I received this email yesterday and could not stop before reading it right through to the end…It is a long read…quite a long read, in fact. And it is seriously thought-provoking. Below, excerpts from a speech delivered by Sh. Gurumurthy at IIT Chennai in 2003 which - although five years old - still retains its and relevance and punch. This is a *must read*.
*** Excerpts from “The Intellectual Scene in Post-Independence India“ by Sh Gurumurthy ***
A critical review of strengths and weaknesses
… Defeat and anger go together. Abuse and defeat go together. So, it is in this norm and with this understanding of what an intellectual debate means, I would like to place before you some of my thoughts today. Some of may find it provocative. I am confident that the audience is competent enough to absorb this and think rather than get into the mood which all of us have got used to in the last 30-40 years abuse.
Background: India before Independence
Let us see the pre-independence background, the intellectual content of India. See the kind of personalities who led the Indian mind Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo, Gandhiji, Tilak- giants in their own way. Most of them were involved in politics, active politics, day-to-day politics, handling men, walking on the road, addressing meetings, solving problems between their followers. And, meeting the challenges posed by the enemy, the conspiracies hatched against them. They were handling everything, yet, they were maintaining an intellectual supremacy, and a record and an originality which history has recorded.
Let us look at the academic side. Whether it is a P. C. Ray who wrote on Indian Chemistry in 1905 or Sir C. V. Raman who wrote about mridangam, tabala, and violin, and saw the Physics in it (this was in 1913); whether it was R. C. Majumdar or Radhakumud Mukherjee who saw greatness in the Indian Civilization; trying to bring up points, instances, historical evidence to mirror the greatness of India, to the defeated Indian race, they were all building the Indian mind brick by brick. Sri Aurobindo spoke of Sanatana Dharma as the Nationalism of India. He didn”t rank it as a philosophy. He brought it down to the level of emotional consciousness. Swami Vivekananda spoke of spiritual nationalism; it was the same Swami who spoke of Universal brotherhood. For them philosophy was not removed from the ground reality. The nation was at the core of their philosophy. Swami Vivekananda was called the “patriot monk”.
Mahatma Gandhi spoke of Rama Rajya. Bankim Chandra wrote Bande Maataram. The song, the slogans in it, the mantra in it made hundreds of people kiss the gallows smilingly and many others went to jail. It transformed the life of the people; this was the intellectual scene, this was the content…This was the core of India, the soul of the Indian freedom movement.
The symptoms: India immediately after Independence
…Let us look at post Independence India. The persons who led post-Independence India were also trained in the same freedom movement. They went to jail, but they were not rooted in the intellectual content of the Freedom movement!
The first Prime Minister of India, he was in jail for 7 years. He was a great intellectual himself, purely in the sense of his capacity to reason, understand, read, and expound a thought. He told Galbrieth once, “I would be regarded as the last English Prime Minister of India. See the intellectual capability of the man, the enormously competent mind.
But intellectualism doesn”t exist in a vacuum. It has to be rooted in something concrete. Vivekananda”s universal brotherhood was rooted in India”s greatness as a civilization, which proclaimed it. The concept of “Vasudaiva Kutumbakam” cannot exist without a living form, a population which believes in it and believes in itself. You need to have a society, which believes in it.
That is why India could invite the Jews who were butchered, raped, all over the world. In 107 out of 108 countries, this race was butchered. At least they had the courtesy and the gratitude to publish a book, the Israeli govt. published a book that out of 108 countries that we sought refuge, the only civilization, the only country, the only people, the only ideology that gave us refuge was the Indian civilization. They published a book, which most Indians are unaware of.
And we invited the Muslims. The refugee Muslims first landed in Kutch. And they are called the Kutchy Memons even today but not the Memons who bomb Bombay. But the Memons who lived with us.
Keep Reading…
October 26th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, British Rule in India, Hindu Dharma, Identity, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History, Sanatana Dharma, Women in Hinduism & India |
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A Marathi Manoos’ house is ransacked in Jamshedpur for no other reason except that he belonged to the wrong “state”
A 10-year old boy - almost certainly too young to understand what the fuss is all about - gets killed in Bihar
Four people are killed in violence at Kalyan that erupted after Sh Raj Thackeray’s arrest.
The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation suffers a loss of Rs 30 Lakhs in two days of violence which resulted in 286 of its buses being damaged.
And the last “not funny” bit:
A Sikh group supports Raj’s cause and his “approach” since the “state doesn’t provide suitable enviournment for non-violent struggle”…Oh, by the way, they also express alarm at the “heavy influx” of migrant population into the state and accuse all political parties of “pursuing narrow political ends” [ link ].
Will Sh Thackeray now show genuine leadership and commitment to national interest and call off his mis-guided supporters?
Related Posts:
There is a “राष्ट्र” in “महाराष्ट्र”…
After Maharashtra, it is the turn of West Bengal
October 23rd, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Debates & Discussions, Identity, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History |
39 comments
Great article by Tarun Vijay in today’s TOI: Reclaiming India.
*** Excerpts below (emphasis mine) ***
“None should say Omar is not allowed in Jammu. Let him come, listen and speak. Like any other Indian should feel free to visit Kashmir or any other part of the nation. He is welcome to visit my home even if he denies me a piece of land in Kashmir. Why should a few words uttered by him make me change my Indian-ness? If he spoke in Parliament as a Muslim, asserting his Islamic identity, let denial of land to Hindus be his Islam and my Hinduness must keep my nation as a free democracy where difference of opinion is a natural phenomenon unlike Islamic countries.
…But he must stop to think why he can own a bungalow in Delhi or Bangalore and at the same time deny that privilege to a fellow Indian in Kashmir? Kashmiri Muslim leaders would like to enjoy the fruits and liberties of a Hindu majority democracy but vehemently deny that to Hindus in their area of influence. Why?
When they are in a minority they crave and get special privileges. But once a majority, every single right to be at par is refused to other minorities.
…Kashmir is predominantly Sunni and Wahabi. Hence the intolerance that denies even the basic features of Kashmiriyat.
And see what the de-Indianised intellectuals wrote on the front pages in Delhi’s newspapers: “All over a piece of land!” Really?
Then why are the Indian soldiers defending a barren piece of dead snow in Siachen? Or what’s that piece of cloth known as the Tricolor? Is it worth dying for?
…In fact the whole movement is a revolt of Tricolour people against unpatriotic politics on Kashmir. It’s an effort to reclaim India in a region where the central leaders and regional parties have abandoned the idea of pan-Indian nationalism and geographical integration. India has been reducing every day in the valley and the seculars keep on counting their votes and encouraging separatists at the cost of an Indian identity.
Keep Reading…
August 6th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Human Rights and Legal Issues, Impact of Islam on India, Jammu & Kashmir related, Medieval Indian History, Politics and Governance in India, Politics of Minority Appeasement |
8 comments
Amidst the outpouring of years of pent-up anger in Jammu, I came across this vivid, very sad and intensely poignant first-hand account of living in the shadow of terror and the forced migration of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley… Please read and circulate widely…
*** Cry of the Valley ***
A cold winter night has fallen outside and the power cut makes it all the more gloomy inside. Huddled together in the warmth of blankets and a kerosene lamp we just sit silently watching each others expressions. I am too young a kid to understand the full implications of what is happening and my younger sister is busy watching a small bug circling the candle our mother had lit in the gallery just outside the kitchen. My thoughts drift from game of cricket I’d played earlier that day to how bright the snow makes outside look. Among all these childish thoughts is a nagging feeling that I’m just not able to get rid of. I feel I’m never going to be in this house again. Never ever in my life will I play cricket with these friends again. Never ever will mother and father have the careless laughs that I so love. Never ever will the things be same again.
It started a few months before in summer when I came home after an extended play session with my friends. Father was waiting for me on the porch of our relatively new house. We were still building the second floor and it already looked like the biggest and the most beautiful house in the community. I especially liked the way the roof was built. There were multiple parts slanting over each other and I couldn�t wait for winter to see the snow sliding off these. I knew father had worked day and night to take us from a one room kitchen-cum-bedroom place to this house. The evidence of his hard work was on his callous fingertips that had hardened by continuous writing on multiple carbon separated sheets of paper that he used while teaching. I met him at the porch of our house and my instincts had sharpened enough to know that I was in trouble. But usually I knew beforehand. This time did not have the slightest of clues. The day had been good so far and I had behaved within reasonable limits. The bigger issue was not that I was in for a tough time, the problem was that I did not know the severity of the mischief I was going to be accused of and therefore couldn�t estimate the severity of the punishment. Anyway, I sat down with a feeling of a lump in my throat. Then he told me something that surprised me. He had heard me arguing with a couple of friends over a game of cricket a few hours earlier. He told me that I was to stop doing that I should either play without arguments or stop going out for fun altogether. I couldn’t understand this. From the time I could remember, these small arguments were the part of fun we kids had. Elders never cared to comment on such silly things and now I was facing an expression on my fathers face which was as serious as it I’ve ever known it. If I didn�t know my father better I’d have argued to get to the bottom of this but wizened with previous unpleasant thrashings I decided against that.
I didn’t have to wait long to get the cause of my father’s concern. In a couple of weeks one of my cricketing buddies was missing from the game. When I suggested that friend we should go to his home and call him, one other friend said that he was not home but had traveled across the border to get training in handling weapons. Without me knowing so at that time, I’d just had my first brush with the extremism that would change our lives forever. Suddenly the world around me had changed in a way that I could never imagine. My friends one-by-started going missing. Muslim kids went across the border and Hindus mainly started to migrate across to other parts of the country. I started spending more and more time at home. When the schools closed the previous fall for winter break little did anyone know that they would never reopen. As a child that was a welcome development for me. I could have all the time in the world to myself for play and mischief. But the irony was that I couldn’t go out anymore and there was nobody else to go out with.
Keep Reading…
August 4th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Elections Analysis, Hindu Dharma, Human Rights and Legal Issues, Jammu & Kashmir related, Politics and Governance in India, Politics of Minority Appeasement, Post Independence History |
10 comments
Please watch this short video and spare a moment to remember the brave souls who laid down their lives so that we may breath free
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tb4sSKmdik&hl=en]
To share the video, pl. forward the link:
http://satyameva-jayate.org/2008/05/08/naman-1857/
Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
May 8th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, British Rule in India, Current Affairs, Modern Indian History |
8 comments
This�is beyond being “funny”
“…(Maharashtra) state Finance Minister Jayant Patil…announced in the state legislative assembly that 80 per cent jobs in companies that will now open units in Maharashtra must go to locals.
…The finance minister also defined the Marathi manoos. �It has to be a person who has been living in Maharashtra for more than 15 years and knows Marathi,� he said.
I fail the test…miserably.
The problem is - in my entire life, I have never lived for 15 years in any single city or state…Who will hire me now?
And quite how they are going to ensure compliance is beyond me (in spite of Shri Patil’s ominous words: “We will be strict…”).
Sadly, this is probably not the last blow to the idea of an Indian/”Bharatiya” identity.
Related Posts:
Identities and�Globalization�
Of Bangalore, Bengaluru and Fractured�Identities��
There is a “राष्ट्र” in “महाराष्ट्र”
May 1st, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Identity, Indian Economy, Politics and Governance in India |
41 comments
Fellow blogger Pastorius posted this great piece over at the Infidel Blogger’s Alliance. It touches on euphemisms and “media labels” regarding Asians, something�on which I have commented before.
Excerpt:
“…There is a group of people in Britain who have distinguished themselves by setting off bombs in subways, preaching hatred of Infidels in Mosques, and carrying placards in the streets calling for a “real Holocaust” against Jews.
The media calls these people “Asians”.
In other words, the media uses a racial classification to name a group of people who are
1) driven by ideology, not race
and
2) more time than not, NOT ASIAN.
…And, really race is beside the point. I can not think of anything more racist than to blame Jihadi violence, which is driven by the ideology of the Koran, and various Islamist groups (Muslim Brotherhood, Wahabbism, Hizbollah, Hamas, etc.) on Asians.
…The PC Media, under the guise of fairness, are blaming the misdeeds of a few ideologically-driven people on a group of people designated by their racial characteristics.
That is racism.
Can you imagine how Chinese people, and Indians, and Filipinos feel about that?”
Now you may understand why some British Hindus do not want to call themselves “Asians and why some of them are very angry.
For the latest example of this, see this report (emphasis mine):
A priest has been attacked in the grounds of his church, in what police described as a “faith-hate” crime. Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was injured by two Asian youths at the church, in Tower Hamlets, east London.
although a later BBC report noted that
Tower Hamlets in east London, where the church is located, has a large Muslim community and Mr Khan said the incident should not affect “the hard work of communities in Tower Hamlets to create social harmony.
See also:
Please, no “M-word” here
and Avoiding the M-word from which comes this short excerpt:
The obfuscation is sometimes almost comical.
The New York Times, reporting the Glasgow attack on Page 1, carefully avoided using the M-word to identify Britain’s Muslim terrorists. Instead it attributed the 7/7 bombings to Britain’s disenfranchised South Asian population and reported that the terrorists in Glasgow were South Asian.
(As Joel Mowbray pointed out for Powerline, Indian Hindus are Britain�s largest South Asian demographic.)
UPDATE (Nov 2nd ‘08): Courtesy Sh Kak, this Op-Ed from The Hindu which mentions how “forced marriages” - routinely mentioned as an “Asian” problem is actually more of a problem amongst Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities (emphasis mine):
According to the British reckoning, the figures for this sordid practice (forced marriages) are around 3,000 per year. Unofficial estimates suggest that the tally may be even higher. Most victims are known to be women aged between 15 and 24. Another 15-20 per cent of cases involve young men. About 65 per cent of known cases involve those of Pakistani origin, another 25 per cent are of Bangladeshi origin, and the rest are of Indian or various African and Eastern European origins.
March 20th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Global Terrorism, Identity, Islam & Terrorism |
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I have never been anavidreader of Panchjanya but started admiring Shri Tarun Vijayafter reading some of his articles in the last few months (e.g. see here).
As some of you may know, he has recently resigned as editor of the weekly to head up BJP’s think tank…Here are excerpts on how he felt making the transition…It makes some important points about dialogue, ideology and the need to separate personalities from “issues” (Anirban: Thanks for alerting me to this)
Excerpts from “The blessed path” by Tarun Vijay
…Atal Bihari Vajpayee was not only my first editor, but first reader too. Many of our issues were warmly appreciated and severely criticized by him. He would call even when he became Prime Minister to say what we have published is good or simply intolerable. He didn’t like criticising opponents personally and would always advise: “Oppose as vehemently you can, but on policies and programmes. Refrain from personal attacks.”
Keep Reading…
March 18th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, Ancient Hindu Political Philosophy, Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism, Hindu Dharma, Indian Media |
7 comments
From “CPM Minister’s remarks trigger protests in Rajasthan”
“…Insulting remarks against Rajasthanis in general and Marwaris in particular attributed to Abdur Rezzak Mollah, Land and Land Reforms Minister in West Bengal, have evoked a sharp reaction in Rajasthan.
…According to reports, Mollah, while speaking at a function…had said that Marwaris in the State had become land mafia of sorts and were busy grabbing land. They dominate business and other spheres and use all kinds of means to get their work done…That was the reason Bengalis in their own State were lagging behind.”
Apparently Shri Mollah also said:
“…these non-Bengalis, especially Meros (Marwaris)… they are capturing Bengal not on the basis of their talent or intelligence. They are management masters. If they have a scheme, they remain prepared to manage 10 per cent of that scheme. They slip in that 10 per cent to wherever necessary and get the job done. Bengalis are still not habituated in this…”
.
Thought for the Day:
“Public Works Department Minister Rajender Singh Rathore said that people from Rajasthan have contributed more in the States where they reside than their own home State…” (from The Pioneer)
.
Any guess on which state would be next?
How about Jammu & Kashmir? Sorry, I forgot…no problem of “outsiders” there - exceptfor a few people from Pak-occupied Kashmir who sometimes stray and find themselves on the Indian side of the border…
You say, they are sometimes carrying “arms and ammunition”? Oh, thats only for self-defence…don’t you know Pakistan is a dangerous place?
As for other “Indians”, they need not worry about Jammu and Kashmir…since it is in any case, a country within a country, with its own flag, emblem and constitution…and you cannot buy land there (if you are from outside J&K)…
Or can you?
“…The Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffer Hussain Baigs statement that outsiders could buy land in Kashmir, has stirred a hornets nest.
…Taking strong note of the statement, the National Conference accused the Peoples Democratic Party of undermining the constitution of Jammu and Kashmir and the special rights the state people have enjoyed, while the Congress has distanced itself from the statement.” [link]
What Ifound amusing was this response tothe Hon. Minister’s statement:
“…Jammu and Kashmir is a Muslim majority state and in the garb of technicalities no one would be allowed to change this essential character of the State, NC provincial president, Dr Mehboob Beg, said, adding that NC would oppose any move, which would change the demography of the state”
Enough for the day…Good night, all.
Find of the Day:Jammu & Kashmir: Self-Determination, Demands for a Plebiscite and SecessionbyDr. Maharaj Kaul
Related Post: There is a ??????? in??????????
.
February 24th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Jammu & Kashmir related, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History |
4 comments
…but there is no मराठी in there.
This was the thrust of a�discussion I had with a group of Maharashtrian professionals earlier this month when the “Maharashtra saga” was just beginning to unfold. See some of the slides here (CAUTION:�800k download A Question of�Identity).
Then Anil Sharma-ji of Freedom Team alerted me to this article by Pratap Bhanu Mehta (”His freedoms and ours”, Feb 18) which I felt best captured my thoughts on the going-ons in “Aamchi Mumbai” (excerpts below; emphasis mine).
“…Thackeray deserves all the blame he is getting. But it is also time to be blunt and graceless about one disturbing fact. The response of the political class as a whole has been deeply disturbing in its own way along more dimensions than one.
…most prominent Maharashtra politicians have been at best very tepid, at worst downright equivocal, in their condemnation of Thackeray�s underlying arguments. This is the kind of issue that requires politicians from Maharashtra to express unequivocal outrage. Not one major leader, from Sharad Pawar to Vilasrao Deshmukh, has expressed the requisite sense of outrage or engaged in the kind political symbolism that can assure all Indian citizens that they are not quietly complicit in this dangerous madness.
…The absence of such signals suggests that the rot in our polity is deeper.
Second, we seem to be fundamentally confused over what this crisis represents….On the one hand, we want to boil it all down to politics. But in democracy when we say that there is a political logic behind some move, it is as much of an indictment of the voters as it is of politicians. On the other hand, we want to reaffirm our fundamental virtue. This is a fringe movement, we want to claim. The daily practices of life, the great ability to live with difference that most Indians embody, so the argument goes, are far too robust to be damaged by marginal elements.
But either way we are in trouble. If indeed, such ideological mobilisation can get mass traction we are in trouble. But even if this is a marginal movement, the fact that a lakshman rekha around what citizenship means in modern India has been crossed portends danger.
We can lose, because large numbers of people turn over to the dark side; or we can lose, because large numbers of people, even though they have not turned over to the dark side, are willing to let the fringe run riot. Either way we lose.
Third, this crisis reveals yet again the colossal leadership vacuum India is facing.
We have assorted chief ministers protesting at the goings-on in Maharasthtra. But they also use a language that refers to their particular constituencies…But no one at the national level is a credible, consistent and forceful embodiment of the basic constitutional values we need to defend.
The symbolic functions of leaders, whether they be leaders of parties or holders of high office, is that they consistently remind the nation of the boundaries that cannot be breached. But most of our leaders deal with these sorts of crises in avoidance mode.
…But we are now in a political environment where the refusal of our important leaders to express outrage will only embolden every two-bit leader to occupy centrestage.
Fourth, and perhaps most seriously, we need to move away from a discourse of diversity to a discourse about freedom.
Of course diversity is something to be cherished, but all the talk of diversity can also lead to some fundamental confusions. For one thing, diversity is quite compatible with segregation and even hierarchy. We often cherish diversity so long as everyone is in their rightful place. The minute implied boundaries are breached, populations mixed, cultures transformed, we scurry back to the protection of our enclaves….”
At least one political leader though has taken a “stand” on this…and I admire him even more for his forthright honesty:
Here is George Fernandes on Raj Thackeray�(excerpts below; emphasis mine)
“…In a letter written to Mr Raj Thackeray, Mr Fernandes said, �The road you have chosen is by making it known that your politics is going to be through violence…
…Mr Fernandes (also) said, �Do be from Maharashtra but be an Indian first...”
Well said, Shri Fernandes and I salute you for being outright and unequivocal in your condemnation.
February 19th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Elections Analysis, Politics and Governance in India, Post Independence History |
97 comments
Stumbled across this news today: “No love on Valentine’s Day, Sena on a rampage“
“… In Delhi, about a dozen Sena protesters briefly blocked a road early on Wednesday and burnt Valentine’s Day cards and gifts, chanting ‘Down with Valentine’.
In Lucknow, Sena activists sent out a diktat against Valentine’s Day celebration and threatened to beat up couples found celebrating their love.
“Our volunteers will check parks, hotels and restaurants and swoop upon young lovers found walking hand-in-hand,” Vijay Tiwari, a Shiv Sena activist in Lucknow, said. “We are deadly against Valentine’s Day,” Sapan Dutta, a Sena leader, said. “We are for civilized love and affection.”
In Pune, activists of Sena Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, Shiv Sena’s student wing, protested outside prominent colleges. They tore Valentine’s Day cards and shouted slogans. Several Vidyarthi Sena activists were taken into custody and police pickets have been deployed outside the colleges.
In Indore, Sena activists demonstrated and raised slogans against Valentine’s Day celebration near the Gandhi statue.
…
The clarion call to Shiv Sena workers to oppose Valentine’s Day came from none other than the Sena chief himself. Writing on Sena mouth piece Saamna, Sena patriarch Bal Thackeray said the party’s opposition to Valentine’s Day will continue as it has ‘nothing to do with Indian culture’.
Only those who are not patriotic and has a lot of parents’ money to spend will celebrate the day, and ‘Sainiks’ will continue to oppose the foreign culture, he said through the article. “
I would love to rip this argument apart but unfortunately I am constrained by time today…so here are some extempore comments…
This is madness…
While I agree that Valentine’s Day has nothing to do with Bharatiya culture, does that mean that Shiv Sainiks have the authority to go about bashing people who may not agree or (more likely) are just having a nice time?
Vandalising property and threatening innocent, harmless couples is not Bharatiya culture either..
How far are we from a dictatorship? and what happened to the famed Bharatiya and Hindu virtues of tolerance and liberalism?
And in any case, what has allthis go to do with being “patriotic”?
Related Posts:
Lets shoot themessenger and
Dumb andDumber
And if you have some more time, let me know your thoughts on how far are we away from this?
P.S. Has anyone heard of Vasant-Utsav? Read this and this (recommended, unfortunately only in Hindi)
February 14th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Hindu Dharma, Hindu Festivals, Indian Culture, Arts and Music, Women in Hinduism & India |
6 comments
Extracts from a BBC news story:
“…Dr Nazir Ali, the bishop of Rochester…in a separate interview with the BBC…said
“Britishness” had to be recovered if it was to “have the identity to face another highly organised ideology, perhaps for the first time since the disappearance of Marxism”.
He said the government’s approach to multiculturalism was wrong, adding: ” I think an affirmation of the Christian roots of British society would actually provide a better way of affirming other people than the sort of secular all-faiths-are-the-same kind of route.
“Because the secular approach will in the end marginalise everybody.”
Try substituting “Hindu” for “Christian” and “Indian” for “British” in the extract above. Could he be talking about India, I wonder?
***
Here are somemore extracts from the Bishop’scomments as they appeared in The Telegraph:
“…Alongside these developments, there has been a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism.
…Attempts have been made to impose an “Islamic” character on certain areas, for example, by insisting on artificial amplification for the Adhan, the call to prayer. Such amplification was, of course, unknown throughout most of history and its use raises all sorts of questions about noise levels and whether non-Muslims wish to be told the creed of a particular faith five times a day on the loudspeaker.
This is happening here even though some Muslim-majority communities are trying to reduce noise levels from multiple mosques announcing this call, one after the other, over quite a small geographical area.
There is pressure already to relate aspects of the sharia to civil law in Britain. To some extent this is already true of arrangements for sharia-compliant banking but have the far-reaching implications of this been fully considered?
…
Much of this has come about because of a “neutral” secularist approach which refuses to privilege any faith. In fact, secularism has its own agenda and it is certainly not neutral…”
Well said.
Related Posts:
Secular Fundamentalismalive & kicking inIndia
Secularism or Politics ofAppeasement?
Perverse secularism and Indiasfuture
Pseudo-secularism at itsbest?
Another fine example ofpseudo-secularism
January 8th, 2008
Posted by
B Shantanu |
A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, Current Affairs, Impact of Islam on India, Islam & Terrorism, Politics and Governance in India |
5 comments
A few days ago I came across this piece by Kishore Asthana which makes a number of important points that form the backdrop to Godhra.
I am reproducing some excerpts below but I would encourage you to read the article in full: Tehelkas Gujarat Expose and the Deeper Truth
Excerpts (emphasis mine):
“……Look at the progression. Arguments with tea vendors and rumours of kidnapping lead a Muslim mob to burn 60 people alive. The burning of 60 Hindu pilgrims results in carnage all over the state. It is a case of a petty incident leading to gross over-reaction, leading to a grosser over-reaction. It does not need too much intelligence to fix the blame where it belongs.
Babulal Bajrangi was a mere symptom of the disease. The underlying causes are our lopsided politics of division along caste and religion and our skewed perception of the word secular since our independence.
…The lessons the mind draws from all this are chilling. They are at many levels:
The Resentments Lesson no. 1 - It is obvious that there is deep resentment amongst Hindu s at their treatment by Muslims who are emboldened by India s secular nature and its liberal intelligentsia. Hindus view themselves as the subjugated people of India and are constantly reminded of this by the politicians and the media. I am talking of the average Hindu who eventually matter and not the urban Hindu intelligentsia who show remarkable unawareness of their own double standards.
Imagine a group of Muslims returning from the Haj, in Lahore . They are on a train and are chanting Allah O Akbar. The train stops at a station, some of the Hajis fight with a Hindu tea vendor, and a mob of 1,000 Hindus collects and stones and torches the train. Would such a scenario be feasible in Pakistan ? No. But, in India , the reverse is easily accepted and no one appears to question the mindset of the Muslim leaders who encourage this or the Muslim mob which acts in this manner with seeming impunity.
Hindu s are not even permitted to enter Mecca but Muslims lay a claim to Ayodhya, the Mecca of the Ram Bhakts. All this births dissonance in the Hindu mind and the pressure keeps building up.
The Consequences : Lesson no. 2 When the cork is blown open by an incident like Godhra, people like Babu Bajrangi and his ilk emerge, monster-like, fattened on this resentment. Once the Djinn is out of the bottle, there is no saying what will happen. We must learn to identify and neutralise such Djinns before they emerge from the bottle or, better still, not even give them an opportunity to take birth.
The Deeper Truth: Lesson no. 3 -. The deeper truth is that such resentments are building up all over India. The pressures of modern living, the proliferation of the media and its populist feeding frenzy, the minority- appeasing manipulations of political parties, the subversion of the bureaucracy and other such factors ensure that the detonator is well primed, the fuel is available; the cynical facilitators are all in place and only the trigger is needed.
…
Emotional Integration: The need, today, is for a quest for Emotional Integration. For this to come about, it is essential to face some unpalatable truths and come to grips with some very important and difficult to implement matters:
a. Primacy to the Indian Constitution over religious laws:
b. Sensitivity towards the feelings of the Hindu faithful: …In 50 years of independence, should our leaders not have ensured this by peaceful, legal means? If they had paid half as much attention to Hindu concerns as they pay to the concerns of minorities, it would have been enough…Instead, Hindu s have been taken for granted and the minorities pampered, with catastrophic results as far as the average Hindu s mindset is concerned.
c. Ending the Politics of Appeasement: Special privileges subsidies for pilgrimages, reservations in jobs, scholarships to minority students etc. need to be stopped. A secular state must only give special privileges only to citizens who are in financial need at this time.
d. A more responsible media: This needs no elaboration.
e. A quicker and more effective law enforcement and judicial system: When the citizens start thinking that mobs must do what the state is incapable or unwilling to do, then we have the Gujarat riots, the lynching of criminals in our towns and villages and even encounter deaths. This kind of disproportionate retaliation is a hallmark of frustration of the citizens with the legal machinery.
f. Imposition of minimum qualifications and law-abiding record for our legislators.
g. Improvement in our education system to promote self-esteem and regard for our nation-hood. Our education delivery system is pathetic and does not inculcate desirable values in our young. It does not encourage the feeling of emotional integration with others.
…Our education by rote and the politicised, Eurocentric curriculum is playing havoc with national self-esteem. Neglect of teaching as the most important profession in the country has made matters worse.
…In its vigilantism, Tehelka has focused on events, rather than deeper causes. However, all Indians must look deeper, into our own selves and at our politicians, media, judges and bureaucracy, if we have to avoid more bloodshed in the name of religion.
***
A slightly edited version also appeared here.
Comments, thoughts and suggestions welcome as always. I think this is too important a matter to be left forthe media alone.
Related Posts:
Of Godhra andGujarat
Join the discussion on Islam, Hindutva, Dr Zakir Naik,Godhraand
Perverse secularism and Indiasfuture
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November 20th, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
A Hindu Identity, An Indian Identity, Godhra, Impact of Islam on India, Indian Media, Modern Indian History, Pakistan related, Politics and Governance in India, Politics of Minority Appeasement, Post Independence History, Ram Janambhoomi, Ayodhya |
4 comments
The Sept-Oct ‘07 issue of JetScreen (Jet Airways in-flight entertainment guide) had a brief interview with Melody Queen Lata Mangeshkar in which the first question was (emphasis mine):
“Question: A graph recorded at the Royal Albert Hall, London has proved that you have the most perfect voice in the world…
Lata: I’m very happy to hear this but I’m happier about the fact that I’m an Indian. If they have said that my voice is the most perfect in the world, then it definitely makes me happy and proud.”
Quite acontrast from Shri Lakshmi Mittal’s remarks from some time ago:
Whether Im Indian or the citizen of another country is irrelevant in this global environment*.
*Quote from TIME profile here.
.
Here is a QUESTION TOREADERS:
Is national identity likely to become less important as the world becomes “smaller” and distances and geographical barriers break down?
Or will identity become even more salient as globalization progresses apace?
Would you agree wih Lata-ji or Shri Mittal? Thoughts and comments please.
Related Posts:
Of Bangalore, Bengaluru and FracturedIdentities
Identities andGlobalization
October 27th, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity |
14 comments
…Wall Street Journal thinks so.
And if the eminent WSJ says so (in a title, no less), it must be true, right?
During lastweekend, came acrossthis half-baked opinion passing off as a news-story (Note: this article is not available for free viewing; Subscription only) “How a Muslim Billionaire Thrives in Hindu India” - note the last two words.
It is written by Yaroslav Trofimov.
If the name rings a bell, there is a reason.
He tried to better his own record in this piece from a few days ago (Sept 19): “In India, ‘Untouchables’ Convert To Christianity - and Face Extra Bias” (Note: this article is not available for free viewing; Subscription only).
Do read Retributions’ review of the Azim Premji article andBarbarIndian’s take on it.
.
UPDATED:Additional posts that have have somerelevance to this (in the broader context)
Of Turkey, Secular States andReligion
Hinduism as a secularconcept
P.S. Thanks to “An only mouse” (see comment #4) for alerting me to this article, “A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation“. I found this sentence very interesting:
“The founders (of US) were not anti-religion. Many of them were faithful in their personal lives, and in their public language they evoked God.
They grounded the founding principle of the nation that all men are created equal in the divine. But they wanted faith to be one thread in the countrys tapestry, not the whole tapestry.”
Food for thought, I think.
October 7th, 2007
Posted by
B Shantanu |
An Indian Identity, Conversions, Missionaries in India, Distortions, Misrepresentation about Hinduism, Distortions, Misrepresentations about India, Hindu Social System, Media Related, Reservations, Affirmative Action |
20 comments
