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Friday, October 18, 2013

women

I have been writing similar stuff for the past almost two decades. 

But then social mores and traditions hardly change that easily, especially when it comes to matters concerning women and it is a global syndrome. It took a Nargis for the first time to ensure that even a woman’s name can be printed as heroine starring in movie posters. It has taken so many centuries for women in Ireland to get the right to abort just last year. I can go on quoting many more instances across the globe which will only increase the debates and dish out lot of verbal theories. 

What we need is initiatives first from women themselves to object to and avoid sponsoring such biased evaluations of women. Why should men first of all sit on judgment on women and pass dictates? Why have women never bothered to question this? Is there any species special status for males? And most importantly why should women bother about or seek certificates /permissions/licenses either from the society or males?


In all species, if we observe as a matter of evolutionary biology. Both the sexes not only copulate but also cooperate and do not think themselves as competitors. Each have certain roles, they may different but in no way superior or inferior or less important.

In a way if whole of humanity honestly evaluates, all human beings of both sexes had their initial boarding and lodging in a women’s womb before emerging as living creatures into the world.

This unique vital role of creation cannot be carried on by any male. So like this there are many vital roles every woman plays in her life.

All stupid Tamil serials and movies are obsessed with and portray certain predetermined, traditional roles for women but jump to justify modified continuation of such roles when it is beneficial to the male species. I do not want to get into the specifics of any of these.

Having said all these, unfortunately, in many cases, it is the women themselves who play the spoil sport to other women; probably it is because it is difficult to unwind several centuries of prescribed and piously followed behavioral patterns.
Here are some of my write ups







4] MORALITY

We must all remember that life has no permanent taboos or trends.








Monday, October 14, 2013

who am I

Dear All,

Please don't miss to see this. What an excellent  documentary on such an abstract topic explained with crystal clear lucidity through appropriate visuals and adequate scripts which will make even  small children understand the source and completeness of life. Watch the full 40 minutes without any prejudice.    

-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-c93ql8Tag&feature=share

It was sheer serendipity that I stumbled upon this when I was hunting for some reference material for some article. Lord Halifax was correct when he said," The struggling for knowledge hath a pleasure in it like wrestling with a fine woman".

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Macaulayism

Macaulayism is not a bed of thorns but it had so many roses which played an important role in a way in shaping the global providence as it exists today.

Let us evaluate with honest acknowledgment rather than hypocritical criticism.

Macaulay never forced Indians to give up their tradition or culture.


Hypothetically the best preferable quality of any social life system, like biological life system, is willing and automatic adoptability which is pleasant and promotes peaceful co-existence benefitting the maximum number and most importantly without harming or extremely hurting others in an enterprise of sharing and caring with compassion for other human beings and also concern for other species and the environment. This may sound very idealistic but then imagine what a type of excellent existence we would be having then.


Sanathan Dharma more or less fits in this stream of ideology as its greatest quality is tolerance and acknowledgement and acceptance of facts and reality.


As I am writing this article on a very often debated and very sensitive topic I have given lot of links to many articles a few by me and other by some scholars. So obviously reading would be a bit long and cumbersome, probably you can switch on to the links after you read the whole article undisturbed but if you patiently go through all the materials you will definitely get a overall view of the subject, get enlightened and also understand why I decided to take on the of recently cropping trend of majority of blind critics who criticize everything that Macaulay did. He is not a villain and all the practices of Sanathana Dharma and all the people practicing it were not that weak or that foolish to get uprooted or made to change course by a single individual called Macaulay without any reason or by force or compulsion.


So we need not react either with puerile and paranoid servitude or protest with parochial protectionism. By doing these we reduce the greatness and inherent strength of Sanathan Dharma and its practioners from the path which has always advocated using the two wings of  practical wisdom along with spiritual enlightenment to soar in life and instead we would be  confusing and veering them away.


These three quotes must be remembered as important mantras
1] "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."  Ayn Rand 
2] “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” John Adams.
3] " God is UNITY but always works in VARIETY" RALPH W.EMERSON


Let us not resort to blind generalizations or unloving criticism of everything without making an in depth analysis and evaluation of any event and/or activity of any individual in their contexts historical, social, psychological etc

We need to plough through the whole literature available with us on evolutionary biology, evolutionary sociology, evolutionary philosophy, evolutionary scientific progress, evolutionary psychology etc to have a better understanding of why certain things happen the way they do? In the places they do? At specific times as they do? Not as passive spectators but as discerning diligent denizens.

Every period/age in history and every region in different periods are impacted and influenced by certain predominant trends which may disturb and /or weaken the traditions, existing belief systems etc and/or further strengthen them up.


In every period similarly some dominating obsession or highly powerful or influential or strong impact causing event or individual may change the course of things. Again these too may either disturb the traditions and/or existing belief systems or further strengthen them up.

In majority of the cases they have contributed to the transition from tradition to transformation either better, best and/or bad [I prefer using this to phrase rather than the usual good, bad or ugly as it contains more negative terms].

Whenever these things happen there will be inevitably collateral damages and/or incidental benefits. We must evaluate both of them without any prejudice or fanatical affiliation to our comfort zones or traditions or jumping into grab what enters in out of rank opportunism.

Let us respect these facts over half- hearted, heated and/or hypocritical reactions/responses based on our ethnocentric affinities to language or culture or tradition and be pragmatic


“ Brief journey of civilization.

In very simplistic terms the earliest known periods of civilization human beings had less communication, less information, less knowledge, more brutality, more animalistic life style like cannibalism, continuous wars etc with little to care about the requirements of resources for usage and survival; it was followed by greedy instinct to have and posses more resources and areas leading to too many silly wars; followed by collective emotional entertainments leading to many traditional and cultural art forms; followed by urge to communicate leading to reduction in number of languages so that more people could be communicated to and that’s why while everything else in nature and society proliferated in number the languages alone  kept reducing from several thousands to a few hundreds and even out of these few hundred only some 20 plus are in great use now [http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/02/our-language-policy-hypocrisy.html]; then civilization was pulled  by fear of the unknown aspects of life leading to creation of many gods, gods out of heroic and exemplary figures, religions and rituals; followed by parleys into experimenting with different social systems/political systems to live together with justifiable contribution to and share from/of  the resources; followed by scientific discoveries to enhance understanding and help living comfortably and lead a life away from and besides the clutches of religions and traditions; followed by the recent centuries of dominance based on initially economic and commercial prosperity which may be called the real GODS of modern age and to achieve this by various means at national levels through discoveries of more resources and raw materials useful for human life, through real industrialization, improved and increased agricultural production etc or through dominance by military power trying to loot readymade where these things are available etc, and at  individual level trying to equip oneself in the best possible manner to decently survive in this rat race of achieving economic and commercial prosperity. This is of course definitely the only one aspect of life but a very vital aspect of social living at present.

The march of civilization through all these various stages have produced in its stride many collateral damages and incidental benefits as well as thrown up excellent exponents in various areas of life.

One of the collateral damage of the predominant factor of present age, namely economic and commercial prosperity, is competition in all walks of life and therefore comparison which cannot be wished away. Though we can always choose not to be affected and/or influenced by it or try our best and vie with the rest to become the best. Choice is always ours.”[ from http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/10/why-all-of-us-have-tendency-to-compare.html].

The west by its very nature has always psychologically pursued and socially enforced homogenization and hegemonizing. That has been their modus operandi. It has worked for them to their advantage and caused misery for the rest therefore they have struck to that without realizing that nature is a manifestation variety with an underlying unity.[ http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2010/11/west-needs-to-change-its-obsession-to.html] and this is one of the main reason why peace and harmony are eluding human society [http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2009/10/peace-and-non-violence-harmony-and.html]

We  can debate here are some good write ups by some scholars The Confused Hindu:Victim of Macaulayism by Sita RamGoel[http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/10/the-confused-hindu-victim-of.html]


another one [http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/10/macauleys-children-by-subhash-kak.html]

 

but  we need to foray into all the contexts/situations take into consideration all the factors that led to those situations or played their role as they have in those situations [http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2012/04/i-have-always-maintained-that-nothing.html]

 

 and in a way even morality is just contextual [http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/balayogiv-1483224-morality-contextual/



Let us touch our hearts and without any prejudice, populism pandering preaching plainly acknowledge the benefits we have reaped through Macaulayan system, the English tongue etc [http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2013/06/english-its-impact-and-importance-for.html]

The benefits that this single individual’s [Macaulay’s] dictate imparted to people, who were practicing Sanathan Dharma, and to the rest of the world far outweighs the smaller changes in life styles and traditions that it may have caused as a collateral damage.

I shall elucidate just a few examples of these benefits confining myself to the Indian and Sanathan Dharmic arena.

All the tall leaders who were part of freedom struggle could negotiate/interact with the colonial rulers were those who became very proficient in the Macaulayan system of education starting from Mahatma gandhiji, Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, a man of great erudition to Chakravarthi Rajaji to Dr.S.Radhakrishnan etc.


All knowledge of the intrinsically important aspects of Sanathan Dharma, namely the concepts and philosophical and scientific  inquiries into life and cosmos etc were brought in the arena of the outer world beyond the confines of a few selected monks only through the great Swami Vivekannada a person who was a great master of Macaulayan system.


In fact for all practical purposes Macaulayan system is one of the best ladders for social advancement and global acceptance or penetration.

It is this ability and willingness of many Indians to not only adopt but to master the Macaulayan system that we were a preferred destination for the IT outsourcing industry rather than China.

There are many more examples.









Macauley's Children By Subhash Kak

Macauley's Children 
By Subhash Kak
http://www.sulekha.com/cgi-bin/column.cgi?resource=ms_macaulay
Imprinting is the key that explains many of our peculiarities. Imprinted birds and mammals act as if they were human. Goslings, when reared by a person, become imprinted to the caregiver, and they will ignore geese. Imprinted people live in their own world of symbols, and their behavior to an outsider would appear strange.

Imprinting occurs during a sensitive window of development. Imprinted animals will mate with their own kind but will prefer the animal to which they have been imprinted. In extreme cases they will refuse social contact with their own kind. Imprinting is fixed for life; it occurs also in motor patterns, as in birdsong. Humans are also imprinted--- to ideas and beliefs they are exposed to in their childhood.

All this has been known for a long time. Herodotus tells us of how hostage children raised in court became loyal to their captors. In the US, Canada, Australia, the children of the natives were forcibly taken from their parents and put in foster homes for this reason.

The Ottoman Empire built a bizarre but effective system based on this idea. It created the institution of the Kapi Kullari ("Slave" or "Ruling Institution"), whose members were legally slaves of the sultan: they were born Christians but were converted to Islam primarily through the practice of devsirme, where able-bodied young children were recruited as child-tribute and immersed in Islamic culture.
The kullars were forbidden to contract legal marriage, to have acknowledged children, and to own private property. They served solely at the pleasure of the sultan, at whose will they were promoted and executed. The slave status divested the kullars of any personality outside the service of the master.
The kullars as Janissaries were the best regiments of the Ottoman army; they also served in the palace jobs and as provincial governors. The Grand Vizier was invariably a kullar. They constituted a superlative bureaucracy: they were devoted to their duties, were completely loyal and since they were isolated from the general population, they were fair. Their non-hereditary status prevented the formation of a ruling elite that might threaten the sultan.

With time, the kullars began seeking reforms in their inhumane system. By the end of the Empire, they had won the right to matrimony. But as their circumstances changed they became venal; what was their strength as an isolated community now became a license to do good only for themselves.
If the kullars constituted the backbone of the Ottoman Empire, an institution, similar in spirit but somewhat different in form (but more subtle and resilient), was formed to safeguard the British Empire in India. This was the institution of the brown sahib, the colonial apologist, formed under the directive of the famous Minute of Macaulay (1835) who wished to create "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 taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.'' These Indian kullars may be properly called Macaulay's children.
The central idea in the imprinting of the Indian kullars was Macaulay's assertion that "a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India." The British, following Macaulay's ideas, dismantled the traditional pathshala system of village education, which had provided universal literacy to the people. William Adam, a Scottish missionary in Bengal and Bihar during 1835-7, estimated that there were 100,000 pathshalas which were popular with all classes of people, "irrespective of their religion, caste, or social status," and the "curriculum was designed towards meeting the practical demands of rural society."
The village school had great room for improvement but it was very effective and was one of the institutions of local power. When it was superseded by the new system, controlled by the British bureaucracy using an alien language whose benefit ordinary people could not see, children of the poorer classes simply pulled out. This led to the illiteratization of the great masses of the Indian population.
The Macaulayite bureaucracy worked against other traditional knowledge also. For example, it targeted the millennia-old system of water tanks, which had been serviced by village councils. In its place was instituted a system of canal irrigation. This was done even where it was unsuitable, and the local councils were disbanded. Soon, the tanks fell into disuse and the water table dropped; this had disastrous effects for agriculture.
In the colonial state, the idea of profit was replaced by that of service of the British empire. The new system of education was instrumental for the socialization of this view. The idea of the other-worldly Indian was promoted.
In 1947, there was hope that India would create a progressive nation-state, but Macaulay's children quietly seized power. Taught to hate India's past and lacking a defining center, they took the fashions of the day--such as Socialism and Marxism--, and elevated these to their religious ideology. The terms Socialism and Secularism--but with a perverted meaning--were even written into the Indian Constitution during the Emergency of the mid-1970s.
In awe of the British and insecure of their positions, those of the Macaulay children who went into governance were good administrators. But as the system of checks and balances eroded after independence, they lost their reputation for incorruptibility.
Blind adherence to an ideology can stunt intellectual and emotional growth. Such people are forever seeking approval from those whom they idolize, and they are unable to grasp the incongruity of their behavior. Emotionally stunted people are like imprinted children, who can be very cruel. (The Khmer Rouge massacres of Cambodia, amongst the most horrific of the past century, were carried out principally by teenagers imprinted to one brand of Marxism.) Adults, with the minds of children, also brook no opposition, although their ways may not be as drastic.
The Macaulayite establishment in India is especially intolerant: it also knows a few tricks of Stalin. It silences its opponents using censorship and a system of patronage. But recently, independent minded American-style Internet magazines have provided a means to side-step this censorship.
Take Arun Shourie's experience: Although India's most famous and recognized journalist and author, winner of the Magasaysay award, he was black-listed by mainstream publishers and the media as soon he turned his attention to subjects considered taboo by the establishment. During the last ten years he has been compelled to self-publish his books and newspapers have banned him. But thanks to his Internet column he remained hugely popular until he joined the Vajpayee administration as a minister and stopped writing.
Having been black-listed once, his books are still not reviewed, and his speeches as a minister are rarely reported unless his words can be twisted to paint him as a monster. He is like a non-person of the apartheid South Africa. The favorite abusive label to pin on the opponent is to call him "communalist" or "fascist", and Shourie has carried these labels frequently.
As another example consider Mark Tully, the distinguished British journalist and author, who was for a long time the bureau chief of BBC in Delhi. Just because one of his books was perceived as somewhat critical of the Macaulayites, he was called names and declared a sell-out. His books have also stopped receiving notices.
This is quite unlike the rivalry between the liberals and the conservatives in the West, where the most partisan writers concede that their opponents have the right to be heard through the print and the TV media.
Some have suggested that the current turmoil in India is just a struggle between the traditional and modern approaches to governance. Nothing could be further from the truth. The opponents of the Macaulayites and Marxists do not wish for a religious state. They want to build a modern society somewhat like that of the United States: forward-looking but yet connected to its culture.
Reading the reportage of the culture wars of India by Western journalists in a hurry, one gets the feeling that the only sane people in India are these Macaulay's children. The reformers are labeled nationalists, swamis, traditionalists, or worse. These journalists do not understand the real nature of the struggle.
It is funny. The West proclaimed a certain imagined view on India, and now its pupils insist this is the real thing, even though there is evidence to the contrary for everyone to see. Could there be a better case of the tail wagging the dog?
Resources: For those who wish to take part in meaningful debate on the nature of the Indian civilization, consider joining the IndianCivilization egroup. If you are interested in changing India's portrayal in the media and in textbooks, participate in the programs of ECIT and the discussions of the IndicTraditions egroup
   


The Confused Hindu : Victim of Macaulayism by Sita Ram Goel

The Confused Hindu : Victim of Macaulayism by Sita Ram Goel

The term derives from Thomas Babington Macaulay, a member of the Governor General’s Council in the 1830s. Earlier, the British Government of India had completed a survey of the indigenous system of education in the Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras. A debate was going on whether the indigenous system should be retained or a new system introduced. Macaulay was the chief advocate of a new system. This, he, expected, will produce a class of Indians brown of skin but English in taste and temperament. The expectation has been more than fulfilled.

There is a widerspread impression among “educated” classes in India that this country had no worthwhile system of education before the advent of the British. The great universities like those at Takshashilã, Nãlandã, Vikramashîla and Udantapurî had disappeared during Muslim invasions and rule. What remained, we are told, were some pãthashãlãs in which a rudimentary instruction in arithmetic, and reading and writing was imparted by semi-educated teachers, mostly to the children of the upper castes, particularly the Brahmins. But the impression is not supported by known and verifiable facts.

Speaking before a select audience at Chatham House, London, on October 20, 1931, Mahatma Gandhi had said: “I say without fear of my figures being successfully challenged that India today is more illiterate than it was before a fifty or hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root and left the root like that and the beautiful tree perished.”

What the Mahatma had stated negatively, that is, in terms of illiteracy was documented positively, that is, in terms of literacy by a number of Indian scholars, notably Sri Daulat Ram, in the debate which followed the Mahatma’s statement, with Sir Philip Hartog, an eminent British educationist, on the other side. Now Shri Dharampal who compiled Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts in 1971 has completed a book on the state of indigenous education in India on the eve of the British conquest.

Shri Dharampal has documented from old British archives, particularly those in Madras, that the indigenous system of education compared more than favourably with the system obtaining in England at about the same time. The Indian system was admittedly in a state of decay when it was surveyed by the British Collectors in Bengal, Bombay and Madras. Yet, as the data brought up by them proved conclusively, the Indian system was better than the English in terms of
1.      the number of schools and colleges proportionately to the population,
2.     the number of students attending these institutions,
3.     the duration of time spent in school by the students,
4.     the quality of teachers,
5.     the diligence as well as intelligence of the students,
6.     the financial support needed to see the students through school and college,
7.      the high percentage of lower class (Sudra and other castes) students attending these schools as compared to the upper class (Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaisya) students, and
8.     in terms of subjects taught.
This indigenous system was discarded and left to die out by the British not because its educational capacity was inferior but because it was not thought fit for serving the purpose they had in mind. The purpose was, first, to introduce the same system of administration in India as was obtaining in England at that time. The English system was highly centralised, geared towards maximisation of state revenues, manned by “gentlemen” who despised the “lower classes” and were, therefore, ruthless in suppression of any mass discontent. Secondly, the new system of education aimed at promoting and patronising a new Indian upper class who, in turn, would hail the blessings of British Raj and cooperate in securing its stability in India. The indigenous system of education was capable neither of training such administrators nor of raising such a social elite, not at home anywhere.

The system of education introduced by the British performed more or less as Macaulay had anticipated. Hindus like Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Mahamanã Malaviya, Veer Savarkar, Sri M.S. Golwalker, to name only the most notable amongst those who escaped its magic spell and rediscovered their roots, were great souls, strong enough to survive the heavy dose of a deliberate denationalisation. For the rest, it has eminently succeeded in sweeping an ancient and highly cultured people off its feet. Macaulay does deserve the honour of a whole ‘ism’ of which we have not seen the last yet.
It is not easy to define the doctrine of Macaulayism in as authentic terms as we could do in the case of Islamism and Christianism. Doctrinally, Macaulayism is quite diffused. It does not swear by a historical prophet whom it proclaims as the latest as well as the last and the best. It does not bestow a monopoly of truth and wisdom on a single book. It does not lay down a single code of conduct distilled from the doings of a prophet or the sacerdotal tradition of a church.
Nor is Macaulayism malevolent like Islamism or mischievous like Christianism. It is rather mild and well-meaning, more like an imperceptible breeze which blows in silently, fins up the psychological atmosphere, creates a mental mood, inspires an intellectual attitude, and finally settles down as a cultural climate-pervasive, protean and ubiquitous
Unlike Islamism and Christianism, Macaulayism does not employ any meticulously matured methods to propagate or proliferate itself. It is not out to use a specified section of Indian society as a vehicle of its virulence. It is not a potent potion like Islamism which destroys the body of a culture in one fell sweep. It is not subtle like Christianism which subverts a society surreptitiously. But at the same time, it is a creeping toxaemia which corrodes the soul of a culture and corrupts a social system in slow stages. And its target is every section of Indian society.

Yet, as we survey the spread of its spell over Hindu society, particularly Hindu intelligentsia, we can spot some of its paralysing processes. The most prominent are the following five:
1.      A sceptical, if not negative, attitude towards Hindu spirituality, cultural creations and social institutions with solemn airs of scholarship and superior knowledge. Nothing in Hindu India, past or present, is to be approved unless recognised and recommended by an appropriate authority in the West;
2.     A positive, if not worshipful, attitude towards everything in Western society and culture, past as well present, in the name of progress, reason and science. Nothing from the West is to be rejected unless it has first been weighed and found wanting by a Western evaluation;
3.     An intellectual inclination to compare Hindu ideals and institutions from the past not with their contemporaneous ideals and institutions in the West but with what the West has achieved in its recent history-the 19th and the 20th Centuries;
4.     A mental mood to judge the West in terms of the ideals and utopias it proclaims from time to time, while judging the Hindus with an all too supercilious reference to what prevails in Hindu society and culture at the present time when the Hindus have hardly emerged from a long period of struggle against foreign invasions;
5.     A psychological propensity to scrutinise, interpret and evaluate Hindu culture, history, society and spirituality with the help of concepts and tools of analysis evolved by Western scholarship. It is never granted that the Hindus too have well-developed concepts and tools of analysis, derived from their own philosophical foundations, that it would be more profitable to use these concepts and tools of analysis for a proper understanding of the Hindu heritage, and that it is less than fair to employ alien and incompatible methods of evaluation while judging this heritage. If the Hindus use their own concepts and tools of analysis to process and weigh the Western heritage, our Macaulayists always throw up their hands and denounce the exercise as unscientific and irrelevant to the universe of discourse.
The intellectual and cultural fashions and fads of our Macaulayists change as freely and frequently as the intellectual and cultural climate in the West. Now it is English Utilitarianism, now German Idealism, now Russian Nihilism, now French Positivism or Existentialism, now American Consumerism-whatever be the dominant trend in the West, it immediately finds its flock among the educated Hindus. But one thing remains constant. The platform must first be prepared in the West before it could or should find an audience in India.

And this process of approving, rejecting, judging and justifying which Macaulayism promotes among its Hindu protagonists does not remain a mere mental mood or an intellectual inclination or a psychological propensity, that is to say, a subjective stance on men and matters. It inevitably and very soon expresses itself in a whole life-style which goes on rejecting and replacing Hindu mores and manners indiscriminately in favour of those which the West recommends as the latest and the best. The land from which the new styles of life are imported may be England as upto the end of the Second World War or the United States of America as ever since. But it must always be ensured that the land is located somewhere in the Western hemisphere. “Phoren” is always fine.
The models which are thus imported from the West in ever increasing numbers need not have any relevance to the concrete conditions obtaining in India such as her geography, climate, economic resources, technological talent, administrative ability, etc. If the imported model fails to flourish on the Indian soil and in India’s socio-economico-cultural conditions, these must be beaten and forced into as much of a receptive shape as possible, if need be by a ruthless use of state power. But if the receptacle remains imperfect even after all these efforts, let the finished product reflect that imperfection. A model imported from the West and implanted on Indian soil even in half or a quarter is always preferable to any indigenous design evolved in keeping with native needs and adapted to local conditions.

Starting from the secular and socialist state and planned economy, travelling through a casteless society and scientific culture, and arriving at day-to-day consumption in Hindu homes, we witness the same servile scenario unfolding itself in an endless endeavour. Our parliamentary institutions, our public and private enterprises, our infrastructure of power and transport, our medicine, public health and housing, our education and entertainment, our dress, food, furniture, crockery, table manners, even the way we gesticulate, grin and smile have to be carbon copies of what they are currently doing in the West.

Drain-pipes, bell-bottoms, long hair, drooping moustaches; girls dressed up in jeans; parents being addressed as mom and pa and mummy and daddy; demand for convent schooling in matrimonial ads: and natives speaking their mother tongues in affected accents after the English civilian who was helpless to do otherwise-these are perhaps small and insignificant details which would not have mattered if the Hindus had retained pride in the more substantial segments of their cultural heritage. But in the current context of kowtowing before the West, they are painful portents of a whole culture being forced to feel inferior and go down the drain.

The Hindu may sometimes need to feel some pride in his ancestral heritage, particularly when he wants to overcome his sense of inferiority in the presence of visitors from the West. Macaulayism will gladly permit him that privilege, provided Kãlidãsa is admired as the Shakespeare of India and Samudragupta certified as India’s Napoleon. The Hindu is permitted to take pride in that piece of native literature which some Western critic has lauded. Of course, the Hindu should read it in its English translation. He is also permitted to praise those specimens of Hindu architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance and drama which some connoisseurs from the West have patronised, preferable in an exhibition or performance before a Western audience. But he is not permitted to do this praising and pride-taking in a native language nor in an English which does not have the accepted accent.

The Hindu who is thus addicted to Macaulayism lives in a world of his own which has hardly any contact with the traditional Hindu society. He looks forward to the day when India will become a society like societies in the West where the rate of growth, the gross national product and the standard of living are the only criteria of progress. He is tolerant towards religion to the extent that it remains a matter of private indulgence and does not interfere with the smooth unfoldment of the socio-political scene. Personally for him, religion is irrelevant, though some of its rituals and festivities can occasionally add some colour to life.  For the rest, religion is so much obscurantism, primitive superstition and, in the Indian context at present, a creator of communal riots.

It should not, therefore, be surprising if this self-forgetful, self-alienated Hindu who often suffers from an incurable anti-Hindu animus a la Nirad Chaudhry, turns his back upon Hindu society and culture and becomes indifferent to their fate. He cannot help having not much patience with the traditional Hindu who is still attached to his spiritual tradition, who flocks to hallowed places of pilgrimage, who celebrates his festivals with solemnity, who regulates his daily life with rituals and sacraments, and who honours his forefathers, particularly the old saints, sages and heroes. He also cannot help being indulgent towards those who are hostile to the traditional Hindu and who heap contempt and ridicule on him, no matter to what community or faith they belong, though he may not share their own variety of religious or ideological fanaticism.

The traditional Hindu, on the other hand, wants to live in peace and amity with all his compatriots. He is normally very tolerant towards his Muslim and Christian countrymen, and gladly grants them the right to their own way of worship. He goes further and quite often upholds Muslim and Christian religions as good as his own. He shows all due respect to Muslim and Christian prophets, scriptures and saints. He does not try to prevent anyone from freely discussing, dissecting, even ridiculing his religion and culture. He never mobilises murderous mobs against those Hindus who do not share his convictions about his ancestral heritage. He turns a blind eye to his Gods and Goddesses being turned into cheap models in calendars and commercial advertisements. Nor does he go out converting people of other faiths to his own.

The traditional Hindu, however, does get stirred when the Muslims and Christians cross the limits and threaten the unity and integrity of his country. He does want to retain his majority in his only homeland against Muslim and Christian attempts to reduce him to a minority by fraudulent mass conversions. He does believe that Hindu society and culture have a right to survive and put up some defence in exercise of that right. But the Hindu addict of Macaulayism stubbornly refuses to concede that right to Hindu society and culture. He cannot see the need for defence because he cannot see the danger. And he has many strings to his bow to run down the Hindu who dares defy his diktat. His attitude can by summarised as follows:
1.      To start with, he refuses to recognise any danger to Hindu society and culture even when irrefutable facts are placed under his nose. He accuses and denounces as alarmists, communalists, chauvinists and fascists all those who give a call for self-defence to the Hindus. Better, he explains away the aggression from other faiths in terms of the aggression which “Hindu communalism” has committed in the first instance;
2.     Next, he paints a pitiful picture of the aggressor as a poor, deprived and down-trodden minority whom the Hindus refuse to recognise as equal citizens, constitutionally entitled to a just share in the national cake;
3.     At a later stage, he assumes sanctimonious airs and assigns to the Hindus an inescapable moral responsibility to rescue their less privileged brethren from the plight into which the Hindus have pressed them. In any case, the Hindus stand to lose nothing substantial if they make some generous gestures to their younger brethren even if the latter are slightly in the wrong;
4.     In the next round, he harangues the Hindus that any danger to them, if really real and worth worrying about, arises not from an external aggression against them but from the injustice and oppression in their own social system which drives away its less privileged sections towards other social systems based on better premises and promises. Does not Islam promise an equality of social status because of its great ideal of the brotherhood of men? Does not Christianity present an example of dedicated social service a la Mother Teresa?
5.     If the Hindus are not convinced by all these arguments and become bent upon organising some sort of a self-defence, he comes out with a fool-proof formula for that eventuality as well. The Hindus are advised to put their own house in order which, in his opinion, is the best defence they can put up. They should immediately abolish the caste system, start inter-dining and inter-marrying between the upper and lower castes, particularly the Harijans, and so on and so forth. It never occurs to him that social reform is a slow process which takes time to mature and that in the meanwhile a society is entitled to self-defence in the interests of its sheer survival;
6.     If the Hindus still remain adamant, he tries his last and best ballistics upon them. He suddenly puts on a spiritual mask and lovingly appeals to the Hindus in the name of their long tradition of religious tolerance. How can the followers of Gautama and Gandhi descend to the same level as Islam and Christianity which have never known religious tolerance? The Hindus would cease to be Hindus if they also start behaving like followers of the Semitic faiths which have been conditioned differently due to historical circumstances of their birth. But he never dares put in one single word of advice to the followers of Islamism and Christianism to desist from always having it their own way. He knows it in his bones that such an advice will immediately bring upon his head the same abusive accusations which Islamism and Christianism hurl at the Hindus. This is the outcome which he dreads worse than death. He cannot risk his reputation of being secular and progressive which Islamism and Christianism confer upon him only so long as he defends their tirades against the Hindus.
But the stance which suits Macaulayism best is to sit on the fences and call a plague on both houses. The search for fairness and justice is somehow always too strenuous for a follower of Macaulayism. The one thing he loathes from the bottom of his heart is taking sides in a dispute, even if he is privately convinced as to who is the aggressor and who the victim of aggression. He views the battle as a disinterested outsider and finds it somewhat entertaining. The reports and reviews which some of our eminent journalists have filed in the daily and the periodical press about happenings in Meenakshipuram and other places where Islamism is again on the prowl, leaves an unmistakable impression that these gentlemen are not members of Hindu society but visitors from some outer space on a temporary sojourn to witness a breed of lesser beings fighting about Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

An adherent of Macaulayism can well afford to take this neutral, even hostile stance, away from and above Hindu society, its problems and its struggles, because, in the last analysis, he no more regards Hindu society as his own or as his indispensable benefactor. He has already managed to monopolise most of the political and administrative power in this country and the best jobs in business and the professions. He has secured a stranglehold on the most prestigious publicity media. The political upstarts and the neo-rich look up to him as their paragon and try to mould their sons and daughters in his image.

But what is uppermost in his mind, if not his conscious calculation, is the plenty of patrons, protectors and pay-masters he has in the West, particularly the United States of America. The scholars and social scientists over there in the progressive West approve and applaud whenever he pontificates about India’s socio-economico-cultural malaise and prescribes the proper occidental cures. They invite him to international seminars and on well-paid lecture tours to enlighten Western audiences about the true state of things in this “unfortunate” country and the rest of the “under-developed” world. He can travel extensively in the West with all expenses paid on a lavish scale. Even in this country he alone is entitled to move and establish the right contacts in social circles frequented by the powerful and the prestigious from the West.

And, God forbid, if the worst comes to the worst and the “fanatics like the RSS fascists” or the Muslim fundamentalists or the Communist totalitarians take over this country, he can always find a safe refuge in one Western country or the other. There are plenty of places which can use his talents to mutual profit. The salaries they pay and the expense accounts they allow are quite attractive. The level of living with all those latest gadgets is simply lovable. In any case, he has all those sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, cousins and close relatives ensconsed in all those cushy jobs over there-the UN agencies, the fabulous foundations, the business corporations, the universities and research institutions.

So, Hindu society with all its hullabaloo of religion and culture be damned. This society, and not he, stands to lose if he is not permitted to work out his plans for progress in peace. In any case, this society cannot pay even for his shoes getting polished properly.

..

Friday, October 4, 2013

Sycophants and hockey sticks

Sycophants of Sonia out do a Mulla Nasrudin- a secular story

Sycophants and hockey sticks

The symbolic effect of hockey stick that can be turned on any angle ,any side to hit the ball and it also has an unfinished  U shape. This is what Ajay Makhan did on Ordinance as Kapil Sibal and PC did when they enacted the post independent India's Jalianwalla bhagh on Baba Ramdev and his disciples.
Whenever the sycophants of Sonia, like the parasites of Dictators, get into the business of covering up, telling lies etc to protect her and her family members to win brownie points and thereby expect favors in future and get some posts because after all she could induct anyone in any position, do whatever she wants and above all pay the media to project or ignore what she wishes to name a few of her powers.

So all these sycophants are engaged in a frenzied race to please the family stooping much lower and driveling more than what we can imagine the druids of sixteenth century would have done in front of Royalty.

But unfortunately most of these sycophants overdo without realizing that they are exposing themselves more and more like Mulla Nasrudin especially those who saw Zero loss in 2G to those who found Robert Vadra did everything legally as a private individual becoming a billionaire within 10 years from a road side Romeo in the process.

Why I refer them to Mulla Nasrudin. Once Mulla Nasrudin was getting ready to apply to a local department store for a job. A friend told him that it was the policy of the store to hire nobody but Catholic Christians, and that if he wanted a job there, he would have to lie about being a Catholic Christian. Nasrudin applied for the job and the personnel man asked him the usual questions. Then he said to the Mulla, "And what church do you belong to?" "I am a Catholic," said Nasrudin. "And all my family are Catholics. IN FACT, MY FATHER IS A PRIEST AND MY MOTHER IS A NUN, SIR."

Our bunch of sycophants would have gone  a few steps further and traced the proud lineage of ancestors for another seven generations and also vouched for the virginity of everyone of them and Karan Tappar would question grinding his teeth those who try to nail this lie, “ Well, what proof do you have to say that they are not number one seven generations of virgins, number two that they are not nuns. Since you cannot prove none of the above nor have been privy to nun, sorry none of the above, how can you question that?”and Arnab will have a debate for the first time in TOI the nation demands an answer from you sir , can you give the addresses of all the ancestors’ place of birth, well the exact address of place of birth of J.Nehru who was responsible for this dynasty or was he? is besides the topic of today’s discussion…
Please note that I am secular as I have used only the story of Mulla Nasrudin involving Catholic privilege and this story is not mine either.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

WHY ALL OF US HAVE THE TENDENCY TO COMPARE ?

WHY ALL OF US HAVE THE TENDENCY TO COMPARE ?

“Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself. In a school, in an ordinary school where there are a lot of boys, when one boy is compared with another who is very clever, who is the head of the class, what is actually taking place? You are destroying the boy. That’s what we are doing throughout life. Now, can I live without comparison—without comparison with anybody? This means there is no high, no low—there is not the one who is superior and the other who is inferior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. If I am always comparing myself with some saint or some teacher, some businessman, writer, poet, and all the rest, what has happened to me—what have I done? I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become—but when I don’t compare I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating, far more interesting; it goes beyond all this stupid comparison.”, J.Krishnamurthy  [ a great philosopher] The same saying in excellent visual presentation here http://zenpencils.tumblr.com/post/62851063758/jiddu-krishnamurti-dont-compare-yourself-to

Very nice visual presentation of the writings of the person who had the maximum impact in my life. It was so much that after attending to his speeches I won't eat or sleep but mostly just go to the beach sit and ruminate about the meaning of life.

J.K was indeed instrumental in making me probe into life philosophically. What he talks about is the reality, the wisdom that is sane. People like him, Osho [Rajneesh] and now Neale Donald Walsch have thrashed all traditional views of god and denied the existence of GOD outside of us etc as portrayed by different versions of various religions and regions.

Hats off to such great wise souls, who have helped us to learn, to view and most importantly, to live life outside the confines of any particular regional, religious, traditional, ideological prejudices etc. So anything said or written by them sets me on unbiased perceptive mode.


But unfortunately the two major aspects of life which are highly influential and dominating impact wise, namely the physical and/or  material social Survival aspects of life [of course to be differentiated from living aspect of Life] rules mostly and also ruins the charms as well as individual experience, enjoyment and ensuing enlightenment of life.

Having said that, we must also observe the fact that competition which is the mother of comparison begins with our biological life even before we are out of the womb as out of the millions of sperms there is a competition and the one which won went on to become our present being.

Similarly who or what are we? Are we merely and only our body? Are we merely and only our beauty? Are we merely and only our talents? Are we merely and only our capabilities intellectual, artistic, scientific, academic etc? Are we merely and only our social status? Are we merely and only our utility to at least our species? Are we merely and only our achievements? Are we merely and only our greater understanding of life? Or are we a mixture of all of these in different proportions? 

The basic question of who am I? Remains a mystery and equally mysterious is what is the source other than mere biological presence of this I? What is its role, purpose of this I in its present existence etc? All these have remained, remains still and shall continue to remain so, an unsolved jigsaw puzzle even though all the great philosophical ideas which are a few thousand years old and all scientific discoveries which are a few hundred years old and though undoubtedly  the knowledge we have gained through  these huge domains science and /or spirituality and /or philosophy etc have helped us make life more comfortable, living more meaningful, mortality little postponed etc but we must all remember that all forms of lives also lived before the emergence of all these scientific discoveries and philosophical truths and logical and rational justifications.

We are , whether we like it or not, primarily biological creatures with certain biological requirements, [though we may not go to the extent of the great writer Henry Miller who said ," there are nine reasons why reincarnation happens and one of them is sex and all other eight do not matter".] followed by our necessity to survive as social animals where in our image or importance is decided by different factors/parameters/markers at different periods in history and it also varies from region to region.

Brief journey of civilization.

In very simplistic terms the earliest known periods of civilization human beings had less communication, less information, less knowledge, more brutality, more animalistic  life style etc with little to care about the requirements of resources for usage and survival; it was followed by greedy instinct to have and posses more resources and areas leading to too many silly wars; followed by collective emotional entertainments leading to many traditional and cultural art forms; followed by urge to communicate leading to reduction in number of languages so that more people could be communicated to; followed by fear of the unknown aspects of life leading to creation of many gods, gods out of heroic and exemplary figures, religions and rituals; followed by parleys into experimenting with different social systems/political systems to live together with justifiable contribution to and share from the resources; followed by scientific discoveries and technological innovation to enhance understanding and help living and life, away from and besides the clutches of religions and traditions; followed by the recent centuries of dominance based on initially economic and commercial prosperity which are venerated as the real GODS of modern age and to achieve this by various means at national levels through discoveries of more resources and raw materials useful for human life, through real industrialization, improved and increased agricultural production, through encouraging innovations in technology and so on or  through dominance by military power trying to loot readymade where these things are available  and at  individual level trying to equip oneself in the best possible manner to decently survive in this rat race of achieving economic and commercial prosperity. This is of course definitely  only one aspect of life, i.e. merely survival aspect of life but a vital aspect of social living which needs to be prioritized. [ Of course, every one knows that  there is a larger aspect of life i.e. living aspect of life with cherishing time tested values, appreciating aesthetic aspects of culture, importance of certain traditions and so on ] .

The march of civilization through all these various stages have produced in its stride many collateral damages and incidental benefits and has also thrown up excellent exponents in various areas of life.

One of the collateral damage of the predominant factor of present age, namely economic and commercial prosperity, is competition in all walks of life and therefore comparison which cannot be wished away. Though we can always choose not to be affected and/or influenced by it or try our best and vie with the rest to become the best. Choice is always ours.


There is a famous simple saying which says Common sense prevails over everything else and common sense is to know what is most expected of you as a species to survive best. 

Life is not and must not be confined to a dichotomy of materialism and spiritualism or belief in science and belief in non scientific ideas etc. It is trying to over simplify something so pleasantly as complex as life with unlimited variety and options.

So practical wisdom could be [I am not saying ‘is’] making a sensible , comfortable, value based, personal worthiness enhancing, social image boosting and utility to humanity increasing combination of any proportion of economic and commercial prosperity with freedom and wisdom to experience, enjoy  life and ultimately if possible get enlightened too.

All these do not come by merely and exclusively pursuing any single activity neglecting the rest, but practically and properly prioritizing different things  at different times and gaining experience while making the journey of life with passion and compassion with body , mind and soul with intelligence and no bad intentions towards others.

If put briefly in other words it is preferable that living must ensure to include or it would be or could be certain levels of high thinking, wise attitude, intelligent approaches to life and issues, humanitarian concerns, compassionate living, economic and commercial prosperity of certain level etc. [ it is preferable and sometimes possible only to be unhealthy and unhappy with money than to be unhealthy and unhappy without money].
    
I have learnt through my experience over the years, despite  my aggressive and passionate approach to  anything, that we must avoid  becoming and being or associating or advocating with extremism to either pure dry verbal and abstract philosophizing devoid of concerns of practical material life or vice versa. These are as bad as religious or political fanaticism.

The easiest and less complicated life is simple, humble normal life with high ideals and high thinking and contributing towards manifesting them by doing whatever we are best at while always maintaining patient and positive attitude to the maximum extent we can.