Bharat-tantra – Prequel To Modern History!
Communism - Another Western Political Construct. Same Difference. Image Courtesy - Wikipedia
The one-eyed king
In the last 250 years, just 5 countries succeeded with Republican democracy without a significant breakdown in their first 50 years. Of the five, Switzerland (pop. 80 lakhs), Israel (pop. 75 lakhs) and Singapore (pop. 50 lakhs) are tiny countries to generate any valuable data, models, norms or precedents. In any other day, age and society, the Republican-Democracy model would have been laughed off – and not studied by millions.
Global media in the last 12 months used Tiger Woods as a punching bag for his sex ‘crimes’. Hank Paulson, in the last days of the Bush regime, ensured the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent acquisition by Goldman Sachs.
Across South West India to the North-East, deep in the jungles of Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar to Bengal, a swath of red terror is making life difficult for the Indian state.
Strange as it may seem, all these ‘events’ are related.
Indian transformation – from Saraswati-Indus to the Indo-Gangetic plains
Nearly 5000 years ago, the Saraswati River started drying up. In fits and bursts, over the next 1000 years, it completely dried up – coinciding with a global drought. Many cultures declined and some perished altogether. How could Indians sustain their culture over a period of 1000 years, while the Saraswati was drying up? And the Ganga’s riverine system was yet to develop!
Even mostly objective historians, find it difficult to understand how the Saraswati-Indus Basin cities could have been related to the later Indo-Gangetic cities. To allow that new sites, for so many settlements could be set up, without war or conflict! To Indians, this is something possible – at the most difficult. Western historians find it difficult to believe that in such trying times, spread over 1,000 years, India was able to sustain and grow its culture. This inability to comprehend is possibly why (some) Western historians deny the linkage between the Saraswati and the Indo-Gangetic cultures.
Behind this ability to transcend a 1000 year natural calamity, is the secret of Indian socio-political system – which I have termed as भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra.
Factors of production
भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra, the Indic socio-political system, addresses three basic human aspirations. If humans are deprived of these basic ‘wants’, these aspirations, it is cause for war – as per India’s wisdom narrative. These aspirations are ज़र zar (meaning gold), जन jan (meaning people) and ज़मीन jameen (meaning land).
This makes the basis भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra different from Western politico-economic systems, that are based on four factors of production (land, labour, capital and enterprise). भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra treats these three elements as ‘aspirational’ while Western theory sees these four factors as ‘exploitative’.
Abandoned port city of Lothal - A big port in the ancient world. (Photo courtesy - travelguru.com)
Modern Western economies revolve around Veblen’s models – owner of capital (capitalists) own businesses that buy and sell businesses; businesses compete with widget makers (enterprise) who use land, labour and capital; or commandeer of labour, capital and enterprise (communists) who will annihilate both the capitalist and the entrepreneur. In all the four Western systems (viz. feudalism, capitalism, socialism, communism) the concentration of political, economic, social, intellectual power remains!
No difference, at all.
भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra system works to deliver these three elements to all its members. For centuries भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra was known as dharma. Modern etymology has completely derailed the meaning of dharma – which has now been reduced to mean religion. Religion was something India never had – and has now made it an integral part of itself.
Neil Young can see it
One sunny afternoon, in a Delhi winter, I landed Neil Young’s album containing, Crime in the City. For the next few months, this album remained high on my play list. One part of the lyrics stuck in my memory – the part about the producer wanting a hungry and single artist.
The artist looked at the producer, The producer sat back
He said, What we have got here, Is a perfect track
But we don’t have a vocal, And we don’t have a song
If we could get these things accomplished, Nothin’ else could go wrong.
So he balanced the ashtray, As he picked up the phone
And said, Send me a songwriter, Who’s drifted far from home
And make sure that he’s hungry, Make sure he’s alone
Send me a cheeseburger, And a new Rolling Stone.
Why this producer’s preference for someone alone – akin to single? Was this an aberration? Or a trend! Looking inside out, from India, which has a strong bias towards getting married, this was a revelation. It raised a number of questions in my mind, when strangely “there are very few accessible cross-national studies that have data on both marital status and well-being at the individual level for the general.”
The ideal of universal marriage
Measuring simple marital status of the broad population may give a crude confirmation of this social bias. At any point, 35%-45% of the adult population in the US and UK, for whom data is available, are unmarried. That is 1000% more than India’s unmarried population. How will it affect women and children when projections show that “the population of unmarried women will soon surpass the number of married women”.
Man is a social animal, said Aristotle. If that is true, why this anti-social bias then in the ‘Desert Bloc’? As Neil Young grimly points out. As we will see below, भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra worked out a system of ‘negotiated’ marriages, which achieved near universal marriage for the population.
Given a choice between a slave and a wife, who would want a wife? In slave societies, daughters and sisters of only the rich and powerful could marry. To make marriage attractive, for the rich and powerful people, handsome dowries were given and taken. For instance, the site for current Mumbai was bought by the Portuguese king from Gujarati king, Sultan Muhamed Begada in 1534. Subsequently, it was given in dowry to the British Queen, Catherine of Braganza, sister of the Portuguese king, as dowry when she married King Charles II in 1661.
On the other hand, in India, even the poorest share the cost of stabilizing the start of a new family, formed after marriage.
Behind universal marriage is gold
Indian marriages are solidly anchored in gold. Every marriage has a significant amount of exchange of gold.
Rather an anomaly, since India has never in been, in its 5000 year history, a significant gold producer. Yet Indian citizenry has the largest private reserves of gold in the world – 500% of US private reserves of gold. Indian ‘despots’ could not control large gold reserves due to भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra.
Unlike the rest of the world, Indian rulers had less than 20% of the gross Indian gold reserves – instead of 80% in the rest of the world. Without vast reserves of gold, the concentration of wealth and power did not happen. As a result, Indian rulers could not create vast marauding, pillaging armies.
Yet, with huge domestic private-sector experts, made of armoured elephant corps, expert cavalry troops (inventors of the stirrup), largest producers of gunpowder, producers of the most-sought after Wootz steel, Indian rulers kept India free of foreign invaders – for most of history.
Iqtadari and Jagirdari System (from Our Story So Far 7 By Vipul Singh, Gita Shanmugavel, Jasmine Dhillon; page 44).
Junkers, Kulaks, Lords and Plantation owners
Europe started with land reforms between 1800 to 1900. German junkers, Russian Kulaks, English lords resisted, many successfully, from giving up their lands. Spain was an early mover with land sales in 1798-1808. The rest of Europe followed.
With vanishing of slaves, serfs and tenants, in 19th century, mechanization of farming was introduced with State support in Germany. German Junkers could maintain their hold and power right upto the Weimar Republic. Britain dragged its feet on land reform till the end of 19th century – especially in Ireland.
Land rights in India
In India, centralization of power increased from Qutubuddin Aibak (1206) onwards and introduction of iqtadari system – when a king’s pleasure amounted to land title. The 200 years foreign, Islāmic rule in India, by Turko-Persian offshoots, changed Indian property holding patterns. The Mughals modified this system into the jagirdari system.
The British in India went a step further. They dispossessed crores of Indians and created a uniquely oppressive system – the zamindari system. The British introduced another strain of this virus – public purpose. Peasants and tribals could be dispossessed of their land for a vague ‘public’ purpose – a policy that the modern Indian government continues.
In India, till the 12th century, vested property rights with the producer, upto the advent of the Islamic iqtadari system. Manusmriti states that ‘land is the property of him who cut away the wood or who tilled or cleared it’. To prevent concentration of landholdings in the hands of the few, sale, resale and purchase of property was not legal. Combined with the absence of slavery, it set up a unique situation – a virtuous circle.
With abundant food supply, since slaves were not available, and as land was not for sale, what would drive greed? What would make people want more gold?
Modern political theory
Indian thinkers responded with unique mechanisms to systematize the achievement of these three aspirations – ज़र, zar (gold), जन jan (people) and ज़मीन jameen (land). Desert Bloc administrators and usurpers of Indian polity inverted many of these systems and vilified these mechanisms, opposite of original design.
One important mechanism to achieve these aims was the चातर वर्णाश्रम chatar-varnashram (which the English misrepresented as the caste system). The other mechanism was the Indian marriage system. As Indian society started seeing greater flux, family and community started arranging marriages. The father commits the bride with dahej, community commits the husband to the future of the family. An interesting third element is how Indians were empowered to buy gold by the establishment of lakhs of dharamkantas. Dharamkantas, set up by by gold smiths, fully subsidized the cost of assaying gold.
Even the swastika, is tie-in with भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra. A mnemonic (reminder) against collusion and collaboration by (any of the) three parts of the society (intellectuals, polity, finance and labour) against a fourth. Or how trade and logistics, was separated into two parts, to prevent collusion and exploitation. Trade was handled by the vaishya community and logistics handled by the Banjara community – of whom the Roma Gypsies are an off shoot.
It was Parag Tope, (a regular reader of 2ndlook; co-writer of Operation Red Lotus) who first pointed out to me the possible linkage between Swastika and भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra. According to Parag Tope,
The Swastika represented a four way split in how functions in an organized society were separated to maintain a balance of power. This balance was maintained by preventing collusion or “collaboration” by any of the two or more parts of the society. The four functions were 1. production, 2. retail, 3. defence and implementation of polity, 4. knowledge of polity. Agrarian output belonged to the production value chain and landownership was therefore associated with production. Retail was separated from trade and transportation, to prevent collusion and exploitation. The knowledge of polity was separated from the implementation to maintain the balance of power.
The rights of man
Indian thought saw access to ज़र zar (gold), जन jan (people) and ज़मीन jameen (land) as pre-conditions, means if you will, for social equity. After ensuring access to these three essentials, भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra also defined four freedoms through these means.
These four freedoms are काम kaam (desire, including sexual) अर्थ arth (wealth), मोक्ष moksh (liberty) and धर्मं dharma (justice). Agnipurana mentions धर्मार्थकाममोक्षाश्च पुरुषार्था उदाहृताः Agni P.; H. Pr.35.-3 something which when done results in the satisfaction of the performer.
The power to tax was limited. Some of the common terms and methods were (from Vaman Apte’s Sanskrit Dictionary; search by Parag Tope) were: –
- बलिषड्भाग – the sixth part as a tribute;
- चतुर्थभाज् a. receiving a fourth part of every source of income from the subjects, as a king; (this is allowed only in times of financial embarrassments, the usual share being a sixth;
- षष्ठअंशः 1 a sixth part in general. -2 particularly, the sixth part of the produce of fields &c., which the king takes from his subjects as land-tax;
- प्रतिभागः – A share, portion (given to a king as a tax) of one’s income, generally a sixth part:
- उद्धारः – The sixth part of booty taken in war which belongs to the king; राज्ञश्च दद्युरुद्धारमित्येषा वैदिकी श्रुतिः Ms.7.97.
Modern Western polity promise different ‘freedoms’ that mean little. These ‘modern’ systems have made it either impossible (now) or unacceptable (earlier) to make money. Earlier, Christian ethics did not allow any economic activity. Except and unless it benefitted God, King and Country. Result, Jews captured vast sections of Christian economies. Now we have the capture of the economy by 0.5% of the population which makes all of us into employees.
Instead of real rights, काम kaam (desire, including sexual) अर्थ arth (wealth), मोक्ष moksh (liberty)and धर्मं dharma (justice), people were fobbed off with ‘free’ speech (in your drawing room, to yourself), ‘free’ press, (mortgaged to banks and advertisers), religious freedom,(subject to population planning), etc.
Say what you want! Does it matter? Mass media has always been under some kind of State control and direction. How free can any press be, anyway, if Big Advertisers control the business.
Witness, The Hounding of Tiger Woods. His crime? Sex with willing women.
What made Buddhism so attractive?
An early interpreter of this system was Gautama Buddha. In the Sutta Pitaka, Majjhima Nikaya, Book:2 (thanks for the link Parag Tope), Gautama explains to the novice, Asslaayana, the risk of dual-mode, slave-master societies, like Yavana-Khamboja (Greece-Cambodiya) compared to a चातर वर्णाश्रम chatar-varnashram society like India.
Taṃ kiṃ maññasi assalāyana, sutaṃ te: ‘yonakambojesu4 aññesu ca paccantimesu janapadesu dveva vaṇṇā, ayyo ceva dāso ca. Ayyo hutvā dāso hoti, dāso hutvā ayyo hotī’ti.
Assalàyana, have you heard of Greece, Cambodiya, and certain other bordering states. They have only two castes, masters and slaves. One becomes a master and then a slave, and a slave becomes a master?
Evaṃ bho sutaṃ me yonakambojesu aññesu ca paccantimesu janapadesu dveva vaṇṇā ayyo ceva dāso ca. Ayyo hutvā dāso hoti, dāso hutvā ayyo hoti’ti.
Good one, I have heard of Greece, Cambodiya, and certain other bordering states. They have only two castes, masters and slaves. One becomes a master and then a slave, and a slave becomes a master.
Till भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra became popular, the axis of Confucian-Platonic authoritarian, ‘wise’ rulers, who were not accountable, was (and again) the overwhelming model for the world. Property rights remained with less than 0.1% of the people.
Buddhism changed that.
Buddhism gained not because Buddha’s statues were prettier than the statues of previous deities. Or because Buddhist chants sounded better. If that, anyway, was the reason, the statues of previous divinities could have been prettified.
Resettling India – and law
In the post-Saraswati India, after thousands of cities were abandoned, and millions of people were resettled over a period of 1000 years, the principles of Indian polity were probably weakened. Buddha in India was one in the long line of many teachers, who continued the development of भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra – then known as dharma. Buddhism recognizes more than a 100 Boddhisatvas and Jainism recognizes some 24 tirthankaras. Chandragupta Maurya after his reign long reign, took vaanprastha and retired to a monastery in Karnataka as per Jain historiography.
Contextually, dharma itself was sub-divided deśadharma, dharma for different regions, jātidharma, dharma based on professional and social groups, and kuladharma, for different families and lineages. Many political and legal treatises were written. There are hundreds of original works, digests, compendiums, commentaries, expansions, developments dharmasutras, dharmashstras and nitishastra treatises in India. Major ideas of Āpastamba, Baudhāyana, Gautama (not Buddha), Manu, Shukra, Vasiṣṭha and Yagnavalkya were developed and expounded. Shantiparva in Mahabharata, Chanakya’s Arthashastra, are well-known among the lay public. Kautilya’s Arthshastra is hardly the most or even important.
Yājñavalkyasmṛti, the Dharmasutras of Āpastamba and Baudhayana (a part of the Kalpasūtra) are an important part of the dharmic laws. Various smritis were later hardened into written form – some of them being Manu-smṛti, Yājñavalkya-smṛti, Nārada-smṛti, Viṣṇu-smṛti, Bṛhaspati-smṛti, Kātyāyana-smṛti et al. Various bhashyas and nibandhas, tikas were written and used.
On Manusmriti by like Bhāruchi (of Bharuch, Gujarat, probably 7th century), Medhātithi, Manvartha-muktavali by Kullūka, Govindarāja, Nārāyaṇa, Raghavananda, Nandana. Bālakrīḍā by Viśvarupa, Mitākṣarā by Vijñāneśvara, Aparārka, Dīpakalikā by Śūlapāṇi, Vīramitrodaya by Mitramiśra on Yājñavalkya Smṛti. Two related works on Naradasmriti are by Asahāya, whose commentary was further expanded by Kalyāṇbhaṭṭa. On Vishnusmriti, Nandapaṇḍita wrote the Vaijayantī.
There are extensive compendiums like Krtyakalpatara by Lakṣmīdhara, Smṛticandrikā by Devaṇṇa-bhaṭṭan, Dāyabhāga by Jīmūtavāhana, Caturvagacintāmani by Hemādri, by Caṇḍeśvara. Raja Todar Mal, one of Akbar’s navratna wrote the Ṭoḍarāndanda.
The offering of Sujata - Location: Fo Guang Shan 佛光山 Temple, Jenjarom, Malaysia (Photo courtesy - http://myloismylife.blogspot.com).
In the more recent history, from the Mithila school, we have Chandeshwara (also Caṇḍeśvara , Chandes(h)vara, Chandes(h)wara; early 14th century) who is most known for Rāja-nīti-ratnākara and Vivāda-ratnākara. From the same Mithila school, we also have Vachaspati Mishra (also Vacaspati Misra) who wrote the chintamani series, Vivāda-cintāmani on 18 litigation-types. and a procedural text called the Vyavahara–Chintamani.
Two Deccani scholars, from Paithan, settled in Benares, rivals and cousins, one of whom was Kamalākara-bhatta (from 22 books), wrote Vivāda-tāṇḍava and Nirnaya-sindhu and his cousin Nīlakaṇṭha’s treatises (early and middle 17th century) Vyavahāra-mayūkha and Bhagavanta-bhāskara are the most known. Dattaka-mīmāmsā by Nanda-paṇḍita (late 16th – early 17th century) was used by colonial British authorities as Hindu law topic of judicial procedure.
Pratāparudra-deva, Gajapati dynasty king from Orissa, commissioned a group of brahmins and pandits to make a comprehensive digest of Indic Law, which came to be known as the Saraswati-vilasa (also Saraswati-vilasa). Vīrasiṃha, the king of Orccha (1605-1627) appointed Mitra-miśra (Early 17th century) leading to a comprehensive legal digest, the Vīramitrodaya.
Lessons in भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra are delivered through the twenty-five Vikram and Vetal case-studies; many Buddhist Jatakas; Panchatantra and the Hitopdesa.
The real battle
In contrast to भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra, under the cuius regio, eius religio, principle (meaning whose land, his religion; CRER) even the most personal religious beliefs of the individual were subject to State approval, as per law.
Population Density - Major Countries (7 of 10 countries are influenced by Indian culture).
Why is the Chinese Communist Government afraid of Buddhist monks. Why does Lee Kuan Yew promote Confucianism. Or the Japanese are trying to revive Shintoism? Faced with a reality of ‘warm-bodies-shortage’ in the 19th century, the West invented ‘liberalism’, ‘secular’ Governments, Marxism, Socialism et al. It is these principles which accounts for the low levels of diversity in the West – and which also accounts for the shrillness with which the West proclaims its ‘liberalism’ – facts being otherwise.
Sterile asuric systems always looked to India for their illegitimate needs of ज़र, zar, (gold), जन jan (people) and ज़मीन jameen (land). When the African continent could no longer accept further population reductions, combined with slave revolts, the British turned to India for जन jan – people as indentured labour. When the British needed money to repay America for WWI debt, it is India which bailed out USA – and Britain.
The fruits of democracy
In ‘modern’ India, European thought dominates academic and intellectual discourse. One such example is democracy – which lulls us into a stupor of inaction, while it gives us an illusion of being powerful. Instead of being involved in our societies, localities and communities on a daily basis, it wakes us up once in five years at election time. After five years of stupor and laziness, this political device makes us talk loudly, rudely.
And we go to sleep again.
The device of democracy also corrupts our mind. Instead of focusing on the behavior of rulers and politicians, it diverts our minds to believe that the solution is to replace one bad ruler with another. It creates a collusive polity where bad rulers conspire with each other, against us.
This fruit of democracy is a strange poison.
Understanding भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra
The principles of भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra remain a part of mixed and corrupted, oral history. Over the last two years, many 2ndlook posts have identified the principles – but भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra has been never presented as a complete body of polity system.
That is now being done in the table below. Given below is a comparison table detailing how asuric polity from the Desert Bloc is different from भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra. Each point is linked to a post that further elaborates on the subject. Clicking on that link will open the post in a new window /tab.
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Law and jurisprudence
| Description | दुरातंत्र (duratantra) | सुरातंत्र (suratantra) | Remarks |
| Ideology | Western political systems: –
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Indic political system
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| Judicial systems |
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| Litigation Cost |
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| Last court of appeal |
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| Case load | Large volume of
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| Legal punishment |
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Indians low on crime
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Economic arrangements
| Description | दुरातंत्र (duratantra) | सुरातंत्र (suratantra) | Remarks |
| Wealth Distribution |
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| Integration of Business Activity |
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| Economic Domination |
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| Economic opportunities | People given choice
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| Currency and coinage |
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| Property rights |
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| Entrepreneurial Structure |
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| Trade and logistics |
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Split between (for insance)
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| Ecological footprint | Social design based on
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Built in ‘green’ agenda using
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To study and build on how Indians corporations: –
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Social arrangements
| Description | दुरातंत्र (duratantra) | सुरातंत्र (suratantra) | Remarks |
| Population growth |
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| Ethnic Diversity |
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| Linguistic plurality |
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| Loyalty | Focus on
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| Marital possibility |
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| Marital economics |
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| Marital mechanics |
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| Marital systems |
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Commitment to marital stability
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| Social identity | Derived from The One
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Bharat-ah, Aryavart, were about shared values –
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| Food |
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| Social Interface |
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| Sports |
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| Sexual freedom |
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Educations, arts, science and technology
| Description | दुरातंत्र (duratantra) | सुरातंत्र (suratantra) | Remarks |
| Education |
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| Arts | State commissioned projects | Private patronage of arts | |
| Technology |
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| Technology & Innovation |
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| City and Town Planning |
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| Healthcare |
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| History and Historiography | Focuses on: –
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Focuses on: –
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Military and defense systems and technology
| Description | दुरातंत्र (duratantra) | सुरातंत्र (suratantra) | Remarks |
| Military | Preference for standing armies | Volunteer armies | |
| Armies | Primogeniture funnels officers into armies | Military markets | |
| Government size | Maximum government | Minimum government | |
| Head of State |
|
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2ndlook 
Somehow I missed this post. Nothing short of brilliant. I applaud your efforts to bring out the differences and nuances in Indic polity and structure and the rest of the world. I have never seen this kind of effort and knowledge anywhere thus far. Truly eye opening and well researched. Thank you for the great service you provide to everyone through this blog. More power to you!
Buddhism may have given us an egalitarian philosophy but where is it practiced in India? Left out for dalits? If I’m not mistaken Shankaracharya and some brahmin gurus at that time went around preaching a hybrid versions of Hinduism for revival of the brahmin polity and caste system. I didn’t see any “sura” tantra in Manu Smriti which openly advocates a despicable caste system, shameless slavery, sati and scores of other ills you’d not want to read. The Chinese got rid of Buddhism because Mao wanted more than half a billion people to not become monks but do productive work in farms and factories.
yes the young shankaracharya went around preaching
for revival of brahmin polity and caste system.
nothing better for shankaracharya to do.
shankaracharya who does not have children, who does not have a family, a wife working for the caste system so that his children’s children and further generations could rule other castes.
the level of troll-ness in these types of analysis.
This is brilliant stuff! There should be more people like you bringing out these kind of analysis of Bharateeya culture vs others. Hats off to you.
Here are some of my comments:
Education – Even though not strcitly state sponsored, it was controlled by few sections of the society and thus their agenda as well. For the rest, it was more profession oriented.
Arts- Most of the works -poems, sculputures, etc were all driven by temple. Not private per se. The role of temple in promotion of this is not small in India.
Technology – More wealth due to various trade and slavery gave westerners the additional impteus into research which would have been impossible if it was in small holders. The most you can achieve is a small gradual growth not the rapid progress you have seen in last 200 years.
Technology & Innovation – Patents etc. This is purely for monopolistics purposes. So, obviously it favours only a small section of the society. Not good for long term stability, but gives the funding for them to progress further.
History and Historiography – Unfortunately what you attribute to Bharata is yet to be seen much now, with relevance to past 1000 years. I’m afraid we haven’t our learnt lessons from history.
Military – The standing army is an expensive venture. So, throughout the world, it has been maintained with more wars in mind. Also, a soldier from a standing army is better than a irregular called-up soldier. India did have a lot of standing armies and kshatriyas formed the bulk of it.
Head of State – Yajnas were used as a means to subjugate the minor kings and get their allegience. It was a tool in the hands of a would-be emperor.
The Indian subcontinent has given undue importance to religion and hence deep fault lines like the partition among others exist today. In comparison, China and Europe are a lot more homogenous. The entire Indian subcontinent should wash off religious tendencies. Instead of dwelling on the past and singing glories of the past (like losers – even Pakis think they as in “Muslims” [not mughals] ruled India for a thousand years – it is also in their textbooks), every Indian should think like a winner and learn to live in the present, and invent for tomorrow.
Here’s a sampler of possibilities: http://intellectualventureslab.com/?page_id=258
Just in case you didn’t know, traveling wave reactors can convert these 36,000 cylinders of “waste” to $100 trillion worth of electricity.
indian subcontinent has not given undue importance to religion. it has given importance to truth. what religion are you talking about. religion, love , all these mean different things to different people.
so you want india united like china. for what .people unite to kill others.
no body is dwelling on the past and singing glories of the past.
proof:there are zero movies on india’s glorious past.
nobody knows even a 5% of india’s past glory.
if india does not remain india. this world is not worth living, not worth discussing, not worth creating. it becomes infinitely uninteresting. a mere anthill in the huge universe.
Anuraag – this is a good start.
There are several elements from our discussions that need clarification. My biggest concern is that you have not drawn the distinction between the varnas of Indic polity and jati. In recent centuries as varna disappeared – and transformed themselves into Jati. It wasn’t simply a semantic change that we can blame on the English – but a real change in the polity and therefore society as well, when Indic polity was destroyed.
Today – as I see it – there is no Dharma and there is no Varna. Let me be very clear – there are no varna’s left today. In fact, today there are no Brahmins, there are no Kshatriyas, no Vaishyas nor any Shudra in the context of Varna. What remain at the crystallized “jatis” that do not represent the Swastika at all.
The Banjaras, the Lambaras, the Dhangaras, the Dombaras are no longer relevant to the model economic value chain. As implicit traders and couriers they prevented collusion amongst the retailers – who began to own the trade, transport and the retail value chain of products.
As Dharma began to fade – there was collusion not only within the varnas but across the the varnas as well. This devolved system is what can be described as Jatis.
Modern India has become – bi-colored – like Greece and Cambodiya in Buddha’s discourse to Assalayana. Modern India has only masters and slaves. Yes – slaves – by Buddha’s definition that is what happens when Dharma disappears.
Having said that – India has the potential to change – because Dharma can be resurrected.
That remains my quest.
Parag Tope
There is no reference to jati in the scriptures. Devolving from interpretations of varna, these were inventions added by some latter brahmins which resulted into a hybrid caste-profession ideology as jatis. This was perhaps to retain monopoly over Hindu society in the name of preserving bloodlines. To give you a sampler of twisted sharia like punishments recommended by the dubious brahmin writers of such laws was to pour molten red hot iron in the throats of untouchables for the crime of trying to be pious!!!
Genetically speaking, there are very minor variations of the Haplogroup R1a Y-DNA within all reaches of Indian ethnicities regardless of caste or the fictitious Aryan/Dravidian racial divide. All are swastika carrying south-asian caucasoids. There is no basis (scientific or philosophical) for the concept of a birth-based jati or varna per se. If varna or jati were to be interpreted as ‘profession’ based on one’s intellect and education, such a system has existed everywhere since time immemorial, and can’t be removed anywhere even if we wanted to.
As for the evolving master-slave bi-colored landscape based on class system that you mention, I’d say it’s gray-scale and not all that black-and-white. A capitalist system has existed through various civilizations and as long as it remains, there will be rich and poor. Resurrecting dharma or islam or even maoism for that matter won’t change a thing.
India and Pakistan are sitting on the riches of a demographic dividend but it is becoming a demographic debt primarily because the Indian subcontinent just can’t rid itself off the clutches of dharma and islam. I continue to recommend that the young invest more time studying science and technology instead of dharma. Become a scientist, not a pujari. I’ll provide personal guarantee that you won’t miss out on enlightenment or the pleasures of paradise~!
Jindal
About Varna and Jati – I largely agree with what you are saying here. My comment was for Anuraag with whom I had several private discussions about Indic polity – and his interpretations, in my opinion, left this huge unexplained gap between these two very distinctive aspects of Indic polity and then what became Indain society.
About DNA maps – yes – it is important for people to understand and know this information.
Now – about the bi-colored landscape. You are exactly right – everything is in shades of gray – because the basic colors are black and white. Perhaps a better phrase is bi-shaded not bi-colored. That is what India has become – a bi-shaded economic system. Masters and or slaves come in shades of gray – clearly, because there is no”slavery” per se – however, if you look at several shades of economic contractual agreements – most of them largely follow the bi-shaded model mode.
What my Swastika model – which preserved the Indic triad of freedom shows (I am working on it as my next project) that you can get a truly colored landscape – where the economic system represents free markets far better than any of the other economic systems that exist in the world today.
Do read the introduction and conclusion chapters of Tatya Tope’s Operation Red Lotus – to get some background information on what I am referring to as the Indic Triad of freedom.
Parag
I have no words to describe this. One of your best posts, along with the post on Indian salt petre financing the British Empire. You are a great contrarian intellectual, challenging fundamental assumptions!
We still need to find out why we did not foresee the conquest by the Desert bloc, and subsequent loss of Dharma, indigenous knowledge and the euro-centric distortion of discourse. Indic civilization lost on many fronts, not merely the military and economic ones. Is it primarily due to loss of spiritual knowledge, as the wise ones say?
More power to you.
Rubbish !!!!!
1. Alimony is bad but dowry is good.
2. Free govt. education is bad but costly private education is good.
3. Uniformity is bad but caste system is good.
and many more.
I don’t know which type of bharat you are talking about.
uniformity is no creation.
one is no creation. two is creation.
when the world becomes one. it means the world is destroyed.
govt controlleed education is brainwashing.
no child left behind.
read
no child should escape our brainwashing.
read john taylor gatto for more on public education
schools suck. self learning rules.
dowry.
dowry system is not indian.
in indian marriages gifts are supposed to be exchanged on both sides. dowry deaths are due to the character of the people involved and money culture.
On the jaati and varna ‘conflict.
Bharat-tantra is a living system, a growing, breathing, organism. An attractive system, which brought it admirers from the world over.
The ‘problem’ with success is that it needs to be shared. Entire communities would migrate to India.
1. Cleopatra wanted to ‘escape to India’ before she was captured and she killed herself.
2. Achamaneid Iran sent their rebellious Ionians (yavanas) to India to be civilized.
3. The mathishta of the Achamaneid Iran was trained in India – who made life hell for Alexander.
4. The khojas /and bohris came from Yemen.
5. The Parsis from Iran.
6. The Armenians were big saltpetre traders supplying to Central Asia and Byzantines /Ottomans.
Within India we have
a. Patriarchal
b. Matriarchal
c. Matrilineal systems of society
d. Vegetarians and non-vegetarians
e. Forest dwelling tribals with community property
India being an open system accomodated these Indian and foreign jaatis, who had ‘special’ skills.
So you see ‘clusters’ or the earlier equivalent of SEZs all over India.
1. Gunpowder in Bihar-Bengal;
2. Glass industry at Ferozabad;
3. Knives at Rampur;
4. Carpets at Badohi;
5. Zinc refining in Andhra that predated the West by some 500-1000 years – used in bidri work; etc.
Each of these industries /trade /craft needed
a. Training & skills
b. Lifestyle changes
c. Food habits
d. Specific commercial norms and practices
which would support the industry.
It would be tempting and easy for ‘critics’ to see this as ‘casteism’, calcification, oppression, ‘infringement’ of individual rights, et al.
1. The wheel of Bharat-tantra turned on the hub of power in the hands of people.
2. This power would come from easy migration.
3. Gold, stable family systems, land rights, small kingdoms, made migration easy.
4. Entire families and communities could vote with their feet and wealth.
Instead of seeing ‘freedom’ as an ‘ideal’, ‘absolute’, ‘distant’, always unattainable, Bharat-tantra works on moksh – maximum, attainable, defined, negotiated, freedom. Freedom here and freedom now.
What was Freedom – marriage, food – everything was negotiable.
Varna literature talks of varna-dharma. Laws, norms, practices as per the varna. So, no jaati, prajaati or varna conflict.
Conflict between jaatis and varna is based on viewing Bharat-tantra through a prism of assumptions, as follows:-
1. The Golden Age Syndrome – that there was a time, when a ‘pristine’, ‘pure’, pastoral form of this system existed – which has been ‘corrupted’.
2. This Golden Age Syndrome is an ideological trick to ‘explain’ the present and postpone changes to status quo.
Modern examples of this in Western ideology are the frauds of
1. Gold Standard
2. Racialism and ethnic cleansing
3. US Constitution
4. The US Federal Reserve et al.
The Quest for ‘Individual Freedom’. Without wealth, property, family, community support, all constitutional rights, freedoms are hot and fetid air. Western political system and thought specializes in promising these useless constitutional rights and freedoms. And then trampling these ‘freedoms’ to non-existence.
A simple human fact that children mostly follow their father’s professional footsteps or career direction given by the family. This is a simple fact of human behaviour – without needing labels like nepotism, casteism etc.
Bharat-tantra worked on communities and families, who would work for the aspirations of their members.
> The Quest for ‘Individual Freedom’. Without wealth, property, family, community support, all constitutional rights, freedoms are hot and fetid air. Western political system and thought specializes in promising these useless constitutional rights and freedoms. And then trampling these ‘freedoms’ to non-existence.
You seem to have never stepped out of the pond. Let me tell you that the United States does not have any such restrictions at all. You also seem to have some made up things in your head. After having felt the urge to free themselves from suppression of individual freedoms in other countries, people turn to the United States from all over the world to be able to exercise rights granted by the constitution. I’m yet to meet one individual who has regretted immigration. As I have said on your ‘quicktake’ blog, “ground reality” speaks louder than some limbless tantra-mantra rap.
> A simple human fact that children mostly follow their father’s professional footsteps or career direction given by the family. This is a simple fact of human behaviour – without needing labels like nepotism, casteism etc.
My neighbor is a government officer, wife is a trader, daughter an economist, and son a mechanic. And so is the case with a dozen other neighbors. No relation between occupations of members in a family. As I’ve pointed out earlier, the backward system you profess has problems — someone born in a supposedly high caste is likely to reserve the right to follow “father’s profession” (given that mom would be in a veil restricted to the kitchen), despite that person lacking aptitude, intelligence, and education. In a nutshell, say a person is born in a high caste family but has an IQ of a shoemaker, I do not recommend that he work on nuclear engineering — it would a disaster to mankind.
I have been suspect of the declining quality of Indian education. For instance, I have observed a trend – India’s new gen is becoming more literate but in general lacks world class comprehension and analysis skills. That’s disturbing given where India’s neighbor is headed with education:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/world/asia/13iht-educSide13.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/science/12deepsea.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Unless India reforms the education system radically, it might end up with a large talent pool that keeps debating about things that shouldn’t. Be flexible and take a 3rd look – that’s all I am saying.
Jindal – You are trotting out ‘accepted’ notions. If you are happy with those notions, good for you. If you are unhappy with what is being dished out and want to look at things another way, maybe you can to take a 2ndlook or do a Quicktake.
All your points, every one of them has been answered earlier. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing that you are saying, which has not been said earlier. I cannot feed you with answers to questions that I have already answered.
However, I am trying to say something different.
Like I said earlier, I am NOT trying to convince anyone at all. Please refrain from doing that with me
In a rude and impolite manner.
india ‘s new gen lacks in comprehension and analysis skills because education is not given in mother tongue.
huge stupid mistake. not because of anything else.
>>>”Western political system and thought specializes in promising these useless constitutional rights and freedoms. And then trampling these ‘freedoms’ to non-existence.”
That duplicity is characteristic of every Western System- religion of “Peace”, religion of “Love”, “Egalitarian state” promised by one of the systems, “Free Markets” promised by another, “Of the people, By the people, For the people” claimed by another… the “Merciful God”, in whose name millions of ‘kaffir/infidel/pagans’ have been massacred… etc.
Good explanation of jati.
The following links also throw light on varna and jati
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=187962893&blogId=448154028
http://agniveer.com/caste-vedas/
namaste
> That duplicity is characteristic of every Western System- religion of “Peace”, religion of “Love”
Dunno where you got that from~! Before embracing the Western system (in part or full), there is no requirement that you need to convert to some desert religion. BTW, the founding fathers were actually deists. An open secret is that locals are challenging religion more than anyone; atheism and agnosticism are growing alarmingly at double digit rates everywhere in the West. Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus are looked upon with respect as intellectuals. Basing conclusions on hearsay — a bad idea. The God facade is just that, and you won’t know that without knowing ground reality.
From the duplicitous link you’ve been pasted for education:
> V: Jaati is from birth. And not thru Karma
Once again, read what I’ve said before. Jaati is not even mentioned in the Vedas and Upanishads. Some Vedic scholars opine that the Vedas are mystically coded verses that explain sub-atomic physics, not pastoral life.
> V: God has created Jaatis…
You need to first prove God with certainty before talking about what God created:
> V: I have already made it clear that donkeys, horses etc are a kind of jaatis (species)
So no need to study Y-DNA haplogroups? “V” posts in a MySpace blog that Jaati are species like donkeys and horses. The Quran also says that Jews, Christians, Hindus are pigs and apes — should you believe that because some wrote that too?
[Readers – Parts of this message have been excised for reasons of using delierately offensive language.
Jindal – While I am all for ‘spirited’ discussions, please temper your language! I cannot really ‘moderate’ all the messages. People on this forum are expected to self-regulate like true Indians. We are not for ‘External’ regulation.]
>>>”Dunno where you got that from~! ”
That is not the only thing that you ‘Dunno’.
>>>”Before embracing the Western system (in part or full), there is no requirement that you need to convert to some desert religion.”
It was not mentioned so. Stop hallucinating.
>>>”BTW, the founding fathers were actually deists.”
The Farter in heaven is also ‘merciful’ and ‘loving’. And the religion is of ‘love’ and ‘peace’.
>>>”atheism and agnosticism are growing alarmingly ”
why ‘atheism and agnosticism’ should replace ‘love and peace’ is not understood. Such lofty ideas, ‘love and peace’.
>>>”Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus are looked upon with respect as intellectuals”
Yes, heard they changed the lines in Koran and Bible that says all unbelievers should be massacred. Now it says all unbelievers other than ‘Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus’ only should be massacred.
>>>”Basing conclusions on hearsay — a bad idea.”
True.
Sould read up on the latest ‘insertions’ in Bible and Koran, and listen to preachings in churches and mosques.
>>>”Once again, read what I’ve said before.”
You mustn’t torture people repeatedly.
Once should be enough.
>>>”You need to first prove God with certainty before talking about what God created”
Author of that post is not imposing it upon you.
While posting that link, what was said was- “The following links also throw light on varna and jati”.
Nobody is compelling you to accept everything in that article.
That author has the freedom to publish his/her article on the net. You may read it or not, that author is not obligated to prove to you anything. And s/he is not seeking to convince you anyways.
>>>”“V” posts in a MySpace blog that Jaati are species like donkeys and horses. The Quran also says that Jews, Christians, Hindus are pigs and apes ”
Koran is considered word of god by millions of indoctrinated creatures, the absolute word, which they are supposed to live by.
The author of that article does not claim s/he is messenger of any god, does not impose his/her opinion upon anybody, unlike you and other monotheists who ‘Dunno’ anything but selfish aggrandizement.
namaste
Anuraag,
This just posted on yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_jordan_petra
Someone please tell me that the figure in that picture is NOT Krishna, with a flute in his hand!! What Hellenistic are they talking about?? Thats crazy. One would have to be very dumb to see that is it not Krishna!
AFOYB –
Why are you assuming that Greeks could not have painted Krishna paintings in Jordan-Petra?
Many Greeks from Ionia (Yavana) were sent to Bactra (Bharata-ah) by Persian-Achmaneid rulers. Much of their culture they took away from India.
The Greeks in Bactra (Bharata-ah) were fine coin-makers – and huge hoards of these Yavana coins from Bactra (Bharata-ah) have been found all over.
@samadhyayi,
> yes the young shankaracharya went around preaching for revival of brahmin polity and caste system. nothing better for shankaracharya to do.
India was all Buddhist at that time. Anything other than Advaita (call it Buddhist-Hinduism) could not be sold to the masses. While Shankaracharya’s intent was genuine in preserving Vedanta and he was successful, he had perhaps not envisioned that some other purely (pun intended) dimwit brahmins would devolve it so badly from Vedanticism to today’s Hinduism. Solved one problem, we got another big one.
> indian subcontinent has not given undue importance to religion. it has given importance to truth.
Truth is great. But take a close look — the Indian subcontinent is far from living the truth. IMO, if anyone believes they are more ‘pure’ than the rest, I say send them to Pakistan — the land of the (?)pure~! 😉
> so you want india united like china. for what .people unite to kill others.
So you want India to get balkanized for the white man or the yellow man to come in the name of trade and make fights along fault lines and rule India all over again? Be careful what you wish for — China is coming right after they have taken over the entire pacific in the 21st century.
> no body is dwelling on the past and singing glories of the past. proof:there are zero movies on india’s glorious past. nobody knows even a 5% of india’s past glory.
If no one knows 5% of India’s glory, that’s okay — keep it preserved in archives for the right time. However, that does not justify trying to live in the past like the Pakis do. Let’s learn to live in the present. Losers live in the past. Winners learn from the past and work toward the future. And by all means, no one is stopping you or anyone from acquiring reasonable literary skills to go write a book, or make a documentary on India’s 100% past glory for educational purposes to learn from the past. What’s all that whining all about?
> if india does not remain india. this world is not worth living, not worth discussing, not worth creating. it becomes infinitely uninteresting. a mere anthill in the huge universe.
Vedanta talks about universal brotherhood. We can’t get this simple truth implemented within today’s India geographical boundaries, let aside the anthill of an Indian subcontinent. Churchill once said the India is no more a country than the equator. What becomes of India depends on whether she produces intellectuals going forward or continues with her long decline. That’s where the best possible education comes into play.
> india ‘s new gen lacks in comprehension and analysis skills because education is not given in mother tongue. huge stupid mistake. not because of anything else.
Mandarin holds China together. English holds India together. That’s a fact. I have nothing against English as it is also a cousin within the vast family of Indo-European languages or more aptly — Sanskrit derivatives. A majority of the world’s scientific knowledge exists in English textbooks. Retrograde visions such as education in mother tongues would be the idea of making several little disconnected xenophobic Yemens within India, and fostering pugnacious tendencies between various tribes. A really bad idea!
@jindal
>> Anything other than Advaita (call it Buddhist-Hinduism) could not be sold to the masses.
what makes you think that the masses bought the advaita.
how can you assume that anyone was trying to sell anything.
it just didnt work like that in india. the masses of india are not foolish. this is stupidest thing that scientists do. for no good reason they assume that people in the past were stupid. epidemic stupidity is a modern phenomenon. the early man had to be a genius to invent religion.
ok coming back to indian masses. the people who perform cheap tricks of magic are not worshipped in india. if that were the case then brahmins would be teh ones doing all kinds of magic tricks today. but it is some of hte low castes of vagabounds like domars they are the ones who perform miracles and no body worships them neither were they considered high caste.
>>he had perhaps not envisioned that some other purely (pun intended) dimwit brahmins would devolve it so badly from Vedanticism to today’s Hinduism.
what do you mean by today’s hinduism.
are you complaining about idol worship.
vedantism and idol worship are not contradictory.
deterioration and misunderstanding of high truths is inevitable. you should be more tolerant towards mediocrisy and misunderstanding. for if every one were as intelligent as you there would be a lot of competition for you.
more over ..
the rishis are whoever they were . they envisioned a lot of everything that was going to happen in the future. i dont mean they envisioned computers, etc,etc. but they knew the nature of the world. the cycles of creation and destruction, growth and deterioration.
if you closely study the rituals, the rules, the literature, the temples, the architecture, position, timing of festivals, what things are uphelded . what are given less importance ,etc in india. then you would see how brilliant and visionary these people were.
>>balkanisation of india
i will make it clearer.
when people are too eager to unite. they usually kill those who do not conform to them . try to assimilate people. so let us not unite for the wrong reasons.
let us unite for good reasons.(this unity should not mean that we drop our diversity) the kind of haste that you exhibited in concluding old indian history/tradition/knowledge as irrelevant is the sort of sign for haste to unite for bad reasons.
>> concentrate on science and technology not islam and enlightenment.
if you had read indian stories from the puranas and the lives of yogis and bhaktas . you would have known that greed even if it be for enlightenment isnt going to get you any success. so actually reading and spending more time on our traditional stories,
literature, etc. gives us more balanced view of the world with lots of relevance to many ranges of problems.
more…
modern medicine totally sucks. it cannot cure even a single disease. ayurveda cures thousands of diseases that modern medicine doesnot.
i can tell even more. the so called science and technology had its roots in religion. these were people seeking immortality that created science and technology.
the difference between science and religion is that if it is kept esoteric(and taught only to deserving individuals) it is religion.if it is commericialised it is science.
>> restoring dharma guys…
according to the traditions.
what dharma is at a moment depends on that time, place, situation, person, etc. there is no fixed dharma from a book to follow. so you need not worry about any one trying to resurrect hindu dharma, etc.
it just is not possible. there is no such thing as hindu dharma. there is just dharma. means that which is righteous. that which is right to do. it is a question not an answer. what is the right thing to do is always going to be a question not an answer.
>>producing intellectuals that go forward than backward
which is forward and which is backward. why do you assume that everything in the past of india was backward and everything now happening is forward.
we are destroying the world. for the last hundred years people havent created a cure for even a single disease.
people in the past even poor folks used to enjoy five star quality fresh air and beauty ofnature. now a days only the super rich(or some lucky people who live near such places) numbering less than one lakh
enjoy beauty of nature.
and you are telling me that is going forward.
mandarin might hold china together but it is my love for my country’s past(its ideals and its actions) that makes me wanna die for it.
and that was what that drove our freedom fighters not english.
english does not unite india it makes us perpetual slaves of native speakers of english.
i have not been whining about anything. i just said the movies didnt show about india’s glory.
neither is the blog writer whining about anything.
actually it is you alone who is whining that
we are wasting our time by dwelling on the past which is once again a wrong comment. this blog is one of the smartest blogs on india’s past. it has put its finger on many important facts about indian and world history.
actually this blog has done what scores of historians were not able to do.
@Incognito,
>>>”Dunno where you got that from~! ”
> That is not the only thing that you ‘Dunno’.
Unlike you, I’m not poorly educated neither am I presumptuous.
>>>”Before embracing the Western system (in part or full), there is no requirement that you need to convert to some desert religion.”
> It was not mentioned so. Stop hallucinating.
First off, the blog post and the whole discussion here was all about the the validity of an Indian tradition in contrast to some Western viewpoints, and not religions. Then you came along and said — That duplicity is characteristic of every Western System- religion of “Peace”, religion of “Love”. So you branched off into “other” religions, not me.
>>>”BTW, the founding fathers were actually deists.”
> The Farter in heaven is also ‘merciful’ and ‘loving’. And the religion is of ‘love’ and ‘peace’.
No one likes Abrahamic religions and that’s great. Check out content from these sites:
http://truthbeknown.com/
http://godisimaginary.com/
http://faithfreedom.org/
>>>”atheism and agnosticism are growing alarmingly ”
> why ‘atheism and agnosticism’ should replace ‘love and peace’ is not understood. Such lofty ideas, ‘love and peace’.
Go smoke hash in a church or mosque or temple for all I care. Intellectuals in the West and even in the East recognized long ago that religion is for suckers. It is the opium of the masses. In a nutshell, the masses (still) don’t get it. Do I need to say more?
The reason why average IQ on the Indian subcontinent is 20 points behind oriental nations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations) is the preoccupation with religions (which clearly seems to be the case with you and many others here who just don’t seem to get it). Fact is fact. Learn to live with it.
Correlation of IQ with predisposition to religiosity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LynnHarveyNyborg-CountryBelieveGod-Intelligence.svg
>>>”Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus are looked upon with respect as intellectuals”
> Yes, heard they changed the lines in Koran and Bible that says all unbelievers should be massacred. Now it says all unbelievers other than ‘Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus’ only should be massacred.
“Now it says…” — no it does not say that. You say that based on childish assumptions in your head. Your comprehension, cognition, and analysis skills are so markedly poor. Stop making baseless inferences. And learn to get past religions. Okay?
>>>”Basing conclusions on hearsay — a bad idea.”
> True. Sould read up on the latest ‘insertions’ in Bible and Koran, and listen to preachings in churches and mosques.
How dumb can you be? I’ve said all along that the focus should be on science and technology and you keeping rapping back to the Bible and Koran. You seem to obsessed with those two books. Get some more [scientific] books to read before posting some more meaningless idle babble. Why are we even discussing what’s not relevant to the above blog post?
>>>”Once again, read what I’ve said before.”
> You mustn’t torture people repeatedly. Once should be enough.
What school did you go to? Can you read and understand sentences in the English language? What an ‘Incognito’ indeed~!
>>>”You need to first prove God with certainty before talking about what God created”
> Author of that post is not imposing it upon you.
If your are down on chips or facing analysis paralysis, you want to get away by saying the author isn’t imposing and call me names instead, eh? The author blogs to promote his views. You must be naive to believe that this isn’t so. Apparently, out of some deep hidden veneration of the Brits and the Moghuls, the author also lauds big frauds like Bernie Madoff and Syed Masood — read my comments on his other post:
http://quicktake.wordpress.com/2010/09/09/india-on-the-way-to-police-state/
In contrast, the erudite R.K.Bajaj of the Lemon-TV just exposed Masood’s Rs. 35,0000 crore scam in his latest video blog entry here:
http://www.therkbshow.com/video/the-rkb-show-city-limouzines-masood-laundered-millions-to-the-us.html
> While posting that link, what was said was- “The following links also throw light on varna and jati”. Nobody is compelling you to accept everything in that article.
When Vedantic, Buddhist, and Jain scholars heavily debated philosphy in Nalanda and Taxila or in the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, it was based on pure logic and reason. Scientific quest for truth is the crux of Indian traditions, not blindly following one scripture or another without analysis. There was no such thing as yours can’t hold up to the fire of truth and hence let’s just call it a truce and say that no one was compelling to accept it anyway.
> That author has the freedom to publish his/her article on the net. You may read it or not, that author is not obligated to prove to you anything. And s/he is not seeking to convince you anyways.
The author has the freedom to promote his ideas, but a commentator can’t logically refute the contradictions and hypocrisy, or simply state axiomatic truths. Blogging and commenting is like openly debating ideas via an online public square. Suppressing or silencing opposing viewpoints and driving them away is so like the ways of radical Islam.
>>>”“V” posts in a MySpace blog that Jaati are species like donkeys and horses. The Quran also says that Jews, Christians, Hindus are pigs and apes ”
> Koran is considered word of god by millions of indoctrinated creatures, the absolute word, which they are supposed to live by.
Just in case you didn’t know about ‘political’ Islam: http://www.politicalislam.com/tears/pages/tears-of-jihad/
For all hypocrites out there or blind followers of any religion for that matter, let them come out with logic (if there’s any) to back up whatever they are trying to promote. If they are not promoting Islamic ideology, then let them live by it or go bury their heads in the sands of Arabia – who cares?
> The author of that article does not claim s/he is messenger of any god, does not impose his/her opinion upon anybody, unlike you and other monotheists who ‘Dunno’ anything but selfish aggrandizement.
Again assumptions. When did I say what kind of theist I am or not? What I’ve said is that science and technology have proven to benefit mankind. On the other hand, God can’t be proven and hence giving too much credence or importance to unproductive ideologies results in backward societies, of which there is clear evidence.
> V: God has created Jaatis…
You need to first prove God with certainty before talking about what God created:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AdKEHzmqxA
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCoTGTRfDy0
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIttENo2eOM
>>>”Unlike you, I’m not poorly educated neither am I presumptuous.”
Irony.
>>>”Then you came along and said — That duplicity is characteristic of every Western System- religion of “Peace”, religion of “Love”. So you branched off into “other” religions, not me.”
The complete sentence was-
“That duplicity is characteristic of every Western System- religion of “Peace”, religion of “Love”, “Egalitarian state” promised by one of the systems, “Free Markets” promised by another, “Of the people, By the people, For the people” claimed by another… the “Merciful God”, in whose name millions of ‘kaffir/infidel/pagans’ have been massacred… etc.”
Any sane person with decent grasp of English will understand that ‘religion of peace and love’ are identified in that statement as western systems, which share the characteristic of duplicity along with other such western systems such as communism(promises egalitarian state while essentially turning people into slaves), capitalism(advocates free markets while actually capturing markets), democracy(claims to be ‘for, of and by people’, but actually takes away power from people for five year terms and vests it with duplicitous greedy politicians).
Of course it takes some amount of intelligence to understand.
>>>”> “why ‘atheism and agnosticism’ should replace ‘love and peace’ is not understood. Such lofty ideas, ‘love and peace’.”
Go smoke hash in a church or mosque or temple for all I care….”
There is a word ‘sarcasm’.
Those who are unable to understand its meaning also display inability to recognize irony in their own statements, like- “Unlike you, I’m not poorly educated neither am I presumptuous.”
The point made was that ‘love and peace’ are nice sounding labels. But, reality practised by cultists of those religions is something else. Similarly, the label ‘atheism and agnosticism’ does not necessarily mean that what is inside the package is what is on cover.
>>>”The reason why average IQ on the Indian subcontinent is 20 points behind oriental nations is the preoccupation with religions (which clearly seems to be the case with you and many others here who just don’t seem to get it).
Interesting display of irony, yet again inadvertently.
Who “just don’t seem to get it” is evident.
>>>”Correlation of IQ with predisposition to religiosity”
By that yardstick animals might rank high as Intelligent beings, them having no predisposition towards religion!
It seems quite possible that some animals may well be more intelligent than some Quixotic fellows on the net who display severe inability to comprehension.
>>>”> “Yes, heard they changed the lines in Koran and Bible that says all unbelievers should be massacred. Now it says all unbelievers other than ‘Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus’ only should be massacred.” — no it does not say that. You say that based on childish assumptions in your head. Your comprehension, cognition, and analysis skills are so markedly poor. Stop making baseless inferences. And learn to get past religions. Okay? ”
Repeat- “Your comprehension, cognition, and analysis skills are so markedly poor.”
The irony involved throughout this fellow’s comment is much like the contradictions seen in the text books of bible and koran, where the almighty merciful loving gawd instructs people to kill unbelievers.
such ‘mercy and love’.
such ‘comprehension, cognition, and analysis skills’.
>>>”>>>”Basing conclusions on hearsay — a bad idea.”
> True. Sould read up on the latest ‘insertions’ in Bible and Koran, and listen to preachings in churches and mosques.
How dumb can you be?…”
The statement in his earlier comment- “Basing conclusions on hearsay — a bad idea” was preceded by the statement-“Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus are looked upon with respect as intellectuals”
That is again nice irony. Because, the aforementioned peoples are still classified kaffir/infidels and recommended to be slaughtered by koran and bible. So obviously the fellow made that statement based not on facts in those texts, not based on what mullahs and clergy preach to their flock. In short, the fellow made that statement based on hearsay.
Yet he is unable to realize his own contradiction.
To top it all, he brings out yet another irony as he blurts- “How dumb can you be?”
Indeed, how!
The fellow is displaying severe inability to comprehension, an acute case of westernization that afflicts many ‘educated'(more like indoctrinated) people today!
About three thousand years ago Sri Buddha suggested the remedy- “appa deepo bhava“. Be your own light.
The westernized probably never heard of it.
namaste
>> majority of the scientific knowledge exists in english textbooks
actually majority of the worlds’ rubbish, lies, useless destructive dangerous ideas exist in english textbooks.
english is a high way to destruction. it connects us to the worst thought engines and thought servers that civilisation ever produced.
we should be working on a new language for communication between different native language speakers not english.
this is time for invented languages which are built for efficiency and other necessary features.
Burn all books of knowledge — that’s a common trait found among all radical religious believers. And even if we were talking to each other in Mandarin, you would still get the same content from me. How would destroying English would do any good?
Invent new languages? Sanskrit is a grammatically perfect language but today it is as good as extinct. And don’t blame invaders for that. Indo-Europeans did this by choice over many millennia as they spread around the globe and now we have hundreds of derivative languages.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6442697523437717214#
BTW, Google [not CDAC] has been internally experimenting with it as a natural language processing technology due to grammatical fuzziness of other languages.
If you are all fired up and want to invent something new, then by all means do so. Like US and China, India will also face energy security problems.
A German military study has warned of a potentially drastic oil crisis: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,715138,00.html
India should focus on alternative fuels:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-14/biofuels-from-trash-could-replace-half-of-eu-gasoline-by-2020-study-says.html
http://www.executivegov.com/2010/09/us-navy-gets-into-green-energy-with-algae-biofuel/
And nuclear power from thorium:
http://datacenterjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3883:thorium-a-new-old-energy-source&catid=120&Itemid=100116
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7970619/Obama-could-kill-fossil-fuels-overnight-with-a-nuclear-dash-for-thorium.html#disqus_thread
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
Japan is working towards large scale uranium mining from oceans using genetically modified seaweed: http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/how-long-can-uranium-last-for-nuclear.html
China’s submersible can go as deep as 7,000 meters (deeper than Japan’s Shinkai’s 6,500 meters) and has access to 99.8% of the ocean floor ultra-rich in minerals: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/science/12deepsea.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
And here’s a link to a documentary on food security innovations: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3058533428492266222#
China owns 4 out of top 20 Internet sites, but India has none because they haven’t been built yet: http://www.alexa.com/topsites
@jindal
>> burn all books
did i say that. did anything in my article suggest that.
why are you reading more than what we are saying.
your tone is wrong. you should be more polite in disagreeing.
also these comments are getting longer and more difficult to focus on.
think you should summarise your points . what exactly do you agree and what you disagree on.
the discussion should be mutually benefitial man.
you sparked the discussion to be you know not constructive but …
>>>”Unlike you, I’m not poorly educated neither am I presumptuous.”
Irony.
>>>”Then you came along and said — That duplicity is characteristic of every Western System- religion of “Peace”, religion of “Love”. So you branched off into “other” religions, not me.”
The complete sentence was-
“That duplicity is characteristic of every Western System- religion of “Peace”, religion of “Love”, “Egalitarian state” promised by one of the systems, “Free Markets” promised by another, “Of the people, By the people, For the people” claimed by another… the “Merciful God”, in whose name millions of ‘kaffir/infidel/pagans’ have been massacred… etc.”
Any sane person with decent grasp of English will understand that ‘religion of peace and love’ are identified in that statement as western systems, which share the characteristic of duplicity along with other such western systems such as communism(promises egalitarian state while essentially turning people into slaves), capitalism(advocates free markets while actually capturing markets), democracy(claims to be ‘for, of and by people’, but actually takes away power from people for five year terms and vests it with duplicitous greedy politicians).
Of course it takes some amount of intelligence to understand.
>>>”> “why ‘atheism and agnosticism’ should replace ‘love and peace’ is not understood. Such lofty ideas, ‘love and peace’.”
Go smoke hash in a church or mosque or temple for all I care….”
There is a word ‘sarcasm’.
Those who are unable to understand its meaning also display inability to recognize irony in their own statements, like- “Unlike you, I’m not poorly educated neither am I presumptuous.”
The point made was that ‘love and peace’ are nice sounding labels. But, reality practised by cultists of those religions is something else. Similarly, the label ‘atheism and agnosticism’ does not necessarily mean that what is inside the package is what is advertised.
>>>”The reason why average IQ on the Indian subcontinent is 20 points behind oriental nations is the preoccupation with religions (which clearly seems to be the case with you and many others here who just don’t seem to get it).
Interesting display of irony, yet again inadvertently.
Who is it that “just don’t seem to get it” is evident.
>>>”Correlation of IQ with predisposition to religiosity”
By that yardstick animals might rank high as Intelligent beings, them having no predisposition towards religion!
It seems quite possible that some animals may well be more intelligent than some Quixotic fellows on the net who display severe inability to comprehension.
>>>”> “Yes, heard they changed the lines in Koran and Bible that says all unbelievers should be massacred. Now it says all unbelievers other than ‘Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus’ only should be massacred.” — no it does not say that. You say that based on childish assumptions in your head. Your comprehension, cognition, and analysis skills are so markedly poor. Stop making baseless inferences. And learn to get past religions. Okay? ”
Repeat- “Your comprehension, cognition, and analysis skills are so markedly poor.”
The irony involved throughout this fellow’s comment is much like the contradictions seen in the text books of bible and koran, where the almighty merciful loving gawd instructs people to kill unbelievers. such ‘mercy and love’. such ‘comprehension, cognition, and analysis skills’.
>>>”>>>”Basing conclusions on hearsay — a bad idea.”
> True. Sould read up on the latest ‘insertions’ in Bible and Koran, and listen to preachings in churches and mosques.
How dumb can you be?…”
The statement in his earlier comment- “Basing conclusions on hearsay — a bad idea” was preceded by the statement-“Atheists, Agnostics, Buddhists, Taoists, Hindus are looked upon with respect as intellectuals”
That is again nice irony. Because, the aforementioned peoples are still classified kaffir/infidels and recommended to be slaughtered by koran and bible. So obviously the fellow made that statement based not on facts in those texts, not based on what mullahs and clergy preach to their flock. In short, the fellow made that statement based on hearsay.
Yet he is unable to realize his own contradiction.
To top it all, he brings out yet another irony as he blurts- “How dumb can you be?”
Indeed, how!
The fellow is displaying severe inability to comprehension, an acute case of westernization that afflicts many ‘educated'(more like indoctrinated) people today!
About three thousand years ago Sri Buddha suggested the remedy- “appa deepo bhava“. Be your own light.
The westernized probably never heard of it.
namaste
> … ‘religion of peace and love’ are identified in that statement as western systems.
@Incognito, You still don’t get it. Begin by classifying between Western vs Eastern. And more importantly, religion vs system. Your assumption that Western religions are somehow Western systems of governance has led to your confusion.
All Western religions trace back their roots to India. Indic languages, religions, and systems are a part of the family of Western heritage, unlike Confucianism et al which are Eastern. India is the Eastern-most post of the West (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6442697523437717214#). Needless to say, Indians are caucasoids by race, not mongoloids.
Western systems are not to be confused with Western religions. As you yourself list some Western systems (along with whines):
1. communism(promises egalitarian state while essentially turning people into slaves),
2. capitalism(advocates free markets while actually capturing markets),
3. democracy(claims to be ‘for, of and by people’, but actually takes away power from people for five year terms and vests it with duplicitous greedy politicians).
None of these Western systems are theocracies. They have got nothing to do with religion. There are dozens of other systems too and none are perfect. Each system has its positives and negatives. My personal observation is that theocracies have performed the worst, whereas meritocracy (ironically, part of an Eastern system) has shown to have delivered better results than Western systems — not a surprise when educated people with higher IQ levels run the show instead of fools. Note that most systems in existence today are a blend of various systems.
Having said that, when Lee Kuan Yew tells Fareed Zakaria that he believes in ‘social darwinism’ as in “change or become extinct”, that is definitely questionable as it as has seriously scary connotations (political and racial) given China’s expansionist overtures:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2010/09/summer_davos_in_1/
Regardless of the system adopted by a nation-state, if it doesn’t put national security first, then it is as good as anarchy, and invites foreign aggression.
>>>”Your assumption that Western religions are somehow Western systems of governance…”
It is you that is assuming that there is such an assumption.
Don’t read what is not written. stop hallucinating.
>>>”All Western religions trace back their roots to India…. India is the Eastern-most post of the West”
Yeah. and Gawd is true. and ‘m the son of Gawd.
because Dr brown says so.
>>>”Needless to say, Indians are caucasoids by race…”
Yeah.
Thats why half of Northeast is not considered part of India.
And so-called tribals are also not considered Indians. of course, the madrasis too. those dravidian elamites!
>>>”Western systems are not to be confused with Western religions”
Yeah. one is for self-aggrandizement, other is for self-aggrandizement. not to be confused.
>>>”None of these Western systems are theocracies. They have got nothing to do with religion.”
But of course, islam and christianity are “religions”!
established by the gawd in heaven.
Yes.
>>>”There are dozens of other systems too and none are perfect.”
Of course, only son of gawd is perfect, isn’t it ?
>>>”when educated people with higher IQ levels run the show instead of fools”
‘educated’, like Dr eminent economist Shri MMS and PC.
Yes. education is very uplifting. ‘IQ’ too.
namaste
I think Jindal’s ‘disagreement’ captures the entire essence of the problem.
The System – Call it theocracy, democracy. Maybe you prefer one of the ‘isms’ – communism, capitalism, feudalism, socialism.
Of course, these days, there is a new God. Freedom and Progress. America kills people by the millions in the name of progress, freedom (Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan)
The end results are same. People lose control (become slaves /employees). Wealth is concentrated. Freedom is always promised – it is always in the distance. The collusive few control the ‘system’.
BTW – Good going Incognito!
After reading the exchanges here, it is quite clear that the western systems have done a great job of closing minds with their “education”. A lot of it has to do with ignorance of the past glory and rich traditions of India and its systems. I have to say that the British have done a great job of making a mess of our history as well as our minds. Please keep up he good work of educating your readers through this blog.
@Incognito, China’s Sun Tzu said that real victory is to win without waging a war. Their ploy and real soft power as the Chinese have projected over centuries is to send over people into faraway lands to mongrelize the locals. Result of the Trojan horse is the Northeast — troubling to digest but this is what we have. If there has been a long race of genes out there, that doesn’t mean that it should not be considered part of India as you seem to suggest. China has a mammoth 50 million new Chinese diaspora in the Southeast, in addition to centuries of sneaky infiltration and blending in. Eastern Russia looks like virtually Chinese territory pending annexation sometime in this century.
The US has been after resources for as long as it can afford to, but the reason for PLA flexing its superpower muscles against the US is both resources and expansionism:
http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-8-4/30974.html
http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/5-8-8/31055.html
http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-8-5/30931.html
Manmohan Singh went to West looking for investments and then to Saudi Arabia for some petrodollars to help build road and rail infrastructure. Came back with zilch. His ministers are now making trips to China and they are more than happy to build a hundred roads, which obviously gives them good entry points throughout the region previously guarded by the mighty Himalayas. If the plan succeeds, India which has more recently displayed cultural affinity to the East (for whatever reasons) would truly become Eastern i.e. more like the North-East, within a millenium or two at most.
@Anuraag, Regardless of a variety of systems in practice today (the isms), the undercover philosophy isn’t about gawd (nor freedom and progress). Then what? Like it or not, it is ‘social darwinism’ going into the future — survival of the fittest. And that’s why national security gets the top spot as I’ve pointed out before. And what strengthens national security? Science and technology. Gawd (of any kind) is left out for the incognito / clueless masses to worship or fight over. In fact, a Chinese intellectual has openly come out and said, “We are silent atheists who would like you all to fight over in the Middle East for as long as possible.” The rest is to be understood.
>>>”China’s Sun Tzu said that real victory is to win without waging a war.”
Jesus said to love thy neighbour, show the other cheek. ‘Christians’ have been following that ever since.
>>>”Their ploy and real soft power as the Chinese have projected over centuries is to send over people into faraway lands to mongrelize the locals.”
Why they stopped short of Nort East is not known.
Probably they send the Tribals and Dravidians to rest of the country to ‘mongrelize the locals’.
It is true that there are mongrels in India today. But, they are westernized mongrels, some of which think they share common origin with west.
>>>”Result of the Trojan horse is the Northeast — troubling to digest but this is what we have.”
True. all these Trojan mongrels.. the dravidian elam, tribal maoists, muslim jihadis, north east christians… They have nothing to do with western theories of Indo Aryan(Aryans purportedly came from outside and occupied India, thus ‘Indo-Aryan’)-Dravidian divide created by western colonialists, nothing to do with western theory of communism, western theory of islam, western theory of christianity, western ‘democratic’ political system that is current, all propagated by the westernized sepoys and brown sahibs.
Nothing at all.
>>>”If there has been a long race of genes out there, that doesn’t mean that it should not be considered part of India as you seem to suggest.”
What ‘seem’ to you is not what is.
>>>”Manmohan Singh went to West looking for investments …”
Where would he go but west, highly ‘educated’ that he is.
like some sepoys who provide web links parroting western masters.
>>>”If the plan succeeds, India which has more recently displayed cultural affinity to the East..”
flights of fancy are not related to ground reality.
>>>”Regardless of a variety of systems in practice today (the isms), the undercover philosophy isn’t about gawd (nor freedom and progress). Then what? Like it or not, it is ‘social darwinism’ going into the future — survival of the fittest.”
Thats the new religion this sepoy is convert of.
The only true gawd and his messiah and the system and the kingdom of gawd to come in future got a makeover.
The latest in the long list of makeovers westerners have introduced- judaism, roman empire, christianity, islam, protestantism, capitalism, communism, nazism, fascism, democracy, atheism, rationalsim, agnosticism, ‘social darwinism’…
namaste
It is sad to see such a gifted person like Sri Jindal succumb to the Macaulay syndrome (“We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, –a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. “). I wish he was on our side.
1. The physical level.
P Sainath has done remarkable work in excavating the British record.
“No other country in the world was quite as fortunate as ours, a Times of India editorial gushed in 1841…..When brown Indian gentlemen echo those views 164 years later, it is worth revisiting. When the Prime Minister does not “entirely reject” British claims to good governance, it becomes pressing.
That governance was certainly good for the British. Tax collections rose even as millions died of man-made famines. Like Bengal of 1770-72. The East India Company’s own report put it simply. The famine in that province “exceeds all description.” Close to ten million people had died, as Rajni Palme-Dutt pointed out in his remarkable book, India Today. The Company noted that more than a third of the populace had perished in the province of Purnea. “And in other parts the misery is equal.”
Yet, Warren Hastings wrote to the directors of the East India Company in 1772: “Notwithstanding the loss of at least one-third of the inhabitants of this province, and the consequent decrease in cultivation, the net collections of the year 1771 exceeded even those of [pre-famine] 1768.” Hastings was clear on why and how this was achieved. It was “owing to [tax collection] being violently kept up to its former standard.”
… a stark example of British-led globalisation from the 1860s. The civil war in America had hurt the flow of cheap, slave-labour cotton to Britain. So the Raj forced the growing of that crop here on a much larger scale than before. “From then on, commercialisation of agriculture continued to gain momentum. Between the last decade of the 19th century and the middle of the twentieth, when food production in India declined by 7 per cent, that of commercial crops increased by 85 per cent. Widespread and regular famines became a recurring feature during this period.”
http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/16/stories/2005081602880800.htm
European colonialism brought with it not good governance and freedom, but impoverishment, bloodshed, repression and misery. Joseph Conrad, no radical, described it as “a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly”. More famines were recorded in the first century of the British Raj than in the previous 2,000 years, including 17-20 million deaths from 1896 to 1900 alone. While a million Indians a year died from avoidable famines, taxation subsidising colonial wars, and relief often deliberately denied as surplus grain was shipped to England.
The Indian textile industry was the most advanced in the world when the British arrived; within half a century it had been destroyed. The enslaved and indentured (at least 20 million Africans and 1.5 million Indians) were shipped across the globe to work on plantations, mines and railroads. The stupendous profits deriving from this enabled today’s developed world to prosper.
India had about 18-22% of the world’s trade in the 17th century. By the British left, she had about 2-3%.
2. The intellectual level
In 19th century India, there was a good deal of indigenous formal schooling. William Adam observed in his first report that there seemed to be about 100,000 village schools in Bihar and Bengal around 1830s. G.L. Prendergast observed that in the Bombay Presidency, there is hardly a village that does not have at least one school, if not more.
Thomas Munro in 1813 and G.W. Leitner in 1882 observed that the spread of education in Punjab was similar.
The most elaborate account of Indigenous education in India is available in Dharampal’s “The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous education in in the Eighteenth century”. He makes a comparative survey of the system in the Madras Presidency with England. He concludes that the indigenous education system compared more than favourably with that obtaining in England at that time, with respect to no. of schools as a ratio of population, the no. of students in school and college, the diligence and intelligence of the students, the quality of teachers, the financial support provided from public and private sources, the high percentage of lower castes compared to upper castes and the range of subjects taught.
These systems of eductaion were abolished. Macaulay’s plan for English-only education in “moderN’ class was faithfully implemented. The indoctrination of young minds to make them think like the English and be ignorant of native knowledge was thorough, deep and wide.
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.”
One 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.
Arundhati Roy, Rohinton Mistry, Bharati Mukerji, and others of this new genre of English language Indian writers, are another 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. 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. These 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.
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.
http://indianrealist.wordpress.com/2009/05/07/colonialism-did-not-die-it-only-reinvented-itself/
My thoughts are original and unbiased. There is no way you can so simplistically categorize me into one bucket or another as many here who try to paint a black-and-white picture, “I wish he was on our side.” Reminds me of “You are either with us or against us”. Did you learn that from Bush?
Sainath himself says, “That governance was certainly good for the British.” which ironically expresses his own admittance that their governance was good, but the Brits reaped the profits. If India were to rule Britain, India would have done that too. Who said politics was about being nice?
Then he goes on to state, “These headaches, he feels, go to back to the mid-1990s. No mention of who was shaping the ghoulish policies of that — and the present — period.” Perhaps he also thinks that the ability to use complex vocab automatically means that he actually knows what he is talking about. Leftovers of the Brits or not (who cares?), it was possible for India right from the 70s to get its act together as India was in a better position. But simpletons like Sainath would argue that the Chinese were not ruled by the Brits to have the complexes like Indians do. And there is a grain of truth to it. Case in point is first communism and then with an added dose of capitalism, like it or not, China is already a superpower while Indians jealously thumb noses for being a slave to nothing other than the history of slavery and the sheer inability to shake it off and move on. The damage to Indian psyche from that history is evident. The cure to it is to start off with a clean slate by eliminating preconceived biases and then talk about the future, not just horrors of the past.
Chinese communists didn’t have any anti-western bias when they installed Marxism initially to restore order within that neighboring gaint in a total disarray. China was poorer than India in the late 80s. Was Deng Xiaopeng embracing Western values when he shocked the the world with a bold move into state capitalism? The Chinese leadership did all that in cold hard self-interest of the nation. In politics, there is no room emotion or bias. Realists win, idealists lose.
Sadly, many a Indians have adopted an unrealistic attitude with a utopian path to nowhere, and simply refuse to budge for being so scared of the westness of things they’d come into contact with (as in untouchable), and even if something was good for the motherland, the collective impact of remains from past slavery unleashes unconditional rejection without a second thought.
History shows us that the Brits would not have been able to rule India in the first place if it was not for the petty squabbling between the Rajahs. Instead of becoming anglophobic or being scared of history, I take a rational look at history to see what we can learn from it to not repeat the same mistakes in the future. Unlike some of the (mem)sahibs you list, I have never prescribed sympathy for the Brits or called for slavery as salvation for the Indian soul ever. India should be always prepared that it never happens again. The Chinese might come in and India is not prepared today on any front because the Indian subcontinent has been largely preoccupied with religion instead of science and technology. That’s what I’ve said. Now let’s look at the reasons.
Indian Americans are #1 (highly educated and highest per capita):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_American
http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-the-various-racial-groups-stack-up-in-terms-of-income-2010-9
http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2010/02/05/indias-rise-the-role-of-the-diaspora/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801350.html
Then ask yourself why is India still a nation of contradictions? Genes or religiosity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations
Here, Parag Khanna talks about the 21st century:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100922rc.html
I’ve talked to Parag and he agrees that the dangers posed by China are for real.
Even some Pakistani jounalists are starting to get a hang of ground realities and are starting to base opinions on facts (so Indian jounalists need to shamefully catch up here too):
http://www.youtube.com/user/KashifHKhan
Here’s a sampler of hollow Indian journalism (remember to read posted comments):
http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2010/09/22/india-apples-china-oranges/
http://the-diplomat.com/indian-decade/2010/09/21/sonia-gandhis-double-edged-sword/
Among the personalities you have listed, only Ashis Nandy makes sense. But you have to fully understand what he is communicating. There are three categories:
1. As Ashis points out, the colonized mindset who will bow to wishes of anyone with fairer skin.
2. The scared minds afraid of westness that live in a dream world disconnected from realities.
3. Fact-based thinkers who overcome the above two barriers i.e. national interest trumps all.
BTW, I’ve written to Arundhati Roy telling her that she makes herself look so foolish when she comes here and interviews with the Western press saying “Maoists are Gandhians with Guns.” It might sound snappy but I told her pointblank that the term is an oxymoron. It was as good as her pouring a pitcher of blood on the tomb of Gandhi, of which she accuses Bush of during his India visit. Apparently, she has taken note of my suggeestions and has started talking to Maoists recently about finding some middle ground with the government without a bloody conflict.
Here’s another slow Indian journalist (from Category #1 above) who twitters “perhaps we should lease India to the Chinese for the next 200 years”
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/dont-blame-democracy-for-bad-governance/683662/3
Now if this is the mindset of intellectuals(?) in India, why point a finger at people like me who are concerned about national security and sending out early warnings to avoid a repeat of history?
I’ve observed only negative posts here which pointlessly try to negate this or that. What’s the value add from silly labeling? And where are posts on positive fact-based solutions for a better future for India?
Jindal,
The effort through this blog and the Quick Take blog is to understand our past better. The secret to our future lies in our past. If you have been reading the posts by Anuraag and others, there is an effort to understand the models of governance and the paradigms that existed in India. It is not about a “glorious” past. It is about an evolution of thought about justice and dharma (not religion, but what is right and what is wrong). You are taking a small snapshot in our history and clinging on to it. The folly, IMO, is to ascribe vedic traditions to “religion” of the desert bloc kind. Simply put, Vedic traditions are about gaining and passing on knowledge. It was a knowledge based economy. We can learn a lot from what worked back then, because, as we know, there are still many things today that are just plain wrong even in the western -isms.
Also bear in mind that there is a major conflict between science and religion in the west (evolutionists vs. creationists, etc.). In our history, there was no such conflict because knowledge was the very essence of vedic tradition. By brushing off any discussion here as religion, you are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
One last point, due to our past subjugation by the British, there is a lot of self doubt and shame about anything and everything indigenous. This is a big problem that keeps us where we are today. Aping the west is not the way to go.
@Naras
accurate
i kind of lost what we are talking about here.
what exactly are we disagreeing about.
@AFOYB, We should understand the past to study it, but not to embrace what’s not even relevant in the today’s context. But if you read through the article, there are ideological linkages to theocratic or feudal beliefs with a cloaked effort to claim superiority of some medieval tantra model of governance and some laissez-faire economics, coupled with a utopian suggestion that it is a cure-all replacement for current systems.
Sharia means “justice”. Dharma does not mean “justice”. It means righteous duties i.e. making responsible stakeholders out of citizens, and not creating irresponsible zombies who’d get away with anything in the name of “aspirations”. That won’t be governance to begin with, that’s anarchy.
Let’s just take one example from this article. Polygamy and polyandry are “allowed” in the land of kamasutra as sexual freedoms. There is no awareness of overpopulation as a problem or collective responsibilities as a nation. I’ve pointed out the outcomes from promoting such grossly ignorant and irresponsible behavior on future generations: https://2ndlook.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/the-mother-of-all-conspiracies-population-problem
> Of the five, Switzerland (pop. 80 lakhs), Israel (pop. 75 lakhs) and Singapore (pop. 50 lakhs) are tiny countries to generate any valuable data, models, norms or precedents.
These were modern socio-economic experiments in tiny countries, with extensive data mining done on reasons behind their success. What has seemed to work well there (albeit on a smaller scale) has been analyzed and successfully copied over into larger economies.
He says Bharat-tantra treats these three elements as ‘aspirational’ while Western theory sees these four factors as ‘exploitative’. And then he goes on to say “उद्धारः – The sixth part of booty taken in war which belongs to the king.” And how is that ‘aspirational’ and not ‘exploitative’?
> In all the four Western systems (viz. feudalism, capitalism, socialism, communism) the concentration of political, economic, social, intellectual power remains! No difference, at all.
But there is no concentration of power in some rajah’s aristocracy?
> Religion was something India never had – and has now made it an integral part of itself.
Definition of religion: Belief in a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe. The are more religious believers per sq. km. on the Indian subcontinent than any other place on the planet. Hindu scriptures do have something to do with gawd. The article clearly derives inspiration from doctrines propounded in Manu Smriti among others, and yet you say we can’t ascribe vedic traditions to “religion”? http://www.bhagwanvalmiki.com/manu-smriti.htm
> Indian marriages are solidly anchored in gold. Every marriage has a significant amount of exchange of gold.
Welcome to the riches of dowry~! Didn’t Gordon Gekko say “Greed is good” in Wall Street? Why should the man work hard and create or produce anything (read socio-economics) when he can simply be sexist and get dough from father-in-law? Oh but wait a minute — only capitalists systematically rip off the poor!
> As a result, Indian rulers could not create vast marauding, pillaging armies.
…as they squabbled with each other for nothing and handed over the nation and the Kohinoor to the Brits without a decent fight. National security Banana Republic style?!
> Manusmriti states that ‘land is the property of him who cut away the wood or who tilled or cleared it’.
So the medieval text tells you anyone with a gun and tiller can come and take over my land? Really?
> Instead of real rights, काम kaam (desire, including sexual) अर्थ arth (wealth), मोक्ष moksh (liberty) and धर्मं dharma (justice),
…I have fundamental rights.
> people were fobbed off with ‘free’ speech (in your drawing room, to yourself), ‘free’ press, (mortgaged to banks and advertisers), religious freedom,(subject to population planning), etc.
…and extended rights too. I love my mortgage — having fun on OPM (other people’s money)!
> Aping the west is not the way to go.
In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true. — Buddha
Jindal,
The disconnect is so huge that I am not even interested in having a discussion with you. There is no middle ground. I wish you the best.
Jindal Sir,
I get a feeling that you are on our side after all. Please don’t dismiss this notion of sides by hand-waving about being on the side of “objective” truth. That is a typical polemic heavily used by Marxists (“history marches towards socialism, the people will determine the course of history, dictatorship of the proletariat, withering away of the state” etc).
One of the themes in your position is that China is out-running us by leaps and bounds and is a security and economic threat, as well as a winner nation.
While I wish them well…there are other facets to China.
In kannada we have a proverb – doorada betta nuNNage – distant hills look smooth!
China’s track record of horror needs repetition.
1. 43 million people are estimated to have been killed during Mao’s rule, between 1959 & 1962!
http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/mirsky_09_10.html
2. The Great leap forward has cost China at least 14 million lives. Estimates range from 20 million to 43 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
3. The cultural revolution was a huge tragedy, resulting in chaos, forced relocations and virtual elimination of the intellectual class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
4. Between ’59 & 62, Chinese occupation of Tibet has caused 800,000 deaths and 10% of the Tibetan populace were interned, with few survivors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet_since_1950
http://www.enotes.com/genocide-encyclopedia/tibet
http://www.meaus.com/Tibet_-_Give_Us_Liberty.html
In 1953, the population of Tibet was anywhere between 1.27 million (according to the PRC census) to 6 million (Tibetan Govt. in exile – TGIE). Independent observers estimate a figure of 2 million is likely to be the correct figure. In 2001, the population is 2.46 million, out of which 75% are Han Chinese.
5. In the Tienanmen square massacre, at least 3000 students, democracy protesters and intellectuals were killed.
6. China’s one child policy resulted in female infanticide on a large scale and led to a skewed gender ratio of 117:100, compared to 105:100 on the average in Asia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio
7. It is also well-known that Chinese citizens need work permits and residence permits to relocate from one place to another. Shanghai is restricted to rural & northern Chinese.
http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/article?revision_id=48159&item_id=3195
8. China has historically had many bad practices.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/chin/foot.html
In the movie Dr. Zhivago, the protagonist’s elder brother talks about the great progress made by the Soviet Union after the revolution, all the industry, super-power-dom and the egalitarian effects – and then says, “but do you know what it cost us?”.
The rest of the movie is about that question.
The final choice for any society is between sudden changes & material progress with great suffering, or gradual evolution and coping with continuous change. It is also between openness and problem-highlighting on one hand and closedness and problem-hiding on the other.
I will take up other aspects as and when I get the time, since I am also busy with work 🙂
@Naras, Your points 1..8 reiterate the same exact position over and over — China’s poor human rights record, and there is no doubt about that. The blob you’ve posted should have been posted as a comment to the Indian Express article instead which suggests that we should lease India to China for the next 200 years: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/dont-blame-democracy-for-bad-governance/683662/3
Learn to question journalists like her and your local MP that if the Chinese killed millions of their own kind in the name of progress, can you imagine what they’d do to the supposedly “inferior” caucasoids (as one of their military general touts in his speeches)? I care less what it cost China to get where it has, and more about how China’s rise affects the Indian subcontinent. Post World War II, the ‘Westerners’ have had enough territories under their belts on all continents. With India’s long border, it is China that is worrisome given its expansionist tendencies belligerently pissing off all its neighbors:
http://the-diplomat.com/2010/09/17/why-chinas-navy-is-a-threat/
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/interviews/qa-with-robert-kaplan-on-china
http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/
Some wake-up calls (in addition to links in my comments above):
http://www.amazon.com/When-China-Rules-World-Western/dp/1594201854
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/opinion/26friedman.html?scp=2&sq=friedman&st=cse
http://the-diplomat.com/2010/03/09/china%E2%80%99s-arctic-play/
And here’s an “objective” must read from Jaswant Singh: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/singh6 — IMO, the BJP has produced some sharp statesmen. I’m not too much into internal politics lately but I suspect Narendra Modi was framed by divisive vote bank politicians. His promise and work on making Gujarat like Israel is noteworthy. Interestingly, Gandhi, Patel, and Jinnah were all ethnic Gujaratis but the Congress Party understandably won’t like competent statesmen in the ring replacing their mediocre thugocrats! Hail Rahul and hope it all works out fine.
Some more interesting takes for your perusal (take it with a pinch of salt though):
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/india.htm
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0742533328/002-1425798-5763256?v=glance&n=283155/vdare
@AFOYB, no hard feelings against any ‘You are with us or against us’ philosophers:)
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/boroditsky09/boroditsky09_index.html — okay?
Jindal,
Ho Hum. Yawn. What else is new in your world. One word for you: depth. Good luck.
doorapu kondalu nunnana. we have that in telugu as well. distant hills are smooth.
i also got the same feeling . but i think he is jealous of anuraag.
Switzerland is a great country – and the Swiss people are the greatest.
One problem – How come they feel threatened if a few Muslims want a building with minarets? How come they had problems with women voters till early 1970s. Or they were stealing Roma Gypsy children as State-turns-blind-eye policy? Should I start on Swiss banks with Blood-Money from German Jews that they have taken 65 years to acknowledge only partially? Swiss anti-humanity can be gauged from population growth. Just Mumbai city has added more people in the last 65 than the whole of Switzerland? What an awesome idea of a nation.
China has set up a Mag-Lev train system? India must do the same.
Even if tickets will cost Rs.2000-5000 for a 30 minute ride. We must do it for national prestige? To create a gawking population – or impress tourists who come for gawking? What an idea Sirjee?
We must put more people in jail? Like the US!
Such an original idea? By the way Jindal-boy, another awesome idea from USA – Bald men, Catholics, African- Americans, Native Americans, Women, Muslims, Italians should not be allowed to become Presidents of the USA. People who have been purified by conversion – like Bobby Jindal, Nikki Halley can be considered as lower-level functionaries. Of course, there is no compulsion to purify or improve yourself at all.
Which reminds me – I must ask Obama why he keeps reminding Americans that he is not a Muslim. Is it a crime for a US president to be a Muslim? I don’t know much about Great Countries like USA! You will agree Jindal, that I am a backward Indian from a backward country like India.
If the Indian judicial system worked half of India and one third of China will be behind bars!
The last time I heard this idea, was from the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. What percentage of Cambodia did Pol Pot annihilate? Just how much hatred can one man have!
I really wish Jindal was born with Sanjay Gandhi … Jindal and Sanjay Gandhi would have made a good two-member mutual admiration society …
India is just not in that league.Great Country League of Switzerland, Singapore, USA, China. Now these countries have progressed – great trains and planes, superb roads and buildings, armies, police and judiciary that is good at imprisoning and killing people, awesome technology that supports all these things – paraphrasing Brother Jindal
Indians, lazy sods, don’t want these things very badly. Like Pol Pot they will also not ‘cleanse’ their populations.
Now that we are agreed with Brother Jindal on 3 things:-
1. Switzerland, Singapore, USA, China, Pol Pot are in in the Great Country League … As defined by Jindal (Jindal does not include Pol Pot, I do).
2. India, Indians, Indian Government are not as ‘competent’ as the Swiss, USA, China, Pol-Pot, The Democratic Royal Dictator Lee Family of Singapore?
2. There are happy immigrants, like Jindal, from India to some of these Great Countries – who can compare these Great Countries versus india.
Dont worry … be happy
So, Jindal … Good. Don’t worry. Be happy. You are rid of India. And in the Great Country of USA – the Land of Free and the Home of the Brave.
Good fer ya.
Now, do us a favor. Forget about us Indians. For the last 800 years Muslim and Christian rulers have been trying to save us. Just like you. But, we Indians … We are irredeemable, incorrigible …
I must admit, a funny question pops into my head. Jindal has immigrated to the USA. And like many other immigrants from India, in complete awe and admiration of the USA and other great countries. I am very happy for India and myself that Jindal has immigrated. And so are you, Jindal. That should make all of us happy … Right? We are not claiming from him what we spend on him. He has most probably benefitted from India’s subsidized education system that churns out people whose main aim is to emigrate.
So, why is Jindal so unhappy …
Worried about India … Are you! Are you afraid for India … You must be damn afraid … Afraid, that India and Indians may succeed. We may party without you … Don’t worry … You can come to the party … We will give you a PIO card.
And doncha worry! When your sorry backside lands up in a US jail, like Vikram Buddhi’s or Anand John’s, it is India, Indians and Indian Government that you will come running to … We will help you out.
Not one, even ONE of these happy immigrants will say a word to help someone like Vikram Buddhi or Anand John … Some like Preet Bharara will even join the lynching party …
I also guarantee that when you succeed – India, Indians will clap and feel happy.
What to do. We Indians are like that only.
PS –
I am beginning to like Jindal’s comments. He has a certain persistence, which is off-putting. But, never mind, Jindal. True genius is never acknowledged. He brings that supremely superficial, zero-depth ideas, which a lot of people carry around in their heads, without realizing. He brings these ‘worms’ out in the open. Thanks, Jindal.
Insecurities of Immigrants
I look at an immigrant as someone who not only comes from an outside area and has a different cultural, racial or linguistic background. These would include the marathi speaking immigrants to gujarat, MP, UP in the 1800s… or Bihari immigrants to Maharashtra in recent years.. or marwari immigrants to variety of places since the 1800s… or Indian immigrants to the US, UK and other places… or all kinds of immigrants who have arrived in Mumbai in the last few decades…. and so on…
There are a couple thing that is common to all of them – in general (surely there are exceptions)
1. They generally praise their adopted homes publicly (regardless of their private beliefs)
2. They are fearful of the local law enforcers
…I wonder if there are any desi immigrants in the US who will stand up, speak or blog against the US judicial system…
…and I wonder if there are any immigrants in Mumbai – who will stand up, speak or blog against the excesses of the Thackerays…
Funny how fear works…
It has been done … there was extensive coverage … TV journalists got bashed up … TV studios were trashed …
Many prominent talk shows were hosted … many known people took a stand against that … from within and outside the state …
What made this whole thing so ‘big’ was the backing by the ruling Congress party to Raj Thackeray … and not any anti-immigrant sentiment by the local Marathi people.
If you look at the Indian immigrant contribution to freedom struggles across Africa you will see how wrong you are! Or closer home to you, the The Komagata Maru incident. The Thind court case of USA will also tell you more. The Ghadar movement will again tell you more about a different kind of immigrant.
So, your theory of immigrant inaction and passivity is entirely a figment of imagination and rationalization …
@Galeo, On the issue of “fearful of the local law enforcers”, regardless of whether a person belongs to a majority or minority in a community, one ought to respect the law, and those with criminal intent should be fearful of the enforcing political authority. After all, a legal system exists to “govern” affairs of that community. That is my understanding of law enforcement. Say for lack of governance in a community, if you can get away with anything, then there is no law enforcement to be “fearful” of anyway.
On the generalization of “they praise their adopted homes publicly”, with respect to NRIs, a majority opposed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Interestingly, Bush found major war support from Indians in India, and a shocking 45% of Indians believe that China becoming America’s military equal would be a good thing.
http://pewglobal.org/2006/02/28/india-pro-america-pro-bush/.
Twisted ideas like “Bihari immigrants to Maharashtra in recent years..” (courtesy of Sena) are as dumb as a stick of wood. The Marathis never excelled at big business which the Gujaratis and Marwaris dominated, and the physically well-built Bihari migrants (not immigrants) did a better job at labor. So if you look closely at the psychological aspects, it is the locals that felt “fearful and insecure.” But instead of acquiring the skills to compete, the easy way out was to complain about ‘outsiders’. Interestingly, there is no serious concern of Marathis in Gujarat or Karntaka which are distinct neighboring ethinicities.
If you look at the history of empires of the past, tolerance and multiculturalism are indispensable features of global economic and military success. Hyperpowers rise, because their tolerance of minority cultures and religions, their receptivity to foreign ideas and their willingness to absorb and empower talented provincials and immigrants lets them harness the world’s human capital.
Conversely, hyperpowers decline when their assimilative capacities falter and they lapse into intolerance and exclusion. The sexy concept of a world-dominant hyperpower, in addition to being somewhat erratic—the smallish Dutch Republic makes the cut, while the far-flung (but inconveniently intolerant) Spanish empire doesn’t—is doubtful when examining an America that can hardly dominate Baghdad and not much more convincing when applied to earlier hegemons. Empires expand through toleration and contract through close-mindedness.
Intellectuals in the US understand these benefits of tolerance and pluralism, and Indian-Americans often promote this brief for maintaining America’s generous immigration policies.
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bhagwati4/English
The elite of empires which, in their heyday, were truly without equal. Not everyone (especially the myopic Thackareys) will be persuaded by some ingenious thesis that religious and racial tolerance is a prerequisite for global dominance, but also the slow solvent of that cultural “glue” which holds a great nation together. An “Indian Union” should be about unity in diversity, and not being mean and petty on part of any group. The real key to acquiring and maintaining great power lies in the ability to attract and assimilate, rather than to coerce or intimidate. That will be difference between the India story and China story.
@anuraag your blog says 1:10pm something while here in bharat it is 8:03 pm . will you set your blog to bharat standard time for goodness’ sake. i am unable to bear this eurocentredness in your blog man. :>
This piece has some great insights on dharma vs. adharma as well as Anuraag’s take on property rights in Indic polity:
http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/sep/29/slide-show-1-our-knowledge-of-mahabharata-is-extremely-poor-says-mythologist-devdutt-pattanaik.htm
True. The fellow’s knowledge is extremely poor.
Incognito,
If the fellow’s knowledge is extremely poor, why don’t you give us your superior knowledge on this topic? I, for one, would be very grateful.
why bash the thakerays. when we have australians killing indian immigrants and french government banning roma. the thakerays look like children before those australians and french.
any way. immigrants should have respect of the local culture.
we have some dirty immigrants here in hyderabad who have no respect for telangana people or culture or language. these dirty immigrants have eaten up our musi river. these very dirty immigrants are talking about the justness of the kashmiri agitations.
they want to preserve kashmiriyaat. nobody cares about telangana culture. but they want to preserve kashmiriyaat. i am talking about ndtv employees who live in hyderabad.
>>>>>Twisted ideas like “Bihari immigrants to Maharashtra in recent years..” (courtesy of Sena) are as dumb as a stick of wood. The Marathis never excelled at big business which the Gujaratis and Marwaris dominated, and the physically well-built Bihari migrants (not immigrants) did a better job at labor.
Biharis are not better built than Marathis. Biharis don’t come only to Maharashtra. They go to all major economic centers because Bihar, until recent years, did not have any local economy to speak of. Misgovernance had brought Biharis to their knees. So Biharis went to larger economic centers in large numbers so that they can feed themselves and their families. Yes, they do manual labor, but not because they are bigger or stronger than the locals.
The problems Thackerays have with Biharis (I do not condone the Thackerays, but some of their concerns are genuine) is that Biharis do not respect the local language and culture and do not assimilate into the local communities. When others go to these local communities (Gujaratis and Marwaris included), they speak the local language and get assimilated quickly. Respecting local laws is also important. Investing in the local economy (emotionally as well as economically) is a way to be one of them.
>>>>So if you look closely at the psychological aspects, it is the locals that felt “fearful and insecure.” But instead of acquiring the skills to compete, the easy way out was to complain about ‘outsiders’. Interestingly, there is no serious concern of Marathis in Gujarat or Karntaka which are distinct neighboring ethinicities.
No one is fearful or insecure of Biharis, except when they become criminals. Also, they do not have any specific skill that a local Marathi person cannot acquire. I agree that Biharis are willing to work harder than the locals, but that is a common trait amongst most immigrants. It has more to do with establishing themselves than being better skilled or more intelligent. I am amazed how quickly people generalize (south indians are smarter, northies are lazy, etc.).
Having lived and traveled across India, Indians are very open people and accept any Indian from anywhere, so long as they are willing to assimilate and respect local cultures and traditions. Kids of migrants in school speak the local language even though their parents cannot speak it and no one discriminates against them. Gujaratis, marwaris and sikhs do business in every corner of India successfully and no one treats them like an outsider.
Whether it is Shiv Sena’s or MNS’ antagonist attitudes toward people from the north or south, we have to first examine the basis. Both are based on Hindutva and Bhumiputra ideologies.
The idea of Bhumiputra (sons of the soil) was that Maharashtra inherently belonged to the Marathi community. I believe this does not signal a secessionist political agenda anywhere. Just to put this in context, a Chinese scholar recommended last year (http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=16113&size=A) that Beijing cultivate and leverage from internal separatist forces to achieve their objectives. With the exception of Thackerays (self-anglicization of Thakre under the queen’s order?), most Indians are intelligent enough to figure out the dangers of self-destructive ideas.
So a logical conclusion is an indication of where the political leadership should reside i.e. with the Marathi people. And that’s where the state’s political power lies. Then the Thackeray’s coming with some new extra baggage that Biharis “don’t get assimilated quickly” is inherently bogus — given that an ethnicity which largely performs menial labor work and is mostly uneducated obviously doesn’t have a chance at going to school to learn Marathi as a first- or second-language, as is the case in Maharashtra. So education is where the state’s focus should be. Not harassing and driving out migrants who are contributing to the economy and paying taxes to the state.
Hindutva. Savarkar (an atheist) regarded Hindu as an ethnic, cultural, and political identity. This is not contested by any of the Hindutva-centric parties. Shivaji, where Shiv Sena derives its inspiration from, was a secular king. His vision was that the land of Hindus should be ruled by Hindus (Swarajya). Patronization of Muslim saints like Baba Yaqub is certainly not a divergence from his proto Hindu nationalistic position. In fact, the verification of his vision of a Hindu state which accorded religious freedom to all its citizens is contained in the letter which he wrote to the Mughal emperor where he invoked Akbar’s liberalism in contrast to Aurangzeb’s tyranny.
In an recent interview with RKB (http://www.therkbshow.com/video/balasaheb-thackeray%e2%80%99s-most-truthful-interview-ever-%e2%80%93-the-rkb-show.html), Bal Thackeray has not taken a far right position on the Ayodhya case.
Bottomline is, there is no basis for bad treatment of ‘outsiders’ except for an attempt to fool the locals and make a vote bank to get elected. What’s funny is that didn’t work either!
Political parties have inculcated a culture of “divisive politics”. Or to quote phrase from Anuraag’s take — regionalism and parochialism. Party lines should not be drawn around silly fault lines of the 20th century. America is diverse too but there is no party of Hispanic people of Black people! IMO, all Indian parties should take positive solution-based positions on how they are going to solve state and national problems. That would be India’s Great Leap Forward towards building strong national unity.
Jindal,
You did not mention anything about “the physically well-built Bihari migrants” in your response. Are you taking that statement back?
Bihari migrants into Mumbai are much like the Mexicans coming to America. Of course, there are differences (different countries and requirement of a visa), but Mexicans come to the US for a better life, for which they are willing to do menial labor. That is the same situation with Biharis. Mexicans face the same challenges with integration into mainstream American life. They speak limited English and their children go to spanish speaking schools. Some mainstream Americans harbor some resentment towards such immigrants. Not only do they flaunt immigration laws, they do not adopt the local culture and traditions, and put a burden on the welfare system.
Such situation gets far worse in India because the divide between haves and have-nots is so huge. Mumbai is already busting at its seams. All resources are being stretched thin. Again, I am not justifying the narrow-minded stance, merely showing how it works. Also, you mentioned that “Not harassing and driving out migrants who are contributing to the economy and paying taxes to the state.”. It will be interesting to see what percent of them actually pay taxes and how much it adds to the exchequer.
All these problems have arisen because of lack of planning and execution. We have known for the last 40 years of tremendous mass exodus of rural people to urban areas for livelihood, yet nothing has been done to strengthen the local economies and try to reverse this trend. Its quite pathetic. Somehow, we look to the West to develop innovative solutions to all our problems. If the West has not faced it and developed a solution, we can’t seem to solve it.
if there was a party of hispanic people or black people. the white guys will kill them. not leave one alive.
>>political parties divisive politics.
dont know which is going to divide india more. people who are off to destroy india’s religious tendencies or divisive politicalparties.
when you are after destroying india’s religious tendencies. i dont know how you think you can keep india united. with so many different tongues and different habits. you destroy relgion. you destroy india. the foreigners understood that. but you are not getting it. that is what they are working on.
here is a tale in panchatantra against haste .
some carpenters were working on the edge of a forest.
cutting trees . so these carpenters decide to take a break for lunch . monkeys from the forest come and start playing with the carpentry stuff. one monkey goes and tries to pull off a piece of wood that was holding
huge logs of wood from rolling over . it was trying with all its might to pull that piece of wood. this monkey was not the type that gave up easily. (it was a monkey with original thoughts).and it put all its strength together and pulled at it. the piece of wood came off…as soon as it removed the piece of wood. the heavy logs fell over it and it died.
moral: you dont know what is keeping what in place.
it is five thousand plus years of going the indian way. if you want to destroy this hastily. you dont know the consequences.
once you destroy the religion. dont know what kind of coiled up energies are going to be released.
you want to change india.
do you have that level of intellect to do a surgical operation of transformation of the level of say transforming a man into a woman or something.
because if you dont then things are going to go very wrong. very wrong. indeed.
This was supposed to inject some lighthearted humor — “America is diverse too but there is no party of Hispanic people of Black people!
> if there was a party of hispanic people or black people. the white guys will kill them. not leave one alive.
This is a joke too, except a poor one at best.
Columbus discovered America in 1492. The United States declared independence from UK on July 4, 1776. America has evolved phenomenally in a timespan of over 500 years. You can’t take a page from distant American history in making up some delusional meaningless innuendos with no relevance in the present context. If you didn’t know, Hispanics will be a majority in the US by 2050. Getting back to the original point, people come to America from all over the world and assimilate. Despite the US being racially diverse compared to diverse ethnicities within India, no one I’ve met has ever argued or felt the need for political parties based on skin color. People would literally burst into laughter! There is simply no cultural basis for it. This is also why Americans overwhelmingly elected Obama as president. Racial prejudice is conspicuously absent in the mainstream and that’s just how Americans think. But I can also understand why you don’t get it. Most Indians are somewhat racist. I had keenly observed that a majority of matromonials in various Indian newspapers were so specific about how much “wheatishness” is acceptable in a prospective bride or groom — and that within the same religion, ethnicity, and ‘Jaati’~!
https://2ndlook.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/indians-are-racists-yes
India has been more open in the past e.g. welcoming Zoroastrians from Persia when they landed in Gujarat and assimilated as Gujarati parsis. The five thousand years of Indian history you talk about is of assimilation, and not imposition or division. Divisions started off as a gift of Islam — ‘cos the Koran conveniently divides people into believers and kafirs, with booty for those who are “with us” and harassment of those “against us”. It is only in the last few hundred years that religion took over as a dividing force. The result is India and Pakistan with nuclear daggers pointed at each other’s throats. Interestingly, India has more Muslims than Pakistan. So how can religion be a uniter? The West also had problems within the multitudes of religious denominations but they figured out that a workable solution was separation of church and state, with secularism and freedom of religion as the pillars of democracy going forward. Then Savarkar proposed Hindutva as a geographical concept as an ethnic and cultural identity, rather than its common but wrong interpretation as followers of the Hindu religion. How can Hinduism as a religion be a uniting force when there is no prophet and no two Hindus ever seem to agree on what Hinduism really is? Amartya Sen is an atheist and Srila Prabhupada a follower of Krishnaism and both are Hindus. Isn’t Hinduism a compendium of scholarly transtheistic philosophies? Gandhi was a visionary who transcended Savarkar’s geograhic identity thesis and captured the essence of Indian heritage when he said, “I worship god only as truth”. The shrewd cigar-chomping Churchill who made fun of Gandhi’s clothes before started taking Gandhi seriously thereafter.
I see that you’ve used the word destroy 6 times in your prose. No one is out to destroy the Hindu religion, in whatever shape or form you might practice it. What I’ve pointed out is that instead of laying the focus on national unity, and science and technology, overemphasis on religiosity brought India to its knees. I met a guy on a train during one of my India trips. He yelled at me, “You are lying. How can America send a man to Chandra-maa (moon goddess)?” Then there are Muslims who seem always ready to pick a fight if you said that the earth is not flat neither does the sun go hide at night under the throne of Allah. Then some Christians believe than gawd purposely put dinosaurs on earth just to confuse us but the earth is only 6000 years old. There are millions of people in India who proudly and piously recite the Gita or Koran everyday. It does nothing to save Mother Earth — something that we can see with our bare eyes everyday, neither do the rituals produce an ounce of electricity. And that seems so wastefully very wrong indeed, indeed.
Jindal, I agree with your realistic approach to religion and several other issues.
I also think that Anuraag keeps beating the West of several old issues such as slavery and genocide. That was in a world that was much more barbaric. A lot of water has flown under the bridge since and America of today is not the America it was 50 years ago.
I think where we Indians have failed is to create solutions to our own problems. We let the West develop the solutions and we implement it by making small tweaks and act like we did something great. None of the issues we face today have been addressed in any original form. Our education has not created any original thinkers in the last 200 years.
you still think columbus discovered america.
what are u . new to the internet or something.
no doubt u even think vasco da gama discovered sea route to india.
no one here.
lagta hai sab commonwealth dekne gaye hai.
Nahi … Commonwealth nahi … I am skirting at the Umbai underworld … quite like the underbelly. I will just about be able to approve messages for the next 15 days. All quiet on the 2ndlook front for the next 15 days.
@jindal
>>>>He yelled at me, “You are lying. How can America send a man to Chandra-maa (moon goddess)?” Then there are Muslims who seem always ready to pick a fight if you said that the earth is not flat neither does the sun go hide at night under the throne of Allah.
wow. you are making up things arent you. where did you get those from . some christian website or your own imaginary world. even if those are real incidents.
they mean nothing. nothing at all.
>>>What I’ve pointed out is that instead of laying the focus on national unity, and science and technology, overemphasis on religiosity brought India to its knees.
who has made overemphasis on religiosity.
what do you mean by religiosity here.
really you must be clear on who is making overemphasis onreligion.
ever since i was young. i have been watching everybody that i know urgin me to learn and become a scientist. an engineer , a doctor or a pilot. i heard no one who asked me to become a sannyasi. nay never
the television, the movies, the government , the ads in the tv,the teachers, the schools, even the babajis also encourage me to study and invent something.
even this blog writer has never encouraged religion anywhere in his blog.
whatever bharat tantra he is talking about. it is not religion.
so i dont know where you get your news from .that some where in india the authorities are emphasising on religion.
you dont seem to have lived enough time in India.
it seems .
>> really that chandra maa thing is a bit too much for me
it clearly shows your lack of knowledge about hinduism.
chandra maa– moon goddess.???
please stop jindal. you are making fool of yourself.
@a fan of your blog
>>> anuraag keeps beating the west about past.
genocides and slavery
wrong.
the west is doing genocides everyday.
what is aids. it is a technik to kill people . i dont know the genome code etc of aids etc. but all i know is that my sense tells me that so many people having aids in africa. certainly there is something fishy there.
otherrwise how would u explain so many people being affected by aids in africa. they would kill us too. if they can find a way.
>>our country hasnt produced an original thinker in 200 years.
wow you are an ostrich arent u
who was jagadish chandra bose, who was mahatma gandhi, who was swami vivekananda, who was srinivasa ramanujan,
(who was jindal the orignal and unbiased thinker.)
perhaps you didnt know the jagadish chandra bose had spoken at the royal society that matter was alive. non livingthings were alive. what he meant was that matter was not so inanimate as we think.
the whites of course took it very badly that an indian should be speaking about sub atomic stuff.
amajjjing. the most amasing people lived thru the last two centuries. and u cant spot one.
yu are one of these idiots who se definitions have to be textbook. are u wouldnt be accepting people if they are different.
>>>> america isnt what it is.
yah it had got cleverer .hasnt it . staging 911. attacking irak., afghanistan, pakistan. treating people like guinea pigs.
>>>sickos non residential indians are contribution to america to enslave the world.
whats with this pigness winston churchill. why do u refere to him as if he is some kind of authority on india.
that dirty pig killed bengalis during 1943. havent u heard.
@jindal
>>>>
But I can also understand why you don’t get it. Most Indians are somewhat racist. I had keenly observed that a majority of matromonials in various Indian newspapers were so specific about how much “wheatishness” is acceptable in a prospective bride or groom — and that within the same religion, ethnicity, and ‘Jaati’~!
<<
now you are insulting us . arent u
what do you care if some one wants a fair looking bride or whatever.
if this is racism. then you should probably write a new book like devil's dictionary perhaps jindal's dictionary or something which defines racism.
there are so many dark heroes in india.
rajinikant. chiranjeevi also was relatively darker than his contemporaries and yet they became extremely popular. if the whiter the guy the more the reception then our movie industry would be have no ajay devagan, i can loads more. what about abhishek bachhan. he too is pretty dark, shahrukh too. akshay kumar is also pretty dark compared to some others. trisha is dark but she is one of the number one heroines. perhaps you dont know. we have many dark heroes in telugu industry like suneel, prabhudeva, lawrence, . compare these to abbas who is white like a white man. he is no where to be seen now a days in the movies.
there is no such thing as somewhat racist.
racism is considered bad not because it is race conscious. but because it is extreme.
just because someone takes pride in one's race doesnt mean one is racist.
it is really troll. when you compare race with colour in the indian context. all types of colours exist in almost all castes.
some people tend to favour people with round faces, some with big eyes, some with little chins, etc etc. this is all common. people tend to have preopinions.
some favour people with triangle face, some with round face etc.
@jindal
nobody recites the gita.
people are extremely practical in religious stuff.
they have prinicples and etc. deekshas and stuff.
nobody limits oneself to reciting gita.
your ideas about india are really poor.
it is really disgusting when someone makes such strong opinions of condemnation without making enough study.
@jindal.
the Whites separated families and sold black people like cattle. in india we dont even separate cattle families like that.
and you are saying indians are racist.
thank you so much
if that is what you think
stay in america.
dont try to help us
[…] Round 1: Jindal said, on September 9, 2010 at 5:34 am […]
Excellent.. Mind blowing article.. i was trying to comprehend the indigenous societies, its systems.. and this article neatly presented it.. Everything i had analysed but without clarity was neatly presented here.
” भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra system works to deliver these three elements to all its members. ”
The question is how? And justa suggestion, you should have posted the topics as seperate posts so that it would have been easy to debate.
At the end of the post – there is a extensive table, which indexes various subjects and how भारत-तंत्र Bharattantra works to deliver each of these.
You click on those links and hopefully, your query will get resolved.
There is brother blog, quicktake.wordpress.com which links specific issues and topics to भारत-तंत्र Bharattantra. I have been known to write specially commissioned posts based on reader requests – on topics that that are not yet covered.
In west, land, labour, capital and enterprise – land for setting up factory, labour to work in it, capital to start enterprise, and enterprise to manage business..
In indian society, gold (or wealth), men, and land – men for community, wealth for survival, and Land for living.. jaathi is base for this indian model.. NO slave, no labour here..
very intresting and worth reading it.
Good post.
couple of observations-
“intellectuals, polity, finance and labour” is western misinterpretation of indic system, in line with feudalism, of clergy, king, trader, serf.
In Indic system, brahmanas were not ‘intellectuals’ in the western sense. They were seekers of brahma. The ‘intellectuals’, in the western sense, are more like pontificating self-opinionated know-it-alls interested in their name and fame. brahmanas lived on alms.
kshatriyas were NOT politicians. They were only interested in upholding dharma, righteousness. This characteristic is most suited to administration.
The greed for power of the westerners makes them interpret it in terms of politics. kshatriyas were more like servants of the public (ideal like Sri Rama, Raja Harischandra, Shibi).
Likewise, vyshyas were people occupied with producing and creating materials and artifacts. finance is in the periphery of their interest.
The greed for money of the westerners makes them interpret it in terms of money. For the vyshya, it is the material produce, and the process involved, that is absorbing.
Sudra were people who, neither absorbed in seeking brahma, nor driven by dharmik consciousness, nor occupied with material produce, admired the people engaged in these activities and supported them, helping them.
Western greed for hegemony makes them interpret sudra as labour.
When the seed is good, the tree will naturally turn out good. In indic system, the seed characteristic was dharma- that which sustains. All varnas were aware of dharma and kshatriyas upheld dharma. Therefore, like a tree with roots and branches grows automatically out from a seed, in this system, supported by prakriti, sustainable structure and organization automatically grow.
Just as it is not usually done to assemble a tree by putting together branches and leaves and trunk and roots, organising of systems and structures (such as separating trade and logistics) will not result in overall sustainable system such as indic system. It grows automatically from seed dharma.
Jar,Jan,Jameen are provided to people by this system as a by-product. They are not the roots of this system. They are more like the fruits.
The roots of this system, that which sustains this system, nourishes and supports it, are dharmik consciousness and brahma-jnana.
@X
vyshas had nothing to do with finance is true – in fact that is the exact point. each function sought artha – and therefore no one had a sole “right” over finance.
there is a very important part of the manufacturing value chain that is missing when you attribute the vyshas for production of all sorts… trade… trade is different than finance… but nevertheless an important segment of the value chain…
…all production was shudras… even the word “ut-paadan” refers to the “raised feet” of the purusha – which makes the entire value chain “run.”
“Agriculture, cattle-keeping, trade inclusive of the labour of the craftsman and the artisan are the natural work of the Vaishya. All work of the character of service falls within the natural function of the Shudra.”
Srimad Bhagavad Gita – 18.44
– http://krsna.lamost.org/mind/bhagavad/sri_gita.htm#18
Can you explain this idea to anyone?
Can you think of explaining this to 20 crore families in India?
This reminds me of the Saudi trick – Most Muslims in the Arabian homeland of Islam cannot get married, due to exorbitant meher – so they have to remain happy with the promise of 72 houris in heaven.
Indian saints, gods were people who acted – and not talked. Whether it was Krishna or others, the narrative is they started ‘performing’ as soon as they were born. Krishna killed Putana when he still a suckling child.
This lost-in-meditation types, is actually a post-1857 characterization of Indians by the West – with people like Max Muller, Matthew Arnold and Keats joining in the fun.
Matthew Arnold wrote how, India, a ‘nation of philosophers’, from
“The East bowed low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain,
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.”
Matthew Arnold’s influence in Indian education can be gauged by the fact that Indian-English language poetry was for long called derisively as “Matthew Arnold in a Saree”. Just before 1857 War, the works of another ‘influential’ poet, John Keats, became popular. In his hubristic haze, Keats wrote how,
The kings of Ind their jewel-sceptres vail,
And from their treasures scatter pearled hail;
Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans,
And all his priesthood moans,
Before young Bacchus’ eye-wink turning pale.
Much of modern history’s debates and questions were born during this time – verily created to wage a propaganda war against India
The Quest for ‘Individual Freedom’. Without wealth, property, family, community support, all constitutional rights, freedoms are hot and fetid air.
Remember, that that with the Upholder of Dharma (Vishnu) came Lakshmi; With the Creator (Brahma) was Saraswati (knowledge); and with the Recreation and Destruction (Shiva) was Parvati, in her many forms. Dharmik consciousness does not fill empty stomachs – or grow wheat and rice.
Western political system and thought specializes in promising these useless constitutional rights and freedoms. And then trampling these ‘freedoms’ to non-existence. This idea of nation of philosophers is also an extension of the same.
If your concept of a nation sunk in Dharmik consciousness if different from Max Muller’s, please tell, how.
explain idea?
It is not idea. reality of bharatiya parampara. experience it.
Western way is to explan ideas, obfuscate reality. They live on the promise of a heavenly afterlife or on the promise of a heavenly future life on earth(post retirment bliss and so on) and willingly become slaves to systems that promise them these.
‘lost-in-meditation’ was never mentioned in prev comment. why this misattribution?
seeking of brahma is a constant thought in mind, occuping the mind and directing life. Such a person is brahmana.
That same person for some time may be enamoured by another person and forget about brahma. In that instance he is a sudra. At another time he may become interested in the working of a physical object, and involve in finding out about its origin, working, etc., in that instance he is vyshya. At some other point in time he may be concerned about some act of adharma taking place and express his objection to it. He is a kshatriya in that instant.
Thus, the varna of a person depends on his behavior, expressed characterstic.
It is definitely not cast-in-stone permanent.
The varna system is for guidance, NOT classifying, branding, labelling, pigeonholing. It is for experienceful living.
That same person , may, at some other point in time, attempt to usurp somebody’s else’s property for selfish gain, if so, would be displaying asurik characteristic. Then s/he is a mleccha and needs to be shunned (untouchable).
The phrase “Quest for ‘Individual Freedom’” appears to suggest that there is some lack of ‘freedom’ and that there is something called ‘individual’.
Both exist in western asurik societies.
Both are not so meaningful in bharatiya samaj, where individual is recognised as not just an ‘individual'(at fully realized stage, is recognised as brahma) and freedom is a given.
The statement “Without wealth, property, family, community support, all constitutional rights, freedoms are hot and fetid air” find meaning only in western setting.
It is indeed dharmik consciousness that fills stomach and grows wheat and rice.
Dharmik consciousness- the awareness of what sustains, what is required for sustenance, the need for physical body, of the environment necessary for sustenance of physical body and life through it; it is this consciousness that leads to filling of stomach correctly, and growing of food in sustainable way. and maintaining of environment so that it will continue to support life, including maintaining of (mental, intellectual) atmosphere of society as well.
‘nation of philosophers’ or ‘nation “sunk” in Dharmik consciousness’ alike are Max Muller’s perversions.
I haven’t a clue of what you are saying.
What is dharmik consciousness, brahma and brahman, seeking of brahma
correction-
“That same person , may, at some other point in time, attempt to usurp somebody’s else’s property for selfish gain, if so, would be displaying asurik characteristic.
Then s/he is a mleccha and needs to be shunned (untouchable).”“That same person , may, at some other point in time, attempt to usurp somebody’s else’s property for selfish gain, if so, would be displaying asurik characteristic. Then s/he needs to be opposed.
Lack of dharmik consciousness, like lack of light- darkness, is adharmik. Person lacking dharmik consciousness is mleccha and needs to be shunned (untouchable).”
In terms of the statement- ‘Dharmik consciousness does not fill empty stomachs – or grow wheat and rice’, repeat, It is indeed dharmik consciousness that fills stomach and grows wheat and rice.
repeat- Dharmik consciousness- the awareness of what sustains, what is required for sustenance, the need for physical body, of the environment necessary for sustenance of physical body and life through it; it is this consciousness that leads to filling of stomach correctly, and growing of food in sustainable way. and maintaining of environment so that it will continue to support life, including maintaining of (mental, intellectual) atmosphere of society as well.
Dharmik consciousness- the consciousness of dharma. dharma, that which sustains. absence of dharmik consciousness (lack of awareness of what is dharma), like absence of light- darkness, adharmik, one step away from asurik usurping character.
brahma – all that there is.
brahmana- who constantly seek knowledge of brahma.
seeking of brahma- searching meaning of life, its purpose; occupied, engaged in realization of atma, brahma.
In a mleccha setting, all these definitions collapse, become meaningless. Mleccha, involved in selfish pursuits, bereft of dharmik sense, does not comprehend meaning/importance of the above.
Like the lack of light- darkness, cause misidentification between rope and snake, leads to confusion, and result in calamity, lack of dharmikata leads to rise of asurik character- usurping from others, with disastrous karmik result.
Read you blog, posts and all the comments.
I have one question if you could help me here:
You keep quoting the phrase: Jar, Jan and Jameen. Where does this come from?
That is, what is the origin of this phrase? I am very curious because never once have I heard this while growing up in India.
The words seemed persian, and a cursory lookup on web revealed that these words have either persian or turkik roots. Most material about this phrase came up in pasthun forums…apparently they have that saying there, but like I said, I am from India and never heard it. Even the pasthun saying is not what I would call an attribute of any decent civilization. The word Jan (or Zan) means women, translating it to gold, women and land as properties of these men there.
Could you provide me one reference…a text or a note somewhere about the origin and usage of this phrase in India? Please?
As per India’s wisdom narrative. These aspirations are ज़र zar (meaning gold), जन jan (meaning people) and ज़मीन jameen (meaning land).
I have given in the post (and here to) the links to the dictionary.
Similarly, the concept of भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra‘s 3-Rights of – ज़र (jar – gold), जन (jan – human ties), जमीन (jameen – property) are actually derived from Indic conventions.
These 3-Rights is common knowledge in Hindi-speaking areas. Similarly, you will find Bharattantra in Vikram & Vetal stories, and in the lack of palaces for Shivaji Maharaj’s dynasty. I have heard this since from my childhood. I have no clue where in India you are from? So cannot account for your not hearing it. Again if you have read this in Pashtun and Persian forums, the pre-existence is confirmed. Unless, you wish to believe that current political map of India is the historical map of India too. Cultural India is much bigger than today’s political India. That leaves the question of interpretation
It is not surprising if the meaning of these terms has been twisted in Desert Bloc areas as the source of all war. The Desert Bloc reverts to its true nature of denial of its basic rights.
Indian thought leaders found new ways to bring भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra back to life – when all hope was lost.
Try reading this Gita’s legendary shloka, where Dharma = भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra
यदा यदा ही धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत, अभ्युथानम् अधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम् |
परित्राणाय साधुनाम विनाशाय च: दुष्कृताम, धर्मं संस्थापनार्थाय सम्भावामी युगे युगे ||
Approximate translation:
Whenever Dharma declines and there is rise of Adharma;
To protect the virtuous, to destroy the wicked and to re-establish Dharma, I manifest myself, through the ages.
Anuraag,
Once again, I went through your posts and comments. Agree with you or not, I do appreciate the work you are doing. I am aware of your explanation of the tantra and am also aware of the meaning of the words zar, zameen etc.
What I am asking for help from you is information about the origin of this phrase. You refer to Gita and thought leaders, but there is not a reference to this phrase in all of Gita. I am familiar of the sloka you quoted, but I see no link between that and the jar/jameen/jan concept that you expound.
When you refer to Indic conventions, which conventions are you referring to? Are they explained in a book somewhere? Are they part of oral history?
All I am asking for is a reference, if one exists. If it is not in a book, but part of oral history, that is ok, but which region’s oral history in India? And which hindi speaking areas?
If this is what you chose to name the 3 rights yourself, then that is ok too. I am less interested in what this phrase means to you, more interested in the origin of this phrase.
If this phrase is something that you heard somewhere and decided to apply it to define bharat-tantra, kudos to you for attempting to define a set of rights. However, my fascination is with the phrase, its origin and usage.
If it turns out if the phrase if of persian origin, how was it expressed before say 1200AD?
By the way, Shivaji Maharaj did have a palace in Raigad. It was burned down.
Regards..
This is a common idiom in Hindi. Unfortunately, I don’t have a history of this idiom. I have heard this idiom discussed from my childhood. The regional origins, of the idiom I dont have. As for the words, all these are common Indian words.
No reference I can give. But as you have noted any google search will throw up this idiom in its many uses, forms, meanings.
I have given all the information I have.
To the best of my knowledge, the jar/jameen/jan concept has not been used in the Bhagwad Geeta. I have neither said or implied that anywhere.
The inverted meaning of this idiom is definitely Islamic. Both, in the various discussion forums and the personal interactions that I have had. But then the inversion would be but logical.
Brilliant!
Hi your, zameen, jan, jar seems to sound like land, labour and capital to my budding entrepreneurial brain. 🙂
1. Modern economic theory tries to say that market forces will balance supply and demand.
This works when there is supply and demand elasticity. There is no demand elasticity for fresh air. If the price gets cheaper, you don’t consume more air or similarly, if the price increases, you cannot curtail consumption. Hence, there cannot be any dilution on fresh air standards – and this is non-negotiable. All this pollution, contamination, by unproven industrial technologies is breaking this economic axiom – which modern economics does not recognize, accept or account for.
2. Similarly, there cannot be value on land. Bharattantra gives land rights to users.
You cannot buy it – or sell it. Since land is finite, excess demand by those with wealth will dilute purusharth for the rest of us. Our ability to get dharma, moksh, fulfill kaam and have arth will all become dependent on those with land. So, again modern economic theory makes no allowance for inelastic supply and highly elastic demand.
3. Now combine fiat money, gold standard and what you have is gold in the hands of the elites.
What this does in Desert Bloc systems is create concentration of power.With concentration of power comes Asuric Raj. Land labour and capital in the hands of entrepreneurs in other words turns out to be in the hands of the elites. More than 50% of the world’s gold, land, business, economic activity are controlled by less than 300,000 people out of 600 crore (6 billion) people. Half of 0.1 percent. That is 0.05% of the people control this world.
Bharattantra inverts that power.
That is why you don’t find palace complexes in India till the arrival of Muslim kings.
Great explanation! Two thumbs up.
This is your best essay Anurag. I bow my head to your fantastic intellect and knowledge.
There are already 107 comments going gaga over your post. May my 108 comment balance them.
What you call as Bharat Tantra is already called in a different term known as “svarAjya”, which Lokamanya Tilak and Annie Besant emphasized; to which Gandhi ji was the last patron.
Your article informs that Dharma is taught through smritis. However, you talk about Buddhism as the religion that brought Dharma to those regions. I do not see any connection. Could you please throw light on that?
As per my understanding, Buddhism started the decay of Indian polity.
Why did you name it “Bharat-tantra”?
Bharat = Our Country, Tantra = Systems/Workings/Structure… A structure/system on how to manage the Country.
तंत्र tāntr (nm) a system; technique; a string gut; a body of mystical formulae or practices (for the attainment of super-human powers); incantation;
Bharat is of course India.
Bharat-tantra means the system by which India was and is being ruled.
I do not believe that Dowry was a part of India.
“As I observed before, their marriages are all conducted by the parents during the parties infancy, the expence of this ceremoney, which is considerable according to the ranks of the persons married, is always from the bridegroom’s family, nor is it customary to give any fortunes with their daughters, because it should not be said they were obliged to buy them husbands, for this custom it seems they despise the Europeans very much.”
Whats your take on Maharaja Ranjit Singh as the last implementer of Bharat Tantra ….
Have no study, data, overview or evidence on Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s administration, state policy.
If you any thoughts, or thesis, would be happy to hear you out.
Well his state had no religion for starters this is well documented…. Had no written laws… Few lines from an article
“A notable achievement of the Maharaja was that the ownership of the land was vested in the cultivator,64 from whom the revenue was also collected directly without the intervention of the middleman, an institution he summarily dispensed with. During the course of war or the movement of troops, and damage to the standing crops was severely dealt with. The soldiers had to dismount from their horses while passing through the villages and the pathways leading to the corn fields. Punjab peasantry, suppressed for centuries, was put on the road to prosperity and given a new dispensation”
It was after watching a tv interview by a pakistani thinker Hassan Nissar (that got me thinking about Ranjit Singh and Bharat Tantra ) in which he claimed that lahore best rule ever was under Raja Ranjit singh and current pakistani establishment should model themselves around him rather than the Arabs etc
Few more lines
“Second that because of the actual humane manner in which justice was administered, it was never felt necessary by him to give the extreme punishment of death so as to secure respect for the law. And, in this respect, he ensured the sanctity of this principle by not punishing with death even those who had attempted to kill him.”
As i am very much fond of history basically, i always used to think or search for “how the society would have been in the pre-Colonial and Islamic Conquests”. It was an Outstanding article according to me. Those who has been understood this article, would fall in love with INDIA definitely. The author presented the system in a very finest explanation. and i want you to ask one question, can this system become acceptable for todays scenario, especially in INDIA?
and very much thanks to this author and Blog