afro-Dalit project” So I asked him what is this Afro Dalit project. So he said, “Oh we go to India we do youth empowerment and training programmes” I said “It is very interesting. Can you tell me what it is? Who are the Dalits?” And he said “Well. … They are Africans. They are the blacks of India and the non-Dalits are the whites of India. And this is the black-white history of India which is mirroring the black white history of America. And the Afro-Dalit project is to educate our Dalit brothers.” This was amazing to me. And my whole thesis started when I started searching on Afro-Dalit project.
And there is a whole library of what they are up to and who funds them. And they are very much active in Tamil Nadu building up a whole network of youth empowerment and youth training to give them a contrary sense of history that they are historically a kind of oppressed people and non-religious and so on. The Church has a vested interest in it because if you can dislocate their identity from the rest of India then you can re-programme them and give them a new religion and so on. This is called Dalitstan project.
So I was invited to this scholar’s office. And I saw this map. This is the map of the Dalitstan that was hanging there. On the northern part is Mughalstan which is from Afghanistan, Pakistan and all the way to Bangladesh. This turns out to be what Mullah Omar says when he states that he wants to put the flag of Taliban on the red fort of Delhi and recreate the Mughal Empire. And the southern part of India is Dalitstan and Dravidstan. So these guys are working on it.
So I was very much amazed that nobody is talking about it. Nobody seems to have noticed. Yet these guys have an open project. If you just Google Afro-Dalit you will come across a lot of hits and you yourself can see that. Then I started getting deeper into it and found that there is merit in the thesis that says that the local minorities are being appropriated by global nexuses. Afro-Dalit Project is just one example.
You can read Rajiv Malhotra’s entire speech here.
What kind of history do you think the above American Princeton professor will actually begin to teach in Tamil Nadu universities once he gets the visa?
Allowing access of US to our universities will be a great threat to our social stability. Another aim of these professors is to become commentators on various social and political issues in India and begin to write in Indian newspapers and magazines as “experts.” One such gora professor from Allahabad university has already become an expert on all issues related to BJP and ancient Hindu history. He recently wrote in the “Hindu” paper about how there was no golden age in ancient India and it is all a myth of Hindu nationalists and Hindus really have nothing to be proud of.
If this government allows the US access to our education system, it will prove that UPA government is being ruled by America by proxy and some people on top are on Gora payrolls.
Indians are not understanding: It is not the Pakistanis or Chinese who are the real enemies of India. It is the Anglo Americans. The kind of operations and moves they are making inside India, their plan for our balkanisation is very very clear. Only blind Indian ministers are oblivious to where the real threat is from.
If the UPA govt. gives American professors access to our education system through liberalising visas, then the next government which comes should charge these congress courtiers with treason. This will clearly be a traitorous move of UPA in which it will connive with a hostile foriegn power to trigger break up of India.
Macabre Maoist murderers!
The Maoist ban exposes the CPM doublespeak
By Ravi Shanker KapoorThe Lalgarh story is increasingly becoming nastier and weirder. Almost every player in this bloody game—the Maoists, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, intellectuals—is trying to benefit from the grave crisis, thus staking thousands of lives.
The Maoists, also called Naxalites, have been thundering all along to unleash a Red revolution, to lead a ‘heroic’ people’s struggle; they carved out fiefdoms for themselves, ironically and preposterously called ‘liberated zones’; they wrought havoc and terror as long as the local law-enforcement agencies were weak and vacillating. But soon after New Delhi woke up to their menace and took effective measure to crush them, they started finding ways to avoid the confrontation. This is typical of cowards: strong to the weak, and weak to the strong.
First, they hoodwinked poor tribals by using the specious charms of their ideology. They convinced them to form a human shield. When this failed and the security forces captured Lalgarh and began combing operations in the area, the Red terrorists expressed the desire for negotiations. “We are ready for talks with the Centre and West Bengal Government if the intellectuals, who visited the troubled Lalgarh area last Sunday, arrange for a meeting,” CPI (Maoist) leader Sagar said in a statement.
He and his cronies can surely depend on the idiocy and perfidy of intellectuals; the latter are generally a bane of the nation; they have always supported any cause that is antithetical to commonsense and reason, be it socialism or political correctness.
So, renowned writer Mahasweta Devi has asked the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee regime in West Bengal not to arrest Chhatradhar Mahato, leader of the Maoist-promoted People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA). “If Chhatradhar Mahato is arrested, I’ll go and sit on a dharna outside the office of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. This is not the time to send force to Lalgarh,” she said. One doesn’t remember if she ever expressed her dismay at the murder of a large number of people by Naxalites in cold blood; this year alone, they slaughtered 300 people.
The attitude of other intellectuals is no better. Film director Aparna Sen, who visited Lalgarh along with many prominent public figures, made a disgraceful comment: “We have come here for peace. Innocent villagers are getting trapped between the Maoists and the security forces. We would like both sides to drop their arms and come for talks.”
Which “both sides” is she talking about? There are paramilitary forces who are facing landmines and guns so that the people of India—including the Mahasweta Devis and the Aparna Sens—could enjoy life and liberty; and there are bloodthirsty Maoists who threaten all that is precious in civilization, as they did in China and elsewhere. These are not two sides which can be put on an equal moral footing: it is the clash between soldiers and murderers, between civilization and barbarianism: on the one hand, we have brave men defending humanity; on the other, there are the enemies of mankind. Bracketing them together is the most despicable form of moral equivalence.
West Bengal Chief Minister Bhattacharjee is sensible enough to endorse the ban on Maoists by the Central Government, but his party apparatchiks are unwilling to see reason. Opposing the proscription of Maoists, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said that the extremists need to be fought politically and administratively. “It is important because we have to isolate them from people with whom they have been forging relations, Banning them will hardly serve the purpose, as they will come up with a new name.” Such pigheadedness is a manifestation of not only a fanatic belief in the dogmas enunciated by Marx one and a half centuries ago but also of the absolute disregard for human life—even when, as in this case, the lives of their own cadre are involved.
CPM activists in towns and villages have fought vicious battles against the Naxalites and Trinamool; they risked their lives to promote the party. And how does Big Brother Karat treat them? He wants clemency for those who are murdering CPM workers with impunity!
In this grim backdrop, Mamata Banerjee seeks to gain political mileage. She has turned down the appeal of her own Cabinet colleague, Home Minister P Chidambaram, who asked her not to send her representatives to conflict-scarred Lalgarh. Chidambaram had urged politicians and professional radicals, euphemistically called civil society activists, not to go to Lalgarh as security forces were fighting Maoists.
She also came up with a weird theory that it is CPM cadre who are masquerading as Maoists; they are killing Trinamool supporters. Further, she said: “The security forces are carrying out atrocities on villagers.” Is she suggesting that her own Government—for paramilitary forces are under the Centre—is responsible for the “atrocities on villagers”?
Nastiness and weirdness have become endemic.
Sanatana Dharma: Beacon of Human Consciousness
By George Augustine
The awareness of dharma as the underlying principle of all nature is the basic characteristic of a Hindu. Every other principle is considered subordinate to this. There are many definitions of this word and various translations that include “righteousness,” “justice,” “duty,” “religion,” etc., but any or all of these indicate parts of it and consist of something more.
Dharma transcends belief. For a Hindu, it is an inner certitude. It arises from the certainty that upholding dharma is not only the right way, but the only natural way to think and act. Dharma is ethical and adharma, which is the absence of dharma, is unethical and is termed ‘paapa’ (sin). One upholds dharma by rightful conduct; by doing the right thing at the right time at the right place.
Dharma is directly related to one’s consciousness. One can sense dharma in every situation and in every stage and station of our life. It manifests as one’s awareness of a transcendental ideal that prompts us to make decisions and act in a certain way.
Major H. Subramanian defines dharma as “(the) ‘ought consciousness’ – a passion to do only what is right and refrain from doing what is not right is known in our culture as ‘dharma’.” [1]
Whatever connotations the word ‘dharma’ evoke as applied in a context, it is the idea of ‘Sanatana Dharma’ which knits all Hindus together, whether they be in Nepal, India, or in the Caribbean. Every Hindu knows what dharma is. Every Hindu also knows that dharma is sanatana (without beginning or end, perennial) as it transcends phenomena. It is more than a belief or a maxim which has had a phenomenal birth and which therefore would also have a phenomenal death.
Dharma is bound to the human soul (atman) just as heat is bound to fire, or fluidity to water [2]. Dharma is bound to an object as its inseparable function. When one speaks of ‘Sanatana Dharma,’ one is speaking of an eternal bond that is indivisible from human beings; you cannot separate heat from fire. For an individual, the supreme dharma (the supreme function) is the realization of the supreme truth.
The Puranas and the two Hindu epics, and indeed all great literature, are demonstrative of the active principle of dharma that leads humans on their march to the final realization. The Dharmasutras are ethical guidelines written by human beings for individuals to uphold dharma that will propel them towards the final goal. However, we find from experience that codified ethics are neither rigid nor mandatory, but vary according to time.
At the end of the Mahabharata battle, dharma is shown as irredeemable, except by a subterfuge. “Unlike Rama, Krishna did not adhere to an external code of Dharma. Rather, he saw to the essence of each situation and acted in such a way as to manifest the greatest divine good” [3]. Krishna himself says in the epic: “The era of Kali has arrived, when the laws of a previous age cannot apply” [4].
Dharma is a natural progression of the human being to its full-fledged function – the realisation of the truth. In order to reach our full function of realisation, we hold on to dharma by thinking and acting in the only right way to think and act in such a circumstance and such a place. We hold on to dharma not for the reward it will fetch or the benefit it will reap, but just for the sake of dharma.
It is in this sense that dharma is mentioned as the “path of religion.” An act of dharma is devoid of motivation itself, because the act as a whole is a response of our natural essence to a situation. An individual upholds dharma not to attain heaven or to avoid hell, but that is the natural instinct.
In order to relate to dharma in modern terminology, it is worthwhile to examine etymology to find the curious relationship of concepts. The word ‘dharma’ is derived from the Sanskrit root ‘dhri’, even as ‘gadh’ is. The English ‘good’ from which ‘god’ is derived is also derived from ‘gadh’.
The etymological relationship points out that the qualitative noun ‘good’ is derived from a verb – ‘to hold fast.’ The idea of ‘goodness’ is derived from a verb. Therefore, it is not an abstract concept, but is derived from something active in consciousness. The word ‘God’ is defined as the “being perfect in goodness” [5]. The worship or pursuit of this perfection of goodness is religion. For Hindus, dharma is the pursuit of perfection of goodness. A thought or action holding fast to dharma is characterised by its goodness. This pursuit is an ethical function and not just a belief or faith. Doing something good for the sake of goodness is an ideal unique to Hindus and is singularly denoted by the term ‘dharma’.
Sanatana Dharma is the link that connects the present to the pre-historic past. It is the oldest religion on earth, and it still exists as vibrant as ever, because it subsists from holding on to goodness. It is demonstrated very clearly in Mahabharata that the upholding of dharma is possible only by humans, not by gods. It falls on Yudhishtira (also called Dharmaputra – ‘son of dharma’) to save dharma from perishing. Dharma comprises the continuum of human consciousness. And the whole of humanity owes to the Hindus for redeeming dharma or positive goodness from the onslaught of evil, which is nothing but positive ignorance that has consumed all other ancient religions in its wake. The ancient slogan: ‘dharmo rakshati rakshite’ (dharma saves the one who saves dharma) speaks for itself.
The greatest expositor of dharma, Sage Vyasa, speaks at the end of Mahabharata: “Dharma is that by which everything endures. It is the substratum of everything. It is untranslatable in any language. Through desire for wealth or out of greed or fear, do not give up dharma, aye, even to save your own life. Dharma is eternal happiness” [6]
Maoists are enemies of the nation. Crush them.
The recent spurt of Maoist violence in Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal is a matter of great alarm. This violence has taken a heavy toll on the lives and morale of the security forces operating in these areas. With counter-insurgency measures taken by Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh governments inflicting a severe blow on the underground insurgents, they seem to have shifted their concentration to softer terrains where the state administration appears to be addressing this challenge as a simple law and order problem. And the Maoists are stepping up their mindless killings to demoralise and make ineffective the local administration.
Although Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has repeatedly said that the Maoist insurgency is the greatest threat before the nation, the centre is yet to put in place a strategy to fight these criminal barbarians who have taken control of large swathes of tribal belt across the country. India’s political establishment does not give the impression that it has fully grasped the danger to the country’s sovereignty and integrity the Maoists are posing.
Viswa Rangan, DGP, Chhattisgarh, who has an excellent track record as a thinking police officer, has made an incisive study of the Maoist strategy in India. Intercepting their underground literature, interrogating the arrested top Maoists and studying their intelligence reports, he has come to the conclusion that the ultimate goal of the Maoists is to overthrow the democratically elected government in the country and create anarchy. He says, “The aim of Maoist supporters is simple. Demoralise the state machinery to such an extent that its will to fight the Maoists is completely shattered and the road to Maoist expansion is facilitated.”
The Maoists have succeeded in establishing a multi-layered network through their open and clandestine channels to deflect attention from their real motives. There are Gandhians, civil liberty operators, media personalities, writers and artists who are linked to the Maoist network and they try to camouflage the sinister designs of the Maoists. There is no premium on the lives of thousands of innocent policemen who get killed every year in Maoist violence. The collateral damage to civilian life, industrial growth and development has never been factored into these calculations. Often the big Maoist attacks pass off as isolated incidents in scattered remote terrains.
Reports say that the Maoists have joined hands with the jehadi groups, Church outfits and even the ISI to subvert the Indian State. The response of the State is, however, weak, dodged and inadequate. The security forces are not equipped with necessary resources or sophisticated weapons. The experts say that the Maoist army in the country has all the modern weaponry in its possession. Its extortion budget, according to these sources, is in the range of Rs 3000 to Rs 5000 crore. It buys thousands of rupees worth weapons every year other than the arms, ammunition and uniform looted from the security forces and arms depots at various places. Its macabre activities and gruesome killings are not correctly reported and even if they come to light they are glossed over by the friendly intelligentsia as just isolated cases. These groups magnify any retaliatory action of the police and government and try to rationalise the Maoist mayhem as a social problem needing sympathetic consideration. The civil groups supporting the Maoists in the open society justify the Maoist crimes as the result of poverty and underdevelopment in the adivasi areas but they conceal the fact that in areas where they are entrenched, they do not allow any development work, schools, hospitals or even roads to be built. It is high time the government woke up to the Maoist threat as the one that is out to destroy the country’s democracy. One only has to scan the pages of the Maoist Bible, Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution, published by the Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist), to realise how deep and dangerous their ideas are. It states, “The central task of the revolution is seizure of political power through protracted people’s war.” With a quote from Mao who said, “The seizure of power through armed force , the settlement of the issue by war is the central task and highest form of revolution.” The book further elaborates saying, “To accomplish this central task, the Indian people will have to be organised in people’s army, and will have to wipe out the armed forces of the counter revolutionary Indian state through war and will have to establish in its place their own state.” The centre cannot afford to leave the fight against Maoists to individual states but it has to evolve an over-all national strategy with a central command and if necessary assistance from the military before it becomes too late.
Rot in church due to affluence: Kerala nun-author
By Madhusree Chatterjee, New Delhi, June 17
Money, power and even sex are corrupting the church and anybody who dares speak up is gagged, says a Kerala nun who left her congregation last year amid much controversy and whose autobiography has just been published in English.
“The rot in the church has set in because of affluence and power. The spirit of Jesus is depreciating. The greed for money and power is allowing all sorts of evil to creep in,” said Sister Jesme, 52, who had left the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel in Kerala On Aug 31, 2008.
“With wealth and power come sex. The ambience of service and simplicity should be brought back,” she told IANS over the phone from Kozhikode.
“Amen: The Autobiography of a Nun” was published in Malayalam in the third week of February this year. The English version of the controversial book, which takes a critical look at the church, was published by Penguin Books-India this week.
Sister Jesme, the former principal of St. Mary’s College in Thrissur, decided to write her autobiography after leaving the order.
The nun said the authorities’ repeated attempts to declare her “insane” was the immediate cause for her to leave her congregation. “They were trying to malign my reputation with false charges and medicate me. I pleaded for a month’s time, after which I decided to walk out,” she said.
“Anybody who dares to speak out is gagged. The church does it all the time. They had done it to another sister in Kerala after diaries containing details about abortions in the church and illicit sexual relations were discovered. When the Women’s Commission in Kerala visited her in the asylum to bring her back, she was taking 12 tablets a day.”
The book documents her 33 years as a nun. It speaks of the corruption by way of donations, sexual relations between nuns and priests and “same sex” relations between nuns.
Her congregation apparently forged “anonymous letters” branding her a lesbian to remove her from the post of principal of the college, she writes in her book.
The book also discusses class distinctions whereby “cheduthies” or poorer or less educated sisters do menial work and there is a gap between comforts enjoyed by priests and nuns, hinting at gender imbalance.
Some of the priests are so rich that they own two cars, Sister Jesme said.
The demand for nuns, says Sister Jesme, is growing every day because the church has fanned across the state with schools and colleges. “The nuns man these institutions and make up the faculties. The demand for novices is so great that the church is now recruiting from school campuses. Some of the novices are as young as Class 10 students. The bottom line now is quantity, not quality,” she said.
“All our education institutions are in profit, but very little money is going for charity. The money of the people is in the hands of the church, but there is no accountability,” she said.
Sister Jesme was drawn to religious life at 17 after a retreat at a junior college. She was allowed by the church to complete her post-graduate and doctoral degree in English literature and to pursue her passion for cinema and literature.
“I even exposed my students to films believing aesthetics enhances spirituality,” she said. But her fight to restore her congregation to its “monastic form,” her creative thought processes and her wit landed her in trouble.
The book is full of anecdotes – like priests allegedly kissing novices and Christian colleges collecting capitation fee.
“I am planning to write a novel about a woman who is a little different from the ordinary women,” said Sister Jesme, who is also fighting another battle at the moment – a thyroid malfunction.
Any idea how the church became affluent? It doesn’t produce or sell anything. So what is the source of all this wealth?
It was precisely to prevent this corruption among the clergy that Hindu Brahmins were prevented by Hindu religion from holding any wealth and Buddhis monks had to take a vow of poverty. The Westerners are mere children in spiritual matters. The clue-less idiots even allowed Vatican to run its own bank and invest in the share market! Spirituality was turned by them into another money making racket! This is what happens when you dabble in things which you don’t fully comprehend.
Is church a spiritual organisation or an educational institution that makes money out of selling seats? Strange behavior from an organisation allegedly dedicated to other-wordly matters. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus said. But he seems to have outsourced kingdom of this world to the church. It is time the grip of the priests over schools and colleges was weakened and these institutions handed over to a Christian no-profit Trust.
Sudheendra Kulkarni’s infamous essay on why BJP lost the elections.
This Kulkarni fellow is a communist mole that has been infiltrated into the BJP by the powers that be. He is doing a lot of damage to the party. His “views” are nothing but repackaged propaganda of the Congress against the BJP.
The Congress accuses BJP of being anti-poor, anti-Muslim and “Hindutvawadi.” And Kulkarni writes in a notoriously biased and shady magazine about BJP needing to rethink its approach to “poor, Muslims and Hindutva.” It sure says a lot about the kind of “strategist” Advani is for having fallen into the trap. Leaders who are so easily fooled and outsmarted are not worth the mud they stand on.
I read sometime ago the interview of an ex-IB chief who worked under Advani. He called Advani an intellectual light-weight and a very poor judge of men. Now I know how right he was. Advani hungers for acceptance from the secular cabal that loathes him. This is his weakness. A strong leader would have done his utmost to destroy and disintegrate the cabal. But not Advani. He is scared of them and flatters them. It is time Advani faded into the sunset. This generation of Hindus who grew up under the shadow of that arrogant but imbecile “great leader” Nehru is a curse on India. They have learn nothing in life except to keep apologising for their existence.
Recieved over email:
Inculturation: Crime and cunningness of Catholic Church – By B R Haran
Cardinal Oswald Gracias was one of the brains behind the designing, printing and releasing of the “Indian Bible” which contained hundreds of sacred verses usurped from Hindu texts such as the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata and the Bhagwat Gita.
The motive was to cheat the gullible masses and covertly lure them to follow Christianity. At the time of the Indian Bible’s release in June 2008, the Cardinal had stated that this Bible, made in India and for Indians, would bring the word of God closer to millions of people, not only Christians.
Yet the very same Cardinal Oswald Gracias stoutly denied any knowledge about this Indian Bible at the press conference held immediately after the interfaith dialogue on 12 June 2009 in Mumbai. So much for Catholic honesty!
http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplayArticle.aspx?id=638
Ever wondered why no missionary or pastor ever gets killed by Maoists or goons in Orissa? The church is using hired thugs to eliminate Hindu leaders from the land. This is its old tactic used in all countries around the world, from Africa to Europe. It is a criminal organisation of men who are after power (Inquisition) and money (collection plate in churches).
I was shocked to know that millions of dollars are flowing out of India to Vatican every month from the churches in poorest disricts of Chattisgarh and Orissa. They collect the money from converted tribals every Sunday and stuff it into the Vatican bank. This is the reason behind this zeal for conversions. It directly translates into money as the new converts are made to cough up the tithe (10 percent of their total income every month). This is nothing but an extortion racket.
Got this link over email:
It is a new book that discusses the legacy of Abrhamic religions and answers questions such as:
The book is available online for free. Go to the site and click on “Free Book.”
Here is an interesting article by the same author.
Another incident which proves that these backward and intolerant Semtic faiths are a curse on humanity. I don’t know when the world will be free of these creeds based on the “our God is true, your God is false” nonsense and preventing humans from thinking freely .
Mother caned in Bangladesh for talking to Hindu man
DHAKA (AFP) — A Muslim mother has been caned for talking to a Hindu man in Bangladesh, police said Saturday, prompting fresh concerns about a rise in cases of harsh treatment of women under strict Islamic law.
The punishment was carried out in a remote village in Muslim-majority Bangladesh on the orders of village elders, local police chief Enamul Monowar told AFP by telephone.
The village elders found Kamala Begum, 38, a mother of four, guilty under Islamic sharia law of chatting with an unidentified Hindu man, Monowar said. Hindus make up around 10 percent of Bangladesh’s population.
“The villagers got bundles of 25 sticks and hit her four times on the back. They claimed it was a symbolic punishment. But she’s humiliated and has been in great mental pain,” Monowar said.
It was the third such reported case in two weeks in the country and stirred concern among women’s groups in Muslim-majority but officially secular Bangladesh, about what they say is a rise in the brutal treatment of women under locally applied Islamic laws.
“In the last few months, we have seen villagers invoking sharia to mete out barbaric punishments to women,” said Salma Ali, the head of rights group Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers Association.
By Dr Gautam Sen
BJP leaders in government mistook assiduously providing succour to its own critics as high-minded sagacity. And they disowned their own with step-motherly disdain, playing to the secular gallery, in order to insinuate forlornly that they deserved to govern. This crass behaviour ended up merely highlighting their own deep social anxieties and political insecurities and an embarrassing desire to gain the approval of the very haughty people they criticised while in opposition.
In government, the BJP allowed manipulative civil servants (some of them known only for being corrupt Congress retainers) to shape most policies once the aspiration of attaining a ministerial appointment, with the appropriate trappings of high office, had been gratified. Quite clearly, the BJP, as a political party, lacked and continues to lack basic organisational attributes to function effectively in the modern political arena.
MANY usually sympathetic to the BJP now privately diagnose that its future is bleak. The persistence of serious internal squabbles in the party, regularly being aired in public, and the absence of a clearly thought-out political and electoral strategy confuse them. The BJP is currently perceived to be reacting to events and failing to take the initiative by outlining authoritative new and sustainable policies. On key issues like the employment guarantee scheme there was little credible response and the fate of the Kanchi Shankaracharya only elicited a half-hearted and ambiguous reaction.
Aghast sympathetic observers perceive a parade of strutting prima donnas, who managed to snatch electoral defeat from what appeared the jaws of certain triumph, oblivious of the need for a contrite and humble pause; evidently, being ensconced in a Lutyens bungalow, even in defeat, ransoms the brain to self-delusion. The private interests of the individual BJP members of Parliament are increasingly at variance with declared party policy since the principal qualification for a party ticket is the ability to manoeuvre to electoral victory rather than subsequent accountability. Virtually no BJP member bothered to attend the important parliamentary debate over the controversy on the allocation of land in the capital during the tenure of the NDA.
The repeated accusations against the Congress Party of foul play strike many as childish. They unkindly point out that many individuals and organisations cultivated shamelessly by the BJP, while in power, have now turned against it with alacrity. By contrast, the Congress party has moved swiftly, even malevolently, to consolidate its hold on power, by placing loyal Gandhi family retainers in every conceivable public position, without a hint of apology. Even critics concede admiration for the ruthless display of realpolitik by Sonia Gandhi and Arjun Singh.
BJP leaders in government mistook assiduously providing succour to its own critics as high-minded sagacity. And they disowned their own with step-motherly disdain, playing to the secular gallery, in order to insinuate forlornly that they deserved to govern. This crass behaviour ended up merely highlighting their own deep social anxieties and political insecurities and an embarrassing desire to gain the approval of the very haughty people they criticised while in opposition.
There is also a suspicion that many public appointments were being made by BJP ministers with an eye to positioning themselves favourably, in the perception of a partisan media, to succeed Vajpayee to the NDA premiership. They cynically sought to appear ‘liberal’, mistakenly imagining it would be a good ploy for projecting their own candidature over rivals, consequently portrayed as more hard-line, in order to succeed Vajpayee.
There is a belief that the party, which rose from modest electoral beginnings to govern the country, was profoundly corrupted by the experience of wielding political power. The VVIP syndrome and the cavalier arrogance that accompanies it in India became their hallmark too. There was no perceptible sense of the personal humility that has usually characterised Sangh leaders and personal enrichment proved irresistible for some. In the end, the BJP leadership gave the impression of merely wanting to join India’s entrenched post- Independence political and bureaucratic elites. In exchange for securing membership of this self-serving club and accepting its privileged place in India they abandoned Sangh aspirations for change.
In government, the BJP allowed manipulative civil servants (some of them known only for being corrupt Congress retainers) to shape most policies once the aspiration of attaining a ministerial appointment, with the appropriate trappings of high office, had been gratified. Quite clearly, the BJP, as a political party, lacked and continues to lack basic organisational attributes to function effectively in the modern political arena. Internal policy-making within the BJP remains a grossly amateur affair, without virtually any professional reflection on policy options. There are loud whispers that senior BJP bureaucratic functionaries routinely report to some of the most corrupt and ruthless private corporate interests of India and abroad. There is apparently no ideology, only a lust for power.
The classic Indian syndrome of politicians becoming omniscient on assumption of high office has reared its absurd head. Mystifying and inconsistent public statements point to unthinking postures adopted whimsically. Yet the good and great carry on heedless, because personal pride trumps principle and even the imperative of rational calculation for political success. Some of the same self-regarding leaders are embarrassingly tantalised by stars of the screen, however small, although they are showing more talent for histrionics than winning elections. And once-humble pracharaks are overly deferential towards high social status and enamoured by the moneyed. This is proving an instinctive turnoff for the overwhelmingly poor voters of India, alert to its political significance.
The current belief that political power can be recaptured by sleight-of-hand has, in any case, made policy irrelevant, which is why internal party committees and policy forums do not have a real role. In a sure sign of desperation, some hope that inevitable errors of judgement made by the incumbent Congress party will precipitate a mid-term electoral setback for them, which would benefit the BJP by default. More realistically, others fear it will take a decade for the BJP to recover from the successive debacles and worsening internal fissures of the past year.
Understandably, the far-reaching ambitions of Hindutva were an embarrassment for the BJP. The purported compulsions of coalition politics became an alibi for relieved inaction on central issues that had moulded the Sangh related associations over nearly 75 years. The renewed BJP attempt to retrieve political fortunes by re-appropriating radical Hindu slogans has lost conviction. In any case, financial malpractice and misuse of state power by some BJP legislators and the criminal activities of a non-negligible number undermine the party’s claim to be ideologically inspired. Hindu voters are so demoralised by it all and cynical that the audacious warfare being waged against them is gathering pace unanswered.
In fact, it would almost seem that the BJP has interposed itself as a cordon sanitaire, preventing the backlash of seething Hindu fury across India, at the punishment being meted out to them. It gives the impression of deliberately restraining political protest against forces profoundly inimical to the very future of Hindus as a people and a nation. Instead the BJP is busy making electoral deals with the unsavoury while unconvincingly pointing a finger at others more brazen about their political proclivities.
The harshest critics of the BJP suggest that the fate of Hindus is now hostage to the need of a few leaders to gratify their irrepressible egos. They shockingly allege that important BJP leaders are allowing the party to become grievously compromised in order to protect themselves and their families from legal scrutiny over wrongdoing while in government. Indeed it is being hinted that some BJP leaders need to retain control over the party simply to prevent an unduly damaging attack on the Congress Party. They appear to fear that such action on their part would unavoidably prompt a retaliatory focus on the earlier malfeasance of some of its leading personalities.
Some BJP leaders are supposedly terrified that such a course of action would unravel the quid pro quo, ensuring mutual forbearance, already reached with Janpath and immediately invite the issue of non-bailable arrest warrants against their own errant relatives. It is alleged that some of the latter visited Sonia Gandhi discreetly to congratulate her personally when the UPA formed the government in May 2004. This remarkable state of affairs would explain why the unparalleled extra-constitutional challenge by Janpath to India’s sovereign integrity has only elicited equivocal BJP denunciation. The BJP is, at best, an insouciant onlooker while the Indian Constitution is gnawed lifeless, the judiciary, which had grown encouragingly robust in recent years, cowed and the security agencies operating to order like a private service.
In the meantime, demographic transformation is bringing about headlong Islamization of the Indian polity. There is frenzied Christian evangelical activism, exceeding all known earlier levels, helped by barefaced official sponsorship. One UPA coalition partner has entered into an unprecedented de facto relationship with Naxalite terror to gain electoral advantage. And Pakistan was allowed to brazenly isolate Gujarat from the rest of India, without immediately provoking the imperative cancellation of the cricket tour. Are some BJP leaders holding back the party from unrelenting resistance to the egregious political misconduct of the UPA in order to escape unpunished for their own misdeeds when they were in government?
(The writer taught international political economy at the London School of Economics for more than two decades.)
A newly created art webblog called Chitra Gallery by Sushama Londhe. She runs the popular website www.hinduwisdom.info
http://chitragallery.wordpress.com/
Sushma says:
The weblog features a collection of art (watercolor, charcoal and pastels) done over several years. I want to catalog and capture the different traditional occupations that people do in rural areas of India through my watercolor paintings. These occupations are rapidly fading away due to globalization and modernization and I want to document them for the future.
She looks forward to receiving your input and suggestions. I found her art to be of great artistic quality.
War between Science and Christianity
The Church has never been on the cutting edge of science — on the contrary, it has been the one persecuting scientists. The list of those who earned the wrath of the Church reads like a Who’s Who of Science: Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Halley, Darwin, Hubble, even Bertrand Russell. The Church has also been on the wrong side of the social sciences for over 1,500 years, actively promoting slavery, anti-Semitism, the torture and murder of women as witches, sexual repression, censorship and the Inquisition, Crusades and other aggressive wars, and capital punishment for misdemeanors.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-sciencechristianity.htm
Just 15 days after Congress “swept” all five of Uttarkhand Lok Sabha seats, BJP wins the assembly seat of Kapkot. The Congress candidate comes third. What changed in a mere 15 days? Doctored voting machines, that is what changed. The Congress “wave” went away as soon as doctored EVMs were sent packing.
Uttarakhand: BJP Wins Kapkot Bypoll
After being drubbed in the Lok Sabha elections in Uttarakhand, the ruling BJP today heaved a sigh of relief when it won the Kapkot assembly seat in the by-election.
BJP’s Sher Singh Garhia defeated NCP’s Kunti Parhiar by a margin of 7,167 votes from Kapkot, the by-election for which was held on May 28. Congress candidate Chamu Singh Gasyal remained on the third spot.
Garhia was polled 13,823 votes, while Parihar managed to get 6,656 votes.
This game of pushing White Christian spouses into political families is being played all across Asia. The moment an Asian heir marries a White Christian spouse, the next generation of the family becomes Christian and half-white. (Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi, for example.) This is a sinister game that is deliberately being orchestrated by Western intelligence. Asians heirs who fall for this trick are fools.
This game started with the Chogyal of Sikkim who married his American English tutor (who later turnd out to be a CIA agent). Fortunately, Indira Gandhi took swift action and merged Sikkim into India before the Sikkim family could turn Christian and half-white, with the White spouse pulling strings in matters of state. Has the same happened in India too?
Aung Sang Suu Kyi: Just Quit Myanmar
By Sandhya Jain
Given the alacrity with which President Obama has called for “immediate and unconditional” release of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who became controversial when an American army veteran (read CIA agent) infiltrated her house detention from 3-5 May, it may be appropriate for the West to relieve the military regime of its unwanted guest by offering her asylum in their lands. That way, the West can also satisfy itself that her health concerns are being properly addressed.
Ms. Suu Kyi’s husband, late Michael Aris, was a white Briton and her two sons, Alexander and Kim, are British citizens. Hence, the United Kingdom should have no problem in offering her permanent residence and relief from prolonged incarceration in a country where she is unwelcome, being legitimately regarded as an instrument of western imperialism.
With her entire family belonging to another nationality, and also another faith (Christian) Ms. Suu Kyi is a Myanmar citizen by formality only, being the daughter of Gen. Aung San. With her sharply pro-western tilt, she has no right to aspire for political leadership of a country which the West desires to exploit for its mineral wealth, and reduce to a de facto colony.
In this connection, Myanmar’s Buddhist clergy must realise that dabbling in politics on behalf of western colonialists is both shameful and anti-national. Buddhist countries must realise that if they do not retain kinship with the Hindu-Indian roots of Buddhism, they will serve only as the doorway for penetration and takeover of their countries and societies by inimical monotheistic traditions. If medieval Islam swamped the Buddhist societies of Afghanistan and Central Asia, and India’s north western and north eastern flanks, it was Christianity that made inroads in Sri Lanka, South Korea, much of South East Asia, and Japan.
The still largely Buddhist populations of Thailand and Myanmar are currently under pressure, as are large parts of China. But whereas Beijing shows some signs of awakening to the threat by reviving the nation’s Confucian roots, there is little or no recognition of danger by the monasteries in Myanmar. Monks are easy to rent for pro-democracy (sic) demonstrations.
Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s presence in Myanmar is akin to the West’s imposing former Unocal executives in office in Afghanistan, and similar stooges in former Soviet Republics. Mikheil Saakashvili, who became President of Georgia in January 2004 after a well-funded ‘Rose Revolution’ in November 2003, is married to Dutch-born Sandra E. Roelofs and, if memory serves me right, has an American passport.
This trend of imposing dual citizens (natives married to white Christians) upon the non-monotheistic world that has barely recovered from the colonial depredations of the 19th and 20th centuries needs to be firmly rebuffed. Mercifully, the western-sponsored ‘coloured revolutions’ in former Soviet Republics seem to have faded, with Ukraine (‘orange revolution’) and Georgia sinking in to economic crisis, and Kyrgyzstan (‘tulip revolution’) firmly with Russia.
The new Myanmar constitution rightly denies the right to contest elections to citizens married to foreigners; so Ms. Suu Kyi should call it a day. It does not lie in Mr. Obama’s mouth to cast aspersions on the Myanmar regime and direct it to release Ms. Suu Kyi and others, so they may wreak havoc on their natal societies.
Prisoner without a Conscience
On 14 May 2009, it became known that American army veteran John Yettaw swam across a lake to enter the island home of Myanmar pro-democracy (read pro-West) leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and was ensconced there for two days before being detected. The news created a furore in Myanmar’s highly secretive regime (remember how the generals built the new capital, Naypydaw, in utter secrecy, to avert a foreign-funded ‘revolution’ or the ravages of a simulated tsunami?)
Naturally, the 63-year-old Suu Kyi is now on trial. If convicted, she could get another five year detention (her current term was to end on 27 May 2009).
Through most of her 19-year incarceration, Ms. Suu Kyi has been living in the comfort of her own home, rather than in a harsh prison cell. Even when Yettaw was found at her home – certainly the result of lax security or bribed guards – she and her two maids were taken to Insein Prison near Yangon (Rangoon), for trial. But even here, they have been accorded the facility of a guest house on the premises, rather than a jail cell.
This is in sharp contrast to the mysterious death of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloševic in March 2006, while in western custody at The Hague, where he was being tried for alleged war crimes (highly disputed). The cause of death was allegedly a heart attack, and many believed this was deliberately triggered by wrong medication.
Myanmar officials say Yettaw has confessed to visiting Suu Kyi’s residence previously as well, in November-December 2008, though he claims he could not meet her then, which is peculiar to say the least. Anyway, these dual visits over the course of just six months certainly suggest that the army veteran is highly trained for such solitary and risky missions, which validates the suspicion that he is a CIA plant and that Suu Kyi is consciously in league with elements out to subvert the freedom and the economy of her native country.
Certainly, she was brash enough to acknowledge that “I did not inform them,” when the judge asked if she alerted Myanmar’s military authorities about the intrusion. She candidly admitted meeting Yettaw, giving him food, and allowing him to stay at her house: “I allowed him to have temporary shelter.”
Here is a remarkable prisoner without a conscience. The American stayed two days at her residence, leaving just before midnight on May 5. She claimed she did not know which way he went, and that she did not violate the terms of her house arrest by illegally entertaining an American citizen.
Yettaw, who was arrested on the return journey, glibly maintained that he swam across the lake to her house to warn her of a vision he had that she would be assassinated. This must be one of the most novel defence pleas in history!
Nobel Allurement
Like Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and politician José Ramos-Horta, who jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 and led oil-rich East Timor to separation from Indonesia in 2002, Aung Sang Suu Kyi was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, after her landslide victory in the 1990 elections was thwarted by a nationalist military leadership. The Nobel was clearly aimed at building her image among the simple folk of Myanmar, in order to install another puppet leader in Asia. To briefly conclude the thread on East Timor, its first president and current prime minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão is married to Kirsty Sword, a former Australian spy!
The non-white, non-Christian world has now woken up to the danger of marriages of political leaders to foreign nationals, and is no longer impressed by awards and certificates – these are increasingly perceived as badges of intellectual slavery and political subordination. Myanmar plans to hold elections under its new constitution in 2010; ideally the lady should be removed from the nation before these are held.
Recently, Sri Lanka sternly rebuffed western interference and conducted brilliant army operaons against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a Christian-dominated force determined to partition the country. Here again, we find that LTTE’s chief political strategist and chief negotiator, late Anton Stanislaus Balasingham, was a British citizen! In 1978, he married Adele Ann Wilby, an Australian citizen and nurse, who instantly rose to become an important member of the organisation’s women’s wing.
In Nepal, the Christian leadership of the Maoist guerillas led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda, similarly received an unexpected rebuff by nationalist forces that recouped under the leadership of President Ram Baran Yadav and army chief Rukmangad Katawal, though that victory is still shaky. Still, the world is waking up to the West’s insidious political games to undermine the sovereignty of former colonies, or regions like Afghanistan that were inadequately ‘pacified’ (read crushed) in the past.
Intrusion for subversion
Whichever way one looks at it, the American intrusion was pure subversion. Given that the American government recently admitted parking a submarine in the icy Arctic waters to keep on eye on the Soviets during the Cold War, Johan Yettaw cannot be dismissed as an innocent or a crank.
He not only violated the security and immigration conditions of his visa – something white evangelicals do routinely in India – but was doubtless deputed by his government to communicate a specific message.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party won the 1990 elections. But the generals ruling Myanmar wisely refused to let a pronouncedly pro-western leader, with marital ties to a white Christian, rule the country. The current outcry by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Canada, the European Union and UN chief Ban Ki-moon (a South Korean Christian) only confirm western designs upon this resource-rich nation in India’s neighbourhood.
A western foothold in Myanmar would put pressure on both India and China, and it is high time these two large Asian neighbours began to look out for their mutual interests and concerns, rather than aggravate foolish rivalries.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) initially refrained from comment on the situation in Myanmar (a member-nation), but finally under pressure from European foreign ministers at a meeting in Hanoi, expressed ‘grave concern’ over Suu Kyi’s treatment; but did not directly condemn her trial.
In a rare concession, the ruling generals allowed diplomats and some Myanmar journalists inside the prison to witness Suu Kyi’s testimony. India and China would do well to stand by their beleaguered Asian sister nation. New Delhi’s recent propensity to go along with western colonial intent against friendly neighbours is to be deplored and discouraged.
The results of recent Indian elections have taken everyone by surprise. They are really bizzare. There is something rotten going on. How did Congress and the Western countries which support it slyly managed to get these dream results? Does the possibility of EVM (electronic voting machines) rigging exist?
Why were the Congress courtiers hell-bent on getting Navin Chawla to head the Election Commission? What role could this despicable doormat of 10 Janpath have possibly played? EVMs hold the key to this mystery. Interestingly EVMs are thoroughly discredited the world over because they are prone to manipulation. One agency has even called them a “threat to national security.”
All non-Congress parties in India would do well to launch a campaign to ban the use of EVMs. Or at least ensure that the EVM prints a ballot that is then dropped into a box for later counting and tallying the results with the EVMs. Strange things are possible with the use of EVMs. The most bizzare of these being the last-minute win of Chidambaram when he was trailing the other candidate the whole day in counting. Seems like Congress courtiers are allying with some foreign intelligence agencies to rule India in a “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” pact.
Many countries have banned EVMs. I got the following links from another forum.
Jayalalithaa asks EC to scrap EVMs
Dutch government bans electronic voting
U.S. district judge refuses to lift state ban on electronic voting
California bans the use of some e-voting machines
Analysis finds e-voting machines vulnerable
Most electronic voting isn’t secure, CIA expert says
Europe Rejects Digital Voting Machines
California Top to Bottom Review
In May 2007, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen commissioned a “Top to Bottom review” of all electronic voting systems in the state. She engaged computer security experts led by the University of California to perform security evaluations of voting system source code as well as “red teams” running “worst case” Election Day scenarios attempting to identify vulnerabilities to tampering or error. The Top to Bottom review also included a comprehensive review of manufacturer documentation as well as a review of accessibility features and alternative language requirements.The end results of the tests was released in the four detailed Secretary of State August 3, 2007 resolutions (for Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic, Sequoia Voting Systems and Elections Systems and Software, Inc.) and updated October 25, 2007 revised resolutions for Diebold and Sequoia voting systems.[47] The security experts found significant security flaws in all of the manufacturers’ voting systems, flaws that could allow a single non-expert to compromise an entire election.
EVM: Dangers Of Trusting Them Too Much
By Subramanian Swamy
There is much talk today about electoral rigging in the recent general elections. These doubts have arisen from the unexpected number of seats won by the Congress, and they are accentuated by the spate of articles recently published in reputed computer engineering journals and in the popular international press. All raise doubts about the EVMs.
For example, International Electrical & Electronics Engineering Journal (May 2009, p 23) has published an article by two professors of computer science, titled: Trustworthy Voting. They conclude that while electronic voting machines offer a myriad of benefits, nine suggested safeguards are absolutely essential to protect the integrity of outcomes. None of these safeguards are in place in Indian EVMs. In India they do not meet the standard of national integrity.
Newsweek magazine (June 1) has published an article by Evgeny Morozov, who points out that when Ireland embarked on an ambitious e-voting scheme in 2006, such as fancy touch-screen voting machines, it was widely welcomed: Three years and 51 million euros later, in April, the government scrapped the initiative. What doomed the effort was a lack of trust: the electorate just didn’t like it that the machines would record their votes as mere electronic blips, with no tangible record.
A backlash against e-voting is brewing all over Europe. After almost two years of deliberations, Germany’s Supreme Court ruled last March that e-voting was unconstitutional because the average citizen could not be expected to understand the exact steps involved in the recording and tallying of votes. Political scientist Ulrich Wiesner, a physicist who filed the initial lawsuit said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that the Dutch Nedap machines used in Germany were even less secure than mobile phones. The Dutch public-interest group ‘Wij Vertrouwen Stemcomputers Niet’ (We Do Not Trust Voting Machines) produced a video showing how quickly the Nedap machines could be hacked without voters or election officials being aware (the answer: in five minutes). After the clip was broadcast on national television in October 2006, the Netherlands banned all electronic voting machines.
Why are EVMs so vulnerable? Each step in the life cycle of a voting machine — from the time it is developed and installed to when the votes are recorded and the data transferred to a central repository for tallying — involves different people gaining access to the machines, often installing new software. It wouldn’t be hard for, say, an election official to paint a parallel programme under another password, on one or many voting machines that would ensure one outcome or another pre-determined even before voters arrived at the poll stations.
These dangers have been known to the Election Commission since 2000, when M S Gill, then CEC, had arranged at my initiative for professor Sanjay Sarma of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Gitanjali Swamy of Harvard to demonstrate how un-safeguarded the chips in EVMs were. Some changes in procedures were made by the EC, but not on the fundamental flaws. In 2004, the Supreme Court First Bench, of Chief Justice V N Khare, Justices Babu and Kapadia had directed the election commission to consider the technical flaws in EVMs put forward by Satinath Choudhary, a US-based software engineer in a Public Interest Litigation. But the EC has failed to consider his representation.
There are many ways to prevent EVM fraud. One way to reduce the risk is to have machines print a paper record of each vote, which voters could then deposit into a conventional ballot box. While this procedure would ensure that each vote can be verified, using paper ballots defeats the purpose of electronic voting in the first place. Using two machines produced by different manufacturers would decrease the risk of a security compromise, but wouldn’t eliminate it.
A better way, it is argued in the cited International Electrical & Electronics Engineering Journal article, is to expose the software behind electronic voting machines to public scrutiny. The root problem of electronic machines is that the computer programs that run them are usually closely held trade secrets (it doesn’t help that the software often runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system, which is not the world’s most secure). Having the software closely examined and tested by experts not affiliated with the company would make it easier to close technical loopholes that hackers can exploit. Experience with Web servers has shown that opening software to public scrutiny can uncover potential security breaches.
Now the Madras High Court is soon to hear a PIL on the EVMs. This is good news. The time has arrived for a long hard look at these machines. Otherwise elections would soon lose their credibility. All political parties must collect evidence to determine how many constituencies could have been rigged. The number would not exceed 75 in my opinion.
We can identify them as follows: Any result in which the main losing candidate of a recognised party finds that more than 10 per cent of the polling booths showed less than five votes per booth, should be taken prima facie as a constituency in which rigging has taken place. This is because the main recognised parties usually have more than five workers per booth, and hence with their families would poll a minimum of 25 votes per booth for their party candidate. Hence if these 25 voters can given affidavits affirming who they had voted for, then the high court can treat it as evidence and order a full inquiry.
Here is news about Chidambaram’s highly suspect win.
Chennai: Delay in receipt and changed serial numbers of EVMs
The report received from the Collector on the counting of votes in Sivaganga constituency is seriously enquiring into the affair by reviewing the video recordings. During the counting of votes in the Sivaganga Lok Sabha constituency, from round 1 to round 15, AIADMK Candidate Raja Kannappan was in the lead.
In a sudden twist, during the next two rounds, Home Minister P. Chidambaram was declared to be in the lead and declared elected by a difference of 3354 votes. By 12: 30 PM in a situation when most party agents had left the counting premises, at about 6 PM, the declaration of election was made and has led to intense debate.
Raja Kannappan’s complaint: Stating that there were malpractices in the counting of votes, Raja Kannappan has lodged a complaint with Naresh Gupta, State Election Commmissioner and asked for recount. In his petition, Raja Kannappan has noted: “When counting of votes had ended by 1:30 PM, I was declared to have been in the lead and that I had won by a difference of 3552 votes. Claiming that there were differences in the counting, the District Election Officer declined to declare the result. Thereafter, a declaration was made that P. Chidambaram had won”
There is a difference of 15,000 votes between the recordings made during the counting, by Election Party Agents and details mentioned in the Announcement Board.
Why delay? Electronic Voting Machines used in Alangudi Assembly segment were received in Karaikkudi counting centre only on May 14 (that is, the day after the election at 6 AM). The distance between Karaikudi and Alangudi is only 60 kms. Despite this, there has been delay in bringing in the EVMs. Some Machine numbers are also different from the one recorded earlier. On some EVMs, there are no signatures of Election Party Agents. There is no tally between the number of voters and the votes recorded. So said, Raja Kannappan in his petition.
After reviewing the petition, Naresh Gupta has ordered for a detailed report from the Election Officer, who is Collector Pankaj Kumar. Naresh Gupta who gave a Press Statement on May 20 that there were no malpractices in the counting process, has, on the very next day asked for a detailed report from the Collector. This has fueled further debate. Election Commission is seriously engaged in matching the video recordings with the reports made by the Collector.
Got the following in my email as a response to this blog post:
You might be interested to hear that Dr Anupam Saraph (CIO of Pune, India, and an adviser to the UN and the Asian Development Society) and Professor Madhav Nalapat (Director of the Department of Manipal University, India, as well as a UNESCO Peace Chair holder, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalapat) accidentally discovered files on an official Indian government website that seemed to have voting result numbers long before votes were actually cast.
On May 6th, while looking for routine, publicly available, candidate data during the election, a detailed Excel file of votes polled results for every candidate in India was found on the official website of the Election Commission of India (http://eci.nic.in/candidateinfo/frmcandidate.aspx). That was 9 days before the final votes were cast on May 15. And, even so, the Election Commission was not supposed to have access to votes cast data until May 16, when official counting was to be done.
On May 7 and 11, the Excel file was downloaded again from the Election Commission site. The numbers of votes cast for some candidates changed in each version of the file. In the version of the file downloaded on the last day before the official counting, May 15th, the votes cast results column was blank.
The downloaded files can be found here (the votes cast numbers are in Column N “votespolled”): http://government.wikia.com/wiki/Tracking_the_elections
When news of the files started to spread, the Election Commission closed its site from May 23 to 25. It was back up on the 25th but, until the 29th, you couldn’t download the file anymore. You can now, but the votes cast data for each candidate is gone (you can just see who won) even though now, two weeks after the election, is when that data should be available.
The implications are unsettling.
Paedophilia in the church is really getting on my nerves. Why don’t these bishops and priests ever land behind bars? And what is this urge they develop to have sex with under-aged children? There is something really rotten about this belief system based on a fable that has no historical proof. Till how long will the world persist with this cock-and-bull story about a corpse coming alive and flying to heaven like a bird. All it has given the world is genocide, murders, tortures, witch hunts and the Dark Ages.
’The Catholic church failed me. I despised myself and lost all confidence’
An inquiry into child abuse by Catholic priests is published today. Its impact will be seismic, says victim and author of new book, Colm O’Gorman.
Now, through a series of bizarre coincidences, I find myself headed to India to spend my holidays connecting with real-life survivors; women and children who have been rescued from prostitution, child begging rings, exploitative marriages, sex slavery and bonded servitude. I’m one of 10 volunteers chosen from around the world (the only Canadian), who will escort 20 survivors of human trafficking on a 30-day bicycle trip, to 60 villages.
We will cycle 600 kilometres through southern India, discovering a different culture every 60 kilometres. We will stop at a Tibetan settlement of monks, and visit the Dalit caste, also known as the Untouchables. We will learn from each other, and expose ourselves to the various kinds of suffering in the world.
“We believe that womanhood and childhood are sacred,” says Christina Lagdameo, the project coordinator for Odanadi Seva Trust, a British organization in Mysore that rescues and rehabilitates victims. “Human flesh is not a commodity. Every woman and child deserves a voice.”
People who worship the right god are coming to check up on uncivilized heathens (of false god fame) and teaching them some freedom. How are these jokers allowed to roam the whole India like this and who approves their visa? We don’t see such “freedom campaigns” being run in China by the Westerners, do we?
Turn over any stone in India and you will find a Western-funded “charity” working underneath. Is it a good idea to open your entire country to foriegn citizens like this and give them the run of the land? Indian government seems to have forgotten the fine art of visa control.
Whoever has allowed this US comission to India to investigate our religious freedoms has committed treason and should be tied to a pole and shot.
USCIRF – will it visit convents where nuns are raped?
By Hilda RajaThe UPA government’s unprecedented step of inviting the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to visit Gujarat and Orissa is not only disturbing, but also portents greater harm to the harmony and unity of the country.
It exposes India to international policing which has ramifications on the integrity and sovereignty of the nation. Today it can be a Commission; why not later an army for the purpose of protecting minorities? The basic premise is the same.
Hypothetically, let’s imagine that the Commission faults the government of both States for failure to protect minorities. Should Naveen Patnaik and Narendra Modi appear before this Commission and plead guilty – or plead innocent – and with all humility accept the penalty it will impose? Can there be a greater insult to democracy and to the sovereignty of this country?
It is invasion – be it territorial, social or religious. No matter which area, invasiveness of any kind cannot be accepted. What is the role of the Congress-led UPA government? Does it not stand indicted for impotency to curb violence? It cannot abdicate responsibility and obligation to protect minorities and rein in State governments. If this is logically followed, the accused is the Congress–Manmohan Singh – proof of his political weakness. Which country would tolerate such invasion and interference in its internal affairs? Are we bonded to the USA? No patriotic Indian, irrespective of religion, would accept the policing of this nation by outside agencies.
Can the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) and the INDIAN Churches which objected to such invasiveness nine years ago now make a U-turn? In the course of five years, what is the persecution witnessed in India. Brahmin Pundits killed in hundreds and chased away from J&K under ethnic cleansing has not raised international concerns. The furore caused by wrongful reporting of the rape of five nuns in Jhabua was set right when the nuns themselves gave interviews stating it had nothing to do with religion. Indeed, the culprits were converted tribals.
In Orissa, the massacre of Swami Laxmanananda and his disciples led to clashes in which Christians and Hindus were equally victims. The infamous Gujarat riots are being investigated by the Special Investigation Team, but earlier versions and gory stories of brutality, rape and massacres narrated by activist Teesta Setalvad were found faked, cooked up, witnesses and statements doctored; hence the Supreme Court rejected the bundle of lies.
Against this backdrop, Congress allowing USCIRF to enquire into violence against minorities is political in intent and has everything to do with further dividing the people on religious grounds. Will USCIRF be allowed to enter Pakistan or any Islamic country where there is discrimination against minorities?
Congress and Christian churches seem to conspire against Hindus. This is evident when one looks at the pre-election scenario. In April, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India issued a ‘Ten Commandments’ type of list of dos and don’ts for Catholics. Sure, it did not specify which party to vote for. But this was followed by a number of churches scripting prayers for the ‘flock,’ couched in appeals to God to bring in a party which will allow religious freedom and uphold the same guaranteed in the Constitution. Across India, the entire Christian community was galvanized by such covert campaigning. In Karnataka, a priest had the audacity to openly tell the ‘flock’ not to vote for the BJP. Joining hands with Muslim leaders, Catholic leaders also issued a fatwa, overtly and covertly compelling the ‘flock’ to vote for Congress.
The Election Commission is unmindful of this religio-political mix; this blatant communalism. When Advani appeals to Hindu religious leaders, the EC becomes alert and people like John Dayal condemn it. It is only when Hindu organizations and BJP politicians appeal to people that the ire of the EC is provoked. Then the media comes out with secular advocacy and condemns the communalism of BJP and its allies.
Church double-speak has exposed its ulterior motive – nine years ago (Sept 2000) CBCI described as “unwarranted” the proposed hearing on religious freedom in India by USCIRF, and distanced itself from John Dayal, saying he was attending it in his individual capacity. It is relevant to recall what Christian MPs felt then. They acknowledged the need to curb the influence of fundamentalists over the community and the Church. By deposing before the US panel, Dayal has given Hindu extremist groups valid reason to doubt the integrity of the community and ‘we could just be inviting Hindu extremist backlash’ rued Patty Ripple Kyndiah, who added that the antics of John Dayal is against national interest. Former Speaker P.A. Sangma endorsed Kyndiah, ‘This is our internal problem. We are capable of solving it’.
What has changed in nine years? The number of churches built has increased more than hundred fold. Christian institutions are given all financial assistance, Christians have occupied hundreds and hundreds of acres of promboke land on which they quickly erect a shack and a cross – for further constructing pucca buildings, both commercial and religious. Thus occupying the land, they acquire assets, evade tax, and even electricity charges.
It is in the national interest to survey the status of Churches property-wise and cash-wise. When in so-called Christian countries churches are closing down, here in India churches are annually increasing in number. Even in Italy, churches are empty but here churches are full every Sunday and the pulpit is used even against the government, but goes unchallenged.
From a poor country like ours, money flows to Rome, from congregations working for the poor and destitute in India, money flows to Vatican. Are these signs of a persecuted church? The flow of money to churches and church-allied ‘development organizations’ has trebled in the last five years, on Government of India records. Is this a sign of a church under duress?
Why should money from here go to Rome/Vatican? The Cross is not a sign to camouflage lies and cover truth. The church by its anti-national stand is crucifying Truth. Jesus was faithful to his Jewish traditions and to insult that he was crucified naked on the cross (no loin cloth), so the Bible states. Why should a people who proclaim that they stand for His values become anti-national and betray their own country and countrymen?
One is first an Indian – for one cannot change one’s nationality but can change one’s religion. The CBCI and laity leaders cannot do greater harm to the community than participate in the USCIRF sittings. In fact, they should have protested against this unprecedented move of the Congress under Ms. Sonia Gandhi.
The Christian community cannot be mortgaged for her ulterior political motives. Religion is an emotive issue and once people are permanently divided, national unity will be a thing of the past; at the drop of a hat the country can erupt into civil war. Every communal riot if objectively analyzed was a backlash, and the poor, irrespective of religion, were the victims. The power games of the powerful have torn nations apart by war followed by famines leading to total destruction and subjugation of people.
Interference in our internal affairs must be seen in wider perspective. Invasiveness of any kind in the affairs of a sovereign country means two things – the supervisory role of the invasive country/organization and the subjective, subservient level of the interfered country.
We have a democracy and a Constitution which has stood us well. Except for some aberrations brought by vest interests, the people have always been able to overcome this and to set the tone and tenure for harmonious unity.
India is the only country in the world which has opened its arms to all religions and all people and thus become the cradle of world religions. Fringe Christian churches have been misusing Freedom of Religion for proselytizing, poaching on other churches as well, and creating social tensions. One is not judged by one’s religion, but will be judged by the measure of love one has lived with and the Truth one has upheld.
PS: Would the Church permit USCIRF to visit the convents which have reported rapes, sexual violations, murders and oppression of women (nuns).
Missionaries and secular apologists: a reality check
By Saurav BasuThe Christian missionary drive has in recent years acquired a new academic dimension. The mission to uproot tribals from their ancestral roots and impose an alien way of life has the full blessings of our secular journalists. Harvard sociologist Pitrim Sorokin observes: “During the past few centuries the most belligerent, the most aggressive, the most rapacious, the most power-drunk section of humanity has been precisely, the Christian Western world. During these centuries western Christendom had invaded all other continents; its armies followed by priests and merchants have subjugated, robbed or pillaged most of the non-Christians. Native Americans, African, Australian, Asiatic populations have been subjugated to this peculiar brand of Christian “love” which has generally manifested itself in pitiless destruction, enslavement, coercion, destruction of the cultural values, institutions, the way of life of the victims, and the spread of alcoholism, venereal disease, commercial cynicism and the like.”
Indian journalist Karan Thapar had the temerity to claim conversion is nothing more than exchanging one set of gods for another and an escape route for tribals and dalits who have been exploited by caste based Hinduism. This simplistic accusation disregards more complex social realities of pre-modern India and the dynamic relationship shared between tribals and caste Hindus.
The natural counter-argument to the assumption of missionary benevolence would be – how exactly have Christians treated naturalist, animists, pagans in their sphere of influence? The bloody persecution of Hindus, tribals and dalits of all shades and colour by the Portuguese during the prolonged Goa Inquisition is open testimony to the historical intolerance of the Church in India. The Church in India has publicly conceded that it practices caste based discrimination and exclusion within its organization. Then what is the moral high-ground for approving conversions?
William Dalrymple, in a visit to Dang in 1999, despite his bias understood the tensions generated by American-inspired Pentecostal missionaries who desired wholesale conversion of tribals. After interviewing recent converts, he frankly admitted that conversions took place not out of religious conviction but material benefits, predominantly medicine. Yet Christian medical graduates in India are not even a fraction of the total. The fact then remains that Christian quacks are operating in the garb of witch doctors in the tribal belts, unless they want to make improbable claims of having outsourced their task to Hindu doctors.
Pseudo-academicians like Angana Chatterji demonize Hindu activists who provide selfless service through Ekal Vidyalayas in tribal belts. In “The violent gods of Hindu nationalism” she makes spectacular allegations of forced conversion by Hindu missionaries. She wishes to justify the murder of Laxmanananda Saraswati by alleging him to be party to forced conversion, even as he repeatedly faced life threatening attacks before being finally eliminated.
Ramachandra Guha believes that missionaries, Maoists and Hindutva groups regard Tribals as a vehicle for increasing their social and political influence. His narrative rests on the presumption that the Nehruvian policy of allowing Tribals to develop along the lines of their own genius was dispensed by successive governments which created the developmental vacuum for other forces to exploit. Their economic development is hampered because the state usurps their lands to provide water to “Hindu farmers”, writes Guha. More problematic is his underlying assumption that Tribals cannot be Hindus!
The bigger questions we encounter include the historical relationship between the ‘Hindu’ and the ‘tribal.’ Who should be held responsible for the current socio-eco backwardness of the tribal? More importantly, who has the right to convert a tribal? There is no dearth of authors who believe contemporary Hinduism is an 18th century construct, loosely defined as a mosaic of different religious beliefs with certain commonalities. Ironically, this non-Hindu definition of Hinduism can be easily reconciled with tribal paganism, but orthodox Brahmanical Hinduism (whatever that means) is used as the standard of comparison against Tribal paganism!
Tribals and monotheists
Tribal groups have been marginalized throughout the monotheistic world. In America, the White Settlers committed several Native American genocides. Until 1824, killing American Indians was not a crime, as reflected in the saying: “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Ward Churchill, professor of ethnic studies, University of Colorado, noted that the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a “vast genocide…, the most sustained on record.” Right Wing Christian apologists claim divine providence; a natural genocide through smallpox and plague to which the natives were pathologically vulnerable with no group immunity.
In Australia, native aboriginal children were forcibly removed from the breasts of their crying mothers through acts of parliament, all in the great cause of establishing ‘white supremacy.’ ‘Stolen generations’ is the epithet referring to these children, a process which continued until 1970.
Tribal pagan faiths were subject to extreme torture by Christianity once it became Rome’s state religion. Thousands of witches were burnt in the cause of Christianity. The Western European governments’ track record towards unconventional pagan religions continues to be a cause for concern.
Transplanting persecution
Early Indologists transplanted similar theories of aboriginal persecution on the Vedic Indians. The thesis of original people and invaders persists today among certain Dalit-Marxist intelligentsia. Yet Western scholarship after critical studies of the Rig Veda is coming round to the view that there was no Arya-Dasa physical or racial hostility. David Lorenzen discovers “no evidence of this modern racist view in Vedic literature. There is no evidence that the Rig Vedic Aryas regarded the Dasas and Dasyus as either biologically distinct or as innately inferior in terms of intellect or strength or as divinely cursed to become slaves. The Vedic evidence does suggest, however, that the Aryas sometimes regarded the moral behaviour and character of the Dasas as inferior and certainly Dasa religion as inferior to their own.”
New anthropological studies falsify the white man’s view of non-indigenous upper caste Indians opposed to native aborigines, which was uncritically appropriated by communists and social movement leaders in colonial India.
Tribal persecution as a general phenomenon in India is untenable. Mainstream Hindu and Adivasi religion shared a dynamic relationship with interchange and intermingling in theory and practice. Koenraad Elst explains: “There exists a profound continuity between literate Brahmanism and the illiterate ‘animism’ of the tribal communities which gradually joined Brahmanic society in the past.” Hinduism has been described in a pre-independence Census Report (1901), as ‘animism more or less transformed by philosophy, or to condense the epigram, as magic tempered by metaphysics’. This echoes what archaeologist S.R. Rao said about the Harappan religion, ‘ranging from very elevated philosophical and ethical concepts down to a crude animism’.
Marxist historian D.D. Kosambi gave several examples of bloodthirsty tribal goddess cults sanitized by the hand of Brahmanism which replaced sacrificial blood with vermillion marks. Hindu gods and goddesses like Ganesha, Varaha and Narasimha (avatars of Vishnu) have provenance in tribal counterparts. Sandhya Jain (“Adi Deo Arya Devata: Panoramic view of Hindu-Tribal Cultural Interface”) says Vishnu evolved out of several distinct deities, notably Vasudeva, supreme lord of the Vrishni/Satvata tribe, Krishna of the Yadava clan, Gopala of the Abhira tribe and Narayana of the Hindukush mountains. In Orissa, the evolution of Hinduism is most conspicuous. Jagannath was first worshipped by the Sabara (Savara, Saora) tribe and ‘miraculously’ appeared in Puri much later. Till today, Daita (Daitya) priests, descendants of the original tribal worshippers, alone have the right to dress the god, move him, and regularly renovate his wooden image. At the Lingaraj Temple in Bhubaneswar, tribal Badu priests alone are allowed to bathe and adorn the deity.
This is true testimony to the power of syncretism and lack of exclusiveness in Hindu thought. Kosambi saw a “process of syncretism” in the absorption of “primitive deities,” a “mechanism of acculturation, a clear give and take,” which allowed “Indian society to be formed out of many diverse and even discordant elements.” It allowed the admission of many a “primitive local god or goddess into the ancient Brahmanical system.” But through the lens of dialectical materialism, Kosambi found this syncretism objectionable as this (Arya-tribal) unity was secured at the cost of stagnation and subjection to a regime of superstition and primitiveness.
Still, the process of Sanskritization encouraged tribal groups to accept the higher civilizational ethos of Brahmanical Hinduism, including renunciation of beef and even meat, mantra-based worship, abstinence from bloody sacrifices, and acceptance of mainstream Hindu deities. Victorious kings played a role in promotion of Sanskritization as it helped in integrating the subjects of the newly acquired kingdom by assimilating their theological icons and beliefs. Says Kosambi: “The tribe as a whole turned into a new peasant jâti caste-group, generally ranked as Shudras, with as many as possible of the previous institutions (including endogamy) brought over… The Brahmin often preserved tribal or local peasant jâti customs and primitive lore in some special if modified form… This procedure enabled Indian society to be formed out of many diverse and even discordant elements, with the minimum use of violence.”
This process of integration suffered a death blow in periods of Islamic and British colonization, which tribals resisted fiercely. Kosambi notes how Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq during a march to Bengal narrowly escaped being killed by a tribal uprising. British missionaries faced the brunt of several tribal uprisings including the famous one led by missionary educated Birsa Munda.
After independence, the traditional way of integrating the tribal with the mainstream through a natural, humane and non-discriminatory process of acculturation and Sanskritization was the cherished desire of most. Guru Golwalkar proposed that for the integration of tribals and untouchables, the same formula applies: “They can be given yajñopavîta (…) They should be given equal rights and footings in the matter of religious rights, in temple worship, in the study of Vedas, and in general, in all our social and religious affairs. This is the only right solution for all the problems of casteism found nowadays in our Hindu society.” Unfortunately that didn’t materialize.
Who is responsible for Tribal Backwardness?
Contemporary socio-economic backwardness of tribals has been uncritically blamed on caste Hindus though they had no political role in the periods of Islamic and British colonization.
Remember the jibe – ‘Hindu rate of growth’? It applied to the Soviet-style socialism of Nehru and Indira Gandhi. But when the growth rate surged past the double digit mark under a supposedly Hindu nationalist government, the title of Hindu rate of growth became inconvenient; now growth rate is secular.
The Nehruvian genius in leaving tribals to their stultified status through euphemistic appellations is the real reason why the tribal problem exists today. For 50 years, his party followed this paranoid policy and when the failures became overwhelming, blame was dumped through Marxist intellectuals on caste Hindus!
The hyper anti-Hindu stance of this class of writers, like Guha, is most explicit when he considers water-logging tribal areas as part of a process of supplying water to ‘Hindu farmers.’ Since when did secular state commissions under all but one “Secular” government base national policies on the basis of religion? Guha’s Hinduphobia is more a reflection of his anti-Gujarat government sanctioned Narmada Project (after duly compensating tribal landowners); not one word of condemnation escaped his lips for Nehru commissioning the Bhakra Nangal project to supply water to Sikh farmers while submerging lands of poor Hindus!
This developmental vacuum created scope for tribal exploitation through Maoists and Christian missionaries. The Niyogi Commission warned the Nehru government of the impending danger of missionaries and the means to check them, but the Hindu-phobic Nehru ignored its recommendations. Often it was treatment through quacks who baptized tribal children on their deathbeds in exchange for their lives. Maoists had their more violent methods. Both feed on poverty and exploit its victims in their quest for hegemonic power! Both have now come together to form a common coalition against Hindu tribals. Both are against development as it would put their very existence in jeopardy. It is a direct consequence of their combined terror that prevents government-sponsored educationalists, doctors and engineers from working in these landmine-infested areas. Recently, an entire medical team was blown up by Maoists from Midnapore.
The secularist charge that Hindu organizations operating in tribal areas are as much a missionary force as the Christian is outrageous. True, tribals do not follow the Vedas, but that is only a very orthodox definition of Hinduism. How do you explain an Advaitin who virtually denies all gods a place in the Hindu pantheon as an ultimate illusion? The Sankhya and the Nyaya Vaishika, one of the six astika philosophical systems, pay at most a lip service to God. The plurality of Hindu thought is rooted in the Vedas: ‘the truth is one, but the sages call it with different names.’ In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Vidagdha Sakalya asks Yaynavalkya how many gods are there. Yajnavalkya at first replies 3336; probed further by Sakalya he reduces them to 33, then 6, then 3, then 2, then 1.5 and finally 1!
Christian dogma
Christianity is the antithesis of all tribal religions. While tribal culture is attuned to nature, and respects and worships its profound sacredness, the Christian faith exhibits total non-interest in nature as illustrated by the near-total absence of wildlife and rural scenery from the strictly urban setting of Paul’s Letters or the Acts of the Apostles and the subsequent propagation of the new faith in the cities of the Roman empire.
Ecologists blame Biblical religions for lack of respect for nature and its desacralization. Irrespective of the Christian contribution, the fact is the European mind was single-handedly responsible for eco-disasters and extermination of species even prior to the Industrial Revolution.
In Hindu India, despite immensely higher population density, no species mentioned in the Vedas has died out in the intervening millennium. Elst believes that by being less savage and more civilized, Hindu India managed to preserve its species diversity much better than hunter-gatherer cultures in the “New World,” forget the anti-naturalistic Christian world.
Finally, from a Christian or Islamic viewpoint, any differences between tribal “animism” and Hinduism are purely academic as by all accounts both are polytheistic-Pagan.
Joshua Project
If we accept “conversion of tribal to Hindu,” we discover it to be a most amicable exercise. Conversion to Christianity invariably involves a high tension divorce from roots. It does not mean exchanging one set of gods for another, as Karan Thapar and Shashi Tharoor would claim; it means renouncing an entire social identity, culture and way of life. Gender sensitive tribal traditions like mother goddess worship and belief in Vandevis are ruthlessly suppressed by an alien ultra-patriarchal and anti-naturalistic faith.
Jesus can replace Hanuman only by reducing the latter to an object of hate through unethical missionary propaganda. This creates social tension and separate identities, and consummates in violence as in Kandhamal where converted Panis and Hindu Kandhas are locked in internecine struggle.
Hindu missionaries arrived in tribal areas only to counter the draconian mass conversion drives of missionaries and Maoists and many sacrificed their lives in the process, such as Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati.
Christian missions receive millions of dollars from Western Church-based groups to harvest Hindu souls. The Project Joshua movement which began as AD 2000 & Beyond and later morphed into Joshua Project I and Joshua Project II, was designed to be a sledgehammer, decade-long steamroller campaign that would set the stage for a systematic, sophisticated and self-sustaining “harvest” of the “unreached people groups” in India in the 21st century. Is Project Joshua spending billions of dollars out of love for scheduled castes and tribals?
Christians can claim additional privileges through Articles 29,30, such as operating their own educational institutions which were indicted by the Niyogi Commission Report as active agents of conversion. Hindu converts to Christianity rarely register themselves as Christians during Census as that would mean termination of their Scheduled Caste affirmative action/reservation benefits.
Hindus are severely hampered by lack of funds, especially as temple grants which could be used against Christian propaganda are usurped by “secular” governments under the pretext of the Religious Endowment Act which applies only to Hindus. Finally, anti-Hindu bloodthirsty Maoists operate parallel administrations where even police fear to venture. They have made common cause with Christians against Hindus.
Oxymoronic groups like the “Catholic Secular Forum” openly threaten Hindus that it is their God-ordained duty to convert infidels, even if it means violating the unequivocal full bench verdict in the Stanislaus Vs State of Madhya Pradesh, AIR 1977 SC 908 which prohibits any conversion propaganda under the guise of freedom to practice one’s religion.
Fr. Cedric Prakash, photographed here receiving the Chevalier de la Legion d’ Honneur Award from the French Ambassador in New Delhi on 14th July 2006, is well known in some circles as a resolute defender of “human rights” in Gujarat.
In June, a delegation from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is scheduled to visit India. The team will travel to Gujarat and Orissa. Fr Prakash had testified before USCIRF in June 2002 after the Gujarat riots.
The idea of a US body investigating religious freedom in India is a bit disturbing. Fr Prakash’s take on the subject is, however, fascinating.
In the Mail Today of May 8, 2009, page 9, he is quoted as saying:
“(Narendra) Modi cannot nurture prime ministerial dreams unless he is acceptable to the Western world.”
Fr. Prakash does himself proud with such an honest articulation of his beliefs.
Savarkar once said that conversion to Semitic faiths leads to a change of nationality. You abandon your own country and race and become a cheerleader of some other country and race which has nothing but contempt for your own people. This is what has happened with “Father” Cedric Prakash. He is acting like a trained hound of the White Christians in India.
It is truly tragic how this “true god, false god” brainwashing can make a man a turncoat against his own people and land. Else, why would Cedric Prakash claim that Indian leaders have to take prior approval from White Christians to rule India? Who is worse than a slave? A slave who takes pride in his slavery and accepts medals from the slave-masters.
Incidentally, Cedric Prakash is the same cretin who went to the US to testify before the US Congress against his own country on the issues of “freedom of religion” and “persecution” of the so-called minorities. Why was he not arrested on his return and put on the exit control list is beyond me. Has treason become fashionable in India? We desperately need a Patriot Act to deal with people like these who openly ally with hostile races against fellow Indians and spit over their own country from foreign soil.
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day
What hours, O what black hours we have spent…
- Gerard Manley Hopkins19th January 1990. Kashmir was breathing still; Kashmiri Pandits lay hidden like frightened pigeons in their own nest. Today on behalf of my fellow brothers and sisters, I wish to revisit the pain of my separation from my own home 19 years ago, when the cruel hands of Allah-Wallahs butchered members of my community for being idol worshipers, for rejecting the call for unholy Jihad and for siding with their own nation India. The Islamic murderers played dire warnings from their Mosques which pierced each nerve of anybody who held a Hindu name. As the sun turned pale, exhortations became louder, and three taped slogans repeatedly played their terror: ‘Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna hai’ (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah is great); ‘Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa’ (What do we want here? Rule of Shariah); ‘Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san’ (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).
The roots of this unparalleled tragedy are immersed in 1986 with a well-planned strategy to execute Hindus from the valley. By 1990, the population saw their age old temples turned to ruins and lives at risk. As Pakistan stepped up their campaign against India, new Islamic terror outfits suddenly mushroomed in the state. As Jamait-e-Islami financed all madarsas to poison them against the minority Hindus and India, Pakistan further dictated youth to launch Jihad against India. A terror strike so meticulously planned that its unprecedented display was terrifying. As camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) began to provide training to innumerable Muslim men, India witnessed the emergence of the bloodiest Kalashnikov culture in the valley. The victims- innocent and non-violent minority- the Kashmiri Pandits.
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The Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, abandoned his responsibilities and the administration, the state and people lay like cattle on an open road. The hidden fact of rigged elections in 1987 had by then become a lucid statement. Today 22 years later, Omar Abdullah takes position of the same majestic throne, though I wonder how efficiently he would carry forward the state of affairs. Will he like his father ruin the backbone of the state and leave the minority Hindus helpless as always, or will he rise above politics, religion to create space for Pandits in their valley? The unanswered question lingers on.
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When Farooq Abdullah escaped underground, Jagmohan took reigns as the governor of the state. Though not very competent to handle an already ruined socio-political situation, he as a mark of remarkable leadership helped Kashmiri Pandits receive safe shelter. Jagmohan charted out an exceptional strategy to counter Islamic fanatics and also opened his Durbar (Office) to public irrespective of time. He visited families of the martyred Hindus. About one such meeting with the family of Satish Tickoo, murdered by communal JKLF goon Bitta Karate , he wrote an outstanding excerpt in his book, ‘My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir’- “In Habba-Kadal, except for the long row of our vehicles, nothing was seen on the streets. The afternoon rain appeared to have soaked the houses with depression. The few windows that were open were without even the usual dim light. The dark clouds overhead completed the picture of gloom… The house of Tickoo was like a shattered nest. Everything lay scattered. The grim atmosphere around told the tale more vividly…”
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He further wrote, “As I was about to leave, Satish’s uncle who was a bit vociferous and assertive, insisted that I should go upstairs and see the family deity. I agreed. A calm majestic figure was soon visible. It looked so imposing even in the darkness… With tears in their eyes, the family members thanked me and the accompanying officers. We were all moved over the sad plight of the family”.
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However one excerpt that mirrored my anxiety of 19 years was composed in words by Jagmohan, “Looking at the compact and enmeshed houses, and the by-lanes which acted like fine threads of a well-knit fabric, I wondered how these families, who had all their Gods and Goddesses here, and had deep roots in the soil, could leave and settle in distant and unfamiliar lands. Sometimes life is unaccountably cruel. And we human beings have, perhaps, no option but to suffer – suffer in silence, or wail”.
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Satish Tickoo was not the lone martyr who fell to the bullets of so-called revolutionaries. Tika lal Taploo, Nilkanth Ganjoo, Sarla Bhat, and countless others followed the target list of JKLF and other Islamic Terror outfits backed by Pakistan financially, psychologically and politically. An absent government, collapsed administration, and a petrified community saw despondency set in. As the moonlight of January 19, 1990 wore itself out, despondency gave way to desperation. Tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the valley decided to take an agonizing decision, to flee their homeland and save their lives and religion from rabid Jihadis…
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..Thus took place a 20th century Exodus.Pandits left the valley, with an approximate statistics of more than three lakh and fifty thousand. Almost a thousand Pandit men, women and children were slaughtered to death in 1990 alone by these revolutionaries of Islam. Surprisingly on paper, official figures clogged at only 209 killed! Alas! Soon the J&K government shall disown the whole Pandit community as aborigines of Kashmir.
In this 19th year, a few hundred frightened Pandits still live scattered across the valley in far flung areas hoping against hope for peace and their brethren to step on the snow once again.
This 19th year embarks upon a history of bullets to makeshift camps in Jammu with torturous summer heat to snake and scorpion bites and finally dreadful diseases. Seven camps in Jammu are an uninhabitable asylum for around 50,000 Kashmiri Pandits. The only perceptible change is an upgradation of some to permanent structures.
My heart bleeds when I watch communal turned pseudo-secular Kashmiri separatists grab the headlines while the plight of the Pandits remains a non-issue. It isn’t the so-called Azaadi that the people of Kashmir desire. They long for an immediate crackdown on terrorists, an end to the separatist elements and those unbearable puppets in the Valley- all for normalcy to return. Though sidelined for now, the political patronage they enjoy could soon take the voices from the Hurriyat and JKLF spreading propaganda of terror and hatred to the frontlines of politics.
An entire community uprooted from the land of their ancestors is today struggling for its identity. The weak-kneed Indian state shamelessly panders to Islamic terrorists and separatists who claim they are the final arbiters of Jammu and Kashmir’s destiny. A part of India’s cultural heritage is destroyed; a chapter of India’s civilization has been erased. And, our jhola-wallah brigade of ‘secular’ activists unabashedly turns their back to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. To them I believe, ‘Hindu sorrow, inflicted by Islamic terror’ is a truth perhaps too harsh to accept. Thereby hangs a tragic tale that is completely wiped out from public memory.
I am reminded of a stanza by a Jewish poet: ‘…without identity in a street nameless to me, I am a stranger: I am longings, I am fears. I am child longing to belong to his lost childhood and not be outside the present, always withdrawn, apart…’
I’m as old as the terrorism in the Valley. In these 19 years, the only time I felt the breeze of my land was through the closed windows of my airplane. She beckons me and I am too desperate now to grab its serene quilt. My mother nature has summoned me, and I shall answer her call soon, very soon.
Till then, in this 19th year of exile like the unanswered questions of our human rights …my struggle for existence also continues.
Rajiv Malhotra’s brilliant analysis of neo-colonialism and how various tricks are used by Westerners to ensure that Hindu minds remain in a cage even today.
By Rajiv Malhotra
”In the modern planetary situation, Eastern and Western ‘cultures’ can no longer meet one another as equal partners. They meet in a westernized world, under conditions shaped by western ways of thinking.” — W. Halbfass[1]
This essay argues that intellectual svaraj (self-rule) is as fundamental to the long term success of a civilization as is svaraj in the political and financial areas. Therefore, it is important to ask: whose way of representing knowledge will be in control? It is the representation system that defines the metaphors and terminology, interprets what they mean in various situations, influences what issues are selected to focus on, and, most importantly, grants privileges by determining who is to control this marketplace of ideas.
As an implicit body of standards, a representation system disguises a meta-ideology – the substratum of contexts on which specific ideologies emerge and interact. It includes the language used and the unstated frames of reference, and acts as the subliminal filter through which positions are constructed and their fate negotiated.
A people without their own representation system, in a worst case scenario, get reduced to being intellectual consumers looking up to the dominant culture. In the best case scenario, they could become intellectual producers, but only within the representation system as defined and controlled by the dominant culture, such as has happened recently with many Indian writers in English.
Ashis Nandy summarizes how this mental colonialism was brought about:
“This colonialism colonises minds in addition to bodies and it releases forces within colonized societies to alter their cultural priorities once and for all…. Particularly, once the British rulers and the exposed sections of Indians internalized the colonial role definitions….the battle for the minds of men was to a great extent won by the Raj.”[2]
The repetitious use of a given representation system eventually leads to a widely accepted set of “essences,” as stated by Friedreich Nietzsche:
“The reputation, name, and appearance, the usual measure and weight of a thing, what it counts for — originally almost always wrong and arbitrary — grows from generation unto generation, merely because people believe in it, until it gradually grows to be a part of the thing and turns into its very body. What at first was appearance becomes in the end, almost invariably, the essence and is effective as such.”
Therefore, control over the representation of knowledge is analogous to control over the operating system of computers: representation systems are to competing ideas what operating systems are to computer applications. Control over this platform, especially its invisible standards and rules, is of strategic consequence.
The structure of the essay is as follows: (1) Explaining the origins of neocolonialism. (2) Showing that many Indians are themselves perpetuating neocolonialism today. (3) Linking this with Western control from above the glass ceiling.
PART 1: The Origins of Neocolonialism
Part 1 explains the origins and causes of neocolonialism in India today, resulting from the abandonment of its rich classical tradition, and replacement by knowledge representation systems imposed by the colonizers. Let us understand how the West got to control today’s knowledge representation systems.
The hallmark of a good education in an American liberal arts college is based on what is called the “Western Classics.” A study of Western Civilization starts with the study of ancient Greek and Semitic thought, before moving on to Classical Roman, modern European, and finally, American thought. Such an intellectual foundation is deemed important for one to be considered a well educated person in the humanities, regardless of one’s religious beliefs (or lack thereof), and regardless of one’s specific academic major. By way of illustration only, the following is what one liberal arts college advertises very proudly about its Classics program.
Classics and Classical Civilization at a Typical American Liberal Arts College[3]:
“From the Constitution of the United States, to the framework of modern law, to the vocabulary and ideas of everyday speech and writing, the classics exert a pervasive influence. The power of Greece and Rome extends into virtually every aspect of our modern lives. Western traditions of philosophy, science, religion, art, and, above all, literature draw their origins from the intellectual curiosity and colorful imagination of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Department of Classics provides a window into the life, times, and ideas of the founders of western society.
Students of Greek learn the language of Homer and the idioms of Aristotle and Plato, while Latin classes learn to argue in the words of Cicero and Julius Caesar. The debt we owe to the Greeks and Romans is so large and multi-faceted that the study of classics is interdisciplinary by nature. For example, the classics curriculum includes courses offered by the Departments of Philosophy, Art, Religion, Government, and Science and Technology. Yet, all of these courses form part of a coherent whole for classics majors and minors. Students of the classics reap all the benefits of a liberal arts education, and at the same time, maintain a focus in their studies.
“The Department of Classics is thriving on a resurgence of interest in classical languages and culture….. Students can choose to gain an overview of long periods of classical history, or study shorter periods in great detail…. In class, we apply various modern, even pioneering, theoretical approaches drawn from the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and literary criticism. Between the department’s offerings on language, literature, history, and culture, and the courses offered by other departments on, for example, ancient philosophy, classical art and architecture, and classical political thoughts, students choose from an extensive array of courses.
“The Department of Classics offers majors and minors in two programs: one in classics, which concentrates on language and literature in Greek, Latin, or both, and one in classical civilization that encompasses all the facets of classical culture. Many students in both programs have taken advantage of the opportunity to study in Greece and Italy through programs especially designed for American students. In Athens, the cradle of Western democracy, and the birthplace of Greek tragedy and Plato’s academy, students can further their studies while familiarizing themselves with the Acropolis and Agora. In Rome, they can continue to pursue the ideals of a classical education while breathing the air that the Roman emperors inhaled, and walking the streets that for centuries saw triumphs over distant peoples. In recent years, our joint major in Classics/Classical Civilization-English has become popular, and we have just added another joint major in Classical Civilization-Anthropology.
“The department strives to emulate the intellectual curiosity of the Greeks and Romans. Our activities extend beyond the classroom to various social, yet educational, events. We have enjoyed showing movies and videos related to the classics from time to time.
“We bring prominent experts from the U.S. and abroad to share new perspectives on topics of the ancient world…. We are proud to have state-of-the-art computer support for our students. By tapping a few keys, they can call up any Greek or Latin text, and search through the entire cannon of classical authors in the original or in translation. Furthermore we have book-marked numerous sites of classical interest on the Internet. All of this in a room graced by reproductions of classical statues, vases, and paintings!
“It is the department’s goal to foster keen intellectual curiosity and sound principles of analysis and problem-solving in all our students, by providing academic stimuli and allowing our students to harness the power of the imagination just like the great thinkers, politicians, artists and writers of Greece and Rome. Not surprisingly, graduates of the [Classics] major are pursuing successful careers in law, medicine, teaching, academia, government, art, management, and other fields. The study of the classics trains the mind for much more than the translation of texts and the analysis of a culture. The study of classics also prepares you to meet life with the confidence of Achilles and the self-reliance of Odysseus.”
I find similar deep respect and dignity for the Western Classics at Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, University of Chicago, Yale, Oxford, Paris, and virtually every top Western university. The benefit is not only intended for those specializing in the Western Classics. The Western Classics are in the core curriculum of many colleges, regardless of specialization.
Marginalization of Indian Classics in India’s Higher Education
It is important to carefully read the above rationale for the Western Classics program, so as to appreciate why this is deemed so relevant today in Western technologically advanced secular democracies, such as the United States.
Compare this to the tragic state of Indian Classics in India’s own higher education. The equivalent to the Greek Classics would be India’s Vedas, Puranas and other Sanskrit, Pali and Tamil texts. In a comparable education system, students would learn about Pannini, Patanjali, Buddha, Nagarjuna, Dharmakirti, Bharthrhari, Shankara, Abhinavgupta, Bharata Muni, Gangesh, Kalidasa, Aryabhata and dozens of other great classical thinkers produced by India.
Unfortunately, in the name of progress, modernity, and political correctness, Indian Classics have been virtually banished from India’s higher education – a continuation of the policy on Indian education started by the famous Lord Macaulay over 150 years ago.. While India supplies information technology, biotechnology, corporate management, medical and other professionals to the most prestigious organizations of the world[4], it is unable to supply world-class scholars in the disciplines of its own traditions.
The reason is that the nexus of Indology studies remains in Western universities, almost as though decolonization had never happened. The top rated academic journals and conferences on Indology and India related fields are in the West, run largely by Western scholars, and funded by Western private, church and governmental interests. The best research libraries in the Indian Classics are in the West. Religious Studies is the hottest academic field in the humanities in the US, and is growing at a very fast rate, but is non-existent as a discipline in Indian universities.
Therefore, to get an internationally competitive PhD in Sanskrit, Indian Classics, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Jainism Studies, with the highest rigor in methods and theory, such that one may get an academic job in this specialty in a leading international university, a student is forced to go to a US, UK or German university.
Hence, one cannot find qualified experts of Indian religions in India, in order to debate Western scholars. The few Indian scholars within the Western academy who are educated in the Indian Classics, are either below the glass ceiling, or else are politically cautious given the risks to their career ambitions.
Furthermore, the marginalization of India’s heritage in its education system, particularly in the English medium system that produces most of the leaders of modern Indian society, has resulted in the leaders of industry, civil service, media and education becoming a culturally lost generation. The result is today’s self-alienated, cynical youth prevalent in many places, especially in elite positions[5].
The justification given for the study of Greek Classics in the West is not that they are considered 100% “true” today (whatever that might mean), or that better thought has not superceded them. Rather, the purpose is to understand the history of the Western mind, so that students may lay a sound and strong foundation for their thinking in order to move this civilization further into the future. The Western Classics provide the Western intellectual with the resources to be a serious thinker for today.
It is also about the identity of Westerners and their culture. Great emphasis is placed on the integrity of an old “Western Civilization” traced back to Greece (although the massive inputs received from non-Western sources are carefully suppressed – see Part 3). This (re)construction of Western Civilization is an ongoing project, and is considered very critical for the survival and prosperity of what is known as the “West”.
One should apply this logic to Classical Indian thought and see parallel benefits for India’s renaissance. Unfortunately, a great disservice has been done to Indian Classics by equating them with religion. Arguably, the most comprehensive and challenging knowledge representation systems available outside the West are contained in the Indian Classics. The sheer magnitude of India’s Classics is over one hundred times as large as that of the Greek Classics. For a brief glimpse into some of the potentials based on the recovery of Indian Classics, see the web site for an academic Colloquium on this very subject[6].
Yet, whatever little is taught about Indian Classics tends to suffer from its ghetto like positioning as “South Asian,” whereas Greek thought is positioned as being “universal.” The dominant (European) culture, into which Greek thought became assimilated, claims to own the logos (the rational principle that governs and develops the universe), while non-Western peoples’ indigenous ideas are mythos and exotica. Greek Classics are taught in mainstream academia and are not relegated to a particular ethnicity or “area” of the world. Indian Classics, on the other hand, are considered relevant mainly as a way to understand what is unique (i.e. peculiar) about Indian ethnicity.
Furthermore, Greek thought is referenced as being of Greek origin, whereas, when Indian ideas are appropriated, their Indian origin is erased over time: real knowledge is implied to come only from Western sources; all others must wait till they get legitimized by being claimed as Western. This is because the knowledge representation system is under Western control, and hence they are the final arbiters of “what” belongs “where.” Only when something falls under Western control does it become legitimate.
Indic Traditions in the Western Academia
Interestingly, Western academia hires many Indian scholars in the departments of English Literature, History, Philosophy, Sociology, and Political Science, amongst other humanities. However, while the Western audiences think of them as spokespersons for Indic Traditions, the vast majority of them are unwilling and unqualified to explain Indian Classics seriously. But their Western hosts and colleagues are usually unaware of this shortcoming in most Indian scholars. For this deficiency to become public about an Indian scholar is tantamount to a minor scandal, because they derive much of their clout based on the false perception that they are representatives of Indic thought.
To cover up their ignorance, many elitist Indians resort to a combination of Eurocentric and Marxist rhetoric about Indian civilization – the caste, cows and curry theory of India. They quote Orientalist accounts of India and even base their own scholarship as extensions and derivatives of colonial writings superimposed with Marxism. On the one hand, postcolonial studies are at the very heart of their specialization and career paths. But on the other hand, they are only trained in using Eurocentric hermeneutics and methods. Hence, they can deconstruct Eurocentrism with Western methods, but are completely inept at applying Indic categories and perspectives. They cannot replace the Eurocentric representation model with anything indigenous from India. Postcolonial studies often end up as Orientalism by the neocolonized.
Contrast this with Arab scholars, such as Edward Said and Abu-Lughod, who have led the deconstruction of Eurocentrism, not only generically but also specifically on behalf of Islamic and Arab civilizations. Consequently, it is now becoming fashionable to replace Eurocentric history textbooks with accounts centered around the Middle East, going back to the Middle Ages. Likewise, Nell Painter is amongst the leading critics of Eurocentrism on behalf of Africans. Enrique Dussel is amongst many prominent Latin Americans attacking Eurocentric models.
However, in the case of a specifically Indic deconstruction of Eurocentrism, some of the finest academic challenge is often being delivered by Westerners, such has Ronald Inden and Nicholas Dirks. Many Indian scholars who are entrenched in the Western academe of humanities seem reluctant to risk their loyalty ratings, and in many cases, are simply too ignorant of their own heritage and invested in attacking this heritage.
While pockets of such Indic challenges to Eurocentrism do exist, they are not empowered to revolutionize the fields of religion, history, sociology, anthropology, women’s studies, Asian Studies, literature and art. They occasionally get their symbolic ‘day in court,’ but it is usually not the center court, where it really matters[7].
Indian Secularism, American Secularism
One serious misunderstanding amongst this milieu of elitist Indians has been their confused interpretation of secularism. The USA is a good nation with which to compare India in matters of secularism. It does not define secularism as alienation from its traditions. Even though tracing back American civilization to the Greeks is a big stretch, this link and continuity is emphasized. Certainly, the Judeo-Christian foundation of Americanism is made loud and clear. Recently, there is a new movement to rediscover the Native American heritage as being part of the New Americanism. On the other hand, secularism in India has come to mean anti Indic Traditions, especially anti-Hinduism.
To get certified that they are secular, many Indians line up to prove how they hate Hinduism, or at least how distant they are from what they perceive as a denigrated identity. The historian, Ronald Inden explains the root cause of this disease:
“Nehru’s India was supposed to be committed to ’secularism’. The idea here in its weaker publicly reiterated form was that the government would not interfere in ‘personal’ religious matters and would create circumstances in which people of all religions could live in harmony. The idea in its stronger, unofficiallv stated form was that in order to modernize, India would have to set aside centuries of traditional religious ignorance and superstition and eventually eliminate Hinduism and Islam from people’s lives altogether. After Independence, governments implemented secularism mostly by refusing to recognize the religious pasts of Indian nationalism, whether Hindu or Muslim, and at the same time (inconsistently) by retaining Muslim ‘personal law’[8].”
This agenda, built on a false definition of secularism, has been taken to such extremes that Sanskrit has been demonized, because it is seen as part of the Evil Brahmin Conspiracy to oppress all the victims of contemporary Indian society. Jawaharlal Nehru University, one of India’s elite institutions in the liberal arts, and the seminary that produces many of these maladjusted intellectuals, has fought hard to resist the establishment of a Sanskrit and Indian Classics department, whereas it is proud of its faculty and curriculum in a wide variety of European languages and civilizations[9].
This is the result of sheer ignorance about the scope and value of Sanskrit literature. Indologists believe that there are over 30 million distinct manuscripts in Sanskrit, mostly not cataloged, with less than one percent ever translated into a non Indian language. The vast majority of Sanskrit texts is not about “religion,” and covers a diverse territory of subjects – medicine, botany, aesthetics, fiction, jokes, sex, political thought, logic, mathematics, and so forth.
Sanskrit was the language of scholarship for a period of several millennia, in the same manner as English has become over the past century. To demonize and suppress this language and its vast literature, in the name of political correctness, is a tragedy against all humanity. Yet this is precisely what has been done for 50 years after India’s independence[10].
The Hegemony of Language
One result of all this has been that the colonial mistranslations of Sanskrit words have now become accepted by the majority of Indians educated in the English language, not only the scholars but also the leaders of India’s media, higher education, industry and administrative services.
Indic Traditions now have the added burden to legitimize themselves in terms defined by its former colonizers’ culture, i.e., using a Eurocentric frame of reference. Nietzsche’s prophecy quoted in the opening section of this essay has come true. By controlling their language, one can subjugate a people.
The richness of the meaning of a word is often very deeply embedded in the cultural context, in the history of how that word evolved over time, and in the wide contextual bandwidth of nuances and implied meanings that accompany its usage. To understand all the nuances of a word, then, is to understand the host culture. And to understand a complex culture is to live it and be it. This is why great harm is done when a foreign culture, especially a colonial one, imposes its own simplistic translations of Sanskrit.
Even greater is the harm when the natives of a colonized culture adopt these foreign translations – a process that is often gradual and subtle, and achieved with rewards of upward mobility offered by the dominant culture.
When a word with contextually determined meanings is reduced to merely one of its many meanings, it is like assigning a specific constant value to an algebraic variable, and thereby eliminating its usefulness as a variable. If someone translates “cuisine = McDonalds,” or “x = 5” when x is defined to be any real number between 0 and 10, then the reduction is a violence to the thing being represented.
Following are some examples of common reductions of Indic culture, where the contextual meaning is lost, and a simple and fixed meaning is imposed, so as to map it to the Eurocentric framework.
For openers, Ishwar is not God. Of course, both Hindus and Christians believe in one Supreme Reality, but the conception of each one is rather different. While Hindus celebrate the multiplicity of conceptions (as internal pluralism), the Abrahamic religions demand mono-conception (which they equate with monotheism). Ishvara has countless forms in which he is manifested inside the cosmos affording an individual access via his/her personal choice of form. But God is said to get very pissed off at “graven images” of Him, according to Abrahamic religions.
The Abrahamic Supreme Being is a male, angry and jealous God, with pathological notions such as Eternal Damnation that drive people into terrible obsessions in order to get “saved.” The Abrahamic God intervenes in history very rarely, and hence ends up privileging some tribe or community exclusively over all others.
If “Ishvara = God” were to be valid, then it would have to be an equality in both directions. Lets take the mapping “God à Ishvara.” This would mean that Jesus would be son of Ishvara. But Ishvara does not have such a son, and in order to preserve the integrity of the Indic narrative about Ishvara, we would have to say that Jesus is an Avatara of Ishvara. However, this is unacceptable to the Church, as it would mean the relativization of Jesus as one of many Avataras, and hence, would remove the need for a Hindu to convert to Christianity. Hindus would simply be able to say, “No, thank you. We already have Jesus as an Avatar in our current system.”
Furthermore, where would Mary, as Jesus’ mother, and the Virgin Birth be accommodated in the Indic narratives about Ishvara? Also, God has an enemy (i.e. the Devil), requiring the mobilization of humanity against him. Where would God’s “other” be accommodated in the Indic system? While God has an enemy on whom all evil gets blamed, Ishvara includes both good and evil internally, and hence, there is nobody external comparable to the Devil.
When Christians talk about these “equalities,” they assume that their Christian myth is sustained intact with the Indic narratives being distorted to fit into the Christian frame of reference. But this would do great violence to the worldview and integrity of Indic Traditions, reducing them to an Indianized Christianity.
My point is not that a merger of Hindu and Christian worldviews and myths is impossible[11]. In fact, I find such possibilities very interesting and promising to pursue. However, I emphasize that this cannot be a simplistic equation in the name of political correctness, as is often the case. It has major ramifications to the relative positioning of the faiths involved. This would have to be a large project, with scholars from both sides working as peers – a friendly merger negotiation, and not a hostile takeover.
Similarly, devas are not gods, and devis are not goddesses. Also, Agni deva is not fire, but is symbolized by it. Murtis are not idols.
Shiva is not destroyer, but more like transformer, moving beings upwards in the evolution of consciousness. This is why Shiva is conceptualized as the lord of dance, yoga, enlightenment, and mysticism. This upward evolution entails “dissolution” of the falsely constructed mental frame of reference (maya), and this dissolution is quite different from everyday “destruction.” Shiva’s transformation is a set of deconstruction processes similar to, but going further than, postmodern deconstructions.
Atman is not soul, because of reincarnation and because of atman’s identity with Brahman (whereas soul does not reincarnate, and “soul = God” is blasphemy in most Abrahamic religions’ interpretations). Moksha and nirvana are not Salvation, because the latter is an escape from Eternal Damnation into Heaven, concepts that are very Abrahamic.
Shakti is not energy, as energy is but one form of shakti. Akash is not the same as space or sky. Rasa is another term with no Western equivalent, and hence untranslatable except via a thick description[12].
Lingam is not the same as phallus, and has a complex spectrum of meanings. Tantra is not sex.
Prana is not breath. There are many levels of prana, including in the unmanifest levels. Physical breath is a correlate of prana, and hence a way to influence and regulate prana.
There is no Sanskrit word “Aryan” – a noun referring to a race or ethnicity. The Sanskrit word is “arya,” which is an adjective referring to a quality of nobility. What are popularly known as Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths are, in the Sanskrit version, called the four arya truths. But this term does not refer to any race, as was misinterpreted by 19th century German Indologists in order to construct an ancient “Aryan” heritage for themselves. Surely there is no race called “tennis champion” or “good singer” – but if Wimbledon were to become controlled by an ethnic group (to stretch the imagination), then in the 30th century they might define themselves as the Tennischamps race.…you have a picture of what happened in 19th century German Indology.
Kshatriya and brahmin are job descriptions, representing duties that roughly correspond to leadership in matters of state and religion, respectively – and hence serve as a built-in balance between socio-political affairs and spiritual quest. The British mistranslations of Sanskrit texts over-emphasized the other worldly aspects, to glorify the world negation amongst the Hindus, and to make it easy for Hindus to accept British rule. Therefore, Orientalist constructions did not focus on the kshatriya dharma, as that is very world engaging and affirming. The British construction of “Brahminism” was to position themselves as masters in charge of India’s progress.
“Brahminism” is a pejorative name for Hinduism, similar to using “Pope-ism” or “Bishopism” to refer to Christianity. It implies that Hinduism is simply a belief made up by brahmins, with no legitimacy of its own.
Brahman as the ultimate reality is often confused with a different but similarly sounding word, brahmin, which is a job description for a spiritual leader.
Varna is not caste, and in fact, the European term “caste” and its modern Indian manifestation are not the same as the varna system.
People fail to differentiate between srutis (which are eternal truths), and smritis (which are manmade constructions, such as the Manusmriti that is often used to prosecute Hinduism). Smritis are, therefore, entirely amendable. Srutis are not frozen canons either, as there is no unique or final revelation, in contrast with the Abrahamic revelations – Sri Aurobindo claimed to bring us new srutis in recent times, and so have many others. Therefore, neither category of Indic scripture is frozen, contrary to common misperception.
Karma is not fatalism. On the contrary, it is the only metaphysical system that gives an explanation of each individual’s unique predicaments at birth based entirely on the individual’s own free choices previously made. It extols free will and individual responsibility.
Hinduism is not Hindutva, because the latter is a modern political construction. Likewise, Indic Traditions are a superset of Hinduism.
Itihasa is neither history nor myth in the Western sense. As explained by Ranajit Guha, Puranetihasa is its own unique genre of text with no western equivalent[13].
This reduction of Indic concepts is consistent with Western tendencies to homogenize: Christianity asserts one path, one church, one book, and one conception of the divine. Marxism struggles to bring about a homogenous society as its Utopia. White Feminists impose their idea of womanhood upon all other women[14]. Multinationals, in the long run, collapse commerce into fewer brands and choices. Indic culture, on the other hand, did not view life as a zero-sum game.
Besides individual words that are mistranslated, entire Eurocentric models of thinking are superimposed in the study of Indic culture, without critical inquiry as to whether they are applicable. For example:
§ Monotheism Vs. polytheism as lens: Monotheism and polytheism are assumed to be mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories, through which all religions are made to pass. Furthermore, monotheism is falsely assumed to have started in Judaism, when, in fact, Upanishads, much earlier than Judaism, already included monotheism along with other ways to conceptualize the nature of ultimate reality. Also, Abrahamic religions have strains of polytheism as well, but this is downplayed.
§ Only one religion allowed per person: A census of religious beliefs in Japan showed that over 70% of the population believed in more than one religion at the same time. However, given the exclusivist nature of the three Abrahamic religions, it is simply assumed by them that a person may have only one religion at a given time. This exclusivism mentality with rigid boundaries was imposed via the British censuses of India, and has remained a standard in classifying Indians’ spiritual beliefs. However, Indic Traditions have a history of internal pluralism, similar to the Japanese experience mentioned, and it is only recently that external threats have created “boundaries” around India’s religions. For nearly two thousand years, for instance, Christians lived in the pluralist milieu in India, because at that time, there was no hegemony or expansionism from Church headquarters in the West to control spiritual thought in India. This point illustrates that strictly speaking, dharma is not religion.
§ Linear theories of history: The arbitrary theory that all human history has to fit the sequence: archaic à magical à mythical à rational à …., is one of the pillars of mainstream Eurocentrism[15]. Events in Europe were seen to fit into this linear “progress.” Hence, this pattern got universalized into a “law of history,” and imposed upon all humanity. Eurocentric accounts of world history are forced to fit into this grid, by hook or by crook, and whatever does not fit is simply omitted or excused away. One could equally and legitimately claim that this theory is the result of backward projection by expansionist and conquering people, who went about appropriating the physical, intellectual and spiritual assets of others. The view from the colonized peoples would not regard conquest as progress or as a measure of superiority.
§ “West = progressive/superior,” and “non-West = backward/inferior”: In the secular fields such as anthropology, sociology, women’s studies, etc. this view is sustained by carefully selecting the issues to be studied, and by filtering the evidence (a.k.a. fudging the facts), resulting in misrepresenting India’s social problems as being entirely indigenous and as the very essence of Indic Traditions.
§ Erasure of the positive aspects, while appropriating them at the same time: It is almost sacrilegious in academe to include classical India’s positive contributions to world science, technology, agriculture, medicine, linguistics, mathematics, city building, social theory; to many aspects of Christianity[16], the Industrial Revolution of Europe, modern psychology, new-age movements, eco-feminism, and so forth. For, acknowledging these would collapse the Eurocentric theories of the “miracle of European Modernity.”
This hegemony is sustained by asserting power over academics. For instance, the overwhelming majority of academic scholars of Hinduism are Judeo-Christians, whereas in the case of all other major world religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism) the majority of the scholars are from within the given religion. No civilization can afford to give a facilities management contract to someone else to manage its knowledge representation systems.
Meanwhile, the Hindutva movement, while claiming to lead the revival of Hinduism, has been obsessed with the politics of building one particular temple, while abandoning all the intellectual temples to neocolonial forces. Its scholars tend to be mainly from the Hindu orthodox scholastic traditions, with little capability to engage this global age. Its few “modern” scholars have been too narrow, and interested mainly in refuting the “Aryan” theories. Consequently, the Hindutva’s overall perspective is very limited and intellectually shallow. It misfired in its attempt to bring Indian Classics into higher education, because of its silly choice of astrology as door opener. Blaming Muslims and Christians for all sorts of problems has often diverted from pressing internal issues facing Hinduism. A complete deconstruction of the ineptness of the “Hindu response” is going to be the subject of a separate essay.
PART 2: The Brown (Mem)sahibs[17]
This part illustrates that many Indian anti-colonial thinkers are themselves neocolonialists, for it is they who are propagating a Eurocentric representation system of knowledge and discourse. In particular, I discuss five categories of contemporary brown (mem)sahibs: (1) historians; (2) writers of English Literature; (3) South Asianized Indian American professors and journalists; (4) NGOs[18]; and (5) India’s post-independence rulers.
Eurocentrism and Indian History
My first category of neocolonial brown (mem)sahibs is Romila Thapar and her dozens of former history students, who often guard the India and/or Hindu bashing fortresses at many American university departments, but who lack an education in Sanskrit and Indian Classics. They compensate for this deficiency with an overdose of Marxist and/or Eurocentric historiographies, often camouflaged as Subaltern studies. Ronald Inden explains how postcolonial Indian scholars have fallen into this trap:
“With the rise of identity politics, ‘postcolonial’ historians have shifted away from imagining class and national unities in India’s past and have started pointing to diversities, but many of these studies have a tendency to recuperate the older colonialist imaginings of India. Representations of the systematic mistreatment of women (patriarchy), the exploitation of the young (child labour), domination by a parasitic Brahman caste of Aryan descent, discrimination by castes (untouchability), and the triumphalism of an atavistic Hinduism reiterate the earlier images of India as an inherently and uniquely divided and oppressive place[19].”
These scholars hate being characterized as Eurocentrics, because that would run counter to their status as anti-colonialists and pro-Subaltern. Yet, they denigrate the sacred traditions of the very subaltern people for whom they claim to speak.
Inden explains the colonial origins of the presuppositions of India that are now commonly accepted by Indian scholars. His very important book, from which the following passages are excerpted, should be required reading for every student of India, in order to understand the origins of today’s neocolonialism:
“I wish to make possible studies of ‘ancient’ India that would restore the agency that those [Eurocentric] histories have stripped from its people and institutions. Scholars did this by imagining an India kept eternally ancient by various Essences attributed to it, most notably that of caste[20].”
“I will argue that Euro-American Selves and Indian Others have not simply interacted as entities that remain fundamentally the same. They have dialectically constituted one another. Once one realizes the truth of this, he or she will begin to see that India has played a part in the making of nineteenth and twentieth century Europe (and America) much greater than the ‘we’ of scholarship, journalism, and officialdom would normally wish to allow. The subcontinent was not simply a source of colonial riches or a stage-setting in which Western hunters could stalk tigers, the sons of British merchants and aristocrats could make a financial killing, or the spiritualist find his or her innermost soul (or its Buddhist absence). More than that, India was (and to some extent still is) the object of thoughts and acts with which this ‘we’ has constituted itself. European discourses appear to separate their Self from the Indian Other – the essence of Western thought is practical reason, that of India a dreamy imagination, or the essence of Western society is the free (but selfish) individual, that of India an imprisoning (but all-providing) caste system. But is this really so? To be sure, these discourses create a strange, lop-sided complementarity between the Western Self and its Indian Other. Yet the consequence of this process has been to redefine ourselves. We have externalized exaggerated parts of ourselves so that the equally exaggerated parts we retain can act out the triumph of the one over the other in the Indian subcontinent. We will be unhampered by an otherworldly imagination and unhindered by a traditional, rural social structure because we have magically translated them to India[21].”
“The effect of these wild fabrications of the nineteenth-century European imagination was to give pre-eminence to caste, the type of society epitomizing at once both constraint and excess, as opposed to the freedom and moderation of Western civil society, and to the lone renouncer rather than the individual-in-society. The result was not, as scholars often claimed, to depict India ‘as it was’. Indologists’ desires to elevate their West by denigrating this Indian Other were not, however, fulfilled simply by turning it into the land of Hindu castes and fakirs. Theirs was an imperial project that entailed the wholesale intellectual deconstitution of Indian economic and political institutions,….[22]”
“My main argument, then, is that the agency of Indians, the capacity of Indians to make their world, has been displaced in those knowledges on to other agents. The makers of these knowledges have, in the first instance, displaced the agency of the Indians on to one or more ‘essences’, and in the second instance on to themselves. The essences that they have imagined have been caste, the Indian mind, divine kingship, and the like. Although several generations of scholars have characterized and valued these essences in a variety of ways, they have for the most part considered them as somehow inferior, at least in the sense of explaining why India ‘lost out’ to the West. Since the civilization of India has been governed, they assume, by these dubious essences from the moment of its origin, that civilization’s place in the world has been, so to speak, predetermined from the beginning. Lacking the essences taken to be characteristic of the West – the individual, political freedom, and science – Indians did not even have the capacity on their own to know these essences. They did not, so one would have to conclude, have the capacity to act in the world with rationality. The European scholars and their doubles, the colonial administrators and traders, assumed for themselves the power to know these hidden essences of the Other and to act upon them. They would act both for themselves and for the Indians. Lest we think these practices affected only India, we should consider that the West’s image of itself as the epitome of the modern has depended, for two hundred years, on these changing portrayals of India as the embodiment of the ancient[23].”
While Black American scholars and Native American scholars have made considerable progress in rewriting the portrayal of their people for American textbooks[24], Indian historians remain too invested in Marxist and Subalternist grand narratives of “Hindu oppression.” In this narrative, the Evil Brahmin plays the role of the elite bourgeoisie, and the Dalits and women are mobilized to play as the Oppressed Proletariat. Indian postcolonial thought has dislocated itself from Indian Classics. Therefore, even when criticizing Western hegemony, they are stuck with the use of Western theories.
Since the colonialists plays the Bad Guy, these scholars locate pre-colonial “real India” in Mughal India. The 10th to 15th century period of pre-Mughal Islamic plunder is quickly glossed over. Anything prior to 10th century Islam is superficially treated, except for what is assumed to have been brought into India by other generous foreigners – the so-called Aryans, the Greeks, and many others. The self-serving meta-theory in which these historians are invested, simply forbids the possibility of positive indigenous developments[25].
Furthermore, for political correctness, and to keep their “secular” ratings high, the well-documented genocides of Hindus are suppressed. This is in sharp contrast with the way Black slavery, Jewish holocaust and Native American genocide are mainstream topics and emphasized in American school textbooks[26].
Instead of being suppressed as politically incorrect, a dispassionate treatment of past atrocities would enable today’s Indians of all religions to distance themselves from historical genocides, and to forge a common identity as Indians. After all, it was the invading Muslims who plundered the native Indians, and the Indian Muslims today are mainly descendents of the natives and not of the invaders. For Indian Muslims, it would be far better to get rooted in Indian civilization, which is eclectic and flexible enough to include Islamic thought very hospitably, rather than identifying themselves as part of a pan-Persian and/or pan-Arab diaspora. (In a recent discussion with an Iranian scholar, I learnt that one of the key reasons why Iran is Shiite Muslim rather than Sunni Muslim is that Iranians refuse to Arabize their culture and identity. Recently, many Iranian Islamic scholars have renewed their interest in Zoroastrianism and pre-Islamic Iranian civilizations, which have a family resemblance with Vedic civilization. While the Arabs erased pre-Islamic knowledge systems as best as they could, the Iranians have tried to preserve their pre-Islamic language and culture, and have incorporated it into their reinterpretations of Islam. Indian Muslims could revive a similar trend, started by Akbar and Dara Shikoh, to fuse Islam with Indian Classics[27].)
While the focus by many scholars has been on the negative stereotypes of Indic Traditions, they have failed to adequately treat their many positive contributions, especially those that have been appropriated by the West[28].
Another serious gap in Indian historiography is the lack of a thorough history of Hinduism. This work would show that Hinduism was developed and constructed over a considerable period of time, and has not been frozen (as some “essences”) in a lofty past. The importance of this to present day Hinduism would be to challenge many Hindus today who locate its perfection in some past era. This backward revival, as opposed to forward construction, is the result of not appreciating that Hinduism has had a long history of change, progress, and development in response to circumstances. A philosophy that has historically progressed can also have future progression, whereas one that has remained fixed is locked in orthodoxy.
Since religion, especially Hinduism, has been explained away as an obsolete need, not only do many historians fail to respect it and to understand its basic tenets, but they rely on socio-political theories according to which modernization would put an end to this scourge of humanity. Therefore, most scholars have failed to interpret the recent events in India and elsewhere in the world concerning the enormous popularity of religions.
For instance, it is commonly said by them that: (a) the BJP came to power; (b) this led to the TV Ramayana serial; (c) which, in turn, led to the uprising of popular Hindu sentiments; and (d) this culminated in the Ram Temple controversy at Ayodhya.
However, this chronology is false, made up to fit the theories. The TV Ramayana actually occurred before the BJP came to power. This TV serial’s massive success was caused not by the BJP but by the sentiments of Hindus, who had been suppressed for decades by a false notion of secularism. This revival of Hinduism at the grass roots is what led to the rise of the BJP.
For its part, the BJP took political advantage of the opportunity created by this oppression of popular religion. (They frittered it away on misguided causes, in my opinion, but that is another story.) The BJP’s rise to power was not the cause of the revival of Hindu sentiments, but the result of it. I witnessed similar religious revivals in Eastern Europe and ex-USSR, after the collapse of communism.
Ranajit Guha’s recent call to take the Indian Puranas seriously as a way to excavate an indigenous sense of history, is courageous and loud, and especially important since it comes from the very founder of the Subaltern Movement[29]. Guha is a living legend amongst “secular progressives,” the description under which the former Marxist thinkers of India now operate. He writes (and also says in his talks) that India’s itihas needs to be taken very seriously to excavate its sense of indigenous history.
Guha explains how itihas is a unique genre of literature, that cannot be called either Western style “history” or “myth.” Rather than being a history of mainly kings and armies, it is a repository of culture at the grass roots. Nor is itihas a fixed set of archetypal myths, because the audience participates in its unfolding in the present context, interpreting and adapting it over time. One hopes, given the bandwagon effect so important amongst Indian historians, that Guha’s U-Turn will also encourage a rethinking by other Indian historians.
Historiography and Nation (Un)building
History writing has been used both to build nations and to dismantle them.
China’s government has championed and funded major programs worldwide to promote a history of China that is constructed as being self-contained and insular, with minimum outside influences discussed. This account starts with Confucianism and Taoism as original pillars of Chinese thought[30]. Even contemporary communist ideology is depicted as a continuation of Confucianism and not entirely as a recent foreign transplant into China.
Modern Germany and Japan are also prominent examples of nation building based on constructing an integrated account of their own civilization, history and identity. The European Union is a major new project in the same direction. All these are examples of backward projection by a contemporary sense of positive cohesiveness.
History has never been an objective reporting of a set of empirical facts. It’s a present day (re)conception and filtering of data pertaining to the past, to build a narrative that is consistent with the myths of the dominant culture.
The Saudis invest petrodollars heavily to promote a grand positive narrative of the Arab people and their central place in the destiny of humanity. In fact, the export of Wahhabi Islam is largely a cultural export of Arabism, using religion as a means.
Scholarship is also used in the opposite manner. Imagine a hypothetical scenario, just by way of analogy, in which the USA is colonized by an alien civilization for several centuries. After successfully draining out the massive material and intellectual property, the colonizers finally leave, but a neocolonialism is installed as their control device. Having become immensely wealthier than their former colony, these aliens control the study of Americanology, with a focus on deconstructing the nation’s sense of unity. They sponsor chairs, museums and textbook portrayals that separate out various parts of American culture into conflicting entities: Blacks are encouraged to fight Americanism in the same manner as Dalits in India are being encouraged; women are encouraged to follow the footsteps of their alien women; Mormonism is encouraged as anti-Christian; American Muslims (who by them comprise a significant portion of the US population) are not treated as being Americans; and so forth.
This analogy is relevant because the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has removed Indian art of the Mughal period and placed it in a separate section called, “Islamic Art[31].” Museums in many American cities have separated out Sikhism from the rest of India into its own section for display, and have many cultural programs focusing on it. It is quite fashionable in Asian Studies, Women’s Studies, and especially in South Asian Studies, to have separate “Dalitism” scholarship. All this has become wrapped around serious works on India as being mainly about caste, with all other items of civilization being brought in from elsewhere.
The reality of India is that it is both these: an integration of indigenous and assimilations from elsewhere. This process continues till today. It is the same as with any other civilization. The problem is that in the case of India the imported aspects are exaggerated and the indigenous aspects are largely erased.
While each rich and powerful civilization emphasizes its indigenous cohesiveness and continuity, and with scholarship under control of those loyal to it, the reverse is the trend among the economically weak civilizations such as India. In the case of Indian civilization, the scholars’ emphasis has been on how there might not even be such a historical entity as India or Hinduism, and how its civilization was entirely brought by foreigners into India.
This intellectual breakup of Indic Traditions into historical layers of cultural imports, each with a nexus in some other part of the world, is the intellectual equivalent of the political breakup of India. That so many Indian have sold out to this project is certainly noteworthy, and is a major untold story of our times. In the long run, it is tempting for the West to assimilate this last remaining non-Western knowledge system, and breaking it into digestible modules facilitates this. However, the havoc that such a potential breakup would unleash would also be of catastrophic global proportions[32]. Furthermore, the future positive harvests that this civilization is capable of giving to the world would end.
By falsely portraying Indic traditions as anti-modern, the West and its Indian sepoys[33] have forced many Indians into the false dichotomy of tradition vs. progress. While the historical, revelation-based Abrahamic religions demand belief in a canonized dogma (placing religion and science in direct conflict), no such dichotomy between Indian dharmas and science occurred. This is because Indic Traditions accept an endless series of discoveries, and not just one unique event, and because the classical Indian role models are very often those of skeptics, free-spirited thinkers, and intense debaters arguing against established ideologies. Given its methodologies of discovering new knowledge, known as pramanas, dharma is progressive, and requires change and reformation as part of its on going process. It has become artificially frozen only in recent centuries, and this needs to be unfrozen so that the indigenous engine of progress and renaissance may resume.
For removal of doubt, I am against homogenized religion or homogenized ideas of nation, because that would run counter to the spirit and reality of dharma. Furthermore, I am against any marginalization of minorities, including Dalits, Indian Muslims and Christians. My contention is that just as Greek thought was appropriated to construct diverse and progressive thinking in Europe, and thereby bring about the Renaissance of Europe, it seems to be a promising project to use Indian Classics as the foundation for a universally applicable Indic worldview and renaissance.
The issues discussed in this essay have caused inner conflicts and schisms in Thapar’s Children, that are often written on their faces. This is why their preprogrammed defense mechanisms instinctively flare up – shouting “fundamentalist,” “nationalist,” and so forth – when they are merely questioned on the legitimacy of their qualifications as scholars of India. Inadvertently, and often with good intentions, they continue to feed what might be called Gentooism Studies[34].
The influence of Thapar’s Children in the Western world is considerable. Almost every year, they fly their icon around the world for speaking tours at prestigious campuses, where her cult-like former students are well fed gatekeepers. They make sure that no opposing voice is included on the panels – hardly an academically sound approach. At one of her talks last year, someone from the audience had the courage to ask her whether she knew Sanskrit and whether she had read the original texts, or whether she relied mainly on European sources for her scholarship. Very angry at this “rudeness,” she dismissed the question by saying that she “only answers questions from academically qualified persons.” Clearly, since she did not know the woman in the audience, Thapar had no way of assuming that this person was not an academician, except for the fact that only an outsider to the cult and its sphere of control would dare ask such a question.
The American academe considers her and her former students as the authorities on India. Any challenge to this hegemony of the brown (mem)sahibs is met with fierce personal attacks.
‘Brown Shame’ in English Literature
Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry (of Oprah fame), Bharati Mukerji, and others of this new genre of English language Indian writers, are my second category of neocolonial brown (mem)sahibs.
They rake in their money and awards spinning a reinforcement of the caste, cows and curry meta-narratives of India. This is to be contrasted with recent Bollywood blockbusters, such as Lagaan, that have depicted the cross-cultural relationship from the Indian perspective, and hence, catered to popular Indian audiences. These writers, on the other hand, are not read by India’s masses, whom they pretend to represent. It is the Western reader, seeking to fortify his/her Eurocentric myth of superiority, who endorses such work. These authors serve as brown-skinned suppliers for the kind of Orientalism previously done by whites such as Kipling. Their work is widely prescribed in American colleges, as insightful approaches into the complexity of exotic India, in a friendly fictionalized manner. It is taken more seriously than it deserves to be, because the publishers are falsely marketing these authors as the real voices of India.
The triumphant myth of the West expands, and these authors get amply rewarded for their contribution to the progressive march of Western civilization. In effect, these are the intellectual equivalents of the sepoys who policed the British Empire with great loyalty and pride, and, in exchange, got rewarded by being upgraded to a tier above the rest of the Indians whom they helped to subjugate.
Noy Thrupkaew, an American feminist reviewer, takes Indian women authors to task for supplying the stereotype of the “hard-bitten, angst-ridden Asian-American protagonists who had ostentatious sex by page 30.” She continues: “But if Asian women weren’t screwing, the publishing world wanted them suffering (and maybe bravely triumphing after they got themselves to the United States). The Asian historical memoirs were based on a simple formula: Asia was hell; the United States is a hell of a lot better. ….the Asian-hell-to-Western-heaven motif leaves a U.S. reader in a nicely complacent spot: reclining in a La-Z-Boy and thinking, ‘Well, thank god for America![35]‘”
This has become a bandwagon on which many Indian women authors want to hitch a ride to instant success. What used to be the White Woman’s Burden has, in many instances, been taken over as the Brown Woman’s Burden. But Thrupkaew is suspicious:
“Is this author exoticizing her ethnicity? Is she just feeding the public more stereotypes of lotus-blossom ladies and guacamole-hipped mamas? If she’s inaccurate or exceptionally critical or dewy-eyed in depicting the culture of her forebears, is it done in a way that suits the general public’s fixed ideas? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes,’ then there’s a problem.”
While a few manage to climb to the top, the ultimate fate of most of these authors is to remain below the glass ceiling, while their white sisters smile from above. Thrupkaew points to the faddish nature of the American reader, as she writes: “At its worst, South Asian and South Asian-American writing is just like tasty Indian food – to be chewed, digested, and excreted without a lot of thought.” Yet this craving for legitimacy and honorary white status is too attractive and irresistible for many. (“Western” is often a politically correct equivalent of what was previously called “white.”)
Richard Crasta, a Christian from Mangalore, India, explains how the neocolonial process is working here: “In its choice of the Eastern writers it will patronize – or not patronize – Western publishing is only following the traditional strategy of conquerors towards a conquered race: unsex the men, ‘liberate’ the women, reward and honor the eunuchs or race-traitors, thus letting them keep their untamed brothers in check. If the conquered women and men don’t get along as a result, so much the better….[36]”
Many Indians have learnt to play the game, explains Crasta: “[M]ilking the West has become a major Third World industry, art, or con game – one that we must master merely to survive. We are practiced milkers, and we’ll do almost anything, say almost anything, act any degrading role that’s called for – all for a drop of the gleaming, life-giving, white stuff.[37]”
But Crasta warns his fellow Indian writers of the dangers of trying to cross the glass ceiling: “This Western carrot of acceptance and riches is accompanied by a stick: Do not cross the boundaries. Always remember your place.…[T]he carrot and stick are so discreetly transferred by Third World writers onto their internal censor that they are often unconscious of their own self-censorship.[38]”
The harm this is causing is very serious, says Crasta:
“Ethnic shame is the opposite of ethnic pride … and it is a sublime example of the success of colonialism in co-opting us in our own subversion, and in our alienation from our culture and our earth, and ultimately the extinction of our own culture…. Educated Indians feel that they must apologize for every Indian who spits or shits by the roadside, for India’s official corruption, for the poor quality of Indian manufactured goods, for our repeated defeats by foreign conquerors, for our dirt and disease and poverty, now and forever. Faced with such a burden, it is no wonder that some Indians succumb to the temptation of simply denying their Indian origins….Why is ethnic shame such a serious matter, and not just some personal oddity? Because it contributes to our collusion with the forces that tend to make us invisible in a foreign society…. But there are other, more serious reasons for our shame, no doubt: the Western media’s and the American people’s association of India with highly negative images…. The India Haters Club is growing larger and larger, and its largest contingent is probably the millions of Indians for whom a few bitter experiences of betrayal have pushed them over the edge into self-hatred: Yes, my skin is brown, but my soul is white.[39]”
Most eminent Indian postcolonial and literary theorists, such as Homi Bhabha, Gaytri Spivak and Dipesh Chakrabarty, lack formal education in Indian Classics to help their work, even though considerable classical Indian thought anticipated postmodernism and takes those notions even deeper. Gerald Larson correctly assesses:
“The problem with subaltern theorizing is that it is intellectually derivative from post-modernist and post-structuralist western ‘critical theory’ and thereby runs the risk of being little more than a kind of Neo-Orientalist theorizing.[40]”
This growing genre of uniquely Indian Eurocentrism is simultaneously stupid and gifted, living paradoxically on an ivory tower. These young English language writers are of a new breed, often with revulsion to anything even remotely connected with Hinduism. As typical Macaulayites, they see nothing in Hinduism except for inequality between castes and burning of women. The paradox is that they are also sharp and acute critics of the dominance of the whites, colonialism, neocolonialism, corporate greed of America, etc. In other words, they have memorized well the rhetoric of Marxism, nowadays reinvented as “the leftist progressive circle.” But they are dislocated individuals from their souls and, like all loose canons, present dangerous implications.
While masters at deconstructing everything pertaining to British colonialism, what can these scholars replace it with? Answer: nothing that is prior to the Muslim invasion of India. Since the British period was cruel, and pre-Mughal India is dismissed as primitive (except for Buddhism which got intellectually moved from India over to East Asian Studies), what is seen as positive Indian culture is Mughal centric! In these minds, India’s worthwhile culture starts only when the Muslims colonized it.
The reason is simple: they lack knowledge of Indian Classics, and find it very embarrassing when this is pointed out to their white cohorts, because American liberal education includes a solid foundation in the Western Classics. Imagine telling an American liberal arts college to get rid of the Greek Classics, because the Greeks were primitive, pagan, and slave-owners.
This is the lie that these scholars live behind: the pretence that they are authentic ambassadors and representatives of Indian culture, when, in fact, they represent the West’s successful mental colonization of India. Hence, their neurosis and anger, when this contradiction gets exposed.
Their fierce public fight against the dominant culture is a reaction to their shadow side that is unable to become the dominant culture. Hypothetically, if there were a FDA[41] approved gene therapy to change phenotypes into “white,” it is precisely this lot who would make a beeline for this ethnicity-changing procedure.
The frustration from being denied white status often gets an outlet via postcolonial studies. This is the syndrome that Richard Crasta has called “impressing the whites.” It is what Enrique Dussel, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and many others explain as the process by which the dominant culture appropriates a tier of intellectuals from the colonized culture, to serve as proxies in intellectually ruling over the masses. In exchange for this loyalty to the dominant culture, these Uncle Toms receive a considerably enhanced position, various rewards, and a sort of neo-white status.
It is to be remembered that 99% of all bullets fired and all police atrocities committed during the British Empire were done by Indian Sepoys under British command. Interestingly, the Chinese did not make good sepoys, because they refused to sell out. The Blacks had to be physically chained to enslave them. But Indians volunteered with great pride.
Today, the Indian Sepoy archetype, found in the Western academe and journalism, often does the dirty intellectual work. Their role on behalf of the dominant culture is to supply the myth of the “other” in a way that fits into the dominant culture’s grand narrative of itself. Rather than glorifying their success, the sooner their readers start to publicly call their lie, the better.
(As an interesting side remark, Lalit Mansingh, India’s Ambassador to USA, gave his speech at a major Hindu event in English. He can only give speeches in English[42].)
The “South Asian” Syndrome
SAJA (South Asian Journalists Association) has influenced the movement to “South Asianize” young Indian Americans when they leave home and enter American colleges. SAJA runs on a clever marketing scheme: journalists from prestigious American media firms are brought on to the advisory board to give SAJA legitimacy, in exchange for enhancing their personal resumes as being “India experts.” Annual SAJA Awards, sponsored by corporations seeking to impress the Indian diaspora, are given to create role models of young journalists, who have often accomplished little other than championing the ideals of SAJA – Somini Sengupta is one recent example. This mechanism feeds itself. The SAJA internet discussion lists are carefully censored to filter out opposing views, even disallowing responses to direct personal attacks.
Many Indian journalist (mem)sahibs also serve as chowkidars (gatekeepers) for the West, as Crasta explains:
“Indeed, many of these immigrants are so terrified of voices that may offend the Masters that they will themselves act as filtering devices, as local policemen or toughs. Organizations like the Asia Society, South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), and many ethnic newspapers regularly act as cheerleaders for those Indians who have impressed the whites, and as bouncers to keep their scruffy and impolite brethren from disrupting the harmony: on one occasion even trying to drop a ‘trouble-making’ Indian author from the program at the Asia Society[43].”
SAJA is but a small node of a vast South Asian movement on American campuses. The South Asian movement carefully hides the fact that this term was invented by Henry Kissinger as part of the Cold War foreign policy to contain the non-NATO world. The South Asian Studies departments across the US have been funded ever since by “Title VI Grants” from the US State Department, intended to promulgate and promote a theory of that “area” in order to support US foreign policy. Edward Said analyzed this and wrote that besides the military, the Western powers also have “armies of scholars at work politically, militarily, ideologically.”
The following quote from a governmental report describes why the US Department of Defense invests in the social sciences to understand and reengineer the “others”: “The Armed Forces are no longer engaged solely in warfare…. For many countries throughout the world, we need more knowledge about their beliefs, values, and motivations; their political, religious, and economic organizations; and the impact of various changes or innovations upon their socio-cultural patterns. …”[44]
The same report recommends specific kinds of social research and reengineering, and one can find in this list many projects that are being carried out in the US academe and via NGOs in India. Never has the Indian media done an investigative report on why the US Defense Department is to be served by Indian scholars in this manner:
“The following items are elements that merit consideration as factors in research strategy for military agencies. Priority Research Undertakings: (1) methods, theories and training in the social and behavioral sciences in foreign countries. …(2) programs that train foreign social scientists. …(3) social science research to be conducted by independent indigenous scientists. … (4) social science tasks to be conducted by major U.S. graduate studies in centers in foreign areas. …(7) studies based in the U.S. that exploit data collected by overseas investigators supported by non-defense agencies. The development of data, resources and analytical methods should be pressed so that data collected for special purposes can be utilized for many additional purposes. … (8) collaborate with other programs in the U.S. and abroad that will provide continuing access of Department of Defense personnel to academic and intellectual resources of the ‘free world.’”
Over 90% of the students who get sucked into the South Asian movement on US campuses are Indians. On the other hand, most Pakistanis are unabashed about their identity, and join Islamic organizations. Even in the UK, where the Indian community is far older than in the US, there is no South Asian movement on campuses. Finally, nobody in India identifies himself/herself as being “South Asian.”
An American academic scholar, who publicly identifies himself as a Hindu, complains about many of his cohorts in South Asian Studies:
“It is very sad that those who once supported free thinking and spirituality now support political correctness and Marxism. I find that the South Asianists on this campus, both westerners as well as the Indians (who are almost exclusively from high caste, urban elite families) and Pakistanis (also ALL from wealthy families) have, for the most part, a real hatred of Hinduism specifically, and religion in general. Because I am not ANTI-Hindu, which ‘good’ scholars here are supposed to be these days, I was long ago labeled a fundamentalist and relegated to the fringe. Whenever there is a conference on South Asia, I am not invited. [But] it is okay because I have a tenured position[45].”
Finally, Dinesh D’Souza, who recently wrote in praise of colonialism, as being a great gift to the colonized people[46], is a product of the South Asian movement.
NGOs as Foreign Proxies
Susantha Goonatilake, a Sri Lankan scholar, has completed a comprehensive study of his country’s NGOs and plans to publish his findings in a major book soon. His conclusions stated to me may be paraphrased as follows. Sri Lanka has been destroyed largely by the foreign funded NGOs operating there. Local scholars do what the sponsors demand, and hence serve as foreign proxies. This is remote-controlled neocolonialism of sorts. Goonatilake says that the same phenomenon has also happened to a fair extent in Bangladesh. But India, he says, is simply too large and resilient to be taken over, and has managed to survive despite all such activities.
It is this kind of NGO mentality that sends speakers to International conferences and to foreign media, so as to sensationalize and “expose” the internal social problems of India. While many NGO staff members and scholars are immersed into the Hindu and India phobia movement, there are also a large number who are simply sucked into this out of sheer ignorance, or out of the temptation for foreign travel and various grants as rewards. Many NGOs are the fifth column of Stealth Eurocentrism.
While the agenda of neocolonialism is rarely visible in the grant agreements, everyone experienced in this cottage industry knows what reports are “correct” to produce, in order to keep the foreign funds flowing. Those who resist “selling out” are weeded out by the sponsors in a Darwinian game in which fitness is defined in terms of anti Indic Traditions.
This explains why so many internal social problems of India get internationalized with the help of Indians, even though the international forums have no capability or track record in actually resolving these issues. Where domestic mechanisms already exist to resolve these matters, they are simply bypassed and their existence is simply ignored. It is a pitiable sight to see these nouveau and neo Westerners sign up as enthusiastic carriers of exotic gobar (bullshit) on their stupid little heads, from one event to another. Many of the problems mentioned in this essay would not be possible without Indian NGOs aiding and abetting neocolonialism.
The “Sixth International Conference on Dowry, Bride-Burning and Son-Preference” to be held in 2003, is one such example. Its intellectual leadership comes from Western feminists[47]. The group’s first conference on the subject was held at Harvard University in 1995, where a “Six Point Program to Eradicate Dowry and Bride-Burning in India” was adopted. This Program was further revised at their subsequent conferences held at Harvard University and University of London. While the sponsors and scholars gained publicity for themselves, and continue to seek to “change mindset” on this issue, they admit that they have made no impact on the ground reality of this problem.
In sharp contrast with this are the many successful social reform movements from within the Indic Traditions. Madhu Kishwar describes in her talks how Western funded NGO feminists failed to make any dent in reforming rural property ownership biases against women, but that different movements run entirely using Indic principles and metaphors were very successful. The Swadhyaya movement is another great example of large scale reform, from within the culture, that is strengthening the indigenous knowledge systems rather than strengthening neocolonialism. There are also numerous successful examples of the practical use of traditional knowledge systems in areas such as water harvesting.
Colonial Style of Governance in India Today
Hinduism and Christianity each comprise over 80% of the populations of India and USA, respectively. Therefore, it is appropriate to compare the status of each of these in its respective country, in relation to other minority religions. Following are some comparisons that are seldom mentioned by scholars and journalists who analyze India’s religions:
§ Continuing the British colonial practice, Hindu temples in India today are under the trusteeship of civil servants appointed by the Government of India, many of whom are not even Hindus[48]. Therefore, when I give a donation at Tirupati, one of the largest Hindu temples in India, the money goes to the control of civil servants of the government, who then decide how it gets spent. However, the places of worship of all minority religions, such as Islam and Christianity, are entirely run by the management appointed by their respective members, with no governmental interference. By way of comparison, American Christians would never accept comparable discrimination against them. It is unthinkable that Churches in USA could come under the control and supervision of Federally appointed trustees, especially if non Christian religions would be exempted from this, simply as a way to prove the leaders’ “secularism.”
§ There is only one civil law in USA for all its citizens, regardless of religion. There is no such thing as a separate Jewish Law, or Catholic Law, or Mormon Law, or Protestant Law, or Muslim Law, and so forth, to govern the public life of Americans. The very thought of this is reprehensible to Americans. Yet, there is a separate and distinct Muslim Personal Law in India. This has been used by past politicians to grant religious minorities specific provisions. For instance, Indian Muslims may have four wives under Indian law, even in this 21st century – and yet it is fashionable for many intellectuals to defend this minority pampering law, rather than condemning it on grounds of human rights.
§ Imagine if the American affirmative action programs consisted of a list of hundreds of minority groups – including each named Native American tribe, Blacks, Hispanics, Italians, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Arabs, Indian Americans, Russians, etc. – with a percentage of college admissions, jobs, etc. as quotas reserved for each group. Imagine if these “groups” were categorized under British colonial rule, when the colonialists conducted censuses using sociological categories as per their biased understanding. Furthermore, imagine that these federally enforced social divisions were to become the basis for hundreds of political parties, each seeking votes from its ethnic group, and promising to lobby on its behalf to improve its “deal” with the State. Few Americans with whom I have discussed this are willing to believe that India’s affirmative action program is so ridiculous as this scenario suggests, and yet it is precisely this way. Rather than removing historical distinctions over a few generations, by making affirmative action on individual need and circumstances, this Indian “secular” approach has become the cause for divisiveness in India. Caste is the result of political structure, and, conversely, caste persists to fuel the political opportunities it has created.
§ “Faith Based Initiatives” is a recent US government program by the Bush administration, under which Federal grants are given to religious organizations in order to do social work. This has created a major stir, on two accounts: whether the government should be funding religious organizations at all; and to what extent it should fund minority religions. However, a very similar program has functioned in India very successfully ever since independence. Its characteristics are newsworthy[49]: (a) The majority of funds given under this program in India go to Christian and Muslim organizations, even though they comprise a minority. (b) This quantity given to minority religions has not declined, despite recent religious politics. (c) Nobody has complained about this state of affairs, as it is considered quite normal.
§ Tens of billions of dollars worth of land in India is owned by the Church, and in Mumbai, the Church is the second largest land owner, the largest being the Indian military. Most of this land was given under land grants by the British to the Church, and by subsequent Indian governments. Such generosity to a minority religion followed by only 2.5% of the Indian population has gone unreported. Given the foreign controlled nexus of the various Churches, this is tantamount to giving billions of dollars to subsidiaries of foreign entities that are engaged in social re-engineering of Indian society. The US government has never contemplated such generosity towards minority religions, especially those controlled from overseas.
§ Millions of India’s laborers and entrepreneurs who use Indian traditional knowledge systems are often deemed to be engaged in criminal activities by the government. Many British laws, enacted to de-industrialize India and to transfer manufacturing to Britain, persist today. Madhu Kishwar has started to raise awareness about this, by mediating and renegotiating the “ruler-ruled relations” in specific sectors of India’s economy. For instance, she has pointed out in an educational video, that metallurgical process pioneered in India centuries before the British learnt to make steel, and that had made India the world’s leading exporter of steel, remain criminalized today. Similarly, traditional civil engineering, once the basis for building India’s massive city complexes, is now outlawed in India. Government authorities constantly prosecute activities that are not compliant with Western norms, and treat India’s traditional style workers as common criminals.
Each of the above is a colonial legacy that the government has deepened even further. Indians have replaced British as the rulers of the masses, as colonizers of their own people.
Sitharam, a journalist in a major local vernacular publication in Bangalore, reflects on the ridiculous positions taken by many Indian “intellectuals” in the name of secularism and political correctness:
“It is a great tragedy in this country that words like Secularism, Sanatana Dharma, Social justice, uplifting of Dalits and so on, which are to be the considered greatest goals and ideals in any civil society,…. have become the playthings in the hands of petty politicians and anti-nationals who want to divide people to achieve self-gains even by throwing the society into unrest, and to warm themselves by lighting the pyres. The irony is that those mostly responsible for this state of affairs are the armchair intellectuals… Because of the irrational behavior of these intellectuals, it has now come to pass that anyone who wants to be recognized as secular, should be a professed leftist, and interpret society on a Minority-Majority basis or on Brahmin-Non Brahmin basis or Forward-Dalit basis. He, therefore, has to interpret, without using his critical faculties, any incident that occurs in the country so as to demonstrate that he is a leftist, an anti-Brahmin and a pro-Dalit. If not, he is at risk of being segregated and kept out of the coveted community of ‘Progressive intellectuals’. Now-a-days, to be considered as a member of the progressive intellectual community, it is not necessary as of yester years to be a scholar in Tarka, Vedanta or Mimamsa, or even geography, history or science,… It would suffice if he were committed to the above-mentioned policy…[50]”
This armchair intellectualism is often an exercise in juxtaposing ill-defined or inapplicable words. One such word worth deconstructing is “fundamentalist.” I have tried to get a definition of fundamentalism from armchair intellectuals, on the condition that we must then apply it equally to all parties, to ascertain as to whether a given party is fundamentalist or not. I have provided the following background to help this exercise:
1. If a literalist interpretation of ancient texts makes one a fundamentalist, as is the charge against those interpreting the Hindu Puranas in this manner, then the majority of American Christians and virtually all Muslims of the world, would have to declared as fundamentalists, because they do consider the Bible and Koran, respectively, in the literal sense.
2. If fundamentalism means believing that one’s own faith is the only true one, to the exclusion of all others, then, by definition, faiths based on unique historical revelations – the three Abrahamic religions – would be fundamentalist.
3. If “fundamentalism” is to mean an unwillingness to change, based on open-minded inquiry, then it is the same as “orthodoxy” (as contrasted with “liberalism”). In this case, most of the “Left” today is fundamentalist, because they are not liberal in the pursuit of new inquiry, and seem to thrive on repeating the liberal thoughts of icons of bygone eras.
4. If imposing one’s faith upon society at large is being discussed, then I would consider a better term to be “religious nationalism.” Every Islamic State, which means virtually every Muslim majority nation in the world, would qualify.
I have yet to receive a definition. It seems the term “fundamentalist” is being used for anyone who challenges the syndicated ideology of the incumbent group. Having said this, surely, there are intolerant Hindus, literalist Hindus, chauvinist Hindus, and so forth, as there are for any other ideology. But they cannot all be lumped under one umbrella.
PART 3: The Glass Ceiling
My previous Sulekha column, titled, “The Asymmetric Dialog of Civilizations,” based on a talk presented at the American Academy of Religion (2001) gives an overview of the role of the dominant culture, from above the glass ceiling. in creating and sustaining neocolonialism[51]. Therefore, I shall not replicate that information here.
Inden is quoted in Part 2 above explaining that the West used the “other,” and especially India, to define and construct itself. This happened both at physical and intellectual planes. The intellectual appropriation continues to this day.
The U-Turn process is my model for describing this appropriation, by which the West has been intellectually constructing itself, and it consists of the following stages:
1. Student/disciple: In this stage, the Westerner is very loyal to the Indic Traditions, and writes with the deepest respect. In many instances, India has helped the person to “find” himself/herself.
2. Neutral/new age/perennial territory: In this stage, Indic appropriations are repackaged as “original” claims by the scholar, and/or assumed as generic thoughts found in all cultures. In many instances, this is done in order to expand the market for the books, tapes and seminars, by separating from the negative image of “caste, cows and curry” traditions.
3. Hero’s return to the original tradition: The scholar brings the knowledge into Judaism or Christianity, so as enrich his/her own tradition, once the ego takes over and this identity asserts itself. Alternatively, the scholar repackages the material in secular vernacular, such as “Western psychology” or “phenomenology” or “scientific” framework. Now the sales mushroom, as the Western audiences rub their hands in glee, congratulating themselves for their culture’s sophistication.
4. Denigrating the source: At this stage are those scholars who specialize in trashing the source Indic Traditions.
5. Mobilizing the sepoys and becharis: I already defined sepoys as Indians who become proxies for Western sponsors. Becharis are women who overdo the “I have been abused” roles, so as to dramatize #4. Part 2 of this essay focused on them.
European colonial writers saw India as the theater where their European history was playing out, rather than viewing it from the Indians’ perspective. Likewise, may Judeo-Christian scholars use Hinduism Studies for their personal spiritual journey to enrich their native religion[52].
Not all stages take place in every case, and these stages might not happen in this exact sequence every time. Often, one scholar ends his/her career at a certain stage of this U-Turn process, and the successors continue further along this process[53]. It is important to note that Eurocentrism is most often unintentional and unconscious, because the person is so immersed in the myths of Westernism, that it is simply assumed to be the right thing to do[54].
This U-Turn has served as a way to plunder with one hand and denigrate the victim with the other. In earlier times, the Greeks appropriated much of “their” civilization from Egyptians. Christianity was built on Greek pagan ideas, but the pagans got condemned.
Therefore, subverting India’s Classics, while appropriating from them via a series of U-Turning scholars, is an important process for the sustenance of the myth of the West.
Some academic organizations, such as RISA (Religions In South Asia), remain as bastions of blatant Eurocentrism. See my “Asymmetric Dialog…” essay referenced above for details. Also, see my essay, “Who Speaks for Hinduism?[55]” These scholars control classrooms as forums, in which the students are often naïve and are not given viewpoints that challenge the scholars.
For instance, HCS (Hindu Christian Studies) was set up by academic scholars specifically to have a dialog between these two religions. But the discussions were centered mainly on Christian perspectives of Hinduism, along the lines of the “caste, cows and curry” themes. However, once a few Hindus tried to discuss information on caste in Indian Christianity, social abuses in Christian majority countries, etc., they were severely reprimanded by Lance Nelson, the scholar in charge of HCS. When this did not succeed, they threw out the Hindus, except for those who work under the Christians’ control, and even blocked public access to the discussion archive[56].
Likewise, RISA membership is closed to practicing Hindus, to Hindu pandits, gurus and swamis, even though it is the official scholarly body about religions of South Asia[57].
Both HCS and RISA give various excuses for behaving like the proverbial brahmins and treating the Hindus like shudras. For instance, they claim: (1) Practicing Hindus are not qualified to know about their own traditions[58]. (2) Most Hindus lack the critical thinking and/or the right “style” of presentation skills to merit entry amidst such lofty audiences. (3) It is for the Hindus’ own “good” to leave the controls with the Christians, so as to protect the Hindus from the Marxists. And so forth.
These “restricted” (and sometimes “secret”) societies use abusive language against those Hindus who try to bypassing the hegemony. The archive of these Hindu-bashing discussions is in the process of being researched for a series of future articles. Since their intended audience is not the well informed and self confident Hindu, they often get very embarrassed, afraid and/or angry when such Hindus discover their writings and start to read them publicly in front of large Hindu audiences.
Hindus’ loss of control over their own scholarship for centuries led to the “freezing” of a very vibrant tradition. While Christianity has progressed with constructive theologies (for instance, liberation theology), Hinduism scholarship has been under the trusteeship mainly of non-Hindus. Today, when Hindus re-interpret their texts to make them current with the times, they are dismissed as quacks, when all other major religions enjoy this privilege.
While literal Biblical interpretations are well respected, and this literalism is the belief of roughly half of all American Christians[59], when Hindus base their scholarship on literal interpretations of Puranas, they are condemned as “fascists”, “fundamentalists”, and so forth.
The academy does not encourage the use of Hindu categories to deconstruct and criticize Christianity, in the same manner as Christian hermeneutics are routinely used to deconstruct Hinduism.
It is simply expected of Hindus in the Western academic world to acknowledge acceptance of their servile place and be thankful for it. They are not entitled to the same rights to protest; nor is routine respect accorded – facts at variance with the rights and respect extended to Muslims and other minority religions in USA on their perseverance and demand. It is not surprising, therefore, that most Indian American Hindus confine their religious expression inside the walls of the 800 Hindu temples in North America, and “white Hindus” often prefer to hide their practice behind the new-age cover.
Got this from another forum. There is no link.
Islam’s Self-perpetuating Cycle of Violence and Fear
by Bob Smith
Would you wear a T-shirt with a Mohammad cartoon printed on it?
You might in Montana. Don’t try it in Mecca.
Why?Because, Islam trains its followers with extreme intolerance about anything, they deem, offensive to their creed particularly to Allah and Muhammad. Drawing Muhammad in image is one such deadly offense to Muslims. Islam’s devout followers even find it OK to kill any such offenders.
In Montana, you are unlikely to come across such potential Islamic killers.
In Mecca, you won’t last five minutes. Muslim mobs or an Islamic assassin would take you down almost instantaneously. It is as simple as that.
You don’t believe me? Give it a try or ask any Muslim!
This article is about such murderous Muslims and the fear they generate.
Islamic society is caught up in a self-replicating, endless cycle of violence and fear, driven by its most devout believers. The cycle goes like this.
The Violence
Islam preaches violence, including murder, of those who offend its creed. In each generation, the most devout believers turn to such potential murderers; they perpetuate the notion that it is OK to commit violence in the name of Islam. This becomes an endless cycle, because nobody in Islamic societies can oppose them; anyone, who may try to teach otherwise, would herself/himself be taken down.The Fear
In Muslim societies, all devout believers are such potential killers; they are spread all over the greater Islamic population (ummah). They cannot be easily identified: it means any devout believer anywhere could become instigated to killing someone for a perceived offense to Islam. Every Muslim is aware of this potential threat (fear) from the devout of Islam. As a result, all Muslims suffer from this fear; it drives the system, the society.The violence and fear that devout believers of Islam create amongst the general populace has a profound effect on the society, they live in. It is at the core of what Islam has become. The violence/fear cycle is responsible for all the irregularities of Islamic societies. That is why, Muslims tend to present them as pious for fear of violent response from the most devout Muslims. That is why Muslims don’t (dare) leave the faith or become liberal (devout Muslims would kill anyone who leaves the faith) to integrate in host societies when they emigrate. That is why, the so-called moderate Muslims never speak up, because devout Muslims may kill anyone who questions their faith. That is why, Muslims from Morocco to the Philippines riot over a handful of cartoons or a simple comment from the Pope.
This violence/fear cycle leaves a deep psychological scar on Muslim societies; it is responsible for what Islam is. Understanding this violence/fear system is key to understanding Islam. Attempts to deal with Islamic violence will unlikely succeed, without addressing the cause of this violence/fear cycle.
Describing this violence/fear system and its self-perpetuating cyclical nature is difficult for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the violence/fear system is huge; it is spread all over the body of Islamic societies, which makes it difficult to identify. Additionally, most Muslims (and non-Muslim apologists) deny the existence of these potential killers: Muslims, as a whole, are just like every other people, they say. Furthermore, because these potentially murderous Muslims are widely, and almost evenly, distributed throughout Islamic societies and communities; they cannot be identified until they commit their acts of violence. So, it becomes difficult to connect these sporadic killers into any kind of Islamic cyclical system. They are normally being passed on as a normal criminal element as in any other society. Also because the system is cyclical, the starting point of the discussion is difficult to identify.
Let’s start by discussing the fear created by these potential Islamic assassins.Islamic Fear
Islamic fear is easy to understand and feel if you know what to look for. Let’s look closely at two Islamic fear scenarios. The first is the case of Mohammad cartoon T-shirt mentioned above. The second is the murder of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam and the subsequent publication of the Mohammad cartoons as a protest to the killing.The Mohammad Cartoon T-Shirt Scenario
It is easy to understand how a person living in Montana could comfortably wear a Mohammad cartoon T-shirt. There are few, if any, Muslims in Montana. The chance that you will be spotted by one such potential Islamic killers is slim. Even if you are, you might still get away with it as the likely killers would count that they cannot get away with it in Montana, which they can in Islamic societies. Therefore, you need not feel intimidated in Montana: the Islamic fear factor in low.But in Dearborn, Michigan, the situation is different. Dearborn has a fairly large Muslim population. Wearing a Mohammad cartoon T-shirt in Dearborn would carry some risk. There you will come across a greater number of devout believers, who would take offence. And some of them may take to violence. The Islamic fear factor is higher—medium—in Dearborn. One will feel more intimidated to wear a Muhammad cartoon T-shirt there.
Now take the same Mohammad cartoon T-shirt scenario to an even larger Muslim population: say, to the Muslim-dominated section of London. The Muslim-dominated section of London has a Muslim population of over one million. Undoubtedly, one wearing the offensive T-Shirt would pass by a larger number of potential Islamic murderers. Considering the attacks on London’s transit system on July 7 (2005) that killed 52 innocent commuters, and other failed bombing attempts, it is easy to see that deeply devout Muslims in London are taking offence, which is instigating them to violence. As a result, one will be much more intimidated to do anything offensive to Muslims in London. The Islamic fear factor in London is “high”.
Now let us try to imagine the fear one would feel in a Muslim society. Think about wearing the Mohammad cartoon T-shirt in Mecca, Cairo, Khartoum, Tehran or Islamabad. The fear, undoubtedly, would be over-powering. You would not last five minutes as I have said already. You will be taken down instantly by the overwhelming mass of offended Islamic murderers. Islamic fear factor over there is “exceedingly high”.
[Notes. (1) In nearly al Muslim countries, the killer would most likely walk away a free man. He would not be prosecuted for his act. At the local mosque he would be treated with respect for defending Islam; the larger population would support him. (2) If you are a non-Muslim, you will killed for just being in Mecca; non-Muslims are not allowed there.]
I have chosen this T-shirt scenario for two simple reasons. First, it is real. (I challenge anyone to prove otherwise with the following straightforward method. Simply wear a Mohammad cartoon T-shirt in a prominent place in Tehran.) Second, it is easy to understand that in Montana, almost no Muslims, no Islamic fear; in Mecca, Cairo and Tehran, almost all are Muslims and exceptionally high Islamic fear. To put it simply, the greater the Islamic population in an area, the greater is the Islamic fear factor.
The central lesson of this discussion is that some devout Muslims, if offended on their religious accounts, can turn murderous; they are embedded in any Muslim population and may come from out from anywhere and kill the offender. (This is an important detail. Keep it in mind.)
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and the Mohammad cartoons
Now, let’s look at the murder of Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam and the subsequent publication of the Mohammad cartoons in Danish newspapers.Theo Van Gogh had made a film, offensive to Muslims, that was critical of how Islam treats women. Van Gogh was murdered by an Islamic killer named Mohammed Bouyeri. According to published reports, Mr. Bouyeri told the court at his trial that Van Gogh had insulted Islam. “What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith,” Bouyeri said adding: “I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet.”
Mr. Bouyeri in reality had done two things. First, he had killed Theo Van Gogh. More importantly, he had helped spread and heighten the Islamic fear in Denmark and beyond that even if there are very Muslims in your surroundings (even less than 10% of the population), the fear factor is not low; you are not safe to offend Muslims over whatever it may.
The Islamic fear, spread by the murder of Van Gogh, was a part of the reason why Flemming Rose, the publisher of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, published the “Mohammad’s cartoons”. Rose said in a Washington Post article (February 19, 2006) that he, “commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam… Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.” He was only talking about a form Islamic fear factor, similar to what I point out in the T-shirt scenario above.
Islamic fear by the numbers
Now let us look at the reality of this Islamic fear in Europe as described by Flemming Rose and see if it can help us understand the fear in Muslim-dominated societies.Keep in mind that Muslims make up about 5% of the population in Western Europe. The presence of such a small percentage of Muslims in a population can create such a fear of the Islamic killers that it imparted, according to Rose, “self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.”
Think of this reality! Western Europeans—grown up believing in the freedom speech and living in their own free and open societies—are afraid of talking critically about Islam when Muslims make up only a small fraction of the population. It is not difficult to imagine the kind of fear that Islam—the potential Islamic killers to be accurate—imparts upon people in a Muslim society with no freedom of expression, where one can break the law with near impunity in matters of Islam. The fear factor there must be immeasurably greater.
It easy to grasp how free expression and critical discussion of Islam is essentially shut off in Muslim societies, where unseen religious killers, like Bouyeri, roam about everywhere. It is shut off by Islam’s “dark force” of fear, generated by its unseen pious henchmen.
This inability to talk critically about Islam in Islamic societies is the main reasons why Islam is stuck in its endless cycle of violence. Muslims are consciously or subconsciously aware that violence of the pious killers, like that of Mohammed Bouyeri, surrounds them all the time. They live in a system of constant fear surrounding issues concerning Islam that keeps them quiet. In that system, there isn’t another way for them.Having made sense of what the Islamic fear is all about, let us move on to discuss who these Islamic killers are.
Who are the killers?
Let us first look at a trait common to all religions. Religious believers come in variable degrees of belief. Some are only marginal believers; others can be very devout. For the sake of this discussion, let’s arrange a horizontal line, a “Belief Index” scale. On it, we can spread out the believers from the least devout to the most devout.It goes like this. On the far left, you have the least devout believers. Some of these have so little belief they might be considered secular. On the right side, we find the most devout.
Let’s give the Belief Index scale numeric values from 1 to 10, where 1 equals least devout and 10 equals most devout.Belief Index:
Least Devout ————————————————Most Devout
—-1——-2——-3——- 4——-5——- 6——-7——-8——-9——10Islamic killers come from the rank of Islam’s most devout believers. On the Belief Index scale, these believers fall somewhere in the range of 9.75 to 10.00. They, under the right combination of factors and situation, would be willing to commit violence in the name of Islam.
These most devout believers are religiously trained to the extent that they are ready to embrace the numerous calls to violence contained in Islamic teachings. The Koran, Hadith, and Sunnah, the foundational base of Islam, all have numerous calls to violence. Additionally, Islamic scholars and Mullahs and their fatwas as well as Islamic societal norms support violence in the name of Islam. Islam’s most devout believers, accept as true, that they have a God-ordained authority as well as duty to commit violence for the benefit of Islam, Bouyeri being an example.
Islam’s devout believers, who might be incited to commit violence in the name of Islam, represent most likely somewhere between 0.1% and 10.0% of the population. There are presently about 1.3 billion Muslims globally. That means, the number of potential killers ranges from 1.3 to 130.0 million. Even the 1.3 million potential killers, the lowest possible number, poses a huge threat to the world; the threat of 130 is hard to imagine.
This wide variation in the number of potential killers in the Muslim populace is due to a number of factors. First, the vast majority of these likely killers are enmeshed within the wider Islamic populace, not “signed up” to violent Islamic forces per se. This makes it impossible to know how many there actually are. Additionally, most of them act out of a deep religious conviction that could change from day to day. Also, the structure of Islam has no central authority; it commands Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation in an individual capacity. On a day, a devout believer might independently decide to fulfill his religious duty. Furthermore, certain important Islamic issues, such as perceived injustice of US intervention in Iraq, might persuade a larger percentage of devout believers to fulfill their religious obligation.
To make matters worse, even though the number of these most devout believers, the ones willing to commit violence for Islam, might be limited, there is second group who augment and amplify the effect of these killers. They are sympathizers, supporters and instigators, who won’t engage in the violence themselves, but would incite others to religiously motivated violence. They might fall in range of 8.00 to 9.75 on the Belief Index and act as the eyes and ears of real killers. They will talk about what they see as perceived injustice against Islam and Muslims. They engage other devout believers in mosques or other social gatherings, load their minds with one perceived grievance after another. This increases the likelihood of their protégés’ engagement in acts of violence.
In real number, the combination of the sympathizers and the most devout most likely make up about 20% of the Muslim population. That means about one out of five individuals is part of Islam’s killing machine. Because their identities are transparent or unknown, the sympathizers’ presence adds to the fear factor discussed above.
(Imagine being Muslim in this scenario. Every five Muslim around you, one is a part of Islam’s system of violence. Who would be willing to talk candidly about religious issues?)
Because of the Islamic principle of taqiyya, namely deception for the furtherance of Islam, Muslims for the most part refuse to acknowledge this “group” of potential killers in their communities. They are not killers in the general sense of it: they are just like every other people in most matters, but will turn killers only when one criticizes Islam. Non-Muslims usually do not acknowledge these killers because of a combination of ignorance and political correctness. Additionally, the veil of religious legitimacy given to Islam further confuses the issue.Organizational Structure
These killers can be independent, unorganized individuals like Mohammed Bouyeri, Van Gogh’s murderer. These independent killers act like self-appointed “free agents” of Allah. Under Islamic law, Muslims are individually empowered to enforce Islamic law on the people, community and society. Because of their “free agency”, their ability to remain unnoticed until they act, their near-uniform distribution in Islamic societies and their sheer numbers, these potential killers can unfurl immense fear within the Muslim society.When these “free agent’ killers do their work in the non-Muslim world, their actions are usually seen as criminal acts of general nature, unrelated to Islamic calls to violence.
These committed killers also organize themselves into groups of all sizes and types, from a two-man cells to large organizations like al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah and likes. These groups, ideologically like-minded, can act independently or in conjunction with other groups or individuals as situation demands and permits. Their actions require no central authority but may be coordinated with other groups. Any independent “free agent” can start his own organization. Size and reach is limited only by the organizational skills of the individuals involved. Any and all of these groups can help or receive help from other groups. Many Muslim governments provide clandestine support to such groups, while claiming that these are “nonstate actors.”
One important factor about Muslims is that, while most of the killers come from the extreme right side of the Religious Index chart, some of the less devout believers may succumb to what has been called “sudden jihadi syndrome”. That is, under the right set of circumstances, they could be swayed to commit violence.
Nature of Violence
Islam’s killers act mostly anonymously. Like the killers who leave bombs in public places or the motorcyclist tossing a grenade into a crowd before running away. A few may come out proudly to do their act publicly—Van Gogh’s killer Mohammed Bouyeri being as ideal example.The 19 men involved in the September 11 attacks, the endless stream of Iraqi and Afghani suicide bombers, the London transit system bombers, the transit system bombers in Spain, and the Beslan school murders are a few examples of Islamic killers. In Thailand, Islamic killers decapitate schoolgirls and gun down plantation workers. In the Philippines, they bomb markets and ferries. In Jordan, they bomb wedding parties and gun down college professors. In Egypt, they shoot tourists at the pyramids, bomb hotels and they murdered former president Anwar Sadat. In India, they recently hit Mumbai and many other places previously; they make people’s life miserable in Kashmir. In Africa, Islam-inspired killers work in Kenya setting off bombs at the US embassy. In Sudan, they are responsible for the mass killings, eviction and burning in Darfur. In Lebanon, they launch missiles into Israel. In Argentina, they bombed the Israeli embassy.
In Western Europe, the killers work within the Muslim ghettos making sure that Muslims don’t leave their faith. In France, they bomb the subways and engage in frequent riots and vandalism. Even in the US, Islamic killers do their work. John Allen Muhammad shot ten people in the Washington DC area in 2002. In Salt Lake City, Sulejmen Talovic killed five people in a shopping mall. In Seattle, Naveed Afzal Haq killed one and wounded four. At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, a recent graduate from Iran, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, drove his SUV into a crowd of students. In New Jersey, six killers had planned to attack Fort Dix.
(Note here. Conventional wisdom would have us believe these acts were all independent criminal acts. The reality is this. These acts were all part of what you should expect from Islam’s violent cyclical system.)
Any place on the face of the globe, where you find Muslims, there will be some potentially Islam-inspired killers. Since they are relatively evenly dispersed in the Muslim populace, the more Muslims means more such likely killers.
The type of work these killers do depends on the percentage of Muslims in the society they are working in.
Inside Muslim society, their primary task is to keep Islam thoroughly unquestionable, untouchable. They do this by killing anyone, who purportedly insults Allah or Mohammad, questions or tries to change Islam, or tries to leave the faith. (This is why Muslims seam so pious, don’t leave the faith and moderates don’t speak up.) Additionally in Muslim societies, their task is to enhance adherence to and enforce Islamic Sharia law. In Afghanistan, the killers blow up girls schools to enforce their ideal of a true Islamic state. In Egypt, they killed Anwar Sadat because he had gone against Islamic law by trying to make peace with the hated Jews (Israel).
In infidel-dominated societies, such as in Western Europe, one of their primary tasks is to make sure Muslims do not assimilate into the host society. This is to keep Islam and Islamic community pure, unadulterated by un-Islamic Western values.
In other instances, they apply tactics of terrorism to convert non-Muslims, to institute Islamic Sharia laws or to create independent Islamic states. To achieve these goals, they may engage in criminal acts or a constant low-grade gorilla war-like conflicts. The violent Islamist campaigns in Kashmir, the Balkans, Thailand, the Philippines, sub-Saharan Africa, and now even Western Europe are a few examples.
These potential killers of Islam are overwhelmingly young and male. A small number of women have recently joined the wagon. They come from all economic and educational strata. Poverty is not a cause, but it does work to the advantage of devout believers looking for “recruits”.
This system even finds a way to harness the destructive power of its young social misfits. They can practice their destructive ways on non-Muslims in the form of rapes, muggings, and general mayhem and receive positive feedback from the most devout. This is why Western European jails have a high percentage of Muslim inmates.
The sad reality about these killers of Islam is this: because Islam makes a continuous claim of religious legitimacy, Islam, as a system, can rely on a huge, unpaid, unseen, unorganized, individually acting, empowered to act, and widely distributed group of highly motivated devout believers, who are willing to kill in order to defend Islam, to keep it pure. They represent an unconventional, unseen phantom army: an army where no one needs orders; each soldier knows exactly what to do. In it, no one is really in control. It is as deadly as any on earth.
How does the system continuously train the killers?
We now know a bit about Islamic fear. We also have an idea of who some of the Islamic killers are. Let us look at where these killers come from and at some of the rules, regulations, social mores and norms that create Islam’s self-replicating endless cycle of violence.[This selection of rules, regulations and such, represents on a tiny fraction of the directives controlling Islam. In reality the Islamic system comes together like the “perfect storm”, with literally thousands of directives working to keep Islam the way it is. The directives I have chosen to mention here are some of the easiest to see and understand.]
Islam isn’t just a religion, it is a complete social system. (Numerous writers have called it a totalitarian system.) Islamic Sharia law includes rules for almost everything for ones life from birth to death. And a large portion of these rules work to perpetuate Islam itself.
One key rule states that all children born to Muslims are automatically Muslim. This means, Muslims (except converts) have no say, no choice about their participation in Islam; their parents have no say in whether their children are Muslims either. This insures a continuous crop of believers, some of them would inevitably turn potential killers.
Another important rule says “Islam is more important than family.” This means, any family member who might try to leave Islam would be ostracized from the rest of the family at best; at worst, he/she would be killed. Also, because extended Muslim families are usually large, there will also be some in a family deeply religious (potential killer). This means that, within every extended family, such devout ones make sure the rest of the family is properly Islamic. It also means that parents, will receive pressures from other family members making sure all children are exposed to Islamic dogma. Moreover, Islamic communities are closely knit, not individualistic. That means, even if a whole family is not religious, the vigilance of neighbors makes it sure that such nonreligious families remain within proper Islamic decorum. As a result, children in Muslim societies receive unconditional Islamic training from the birth on.
Once a child reaches the school-age, the training becomes institutionalized. This starts at the lowest grades and continues throughout all of a child’s education. While not all schools are strictly Islamic, they all in Islamic societies require students to study Islamic subjects. In poorer Islamic countries, where government-run schools may not exist or may not be free, there are usually Islamic schools. Most of these Islamic schools are free. These schools teach a more intense Islamic curricula.
In addition, there are the numberless madrassas throughout the Muslim world—more than20,000 in Pakistan alone—training millions of students in Islam. These madrassas teach an unyielding, radical form of Islam. It includes rote memorization of the Koran, and teaching of the Islamic passages calling on believers to commit violence in the name of Islam.
Within the educational system, the devout believers and sympathizers again make their presence felt. Anyone trying to moderate the teaching of Islamic materials risks the wrath of an unseen killer.
By the time children become adults, a small percent of them become the most devout of their generation, plus the sympathizers, constitute about 20%. This educational system is spread almost evenly throughout the Muslim world. As result, the devout believers and sympathizers are, as pointed out earlier, scattered everywhere. This process is continuous; so there is a continuous supply of potential killers in Muslim societies. And the violence/fear cycle continues, perpetuates.
(Note: It is bad enough that Muslims teach this hate inside their own societies, but immigrant Muslims teach the same hate under the noses of gullible western hosts. The London transit bombings of 2005 are a perfect example. I do not believe the young Islamic killers of this incident got their motivation inside the politically correct British educational system. The same thing can be said about the recent foiled June 06 terrorist plot in Canada. They did not learn their hatred of Canada inside the Canadian school system. Additionally, numerous investigative reports on this issue confirm this issue.)
The training of children is the beginning of a continuous process that ensures everyone is properly Islamic. In Islamic societies, unstinted training and continuous reinforcement of Islamic dogma is universal.
Let us have a look at some of the common beliefs and practices that are part of the cyclical system. Keep in mind: 1) All of these issues are hot issues that would draw attention of the unseen killers; 2) Because of the fear of the unseen killers, no one ever questions any of these issues.
Muslims are called to prayer five times a day. These calls to prayer act as a constant reminder to them that it is their responsibility to maintain the purity of Islam. It is also a constant reminder to potential skeptics that questioning Islam is a no-no thing—the devout, the potential killers, are everywhere. The prayer system of Islam helps keep the fear quotient high.
In Muslim societies, everyone is aware of the unseen killer; so, almost none dare speaking up on any issues counter to Islam. This process takes place literally on every level of the society. From market place to office, from grocery store to shoe shop, from camel race to car race, from the library to the park, no one dares speaking ill of anything Islamic.
The information media—newspapers, radios and televisions—in Muslim societies continuously put forth stories that convey the proper Islamic perspective. Because of a wide audience, reporters risk dealing with numerous potential unseen killers for even small errors of judgment. Hence, none are willing to take the risk of even the slightest questioning of Islamic issues. Note that journalists in Islamic countries face worst of persecution, often on religious offenses.
To make matters worse, the media also takes an active role in furthering the Islamic dogma. Numerous independent organizations, which monitor Islamic media, report articles inciting Muslims to violence, and instilling hatred toward non-Muslims.
The following is a list of items, reinforced daily; no one ever questions out of fear:
1. ‘The Koran is the “perfect word of God.”’ This means it can’t be questioned or changed.
2. ‘Mohammad was the perfect human.’ The fact he was a murderer, mugger, rapist, child pedophile and thief is ignored. The inability of Muslims to talk about Mohammad rationality is responsible for the erratic behavior Muslims sometimes exhibit. 3. ‘All men should strive to be like Mohammad.’ This leads devout Muslims to fanatical and erratic behavior.
4. ‘Lying in the furtherance of Islam is OK.’ More reason for erratic behavior.
5. ‘Islam is the only true religion. All others are false.’ This belief is driven into the collective Muslim consciousness to such a height that even marginal believers will agree.
6. Islam includes a form of 1984 style double talk. Islam is the freedom of God. Democracy is the tyranny of man.
7. ‘Muslim superiority. Muslims have a rightful place ahead of others.’ Believed by large percentage of Muslim population, even marginal believers.
8. ‘Non-Muslim inferiority’. Believed by large percentage of Muslim population. (Of course non-Muslims can change their position by converting to Islam.)
9. ‘All the world must be, will ultimately turn, Muslim.’ God said it; it must be true.
10. Any degradation of Islam, Mohammad, or the Koran brings death at the hand of an unseen killer.
11. ‘Islam is perfect’. So no questions, no changes, can’t quit. All are warned if they do any of these, they could be killed.
12. Islam is more important than family. One’s own family members may kill one, who strays from Islam.
13. Family members, if non-believers, have nothing in common with you and should be abandoned or ignored.
14. Killing and other crimes, committed in the name of Islam, are usually never punished or punished only lightly.
15. A Muslim’s trusted friends can only be another Muslim. This is one reason why Muslim immigrant don’t integrate in non-Muslim host societies.
16. All Muslims have an obligation to spread or help the spread Islam.
17. If a Muslim cannot fight in jihad, Islamic law says he must aid the jihad in some way, monetary contributions being one.
18. Islam is a political entity; Islam is the state.
19. This system elevates religion, Islam, to the ultimate pinnacle of Muslim consciousness.
20. And then there is the Mosque/Mullah infrastructure.The mosques and mullahs play an important role in this cyclical system. The mosques act as constant reminder of Islam’s presence with their call to prayer five times a day. The Mullahs act as a center-point to most devout believers and sympathizers. The Mullahs’ role is to reinforce Islamic dogma (including the items above) and encourage devout believers to ensure it being upheld.
One of Islam’s strangest phenomena is as follows. These mosques become dangerous intellectual cesspools of Islam’s think-tank. Only the most devout believers work their way into leadership position in Muslim societies. They are most likely to believe Islamic calls to violence. The inability to rationalize anything about Islam is at its height inside the mosques. There are numerous cases of Mullahs being murdered by their own co-religionists for having not been conservative enough.
So, let us now look at how the fear, prompted by the killers and rules, completes the cycle.
All of these items come together in a random fashion; the order is not important. Everyone gets indoctrinated as a child. Indoctrination continues in adults. Everyone always talks good of Islam. No one ever speaks critically of Islam. There is a continuous preaching of the flaws of the non-Muslim world, their creeds and way of life. There is a consistent preaching of Islamic perfection.
Family members watch families. Friends watch friends. Neighbors watch neighbors. The Mullahs keep stoking the cyclical system. The most deeply religious, along with the sympathizers, make sure that Muslims stay within the expected norm. Reasonable questions never get asked; unreasonable beliefs are reinforced. And all the time, the fear of an unseen army of devout killers makes sure that all of this happen.
And here is the self-replicating cycle. The fear ensures no one questions the system. No one questioning the system leads to de-facto acceptance on issues of Islam as they are. Because all accept the system, it must be right. Because believers only vocalize the praise for Islam, everyone only hears praise of Islam. No one ever hears anything bad or critical about Islam. No one quits, questions, criticizes. The newly added children become part of the system.
Over and over and over, like a stuck phonograph. The system does the same thing again and again. Islam, as a society, is trapped in a self-replicating cycle of violence and fear.
Why Now?
In the 1400 years since Mohammad, Islam has ebbed and flowed depending on a number of factors. But the most important factor is the amount of resources available to the mullah/mosque infrastructure. Islam directly responds to the amount of money poured into this structure.Since the first ‘oil embargo’ of the 1970s, which shot up the oil prices, the oil-revenues of oil-producing Muslim countries have increased by many folds. This has allowed the rich Muslim oil states to dump unknown billions into the worldwide mullah/mosque infrastructure.
This money has been used for a huge expansion of mosques throughout the Muslim world, including the thousands of mosques built in Western societies. The money has also been used to send conservative Mullahs throughout the world to preach radical form of Islam.
When you step on the gas pedal of a car there is a slight lag time—about 1/4th of a second—and the car goes faster. When oil-rich Muslim states pump money into the mullah/mosque infrastructure, there was a slight lag time, about 20-30 years, before the production of the super devout, the potential killers.
We are today reaping the harvest of violence grown from the seeds of hate and fear planted over the past 30 years.
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Author note: This article is the beginning of a complete theory on how Islam works and holds itself together. I solicit comments from readers to help me complete this theory. Bob Smith bob311w9@yahoo.com
Triumph and tragedy in Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankan Army’s war against the LTTE should serve as a lesson for India’s pusillanimous politicians who advocate appeasement of terrorists. But we can’t ignore the plight of Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone, writes Rajeev Srinivasan
The LTTE’s idea of its ‘Tamil Eelam’ (they have taken down the maps on their Website showing this) consists of north and eastern Sri Lanka, all of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and parts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. In other words, most of south India. This is comparable to the jihadi dream of a ‘Mughalistan’ consisting of most of north India.
It further appears that this ‘Eelam’ was meant to be a Christianistan, in fearsome symmetry with ‘Mughalistan’. Let us note in passing that at the time of partition, missionaries had demanded a ‘Christianistan’ consisting of the North-East, tribal areas of the Central Provinces (Chhotanagpur), and Travancore. Clearly, they have not given up the idea.
The Church has a well-known modus operandi. In Rwanda, the Church fomented genocide by dividing Hutus and Tutsis — who, to the casual observer, and to the geneticist, appear identical — through claiming that the former were short and dark, and the latter were tall and fair, and that Tutsis were oppressing Hutus. Several Christian godmen and godwomen have been convicted of crimes against humanity for their direct role in the massacre of Tutsis.
In India, too, the Church has fabricated a divide between the alleged ‘Aryans’ and ‘Dravidians’ — tall and fair vs short and dark, oppressor, and oppressed — which was initially the handiwork of a White missionary named Caldwell. It remains an interesting but little-known fact that churchman Max Mueller, who invented the entire ‘Aryan’ fiction, recanted in later years, admitting he was wrong.
The Church has had a dubious role in Sri Lanka too. It is surely curious that most of the top cadre of the LTTE are Christians (examples include Prabhakaran, who is a Methodist, Anton Balasingham, the suicide-bomber Dhanu, who killed Rajiv Gandhi). Senior non-Christians in the LTTE, remarkably, have been captured, have died in battle, or been liquidated.
And the LTTE has wiped out all other groups representing the Tamil cause. The very ruthlessness of the LTTE is an indicator of its thought-process. The Church, and the LTTE, had no use for moderates or for negotiation.
Muslim Demographics: The Islamic Tidal Wave
Better dust off that Hijab and skull cap. You may need it soon.
Fellow blogger V.V.S. Sarma has researched and written the following article:
From Udyana, the Seat of Rig-Veda, to the Present Swat Valley in Pakistan under Taliban Control
By V. V. S. Sarma
Sadguru Sri Sivananda Murty, an eminent scholar and a well known spiritual leader in Andhra Pradesh hosted the tenth annual Vedic conference at Bheemunipatnam, Vizag District on 12th April 2009. For ten successive years, he has been hosting/sponsoring this important event, wherein not only the Vedic Pandits are honoured but young students of Vedas are also honoured and given certificates.
The Sabha witnessed crisp group chanting of portions from all the four Vedas. Guruji explained that Vedas are important for the unity of the country and stressed the important role played by Andhra in preserving that tradition. He shook everyone when he mentioned that the present land of Taliban (SWAT valley) was called the Brahmin Vatika!
Later, when asked for the reason for such a downfall, he answered, “Brahmins can only dedicate themselves to Vedas. Theirs is a life of total commitment to a singular cause. They cannot protect themselves. They have to be protected. When kshatra dharma left us, things collapsed.” This input prompted me to explore the history of the place.
The Hindu Kush Mountain Range
The name ‘Hindu Kush’ of the mountain range in Eastern Afghanistan means in Persian ‘Hindu Slaughter’ or ‘Hindu Killer’. History also reveals that until 1000 A.D. the area of Hindu Kush was a full part of the Hindu cradle. More likely, the mountain range was deliberately named as ‘Hindu Slaughter’ by the Moslem conquerors, as a lesson to the future generations of Indians. However Indians in general and Hindus in particular are completely oblivious to this tragic genocide.
The Hindu Kush is a mountain system nearly 1000 miles long and 200 miles wide, running northeast to southwest, and dividing the Amu Darya River Valley and Indus River Valley. It stretches from the Pamir Plateau near Gilgit, to Iran. The Hindu Kush ranges mainly run through Afghanistan and Pakistan. It has over two dozen summits of more than 23,000 ft in height. Below the snowy peaks the mountains of Hindu Kush appear bare, stony and poor in vegetation.
Historically, the passes across the Hindu Kush have been of great military significance, providing access to the northern plains of India. The Khyber Pass constitutes an important strategic gateway and offers a comparatively easy route to the plains of Punjab. Most foreign invaders, starting from Alexander in 327 BC, to Timur Lane in 1398 AD, and from Mahmud of Ghazni, in 1001 AD, to Nader Shah in 1739 AD attacked Hindustan via the Khyber Pass and other passes in the Hindu Kush. The Hindu name of the Hindu Kush Mountains was ‘Paariyaatra Parvat’.
History of the Swat Valley
Swat is a valley and an administrative district in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) located 160 km/100 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. It is present in the Hindukush range, in the Pakistan area. The Swat River originates in the Hindu Kush and is a tributary of the Kabul River in the Peshawar valley. Swat Valley is located between POK and Afghanistan to the North of Pakistan’s Punjab province. In December 2008 most of the area was captured by the Taliban insurgency and is now considered too dangerous for tourism.
The Swat River is mentioned in the Rig Veda 8.19.37 as the Suvāstu River. Suvāstu, literally means that the river is an ideal location on which human settlements can be made. This opinion is expressed by Kumkum Roy, professor of ancient Indian history at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and the author of “Historical Dictionary of Ancient India”. Centuries later, the scenic river, which flows from the majestic Hindu Kush Mountains, is a magnet for Pakistani tourists who love to flaunt the Swat valley as the Switzerland of Pakistan.
Swat has been inhabited for over two thousand years and was known in ancient times as the Udyana. It is fair to assume that the people of Swat are of Vedic Aryans. The first inhabitants were settled in well-planned towns. In 327 BC, Alexander fought his way to Udegram and Barikot. In Greek accounts these towns have been identified as Ora and Bazira. By 305 BC, the region became a part of the Mauryan Empire (or it may be Gupta Empire as per the more recent understanding).
Rig Vedic Heritage of Swat
Western Historians generally give a date of 2000 – 300 BCE to the Vedic age. Indians cannot accept this date based on several reasons. If Prophet Mohammed (570-663 CE) was before 1400 years, Jesus Christ was before 2000 years and Gautama Buddha (566 – 486 BCE) was before 2500 years, Vedas should be much before that as the Buddha had condemned Vedic rituals involving animal sacrifice prevalent in his time.
The Mahabharata war was dated to be at about 3100 BCE based on astronomical data in the epic itself and the date of classification of Vedas by Vyasa also coincides with it as also the traditional count of Kali era.
Burjor Avari in his 2007 book on the History of ancient India starts with the following axioms on Vedic era
• There was no Aryan invasion of India, the invasion theory has been thoroughly discredited.
• There were migrations of nomadic people speaking Indo-European language from Iran and Afghanistan, who called themselves Arya or noble.
• The Indo-Aryan Vedic culture undoubtedly developed uniquely in India itself over the last four millennia
• Rigveda is the oldest and key text and with the other three Vedas and complementary texts tell us about the Vedic Hindu religion.
• Indo-Aryans expanded to the Ganga basin and the whole area may have been called Aryavarta
• The political entities are called the sixteen mahajanapadas
These are somewhat better assumptions than the older ones but the timescale and the unidirectional movements of Aryans from the West to the East are still debatable issues. We present the narration of Burjor Avari.
In the Rig-Vedic period, there are two major Aryan areas: one was from Kabul towards the east stretching up to Peshawar. From this area migrations after crossing several rivers towards Swat valley and Punjab might have taken place in around 1700 BCE (?) or much earlier. (Dates up to 6000 BCE have been suggested for the Rig-Veda.) The area Sapta-Sindhava mentioned in Rigveda might be this area.
The other important area was from Kandahar to Quetta via the Bolan Pass. Verses in Rig-Veda only vaguely suggest the pre-Indian past, if any, stretching up to Iran. Swat valley is considered by most scholars as the seat of Rig Vedic civilization. Natural features and scenes depicted in Rig-Vedic hymns most closely match geographical reality of the Swat valley. Archeologists also observe the cremation remains in urns only after 1700 BC in this area as distinct from only burials in other areas and the style of pottery also has changed.
Among Yadu, Turvasa, Anu, Druhyu and Puru dynasties or clans, Purus dominated and Bharata belonged to this clan. From 900 BC onward the Aryan world shifted to Madhyadesa from the Saraswati to the Ganga and this was considered the Ramayana and the Mahabharata periods. The wars with Dasyus described in Rig-Veda cannot be with Harappans. This view is true because Rig-Veda must be much older than Harappa. (Comment: The Western view corresponding to 1700 BC for Rig-Veda may be grossly incorrect)
Rig-Veda describes the glory of the Sarasvati in many hymns. It sustained the Vedic civilization. The river must have irrigated 7000 square miles of what is now a desert in Rajasthan (Murthy, 1980) The “Sapta-Sindhu” denotes a group of seven chief rivers of uncertain or fluctuating identification (See Fig. 1). There are several rivers in the area.
Identification of Rig-Vedic Rivers is the single most important way of establishing the geography of the early Vedic civilization. Rivers with certain identifications stretch from eastern Afghanistan to the western Gangetic plain, clustering in the Punjab. A number of names can be shown to have been re-applied to other rivers as the center of Rig Vedic culture moved. It is only possible to establish a clear picture for the latest phase of the Rig-Veda, thanks to the Nadistuti sukta, which contains a geographically ordered list of rivers.
The most prominent river of the early Rig-Veda is the Sarasvati losing its prominence to the Indus in the late Rigveda. The reason for this is mostly ascribed to the movement of Vedic Aryans from out of their early seats in Gandhara and eastern Afghanistan into the Indus valley. It is disputed whether the loss of prominence of the Sarasvati is due to the drying up of the Ghaggar-Hakra.
But in the earlier Rig Vedic hymns, the Saraswati is the most prominent river of all and if one subscribes to the Saraswati as the Ghagghar-Hakra system which might have earlier included the Yamuna and some major present-day feeders of the Indus, one could not be very much off the mark in considering the Saraswati as the most prominent river-system at that time.
Rivers have been known to have changed their courses in the Indian subcontinent and satellite photos have proved that. This would also negate the theory that the centre of Rig Vedic culture moved from the west to the east and it would also mean that the Rig Vedic culture encompassed a much larger area.
Northwestern Rivers (western tributaries of the Indus): Trstama (Gilgit), Susartu, Anitabha, Rasa, Sveti, Kubha (Kabul River), Kruma (Kurrum), Gomati (Gomal), Sarayu, Mehatnu, Svetyavari, Prayiyu (Bara), Vayiyu, Suvastu (Swat), Ghandari (hapax legomenon in RV 8.19.37) Gauri (Panjkora), Kusava (Kunar) (Note: A hapax legomenon is a word, which occurs only once in either the written record of a language, the works of an author, or in a single text.)
The Indus and its minor eastern tributaries: Sindhu (Indus; in the earlier hymns, sindhu means “stream” generically), Susoma (Sohan) and Arjikiya (Haro)
Central Rivers (rivers of the Punjab): Vitasta (Jhelum), Asikni (Chenab). Parusni (Ravi), Vipasa (Beas). Satadru (Sutlej) and Marudvrdha
East-central Rivers (rivers of Haryana): late Sarasvati (Ghaggar), the early Sarasvati is more often identified with the Helamand , or classified as of unknown identification; late and post-Rig-Vedic Sarasvati is both a mystical and invisible river), Drsadvati, Apaya (both hepax legomenon in RV 3.23.4)
Around the 2nd century BC, the area was ruled by the Kushans, who became Buddhists. They were attracted by the peace and serenity of the land. Swat is thought to be the probable birthplace of Vajrayana Buddhism. There are many archaeological sites in the district, and Buddhist relics are common bearing testimony to their skills as sculptors and architects.
Padmasambhava (flourished eighth century AD), also called Guru Rimpoche, Tibetan teacher, was a legendary Indian Buddhistic Mystic, who introduced Tantric Buddhism to Tibet and was credited with establishing the first Buddhist Monastery there. According to tradition, Padmasambhava was native to Udyana (now Swat in Pakistan). Padmasambhava was the son of Indrabhuti, king of Swat in the early eighth century AD.
One of the original Siddhas, Indrabhuti flourished in the early eighth century AD and was the king of Udyana in North Western India (identified with the Swat valley). His son Padmasambhava is revered as the second Buddha in Tibet. Indrabhuti’s sister Lakshminkaradevi, was also an accomplished siddha of the 9th century AD
Ancient Gandhara, the valley of Peshawar, with the adjacent hilly regions of Swat and Buner, Dir and Bajaur was one of the earliest centers of Buddhism following the reign of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, in the third century BCE. The name Gandhara first occurs in the Rigveda which is identified with the region. The Swat museum has acquired footprints of the Buddha, which were originally placed for worship in the sacred Swat valley. When the Buddha ascended, relics (personal items, body parts, ashes etc.) were distributed to seven kings, who built stupas over them for veneration.
The Harmarajika stupa (Takshasila now called Taxila) and Butkarha (Swat) stupa at Jamal Garha were among the earliest Gandhara stupas. These were said to be erected on the orders of King Ashoka and contained the genuine relics of the historic Buddha. The Gandhara School is credited with the first representations of the Buddha in human form, rather symbolically as the wheel of the law, the tree, etc.
Takshasila is near the birth place of the Sanskrit Grammarian Panini. Sadguru Sivananda Murty states that “the Swat region played very vital role in shaping our Vedic tradition and literature. Panini and Patanjali are more recent phenomena as against the period of the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads which have come before the Sastras. This literature can be considered as extensive commentaries on Vedic Rks.
The region from Mesopotamia to Punjab was a very rich Aryan region extending to the Gangetic plains up to Ayodhya which we roughly call Aryavarta. You may trace the history of Sanskrit literature from the Vedas to the Sastras and Puranas in this Aryavarta. The Vedic land towards North West of India is totally Talibanised and extending its devastation to the east to capture the centre of the Aryaavarta.”
Hindu Shahi Rulers and Sanskrit
After the decline of Buddhism, Hinduism reasserted itself and Swat was wholly Hindu till the 11th century attacks of Muhammad of Ghazni. Swat was ruled by the Hindu Shahi dynasty prior to that who has built an extensive array of temples and other architectural buildings now in ruins. Then Sanskrit was the language of the Swat people. They were using the Sarda script for Sanskrit, which was also commonly used in Kashmir. The inscriptions of the days of Jay Pal Dev, found from the archaeological remains at Barikot, find a mention in book “The Pathans”. The inscriptions are in Sarda alphabet, written in Sanskrit”.
Ram Takht (Ram’s throne)
Ram Takht in Swat is one of the sacred places of Hinduism. It is only second to the Amarnath Cave regarding its sacredness and sanctity. Ram Takht is situated on the top of Mount Elum at an altitude of 9200 feet above sea level. This point is called Jogyano Sar (yogi peak). The dune of Barikot which is also famous for its sacred ruins is visible from here towards the North-West.
The Hindus believe that Ram Chandraji Maharajah spent three years of his Vanavasa (jungle life) here. The Hindu pilgrims visit this place once a year in first day of Sawan, to pray, worship and seek unity with Almighty. A holy spring flows near Ram Takht where most of the yogis came to seek union with the divine entity.
The ruins at Jogyano Sar clearly manifest that it was a hub of religious activities in the past where yogis resided in monasteries with austerity to meditate and contemplate on nature and its Creator. The vagaries of time have taken its toll and destroyed the places of worship today but some people say that all the monasteries were razed to the ground by the first Muslim ruler of Swat.
Ram Takht has also been demolished by treasure hunters in the hope of acquiring ancient treasures. Toorda Pacha whose family has resided here since time immemorial says that one of the yogis was killed by a nomad in the hope acquiring wealth. Later the nomad lost his sanity and his whole family disappeared mysteriously from the place. Ram Takht can be accessed through different routes of Karakar, Char, Dokada, Bezo Sar, Amlokdara and Murghazar. One can reach the place in five hours from Murghazar easily. Several cool streams adore the way while most of the dense forest has been chopped down by timber mafia. The way is well treaded and there is no fear of straying away. The exotic valley of Swat and the holy district of Buner are the spectacular panoramas visible from Ram Takht.
Political Development in 2009
In a stated attempt at bringing peace to this region, the Pakistani Government on 16th February 2009, signed a peace accord with the Taliban and agreed to the imposition of Sharia law in Swat and suspension of military offensives against the Taliban. Celebrated in the Hindu scriptures as ‘Udyan’ (garden), it’s a stunningly picturesque place where the Buddha once walked, cultures intersected, poets sang and mystics came in search of peace.
But, sadly, Swat valley in northwest Pakistan has now become synonymous with unrest, bloodshed and Talibanisation. Not many know that the Swat valley, which is in the news now for the local government’s much-criticized peace deal that allows the Taliban to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in return for surrendering arms, has an unbroken history of over 2,000 years that has seen many religions and civilizations come and go.
From Vedic Rishis through Padma Sambhava in the foot steps of the Buddha, then Muhammad of Ghazni to Jinnah and now to the likes of Osama Bin Laden, what a fall it has been from the point of view a Hindu in the last one thousand years. I cannot even dare to imagine what the complementary view of an Islamist would be.
Indian security analysts give dire warnings to us on the recent developments in the vicinity of Hindukush. Security analyst Upadhyay warns “Hindu Kush is still displaying the legacy of its Persian name. Against the backdrop of the complex situation, the need arises for India to evolve its independent strategy to calibrate the geopolitical alignments and shore up its political and strategic assets in the war torn Hindu Kush and defend itself from the on going civilization onslaught from the Arabian ideology of jihad.
There is a need to check the substantial funding from oil earned Arabian fund earmarked for jakat for propagation of radical Islam in India which provides a congenial atmosphere for the growth of home grown terrorists.” Another security expert B. Raman says “Like the Neo-Taliban of Afghanistan, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has evolved in less than a year from a bunch of suicide bombers to a conventional army capable of set-piece, stand and fight battles with the Pakistani Army and Para-military forces.
This conversion has been facilitated by the recruitment of a large number of retired Pashtun ex-servicemen living in the Pashtun tribal belt in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and in the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The Swat Valley and the Buner District, less than a hundred km from Islamabad, which was occupied by the TTP without any resistance from the local security forces, form part of the Malakand Division.”
References
Burjor Avari, 2007, India: The Ancient Past, Routledge, A division of Taylor & Francis, London.
Kak, Subhash, The Mahabharata and the Sindhu-Saraswati Tradition, in URL www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/MahabharataII.pdf
Upadhyay R., THE JIHADI STATE OF HINDU KUSH – A challenge to India’s security, SAAG – SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS GROUP, Paper 3018 – Date 19-Jan-2009
Murthy, S. R. N., 1980, The Vedic River Saraswati, A Myth or Fact – A Geological Approach, Indian Journal of History of Science, 15 (2), November pp. 189-192
Raman, B. K. Taliban: From A Bunch Of Suicide Bombers To A Conventional Army — International Terrorism Monitor — Paper No 3161 SAAG – SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS GROUP, Paper 3018 – Date 24-Apr-2009
First Ever Encyclopedia of the world is not in English but in Sanskrit
What has been deliberately suppressed by the Western Scholars rooted in the Eurocentric Anti-Hindu tradition is that the Keladi King Basava Bhupala produced the first ever Encyclopedia of the World in any language, Sivatattva Ratnakara in Sanskrit in 1699—29 years before the first Encyclopedia in English by Ephraim Chambers in 1728 and 52 years before the first Encyclopedia in the French Language by Denis Diderot in 1751.
The Sansrkirt Encyclopedia of Basava Bhupala published in 1699 was in no way less detailed or less verstile than the encyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers in English published in 1728 (London) or Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers of Denis Diderot in French published in 1751 (Paris).
Saraswathi Venkateswaran has made a signal contribution to the advancement of Sanskrit learning by producing her thesis on Sivatattva Ratnakara.The Madras University and its Vice Chancellor Ramachandran have to be congratulated for recognizing the outstanding academic work of Dr Smt Saraswathi Venkateswaran.
The Colonial Legacy – Myths and Popular Beliefs
While few educated South Asians would deny that British Colonial rule was detrimental to the interests of the common people of the sub-continent – several harbor an illusion that the British weren’t all bad. Didn’t they, perhaps, educate us – build us modern cities, build us irrigation canals – protect our ancient monuments – etc. etc. And then, there are some who might even say that their record was actually superior to that of independent India’s! Perhaps, it is time that the colonial record be retrieved from the archives and re-examined – so that those of us who weren’t alive during the freedom movement can learn to distinguish between the myths and the reality.
Literacy and Education
Several Indians are deeply concerned about why literacy rates in India are still so low. So in the last year, I have been making a point of asking English-speaking Indians to guess what India’s literacy rate in the colonial period might have been. These were Indians who went to school in the sixties and seventies (only two decades after independence) – and I was amazed to hear their fairly confident guesses. Most guessed the number to be between 30% and 40%. When I suggested that their guess was on the high side – they offered 25% to 35%. No one was prepared to believe that literacy in British India in 1911 was only 6%, in 1931 it was 8%, and by 1947 it had crawled to 11%! That fifty years of freedom had allowed the nation to quintuple it’s literacy rate was something that almost seemed unfathomable to them. Perhaps – the British had concentrated on higher education ….? But in 1935, only 4 in 10,000 were enrolled in universities or higher educational institutes. In a nation of then over 350 million people only 16,000 books (no circulation figures) were published in that year (i.e. 1 per 20,000).
Urban Development
It is undoubtedly true that the British built modern cities with modern conveniences for their administrative officers. But it should be noted that these were exclusive zones not intended for the “natives” to enjoy. Consider that in 1911, 69 per cent of Bombay’s population lived in one-room tenements (as against 6 per cent in London in the same year). The 1931 census revealed that the figure had increased to 74 per cent – with one-third living more than 5 to a room. The same was true of Karachi and Ahmedabad. After the Second World War, 13 per cent of Bombay’s population slept on the streets. As for sanitation, 10-15 tenements typically shared one water tap!
Yet, in 1757 (the year of the Plassey defeat), Clive of the East India Company had observed of Murshidabad in Bengal: “This city is as extensive, populous and rich as the city of London…” (so quoted in the Indian Industrial Commission Report of 1916-18). Dacca was even more famous as a manufacturing town, it’s muslin a source of many legends and it’s weavers had an international reputation that was unmatched in the medieval world. But in 1840 it was reported by Sir Charles Trevelyan to a parliamentary enquiry that Dacca’s population had fallen from 150,000 to 20,000. Montgomery Martin – an early historian of the British Empire observed that Surat and Murshidabad had suffered a similiar fate. (This phenomenon was to be replicated all over India – particularly in Awadh (modern U.P) and other areas that had offered the most heroic resistance to the British during the revolt of 1857.)
The percentage of population dependant on agriculture and pastoral pursuits actually rose to 73% in 1921 from 61% in 1891. (Reliable figures for earlier periods are not available.)
In 1854, Sir Arthur Cotton writing in “Public Works in India” noted: “Public works have been almost entirely neglected throughout India… The motto hitherto has been: ‘Do nothing, have nothing done, let nobody do anything…..” Adding that the Company was unconcerned if people died of famine, or if they lacked roads and water.
Nothing can be more revealing than the remark by John Bright in the House of Commons on June 24, 1858, “The single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants with the single article of water, has spent a larger sum of money than the East India Company has spent in the fourteen years from 1834 to 1848 in public works of every kind throughout the whole of its vast dominions.”
Irrigation and Agricultural Development
There is another popular belief about British rule: ‘The British modernized Indian agriculture by building canals’. But the actual record reveals a somewhat different story. ” The roads and tanks and canals,” noted an observer in 1838 (G. Thompson, “India and the Colonies,” 1838), ”which Hindu or Mussulman Governments constructed for the service of the nations and the good of the country have been suffered to fall into dilapidation; and now the want of the means of irrigation causes famines.” Montgomery Martin, in his standard work “The Indian Empire”, in 1858, noted that the old East India Company “omitted not only to initiate improvements, but even to keep in repair the old works upon which the revenue depended.”
The Report of the Bengal Irrigation Department Committee in 1930 reads: “In every district the Khals (canals) which carry the internal boat traffic become from time to time blocked up with silt. Its Khals and rivers are the roads end highways of Eastern Bengal, and it is impossible to overestimate the importance to the economic life of this part of the province of maintaining these in proper navigable order ……. ” “As regards the revival or maintenance of minor routes, … practically nothing has been done, with the result that, in some parts of the Province at least, channels have been silted up, navigation has become limited to a few months in the year, and crops can only be marketed when the Khals rise high enough in the monsoon to make transport possible”.
Sir William Willcock, a distinguished hydraulic engineer, whose name was associated with irrigation enterprises in Egypt and Mesopotamia had made an investigation of conditions in Bengal. He had discovered that innumerable small destructive rivers of the delta region, constantly changing their course, were originally canals which under the English regime were allowed to escape from their channels and run wild. Formerly these canals distributed the flood waters of the Ganges and provided for proper drainage of the land, undoubtedly accounting for that prosperity of Bengal which lured the rapacious East India merchants there in the early days of the eighteenth century.. He wrote” Not only was nothing done to utilize and improve the original canal system, but railway embankments were subsequently thrown up, entirely destroying it.
Some areas, cut off from the supply of loam-bearing Ganges water, have gradually become sterile and unproductive, others improperly drained, show an advanced degree of water-logging, with the inevitable accompaniment of malaria. Nor has any attempt been made to construct proper embankments for the Gauges in its low course, to prevent the enormous erosion by which villages and groves and cultivated fields are swallowed up each year.”
“Sir William Willcock severely criticizes the modern administrators and officials, who, with every opportunity to call in expert technical assistance, have hitherto done nothing to remedy this disastrous situation, from decade to decade.” Thus wrote G. Emerson in “Voiceless Millions,” in 1931 quoting the views of Sir William Willcock in his “Lectures on the Ancient System of Irrigation in Bengal and its Application to Modern Problems” (Calcutta University Readership Lectures, University of Calcutta, 1930)
Modern Medicine and Life Expectancy
Even some serious critics of colonial rule grudgingly grant that the British brought modern medicine to India. Yet – all the statistical indicators show that access to modern medicine was severely restricted. A 1938 report by the ILO (International Labor Office) on “Industrial Labor in India” revealed that life expectancy in India was barely 25 years in 1921 (compared to 55 for England) and had actually fallen to 23 in 1931! In his recently published “Late Victorian Holocausts” Mike Davis reports that life expectancy fell by 20% between 1872 and 1921.
In 1934, there was one hospital bed for 3800 people in British India and this figure included hospital beds reserved for the British rulers. (In that same year, in the Soviet Union, there were ten times as many.) Infant mortality in Bombay was 255 per thousand in 1928. (In the same year, it was less than half that in Moscow.)
Poverty and Population Growth
Several Indians when confronted with such data from the colonial period argue that the British should not be specially targeted because India’s problems of poverty pre-date colonial rule, and in any case, were exacerbated by rapid population growth. Of course, no one who makes the first point is able to offer any substantive proof that such conditions prevailed long before the British arrived, and to counter such an argument would be difficult in the absence of reliable and comparable statistical data from earlier centuries. But some readers may find the anecdotal evidence intriguing. In any case, the population growth data is available and is quite remarkable in what it reveals.
Between 1870 and 1910, India’s population grew at an average rate of 19%. England and Wales’ population grew three times as fast – by 58%! Average population growth in Europe was 45%. Between 1921-40, the population in India grew faster at 21% but was still less than the 24% growth of population in the US!
In 1941, the density of population in India was roughly 250 per square mile almost a third of England’s 700 per square mile. Although Bengal was much more densely inhabited at almost 780 per square mile – that was only about 10% more than England. Yet, there was much more poverty in British India than in England and an unprecedented number of famines were recorded during the period of British rule.
In the first half of the 19th century, there were seven famines leading to a million and a half deaths. In the second half, there were 24 famines (18 between 1876 and 1900) causing over 20 million deaths (as per official records). W. Digby, noted in “Prosperous British India” in 1901 that “stated roughly, famines and scarcities have been four times as numerous, during the last thirty years of the 19th century as they were one hundred years ago, and four times as widespread.” In Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis points out that here were 31(thirty one) serious famines in 120 years of British rule compared to 17(seventeen) in the 2000 years before British rule.
Not surprising, since the export of food grains had increased by a factor of four just prior to that period. And export of other agricultural raw materials had also increased in similar proportions. Land that once produced grain for local consumption was now taken over by by former slave-owners from N. America who were permitted to set up plantations for the cultivation of lucrative cash crops exclusively for export. Particularly galling is how the British colonial rulers continued to export foodgrains from India to Britain even during famine years.
Annual British Government reports repeatedly published data that showed 70-80% of Indians were living on the margin of subsistence. That two-thirds were undernourished, and in Bengal, nearly four-fifths were undernourished.
Contrast this data with the following accounts of Indian life prior to colonization:-
” ….even in the smallest villages rice, flour, butter, milk, beans and other vegetables, sugar and sweetmeats can be procured in abundance …. Tavernier writing in the 17th century in his “Travels in India”.
Manouchi – the Venetian who became chief physician to Aurangzeb (also in the 17th century) wrote: “Bengal is of all the kingdoms of the Moghul, best known in France….. We may venture to say it is not inferior in anything to Egypt – and that it even exceeds that kingdom in its products of silks, cottons, sugar, and indigo. All things are in great plenty here, fruits, pulse, grain, muslins, cloths of gold and silk…”
The French traveller, Bernier also described 17th century Bengal in a similiar vein: “The knowledge I have acquired of Bengal in two visits inclines me to believe that it is richer than Egypt. It exports in abundance cottons and silks, rice, sugar and butter. It produces amply for it’s own consumption of wheat, vegetables, grains, fowls, ducks and geese. It has immense herds of pigs and flocks of sheep and goats. Fish of every kind it has in profusion. From Rajmahal to the sea is an endless number of canals, cut in bygone ages from the Ganges by immense labour for navigation and irrigation.”
The poverty of British India stood in stark contrast to these eye witness reports and has to be ascribed to the pitiful wages that working people in India received in that period. A 1927-28 report noted that “all but the most highly skilled workmen in India receive wages which are barely sufficient to feed and clothe them. Everywhere will be seen overcrowding, dirt and squalid misery…”
This in spite of the fact that in 1922 – an 11 hour day was the norm (as opposed to an 8 hour day in the Soviet Union.) In 1934, it had been reduced to 10 hours (whereas in the Soviet Union, the 7 hour day had been legislated as early as in 1927) What was worse, there were no enforced restrictions on the use of child labour and the Whitley Report found children as young as five – working a 12 hour day.
Ancient Monuments
Perhaps the least known aspect of the colonial legacy is the early British attitude towards India’s historic monuments and the extent of vandalism that took place. Instead, there is this pervasive myth of the Britisher as an unbiased “protector of the nation’s historic legacy”.
R.Nath in his ‘History of Decorative Art in Mughal Architecture’ records that scores of gardens, tombs and palaces that once adorned the suburbs of Sikandra at Agra were sold out or auctioned. “Relics of the glorious age of the Mughals were either destroyed or converted beyond recognition..”. “Out of 270 beautiful monuments which existed at Agra alone, before its capture by Lake in 1803, hardly 40 have survived”.
In the same vein, David Carroll (in ‘Taj Mahal’) observes: ” The forts in Agra and Delhi were commandeered at the beginning of the nineteenth century and turned into military garrisons. Marble reliefs were torn down, gardens were trampled, and lines of ugly barracks, still standing today, were installed in their stead. In the Delhi fort, the Hall of Public Audience was made into an arsenal and the arches of the outer colonnades were bricked over or replaced with rectangular wooden windows.”
The Mughal fort at Allahabad (one of Akbar’s favorite) experienced a fate far worse. Virtually nothing of architectural significance is to be seen in the barracks that now make up the fort. The Deccan fort at Ahmednagar was also converted into barracks. Now, only its outer walls can hint at its former magnificence.
Shockingly, even the Taj Mahal was not spared. David Carroll reports: “..By the nineteenth century, its grounds were a favorite trysting place for young Englishmen and their ladies. Open-air balls were held on the marble terrace in front of the main door, and there, beneath Shah Jahan”s lotus dome, brass bands um-pah-pahed and lords and ladies danced the quadrille. The minarets became a popular site for suicide leaps, and the mosques on either side of the Taj were rented out as bungalows to honeymooners. The gardens of the Taj were especially popular for open-air frolics…..”
“At an earlier date, when picnic parties were held in the garden of the Taj, related Lord Curzon, a governor general in the early twentieth century, “it was not an uncommon thing for the revellers to arm themselves with hammer and chisel, with which they wiled away the afternoon by chipping out fragments of agate and carnelian from the cenotaphs of the Emperor and his lamented Queen.” The Taj became a place where one could drink in private, and its parks were often strewn with the figures of inebriated British soldiers…”
Lord William Bentinck, (governor general of Bengal 1828-33, and later first governor general of all India), went so far as to announce plans to demolish the best Mogul monuments in Agra and Delhi and remove their marble facades. These were to be shipped to London, where they would be broken up and sold to members of the British aristocracy. Several of Shahjahan’s pavilions in the Red Fort at Delhi were indeed stripped to the brick, and the marble was shipped off to England (part of this shipment included pieces for King George IV himself). Plans to dismantle the Taj Mahal were in place, and wrecking machinery was moved into the garden grounds. Just as the demolition work was to begin, news from London indicated that the first auction had not been a success, and that all further sales were cancelled — it would not be worth the money to tear down the Taj Mahal.
Thus the Taj Mahal was spared, and so too, was the reputation of the British as “Protectors of India’s Historic Legacy” ! That innumerable other monuments were destroyed, or left to rack and ruin is a story that has yet to get beyond the specialists in the field.
India and the Industrial Revolution
Perhaps the most important aspect of colonial rule was the transfer of wealth from India to Britain. In his pioneering book, India Today, Rajni Palme Dutt conclusively demonstrates how vital this was to the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Several patents that had remained unfunded suddenly found industrial sponsors once the taxes from India started rolling in. Without capital from India, British banks would have found it impossible to fund the modernization of Britain that took place in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In addition, the scientific basis of the industrial revolution was not a uniquely European contribution. Several civilizations had been adding to the world’s scientific database – especially the civilizations of Asia, (including those of the Indian sub-continent). Without that aggregate of scientific knowledge the scientists of Britain and Europe would have found it impossible to make the rapid strides they made during the period of the Industrial revolution. Moreover, several of these patents, particularly those concerned with the textile industry relied on pre-industrial techniques perfected in the sub-continent. (In fact, many of the earliest textile machines in Britain were unable to match the complexity and finesse of the spinning and weaving machines of Dacca.)
Some euro-centric authors have attempted to deny any such linkage. They have tried to assert that not only was the Industrial Revolution a uniquely British/European event – that colonization and the the phenomenal transfer of wealth that took place was merely incidental to it’s fruition. But the words of Lord Curzon still ring loud and clear. The Viceroy of British India in 1894 was quite unequivocal, “India is the pivot of our Empire …. If the Empire loses any other part of its Dominion we can survive, but if we lose India the sun of our Empire will have set.”
Lord Curzon knew fully well, the value and importance of the Indian colony. It was the transfer of wealth through unprecedented levels of taxation on Indians of virtually all classes that funded the great “Industrial Revolution” and laid the ground for “modernization” in Britain. As early as 1812, an East India Company Report had stated “The importance of that immense empire to this country is rather to be estimated by the great annual addition it makes to the wealth and capital of the Kingdom…..”
Unfair Trade
Few would doubt that Indo-British trade may have been unfair – but it may be noteworthy to see how unfair. In the early 1800s imports of Indian cotton and silk goods faced duties of 70-80%. British imports faced duties of 2-4%! As a result, British imports of cotton manufactures into India increased by a factor of 50, and Indian exports dropped to one-fourth! A similiar trend was noted in silk goods, woollens, iron, pottery, glassware and paper. As a result, millions of ruined artisans and craftsmen, spinners, weavers, potters, smelters and smiths were rendered jobless and had to become landless agricultural workers.
Colonial Beneficiaries
Another aspect of colonial rule that has remained hidden from popular perception is that Britain was not the only beneficiary of colonial rule. British trade regulations even as they discriminated against Indian business interests created a favorable trading environment for other imperial powers. By 1939, only 25% of Indian imports came from Britain. 25% came from Japan, the US and Germany. In 1942-3, Canada and Australia contributed another 8%. In the period immediately before independence, Britain ruled as much on behalf of it’s imperial allies as it did in it’s own interest. The process of “globalization” was already taking shape. But none of this growth trickled down to India. In the last half of 19th century, India’s income fell by 50%. In the 190 years prior to independence, the Indian economy was literally stagnant – it experienced zero growth. (Mike Davis: Late Victorian Holocausts)
Those who wish India well might do well to re-read this history so the nation isn’t brought to the abyss once again, (and so soon after being liberated from the yoke of colonial rule). While some Indians may wax nostalgic for the return of their former overlords, and some may be ambivalent about colonial rule, most of us relish our freedom and wish to perfect it – not gift it away again.
Dr.Subramanian Swamy’s interview on Hinduism with CTS TV Canada that was given in February 2009.
Is ‘Tamil Eelam’ a Christian agenda?
By B R HaranThe White Christian Church has the unique characteristic of gaining entry into non-White, non-Semitic civilizations, by slow infiltration of important establishments to influence them and create unrest by dividing the local populace along communal or linguistic lines, with the sole objective of Christianising those countries.
Several instances in history confirm this. The Church has been partially successful in India, as evidenced by the Christianisation of north-eastern states such as Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, etc., and a few pockets in other States. While interior states have been able to withstand the Christian onslaught, the southern coastal states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have been vulnerable to the evil designs of the Church. This was made possible only because of the help provided by self-serving political leaders in the guise of secularism.
Influencing politics in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka
The Dravidian Movement of Tamil Nadu comprised only such leaders, who even went to the extent of requesting the British to continue their hegemony over Tamil Nadu. Since then, the unholy ‘Christian-Dravidian’ nexus has worked consistently for the cause of ‘Tamil Nation,’ extending it to the north-east of Sri Lanka as well.
Just as it divided the Tamil people through the bogus ‘Aryan (Brahmin) – Dravidian (Non-Brahmin) Theory,’ to alienate non-Brahmins from the ‘Hindu’ fold along linguistic lines (Aryan Sanskrit – Dravidian Tamil), the Church similarly divided the Sri Lankan people along linguistic (Sinhala-Tamil) lines. On the one hand, it backed the LTTE fully against the government, and on the other, it successfully infiltrated the Sri Lankan establishment and influenced the government through Sinhala Christian leadership.
When Sri Lankan Prime Minister Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike introduced the “Sinhala only Act” in 1956, the Island’s first anti-Tamil riots took place. Prior to Solomon Bandaranaike, the Sri Lankan government was headed by leaders like Don Stephen Senanayake and John Kotelawala, and his successors were Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Dudley Senanayake, Junius Richard Jayewardene, Premadasa, Ranil Wickramasinghe, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (married a Christian), Percy Mahinda Rajapakse, who were all either Christians, or Buddhist converts, or married to Christian spouses.
The first Sri Lankan Tamil leader who started the demand for separatism was a Christian – Samuel James Velupillai Chelvanayakam; he also called for a “Greater Dravida Nadu” on both sides of the Palk Straits.
It can be said that LTTE just followed his footsteps, backed by the Church and missionaries. Ever since ethnic riots took place in 1983, Anton Balasingham, a Roman Catholic, assumed the mantle of LTTE’s political leadership and was second only to Prabhakaran, also a Christian.
Ironically, the 85% Hindu majority of Sri Lankan Tamils came totally under the control of a Christian minority leadership, thanks to the Machiavellian machinations of the Church and missionaries. It is difficult to swallow this bitter truth, especially when recalling the glorious past of Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus under the leadership of great Shaivite scholars like Arumuga Navalar, great men like Ponnambalam Ramanathan and Ponnambalam Arunachalam, and intellectuals like the Coomaraswamys. All were widely respected by the Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Ponnambalam Ramanathan was the one who pushed for “Wesak” or “Buddha Purnima” to be a public holiday in colonial Sri Lanka.
As for Tamil Nadu, though the Church suffered a slight setback when M.G. Ramachandran left DMK and founded the AIADMK, deviating from “Atheism” to “Theism” (moving closer to Hindu religion), and his successor Jayalalithaa followed his footsteps (at least for a while), it seemed to have cleverly moved its coins to influence AIADMK too. Now we have a host of Dravidian parties changing alliances at the drop of a hat and even at each others’ throats, but remaining perennially close to the Church.
So, whichever party is in power, the Church is able to have its say and continue with its agenda of de-Hinduising the state. Similarly, in Sri Lanka, the Church has been able to influence the leadership of both LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, while causing the death of thousands of Hindus and Buddhists in the decades-long conflict. The Church has also been indulging in blatant conversion activities in both Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.
Influencing Jayalalithaa for the greatest assault on Hinduism
At one point, the Church found it difficult in Tamil Nadu, due to the enormous influence of Melmaravathur Adiparasakthi Movement and Sabarimala Pilgrimage on Scheduled Caste Hindus, and the various activities undertaken by Kanchi Mutt to reach out to them, besides the enactment of the anti-conversion law by the Jayalalithaa regime.
But the Church finally succeeded in influencing Jayalalithaa after her party’s rout in the 2004 parliament elections, resulting in two telling actions. First, she repealed the anti-conversion law, enacted by her own government, to appease the Christian community; secondly, she went to the extent of denigrating and destroying the sanctity of a 2500-year-old institution established by Adi Sankara and flawlessly maintained by his order of disciples as ‘Jagath Gurus’ for millions of Hindus.
Not surprisingly, in October 2004, she received the ‘Golden Star for Dignity and Honour’ (Thanga Tharakai) award from a Ukraine-based Christian organisation named International Human Rights Defence Committee, controlled by America and funded by ‘US Agency for International Development’ (USAID).
The Indian representative for IHRDC was Mallavarappu Prakash, Bishop of Vijayawada and later Chairman of Tamil Nadu Minorities Welfare Commission! In February 2005, the ‘India International Society’, USA, proposed a tribute for her together with ‘Barath Jyothi’ award, after which evangelist K.A. Paul came to Tamil Nadu in a private jet to give thousands of crores of rupees for Tsunami relief.
Jaya pursuing Christian agenda
Since then, Jayalalithaa has clearly sided with the Christian clergy. Last year, while terming the spontaneous ‘retaliatory’ attacks on Christians in Kandhamal, Orissa, as a “disgrace” to the nation, she conveniently ignored the dastardly murder of Swami Laxmanananda and his disciples, and the distribution of blasphemous literature and pamphlets denigrating Hindu Gods and Goddesses, by his opponents. When the Rama Sethu Protection Movement was at its peak, she spoke against the Sethusamudram Project, not with true faith in Sri Rama, but with an eye on the votebank. And while protesting against the Sethu Project, she exhibited her ’secular’ credentials by pointing out that ‘Adams Bridge’ (Ramar Sethu) was significant to Muslims and Christians as well, a myth which no Christian or Muslim scholar has so far endorsed!
Even the present election manifesto of her party makes only a passing mention of Rama Sethu! Yet it gives exclusive commitments for Christians, such as Reservation for Dalit Christians (unconstitutional), subsidy for Jerusalem pilgrimage, ‘All Souls Day’ to be made a holiday, hostels with all facilities at nominal charges in towns of minority religious significance, and addressing the ‘security’ concerns of minorities.
But she gave no commitments regarding repeal of the DMK government’s ordinance on Tamil New Year or returning the Chidambaram Temple administration to the Dikshidars, or any issue concerning Hindus. As if to confirm allegiance to the Christian agenda, she deviated from her original stand on the Sri Lankan ethnic issue and sat on a day-long fast on 9 March 2009, condemning the Indian government’s alleged inaction on the issue and addressed the LTTE as “fighters” instead of her usual remark of “terrorists”. Now she has openly supported the Christian agenda of creation of a separate Tamil Eelam, which amounts to supporting the LTTE and nothing else. After all, the Church-backed LTTE leadership is also fighting for the same cause!
Sabotaging the legislation on conversion in Sri Lanka
In 2003, Sri Lankan Buddhist and Hindu leaders joined hands to draft a legislation, at the request of Hindu Affairs Minister T. Maheswaran, to legally stop conversion activities by the Church. Despite the pressure applied by this joint committee which worked for six months to draft the new act for parliament, the Church-influenced Sri Lankan government has been reluctant to enact the law.
As the Church foresaw that Buddhist-Hindu unity – unity between majority (Buddhists) and the largest minority (Tamil Hindus) – could lead to permanent peace in the war-struck Island, it sabotaged the process of legislation by favouring the creation of an inter-religious council to hammer out a solution. This so-called inter-religious council is a typical Christian strategy (much like the Church-backed inter-faith dialogues in non-Christian countries) to thwart all attempts to ban conversions by an act of parliament; the same has been adopted by the Vatican to stop such legislations in India as well. Though organizations such as ‘All Ceylon Hindu Congress’ (though pro-LTTE), ‘Hindu Council of Sri Lanka’ and ‘National Council of Buddhist Clergy’ are dead against conversion activities, the Church has been able to influence the political leadership across the spectrum to sabotage the legislation of the anti-conversion law
(http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20884 ).
In this context, it must be noted that the former Hindu Affairs Minister in Ranil Wickramasinge’s cabinet T. Maheswaran escaped an assassination attempt in 2004, but was finally assassinated on 1 January 2008 while worshipping in a Shiva Temple. Till date, the government has not completed investigations in to the murder, though it has been blamed for allegedly reducing his security level and for continuing minister Douglas Devananda, widely alleged to be involved in the assassination. The government put the blame squarely on LTTE and Douglas Devananda also denied the allegation of involvement. The BBC Sinhala.com reported, “The DNA samples taken from the murder suspect of a Tamil legislator matched with the blood samples taken from the gun used for the killing, Sri Lankan judiciary said. The legislator’s security guard managed to shoot the suspect, identified as Johnson Collin Wasanthan Valentine
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Maheswaran and
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sinhala/news/story/2008/02/080201_maheswaran_dna.shtml ).
Importance of Hindu-Buddhist relationship
As early as June 1998, ‘Tamilnet’ reported that an International conference on Hinduism condemned attacks on Hindus and the destruction of Hindu places of worship by Sri Lankan security forces, and urged Colombo to halt such attacks. The report said that, the ‘First International Conference on Hindu Solidarity’ was held in Paris on 27-28 June at the UNESCO auditorium and attended by delegates from several countries, including functionaries from BJP and VHP (http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=1691).
Though this seems like a conflict between Buddhist and Hindu communities, it must be understood that the security forces are controlled by a political leadership owing allegiance to the Church. The centuries-old cultural relationship and largely peaceful existence of both the Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus can be ascertained from two facts.
First, their coming together to draft a legislation against conversion activities of the Church and missionaries, and second, the statement from the Hindu Council of Sri Lanka that the long-standing cordial relationship between the two religious communities in the Island Nation would go a long way in solving the present crisis and creating peace and harmony.
It is pertinent to note that Buddhists worship Hindu Gods and Goddesses and Hindus worship Buddha as an Avatar of Maha Vishnu, and both communities follow the same calendar and celebrate the same day as New Year. While condemning the politicisation of the ethnic conflict by self-serving politicians of Tamil Nadu, the Hindu Council felt that areas of common interests must be identified and along with religious commonality and cordiality, local capacities built for peace. It opined that furthering political interests and fanning Tamil chauvinism must be discouraged as it would complicate the situation and inhibit the capacity of the Indian government to help find a lasting solution by bringing both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils to the negotiating table.
BJP-led NDA government’s proactive role in the peace process
Journalist M.R. Narayan Swamy (IANS) reported that the Vajpayee government played a secret but vital proactive role in the peace process between Sri Lanka and LTTE, brokered by Norway: “Overseen by New Delhi, a truce document began to be drafted. Norway was deeply involved in the exercise, roping in some of its veteran diplomats. Eventually, this translated into CFA. India also told Norwegian diplomats to let the LTTE know about the Indian involvement in the entire effort. On Feb 21, 2002, LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran signed the CFA. Wickramasinghe put his signature a day later.”
By sheer coincidence, both Ranil Wickramasinghe and A.B. Vajpayee lost power almost at the same time (April-May 2004) and J.N. Dixit, appointed NSA by Sonia-led UPA regime, passed away within a few months of his appointment, with all the details about India’s role in bringing the CFA, which he learnt from Ranil Wickramasinghe, when the later visited India after demitting office. It is natural for a Hindu nationalist party to be deeply concerned about the well-being of a country who’s Buddhist and Hindu people are both tied to Hindu India by an umbilical cord; hence it is no surprise that it tried to bring peace in the interests of both countries. Why did the CFA fail and whether the Sonia-led government pursued the policy of the Vajpayee government with regard to Sri Lanka remain unknown?
(http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=24710 ).
The present scenario
At present, all Dravidian parties are wreaking havoc in the run-up to the general elections, using the inflammatory Eelam issue as an election talking point. Each party is trying to whip up emotions in Tamil Nadu to bring about a ceasefire in Lanka and thereby save Prabhakaran and the LTTE.
When the Father Jagat Gasper Raj-Kanimozhi combine floated the “Chennai Sangamam” cultural extravaganza in 2007, Jaya TV went to town with investigative reports on the LTTE connections of Gasper Raj; Jayalalithaa wasted no time condemning the government’s association with the project. But last year, both Jayalalithaa and her TV channel kept a conspicuous silence during the Chennai Sangamam festival.
During the last week alone, Father Gasper Raj has been promoted by mainstream electronic media as a representative of Sri Lankan Tamils! Participating in debates on electronic news channels, he blatantly supports LTTE in the guise of voicing human rights concerns, criticizes the Indian government, and in one debate on Times Now Channel had the audacity to call Dr. Subramanian Swamy a “paid agent of Rajapakse”! Yet it is unclear if he is a Sri Lankan refugee or an Indian citizen. His antecedents and present activities in India/Tamil Nadu need thorough investigation.
AIADMK leader Jayalaithaa, who condemned Karunanidhi for saying Prabhakaran was not a terrorist, has not reacted to her ally PMK leader Ramadoss’ identical statement! Why does Jayalalithaa, who questioned Sonia’s silence on Karuna’s statement, remain silent on Ramadoss’ statement?
And what has the Italian-Christian-led UPA done for Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in the last five years? Why didn’t the Sonia-led regime follow the NDA policy with regard to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue? Why was her government silent when the Geneva round of talks failed despite the presence of a live CFA?
Sad irony, and civilisational opportunity
Actually, the West and the Church want to Christianise Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu and form a larger Tamil Christian State. Hence a Sinhala-Tamil divide has been created with the help of the Tamil-Christian leadership of the LTTE and the Sinhala-Christian leadership of Sri Lanka.
Caught in between are the Sinhala Buddhist and Tamil Hindu civil populace. To keep the issue alive without any solution, the Christian leadership of India and the Dravidian, irreligious leadership of Tamil Nadu have been used, just as this diabolic group is using Dravidian politicians and Christian NGOs who have been harvesting souls in both Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. It is a sad irony that the interests of hapless Tamil Hindus of Sri Lanka, who have been persecuted for long by both the Christian leadership of LTTE and the Christian leadership of Sri Lankan government, have been represented by the unholy Christian-Dravidian nexus in Tamil Nadu.
As things stand in Sri Lanka, it looks as though the West might be able to save the LTTE leadership. It will try to send missionaries and NGOs to help the rehabilitation process, so it can clandestinely achieve its evangelical agenda also.
It is said that President Rajapakse instructed setting up of a chapel in the ‘welfare villages’ to look into the spiritual needs of the internally displaced persons and refugees, who number up to 200,000. Sensing the danger of evangelization, the Hindu Council, the Hindu Women’s Society (Saiva Mangaiyar Kazhagam), the Sai Samithi, along with other organizations, swung into action to provide medicines, clothes, soaps, detergents and sanitary napkins and other articles of basic necessity, to augment the shelter, food and water provided by the government. The Hindu Council has also organized singing of Tamil devotional hymns (Thevaram and Thiruvasagam); the Sai Samithi has organized bhajans. These organizations are likely to take care of orphaned children by sending them to orphanages run by the Sri Ramakrishna Mission.
The present situation must be seen as an opportunity to revive Hindu-Buddhist unity and Hindu religious heads from India, especially from Tamil Nadu, would do well to establish contact and communication channels with Buddhist leaders of Sri Lanka. This will go a long way in bringing peace and harmony to the Island Nation. For this to happen, we need a strong “Hindu” political leadership in India. Let us hope it gets ‘elected’ now.
The author is a senior journalist; he lives in Chennai
Washington Post recognises the power of Indian blogosphere. We bloggers have become a pain in the neck of media bosses and corporate houses. But there is little that they can do. So guys, blog! Blogs are going to becoming increasingly powerful in the next five years. Better start early if you haven’t started blogging yet.
Letter to UN Secy Gen from Christian leader of Pakistan
I , the undersigned , Nazir S Bhatti, Chief of Pakistan Christian Congress PCC, on behalf of 20 million Christian in Islamic Republic of Pakistan wish to draw your kind attention on enforced migration and displacement of thousands of Christians from Swat valley, Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera and FATA after threats to convert to Islam or die by Islamist elements. These families are staying with their relatives in Punjab and Sindh provinces facing immense miseries and hardships after denial by government of Pakistan to provide any assistance or security. The hundreds of Christians families of victims of blasphemy are living in hiding for safety of life weather accused are acquitted or in jails. Thousands of Christian families keep on shifting residence in different parts of Pakistan on threats by influential Muslims or in fear of implication in fabricated cases by police. The mass migration of poor oppressed Christian is never brought on record by government of Pakistan nor any human right organization have urged for their settlement where they may live peaceful life.
It will be very important to note in 21st century that Christian are treated as untouchable by Muslim majority on basis of religion and cannot dine at any roadside vendor, restaurant and hotel which is worst type of hate on globe towards Christian in Pakistan. If any Christian on journey or away from home is hungry and attempts to eat in any Muslim owned dinner, he is beaten and tortured by Muslims and forced to pay for plates and glass in which he eats or any thing he have touched. The Pakistan Christian Congress PCC presented many memorandums to government from 1985-1998 to legislate against curse of un-touchable to ensure social justice in society but such demands were neglected. The curse of un-touchable have prevented Christians to take part in profitable catering industry because Pakistani Muslim terms Christians as infidel under Islamic decree which prohibit to eat any food prepared by them.
His Excellency,
The churches are being attacked, pastors are being threatened, social activists are charged under blasphemy, teenage girls are gang-raped by Muslims and Christian women are enforcedly converted to marry by Muslims in Pakistan. There are innocent Christians accused of blasphemy behind bars and hundreds facing trials under fabricated false cases; The Churches in Bahawalpur, Islamabad, Chianwali, Sangla Hill, Toba Tek, Sukkur, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and in many villages have been attacked by militant Muslim extremists groups killing hundreds of Christian worshipers but non of killer is arrested and brought to justice from 1998-2009. The government also failed to protect Christian institution of Murree School, Taxila Hospital, Bible Society and Justice and Peace Organization at Karachi, from attacks of extremist Muslim groups who massacred Christian social activists.
The Muslim militants Martyred Bishop John Joseph, a first and only Punjabi bishop of Catholic Church of Pakistan, dioceses of Faisalabad, but establishment forced Christian clergy tools to declare his martyrdom to be a suicide. The Pakistani Christian Congress PCC demanded to constitute an independent Tribunal to investigate killing of Bishop John Joseph but conspiracy was hatched to close his murder case. Many other pastors and evangelists have been gunned down in broad day light but killers are never arrested and brought to justice in Pakistan.
The Christian youth has been denied opportunities of professional and higher education in Pakistan which has created socio-economic disaster among poor families. The government have closed doors of employment for Christian youth in armed and civil services to force them to become laborers and accept low grade jobs of sanitary workers.
There is no Christian General in Armed Forces, no Christian Secretary in Civil services, no Christian Chairman in any of government Corporation, no Christian Inspector General of Police IG, DIG, SSP, SP, DSP and SHO in four provinces, no Christian High Commissioner, Ambassador and Counsel General in any Foreign Mission of Pakistan, no Christian Justice in any High Courts or Supreme Court of Pakistan and no Christian Director or Deputy Director in any Directorate of Pakistani government which is total denial of due share in power and resources of state to millions of Christians.
The census is never conducted fair and transparent and Christian data is manipulated to decrease representation of Christian in democratic institutions. It will be interesting to note that Christians had four seats in legislative assembly of Pakistan when house comprised of 48 legislators in 1947. There were six seats reserved for Christians in national assembly of Pakistan in constitution of 1973 of Islamic Republic of Pakistan which were reduced to four in national general elections of 1985, when house was of 232 members. In national general elections of 2002, the total house consisted of 365 but Christian seats remained four. How amazing it makes mockery of Census Division of Pakistan that population of Muslims keep on increasing but population of Christians decreasing?
His Excellency,
The Islamic laws of blasphemy, Hadood Ordinance, Article 203, law of Evidence and Compensation have been implemented on Christians which have created feelings of security and safety of life by the hands of militant or by government agencies which is clear count of constitutional genocide since 1985.
The Pakistan Peoples Party PPP government have been also failed to award equal basic democratic rights to millions of Christians like previous military regimes. The PPP led government have imposed one Christian tool as Federal Minister for Minorities and declared him head of “Minority Commission”. It is on record that government of Pakistan entered into an internationally recognized pact with Indian government in 1950, known as Liaquat-Nehru Pact to further safeguard the minority’s rights in the neighboring states. The facts to enter in this pact were that problem of religious minorities aggravated a lot during late 1949 and early 1950. At this critical moment of the history of South Asia, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan issued statement and emphasized on the solution of the problem of minorities in the two countries. He also proposed a meeting with his Indian counter part to determine how to end the persecution. The two Prime Ministers met in Delhi on April 2, 1950 and discussed the matter in detail for six long days. On April 8, the two leaders signed an agreement, which was later given the name; “Liaquat-Nehru Pact”. This pact provided a bill of rights for the minorities of India and Pakistan. According to the agreement, the government of India and Pakistan solemnly agreed that each shall ensure, to the minorities throughout its territories, complete equality of citizenship, irrespective of religion; a full sense of security in respect of life, culture, property and personal honor. It also guaranteed the fundamental human rights to the minorities, such as freedom of movement, speech, occupation and worship. The pact also provided for the minorities to Participate in the public life of the country, to hold political or other office and to serve in their countries civil and armed forces. Liaquat-Nehru Pact provided for the mechanism to deal with the oppressive elements with iron hand. Both the governments decided to set up “Minority Commission” headed by acting Justice of higher court in their country with the aim to observe and report on the implementation of the pact.
Sir,
The government of India constituted “The Minority Commission” headed by Justice of Supreme Court of India, according to the referred pact and legislated according to presentations of the Muslim leaders to their personal laws and election systems but the government of Pakistan failed to constitute such effective “Minority Commission” headed by acting Supreme Court justice for recommendations or the presentations of the Christian leaders in Pakistan. The Indian religious minorities are enjoying due share in power and Indian Muslim have their independent Law Board to protect their personnel law while in Pakistan, the Muslim judges are issuing decrees under Islamic laws on Christian divorce and marriages. The Present PPP government following the foot steps of previous regimes have also nominated one Federal Minister for Minorities to be head of “Minority Commission” instead of any Justice of Supreme Court violating Liaquat-Nehro Pact.
His Excellency,
Islamic Republic of Pakistan being a member of United Nation and one of signatory member state of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights announced in UN Charter have always neglected the respect of fundamental right of the creed or language, according to Articles 9-29 of Islamic republic of Pakistan constitution of 1973. In the elections of 1971, for first time after independence, the Joint Election system was endorsed in the legal framework. During legislation of Joint Electorate system in the 1973 constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, no Christian presence was in the house while Muslim members of parliament created selection instead of election. We wish to submit that Christians never demanded Joint Election system nor were any recommendations of Minority Commission according to Liaquat Nehru Pact, as such commission never existed in Pakistan since 1950. The founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared in his Fourteen Point doctrine, the Separate Election system for minorities in Pakistan, keeping in view his meetings and discussion with the minority leaders during the Pakistan movement. The minorities enjoyed the separate election system from 1947 to 1956 by electing their own representatives for democratic institutions in Pakistan to raise their voice.
In Joint Election system, Christian vote in their respective constituencies to Muslim candidates while Muslim members of parliament select Christians tools of Muslim feudal lords and business tycoons on reserved seats which can not be termed democratic. On other hand the Dual Voting system for the Kashmiri Muslims is in operation where they vote within territory of Pakistan to elect their legislators for the legislative assembly of Azad Kashmir and also vote for national assembly of Pakistan in their respective constituencies. The Christians have demanded Dual Voting rights which have been denied and Joint Electorate has been imposed on them.
His Excellency,
In my letter to UNO offices on August, 2002, I appealed to press upon government of Pakistan not to impose Joint Election system on Christians but to constitute “Minority Commission” headed by Supreme Court Justice to provide an opportunity of presentations to Christian registered political parties, civil society leaders and clergy on election system of their choice. I also invited your kind attention on miseries and hardships of Christians youth, women and seniors in Pakistan who have been treated as second class citizen and deprived of their basic democratic rights.
Again, I wish to bring to your kind notice that present regime of PPP is making false promises with Christians and not sincere to solve their problems to ensure justice. The PPP government announced to reserve seats for Christians in Senate of Pakistan in elections of February 2009, but failed to fulfill promise and again there is no Christian representation in Senate of Pakistan. The Prime Minster declared 5% quota of jobs for Christians in government employment but never issued any official notification in this regard. The incidents of arrests under blasphemy, gang-rape of teen age Christian girls, forcibly conversion of Christian women and their kidnaps, desecration of Churches and victimization by police are at peak now which have forced Christians to not trust government any more when government have no respect for international treaties like Liaquat-Nehro Pact and Universal Human Rights Declaration of UNO being a signatory.
Prayer:
PCC appeal United Nations to appoint special envoy to visit Pakistan to verify persecution, victimization and genocide of Christians by hands of Muslims, Muslim militants and establishment by direct meeting with migrant Christians and victims of oppression, rape and torture instead of meeting with clergy and their umbrella civil society organizations or commissions which are continuously misleading international forums on directives of government. We also appeal your honor to award refugee status to families of victim of rape, blasphemy laws, wrongfully confined by administration, displaced Christians and Christians in general for settlement where they may enjoy peaceful life at liberty.
Religion and politics in “bewilderingly diverse” India
I am seeing a lot of Christians and Muslims of India badmouthing BJP, RSS and other nationalist organisations in the Western press. Did nobody teach them not to wash one’s dirty linen in the neighbour’s house? It is about time these people started putting their nation before their religion. As cheerleaders of secularism, they should put their money where their mouth is.
Nice editorial in an Assamese newspaper.
It is very important not to forget that the elections that we are now going through are the parliamentary elections of a secular democratic republic and the size and complexion of the majority in this democracy. It is also useful to bear in mind that when we became a republic on January 26, 1950, we were just a democratic republic without the “secular” prefix which came only as a result of minority pressures in the year 1976.
Thus, unlike many other sovereign states of the world that are democratic as well as secular (but that do not proclaim their secular credentials from housetops), we were obliged also to proclaim the fact that we were secular at the bidding of such minority groups that did not have the means to be secular within the framework of their respective faiths.
No wonder, for all practical purposes, our so-called secularism has degenerated into a kind of pseudo-secularism that has one characteristic feature: it is vehemently anti-majority by being rabidly anti-Hindu. To be a dyed-in-the-wool secularist in India, even the Hindu must spew objectionable untruths about his own religion.
Some of the recent statements of the Prime Minister and the actions of Asom Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi have demonstrated only too clearly how hollow our claims of being democratic and secular can be. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in New Delhi that the “secular-communal divide” was important in the country. “I do not see (that) this country has any future except by staying with secular values,” he added.
The pertinent questions that arise are: What secular-communal divide does he have in mind? And what kind of secular values does he envisage? The kind of anti-majority values that pass for secularism with the Congress? For the Congress, the terms communal and secular are merely tokens of convenience. According to the Congress’ warped notions of secularism, anything that goes against the majority Hindus of the country is secular.
When the Congress goes in for a coalition with the Muslim League either in Kerala or at the Centre, this is an alliance with a secular party. But whenever any political party forges an alliance with the BJP, both parties are communal. The Congress has sought to perpetuate this brand of pseudo-secularism long enough. Today the people are much wiser. They may nod their heads in agreement, but not many people will swallow this kind of perverse logic much longer.
In fact, we may get a taste of the people’s growing awareness of the total fraud that this much-touted ‘secularism’ is sooner than the Congress thinks this will happen. Is the failure to conclude the trial of the SIMI activists who carried out serial blasts in several Indian cities due to secular tolerance or electoral pragmatism masquerading as secularism? One cannot fool all the people all the time.
Asom Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi was so concerned about the emergence of the AUDF causing a split in the Muslim votes for the Congress that he deemed it proper even to invite a Muslim religious leader to speak to the Muslim electorate in the State to prevent such a split. And this is called a secular republic! In which other secular republic of the world has one heard of the head of a State inviting a religious leader to address election gatherings?
If he is so concerned about the split in the Muslim votes, why is he not concerned about the split in the Hindu votes? After all, despite a Muslim majority in eight districts of Asom, they do not constitute the majority in the remaining 19 districts. Has the Chief Minister not indicated very clearly (a) that he is counting only on the votes of the Bangladeshis who have swelled the list of illegal voters in the last few months and (b) that winning by resorting to communal practices is all right for the Congress even if it is not all right for other political parties? Obviously, what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander. And we still pretend that this is a democratic country and that we practise genuine secular values!
Stephen Knapp offers 28 reasons why one should become a Hindu. Have you explored his website? It hosts many ebooks written by him that you can download or read online for free.
Why Be A Hindu: The Advantages of the Vedic Path
By Stephen KnappPreface
This book is my response to the fact that sometimes I get a little concerned, as I was when I took my latest tour of India (June, 2001), when I see the efforts of those who try to demean and unnecessarily promote serious misunderstandings about Hinduism, the Vedic culture. This often times is done in the attempt to convince others of the greatness of some of the minority religions there. This is something that is increasingly going on in India. It is also increasing in other parts of the world in what is called “Hindu bashing.”
I have also witnessed young Hindus who have moved to the West and sometimes exhibit confusion or disregard in their attitude toward their own culture, some of which is a result of the Western attitudes and misunderstandings toward Hinduism. So this booklet is written in response to that confusion, trouble, and the unnecessary campaigns for conversion. All of this is merely due to a lack of a clear understanding of Vedic culture and what it offers. So I wanted to bring out some simple yet important points, in the form of this booklet, that I thought people should consider in their view of the Vedic spiritual path.
One point to understand while reading this book is that the name Hinduism is, basically, a relatively modern term for the ancient Vedic spiritual path. So when I say “Hindu,” I mean the Vedic philosophy, otherwise known as Sanatana-Dharma, and someone who is following that direction. I know there are many distinctions and specific schools of thought within the umbrella term of “Hinduism.” However, I am writing this for a wide and general audience. So I am using the term in a liberal and collective way to include all people who follow the Vedic process or portions of it.
Hinduism, or Vedic culture, is not merely a religion. It is a spiritual path and way of life. Quite honestly, nothing compares with it. And I know. I grew up in the West as a Christian, studying the Bible from cover to cover due to my own curiosity. However, when I was about 19 years old, I still had many questions that were not and could not be answered within the Christian philosophy. So, I made great studies of the various religions and civilizations throughout the world, finally finding the Vedic culture as perhaps the most profound tradition of all. It is one that offers more insights into life and the purpose of it, especially the spiritual aspects, than any other culture one can find today.
In this way, I found the kind of answers I needed in the Vedic literature, especially in the Bhagavad-gita, Bhagavat Purana and others. Only then did things of this world begin to make sense to me. I went on studying the Vedic philosophy and spiritual science and became an initiated disciple of His Divine Grace Srila A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, and was given the spiritual name of Sri Nandanandana dasa. I have continued practicing and studying the principles of Vedic philosophy ever since, as well as researching other religions of the world.
So what’s so great about Vedic culture and its philosophy? This booklet describes some of the elementary details that differentiates Hinduism, the Vedic path, over all others. And I am glad to share this with my fellow human beings who are open-minded enough to consider the various avenues that can help us understand more about our spiritual identities and the purpose of life. This is not an attempt to say that the Vedic path is better than anything else for everyone, but there are distinct advantages worth considering from which a person can benefit. These are just a few of them.
1. WHAT DOES HINDUISM STAND FOR?
Hinduism is, basically, the modern name for the Vedic way of life, especially the spiritual path usually associated with India. Previously, those who followed the Vedic system were also called Aryans. It is often considered that the Vedic Aryans were a race of people. However, Aryan actually means a standard of living, an ideal. It was the Sanskrit speaking people of thousands of years ago that gave the word arya to signify a gentleman, an ideal person, someone on the path of purity. It was a term meant for those who were on the cutting edge of social evolution. Another way of interpreting the word aryan is that ar also means white or clear. Ya refers to God. Ya also refers to Yadu, or Krishna. Thus, aryan means those who have, or are developing, a clear path or a clear consciousness toward God.
In this way, we can understand that Aryanism, Vedic culture, or modern Hinduism, is a way of life. It is not a race of people or merely a sectarian creed or religion. It belongs to no particular country or race. It is a path that upholds a code of conduct which values peace and happiness and justice for all. Thus, it is a path open for all who want to be trained to be happy with simple living and high thinking, while engaged in proper conduct, a moral life, and selfless service to humanity and God. Therefore, anyone who wants to live in such a manner may be called an Aryan, a member or follower of the Vedic culture, no matter from which race or country a person may come.
So what does it mean to follow this Vedic Aryan path? It generally means to learn the ways of a spiritually progressed person. This includes understanding one’s spiritual identity, knowing that he or she is not the temporary body but is spirit soul, that there is karma or reactions for one’s activities, and rebirth in another life after death in which one reaps the reward or punishment for his or her own good or evil thoughts, words, and deeds.
By having a solid understanding of such spiritual knowledge, there is automatically a respect for all others regardless of race, sex, position, or species. This brings a moral and peaceful social behavior in everybody toward everyone. By having respect for everyone’s spiritual identity, this also brings an innate happiness in us all. We can understand that we are only visiting this planet for a short time, and that we are all in this together.
In other words, my contribution to your well-being, especially spiritual well-being, will be an automatic contribution to my own existence. In this way, society at large is in a state of constant improvement. Thus, together we all work toward attaining a clean mind and a pure heart. That is the goal of the Vedic Aryan way of life, and all those who seriously follow it.
Not everyone, however, wants to reach this stage of life or follow this path. That is why the Vedic system installs rules for moral behavior and regulatory sacraments and practices beginning from the prenatal stage all the way through death. Of course, many of these moralistic rules are also quite common in other forms of religion and behavior. However, anybody who is unwilling to follow such rules for a balanced moral standard is dubbed a non-Aryan, which simply indicates one who is not so civilized. Such a person is not on the spiritual path of life, regardless of what other standards or principles of etiquette he may follow.
So a person who lacks spiritual tendencies and acts on the bodily platform of existence, willing to do whatever he likes, or who thinks he is a white body, or a black body, or from this country or that, and who holds loyalty only to that conception and shows it by criticizing everyone who is not like him, is a non-Aryan. He is one who works against the standards of Hinduism, even he if calls himself a Hindu, or anything else for that matter. In this way, we can see the need to return to the Vedic standards of life through authentic spiritual education.
Therefore, the Sanskrit word Aryan means a way of life that aims at the elevation of everyone in society to a higher level of consciousness, as we find in the broadest foundation within Hinduism. It means to assist ourselves through a disciplined and godly life to understand the purpose of our existence as well as to become a spiritually realized person. It means to recognize the divinity in each of us. It means to perceive the divine energy that permeates the creation, knowing that we and all others are but manifestations of the Divine, the same Supreme Creator, Father of all. It also means that we help every other individual soul understand this, because by helping others we help ourselves. That itself is a natural state of being when we can perceive God as the Supersoul, Paramatma, within everyone.
All of this is encouraged by, and increases, a natural faith in an all-pervading Supreme Being. Such faith and focus on the Supreme can elevate us to return to our real spiritual home after death, that one infinite and eternal existence, which is one of the most important goals of the Vedic lifestyle. Once we are relieved of the body, or the bodily concept of life, then there is no longer any question as to what and who we really are. Offering this opportunity to society for reaching that level of understanding is one of the most important purposes of the Vedic path. This is the essence of what Hinduism stands for. Now let’s consider the following points as to the advantages of the Vedic path.
2. HINDUISM IS THE OLDEST LIVING CULTURE IN THE WORLD
Look around. Do you find any other culture that has lasted as long as the Hindu or Vedic culture? Do you see any other culture that after no less than 5,000 years, if not much longer, is still thriving and dynamic, practicing many of the same traditions as it did from thousands of years ago? Sure, you have other old cultures, like the Egyptian, the Inca, Maya, Aztec, all of which go back about 5,000 years, but none of these are still living cultures. They are all gone, leaving us but remnants and artifacts to figure out what really was their culture.
For the Vedic civilization, it is not something that we really need to decipher from old remnants. The traditions and practices that you presently see have been going on for many thousands of years. Its history is well documented in the Puranas, much of which even historians have not researched as well as they should. Through such study it is obvious that the Vedic society has a prehistoric origin. While most of the “living” cultures that we find today, and the most popular religions, are a modern creation in the sense that they have only come about within the past 1400, 2000, and 2500 years with the advent of the Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist religions.
However, the Vedic culture goes back much farther. Many scholars have noted the antiquity of the Vedic civilization. For example, in his Discourse on Sanskrit and Its Literature, given at the College of France, Professor Bournouf states, “We will study India with its philosophy and its myths, its literature, its laws and its language. Nay it is more than India, it is a page of the origin of the world that we will attempt to decipher.”
In this same line of thinking, Mr. Thornton, in his book History of British India, observed, “The Hindus are indisputably entitled to rank among the most ancient of existing nations, as well as among those most early and most rapidly civilized. . . ere yet the Pyramids looked down upon the Valley of the Nile. . . when Greece and Italy, these cradles of modern civilization, housed only the tenants of the wilderness, India was the seat of wealth and grandeur.”
The well-known German philosopher Augustus Schlegel in his book, Wisdom of the Ancient Indians, noted in regard to the divine origin of Vedic civilization, “It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed a knowledge of the God. All their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear, severely grand, as deeply conceived in any human language in which men have spoken of their God. . .”
Max Mueller further remarked in his India–What It Can Teach Us (Page 21), “Historical records (of the Hindus) extend in some respects so far beyond all records and have been preserved to us in such perfect and legible documents, that we can learn from them lessons which we can learn nowhere else and supply missing links.”
On the antiquity of the Vedic society, we can respect the number of philosophies, outlooks on life, and developments in understanding our purpose in this world that has been imbibed and dealt with during the course of its existence. Through all of this, it has formed a commentary and code on all aspects of life and its value, the likes of which can hardly be found in any other culture today. Thus, with age comes wisdom. And the nature and depth of the Vedic wisdom can hardly be compared with anything else that is presently available. Anyone who has taken a serious look at it will agree. It is universally applicable to all.
3. THE VEDIC LITERATURE IS THE OLDEST AND MOST COMPLETE SCRIPTURES FOUND ANYWHERE.
It is agreed by any scholar of history or religion that the earliest spiritual writings that can be found are the Vedic samhitas, such as the Rig-veda. In History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature (page 557), Max Mueller observed, “In the Rig-veda we shall have before us more real antiquity than in all the inscriptions of Egypt or Ninevah. . . the Veda is the oldest book in existence. . .”
In the same book (page 63) Max Mueller also noted, “The Veda has a two-fold interest: It belongs to the history of the world and to the history of India. In the history of the world the Veda fills a gap which no literary work in any other language could fill. It carries us back to times of which we have no records anywhere.”
The Rig-veda, as old and profound as it, nonetheless, represents only a portion of Vedic thought and wisdom. It was further expanded and explained in numerous other portions of Vedic literature. The whole library of ancient Vedic texts covers a wide range of contemplation, experience and learning in regard to an extraordinarily diverse number of topics.
To explain briefly, we first find the most ancient four Vedic samhitas, namely the Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva Vedas. Then there is the Brahmanas, treatises explaining the techniques of the rituals in the Vedas, and the Aranyakas, further explanations for those renunciants who live in the forest. After this we find hundreds of Upanishads, the foremost of which are 108, out of which eleven are the most famous, such as the Katha, Mundaka, Brihadaranyaka, Shvetashvatara, Prashna, Chandogya, and others. These continue to elaborate on the Vedic spiritual truths. The Vedanta Sutras are also codes that contain the essence of spiritual truths that require fuller explanations by a spiritual teacher.
Beyond these are the Itihasas, or the histories, which are contained in such large volumes as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, of which the famous Bhagavad-gita is a chapter. These contain not only an immense library of stories and moral principles, but some of the loftiest spiritual teachings that anyone can find. Furthermore, they can act as guidebooks for one’s life, as well as explain the step by step processes for achieving one’s own spiritual enlightenment. This is also true of the Puranas, out of which there are 18 greater or Maha Puranas and another 18 lesser or Upa Puranas. There are also many regional or Sthala Puranas. All of these give many stories of the past histories of the world, and even the universe, as well essential spiritual teachings that are universal in nature that everyone could benefit by studying.
We also find additional Sutras, books of codes that explain such things as rules for householders, as in the Griha-Sutras, or codes of duty and other topics. The Vedangas contain the auxiliary sciences, such as phonetics, grammar, astronomy, etc. Then there are the Upavedas, or lesser Vedas, which deal with the arts and sciences such as dancing and music (Gandharva-veda), holistic health (Ayur-veda), or the art of war, and even architecture. Beyond this there are thousands more books that are the books of great spiritual masters and Vedic teachers that are commentaries on the original Vedic texts. All of these are in pursuance of the Vedic path.
In this way, within the Vedic scripture, one can find music, dance, art, biographies on great saints and personalities, and stories that contain every level of emotion. They also exhibit lessons of truth, etiquette, philosophy, and examples of how others have lived and attained the heights of spiritual consciousness and freedom from further material birth.
The most important books for spiritual instruction, as most everyone will agree, are the Bhagavad-gita and Srila Vyasadeva’s own commentary on the Vedic texts, the Bhagavat Purana. He was the original author of the essential Vedic scriptures. These will bring anyone to various levels of spiritual knowledge, the likes of which surpass conventional religious principles. The Bhagavat Purana brought out everything that Vyasadeva neglected to explain in his previous writings. Therefore, anyone who studies Vedic knowledge should not neglect reading the Bhagavat Purana, also called the Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Through this short review of the Vedic texts, one can get an idea of how thorough and comprehensive is this science. These scriptures reveal the form of God, His personality, the loving nature of God, His greatness, mercy and compassion like no other scripture available. It also shows the unique paths to God in ways that are far more detailed and beyond anything that other scriptures present.
Everyone, no matter whether they are religionists, philosophers, politicians, artists, celebrities, or renounced swamis, will appreciate and benefit from the continued study of this most ancient, sacred, and most complete of all spiritual literature. Therefore, those who are devoted Hindus and practitioners of the Vedic system never give up the reading and study of the Vedic literature, knowing that newer and loftier levels of understanding and perceptions into the secrets of life are awaiting them.
Naturally, there is wisdom and understanding available through all of the great books and religions. But to fathom the vast depths of Vedic knowledge is to flow through such a grand gallery of realizations and levels of consciousness that a person can merely get a glimpse of the innumerable considerations that have been made within the development of the Vedic lifestyle regarding all aspects of life. It has been said that the Vedic scripture remains ever fresh with newer and newer realizations, insights and wisdom. Thus, it could be advised that a person can spend a lifetime reading and studying the Vedic scripture and never end in finding newer and higher levels of understanding.
4. THE VEDIC PATH HAS A MOST DEVELOPED AND COMPLETE SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY.As we can see from the previous description of the Vedic scripture, the Vedic philosophy is the most extensive you can find anywhere. It covers so many aspects of life, both material and spiritual, that it is more comprehensive than any other philosophy or lifestyle that you can find. So many viewpoints on life, the material manifestation, God, and our spiritual nature have already been thoroughly considered and thought out that there is little, if anything, that the Vedic philosophy has not already dealt with and spoke about. Everything is there, more of which than most people are aware. Because of this it has attracted thinkers and philosophers from all over the world and from all points in time.
The West in particular has, and still does, look to India for the loftiest spiritual knowledge, and for what the churches or synagogues have not delivered. This may include practical spiritual guidance in self-discovery, an integrated world view, spiritual and emotional fulfillment, and even true mystical or spiritual experiences. The spiritual processes that are explained in the Vedic teachings go far beyond the conventional idea, as presented by most religions, that people should merely have faith and pray to God for forgiveness of their sins in order to be delivered to heaven.
Naturally, we all have to be humble before God. That is what is encouraged and developed. This is especially in the loving devotional path, wherein a person can purify his or her consciousness through the spiritual practices that are fully explained in the Vedic teachings, even though this takes time and serious dedication and sincerity.
The point is that the Vedic process does not discourage one from having his or her own spiritual realizations, which are often minimized, neglected or even criticized in other religions, which often teaches that the church alone is what maintains your connection with God. But in the Vedic system it is taught that we are all spiritual and loving parts of God, and automatically have a relationship with Him. Therefore, such experiences are considered a proof that the process is successful at helping one elevate his or her consciousness. One’s consciousness resonates at various frequencies, depending on the level of one’s thoughts, words, and actions, as well as the images and sounds that one absorbs through contact with objects and activities. By learning how to undergo the proper training, one can include the practices that will bring one’s consciousness to a level in which one can perceive that which is spiritual.
The more spiritual you become, the more you can perceive that which is spiritual. The whole idea is to bring one to perceive his or her spiritual identity and relationship with God. Thus, it must be a scientific process, used under the guidance of a spiritual master, for it to be successful. If the process is not complete, or if the student is not serious, then of course the results will not be as expected. Yet, if the proper spiritual process is explained correctly, and the student is sincere in his or her efforts, the effects will be there. This is why for thousands of years philosophers and spiritual seekers from around the world have come to India, or have been influenced by the Vedic system: It gives practical results when properly performed.
5. THE VEDIC LITERATURE OFFERS MORE INFORMATION ON THE SCIENCE OF LIFE AFTER DEATH, KARMA AND REINCARNATION.Sure, all religions indicate there is life after death. However, they normally offer only the most basic understanding that if you are good and a believer, maybe you will go to heaven. And if you are predominantly bad, you will go to hell. But only the Vedic philosophy offers detailed information on how exactly this works, and how we create our future with every thought, word and deed. And how that future may not only be in a heavenly world or on a hellish planet, but how it can be another life similar to what we are experiencing now on this earthly globe.
After all, we can look around this planet Earth and see that some people live a nice heavenly existence. They may live in beautiful weather and landscapes, in pleasant surroundings, and in a lovely house, with plenty of money, etc. While someone else may live in a country torn by war, with famine and drought all around, dealing with disease and poverty, and so on. Or we can see that even within the same family, someone may be born and become educated, wealthy and accomplished, while a sister or brother may be born blind, deformed, uneducated, and grow to have a hellish life filled with difficulty.
Why is there such a difference? The fundamental religions may give only basic answers, like it is the will of God. Yet the Vedic knowledge can go into great details to explain how such occurrences are arranged by nature to provide the necessary facilities for each individual to have what he or she desires and deserves according to their past actions, words and consciousness.
6. THE VEDIC PHILOSOPHY OFFERS A MOST COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF GOD AND THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION.In all of the religious books one can gather, you will find nowhere else but in the Vedic texts such a complete description of the Supreme Being and the spiritual dimension. Nowhere else is the understanding given that God is an impersonal force (the Brahman effulgence, in which God displays His potency of existence/eternality), as well as Paramatma, the localized incarnation known as the Supersoul in everyone’s heart (in which God displays His potency of existence and knowledge), and, ultimately, Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality who creates this world and overlooks all things (in which God displays His potencies of existence, knowledge and pleasure pastimes). Nowhere else is there offered such a complete understanding of all aspects of God, from His impersonal characteristics to His individual and supreme nature.
Nowhere else can you find such details of God’s personality, what He looks like, how He lives and sports with His friends, or that He even DOES have friends and sports with them. Nowhere else can you find that God has devotees who play the parts of parents and relatives, but in a perfect spiritual family. Nowhere else but in the Vedic texts, especially in the likes of the Bhagavat and Vishnu Puranas or Mahabharata, can you see how God takes care of His friends and devotees, how He reveals Himself, how He engages in the most loving pastimes with those who love Him most, or even that you CAN engage in loving pastimes with God. Nowhere else is it explained how God, through His causeless mercy, descends into this world to exhibit His pastimes in order to give us a chance to learn how to become attracted to Him.
Furthermore, nowhere else are there such elaborate explanations of the spiritual world and what goes on there, or how we can truly enter that region, and what the areas are that surround the cosmic creation. Also, nowhere else can you find such detailed descriptions of how the universe was created. Often you will find in a scripture a simple allegory for people to believe that gives only the slightest ideas of how the worlds were created. But in the Vedic literature, there are complex explanations of how and when things took place in order to manifest the universe as we see it now. [My book, "How the Universe was Created," gives these details.]
For these reasons, anyone of any religion can study the Vedic scripture to add to whatever spiritual understanding they already have. Or if they don’t have any spiritual understanding, then you just found the mother lode, the main vein of spiritual knowledge of which all others are but portions.
7. HINDUISM AND THE VEDIC LITERATURE HAS MANY DIRECT WORDS AND INSTRUCTIONS FROM GOD.The Vedic literature is filled with stories and conversations of instruction, and many of those instructions are given directly by God or one of His many incarnations. Other spiritual paths may provide a few commandments that are said to be given by God, or books given by His representatives or prophets. And these certainly can be helpful for the guidance of mankind. However, no where else but in the Vedic scripture do we find such a collection of direct instructions given by Lord Krishna, Lord Vishnu, or the Lord’s other forms that direct us in explicit methods of reaching spiritual realizations and perfection.
No where else can you find such lofty and spiritual advice as that related in books like the Bhagavad-gita, or the Bhagavat Purana and other numerous Vedic texts. No culture or religion has anything that compares, or that go far beyond basic moralistic rules to provide the higher principles of direct spiritual realization. These instructions are a scientific process in which the results are assured to cleanse our minds and purify our hearts, if we sincerely follow the formula. Therein lies the doorway through which we can perceive our own spiritual identity and then the numerous aspects of the Absolute Truth.
8. THE VEDIC PATH OFFERS THE MOST LOVING AND BEAUTIFUL FORMS OF GOD.Not only does the Vedic literature describe the innumerable aspects of God, but also relates the knowledge of the numerous incarnations and forms of God. In these incarnations He performs innumerable pastimes for multiple purposes. Out of all these, which are completely spiritual in nature, we find such beautiful attributes and forms as Lakshmi and Vishnu, or Sita and Rama, and Sri Sri Radha and Krishna as the most sublime. In fact, the forms of Radha and Krishna have been described at length for Their superb qualities and features of incomparable beauty. Plus, the depth of Lord Krishna’s loving nature and pastimes with His closest associates is like none found elsewhere.
There is no other culture or spiritual path that has any such knowledge of God, or that can present such loving and beautiful forms of God who displays such deep and nectar-like pastimes and personality. Therefore, the Vedic process offers the deepest insights into the most confidential forms and loving disposition of the Supreme Lord. These pastimes often cannot be understood by those who view the Supreme as an angry and jealous God, as some religions do. They do not know the more sublime nature of spiritual relations with the Supreme because there is no information about it found elsewhere.
9. THE VEDIC CULTURE HAS SOME OF THE GREATEST SPIRITUAL TEACHERS AND MASTERS THAT YOU CAN FIND.In any of the authorized sampradayas, or lines of disciplic succession, you can find greatly learned and fully realized spiritual masters. These lines of gurus and disciples include the Brahma, Sri, Shiva or Kumara sampradayas. In these lines, the highest levels of spiritual knowledge has been carefully handed down from person to person, guru to disciple. Therein we have received the blessings and elaborate instructions from such teachers, as well as witnessed their lifestyle and numerous miracles, as some people would call them. The histories and biographies of such saints and teachers show their ability to affect others, and provide examples of how some have entered directly into the spiritual dimension, or even communed with God on a regular basis.
They are the living proof that the Vedic system and spiritual methodology works for anyone who takes it seriously. Whether one is reaching toward attaining the highest levels of love of God, or simply for moksha, liberation, and higher levels of spiritual understanding, the great sages and teachers of the Vedic path have shown how it is indeed possible. They have not only taught by example of what is possible when one attains spiritual perfection in this life, but some have left vast written instructions on how we can do the same. All we have to do is follow in their footsteps.
10. VEDIC CULTURE OFFERS A MOST DIRECT PATH TO PERSONAL SPIRITUAL REALIZATIONS AND ENLIGHTENMENT.The Vedic process, Sanatana-Dharma, directly teaches what is the spirit soul and what are your spiritual nature and position. Such teachings are easily found in the Bhagavad-gita and other important Vedic scripture. It then provides the system which engages you in the activities that awaken your perception of this. The key is that it prepares your consciousness, through various practices, to operate on higher levels of reality, and ultimately on the spiritual strata.
This increases your awareness and allows for the ability to perceive the higher planes of existence that pervade this multidimensional universe. In this way, the more spiritual you become, the more you can detect that which is spiritual. Through this means of continual development, spiritual life no longer remains a mystery, but becomes a reality to experience. This is why Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita that this spiritual knowledge of the Vedic system is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets, and the perfection of religion because it gives direct perception of the Self, the soul, by realization. It is eternal and joyfully performed.
11. BECAUSE HINDUISM IS ONE OF THE MOST EXPRESSIVE PATHS, IT IS ALSO ONE OF THE MOST EMOTIONALLY FULFILLING.There are some religions that make no hesitation about stifling music and other forms of art because they think that it is too sensual. Others simply may not utilize much of it except in songs. However, the ancient Vedic path incorporates many forms of self-expression. The idea is that it can be used in the service of the Supreme, and, thus, becomes a means for focusing one’s attention and consciousness on God. Thus, it becomes a spiritual energy and a tool for expressing and raising one’s devotion to the Lord.
Prayer for example, has been an integral part of the Vedic system since time immemorial. The Vedic literature is full of devotional and descriptive mantras, verses and prayers. These are not only utilized in one’s daily devotions and meditations, but they are also incorporated into devotional songs. There are all kinds of music within the Vedic culture. Anyone who even begins to listen to the Indian style of music will quickly notice that it is quite different from other forms and is a complete science by itself. Not only are there numerous forms of instruments, but also very different styles of music and devotional songs that are used in worship, dance, drama, or in ceremonies.
There are also numerous forms of expressive ritual and ceremony. Many of these are conducted inside the temples, and many are performed outside or in the open allowing for all to participate. Some are only performed by priests while people watch with great enthusiasm.
Many of these ceremonies have also been moved to include dance. Such dances often utilize old movements and expressions that have been passed down through many generations, while others are based on the artist’s own interpretation of an ancient legend. There are also numerous plays and dramas that involve the stories of the Lord, as taken from the ancient Puranic legends. These are prominently performed over holidays or during festivals. Such plays and dance also use many forms of make up, costumes, and ornaments to better present the emotions, characters, and general performance of the drama. Some of these use a few actors, while others use large acting troupes. There are also numerous festivals in Vedic culture. These vary in expression according to locality, or upon which of God’s forms the festival focuses.
Much can also be said about the art work that is found within Vedic culture. There are not only ornaments, jewelry, but also a wide variety of painting styles that are used in the worship and display of the forms and pastimes of the Lord. Painting and sculpture are like sciences unto themselves in the way such artists are trained. Nonetheless, any artist has full opportunity to express his or her devotion to God through this art. Thus, such art and expression becomes a means for one’s personal spiritual insights, realizations and enlightenment.
In this way, there are numerous forms of expression that are used in Hinduism, making it one of the most emotionally rewarding and expressive spiritual paths that you can find.
12. HINDUISM, VEDIC CULTURE, OFFERS A SCIENTIFIC WAY OF LIFE, FROM DIET, LIFESTYLE, DAILY SCHEDULE, ETC.With all the topics that are covered in the Vedic scripture, it provides the means for a most well-rounded and balanced lifestyle, both materially and spiritually. For example, in regard to meditation, it recommends that the best time to do so is in the early morning during the brahma-muhurta hour, which is just before sunrise. Why? Because this is best since it is before the business and noise of the day begins. It is just after getting rest, arising during the time when satya-guna, the mode of goodness, is prominent, and before the mind is disturbed by so many thoughts of the day.
Regarding diet, it is recommended that you eat your biggest meal while the fire of digestion is at is peak, which is usually around noon or shortly thereafter. This is also when the sun is at its highest. This helps relieve one from indigestion and associated diseases.
Diet is also further divided not only by different foods at certain times of the day, but also by whether the food is in the mode of goodness (sattvic), passion (rajasic), or darkness (tamasic). Foods in goodness are vegetarian (fruits and vegetables) that promote health, peace of mind, happiness, and enlightenment. Rajasic foods are often based on taste and can be spicy. These lead to mental agitation, passion, and disease. Tamasic foods include those that are old, often of little taste, stale, of little nutritional value, and can lead to delusion, laziness and sleep. So simply by the study of food one can direct the diet toward a happier and more peaceful life.
In regard to the way to divide one’s existence, there are four ashramas of life. We are students in the first part of our life, called the brahmachari ashrama for men. In the second part of our life most people are married householders, called the grihasta-ashrama. After we have associated with our wife and had children that have grown and married, then it is time to take up the retired order of life, the vanaprastha-ashrama, and begin to relieve ourselves of the responsibilities of married life.
Then when we are ready, usually before we are too old, it is suggested that we take up the renounced order of life, sannyasa-ashrama, so that we can devote ourselves completely to reaching God after death. In this way, by following these ashramas, or orders of life, we not only have a fulfilling material existence, but also reach spiritual perfection so as to not waste this valuable form of human life.
These are just a few examples of how the Vedic recommended lifestyle and science is meant to help one live a balanced existence for happiness and progress both materially and spiritually.
13. ANYONE IN ANY POSITION CAN BE A HINDU AND PRACTICE AND BENEFIT FROM THE VEDIC TEACHINGS.It does not matter whether one is in a high class or low class position, wealthy or poor, educated or uneducated, old or young, man or woman, anyone can plug into some portion of the Vedic teachings and participate. This will benefit one in any number of ways. If one wants to be healthier, happier, more peaceful, more enlightened spiritually, a person can find that the Vedic path can do this.
It also does not matter whether one is Indian or a Westerner born outside India, one can still adopt the Vedic teachings or incorporate them into his or her life for so many benefits. There are no limitations in the Vedic teachings regarding who can join in. All that is required is sincerity. Sincerity is the essence of purity. With that one’s progress is assured.
Sanatana-Dharma means the eternal nature of the soul. Each and every being is a soul, so this includes everyone. Thus, each person is entitled to participate in this universal process regardless of whatever their temporary position is at present, and make genuine spiritual progress.
14. THE VEDIC PATH VIEWS ALL RELIGIONS AS TRUTH, OR PORTIONS OF THE ONE TRUTH, AND WAYS OF SALVATION.There is no discrimination toward other religions in Hinduism. Hinduism views all authentic religions with a potential to raise the consciousness of its followers to a higher level of understanding God, themselves, and humanity. This is merely one of the beautiful aspects of Hinduism; that it provides the greatest latitude of diversity in the ways of understanding God. That is why you can mix Hindus with anyone, and they can peacefully coexist, just as you presently have Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, and others all living together peacefully. But as soon as you mix those of other religions who are dogmatic in their views, there is trouble. The reason is that there is no room for diversity of thought in such people. They think that in the eyes of God no one else is saved. They think they must “save” everyone by making everyone else just like them. And the way that is done is by converting all others to their own dogmatic beliefs. Thus, they give no credence or understanding toward any religion but their own.
The world could be a peaceful place if it were not for the constant attempt by various groups to control and convert. It is on this account that there have been so many years of bloodshed, slaughter and torture to force others to be of only one religion. Such religions cause themselves not to be united with God, but to stand separated from God for not providing the way to see the spiritual nature and Divinity in all beings. Such religions actually create disharmony between man and God because of forcing their followers to focus on our superficial differences rather than our deeper unity and commonality as beings of one common God.
In this way, Sanatana-Dharma is not a religion that stands separate from others. It is not that Hinduism or Vedic culture opposes other spiritual paths. But it represents and provides the means through which anyone can attain the highest spiritual understanding possible. It helps one understand who and what we really are, above and beyond all the superficialities that are often found in the fundamental and materialistic religions. Therefore, once again, anyone, no matter what religion or culture one may be, can still use the Vedic path to increase his or her overall understanding of him or herself, the universe, and God, and awaken our natural spiritual love for one and all.
15. HINDUISM, VEDIC CULTURE, DOES NOT PRESENT GOD AS A HINDU, MUSLIM, CHRISTIAN, OR SIKH GOD.
Since Vedic culture is universal in nature, it does not present a God in a regional theme, or belonging to a “chosen” people. Nor do we find God in the Vedic understanding to prefer a certain people. What you do find is a God who is loving to one and all, and especially to His devotees. What we find is a God who rewards one’s love with love, according to their surrender and loving mood, regardless of region, race, or even species.
It is this sort of God who is truly universal, and not subject to regional ties or local constrictions, but who extends Himself to one and all. It is this kind of God who is found in any and all religions, the understanding of Whom is limited only by the lack of knowledge within any particular religion or people. If all such people could expand their awareness of the greatness of God, then surely such mature persons would see the same God everywhere, in all religions. This fullness of awareness would lead to God as we know Him as described in the Vedic scripture.
16. THIS IS WHY HINDUS, THE FOLLOWERS OF THE VEDIC PATH, CAN LIVE PEACEFULLY WITH THOSE OF OTHER RELIGIONS.Since Hindus in general, and those with a mature understanding of God as mentioned in the previous point, are more aware of the many different aspects of God, and see the same God in all religions, there is no friction between them and those of other distinct faiths. They can live peacefully with others without the need to feel that everyone else is doomed to hell, or must be converted to be “saved.” Hindus recognize the same God though worshiped in many ways. Thus, what is the difficulty? There is no problem. This is true of sincere worshipers of any religion. A sincere and mature Christian can easily get along with a sincere Hindu, who can easily get along with a sincere and mature Muslim, who can get along with a sincere Sikh, Buddhist, and so on.
This is quite different from those fundamental people who label God according to their faith, or who become defensive when apparent differences arise. This is what causes superficial distinctions and designations that grow into religious differences that for a spiritually mature person do not exist. It is only a lack of spiritual and Godly awareness and understanding that keep people pointing fingers at each other and from cooperating and respecting each other. A true religionist can easily recognize another’s devotion to God without getting caught up in what may seem to be external differences. It is the essence of spiritual life that matters. That is our focus.
17. HINDUISM HAS NO CONCEPT OF JIHAD, HOLY WARS, CRUSADES, OR MARTYRDOM ON ITS BEHALF.Unlike other religions that tend to be extremists or exceptionally dogmatic in its views, Hinduism, or Vedic culture, has no concepts that relate to being a martyr, as found in Christianity, or the Islamic jihad. These are not ideas that make much sense to the Hindu. Why? Because for Hindus spiritual life is not about fighting others for the supremacy of one religion over another. Hinduism treats all religions with respect because it has its own sense of security and strength in its approach to God, which is the hallmark of a mature spiritual path.
Religion and any spiritual process is to help an individual better understand who he is and what is his or her relation to God, and what is his purpose in the universe. If a person is truly trying to progress in this way, then of what purpose is there in participating in a holy war, or to die becoming a martyr for a cause fighting against another religion? This is not the purpose of any spiritual path. This is why there is not much discussion in the Vedic literature to demean other religions, nor is there any campaign against any so-called “false gods” as you find in the more rigid or dogmatic religions.
The reason for this is not that Hinduism is not interested in “saving” people. The reason is that the Vedic culture allows anyone the freedom to undergo whatever may be necessary for their own spiritual development and particular realizations. The Vedic literature, if studied to its fullest depths, supplies all a person needs in order to understand the highest levels of spiritual Truth. Nonetheless, if a person still has different avenues to investigate in spiritual matters, the Vedic culture allows that person to do so, even if the person may risk undergoing a slow process to the highest levels of spiritual realizations. This is a personal choice for everyone.
Therefore, forceful conversions or tyrannical religious rule or competition amongst religions make no sense to the Hindu. What makes sense is the freedom for each individual to reach an appreciation of everyone being a spiritual being, all going back to God, but at their own pace. Nonetheless, the Vedic spiritual teachers always try to encourage everyone toward the best use of their time and energies in their spiritual pursuits. That is how people are guided in the Vedic culture, as opposed to forceful conversions or dogmatic regulations.
Religions that view other spiritual paths as competitors will never understand the Vedic path, which is more open. They will only hold on to their fear that makes them think that only their way is the right way, and all other paths lead to hell, as if they need some reassurance that they are correct. Hinduism does not have such fear of being wrong. Followers of the Vedic path acquire their own spiritual realizations that assure them of their own progress. That is the sign of real spiritual advancement when the change of consciousness is directly perceived. That is the difference between the Vedic path and the more fundamental and fear-based religions that depend on mere blind faith in the process, without experiencing any perceptive results in one’s change of awareness and consciousness.
For Christianity, only when they accept the value of other religions, and the right of others to follow the creeds and processes of their choice, can the universal love as taught by Jesus Christ truly illuminate from their churches and pulpits. Then they can get along with those of other religions without the condemnation that all others are going to hell. After all, no truly loving God will cast His children into an eternal hell without the chance of correcting themselves. Therefore, the Vedic culture offers a deeper understanding of the true loving nature of God than the religions that are merely based on fear of God.
18. FOLLOWERS OF VEDIC PHILOSOPHY DO NOT TARGET OTHERS FOR CONVERSION.Hindus do not take it upon themselves to convert others to Hinduism. They never target a certain religion or faith to be subject to their criticism or attempts to be converted to Hinduism. They feel that the focus of any spiritual path should be on God, not on making or accumulating converts like some network marketing scheme that counts profits in terms of the quantity of followers it has. The effort should be in giving high quality spiritual education and, thus, by purity, inspire others to go toward God. Therefore, they have no motive to spread hate or lies or discord amongst any other community or religion.
On the other hand, it is seen that Christians often view Hindus as pagans or heathens, meaning, in essence, that they are Godless and doomed to hell, and must accept God in the form of Christianity in order to be “saved.” Muslims also view Hindus as idolaters or polytheists, and thus damned per the descriptions of the Koran, or so they say. Yet, Hindus are free from any such doctrine or attitude toward Islam or Christianity. Nonetheless, when Hindus begin to react to this constant criticism of their religion by such dogmatists, it is primarily an angry backlash and a defense of their culture rather than an attempt to start friction or trouble with those of other faiths.
After all, how long can Hindus continue to be as tolerant as they have been toward those of other religions who are so aggressive in their attempts to make converts and who take advantage of this tolerant attitude? It should be expected that sooner or later Hindus will no longer tolerate this never ending bombardment of propaganda against Hinduism that is used to sway more people toward misunderstanding what Hinduism or Vedic culture is in an effort to make converts.
We should point out that real Hinduism, Vedic culture, is a most broad-minded and gentle way of life, and is not interested in campaigning for making converts. It is not part of the Hindu values to indulge in violence. Hinduism lets anyone choose the path they wish to take. However, we will find more and more cases where Hindus will speak out and react against the deliberate use of lies and demeaning propaganda that is used to spread strong misunderstandings of what the Vedic path really is. If missionaries of other religions are purposely creating harm to Hinduism, then the Hindus have the right to protect themselves and their culture.
In India we find that such tensions often take place in the tribal areas more than in the urban areas where access to legal ramifications is easier, and where there is greater scrutiny of public pressure. Ultimately, there would be peace among all religions in India and elsewhere if there was not the constant attempt by certain faiths who continually campaign to convert others to their way of worship.
19. HINDUISM ACCEPTS THAT EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE ONE’S OWN PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT OR SALVATION.An example of this is the Kumbha Mela festival, which recently took place in Allahabad in January, 2001. There were more than 71 million people attending through its duration, and 5,000 different ashramas or schools of philosophy at the festival, all with similarities with one another, yet with particular distinctions as well. Yet, they all got along and cooperated and respected each other in their participation of this holy festival. You cannot find such a huge gathering amongst those of any other religion.
There are different sects in Islam, and many different denominations in Christianity, all with their differences and criticisms of each other. So much so that wars between two major sects in Christianity (Catholics and Protestants) have been killing each other for hundreds of years. They are highly critical of each other and also get upset when one makes converts from the other side, even though both are Christian paths. However, you will never find this within the ranks and genuine schools of Vedic culture.
20. HINDUISM OFFERS A UNIVERSAL GOD AND CONSCIOUSNESS, BEYOND A MERE LOCAL TRADITION.Often you find a religion based on the history, background and needs or development of a regional people. But in the Vedic culture we find a universal history not only involving the people of India, but other areas of the world, as well as other planets and different dimensions of the universe. Thus the spiritual teachings that the Vedic philosophy provides are universal, for all living beings.
The Vedic path is not based on blind faith in a regional understanding of God, or the history of a particular people. It is based on the understanding that Vedic philosophy is a part of the natural laws that exist throughout the creation. Thus, they are universal laws and principles that are applicable to all. By following these natural principles, as outlined in the ancient Vedic texts, one can acquire a higher level of understanding and consciousness in which a person can directly perceive the spiritual nature of everyone and all that exists. Through this means, a person can perceive his or her own spiritual identity, and one’s unity with all of creation. Therefore, the Vedic philosophy is a universal approach.
The Vedic doctrine also is beyond merely using and basing its outlook on locality. It is not merely Indian. Even though many of the events, such as those found in the Mahabharata and the Puranas, took place in India, and numerous Vedic personalities and incarnations of God had pastimes in India or live there, many of it’s concerns spread outside India, and even to other planets. However, the teachings and philosophy are based on the science of the soul, which includes us all. Therefore, this knowledge of the soul is not limited to a particular region or locality. It is universal.
This also goes with knowledge of God. The Vedic outlook explains that God is not God for a particular region or area. Or that the people of a certain area must conform to a particular code of conduct or worship. God is not a Jewish God who chooses a special people to be His own. You will not find that in the Vedic tradition. In the Vedic texts you will find God who is a loving God, concerned with everyone, and not just humans, but those on other planets, those existing in the bodies of other species, even those in other universes. It doesn’t matter where you are, or in what body you exist. God is concerned for you and wants you to know that, which is why He appears in this world and sends so many messengers all over the universe.
Furthermore, Hinduism is not based solely on one personality or teacher. It is not like Catholicism which has one pope who is said to be the sole authority over all other Catholics who must obey the dictates of this one man. Hinduism can and does accept the teachings of numerous spiritual guides. Even if a person is initiated by a particular spiritual teacher or guru, it is often seen that the disciples, once having clearly understood the teachings of their own master, may also consider the teachings of other advanced devotees or masters in their sampradaya, or disciplic line of authorities.
In fact, it is recommended that to be sure of following the spiritual path correctly, any instructions should be compared to a system of checks and balances. These are guru (the spiritual master), sadhu (other spiritual authorities), and Shastra (the instructions in the Vedic texts). If these all line up with the same instruction, then there is no problem. If any one of them differs, then it should be investigated as to the reason why. If something is off track or not correct, then it should be adjusted.
This is how one can always be sure that he or she is following the proper spiritual methods without going too far the wrong way, or without being misguided by a guru who may not be as pure or advanced as people may think. Thus, the Vedic system again provides a means for assuring yourself of the authority and potency of the method and teacher you accept.
21. HINDUISM PROMOTES SEEING GOD IN ALL LIVING BEINGS.Without a doubt, the Vedic scripture provides descriptions and narrations meant to help one increase his or her awareness of God in all beings. Anyone who studies the essential Vedic texts will soon see a difference in his or her recognition of how God is within everyone, accompanying the jivatma (individual soul) as the paramatma (Supersoul). You will never find anywhere else the information on the Supersoul as we find in the Vedic texts.
This information helps us see the Divinity within all living beings and how everyone is a part of the Supreme in spiritual quality. Such an awareness and perception will naturally increase our respect and concern for all living creatures. We will realize that all life is sacred. We will more clearly understand how our love for God will be exhibited by how much we care and cooperate with others.
22. IN HINDUISM YOU CAN ASK ALL THE QUESTIONS YOU WANT WITHOUT BEING CONSIDERED A BLASPHEMER OR A DOUBTING PERSON.
This is something that many of us do not think about. However, in some religions you cannot even ask too many questions without your own faith being called into consideration. In some religions, if you ask too many questions it is thought to be challenging, which means that you doubt the religion. While in Hinduism you can ask all the questions you want because it is considered a part of one’s spiritual process of understanding.
Much of the Vedic literature was written in a question and answer process between student and teacher. Thus, therein we find hundreds of thousands of questions and answers, all of which deal with innumerable topics or various views of understanding and describing the Absolute Truth and the means to perceive it. Having your questions answered is a natural way to increase your spiritual understanding and faith, and eradicate your doubts.
However, in some religions asking too many questions is taboo, or improper, partly because it can reveal how little is really understood in a fundamental or elementary religion, and how they still expect blind faith to be the major qualification of their followers. Thus, genuine spiritual understanding in such religions is not increased unless the people look elsewhere for fuller answers to the deeper questions.
23. HINDUISM IS LIKE THE MILLION DOLLAR CULTURE.
The reason why the Vedic philosophy is the million dollar culture is because just as when a millionaire automatically has all his ten dollar problems solved, so one who follows the Vedic philosophy has all his ten dollar questions answered. There are so many cultures and religions in the world, all of which may offer basic moralistic rules if not higher spiritual knowledge. But such paths often deal only with the ten dollar questions, and sometimes with difficulty.
The Vedic system, however, goes much more deeply into dealing with more advanced levels of spiritual understanding. Thus, it is like the million dollar philosophy which, because of its depth of awareness and insight, already incorporates all these 10 dollar questions. In this way, it is not necessary to be distracted by 10 dollar religions or philosophies when you already have one worth a million dollars as we find in the Vedic knowledge.
As a Hindu, we do not need to be saved from what is already saving us, from what is already delivering us to a higher level of consciousness, a higher level of spiritual understanding. All we have to do is go deeper into the Vedic path, the Vedic literature, the Vedic system. That will do more for us than comparing Hinduism with other religions, or considering how some other religion will provide us with better material facility or something, while placing God as secondary.
24. THE VEDIC PROCESS OFFERS THE EASIEST PATH BACK TO GOD.Of course, this point may seem like it is merely a matter of opinion, but if we analyze things we can see that the Vedic system can be very easy and trouble free. It is merely a matter of love. That is the main thing.
Love is the most natural emotional need and longing any of us have. Simply dovetailing and realigning our love toward God is the easiest process for spiritual development. All religions explain this. However, the most personal aspects of the Vedic teachings go into the greatest details of how to develop this loving tendency toward God, and how such an eternal loving relationship with the Supreme Being is manifested and maintained. The Vedic descriptions of the pastimes of the Supreme Lord are like none found anywhere else, along with explanations of His friends and relatives,
His personality, His dress and appearance, and so much more, all of which are provided to invoke our loving attraction to this Supreme object of our affection. The easiest part of the Vedic system that helps us accomplish this is through the process of bhakti-yoga (the yoga of awakening our loving devotion to God) and harinam (associating with God through the chanting of the Lord’s holy names). It has been shown many times, and by many great sages, and through the instructions in the Vedic scripture, that our natural and continuous loving propensity, when directed toward God, is not only the means but also the end of the path.
Such love becomes the impetus to always think of God, which is the easiest and most constant form of meditation. This is what purifies our heart, delivering us to the freedom from the cycles of repeated birth and death, and to our eternal home in the spiritual sky. The spiritual world is that place wherein our natural spiritual love can manifest to its fullest and most unlimited degree.
25. HINDUISM ADVOCATES A UNIVERSAL RATHER THAN A SELF-CENTERED CONSCIOUSNESS.As explained earlier, the Vedic philosophy is a universal philosophy. It asserts that every individual is a part of the universe and in microcosm represents the macrocosm. A thorough study of Vedic astronomy will reveal that the universal form is also inside our body, and that the body represents the cosmos in miniature. In such a light, it can also be understood that man cannot be separate from family, society, country, or the universe itself. In other words, he or she is a multidimensional being who is connected in many ways to the multidimensional universe. A universal consciousness means that we perceive this connection, and how we are related to each and every being in some way. Therefore, our actions are connected to those around us, even to the plants and animals.
Thus, it is recommended that we act as proper caretakers of all other living entities so that we do not do anything that will wrongly effect or create harm, even unknowingly, to others, which would only be reflected back on ourselves. Therefore, whatever we do will have a direct or no less than subtle effect on all and everything around us. This understanding also promotes the fact that we need to remember that we are all stewards and caretakers of the planet, the land, each other, and all creatures.
In Western countries people are brought up in the idea of consumerism. This is the basis in which people tend to think of themselves and their own happiness first. In Vedic society, people are raised to see things differently, to see that everyone shares in the results of other’s actions, and that everyone shares in looking after the needs of others before considering one’s own. However, this is not as noticeable as it used to be due to the people falling away from the Vedic system and being more attracted to the principle of consumerism of the West.
26. HINDUISM PROMOTES THE CAUSE OF REAL CARE AND CONCERN FOR OTHERS.By understanding our spiritual nature, and being able to perceive that nature in all other living beings, we naturally care for and are concerned about all others. This does not only mean the material benefits, such as making sure the hungry are fed, or the poor are clothed. But this also extends to the care for the soul. Naturally, it can be difficult to take care of the material or bodily needs of all other living beings.
However, the point is that as long as we have these material bodies, there will be a constant drive to care for the problems that our material body will create for us. Therefore, by giving everyone the chance to advance spiritually can also help each person to solve this problem. Once a person has made enough spiritual advancement that they no longer need a material body and become free from any continued rounds of birth and death, then all such problems will naturally be solved. This is the true care and concern of the Vedic system.
Some people may nonetheless criticize Hinduism for what appears to be the issue of the untouchability of the low castes, the disrespect for widows, poverty, etc. However, these issues are not so much the problem or product of the Vedic system in as much as they are social issues that have developed because of society falling away from the Vedic path. To explain briefly, the caste system as we see it today is a perverted remnant from the varnashrama system of the Vedic culture.
Varna is a legitimate Vedic system by which a person is recommended for a type of work and social service according to his or her mental and intellectual caliber, ability and tendencies. Thus, if a person showed a proclivity for study and religious pursuits, then he may be trained to be a Brahmin. If he exhibited a talent for business, then he may be trained to be a Vaishya. A child of feeble intellect that preferred performing menial tasks would then be trained in the ways of serving those in the higher varnas, as a Sudra. Nonetheless, his dignity was preserved and he had full rights as any other person.
However, the caste system we see today is that if you are born in the family of a Brahmin, then you are accepted to be a Brahmin. And if you are born in a Sudra family, then that is where you remain. Thus, through the years, the higher castes have shown an attitude of exclusivity above the lower castes. There is no justification for this, since it is clearly taught in the Vedic literature, such as the Bhagavad-gita and Bhagavat Purana that everyone is born in ignorance. Thus, everyone is at first a Sudra until it is determined what mental or intellectual tendencies and abilities a person has. Only then may it be determined what varna or caste a person is likely to belong.
In other words, just by being born in the family of a doctor does not mean that you are automatically a doctor. You must be trained, tested and qualified. If you do not become qualified, then you are no doctor, but must be something else. Similarly, if you are born in a Brahmin family, but go out smoking, drinking, eating meat, etc., then you are no Brahmin, but you actually have a low-caste mentality. Furthermore, in the true Vedic varnashrama system, even if you were born in a low-caste family, if you exhibited good intellectual ability, then you were not forced to remain in the low-caste category. You could be trained for other purposes and skills.
These problems would all be resolved if people would actually study more seriously the Vedic literature and regain the spiritual standards that more strictly follow the Vedic path. Then there would certainly be more of the genuine care and concern that the Vedic system promotes. This would naturally be there if we all saw each other as spiritual beings but merely in different types of bodies. With this sort of spiritual perception, we all lose sight of the materialistic distinctions between us and easily become more loving, caring, and cooperative with everyone.
27. WITH OR WITHOUT A CHURCH OR INSTITUTION, HINDUISM SHOWS AND ESTABLISHES THAT EVERYONE HAS A PERSONAL AND INDEPENDENT RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD, WHICH ONLY NEEDS TO BE REAWAKENED.This is an important point. There are other religions that teach that your only connection with God is through the church, or the institution, without which you are excommunicated or eternally damned. Unlike this, the Vedic system teaches that everyone is a spiritual being, and, thus, automatically a part of a loving God with an eternal relationship with Him. This relationship only has to be reawakened, which is the purpose of the many instructions given by God in the Vedic texts.
It is also the purpose of the spiritual teachers who try to help everyone revive this eternal but dormant relationship. To rejuvenate such a relationship simply depends on one’s sincerity to advance by following these instructions. It is not subject to an institution or a pope who alone claims to be in touch with God and knows the ultimate truth, upon whom we all are dependent, and who can dictate restrictions as he likes. In fact, any spiritual teacher is only as good to the degree in which he is at being a representation of God’s love for us, or at being a transparent medium for the spiritual instructions of God and the previous acharyas or authorities.
The church or institution also is only good to the degree in which it represents the genuine spiritual tradition, as found in the Vedic system. If there is any blockage or ulterior motive in the spiritual teacher or institution in this transference of love and knowledge, then it may actually misrepresent God’s true message and mislead people in their search for God’s love.
In this way, a church or establishment is meant to provide the proper facility and opportunity for people to advance and experience God’s love. Without a connection to a church or organization does not mean that a person is eternally condemned or will never have a chance of revitalizing one’s relationship with God. An organization is not, nor can it ever be, the controller of whether a person has a relation to God, or goes to heaven or hell. This is completely dependent on the individual soul and his or her consciousness or sincerity. The fact is that since we are all spiritual beings, everyone has a personal relationship with God, and no one else can interfere with that. It only needs to be revived, which is the purpose of the Vedic process.
28. IN ESSENCE, HINDUISM, THE VEDIC SYSTEM, OPENS THE DOOR TO THE REAL MEANINGS OF LIFE.
After practicing and living by the principles of the Vedic philosophy, you can bring a perceptive and obvious change in your life, as well as into your own sphere of influence. By beginning to awaken your awareness of your spiritual identity and your relationship with the Supreme, you can easily feel a new level of happiness, peace, and contentment. You will have a clearer understanding of who you are, where you have come from, and your purpose in life.
You will have a better focus on why we are here and what needs to done while living in this material world. Little things that you may have taken so seriously, that may have bothered you will no longer have the same affect on you. You will see with a clearer view of what really matters in life, and the superficialities that are not important. You will see that there is only one universal religion, and that is Sanatana-Dharma, awakening the natural proclivity and needs of the soul, and regaining our real spiritual identity and relationship with God. It is merely a matter of learning how to love and serve God. That is the heart of the Vedic path.
What is this fetish of Indian brown-skinned pastors of running to White Christians for everything happening in India? What is the reason? Does Christianity have a Master Race to which all non-White converts are supposed to run for all their needs? Are White Christians to the Indian Christians what Arabs are to Indian Muslims?
Do Christians, like Muslims, keep their religion first and their nationhood second in importance? Or is it that worship of Christian god is nothing but worship of White man by proxy, as alleged by a famous African pastor?
Catholics fear Hindu ‘Taliban’
THE Catholic Church has warned that electoral victory for the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party next month could result in a Hindu-style “Talibanisation” of India and lead to the suppression of human rights for all religious minorities there.
Father Babu Joseph, a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, which represents 168 diocese, said the church feared the results of the current national elections, which are being held in five stages and conclude on May 13.
“They want to demolish secularism – they’re very clear there has to be a Hindu nation and only Hinduism is acceptable,” Father Joseph told The Australian. “Last time the BJP was in power, they began the process of amending the constitution of India to try and take away the rights of the minorities.”
Japanese or Korean Buddhists don’t keep running to Indian Buddhists to complain whatever is happening in their countries. So why should Indian pastors be running to White Christians like a kid running to his momma?
Devil’s Advoate: It is hilarious how Arun Shourie keeps showing Karan Thapar his place. “Keep your hands down!” he thunders at Thapar while the latter can only manage a sheepish grin.
Fabricated evidence, imaginary incidents, cooked up killings, tutored witnesses, two-dozen template affidavits to support secularism
Secularists in India have a penchant for spreading lies. Perjury promoters in the façade of NGOs hogged immense publicity and disrepute to the country cooking up macabre riot stories. They did it with the help of tutored witnesses giving imaginary incidents with generous publicity stunt from over-zealous media. First to expose the criminal conspiracy of this pseudo-secular brigade under activist Teesta Setalvad was her most celebrated witness Zahira Shaikh.
Now in a more credible and stinging revelation the Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by former CBI director K Raghavan along with former DGP CB Satpathy and three senior IPS officers—Geetha Johri, Shivanand Jha and Ashish Bhatia—entrusted with the inquiry into post-Godhra riots in Gujarat in 2002 has nailed the NGO claims in the apex court.
The findings of the SIT have exposed the mischief spread by Setalvad who paraded the so-called Gujarat riot victims before the whole world claiming that the state was not giving them justice. The findings of the SIT have come as yet another clinching evidence of the dubious and sinister game being played by the so-called patrons of secularism to tarnish the image of BJP in general and the Gujarat government in particular. Its dynamic leader Narendra Modi, was mercilessly targeted by the media to paint him a villain.
The SIT has given sufficient grounds to the Supreme Court to doubt the authenticity of incidents highlighted by Setalvad and her notorious NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace. Now the evidences have put a question mark on their claims on raping and ripping Kasur Bano’s stomach (Teesta might have picked up the idea from a James Hadley Chase novel The Last Three Digits) killing the foetus.
All the affidavits were drafted, typed and printed from the same computer giving the impression that they were prepared at one place and they were tutored. Evidences of 22 witnesses were suspect, according to the SIT, owing to the identical submissions made to the court. The SIT found that these complainants were not even aware of the incidents. The SIT has made it clear that the evidence it acquired established that witnesses were tutored to give evidence about imaginary incidents and the charges levelled against the then Ahmedabad police chief PC Pandey were baseless.
The Supreme Court appointed high power investigating team accused Teesta Setalvad of adding morbidity into the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat by “cooking up macabre tales” of killings. The SIT further noted, “Many incidents were cooked up, false witnesses were tutored to give evidence about imaginary incidents and false charges levelled.”
It is understandable that the UPA found this lady worthy for the Padma award. The SIT has concluded that the alleged grisly incident of dumping dead bodies into a well in Naroda Patiya and the macabre rape and murder incident about Kasur Bano which hit headlines for many days actually never take place. The SIT further concluded that no corroborative evidence has been found to establish any of the allegations the NGO was propagating with vicious ferocity.
Same is the conclusion of the SIT on Gulbarga Society, in which police was accused of complicity. These evidences have clearly besmirched whatever little credibility was left of the notorious NGO and its promoters. But what is immediately needed is to charge these Goebbelsian liars with perjury and more stringent punishments. Their cohorts in the media and politics should be asked to apologise to the nation and shut up.
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